Tapioca - my mum's style

Tapioca has always been one of my favourite food item. Every time i make this dish it brings back all memories from my childhood when i had the luxury to eat out of my mom's hand.

This root known as Kappa in Southern India is also called the Tapioca / Cassava root.





It is a starch and is known as a poor man's diet in Kerala.So lets see how i made this simple dish.

1. First wash remove the brown skin and then the white thicker skin on the root, cut into irregular cubes and soak overnight





2. Next day drain the water, clean again and pressure cook [1 whistle] with very little water and salt. You may steam cook if the root is tender.


3. The ingredients needed for the tempering are mustard seeds, cut garlic, red chillies, turmeric and grated coconut.




4. Heat little coconut oil add all the ingredients except grated coconut for the tempering. Keep stirring till all mustard seeds splutter and the garlic is lightly roasted. Add the cooked tapioca root and mix well. Later turn the stove off and add the grated coconut.

Hope you enjoy this dish.

Microwaveable Semolina cake

The microwave Oven is not the best equipment to be used to get good cakes ..the convection oven is best. But nothing beats a microwave if we need to get something edible at a snap of our fingers. so i took the challenge to bake cakes in the Microwave.

The outcome has been disastrous ..from biscuit hard to burnt cakes to cakes that cooked better only on one side and those that were very dry.I slowly learnt through the hard way, obviously, that microwaves are not meant to bake and that it dries the food so fast that the food doesn't get time to rise as in case of a cake.

So i started trying all stunts such as reducing the time, keeping the batter as watery as possible and even adding more butter etc.
The best cake, though not as good as an oven baked, turned out to be the one that had the batter a little watery, less buttery, and baked for not more than 5 mins.Keeping a glass of water along with the cake tin kept the air a bit humid, slowing the drying process.

The semolina cake that i microwaved is eggless and has half the flour content replaced by semolina soaked in orange juice. The ingredients used are:
Whole wheat flour-1 cup
Semolina - 1 cup
Orange juice - 1 cup
Butter- 1/3 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence - 1/4 tsp
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking soda - 1/4 tsp
Curd - 2 tbsp
Milk - 1 cup

Soak semolina in orange juice. In a bowl add milk, sugar and butter.Warm the mix to melt the sugar and cool the mix. Add baking soda to the curd and keep aside. To the sugar mix add wheat flour - a spoon a a time. Next add the semolina and mix well.Add more milk if need be.

Just before baking add the curd mix and microwave at high temperature for 5 mins. Check if a toothpick comes out clean to check if done. One has to keep in mind that the cake may not have a nice crust on top and keeps cooking once removed too. So keep it aside to cool before cutting.

Cut and enjoy this tea-time snack.

Horsegram Idlis

My healthy breakfast - horsegram idlis with sambhar ..



Since the time I heard of the benefits of horsegram i have been trying to google on how to make various dish using horsegram or known as Kudith dal in Southern India. It is one dal that is recommended for kidney stone patients who are advised to drink water in which the dal powder is boiled.



It has benefits such as:
1. keeps body warm during winter
2. aids in reducing excess body weight
3. used in treating kidney stones
4. treats peptic ulcer
5. ayurveda uses it in treatments of rheumatism, worms, piles and even menstrual problems in women

The one recipe i knew was to boil, mash and make a simple curry with onion and tomatoes. However i finally made idlis with the dal.

The batter is the usual idli batter which you can find on google very easily. The batter was fermented overnight and the horsegram [1/2 cup for 2 cups of rice used to make idli batter] was soaked in another container.In the morning the dal was drained and ground to a fine paste and added to the idli batter.

The batter was steamed in an idli stand and yummy idlis were the outcome.

Tips to prevent kidney stones

Kidney stones re-occur even after being removed [surgically or naturally]. So the best way to avoid going through a painful passing of the stone is to prevent its formation on a regular basis. Few tips that I would like to mention should be incorporated into your daily life especially if you have already had an episode of kidney stones.

