Dessert love

You can take a fish out of water for a minute, but the sweet tooth in me - nope! No trying. As much as I endeavor to stay away from the dessert territory, my genetic makeup keeps pushing me deeper and deeper into it. As a result of which, I get myself into trouble doing weekend projects - such as the one you see in the picture. After being oven deprived - I have not baked a dessert for over 365 days now. Somehow with our eating habits and such here, things like a brownie or tiramisu have become an occasional treat. Even a chocolate chip cookie or a muffin for that matter, is a luxury. Costs about 130 rupees a piece at a Barista, and is half the size of what you typically see in the west. Which is a very good thing - out of reach price-wise and availability-wise means out of mind. However, each culture has its own way of getting spoilt - and on my menu for the time being, is fresh and hot Indian sweets. It does not help that we live close to the awesome Mahalakshmi Sweets and the place is staring at my face each time I walk out of our local grocery store :( But I love love love the portion sizes - bite sized jamuns and itsy bitsy pedas and burfis. They even sell in quantities of 100 gms or priced by piece. Therefore, you can walk away not feeling guilty and without buying a kg of sweets. Anyways, at least that is how I convince myself when I wander off to the guilty borders of dessert land. Another big fat lie I tell myself, is the use of jaggery instead of white sugar. I try and use the black jaggery with ginger (karupatti) even in tea instead of sugar. It is an acquired taste though. So, then I gave a shot at many health desserts - using "healthy" ingredients like jaggery, dates, almonds, walnuts, raisins, besan, sesame seeds, peanuts, grams and so on. Basically I collect a list of "protein" items, dry roast on the stove, powder in the blender, add in some powdered jaggery and cardamom, roast everything together again, pour fresh hot ghee and press roll into balls. Sounds pretty healthy- right? Home made snacks. Kids have eaten them for the most part. But they somehow know - that it is not your regular sinful ladoos, they sulk but eat the "health stuff" - usually brown in color with a chalky taste despite the sweetness. Jaggery does not equal the pleasure white sugar provides - at least in their minds.

Thus, I keep justifying my love for the dessert Gods.

Coming to the picture, it is called Pottukadalai Urndai (Split roasted gram balls). Takes just 2 ingredients to make this - the gram and jaggery. Now that seems simple, but only in terms of the number of ingredients. Quite complicated otherwise. I might do this again possibly with peanuts, maybe in a chikki form - if I get the mood someday. But I will skip writing down the recipe for now.

Stay at home mom schedule 2.0

With the children in school part time, thought it would be nice to note down how the day goes. This reflects a generally good day – a day with lesser tantrums, no colds or sick days, no absenteeism from household help, lesser office work/calls at home for P and likewise. It is light years away from perfect, in terms of how my time is spent and media time for kids. I could be more productive.

7:00 The adults are trying to get up. Till few months back, S was waking up at 6:30 and getting us in the grove in the morning. After starting school, he seems quite tired and sleeps till atleast ½ an hour after we are up.

7:45 Kids are up, P brushes and gets them going. Myself, in the kitchen boiling milk/water, preparing the coffee for us and horlicks for kids.

8:30 Really awake after the caffeine rush and children active after drinking their milk. They are running around or playing or watching their songs. I pack P’s lunch and kids’ snacks for school. If am lucky, my shower gets done by this time.

9:00 Kids and P are bathed and dressed. Depending when P starts work, either he or I get them bathed. We sort of take turns to give me a break. I set out breakfast by this time. Elaborate cooking does not happen in rush hour. Only the sorts of making idli or dosas or toasting or putting oatmeal together. The sides/curries/chutneys or things like upma are prepared the previous night, just heated up in the morning.

9:30 Kids eat or are fed, we get done with breakfast. P leaves by 8:45 or 9:30 based on whether morning calls happen or he drops S. K leaves by van for school at 9:35. S is dropped off or walked to school by me.

10:00 Am back home after his school drop, street vendor purchases for the day like fruits or greens or basic veggies for the day are done.

11:00 I have showered for sure. Kitchen is cleared after breakfast, dishes put away and house prepped for cleaning like moving furniture, dusting door mats and corners. Cleaning maid comes in for sweeping, mopping the floors and doing dishes. Meantime I fix odds and ends in the kitchen like sorting the greens, peeling and shelling stuff, grating coconut or soaking grains. Scrub the bathrooms, pick up toys, sort things- anything! The list is endless. Laundry gets started.

