Maangai (Mango)

Leaving your home town makes you miss many things dearly.

Like the fragrance from a bundle of jasmine flowers.

Like the crisply folded silk saris that fill up your closet space

Like the crowded bazaar with brightly colored bangles and savvy business boys vying to get your attention!

What I miss most is nominally priced beautiful & intricate ethnic art, furniture, curtains & carpets ! 

Something to make my home mimic a memory that grows stronger as time passes me by. So, I made up my mind. To source what I need and make the rest myself!

Here's the first of many to come. 

The evergreen maangai design in my most favorite colors. Easy to do 3 part canvas wall art.

What you need

Stencil (design of your choice)

Acrylic paint

Canvas (pre frames)

Brush & Sponge

Paint over the canvas in a color of your choice. Mix colors if you prefer. Air Dry, and then place stencil on top. Use sponge / brush to paint the stencil design using an acrylic color that contrasts with the base you chose for the canvas.

Get creative & design as you please. Air Dry, and voila! You are done.

Patio Signs

The sun is out and so are the patio furnitures. All the plants are in full bloom and looking green and healthy. Yet, the patio was missing some element of quirk. It was craving some interesting visual elements that said something about who we are and what we do in the patio.

After hours of thinking about it, and pinteresting for ideas - I landed on the perfect caption. Short & so us - 

"It's 5 o'clock somewhere!"

Grabbed a piece of wood, painted with outdoor acrylic. An easy squiggly art with tube caps (from Michaels) and the borrowed caption complete it. Hung from the fence with simple ropes & knots (similar to the ledge but with two suspension points) makes for a very attractive focal point in our patio!

And she winks at herself looking into a blue blue mirror.

She was so damn pretty.

Floating Ledges

Ever purchased a pair of floating ledges from Bed Bath & Beyond?Paid $35+ bucks?

Struggled with a spirit level? Had difficulty measuring the distance required between the two hidden screws to make the ledge float?Unhappy with the colors they came in?

Lastly, did they make ugly scratch marks on your wall?

If your answers were 'yes' but you shook your head in disappointment the whole time - read on...

You can easily make a colorful & easy to hang floating ledge with an investment of $5 or less!

I had these tiny plants that needed a space on our patio fence. In clearing out our garage - I found the perfect sized wooden plank behind the back wall. I picked up some outdoor acrylic paint from Michaels, and a roll of rope from the Dollar Store totalling to $4.

Pick up a cordless drill if you have one (if not definitely invest in one). If you aren't ready to make that plunge - simply drive to your local home-hardware store (Home Depot/Lowes) and have them drill 4 holes (one in each corner) using a 3/4" drill bit. This is the right sized hole to let a rope through.

Paint over the plank in a color / design of your choice. Let it air dry.

I used the ledges to hang over a fence - so I took two strings of the rope (of equal length). 
Take one end and put a knot at the bottom of the ledge, let the rope through the farther hole, over the fence and around a bar... Then take it down through the other hole to put a knot & hold in place.

Now that you have one side of the ledge secure, repeat for the other side with the other piece of rope and adjust level to make sure the plank does not tilt & is secure in it's place.

That's it - and you have your very own floating ledge!

Tool Tip : I own a black & decker cordless drill. It comes in a box, with 5 drill bits & 2 back up batteries and a charger. Perfect for odd jobs around the house!

Painted Pots

You can guess from my social feed that I spend an awful lot of time in my patio garden. My container garden is a hobby turned into obsession. One where I try to reduce waste & recycle.

Here's one such project. 

Mehendi designs from my childhood (henna art) came in handy as I started to paint the plastic pot.

The tube caps (available @ Michaels) are a wonderful investment. They fit any 2 oz paint bottle and make line drawing extremely easy!

Garden Series : Methi

Garden Series : Methi

Methi (Fenugreek) is sort of like beer. It's the acquired taste category of food. A little bitter, but so flavorful when used in the right proportion with certain dishes. Growing it is so simple that I would rebrand this as a beginner's herb. One has to try really really hard to fail in an attempt to grow these.

Pot/Seed
Take a shallow pot, and sprinkle a handful of methi/fenugreek seeds on the soil (avoid overcrowding of seeds in patches).

Sun
Place the pot indoor by a window sil, or outside in bright light. The plant does not require direct sun.

