Toss and Toast for Twisting the Tastes

Following are my simple recipes with a bit of creative alteration to the originals

Vegetable Idlis :

Grate Carrot, Cucumber, Bottle gourd, Cheese, Paneer, Finely chop the curry leaves, coriander leaves, Chillies and add them to Idli Batter and put them on Mini Idli plates...Vegetable Idlis Ready in 15 Mins.

Colour Idlis :

Boil Beetroot after cutting them into cubes till the thick Beetroot starch is obtained. Mix the Idli Batter, Fine paste of Ginger, Chilli, Coriander, Curry leaves to this Beetroot Starch. Put them on Mini Idli Plates and serve hot after 15 mins with coconut chutney... Pink Idli with White Chutney... Isnt it awesome ! (Take care to make the Idli Batter a tighter one as it gets mixed with starch later)

Replace Beetroot with Paalak and the Green Idlis are ready....This has amazing content of Calcium to inject straight...

Raagi Flour Idlis :

Raagi is difficult to feed for kids... This is a vague idea I tried and it worked. For One cup of Idli batter, Mix one portion of Raagi flour and allow it to ferment for two hours. Mix some grated carrots, chillies and coriander, curry leaves and steam.... Yup, Raagi Idlis with high Iron content is ready tobe gulped.

Dosa Pattis :

Boil Potatoes and mash them to fine paste. Add this mash along with grated Paneer, Cheese, Carrots and finely sliced off chillies and curry, coriander leaves. Toast the Coin Size Dosas and goes thru the taste buds of kiddos without fuss.... I use Amul Butter to toast. I even make a larger size and use Cookie Cutters for interesting shapes...

(My little angel never likes to have panner or cheese... and this idea worked wonders for me)

Raagi Dosa Pattis :

To one portion of Raagi Flour, add one portion of Rice Flour and two to three spoons of Corn Flour. Make it into soft batter. Mix with finely chopped onions, green chillies, coriander, curry leaves, Salt to taste. Allow it to ferment for about one or two hours. Make small balls and with your fingers allow it to spread across the pan. (The size can be according to one's comfort). Use wet cloth to spread across the pan. I use Amul Butter and toast it on medium flame....Serve it with Paalak Moorkozhambu or any koot of choice.

High content of Iron and nutritious rich...

Keep trying these.... I shall add more as I keep trying...

Happy Cooking....

String Painting - Creative Art by Yshu

It was around Christmas time and Yshu wanted to prepare greeting cards to her frnz nd teachers. We went to Sapna Stores and picked some handmade charts. We had some colors left out at home and thought of using them for the rest of the job...

Just a week before that Yshu shared this idea of String Painting with me. It is so simple. Just take a thread string and dip it in the color. Take a sheet of paper and put this string in the fold of the paper having one corner of it hanging outside for us to pull.

Press the paper fold and the string together and gently pull out the string. Open the fold and see, you will have some creative design formed...It looks so lovely and different that anyone who takes this greeting will love to possess...

She had around 20 Day Care frnz and we were not sure how to honour her wish of giving them too some gift. We got these stars readily available in many book stores and some icecream sticks. Thats it. Name of her friend on one side of the star, Happy Xmas on the other side of the star and Yshu's name on Icecream Stick.

We used some glitter pens for glossy look and yes, it was a big hit with all her frnz nd teachers.

Coorg - A Cool Family Outing

It was a lovely break from this busy traffic jams, busy office schedules, running around ques to escape into a lush green cool breeze in this Summer.

We along with DH's cousin family decided atleast to go on a weekend to some place and we realised we made a right choice having gone to Coorg. For a change, DH,DD&myself packed our luggage and went on my two wheeler at night 11 to SS place where our Innova to drive to Coorg was waiting.... So, our fun started with two wheeler drive at late night.

SS family with two kids were waiting and thats it.... by the time we got into Innova, all 3 kids doze off to sleep... we adults tried to keep our eyes opened with 50%craze to watch out what we can spot on the way and 50% if the driver takes us safely. Thanks to our Driver's taste of music. He brought an excellent collection of 80's & 90's Hindi no.s in his pen drive..and nothing else caught us our attention listening to them...each of us were hanging on to our good olden memory lanes listening to Ashiqui, Border and other lovely Hindi no.s

As we reached Kushal Nagar, called up our Host of homestay and they guided us to their cottage. Just in few minutes we were into their villa gate with no little hassle. It just took 4 hrs of drive from Bangalore to Coorg. It was around 3.00 am and our host was so very warm in welcoming us and ensuring our comfort in the pyramid cottages...

