Baking/Cooking — Page 2 of 12

Day 2 in Jaipur also knows as Pink City of India

Day 2 in Jaipur Pink City of India

After exploring the magnificent forts of Jaipur we started our second day after heavy b/f. For this day we have planned to visit the Jantar Mantar, City Palace, Amer Fort & Jal Mahal.

We started with Jantar Mantar as it’s totally open space with no shade, so if it’s hot then we have to bear the heat. In Jantar Mantar there are more than 15 astronomical instruments which were built by Sawai Jai Singh 2.

Jantar Mantar Jaipur — Worlds Largest working Sun Dial

Jantar Mantar is situated right beside City Palace and Hawa Mahal. The instruments created here allowed the astrologers to see the astronomical positions of different planets and stars with naked eyes. This was built by the king as he has keen interest in astrology, he used all the knowledge while constructing the Pink City.

There is a sun dials which tells the local time in which we need to add I think 38 min to get the IST. The biggest sun dial(vrihat Samrat yantra) in world shows the time to a precision of a second.

Witnessing all this live was an amazing experience and to know this all was created 200+ years ago by our astrologers and craftsman. Overall time spent here was maximum 1 hour. Ticket price is Rs 50 pp and car parking is of Rs 80.

From here we went to City Palace which is situated right next to it. Ticket price is Rs 200 pp. There are other tickets as well like the one where you can visit it at night and then there is package in which you can even visit the place where the current royal family lives, as I remember the price of this ticket was Rs 3000 +.

City Palace was created at the same time as the Pink city itself. It consists of Museum and a part where the royal family lives. This palace houses many courtyards, buildings and pavilions and the most prominent are Chandra Mahal and Mubarak Mahal.

There are many entry points to the palace, one is reserved for Royal Family i.e. Tripolia gate. Visitors can enter via Udai Pol and one other.

Mubarak Mahal was built as a guest house for foreign guests which is now converted to a museum. Chandra Mahal is one of the oldest building in the palace and has several floors.

Then there is a place which was used as a Diwan-e-khas, it’s an open hall which is now used by royal family to celebrate important festivals. There are 2 big Silver vessels kept on either side and these vessels hold the Guinness World Record as well.

These vessels are the largest silver vessels with height of 5.2 ft weighing 340 Ks and has a capacity of around 4000 liters. These vessels are used by the king Sawai Madho Singh 2 to carry Ganga Jal when he went to London for some function/play.

Another special thing about these vessels are they are created without any joint or soldering. It was a wonderful experience knowing our history and seeing how skillful our artisan were. We spent around 1.30 hr here.

From here we went straight to Amer(Amber) Palace. This is situated in the Amer town and was build by Man Singh and later by Sawai Jai Singh. It situated on the foot of Jaigarh Fort. Ticket price is Rs 100 pp and parking charges for car is Rs 50.

There are many options to reach the palace one of which is your own vehicle. There are electric vehicles which will take you right inside the palace and charges Rs 80 pp after your own vehicle this is the most economical and affordable option.

There is one main attraction here to reach the top is elephants, but they are there till 11 AM only after that you have rest of the options till 5 PM.

From down to the full tour it will be around 3 Km of walk. The fort is laid out in 4 levels starting from Diwan-e-aam which was used for public celebration, Diwan-e-khas used by King and his special council, Sheesh Mahal and finally the Sukh Niwas.

This palace and Jaigarh fort are situated in one complex as there is a passage which connects both and was used in case of war. This enables royal family to shift to the Fort which is situated on a height and much more secure.

In Jalebi chowk there is Ganesh pol/gate which is very beautiful. It leads us to the private palace of the Maharaja. Beside this gate there are steps which directly leads to the temple of ‘Sila Devi’ which was worshipped by the Maharajas.

Going up from here comes the Diwan-e-aam, this was used to address common public. Going further up comes the third level. This is the courtyard where the Maharaja his queens and attendants used to live. There are rooms for all.

There is a ‘Sheesh Mahal’ and a beautiful garden as well in this courtyard.

Sheesh Mahal and beautiful garden in front of it

Final courtyard is where the queens used to live. The king had 12 queens, so he constructed 12 rooms and there is a staircase which is connected to the Maharaj’s room, but the queens are not allowed to go up.

