Making Orange Marmalade

Making orange marmalade

by Utkrishta Mulmi

15 January 2017

Photographs by Shaswat Badal, Utkrishta Mulmi

Today we made orange marmalade or orange jam. We started making jam after we had lunch. At first I took some oranges in a bowl, washed them and peeled the oranges. While I was doing that, everyone else was outside cutting up some lemons. After I finished washing the oranges, I took them outside and joined the others. Pallav sir used a knife to cut the top and bottom parts of the orange. After that he gave me the peels of the oranges and told me to scrape off the white layering under the peels with a knife. While I was scraping the white layering Nitya was taking notes of what we were doing and the rest of them were taking out the strands of the oranges and slowly taking out the seeds without squeezing them. A while later Pallav sir told Abin to get a knife and help me scrape the peels because only work would be fast if two people work on the same thing than one.

Scraping the peels was more difficult than I had expected. After scraping the white layer we could see lots of small and tiny circles kind of small patterned shapes below the white layering in the peel. Since we did not have much oranges Pallav sir told Laxmi dai to go and buy some more oranges and they started to argue about getting the oranges.

Finally, he went to buy the oranges. While he went to buy the oranges, we kept on doing what we were doing. Pallav sir also helped scrape the white layering but the knife I had was not a good knife for scraping the white layering in the peel so he asked Bhagwati maam for another knife to scrape the white layering in the peel. she brought the knife and gave it to me.

I got curious to see if it was sharp since it looked like it was made from plastic and I did a stupid thing and tested on myself. In order to check if it was sharp enough I tried it in my finger to see if it cuts or not. And guess what??? Yes, It was sharp and I did cut my finger and ran to the washroom to wash my hands. A lot of blood was flowing but it stopped after sometime.

By then Laxmi dai was back from the market with more oranges and I helped to wash those oranges and took it outside where everyone was working. Now, Nitya, Abin and Pallav sir scraped the white layering of the peel but not me since Pallav sir told me not to use a knife. so I clicked some photographs on the orange camera.

We were halfway to making the marmalade while Shaswat, Sheelu, Kusma and Bhawana maam went to make lapsi pickle. Abheek, Nitya, Abin, Neeva, Susmita, Pallav sir and me were working on the orange marmalade. After they were finished scraping Pallav sir cut small and thin strips of the peels and put them in a bowl. Then he cut the slices of the oranges into halves and put it in a bowl. Then Pallav sir told Sheelu, Sarah and me to take the bowl with the cut oranges and ask Sabita didi to grind it in a mixer. We took it inside the kitchen and asked sabita didi to grind it. She washed the mixer and kept the oranges and in a while the oranges were grinded. After the oranges were grinded we also grinded the peel and more oranges. We then poured all the grinded juice into a cooking pot and put it on the stove and set it to heat. After a few minutes we added some sugar into the pot.

Making Cake by Ourselves

Cakes are great , especially when we make them ourselves

by Abin Rai

I like cakes!!!

Some months ago we made vanilla flavored cake. It was really delicious. I was really excited to learn how to make and then taste them.

Ingredients to make vanilla flavored cake:

Sugar, salt, vanilla essence, butter, baking powder, baking soda, flour, egg, icing sugar and fresh cream. Icing sugar does the work of making the cake sweet.

First of all we need to mix flour with water. Then we put sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla essence, egg and butter and then mix it well. We then poured it in a vessel ready to keep it inside the oven. The cake was  then kept  inside the oven for 30-40 minutes. After the cake is ready we took it out from the oven and scraped the darkened part and added icing sugar on it. Then we added fresh cream on it. Then the cake was kept inside the refrigerator for 30-40 minutes. The cake was ready to eat after refrigerating for 40 minutes. We then cut the cake and ate it. It was very tasty. We have already made more than 2 or 3 cakes. We have made cakes of different shapes like circle, and square shapes. I think that the cakes we make are healthier than the cakes found in the shops. It was a lot of fun. Only some students could enjoy the taste of this delicious cake because others were absent. I helped my teachers to make the cake which was really a good experience. One of the cakes we made got stuck in the baking pan and it was really difficult to take it out. If I learn how to make cakes I will not need to waste money on buying cakes and could make cakes by our own. Cakes are really great to eat  when you work hard to make it yourself.

Putting on Mehndi

by Utkrishta Mulmi

On 17 July 2016, Sunday after we had some of the classes we decided to have some fun by putting mehndi on our hands. At first Nislha mam put mehndi on shaswat’s hands. She wrote his name and a flower. Then she made designs on Riya, Rivka, susmita, kusma and Swasti. All of the girls had different kinds of designs of mehndi. I told nishla mam to write my name and a star on my hand. We ran out of a packet of mehndi so we had an argument to go to buy it. Saroni mam went to buy it then Abin put mehndi on his hand. Then Abin took a packet and put mehndi by himself and I put mehndi on my hand too.

Listening to Music

by Nitya Poudel

Three –Four months ago we were told that we would be listening to different kinds of music. We started with 3 English songs and 3 Nepali songs.

The first 3 English songs were:

·       We will rock you- by Queen

·      Rain drops are falling on my head- by B.J. Thomas and Paul Simon’s

·      Pig, sheep and wolf

 We were divided into three groups and we each group had to write the lyrics of one song . I and Kusma were placed in the same group. Shaswat, Abin and Pukar were in one group and Utkrishta, Neeva and Susmita were in the last group. My group had to write the lyrics of We will rock you; Shaswat’s group had to write the lyrics of rain drops are falling on my head and Utkrishta’s group had to write the lyrics of Pig, sheep and wolf.

The first three Nepali songs that we were doing were:

·      lapsi ko gedo chusera - by Kumar Basnet

·      Bagh hoina  - by Kumar Basnet

·      Ukali orali haruma - by Tara Devi

I had to write all the lyrics of these three songs and then our teacher checked if the spelling were wrong. After checking we gave it to Kusma who is very fast at Nepali typing and she typed the songs and gave the print out to us. From the last 3-4 months we have heard too many songs and we will be listening to more songs in the coming days. We have also listened to Michael Jackson’s “Do you remember the time we fell in love”.  My favorite song is “river of dreams” by Billy Joel. It is really a very nice song. We have also heard the songs of Elvis Presley, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary. The song “Puff the magic dragon” and “500 miles” by Peter, Paul and Mary are really nice songs. Shaswat is told to research about the different types of music such as Reggae movement, Hard rock movement, rock movement etc. He will submit his work by this week and we would be able to learn more and more about different types of music. I liked many songs that we listened in our school like “tears in heaven”, “Jailer threw a party” etc. “Tears in heaven” is Eric Clapton’s song which he wrote when he his 9 years song died. It is a nice song. I like listening to different kinds of songs.