A for Actuality , A for Ayesha

I have been waiting for Inspiration. I have toyed with quite a few ideas about what this blog should be. I would like to make this page a more versatile tool for you all. I just went through my blogposts and feel that I can still do better. I realise that I have hardly spoken about myself. So I thought of adding this post so that you can know me better. Know little things about me. This can help you enjoy and understand my posts in a much better manner and develop what I call as a virtual bond between us.


So here is some Actual stuff about myself:
 
1) Even though I have a very common name, I dislike the sound of another person stating that they have the same name as mine.

2) I just cannot get how electrons,protons, molecules can peform their functions so perfectly when they are not living beings like us.

 3)  I love staring at maps. I always love seeing which place is located where and makes me feel so certain. like I-know-where-everything-is.

4) Reading has always been my long time passion and I enjoy reading anything and everything which interests me.

5) English has been my best and most comfortable language always and I still have trouble in the fluency of my mother tongue and the other languages I learnt and know.

4) I enjoy reading the dictionary (English) and learning new words in English especially the contemporary version. Thesaurus, Idioms, Phrases, Synonyms, adjectives and other grammer related stuff has always interested me. However, I love numbers more than words. I find it very easy to solve a mathematical puzzle than a word puzzle.

 5) My favourite past time is reading a fiction - Novels which describe home, family sagas, tranquility, Romance, passion, Marriage, Sceneries and glamorous International settings are the ones which I crave the most. In short, stories which cover ranches, bungalows, farms, doctors-nurse stuff, rich powerful heroes, chivalrous knights, rugged cowboys,roggish rakes and heartwarming romances. I hate stories with sad endings.

6) I like to live according to routines and schedules. Often I keep lists and make plans. Everyday is planned in advance for me by myself. When I dont plan, my activities are in a chaos and I hate such situations.

 7) I thoroughly dislike watching or reading action/horror stuff. Violence disrupts my mood in a flash.

8) I usually like situations where the rules are well defined and where traditions are to be upheld. When it comes to traditional values, I am conservative .

 9) I am not a partying freak. I hardly get excited at the thought of a party. Parties dont interest me much until and unless I have the desired company. People generally perceive me as distant and reserved, and I do not usually reach out to others even though I have a few close friends and I am in touch with them.

10) I always have liked sleeping early at night. I hate late nights.

11) I am not an adventurous person in any way. I jus dont like taking up risks of any sort.

12) I am scared of darkness especially when I am alone. I lack guts in many ways.

13) Color has always appealed to me in many ways. I am always attracted to a colorful page, a colorful dish, colorful clothes etc. Bright and light colors like yellow,pink light green,light blue are more adored by me than dark colors.

 14) My culinary picks generally have been the english and american cuisines rather than conventional Indian dishes. Bakes, Semi cooked stuff, salads, soups,wraps and rolls, sandwiches, starters, grilled and fried stuff, foods cooked in a jiffy are the ones that captivate me the most.

 15) I cannot stop myself from looking at images of colorful salads. They catch my eye in an instant.

 16) I always wish I was born as a bird/animal in the Artic region. I dont know why I wish that way.

 17) Pastas, Noodles, salads, Chinese dishes and dry - fried/grilled meat/chicken/fish , steaks,wraps n rolls, sandwiches always feature in my favourite list of cuisine.

 18) I hate politics. I hardly bother to read political stuff.

19) I am a pessimist sometimes. Generally I am moderately confident in achieving the goals I set for myself.

 20) I love writing my own stuff - making my own notes on anything I wish. That is why I started this blog. I am happy to state that I actually enjoy blogging.

21) I have never maintained a diary on myself. I always wish I had one as it could give me an insight of my past and help me transfer and paste my thoughts into it.

 22) I find shopping for clothes,footwear or jewellery a very irksome task. Handbags, electronic gadgets, decors, watches, crockery stuff are more enjoyable to shop for.

23) Shopping for Vegetables and fruits is the most boring form of grocery shopping for me. On the contrary, I love shopping for diary products and baking items and more colourful stuff.

 24) Sitting by the window and silently watching the traffic on the road is my best way to soothe my mind and release out my stress.