All the rooms open to a common area which has a Baradari in the middle. It is said that if any queen does some mistake then the king gives them the punishment and make them sit in this baradari which is then covered by curtains and the queen will do some hard work like ‘Chakki peesna’.

In front of this Palace situated a lake know as Maota Lake and in middle of it situated a garden also known as Kesar kyari(garden) and as informed it was built to harvest Kesar.

In the Amer town situated Jhodha Bai ki Haveli which is not maintained at all and no once can access it, we can only see it from the Palace or the Fort.

After this we stopped on the way to click some pics of Jal Mahal. It is situated in the middle of the lake ‘Man Sagar’

It is said that it was given on lease to someone big company to renovate it and make hotel in it like what we have in Udaipur. Someone said that there is a stay on the construction/renovation.

This Mahal is a 5 storied building of which 2-3 floors remain submerged all the time and when the lake is full 4 floors are submerged. The situation on the shore is not good, so much of garbage was present in the water that it was stinking.

This ends our second and final day in the Pink city. From here we went to the less explored region of Rajasthan which houses some of the most beautiful Havelis.

Do check my next blog for more details about this place.

Exploring the wonderful Pink City of Rajasthan – Day 1

Jaipur aka Pink City was formed by Sawai Jai Singh in 1700’s. It took around 4-5 years to complete the construction of the Pink City i.e. construction of main roads and main areas of the city. Present day it’s the largest city of Rajasthan.

Do check out my previous post where I have given details about different regions of Rajasthan we have visited and how we planned this trip.

After check-in to hotel and relaxing for some time we started our tour after lunch. We stayed in Jaipur Marriott. The property is quite big with 300+ rooms. We stayed in Executive room on the top floor and the view was quite good.

There is one restaurant ‘Okra’ which serves good and quality food. We had daily b/f and dinner at this restaurant. There is one more restaurant/bar where you can have high tea or drinks.

Service is very good; we missed our high tea on the first day and requested them if they can send at least tea to room as we were really tired after the tour. We were surprised when the room service came with a big tray.

The chef has sent fresh aloo bonda(aloo Vada) with a sandwich, some cake, cookies etc. Everything was tasty and fresh.

First day we have visited Jaigarh Fort and Nahargarh Fort. These forts are situated above Amber Palace and there is a way to reach Amber from Jaigarh fort which was used by the queens in case there is an attack.

First, we went to Jaigarh Fort and the main attraction in this fort is worlds biggest cannon named ‘Jaivana’. The weight of the cannon barrel is said to be around 50 tons and 4 elephants were used to turn the cannon from one direction to other.

It is said that the only time it was fired they have used around 100 kg of gun powder and 50 kg of cannon ball. When it was fired it travelled a distance of 30+ Km and a small lake was formed in ‘Chaksu’ were the cannon ball landed.

This fort has its own water harvesting system as well, as water scarcity is there in Rajasthan from long time so they use to clean and store a lot of water.

There are small museums inside the fort one displayed the swords, shields, guns, and also a 50kg, cannonball with other smaller cannonballs. Other one has photographs, stamps and other stuff of royal family.

There is a small garden which is quite well maintained but cannot be accessed by public, one can see that from fort walls.

Many movies were shot in this fort/garden area.

View from here is amazing you can see Amer palace and Maota Lake, we can also see the Nahargarh fort walls which are spread over several km. Roads to this fort is in good shape but it’s a single road broad enough that 2 cars can pass.

Timing of this is from morning 9 to 5 in the evening. Ticket price is Rs 100 per person. One good thing about this place is you can take your car inside the fort, ticket price for car is also Rs 100, driver fee is included in car fee but if you are driving then you have to take ticket as we were told that driver can not step out but our guide managed it for that time ?

From here we went to Nahargarh Fort. Opening time is same as Jaigarh but it opens till late in evening due to sunset point. Ticket price is Rs 50 pp and Rs 50 is for car parking. There are 2 parking places one is inside, and one is outside so if you want to visit the sunset point and parking is available inside then do park inside else you have to walk extra.

