3 essentials to welcome diwali to your home

Happy Diwali to All.

Deepavali or Diwali is one of the creative festivals of all festivals as it presents an occasion to decorate your home beautifully with lots of lights and colors. Deep means light avali means row. Diwali represents rows of lights. This year I brightened up my home for diwali with lights, flowers and colors of rangoli.

First I started with rangoli in the front of the house. I am not good at big rangoli designs but I wanted rangoli with simple design that is also colorful. I started with small circle and added bigger concentric circles until there are 4 circles. I filled the first circle with dark color rangoli.  In the second circle I placed petals of marigold flowers.  In the third circle I wanted to spread two different colors so I drew triangles and filled inside and outside of triangle with two different colors. In the final circle I again added flower petals. Now rangoli looks so colorful and brings   liveliness with flowers to the house.

Second diyas of lights. I arranged lights at main door on each end. Then I placed one large diya in the center of rangoli and small diyas on four sides of rangoli with different colors. Now diwali festival has arrived to the front of the house.

Not only at front but I also decorated inside with flowers and diyas to bring festive mood to everyone in the house. I took a small glass plate arranged with marigold flowers petals and placed nice flowers at the edges. I placed diyas in the center of the plate and placed it on a entryway table. Now diwali celebrations entered the house too.

Finally not only these three things brighten up diwali but fire crackers and sweets bring everyone in the family together, be part of the occasion and enjoy the diwali celebrations.

Katti Pongal

When I was a child I liked to go to temples, especially for prasadam.  My all time favorite prasadam is katti pongal made with rice and moongdal and lot of ghee.  The taste was amazing.  Today I want to share my way of making pongal.  Let's start the process.

Ingredients:
1 Cup Rice
1 Cup Moongdal
1 Spoon black peepers
Small cube of ginger
1 spoon cumin seeds
1 spoon mustard seeds
1 spoon urad dal
4 to 5 curry leaves
3 spoon ghee
Half spoon salt
Pinch of asafetida and turmeric powder

Method:
1. First take equal quantities of rice and dal, wash thoroughly, add salt and put it in electric or pressure cooker.  If you are using pressure cook then cook until you get 3 whistles.

2. Heat ghee on a pan.  Cut ginger into small pieces, mash the peppers (it enhances the flavor of the pongal) and add it to the pan of ghee.  Add cumin seeds, mustard seeds, dal, asafetida and turmeric powder.  Finally fry until gloden brown color and add curry leaves.

3. Transfer the cooked rice and dal to the pan and stir it together.  That is it, pongal is ready.

Front patio - Gardening

Every year as spring approaches many place fresh flowers plants on their front patio to bring liveliness to the house. Today I am going to show you how I arranged my front patio with lot of flower plants.

As you are walking towards the patio you will first see white and purple flowers on the steps.  I have arranged them in contrast color pots to brighten the flowers.

Then you will see bushes of five types of colored flower plants in one large pot. In this way you can save space and it looks so colorful.  First, I arranged taller red flower plants towards the back.  Then I arranged pink and purple flowers on each side. In the middle I planted marigold to offset pink flowers. In the front of the pot I planted snow whites that make the pot vibrant.

Then in a small pot I planted blue flowers plants and placed the pot on a long pole behind the large pot.  The combination of two different sizes and the colorful flowers surely will catch anyone's eye as they enter the house.

Simple party decorations

My baby turned one year and the birthday came on Sunday.  So a simple birthday party with my own decorating ideas was in order.

I chose a simple decorating theme of white and blue colors that suits for a baby boy. I decorated my living room with white and blue balloons with a colorful happy birthday banner in the back. I hung white ribbons like a wave and in between I placed green flower shaped ribbons.

I continued the white and blue theme in the dining room. On the dinning table I placed white color table cloth and in the middle I placed sky blue color cloth .

For centerpieces I used old glass coconut oil jars.  I cleaned them and wrapped them in blue gift wrapping sheet. Then I placed white and mixed color flowers in the jars.  Under the jars I placed a white paper cutting flower sheets that you can find in any dollar store. I used the jar lids to put candles and placed them in front of the jars. The candles brought elagant look.  In between the jars I kept party favor bags.

Around the centerpiece I arranged blue and white plates.  To decorate this table I spent less than twenty five dollars.

Last but not least I selected my birthday boy cake and candies also in white and blue colors. Not only did the cake look good it was delicious as well.

Carrot, green peas potato curry

Not many dishes are as nutritious as this carrot, green peas and potato curry. Carrots are rich in vitamin A, green peas have protein and potatoes are full of carbohydrates. Not only nutritious but the curry makes for a good presentation with it's red, green and white colors.  The cooking process is very simple.

Ingredients
2 carrots
2 potatoes
25 gms green peas
1 ginger
4 chillies
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp urad dal
1 tsp mustard seeds
Pinch of turmeric
Half spoon chili powder
4 curry leaves and coriander leaves
Salt  and pepper according to taste

Method
First peel the potatoes and carrots. Then wash them and cut them into medium size pieces.

Then put them in pressure cooker for 2 whistles. Meanwhile mash together ginger, green chillies and cumin seeds.

Take a pan, heat the oil, add urad dal, mustard seeds, cumin seeds ,asofedetia and curry leaves.  Then add ginger paste.  Fry for 2 minutes then add bolied pototaes, carrots and green peas.  Fry for 5 mintues.

After 5 minutes add chily powder, salt and pepper.  Keep the pan on stove for 3 more mintues.  That's it, coloful curry is ready.  Garnish with coriander leaves.

Socks snowman

I love to make snowman in winter, it is so much fun. But in other seasons we cannot make snowman, so today I am going to show you how to make snowman the easy way all year round. It is also so much fun, lets grab an old pair of socks, scissors, buttons, a small piece of cloth and glue.

Take an old sock and cut the ankle part off.

Then take other end of sock pour rice or other similar substance in it.

Then tie a band at the top and in the middle.

Add two black dots as eyes and red or any other color dot as nose in the top portion. To the bottom portion add two buttons.  Tie any color cloth around the neck area as a scarf.

 I used a smaller sock to place over the head as a cap.

Little snowman man is ready to decorate any room.