 25) Europe,Newzealand and Canada are my favourite countries and I enjoy watching their pictures, reading about them etc.

 26) I hate hot weather. Just cannot adjust to it even though I live in one such place.

27) Television has never been an interesting gadget for me. The Internet has always been like my close friend,appeals to me in many ways and makes my day very bright.

28) I like crowds but sometimes feel overwhelmed by them. I feel the need of some privacy and time for myself more important. I am an active group participant but usually prefer to let someone else be the group leader. I lead a moderately paced life. I like some energetic activities, but also like to relax and take it easy. I get overwhelmed by too much noise and commotion. When I mention loneliness, I do not mean so much of being lonely but rather being alone. Sometimes my struggle with this is that I choose to be alone at times.

29) I quickly experience panic, confusion, and helplessness when under pressure or stress. I hate risky situations and thrill seeking activities. 

30) I am not very interested in the arts and do not display aesthetic sensitivity. I do admire beautiful stuff, but I would never care to try it out myself. This is because I am not an accurate person. Measurements, Precison etc have never featured in my dictionary.

 Overall, I am a

• Moderately expressed introvert
• Distinctively expressed intuitive personality
• Slightly expressed thinking personality
• Moderately expressed judging personality

Checkerboard Cookies

I found this Checkerboard Cookies recipe on http://checkerboardcookies.blogspot.com/. I adopted it beacuse it has clear step by step visuals of the entire recipe. This recipe made my job very simple. So I have pasted this recipe on my blog page just for reference. Even the images on this page have been adopted from there only.

Checkerboard Cookies - A Holiday Tradition


This holiday recipe for checkerboard cookies is from the archive of Elizabeth MacMullen from the Frankford section of Philadelphia.


INGREDIENTS:


1/2 lb butter
5 1/2 cups sifted flour
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 squares (2 oz) baking chocolate (melted)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
 1 egg white, beaten, for sticking layers of dough together
 
HOW TO MAKE:


1) Mix flour, baking powder and salt


2) In large bowl, cream butter and sugar together, add in eggs beat, followed by vanilla extract, then add in remaining dry ingredients. Mix well.


3)Split the prepared dough into two separate bowls.

4) One half should be blended in with the melted chocolate. The other one half of dough should remain plain vanilla.


5) Place the vanilla block in a flat baking pan lined with clear wrap. Flatten with hand into a flat layered block.

6) Mix the other dough with the melted chocolate, to create a second chocolate block layer. 

7) Brush the top of vanilla layer with the egg white and then place the chocolate layer on it. Repeat layering process with the chocolate block. Next, place the sheet into the freezer to cool for about 2 hours.

8) With a sharp cutting knife, slice the large brick in half.

9) Proceed to further slice the respective bricks into roughly roughly 3/8 inch strips

10) Overlap and stack the strips to create the trademark checkerboard crosshatch. Egg white helps to stick the layers well.

11) Repeat the procedure once again to create an eight alternating chocolate/vanilla cross hatch pattern. Smooth edges

12) Cut across the brick to create individual cookies, place on baking tray.

13) Heat oven to 190 degrees celsius, and bake for 15 minutes. 

14) Remove from oven and place on wire cooling racks.

Now its time to rate myself .

RATING NOTES:

              DIFFICULTY LEVEL    :   MODERATE
              RATING  POINTS         :    7/10**

**  While cutting across the brick to create individual cookies, cut them about 3/8 inches only. The individual bricks need to be thin as they become bigger once they are baked.

** Beat the butter-egg mixture till fluffy for best results.

Checkers & Marbles

One day during my usual Internet surfing sessions, I chanced upon an image of the Checkers. It looked neat and distinct. I absent mindedly started googling it through the images option on Google. I went on to see so many types of the same. My mind raced back to the days when I used to sit leisurely and play on Checkerboards. What beautiful days those were. Sitting idly with all the time in the world for board games. I miss them loads.

There was one such image which caught my eye. I clicked on it and stared at it in awe for a while. I fancied if I could ever try it. The first answer that came in my mind was a big IMPOSSIBLE. Then I went on to read the details. The next day I browsed again for it. I spent a good two hours clicking on different websites and learning how I could go about with this. I collected a lot of information, compiled it and then I knew what to do. I am not very artistic. Arts hardly inspire me. But this held my attention. I was determined to try it. I did not care what the outcome would be.  But I went on to do it.