11:45 I leave for school to pick up S. Enjoy my 10 min walk in solitude. Sometimes I get a cup of my favorite coffee and drink it in peace at our super market.

12:15 We are back, and S washes hands, legs and uses the bathroom. I either give him a snack or lunch depending on how hungry he is. He mostly watches TV or plays play dough or rides his cycle around the house till nap. He is bored without his akka.

1:15 Long lunch #1 is done and he is ready for nap. I dry the laundry and try to complete my lunch.

1:45 Time for K to get home, she gets dropped off the van – I watch from the balcony and receive her at home. She washes etc, talks about any major happening at school and gets ready for lunch. Set out container for milk lady.

2:45 Long lunch #2 is done. Sometimes its almost 3pm.

3:15 K gets ready for nap, after some TV or youtube time. Sometimes I go for a 20-30 min nap and then spend the quiet time browsing or completing kitchen tasks – in preparation for dinner and clean up after lunch. If all gets done, I watch an episode of House on TV. I get the dried clothes.

4:15 S is up from nap and eats something, based on whether his lunch was done. If he had a good snack before nap, he would eat a late lunch. He demands the ipad and plays some games on that. Twice a week, K goes for dance class. S and I drop her, wait around and pick her up. No naps for K on those days.

5:30 K is up from sleep and ready to go upstairs for her drawing session/play date with her friend. I get the evening milk and tea going.

7:00 S finishes his evening milk, does some coloring or reading a book with me. By this time the cook has come and gone. Dinner is ready. Dry laundry has been folded. K is back and most days P is back. Yeah! K has her milk and we are done with some tea/coffee.

9:00 From when P gets home, I run any little errands for myself or go out for groceries or catch ½ hour of TV time to unwind. Twice a week, the music teacher comes home. So I sit with K through the session. P usually engages the kids during this time in some activity or takes them down to play in car park area. K completes homework if any. When P has calls at this time, I just hang around with the kids or they watch an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or we try to read some books. Then, we get the kids fed. Dinner is usually done.  

10:00 Children are in bed after some general chatting, playing indoors or simply fighting with each other. We are bone tired and glad they decided to sleep. If something good plays on TV, we watch or just catch up on emails, phone calls etc. Kitchen is cleared after dinner.

11:00 We get to sleep, after discussing any matters of the household and a small prayer.

As much as I like to be on an early schedule, reality is otherwise. But this late schedule, works for the time being. One challenge is the extremely long meal times of children. They just cant seem to eat fast. I will give up on that worry – either if they eat faster as they get bigger or I just throw in the towel on that expectation. Another, is the need to take S to the bathroom almost every ½ hour. Couple months back, any free minute during the day was spent wiping pee off the floor, and disinfecting the floors and our hands. These days are better. Thank God he can sleep in his diapers, what would I do otherwise. Eventually I’ll have to let go this as well, scary!! We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Toddler lingo

Before my memory fades away, wanted to capture few unique things as said by the children in the early talking stages.

Word	K	S
Lollipop	Lalap	Bopipop
Icecream	Amphica	Anki
Square	Sehawk	Chyay
Chapatti	Sapiti	Pathi
Water melon	Ball-dum	Mataya
Glasses	Kandi	Daashyan
Animals	Amials	Ameeno
Current (electricity)	n/a	Kankai
Chocolate	Chocolate	Chocho
Happy birthday	Appy Butai	Happy cake to you
Dustbin	Tras	Duffin

 

In search of an answer

I follow a few Asthma blogs. I read online articles and journals on the subject of Asthma and Allergies as pertains to our family. I could slice and dice toddler cough sounds to arrive at a fairly accurate diagnosis, with my children at the least. I went on daily inhalers for almost a period of 8 years starting from my days in Milwaukee at about 24 years of age. The spring weather with the white flowers and pollen by the lake was enough to raise my histamine levels and trigger chronic nasal allergies – rhinitis that warranted use of a nasal steroid inhaler to get by those months. Then, viral induced asthma attacks happened once or twice a year in the winter, typically in late Dec or early Jan- that were controlled by prednisone tablets during the episode. I was even in the hospital with flu for a few days one year. Faced several episodes during my childhood days, as reckoned by my parents but was never on chronic inhalers growing up. Somehow I got by a bumpy childhood, adolescence and survived. Grew up to be a normal person, with a normal life and normal goals and normal stuff. My story aside, let us talk K.