Water
Water enough to keep the soil moist at all times. The seeds should sproud and you should see tiny grass like plants fight their way through the top layer of soil and stand tall.

Harvest
The plants mature in 7-8 days after iniital sprout appears. Wait in terms of days or until the leaves appear circular in shape. The first leaves are tiny, and they mature over time. The tiny leaves can be harvested as well - but tend to be more bitter than the fully mature plant.

Good luck!

Garden Series: Cilantro

Garden Series: Cilantro

Indian cuisine feels like its missing salt when it misses this herb. Cilantro, with its tender green leaves and wonderful aroma makes for tasty meals and beautiful focal points for pictures on food blogs! Here's how you grow it in your backyard / in pots.

Take a small pot; small is key here. Cilantro does better when you keep pruning it for daily use rather than leaving it remain in it's pot for long periods of time. If you do leave it, it's going to turn to flower and then to seed.

Pot Size & Seeds

Sow cilantro seeds directly in soil 1/2 inch below soil level. Alternately - you can soak seeds in water overnight and sow them the next day in soil. The internet also suggests cracking the seeds open, rubbing them against a floor before planting etc... but the first two options have always worked for me.

Sun

Knowing how much sun is too much sun is key if you want to flaunt a green thumb. Most plants do very well with beginner experimentation and some simply refuse to cooperate. Cilantro is inbetween.

Position the pots West / North West facing, in a warm spot where there is sun light but no direct sun.

Water

Until the plants sprout, water regularly. This can take a few weeks when you are starting up. Once the plant is established; water once every few days allowing the soil to go dry inbetween watering sessions. This is done to prevent flies and pests from swarming around your plants.

Weed or Cilantro?

As Cilantro sprouts from seed - it looks dangerously similar to weeds. Most beginners are peeking at their pots multiple times in a day that they see weed when they see baby cilantro and promptly pluck it out of the soil. Do not do that! Please see below images of baby cilantro from seed and a grown plant.

Good luck growing yours!

Garden Series : Mint

Herb Garden Series : Mint

Mint is one herb that can immediately make a world of difference to any dish you are whipping up in the kitchen. Be it a drink for the cocktail hour, or a main course item. That said, buying a bunch of mint leaves from the local store costs you a bit much when all you need is a few sprigs.

The option? Grow it yourself!

Mint is such a hardy plant - that with little to no effort you can have a mint bush right in your backyard / window sil.

The easiest way is to start with a sapling that is store bought. Ones from big giant stores like home depot work just as well as nursery bought ones. Your investment starts and ends at $3.

Quick Pointers

Keep them in an area where there is sunlight (does not require direct sun)
Water every few days to keep soil moist
Snip away leaves as you need them and watch that branch grow into two
Trim regularly to keep the plant from bolting
Bring indoors during winter and keep under plant light. Water minimally.

Tested & Proved - even if your plant loses all its leaves and looks bare, don't lose hope. With some TLC, it will be back to being healthy in no time!





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Baked Beets with Lemon Butter Sauce

Growing up, my home took the modern/western approach to cooking. Effortless cooking was the norm and that meant less prep work. As a result vegetables like beetroot that required peeling and were hard to chop were rarely on the weekday menu.

After spending several years in hostel, away from home and with my health freak hub S - the variety of veggies I take in has sky rocketed. Now, managing a full time job with a 2 hour commute each way - I can hardly get time to exercise. So the only thing I do is eat healthy and eat right. That means having home cooked meals most of the times, cooking fresh vegetables, going colorful and finding time to do all this!

There are days, when I stick to the simple melagu rasam to wash down the stomach and breathe easy, and other days that are one pot meals and subjis with a truck load of vegetables. On days with bad commutes or days when I just need to do something mindlessly to unwind - I pick up vegetables like beets.

Here's my quick hack at delicious beets -

Listen to never-before-heard songs and peel and chop beets into discs. Toss them in a bowl with melted butter, salt and pepper and place in a baking pan/tray over aluminum foil. Bake at 350F for 20 mins or until tender, remove promptly and serve hot. These can be had as appetizers or snacks, and taste yummier with a side of lemon butter sauce (nothing fancy, just whisk salted butter and few drops of lemon juice together)

The beets simply crumble & melt in your mouth, leaving you wanting more!