Healthy Breakfast: Moong Dal Chilla

Moong Dal Chillas are protein packed crepes that are seasoned with thinly sliced onions and coriander leaves along with choice of vegetables make a wholesome breakfast or a light dinner. 

Ingredients

1/2 cup yellow split moong  (you can also use whole green moong)
1/2 cup masoor dal
1/4 cup whole urad (white)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 sliced onion, thinly sliced

a small bunch of chopped coriander leaves, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
oil for cooking
salt to taste

Method 

1. To begin making the Moong Dal Chilla Recipe, rinse the moong and urad lentils and soak them together for an hour in 2 cups of water. Grind into a fine batter.
2. When poured using a ladle, the batter should not be too thick that it falls like a blob, but should be of thick pouring consistency. If too thick you can add a little water.
3. If there is too much water, then the poodla will fall apart while spreading. Stir in all the remaining ingredients, including any additional vegetables into the lentil batter, except for the oil.
4. Preheat a non-stick flat skillet on medium heat.
5. Test for readiness by sprinkling a few drops of water on the pan. It should sizzle.
6. Once ready, pour a ladle of batter into the centre and spreading it thin from the center to the edges into a circle. Drizzle less than a teaspoon of oil around the edges and centre of the chilla.
7. Let it cook for about a minute on medium high heat, until you notice that the edges begin to start turning crisp and brown.
8. At this stage flip the chilla over to the other side and allow it to cook for another minute until the bottom is cooked with brown spots.
9. Once done remove from skillet and place it on a serving platter. Continue the same process with the remaining batter.
10. Serve the Moong Dal Chilla 

Raise your kid to be kind

“Children are not born simply good or bad and we should never give up on them. They need adults who will help them become caring, respectful, and responsible for their communities at every stage of their childhood.” 

The five strategies to raise moral, caring children

1. Make caring for others a priority

Why? Parents tend to prioritize their children’s happiness and achievements over their children’s concern for others. But children need to learn to balance their needs with the needs of others, whether it’s passing the ball to a teammate or deciding to stand up for friend who is being bullied.
How? Children need to hear from parents that caring for others is a top priority. A big part of that is holding children to high ethical expectations, such as honoring their commitments, even if it makes them unhappy. For example, before kids quit a sports team, band, or a friendship, we should ask them to consider their obligations to the group or the friend and encourage them to work out problems before quitting.
Try this
• Instead of saying to your kids: “The most important thing is that you’re happy,” say “The most important thing is that you’re kind.”
• Make sure that your older children always address others respectfully, even when they’re tired, distracted, or angry.
• Emphasize caring when you interact with other key adults in your children’s lives. For example, ask teachers whether your children are good community members at school.

2. Provide opportunities for children to practice caring and gratitude
Why? It’s never too late to become a good person, but it won’t happen on its own. Children need to practice caring for others and expressing gratitude for those who care for them and contribute to others’ lives. Studies show that people who are in the habit of expressing gratitude are more likely to be helpful, generous, compassionate, and forgiving—and they’re also more likely to be happy and healthy.
How? Learning to be caring is like learning to play a sport or an instrument. Daily repetition—whether it’s a helping a friend with homework, pitching in around the house, or having a classroom job—make caring second nature and develop and hone youth’s caregiving capacities. Learning gratitude similarly involves regularly practicing it.
Try this
• Don’t reward your child for every act of helpfulness, such as clearing the dinner table. We should expect our kids to help around the house, with siblings, and with neighbors and only reward uncommon acts of kindness.
• Talk to your child about caring and uncaring acts they see on television and about acts of justice and injustice they might witness or hear about in the news.
• Make gratitude a daily ritual at dinnertime, bedtime, in the car, or on the subway. Express thanks for those who contribute to us and others in large and small ways.

3. Expand your child’s circle of concern.
Why? Almost all children care about a small circle of their families and friends. Our challenge is help our children learn to care about someone outside that circle, such as the new kid in class, someone who doesn’t speak their language, the school custodian, or someone who lives in a distant country.
How? Children need to learn to zoom in, by listening closely and attending to those in their immediate circle, and to zoom out, by taking in the big picture and considering the many perspectives of the people they interact with daily, including those who are vulnerable. They also need to consider how their
decisions, such as quitting a sports team or a band, can ripple out and harm various members of their communities. Especially in our more global world, children need to develop concern for people who live in very different cultures and communities than their own.
Try this
• Make sure your children are friendly and grateful with all the people in their daily lives, such as a bus driver or a waitress.
• Encourage children to care for those who are vulnerable. Give children some simple ideas for stepping into the “caring and courage zone,” like comforting a classmate who was teased.
• Use a newspaper or TV story to encourage your child to think about hardships faced by children in another country.