Admiring the architecture of the pyramid cottage, the lovely arrangements of TV, chairs and the shelves; even before exploring much about tiles on the top and iron rods it is built on, we wrapped up cozily into the woolen bedsheets...(Yes... Woolen bedsheets in hot summer and that too without fan. forget about AC)

No Alarm, No office reminder, No cell pone rings. We all got up along with Sun rise. Thanks to Pyramid Construction again. The rays fall straight into the cottage and it makes us feel so fresh and energetic. As we opened the doors, we could hear the lovely co coos of birds and a lush green treat to our eyes. The mist is slowly forming into drops thru warm early morning sun rays....

We took a small walk around and quickly finished our morning chores to take our breakfast. This is one the best breakfasts we had so far....It is all Kerala delicacies and our host's aunty is too good at it. Full marks to Balaji Villa Homestay.

We started our trip with visit to Abby falls. Kids had so much fun in the water and convincing them to wrap up for next visit was little challenging... tried all our negotiation skills with these kiddos and finally caught them exciting about the next destination. On the way back, we had some local buttermilk from mud pot which was very very tasty. Not just done with it, after sometime had the bhel and cut mangoes.  We then reached one Park where we had a Toy Train ride around the park. We packed some fried groundnuts, cut amla and Soap Bubbles for kiddos to njoy on the ride. It was so much fun....

As we got down the train, we had a wonderful view of Coorg. Just before lunch, we had the glimpse of Omkareshwara temple as they were almost closing the doors. Such a Big temple.... It was very quiet and asusual, filled with lots of positive vibrations. The lovely part being its architechture style of islamic and hindu mix....

On finishing the lunch, drove to Talacauvery. As we were moving up, we realised we were around 3700 Ft above sea level and suddenly all the heat is vanished and we landed up in mist. It was as if we landed in some other world. It was heavenly. No doubt. The small river pond and the Cauvery temple having the idols of Agasthya rishi & Ganapathi, we spent some silent moments chanting verses we knew. Filled some bottles of Cauvery water and though not felt like leaving the place, we managed to move on for the next destination.

As we reached Bhagamandala, it was another different feel. We just got our feet into the triveni sangamam and tasted the local bananas which were so different from the regularly available ones at Bangalore. Relishing the sweetness of those bananas and tender coconuts, we reached our cottage for camp fire and dinner.

Fully tired of all the rides and fun, we skipped camp fire, had sumptous home made dinner by our host. Tried to gather some info on the recipes and again, it was a big attack on food by all of us. Just going thru some of the pix clicked by us, commenting etc etc.... dozed for that night.

The next day was even more exciting with Elephant Dubari and River water raftling. OMG! it was truely awesome. Kids were so much occupied at the simple sight of river water and Elephants on the other side. Just to see those happy faces itself is worth a visit to this place. We all went to the other side of the river in a boat, had a small round of elephant ride and on the return journey thoroughly njoyed the raftling. Ofcourse, it was still water and so, not very adventurous but still, we had fun. Our boat guide Appu made us raffle forward, backward and under the falling tree stems into the river where we had to bend ourselves, made circular raftles in between the lake and as we were occupied in doing this, he sprinkled lot of water saying no one should end the raftling without getting wet. Kids had so much fun disturbing us with their raftling skills, striking us with their trials, standing, dancing etc etc....

We requested for lunch to our hosts and though it was not in their package, they managed to do it for us. We had lunch nd relaxed ourselves that afternoon....After sometime, kiddos had lot of fun the swimming pool putting on their swim suites and tyres. They did some feats of forward leg splash, backward splash, sprinkling water on one another and scaring us by going into the middle of the pool bla bla bla...

Got them dressed and packed off back to Bangalore thanking our hosts for the wonderful comfort they ensured. On the way back, managed to pick up some coorg spices, honey, hairoils, this oil that oil and njoyed craved ourselves for those extra mugs of coffee....

Thats how we refreshed ourselves and now back to work with that extra energy.

Just before I wind up this, important things to carry if you are visiting coorg : Swim costumes and extra towels, since there are many many waterfalls around. Important things not to miss to carry back : Honey, spices, Amla juice (common everywhere) and any herb plants if you are interested in kitchen gardening. Mint, Tulasi, Coriander, Vanila & Pepper creepers are very common sight anywhere in coorg.

