India Market Fun

                               

                                                              Rose Matta Rice

Last Wednesday I was in OKC and went to a grocery store named Taste of India. I like to go to ethnic stores. It's almost like going to a whole new world! 

     It was so fun! Of course hubby stayed in the truck but he had A/C so I wasn't worried . 

      It was a lot like the other stores clean but plain. The first thing I saw was a hip high stack if pressure cookers! Weird ! They had little ones that were as big around as your hand spread out and big ones big enough for canning. There were all kinds of different flours to cook with I had never heard of before. In small 1 pounders to 20 pounds or more. Then I saw isles of different kinds of dried peas, lentils and beans. Which explained the pressure cookers! None of these kinds of foods grace my table enough to purchase. 

      The one thing I did see I recognized how to cook was rice ! They had so many different kinds! I saw one or two I had seen in Sams but most was a stranger to me. The one I have pictured above was a interesting color and flavor. It was rose colored but had a very slight nutmeg flavor. Fun and interesting served with chicken breast. I would do it again some day . 

 Take a look at the others I will be trying again soon! Jasmine rice and brown sona rice . Oh yes I found some sanwa millet and toasted vermicelli to learn how to fix some day to. 

                   

        Something else that was interesting was the spices ! Oh now I would say they were running neck and neck with the Mexican market on variety but this was different. This store had more whole seeds that were tempting to take home and plant I mean big 8 ounce looking bags! 

      I also found some curcurmin roots to learn how to grow. What fun!! 

                     

     

    Ugly little things and about as big around as your index finger. A lot smaller than I thought.

     Now if I can just get the ginger to grow I will have some really potent medicine available. It was strange to go to the store and not see a meat department. Many of the people in India are vegetarian so that explained that.

     Well that's all about my fun for the weekly outing. If anyone has some good recipes using some of these things send them to me to look at.

Love

Ranchmama 

Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookie

I know there a millions of all time best chocolate chip cookie recipes out there but this is my new really good one I have found. It reminds me the flavor of a Chips Ahoy cookie when I put the extra cocoa powder in. The cookie dipper or the measurement they use of rounded teaspoons makes a small bite size cookie which a different for me since I like a much larger cookie but it was still hard to resist when you walk buy a stack of them. Hubby really liked them a lot and also had a hard time resisting. 

Love
Ranchmama

Another Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe -- All Butter
http://www.cookiemadness.net/2008/05/another-crunchy-chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe-all-butter/

 

Cook time 12 mins

 

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups (220 grams), stir and aerate flour before measuring
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon of dark chocolate cocoa  (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a couple of cookie sheets with parchment.
2. Sift or thoroughly whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and both sugars with an electric mixer;
4. Add egg and vanilla and beat until egg is mixed in.
5. Add flour mixture and stir until incorporated.
6. Stir in chocolate chips.
7. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto the parchment lined cookie sheets and bake for 12-15 minutes (or longer) or until the edges start to brown.

**** NOTES ****
ADD about 1 tablespoon of dark chocolate cocoa to the dry flour to give it all a really good taste boost.
I cook them the 12 min time in my oven because if you go longer when they cool they really get a little too hard.
I also like to use the small to medium small cookie / ice cream scoop to measure out the dough for cooking.
If you have a scale it doesn't matter, but if you are measuring by volume, make sure to really stir and aerate the flour thoroughly before measuring.
The baking powder prevents the cookies from browning quickly, so it seems the cookies can bake a longer time and becoming crunchier without burning or getting overly brown. I baked mine on an insulated cookie sheet, so if you notice your bottoms are browning too fast, switch to an insulated cookie sheet or stack you cookie sheet on top of another one to make your own insulated sheet.

The Voice

Is such a powerful yet sometimes soothing sound. One of the things when you meet a person you analyze subconsciously is a persons face and overall appearance the next is usually the voice. 

   There are so many voices in our lives daily. They portray authority figures in our public service people. Maybe that authority person is your boss, teacher, parent, or in some cases a significant other. ( Doesn't that sound generic?!) let's say something more specific a husband or wife, yes there is always someone in the family that wears the pants it usually works better that way.

     We also have the sound of the voice coming to us in music. Music can have so many effects on a person. I think and hope it does more good than harm. I am amazed though at how many people have nonstop music hourly and daily bombarding their consciousness. Some folks have so much music voices preoccupying their brain I sometimes wonder what they are hiding/running from that they have to take up all their thought space with music to push out anything else. 

    Now we come down to our electronic voices . I don't mean the ones you hear  I am talking about text messaging and emails. These things sometimes take over our daily time.  

    So what is this long post all about?? I'm not really sure. Maybe it all depends on you and how the voices in your life rule your life. Maybe it depends on your age and what generation you belong to. I am from a time when we worried about our long distance bill on the hard line. Then there was the cell phone where we worried about our minutes and being out of our zone / range costing too much money to call family out of town or state. Many of us developed habits of saving money / minutes and only visited our people we love and care about on the phone on special occasions losing some of the closeness we need and crave that we once had. 

      It dawned on me that with all the phone package deals there is no reason not to hear someone I care about anywhere in the country and now with some companies anywhere in North America on a daily basis. 

   I don't need a music voice or a voice of authority or any voice other than someone I care about in my head or ears. If I can do it in person all the better. 

   The Voice ---  it's becoming a lost art. To use the proper tone to even have a suitable vocabulary to be able to express yourself properly without expletives or to have a vocabulary with words longer than five letters.

    Your Voice use it or lose the people close to you maybe. 

   Call them up and say "I haven't heard your voice lately" and hear their smile and maybe even their surprise.

Love

Ranchmama 

Home is sometimes where that familiar voice is for some of us. 

    

Skink Fun !

One of the many ways you can tell it is summer is by the critters that you find out and about.

    Well this cute little skink is not out. It is definitely all about my house! 

   I spotted it on Friday going across the living room floor heading under the bar. I told Heidi there's a bug! She jumped and ran away from it. Around here when you yell bug and head for the fly swatter that usually means there is a scorpion that needs to be got before it gets you. 

 I dug around and couldn't find it for anything ! I was thinking I just know one of us is going to be walking in here and step on it. Saturday came around and hubby said it went under the tv stand.

Once again I tried to scare it out and it did go to the rocks in the fireplace. I tried to run it into a plastic bag but of course it wouldn't cooperate. As I left the room to get a flashlight hubby saw it go under Heidi Ho's pillow. I lifted the pillow and then it took off under the big couch! I just gave up.

    I started laughing a little later and had to explain to hubby the reason. 

    Heidi Ho was laying on the floor by her pillow . I told him that is right where the skink went and I can just see that running across her nose! Lol I then started laughing even harder and got him laughing...... I have to wonder which one of us gets the heck scared out of us first? Hubby, me or Heidi Ho ??

   Take a look at her pic here. Can't you just see her snapping up and running when it runs across her??? Lol

Love

Ranchmama