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BRINJI RICE

Ingredients

Rice— 1cup,

Onion—1,

Gralic—3ponds,

Ginger—  ½ inch,

Green chills—2,

Cloves— 3,

Cinnamon—2 small pcs,

Cardamom—2 ,

Bay leaf—1,

Star anise— 1,

Coconut milk—1 cup,

Sesame oil—3 tbsp

Salt—1 ¼ tsp.

Method

Wash and soak the rice for 15mintues. Dry roast cloves, cinnamon and cardamom. Grind garlic, ginger and the dry roasted spices. Heat oil in pan add the star anise , bay leaf, onion and green chills and fry till the onion turns translucent. Add this to the rice. Now add the coconut milk, salt and sufficient water to cook the rice in a cooker. Open the lid and gently mix the rice, so that the top coconut milk layer gets mixed evenly. Brinji rice is ready.

(note :-remember to reduce the proportion of water ,since we are adding one cup of coconut milk.)

Amma —PB —Prema Balan / Prema’s Buddhi

Chapter 3

Handmade jewelry
Handmade jewelry. Beads covered with kalamkari material , stringed together and finished with extra accessories.
Marapachi Mama and Mami
Plastic containers turned into bells. Containers wrapped with coir rope. Decoration done with m-seal and finished off with acrylic paint.

Continue reading “Amma —PB —Prema Balan / Prema’s Buddhi” →

Easy and quick way of draping Madisar on Lamp.

A big thank you 🙏 to all of you for your likes and comments on my video on How to drape saree on lamp.This pushed me to try draping a saree as Madisar on the lamp. After much trials and errors I think I got it.  So here’s the video on  Easy and Quick way of draping Madisar on Lamp.
Courtesy  — video recording  by my husband Sundar Rajan. Editing  by my daughter Sindhuja.

Note :-  Use a very light and soft saree.

Set Dosai

Set dosai is a soft dosai usually served in a set of three. In our house we call it one side dosai because you don’t need to flip it. Make it and enjoy sets of dosai.

Ingredients

Raw rice  — 1 glass
Urad dal  — 1/4 glass
Poha / Aval — 1/4 glass
Fenugreek  seeds —- 1 tsp
Salt   —- 1 1/2 tsp.

Method

Wash raw rice, urad dal and soak it along fenugreek for 3 hours. Soak poha / aval for half an hour. Grind everything together adding water to smoot consistency. Add salt and allow to ferment for 6-8 hours. Heat a pan or dosai kal , pour a ladle full of batter. Spread the batter , drizzle sesame oil and cover the dosai with a lid. when done remove the lid and take off the dosai. ( when making set dosai you don’t flip the dosai.) Enjoy dosai with sambar and chutney.

Nendra pazham halwa

There are one too many Halwa recipes. I experimented with Kerala’s Nendran Pazhyam and made this simple halwa, using minimum ingredients

Ingredients

Nendra pazham  —-  1
Ghee                      —- 2-3 tsp
Sugar                    —-   2 -3 tbsp
Cardamom powder— 1/4 tsp

Saree draping on lamp

Saree draping on lamp

Aadi masam begins today.  Aadi  masam is dedicated  to Mother Goddess.  Presenting a  video on how to  drape  saree on Vilakku  ,representing  the vilakku as mother Goddesses. One can place the Goddesses face on the top, I haven’t placed  the face so that you can light the lamp. If not for my friend Padma Vasu I wouldn’t have done this recording and published it in YouTube. Recording courtesy by my daughter  Sindhuja.

Oats Jaggery Ladoo


A ladoo that’s easy and quick to prepare and healthy. Make it, store it and whenever you feel hungry just have one. This ladoo is equal to  any health bar that one buys.

Ingredients

Oats       —–             1 cup
Peanut    —–            1/4 cup
Walnut    —–            1/ 4 cup
Jaggery   —–           1/2  cup
Ghee        —–           1/4   cup
Cardamom pwd —-  1/2 tsp.

Amma — PB  — Prema Balan  / Prema’s Buddhi

Not a food page but some art work of my mother.
Few day’s back we celebrated Father’s day and I  had written a  small write-up about my appa giving a small glimpse about him. It’s not Mother’s day but I  thought of sharing some of her art work she has been doing right from my school days, and still continues till today  which keeps her busy even through the Covid  time and lockdown.She learned many things from her friend / guru, Hema Mami .  It is her interest in any form of art that she keeps learning new  things. Now a days, she gets few ideas from youtube. So I will try to showcase some of her art work.
Chapter 1 /  Art work  1….

The  glass temple you see in the background is made from empty bottles. Bru coffee bottles for the pillars, small injection bottles placed on the top in-between the glass sheets for the  gopuram and the  dolls of Krishna, Saraswathi and Lakshmi are all hand made.

Glass painting. The painting is on glass, it’s reverse painting meaning you have to paint the tiny parts first and then the larger parts. For example when you do the face you have to paint the eyeball, nose, lips, eyebrows then colour the eye and then lastly the face. One has to be carefully to paint all the tiny parts first and then the bigger part.

Hand made dolls. One could buy only the face, rest is your imagination.

Red Pumpkin / Mattanna / Laal Kaddoo ki sabji

Mattanna / Red pumpkin is used in South Indian household's either to make kootu,olan or sambar. I have only named a few South Indian dishes. This time I wanted to try something different with Mattanna  / red Pumpkin. So here is a sabji with minimum ingredients and a sativik one too. Go ahead try it and enjoy with chapati or phulkas.

Ingredients

Red pumpkin  —           2  cups
 Capsicum   —            2 cups
Tomato           —            1 cup
Green chili     —              1
Ginger             —             
Coriander seeds   —    1 tsp
Cummin seeds    —     1 tsp
Dry red chili          —        2
Salt                  —            1 tsp
Oil                    —-           2- 3 tbsp
Coriander leaves  —    1/2  cup.