My lovely creeper is blooming

Finally this creeper(Thunbergia Blue) which we planted almost a year ago started blooming. I am so happy seeing its flower.

Sweet corn salad

Our shopping isn't complete without the warm cup of flavored sweetcorn. Tell me, who doesn't love sweet corn. Well today's recipe is of sweetcorn, easy to make and yummy too, otherwise I wouldn't have posted this recipe here -:). This is a kind of koosambari(Salad) we often find in Kota brahmin's feast.

Serves two

1/2 Cup of sweet corn, sprinkle little water and bring it to boil in m/w(approx 90 sec on high power). Discard the water.
1/2 Cup of finely cut cucumber
1tsp of lemon juice
2 tbsp fresh coconut
salt as per taste
little fresh coriander leaves to garnish

for tadka
1/2 tsp mustard
1/2 tsp of urad dal
1 small piece of red chili
pinch of hing
1 tsp vegetable oil

Mix all the ingredients and give tadka. Enjoy your salad!

Crepe paper twine ball

Ever since I saw a twisted crepe paper twine in Reliance Timeout, I wanted to try doing it myself. Well, after doing one, I realized making crepe paper twine is not that difficult. I used few of it for gift wrapping. I tried making ball of it later. Here is how I did it. I did three of them, first one turned out to be best. Other two didn't come out well as the balloon I used were not of perfect round shape

Step 1.
Cut the crepe paper into one inch stripes.



Step 2.
Start twisting the papers into thin twines.
Step 3.
Start joining all the individual twisted twines by sticking them together with the glue


Step 4.
Blow up a small balloon, apply thin coat of Vaseline all over it.

Step 5.
Take few drops of synthetic gum and put equal amount of water into it. Apply this mixture on the balloon.

Step 6.
Start putting the twines all around the balloon, completely covering it.

Step 7.
Leave under the fan overnight

Step 8.
Next day the balloon would have shrunken, if not wait for it to shrink naturally.

Step 9.
Once its completely shrunken, pierce the balloon and take it out from the ball.




Although the photos aren't that good(I am very bad in taking photos), believe me it looks good.

This is how I kept it for time being.

Happy Deepavali

Happy Deepavali to everyone out there.
Deepavali at our home is a simple affair begining with Naraka Chaturdashi. We take bath using oil, cut lemon and turmeric mixture. New clothes are worn and after this lighting Diyas and bursting crackers and finaly consuming few sweets. Its is enjoyable if you have relatives or friends around you.
Deepavali brings back the old memories where we as kids refused to wake up early and take bath. Early here is 4:30 AM, this was because after applying oil we had to wait till the oil got inside our skin -:). Soon after the bath we used to go back to sleep again. Few years when we were in Gujrat we were living in apartment, sweets were exchanged among neighbours. We as sweet deprived kids were sighing why there were so many sweets at a time. By the end of the festival we used to run away from sweets for few days.
Nowadays the celebrations have become so minimal, it is hard to imagine that our children may not have memories like us.
Posting couple of pics

Lavender Beauty

After a break, I am back again, not that anybody is eagerly waiting here for my posts -:)
I usually take my two kids to park either to play or just for a stroll. I particularly like this lavender flower which I believe is a creeper. I have no idea what is the name of this but its really beautiful. Once I bought the fallen flowers and painted them but they were very few so I didn't put it for display. This time I bought a lot of them and put them into the basket.

My coffee mugs shelf

I love coffee/tea mugs. Any mug that catches my eye, I would decide to buy. But since rented house didn't have any space to display/keep these mugs I had put hold on my urge to buy any mugs. While mentioning the specifications to our architect, I had made sure something is build to display these mugs. We finally got this made in our house.

New addition to my vase

I had this vase gifted by my colleagues for our house warming ceremony. To this day it has been just lying in a corner surrounded by pebbles without any flowers in it. I always postponed the idea of buying flowers for it, thought I would do something myself for it. Finally I made something for them.
I had initially put some empty branches bought from my morning walk in it.


Later I made few paper beads.


Colored them with fabric paint


Fixed these to the branches.