- never forget to drink water to stay hydrated
- have barley water throughout 1 day every week
- have tulsi / neem tea [1 cup water boiled with 5-6 tulsi or neem leaves] in the evening. You may dry roast ripe neem leaves in an iron container and store the ash in a glass bottle 1/4th spoon of which can be consumed with 1 teaspoon of honey. Donot consume anything for an hour after this.
- be very careful in case of urine infection which may be due to expelling of small size stones –during such periods have a glass of water with a teaspoon of Cital [medicine available in the pharmacy]
- Keep your weight under control
- Walk or run or just jog at a spot if health permits
- Do not be in the sun to prevent dehydration which doesn’t allow the stones to be flushed out by the kidneys
- Reduce salt
- Have adequate Calcium and Vitamin D levels
- Speak to your doctor regarding stone forming foods that maybe avoided

There are few more tips that I found on the net which may be tried as it does not have any side effects.
- if the kidneys are feeling painful an iron foil may be worn as a ring around the middle finger of the right hand
press for 2 mins and release the area 1 inch above the centre of both the palms before meals.

Dry, dull and damaged HAIR – crowning glory and its care

I have faced and still face a lot of hair problems. This has led me to try a many home remedies on my dry dull damaged hair. I have listed out a few of them which I have immensely benefited from.

Hair Mask – mix the following and apply on scalp and hair for an hour before washing off with a herbal shampoo mentioned below
1. mix coconut milk, Vitamin E capsule
2. yogurt/curd, egg
3. avocado, coconut oil
4. curd, ghee and triphala

Leave in conditioner – apply for soft hair after washing
1. aloe vera gel
2. tea tree oil and thyme oil
3. almond oil, rosemary oil, glycerin, water

Sweaty and hot head
1. camphor, coconut oil

Dandruff
1. hot oil treatment with neem boiled in coconut or almond oil
2. methi seeds, almond oil, bottle gourd juice, Indian gooseberry paste – only rinse and donot shampoo
3. reduce salt, spice and sour foods
4. eat 1 tsp white sesame seeds everyday
5. apply little hot sesame oil with pinch of turmeric on scalp after bath

After shampoo rinse
1. onion peels soaked in hot water, cooled and sieved
2. water drained after cooking rice

Home made Shampoos
1. soak amla, shikakai and reeta nuts overnight , heat the water, cool and use
2. make powder of amla, shikakai, black gram dal, methi seeds and hibiscus leaves and store in a bottle. When needed soak overnight and use as shampoo
3. hibiscus leaves paste mixed in water and sieved

Few more tips to avoid dry and damaged hair:
- Avoid washing hair more than 3 times a week
- Oil hair 3 times a week
- Condition hair after every bath
- Handle wet hair with care
- Have good organic food
- Try to stay happy in all situations to reduce stress

Kerala Mural

My very first Kerala Mural is ready. I have uploaded the various stages for anybody interested in this art. For a brief introduction, kerala mural painting is an ancient artwork done on temple and palace walls in Kerala.Though natural pigments and vegetable colours are used i painted with poster colours


The sketch is as below:



Now i filled the colours: orange, blue, red and green:



The final stage shows the use of the colour - black that makes the painting standout :



Hope you all love it.

Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Downtown Gainesville FL

The Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Downtown Gainesville FL in USA is very close to my heart. You can find all the neede information on the website www.holytrinitygnv.org. The church is very active in looking after the needs of the poor and downtrodden.



Inside the church is so beautiful and mesmerising ..



I had never seen a Pipe organ live ..



Glass paintings that the sun brigthens up during the day to make the church glow inside



This church has a flower shop where i did my charity work during my stay in gainesville, FL and i am so indebted to them for giving me to do something i love.



The items i made with due regards and thanks to all my teachers i met there ..



Last but not the least "the watermelon gator" of florida..

Paintings

Lets talk about my glass painting ...its about horses and this is actually the second of a kind i made ..



My acrylic hibiscus flowers on canvas is my first work on canvas and i feel i love canvas ...

