Why she doesn't need your approval for a career after she birthed a baby

A smirk of the lips. A sigh of resignment. Or a nod of disbelief.

These are the frequent things you might face once you have a baby in your arms and you STILL say you want to go back to work! #JustIndianThings

Let's list the type of people you will meet when you try to squeak out that you want a job again, while the tiny one pulls at your breast hungrily.


1. The scandalized mother-in-law

This has to of course, be the first in a long list of people you will meet. She might be supportive but secretly scandalized or she might be plan angrily scandalized when you say this. Whichever way you put it, she is one of the first people to inform your husband that  "The child is so small. How can she even find the heart to be so cruel"? while your husband puts up his feet on the sofa and breathes in the aroma of the biriyani wafting in from the kitchen. His laptop lies unopened, as he braces himself to prepare for the next day at work. Nobody questions whether he should go to work or not.

2. The well-meaning aunty

You sit demurely while the neighbourhood aunty gossips with your MIL about the disintegrating marriage of your mutual friend. You nod patiently, while hoping your baby gets a good rest today and takes a break from all the crying. The aunty chews the Marie biscuits loudly, and you stare  at the lone particle stuck in her loud teeth. She guffaws loudly as she reminisces the constant fights she has heard between the couple and manages to aim the particle straight onto your forehead, oblivious. You wipe your forehead, disgusted and finally the conversation comes around to you. Her eyes round up like an owl, when she hears what you have planned. You get an earful of well meaning but secretly manipulative advices about why you are wrong, and she finally leaves after you are covered in a nice paste of spit and guilt.

3. The disapproving neighbourhood couple

You've seen them around the neighbourhood. The wife is always there to pack her husband off in the mornings with the tiffin. He moves on without a backward glance at her. She pretends she doesn't mind. He comes home at night, and you gawk at them through the window. He watches TV while she labours in the kitchen. You imagine the neglected wife having a secret affair with a guy she met on Facebook who showers her with the attention her own husband never gives her. You send a mental prayer to God Almighty for your own husband, who never fails to appreciate you and is the designated "vegetable chopper." of your house.
They end up visiting you and realizing your intentions of working again. All you see of them is their retreating back, as the husband shepherds the wife out the door hurriedly before you can corrupt her with your modern "feminist" ideas.

4. The confused husband.

Your husband loves you. He always has. He wants you to be happy, but he also wants to have a stable home with a good environment. He knows that two working professionals is better than one in this day and age. He also knows that a child needs his mother. He doesn't know what to say anymore, and he has decided to keep silent to avoid speaking on the subject at all. He knows the silence won't last long, but he vows to drag it out as much as he can. Your baby gurgles in his arms and your partner giggles, forgetting he was ever embroiled in this controversy in the first place.

5. The reluctant you.

You want your baby. You want your job. You constantly struggle between the two, but you can never make up your mind. You firmly advocate going back to work in front of society, because you know that the moment you weaken, they shall pounce on it and you won't ever see the inside of an office again for 5 years. But in private, you sit on your bed and look at your beautiful baby and wonder. You hope and pray you will be able to stay apart from her. You cry a bit, then look at her again. Do you want her to grow up, see you and feel like her mother didn't live up to her potential? OR do you want her to see you as a strong woman who faced the world for her, built a career AS WELL as took care of her?

You wipe off your tears, and shakily let out a breath as you prepare yourself for the world. You start accepting that no matter how much you love your child, being a mother alone won't make you happy. You need other aspects of your life to be full as well. And nobody will accept you unless you accept that part of yourself.

She offers you a faint giggle, as if she knows. You smile back fondly. 

Easy Cream Puffs in the microwave for the novice baker!!

Easy Cream Puffs in the microwave for the novice baker!!

Hello everyone! Thank you for stopping by on my blog. You are about to witness the most creamy and beautiful light slices of heaven when you bake these cream puffs and wow your friends and family away!

I am a novice baker. By novice, I mean…I am literally cooking this for the first time in my life and I am on the wrong side of 25 :D. But I believe in learning every day and I would love for you to learn with me! This recipe is mainly for all such people like me who haven’t practiced a lot but would love to show off their baking skills to their loved ones. Because baking is the biggest stress buster, am I right? And the feeling of your husband stuffing himself silly with your food while he loosens his pants…ah…nothing sexier! 

This recipe does NOT use an oven. It instead uses a microwave on a convection (oven) setting.  So the temperatures are based on my own experience Feel free to add any suggestions or comments below.