How is it? The low cost flowers( really buds) made at home.

Pumpkins, too much of them

When God gives he gives in lots. This is so true in case of Pumpkins grown in our house. We never intended to sow the seed. Initially when it started growing we were not sure which creeper it was. I and my husband decided to wait and watch. But I had a doubt in my mind that it should be the sweet pumpkin. We didn't take out plant and just let it off to spread and grow in the neighbouring empty site. This is one advantage of having no next neighbours. Flowers started to bloom and after few days just thought to have a look. My god as many as 10 pumpkins were ready to be cut. Pumpkin not being one of our favourite, we take at least a month to finish off a single pumpkin. So P took them to his office and distributed among his colleagues and few were taken to relatives. Then after a few days a new problem started. A big rat started visiting our compound via this creeper and started creating a havoc. It started to dig a hole everywhere. Finally we decided enough was enough and to kill this creeper and we did it(I felt sad to do this). In the end we managed to get around 15-20 pumpkins. We had to dispose this off somehow. We were hoping that a nearby Hopcoms guy would take it but alas he refused to do so. We waited for a week and sold in the weekly Jigani market for rs 5 for a KG. It came to 48 Kg on a whole and instead got other vegetables for that money.

Quick Mango Pickle

This recipe is a quick one after the cut mangoes are soaked for day or two. Since the mango looses it's crispiness soon here, has to be consumed quickly or can be refrigerated for longer use.

Ingredients
Medium sized raw mangoes- 5
Mustard 3 table spoon
Salt 5 table spoon
Chilli Pwd 2 tb spoon(more if desired)
Hing 4-5 pinches

1. Peel the mangoes.
2. Add salt and keep aside for two days. The mangoes will emit water when salted.
3. On the third day take filter out the water in the mangoes and keep it aside.
3. Grind the mustard in the mixer to fine paste(without adding any water).
4. Take the salt water and bring it to boil for 5 minutes.
5. Soak the hing in this salt water.
6. Mix all the ingredients, chilli pwd, ground mustard, mangoes, salt water.
7. Add more boiled salt water if you want more thin consistency.

Book finished

I finally finished 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest' by Ken Kesey y'day. For a while I just ignored my kids, husband and just wanted to read and finish it. Nice book. I had bought this last year while I was carrying, started reading but didn't continue. I felt the story might have some bad effects on me and the baby. Picked up again last week and finished it.

My first Warli drawing.

This was my first attempt doing a Warli Drawing(I wouldn't say painting since I didn't paint anything, just used permanent marker for filling the drawing). Not very bad for a first timer what do you say? I hadn't intended to frame it. We had to visit the framewallh for few other paintings that we bought, so I was little curious how this would look after framing. You can see unprofessional in the border.

Maavina Saaru

Posting here is a simple recipe to quench the summer thirst. This raw mango rasam is famous in Malnad and is a must have in lunch on special occasions. This is a good appetizer, consumed as it is or with rice. This recipe has many versions but this is my recipe.

1/2 Raw Mango
1/4 Coconut milk
Salt to taste
2 Green Chili
For tadka
1 tsp Jeera
2 pinches of Hing
1 Red chili
2 tsp of oil

1. Peel the raw mango and cut into tiny pieces.
2. Cook the mango pieces with the green chillies.
3. Grind the cooked mango and the chillies in the mixer.
4. Add the stock and the ground mixture and bring it to boil.
5. Add the coconut milk.
6. Give the tadka.

A lazy morning in my garden

Morning I got to click these flowers in my garden.

Warli Art kit

Last weekend when we were browsing for a b'day gift for my son, I found this Warli Art craft kit. I just love Warli art but never tried doing it so far. I had decided to start learning myself, browsing the internet for the Warli images. But lucky me I found this kit in Reliance Timeout and I just can't wait to begin. This kit also has guide and lot of pictures of Warli.

Neelavara Temple

Last week I visited the 'Mahisha Mardini Temple of Neelavara' for a family function. This temple is usually crowded during the last of monsoon season. 'Neelavara' means surronded by water. The river Seetha flows by this temple. It was total calm and peaceful here. Sharing few pics.

