you're welcome world.
you should really be paying for what i'm about to share with you.

my husband is from india...and he loves to cook.
yeah, i kind of lucked out.

over the past 7 years of being married, i've definitely learned a lot of indian cooking, but my skill is nothing compared to his. for me cooking is still just a chore, but for him it's a passion.

there are so many indian foods that i never heard of or imagined growing up, but now i don't understand how i could have ever lived without them. they've become comfort foods to me. and the happy part is that most of them are kind of healthy too!



we do eat meat in our family, but just a couple times a week since there are so many great indian veg dishes. i could totally be vegetarian indian style...they have mastered it. my husband has totally broadened my vegetable horizons.

and now he has finally put together a collection of our favorite everyday indian recipes.

these are tried and true. i can promise they won't disappoint.
you better invest in a pressure cooker though.

so enjoy! maybe next we get get him to share his non-veg recipes! :)

VEG INDIAN RECIPES

i love the 4th of july in our neighborhood.
every year there is a neighborhood parade. we got together with friends, loaded up the kids, and picked a nice shady spot to watch.





jia was pretty excited about the candy this year, and the next most exciting thing was a guy sitting next to us to brought his pet bird to the fair. that was more interesting than most of the parade in my opinion.



in the evening we decided to have a little party at our place for international student friends so that they could experience an all american holiday.

we had a potluck, watched an american tale in the outdoor theater, and then we for a fireworks show.





jia managed to stay awake for the fireworks too. so all in all i'd say it was a pretty happy 4th for all! :) this may be our new regular tradition.

remember when i mentioned a pending project with the black thing on the wall by our patio?
well, welcome to our vertical garden!



ok, so it's not much to look at as of yet, but i have big dreams of a wall covered in greenery a few months/years down the line!



my husband's cousin is a landscape designer in mumbai. mumbai is a city packed with millions of people, so needless to say, there isn't a lot of room for spacious gardens. so he came up with this vertical garden concept that works really well! his gardens were amazing! i raved about it last time we were in india, so he sent us home with a kit basically to set it up here! i'm ashamed to say that it took me 1.5 years to get to this project,  but alas, it's finally up, and i can't wait for it to grow!

i chose to fill it with succulents because A) they're awesome. and B) they're one of the few things i can usually keep alive since they don't have huge watering demands.

all the plants are super small for now. i bought like 10 small succulents and basically cut them into pieces and rooted them to multiply them so that i wouldn't have to spend a small fortune on plants (i needed 96!) so it's a little slower going, but they seem to be taking off!

hopefully those little succulents will grow into something like this!



grow babies grow!