Baking Soda

Many of us (even our mothers, grandmothers) swear by Baking soda for preserving colour of vegetables and for shortening cooking time of beans.
Ever wondered how cooking time comes down just by adding a pinch of it?
Actually, Baking soda increases absorption of water in beans and softens beans further, thus reducing time taken for cooking.
One more reason for using soda in cooking beans is, many people believe, it prevents flatulence caused by beans.
We also use it as leavening agent in cakes, breads to raise their dough. Soda reacts with liquid and produces carbon dioxide bubbles which gets trapped by dough.
These all are good reasons for using soda but there is a negative side. Baking soda reacts with nutrients present in food and destroys (almost) vitamin B (mainly thiamin). So when you are cooking with soda in beans, we sure you are not getting any of its vitamin B which is vital for our body.
Though goods are outnumbering bad, losing Vitamins is a big deal. Goods can be achieved using other methods but vitamin loss can not be reversed.
Colour of vegetables can be preserved by proper cooking time and proper ways (like cooking on low flame) while flatulence can be managed by not eating beans in dinner and combining them with lighter foods.




Shalini
Image taken from Internet.

Linking it to

Pen Stand by recycling Floppies

Made a pen stand from using old, discarded floppies yesterday. Used three floppies as three sides and put a hard cardboard as base.

(You can see print on the floppy on the inner side).
After I joined all four pieces, 'C' stuck paper strips using papermache technique. Then gave two thin coats of glue. 'C' did base colouring and I drew warli figures on it. Finally gave three more coats of glue.
Here is the final product.

Shalini
Linking it to :

My Other Passion........

I am not a good cook, just manage to cook for the sake of my foodie family. Many fellow bloggers were of great help in this. Hundreds of  times I have opened their pages to go through their version of recipes.

I am not a foodie, in fact a very bad eater. I can eat anything without taste also(my hubby's version).

I started this blog to share my passion for crafts with all of you. Earlier I use to be lazy and did not give much importance to my creations because creating them was part of my existence. Very recently I've started to take it seriously and am trying to post most of the things I create.

By now you all must be wondering...............what is it with all this ranting. Well, I shared one of my passion but did not share my passion for healthy and nutritious food. I like to cook healthy food and in healthy manner. Few days back while searching for some cooking methods, I came across many things which I did not know or follow (ignorant me!!!). This got me started. I decided to store them somewhere and what better way than to have it on my blog.

From today onwards, every Thursday, I'll be posting some healthy cooking tip/method/blah blah on this blog. I know you must be knowing them already. So, your expert comments are welcome and I'd love to read them and improve my cooking ways.

Today I'm starting with a recent fade; I have suddenly seen a spurt in number of pro-biotic food items available off the shelves. Everybody is suddenly adding one bottle in their daily diet. Mothers are happy to feed their kids one of these products because they enhance immunity. Very true. They improve our immunity,  but we were always using the benefits of bacterias(pro-biotics). A very simple example is: Curd.

Now I come to the point: How does they help in improving our health and what all we can eat for this.

A good and natural way to introduce pro-biotics in food is fermentation. Some benefits of fermentation are:

• Increases the taste and flavours.
• Increases antibodies which fight with infections.
• In case of curd, fermentation converts lactose of milk to lactic acid, which is easily digestible by our body.
• Some fermentations improve antioxidants in food and we all know their benefits.
• Fermentation improves essential vitamins, nutrients in food and even generates new nutrients. E.g. When we ferment dough, its vitamin B content improves drastically.
• Bacterias form a natural shield in our intestine and thus inhibit pathogen growth inside.

I prefer Curd, home made Bread, Idli, Dosa, Uttapam, Dhokla and sometimes Bhature etc. to add bacterias in my cooking than gulping down a bottle of probiotic.

Hope you find this information useful.


Shalini

Linking this to: Colours Dekor the weekly story 
Image taken from Internet.

Papermache Babushka doll

We (me and 'C') had made a papermache babushka doll long time back but somehow did not post it.
Here it is:

Used a balloon as base for papermache and added one cardboard ring as the bottom to let it stand. Though I could not draw nice features ('C' says it looks somewhat angry), we still love it.



Shalini

Linking this to : Colours Dekor the weekly Story

Happy Onam.....

Shalini


(Image taken from smsnshayari.com)

Repurposed Pouch

'C' was in need of a colour box to store his crayons. I did not want to give him a normal pencil box or a plain plastic box. I wanted something where he could properly store his crayons and easily handle them also. After much brainstorming, I suddenly remembered a pouch which was lying unused for quite sometime and decided to change it according to his needs. Here is original pouch from inside:

 

 I removed pocket and elastic band and added another band for his crayons.

 

(Did not have a black band, anyway white is looking good.)

 

All inside neat and safe. I plan to change its outer maroon piping also, but that will happen some other day. Hope he is able to use it properly.

Shalini

I'm linking this to :

Transformation Thursdays.

The ShabbyNest