2015 in review

Though I was not so very active most of the time in 2015, stats look definitely good. Thanks everyone. Wish you all a very happy and a prosperous New Year 2016!!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 79,000 times in 2015. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Tri Color Semolina Savory Muffins — Indian Independence Day Special

Tags

Indian Independence Day, Indian Tri Color Dishes, Muffins, Savory Muffins, Semolina Muffins, Semolina Savory Muffins, Tri Color Dishes, Tri Color Muffins

Indian Independence Day round the corner on August 15th. There was an event announced by Shurti @CookingwithSJ for Independence Day.

Happy Independence Day to all my Indian friends 🙂 First I was a little (totally) confused of what to do and did not get any idea. Finally got idea to prepare semolina muffins. Tried the tri color using spinach, carrot and milk. Here we go with the recipe….

Ingredients:

For Green Color:

• Semolina : 1/4 cup
• Yogurt : 1/4 cup
• Water : 1/4 cup
• Spinach : handful bunch
• Green Chili : 1 finely chopped
• Onion : 1/8 cup finely chopped
• Cabbage : Shredded 1/4 cup
• Salt : 1/8 teaspoon
• Oil : 1/2 teaspoon
• Cumin Seeds : 1/8 teaspoon
• Red Chili Powder : 1/8 teaspoon
• Baking Powder : 1/4 teaspoon
• Ginger : a tiny piece
• Asafoetida: 1/8 teaspoon

For White :

• Semolina : 1/4 cup
• Yogurt : 1/4 cup
• Milk : 1/3 cup
• Green Chili : 1 finely chopped
• Onion : 1/8 cup finely chopped
• Cabbage : Shredded 1/4 cup
• Salt : 1/8 teaspoon
• Oil : 1/2 teaspoon
• Cumin Seeds : 1/8 teaspoon
• Red Chili Powder : 1/8 teaspoon
• Baking Powder : 1/4 teaspoon
• Ginger : a tiny piece
• Asafoetida: 1/8 teaspoon

For Saffron Color:

• Semolina : 1/4 cup
• Yogurt : 1/4 cup
• Water : 1/4 cup
• Carrot : 1 medium (grated finely)
• Green Chili : 1 finely chopped
• Onion : 1/8 cup finely chopped
• Cabbage : Shredded 1/4 cup
• Salt : 1/8 teaspoon
• Oil : 1/2 teaspoon
• Cumin Seeds : 1/8 teaspoon
• Red Chili Powder : 1/8 teaspoon
• Baking Powder : 1/4 teaspoon
• Ginger : a tiny piece
• Asafoetida: 1/8 teaspoon

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease muffin tray with oil or butter generously.

For Green:

• In a blender add yogurt, salt, asafoetida, spinach, water and blend well.
• In a bowl mix all other ingredients and add the above blended wet ingredient.

For White:

• In a blender add yogurt, salt, asafoetida, milk and blend well.
• In a bowl mix all other ingredients and add the above blended wet ingredient.

For Saffron:

• In a blender add yogurt, salt, asafoetida, grated carrot, water and blend well.
• In a bowl mix all other ingredients and add the above blended wet ingredient.

 

Now in the muffin tray pour the batter and bake for 30 mins. Cool down for 10 mins. Enjoy the healthy savory muffins 🙂 Once again Happy Independence day and Jai Hind!!!

Sleeping Tips

For all my friends, this is just a wonderful post that gives tips on getting better sleep 🙂

Good Night’s sleep

Tags

Effects of eating in the midnight, Gadget Intervention while sleeping, Good Night's sleep, How to sleep well, Mid Night snack, Sleeping, Sleeping disorder

Dear friends this is off and out of my blog’s content. But thought of sharing this awareness of sleeping in night. How many of us sleep well during the night? Do we sleep from 10 PM to morning 6? Do we get at least 6 hours of sleep? If you can do so, you are way good and on right track.

Definitely I am not the one who sleeps well. I struggle a lot to sleep. I have to roll on for hours together to get sleep. I keep myself preoccupied with so many thoughts. Its a battle between my thoughts and sleep.

Recently I watched a talk show in a Tamil channel about why younger generation doesn’t sleep on time?

Many younger generation people argued that they got sleep for 6 hours but they slept from mid night 2 to next day 8. They were quite comfortable with that sleeping time. Some said we can’t sleep at least until 3 in the mid night.  Some said they can happily watch TV programs in the night. They can play games and chat with friends. Everything was in and around gadgets.Yes I am one of them.

