Recipes that makes me drool - #BloggerDreamTeam

          Food forms a major part of our existence. Many “eat to live” and others “live to eat”. Some like spicy food some have a sweet tooth. Some relish “ghar ka khana” some swear by a so called restaurant specialty. Each one of us has a different choice, different liking.

          But for all of us the ultimate food is piping hot food made and served by our mother. There is no doubt about it. Even though its simple dal rice, its tastes yumm, when it is served by our Mom.

          Rice and coconut are staple ingredients of people along coastal Maharashtra and Karnataka. No dish is complete until it has a dash of fresh grated coconut as garnish. Be it any sweet dish or a savory dish rice and coconut forms a part of that dish in one form or other.

          One of such dish which makes me drool is a typical Mangalorean – Udupi dish which is made during Gudipadva festival at all households. It’s called “seviya – ras”. It’s basically rice flour noodles served with coconut milk sweeten with jaggery and flavoured with cardamom powder. It is one of dish which my mom makes and I can never have my fill, no matter how much I eat.

         

Ingredients

For Rice Noodles

1 cup rice flour

1 cup water

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon oil

For Ras (sweet coconut milk)

2 cups of thick coconut milk

Jaggery according to taste

Cardamom powder

• In a thick bottom vessel, add water and bring it to boil.
• Add salt and oil to this water while it’s getting heated.
• Once water starts boiling add the rice flour, and keep stirring till it all the water is absorbed and it forms a lump.
• Allow it to cool.
• Once it’s cooled, make balls of the cooked dough and steam it in steamer or cooker just as we steam while making idlis, for 10 to 15 minutes.
• Once its steamed, keep the seviya maker ready as the noodles has to be made when the rice balls are bit hot.

• If you don’t have the traditional seviya maker at home, you get these modern, handy, easy to use seviya maker in market, one can use that also.
• While making the seviya, one has to take care that the seviya has to be made when the rice balls are hot, else the seviya won’t be that soft and fluffy.

• To make the Ras; in a bowl add the coconut milk.
• Add jaggery according to one’s taste. Some prefer very sweet some less. Stir till the jaggery dissolves.
• Add the cardamom powder.
• Serve hot piping seviya with cold sweet coconut milk.
• Once you taste this, I am sure you will want to eat more.

For more of easy and yummy recipes check out my food blog www.fud4health.blogspot.in

For #BloggerDreamTeam– Food & Travel Carnival

To my Papa - #HugYourDad

          One hug speaks of thousand emotions. Emotions; which can't be expressed through words, Emotions, which sometimes are best left unsaid.

          Though mother is an important person in our life, our Father is the pillar of support. He is the one with the invisible magic hand.

          As it is said, no matter how much old we grow, girls are always the little princess in their father’s eyes, so true.

          My Dad or Papa as I call him is my pillar of support, my support system. Like every father-daughter relationship, we both too had our share of fights and love.

          When I was young, Papa had a very bad temper. He used to get angry at drop of hat. He used to scold us, sometimes beat us also. But later when his anger used to subside, he would wrap us in his arms and cuddle us to sleep.

          He was one who introduced me to reading. He initiated the habit of writing day-to-day account in diaries. He always used to tell, Put 100% effort and expect 90% result even if you are expecting 80%, so that, if you score 81% you won’t feel bad.

My hero & his Princess

         He always used to tell me, no matter how much high you reach never forget your roots. Never forget the position from which you have risen up.

         After my brother’s untimely demise, he had become more attached to me. When marriage proposal had come, and everything had got finalized I asked him, how will they live without me? To that he told me assuring, “Today or tomorrow you have to go. We will have to manage in your absence.” It really made me cry that day.

       On my wedding day as the time of wedding muhurat was nearing, and when I entered the hall decked in wedding finery, my Papa who was putting up such a brave face since months, broke down. That one incident I will never be able to forget. Seeing him cry, I almost developed cold feet.

          His important lessons of life which he gave us was,

• After every exam, he used to say, don’t cry or brood over what has gone, concentrate on tomorrow’s exam. You can't change what has happened yesterday; concentrate on improving your tomorrow.
• If you do anything wrong, don’t be afraid accept your fault, but if you are not wrong, come what may never apologize.
• Save money for future. If you earn 100 rupees, try to save atleast 10 rupees out of it.

       Even today, one look at my face and he comes to know what am I going through. Recently when they had been to our native for some work and he had met 1 of my college lecturer. My professor had enquired about me. And when he told that I was his favorite student, I could sense the amount of pride he must have felt at that moment.

