Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Naan

My husband lived in India for two years and he loves Indian food. Since we started dating I have begun to love Indian food as well. My favorite dish is something called masala dosa. It's this thin pancake like outside with potatoes and spices and vegetables on the inside and they roll it up into a burrito looking roll. It is to die for. Usually when we want real Indian food we go to this place in Artesia, CA called little India. It has Indian restaurants, jewelry stores, clothing stores, grocery stores, everything you can think of. It is a fun place to spend the day. 

So, to try and be a good wife I decided to try and make me some Indian dishes. One of my clients at work bought me a cookbook called The Complete Book of INDIAN COOKING by Shehzad Husain & Rafi Fernandez. I tried a simple cashew curry recipe and a naan recipe. The cashew curry recipe turned out awful. Tyrone said it was the worst curry he's ever had in his life. He said he was joking but it was definitely the worst I have ever had so it probably had a lot of truth to it. All I could taste in the sauce was onions. It needed more flavor of some sort. I did sort of redeem myself with the naan though. 

I am not very good at making bread so I just assumed that this would be a fun experiment but I was happy to find out that it was absolutely delicious and relatively easy. This recipe made about 9 large pieces of naan. We broke off pieces of the bread and dipped it in hummus. It was all gone in just 2 days. We really enjoyed it. 

Ingredients: 
2 tsp dried active yeast
4 tbsp warm milk
2 tsp sugar
4 cups plain (all-purpose) flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup natural (plain) yogurt, beaten
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp ghee, melted 
flour, for dusting
chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) and onion seeds, to sprinkle 


I had no idea what ghee is so I substituted ghee for margarine. I looked up ghee and it looks like you can buy it in the stores or you can make it yourself by heating up butter on the stove and taking off the foam layer and then straining the butter through 2 or 3 cheese cloths. I decided just to go with butter since it was all I had and it turned out fine.




























1. Mix the yeast, warm milk and sugar and leave to become frothy. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the centre and add the yeast mixture, milk, yogurt, egg and ghee. Fold in all the ingredients.

2. Knead the dough well. Tightly cover the bowl and keep in a warm place until the dough doubles in size. To test, push a finger into the dough-it should spring back. Preheat the oen to 400 F. Roll out the dough on a floured surface.

3. Make each naan slipper-shaped, about 10 in long and about 6 in wide, tapering to 2 in. Sprinkle with the coriander and onion seeds, ( I didn't put an seasoning on it but I would imagine that garlic would taste good on it as well.) Place on greased trays and bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes.




Sunday, May 26, 2013

No Sew- Neck Tie Onesies

Tyrone and I went to the doctor last week and we found out we are having a baby BOY!!! We couldn't be more excited! We would have been happy either way but we have been calling him Jackson for the last 4 months, so it's very fitting. We are going to name him Jackson Tyrone.



He's here and he finally fits into newborn clothing! He is such a little man.
So, now that I know what we are having, I want to go baby clothes shopping so bad! I want to buy everything! I have really had to control myself. So, instead of spending too much money on adorable clothes, I decided to make our Jackson a few little onesies for church.

You can get the template for the ties from Freetimefrolics. Most of the blogs I looked at didn't have templates and if they did, they were just pictures of ones they created on programs like paint. I tried to create a tie on paint and it turned out awful so I went back to looking for a template until I came across this one. It is perfect! 

Supplies needed:
Fabric for ties
Heat 'n Bond (I bought a yard but you only need a little bit)
Plain onesies (they can be whatever color you'd like)
Scissors
Iron

First cut out the template that you would like to use and cut out fabric big enough to cover the tie (as pictured above.) Then, cut out Heat 'n Bond big enough to cover your pieces of fabric (shown below.) I bought a yard of Heat 'n Bond from Joann's Fabrics for only $2.99. I was kind of scared to use it but it is really simple. There are even directions on the package if you get confused.
You will want to put the wrong side of the fabric and the rough side of Heat 'n Bond together. Then iron on the Heat 'n Bond to the fabric holding the iron down for 2 seconds until it's bonded.



Now trace the tie template onto the paper and cut the ties out.




















My ironing board matches the fabrics perfectly. I should cut out a section of it.... kidding.

Onto the last step. Peel off the paper from the back of the cut out ties. Place them on the onesies where you would like them to go. And lastly, iron it on holding the iron down on each section for the tie for 8 seconds until it completely bonds to the onesie. 



Voila! You have tie onesies. They were so simple. Some people sew around the outside of the ties either by hand or using a sewing machine. I got my sewing machine out with intentions to sew around the outside but after ironing the ties on they looked so clean that I didn't think they needed to be sewn on. I decided to leave them but if you would like to sew around the outside for looks or just to be sure it won't start coming undone you could do that as well. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do!