Kerala Food Festival

The Olives restaurant in Hotel Deccan Plaza, Royapettah, Chennai is conducting a ‘The Kerala Food Festival, a feast of delicacies from the God’s own country.

Sarasvathi Viswanathan, the famous  Chef  who created a world record by cooking 108 dishes in one hour, is the Chef creating the food feast.

I am personally meeting her the first time even though had known her and had been chatting with her  for more than 3 years. she was very open and explained each and every dish's recipe, and also gave lots of tips. 

Video Link:

For food lovers, Chef Sarasvathi is presenting a complete onam sadhya (full meals) with the following menu items:


Starter: Mango Soup with Appalam Bajjii

Main Course:

kaalan 
Oolan 
Keerai aviyal
Erissery
Chene Puzhukku
Chakka Pacchadi
Neenthrankai Thoran
Payari Thoran
Chammeathi
Pulingari
Mango kichadi
Matta Rice
Pappudum
Rasam

Varieties of Pickles

Varieties of Chips (sarkara upperi, jackfruit chips, banana chips)

Dessert:
Mango Paallada Payasam
Chakka Rabdi
Chena Pradhaman

If you are veggie food lover, you should not miss this food treat for any reason. The festival will be till June 30th, and so try and make it on the weekend.

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Fabelle’s 72Kg Bar Event for Celebrating Independence Day

Yesterday, I attended an Independence Day Celebration Event organized by Fabelle, a Chocolate Boutique of ITC, in ITC Grand Chola, Chennai. Fabelle has collaborated with Make A Wish India for this event. The theme of the event is to create a 72 Kg Chocolate Bar with 72 ingredients to commemorate India's 72nd Independence Day. 

Fabelle is ITC's chocolate boutique which makes Handcrafted Luxury Chocolates. Its Chocolates are sourced from African countries like Ghana, Madagascar, Cote D'Ivoire etc to South American Countries like Venezuela, Sao Tome etc. which grows high quality chocolates. As the Chocolates are grown amidst other crops like Oranges etc., they have a unique flavor, different from vanilla chocolates. Fabelle uses unique chocolates from these choicest cocoas to create a unique luxury experience.

Make a Wish is a social organization that fulfills poor children's small wishes and dreams to spread smiles across the world. As a part of this organization, Make A 

Wish India gets sponsors to contribute for the creation of Fabelle Chocolates and then gives it to poor children. 

Together, Make A Wish India and Fabelle created a 72kg Bar Chocolate with 72 ingredients to celebrate the 72nd Indian Independence Day. The following are the key ingredients used: Flax seeds, Chia seeds, Apricot, Almonds, Pista, Cashewnuts, Popcorn, Biscuits, Rasins, Jellies, Fennel seeds, Hazelnuts, Butter, Milk, Cranberry, etc.,

It was a great honor for me and my family to participate in this event. This is really noble way to celebrate and so kudos to all those who ideated and executed this idea.  

Fabelle and MakeAWishIndia has created an online page where you can be a sponsor for this event. Go to http://fabelle.in/independenceday/ if you also want to donate starting from just Rs.100.

#Fabelle72kgBar

#MakeAWishIndia

Here are some photos from the event.

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Indira Agrotech - A Farm Visit

Indira Farms - An easy way to become an "activist" in the Organic Farming Trends

Organic Farming is not just a trend or fad which is to be just followed on the facebook and other socialmedia apps and forgotten. Most agree that Organic Farming should become even stronger and become an bigger Movement like Green Revolution 2.0.  The difference between a trend and movement is that more middle-class citizens become actively engaged by contributing either money or effort to the movement. The Previous Green Revolution was entirely government driven when the average Indian people was very not much knowledgeable in technology and environment. The Previous Green Revolution has been mixed because even though it helped India achieve self-sufficiency in food production, it was the start of adoption of chemical fertilizers. 

