How to make white butter

 

Kitchen Tools to make life easy

This lockdown has brought out the inner CHEF within me, infact not just me but everyone out there. From Cakes to Kachoris, we have not left any stone unturned and at the same time made sure of clicking beautiful pictures for our Instagram account. If I talk about "Behind the scene" of that yummy food picture posted on the Instagram, there comes a lot of (super tiring and time consuming) cutting and chopping.

So, I keep on thinking about the new ways of saving my time and efforts, when in kitchen or in front of the laptop. And suddenly something appeared in front of my eyes (on my phone screen 😂), and it was a Chopper by Pigeon. Without wasting a minute, I ordered it from Amazon. 

Cutting onions which is the most tedious cooking task has become super easy now. Infact, not just onions, be it any vegetable, the chopper can be used for that. In fact, the other day I made Gobhi Paranthas and instead of grating it on the grater, I used the chopper, which makes things super easy.

5 Minutes Snack

MONACO SNACK

Hungry but doesn't want to cook either?

Here's a 5 minutes Snack which is super yummy as well as filling, goes well with tea or coffee.

Ingredients

Monaco biscuits (quantity depends on your hunger)

Burger Mayonnaise

Some chopped onion

Coriander leaves

Aalu Bhujia

Method

Place some Monaco biscuits on a serving plate. Put some chopped onion on it, a bit of mayonnaise, a leaf of coriander, just sprinkle some aalu bhujia over it.. that's it.. you are good to go.. enjoy this 5 minutes Snack..

Note- You can add paneer, tomato, cheese or tomato ketchup as well, depends on your taste.

PREVENT YOUR FAVOURITE COOKIES FROM GETTING SOGGY

Bought my favorite cookies and could not resist myself from eating the same, then suddenly the Calorie alarm tickled and refrained me from eating the whole bunch of it. Left the packet, thinking will eat the same tomorrow when no one is watching me 🙊🙊🙊🙊🙊🙊🙊, sealed the packet with a elastic loop..

Next morning woke with the soothing sound of rain drops, thought of having a hot tea with those favorite cookies. Alas! the cookies turned soggy even when I kept them tied up with a rubber band. I told this to my mother in the daily chit-chat over phone. And here comes the SOLUTION - keep the cookies in a tight steel box inside the fridge to stop turning the cookies/biscuits/rusks soggy.

And this trick completely worked. Now I always keep the open packets of cookies and rusk
or even the air tight containers in the refrigerator during monsoon season. Even the soggy ones, when kept in a steel box in the refrigerator becomes fresh yet again.

HOW TO GET RID OF ANTS OVERNIGHT

Monsoon weather brings lots of happiness and joy but with that comes long queues of Ants searching for food. With one grain left here and there,  it wastes one entire hour to broom away the entire lot. Tired of looking at these queues, I ordered a product from Amazon (not expecting much result though) named Amish A. This just worked wonders, just 2 drops in kitchen, 2 outside house and 2 in Balcony and my life is sorted.  It's been 10 days, can't find a single ant. Though, could see a lot of them (THE DEAD ONES) while brooming in the morning.

Believe me, its not a paid review, this thing really works!

Hope this review helps!

E-commerce: Home chefs cook their way to riches via food start-ups

Came across this article about Home Chef and thought of sharing the same with all you housewives!

India’s burgeoning e-commerce sector has helped many become entrepreneurs. Housewives, too, are not far behind. Roped in by online taxi apps to monitor the movement of cabs on their smartphones, now they are becoming a part of the online food and beverages (F&B) industry. Called home chefs, they are literally cooking their way to riches, making between 50-60% of every transaction on websites that offer home-cooked food.

Hyderabad’s Kitchen’s Food is one such start-up that works with housewives to provide healthy home-cooked food to customers. Founded by Rishi Raj, a former Google employee who realised the need for healthy, home-cooked food for professionals staying away from home, it was launched in Hyderabad last year and a month ago in Bengaluru. “I was very excited about this idea, as it not only satisfies our need for home-cooked food, but also empowers housewives by generating an opportunity for them to earn money,” says Raj.

The start-up claims to have sold close to 30,000 meals in the last one year. They  have about 800 home chefs on board from Hyderabad and Bengaluru and follow a stringent process while hiring. “It takes six weeks for a chef to enrol with us. The chef has to be internet-savvy enough to get onto our portal and create a nice profile,” says Raj. The home chef is then expected to get a licence from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. “The home chef gets a vendor licence, and we do our bit to make sure the food is safe, wherein we take a video of the house where the home chef is cooking, we carry out portion checks and a lot of internal quality checks as well. After that the home chef becomes eligible to post meals on the portal,” says Raj.

