Daily Life
There were two questions that were asked a lot and were hard to write a short answer about, so I decided to dedicate a post to just them.
What do we eat?
Honestly, we eat food similar to what we did in the US. I’m learning each week new Indian foods. Originally I had hoped to have women around teach me how to cook, but since no one lives next to us and we are only meet virtually for church that has been postponed. I’ve taken to the internet to learn instead. We’ve tried moringa drumsticks, rose petal, banana flower, and brinjal. We will pass on the flowers in the future. Yuck!
Breakfast consists of pancakes, eggs, French toast, biscuits, breakfast sandwiches, cereal or oatmeal. I just learned how to make Poha which is a flattened rice recipe. We have found some peppered chicken sausages we occasionally cook.
For lunch and dinner, we make meals that are centered around rice, beans, lentils, and vegetables. Once per week, we make a meal that has chicken in it. We still like soups such as tortilla, potato and mushroom rice. We’ve been able to make noodles into a ranch based one with cucumber and tomatoes in it or one we call pizza pasta. They don’t have spaghetti sauce. We use pizza sauce supplemented with garlic, mushrooms and extra tomatoes. We make the beans into chili, white chili, or refried beans. I have tried making some Indian dishes. We regularly make aloo Gobi, dal makhani, hummus, egg curry, biryani, pakora, naan, stuffed chapati and tikki. I hope to share some of these recipes.
On a usual trip to the vegetable market, we purchase: tomatoes, brinjal (a cousin to eggplant), garlic, onions, cilantro, curry, cabbage, cauliflower, bell peppers, green beans, potatoes, carrots, cucumbers, bananas, apples, lemons and oranges. If we are lucky, we find butter fruit (similar to avocados), watermelon, corn, mushrooms, grapes, and zucchini. As our diet consists of mostly vegetables, it’s a large load to cart around.
How has life changed for us/what does a normal day look like?
Wow! There are so many things that I do normally that I never did before. Most of them centered around housework. I check the weather each day to see if there will be enough time for clothes to dry. I used to have one laundry day, now I do it everyday. We also spend more time cleaning the floors and doing the dishes. The kids all pitch in for the household chores.
The thing that takes the majority of my time now is cooking. I spend anywhere from 3-5 hours a day cooking meals. Everything must be made from scratch: gravies, sauces, beans, breads, syrup. We brought a can opener with us and I haven’t been able to use it yet. It is delicious eating fresh but definitely time consuming.
What’s a typical day like? Our mornings are filled with seminary, breakfast, laundry, chores, and school for Emma and Liam. For the kids, it’s just like it would have been in the US due to the pandemic: online school, no sports, no friends, etc. They have opened the gym here recently. Now Ben and Nick find it “fun” to get out of the house to workout each morning for an hour. They walk a mile to and from the gym. I never thought I would see that. Dennis spends the morning completing his new church calling and working on our registrations.
In the afternoon, Nick and Ben do school. The other kids play legos and card games, watch tv, play video games and make crafts. Dennis is working from home, so his work day just starts after lunch. If we need to head into town, we go in the afternoon as well. I used to shop alone but now am tied to when Dennis can go. No more quick trips just to get away. I need him as a driver, because I won’t go alone, as a 2nd person to decipher what someone says, and I need his Indian credit card. My name isn’t on anything since I am tied to his visa. He owns the car, he rents the house, he has the bank account.
After dinner, we visit with friends and family since that’s when they are just getting up. We do family scripture time with Dennis’ mom each night. Dennis usually works until 7-8. We also like playing family card games at night. Our newest favorite game is golf, but we are always on the lookout for new ones. We hope as thing continue to open back up that we will be able to meet more people and see more things.
Watch for a recipe in our next post!!!
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