2016 recollect

Looking back on 2016 in my online world :-)
Best of 2016 song playlist:
1. Mei Niagara - 24
2. Maya nadhi - Kabali
3. Thalli pogadhey - Acham yenbadhu madamayada
4. Ei sandakaara - Irudhi sutru
5. Vaa machaaney - Irudhi sutru
6. Naan un azhaginiley - 24
7. Halena - Irumugan
Best of Books read in 2016:
1. The secret dreamworld of a shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella (thanks Nandita Hari for introducing me to this author)
2. Shopaholic abroad - Sophie Kinsella
3. Shopaholic ties the knot - Sophie Kinsella
4. Finding Audrey- Sophie Kinsella
5. What to expect when you are expecting 4th edition - Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel
6. Babies and bylines - Pallavi Aiyar
7. The greatest Bengali stories ever told - Arunava Sinha
New entry - Best of products bought online, who knows someone might find it useful ;-)
1. Handmade Wooden Tangram Puzzle
2. Iris Reed Diffuser
3. Kanvas Katha Women’s Tote Bag
4. Whitmor Plastic Document Boxes
5. Kalsi Hand Press Juicer
6. Bumberry Cloth diaper
7. Organic unfiltered apple cider vinegar
Top used shopping apps:
1. Amazon
2. Limeroad (Meera Ramachandran thanks for introducing me to this app)
3. Big basket
4. Ferns and petals
5. Urban ladder
6. Pepperfry
7. Zomato
Top used other apps:
1. All in one printer remote
2. Expense Manager
3. Inshorts
4. SHAREit
5. Ola
6. Uber
7. Quikr
PS: now no need for any app to steal my user preferences… ;-)

school days

School days:

1. Slipping through the gate just in time before it closes. Finally getting assigned as gatekeeper to catch others so had to come early!!
2. Wearing flag for independence day and getting a cup ice/chocolate/drink
3. Standing in queue and getting bus pass
4. Playing kho kho during PT period
5. Getting chalk from office room daily for classes
6. Evening time off during Ramzan month
7. Sports days and annual days exciting times
8. Collecting the year’s books from book stall before reopening day
9. Carrying rough note on first day of school
10. Lunch under usual tree with usual gang
11. Grape ice and coloured muttai shape sugar mittai from canteen
12. Mango slices outside school gate
13. Reading news headlines during morning assembly
14. Writing talking names on board
15. Skating in the corridors

college days

1. Sense of achievement after getting a seat in engg but wanted to slow down and not try to be the topper each time
2. All days colour dress suddenly
3. Eating veg puff in bakery opposite college entrance
4. Making it to the 8:30 AM schedule with a travel of 1.5 hrs after school days where school was nearby. Can never forget the ride on 5A cut in first year and the separate essay I wrote on that (to be shared later ;-))
5. Second year onwards hop skip and jump, three legs of journey - bus from nandanam to guindy, suburban train from guindy to tambaram and college bus from tambaram to college
6. Occasional tiffin at veg refreshment stall in stations
7. Occasional tea at bhatt’s tambaram with friends
8. Guitar practice and performing in freshers party
9. Symposiums and college day functions and event organizing
10. Tiring workshop sessions in first year - sleeping from friday 6 PM to saturday 6 AM after the session
11. Ring tournaments - some sports activity
12. Cricket sessions with friends
13. Satisfying dream of cutting class and going for movie - managed to do it once :-)
14. Solving crossword puzzles while in class
15. Some class trips and gifts on birthdays managed within budget
16. Aspiring to get a good job and preparing with focus for campus interviews

shopaholic review

The shopaholic series by sophie kinsella:

for those with the shopping bug this book series will be just a dream come true. the heroine of the book becky bloomwood is a compulsive shopper. just like any of us but maybe on a greater degree. how many times have we gone to buy some item of necessity and come back with a bag full of goodies. how many times have we shopped for “future” when there is a sale going on - but the difference between a normal shopper and a shopaholic is that - a shopaholic hunts out for sales and buys stuff - shopping is in their blood - its something like a hobby whether or not you need the product. So much so that the heroine in this story gets into debt - but this doesnt stop her from her hobby - she just finds a smart solution - earn more, get a better job to satiate her greed - how she gets this going and how her life gets transformed - quite gripping a tale when you identify yourself with her. I have read three of this series and the first one was the best “Confessions of a shopholic”, the second was also good “shopaholic abroad, third "shopaholic ties the knot” was kinda ok, but a bit dragging. Read it to experience it yourself ;-) Still more for me to read in the series, think there are 8 books in all.