Tamilnadu is at the fore-front of this new green revolution with exceptional leaders like Nammalvar taking the lead. His followers have already taken the message and movement to wider urban population. Even other states like Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are appreciative of Tamil Nadu's leadership role in the green revolution 2.0. However, Green Revolution 2.0 is not yet achieved its full impact yet because the opportunities for the average green conscious citizen to make an effective contribution is still limited to just buying a few organic stuff now and then.

Indira Agrotech have come up with a new cooperative farming initiative which provides the right opportunity for green conscious people to make their contribution to the movement. Indira Agro Products have started an Initiative where about 65 acres of farm land at Tindivanam, just about 100 kilometers from Chennai GST. This Farm Land is located at along a road that branches off GST at Sarasvati Engineering College on the GST. Indira Agrotech offers about 1/4 acre for Rs. 5 Laks in the collective farm. If you buy the 1/4 acre plot and sign a farming contract with them, Indira Agrotech gives you 150Kg Organically grown rice for every 6 months. You can consider this as an yearly interest for your investment while the land value keeps appreciating. India Agrotech itself will sell you the plot when the price has appreciate considerable at a market-determined price.  This project is a great contribution towards green movement because if such ideas gain market adoption, corporate farming can take off a big way in Tamil nadu and India as well. As the cooperative farming idea catches up, the investors can also profit considerably from the land appreciation. More over, Indira Agrotech will create visiting facilities in their farmland so that people can come and stay on weekends in their farm and enjoy a great village getaway. Such farm and village getaways which are easily reachable by car from Chennai city would form a great educational experience and play activity for kids. 

Indira Agrotech is a win-win innovative real-estate scheme and people should consider taking a site-vist to understand more in person about this investment-cum-green-activism opportunity.

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Promises of a Firefly - Anupam Patra

Formulating a unique style and rhythm is the key for success with the audience. When you are starting out as a writer and coming up with a short stories collection, then this is also the most difficult thing to achieve. Anupam Patra's short story collection, "Promises of a firefly" comes out with flying colors in this litmus test.

A violent event like a murder or accident takes just a split second to happen. But it takes a full lifetime, or sometimes many lifetimes to comprehend and overcome the impact of the violence. The emotional affect is not only for the victim, but also for the perpetuator of the violence. Anupam's stories are all about the web of emotions like anger, shame, guilt and grief of those affected by these incidents. Anupam Patra spends more words conveying the pain of victims the violent incidents and has the talent to bring out the resonance and evoke the emotions in the reader. The stories are more emotion driven than plot driven, just like Chekov's short stories.

Most of the stories revolve around motor-related accidents which are follies that would have been easily avoided. Yet people keeping committing them so frequently throughout the world. The inexcusable impatience of the guilty and split-second slip of caution on the part of victim weighs heavily on the minds of the characters in these short-stories as unbearably heavy. The rush of the ego is the root of tragedy is a recurring theme in these short stories. It is very well brought out in romance story, "Games we never forget", when the lovers breakup over a scrabble game..

My Personal Favourite is the story, "A Temporary Promise". it's a love story in the circumstances when people can't afford to trust and also discourage to trust. The swift plot-twists that are bound to happen makes it a page turner. Another good story is "Swans" which revolves around a convict trapped in a jail and his yearning for forgiveness by his family.

Promises of a Firefly indeed shows the promise of Anupam Patra's writing talent. A very good debut indeed to start with.

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Nature Bran - Brand Product Review

Ready to use mixes is the trend of the time as it helps working people to cook their favorite dishes at home quick and easy. There are not many good readymade mixes for millet based recipes. I came across Nature Bran Millet Rava dosa and tried it.  Its good, tasty and handy to prepare. I recommend it for working people to want to cook healthy fast food at home.

This company has good reputation among the millet activist community and is known for their high quality standards.    Nature Bran is a brand you can trust and you can buy in amazon .

You can try their other products in their website.

http://www.fibrofoods.com/

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Nutty Crunch Maalaadu with Preethi Turbo Chop

I went to a Blog- Jam hosted by Preethi. Preethi introduced their Iconic Table Top Wet Grinder. The Iconic Table Top Wet Grinder simulates traditional stone (Attukkallu) grinding process so that you get exactly the same quality of Idlis our elders used to make. Preethi also showcased their Turbo Chop Kitchen Appliance.

