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Important factors to consider in planning Thailand trip

The post details the meticulous planning involved in organizing a family trip to Thailand, focusing on key factors such as weather, travel time, interests, budget, and transportation. Emphasis is placed on booking flights early, utilizing free visa options, and understanding local transport logistics, especially for traveling with children.

Thailand trip is the most happening post nowadays on everyone’s feed. We spend so many days to plan this itinerary for our Thailand trip, considering many factors as we were travelings with kids.

Let’s discuss the Important factors to consider Thailand trip.

Factors to consider

Weather in Thailand – As the temperature is normally high in Thailand and we were travelling in March-April so we expected it would be hot.
Bangkok, like most of Thailand, has a tropical climate meaning it is steadily warm and humid throughout the year with a rainy monsoon season. April is the hottest month in Bangkok, with temperatures averaging at 30.5 °C (87°F) and the coldest is December at 26 °C (79°F).
Travel time – We want to cover multiple location so local distance between places was really important to plan your daily itinerary.
Places to explore as per interest.
Budget- The most important factor that helps you in planning the Holiday.

Flights

Let’s start with booking flights both international and local flights.

It is always good to book flights as early as possible, to avoid costly tickets. We took the benefit of FREE VISA and saved few bucks.
If you are travelling with kids you can take the separate priority line at Thailand immigration, that will save some time.
Local flights– The flight prices for cheap local airlines is mostly without any baggage, you need to pay extra for your luggage.
If you book the luggage also in advance you can get the low price benefit.

Local Transport in Thailand

Airport cabs booking is cheap at KLOOK than any other local options as we needed xl cabs for two 6 people with luggage.
Klook services and drivers are good. Cabs provided are nice and spacious and always be on time.
Klook customer support was available on whatsapp.
In city transport you can go with GRAB. You need to have a local sim for Grab application.
Colorful TUK TUK ride prices vary and is totally on your bargaining skills.

THAILAND Sim

You can purchase sim from airport itself as we compared the prices on the company website were almost same.
we took 699 baht plan for 30 day with good data limit.
Sim counters are near the baggage claim and outside pick up points
E-sim options is also available and the connectivity and internet was good.
As we were two families we opted two different networks sim, that was helpful in case one network is down.
Sim Networks we have used – DTaC and True

Currency

ATM withdrawal fees – It’s always good to carry cash from India as the cash withdrawal fees from atm is high. 200 baht for some banks and 800-1000 for others.
Cash is required in almost all places to shop or pay bills at restaurant
Forex card- choose the forex card which provides good benefits and charges less fees on reloading transactions. We have used HDFC FOREX Card

Hotels

Based on the requirements you choose your stays.
We opted Airbnb , Beach resort and hotel chains .
Details of property you can check in next blog.

Vegetarian Food in Thailand

Being vegetarian it was not so hard to find good options to enjoy vegetarian food. Specially in bangkok and Phuket there were lot of Indian Restaurants with vegetarian food options.

In Chiang mai and chaing rai also we found vegetarian food in local places. Just in Big hotel chains it was hard to find veg options especially in Buffet, that was included in stay prices.

Follow this link to check out my next Blog for Bangkok and you can also check other travel blogs

Rajasthan Road trip

How to plan Dubai Trip

Golden City of Rajasthan – Jaisalmer

After our 2 nights stay in Shekhawati Region we headed towards biggest district of Rajasthan, The Golden City – Jaisalmer.

Most of us know it is situated in the heart of Thar Desert. It got its name Golden City due to the yellow color sandstone architecture.

It’s around 9 hrs drive, 522 KM from Mandawa via NH 11.

We stopped @ Motel Haveli Resort for b/f and total bill was Rs 200 for veg sandwich, poha and tea. It’s a big place with stay options as well, washroom were clean and place was also clean. Food was ‘Ok’ took some time to come.

There are very less places to stop on this route so come prepared with snacks. For lunch we could not find any good place on the map then suddenly we came across a place called Hotel Shiv Villas. We asked them to pack some aloo pyaz parathas for lunch as we don’t want to waste time rather eat it while driving.

After this we directly stopped in Jaisalmer. We reached I think late afternoon.

We had planned 3 nights in Jaisalmer, I feel 3 nights are good if you want to see everything and visit Longewala.

On the first day we didn’t do much as we were little tired driving 522 KM, so we checked in into this small beautiful Boutique hotel – Garh Meera.

It’s new property, still work pending due to Covid they couldn’t complete the work. Their kitchen was also closed at that time.

It has a wonderful view of Jaisalmer Fort from the roof, which was obstructed (little bit) by a construction on the building in the front.

