Cleaning Guide & Tips

We use these sinks many a times, daily. Most of us do not pay much attention to how they are being cleaned if servants does it. You can spend some time on a weekend, the whole process takes 15 - 30 minutes to clean 2 sink and one bath room. You do not need anything special but the readily available stuffs at home to clean.

Here are the tips and procedure.

Brush/Scrubber
Lime juice / Lemon peel
Disinfectant solution such as Lizol
Vinegar (to clean strong stains)
Bleaching powder (If you do not have vinegar)

Cleaning Sink:

1. Dilute Lizol with water in a mug, add little lime juice of you have, pour over the sink, tab and around.
2. Rub the lemon peel on the tap, if there is stain.
3. Use brush to scrub after 10 minutes, and wash it way cold water.
4. If there are still stain marks, dab a cloth with vinegar and rub on the areas where there are stains be it sink or steel tap. (Ensure your hand or finger does not touch Vinegar it would make you feel itchy. Do wear glows)

Cleaning Bathroom Tiles:

Its usually the same process as above.

1. In a bucket take around 2-3 Ltrs of water, mix 2 caps of Lizol and little lemon juice if you have.
2. Just pour this mixture on the walls unto your neck level if possible using a mug, and on the taps
3. Sprinkle bleaching powder on the floor, if its slippery.
4. Rest it for 15 - 20 minutes.
5. Scrub using a brush with long handle.
6. Do the flooring first, then walls and taps. Finally wash with cold water.
7. For thick/strong stains repeat the cleaning method using Vinegar as mentioned in cleaning sink (Step 4)

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Cleaning Kitchen Sink / Remove stains from Kitchen Sink

You can follow the below easy steps to clean your kitchen sink. It not only clear the odor but also removes the hard water stains and gives a fresh & shiny look. I clean them once in a week to keep insects, bad odor aside.

1. A Scrubber/Brush - can be a brush with handle, if you use glows can use a small scrubber
2. Lemon juice or Lemon Peel (Optional)
3. Vim Liquid - couple of drops (if you do not have lemon)
4. Disinfectant Agent - Lizol (1 Cap)

Dilute Vim liquid/lemon juice with water and sprinkle all over the sink and the tap followed by Lizol.
After 15 minutes, wet the scrub/brush
Rub the Lemon peel on tap to remove the marks if you have, Lime is a natural bleach and cleans up real nice.
Run cold/normal water all over the sink, do a final wash.
Leave it to dry before use.

The same can be followed for tiled sink. 

Helpful Kitchen Tips

I have listed all the helpful kitchen tips learnt from my mother, few shared from friends and some out of my experience. These tips helps you in saving time while cooking, leaving a hygienic and clean storage area in your refrigerator during regular use. All you need to do is spend few extra minutes before dumping vegetables & greens bought from markets. You can share your thoughts too by posting a comment.

How to store vegetables

• To store curry leaves for a longer period, remove the leaves from the stem wash and keep in sun or under fan for the water to dry off. Store in a small container in fridge. While cooking you can use this directly, do not need to wash and this is off water.
• Green Chili - Remove the stem, wash and store in a container before refrigerating. Chilies would be fresh for almost 2 - 3 weeks.
• Avoid storing coriander leaves in a poly bag or as it is. Cut off part of stem along with root, wash remove excess water and then store in a box and refrigerate. All you need to do is chop when needed. If you prefer only leaves, while washing take only the leaves and then store them.
• To avoid ginger from drying, you may make ginger paste or chop ginger and store in air tight container ready to be used.
• Spinach is mostly seasonal, if you like cooking it. Don't worry you can store it for a week fresh before using. Chop off thick stems along with root. If you prefer to only leaves or cook leaves / small stems separately do the following:
• Cut in small pieces that fit in the zipper lock or container if you prefer to store it as whole
• Remove leaves and stem separately if you prefer this way. 
• Wash the cleaned spinach, drain the excess water. 
• Store in container or zipper bags. I personally store all stuffs in freezer safe containers or boxes based on the quantity.
• Stems can be used as supporting ingredients while making vegetable stew or Dal. Will post a separate recipe about using spinach stems.
• You may also refrigerate ready to cook cut and cleaned vegetables such as tapioca, green peas, carrot etc. for couple of days by storing in air tight containers. My mother usually cuts while watching television and store it to cook for upcoming days, this saves her time.

Easy Homemade Besan Ladoo !

All Indians go crazy about Ladoos, Besan ladoos are very popular in the northern part of India, its getting adapted down south too. I had my first besan ladoo during my college days in Panipat. I brought home, only to have broken ladoos, they are delicate.

From 250 grams of chickpea flour, i.e. besan I made around 11 medium size ladoos. I saw some videos online, and this is my third attempt with all dos and donts. Beware you might want to change hands while roasting the flour as this is a bit time consuming :)

Ingredients:

1. Besan flour regular
2. Rava - 1tb.spn
3. Powdered sugar - 125 to 200 gms, as per required sweetness
4. Elachi / cardamom powder - 1 t.spn
5. Cashew / Almond (cut them to small pieces)
6. Ghee - 100 ml

Preparation:

1. Flour need to be roasted first. In a large open kadai heat ghee in medium flame.
2. Add besan and rava, keep sauteing in low flame for around 25 - 30 min.
3. The besan would change color, releasing rich aroma. Time it for around 25 min and keep mixing without burning. You would also notice the besan becomes slight sticky as it releases the ghee.
4. Add elachi powder, nuts mix well and turn off heat.
5. Transfer this mixture to a large plate, let it cool down. While it's slight warm add sugar mix well with hand.
6. Start making ladoos in desired size, you might want to touch ghee to your palms to make the ladoos firm.

Notes:

• Do not add sugar when it;s still hot or very warm. Sugar crystallizes and making ladoos would be difficult.
• You may add little more ghee while roasting the flour, in that case you might not need extra ghee while making ladoos
• If you get besan ladoo flour, this would be coarse textured besan you can skin rava.

Italian Spaghetti Pasta - toasted garlic in Olive oil

Many of us love pasta and think it must be a complex recipe to prepare it's not. All you need is good pasta of your choice and veg/chicken and some sauce to go with it. There are plenty of pasta salad dressing available in the market you may use if you are making a cold salad. You may prepare your own sauce. For hot pasta dishes you might want to use fresh good sauce.

Most commonly used sauces are white, red, pesto etc. they are easy to prepare. This dish is prepared from garlic toasted in olive oil, cheese, some seasoning. Yes makes an excellent meal when combined with some salad, fruits. Simple ingredients and east to make.

Ingredients: 

1. Good quality spaghetti pasta

   

   Image courtesy - Google

2. Large Garlic Pods thinly sliced - 12 - 15 
3. Olive Oil - 50 ml (you may increase according to the servings.)
4. Grated cheese
5. Chopped Parsley or coriander leaves
6. Crushed pepper
7. Chili flakes
8. Salt to taste

Preparation

• Take water in a large vessel and bring to a boil, you should see bubbles. Add salt and put the pasta in it. You don;t have to break it, as it softens lightly push them in. Entire pasta would be immersed in water in no time. Stir intermittently to prevent sticking. 
• At the same time, in another burner heat oil in a flat pan. Add garlic saute them till they turn slight brown. This should be done in lowest heat. Would take around 5 - 7 min to get nice light brown color. Ensure it's not burnt.
• When your pasta is done, strain the water and add to the toasted garlic oil mix well. 
• Add cheese, seasoning, salt, parsley and toss well. 
• Serve immediately, you may add more cheese while serving.

Notes:

Thongs !! Image courtesy - Google

• Do not add oil to the boiling water while cooking pasta
• Do not let the cooked pasta sit for a long time, might have to toss into the sauce and seasoning while it;s still hot
• Do not over cook pasta, see the instructions on the pack for cooking time. some might take 7 some more than 10 minutes. Mine took around 12 minutes. 
• You might need a thong to pick pasta, and toss. 
• Alternatively use a large vessel transfer your cooked pasta, pour your sauce on top , add cheese and seasoning and mix with thongs before serving.

Hope these tips would be helpful to you. Enjoy cooking pasta.....

Shrimp / Prawn Bell Pepper Stir Fry

Majority seafood lovers like prawns or shrimps. I am a huge fan of shrimp dishes. I experimented this with minimal stuffs as I wanted to get the real flavors unlike curry or gravy. It turned out to be good and my friends wanted the recipe. So here is it for them.

The two main ingredients are Cleaned deveined shrimps and Sliced Red Bell Pepper or you may use any or multi-color your choice. Preparation would take somewhat time compared to the 5 mins cooking time.

Other Ingredients:

• Garlic - Sliced and crushed lightly. Not chopped or paste
• Ginger - sliced and crushed like garlic
• Light Soy Sauce - 4 to 5 t.spn (you should be using very little if you use dark soy sauce)
• Lemon juice - from one large lemon 
• Sugar - 1 tspn
• Red chili + green chili sauce - 1 t.spn each
• Black pepper and chili flakes to taste
• Vinegar - 1 - 2 t.spn
• Salt to taste
• Water - as required
• Oil for cooking (2 - 3 tb.spn) - You may use any oil, Veg / Olive / Peanut / Canola 
• Spring onion for garnish.