Puffs

These kind of puffs are known as Choux pastry apparently, which sounds difficult but it really isn’t! It is a really unique kind because it doesn’t use a chemical agent to rise. It rises solely because of the air trapped between the eggs and water, and the steam. However, it WILL rise. Only if you trust your pastry will it trust you back. :D

Ingredients

½ cup water

½ cup milk (full fat is best)

8 Tbsp melted butter

4 Tbsp sugar

¼ Tsp salt

1 cup white flour

½ tsp vanilla essence

4 eggs

Instructions. 

In a deep bottom saucepan, add the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt. Stir continuously while at medium heat and bring to a boil.  Then remove the pan from heat, and add in your flour all at once.

Continue stirring until all the flour is incorporated into the mixture. Place the pan back over the stove for a minute while stirring continuously to release the moisture and make a firm smooth dough. Eventually, your dough should come together into a firm, smooth, creamy ball. 

Transfer the dough into another bowl and wait for it to cool for around 15 minutes. After it has cooled, add 1 egg at a time and mix the dough thoroughly each time. (A lot of recipes at this stage advice you to use an electric whisker to mix your dough well. If you don’t have an electric whisker (like me again!), just mix it vigorously with a wooden spoon each time you add the eggs). 

The more you whisk your batter, the more your puff will rise up since it depends on the air you manage to incorporate into your batter. So get those arms working as hard as you can! Or you can simple use your electric whisker and pooh pooh at me from up there :D

Once you are done with this, you should have a mixture having a ribbon like consistency i.e when you raise your spoon, the batter lifts up like a ribbon. It basically stands for soft, creamy, buttery consistency. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it looked! Add vanilla essence at this point.

At this stage you would need a piping bag to pipe the pastry onto the baking sheet. Again, something I don’t have! So take a part of the batter with your small spoon, grab another spoon, place the batter in the middle and use them both to make a smooth ball. Too complicated?! Just simply take the batter with a small spoon and place it on your baking tray one at a time. Keep a distance between the spoonfuls as shown in the picture! 

Now, in a routine oven you would preheat it to get it to the right temperature before placing in your pastry. But since this is a microwave, simply place your pastry inside, and turn the setting of your microwave to convection at a temperature of 170 degrees Celsius for a period of 20-25 minutes.

Open your microwave and check if done be observing the golden brown color of your puffs! They should by now be amazingly golden, light, airy and perfect! If they aren’t, then just keep them in your microwave for 5 more minutes and then take them out. (timings might differ based on different brands of microwaves or so I’ve noticed)

After you’ve gotten them all out, place them in a proper serving tray to cool down. Smack your hand away as it sneaks up to eat the delightful puffs. Or don’t. I once ate an entire batch of cookie dough before I could bake any, so no judgement here. Let’s move on to the filling.

Cream Filling. 

Since this is a classic French dessert, most of the recipes advice you to fill it with whipped cream. Whipped cream requires heavy cream to start with, and then you whip that to get to the consistency of whipped cream peaks. Heavy cream is not easily available in India, so I had to make another alternative filling for the cream puffs. Don’t worry! These are just as delicious, and slightly healthier too since it uses milk and not cream!

Ingredients 

2 cups milk

6 Tbsp sugar

½ Tsp salt

3 Tbsp corn flour

½ tsp vanilla essence

3 egg yolks

1 large egg

3 Tbsp melted butter

Instructions

Add the sugar, full egg, egg yolk, cornflour, vanilla essence and salt in a bowl and whisk together. There should be absolutely NO lumps in the mixture if you want smooth cream filling!

Place the milk in a saucepan on medium heat and bring to a boil. As soon as the milk starts to bubble up, pour half of the milk slowly into the egg mixture while CONSTANTLY whisking. This step will temper the eggs. Once that is done, add the whole mixture back into the saucepan with the rest of the milk. 

This filling is essentially a custard, so continuously stir the mixture to avoid clumps forming. Heat it until the custard comes to a boil, after which you should lower the heat and cook for a further two minutes at low heat.

Hollow Centre for the cream

Remove the saucepan from heat, and add in the butter. Whisk it continuously until it is completely incorporated into the custard mix.Pour the custard into a bowl, and cover it with a plastic wrap to prevent the film of fat forming on the top. 

Let it cool to room temperature, and then set it in the refrigerator for chilling. This filling is going to thicken as it sets. So don’t worry if it seems a bit liquid to you in the beginning.

