So if you guys remember back to my 1st blog post I touched on my psychopathic perfectionist type A tendencies and my fear of failure. My fiance has been so amazing in helping me try new things and see failure as a learning experience, instead of breaking down, having a panic attack and turning into a tornado of swear words and violence. Well, lets just say, this week put my new zen and positive outlook to the test.

I have been trying learn some Punjabi recipes that my soon to be husband enjoys and reminds him of his childhood and family. Now, I think I am a pretty decent cook. I have always loved cooking, when I make meals for people they usually don’t spit them out, and they always look somewhat appealing. But this is just a whole new world. I have tried a few recipes that Maan has requested, and they have just NOT worked out. My poor fiance the guinea pig has been subjected to Tandoori chicken that tasted like it was cooked in a salt bath, Channa Masala (a delicious chickpea dish) that was overcooked to the point of destruction, and more. Needless to say I was defeated. So I took a few days away from the kitchen, tried to regroup, and then it came to me…DAL! Dal is a delicious lentil soup that is of the favorite things my inlaws have ever made for me. And I mean…It’s a soup, what could go wrong?

Well, it turned out things could go wrong, even with soup.  It tasted nothing like amazing, warming, filling, slightly spicy soup that I have had at my in laws house. But, interestingly enough, it did make a pretty tasty just regular lentil stew. So as I go back to my in laws house for more training, I thought I would still share this recipe which I am now calling a curried lentil stew. It would be a great filling fall soup, and it still tastes amazing with a nice warmed up and buttered piece of naan bread!

Curried Lentil Stew

Ingredients 

1 16oz bag of lentils

1 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 large white onion, finally chopped

4 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon ginger, finally chopped

3 small red chilies, finally chopped

2 teaspoons indian curry spice

2 teaspoons ground coriander

2 teaspoons ground turmeric

2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 cans 15 oz diced tomato

5-6 cups cold water

salt and pepper to taste

Directions 

1. In a large pot over low-medium heat, add the butter to melt. Add the onion and cook, stirring until very soft about 5 minutes
2. Add the garlic, ginger and fresh chillis and cook for 1 minute
3. Add the spices; curry, coriander, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon and cayenne Stir for about 30 seconds
4. Add the tomato and the lentils, stir  until nicely coated
5. Add 6 cups water, bring to a boil and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook, covered for about 20-30 minutes until lentils are very soft and the stew is thick, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking and adding a little extra water if needed. Season to taste again with all of the spices before. Serve with buttered Naan

• Extra Note: I have found that putting this soup in Tupperware and letting it sit in the fridge overnight and then reheating it the next day really helps develop the flavors, so I would recommend that!

So at the end of the day, no, this is not Dal. This is not the indian soup that I wanted to make. But I would eat it anytime in the fall or winter with some Naan or bread and be completely happy! I will go back to my inlaws and try to perfect the actual Dal recipe, and report back to you guys. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions!

 

Quote of the Day:

“Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure”

– Napoleon Hill

 

 

 

 

…Short answer, Maan and I do.

Maan proposed in December, and for some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to buy a home that needed some aesthetic work at the end of March.  In all reality the house was fine, it just wasn’t really our style. I don’t know what it is with 40 year old women and literally every one of them painting their home that deep red/merlot color, but its just a tad intense for me. (Seriously, you will find that color on at least one wall of any middle aged woman’s house right next to their portrait wall of their 4 kids). Is that mean to say?..I think it might be mean…oops!

Anywayssss, literally every room in this house needed to be painted. And we are talking like three coats of primer, plus three coats of actual paint. The living room was a glorious collage of dark red and sunshine yellow which lead into their minty green dining room and kitchen. Did I mention the ceilings were all painted? THE CEILINGS GUYS! The ceilings matched the color of the walls in every room.  So we decided to paint the entire house before we moved in. We figured it would take about 5 days or so to get everything finished. I don’t know what drugs we were on that lead us to that conclusion, but cue 2 weeks later of 12 hour days we finally were able to put the paint away (even though to this day I still see spots that need some touch up). I can say  that through that process I learned if I ever need to paint that much again, I will just hire someone to do it! But it turned out great and we are super happy with it. We chose to go with a color pallet of light grays, blues and whites and its just super calming and clean and I love it. It definitely brightened up the room and made it look bigger, which is always a plus! Take a look below for some before and after shots.

Before:

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After:

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So at this point we were making good progress. We had a few things unpacked and haphazardly thrown around the house, but before we really moved in, we had to tackle the big boss, the scary monster, the KITCHEN. I could not handle the 90’s brown cabinets and chipping laminate counter-tops for another day. However, when we looked at prices for replacing all the kitchen cabinets, I had a mini panic attack and had to be mildly sedated for a few days as we put that projects on a brief hold while we rethought our strategy. After searching around on Pinterest for a few days I kept hearing about this product that you could paint your cabinets any color you wanted, and it did not require any sanding and you didn’t need a paint sprayer. I was hesitantly intrigued. But after hours of research everyone seemed to be really happy with the product so we decided to give it a try.