She was fairly alright till 2 years of age, but really it all started when she was exposed to infections in the dry, cold Chicago weather. Doctors called it recurring bronchitis, reactive airway disease, allergies and all the blahs. I too lived in denial of the issue for several months, which never helps anyone in anyway. Finally, talking to my mother about my infant, toddler, early school years and brought me courage to face the truth. Might as well accept that she could be asthmatic. Once you come to terms with reality, it gets easier. As she got closer to age 3, it worsened – school, library visits, parks gave her plenty of opportunity to catch the cold and any respiratory virus that went around. P and I were appalled at the episodes. What  starts out as a cold with your typical running nose, ends up in an ER visit with low O₂ levels by day 7 or so requiring use of oral steroids. Finally, one of the doctors in her pediatric group, asked us to just administer budesonide low dose daily via the nebulizer and albuterol as needed to keep things in check. In all this, I should state that she did very well in hot and humid Chennai, where she spent a significant amount of her infant and toddler years. Along the way, I learnt about upper airway congestion, lower airways, allergy cascade, immunoglobulins, the horrid horrid post nasal drip, bronchiolitis and several things I had never heard of before – being an asthmatic myself. I would just feel better reading about the thousands of other parents struggling with the same issue trying to find some respite. Someone said saltrocks inhaler helped their child immensely. I must also mention that S was attacked with RSV at 4 months of age. That would make him wheeze when he later caught colds. But time will tell us how he will fare in his threes, fours through school years.

With that history, about when she was 2-3 years of age my mother thought we should try Ayurveda. Now, years of living in the west had sort of wiped out such thoughts from my head. She really pushed the envelope and asked us adults to first try the medicines – since we were bombared by these viruses that she used to bring from outside. S was an infant at that time. Slowly, but surely I found immense relief with the ayurveda stuff and then started low dose, reliable stuff, legiums of the chyawanprash sorts on her. I cannot say it delivered her fully, but she did not get worse. We lived through sleepless nights hearing incessant night time coughs, croups, barking coughs, wet coughs, dry coughs, vomits, ton of cleanup and a tired preschooler. Then came our big move to India, she was episode free for 3 months in Chennai. Mysore proved to be a mini Chicago weather wise, dry and cold. My mother in law who is asthmatic, declares Karnataka to be an asthma state – which could be true. K hasn’t been completely free from the asthma attacks, she gets severe post nasal drip issues here for which I am looking for a cure. Doctors nod their head and give bottles of cetrizine, ambroxyl and the usual stuff to dry up mucus, dilate airways, brings on just temporary relief. That is one good thing in India, they are allowed to treat the common cold with medication that manages the symptoms at bare minimum. Sometimes even the nebulizer does not work. We just stay up with her on the couch way past midnight for the symptoms to subside. I bet it is something to do with the sleep cycles and cortisol levels spiking up the histamines or something to that effect. It was about time to put her back on an Ayurveda regimen and consulted at BV Pundit. She has found a miniscule amount of relief from Sitophaladi and licorice administered with honey. However, the post nasal drip is killing all of us. Recent addition has been Thalisapatradi, targeted at wet cough and Chavikasavam at rhinitis at a local Kottakkal. I am yet to see the better world beyond the horizon. The fundamental problem is also that, I am too chickened out to give her the usual steroid inhalers. Maybe it is fine for the short term. I know for sure using steroid inhalers itself decreases immunity. Not sure what good that does to someone with an immune system disorder as asthma or rhinitis. Who knows Ayurveda is not plant steroids? Maybe plan a move to Chennai, for her sake?

I cant seem to rely on my own decision making capability these days. Recent years, choices have taken various ways and out of control events thrown wrenches in our normal expected course of life, giving unexpected outcomes. President Lincoln once said, “My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” For now, I try my best to do this.

