Healthy Halwa

Today, I prepared Navratri special - Bottle gourd and cashew-nuts halwa. Many people cooked giya ka halwa in these days as it is liked by many in the fast days. I opted for more healthier option shakar (powdered jaggery) instead of sugar in it.

Ingredients
Milk - 1 1/2 liter
Bottle gourd - 1 big size
Malai (Cream) - 100g
Powdered cashew-nuts - 25g
Powdered cardamoms - 7-8
Powdered jaggery - 300g
For garnishing
Musk melon seeds - 1/2 table spoon

Method
1. Boil milk, cream, grated bottle gourd, powdered cashew-nuts and cardamoms together till it thickens. Stir it continuously.
2. Add jaggery and mix it well. Stir the mixture continuously till it leaves ghee and the sides of the pan.
3. Take it out in a bowl and garnish it with musk melon seeds. Serve hot.

Pranayam (Breathing Exercises)

Pranayam means control of breath. It calms the mind and provides more oxygen to the brain. The most common pranayam are bhastrika, kapalabhati, jalandhara bandha, uddiyana bandha, mula bandha, anuloma viloma and bhasrika. I am teaching pranayam to my students from the past nine years. In these two videos, I explained the procedure of doing pranayam. 

Dear readers, you can daily watch these videos while practicing breathing exercises and be benefited from them.

Eyebrows of a cow

I find this very funny that somebody painted the eyebrows of this cow. I must say 'Height of Creativity'!

Begun Bhaja

Today I tried begun bhaja, a delicious n delightful recipe of Bengali cuisine. One of my close friend who is a Bengali shared the recipe of begun bhaja. Her method was to deep fry sliced egg plants and then sprinkled it with salt and spices. I gave a twist to it to make it more crispy and tasty. And my recipe is like this .....

Ingredients
Egg Plant - 2
Rice flour - 1 table spoon
Red chillies - 1/4 tea spoon
Black pepper - 1/4 tea spoon
Mango powder - 1/4 tea spoon
Roasted cumin seeds - 1/4 tea spoon
Salt to taste
Desi ghee for shallow frying

Method
1. Sliced the egg plants in half circles. Wash them in water thoroughly.
2. Rub the rice flour on both the sides of the egg plant slice gently.
3. Shallow fry them in a pan.
4. Sprinkle the spices on it and serve hot.

Unique colour of mushroom

After rains, mushrooms come up anywhere and everywhere in gardens or in wild. It is so common. Most of the time the colour of mushroom is white, offwhite or light brown. I noticed this grey colour mushroom growing in the park of my society. I found this colour somewhat uncommon so sharing with all of you.

Dengue and papaya tree

Aftereffects of dengue on this papaya tree can be seen very clearly. I noticed it during my evening walk. This tree is not diseased with dengue. But the people tore it's leaves because papaya leaves juice is considered good for curing dengue. It is the best home remedy that one can afford free of cost if there is a papaya tree in their surrounding. :)

Ace, King, Queen and Joker

I won an interesting quiz or a lucky draw I do not know. But the interesting thing is that I participated in a competition organised by Delhi Book Club on their Facebook page in which one has to suggest the name of the authors as Ace, King, Queen and Joker of the pack. According to me it was like this -

ACE - RAVINDRANATH TAGORE
KING - W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
QUEEN - PEARL S. BUCK
JOKER - CHETAN BHAGAT

And according to you who out of numerous authors you have read is Ace, King, Queen and Joker of the pack?