SuccessSaturday - A Lovely Programme in our Memory Lane

The moment we landed @ Bangalore, we had many surprises. More because we were not that conscious when we were in our own place and nothing was much demanding too....More so, when it came to our little Angle. She had to communicate in English, Her Handwriting was not within lines, Her As nd Bs were all dancing to the rythm of her little fingers...and reading Story books is totally out of her daily routine. (Thanks to her mom & dad.... who never bothered of this skill in her tender years.)

Shock of life is all this is very common and part of daily routine in 'Bangalore Parenting' - the term we coined in all positive means !!!

Teachers in the regular schools started viewing this as learning disability of the child or what so ever names and dragged us almost to getting her diagnosed for any disability....Thanks to almighty. We both as parents were confident that child has nothing to do with the labels and she is the way she is because the way we parented and now is the time to start working on her scientifically with extremely no pressure on the child.

That is the time we learnt phonics, engaged an individual coach and joined her in hand writing classes, got books, CDs and yes, we could see that positively impacting her progress the way teachers wanted.

All this being one part, she wanted a real stress buster or a place where she is accepted just the way she is. She is neither labelled nor stopped on her creative & imaginative way. Thanks again to almighty, we found GENIE KIDS.

This is the happy world of our little angel on every Saturday. We enrolled her for the 30 Week Programme. The best part of the programme is she is given exposure to Life's important skills like taking Responsibility, Speaking out emotions, Expressing her self, Being Independent and so on...

None of these are taught. Yes, you read it right. They are not taught. Children are given an environment to experience and they draw out the learnings more meaningfully. There has been hardly any day where she was reluctant to attend this class. Every Saturday she used to return home with some interesting Home Tool and that is part of her room decor for rest of the weeks....

Her room looks so very interesting with Responsibility Jar hanging on the door and we would pick up the yellow slip each time she takes up one responsbility and drops in the jar. Once, she came with Pizza of qualities and she had icecream sticks saying co-operative, understanding, Responsible etc... All these soon became part of her mental vocabulary...

Words become deeds is true... we could see her living to those words in her smallest of actions too...

Even more wonderful feel was when she started telling us, "I am Sad". "I am Happy", "I am angry" etc... the best according to us. Believe me. I happened to attend one leadership prog sponsored by my organisation. We had a case study on how to connect to our emotions and it took almost an hour for my coach to make me express my emotion and in this one hour, he should have asked atleast 10 to 20 times, "So, how do you feel?" It is such a simple task yet forgotten in our so called growing up and earning degrees & grades.. hmmm...

Lo...there came a day of Habba where children organised their stalls and we parents were visitors. It was such an awesome affair...4 Year Old preparing Lemonade, 5 Year Old preparing bhel puri and this age group children organising games and collecting tokens is a feast to parents.

I am sure at home, if a child of 4 has to prepare lemonade; the thought itself gives raise to 100 reasons why she shouldn't....This is a phobia and not the truth is the realisation for us as parents.

Th habba was just not about putting up stalls by children, Children owned the rules of the game, tokens, gifts, appreciation and the lovely labels they gave us at the end of each activity. We moved on loading our cameras with these lovely pix and eating the bhel without hand, making clay models without using fingers, throwing balls from the border lines, learning string painting and lots nd lots of sweet memories...

The fun didnot end here... It continued till recent past when we had to attend the valedictory session. It is not that graduation day or clicking pix with certificates. It was a day where First half of the session was sharing our feedback with the organisers while the children are in their own groups planning something for us. We had snacks along with children and the next 1 and a half hour was awesome. We had to just listen to these little leaders and follow them. This little angel was guiding us on using tooth brush to get the art of spray painting, sponge piece to make lovely impressions and lovely color combinations. We had to just listen to her and do what she says (Almost a reversal of roles).

The confidence in her face and the happiness she is feeling that the dad & mom are being taught by her is an amazing moment of happiness for both of us.

We returned home with bundles and bundles of lovely feelings ringing in our memory lanes as we move on....

Thanks to Genie Kids for making a memorable and meaningful Saturdays for our little angel.

Shall try adding few pictures clicked now and then...

Working Mom or Stay-At-Home Mom : A Tag ???

I really wonder why at all this tag is required when all of us at the end of the day are actually committed to our roles.

Whether a mom is working or Stay-At-Home, it is the decision with a commitment to her goals. It is a choice made by her and why not the society around her support in being successful in whatever choice she made.