       Come what may, just as bonding with mother is unique, similarly father’s bond is entirely unique. Just as we turn to our mom’s for kitchen tips, we turn to our Dad’s for life decisions.

Dads are Dads… We love them no matter how strict they are.

This father’s day, I am expressing my love towards my dad by participating in the #HugYourDad activity at BlogAdda in association with Vicks.” & Embed this video in your blog.

My 100th blog post...

          Yippeee… my 100^th blog post…

Phew! What a journey it was since I started. Can't believe it’s been 4 years and this is my 100^th post.

Any guesses what’s special on my 100^th post?

          But before that, I would like to thank all my followers, friends and well-wishers who supported me, followed my posts since past 4 years, gave me their valuable inputs, liked and voted for me.

A big Thank you to all…

Now moving to my century post... did anyone guess what’s special about this post???

Take a Guess...

Well it’s a guest post by a well-known blogger, writer, my best friend, my sister and whom I also call, my “Teacher”. Presenting, Janaki Nagaraj, who introduced me to blogging, who read my each and every post, who pointed out my mistakes and advised me on my area of improvement, is my guide since I started blogging.

Janaki, mother of 2 kids, pens her emotions on her personal blog, captures surrounding beauty on her photo blog, does book-reviews and has recently started a health blog… Phewww….What a lady… I admire her, for her writings, her strength, and her cool and always ready to help nature… In short I just love her. J  

Let’s hear from the poetess herself.

Colours

What color is the pain?

Is it the red that flows out of your eyes?

Is there a color for that sinking feeling?

Gray perhaps?

Or the gut wrenching blue?

The suffocating black of the bottomless abyss or

The never ending brow of the desert

The nothingness of the expanse....

How does it seem when your chest tightens?

Indigo?

The depressive purple of emptiness....

Pain is not an isolated feeling

But akin to multi organ failure

On a life support system

Alive, yet wishing upon death!

Can we ever experience the pain someone is going through? We can only imagine. 

Yet, parents of special kids are judged.

I was really touched the other day when my Dad said - "I wanted to prostrate before Aparna for the mother she is!"

So true;

We can imagine her pain and struggles but not live it. It takes a special heart to understand her special child.

PS: after reading this post of Janaki; I have no words left...

Ambipur's #SmellyToSmiley

          For a human being all our senses play a very important role. For example we eat 1^st through our eyes and nose and then through our mouth. For us our olfactory sense (i.e. nose) plays a major role in our day to day life.

          We like to smell fresh early morning air, smell of earth after 1^st rains, we like the smell of the morning brewed coffee or tea, but we hate the smell of burnt food, smelly socks etc. In rainy season, most of housewives most worry about 2 things, smell of damp clothes and kitchen smell and to get rid of these nasty smells we try all kinds of ideas. Burning incense sticks, spraying perfumes, trying out all kind of room fresheners and fabric fresheners; but sometimes nothing seems to work, especially when someone is gonna visit our abode.

          Imagine your husband has invited his close friends for dinner; you have slogged the entire day in kitchen to get everything ready. Before they arrive you get dressed, get everything ready. But suddenly you realize that your house smells dal tadka, behndi masala, sauté garlic, fried chicken etc. Even the smell of damp clothes refuses to go. Though you had the exhaust fan and the gas chimney on while cooking, these smells didn’t vanish.

          No matter what you do, the smell refuses to go… no amount of perfume or incense sticks drive away that smell. You feel as if you are losing a battle against a stubborn smell war. Your husband who was till now happy and feeling proud of the spread you have put up for his friends is somewhat has a dejected look on his face.

          Because we know, the moment a person enters a house, this smell will hit and we always expect to welcome a guest; if not fragrant but atleast non-smelly home.

          What will you do now? We women always liked to be praised

(a)            For food we put up in front of guests &

(b)            For the neat and tidy house we present.

The solution for winning this war against stubborn smell is using a room freshener which not only drives away the lingering smells, but also the fragrance stays for longer period of time.

          After trying of various brands and products, I trust only 1; Ambipur. I have tried 2 of their car fragrances: Lavender spa and Light Citrus. So to drive away those nasty smells of kitchen I trust Ambipur’s Lavender Vanilla & Comfort.

         

         When it comes to perfumes or deo or room fresheners I prefer 1 which doesn’t hit one’s nose as soon as it is sprayed leaving the person sneezing. I prefer one which remains invisible but still does its work of spreading nice fragrance across the room. So next time you go to buy a room freshener you know which one to pick.