Just because I can’t sleep, I will watch movies, TV programs in the night. When I am on bed I get some thought and check my mobile. Check for emails. As I am awake I get hungry and snack something in the midnight. This is something worse I know it myself but I can’t help it. I am not getting sleep 😦 What ever we eat in the midnight doesn’t get digested properly and sugar settles in the liver which is dangerous. This is one reason why we put on weight.

Some experts, doctors have come to the show and they pointed few information which gave me a big time shock.

• The light that we get from gadget in the darkness very badly affect our retina in the eyes. Nerves in the eyes are affected.
• Eating in the midnight increases your weight.
• Not sleeping on time from 10 PM to 6 AM affects hormones. There are certain hormones which secrets only in the midnight when we sleep. If we don’t sleep at that time the hormone secretion level dips downs to a very low range. This can cause digestive problems in the younger age. Later change to fatal around 40 to 50 years of our age.
• The one which gave me a jerk is this one, If we don’t sleep well as ladies in the midnight we have a great chance of getting breast cancer. Some ladies who are prone genetically for breast cancer are asked to wear black glasses when they sleep to avoid the chances of breast cancer in them.
• The complete world operates with Sun. We need to sleep and work according to the Sun’s rules. When it sets we need to sleep and when it rises we need to wake up. Simple example are flowers, they bloom when sun rises and goes down when Sun sets.

These are the fact that we need to accept and understand. I have made a resolution myself that I will not touch any gadget once I go to bed. Try to sleep by 10 PM. I am following it for the past one week, first 2 days was difficult but slowly I can realize Yes I can sleep by 10. It’s just my mind set. Even if some thought ponders, just have to tell myself that I need to sleep. All my worries can wait.

A good night’s sleep is definitely needed for every one, those who have little kids it is difficult. Otherwise lets change our attitude towards sleep 🙂

Simple Vegetable salad + GM Diet update

Tags

GM Diet, GM Diet Day 3, GM Diet Day 4

I had prepared this simple vegetable salad  for my 2nd day of GM diet.

Ingredients:

Broccoli : 10 to 12 pieces

Carrot : 1/2 (cut into pieces)

Corn : handful

Onion: 1/4 of a large

Cucumber: 1/4 of a large (cut into pieces)

Cabbage : shredded handful

Tomato : 1 (cut into pieces)

Pepper : 1/2 teaspoon

Salt : 1/2 teaspoon

Cilantro Leaves : Few to garnish

Lime Juice : 1/2 teaspoon

Method:

Steam the carrot, broccoli, corn for 5 mins. Next mix this with all other ingredients and serve 🙂

 

Day 3 of GM diet went well. I could feel lighter. This is a day of both vegetables and fruits. In vegetables no potato. In fruits no banana and no avocado. No Milk as well this day. I could eat the mix of both day 1 and 2, felt much better.

Today is Day 4 with just banana and milk. I am just so happy 🙂 Yeah I already had 2 banana’s and 2 glasses of milk. Also there is this GM wonder soup which can be had in between. Recipe to follow soon. Day 4 we can have up to 6 banana’s and 750ml of milk preferably skim milk. Trust me its very heavy with banana after the 3 days of diet. I could already feel that my tummy has gone down a bit 😛

Thank you friends for all your wishes, I have come long way in diet for sure 🙂

GM Diet Day 2

Tags

GM Diet, GM Diet Day 2

This was not at all a bad day as I expected it to be. I could feel more energetic than day 1.

Second day:

Only Vegetables, no fruits, milk. One potato boiled or baked is allowed in the morning. As much less oil as possible.

I had one boiled potato in morning with pepper and salt. Then had carrots, corn for afternoon. In between I could manage with black tea. Evening I prepared some salad with half a teaspoon oil( recipe to be followed) and black tea. One thing that I could find about myself was I crave for salt more than sugar. I just found it myself. Though I know I am sweet tooth and eat lots of sugar. I felt this day with just pinch of salt I was satisfied. Weird for me 🙂

Starting today with Day 3 which is a mix of day 1 and day 2. This should be an ease as far as I think 🙂

GM diet day 1

Tags

GM Diet Day1

I have successfully completed my day 1 in GM diet 🙂 Day full of fruits. Exception of Banana and Avocado 😦 I missed them so much. I can really live on both these fruits but they are not allowed on day 1. No milk. We can have only black tea or black coffee with out sugar.

I had apples, oranges, blueberries, grapes and some black tea yesterday. I drank almost 3 liters of water to keep myself hydrated. By evening I got a little dizzy as well head ache. For a foodie like me who keeps munching something, this is a little difficult.