Happy Diwali 2014

Diwali this year was no different from the last year in matters of excitement and happiness.



I started celebration 2 days in advance of the main diwali day on Dhanteras day by having a til oil bath using natural scrub made of besan. The shampoo i used was a herbal powder i bought called
Meera.

My rangolis made over the few days i celebrated are as below:



The lights and oil diyas made my home so beautiful.



I have to mention that cleaning before diwali is an important ritual especially clearing clutter from our houses ..i couldn't believe i had accumulated so much...though tiring it was a very satisfying experience.

Palakkad, Kerala

We are going to kerala after 3 long years and this is my first visit to my husband’s place too. Since I got Google I have been using it for anything and everything ..be it a cure for a sneeze or see Mauritius where I don’t even dream to be able to go ..haha!
Well I have just seen some beautiful kerala sarees online …I love kerala – lush green paddy fields , lovely aromatic delicious food and soothing temple music.

I have packed my bag with sarees amongst my other clothes which I do only for a kerala trip. Each time I visit kerala I wish for long thick hair cause I am so self conscious ..rather head-conscious.
Palakkad – land of paddy ..granary of kerala ..

Palakkad is aptly called the granary of Kerala ..with vast evergreen paddy fields and tasty rice. The rice we eat in this area of the state is tastier than other regions.

We landed just when Navratri began in 2014 and the entire place and people were busy in temples where poojas and devotion was at its peak. We had vegetarian food due to Navratri and visited lovely temples.

There is a side dish called "vattal" which is famous here ..all types rice vattal, ladys finger vattal etc ..it is called "kondattam" in the northern areas of kerala. I tried making them once i came back and got it right only after few trials.

Fahrenheit to Celsius

Just when I entered the United States of America I realized how different a lot measuring units were. Lets talk about the weather today. It is 71 deg Fahrenheit. Well I am used to Celsius. Then I found the following:

Fahrenheit minus 32 divide by 2 equals to Celsius &
Celsius multiply by 2 and add 32 gives Fahrenheit

Life was much simpler since. Fahrenheit was discovered in 1724 and Celsius in 1742 [wow! look at the years 24 interchanged to 42]. The entire world is now following Celsius except for Bahamas, Belize, Cayman islands, Palau and USA with its territories.Probably these countries find the conversion very costly in terms of change in every machine, vehicles etc.

On the Fahrenheit scale the water freezing point 32 deg F and water boiling point 212 deg F is exactly 180 deg apart. On Celsius the water melting point 0 deg C and the boiling point 100 deg C is 100 deg apart. Both F and C scales coincide at – 40 deg.

Currently the unit degree Celsius by an international agreement is defined by two different points – Absolute zero and the Triple point of specially prepared water. This is where the new scale Kelvin comes into picture. Absolute zero is the temperature where nothing can get colder 0 deg K or -273.15 deg C and Triple point of water is 273.16 deg K or 0.01 deg C.

A point to be noted is though the Celsius as discovered in 1742 the formal adoption of the symbol was in 1948 not to forget the usage in weather telecasts was done by BBC not until 1985. Kelvin however has not been well adopted.

Time Zones - USA and India

The different times of USA and India set me to find out about the time zones of the world. So let me share a bit of my knowledge.

UTC is the Co-ordinated Universal Time used as a benchmark. I would skip some of the history behind time which is easily available in various learning websites. UTC is a primary standard time by which the world regulates clocks. The term GMT Greenwich Mean Time already has a successor in UTC and no longer has a precise definition.

USA uses 9 standard time zones .From east to west they are Atlantic Standard Time (AST), Eastern Standard Time (EST), Central Standard Time (CST), Mountain Standard Time (MST), Pacific Standard Time (PST), Alaskan Standard Time (AKST), Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time (HST), Samoa standard time (UTC-11) and Chamorro Standard Time (UTC+10).

Each zone has a daylight saving time …so what is daylight saving? Daylight saving has been a subject of debate for a long time. However DST is a change from the standard time to utilize the daylight better by having the sun rise 1 hour later in the morning and set 1 hour later in the evening …It begins at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March. On the first Sunday in November areas on Daylight Saving Time return to Standard Time at 2:00 a.m.