The product was called Rust-Oleum Transformations and we got it from Home Depot. Our entire kitchen took about 2 boxes and they ran about $70 a piece so in our mind it was a steal! I will warn you, this project takes A LOT of time. We are talking about 5 days from start to finish due to the amount of drying time needed between coats. The hardest part for us was finding a place where the doors could dry without getting dust or dog hair on it. We ended up letting them dry in the garage and it worked out pretty great. I wont get into the long details of how to use the product because the box comes with a super informative DVD, but if your interested in the product feel free to email me and I will give you some of my opinions and tricks that my fiance and I learned along the way during the process. But this little boxes of liquid dreams come true, really does create a huge transformation. As you were able to see in my before picture above, the cabinets were that very tacky orange colored wood, and had no hardware. After painting the cabinets, adding new hardware, installing a new sink, and hiring a company to replace the gross laminate with brand new solid gray quartz counter tops, we basically walked away with a new kitchen for about $7000. The only thing we have left to do in the kitchen is install the backslash and get a new fridge.

Updated Kitchen:

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We are very excited to start our next projects after the wedding which will be installing all new floors through out the house and installing new white doors and baseboards. I will keep you guys posted on the process, but in the meantime, feel free to message me with any questions about my progress so far or any of the products I have used. Its been such a rewarding feeling for Maan and I to turn this house into “Our Home” and really put our stamp on it. We can’t wait to have it finished and start a family in a home that we are so proud of!

I will end this post with a quote I find fitting for today:
“There is something permanent and something extremely profound in owning a home.” – Kenny Guinn

 

 

Hey guys, so we are about 30 days out from the big day (excuse me while I quickly take some deep breaths into a paper bag), no but in all reality, I am SO excited to marry my fiance, Maan on August 27th. Another thing I’m excited for? Getting to put my hell beast of a glue gun away for a little bit. Maan and I decided to make our own centerpieces for the wedding. You know, cue the sappy rom-com music, we stare into each others eyes while we plan our fairy tale wedding, all the while crafting these glorious rustic, yet charming mason jar burlap masterpieces….yea…that’s not exactly how it went down. It more like me creating a new language of curse words as I chug straight from the bottle a nice aged Syrah, while Maan restrains me from throwing the mason jars against the wall every time the scalding molten lava like glue seeps through the burlap and removes any traces of fingertips that I once may of had.
I have never been great at all things crafts. (probably not something I should admit as I am starting a lifestyle/food/crafts/blah blah blah blog.) But its not that I cant do crafts or be creative, its more that I have always just had this mental block when it came to those types of activities. You see, I may be just a tadddd bid of control freak/ perfectionist. Any time I would try to take a painting class, or sculpture or photography or anything like that, I would watch all these amazingly creative souls who seemingly crafted diamonds from dirt, as I sat their attempting to make which in comparison looked like a half assed macaroni necklace, and it would almost put me to tears. I would get so upset and defeated that I would actually destroy  whatever I was working on, throw it away, leave the room and never try again. Basically, I had a temper tantrum…yea, I know, not the most attractive quality. But for me, it was a defense mechanism against failure.

Lately I have been wanting to try new things. I have seen these awesome creative things that people create on sites like Pinterest and Etsy and I think “that looks so fun, I want to try it.”…and then….I just do. With our wedding coming up and as new homeowners to a house we are fixing up, there just wasn’t really any avoiding it. I had to open myself up to new experiences and trying to create things on my own. And guys, I LOVE it. Now let me make something clear, I didn’t wake up one day and suddenly become a modern day Martha Stewart (or some other more relevant homemaker icon, minus the “orange is the new black” vibes). I am still learning and some projects are complete failures, and sometimes I still get frustrated, and feel those pesky negative thoughts come back. Whats changed, is that I am lucky enough to have something that I didn’t have before, Maan. I have a partner who is so completely supportive. Someone who deals with me when I have my tantrums when the twine doesn’t line up just so, or the left side of the chandelier hangs a hair more than the right. He snaps me out of it, makes me take a breath and brings me back down to earth. He’s given me the most precious gift that anyone has ever given me, he has given me the ability to fail. And it is freeing. It allows me to create with abandon and without consequences. Its truly a great feeling and I am so excited to take some of the ideas we have thought of together and craft them into reality.

This new found freedom in my soul has created a spark. I have been so inspired with all the beautiful and one of a kind fabrics, beads, spices and more that Maan and his family bring back from India. I opened a closet at his parents house one day and seriously almost drowned in a sea of gorgeous silk and cotton hand beaded fabrics from their village in India. I told Maan and his parents how much I loved the look of the fabric, and we came up with an idea. Those fabrics will now become pillow cases, and tapestry’s and duvet covers. The beads will become earrings and necklaces. I will learn some of my favorite recipes from his family, package the spices, and they will all be sold on our soon to be Etsy Shop, Fine Chhina Designs. I am so excited to explore this new path with my soon to be husband and in laws.  I will keep you all posted with the progress on the shop. And in the mean time, you my pretties get to be my test subjects! I will be posting the recipes that I learn. Give them a try and let me know what you think. I will also be documenting my progress on creating the decorative pieces that will be soon for sale. Let me know your thoughts. Anything you see that you think might improve the products? Any colors you would want to see? Design aspects that you think are missing? Feel free to be brutally honest. I’m sure a glass of wine and a pep talk from Maan will get me through any negative feedback. 🙂

I am really excited for this new chapter of my life guys, and I hope you guys come along with me. Its going to be a hell of a ride.

I think I will end all of these blog posts with a quote, as I am a huge fan of word porn. Today, I’ll end with this little gem:

“Creativity is intelligence having fun” – Albert Einstein