Preethi Turbo Chop: The Kitchen Appliance for today’s Nuclear family

Kitchen Appliances too evolve with the times and needs of the people. Today's families are mostly nuclear family with two kids or just one kid, Double Income No Kids families etc. In Today's households, Ladies are also harried whether they are housewives or working women. Hence the quality time for cooking is shrinking year by year. To address this need of families, today Innovative food companies are coming up with ready-mixes for every main dish from idli, dosa to rasam etc. The next important step to simplify regular cooking is simplifying making side-dishes. Indian (and South Indian in specific) Side dishes like chutneys and pooriyals have to prepared fresh and cannot be pre-packaged like tomato-sauces of the west. 

In today's regular cooking, the chopping of vegetables for these side dishes is the most time-taking and laborious activity. Though some enterprising entrepreneurs have come up with chopped vegetables packed in special sealed packages, either they are very costly or not fresh. There is also a worry about added preservatives. There are some very important drawbacks in current mixie models in the model. For example, it is not very easy to clean as removing blades from earlier mixie models is difficult and fungus would form if we do not clean it properly. Also, older appliances like mixies, grinders are not suited for cooking for just one, two or three people only.

Preethi Turbo Chop is an innovative combination of Chopper and Mini-Mixie. You can chop the ingredients in the jar through a simple-to-use push button on the top. You have to just keep pressing till you want to chop and remove when you are done. It is very safe that even kids can do it. Turbo Chop is ideal for preparing all types of chutneys, purees and chopped vegetables for poriyal ie all key side dishes of regular cooking today. Turbo Chop can also be used to prepare all types of poodi items for monthly or long term use. It can also used for crushing nuts and preparing ingredients for festival sweets. 

As Turbo Chop is very less weight, you can easily carry it while travelling also. For example, you can take it to hospitals to prepare juices. Similarly, you can take even during tours and travels to prepare chutneys, juices on the fly and avoid hotel foods.

Preethi Turbo Chop is digital kitchen Swiss-army knife in the kitchen. With Preethi Turbo Chop you have a very well researched innovation that addresses the need of today's women of all segments - always on the run Working women in IT and other Industries, cost-conscious housewives, college-goers, bachelors, elderly people etc. 

Preethi Turbo Chop is just the type of innovation that solves a nagging -issue in cooking instead of meaningless marketing gimmick innovations which flood that market all the time. Kudos to Preethi for coming up with Turbo Chop.

Preethi Turbo Chop Technical Specifications:

1. 450 W Powerful Motor

2. Stainless Steel Blade

3. 0.7 L Bowl

4. One Press Chopper

5. Easy to use and clean

Turbo Chop Mini Mixer-Grinder is a 450W compact kitchen appliance with laser sharp blades that can grind, mix, chop, and blend within seconds. This Mini Mixie is, therefore, the perfect kitchen companion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkBlp8ClK1w

http://www.preethi.in/turbo-chop/turbo-chop

More About Preeti Blog jam: 

Unlike other Blogger-Meets, Preethi arranged for two great talks, one by Archana of ArchanaKitchen.com on how to take our blogs to the next level. The other talk was on improving food photography skills by Chef.Umasankar Dhanapal, Winner of IKA / Culinary Olympics (http://www.knifeandimpressions.com/). Both the speakers gave very good tips for improving our blogging and photography capabilities.

Nutty Crunch Maalaadu with Preethi Turbo Chop:

Festival Season has already started. Easy to make sweet recipes are in demand for both beginners making their first sweet and well-versed people planning their additional sweet. Maalaadu is a simple sweet but it is not liked by many because it is sticky. Nutty Crunch Maaladu is a variant of Maalaadu which makes it non-sticky and crunchy so that kids and adults also would relish it.