You must be wondering  what I am talking about. Yes, Its another recipe. I felt super good after I made them. It was the checkers pattern which was fascinating. Their smell was appeatising and they were so easy to make. They combined both the Chocolate and Vanilla Flavour. They are called the Checkerboard Cookies.

These cookies looked complicated initially. I was finally inspired by a  holiday recipe for Checkerboard cookies from the archive of Elizabeth MacMullen from the Frankford section of Philadelphia. The recipe had step by step visuals which made it look so simple. I once again confirmed my liking for making cookies. 

This dough was kind of crumbly, but I love that it went directly into the refrigerator (instead of the oven) for a bit. That way I could clean up the kitchen before slicing and baking them . I seriously hate a messed kitchen while I work in it.

 

The last time I made cookies of this type, the results were just satisfactory. Sure, they tasted good. I dont say Delicious. But I knew they were supposed to look neater,smoother and smaller. The prospect of dividing the dough perfectly even kind of freaks you out, and you don’t have a kitchen scale (like me). Some of the measurements I do are not very accurate. That is where I lose my way. But the results are not actually bad. I give my try decent rating points. Not that I am partial towards my effort. But sometimes I feel that the dish has more potential than the actual outcome and there is always a NEXT TIME for a much better result.

 

 

 

So, in case you haven't figured out by now, I'm an not a very obsessive compulsive baker. I am still in the learning phase. Trial and Error Method is what I adopt in baking. When I find new recipes I like to try them, and I'm constantly working on developing my own recipe ideas.

 

Coming back to the cookies, I love the squares and it's a not-too-sweet cookie, if that's what you're looking for. I think these would be pretty stacked, wrapped in wax paper and tied with a red ribbon to give anyone.

Checkerboard cookies helped me make the Marble cookies as well. The leftover bits and pieces of the dough in the end lay in a heap on my cutting board. I joined all and kneaded the dough to finally make small rounds which perfectly resembled the marble cookies. It was as if I had just killed two birds with the same stone.

Thanks to the Internet, I could try another recipe, one that  any person could vouch for. Recipe for the Checker board cookies will be published in my next post.

The Return of the Blogger

So I am back ...... But had I gone? No ..... Never.... I was always here, but just took an unexpected and an indefinite break from the world of blogging.

Several petty reasons for my badly needed break. I think I deserved it since I was working against the clock. My routine activities had kept me busy and I hardly had any time left for my leisures. My 24 hour day looked short for me and I just could not gather myself to sit freely and think of anything other than my routine life. I would run out of steam often and I promised myself that soon after Eid I will be back to myself and concentrate on my blog. I did not try out new recipes either nor did I browse to learn something new.

Nothing significant to mention either. My days schedule was so organised and monotonous that little room was left to add extra tasks and I was always calling for an early night. I was very occupied then that I had no desire to blog...but for accountability purposes I always wanted to write down a few things I want to make sure I don't forget to blog about. Those things would jog my memory. But I did not execute anything. This time I dont blame myself. I just went through a poorly managed phase - a phase in which we are just pushed along with the flowing waters of life.

I was sure that I would be back soon, but did not know when. Sometimes I need some space outside my head because it makes it hard for me to breathe. That's why I am feeling more and more like writing lately. Not sure exactly about what -- but I feel the need to write.

Life under my roof is great. I had a good Eid holiday. A break I always wanted, a break I looked forward to. I hadn't planned anything for it. But I knew I would love it and by the time I would be back to square one, I would be fresh. I rested and rested. Waking up late in the mornings had always been on my mind. And I could do that. We also went to the sea with friends for a good three hours boat ride and Dolphin watching. It was a wonderful experience. I  browsed through a few shopping malls. Enjoyed the ambience and the tour. We also dined out with friends and took lots of pictures.

Around me things seem to be much more cool. My mind is fresh with my long 5 day holiday and I have already lined up enough plans for the coming days. Will surely pen them down as I work on them. Very soon you will find me blogging regularly giving you a play by play of my experiences. Will be back soon...... In fact very soon.

Some pictures from my Sea visit: