Kara Weaves

While searching for home decor in Kerala I came across this very interesting venture 'Kara Weaves'.
Very traditional yet modern in design.


I am considering these curtains already for the new apt. in TVM. Also happy to know they have an online store.



Image Source: Kara Weaves

Rideable strollers

I think this is a pretty neat invention. I was reminded of Taga while in Mackinac, it would have been nice to have taga's for families with young children.

Mackinac Island

A place in motor state with no motor vehicles except for the ambulances. It was nice to see this small island somewhat imaginary with only horses and bicycles. And of course with horse comes dung and associated smell. I wonder how it would have been if there were no motored vehicles. Maybe we would have had dung disposal areas and water stands for horses.




Mackinac Island was another place to visit this year after reading the Legend of Mackinac Island by Kathy-Jo Wargin. It was such a pleasure to go back to Mackinac after some 7 years.


Arch Rock

Stuffed Celery Sticks for the 'CLICK' event

This is the first time I'm sending to any blog events. Though not a great shot just for the fun of it this shot of stuffed celery sticks goes to the July '09 CLICK event hosted by Jugalbandi.

This picture is from my earlier post "Cooking with my daughter"

Raining blue berries

Blue berries are in season. I have used blue berries in pancake's, waffle's, buckle, muffin's, salad's and cobbler. Then it was my daughter who came up with the idea of adding blue berries to cookies. Actually it was not a bad idea. So just turned the oatmeal raisin cookie to oatmeal blue berry cookies.



Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp powdered cinnamon
1-1/2 cups oats
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp honey
1/2 cup blue berries
Preheat oven to 350C.
First mix all dry ingredients. Cream butter and sugar then add egg and honey. Mix thoroughly. Slowly stir in the dry ingredients followed by blue berries. Spoon cookie dough to the cookie sheet leaving enough space for cookies to melt. Bake for about 8 to 10 mins. The cookies should be of chewy consistency and not crispy. Cool them on a cooling rack.

Another blue berry dish!
Blue Berry Cobbler, great with ice cream.


Similar posts:
Strawberry Bread
PB & J Muffin
Blue Berry Buckle

One in a million giraffe

We uploaded one giraffe to One Million Giraffe



Link to our giraffe

Summer art work

We took another book from the drawing is easy series "Drawing with Nature". This was really fun because it involved messing with paint and collecting leaves, pine cones, twigs and shells. My daughter made the turtle as a birthday card for her friend's 6th birthday. (good she doesn't insist on buying a card:-))







Similar Post:
Drawing with you Hands

Outlet wall

Outlet wall - I would like to have this near my computer table!!



An interesting playing surface, if you have children :-)

Source: Ironicsans

Audi RS6 Promo Video

UP movie

Last week as treat for the two milestone birthdays in our home we went to the Pixar's UP movie. Everything was so amazing about this movie. I think it was the presence of human characters and emotions which made it more likable.

Where is Mr & Mrs Mallard?

These Mallards have made the pond in our backyard as their home for this summer.

Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey is a very nice book to read to your children.

Homemade Pizza

Its only after you try making a dish you realize how simple it is. I used to make pizza with frozen Naan. This time wanted to try making the dough at home. Few weeks ago NY Times had a series on healthier pizzas. For the dough I used whole wheat flour as specified in the NY Times recipe.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough Ingredients:

2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, plus additional for brushing the pizza crusts
1 1/4 cups stone ground whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional if necessary for kneading
1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Involving my daughter in creating the topping for pizza was all the more fun. For our pizza we used Italian sausage, tomato, green bell pepper, olives, red onions, some italian herb seasoning and mozzarella cheese.

Stuffed Pita Pockets

Stuffed pita pockets is a quick and easy crowd pleasing appetizer. Also a great dish for kids lunch box. The stuffing can be anything...its up to your imagination. I had stuffed the pita pockets in the below photo with sauteed veggies (onion, coriander leaves, orange bell pepper, green onions, tomato, cucumber) and fried paneer (feta cheese can be used for a Mediterranean taste). Before stuffing the veggies I warmed the pitas in the oven for few minutes and then rubbed the inside of pita halves with hummus.

From our patio

Violas! Violas!

Visit to the Bear Dunes

This weekend we went to the Sleeping Bear Dunes and had fun climbing the sand dunes. Bear dunes was one of the must see places for this year after reading "The Legend of Sleeping Bear", a very touching and moving story of mother bear's dedication and care for her cubs. I wouldn't recommend this book to children younger than 5 yrs but a very nice read for little older children. To tell the truth I cried when I read this book for the first time.

The weather was little cold so we couldn't do much exploration.



View of Glen lake from the dunes.


Lake Michigan

More beautiful photos of the bear dunes can be found here.

Indo Chinese Fried Rice

I was so bad at preparing fried rice, all my variety rices would end up like biryani. Not anymore! I have finally mastered the art of fried rice. While in India we used to have ketchup as condiment for any Chinese food.

The key to good fried rice is high heat, quick cooking of vegetables and right dash of green chili, soy and tomato sauce.



Ingredients:
- Finely chopped onions, cabbage, carrot, beans, green bell pepper, cooked peas (whole), ginger, garlic,
- pepper and salt to taste,
- scrambled eggs (2 eggs)
- cooked chicken small cubes or seasoned and cooked shrimp,
- vinegar, tomato sauce, green chili sauce, soy sauce (all sauces 1 tsp)
- 1.5 cups cooked rice.

Pinaceae family in our neighborhood.

Today we sauntered with camera in hand capturing the beautiful pine buds. I have been trying to find the name of all the variety of pines we found. At least we were able to differentiate spruce from pines:-). Pines and Spruce are of the Pinaceae family.
At this time of the year all the pine cones are in the bud stage and they will develop into cones (flowers) as the summer moves in. We are planning to go back in few weeks and picture the mature cones. Also planning to add "The Life Cycle of a Pine Tree" by Linda Tagliaferro to our summer reading.

Jack Pine, Norway or Red Pine (Pinus Resinosa), Scot Pine, White Pine (Pinus Strobus) and White and Blue spruce are the popular ones in Michigan.



Spruce

Red Pine



Some mature pine cones.

Yummy Blueberry Buckle

Wow! this was really amazing and I'm so proud of the results.

Recipe from SimplyRecipes





Similar posts:
Strawberry Bread
PB & J Muffin
Strawberry Muffin

Baked Chicken Pasta

Another one dish dinner.

Ingredients -
cooked pasta/onions/garlic/tomatoes/zucchini/cooked chicken/basil/salt/pepper/mozzarella & parmesan cheese

In a skillet cook onions and garlic. When the onions turn translucent add zucchini followed by cooked chicken and tomatoes. Add salt and pepper. When the veggies are cooked (browned) mix in cooked pasta. Transfer the pasta and veggies to a baking dish and layer with parmesan and mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until bubbly.

Berry Muffins

Two days old strawberries were lying untouched in the fruit basket with no one showing interest to consume. Any withered berries and bananas can be used for making muffins. I got this recipe from Joy Of Baking. One thing I liked about this particular recipe is it did not need any butter so with no much planning and prep work the muffins were ready in few minutes.

The ingredients are all-purpose flour/granulated white sugar/baking powder/baking soda/salt/zest of orange/egg/buttermilk/canola oil/vanilla extract/strawberries

The procedure is like any other muffin mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately and then mix them together or in other words fold them with no lumps and towards the end add the berries and fold.



Adopted the same recipe for Blueberry Muffins. The result was awesome.

Similar posts:
Strawberry Bread
PB & J Muffin

Sunday night dinner

Sunday nights are the lazy nights. Kottu paratha is something no one would say 'no' to and a neat quick fix dinner. It can be categorized as a sumptuous street food.
The other day while watching Anthony Boudain's show on travel channel came to know Kottu paratha is very popular in Sri Lanka. I always thought its origin was Tamil Nadu.

Disney World Vacation

We went to Disney World last weekend....WOW!! it was a wonderful experience for us as well as our daughter. We stayed at the popular Michael Graves & Associates designed Walt Disney World Dolphin resorts.

The Swan and the Dolphin resort sits elegantly on a lake with easy access to ferry to Epcot and the Board Walk. We were fortunate to get accommodation on the top most floor with nice views of the resort. I especially liked the resort architecture with earthen tones but very modern and set contrastingly in a typical coastal architecture.

Though the dolphin over the hotel did not look like a dolphin...it was a fish with scales :-)


Ice cream stall @ the Asian section of Animal Kingdom

Happy Vishu

Happy Easter

Happy Easter
Easter egg painting was one of the activities my 4.5yr old and myself did together this spring break along with other art activities.

Found this interesting book "Drawing With Your Hands" by Godeleine De Rosamel. This book has step by step illustrations demonstrating how to make drawings by tracing the outlines for your hand. A very nice book to introduce drawing to 4-6 year olds.

Experiments with shrimp

Shrimp is a new entry to my cooking adventures. I knew only to make shrimp theeyal which of course was a disaster always. After seeing so many great mouth watering recipes on Mishmash I have started trying to cook shrimp and all the attempts have really turned out good.

For the recipes check out Mishmash.

Prawns with raw mango

Chemmeen Olathiyathu

"Objectified" documentary on evolution of Industrial Design

Gary Hustwit's Objectified is his much awaited second feature after the Helvetica success.

Pop ups for all ages

{other sources: FastCompany}

Stairs as book shelf

Nice way to store and display your books.



Desiretoinspire.Blogspot has some beautiful collection of stairs.



{image source: Apartment Therapy}

Perfect for a spring decor

Eucalyptus – A concept home store in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad has a good collection of bed linen, quilts, bed spreads, cushion covers etc. All their designs are so neat and inspired out of Indian vernacular designs and nature….peepal, eucalyptus, champa, sher, chaupad etc are the names of their collections…don’t the names itself feel so close to home and reminds us of our childhood. I wish they had an online store.









Eucalyptus is the brain child of Asha Reddy and designers Shaila Nambiar and Shruti Phagre-Mahajan. Visit Eucalyptus to know more about these enterprising womens and the techniques used in their wonderful creations.

{image source: Eucaluptus.in}