Like I have stated in my personal info that I am also a passionate cook, there are times when I experiment with dishes without fear as my husband eats lovingly all i cook. So during one such experiments I came up with the following beef recipe. I myself don't eat red meat but love cooking for my husband.

I had not kept a name for my beef curry so I guess I will call it Random Beef Curry.Below are the ingredients for Random Beef Curry.

Ingredients for marinade: 

Beef - 1/2 kg
Onion - 1 large sliced fine
Corainder - 1 cup chopped fine
Green Cardamom - 4
Cinnamon Stick - 1" inch
Peppercorns - 6
Green Chilli - 1 non spicy variety chopped fine
Soya Sauce - 1 tblspn
Tomato Ketchup - 2 tblspn
Vinegar - 1 tblspn
Ginger Garlic Paste - 2 tblspn
Sambar powder - 2tspns
Meat Masala - 1 tspn
Salt as per taste

Ingredients for curry:

Onions - 2 large sliced fine
Potato - 2 small sliced like french fries
Tomato - 1 large sliced
Oil  - 1/2 cup
Salt as per taste

Method:

Take a heavy base vessel with a small mouth, add oil. To the hot oil add the potatoes & fry till brown, keep it aside. In the same oil add the onions & fry well till browned, to this add the tomatoes and continue to fry till oil leaves the sides.

Now add the beef and fry on high flame continuously to seal the meat, once the meat is sealed and the aroma of the marinade starts to waft add water as per your liking ( I like my curry slightly thick so I add only a cup or two of water). 

After adding water seal the vessel with a tight lid and over the lid on all sides with a silver foil just like we do while cooking on dum. Cook for an hour with closed lid, then check the curry if you are satisfied with the consistency the garnish with fresh coriander & serve hot with bread or steamed rice.

It time only when He decides it is

I guess the only thing that I have been passionate about & sincerely wanted all my growing years was to become a mother. I nourished this dream day after day, even before I could get married. I would hold my sisters son close to my bosom & feel the satisfaction of knowing what a mom must feel when she cuddles her child. This experience would make my desire for a child even more intense.

I completed my Masters in Counseling Psychology in May 2005 & there after rushed my parents to find me a suitable match. I met my loving husband in July 2006 and was soon married in November of 2007. My husband asked me soon after marriage what was that I wanted of him & I replied I want our child.

As every married couple feels that conception is easy, so did we but were disappointed when month after month there was no news of our good news :( That's when I started to panic though my husband was quite chilled out about the whole thing. There after started my endless rounds of gynac & fertility test visits. I was probed & poked, scolded at for being overweight & wanting a child.

All reports used to be normal & clear, with the only advice being that I has to lose weight to conceive, but being a professional and add to that living in the suburbs would leave me with no time to exercise or gym. After much hair splitting and contemplation I decided to quit my job & devote time to gaining my appropriate weight. I was successful in losing some weight but my goal was still far away.

Everywhere I went I would see pregnant ladies or young couples with new borns and this would act as painful reminder of what i wanted but others had. The last nail in the coffin for me was when we went to visit a relative who had just delivered a boy, as soon as we entered the room the mother hid her baby under her stole on the pretext of feeding the child. Well I was no mother but I did know the difference between a child that was feeding and a child that is asleep. I came home and cried for hours in my husbands embrace, he also was pained by the incident.

With the struggles for having a child comes a lot of free n unwanted advice. There were many who assumed that we were sitting idle & did not do anything to try for a child. One day my husband sat me down and told me that before a child & after a child there is only 'you' & 'me'. That having a child is a joy but that eventually when the bird flies out of the nest, it would be only him & me for each other, and that I should believe that now is the time that we are with each other. He saying this eased my pain a little, but we didnt give up on our efforts, in April 2012 I conceived after a round of IUI but then again it was not HIS will for it to carry forward & i lost our child in the 5th week itself.

I cried for days together, until one day a realization dawned on me that I had done all I could, i took all the precautions i could, also that a child was the one thing that only God can gift a man no matter how many fertility treatments one takes. I accepted this fact, became more thankful to God for everything that He gave me rather than concentrating on the things that He had not given me.

 A suddenly Lo n Behold during the most unexpected time of my life where I had stopped all fertility medicines and was going through a rough patch as my parents was ailing, I am blessed with a child. My initial reaction were tears & screams of joy, followed by apprehensions. I have sailed safely into the 6th month of my pregnancy, but still on the days that I don't feel my baby move my heart is gripped by fear. I have to literally peel my fear away.

But then I realize that nothing is in my hands, not even the things that I feel are because It is time only when HE decides it is.