Thursday, May 21, 2009

Cooking Lesson (part of service activity)

CAULIFLOWER-CARROT CURRY (IN TOMATO SAUCE)
- Nari Soundarrajan
@ State College May 2009
Accompanies: Naan or roti or steamed rice, quinoa etc.

INGREDIENTS (for 4 people)
Vegetables
Cauliflower ½ to 1 head Remove stalks, break into small 1 in pieces
Carrots 1 large Chop into small bits, or ½ in small rounds
Green chilis 1 or 2 Serrano peppers; chop in ¼ in chunks
(or chop fine if you want to sneak it in)
Cilantro 2-3 stalks chop fine, or pinch to small pieces
Onions 1 med chop fine or slice into long thin pieces
Tomatoes 2 medium Chop fine;
(or 1 small can of paste for laziness or big hurry )
SPICES
Cumin seed 1 tsp
Garlic cloves 1 or 2 chopped fine or minced
Ginger 1 inch piece chopped fine or minced
Asafoetida ½ tsp or less powdered
Dry red chilis 1 or 2 Only if NOT using green chilis
1/4 tsp salt
1-2 Tbsp vegetable oil or butter if you prefer rich taste
½ cup water or vegetable broth
1 Tbsp curry powder (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS
  • 1. In a skillet or wok heat oil over medium heat.
  • 2. Add the cumin seeds, as they start browning, add onions. (don’t let cumin blacken)
  • 3. Cook, stirring often, until the onions are golden, ~ about 5 minutes.
  • 4. Reduce the heat a little, stir in the garlic, ginger and green chilis and cook for 1-2 minutes.
  • 5. Add the tomatoes and cook for 2 mins. (optional)
  • 6. Add the cauliflower and carrots, and stir for 1 min. Sprinkle some water.
  • 7. Cover and simmer until the vegetables are tender, 10-15 minutes. Stir once in 3-4 minutes lightly to prevent charring at the bottom.
  • 8. Season with salt. Add the cilantro, switch off the heat and cover with the lid. When you open again, the flavor would be really uplifting.
  • 9. Spoon the rice into individual soup bowls and top with the curry. Serve immediately.
Pictures will be added soon at: http://naridon2000.blogspot.com

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Repost about Bank Stress Tests

This post is not about food or travels or pennstate. Instead, it is a repost of something I wrote on Magsformiles.blogspot.com
Exhibit A; Stress test results reported as generally positive (all major news sources). One link: CNN-Money
Exhibit B: Details of a new twist into the stress test results, as reported by the WSJ.

The WSJ reports a new twist about the recently concluded "stress tests" on US banks. It was reported that Bank of America, Wells Fargo, GMAC and Citigroup rounded up the top four of the nine banks that needed altogether a combined 74.6 Billion dollars of additional capital. However if you look at the column worst case loss scenario in the NYT CNN-Money article, you see that Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells (all 3 need addl. capital) and JP Morgan (no addl capital needed) altogether could lose up to $420 billion. That is interesting!!

The Federal Reserve significantly scaled back the size of the capital hole facing some of the nation's biggest banks shortly before concluding its stress tests, following two weeks of intense bargaining. But the guv-meant, also made math errors! (see below in read)

In addition, according to bank and government officials, the Fed used a different measurement of bank-capital levels than analysts and investors had been expecting, resulting in much smaller capital deficits.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124182311010302297.html#mod=todays_us_nonsub_page_one

the Fed used a different measurement of bank-capital levels than analysts and investors had been expecting, resulting in much smaller capital deficits....

...Government officials worried San Francisco-based Wells might file a lawsuit contesting the Fed's findings.

By the way if you look into the Interactive, I would say that Amex looks strongest in terms of exposure. However futures earnings are not estimate here so how they do in the coming years would be an interesting prediction to make.

Other interesting excerpts:

SunTrust Banks Inc. also persuaded the Fed to significantly reduce the size of its estimated capital gap to $2.2 billion, after identifying mathematical errors in the Fed's earlier calculations, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Poor PNC .. but not too bad ,....
PNC Financial Services Group Inc., saw a capital hole materialize at the last minute. As recently as Wednesday, PNC executives were under the impression they wouldn't need to find any new capital, according to people familiar with the matter. Thursday morning, the Fed informed PNC that it had a $600 million shortfall.

The whole article is a great read.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Pita

Courtesy Flickr User

For those of who know me, you know by now that I really like love taking pictures of food, of prepared food as well as of raw material under preparation. One of the foods from a non-Indian cuisine that I love = pita. So when I heard that a friend of mine was into pitas and is going to France, I quickly googled out restaurants serving pita based foods in Paris [I was procrastinating] and whipped up this post.



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Mashup Link

I also ran a youtube search on Pita sandwich recipes and found the one that is not too boastful about their recipe. I dislike sites/video that overpromote their recipe as BEST BEST BEST, whatever. lol.

Pita making videos


Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Change Travel Plans for the FLU or Weather

THE SWINE FLU STORY
AIRLINE FLIGHT CHANGE INFORMATION

CDC TRAVEL ADVISORY

To change your travel plans access the website link provided or call the reservations number of the airline. All information provided was checked for accuracy but if any errors are present please post a comment and we will try to fix it asap.

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