Topsy turvy #amateurchefproblems

Sometimes I get so confused about what is going on around me that I doubt whether I exist or not. I mean...how can somebody be this absent minded. I've mentioned that I am lazy and I procrastinate. But I probably forgot to mention a million other things about myself. For instance, how absent minded I am. I often make people repeat what they were saying because I did not pay attention the first time ...and the second...sometimes even the third. It is a miracle how nobody ended up throwing a brick at my face.

To be honest, I don't know why I started the post with this topic. But then again, what's better than unfolding a little of your character to your readers when all they know about you is that you are a human, living in the middle east and you occasionally rant about your 'not so interesting' life when you can or want to because you are probably bored. Well, the above said is true about me...unfortunately :| 

I had a pretty special "yesterday" and was going to post about it with pictures and everything but then I'm pretty tired at the moment as I returned from shopping. Did that word get you excited? Well it shouldn't ...cuz it was no big deal really :/ Anyways, I'm planning to fill you on the 1st of july quite soon InshaAllah. But for now you will have to bear with me because this post does not have anything 'happy' or exciting.

I had planned from yesterday about a couple of years ago to make this Indian sweet (I think it is Indian...please correct me if it isn't), called sooji/rava ladoo for Iftar. But I never got the chance to make it. So today I gathered up all my guts to do it. I followed the Youtube recipe by this certain user "Madhura's recipe" , taking care to double the ingredients to ensure I was making enough for the neighbors as well as my sorta big family. Here is what Madhura's sweet looked like.

Looks yummy right?!

 Everything went well...atleast I thought it did. After the mixture was prepared and I gathered the box of raisins and a plate to start making the round sweets (ladoos), I noticed that my mixture looked a bit too loose, sticky and moist. But I calmed down my nerves saying that Madhura's mixture looked moist too. As I pulled out a tiny lump from the sticky mixture and started rolling it into a ball between my palms, I realized it was wayyy sticky. In fact the mixture was getting stuck between my fingers and on my palms. My heart sank. I knew it was a wreck. But I continued, hoping that after a couple of minutes it would stiffen and not be so loose. I even though of making the round balls and keeping them in the fridge for sometime, but mom suggested that I put it in the microwave. I was a bit taken aback. I thought the microwave was supposed to heat things and this would probably melt the shapes I had made. But to me, my mom is my master chef (Alhamdulillah) . I trusted her instincts and I thrust the plate decorated with the sloppy, unhappy little balls into the microwave. I think I put it in for a minute but I only came to look at it after 5 minutes because I had this paranoid idea of discovering what they would now look like. However when I opened the door, my heart fell. It felt like somebody had ripped my heart out, stabbed it a hundred times, stamped it and then squished it. Those little balls weren't balls anymore. They looked like mashed potato, only of a different color. It appeared as if it had melted. I stood there staring at the plate. A few seconds later I managed to hoarsely call out to my mom. "Yeah?" , she replied as she scurried from the dining table to the kitchen as it was now very close to the Maghrib Azan time. With the look on my face she understood that the results weren't quite upto the mark. "Ya Allah!" she remarked, "this girl is going to curse me now!" , she said, sounding shocked to see the squishy semolina lumps. I did not say anything. I walked to my bedroom and lied down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. I got out of bed when I realized it was pointless staying that way and then went to hear the Azan. I sat down at the table to eat, trying as much as I could to avoid looking at the wreck I had created. At a point I had to fightback tears from escaping my eye, though I noticed my sisters staring at me which meant that they did notice those  eyes become moist for a few seconds then disappear. "What?" , I barked at my little sister who was sitting next to me and immediately regretted it. She had not done anything wrong. Besides, why was I being such a pain to everyone? 

For a dish that had gone wrong? For the next few minutes I tried my best to behave normal, which I think I succeeded in doing. When the lumpy dish was passed towards me, I plucked at the sticky mass. It came off right away. "Huh?!", a quiet exclamation escaped me. Then I realized, mom had said the right thing. Though the heat had caused its shape to deform, the lump was not loose anymore. It had stiffened just the right way. I popped one into my mouth. Sweetness captured my taste buds and I closed my eyes in appreciation. It was good though I found it to be a bit too sweet. Perhaps, the whole disaster occurred because I had not added the right amount of sugar syrup. Anyways , I learned three things from this whole topsy turvy incident.

A. Failures in the cooking expedition are quite natural and they aren't to be taken too hardly.

B. Never doubt your mom's cooking instincts, especially if she is your master chef.

C. Never behave like an idiot with people or cry because you got a freaking dish wrong. It's a freaking dish. There are kids in Palestine and Syria who are deprived of good food during meals or Iftar and yet they don't have time to complain about that to anyone because they have probably watched an acquaintance shed blood a few hours back. 

Btw...I do have a bit of the mixture left so I might modify it and post pictures if it is a grand success...I just might. I did not click pictures of the first batch because it would ...well, not be nice. 

P.S- When I say "today", I mean the 2nd of July though it's 2:30 am currently on the 3rd of July. Weird much? 

Ciao for now

Silhouette xx