PS : I am blogging for #SmellyToSmiley activity at BlogAdda.com in association with Ambi Pur

Reflections - A to Z Challenge

          This is my 2^nd year of A to Z challenge. When I was registered for it I was not at all sure, what am I gonna write about. Then it came to my mind (as I revealed in my Theme Reveal Blog) why not do it about differently abled kids.

          But when I actually started working on it, I was unsure whether I will be able to complete it, whether I will get all the alphabet related topics, etc. Many questions rose in my mind and I started thinking did I do the right thing in selecting this theme???

          But then like last year, this year too I was determined to complete the challenge, come what may. I sought help of my daughter’s therapist Dr. Sujata, Dr.  Smriti, Dr. Mousam and her doctor Dr. Gopikrishnan Nambiar, all of them encouraged me and helped me with topics wherever I struck.

          During this journey of the challenge, I realized how much little I knew about children and their different conditions. How difficult it can be for someone to recognize the symptoms and get it to doctor’s attention and get it diagnosed?

          But in all, this year too, I did hit some road blocks due to ill health, did stumble and fell down on some topics, but still I picked up myself, dusted and continued and finished the challenge.

          I really want to thank Dr. Sujata, Dr. Smriti, Dr. Mousam and Dr.  Gopikrishnan Nambiar for their guidance and valuable inputs, Dr. Rupal, Janaki, and many of my other friends for always reading my blogs and lending me their support and valuable comments, Dr. Gauri, our baker-dentist & Dr. Gopikrishnan Nambiar, who inspite of their busy schedule agreed for guest post, (1^st guest post of my blog), and all other readers who followed my blog, commented through the end.

A very big Thank you to all.

A small summary of my A to Z journey this year:

A for ADHD

B for Brachial Plexus Injury (BPI)

C for Cerebral Palsy (CP)

D for Down’s Syndrome

E for Epilepsy

F for Faradic Stimulation

G for Gluten free browine by Dr. Gauri Kekre (Guest Post)

H for Homeopathy for our Kids (Guest Post)

I for Infantile Hemiplegia

J for Juvenile Diabetes

K for Ketogenic diet

L for Learning Disability

M for Muscular Dystropy

N for Neonatal Jaundice

O for Occupational Therapy

P for Paediatric Physiotherapy

Q for Quinsy

R for Remedial Education

S for Sensory Integration (SI)

T for Torticollis

U for Umbilical Sepsis

V for Vitiligo

W for West Syndrome

X for X-chromosome recessive disorder

Y for Young Madder’s Syndrome

Z for Zellwegger’s Syndrome

           See you all next year in A to Z challenge 2016.

Expert Obstetrician and Gynaecologist help in Ahmedabad

          A woman goes through various stages in her lifetime. During these stages she also plays different roles; role of a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a mother-in-law amongst many others.

          During these various stages, even her body undergoes various changes from a girl to a teenager to a woman. Since childhood we are taught of putting family’s needs and demands before ours. If we see women around us, we see them always neglecting themselves while taking care of her family and household. For example, have you ever observed even if our mom is not well she will get up and prepare breakfast for us.

          Amongst other doctors, gynecologist is a very important person in maintaining a woman’s health. A woman doesn’t consult a gynecologist only when she is pregnant or when she is delivering a baby. Now-a-days there are lots of health-issues which a woman experiences and need to be looked after like infections, cancer etc.

          A women’s body goes through lots of changes during a lifetime, during pregnancy, child birth, menses, menopause etc. But, usually a woman hesitates to visit gynecologist and even if they visit, they usually prefer to visit a lady gynecologist too.

          In a city like Ahmedabad, where in previous days, women were confined within four walls of the house, and were not allowed to socialize and mingle, has now changed. Ahmedabad is now a fast developing city. Not only in case of infrastructure but also in case of health industry, Ahmedabad has improved a lot.

          Finding a good Gynaecologist in Ahmedabad is not too hard now. Women are paying attention to their health and well-being. And with surrogacy and IVF methods in demand, Obstetrics and Gynecology in Ahmedabad are in great demand.

          As surrogacy and fertility industry is blooming in the city, so is need for good gynaecologist. Not only for pregnancy or child birth, but due to fast forward lifestyle of cities, their eating habits, it affects their overall health. It affects the monthly cycle, conceiving, childbirth etc. That’s where need of good gynaecologist comes in.

