Vegetarian avocado recipe - a simple sandwich spread

I'm really excited. Today's the first time I made something with avacado (butter fruit) at home. It took me five minutes to make, that's the best part of it...

And what a day to make it. It is Varamahalakshmi pooja today. We don't do an elaborate pooja, so I had time on my hands. But this is the fastest thing to make.

A colleague had given me a ripe avacado from her friend's garden. So I couldn't keep it a day longer -- it was RIPE.

I've eaten avacados at restaurants and at friend's places, but never made it myself.

Didn't know it was this simple.

Here's what I did:

1. Halve the avacado

2. Discard the seed and the brown skin around it if it's stuck to the pulp

3. Scoop out the fruit/pulp with a sharp steel spoon

4. I mashed it with the spoon once -- it was easy and smooth

5. Add salt to taste, a pinch of sugar, some fresh ground pepper, finely chopped fresh coriander (kothambri), squeeze in a dash of lime (all this to take away it's slightly bitter after-taste).

You can add mashed green chillies for fire. I didn't because I was hoping to con Sonny Boy into eating it. You can also add in some mashed garlic pods and finely chopped raw onion for crunch (these two elements were a no-no today, it being a festival)

6. I also added some fresh cream (it was around in the fridge), and grated in some cheese - just for effect :-)

7. Spread this on a slice of bread, top it with finely chopped capsicum/green bell pepper and finely chopped ripe tomatoes. You can use any other vegetable/greens of your choice. This is just what I quickly did. I think boiled potato will work well.

8. I sprinkled some more salt

9. I closed it with one more slice of bread, also spread with the avacado mix on the inside

10. Toast it in one of those plug-in electric toasters/sandwich grills

I LOVED THE RESULT. Had a yummy breakfast...with tomato ketchup

I guess you can use your imagination and add anything to the avacado mash -- garam masala, dhania/jeera powder and turmeric, maybe chopped spinach, olives, ajwain....i don't know -- i'm going to try other combos soon

Avacados apparently consist of "good fat", multi-vitamins, specially Vitamin K and folate. It's high calorie, yes, but worth its weight in nutrition too, so it's fine i guess.

Why can husbands never care for sick wives, while wives do it so well?

Like it wasn't already bad enough, my situation, I fell sick on Saturday.

A dinner to celebrate the in-laws' anniversary on Friday resulted in a Saturday morning welcome with vomit.
Ugh.
It was a disgusting day of purging my body of excesses.

It was also a day when that old feeling comes reeling back and hits you when you are sick, making you sicker -- the realisation that a husband is so incapable of "caring" for you the way say, your parents do/did or you dreamt "husband person" would.

Again, I speak from my experience and i know there ARE some husbands who just know how to be chicken soup for their their wives' souls when they are sick. I'm really happy for such women and goddammit, very jealous of them too.

So on Saturday I ran in front of husband, who was merrily featsing on breakfast by then, to puke for the first time in the morning.
He knew I had gone in to puke, but never came after me to help -- i mean just rub my back dude, I'm sick.
So i was poking around the clogged sink with a broom stick, clearing it myself and puking again. A sort of DIY it was! Yeah gross!
I finished, cleaned up, went out to the room and lie down. After some 15 more mins of watching TV, he comes in and says "O so did u puke?" That's it, I burst into tears.
And told him in clear terms that he really doesn't care for me when I am sick, when, even if he has this fever-cold, he'll wallow around, bury his head in my lap, ask me to sit on his bedside.
I make him tea whenever he takes ill, give him the mandatory hot water bottle, and he'll make all these stupid whiny noises and mope around and I try to be nice and pamper him and bah! When I'm sick....he sits out and watches the effing TV!
So he admitted "yeah I'm sorry I really didn't realise it", stood around like he was mourning someone's death, ...and then walked back to finish breakfast and watch TV! Hah!

Which is why I usually run to my mom's place the moment I take ill. And this weekend my folks weren't in town. Which made me cry harder -- the thought that this is what my life will be when the inenvitable happens. Soon as i realised after my third month of pregnancy that my nausea and daily puking wasn't going to stop (it enever did till almost teh day i delivered) and husband dear wasn't much help, I had packed up and gone off to my parents'. Wise decision, now, when I look back.

So this time, I packed off the husband and boisterous Sonny Boy to my in-laws, sent the nanny packing and slept my fever away, picking at curd rice in the evening. It was so much better having some quiet in the house and looking after myself. I didn't feel terrible either because there was no one in the house to ply me with tea or a hot water bag anyway.

NOTE: This post and the number of people Googling for "my husband doesn't care when I'm sick" prompted me to write a more recent post "How to care for you ill, sick, unwell, wife". I do hope husbands are looking up as much on the net as wives are! Husbands, if you're reading this, please read the tips on the other article. Wives, please hope, liek I do that the husband reads them

Snap jack back and a possible biopsy!

