Monday, October 15, 2007

Feed A Hungry Child and Donate Smiles!


World hunger and poverty facts:

852 million people across the world are hungry, up from 842 million a year ago.

Every day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds.

In essence, hunger is the most extreme form of poverty, where individuals or families cannot afford to meet their most basic need for food.

Hunger manifests itself in many ways other than starvation and famine. Most poor people who battle hunger deal with chronic malnutrition and vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which result in stunted growth, weakness and heightened susceptibility to illness.

The issue of global hunger is a complex one that is deeply tied in with the poverty and other economc forces as well. The problem isn't alleviated with simply supplying food.

About- Feed a Hungry Child

feedahungrychild.org is a not-for-profit charitable organization formed in a collaborative effort of the like-minded people from all around the world. It aims to replace the empty plates of the underprivileged children and replace them with ones of food. While FAHC addresses the holistic needs of each children it supports, it believes illiteracy, malnutrition, and other concerns can only be addressed when hunger is appeased.

Immediate Mission:

* Join the fight against global poverty.
* Help feed hungry children one by one.

Larger Vision: feeahungrychild.org aims to improve the lives of a good many underprivileged children in their efforts to support themselves, their families, and their communities by giving them the chance for better food, better education, better healthcare, and other welfare.

Please contribute to help Feed A Hungry Child! For more details visit http://feedahungrychild.org/
You can also click on the ChipIn widget on the right to contribute.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The Making of Ghee/ clarified Butter



After many experiments, I now regularly make Ghee/clarified butter at home. It make me feel happy and tastes good too. In India my mom collects cream from milk and makes butter and then ghee out of it. It used to be a wonderful process.
This is how I make it here in US.


Preparation

Drop 2 sticks of unsalted butter in a deep bottomed pan and heat it on medium low flame. once the sticks have melted lower the flame slightly and leave it for about 10 minutes. Never increase the flame to high. The butter will be of a pale yellow color and it will start changing its color to light golden. once the color starts changing, turn off the flame, else it will burn. The heat of the pan will complete the process of making Ghee. It is a very delicate process and once you understand when to turn off the flame, you will get a very nice consistency of ghee.


Ghee / Clarified butter is a very important ingredient in Indian cooking especially in sweets. Along with Ghee I contribute all the following recipes to RCI Tamil Festival hosted by a very talented cook and lovely fellow blogger Viji of Vcuisine.

Urad dal vada/ ulundu vadai

Ingredients

3 cups urad dal
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1tsp crushed pepper
1 tsp crushed ginger (optional)
2-3 crushed green chillies (optional)
Salt
Oil for deep frying

Preparation

Soak urad dal and fenugreek seeds in warm water for one hour. Grind the dal by adding very little water as possible. The batter should be very thick. When the batter is dropped in water it should float as a ball without getting dissolved.
Mix Salt, pepper, ginger and green chillies to the batter.
In a heavy bottomed pan heat oil. Wet your hands with little water so that the batter does not stick to the hands and make a donut shape out of the batter. Drop it in hot oil and deep fry till golden brown. Crispy vadas are ready!

Janmashtami Seedai


Dry fruit laddus


Sakkarai pongal


Murukku



Rama Navami Panakam


Rava Kesari


Paruppu vadai/ masal vadai



Tamil Festive Food


There is a new member in our family! Wanted to share with you guys pictures and pleasure of our new "Toyota Highlander".



Friday, October 5, 2007

Eggs, eggs everywhere!!




Ever since Bee and Jai have announced their event named Click, my brain started thinking about how to give a special effect to the eggs. Then I got the idea of shooting the eggs at its birth place "The Nest".
The eggs seem pretty happy at their home! The nest was created by me.

My Camera is Canon power shot G7, 10 mega pixels. I used the color accent technique in my camera to give a natural feel to the picture.

I had shot about 100 pictures and went mad selecting the best one!! The eggs too had to go through a lot of torture posing differently:)



I liked this one the best!!