Best time to visit this fort is in the evening time, you will witness amazing sunset and can click some amazing pics, when we were there a couple came for there pre wedding shoot.

There is one restaurant Padao as well which is operated by RTDC and they charge Rs 100 pp as entrance fee. Our guide said that the food quality is not that good, and we can get the pic from outside as well, so we didn’t went inside.

There is a wax museum at the entrance of the fort and the ticket price is Rs 500 pp, they have built a ‘Sheesh Mahal’ small palace made of different color glass and few other attractions.

We didn’t visit this as well as the price is more, and we don’t want to visit wax museum as we have seen Madame Tussaud’s in NL and Sheesh Mahal is there in City Palace as well.

Nahargarh Fort

In the main building of this fort there are around 9 rooms which are exactly same created for 9 Ranis(queens) of that time king.

We can even climb on the roof of this building and the view is just amazing.

While returning back from the fort to hotel in the evening we visited the Pink city. The city building are well maintained and are maintained by the government. No one is allowed to do any other color inside the Pink city.

Pink city has 7 gates to enter/exit, the wall of Pink city and the gates are still intact and well maintained. This city is well planned city and was constructed as per ‘Vastu’. There was no modification done with any of the buildings(there are new constructions but old is as it is).

We missed taking pics at night as our guide said that lights will be there till late night, so we went out around 11 PM one of the gates was closed so we have to take a de-tour and found that the lights are off.

I am not sure if they close some gates at night daily or it was due to Covid they closed it. There are lights which lit the full pink city at night and the lights are turned off by 10-10.30 PM daily.

This concludes our first day out of 10 days. Keep following my blog and Instagram for day by day trip details.

10 days road trip in different regions of Rajasthan

After a year long break due to Lock down and different restrictions due Covid-19 we finally dare to step out and went on a 10-day long Road trip to Rajasthan.

This was first time we went on any road trip of such a long duration covering 6 cities/towns/villages in different regions of Rajasthan. As usual our planning started around a month in advance and we started looking for good properties with different themes.

As we are native of Rajasthan so we went to our hometown first spent few weeks there and then started our road trip as Directly traveling from Mumbai was taking 2 days of time to reach(reason we don’t rush while driving and we don’t drive in night, so we usually take a stop in long drives)

Also we have to visit our home town as it’s been more than a year we’ve been here. So this saved us 4 days of travel time, which leads to good number of days spent in each city/town.

Usually good time to visit Rajasthan is winters i.e. till March mid around but this time it was little hotter in March start itself, but it was bearable around 32-34 degrees. Nights and mornings are colder not too cold but very pleasant.

We started our trip from Jaipur and ended it in Jodhpur and then back to our hometown.

Cities covered

Jaipur -> Nawalgarh -> Mandawa -> Jaisalmer -> Pokhran -> Dhundhara -> Jodhpur

We travelled around 1400 Km of distance in these 9-10 days. Roads are dam good and few are newly constructed. It’s a combination of State and National Highways

We skipped Bikaner this time, but will visit it next time?

Days spent @each city

2 nights in Jaipur
2 nights in Mandawa/Nawalgarh
3 nights in Jaisalmer
2 nights in Dhundhara and
1 night in Jodhpur(I know which is less min is 2 nights)

Different Regions of Rajasthan

These cities/towns are located in different regions of Rajasthan like Nawalgarh & Mandawa are located in Shekhawati region Jodhpur & Dhundhara in Marwar, Jaipur in Dhundhar region.

Last year we have visited Udaipur which comes in Mewar region which also consists of Chittorgarh which has the largest fort in India.

Word ‘Rajasthan’ literally means ‘Land of kings’ (Raja + shtna means राजाओं का स्थान). There were so many great kings who ruled in Rajasthan the most famous and fearsome was the Great Maharana Pratap.

Rajasthan has rich history and while on the trip we came to know that it was partially a part of Indus Valley Civilization as well.

The Shekhawati region is located in Northern part of Rajasthan and consists of Jhunjhunu, Sikar & Churu district. Places we visited came under Jhunjhunu district. As per the guides this region was founded by ‘Rao Shekha’ and was named after him.

These places are famous for grand and beautiful Havelies build by rich merchants of this region. This area was part of the ‘Silk rout’.