Thogayal/thuvaiyal recipe

Ingredients:

Coconut - 10 spoons (scraped)
Broken urad dhaal - 10 spoons
Red chillies - as per requirement, 1 will do for mild flavour
Tamarind - ½ small lemon size
Salt - as needed

Procedure:
Fry all the above in a kadai (except salt) in medium flame for 10 min

Keep it aside for cooling

Once cooled first dry grind in mixie with salt

Then add 100 ml of water and grind again to a paste with the required consistency

Can be used as a tasty side for kootu/rasam 😀

Corrections:

Add idli chilli powder a bit if you find it has too much coconut or tamarind taste

Fry the paste a little if you feel it has a raw taste

health tips

Be aware of yourself, in all aspects - this is message to myself 😊 and others in case they need it ;-)

When you have a chronic health problem, take notes, monitor your activities, understand what causes problems and what can be done to solve it. Consult a doc when needed with clear notes about your problem, check if the treatment suits you, go with feedback about treatment, because each person is different and the doc needs to monitor the patient to suggest alternate treatment. There are various types of treatment available, so be open to try them out while being cautious about your earlier experiences. The concept of a family doctor is actually very good, but you will need specialists for addressing specific problems. Again specialists will be busy, so you need to have patience to get a sitting. Meanwhile you have to monitor yourself and be in harmony. There will be times when everyone around you will be giving advice (some blindly just for the sake of giving), they will be having a helping intention only, but you might be overwhelmed by it. Filter your inputs and again restart your notes and seek harmony. Set expectations so that you can get your much needed peace.
So be aware and make others aware :-) that is the thought for today

Bye for now folks!

useful gadgets

Useful gadgets :)

Like apples? Here is an easy 30 sec way to peel and cut them.

The orange apple cutter is a great gadget that my chitthappa used to employ for cutting apples, this buy from amazon is inspired from him :) The light yellow peeler is a good buy and this was bought by my husband from the local store - good to peel carrot, potato and beetroot too but when they are fresh and hard and medium or large sized. The other thing I love is the cutting board in the pic - newly purchased, its a bamboo board (environment friendly) and has a steel ring to hang it in the kitchen after use - need to check the durability of this product though before recommending - as wood usually catches fungus due to dampness, this was also bought from a local store.

good morning folks, have a great day!

more kozhambu

More kozhambu :) (get more confused :))) literal translation is too good :)

Ingredients:

Vegetable - preferably pumpkin varieties or ladies finger types

Nice sour curd preferably 3 days old - just the right age ;-)

For the base - following items to be slightly roasted and ground to a paste
1) coconut shredded - a handful
2) green chilli - quantity as per spice level required
3) jeera
4) coriander seeds
5) kadala paruppu (forgot what it is called in english :-P)

Seasoning - 2 tsps oil, mustard seeds and curry leaves

Season first, saute the vegetable, add the ground paste and finally add curd and heat for only a couple of minutes in low flame.

maamiyaars and husbands

ever wondered about the characteristics and many facets of maamiyaars and husbands?
lately I have been pondering about this topic.. after joining the marriage bandwagon..

and this is the analysis I have come up with
this might sound to be a serious topic after my other blogs, but this is actually more funny than the rest.
There is the maamiyaar who is sadhu going about daily duties in their own routine - these just need just a little attention from you like the occasional small talk and care as needed
then there are the cunning types watching unwanted serials and always trying to plot their sons against you - these provide entertainment in one way by keeping your brain active to counteract the chess moves
then there are the really old ones who play with their grandchildren and tell them stories and share their wisdom with the family on family matters
then there are the emotionally drained ones who just want to retire and put their feet up and expect the daughter in law to do them sevai - here the son/husband is the tormented soul :))
then there are the inspiring ones who take up some hobby and engage themselves like stitching sweaters for the kids
then there are the social ones who gang up with other folks of the same age in the apartment and do some arattai and gossip too which is quintessential to conversations
rare version is the caring and affectionate type who binds the family with love
some still continue their cooking pursuits and challenge daughter in laws with their menu which obviously son prefers better - as it is after all “mom’s cooking” :)
the healthy ones go on group tours to holy places and have a gang for prayer recital if they are also the devotional type
then the only son types who always want to go out wherever the son and dil go and even hog all places in the house too :)) .. these ones take time to understand to give space to the couple :)) but by the time some couples get kids :)) and there you go - so much for “me time and we time”

