Serves: 2

Ingredients:

• 200 grams chicken (boiled and shredded)
• 100 grams button mushrooms (washed and sliced)
• 1 medium sized onion (cut in half rings)
• 1  cup milk
• 2 cubes of cheese (or as cheesy as you’d like it) diced/ grated
• 1 capsicum (finely diced)
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons pepper powder
• Salt to taste
• 1 table spoon olive oil (or any cooking oil)

Method:

• Clean, wash and boil the chicken pieces.  Shred coarsely. Keep aside
• Heat oil in a frying pan and fry the onion half rings till light brown. keep aside
• In the same pan fry the mushrooms lightly
• Lay out the capsicum, fried mushrooms and onions in a flat bake dish. mix lightly
• Season with the salt and pepper
• Heat the milk and add the cheese, stirring till the cheese combines with the milk
• Add the shredded chicken to the sauce and combine well
• Spoon the mixture into the bake dish and mix lightly
• Add the egg and give the ingredients one final mix
• Heat the oven to 180 degrees and bake for 15 minutes or until done
• Serve hot

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A very special young man (who has been kinda starved since he’s been living in Pune) came over for lunch this afternoon and this is what I rustled up for him

Lunch was

9 Treasure Chicken

For the Marinade:

2 tablespoons garlic (chopped)
A sliver of ginger (chopped)
Juice of two lemons
2 tablespoons pepper
10 green chillies (chopped)
1 tablespoon coriander (chopped)
A few sprigs of mint (torn)
salt to taste

To Fry:

500 gms boneless chicken (marinaded overnight)
Oil
Garlic sliced
Oregano

To Garnish:

Sauted Green Peppers (sliced)
Coriander and mint (chopped roughly)

Here’s how to do it: Put together the marinade ingredients in a glass bowl and toss the chicken in. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate till ready to fry. Heat the oil in a pan and put in the marinaded chicken. When it is nearly done sprinkle the sliced garlic and oregano. Transfer the fried chicken to a plate and in the same pan saute the green peppers. Serve the chicken with a few peppers on the side, garnished with coriander.

Chicken and Cheese Bake

Here’s what you will need:

150 gms shredded chicken

150 gms chicken salami (slightly fried)

2 boiled potatoes

2 tablespoons corn

1/2 a green pepper

1 egg

25 gms cheese (you could add more if you like it)

3 tablespoons of mayonnaise

1 green chilly finely cut

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsps pepper

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp chilly powder

Here’s how you do it:

Mix all the ingredients in a shallow bake dish. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top and pop it into the oven to bake at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes or until done.

Bacon and Onion Pasta

You will need:

300 gms assorted pasta (boiled)

200gms bacon cut into small pieces

1 large onions finely chopped

6 cloves of garlic finely chopped (you could add more if like me, you are a garlic fan)

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (you could use normal cooking oil also)

2 cups tomato sauce (recipe will follow)

Here’s how you do it:

Saute the onions in the olive oil till they go translucent. Add in the garlic and bacon fat and saute for a minute. Add in the bacon and cook for around 7 minutes or until the bacon is done. Then toss in the tomato sauce and cook for 2 minutes on a low flame. Spoon the bacon and onion sauce over the pre boiled pasta.

For the Tomato Sauce you will need:

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

2 large onions finely chopped

1/2 packet mushrooms (optional)

1 green pepper chopped finely

6 tomatoes

salt to taste

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp herbs – Oregano (you could also add rosemary and thyme!)

1 tsp chilly powder

Here’s how you do it:

Blanch the tomatoes, taking out the skin and roughly smash them keeping a few pieces whole. Heat the oil in a pan, add the garlic, onions and saute till the onions get translucent. Add in the mushrooms, peppers and tomatoes and let it cook for about 10 minutes on a medium flame. Add in the seasonings, let it cook for a minute and set aside.

