Karthik is getting smart

I have been away from blog for ages. I decided to blog again about my kids - Karthik (now 2.5) and Vaibhav (now 11 months).

Karthik talks Kannada pretty well and is catching up on English.

Well!! Off late Karthik says such interesting and intelligent things, that I have no option but blog and record it forever.

27th Oct 2013:

I was watching some movie, I can't recall which. Heroine in that was dressed in white and had worn matching bangles, earring and had some neat hairstyle; and she was sitting in the restaurant with her Boyfriend. Suddenly, Karthik walks up to the TV, points the heroine and tells me "Amma, ninu hinge maadkondu appa jothe kuucho" [Amma you dress up like the heroine and sit with appa]!!!. I was speechless!.

29th OCt 2013:

Karthik asked his aapa "appa, ninu yaake istu dumma aag iidhiya?" [Appa, Why have you become so fat?]. Raj thought it was by chance Karthik said that and asked "Nanu elli dappa aag iidhini?" [Where have I become fat?]. Karthik, promplty put his hand over Raj's panuch and said "Illi" [Here]. Raj and I burst out laughing.

Karthik, we are waiting for more :-).

Vangibath Powder

Ingredients
Urad Dal (udina bele) - 3 cups
Channa Dal (Kadle bele) - 1 Cup
Cinnamon - little less than 1/2 cup
Caper (Moggu) - little less than 1/2 cup
Black pepper - 1/2 cup
Cloves - 1/2 cup
Daniya Powder - 3 spoons
garam masala -  2 spoons

Method
Dry fry all the above ingredients and grind them into a powder in a mixer.

Green Roads in Bangalore

Bangloreans!! Can you guess which road is it from the photo? It is the current airport road. It is totally green and pleasure to drive through. But, we all know it won't stay long this way, so thought of capturing this image. Well, I remember about 10 years ago; all Bangalore roads looked like this.

Mango hot and sour Gojju

Thotapuri mango medium size 1

Salt 1 spoon

Chilli powder (medium spice) 1.5 spoon

Daniya powder 1 spoon

Jaggery 2.5 spoon

Methi 1/4 spoon

Oil 1 spoon

Mustard

Pre Steps

1. Fry the methi seeds without oil in the vessel and make powder of it.

Method

1. Remove the skin of the mango and cut into big pieces

2. In a thick bottom vessel add oil and add mustard.

3. Add the mango pieces to the oil and sauté for 30 seconds.

4. Add salt, chili powder and daniya powder to the mango pieces and sauté for 30 seconds.

5. Add water so that it just covers the mango pieces.

6. Cover the vessel and leave it to boil.

7. When you put the spoon through the mango it must go through it, then the mangoes are done.

8. There must be some water still left in the vessel, if not add 1/4 cup of water. Add jaggery and methi powder and let it boil for 2 minutes. 

This can be eaten with rice, chapatti or even bread.

Mango Gulamba or Mango Jam

When my mother in law made mango gulamba at home, I immediate became its fan. I made it multiple times, as long as the mango season lasted.

Ingredients 

Raw Totapuri Mango Medium size 1

Sugar 1/2 the quantity of the Totapuri Mango pieces

Method

1. Totapuri Mango must be medium raw, it must have a slight yellow tinge.

2. Cut the mango into small slices.

3. Measure the mango pieces in a measuring cup.

4. In the same measuring cup measure the sugar.  Sugar must be exactly half the quantity of mango pieces

5. Add the sugar to a thick bottom vessel and add half cup water, and heat it on low flame.

6. Keep stirring the sugar syrup, until you get the sugar thickness to be one string. Other way to know is, when u add a drop of sugar syrup into water, it must stay and not scatter away.

7. Once the syrup has reached the required consistency, add the mango pieces.

8. Keep stirring the mango pieces in the sugar syrup regularly.

9. When the mango pieces must become a little transparent, hold up one piece of mango in a spoon and watch it, if it flattens then the Gulamba is done.

10. Remove the vessel from the flame and cool it before eating.

This will taste like jam and can be used in place of jam.

Beetroot - Banana Salad

I had some boiled beetroot left so ended up making a salad, which turned out well.

Ingredients

1 Medium Sized Beetroot

3 Ellakki Bananas

1 spoon Jaggery crushed

Method

Boiled the beetroot and chop it finely

Chop bananas

Mix the crushed jaggery, beetroot and bananas together

Keep the mixture at room temperature for about 10 minutes, so that the sweetness of jaggery seeps into the beetroot

Keep in refrigerator for about 15 minutes and serve

Corn Flour Halwa

I learnt to make this from my mother. This recipe is all time my mother’s favorite.

Ingredients

1 cup corn flour

1 cup sugar (you can double it if you like it more sweet)

1 cup milk

3 cups water

2 spoons ghee

Raisins and cashews

Method 

Take a thick bottom vessel, keep it on the gas at low flame throughout.

Add ghee, and then add cashews and raisins.

Add milk, water, corn flour, sugar and stir it continuously so that no lumps are formed.

After few minutes the mixture thickens to jelly consistency and becomes transparent, Need to watch the mixture because it thickens really fast.

Spread it on a ghee greased plate.

Wait for about 10 minutes before cutting it into pieces.

It tastes yum and you cannot stop at one piece.

Amazing trip – Waynad – Day 3

24th April, 2011

After a good breakfast we headed to Phantom Rock.

Phantom Rock

We had to pass the rubber plantation to reach the phantom rock. We admired rubber trickled down and got collected. I saw a snake free in the wild for the first time in my life. I am not sure which snake it was but it disappeared quickly.
When we reached the Phantom Rock it turned out to be a googly :-). The rock was supposed to look like Phantom's skull, but it just looked liked another rock. Still, we pictured the rock from different angles J.

Rubber being collected

Phantom Rock

Wayanad heritage museum

We stopped by at the heritage museum. What struk me were the burial stones. Burial stones dated back to about 1000 years. They had three sections - bottom section told how the person died, second section showed how angels took the soul, third section shows the soul residing with either Shiva or Krishna. There were pottery pieces, weapons and other artifacts retrieved by excavations or from the tribals.

Burial Stone at the Muesum

Edakkal Caves 

We reached the Edakkal caves at about 11 am. The Qualis couldn't go close to the caves as the road was broken in between. So we had to trek. It was sunny, unlike the previous day when the weather was pleasant and cool. The roads leading to the caves were all at 60 / 75 degrees so ascend was pretty difficult. There was a huge crowd when we reached the caves. They delayed issuing the tickets by about 30 minutes because there was a huge crowd already inside the caves. Once we got our tickets we began the ascend. There were about 300 steps and some tricky trekking stretch areas before we reached the caves.

Hoarding from the ASI

Ascend to the caves

Again at the entrance of the caves, we had to wait, so that some people come out of the cave.

People coming out of the Cave

The caves are divided into lower and upper caves. The lower cave wasn't too huge and we didn't find any inscriptions there. The upper cave had lots of pictorial carvings and some inscriptions. They belong to Neolithic period of the Late Stone Age and date from about 1000BC. The pictorial carvings had wheels, human forms, some kind of animals, and one particular carving looked like lord Narashima. It looked very interesting and wondered what they all meant.

Cave View

Carvings in cave

Carvings in cave

We headed downwards and had good lunch at one of the hotels there. Food was hot and good, all of us being very tired and hungry enjoyed every morsel of it.

From here we tried to reach Thovarimala, which had rocks with inscriptions, but couldn't find our way to that place.

We headed back to Bangalore and by the time everyone reached Bangalore it was 12 am.