CyberChef, a Gurgaon-based start-up, is another firm in this space. Its founder Neha Puri first realised the need for home-cooked food when she came across working professionals and students who often complained about the lack of eating options. This drove her and her team to get housewives on board as home chefs to provide people with the same taste and experience they enjoyed back home.

They started their operations in January and have around 65 home chefs on board from Gurgaon and 25 from Mumbai. “When we started we delivered 500 meals in the first month. Now we deliver 1,000-1,500 meals a month. People have appreciated the idea and have also understood home-cooked food doesn’t have to be a dabba, and it also doesn’t mean that you can take the quality and quantity of the food for granted,” she says. The home chefs work on a profit-sharing basis, with 60% of the transaction value going to the chefs and the rest to the firm.

Anjali, a 35-year-old home chef who works with CyberChef, says the platform has helped her realise and showcase her love for cooking. “I have grown along with CyberChef and the journey has been wonderful. I have always loved cooking and this platform has made me realise my potential and my children are really proud to tell their friends that their mom is a home chef,” she says.

Faasos, a Pune-based technology-focused QSR chain backed by Sequoia Capital, also has home chefs on board. Faasos co-founder Revanth Bhatte says they prefer home chefs who have had experience in dealing with bulk orders and who are professionally trained. “Some home chefs we work with are housewives who have experience in delivering food to parties and events; a few of them also run private baking and cooking classes,” says Bhatte. Fassos specifically approach home chefs to capture the local market by providing them with delicacies that are popular in a particular area. They then run a quality check of the premises where they cook and test the food with some of their loyal customers. “We continuously monitor the quality of their food and if something goes wrong, we discontinue the chefs,” adds Bhatte.

As per Grant Thornton, the combined F&B service market in India is worth R2,04,438 crore, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 23-24% and is expected to touch R3.8 lakh crore by 2017. QSR and casual dining are the two most popular formats that form 45% and 32% of the overall market, respectively.

Source: http://www.financialexpress.com/industry/e-commerce-home-chefs-cook-their-way-to-riches-via-food-start-ups/131115/

Important Life Lessons to teach your child

Parenting is definitely the hardest job you will ever do. As a parent, you have many important life lessons to teach your child. The world has changed a lot since our grandparents, and even our parents, were young. They have lived very different lives from those our children will lead, and today's youngsters have many challenges ahead of them Here are some of the essential lessons to teach your child:

HONESTY

Help Kids Find a Way To Tell the Truth. The best way to encourage truthfulness in your child is to be a truthful person yourself. Your child takes his cues from you, so it's important that you try to avoid any kind of deception (Never, for instance, say something like "Let's not tell Daddy we got candy this afternoon.") Let your child hear you being truthful with other adults. Teach them- Even if being honest isn't always easy or comfortable, you-and other people-always feel better if you tell the truth.

NOTHING COMES FREE

This is a lesson that you should teach all your children. They should not expect anything to be given to them. Instead, they must learn to work for what they want. It's understandable that you might want to help your children out, especially if they hit hard times, but teach them independence. Don't let them assume that they can treat you as a bank.

JUSTICE

Insist That Children Make Amends. If you're aware that your child has acted badly toward someone, help him think of a way to compensate. Saying "I'm sorry" is pretty easy for a child, and it lets her off the hook without forcing her to think. Having a child make amends in a proactive way conveys a much stronger message. In order to help children internalize a true sense of justice, parents need to encourage them to take some action to remedy a wrong.

DETERMINATION

Encourage Them To Take on a Challenge. Determination is a value that you can encourage from a very young age. The easiest way to do so is by avoiding excessive praise and by providing children with honest feedback, delivered in a gentle, supportive fashion. Another powerful way to help kids develop determination is to encourage them to do things that don't come easily-and to praise them for their initiative. Congratulate kids when they manage to do things that are difficult for them. The child who hears "Good for you, I know that was really tough!" is bolstered by the recognition and becomes even more determined to keep trying.

LOVE

Be Generous with Your Affection. I can practically guarantee you that the more you say "I love you" to your child, the more your child will say "I love you" back. The more hugs and kisses you give, the more your home will be filled with love and affection. And when our children feel free to express their love to us, we instill in them perhaps the greatest value of all. don't let a day pass without expressing your affection for your child himself. Show your love in unexpected ways: Pack a note in his lunch box. Tape a heart to the bathroom mirror so he'll see it when he brushes his teeth. Give her a hug-for no reason. Let your child see you demonstrate your love and affection for the people in your life. Talk to your children about how much you love and appreciate their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.