I can go on and on - but for the sake of the title - let me talk about husbands for a while
there is the understanding husband - rare species :)) but these too tend to give in to family pressure
there is the lazy type - who need some prodding to move about and help with household chores
there is always the chauvinistic type - nothing much can be said about this category
there is the pillar of support types - who will stand by you in anything - lucky if you get this one
then there is the finicky and loving type - always jealous
also there is the friend type - marriage will be a true companionship with these types
there is the soulmate type - whom you will have some hidden bonding
there is the truly compatible type - who shares all your interests and life is never boring
then there is also the motivating type - who will find your hidden talents and inspire you to achieve
and the modern type who will be less of a pain and treat you as an equal..
again lots more to talk about..

do share your views if you feel like ;)
NOTE: this topic is not edited or censored and just coming out of my mouth - sorry if this rubs someone the wrong way - given disclaimer :)))

final touch - gyaan :) never compromise your feelings/dignity/respect/yourself for any relationship - mutual affection is absolute for a successful relationship

doormats are there for their purpose - dont be one :)

Closing the financial year!

Sounds like a serious topic to start with right? 

But coming from me you can expect it to be simple - as I have never been good with financial planning - the maximum effort I have taken is to file IT returns on my own - and that too turned out to be disastrous as my IT filing got rejected a couple of years and I had to redo it with a proper auditor! sigh!

My post today is about an app called the expense manager. I started using this app in 2015 and it has been a good way to check and control my expenses. This is a cool app that comes with categories of expenses covering the usual basic stuff like house rent, electricity, gas, phone etc.

The next cool thing about it is you can email a .csv report of your expenses to any mail id after which you can sort and play around with the categorization of expenses and see where you have indulged in most :-) You can get weekly, monthly and year to date report of activities based on your choice 

The app comes with a calendar view acting as a visual aid of daily expenses -so it makes it easy to budget day to day spending.

Charts by category/sub-category helps you understand your areas of spending.

Though this might be too overwhelming to analyze so it is better done at the close of every quarter and finally the year end!

On this note, wishing everyone a prosperous year ahead!

Until later

bye folks!

chakka paayasam :)

My cooking experiments continue :)

started out ambitiously to make elai adai.

Had bought chakkai (pala pazham/jack fruit) a couple of days back at a roadside shop. 

Yesterday started the prepration - sauted the chakkai nicely in nei (ghee) for about 15 minutes and then added a little water and let it cook well for 5 min. Then added powdered jaggery to it and mixed well and kept aside to cool. Refridgerated this mix overnight so that it soaks in jaggery well.

Elai adai preparation is techincally simple:

1) first you need to cook rice flour in boiling water add a dash of salt to it mix well and take it off from the stove

2) Then you need to grind the cooked chakkai mixed with jaggery along with a little coconut as needed in a mixie

Then all you need to do is stuff the chakkai mix in a flat wrap of rice flour and let it steam like idli for 7 minutes.

But in reality this turned out to be a disaster for me :-\

First the rice flour didn’t come out in the required consistency so that it can be patted well to form a wrap and add stuffing to it!

Second the chakkai paste was not thick enough to be stuffed!! I tried to add apple and rice flour and grind it to make it thick, but still did not work out :-| 

So my devil brain worked fast and I decided to make a paayasam out of this to salvage my pride and my hard work

So what I did was, heated a kadai and heated nei in it and added some cashews. Once roasted well added the chakkai apple paste to it and added a little water. Luckily I had some cooked fluffy rice available and I added a handful of that. Then added some cardamom powder to add flavour to the paayasam. Finally rounded it off by adding a couple if glasses of milk.

Yaaay! Paayasam turned out to be tasty :)

Weekly digest - Lunch experiments :)

Now trying out cool stuff for lunch to beat the summer heat :)

Today’s plan was maanga saadham. Then diversified to add thenga saadham also as there was lot of thenga stock at home :). Then to make the meal complete added curd rice to the menu with yesterday’s leftover plain rice :)

And the recipe - here goes its quite simple:

1) Maanga saadham:

Get a good long kilimooku maanga preferably :)

Peel off the thol (outer skin) of the mango first

Then scrape it in scraper or cut the maanga into small pieces and shred it in mixie

Heat a kadai, add oil and let some mustard seeds sputter - then add a dash of manja podi. Then add the scraped/shredded maanga and saute nicely in oil till it becomes slightly cooked, now add required quantity of salt. Maanga saadham mix is ready (you can add chilli powder or chillies as per your preference, but I like the mango flavour without chillies)

Keep plain rice in cooker and cook with 1:2 ratio of rice and water. Once cooked, take the rice out of the cooker and let it cool in a large vessel so that the rice separates out nicely which is important for the kalandha saadham varieties :)

