Aam Panna Recipe | Indian Raw Mango Cooler

Learn how to make Aam ka Panna ~ Sweet and sour Indian raw mango cooler flavoured with spices, black salt and mint

It’s officially summer in my neck of woods and for the last two weeks the heatwaves have swept across the nation. I am not very active on social media these days as it will be considered sin to spend time within the four walls. The windows and doors are wide open, and I spend most of my time pottering around the garden, laying on grass and snoozing under the perfect blue skies. My morning walks have become longer as I enjoy the company of mother nature and her children like tweeting birds and wild life, walking in the woodlands under the protective canopy of giant trees. The kitchen is the last place on my mind as simple salads, quick coconut-yogurt based curries and ice creams have officially become our meals and washing them with gallons of water to quench the thirst and to keep the body cool.

It's time like this when I sift through my handwritten recipe diary in search of recipes that has been tried and tested for centuries. The recipes for scorching summer months to keep the body cool due to excess hear from the sun. One such recipe is a very popular raw mango recipe from the northern part of India called Aam Panna, a very refreshing raw mango cooler flavoured with spices and good helping of fresh mint. It is this Aam ka Panna, with its sweet tangy flavor makes it extremely rejuvenating and its health benefits make it a go to drink and a must try recipes for the summers when the mighty mango season arrives. Aam Panna is consumed in the summers as it acts as a coolant, rehydrates body and provides the essential electrolytes lost during the hot weather. A glass of this drink in a summer afternoon can combat fatigue and energize a person.

Blueberry Yogurt Ice Lolly Recipe | How to Make Simple Frozen Berry Yogurt Ice Lollies (Video Tutorial/Recipe)

Learn how to make Blueberry Yogurt Ice Lolly ~ Simple, low fat, no added sugar berry yogurt ice lolly recipe/Frozen yogurt ice lolly recipe

After what felt like a longest winter, it’s starting to too feel much like summer now. And what better way to celebrate it by making some delicious ice lollies. How about some light, healthy, low-fat, creamy and no added sugar Blueberry Yogurt Ice Lollies?

Frozen yogurt ice lolly is no new recipe or concept for me. Growing up in a South Indian town where summer meant temperature shooting up the roof, the only way to keep the complaining kids quite was to making barrel full of sherbet or smoothies and freezer packed with homemade ice creams and ice lollies. When we kids sneaked out without drinking a glass of milk either mixed with almond-spice mix or Bournvita, she would pop the glass in the freezer and present us with chocolate flavoured or almond flavoured milk lollies! :) The mango lassi was my favourite summer treat and one fine scorching summer day, amma poured the leftover mango lassi into ice lolly moulds and from that day, mango lassi ice lolly became one of the most popular and loved frozen treats in our family.

Rama Navami Panakam Recipe | Jaggery Limeade ~ Healthy & Refreshing Summer Drink

How to make Panakam or Panagam ~ Jaggery Limeade flavoured with crushed cardamoms, peppercorns and dry ginger, a refreshing and healthy summer drink

Today is the ninth and last day of Chaitra Navaratri as per Hindu calendar. Today is also Ram Navami, a festival that celebrates the arrival of Vishnu’s 7th avatar, Lord Rama. Growing up in South India, it meant eating kosambari (cucumber and moong bean salad) while guzzling down tall glass of Panakam (sweet and summery health drink of jaggery and lime flavoured with crushed green cardamom, peppercorns and dry ginger), listening to the tales of Ramayana.

I am not a religious person, but that doesn’t stop me from cooking and eating festive foods. As with any other Hindu festival, Ram Navami is also celebrated with special food offered to the deity called neivedyam. Once the food is offered to the god, it is distributed among people as prasad or prasadam, a blessed food. Panakam is one such food that is made during Ram Navami along with other neivedyams such as kosambari, and majjige neeru (spiced butter milk). They are simple and quite refreshing summer recipes, showcasing the wisdom and scientific reason with great health benefits behind every festival food designed by our ancestors. The word Panakam in Sanskrit means ‘sweet drink’ and as the name suggests, it’s a sweet drink of jaggery and lime flavoured with crushed green cardamoms, peppercorns and dry ginger.

