Spinster Cooking...

Confused about the title? If there can be a word called Bachelor cooking, why not Spinster cooking?? :-)

Coming to the topic... One of the advantages of staying in a shared accommodation (where you need to cook on your turn) is that you get to try out many new recipes (even if you are lazy, you'll get bitten by that enthu bug once in a while). I used to try out a lotta new recipes, sometimes even come up with my own and sometimes add a little bit of my creativity to some new recipes available over net... Here is one such combination....
Thirattuppal (Milk halwa) is one of my favourite sweets. One fine weekend, I badly wanted to taste thirattuppal, but was not ready to put in hours of effort like my Mom, to make Thirattuppal. I browsed over the net to find a recipe which is easy to make... I found one and added a little bit of my creativity to it and voila... it came out decently good....

(P.S - You can check with my friends over here who have tasted my Thirattuppal and have become a great fan of that.. Ok.. Ok.. That was a little bit of exaggeration.. But you need to believe me that everyone said it's good.. )
So, here is the recipe...

Thirattuppal (Milk halwa)

Ingredients -
Ricotta cheese - 1 box (You'll get this in major Indian/American stores)
Condensed milk - 1 tin (Sweetened/non-sweetened doesn't matter actually)
Sugar - 8-10 table spoons (This actually depends on how much sweet toothed you are... you can add more if you like)
Ghee - 2 table spoons

Procedure -
1) Empty the Ricotta cheese, Condensed milk and sugar in a microwavable bowl (a bowl with lid is preferred) and stir the contents slightly. It doesn't matter if everything doesn't get mixed up well. While heating, they will.
2) Keep the bowl in Microwave oven in high power for 20 minutes (Open every 5 minutes and stir the contents). You can add sugar anytime you want now.
3) Add ghee, stir the contents again and keep the bowl in oven for 7 minutes (you need to stir after the first 4 minutes).
4) Thirattuppal is ready... Leave it to cool for sometime... Even after it is cooled, if you feel that it's not solidified, you can keep it in the micorowave for another 3-4 minutes stirring once every 2 minutes).

This procedure is so easy and the end product tastes awesome.. atleast I liked it... ;-)

Try and let me know your comments...

An eventful climax for an otherwise not so eventful story....

10:30 AM EST – I was waiting in front of the Logan International Airport in Boston. I’d been in Boston for 5 weeks for an official training and there was I, waiting to go back to Minneapolis after the training. I was having a nail biting wait (not literally ofcourse, I’d left this habit of biting my nails long back) here for my team mate who had also come for the training and was coming in another cab to the Airport. Both of our cabs started at the same time, but he was no where to be even after 20 minutes after I reached the Terminal. My flight was at 11:25 and here was I standing outside the terminal, still not checked in my luggage and the time was 10:45. Then came my team mate dragging his luggage and coming towards the Terminal. Phew!!! He’d come at last…. He then told me that his cab driver had dropped him in a different terminal and he had to walk back to our terminal.

We thought of doing a curb side check in. It’s 2$ extra, but actually worth it…. It’s better than standing in the queue inside and that too checking the luggage at the last minute. Time was 10:50. The lady at the check-in counter told that though the ticket was issued by US Airways, the flight is operated by United airlines and so we need to check in at the United airlines counter. And the worse part was United airlines is not in the same terminal. The lady at the counter told me that I need to walk a while, then go downstairs and then try to get a cab to the United airlines terminal. Time was 10:55. I thought, that I’m gonna miss the flight or atleast I would not be able to check-in my luggage for my flight now.

Luckily, a cab came to drop somebody at the US Airways terminal and we took that cab to go to United airlines terminal. We reached the United airlines counter at 11:05.We rushed to the check-in counter and I checked in my bag. Then came another bomb. My bag was overweight. The guy at the check-in counter said “Either take out some stuffs or if you wanna still check in, you need to pay 125$ for that. Boarding has already started for the flight”. I had no other option that to take out some junk stuffs which I’ve packed. Time was 11:10.

We then dashed to the Security check area. Luckily there was no major crowd at both the check-in counter and the Security check area, so, we were able to reach the gate at 11:18. Boarding was almost over and we were the last to board the flight. When I finally dumped my carry-on luggage inside the cabin and sat down on my seat, the idea of writing a blog on this came to my mind. What an eventful way to conclude an otherwise not so eventful trip to Boston. Such eventful things rarely happen to me, you see…. :-)