Preparation:

1. Marinate the shrimps with little salt and lime juice, keep the rest for sauce
2. In a bowl add all sauces, lime juice, pepper, chili flakes, sugar, little water & salt, 1 t.spn vinegar. Mix well and adjust seasoning accordingly. 
3. Heat oil in a pan or wok, saute ginger garlic for about 20 sec on high heat
4. Add in the shrimp cook them for about 30 secs, sauteing continuously to prevent burning. 
5. Add in the sauce and bring to a boil. Add the bell peppers. 
6. Saute & toss, so that shrimp absorbs most of the sauce. 
7. Add rest of vinegar at this time, and check seasoning.
8. Turn off heat, sprinkle spring onion. Serve as starter or side dish.

Note:

• Add salt little by little while making sauce. As salt is been added to prawns & all sauces contain salt.
• Do not overcook, as this would turn the shrimps hard and rubbery
• You may omit or change any sauces as you prefer.
• Bell peppers are added later to retain the crunchiness

Colorful easy Chowmein Noodles

Who does not like noodles and this dish would beat Maggie or TopRamen. All we need is some sauce and fresh green veggies to toss.

Ingredients:

1. Noodles - I used hakka noodles
2. Chopped Vegetables - Bell peppers, Carrot, Spring Onion, cabbage, mushrooms
3. Crushed Pepper, Chili flakes, salt & sugar to taste
4. Light or dark soy sauce, Red chili sauce
5. Finely chopped ginger, garlic
6. Vinegar  - 1/2 t.spn
7. Oil

Note - I used light soy sauce and very little in quantity. I do not like the dark color in the chowmein. You may toss in chicken pieces, add egg in the end. This is just veggieeee !

Preparation:

1. Boil water and cook noodles, till they are almost done. Drain water and transfer the noodles to cold water to stop the cooking process. Remove and set aside
2. Prepare the sauce. In a bowl add all required sauces, salt, sugar, pepper, chili, vinegar and little water. Mix well and taste the seasoning.
3. In a wok or large pan, heat some oil , i used regular vegetable oil
4. Toss in the ginger, garlic saute for few sec . Add in all vegetable and saute for a minute or 2 in high flame. We do not want the vegetables to be cooked but remain crunchy
5. Add the sauces let it cook for less than a minute.
6. Now add noodles, toss well so it;s coated with the seasoning. 
7. Add chopped spring onion switch off flame. Serve hot.

Easy Simple Quick Peas Pulav

This recipe is very easy and quick. You would experience one of these days where you would want to prepare something good, with little time in hand yet delicious. This is peas pulav. Taste good when you have fresh green peas right off the pods. I understand it;s seasonal in India, also in Southern part of the country you wouldn't find everyday in the super market. I usually buy around a kg when I see them, remove peas from pods, wash and freeze them.

For this dish we would use basmati rice, whole spices, chopped fresh vegetables as main ingredients.

Preparation:

1. Soak rice at least for 30 mins and set aside.
2. Chop vegetables of your choice [ I used bell peppers, carrot, peas]
3. In a heavy bottom nonstick pan, heat ghee
4. Add whole spice, 2 cardamon, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 cloves
5. Saute and add peas and carrot saute for 30 secs, add water
6. Bring to a boil, add salt and pepper. Ensure the water is salty
7. Add rice, cover and cook. when almost all water is absorbed add the bell peppers, cover and cook until the rice is tender.

Exquisite Summer Delight - Orange Pear Juice

Summer is on full swing in most of the countries all we crave for is water or juice or something cold. There is nothing better than some cold fresh fruit juice over sodas and coffee.

I have experimented this with Orange and Pears. Both are rich in water content and equally good. Orange I removed the seeds and pears with skin. Blend them together with little sugar and water. You would get a nice frothy juice.

Strain and serve as desired.

Fresh Juice - China Pear & Carrot Combo

Another colorful combo. This time with pears and carrots. You may you any pears that's available in the stores nearby you and combine it with carrots.

Pears you may use with skin. Carrots wash and peel off the outer skin, then slice it. Add these two in a blender with little sugar and water as required. Blend well, taste the juice and add sugar if needed.

Strain and serve chilled or with ice cubes.

