Butternut Squash Parathas and the River Love

Happiness during childhood for me is usually associated with certain activities that we loved doing and it is a comforting feeling revisiting them. Rivers are one such special place. Rives have this amazing soothing quality that brings the happiness any time I visit. Swimming, playing, fishing - we did it all of this on our trips to the Cauvery river. Not to say we don't have a river around where we live now. Of course we do, the beautiful Potomac river provides all of them and more. Over the weekend, with the weather beautiful, breezy with absolutely no hint of humidity we had the best few days of the summer and made an impromptu trip to the Potomac river. The kids had fun splashing around, getting wet, throwing stones and having fun. We failed to pack a picnic basket and hence had to leave early, all the splashing and running in the water made everyone hungry.

I never thought fishing was an interesting activity but also realize most of the folks who fish are sloppy too. They leave their reels,wires,soda cans and candy wrappers lying around :( I bet it is not just the fishing folks that leave stuff behind but the wires are probably most dangerous to the wildlife. We did our small little bit to clean a small area around the place we were visiting.

The postman brought a surprise last week and I was happy to see this lovely package from dear Sandeepa. She knew exactly what would bring smiles of joy. Lovely gifts for both DD and DD2. Notice Little S's artwork?

Green Earth
Learning to Speak Climate - Op-Ed column by Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times
Friedman's words "Our kids are going to be so angry with us one day. We’ve charged their future on our Visa cards."
struck a nerve and sums up beautifully how reckless we have been.

As for the recipe, this came about because of my unplanned purchases from the grocery store result, one too many butternut squash sitting in the fridge. Now that mom is in charge of the kitchen, if she is not with me during grocery shopping I guess what we might need. I guessed we might need butternut squash again this week when there was already an acorn squash and butternut squash. To tell you the truth I could not resist the tiny butternut squash I saw instead of the usual giant ones that I find there. I was not looking forward to grating half a squash, decided to steam them instead. Baking or grilling the squash will work great too. Soft and fluffy and absolutely delicious parathas were the end result. The dough was pretty loose and soggy. This would have been an absolutely perfect for a picnic near the river.

Serves:4 Makes:15 Medium Sized parathas
Ingredients
1. 1/2 of a fairly big Butternut Squash steam cooked
2. 2 1/2 cups Wheat flour
3. 1/2 tbsp of red chili powder (optional)
4. salt to taste

Method
1. Mash the steamed squash (ours was pretty watery, best if this is not very watery)
2. Add the Wheat flour, salt and chili powder and bring together to form a dough.
3. Add a bit more wheat flour if too soggy.
4. Set it aside in the refrigerator for about 2hours or so to harden a bit
5. Roll into lime sized balls, roll, dust generously with dry flour
6. Fry on a tava (girdle) first on one side and then on the other.
7. Baste with some oil on the sides.

Absolutely soft and fluffy parathas ready.