4. Be a strong moral role model and mentor.
Why? Children learn ethical values by watching the actions of adults they respect. They also learn values by thinking through ethical dilemmas with adults, e.g. “Should I invite a new neighbor to my birthday party when my best friend doesn’t like her?”
How? Being a moral role model and mentor means that we need to practice honesty, fairness, and caring ourselves. But it doesn’t mean being perfect all the time. For our children to respect and trust us, we need to acknowledge our mistakes and flaws. We also need to respect children’s thinking and listen
to their perspectives, demonstrating to them how we want them to engage others.
Try this:
• Model caring for others by doing community service at least once a month. Even better, do this service with your child.
• Give your child an ethical dilemma at dinner or ask your child about dilemmas they’ve faced.

5. Guide children in managing destructive feelings
Why? Often the ability to care for others is overwhelmed by anger, shame, envy, or other negative feelings.
How? We need to teach children that all feelings are okay, but some ways of dealing with them are not helpful. Children need our help learning to cope with these feelings in productive ways.
Try this
Here’s a simple way to teach your kids to calm down: ask your child to stop, take a deep breath through the nose and exhale through the mouth, and count to five. Practice when your child is calm. Then, when you see her getting upset, remind her about the steps and do them with her. After a while she’ll start to do it on her own so that she can express her feelings in a helpful and appropriate way.

How to maximize space in a small bathroom

It’s unbelievable the number of hours one spends in the bathroom. While the bathroom is an intimate space, it’s up to you to maximize the space you have in hand. Here’s what you can do: 

Go vertical – bathrooms don’t need broad shelves, rather you need a series of vertical shelves. In fact, you don’t need too much of gap between shelves either. Just keep adding to the height. 

Utilize corners – it’s important you don’t let corners go to waste. Place a standalone unit that acts as a dirty laundry basket or a triangular corner unit to house toiletries. Streamline the design and enhance the space. 

Enclose the bath area – instead of using translucent shower curtains, opt for a visual divider of your bath area. While this takes care of the wet and dry zone, you’ve also clearly demarcated your options for storage. 

Mirrors here and there – a large mirror thrown in is your best bet to create an illusion of space in a small bathroom. You can also use mirror closets to your benefit. 

Sparkling white – however hard it sounds, a white bathroom makes it feel the largest. Lighter hues, natural light and larger floor tiles are what you can best do to get the feel of a large bathroom. 

Considerations When Choosing The Colour of The Kids Room

The first moment before you decide to make any decorations is to choose whether the colour should be brighter or in the dark range of colours.

Whether choosing the colour of the kids room seems like a simple task you should not underestimate some tiny details around this procedure. Kids often have their own preferences for the appearance of the room but when it comes to choosing the most appropriate colour, take into consideration some basic things.

It makes no difference if you have bought more expensive paint, or a simpler one, all you need to do is to make the right judgement and apply the needed decorations.

As far as kids room is concerned it is preferable not to choose bright colours. The reason for this is that many children love drawing pictures or simply scratching on the walls. The brighter the colour is, the more visible the dirt will be for the eye.

Apart from this it would be very difficult to be cleaned properly without leaving any signs. If the kids are younger we advise you to forget about the white colour and think about something more practical for this purpose unless you want to see spots from their fingers all around the surface of the wall. Darker variations of yellow, blue and green are good options and in the same time they make the ambience look fresh and pleasant. According to some studies, darker colours of the room are the reason for a better quality of the sleep. So despite the fact that white walls give the feeling for more space, it is better to avoid them for the kids room.

The second thing to reconsider when choosing the colour of the paint is the surface of the paint that is put on to the wall. Nowadays there are thousands of paints, some of them possessing more plain surface and others more furrowed ones.

The furrowed surfaces are not appropriate for a kids room because children are constantly playing and running in the room and the walls may appear to be dangerous for them

Another thing that you should check before starting with thee process is to verify the paint is made with minimum amount of chemicals in it, because kids are often more vulnerable and predisposed to allergic reactions. It is important to choose colours that create the sense of comfort and relaxation because the colour of the walls often sets the whole mood in the room.

These are some of the tips that will help you in choosing the right colour for the kids room. Remember that the right choice of paint will save you up many hours in trying to clean the dirt walls in the kids room which is an important moment especially with your busy working schedule. Even if you think that darker colours are not appropriate for your children you will immediately see that the dirt and stains on them are less visible.

