It's funny to know....

.... that something you have thought of doing and have done has been thought of by someone else across the world and done in almost exactly the same way as you have....

It's saddening and encouraging at the same time. Saddening because it's not something novel any more. Someone has "been there.. and done that..". Encouraging because you know that you are not having any insanely weird and impractical thoughts and ideas and that you are solving some real problem out there.

This is the second time that this has happened to me, and it is a real confidence booster I should say!!

The project under question is StickyLinks. The exact same thing was done in 1997 and is called WebCite. The funny thing is that it was made for the exact same problem that I was trying to solve, which probably explains why it turned out to be so similar.

The thing that still gets to me is that even the layout of the version page (view where a version of a certain page is displayed) is almost identical. Both projects use frames. Both projects have a bookmarklet.

However, there are ways I plan to extend StickyLinks, so stay posted!!

ps. My next idea: To develop a search engine that will let you search for already existing ideas/concepts/implementations of thoughts that you may have and may think are novel. I use the internet (esp. the search engines) a lot to search for projects that I may want to undertake, just to check if it's already been done by someone else. Most of the time I have to search a lot of times, tweaking my search keywords ever so slightly in the hope of a match. Many a times, I fail to chance upon the right set of keywords (the words that the original author used to describe his/her idea/project) and am under the impression that the idea I have is novel/un-thought of. However, many times it does happen that such a thing does not exist. However, it is only time that lets you ascertain this (if a similar concept exists, you hear of it sooner rather than later, assuming you have shared it with friends).

Chocolate Rum Balls

This is been pending for a while now.
Barbara asked me how to make these last year!!!! (realistically, about a month ago) and I haven't yet gotten back to her. That is pretty bad of me.
Here goes nothing....

Ingredients:

Chocolate sponge cake:	about 250g
Dark chocolate:	about 250g (preferably &ge 40% cocoa)
Fresh Cream:	about 100g
Walnuts:	about 100g (or to your taste)
Rum:	to taste

Procedure:

1. Crumble the cake well into.... well crumbles.... Use very soft hands to do this.


2. Mix the rum with the crumbled cake, but don't form a paste.


3. Melt the chocolate (always over steam).


4. Heat the cream in a saucepan till it is simmering and mix it well with the melted chocolate.


5. Make small pieces of the walnuts and add them to the chocolate and cream mixure and mix well again.


6. Empty the cake crumbs into the mixture above and mix till it forms a solid paste which can be rolled into balls. Note: You may need more/less of the cake crumbs depending on how watery/viscous the chocolate and cream mixture is.


7. Roll them into balls!!!! You can put a thin layer of melted butter or ghee (clarified butter) on your palms so that the stuff doesn't stick to your palms while mixing.

Merry Christmas, and have a Great New Year!! :) :)

Gaajar Halwa

I met Appu and Abbas today, and we had this nice talk about carbs. and how the lesser there are around and within us, the better it is for our kind of lifestyle. I have steadily reduced the amount of sugar I have with my cup of tea or ukada (or ukado since it is a gujarati recipe) and am okay with it.
The recipe below is in complete defiance of the statements above. However in my defense, I used much less sugar than I usually would have.

Ingredients:

Grated fresh red carrots(gaajar):	about 1kg
Cow's Milk (preferably full fat containing ≥ 9% SNF):	about 2ltr
Sugar:	to your taste, but you could start off with 200g
Cow's Ghee (clarified butter):	2-3 Tbsp
Elaichi:	seeds of 4-5 pods, well separated
Elaichi powder:	1 tsp (or to taste)

Procedure:

1. Take the Ghee in a saucepan and add the elaichi seeds, and heat the ghee till it is hot, and just till you hear a pop sound.
   



2. 
   Add the grated carrots and coat every bit of them with the Ghee (on a slow flame).
   
   



3. 
   Heat the milk in a saucepan till it is hot.
   
   



4. 
   Pour some (about 500ml) of the hot milk into the carrot and ghee mixture, turn up the flame to medium and stir continuously.
   
   



5. The milk will come to a boil.
   
   



6. We want to make mawa (or khoa) from the 1.5ltr of remaining milk. You can find out how this is done. Basically it involves simmering the milk till the water almost vaporizes. The semi-solid mass that is left will be used later in the making of our halwa.



7. Once the mawa is made, mix it with the rest of the carrot mixture (which should have considerably thickened by now. I hope you were continuously stirring it all this while!!).



8. Also add the sugar. The sugar will immediately melt and give off a lot of water. We need to burn off all this water.
   
   



9. Stir continuously till the water evaporates and we are left with a semi-solid mass (more liquidy though).
   
   



10. Evenly sprinkle the elaichi powder over this mass and stir continuously.
    
    



11. Till the mixture thickens to a consistency of your choice.
    
    



12. Let it cool, and enjoy!!!! :)

btw, this is the 100^th post on this blog!!