I've been on a blogging sabbatical the last two months. It might not have made a dent in the blogosphere; but my life has taken a 180 degree in that time! We welcomed our precious little girl, baby Shreya, into this world one month back. The past month has been a blur of feedings, changing diapers, calming a crying baby, and trying to function without getting much sleep. But it's all worth that gummy smile she's just started to give us!
My mom, the cooking enthusiast that she is, informed me to that it's customary to make Ghavan-Ghatle on baby's one month birthday. The sweet cousin of my go-to savory meal choice. She immediately looked up the recipe in her favorite cook book Ruchira. I had planned to make a cake for the little one, but this recipe was far easier to make with a baby in tow. Ghavan is a simple rice flour crepe. Ghatle is a jaggery sweetened coconut concoction to dunk the ghavan. The crepes are soft and spongy and soak up all the sweet goodness of ghatle. I couldn't not love these - they are practically deconstructed Modak!
Ghavan Ghatle
Ghavan Ingredients:
1 1/2 Cups rice flour
Water as needed
Couple of pinches salt
Ghee/clarified butter
- Mix enough water with rice flour to make a runny, crepe-like batter (~2-2/12 cups). Add a little salt and mix.
- Heat a pan on med-high heat. A non-stick pan will work the best. If you're not using a non-stick pan, grease the pan with a little bit of ghee. Make sure the pan is hot before you pour the batter in order to get a porous crepe.
- Spread a ladleful of batter on the pan, and let it cook till golden brown. The crepe will separate from the pan once done. Turn and cook on the other side.
Ghatle Ingredients:
1 1/2 Cups water
3/4 Cup fresh/frozen grated coconut
1/4 Cup jaggery/per liking
1/2 Teaspoon cardamom powder
2 Teaspoons rice flour
Couple of pinches salt
Heat water on low-med heat, and add jaggery and coconut. Let the jaggery melt.
Mix rice flour with a little bit of water and add it to the coconut mixture. The rice flour will act as a thickener.
Add in cardamom powder and salt. Turn off the heat when the mixture thickens slightly.
Pour warm ghee on top of the ghavan and serve with warm ghatle!
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I spent the last few months of my pregnancy making stuff for the baby. I couldn't wait to share pictures of some of my craft work - now seems like a good time to post them :).
Hubby asked me to make a few colorful hats for baby pics. Here are two of my favorites:
A variation of this adorable bobble stitch hat:
A ladybug hat for my li'l bug:
I was looking for some ideas to make a crib mobile and stumbled upon this adorable pattern! Some inexpensive felt from recycled material (source - Michaels), cotton and scrap material to stuff, and an easy clip-on mobile crib hanger (source - Babies R Us, ~$10) was all I needed to make this mobile. I drew the patterns on paper first and traced them on felt.
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I couldn't get over how cute and easy to make these little toys were and made a few furry friends as well. I used various sources for patterns, many of them pinned on my board. Aren't these guys fun? I still have lots of left-over felt which I plan to use - some day!
One of my dear friends was also due a few weeks after me. She had shared yummy home-cooked food with me in my ninth month. It was wonderful having home made meals without taking any effort on my part :). As a 'thank you', and since we never return empty containers, I stuffed one container with nutritious laddus for her and one with these fellas for her little one on the way. I looked up patterns for finger puppets on google and picked four that I liked the best.
I hope to be able to blog as and when I can. Until next time!
