Back in Action - Doing what I love to do!

2008's faded, 2009 flew by, 2010 is here now and finally, the haze is clearing and I seem to recall creating a blog!

What better way to come back than with a brilliant recipe that extolls my motto for the coming year - "reduce, reuse, recycle" & "eat healthy" :-)

On a long Saturday cooped up at home on account on freezing temperatures here in Houston (can you believe it?!) and assignments galore, my sweet tooth and rather bored mind helped me discover a fairly healthy dessert made with left-over apples at home.

How many times have you religiously bought apples everytime you were at the store, only to let them sit in your basket and forget about them until they turned to compost? (I'm probably the only one that does this, in any case, if the apples are rescued on time, they make great natural ingredients for apple crumble)

So, without further ado, here goes my "Recipe for Delicious Apple Crumble in 15 mins".

Prep time: 15 mins
Bake time: 15-20mins

Ingredients:
Apples diced, peeled/unpeeled (I prefer unpeeled for extra fiber) 2 cups
Sugar 1/2 cup
Water 2 tbspns
Whole wheat flour (Atta) 1/2 cup
Oats 1/2 cup
Margarine 1 tblspn
Cinnamon 1/2 tspn

1. Cook the diced apples in a pan with the water and sugar for about 5 mins.
Note: Do not mash the apples if you would like to taste chunks of the fruit in your crumble
1/2 cup sugar = super sweet. For a subtler taste that will tingle the taste buds without numbing them, I strongly recommend 1/4 - 1/3 cup sugar. You will need to experiment and see what works best for you.

2. Prepare the crumble by mixing the oats and flour with melted margarine. Mix 1 tblspn sugar and 1 tspn cinnamon
Note: I use brown sugar here, white is acceptable as well.
Use hands to evenly mix until crumble is lumpy

3. Transfer the apple filling into a baking dish and layer with crumble.

Bake @ 375F for 15-20 mins.

Cool for 5 mins and enjoy!

Linda Goodman's Sun Signs was my all time favourite at one point in time. Right now though, I can barely remember any of those "facts" from her book that I possibly never read fully, no, that's right, not even once! But to those of you that never fail to notice "today's fortune" on your orkut account or the weekly forecast in the Sunday Review I would strongly recommend this book. In fact, Linda Goodman's Love Signs might even spice it up for you! So, to jog my obscure memory of the book, I "googled" Linda Goodman's Love Signs to get a quick peak and voila, my memories, now seemingly ages old came tumbling back. Along with that tumbled I, laughing my way through the zodiac skecthes I read. Mother, father, sister, friends, me, better half, everyone just fit! The funniest was my sister's which had me in splits. Here it goes verbatim: "They love to talk and surround themselves with friends". If could add more to the friends list, I'd say, strangers including folks she met at railway stations, bus stands, vegetable vendors (?!). Now that's taking it too far. But seriously now, for an astrology buff, this would be the ultimate Karma. Goodman comes close to describing at least 9 out of 10 traits for every sign in my high opinion. As much as you try to convince yourself that she can't get it all right, you're proved wrong time and again. Initially the book surprises you, half-way through I would predict you'll be quite in agreement and by the end of it you could possibly be laughing as well just the way I did. It's not fiction, it's astrology, it's in the minds of the readers. Take it or leave it, it'll be an entertaining read, at least in bits and pieces. To keep you entertained the whole while you're reading it, I'd recommend you try to match the book up with characters in your real life. I'm sure that'll add to all the drama! :-)

Sleepless in Houston

Finally, I tread into the world of bloggers and become one of the thousand others to put my thoughts out into this virtual space. Suffice to say that I'm home alone on a Saturday night, tied down with an assignment, looking for ways to escape from the task at hand. What better way to pass your time than blogging, you'd think! When you've watched several hours of TV, followed by random videos on youtube and eaten your refrigerator up to "near empty", I suppose you'd be left with no other option than to do that one thing you never did but always meant to, write that elusive blog. That said, I should admit in all honesty, I always thought of blogging as an idle man/woman's hobby. Now, more than ever, I'm in complete agreement with myself. Lol. Another confession to make is the fact that my getting here in itself is quite some achievement, given my disposition to a self-absorbed life in a world of my own. Everything said and done, it is afterall early into the morning and it only seems fair that I give my "not so idle" mind some rest.
So, hopefully sooner than later, I will be back on track to share and muse.