Aapam

I had never ever dared to venture into the Aapam making territory. It was something that my mother did, she rose tall and perfect over my eyes in this area. But once I got into it, the ride was fairly alright. K’s malayalee friend’s mother sort of motivated me, in a tiny way. Mainly, the monotony of breakfast dishes was getting to me. Wonder how I survived on cereal and bread for breakfast back in the day. It almost sounds sacrilegious to the idea of breakfast food. Just kidding! Nothing against cereal and bread, they are excellent sources of iron for the morning. The simplicity of the recipe makes it a keeper and I am going to be sailing on this one atleast couple times a month. The lack of an Aapa chatti did not deter my spirits. We paired it with chicken gravy. My mother usually gives us the signature freshly extracted home grown organic coconut milk with sugar and a vegetable kurma to go with it. Now you know why her image is such in my eyes. She trained K   to eat it with coconut milk and sugar, but this mama is lazy and fed the kids with plain cows milk and sugar.

Raw rice – 1 cup

Boiled rice – 1 cup

Urad dhal – 1/8 cup

Fenugreek – 1 tsp

Poha – ¼ cup

Grated coconut – 1 cup

Baking soda – a pinch (to be used just before making the aapam)

Soak the raw rice, boiled rice, urad, fenugreek and poha for a couple hours – I typically do 4-5 hours for such batters. Grind to a smooth paste, along with the grated coconut. Let the batter be runnier than the regular dosa batter, it needs to spread well to get the thin edge. Consistency can be adjusted after fermentation as well. Add salt to the  batter, mix well and ferment overnight – it should be risen well by morning. Mysore being cold, required overnight time for fermenting and coconut stayed intact for that period. If in Chennai for instance, I might have to consider the coconut getting spoilt and add coconut milk instead to the batter – after fermenting and just before preparing the aapams. 

When the batter is all set, add a pinch or two – not more than two pinches of baking soda to the batter. Heat a non stick pan or the aapa chatti. Wipe the surface with a drop of oil. Pour a ladleful of batter and swirl the pan around (you get what I mean). Cover with a lid for the aapam to cook well. In under a minute, it should get cooked with browned sides and a soft center. Use the spatula and lift gently from the sides and transfer to a serving plate. Hot and light aapams ready.

Pineapple Kesari

When the more of tart-less of sweet pineapple let me down, I decided to try my hands at making a fruity keari. It met the breakfast needs today, when idli batter wouldn’t rise in the cold weather. As always I cut down the sugar quantity by half to make it more palatable. Kids were more than glad to not be bothered to eat ‘healthy breakfast’.

Pineapple chunks – 4 cups, reduced later to 3 cups

Rava – 1 cup

Sugar – ½ cup

Ghee – 3 tbsps

Cashews, raisins – about 10 of each

In a pan, add the pineapple chunks (I just ran the chunks through a blender to get a coarse puree), with some water and simmer to a reduction of 3 cups worth of liquid. This helps release the sugars from the fruit.

Add the ghee to a kadai and roast cashews, then add raisins. Set aside and dry roast the rava in a bit of ghee. Once toasted aroma of rava starts coming, add the boiling pineapple sauce into the rava and stir. Simmer down the kadai flame. Keep stiring till the rava looks cooked, now add the sugar and mix well. Then add the roasted cashews and raisins. Turn the flame off. Pineapple kesari ready. 

PS: This is not exactly a good looking picture, nevertheless....better than none. Wish I had done round moulds of them, with a rasam karandi or something.

K-ism

Sindhu Akka is one of the young teacher’s assistants at K’s school.

K: “Appa, Amma – Sindu Akka is married now”.

Me: “What means married, dear?”

K: “It is becoming a wife like you with a thing like Appa”. Giggles, closes her mouth and lies face down on the couch.

P: “What thing?

K: Points to P and “I don’t know what being that is called”.

We: “Husband”.

K:  “Yes, husband and wife. And they live happily ever after”.

P: “When will you get married?”

K: “I don’t know”. Laughs. Turns shy. “I don’t have anyone; I have only thambi here with me”.

We gasped, and then laughed. Girls will be girls. If only life was as simple as that in today’s complicated world. Sigh! Yet, one of those moments that makes being a parent worth losing sanity over. They say you could never imagine being a parent before kids, but after they come you’ll never be able to imagine a life without them.