Gratitude

Giving Thanks 2020 – Week Nineteen

May the fourth be with you. Also, bonus days because someone just caught up on all these blog posts! *please don’t jinx it*

04th May 2020 

Good long, somewhat productive day. Fair to say I didn’t sleep for nearly 22 hours.

Made some of these classic egg muffins to break fast.

05th May 2020 

Slept the whole day. Maybe because of the all-dayer I pulled yesterday. Also finally wrote a post on Medium – this was a post I had begun writing somewhere around the end of March.

View at Medium.com

Mama hit the kitchen today and made some buns that turned out to be delicious scones?

06th May 2020 

It was a big day in the kitchen! Made some lemon juice – check out the second picture on April 30 here.

I also tried out a recipe from Anjali’s blog, My Digital Verandah. She is a blogger I followed recently and is a private chef based in France! Her profile is wonderful and real, which is only an extension of the person I have gotten to know through DMs. So, new friend? 🙂 Do follow her on Instagram as well!

Also, I tried out Fathi’s beef curry and boy, I was so pleasantly surprised with myself, haha.

View this post on Instagram

🎈Mandatory disclaimers: Since these are important during these sensitive times, a lot of the food that I would feature in the posts to come are ones made with things we usually have at home. Since we live away from the city centre (by choice) and eat out quite less (by choice and lack of access) we always keep a stock of things that would be useful – also the war and long curfews conditioned Mum for preparation, and eventually, me. I’m also quite keen on saving and frugality in general and I while I’m not extreme about it, I try to keep things to a minimum and tend to plan out my splurges, even on food. Also finally, I’m not a pro-cook/chef/haven’t been to culinary school (yet) so the methods I use are from experience and observation. . . The second takeaway too is around creativity in food. While cooking is second nature to me, we eat very standard Sri Lankan meals at home. Yes, we do have our occasional pastas and local Chinese, but a majority of the time, it’s pretty basic. Also because I’ve been cooking more or less similar food, our ingredients and methods have little variety. Also – I'm not very eloquent in following recipes, I probably don’t have the patience for it, but most of the time, I cook using instinct and this doesn’t align with recipes – except for salt, because salt and I have had and continue to have a very interesting relationship and I have no 'instinct' with it. . . But then recently @fathis_spice_attic began this wonderful page with really basic, my kind of recipes that were still within my comfort zone but just outside the threshold. The ‘beef in roasted coconut cream’ was definitely up my alley and on May 06, I not only learnt that you can take roasted coconut to the next level but discovered the magic of coconut cream, which was quite different to cooking using coconut milk. It was especially interesting since I don’t use coconut milk as much even to make most curries – because scraping coconut is a bitch and water works just as fine! – to (re)learn just how versatile coconut is, which is great because a few weeks ago we were inundated with coconuts from our neighbour's garden and there was a genuine need to put it to good use. 🥥

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07th May 2020 

We got more mangoes from Mr Edirisinghe, yay. I attempted the second rendition of my no-bake stovetop pizza, without much luck. At least these were mini bite-sized so I guess that’s okay.

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So some of you may know already but Mr Edirisinghe, as the gentleman who lives in front of our house to be a wonderful person and my favourite neighbour. I was quite bummed when we didn’t get any කැවුම් කොකිස් this New Year but I assumed that things must be difficult for them too even during this time so I guess that's okay. He and his family have been very respectful about the community and cultural differences and have been there for us with kind words. He knows that our house is just women and has always been more than helpful, at a safe-non-intrusive distance to let us know that we can reach out for help if needed, and I can park my car there at night when I drive home late and if at any point I felt unsafe – our away from the city centre neighbourhood isn't probably the safest, even though it can peaceful. . . More recently at the start of the curfew, he even offered to give us cash when @sabina16 told him that we had run out money and couldn’t go to the ATM. To be fair, Mum did say that we might break open my tills to get hold of some money 😂 #dramatic Perhaps due to the lack of කැවුම් කොකිස්, Mr Edirisinghe gave us mangoes on two separate occasions plucked from their ginormous garden area. Probably too many for two people but hey, we are not complaining. 🥭🥭 . . 🎈(and for those wondering what happened to the mandatory disclaimers, they are on the previous posts. They take up too many characters and maybe I don’t need to always justify my actions 😊 – thank you @gillienair91 for the reminder 💗 (May 07, 2020)

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08th May 2020 

This is yet to go up on Instagram, but took advantage of the abundance of lemons in our tree and made a no-bake lemon tart inspired by this lemon bar recipe I saw earlier in the day. I used fewer eggs because I’m cheap but I think I’m quite pleased with this overall. Also, lemon is such a new flavour in the house, I think it’s the start of something magical! 🙂

09th May 2020 

We got a curfew pass to check on the grandparents because Granddad’s dementia has been acting up more than usual. The ‘trip’ was also good for Mum who seemed to be coming down with a slight dose of cabin fever. On our way back, we found චූන් පාන් lorry and bought bread and buns, after so long! Also came across John Legend’s legendary fried chicken and left it on an overnight brine yesterday and this would probably be the closest (yet healthier) thing I would get to KFC for a long time!

IMG_4738
IMG_4730

Also came across John Legend’s legendary fried chicken recipe recently, and I left it on an overnight brine yesterday and this would probably be the closest (yet healthier) thing I would get to KFC for a long time!

View this post on Instagram

🎈Mandatory disclaimers: Since these are important during these sensitive times, a lot of the food that I would feature in the posts to come are ones made with things we usually have at home. Since we live away from the city centre (by choice) and eat out quite less (by choice and lack of access) we always keep a stock of things that would be useful – also the war and long curfews conditioned Mum for preparation, and eventually, me. I’m also quite keen on saving and frugality in general and I while I’m not extreme about it, I try to keep things to a minimum and tend to plan out my splurges, even on food. Also finally, I’m not a pro-cook/chef/haven’t been to culinary school (yet) so the methods I use are from experience and observation. . . This one from a just a few days ago but I had to put it up at the beginning because we are all about curating this feed! Also a reminder for anyone who needs it (you probably don’t) – Instagram is nothing but a facade of reality. We like to curate it to something we think would be beautiful, make sure the colours match and the grids stay intact – I can vouch for the last one because I got really smart a few months ago and deleted some 2014 pictures that were badly edited and messed up my grid 😭 Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to get this back, haha. . . But more on to cooking and lessons during this period, you never stop learning! I took some and still continue to take some courses online and I’ve realised that it is possible to learn, if you really want to. This fried chicken recipe was one @johnlegend had put up on @chrissyteigen's YouTube channel and man, it was probably the closest thing I would get to KFC for a long time, haha. We, unfortunately, had only two drumsticks and went about savouring every bite, but I did an overnight brine (another first for me!) and this did.not.dissapoint.at.all. I was going through my highlights recently and realised that I had tried another recipe of @chrissyteigen's too a few years back and that lady is seriously into some comfort-eat while in your pyjamas-food. (May 09, 2020)

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10th May 2020 

It was Mother’s Day and my sister ordered pizza for Mum and I!

11th May 2020 

Didn’t work out today after working out for three days in a row because my body felt a bit tired. However, despite sleeping in for a while, I made a list for today and wrote nine blog posts, including this. It was a long, difficult day, but we are making some slow, steady progress. Here’s to perseverance.

So tell me, what were you grateful for these past few days?

#ThinkSunny🌻

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