not sure to dare to mention it, but....

I think we are having a "weekend"...you know one of those days where you don't go to work and you poke around at home doing things....not working too hard just taking it a bit easy, nice lunch....talk about a few ideas, have a bit of a cuddle in the sun....
This is an absolute first for us, in India unless you have a government job there is no concept of a weekend and so you are always going, going, going. It is the Kite Festival in Pushkar today, so there are no tailors at the workshop and I did not really have to go anywhere.
Praveen got up and started pottering around and has not had to rush off for any hiccups....so he has fed the cow, taken radishes to the camel, watched our chickens, one hen is broody so babies in 3 weeks [ and boy is he excited!], trimmed the trees, watered the garden.....he is really taking to this life of a counrty squire and we are both enjoying it ssssosooooooo much.
It is so good to be finished with that hotel and the 'lovely' owners next door, every day i appreciate a little more the strain it caused, not really the hotel and staff [well a little bit] but more the constant wariness of what they would be up to next.....a long story now thankfully finished, our own story here at home is just beginning and we are excited at the plans.


Garden boy! like any good bloke he likes to trim things....we moved 2 trees from the hotel- ficus so they should be OK and one is but the other one is really sulking. Hopefully the trim.some encoraging words and plenty of water and it will soon show signs of recovery.

 This bowl of greens is ssssoooo exciting [seeds for Asian greens came from Vietnam, sliverbeat from OZ] vegetables the right texture for stir fry. YUM...we have a wonderful supply of vegies here in India but it is not strong on leaf types, celery, bok choy, etc, etc....all those textures that make a wonderful stir fry, well we have fixed that and have started to harvest....

 Baba had to make an early start off to the Vegie market carrying 200kg of radishes and 12Kg of Methi [fenugreek] leaves....our garden is rocking!

 Discovered a new twist on my favourite cake recipe. Fresh Coconut Cake,
take half a fresh cocnut- those brown things you get at the supermarket, drink the jiuce then crack the white part from the brown casing, pop hal;f of it into the grinder and give it a blast.

 I amways have a jar of sugar with Vanillar pods living in it so it is infused with the flavour....

Just bake and ready to eat, so moorish.

Fresh Coconut Cake

• half a fresh coconut - bung it in grinder and give it a buzz, alright if a little textured
• 1 cup wholemeal stone ground flour [chapti making flour]
• 1/2 cup cashews or almonds ground [makes any cake more moist]
• 1 cup yoghurt [or sour milk, or buttermilk or water if you are boring ]
• 170 mls vegetable oil
• 1 cup vanillar sugar or brown sugar
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/2 t bicarb of soda

-Mix it all together

-pour into round, paper lined tim

-bake moderate oven until it starts to come away from the sides of the tin....around 45 minutes

-let cool a littlturn out on a plate and serve.

It is good enough to eat alone, in fact I would not bother with any extras

when I used to use desicated coconut [1 cup, by the way] I used to make a rose flavoured whipped butter icing, which is pretty spectacular.

Enjoy!

Oohh big satisfaction, I have nearly finished a lot of the work on re-constructing our website, just pictures to add and a little more text [all the tedious behind the scenes stuff is in place I think]

do take a look if you have a minute and let me know if you spot any glitches, thanks

Fiona