Quick and Easy ways to stay hydrated, this summer!

Sun is up and we’re back with the latest summer trends. While it’s good to look fabulous, it’s even better to change your habits in order to stay hydrated during this season. Heat can be bad for your body if not taken care of.

It is advisable to drink bottles and bottles full of water to stay fresh and keep bad odor at bay, but if you are the kind for whom drinking water is a daunting task, then there are other effective ways too! Here’s how to make sure that you are fit to stay healthy and revved up this summer.

Fruits

Fruits are rich in sugar content and various vitamins, apart from water. Summer fruits, like mango, litchi and watermelon are high on water and sugar both, helping you maintain your glucose level and thereby keeping you fresh and energized. So, fill up your bowls with fruits, make a chaat and enjoy!

Smoothies

Smoothies are not only a good breakfast option but they are also a good way to stay hydrated. Smoothies are rich in vitamins, minerals and carbs as they have fruits, milk, yogurt and all things good to keep you fresh, active and summer proof all in one glass! What better way to keep up this summer than slurping your favorite fruits and veggies in a healthy and tasty way.

Sherbet

Nothing cools down a mind and body better than a sherbet. A drink that comes in so many choices of flavors of fruits to be mixed in water stirred around a little and quenching your thirst! Rich in aroma, soothes taste buds and for people who are not willing on working much on a drink.

Coconut Water

Having the refreshing drink beating the summer heat provide a nutritional boost. Coconuts for drinking are served fresh, chilled or packaged in many places.

Cucumber

Cucumber is to cool your body temperature and re-hydrate it too, cucumber has 96% of water content and is also good in vitamin K and B6, slice it or dice it, have it alone or in a salad, this waterlogged food is one of the best ways to fight summers.

This summer keep up against the rising mercury with variety, taste and less trips to the water cooler. Happy summers!

MANGO JAM RECIPE

MANGO JAM RECIPE

Ingredients

Ripe alphonso mango - 4 nos (small-medium sized, replace with your favorite variety)
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Lemon juice - Juice of 1 medium sized lemon

Method
1. Peel the skin of mangoes and chop into chunks discarding the seed. Take the chopped mangoes, sugar and lemon juice in a wide pan. Mix well and bring it to a boil (medium-high flame).
2. Once the sugar dissolves and starts to bubble up, reduce the flame to low-medium.
3. Let it cook further for 5-6 minutes until the mangoes get cooked, since I used mango chunks I tried to mash them with a ladle.
4. As the mixture cooks further you will find the mangoes partly mashed and it thicken. Cook further for 3 minutes.
5. Test your jam by taking a little in a wooden ladle and drawing a line on a plate of bowl. The strike should be firm and now flowing/ runny. Now your jam is perfect.
6. Switch off and let it cool completely, you will find the jam further thickening.
7. Prepare an air tight container and transfer the jam to the container and store in a refrigerator for upto 10-12 days or till it lasts. 
8. Enjoy the home-made jam with bread slices.

The colour of the mango jam is natural, alphonso mangoes are naturally vibrant. If you use any other mango variety the colour might slightly vary.

Cooking Tips

• To make your dosa crisper, add a little sugar to the dosa batter
• To make softer chapatis, take flour in a bowl, add salt and little oil. Then add boiled water and mix slowly until soft dough is formed. Keep it aside for 15 min before making the chapatis.
• To get good smell and yummy taste of biryani add more onions and fry it more in oil along with little tomatoes.
• You can soak beans of different kinds in advance and refrigerate them once done. This way when you want to have rajma or chole, you can just take out from the freezer and cook without having to wait for another day or two.
• You need not cut vegetables everyday. Cut them on a holiday and keep those diced and chopped vegetables in air tight containers and refrigerate.
• In case you forget to soak chana/rajma overnight, soak the chana/Rajma in the boiling water for an hour before cooking.
• To separate each noodle, after boiling the noodles put them in normal cold water immediately.
• To make homemade pastes of garlic, ginger or green chili last longer and taste fresher, add a tsp of hot oil along with salt to it 
•  Always add hot water to the gravy to enhance its taste.
• While using ginger-garlic paste in curries, always use garlic at 60% ratio and ginger at 40% as ginger being very strong makes your dish sharp and pungent.
• While making potato patties/tikkis, always make sure that the potatoes are boiled well in advance and cooled before you use them. It would be better if they can be refrigerated for a short time. This helps the starch in the potatoes to settle down and the patties/tikkis will not be gooey.