Jaipur is part Dhundhar region or say the main and biggest city of this region which got its name from river ‘Dhund’.

Marwar which consist of Jodhpur, Bikaner etc. means region of Desert. Mar was derived from Sanskrit work ‘Maru’ which means desert and ‘wad’ which means regions. People speak Marwari language if this region which is quite popular. If you are from Rajasthan, then most of the outside Rajasthan people assume that you are a Marwari ?

Things to Pack

Good Sunscreen
Hat/Cap
Sunglasses
Comfortable shoes, as it will be a lot of walking
Colorful & comfortable cloths, as most of the monuments are made of single color stones so you can get beautiful pics
Less things to carry while on tour as you have to walk a lot so a small sling or handbag or just a backpack
Do carry water bottles while on tour(visiting any monument)

* sunscreen can be removed if visiting in winters as that time sun is not that harsh but quite pleasant

Do follow my Blog and Instagram for detailed posts about the places visited in each cities, different charges/fees, timings, where we stayed, places to eat and shop.

Check where we stayed and what all we saw on Day 1 of our trip.

Experience with Borosil Oven- Prima 60 L OTG

My baking experience with borosil oven Prima 60 litre OTG

Baking is like a therapy for me, I started baking in oven after my little one was born and it worked as stress buster for me.

That time we bought 21 L LG microwave convection oven as we were not sure how much we would be using it. But my love for baking kept growing and I kept on learning new new recipes and trying in my small microwave .

I have baked breads, cookies, buns, pizza, bati and many more items in my LG microwave .

But frankly I was not so satisfied with microwave oven baking as end results were not up to mark. As it was 21 ltr oven I need to bake limited quantity every time. So my baking time and electricity consumption was increasing.

So we finally decided to buy proper oven and our search started with all available brands.

What we searched before buying oven?

Capacity
Temperature settings
Reviews
Multiple uses
Baking time
How much you can bake in one go

Why above points are important !!

It’s really important to decide how many ltr oven you need to buy as per your baking requirements, here you should consider future needs as well. You won’t be changing your oven any time soon
Temperature settings is important as there are many recipes that need higher temperature. In many ovens the max temperature provided is 200 – 220 °C
Reviews, user feedback is also important as good looking and feature pack product does not mean it’s good.
We should always consider oven which has multiple features like bake, toast & grill are most common one
Timer is another important feature as if you want to bake multiple trays in one go then you might need longer time to cook. Many ovens come with just 60 min timer
How much you can bake in one go, again if you want to make large batches and want to cook it in one go & if you have smaller capacity oven then it will consume a lot of time & energy

After our search we finally decided to buy Borosil – Prima 60 L OTG as it was one of the few which fulfill almost all of my requirements. So let’s see why I choose to buy Borosil.

Features

It has multiple functions that includes convection, rotisserie, grill, bake and toast
As it’s Borosil it has borosilicate Double Glass Door
Adjustable Temperature Control 90° – 250°C, max temperature is 250°C
0 – 120 minutes mechanical timer, it was really important as when you are baking for many people your oven can bake continuously for 120 minutes
It has keep warm function, which will keep oven running at set min temperature to keep your food warm
Power Indicator automatically turns on when the timer is set
Motorized rotisserie for uniform grilling function available in Borosil Prima Oven Toaster Griller
12 Stage heating options in Prima Oven Toaster Griller
Illuminated chamber helps in baking as you can keep an eye while you are baking.
As it’s 60 ltr we cam keep multiple trays at once

Items included with Borosil 60lt

1 Removable Crumb Tray for better cleaning
1 Cooking Tray
Grill Rack
Handle to take out Cooking Tray
Rotisserie Rod Set
Rotisserie Handle
Recipe book
Instructions manual