Ingredients:

Roasted Gram / Pottukadalai	1 cup
Badam	1/3 cup
Cashew Nuts	10
Ghee	¼ cup
Cardamom Powder	¼ tsp
Sugar	¼ cup
Nattu Sarkkarai / Brown Sugar	¼ cup

                                                              

Procedure:

1. Dry roast the roasted-gram (pottukadalai) till they become hot. Don’t over roast it. Keep it aside.

2. Dry roast the badam for 2 mins or till they become hot.

3. Grind the roasted gram into fine powder without any lumps using the dry mixie jar. Keep it aside.

4. Grind the badam into small granules. Don’t grind them into fine powder.

5. Chop the cashew nuts into small pieces.

6. Heat one tbsp of ghee in a pan. Fry the chopped cashew nuts till they turn into brown in color. Switch off the flame.

7. Grind the white sugar and brown sugar into a fine powder using the same jar separately.

7. In a wide bowl, add powdered roasted gram, badam granules, powdered sugar, and powdered brown sugar, roasted cashew nuts with ghee and cardamom powder. Mix them gently with ladle or with your fingers.

8. Now heat the remaining ghee in a pan, add the hot ghee little by little in the above mixture.

9. Mix them immediately with the ladle. When you can hold the mixture to make balls, stop to adding ghee.

10. Grease your hand with oil and immediately make gooseberry size balls from the mixture and keep it aside. Allow it to cool down completely.

     Now nutty and crunchy Maladoo is ready to serve!

Note:

1. Roasting badam and roasted-gram (pottukadalai) is optional.

2. You can microwave them for 2 mins instead of roasting.

3. You can grind the badam into fine powder also.

4. The given amount of ghee is enough for this recipe. You can add if you needed.

 5. If you find that the ghee is more add more powdered roasted-gram (pottukadalai).

6. Adjust the sugar level according to your taste.

7. You can use ½ cup of white sugar or ½ cup of brown sugar instead of 50-50.

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Ananta Shesha Naga - Rise of Demon Prince by Sanjeev K. Sharma - Mythological Thriller Review

Hearing mythological stories from elders is always a great experience, because we visualize the scenes as to our own imagination unlike TV serials or films which do the imagination for us. The next best thing to hearing these stories from elders is to read them as novels. This is the reason for the evergreen attraction of mythological novels and the success of new storytellers of mythologies attest to this fact. Another important element to the mythological stories is their nativity. While you can enjoy Harry Potter novels, there is always an alieness about them because the mythemes like flying sticks are not native to our culture. Hence novels which have strong native mythemes always catch our imagination.

There is no better mytheme and mystique in Indian mythologies than the Nagas. Nagas are uniquely pan-Indian mythologies and naga mythical elements always catch our imagination and nothing fascinates more us more than the naga legends. The sheer number of Hindi and Telugu movies and tv-serials is clear attestation to this. The Naga mythological novel, Ananta Sesha has all the key naga elements such as the lokas, shape-shifting to human and snake forms, secret naga-stones which are power-sources etc. are mixed up well along with other mythical figures like Ananta Sesha, Varuna, Indra, Vishnu as well. The strange mix up of the god-figures with the naga legends give magical realism feel to the story told. the story-telling style of the writer also gives us a wondering thought whether we are reading a true legend or a pure imaginative spell from the writer.

The plot is also a gripping ever-green formula.. a conspiracy of galactic proportions with a few ambitious characters plotting the birth of demonic ruler who will unleash hell on the living world.. as the conspirators keeps trodding along their plan, spies and counter-spies add to the intrigue and seduce the reader into the story world.. the plot races towards a great war between the good and evil and engages the reader into wondering whether the side they are emotionally engaged with has any outside chance of winning.. the author has got all the story-devices to make the reader finish of the 250 odd pages in one single go.

If you are a big fan of mythological novels, do not miss out having fun with this Ananta Shesha Naga,rise of demon prince Naga Novel.. AnataShesha Naga is a definitely a good one and would bring back the nostalgia of one's younger days back..