Today while doing the daily chores, suddenly I decided to do Strawberry Jam. Strawberries are one of my favourite fruit, be it sweet, or sour. The smell and the colour appeals to me. I tried to utilize the microwave to do this Jam from this source making-marmalade in microwave
It came out fine except that the sugar was bit more. The whole kitchen smelled strawberries while doing this.

My son was surprised seeing this after coming from school, and galloped a whole spoon of it..

This weekend saw us working more in the garden thanks to the Karnataka Bandh called by BJP. Bought few roses, crotons and creepers from the nearby nursery. Most of the plants were manured. Tried Reshmi Paneer tikka at home. It came out OK Ok. Had full indo Chinese meal in the afternoon, because of it may be my son had slight stomach upset.

Sunday I wanted to goto north east shop 'Ghar' near ORR, BG road junction, unfortunately it was closed. Went to newly opened Gopalan Mall. Few shops there and it is yet to become fully functional.

Sweet pumpkin idly

When my maid asked do we eat pumpkin, I gladly said yes thinking about the white pumpkin(boodh gumlakai in kannada). Next day our maid arrived with sweet pumpkin. She told me how much in demand these pumkins were in her neighborhood as everyone were asking for it. I was so disappointed in seeing this as me and my husband both hate this vegetable. I couldn't say anything to her and accepted it silently. I was thinking hard what I could do with this, and didn't ask my mother who like us never bought this vegetable home anytime. I kept in a corner of my store room and tried to ignore it everyday. I was hoping it would rot and throw it one fine day. But my maid didn't leave me in peace, after few days she asked what did I do with the pumpkin. I prepared curry out of it, I lied. Before we were leaving to native for the Christmas vacation, I had to do something with the pumkin so i decided to do palya from it. Well it was a hit with my son. But just before the day we left, my maid bought another pumpkin. Oh my God, just when I thought I finished I got another one. This time it was a more ripe one. My husband scolded me for not telling the maid that we don't like sweet pumpkin. If I had told her in the first place I wouldn't have got the second one. After we came back from the vacation, googled about pumpkin recipes. Then my cousin visited us over the weekend. She said she would take a piece of it so I gladly cut and packed, but forgot to give her before she left.

But she gave a good recipe for the pumpkin Idly. I tried a couple of times and it came out good, and everyone was happy with the end result. I still have a quarter of pumpkin gazing at me in the fridge. Here is the recipe

1 cup rava/sooji

2 and 1/2 cup of grated sweet pumpkin

1/2 cup of grated jaggery, more if you desire more sweetness.

A pinch of salt

1 tsp of ghee to roast sooji

10-15 cashewnuts

1/2 cup of grated fresh coconut

1. Fry/roast rava till it becomes slightly brown.

2. mix roasted rava, grated pumpkin, coconut,cashew nuts, jaggery.

3. Put the mixture in idly molds and cook it for about 20 min in low flame( same way as we cook idlies).

New year is in

The new year is in and the old gone. Although not a best way to spend the new year, we spent it travelling. Our Christmas vacation was spent with our in-laws and my parents. Travelling back we took a new route instead of our regular Saligrama-Hebri-Agumbe-Shimoga-Tumkur route. As advised by my father we decided to try the Agumbe-Sringeri-Aldur-Belur-Hasan route this time. The road was good because it was less travelled but it was too curvy. Pranav wasn't feeling the previous night so all the way he was vomiting. After some time we has another patient in our car that was my sis in-law. She was feeling dizzy. I understood why this road was less travelled despite being good. We were wondering when we would hit the straight road. On the way we saw lot of coffee plantations and one Tea plantation. Pranav got a Chance to see the coffee plant and its seeds. In between there were many small waterfalls but didn't make any stop anywhere as we had to reach B'lore as soon as possible. I was glad that we took a road that was less travelled. Had lunch in Shri Krishna in Hassan which was bad.

Finally reached B'lore around 4:30 PM. I came home and cooked some Kochakki ganji and devoured with mouth watering pickle.