My Big Fat TRINI Family!

For those of you that don't know, my family is really big. I mean really, really big. Both my mom and dad have a lot of aunts and uncles so that gives them a lot of cousins. I can't even begin to count how many there are. But this is normal. All Indian families have ginormous families. I meet new family members very often and now, thanks to Facebook, I meet them even more often!
Our family is also spread out all over the world. From California to England, Canada to Trinidad, every where I turn, there's someone I'm related to! If you think about it, I probably have ancestors in India that I don't know of. If my great great grandfather migrated from India to Trinidad, what if he left behind some brothers and/or sisters in India? If so, that means I have distant cousins in India! I could be related to the Bachchan family! I wonder if that would make me rich...
Before I forget, I love my family and I love being part of my family. I don't mean to call anyone fat by the title of this blog. I just wanted to emphasize the amount of Indians there are that are related to me. However, I do see a trend in big bellied Indians as age increases. This is only because we have delicious food. Here's a new word to add to your Trin-glish dictionary: 
Dahl-belly Indian: [dall beh-lee indian] equivalent of a beer belly or beer gut in the US.
But that's a whole other post! :)
The following picture was taken this summer. This is probably not even a quarter of my family. It would be very difficult to get everyone in one spot from both parents' side. 

There is never an end of the line to your family. It keeps going on and on and on whether we know about it or not. 
So how far back have you gone into your family tree? Feel free to share your experiences!

Do Squirrels Make Noise?

Found this in my back yard this morning. I'm curious to know if the squaking noise I heard is actually coming from the squirrel or a nearby bird. See the squirrel there, right in the middle of the screen. If anyone knows, please fill me in! :D

Simply Trini Cooking

I found this link that has proven to be very useful to me. Just wanted to share for anyone interested in learning new Trini recipes or interested in adding a new twist on current recipes. I can't wait to try the recipe for fudge! So fattening but that's why we workout right??? Enjoy!! :D


Path to many future food comas --> http://www.simplytrinicooking.com/#axzz1dqCd8NlZ

Things That Make Me SMH...

There's a lot of things that make me SMH, but lately I feel like I've been doing it way too often. For those that don't know SMH means Shaking My Head as in shaking your head left and right and saying to yourself "I disapprove" or "that is so stupid" or "why????"
I don't mean to offend anyone, but I have to SMH at the video to LMFAO's "I'm Sexy and I Know It." I felt so traumatized after seeing that. If you haven't seen it yet I don't suggest watching it, but if you want to know what I'm talking about then you can watch. I mean, I'm not going to lie and say I don't like the song. It's quite catchy. Every time I hear it though I cringe and think what have we, as a society, come to? And what in the world are we going to think of next? It seriously worries me because if this is what we look at for entertainment, then in 10-15 years, what are our children and grand children going to be looking at? I really don't want my kids to grow up in a place where men shake their junk on camera for a living.
I also SMH when people "try" to save calories by drinking diet soda but still have french fries or eat a salad with lots of dressing and then complain about their weight. I mean really??? Who are you trying to kid here? You really think switching from regular soda to diet soda is going to make you lose weight? (No.) That dream body comes with hard work and determination. You have to want it first to make it happen. Once you want it and you know what your goal is, then strive to do anything to make it happen. Don't just make one change, make many changes.
To the people that post their every move on their Facebook statuses: here's a big fat SMH! Who wants to know your itinerary for the next hour except for maybe your stalker?? "Just got done with homework, now time to eat then shower and chillax time!" Also, to anyone who likes that person's status or comments on it...SMH!
So what makes you deem a situation SMH-able? I hope I didn't offend anyone and if I do, I never intended to, I was just trying to be funny. Sorry in advance!
Peace

Chicken Korma?

