Sunday Update

'Salina has not been diagnosed with Whooping Cough!!! Hooray.

Of course, she hasn't been diagnosed with anything, as apparently doctors offices are far to busy to ring you with results to put you out of your misery and so far prefer to waste their time answering your numerous phone calls to get updates as test results become available.

Of course, if she WAS positive, I have to rely that they will be alert enough to get the doctor to tick the box to say he would like to talk to me about results and therefore call me.

At the time of the last phone call, half of the results were in and negative, and as I haven't received any calls I am assuming that she is not Whooping Cough Mary and can be sent back to school and not infect others by Monday.

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I would personally like to give thanks to Dr Antibiotics for inventing such marvellous drugs, because although she apparently does not have the illness that caused the doctor to prescribe them, they (or time or steam or whatever) have fairly well taken the coughing fits and banged them firmly on the head.

We are down to polite coughing fits at wake-up, dusk and bedtime, but compared to the lung-splitting attacks she was having they are but blips.

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I cooked an amazing Indian Feast last night - thought about it on Friday returning from work and the salivation in anticipation of the pastry on the entrees, the sauces and side-dishes with curry, the smells, the tastes.

Firstly I made Samosas. I found a great recipe through Chef Google at Coconut Chutney - except I tweaked a bit!!

I used her Mint Raita (which I will reprint here, as she seems to have disappeared from the blogosphere and I live in fear of the blog disappearing at some point - and this recipe shouldn't disappear!!) She did start a new blog at coconutchutney.org but hasn't posted since 2007 - the mysteries of the internet... Anyhow.

Mint Raita
Recipe:

Blend 1 cup plain yogurt with chopped mint leaves (3/4 cup), chopped onion(1/4 cup) and salt to taste. Refrigerate and serve cold with the samosas.

Her Samosa recipe:

Samosas
Recipe:

For the pastry - Flour(3/4 cup), Semolina(1/4 cup -fine ground), a pinch of salt and Baking Powder (1/4 tsp.) are sifted together. Cut in Butter (2 Tbsp.) with a pastry blender and knead adding few drops of cold water to form a flexible dough. Cover with a damp cloth and keep aside.

For the filling - Heat oil and add finely-chopped ginger(1 inch), green chillies(2), turmeric(1/2 tsp),cumin powder(1/2 tsp) and red chilli powder(1 tsp). Add peeled and chopped potatoes(2). Add salt to taste and cook till the potatoes are done. Take off the heat, mash the potatoes and add 1/2 tsp. fresh lime juice.

Roll out the lemon-sized balls of the pastry, cut into semi-circles and make a cone, place the filling inside and crimp the edges to form a triangle shaped samosa. Make sure that the filling doesn't spill out of the pastry. Heat oil and deep-fry the samosas till golden brown. Serve hot or cold.

I doubled the pastry, didn't have semolina so just used all plain flour. I didn't have ginger on hand (I know - gasp), didn't use chillies (wanted 'Salina to eat something), used only 1 potato but added 1 sweet potato, 1/6 pumpkin, 1/2 cup peas instead and a little water. Used lemon instead of lime. They were (and still are - had some for breakfast) divine.

For the curries, I made my palak paneer and Lamb Rogan Josh - except I halved the quantities and by the time I got around to making it, I didn't have 4 hours so used the oven on low - oh, and I used the bits of the side of lamb I didn't recognize and meatied it up with some cut price chops as they were mainly bone.

With brown rice, some chillies V minced and a tomato/onion/coriander raita the feast was fan-tas-tic!!

'Salina wasn't as keen, but the samosas were a smash, the rice was okay and the meat was nice but "spicy".

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Today will be spent planting some seedlings I bought yesterday plus creating a few more and possibly harvesting the grass seed mowing.

So, how is your Sunday?