My experience with Borosil Prima Oven

Very easy to operate as it has four knobs for setting temperature, mode & heating rod and timer to adjust as per your recipe
For easy assistance it comes with a guide book and recipe book with all details to understand your oven
It’s quiet spacious to bake multiple items. I have baked around 25-30 medium size cookies in two trays, two cakes in one go, lasagna, breads, baked vegetables.
One point to mention, baking time increases little more if you are baking more items in one go.
Illuminated chamber is really helpful to keep a check on items baking. I would say it’s really important as I have worked with another oven without light bulb and it’s quiet tough to see the baked level without taking out tray.
Big double glaze glass on front so it’s quite easy to keep an eye on every corner of the tray.
Initially there was uneven heating issues so I was getting some dark and some light color cookies. In my case it was thermostat issue and got it fixed.
But still to avoid that you can change the tray directions when you see it’s getting darker at one end.
Oven overall weight is not heavy so you can shift on your own if required.
Oven thermometer is must to know the exact temperature of oven as it’s always less or more then what you have set. You should get a good quality one else temperature issue will be there.
Oven trays/wire rack quality is ok, but can’t keep heavy pans like Dutch oven or iron tawa on the wire rack which is required in sourdough baking.
Overall a happy customer as I love baking in my oven and every oven behaves differently so you will get use to when you bake.

For more product reviews check here.

How fast is the right growth for kids

When you are parents, your life runs around your kids and their growth is your utmost priority. Adya was born with good weight but slowly we noticed she was falling behind and I was really worried that this might affect her activity level.

Growth is an important indicator to know the status of health and nutrition. First 6 years are critical growth years for every child and we need to monitor their growth.

This will help in understanding if there is any nutrition or health problem. Accordingly, we can take corrective measures to improve their health and overall development.

When children are young there is a lot of worry around if their height and weight is appropriate as per their age and how fast should children grow in India. I too had this worry because did you know, 1 in 3 children don’t grow as per their age?

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A post shared by Neha (@forbabynmommy)

The most important thing is to take care of their growth and understanding everything behind these parameters of weight gain and height. This will help us in making a perfect nutrition plan for our kids and it will help in their growth.

I found this Grow Right tracker online by PediaSure and I have started measuring my child’s growth because that is the #FirstStepToGrowRight. Why is that?

Once you enter your child’s details you can get a report that is downloadable. It has been super helpful in finding out the nutritional gaps that may have been slowing her growth. That way this growth chart is really helpful in understanding their growth rate.

With the help of this report and doctor’s prescription, I have created a perfect nutrition plan for Adya, that I am sure will nurture her growth.

Nutrition plan

Including one fruit daily in her diet.
Proper home cooked meal two times a day including chapattis, vegetables curry salad.
Milk with benefits of PediaSure, two times a day.
Dry fruits for munching
Paneer/curd
Home-baked cookies/cake as sweet treat.

This is a simple nutrition diet plan I have been following for her and have seen change in her weight and height. She is not under-weight now and her activity level is really good.

The main takeaway of using the Grow Right Tracker has been the fact that she is now following a proper balanced diet which includes fruits, vegetables and proper meals containing essential vitamins and minerals to support growth. And last but not the least, drinking water as per their age.

Like most of the kids she is also a fussy eater especially when it comes to drinking milk. I am really happy now that with PediaSure she enjoys drinking her milk.

I have taken proper steps to monitor my child’s growth with the help of the Grow Right tracker, and give her proper nutrition for proper growth and development. Share with me what steps you think are essential to ensure that the children grow right.

The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not reflect the views of any brand. Any omissions or errors at the author’s end does not assume any liability or responsibility on any party mentioned in the blog.

Working from Bed/Sofa/Floor to Proper Work From Home set up

No one had thought that people would be working from home for such an extended period. Indian IT does not have Work from home culture. Due to pandemic companies were forced to adopt and it’s great to see how people manage things working remotely.

As we are not used to do work from home for say more then few days, usually there is no proper setup at our homes. In Mumbai you have such a small homes that you can not think of making one room as your study or work room 🙂

At our home we didn’t had any dedicated desk or chair where one can sit for longer duration and work . We use to work from Sofa or bed using a small bamboo laptop table.

Many a time we use to sit on floor due to posture issues as while sitting on bed or sofa you tend to curve down which leads to back pain.

It was kind of Ok for first few months as it was all new and any which ways we can not do much as there was complete lock down. So somehow we managed.

But in the mean time we were looking for some solution to this problem as this Work from Home is there to stay.

