Hello again!

I haven't blogged because I have been busy with my startup, Amma's Stories Media. We create educational and entertaining multilingual story apps for kids. We are planning to release our first app in June. If you want to know about our apps please visit our company website at www.ammasstories.com.
We are also on twitter at ammasstories.

I am not sure if I'll be blogging here regularly. But we do have a blog at Amma's Stories Media's website.   My first blog post is about the story behind Amma's Stories.

See you at our new site!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I thought I'll write a post in honour of acquiring my 5.5th blog reader! It was great to see her comments ( Thanks Tharini! )

I am sorry that I haven't posted anything in a while. I have all the respect for the people who post everyday. I haven't posted anything because I am working on a special project with a friend of mine. This project is close to my heart and I am very excited about it. But it has also kept me busy. I don't want say much about the project until we are close to the release of our first product, probably some time in June if everything goes well.

On other news, it is still winter here. That means I haven't been out walking in a long time and it is making me cranky. So I am posting a picture I took last summer to cheer myself.

Bye for now.

புளிக்கஞ்சி or puLi kanchi or Hot and Sour Rice Porridge

I am sorry I have been silent for a long time. Happy New Year! I started writing the following post on new year's eve. But, never got around to posting it.


Did I tell you that I was sick most of December?  I made puli kanchi(புளிக்கஞ்சி) when I was sick. In Sri Lanka it is one of the comfort foods to eat when you are sick. I came up with the translation Hot and Sour Rice Porridge. Let me know if you can think of a better translation. I made a big pot of  it and it was heavenly if I can say so myself.

Here is my version of the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 cup brown raw rice. Can use brown parboiled or white parboiled if you don't have brown raw rice.

5 or 6 shallots or 1/2 onion
5 or 6 cloves of garlic
5  green chillies. You can use more or less based on your tolerance for hot food
1/2  cup coconut milk
1/2 tsp turmeric powder 
1/2 tsp ground cumin - skip if you don't have it
1 cup peeled and deveined shrimp
lime juice from 1/2 lime.
1 cup murungai/Moringa/drum stick leaves - optional
salt to taste

I have to warn that all amounts are very approximate. I usually don't measure anything.

Method :

Ground paste

Boil the rice in 5 or 6 cups of water. Add more water if needed. While the rice is cooking, chop onion, garlic, and chillies  and grind them to a coarse paste. I used the magic bullet to grind them into paste. When the rice is cooked and soft and mushy add the ground paste, shrimp, coconut milk, turmeric powder, cumin powder and salt. Mix every thing. Cook for 10 mins.

Add the murungai leves if using. Alternatively you can add 1 cup of spinach, kale or any other green leafy vegetable.Cook for 2 mins.

Turn off the heat. Wait for 5 min for the porridge cool down a bit. Add the lime juice. A lot of people use tamarind juice instead of lime juice. But my mother has always used lime juice. So I used lime juice. In fact I called her when I was making it to confirm.

Serve hot. Yum.

Winter wonderland

We had first snow storm of the season last night. We probably got 20 to 30 cm of snow and it is still snowing.

Kids got zipfy sled for Christmas.

 So why are the sleds and kids inside when there is so much snow outside? Because both parents of the kids are sick. I have been sick for three weeks and finally I caved in and started taking the antibiotics my doctor prescribed. When I saw my doctor a week ago she gave me the prescription and told me take it if I didn't get better in three four days. She also switched the inhalers. Finally, I feel like I can breathe without starting a coughing fit. But R started not feeling well last night and stayed up all night coughing. 

So the poor kids can't test the sled until their parents feel well enough to take them to a slope. But they (the kids not the parents) did go outside  to clear the sidewalk and front porch steps.