Fresh Juice - Water Melon + Lettuce Combo

For Green lovers, here is another one. Yes, if you dislike green leafy vegetables but under compulsion simply blend with fruits to make a juice.

Here is another post with Lettuce with Grapes

Try to remove seeds from the water melon chunks. In a blender Add 2 lettuce leaves, water melon chunks, little sugar and water. Blend to form a frothy juice. Strain and serve chilled or with ice.

Fresh Juice - Green Fantasy ! Grapes Lettuce Combo

Liking for colorful fresh juice yet nutritious - here is the one for you.

Cucumber, green grapes and lettuce. Be generous on using grapes and cucumber, reduce lettuce if you like more of fruit flavor. If you add more than 2 leaves, your juice might turn dark green, just to avoid that scary look :)

Blend all ingredients with little water and sugar to a frothy liquid. Strain and server chilled.

Home made Juice - Grapes Lettuce Combo

This summer has been great so far as I got to try my hands on various juice combination mixing fruits with vegetables. My favorite pick from vegetables so far are Cucumber, Lemon, Lettuce and Carrot.

Use seedless grapes. I have used black grapes, green grapes and couple of lettuce leaves for 2 large servings. You may use the grapes as it pleases you. Sugar to taste.

Blend everything and strain before refrigerating. You may server chilled or add ice cubes too if you may like.

Mango Apple Smoothie - a healthy breakfast

In addition to my earlier posts on smoothies, I am happy to present another combination I tried.
It;s quiet interesting with apples and mangoes.

Simply slice mango pulp, cut apple without skin in small pieces. Crush some almonds for topping up although it's optional I like to make my smoothie rich.

Add the fruits along with little milk, ice cubes and sugar to taste in a blender. Run slow to high until you get a frothy creamy smoothie. Stir intermittently if needed when you find fruit chunks inside.

Refrigerate and server chilled.

Aloo Methi - Potato & Fenugreek leaves

Aloo Methi is a popular north Indian Dish. This is tasty and nutritious too. Methi is Fenugreek leaves. Good for skin, stomach, heart etc. the list goes on and on.

It take less ingredients and cooks quickly too. People usually cook potato directly but I usually use boiled potato for this dish.

Ingredients:

1. Potato boiled and chopped - 2
2. Methi leaves - washed and chopped
3. Onion medium sized - sliced - 1
4. Cumin seeds - 1 t.spn
5. Asafoetida - 1/2 t/spn
6. Minched garlic little
7. Green chilies chopped - as required
8. Turmeric powder - 1/2 t/spn
9. Coriander powder - 1 tspn
10. Garam masala - 1/2 t.spn
11. Salt to taste
12. Oil for cooking (can use mustard oil, vegetable oil)

Preparation:

1. In a pan heat oil, add cumin seeds and asafoetida
2. Add onion, garlic and green chili saute until onion become translucent
3. Add turmeric, coriander, garam masala and salt mix well
4. Add potato and methi leaves. Mix well, sprinkle little water cover and cook for 2 - 3 minutes.
5. Check for seasoning, and add anything if required
6. Cook until done.
7. You can serve this with roti or rice.

Note:

• If you are giving to kids - add some salt and turmeric to the chopped fenugreek leaves, keep it for 15 minutes and squeeze out the water from it.
• Ensure you use couple of bunches of methi as one bunch would become few spoon full after  cooking.

Palak Cheese Paratha

Parathas are always yummy and excites me. I am sure it excites everyone, some cold yogurt melting butter on top of hot paratha, one bite oh my! Heavenly - I just roll it few bites one paratha is over, I can;t wait for curd or achar.

Palak / Spinach lovers go ahead and try this. Feed this to all who dislike eating palak as side dish. Nobody would complain.

This is slightly different from our regular stuffed paratha. As the main ingredient palak is mixed with the dough. Let's get into the recipe, it's not at all complicated like the other paratha.

Preparing the Palak paste:
Heat water in a large vessel. Blanch the Palak for no longer than a min. I did for around 30 sec. Remove and let it cool down a bit. We need to blend this to a nice fine paste. In a mixie jar add couple of green chilies or as needed, salt and the palak as whole and blend well with little water if required.

1. Add this paste to atta and make soft dough. Let is rest for 15 - 30 minutes.
2. Roll chapatis and grate cheese on top as shown in the picture. Sprinkle Ajwain (carom seeds). This is optional, good for stomach. I add ajwain in all my parathas.
3. Make folding as in picture, and roll them. You can make this and keep for as many parathas you need to prepare.
4. Roll out all these to thin parathas 
5. Cook it on hto tawa spreading oil or ghee on both sides till the brown spots form.