On this day after some relaxation we went to visit the nearby local market. We booked this place only for 1 day and rest 2 days @ Jaisalmer Marriot. After b/f we left to check in to Marriot. But our room was not ready, so we went to see original Handicraft place.

For Jaisalmer sightseeing we had booked one very experienced guide Mr. Harish Giri Ji. He is really informative and very good human being.

Mr. Harish helped us in doing all the bookings i.e. city tour, desert safari package, taxi service etc.

So, on our second day of Golden city tour, Harish Ji took us to one genuine place to see some of most beautiful Rajasthani handicraft items.

We can definitely see the price difference as we have visited few shops before coming to this place and this place as huge price difference (it was way cheaper).

Harish ji is working as a volunteer in the co-operative place which provides ways to earn to the women living in desert area and keep the real hand craft art alive in this machine era.

You can check the place on Instagram with name Jaisalmerhandicrafts. This shop has amazing products. This was the first time ever we did shop on our trip/holiday. Usually we buy some fridge magnets only.

After this we had some lunch/snacks at a local shop and then headed towards – Kuldhara.

Kuldhara is a haunted village which is 50 min drive i.e. 27 Km around from the main city. Roads are good, there is a diversion which is a single road but in decent condition which takes you to the village.

This village and some adjacent villages were abandoned over night for unknown reasons. As per local stories some say it was due to the persecution of Salim Singh minister of Jaisalmer state.

Before abandon Kuldhara was inhabited by ‘Paliwal Brahmins’ and it is said that they were very prosperous.

It is very fascinating to visit this village and listen to all the stories, now we can only see few feet walls of all the houses and nothing else.

Converted into a tourist spot and there is an entry fee which is Rs 20 pp and Rs 50 per vehicle.

After spending some time here max 30 min as it was hot and there is not much to see, we left for desert safari.

Ours booking was done by Harish Ji and it’s called – Desert Safari Camp Sam Sand Dunes, you can find it on Instagram as well – @desertsafarisamsanddunes

One thing I would suggest to everyone is either stay in the camp or reach little early to properly enjoy the desert.

We reached just on time to have enough time to enjoy the dune bashing by open Mahindra Thar and enjoy sun set in the desert.

After taking lot of pics we headed back to the camp on camels. It was quite thrilling going up and down on a camel. Few times I thought we will fall ?

Back at the camp we had High tea with some snacks post high tea. There was a live folk music and dance performance. We really liked the performance all the talented artists.

After all the enjoyment and fun filled day. We ended the day with a good dinner at the camp and then drive back to the city.

While driving back had amazing experience, watching clear sky full of stars & cold breeze.

This ends our 2^nd day in Golden City Jaisalmer. Stay tuned for our last day in Jaisalmer.

click here to know full details of this 10 day Rajasthan road trip .

Harish Ji’s contact details –

Company name – Jaisalmer Tour Guide

Website – http://www.jaisalmertourguide.com/#services

Instagram – @jaisalmertourguide

Cell # 9414761153 & 7014396051

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.

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.

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!

Paneer-Soya-Vegetables cutlet

soya recipe

Being a vegetarian and following particular diet, paneer & soya plays a very important role. I find it difficult to eat the chunks so was trying different versions to make it more appealing . Let’s see the recipe and it’s ingredients.

Nutrition facts for the recipe

Carbs:22gm Protien : 47 gm Fat -11gm

Macros change according to brand, above mentioned macro nutrients information are for Nutrela brand

Ingredients

60 gms soya chunks (Nutrela)
100gms paneer
10 gm olive oil/Ghee
Chopped Coriander
One onion finely chopped
2-3 green chilies finely chopped
Salt as per taste
1 tbsp Red chili flakes
Finely chopped/grated vegetables of your choice ( Capsicum, Carrot, cabbage, green chilli, zucchini, red yellow Bell pepper, cucumber)

Procedure

Instead of soaking soya we will directly grind it and make aata(fine powder)

Make sure there are no big pcs left

Add finely chopped onions, green chili, coriander, salt, red chili, ginger garlic paste.
Add finely chopped capsicum, carrot.
Mix properly until it’s combined to form a dough.

Make small equal sized balls and with the help of your palm flaten the top and bottom to form tikki.

Take a flat base big pan or tawa and spread one spoon oil on it.

Heat it on medium to low flame and put tikki gently on it.

Let it cook from one side, it will take around 5 to 10 minutes on low flame.
You can now cook without oil too with the help of frying pan foil by Asahi kasei.

Flip the tikkis gently and cook the other side.
Tikkis are ready to serve with coriander or tomato chatni.