Hell is the world around each, imagine a well educated woman who was always a rank holder in school and college if chooses tobe a Stay-At-Home Mom. The World around her tries to pull her down in maximum ways by saying then why at all she had to put so much of efforts in gaining ranks. The Same people doesnot think for a moment in giving out suggestions to the Working Mother leaving her child in the Day care saying what for is all the money if she cant give attention to the child.

Where is the fault ? May be somewhere, the world around woman is more open to comment, condemn and even take decision for her in the shadow of advice. The fact of the matter is SAHM or WM, every Mother has a picture of her own to build. She has her own reasons to choose the way she is living.

SAHM has her own great reasons to give that undivided attention to her children. She plans so much for their breakfast, lunch, dinner and after school activities. She is in a way no second to any chef or any Kids Trainer in planning the entire day filled with varieties. She is working ofcourse...No less to any professional packing a day with planning, organising, delivering, measuring and improving....

WM is ofcourse a supermom... she cooks, plans and schedules everything so that she reaches the school with kid dressed as neatly as any other. She has her own advantage of making her children independent, thought provoking and spending that quality time with the kids. She ensures her supply of information stands as a differentiator in her children's projects, her organising skills inspiring the children to copy, her mastery of arts motivating the children tobe multi tasking.....

The same SAHM may choose to go for work outside home and the same WM, may choose tobe SAHM at some point in life. Unnecesary bullying will create undue pressure in trying to justify herself and still continue her journey of life.

I think this should be part of every educated woman to not get involved in tagging & segregating so...

Being a Daddy's Girl

My relationship with my dad

Being a Daddy's Girl is the most treasured title for many Girls. This goes right ages after ages too....Dad is the first man in any girl's life and no matter how much you debate what all mamma does, still it is the daddy who takes that place of dearness in the little girl's heart. It need not be taken as favourism compared to mamma...but, that's a special relationship that is shared by dad and daughter.

In a diary of Cherished moments, the date starts as early as the first day I went to park with my dad. The relationship gets so well wired in the heart of the little girl the first run race she had in the spongy grass to the little petty fights. The bonding gets nurtured with everyday moments when the dad picks her up at the school, prepares her for school activities and the most treasured moment when she is taught to cycle....Wow...a feeling of achievement shared by dad and girl on that special day when she freely cycled with her growing legs stumping the pedals and the soft palms started applying the brakes on the bi-cycle.....

Oohh....the lovely surprise dad gets when she demands a scooty even before her college seat is confirmed. The teen heart is even more stolen when this demand of hers is a birthday gift much before she could ask for it. The day she gives her father a lift in her ride is a wonderful day of achievement for dad. That is the talk of his office, his friends shared in pride. It goes on...any little act of difference like winning a debate competition in college, writing a good article in magazines, photo appearing in school or college magazines for the little achievements are the most talked topics among his cirlce of friends and colleagues.

The best of celebrating moments when she gets selected in a campus interview as if no other in the world has achieved something of sort. Call it an exaggeration or explanation, he explains to the rest of the world that it was the toughest of the interviews and it was his daughter who nutted it down with her intelligence. (carrying no credits to his guidance)

The joy of dad knew no bounds when the daughter landed with the latest model of cellphone for dad & an antique bracelet for the mom. This is her first gift on getting her first pay cheque. Hiding the embarassment of not knowing how to use it, he showcases everywhere in his circle. She is still the topic of discussion everywhere for him.

The college, campus and career going in congruence with each other's tastes & compromises, the day comes when both of them have to experience the sweet pain of departure in the name of marriage. Selecting a spouse of her choice is the biggest weight on dad and marrying an understanding boy who can value the sweet relationship is the biggest confusion for the girl.... Somewhere in between, the line is drawn.

May be marriage is not an end to the sweetness of dad nd girl but a subtle moment of sweet pain to both.

Even before it is realised whether it is right or wrong to feel so, the new little one joins the family. Call me Ms.J, but still, I am the first tobe loved by my dad says the girl. Life being so nice all these days and years, a day when dad has to leave the world and girl has to lead the rest of the life. Yes, it feels unfair why it should be so for me.

May be the only thought that keeps the life energetic is dad's ideals. All through his life, the purpose he created is to bring a great charm in the girl's life. If this cheer is replaced with tears, the purpose of dad in growing me up gets defeated...

Not to waste time in shedding tears but spend time in spreading cheers with dad's ideals. This is my message for myself when I had to accept the bitter truth that he left this world not giving an opportunity for me to say, "Why not be with us for few more years....???"