I have to keep telling myself life will get better. Or I might just forget that.
I'm right now lying on my back and typing out this post with hubby's laptop at an odd angle to my stomach and my thigh. I've a bad lower back spasm. Something i've had before and had been warned might happen again if i'm not careful. Such warnings swim in the back of your mind for very few days after the attack.Then you're back to bending over the wrong way because that's what comes very naturally. So does the pain.

My Sonny Boy's nanny isn't back at work yet. She's not taking my calls on her cellphone, neither is she returning them. That's a bad bad sign. Aunt's surgery next week and then my parents have taken it upon themselves to offer her post-operative care at their home. It's going  be be a month of hell for them. Feeling so bad for them and helpless. If nanny doesn't return, my resignation chances look clearer.

My parents have taken ill, along with Sonny. If there's a name to my degree of frustration, I don't know of it.
Sonny is so bad with a cough, congestion, runny nose and its happening all over again, over and over again. He's hardly been to playschool this whole month. Bangalore's weather is playing truant. I think it's showing -- teh effects of climate change.

Immunity -- that really gets me worried and talking all the time. It's something I have very little of and so does Sonny, I suppose.
I'm now being advised to take and give him septulin supplements, iron tonics etc etc.
If there is something that worries a mother, it has to be her child's illness -- whatever it is, and whatever degree it is.
I'm just blabbering. I've been at home, hardly have anyone to talk to, am feeling like shit.

Moreover, I had a harrowing week of breast swelling and inflammation -- something the doctors have, after an ultrasound scan, diagnosed as an infection -- but if it doesn't come down by Tuesday I might need a biopsy. I'm dreading it. I'm a very filmi person. As soon as doc said that, my mind did a flash forward. What if it's cancer? What if I die? What happens to Sonny? What are the things I want to do before I die?Suddenly my priorities seemed different. Top among them, I realised was to spend time with Sonny and other family members. Actually been so depressed and worried have been refusing to go to work. And snapping my back came as a great excuse -- though it only means I have more time on my back for gory imagination and more pain (and medication) than I can already handle. At least the back took the attention away from the boobs, was hubby's take on it all. Oh yeah, maybe that was the plan.

Right now doing a supine posting, with Sonny Boy's blocked rhythmic breathing for bedside company.

 

...and the doc said (very sweetly) "you're overweight by ONLY 10 kg" !!!!

Yes, it finally happened. The annual medical do at the workplace where they always tell you to stop eating fried food. To bring down your trigliceride levels. To start exercising. (Yes, I DON'T EXERCISE AT ALL.)

I'm glad i took the test. I'm not complaining. Poor souls from the office, they come and beg us to voluntarily take all tests (including some optionals) and follow it up with a doctor's consultation.

The moment I got on to the weiging scales, I was miserable. Most of my male colleagues at that time in the room weighed less than me and had such sick grins across their face.
:-( If THAT is not depressing, what is?

During my pregnancy I lost about five kilos (I was overweight by seven kilos pre-pregnancy). So i was superthrilled at one great side effect of my pregnancy was that i actually LOST weight. Most of my family and friends had expected me to pile on at least 15 kilos because i love sweets and fried foods. But Sonny Boy made sure mamma threw up everything she ate right through till she got to the labour room almost.

I even managed to stave off the weight after getting back to work, posibly because I was still nursing him. Then I stopped. In the initial months after the delivery I was on a rather strict "confinement diet" (any Indian woman from an orthodox and traditional family will know what i'm talking about). But I had lost my appetite (from post-partum Blues) and actually didn't get around to eating much. My dear dad and hubby would occassionally sneak in foods i craved -- chips, puffs, spicy veg stuffed buns from the bakery, and even a burger once!

But once i came back to work, i would sneak-eat bhel puri and samosas, and masala dosas outside. Sneak eat because I was blackmailed every time the lil one took ill to not eat any food from outside home, not eat fried and other spicy food. :-)

But once I stopped nursing him, it was almost like i broke free. I ate, rather binged, on all my old favourites with a vengeance.

Now, that's showing. I knew it all along that i was gaining weight. I wasnt fitting into clothes that i could wear after i had Sonny Boy. So there. The knowledge was there. But i wasn't ready to act on it.

But now, when the doctor very sweetly (and genuinely at that) smiled at me and cooly said "You're ONLY 10 kg overweight. But it's ok. You can cut down oily food, exercise and try lose one kilo a month" it was a stinging slap on my face.

I've started to pile on more vegetables on my plate. Am planning to slowly phase out rice at dinnertime (which is very difficult coz rice is my comfort food). Trying to see if I can eat fruit for dinner (over a period of time).... oh it's so difficult. Just when I decide this, people are suddenly visiting and bringing gifts of ...food!

But I will try. Control portion sizes, type of food, change eating timing..and yes EXERCISE. Fellow mothers, pray for me.