Enjoy these parathas with butter or achar or curd.

Mango Almond / Mango Badam Smoothie

This is my second addition to the smoothie catalog following Banana Ice Cream Smoothie. Mango is abundantly found during summers in India, and it's already available in the shops. So many varieties. Sorry I forgot the name of the mango I got, it was huge pulpy with pale yellow color. One mango made two large servings of smoothie.

To make this dish more interesting I added 50 gms of Almonds to this. No yogurt and no Ice cream here. My blender wouldn;t blend the almonds completely but it remains as it is atleast some of them. I cannot just throw in a handful of almonds. I tried to sliced them same result, with few were broken down. If you like to bite while drinking this would be good.

I blended whole almonds in a small jar, it all became nice coarse powder. I simply added this while making smoothie. Yummy and thick.

Ingredients:

Mango slices of your choice
Almonds - 50 gms.
Sugar to taste
Ice cubes and milk as needed

Blend well and serve chilled. Makes an excellent breakfast and you can even take to office and toss in the refrigerator. You can snack on them for a coffee ;)

More to add to this catalog, and explore. See you soon with another recipe.

Carrot and mixed vegetable juice - Beat the heat!

Summer is extreme this year throughout the country. You sweat profusely until you are in AC and body asks for water. There would be many out there like me, who hardly drinks water but we all know how essential drinking plenty of water is. I like to drink liquid in the form of juice. Is store brought juice like Tropicana, Real juices 100% fresh and pure Big No, also expensive.

I started blending my own fruit or veg juices each morning and lemonade to sip throughout the day. I was inspired by my school mate Premisha to explore variety of juices. This one is from her with a little change. Here is a link to her Recipe.

For two large servings of juice below are the ingredients I took.
Carrots - 2 small sliced
Cucumber - 1 deseeded and cut to pieces
Lemon - 1
Ginger - 1/2 inch piece sliced
Tomato - 1 sliced
Sugar and water as required
Chat Masala - optional
Few mint leaves - optional

Add all these in a blender, run on slow for the initial 30 secs then increase the speed. Blend until no veg pieces are found. Strain and refrigerate to serve chilled. If you veggies are cold you can serve immediately with ice cubes.

Cucumber Lemonade for this summer

We all would love to have something different each day to quench the thirst during summer. A change from regular lemonade called Nimboo Pani. Say good bye to expensive juices from store and power such as Tang and Rasna.

This is simple, fresh and nutritious.

All you need is a couple of cucumbers, 1 lemon, honey and sugar.

Deseed the cucumber or you can keep it if you prefer. Cut to small pieces
In the blender  add 1 lime juice and cucumber
Pour couple of tb.spoon honey or as per taste, little sugar as required.
Add 200 ml of water.
Blend well check the taste and add anything that's required. Strain, refrigerate and serve chilled.

You may add cold water if you need to serve immediately.
You may also toss in few mint leaves as whole or crushed. I like them.

How to Store Green Leafy Vegetables for Indian Weather

This has always been a pain. Truly a painstaking job too. Many of us would have tried to toss the washed leaves in a box and refrigerate only to discover the rotten leaves after few days.

The culprit is the moisture, all excess moisture should be removed from the leaves before refrigerating. I have tried all these and tried to describe with simple pictures. Hope it would be helpful for you ladies!

Cleaning and Storing Mint Leaves or Pudina

We use the leaves in lot of beverages and dishes seldom stem is used. The pudina bunch we get in Indian markets are mostly dirty with perished leaves in it. Simply remove the leaves and wash.Strain excess water using a colander. After this you would still have plenty of water in the leaves which should be wiped with cotton cloth or kitchen towel/tissues. Layer leaves over tissue so that the excess water is absorbed. The final product should have no or too little moisture in it.

Tada it's now ready to be stored. Try not to store right below the chiller. You may also toss in the freezer if you need to store it for a month longer.

Cleaning and Storing Palak / Spinach

Follow the same procedure as Mint leaves. Remove all spoiled leaves before washing and straining the water.

Cleaning and Storing Coriander Leaves / Dhaniya

Cleaning coriander leaves would be time consuming, but it's one time job. Remove dirt & Spoiled leaves, chop off root, Wash and strain water. Follow the above method to dry the leaves. 

You can store in 2 ways either in a container half filled with water to cover the stem or in a box.

Cleaning & Storing Lettuce

Follow the same procedure as above.

Please do post your suggestions and comments, it would be helpful for other readers.