Once, its cooled…just open your pastry puffs by slicing off the top, place the cream inside and cover up the top again. Again, this step is for people who don’t have a piping bag. If you do have one, just pipe your cream into your puffs easily. The cream puffs will be hollow from the middle so that you can fill the cream in. Either way, you end up with cream filled puffs sitting exquisitely on your serving tray.

Cream filled Puffs!

Your magical little drops of beauty are ready. I see the gush of praises making way down your winding lane. And here they come knocking at your tiny kitchen door!

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Why I don't visit my doctor more often!

I stand hesitatingly in front of the rather formidably sized old woman, sitting at the desk pompously.

"Appointment liya?" She asks with disdain, as if confident of my incompetence to have done so.

"No," I said humbly, confirming her assumption. She gave me a triumphant glare. 

Aunty - 1. Me - 0

A pained smile was directed at me next. The kind where you actually want to spit at someone, but company policies tell you to smile, so you compromise and end up looking constipated. 

She tore a piece of paper off her book, throwing it at me with vigour. I caught it at the last moment, my reflexes slowed by my fever and snot filled nose. 

"Come when called," she said shortly. I nodded meekly. She moved on to the next poor chap in line, as I made my way over to a couch in the corner of the waiting room. 

The doctor hadn't come in yet. It was past eleven and I was beginning to feel faint from the fever. I plopped down between an old man staring into space, and a middle aged woman reading one of those glossy magazines they place in such places for you to feel classy.

 I snorted at the thought. It turned out to be a poor choice of action, since green phlegm made its way down my nose violently. I hastily retrieved my handkerchief and wiped off my nose, as the woman moved away from me irritatedly. 

"These doctors!" Said I, hoping to make conversation. "Would it kill them to be on time?" 

The old man continued to stare into space. I ventured a glance to where he was looking, but found only white walls staring back at me. 

"Where are you from, Uncle?" I tried again. 

"Waha jaha koi ata jata nahi,"he said sadly. 

I blinked. The woman beside me gave a giggle. 

"Right, right," I said, falling silent. 

"Do you know? I was a lawyer myself," said the old man , now noticing me for the first time and seeing me as a potential target for bragging. He seized the chance. 

"Were you now?" I asked, genuinely interested. "What cases did you contest?"

He laughed, a low throaty sound from deep inside. "Murder!"

I nodded, astonished. "Did you really??!"

"Yes. In fact, I'll let you in on a secret"

"Oh. Tell me Uncle," I pleaded, imagining him standing in a courtroom and berating a witness smartly. 

He grinned, then turned serious. "Do you see that young girl over there?" 

I turned and saw a girl in a red dress, sitting near the corner and looking very bored. Her phone was constantly beeping, and she kept glancing at it. 

"Yes?"

"She's going to be murdered in this room, in the next five minutes."

"What??!"

"Yes, I got a call from an unknown number. He asked me to be in this spot in this waiting room , exactly at this time. He said at 11.20 am, she would be dead. He must've known I was a high profile lawyer."

I looked at him disbelievingly. 

"Uncle, what illness do you have? Is it mental?" I asked wisely, suddenly having an image of him in an asylum with yellow flowers on his bald head, as he played an imaginary violin.

He frowned at me, abruptly deciding I was no longer interesting. He turned away, seating himself at as far from me as humanly possible. 

I chuckled, going back to browsing through my phone. 

At exactly 11.20 am, I heard a scream. I couldn't believe my ears! 

 I looked up, terrified and alert. I sensed the old man, looking intently at the scene. 

Chaos. Screams. Cries. Flurry of people. White coats. Injections. Shaking. Yelling. Screams. And finally a thud. 

It all happened in slow motion. 

The girl was dead. 

I let out a scream of horror. It burned through the glass walls of the waiting room, my voice hoarse and grey. I couldn't bring myself to stop, however much I wanted to. I closed my eyes furiously. 

"ENOUGH!" 

I opened my eyes, gasping. The receptionist was standing in front of me, her face a picture of anger and annoyance. I gulped, and looked around. 

I blinked. 

Nobody was there in the waiting room except me. 

I turned my eyes back to the receptionist. 

"Where are the others?" I whispered. 

She raised her eyes to the high heavens, as if praying for patience. "There is nobody here, Ms Samara. You've been talking to the air on your left side for quite some time now. The doctor will see you now."

I nodded timidly. She glared at me accusingly. "And for the last time, Take..Your..Medication!! " She jabbed a finger into my chest with each word as she spoke. 

"You can win this fight. Stay strong," she added, looking into my eyes firmly, as kindness seeped into her voice. 

Aunty -2. Me -0

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