As per the space available on our home we were looking for modular table, by modular I mean which can be folded and kept aside when not required. Indian market is not that good for modular furniture as there were way less options.

What ever good options we had are way to costly as all the brands want to make money on this new opportunity.

After lot of search and reviews on different websites and considering the amount we would be paying for that piece of furniture we have decided on the design and size of the table.

For us it was a collapsible wall mounted table of size 80*50 cm. We came to this size based on the space available on the wall beside our sofa.

Also this was sufficient to keep my husbands 2 -22″ monitors, docking station & Laptop. Budget we had was Rs 3500 for this as this is what my husband can claim under work from home policy.

In this budget and table size we had limited options, one was this on Amazon or this & 1 or 2 more. Now we have a lot of options.

Still we were not getting the desired size and material. All of these were made in MDF which is not good for durability of furniture which is going to be folded and will be hanging on 4-6 screws.

So we contacted the sellers via Amazon and few said that they can make it in plywood but the cost will increase as plywood is costly then MDF.

Finally we agreed to pay more and bought the one from India Decor. But it was not that easy. We did placed the order and it was shipped and reached the nearest Amazon hub as well.

Then came another Lock down in Mumbai/Navi Mumbai area and that hub was closed and they could not deliver the product and it was returned to seller 🙁

Now our search started with local furniture vendors/manufacturers. We gave them the details and asked them if they can give us this particular piece and in how many days.

Only one said yes and he agreed to deliver only the top board as for the folding brackets there was no shop open. We asked him to give at least the board.

He took 2 days to give that to us, in the mean time we ordered folding brackets from Flipkart as some how they were delivering and Amazon was not.

We paid extra as it was costly on Flipkart then Amazon but it was a required so we ordered. We had Makita drill @home and this was another reason to order this kind of table.

This won’t require any carpenter service and one can easily fix it. Well it was not that easy as you need do proper measurement’s to make it align and to fix it at proper height.

For alignment our Stanley Level came very handy.

So finally we installed everything and the table was up and we were very happy as now we can work properly.

Setup is incomplete w/o a office chair with good lumber support.

Lumber support is required as one has to sit for long hours and proper lower back supper is must. Again we have to do a lot or search and go through lot or reviews for this.

For this we again contacted few local vendors/manufacturers to costing and quality and most of them were out of budget.

Our budget was Rs 4000 as this can be claimed under the policy, but we thought we can buy little costly as this is quite important for good sitting posture.

For this we looked @ all the furniture websites like Transteel, Pepperfry, Amazon, Flipkart etc. but everyone has more -ve reviews then positive.

Transteel has good chairs but the delivery time was more. Finally we finalized Da Urban and ordered it from Amazon, as usual cheapest as compared to other sites.

Reason to choose this was recent reviews were good and one major reason was it had Metal wheel frame. We didn’t want full plastic one as we have seen accidents in office when one leg breaks and person fell down.

It came in big box, packaging was kind of Ok, we were more concerned about the chair and it was intact. After thorough sanitization we installed it.

Installation was quite easy & in 5 min the chair was ready to sit. we even checked the level of seat to make sure it is not tilted on one side as mentioned in few reviews and it was perfectly fine and balanced.

The chair is comfortable and we can sit on it for long duration.

Along with this we did purchase a cable organizer and a good extension with spike guard. There are multiple cable organizers present on Amazon but we choose this as this will able to hide your cables and has enough space to store 4 socket extension.

We bought GM extension with spike guard.

Choosing Work from home furniture –
* One should choose as per space and requirement
* Place it near to fan if that room does not have AC else you will be sweating all the time 🙂
* It should serve multiple purpose, in our case we will be using it as small dining table
* Size should be adequate to fit multiple things as while working you might realize we could have ordered a bigger one
* Make sure the height is appropriate minimum is 30″ from floor
* Chair min seat height is 17-18″ and it can rise above it as as per your height adjust the table height
* If you can do DIY then look for solutions from local vendors as this will be cheap
* Opt for plywood as it is more durable and long lasting then MDF
* Decorate the wall behind else try to place the table near the open space

Soya Dosa – Super Crispy & Healthy

healthy food

Soya is included in my daily diet, so I keep trying different recipes of soya. This one is easy to make and it taste amazing!!

