dining room; clear chairs; corn vase

We often hear kind words about the fact that we're a productive pair. Although, as of late work has slowed dramatically. There are a number of small, unfinished projects preventing the joyous occasion of a to-do list strikethrough.

It's funny how a professional designer and real-estate agent, with camera crew in tow, can motivate you. Things are getting done - in fact, we removed the to-do list altogether.



The picture is old - many of the jobs are now complete. Can you believe we had a question mark behind 'Backsplash'?

So about this dining room... before:



Mmm. Wallpaper.

And I must point out the fireplace massacre. Some brilliant person covered the entire front with an inch of mastic to secure rocks.



Today - In progress:











I'm digging the clear chairs.

The corn vase - SO FAR - is only liked by two people. Me and Jessica. It came from Red Tree.

Entry for Click-Stacks

Stacks of chips ahoy!

Hi friends,
Wondering why I am back so soon? Well, I miss blogging. I could not resist myself from participating in CLICK - Stacks photography event this month. I will be blogging on and off till next month(July) and will be on break till October.

Thank you so much for your comments on my 15 minute event round up. I hope you are trying those recipes one by one.

How about enjoying a cup of masala tea and some chips ahoy for afternoon snack? This is my entry to CLICK - Stacks event.

Mango Mania from other blogs

During the last mango season, I had bookmarked few mango recipes. As with most of the bookmarked list, this also did not make its way into my kitchen. This year, I did not want to give it a miss and had decided to try them, as soon as the season began.

1. Lata's Mango cake


I followed her recipe with some changes. I used half and half of All purpose flour and wheat
flour. No nuts in the cake since I did not have any. And I used fresh mango pulp. I was making the cake for my guests. So I decided to bake in the muffin try for easier serving. The cake batter was less for two batches, so I reduced the muffin size and saved the batter for a small cake in a tube pan.
Ingredients
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup (Aashirvad Atta)
Baking powder - 1 tspn
Baking soda - 1 tspn
Fresh mango pulp - 1 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Milk powder - 1/2 cup
Yogurt - 1/2 cup
Vegetable oil - 1/2 cup
Hot water - 1/4 cup

Preheat oven to 180 C. Sift together the All purpose flour,wheat flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl.Blend together mango pulp, water, sugar, milk powder, yogurt, and oil in a blender, until smooth. Mix in the blended puree into flour mixture and mix well. Transfer the mixture to a baking pan and bake for 35 minutes or until done. The cake was very moist, with a slight flavor of mango. The mango flavor is not very intense. I might try the same recipe with some other fruit puree.

2. Ice cream from Bharathy's kitchen laboratory

You need:

Mango pulp - 1 cup

Thick creamy milk - 1 cup

Arrowroot flour/maida - 1 tbspn

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Fresh cream - 1 tblpsn

Keep 4 tablespoons of milk aside to dissolve the arrowroot powder. Boil half litre of milk and simmer for few minutes so that it reduces in volume and gets thick. Stir in sugar and boil till
it is fully dissolved. Add the arrowroot mix with constant stirring to avoid lumps. The milk will get thicker now. Cool and min in the mango pulp. Blend the mix until smooth in a blender. Transfer the mix to a plastic tub and freeze. when it starts to freeze, whip again in a blender with the fresh cream added. Freeze the mixture again till it hardens.

Scoop into cups and enjoy homemade ice cream.

I am sending these to Srivalli's Mango Mela