When rice has cooled down and is nice and fluffy, add the maanga saadham mix prepared and mix well  while taking care not to mash the rice - you can also toss it in the air and mix it if you are an expert in that ;)

Serve with vadam or “OB adichufy” with potato chips :)

2) Thenga saadham

Procedure is pretty much similar

Heat a kadai, add oil and let some mustard seeds sputter - then add a little split urad dhal and red chillies (Keep the exhaust fan ON at this time to avoid cough due to frying of chilli - but I forgot this today :-| )Then add the scraped/shredded thenga and saute nicely in oil till thenga becomes slightly brown in colour, now add required quantity of salt

Same procedure for making plain rice, mix the thenga saadham mix with it   and serve with vadaam

3) Thayir saadham

For this rice has to be a little more cooked. You can cook rice with water in the 1:3 ratio. Or you could mash yesterday’s left over rice after heating it a little if dry and use it instead.

The main thing for thayir saadham is the seasoning part.

Here’s what I use for seasoning:

2 teaspoons oil, 1 tsp mustard, 1 tsp split urad dhal, one long green chilli split across to let the seeds give the required spicyness, a few curry leaves and coriander leaves, salt as desired. You could also add a couple of spoons of shredded carrot and pomegarante seeds if you like to make the rice more colourful :)

So how you do the seasoning is - first heat the 2 tsp oil in a seasoning vessel (check in local stores how to get one) - then keep the stove in low heat and add the mustard ( the oil should be hot enough that the seeds sputter and not so hot that it burns/carbonizes the mustard (for lack of a better word ;)). Never add the mustard and urad dhal together - because each needs varying levels of heat - so mustard goes first, then urad dhal, once urad dhal becomes slightly brown switch off the stove and add the curry leaves, green chilli and coriander leaves - these can sizzle in the leftover heat, that should be sufficient

for the thayir saadham add a little milk to the mashed rice first - mix well then add some curd - how much curd you add depends on when you prepare the curd rice and when you are going to eat it. If you prepare it too early add more milk and little curd and if you prepare it just before lunch then add less milk and more curd. Finally mix the seasoning part with the required salt and serve with nice homemade mango pickle made by home elders :-P or with some nice pickle from the supermarket shelf :)

Warning: Having this for lunch will make you want for a nice nap post lunch :) To avoid that you can do some brain alerting activity like I did writing this piece for example :)

Until later,

bye folks!   

weekly digest - breakfast experiments!

thought of introducing variety in the menu daily for breakfast
(after being duly provoked by house senior ;-))
so here’s the week that was :):):)
1. idli with molaga podi
2. rava upma with onion
3. poha with veggies carrot, peas, onion and potato
4. apple kesari with sundal
5. upma pidi kozhakattai with tomato chutney
6. bread sandwich toast with onion and tomato and coriander spread
7. semiya upma mixed with leftover of rava idli mix making it rava semiya
8. wheat puttu with sugar and banana side

upcoming releases: (to shock my household)
1. pongal with white chutney - coconut
2. pasta with tomato, cheese and cream
3. sevai with veggies
4. samba rava with veggies
5. strawberry, blueberry, banana smoothie
6. oats, muesli with fruit
7. kuzhi paniyaram with some chutney

will try to share recipes as and when I can manage :-)
well bye for now folks

have a great weekend! :-)

Beauty and the beast!

“Yeah its me the beast :)” experimenting with beauty products :)

Got this fancy for beauty products lately. 

1. First one is a face wash not picturized here - got this nice neem face wash by Himalaya, just so refreshing especially when the heat is on, and the neem acts as an anti germ agent as well
2. Second is a face scrub (featured on the right) - St Ive’s apricot face scrub - intro courtesy my niece - really good buy for me as I have some kinda rough surfaces in my face esp. my long nose :) :) :)
3. Always had a fancy for eye liner but do not have enough practice - the last one I bought was too dry and I would end up only injuring my eye :) :) this one (featured in center - from Biotique) is kinda “melty” and can be applied easily, still have to practice - hoping to in the next couple of weeks :)
4. Then there is the day cream from Biotique (featured on the left) its an additional buy when I was browsing for point no. 5 coming up
5. Hair styling gel again from Biotique- lately my hair doesn’t stay in place with my short hair cut growing out a bit - so in a dilemma whether to go for a haircut immediately or wait until it grows a little longer and have it nicely cut :) in the interim I thought this piece would be a good buy - again planning to experiment with this in the coming days - will post a pic if it turns out to be a success :) :)

That’s all for today

Bye folks!!