2011 Badam Adventure!(ops again)

There are certain things in life, which inspires a person to take(taste?@#) adventure time and again..same is my relation to the king of nuts, Badam.. yes u heard it right..its back again.
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I felt quite bored that day..I was browsing some website...and lol !!..my eyes struck on : Badam Cake..Its been a year since I moved here..but that day.. my eyes pondered on the Electric Oven..it had been a storage area for my cookware..

I checked if I got all ingredients..I seemed to have most of them..I thought..I should give a try and not bother about the outcome..(anyways..I am not the first person to taste it!!?) I browsed the site and managed to make the batter for this eggless Badam Cake.

Now it is experiment time. First time I ever operated oven..I removed all cookware and cleaned the oven..I put the batter on baking tray, preheated the oven. In the mean time, i took a break to watch TV...I left the patio door open, for cool breeze to flow in..Wow.!! what a wonderful eve it was...it was smelling pleasant..the fragrance of spring...

Suddenly I felt some slight burning smell. like that of the oil..I wondered what it could be..and thought I would check the oven once...my goodness!! There was something burning inside the oven..since it was an unused, new oven..I thought there was some plastic sticker or so that started baking inside..I really didn’t know what to do..we have a portable fan..I immediately got it 'ON' and left the oven door open. I could see a blaze of fire inside....thoughts rushed in my head....Ops the fire alarm, followed my Mamu!! oh no!!..Should i call my hubby??..oh no!!..he'll go mad..I saw myself amidst smoke from oven.. I quickly realized the fan was helping the flames and quickly turned the fan off. I took a closer look at oven..and saw there was some paper, lying on the upper coil of the oven...I immediately grabbed a pair of tongs and pulled out the burning fire..I rushed and threw the burning flame at patio..there were ashes of the paper all around the home..

Well. all such things are common in life..I thought..I must not worry or get scared abut this..I grabbed the cake pan..took guidance from my sister in law and let the cake to bake..

In the mean time, I cleaned the mess ,. and made the house clueless of what happened..It was evening time, and my hubby came home..he immediately said.." hey, I feel some burning smell...what happened"..( oh no, he is very sensitive to smell...hmm..) I smiled and said..today is an adventure day for him..he said "Is it badam halwa!!??" I laughed and said.."It’s an upgraded version...Introducing..Badam cake!!". I can never forget his reaction.., in the mean time., I called my parents at NY..They wished my hubby - all the best( "for eating cake")..I opened the oven and gave the first cake piece to him..

My hubby said, it was more like bread..Guess what? I realized I forgot to add sugar to the cake..But we did like it.

I immediately put cream cheese, sprinkled sweetener, little honey and some jam..It was indeed good..

But in the end, I realized the ingredients I used were low fat, no cholesterol stuff.. It was indeed a eggless, low fat cake..Wow.!!

Here goes the recipe..

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Dry Ingredients :

3 cups maida

2 cups ghee roasted powdered badam

Baking soda 1.5 tea spoon

1 pinch salt

2 cardamon + 1 table spoon sugar : powdered

Wet Ingredients

1 table spoon butter(melted)

1 cup sweet concentrated lassi (Brand: Deep)(Fat free)

Badam paste( peeled soaked badam + milk : blend to smooth paste)

1 spoon honey

Mix the wet ingredients into a smooth uniform mixture.

Mix the dry ingredients evenly and slowly add the liquid ingredients.

Preheat the oven at 350F, cook for 30min at 350F.

Icing :

Low calories sweetener.

Fat free cream cheese.

Mix the icing mixture well and spread it on the cake. May spread strawberry jam as well..

Could decorate with berries, cherries etc.

Njoy the Badam adventure..mmm..yummy!!

NTSC Providers and HDMI setting for Dish HD+

We got our 3 year old  42'' SONY Bravia LED Tv from US to India .We had airtel HD connection with us then in India. Airtel guys don't seem to support NTSC format.we used airtel HD box ,with RGB cable and watched our newly arrived TV in black n white for a few days :) . Airtel uses PAL signals.

We found out that NTSC is supported only by Dish TV, Videocon, Tata sky and few others.After some analysis we decided to go with Dish HD. We got the dish antenna installed and the HD box in place.We never got the signal the first day. The next day the dish tech support branch came and tried to finish the setup.Here is what we did to get the signal.

The Dish HD+  set top box is connected to the cable antenna and the hdmi cable from the set top box is to be connected to the HDMI port of the TV.

Two instances when the below setup was useful for us :

1. When you connect your Dish HD+ for the first time, you would get just the audio signal and the TV would say - unsupported signal/format :  You will have trouble to view Dish receiver menu, since its video signal HDMI settings are not compatible for this TV.

2. The last time, I removed the VC card[viewing card] and tried to place it inside the set top box.Please note, the sim card should face down, with the card number and bar code close to us. I turned on the TV , I got just the audio, but not the video.So I had to set the HDMI format again..!

For Airtel HD+, this is the blind fold guide for us!

a. Press 'My A/c' button on the remote.You will reach My Account menu

b. Press the Left arrow 4 times on the remote.
(You will travel past the menu-s : MOD, ActiveServices, Guide and finally reach 'Help' Menu, where you would reach 'Picture Settings' -> )
Press OK on the remote.

[Note: Past the 'Help' menu, you have My DishTV and Recorder menu and again reach My Account.]

c. Now we reach PICTURE SETTINGS menu.
Under the 'PICTURE SETTINGS' menu, the 'HDMI Settings' option would be selected, (note : The Picture setting would initially have 'Default' option.) Now press 'left arrow' on the remote 5 times.That is the setting for 1920 x 1080i@60 HZ

d. Press 'down arrow' on the remote twice. You would have reached 'SAVE' option.Press 'OK' on the remote ..

-->> But the catch here is that, sometimes, the dish box , does a cache of the last menu you accessed! so with 4th left arrow you might not reach Picture Settings menu! it could have reached other menu..so try rebooting the box!