Have entered Day 2 with lots of confidence, this is one difficult day as it is only vegetables. Instant sugar will not be available. Hoping to cope up 🙂 Will update tomorrow on the progress 🙂

Healthy Cookies sans egg, butter, oil, sugar

I am back from the long weekend trip. It was an awesome trip and we enjoyed it very well. Haven’t had time to prepare something newly for Fiesta Friday, so I am adding this one to the FF#23.

Malar's Kitchen

I can’t wait to post this healthy recipe. I didn’t want to use butter, sugar, eggs for cookies. I was searching for options to avoid butter. As I already had idea for sugar to be replaced with dates. Some articles suggested to use Oil instead of butter, but I didnt want to use oil also 😛 Phew got this post from Jhuls @ The not so creative cook on healthy substitutes for baking. So I decided to bake with banana as the substitute for butter.

The first time I tried made with Whole wheat flour and was not very satisfied with the outcome, though it was good. So next baked with oats flour and this came out well. I am giving the recipe with Oats flour which turned out very well.

Ingredients:

Old Fashioned Oats : 2 cups

Instant Oats : 1 cup or Oats Flour : 1 cup

Dates…

View original post 272 more words

GM Diet??? reviews please

Tags

GM Diet

I am planning to go on GM diet in the coming week and I am trying to mentally prepare myself 🙂 Love handles has got in too much with me 😛 these days. I haven’t been working out for quite some time. Though I am a regular walking person, no gym workout these days 😦  But now I need some courage.

I came across this GM diet many have given positive feedback. Just wanted to know if any of my fellow bloggers have done this? Is there any side effects? Do give me your reviews friends.

As of now vacation starts in 2 more hours YAY!! Its 4th of July and Happy Independence Day to all my American friends. Meet you all on Monday again.

Multi purpose Spice Powder

Tags

Indian Spice powder, Masala rice, Multi Purpose Spice powder, Spice mix, Spice powder

When I used to live in Bangalore, I had a lot of Kannadiga friends. They used to get this lovely dish Vaangi bath (Eggplant rice). Its tastes so awesome, that I used to swap my lunch with theirs 😀 . One of my friend’s wife was also a working women and travelling from home to office is extremely hectic in Bangalore traffic. These friends used to travel for 2 hrs in the morning to office. Thank god I stayed little closer to office and could save some time for me. Back again to vaangi bath , this has a special spice powder which is mixed with eggplant and then the cooked eggplant with this powder been added to the cooked rice. My friends told me that you can use this mix in any kind of rice and it would taste good. My friend’s wife, if she doesn’t have enough time to cook in the morning , she would just cook rice and mix this spice powder, salt and pack it for lunch. Wow how awesome it used to taste, I just love it 🙂 I call it as masala rice 🙂

I prepared my version of this spice mix, this has little variation from the Vaangi bath masala powder. I recently prepared this and got thumbs up from my hubby 🙂 You can store it in refrigerator in an air tight box for over a months time with this mix.

Ingredients:

Cumin seeds : 2 teaspoon

Fennel Seeds : 2 teaspoon

Coriander seeds : 2 teaspoon

Urad dal : 1 1/2 teaspoon

Channa dal : 1 1/2 teaspoon

Red Chili / Red Pepper :5 to 6

Fenugreek seeds : 1/2 teaspoon

Dry Grated Coconut : 2 teaspoon

Method :

Dry roast all these in a pan except coconut. Roast them until nice aroma comes. Color of urad dal and channa dal would start changing, then stop and added dry grated coconut. Coconut would also mix with these spices in the heat of the pan.

In a blender or food processor, grind this to a smooth powder.  You can store this in an air tight container and use it. It can be coarse as well.

To mix in rice. Add butter or oil in pan. when it is hot, add this powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and saute for 2 mins. Then add the cooked rice and mix well. Masala rice is ready 🙂 If you feel its a little dry, you can add more oil to it and mix well.

If you want to add some vegetable, in a pan add butter or oil, when it is hot add the vegetable saute until half done. Add this powder and salt. Saute until well cooked. Now add the rice to it and mix well. Veggie masala rice is ready 🙂

I use it to prepare some vegetables also, recently I had prepared Capsicum with this. Just cut capsicum to pieces, In a pan heat oil, saute the capsicum, add salt and this powder. Vegetable is ready within 10 mins.

 

I haven’t used oil while roasting the spices, as we will definitely add oil at later stage and the oil consumption reduces. You can add mustard seeds or sesame seeds as well for preparing.