          Like all other doctors, we prefer visiting gynaecologist on referrals from friends or close relatives, especially during delivery. We take into consideration their reputation, the distance from our place in case of emergency, the staff, the facilities, etc. Previously we used to rely on word-of-mouth reviews, but now with availability of various websites, wherein we can read the reviews, get their address and contact number, searching for Obstetrics and Gynecology in Ahmedabad had never been easy. 

Best Dental care services in Mumbai

          Parenting is a big task and now-a-days taking care of kid’s health and well-being is one big challenge for parents. With kids gulping down junk food and sweets, maintaining oral hygiene is very difficult.

Teeth are very important organ of our body. Since its main function is to chew the food properly so that it is easily digestible and we are able to absorb the nutrients. But with the  preservatives in the junk food and poor oral hygiene, teeth tends to get easily infected resulting into cavities, which if neglected might lead to pain, gum problems, swelling and/or pus formation.

We, being adult, sometimes tend to tolerate any amount of pain or discomfort, but when it comes to our children we want the best and can't see them suffer at any cost.

Being a parent of a very stubborn child who doesn’t like to brush, I know how difficult it is to get the child to brush and maintain clean teeth. Having faced the consequences of neglecting child’s oral hygiene, I have realized how important it is to maintain good oral habits.

As each problem requires a specialist, our teeth too need to be treated by a specialist; a dentist. In a city like Mumbai where there is a clinic or hospital at every nook and corner, we want the best for our child. So finding a good dentist in Mumbai is necessary, when it comes to trusting our child’s well-being in their hands.

Usually we parents consult any doctor based on referrals by fellow parents or by our family doctors or any family member or acquaintance. But before we take our child to any dental clinic, we need to know the panel of doctors available, whether there are special paediatric dentist available for our kids, how good are they in handling kids, etc.

We just don’t trust our child into anybody’s hands, because in some cases it become necessary for the child need to be treated not by normal dentist but by dentist who is specialized and trained in handling kids who have different temperament than elders.

Since kids are more sensitive to the surrounding environment, I have seen dental clinics in Mumbai paying attention to décor and creating an environment, so that a child feels comfortable while waiting for his/her turn. Because usually when kids hear the word “Doctor” they tend to get nervous and scared. But when they see setup of the clinic with their favorite cartoon characters, toys etc., they tend to loosen up a bit and treating them and building up a rapport becomes easy.

So now finding information about any dentist in Mumbai for your kid is just a click away. 

Fertility Clinics at Hyderabad

Parenthood is a dream, dreamt by all. Having a cute, bubbly and healthy baby in their arms completes their family and also their dream.

     In the present scenario, wherein people get married late, having established their careers, chased their dreams, settle in life, by the time they realize their dreams of parenthood, they find their biological clock ticking away.

          But stressful jobs, irregular food habits, different lifestyles all give rise to various health issues which sometimes affect their dreams of achieving parenthood. With the advent of technology and science this problem has a solution in form of Fertility Clinics.

         Previously people had to go to bigger cities to get treatment. But now be it any big city or small town, many fertility clinics have sprung up in every nook and corner. Hyderabad city is no different. There are various Fertility clinics in Hyderabad now attending to needs of needy.

      

      Fertility Hospitals in Hyderabad are centers which assist couples in fulfilling their dreams of becoming parents of a healthy child. When a couple can't conceive and give birth to a child through natural process due to any reason like, be it medical or age or health related issues,  these centre help the couples conceive by solving their problems and helping them through various treatments. These treatments include :

• Surgical intervention
• Artificial insemination/Intrauterine Insemination (IUI)
• In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
• Or use of Egg donor or Sperm Donor.

         Amongst above mentioned treatments IVF treatments is most well-known treatments with high success rate.

       

          When a couple goes for consultation, their full health history is taken note. Then the couple undergoes various tests so that it is diagnosed why the couple is unable to conceive through natural process. Depending on the reports, further course of treatment is decided. These IVF Clinics in Hyderabad are well-equipped with latest technology and well informed staff which assist the couples in any kind of queries or issues they face.

     

     These fertility clinics are well staffed with trained personnel like Gynecologists, Endocrinologists, Embryologist, Paediatrician & Neonatologist, Dietician, Radiologists, Anesthesiologist, Counsellors, Andrologist, Endoscopic Surgeon, nurses etc. who are trained to attend to couple’s questions and doubts and solve them to make the couples at ease.

          So now the couples in Hyderabad, for whom the joy of parenthood has eluded since long, can now rejoice, as you can find right type of fertility clinic you need to consult, the facilities available, their panel of doctors, all the necessary information you require about a clinic from the comfort of your house, just by surfing through the list of Fertility Clinics in Hyderabad.