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.