You would love this crispy dosa with coconut chutney. Let’s jump on the recipe.

Ingredients

Dosa

— Rice/ Idly rice – 120 grams
— Urad dal – 50 grams
— Soya chunks– 100 grams (grind well in mixer)
— 1 tsp – Red chili powder (as per taste)
— 2 tsp – Salt (as per taste)
— 1/4 cup soaked poha

Coconut Chatni

— 1 Coconut
— 2-3 Green chili
— Salt as per taste
— 10-20 kadi patta
— 2-3 dry whole red chili.

Procedure

Wash & Soak Urad dal and rice in separate bowls overnight or around 7-8 hours.
Grind dal & rice separately in fine paste.

Add soaked poha in rice while grinding, to make it more crisp and good golden brown color.
Mix both the paste in one big bowl and keep in warm place for minimum 5-6 hours for fermentation.
It should double in quantity after 5-6 hours.
After the fermentation process add 100 grams of soya chunks powder.

Add salt, red chili powder as per taste
Place iron dosa tawa or non stick pan if you don’t have dosa tawa on high flame
Heat it well, check by putting few drops of water, should evaporate quickly

Pour one big spoon of dosa batter on it and spread it to form round shape
Once its semi cooked add some oil and let it cook well
Cook on low flame for some time and dosa will start coming out easily. For crispy dosa this step is must
Take out dosa with thin steel spatula and serve hot with coconut chatni
You can add fillings of Vegetables, paneer in this dosa if you like

Coconut chutney

Chop coconut into small pieces for easy grinding
Add coconut, green chilies, kari patta, salt in mixer jar and grind into fine paste

Take out in a bowl and Now Make tadka for the chutney
Take oil in small fry pan, add rai(small mustard seed) when it’s hot. Add kari patta and two whole red dry chilies
Now add this tadka to your coconut paste

Enjoy this yummy and healthy chutney with your crispy Dosa 🙂

How to explain importance of Immunity to kids

Immunity building in our kids is an important aspect we parents work on as children are growing up. The steps we take should begin at an early age. Children also need to understand what it is all about.

It is obvious that their little minds are curious to know, why we need to work on building immunity. My daughter is going to be 4 years old and she has started asking questions and we try to explain her in the simplest way possible of building immunity while indoors.

How to explain kids in simplest way, importance of Immunity.

Be Open– Answer their questions in the best possible way you can. Educate them with love and kindness. They will be curious to understand how nutrition and immunity works.

Interaction– Talk to them about it and how being healthy is important.
Balanced diet– Importance of eating healthy food that makes them strong. Including fruits, milk with a supplement like PediaSure that has 37 essential nutrients for complete and balanced diet and dry fruits.

Hand wash– Washing hands is one important habit inside or outside home. We taught our daughter how to wash her hands properly like rubbing individual fingers, b/w fingers and from clean back side as well.
Wash hands before and after eating food, after play, etc.

Quick learner– Kids are quick learners and they understand easily if you are open with them. Give them age-appropriate information so they have the right information from you.

Just like we want to protect our children from diseases, it is important we also protect them from wrong or incomplete information. We must answer their questions to the best of our ability.

These are some really simple ways you can teach kids the importance of immunity and how we can inculcate clean habits. Staying healthy and taking proper precaution is the only way to stay safe from infections.

The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not reflect the views of any brand. Any omissions or errors at the author’s end does not assume any liability or responsibility on any party mentioned in the blog.

Kadhi Kachori – Treat from my native

Kadhi kachori is one of my favorite dish from my native place Ajmer Rajasthan. We grew up eating spicy kadi kachori every weekend, so life was missing something here far from home. How can anyone stop me making my childhood favorite items, so here is recipe for favorite kadi kachori.