The names in each time zone change along with Daylight Saving Time. Eastern Standard Time (EST) becomes Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), and so forth. Arizona, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa do not observe Daylight Saving Time.

Florida lies in the Eastern time zone with a standard time of UTC-5hrs and daylight time of UTC-4hrs.

India follows an Indian standard time (IST) which is UTC+5:30 and does not observe DST. IST is calculated on the basis of 82.5 deg longitude in Shankargarh Fort, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh

DST was briefly used during the Sino-Indian and the Indo-Pak wars. Though after independence IST was officially adopted, Kolkata and Mumbai had their own times till 1948 and 1955 respectively.

India’s East-West distance covers over 28 deg of longitude resulting in the sun rising and setting almost 2 hrs earlier in the eastern border.
The Indian government is not ready to split the nation into multiple time zones though there is pressure from the Northeastern states of the country. Since the Plantations Labour act 1951 allows Central and state governments to set a local time in an industrial estate, Assam tea gardens follow a separate time zone known as – Tea garden time or Bagantime which is 1 hr ahead of IST.

Recycled T shirt rug

I had been eyeing my hubby's old T shirts since i came across this recylced rug on pinterest. However i have to warn my viewers that the T shirts that i speak of are really years old and cannot be used else it would have been donated.

Just make strips of T shirt , attach the strips by sewing them at the ends , braid and stitch along by taking the braid in circles to get a round shape or any shape that your would like to have.

Its simple, esay and very satisfying.

Welcome to Florida

Beautiful place ....reminds me of Goa ...quiet, calm and lovely compared to the hustle and bustle of Mumbai ...even people are so similar to goans ..friendly and helpful ..

my love for photography has increased and hence i have uploaded some of the flora and fauna i found while walking around my apartment. Ducks were very friendly since the residents feed them bread.



my cooking has gone completely out of control [i mean the taste] since all i did the first few days is mix up some ready-to-eats and heat the mix. I am so used to cooking from scratch and fresh produce that i donot like the taste of anything packed and canned.But have to survive.

This is the second week and slight improvement is noticed. e.g my veggie moong dal curry - mix a pack of paneer makhawala gravy packet in water, add beans, mushrooms and carrots and cook. Later add moong dal vadis [bought from an Indian store] and cook till vadis almost melt. We also made pancakes - i guess i am allowed to call them pancakes. I mixed wheat flour [the flour tastes really good], custard powder, salt, little sugar, yogurt and milk. Fry them like dosas. This is lunch today.



Dinner has to have a non-vegetarian item - i have bought fish [even the frozen fish here is so well frozen that it tastes fresh once cooked]. Dinner has to be the same gravy curry, fried fish and chapathis ..well chapathis are going to be of various forms and sizes since i forgot to bring my rolling pin. There is a thrift store i identified that we shall visit later to find any useful household items.I have even forgotten my comb in India.

I met a lovely, energetic, and matured young man [a boy probably 8yrs old] who was very helpful when i went to the supercentre "Winn-Dixie" for the first time. He advised me to be careful not to jump around in my apartment lest the police takes me away as neighbours may call them. I need to remember that super centres have lot of criminals and hence have to be cautious. Milk has to bought in gallons not packets and not to forget there are variety of chocolates and chips to choose from. By the way dumplings are yummy - pork dumplings. Thanks Aaryan. He was a darling.

It was a lovely sunny morning - probably i said that a bit too soon ..its has gone dark, i can hear thundering, see lightening and is raining heavily...ok so the weather keeps changing within minutes- i heard about some storm coming this way - by the way its just 12:30 p.m. [afternoon] - its 11 p.m. [night] in India now.

Alachua county Libarary www.aclib.us – this dear friends is my library. My library allows me renewals online and I can 100 books at a time if I can read them in 4 weeks-coool isn’t it. They have DVDs, CDs and even downloadable free material.