BBN Fest Poster

BBNFest Schedule

When - Thursday, Sept. 27th 2007
Where - BBN Cafeteria
Time - 5:00 pm

What has been going on in my world...

1. Too much work
2. Too many telecons
3. Talent Show practice
4. Roommates moving in
5. Thinking about a new car

Batata Poha - An Easy Emergency Snack

This past saturday, Shivani, Dhrumil and little Viraj came over to my place. Initially I was thinking, that we would go out shopping for stuff for them and then just eat out. So, I hadn't planned on making anything at home. When I said this to my mom, she suggested that I make some Batata Poha just as a snack, so that there would be somethng for them to eat. At first, it seemed like too much work, so, in my mind, I tried to resist it. But, soon I realized that it would look quite bad on my part if I didn't feed them. I quickly went through my pantry and discovered to my relief that I had "Thick Poha", the kind required to make this dish. I however didn't have any potatoes or cilantro. That meant a quick trip to the neighborhood store, Evergood Grocery Store . After the shopping trip, I got home, called my mom and got the recipe for the dish. While my mom's recipe didn't include onions, I thought it would be a nice addition. And it actually turned out to be pretty nice. So, here is the recipe..


Ingredients:
1 medium red onion - chopped
1 medium potato - cubed
1 cup Thick Poha
Cilantro - chopped
2 tsp Salt
2 tbsp Oil
1/4 tsp Turmeric
Lemon juice
1 tsp Ginger Chilli paste
Sugar (optional)


1. Heat the Oil in a deep pan on high heat
2. Reduce the heat to medium Suteé the choppped onion in the oil till translucent
3. Add the cubed potatoes to the pan and mix well
4. Add turmeric, 1/2 of salt, 1/2 of ginger chilli paste to this and mix well.
5. Cook this potato mixture covered on medium heat till the potatoes are tender (about 20 minutes)
6. While the potatoes are cooking, rinse the Poha couple times under running water in a colander. While you are rinsing the Poha, it will absorb some water and plump up. Let it sit for couple minutes to let the excess water drain out.
7. Fluff the poha with a fork and add the remaining salt, ginger chilli paste and lemon juice and sugar to it.
8. Mix this well and let it hang out in the colander.
9. Once the potatoes are cooked, add the poha to it and mix
10. Cook it for couple more minutes to let all the flavors mix with each other
11. Garnish this with cilantro and serve hot.

Basbousa

Last saturday, I had this craving for dessert and I wasn't sure what I wanted.. I knew that I didn't want ice cream. First we decided to go to L.A.Burdicks, but, it was closed. So, we ended up going to Algiers Cafe in Harvard Square. There I had this wonderful sweet semolina cake called Basbousa.. Oh it was just heavenly, with the honey and syrup. Very very sweet, but, amazing. I think I have found my new sweet cravings place in the square. Prithwish and Will had coffee and I think they both liked it..

AL wins the MLB All Star Game

After the nerve racking 9th inning the American League won the 2007 MLB All Star Game yesterday (5-4). This is the 10th year in row that AL has won the game. This is definitely good news for the RedSox if they do make it to the world series, cos they get the homefield advantage.

And Ichiro with his inside the park home run rightfully deserved the MVP award. This was the first All Star Game with an inside the park home run.

Six Red Sox All-Stars -- David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Mike Lowell, Josh Beckett, Hideki Okajima, and Jonathan Papelbon -- helped the American League defeat the National League, 5-4, Tuesday in San Francisco.
(Getty Images Photo)


Boston Red Sox had 6 players this year (David Ortiz - 1B, Manny Ramirez - LF, Mike Lowell - 3B, Josh Beckett - Pitcher, Jonathan Papelbon - Pitcher, Hideki Okajima - Pitcher). Everyone except Okajima got a chance to play.

Key Moments for me in the game..

1. Manny ofcourse had a moment of "Manny being Manny", when started fanning Ichiro who was trying to catch his breath after his homerum.

2. Out 9 starters in the AL team, 6 were of the Latin Origin (Yeah, I'm not going to get int whether they were Hispanic or Latin Americans or Latinos), 1 (Derek Jeter) was half African American, 1 (Ichiro Suzuki) was Asian, and 1 was what I call "White Boy". So, who is the minority here? I'm not trying to start up a debate or anything. This is just sports and its just an observation from my end..

3. David Ortiz getting to first because of the error

4. Beckett and 2 scoreless innings and then being the winning pitcher due to Ichiro's home run.

5. The shot of all the players leaning against the fence (is that the right term?) in the dugout watching the game. It makes them look like kids having fun.

Ramirez looks over the shoulders of Michael Young of the Texas Rangers, and Torii Hunter of the Minnesota Twins, during Tuesday's All-Star game.
(AP Photo)

6. The fly ball out which ended the game.

7. Seeing people in canoes and kayaks outside the stadium waiting for a ball to fly out the stadium

And now, its back to the regular season.. Here is to hoping and praying that the RedSox keep winning.

Sev Batata Puri (SBP) - A reason to go to the gym

There are some foods, whose mere thought makes my mouth water. Sev Batata Puri (SBP)
is one of those things. Even now, as, I write this blog, I'm thinking of the awesome taste of this dish. Yesterday evening as I was thinking about what to have for dinner, I remembered that a couple weeks ago, I had bought some puris from New Apna Bazar, an indian store in Waltham,MA. So, I decided that I was going use them for dinner. So, now, all I could think about was dinner. While making a mental checklist of things I had in the house for the dish, I realized that I didn't have any chutneys or sev, which meant another trip to the grocery store.. As I was driving to the grocery store, I realized that SBP has almost no nutritional value and could be considered almost as junk food. Once I started thinking of SBP as junk food, I felt guilty about not going going to the gym for the longest time. So, I made yet another detour to the gym before I could savor the taste of SBP. After a nice work out, I drove to a bangladeshi store hoping to find the chutneys and sev. Alas, they only had the coriander chutney, but no sev, and no date chutney. At this point I was starting to lose hope, but, I finally found another indian grocery store *sorta* close to my home which had the date chutney and sev. I finally got home, boiled the potatoes, chopped the onions and cilantro and made my SBP.. And, it was YUMMY!!!! Definitely worth the trip to the gym and 2 grocery stores. Following is the recipe..

Ingredients (All of these should be available at most Indian Grocery Stores)

Puris for Bhel
Thin Sev
Red Onion
Potato
Corriander Chutney
Date and Tamarind Chutney
Lime and Cilantro
Salt to taste

1. Boil the potato till it is soft and you can peel it easily with your fingers. Once the potato is done, chop it into small cubes.

2. While the potato is boiling, chop the onion into very small cubes. Also coarsely chop the cilantro.

3. Now, make sure that the consitency of your chutneys is a little runnier than Ketchup.

4. Arrange about 8 or so puris in dish

5. Layer the chopped onion and potato on top of the puris

6. Sprinkle some salt on it for taste

7. Next layer it with the corriander and date chutneys

8. Top it off with some Sev

9. Garnish it with Cilantro and lime juice

10. Sit back, relax and enjoy this awesome dish



Steps 1 - 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9