Snow White Party

Happy New Year! Hope the new year 2012 has lovely suprises in store for you. We had 'Snow White' themed party for the new year's eve. Organising a party is no child's play. I planned in advance. Looked for the dress, jwellery, recipe, and hair style in web.

 I dressed up as Evil Queen. I wore a long black dress and gold assessories- gold cuffs, earings, beautiful gold necklace and a golden belt. Found perfect ones in the market. For the hairstyle I browsed the website. Found this hairstyle, exaclty what I wanted. Tried this hairstyle few times before the actual event. Since my hair is shorter than the lady in the video and it was bit messy when I tried copying her, I made some minor alterations.  Here is the video from youtube.

I did the Dutch braid just in front and for the rest I did just the simple braid in the exact direction as  instructed in the video and wrapped them around the head. Since I have a smaller forehead I tried my best to Dutch braid the hair in front away from my forehead as possible. I think my hair looks cool. Here's a pic of myself.

Sorry folks, for some reason it is not letting me upload picture from my computer, strange! Will try next time.

CHICKEN SOUP WITH CHILLI, MINT AND COUSCOUS

I love to try different kinds of food and I love Moroccan. Here is a recipe of one of my favourite soup.

CHICKEN SOUP WITH CHILLI, MINT AND COUSCOUS

Serves 4-6

1-2 tbsp olive oil

2 onions, finely chopped

1-2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp granulated sugar

2 tsp dried mint

1 tbsp tomato puree

100 g couscous

1 small bunch of fresh coriander, finely chopped to garnish

1 lemon, quartered to serve

Stock

1 organic chicken, weighing 1.3 kg

1 onion quartered

1 lemon quartered

1 bunch of fresh parsley stalks

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 cinnamon stick

Salt and pepper

First make the stock. Put the chicken, onion, lemon, parsley, coriander seeds and cinnamon stick in a deep saucepan and pour in just enough water to cover. Bring to boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 1 hour, or until the chicken is almost falling off the bone.

Remove the chicken from the saucepan and leave to cool slightly. When cool enough to handle, remove the skin and tear the tender flesh into strips. Meanwhile, continue to simmer the broth until it has reduced to about 1.2 litres. Season to taste with salt and pepper and sieve into a jug.

Heat the oil in the heavy-based saucepan, add the onions and chillies and cook over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently, until they began to colour. Add the cumin, paprika, sugar, mint and tomato puree and pour in the sieved broth. Bring to the boil and gradually stir in the couscous. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in the strips of chicken, check the seasoning and simmer for a further 5 minutes.

Garnish the soup with the coriander and serve with the lemon quartes for squeezing over.

Personal notes- I did not had paprika and used chilli powder instead. Not a big fan of sweet curry or soup so I did not use granulated sugar the second time. It actually tasted better but it is up to you. And neither did I use whole chicken- chicken thigh fillet or breast fillet works fine and don’t think you need to boil the broth for an hour. Just make sure chicken  is cooked and easy to tear into strips.

Enjoy!    

Grug

Grug is an Aussie frictional character and I love it. The existence of this creature was unknown to me until last week when one of our colleague mentioned it.  I googled it yesterday eating my rice and curry lunch druing lunch break and now it is on my favourite cartoon list.

I have been living here for over 10 years and I get little excited when I see a 100% Aussie stuff. With the markets overflowing with Chinese products and television full of American production Grug is such a releif as it was created in our own backyard. Created by Ted Prior in 1979 Grug is a little funny guy and looks like a haystack with a face. Ted lived with  his two young children in a small farm in New South Wales and while reading them stories he came up with an imgainary bush animal and that is how Grug was created. There are series of books you can buy and here is the link to the website  http://www.mygrug.com/ if you want to find out more about Grug. While I go and look for a book to buy enjoy this grug cartoon

I Want to be a Child Again!

I want to be a little child again! I want to feel the same excitement as walking to the school for the first time. The love for my school uniform- green blazer which had my name ' Seema' inscribed in the inside pocket and I used to show it to everyone "Look! It has my name". When mum used to ask me to sing nursery rhyme "I’m a little teapot" for the millionth time, I had the same energy like it was the very first time. My first pet were little tadpoles swimming in a Horlicks bottle and was little sad when they hopped away but I understood they had to get back to their mummy. My brother was my best friend and we hung out together all the time. The best memory of our friendship is sitting quietly on the porch at Grandpa’s house in the evenings waiting for the wild rabbits to appear. Every time the steam engine passed by our house we used to run to the veranda and wave at the travellers without expecting them to return our favour. It was a carefree life where happiness was found in simple things- anger was lost after one cry and forgiveness was easy because I was a child.

Dikyi Ukyab has my vote!

Dikyi Ukyab is my favourite artiste at the moment. My aunt posted her video on my facebook page and since then I have been listening to her everyday. She has a lovely voice and I even requested Awaaz SA fm (Adelaide)to play her song.

Diki was born on 1 March 1991 in New York. She has been constantly travelling back and forth to Nepal and I'd say has perfect Nepali accent without any 'gora' twang. Currently she is pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Anthropology at State University of New York (SUNY). 

Dikyi's debut album, 'Silver Lining' was released on August 7th, 2011, in Nepal and has created sensation.  Her first single 'Jaun' topped the charts at #1 on Kantipur FM and Image FM. Her second music video performing 'Ke Bhaye Ko' (directed by Araaj Keshav) recently topped at #1 on Top of the Pops (Image Channel).

I liked her FB page just now :-)  and so excited for her, she has already been nominated for so many music awards. Go Dikyi!
Here is Dikyi' song. Enjoy!

Glow in the dark nail polish

Recently my friend got me Glow in the Dark nail polish. It is amazing, I even switched off lights to show it to my friends. It will be a perfect nail polish for Halloween party. Love the colour too. Thank you Danni Pugh.

For Teej- bindi nail art

Happy Teej to all the ladies.
Teej is a Nepalese festival- The first day of Teej is called Dar Khane Din. On this day the women, both married and unmarried, assemble at one place, in their finest attire and start dancing and singing devotional songs. Amidst all this, the grand feast takes place. The jollity often goes on till midnight, after which the 24-hour fast starts.

We had a Teej-cultural program in Adelaide on staruday and I wore a pink saree I had bought for my brother's wedding. It has shades of orange and pink and heavy embroidery.

So I decided to do something traditional and simple for my nails. It is very easy and finally my own creation. I had some gold bindi (is a forehead decoration worn in India and Nepal) lying in a box. All I did was paint all my nails with a pink nailpolish, then immediately stuck the bindis onto my nails. Let it dry completely and then apply a top coat nail polish. Give a good coat around the bindis. Here is a picture of my nailart for you.

I had to wear saree and rush and I lost dimond stud attatched to the bindi and did not had time to clean around my nails but hey.. it looks pretty good. I think golden nail polish on the edge of the nails would look good too.