Soliloquies....

Address Change..

My blog has a new address

http://manishamalla.wordpress.com/

From now on, this is where you would find my soliloquies...

posted by Manisha @ 11:10 AM 0 comments

Drumstick sambar

Of late, I've been trying my hand at quite some recipes, and surprisingly, the results have been pleasant. I'll be posting these tried and tested recipes on this blog, as a reference for myself as well as for sharing it on the internet.

I've always loved the south-indian sambar. I'd cooked sambar a couple of times before with good results, but I was still looking for an easy way to get the perfect flavor. I chanced upon a sambar recipe on the internet - it sounded good and simple. I did make a few personal modifications to the recipe and this is what the result looked like:



The Recipe:

1 and 1/2 cups toor dal
2 drumsticks (vegetable)
1 medium onion
1 capsicum
1 medium tomato
1 teaspoon turmeric
4 teaspoons sambhar masala
wet tamarind pulp
salt (to taste)
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 teaspoon asafetida powder
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
curry leaves
4 dried red chilies (whole)

1. Chop all the vegetables. Drumsticks should be kept 2 inches long. Put veggies in a pressure cooker with the Toor dal and turmeric powder. Add enough water to cover the vegetables. Cook for about 20 minutes.
2. While this is cooking soak the Tamarind in warm water. With your hand, loosen the pulp in the water then remove the pods.
3. Open the pressure cooker and check the dal to make sure it is thoroughly cooked. Add about 4 heaping teaspoons of Sambhar masala. Also add the tamarind water and salt to taste. Stir.
4. Heat the oil in a small pan, add asafetida powder and cumin seeds. Allow to splutter. Add the curry leaves and red chillies. Add to mixture.
5. Boil the mixture for 2-3 minutes and serve hot.

Labels: recipes

posted by Manisha @ 4:49 PM 0 comments

Galibore Fishing Camp

Another JLR fishing camp. It's got the usual Jungle Lodges facilities - around 10 pretty cottage-tents, hammocks, coracle rides and treks (oh, and the fishing, of course). This wouldn't be the best time to visit, though. I'm sure the place would look much prettier after the rains. Its only 100 kms from Bangalore, and if one is looking for a lazy 2-day sojourn, this is a place to consider.

Website: http://www.junglelodges.com/resort_overview.asp?resort=Galibore

Labels: outdoors

posted by Manisha @ 2:06 PM 0 comments

No silence please!

Two-and-a-half years is a long time. Especially so when you haven't spoken a word. That's exactly how its been with this blog. I intend to break the silence with this post, and hopefully, continue blogging this time.

While each of us are getting on with their respective mundane lives, there's an Indian who's attempting to row across the Atlantic. He's been out in the sea for 40 days, rowing away and fortunately, updating lesser mortals like us with his sea-logs at http://www.humanedgetech.com/expedition/bhavik/

Hats off to Bhavik. And here's wishing that he successfully completes this feat.

posted by Manisha @ 3:48 PM 0 comments

Windows - tools for developers

Found 2 very cool tools for application developers on Windows. I have been using these for testing my apps on Windows XP. They're quite cool, especially the ProcessExplorer one. ProcessExplorer shows almost everything about a running process - open registry entries, threads, file handles, sockets and their states etc. etc.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml

The other tool is FileMon that displays the current file sytem activity in real-time. Apart from normal open files and directories, it also lets us track named pipes - so you can debug IPC between applications if they use pipes.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/filemon.shtml

Labels: technical

posted by Manisha @ 1:53 PM 5 comments

Egypt - holiday links

Quick overview:
http://www.goegypt.net/
http://www.shadesofegypt.plus.com/
http://www.holidaywizard.co.uk/countries/Egypt/

Packages:
http://www.magnificenttravel.com/cairo-nile-cruise-tour.htm
http://www.africapoint.com/tours1/egyptour.htm
http://www.aat-eg.com/frm_PP.htm
http://www.castletours.net/My%20webs/my%20web/Cairo.html

Labels: outdoors

posted by Manisha @ 1:49 PM 0 comments

Kodai/Madurai links

List of links for a quick lookup:
http://www.tradewingstravel.com/tamilnadu/tnhillstations.jsp
http://www.villaretreat.com/
http://www.spantours.com/southindia/kodaikanal.html
http://www.hill-stations-india.com/kodaikanal/

http://www.hotelstamilnadu.com/germanus/index.htm
http://www.touristplacesinindia.com/madurai/tourist-attractions.html
http://www.tradewingstravel.com/tamilnadu/madurai.jsp

Labels: outdoors

posted by Manisha @ 10:18 AM 2 comments

City of traffic jams

Must say Bangalore must be rechristened as 'City of Traffic Jams' instead of 'City of Gardens'. Travelling on Hosur Road at any time of the day(or night for that matter) is a nightmare. I pity guys who have to go all the way to electronic city. That would be another 6 kms of torture from my office. The government seems to be blissfully oblivious....as usual...
Funny weather too...bright & sunny every morning, and pouring by evening!

Planning to watch Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets (CD) tomorrow night and I'm looking forward to it, since movies in cinema halls in bangalore have become such a rarity.

Team meeting today...yaaaawn :-O

posted by Manisha @ 9:41 AM 1 comments