Some life lessons

Give the ME time and Focus yourself

These are some of the lessons learnt during different phases of life.

1. Take risks. Be bold and brave. Don't become stagnant in life. Make mistakes but learn from it and grow. Examine yourself at regular intervals.It helps you to do responsibilities with greater commitment and enjoyment

2. Be prepared. Anticipate your own needs.Plan properly and  create solutions in advance. I have decided to build good financial habit and have decided to save 10% of my earnings per month.

3. Our stress mainly is caused by living in the pain of the past or the fear of the future. Many often we forget that Life happens in the present moment. Make effort to make each moment useful.

4. Appreciate the people in your life. 

5.Be open  and be ready to change. I have met many people in life. They follow their own rigid rules in life and are unhappy.

6. Look back, be proud of what you have achieved and make proper plans for the future.

7. Decide to spend quality time with yourself. Just do something that you like to do like reading, writing, gardening, meditation and enjoy your own company

8. Follow your passion in life. Dont just work for money. Be passionate in your work and money will follow.

9. Yes always smart people win many battles, but it is true that hard work and dedication can get the ultimate victory.


I liked the ME time. It gave me  an opportunity to refocus and recharge. 

Concluding with these quotes

Happiness isn’t about getting what you want all the time, it’s about loving what you have

Just remember there is someone out there that is more than happy with less than what you have.

Love what you have. Need what you want. Accept what you receive. Give what you can. Always remember, what goes around, comes around…

Add more meaning to your life because life is beautiful.

Mushroom Masala

Mushroom masala

This is a easy, simple and tasty recipe that can go well with rice, ghee rice, chappathi or even bread

Method of preparation

Heat oil in a pan, add 1 cinnamon, 3 cardamom and half teaspoon cumin seed .

Fry and then add one finely chopped  onion. Fry till it turns golden brown.

Add ginger garlic paste, 1/2 spoon turmeric , half spoon cumin powder,
 1 spoon garam masala, 1 spoon coriander powder, 2 spoon chilly powder, 3 green chillies split and  curry leaves 

Add 1 finely chopped tomato and fry, add little water and cook.

Once oil separates add cleaned mushrooms split into pieces and cook. 

Add water after 5 mins and mix and cover and cook for 10 mins. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Criticisms - They can help you

Criticisms - They can help you

We all hate criticism. Most of us react with and anger when we get some negative feedback. 
But if we just see whether there is anything hidden in it to improve 
ourselves, it can be of very help to us

We need to get over the very first reaction when we hear a negative criticism.

Few are some of the examples that we see/hear in daily life

1. Parents - Criticizing on the way children spend money. 

2. Your boss/manager - Criticizing on the way you work, yes even if they are finding the negatives, sometimes  this may help the areas you need to improve - Proactiveness, smartness, punctuality let it be anything

3. Your spouse - The person whom you spend most of the time, he/she knows all your weakness, Just see if  they help us understand some of our shortcomings which we may not able to identify 

4. Your siblings - Yes they are the biggest evaluators

So if someone criticise you, may be because they care you. They help you see things in a different light.

Criticism is often the only way we learn about our weaknesses. When we’re defensive, we lose a chance to improve. 

Mushroom biriyani

Mushroom biriyani

This is an easy method to prepare mushroom biriyani.

First clean mushrooms thoroughly. Rinse it in running water and wipe off the dirts from it using a clean cloth. Cut it into small pieces.

Method of Preparation

1. Soak 1 glass of basmati rice in water for 20 mins.

2. Grind ginger, garlic(3-4), green chillies(3), Coriander leaves to a fine paste.

3. Gently Slice 2 Onions and 1 tomato

4. In a cooker,first put oil or ghee and add Cinnamon, cloves and elakkai. Add feenel seeds also.

5. Add sliced onions, when it turns little brown add the gound paste after 2 mins add tomato.

6. Next add coriander powder(1 1/2 spoon), Chilli powder (1 sppon), turmeric powder and garam masala. Fry for 5 mins.

7. Add a little curd and add mushrooms and salt.

8. Next add biriyani rice and fry.

9. Add water( 1 1/2 glass water for 1 glass rice).

10. Cook till 2 whistles.

11.Garnish with corainder leaves

Serve with some salad and pappad.

Thirupathi temple visit

Thirupathi balaji temple is   situated in the hill town Thirumala. Lat month we decided to visit the temple. This is a temple which is always visited by devotees so there is crowd always. We booked online tickets for darshan @ 300 Rs tickets.

Booked the train tickets in Tatkal, accomodation can also be booked online.The nearby railway station is Thirupathi.

As we enter Thirumala, there is a security checking of our bags. The roads are clean and beautiful. There are clean toilets everywhere and the roads are sweeped all the time.

There are different queues Sarva Darshan, Divya darshan and Seekhra Darshan.We completed the darshan in less than two hours.  Seems in August and January there are less crowd there. There is annadanam free for all at three days a day.There are refreshments served for people standing in queue. We need to dress up traditionally and mobiles are not allowed in the temple.

After darshan, you can collect laddu prasadam. We got 2 laddus for each ticket.

There are beautiful free buses to go to nearby places.

1. Book accommodation online and darshan tickets well in advance.

The temple authorities have maintained the temple permises clean though it is a havily crowded place.

We stayed there for three days and had food from Mayura hotel near museum. It was clean, tasty and cheap. There are shopping complexes.

Next day we visited Sri Kalahasti temple which is famous for Rahu pooja. There are many temples and theerthams nearby. So if you plan a trip, one day may not be sufficient for this. places we visited were Shilotharanam, Papavinasam theertham, Venugopala Swamy temple. There are private vehicles which will help you to visit these neaby places.

Our return train was from Renigunta railway station.

We felt happy and positive after the temple visit.

kadumanga pickle

This is mango season here. Everywhere we find mangoes different types. This time I decided to  try making kadumanga pickle. Collected mangoes from or grandma's home. Washed it thoroughly. I never knew the process was this simple.

Ingredients
 Kannimanga 50
 Salt
 Chilly powder
 Mustard seeds crushed ( 2 sppon)
 Kayam
 Gingely oil


Method
 This is a two stage process. Fist we keep it in salt and water to let it shrink. In the second stage we add chilly powder.

First I collected and cleaned the tender mangoes and put it into a glass jar. Added some table salt and water to it. After three weeks found that the mangoes shrinked and absorbed the salt

Pour the salt water to a flat vessel. Added chilly powder 4 spoon and crushed mustard and hing powder and mixed it well. Added it with the mangoes  and kept the mix in the same jar. Added a few drops of gingely oil to it. After two weeks this will be ready to use. This can be preserved in an air tight glass jar and use for a long time.

Rice curd and this pickle is a good combination.

Ulli Theeyal

Ingredients
Small onion 20-25
 Green chillies

Curry leaves

Coconut1 cup

Chilly powder 2 spoon

Coriander powder 3 sppon
 Salt





Tamarind water

Method

Cut onions lengthwise. In a pan pour oil add red chillies mustard and curry leaves. To this add onions little salt and turmeric powder. Fry this in low flame

In another pan fry coconut till it becomes golden brown and switch off flame . to this add coriander powder and mix. Then add chilly powder. The mix will be brown in colour. Grind this to a paste
Add the paste to onions and fry for a few minutes. Add some water and the tamarind water. Let it boil for a few minutes and gravy thickens. Tasty ulli theeyal is ready