Sausage and Potato Salad

You will need:

200 gms cocktail sausages (power boiled and cut into round pieces)

2 medium sized potatoes (boiled and diced)

1 green pepper (finely chopped)

1 green chilly (finely chopped

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 tsp pepper

salt to taste

Here’s how you do it:

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, toss and serve

And for dessert we had

Caramel Custard

You will need:

1/2 Litre milk

3 tablespoons sugar (or more if you have a sweet tooth)

2 eggs

For the Caramel:

1 tablespoon sugar2 tablespoons water

Here’s how you do it:

Heat the milk and let it cool completely. In the meanwhile put the caramel ingredients in a dish you are going to make the custard in (this needs to fit into the cooker or the apparatus you are going to make the custard in) and place on a slow heat till the sugar caramelizes. Beat the eggs well in a bowl. Add the eggs and sugar to the milk and whisk till it is well combined. Gently pour the milk mixture into the dish with the caramel. If you are using a pressure cooker (like I used) you need to leave it on the fire for 30 minutes after the first whistle.

You can serve the custard warm /cold.

After the satisfying lunch, the 3 of us headed to town to catch a movie at Sterling. We reached nearly an hour early (no thanx to the BT for the wrong listing) for a Stardust show, so we killed some time at Cafe Coffee Day (yup where we ate again). The movie was really nice. A kind of fairly tale with all the romance and action. Loved every minute of it.

–

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Michelle’s birthday on the 29th marked the beginning of a week of parties. She was having dinner at her place. We were working that day so decided to go out and out from work. She warned us not to turn up too early, so killed some time on the streets of Bandra and then headed to her place. Did I mention she looked ravishing that evening. See for yourself.

It was a homely party with dollops of fun. Didn’t quite realise what a big family she had till I met quite a few of them. We played games I’ve never played at any party before. One was a modified version of “dog and the bone” and the other was a verion of “peek a boo” with our feet! Dinner followed but not before we had the most amazing chocolate walnut cake her Dad made. It was coated with a layer of chocolate that was to die for. Dinner was delicious with some of my fav food served.

Came back home in the morning as it got too late the night before. Sunday passed in a whirlwind of activities and before I knew it the day was over. However managed to make Priyanka’s card and bake her cake. I iced it Monday morning as Ryan was going to come pick it up latter in the day. I must say I was pretty impressed with the way it turned out.

Work was as usual and in the evening Michelle, Witty and myself headed over to Pri’s place. We were the first to arrive and promtly ploped ourselves in her bedroom to put the finishing touches to the cards and presents we had to give her. The party was a hilarious affair. I haven’t laughed so much at a party in some time! The fact that the electricity kept coming and going added a whole lot of fun to the party. There was dancing and dumb charades and we were even asked to put together a ‘naughty’ honeymoon package for Ryan and Priyanka. It was quite late by the time we had dinner and after most of the guests had gone we sat down to ‘help’ Pri open her presents.

Chetna was really sick by this time and so decided to call it a night. We attempted to watch a bit of “I dream of genie” but were fast asleep before 10 minutes were up.  Woke up by around 9.30, had breakfast (yummy chicken curry) and headed to Bandra with Priyanka and Michelle as I had to go onto Andheri for the next party!

Reached Crispin’s house at around 12:30 and as usual I was the first to arrive. It was a double celebration as it was Crispin’s and Giselle’s birthday. 

Crispin has been a childhood friend and a “chaddi -buddy” in the truest sense of the term! Born merely 2 months apart, we’ve grown up together and kept in touch over the years, first because of our parents but now I think we hold our own. He is the funniest person I know and there is never ever a dull moment when he is around (except of course when he decides to get a ton of sand in his pants and it decides to hurt him so much that he can hardly walk) I don’t know how many of his girlfriends I have freaked out with questions to him about his “sexuality” and the “other woman in his life” oh and not forgetting the famous “memorablia from his exploits” question Have fun CL and if you ever wanna get rid of an irritating ‘good friend’, you know who to call

A. June’s cooking was outstanding as usual (I wonder how people get so good yaar). It was a Chinese treat and yummy chocolate cake to go with it. I was really tired so decided to leave soon after lunch. Headed back home and made my Mum’s birthday cake as it was her birthday the next day.

Mum decided to stay at home on her birthday after many years. I think she enjoyed herself better that way. I managed to get her prety yellow flowers of the variety she loves. The best part about them is that they last for ages. We had a candle lit (after ages) chinese dinner, cut her birthday cake 5 minutes before midnight and called it a night.

And so ended my series of birthdays. I don’t think I’ve ever partied so hard in a lon, long time! But like I said I enjoyed every minute of it

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