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Chakka Payasam / Jack Fruit Payasam and Onam Cleaning Tips with LAL HIT

     

  

In Kerala, Onam is a ten-day long celebration of harvest and is the most important festival of Kerala. Onam has many elaborate rituals like increasing flower arrangements and decorations every day etc. special food recipes preparation etc. I would share one Onam special recipe too. As with most traditional festivals, Onam is also associated with cleanliness. As most of the population lives in an urbanized city environments, cleaning our houses is the now part of the festival rituals. Festival cleaning rituals have to be more special and methodical and this means including LAL HIT in the deep-cleaning process.

       Traditionally Preparations for the Thiru Onam starts in a big way with House cleaning  on a massive scale, with every nook and corner of the hosue  made neat and tidy. This is a good occasion for us to kickstart a deep-cleaning session in our houses periodically. Most of us have a busy weekdays - monday through friday, as kids and adults both men and women nowadays have hectic work schedules. Even though we might have housemaids atleast part-time on hourly basis, we can't expect the house-cleaning activities to be perfect. We would definitely the nooks and corners of the houses even if we manage to keep the floors and furnitures clean. That's why deep cleaning should be a weekly or atleast monthly ritual. If some of you are feeling that daily fatique is overwhelming you, let Onam's festive spirits motivate you to engage in the deep-cleaning.

      I’ve been getting a number of requests for making a quick and healthy Onam recipe which would be easy to prepare and not use too many dishes, so that cleanup is a breeze afterwards. I understand the pain – it is irritating to wash all the dirty dishes after cooking is over, and if you leave them stacked up, chances are you’d get a score of roaches on your kitchen sink, trying to pry off the last morsels of food from your dirty plates and spreading germs and can result in food poisoning. You really don’t want your new year to turn out to be a sad one, where you and your family might fall sick. 

    This is why I keep Lal Hit around, which is deadly on cockroaches and really keeps them away.

       Before the recipe, a note about why we need deep-cleaning periodically with LAL HIT, need to make it a monthly kitchen cleaning regime. Cockroaches very easily and surely escape the regular cleaning process by hiding in hard to reach corners like under the cylinder, sink, cracks, and crevices. They contaminate food and affect family members, guest, and kids in particular. LAL HIT is the only solution that can eliminate the hidden cockroaches. It comes with a Deep Reach Nozzle that can get inside deep corners, cracks, and crevices. Now that we have the kitchen cleaning expert-LAL Hit with us we can be tension free and cook delicious.

Here is the Onam special recipe:

Jack Fruit Payasam / Chakka Pradhaman

Ingredients:

Jack Fruit	10 nos
Jaggery	¼ cup
Thick Coconut Milk	1 cup
Ghee	2 tbsp
Cashew Nuts	10 nos
Dry Grapes	20 nos
Cardamom Powder	1/4 tsp

Procedure:

1. Remove the seed from the jack fruit. Chop them into small pieces.

2. Pressure cook them with ½ cup of water for 2-3 whistles in a medium flame.

3. After the pressure has gone, allow it to cool down completely.

4. Grind them into a fine paste using the mixie jar.

5. Add 2 tbsp of water with powdered jaggery. Bring into boil till the jaggery melts completely.

6. String the jaggery syrup with metal strainer.

7. Add this jaggery syrup and cardamom powder with ground jackfruit paste. Mix them well and bring to boil.

8. Heat the ghee in a small pan. Add cashew nuts and fry till they become little bit brown.

9. Then add the dry grapes/ raisins and fry till the raisins become double in its size.

10. Pour this mixture into the jackfruit payasam mix. Mix them well and cook for 2-3 mins.

11. Finally add the coconut milk and mix them well. If the payasam starts to boil, switch off the flame. Don’t over cook the payasam after adding the cococnut milk.

    Yummy and tasty jackfruit payasam / chakka pradhaman is ready!

Note:

1. You can also use finely chopped and fried coconut pieces.

  

Festivals motivate us to do a special deep-cleaning of our houses. I have made it a habit to deep-clean my house every month with LAL HIT to avoid food poisoning at home. LAL HIT now also comes with a fresh fragrance spreading nice aroma in your kitchen. Festivals also bring the Joyous mood to our house. Celebrate Onam this year with an Onam recipe like chakka payasam and spread the joy.

#SayNoToFoodPoisoning

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