Ingredients

Dough
2 cups Maida( all purpose flour)
4 tbsp Ghee (thick)
Salt as per taste
Cold water for kneading ( to make soft dough)

Dal filling
200 gram moong dal ( soaked for 4-5 hours )
2 green chills
Spices –
1 tsp red chili, 2 tsp coriander powder, 1 tsp amchoor Powder, 1 tsp saunf ( coarse powered) , 1 tsp mint powder salt, 1 tsp garam masala & one pinch asafoetida
1 tsp grated ginger

Kadhi
100 gram gram flour (besan)
400 ml water
Salt as per taste
Spices –
1 tsp red chili, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder & pinch of hing
Lemon & curry leaves
2 green chili’s & Coriander for garnish

Procedure

Kadhi

Take gram flour in a big bowl and add 100 ml water slowly, keep whisking to avoid any lumps. It will form a paste like consistency.
Now take 300 ml luke warm water and add it in gram flour paste and mix properly.

Put all the mixture in a big pan and bring it to boil, keep stirring while it comes to boil.
When it start boiling, slow the flame to low speed.
Let it cook on low flame for half an hour, don’t forget to stir in between few times.

Cook for 10 min and now add salt and tadka. Garnish with coriander leaves.
Consistency should be thick, so if you feel it’s thick add more water.

Take two tbsp oil in a small pan and heat it. Add hing, rai, jeera & kari leaves and put off the flame.
Now add red chili powder and keep it on one side.
Add one lemon to your boiling gram flour kadi and keep stirring.

Filling
For filling take soaked moong dal and blend it coarsely with green chili and ginger.
Now take two Tbsp oil/ghee in a pan and add asafoetida (hing) .
Add coarsely blend Dal and cook it on low flame, keep it steering continuously as it can stick to pan if left unattended.
Add all spices and keep stirring. Now keep it aside and let it cool.

Kachori
First make your dough, take flour in a bowl, add salt and ghee.
Now mix properly and knead it with adding cold water slowly.
Make a soft Dough not a tight one.
Keep it for rest, meanwhile get your filling and kadi ready.

Make small balls out of dough and keep in covered. Take one ball and roll into small puri size.
Take it in your hand in the way shown in picture. Now add two spoon filling to it and close slowly with the help of fingers, check picture for reference.

After closing, press gently with side of palm and flatten it (Check picture for reference).

Heat oil in kadai for frying.
To check if the oil is hot, put a small ball of dough in it.

If it comes up instantly means oil is ready. Now put your flame on medium and add kachori slowly.

Two or three at a time as per size of your kadai. After five ten minutes, flip the kachori and low your gas flame. Cooking on low to medium will ensure proper frying.

Let it cook till golden brown and then take out. Crispy kachori are ready to serve with hot kadi and green chatni.

Gluten free cookies

After starting my diet plan I ordered some gluten free cookies from Amazon. Their taste was ok, but I don’t like the choice of ingredients. So thought of baking some gluten free cookies at home.

Here is my version of gluten free cookies sweetened with jaggery, made with love and yes approved by all family members eldest and the youngest!

Ingredients

190gm Oats Flour
90gm Almonds flour
30gms milk powder
1/2 tsp Cream of tartar
1/4tsp baking soda
50gm gram flour
1/2 tbsp cardamom powder
Two pinch salt
200gms jaggery ( take less or more 240 gms as per your sweetness requirements )
150gms Ghee ( clarified butter ) It can be reduced to 120gms too.

Tip – 1/2 cup desiccated coconut ( I have made half mix with coconut flavour by adding 1/2 cup coconut in half the mixture, take out two tbsp for coating before bake )

-Add some small pieces of jaggery too it tastes really nice in cookies, it doesn’t melt while baking!

Procedure

Shift all the dry ingredients ( Oats Flour, almonds flour, milk powder, Cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, gram flour) in a bowl and mix properly.

In another bowl add clarified butter ( Ghee ) and grated jaggery.

Now whisk ghee and jaggery to make it fluffy and creamy.

Add and mix dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in parts. ( Do not add all in a go ).

Make small balls from your dough and keep in baking tray.

Now keep it in fridge for 10 minutes, meanwhile pre-heat your oven 170c. ( You can store your dough in Fridge if you don’t want to bake at the same time )
Bake your cookies for 12min on 170C ( Keep an eye as temperature settings may be different in all oven )
Take our the cookies and let them cool on rack, do not touch until they are cool as they are super soft at this stage.

Once properly cooler store them in aur tight container.
Enjoy healthy cookies!