Hi all! I recently tried out this recipe called chicken korma. I got this bottle of curry paste that claimed to be chicken korma and I was so tempted to try it out. I had chicken korma at an Indian/Pakistan restaurant and fell in love with it so that's why I had to try this recipe. The bottle came with it's own recipe so I just followed that one. But, once a Trini, always a Trini. I used our bottle of green seasoning (Chinese celery blended with garlic and bandanya [don't know the English to that but AKA, shadow benny]) because we Trinis just can't get enough of that stuff to season our meat. So all you have to do is brown the chicken with a bit of oil and then add the bottle of curry paste to the pot and let it simmer until it's done cooking...and that's exactly what I did. And to my relief it turned out great! I was a bit skeptical because after adding the bottle of curry paste to my chicken, this really not-supposed-to-be-coming-from-food-smell filled the air. It definitely didn't smell like curry at all but more like a vinegar smell. I thought to myself, this is not chicken korma!!! After several minutes of panicking and wondering what to do I decided to just let it simmer for a while. My sister told me to add more onions and cilantro because you can never have too much of that. Lo and behold! It started smelling a lot better! 
About an hour after I started cooking, I turned off the stove and decided to taste this sucker. What met my taste buds was a very tangy but sweet flavor. The onions were very much needed to add texture and to not just have a boring dish of boiled sweet and tangy chicken. It didn't hit the spot that I wanted when I had the chicken korma at the Indian restaurant, but overall, everyone was happy with the meal. I served it with basmati rice and instead of naan, I found something way better. Because I can never find restaurant quality naan in the Indian groceries, I used tortillas! I just butter the pan lay one tortilla flat and then butter the side that faces up, wait until you get air bubbles then flip it over and wait a few more mins. It's kind of fattening, but really delicious if you want to risk it. I took a picture of the chicken with the rice, but not with the tortilla-naan to show what it looks like. Sorry :( But, I hope it inspires you to make something similar. Peace! 

The finished product! :D

You Know You're a Trini When...

You make a drink and ice cream with peanutbutter but you never put it on your bread.

You put ketchup and pepersauce on your pizza.

You show disappointment by sucking your teeth (steupsing).

You know what is a "zaboca."

You call fries "CHIPS."

You dip your bread in your morning coffee.

You call all hard candies "sweeties."

You respond "Doh mamaguy meh" when someone pays you a compliment.

You know what "mamaguy" means.

You know the meaning of several indian words: eg. "dahl", "bahgee","channa", "barra", "chunkae", "bowgee" and use them in every language. (and actually believe them to be the correct "English" terms).

http://www.stouteweb.com/trini/jokes.htm

Love at First Bite: Apple Cream Cheese Bundt Cake

Seeing that I will have a lot of time on my hands this fall, I decided that I wanted to try out a few recipes that I've had my eye on. Last week I tried baking an apple-cream cheese bundt cake. Well, I didn't really have my eye on this one because it was the first time I heard of a cake like that. My parents received a humongous slice from one of their clients and brought it home for us to sample. At first sight, it didn't look like a cake that I would eat. It was topped with a caramel glaze and pecans. Sounds yummy, but I wouldn't have come running to it. After tasting, it was love at first bite. :) It was very moist and reminded me of Thanksgiving. There were a lot of warm spicy flavors and the cream cheese filling complimented it perfectly. I got hold of the recipe and found out that it came from Southern Living magazine. It was part of their collection called "10 Tempting Apple Desserts." A few days later, I was all over that recipe. Total preparation time took me about 45 minutes. It's easier for me to put everything together if I have all of my ingredients spread out in front of me. That way I eliminate time running back and forth to the refrigerator or pantry. Baking time took exactly one hour and fifteen minutes as it said on the recipe, but to my displeasure, cooling time was two hours. That meant I had to wait two hours to add the glaze and that I had to wait to eat it. :( So I decided to just let it cool properly overnight. In the morning, as far as I could tell, the cake looked perfect and I proceeded with making the glaze. I didn't have a bundt pan so I improvised with a rectangular baking dish. That was a bad idea because when I poured the glaze over the cake (while it was still in the baking dish) it pooled in the corners of the dish and I had to spoon it over the surface to get one even layer. My glaze needed a little more time on the stove to melt because it gave the cake a candy like crunch that wasn't supposed to be there. All in all, everyone said they loved it. Probably because it was made by yours truly...just kidding. :) I hope they were being honest because I loved it and I plan on making it again! If you decide to try it out or any other recipe in the apple collection, let me know how it turns out! Peace! :D

For this recipe and others click here: http://www.southernliving.com/food/entertaining/tempting-apple-dessert-recipes