No-Churn Mango Ice Cream Recipe | Simple 3 Ingredients Eggless, No-Churn Ice Cream Recipe

Learn how to make Eggless, 3 Ingredients, No-Churn Mango Ice Cream ~ Simple and easy eggless mango ice cream recipe without ice cream maker

We are back from our week long holiday in Morocco and I have tonnes of photos and stories to share. But all that have to wait as this is the last week of 6 weeks long summer holidays and I want to spend as much time as possible with LD doing, well, nothing! Yes, nothing!

When I was young, I remember my parents leaving me to entertain myself by reading a book, going for walks in the hills and woodlands with my friends and siblings, creating little pots and pans with clay, lying under the mango trees and waiting for the mangoes to fall down, and then they let me get bored! It was during this time of boredom I would sit in the balcony outside my room and look at the random things and build a story around the subjects. The floating cloud was looking desperately for a friend, the man with a long, thick moustache was the president of world moustache federation, the girl with a long thick braid was actually wearing a black cobra which hissed if I tried get too close to check it, the cat sitting on the fence would change its form to a mighty tiger in the night etc, etc. I was a child with vivid imagination who loved to spin stories during this time of boredom and it’s only much later time in my life I realised how my parents deliberately let us get bored to activate those imaginations and creative cells. While I was spinning tales of this land and far beyond, my sister got busy with colours, creating vibrant paintings and the baby brother created havoc and got into mischief by scribbling stick mans and hundreds of eggs in our school note books and walls! :) And this is what I want to pass on to LD, a legacy of boredom which I call an ‘art of doing nothing’.

Vegan Zoodles Recipe | Zucchini/Courgette Noodles with Almond, Cashew and Cilantro Pesto Recipe with OXO Good Grip Spiralizer Product Review and A Giveaway

Learn how to make Vegan Zoodles or Zucchini Noodles with Almond, Cashew and Cilantro Pesto ~ Vegan and gluten free low carb zucchini or courgette pasta with blanched broad beans and almonds and flavoured with creamy almond, cashew nuts and coriander pesto

Gardening, especially growing fruits and vegetables has never been my ‘thing’! I am notorious among my family and friends as a person with black thumb who even managed to kill succulents! I am that bad! A complete contrast to my very keen and green gardener parents who have a lush and lovely garden back home growing flowers of every colour, fruits and veggies of every kind!

Then something happened and suddenly little seeds that we planted actually sprouted and then grew into large plants finally bearing fruits of our labour! How? I am still struggling to find an answer. It could be the quality of seeds or the compost or most likely to do with my little helper who might have inherited green fingers from both sets of his grandparents. They say that the genes skips generation and it might very well be true!

Watermelon-Citrus Cooler/Juice Recipe | Simple and Quick Summer Cooler Recipe

Learn how to make the Watermelon-Citrus Cooler/Juice

It’s been a wonderful summer so far… In fact, it’s the best summer season I have ever experienced in Britain! The flowers in rainbow colours are in full bloom, the rich green foliage of trees kissing the bright blue skies, the fluffy white sugar candy like clouds drifting away in the bright sky, the dainty white daisies smiling on a rich Persian green grass carpet and the smiling tanned faces that greets others in the streets. Ah… Blissful days of the year!

Summer is the time when I am busiest, inspite of the fact that the schools are closed. I see myself like an ant working long hours. With five year old for a company, the 24 hours in a day is not long enough to get everything done in a day. By the end of the day, I am so tired that I snooze off as soon as my head hits pillow.

Mangalore Bonda Sharbat Recipe | Tender Coconut Lemonade

Learn how to make Mangalore Bonda Sharbat ~ Tender coconut sherbet or tender coconut lemonade

“Echara, we want some bonda. Please!” pleaded a girl with two missing front teeth and two pigtails bouncing as she jumped up and down with her sister and cousins.

“Let me first finish peeling these arecanuts, and then I will get you kids the tender coconuts”, said Eshwara.

“No, we want you to come with us right now. We are very, very thirsty”, said all the kids in unison.

“There is no escaping from you little brats”, said Eshwara as he smiled indulgently.

He got up from the low seat of wooden plank with a blunt moon shaped knife designed especially for peeling the skin of arecanuts. Wiping the sweat from his forehead with the towel tied around his head as a turban called mundaas, once red when it was new and now turned a shade of burnt rust after many washes, he flexed his five feet short body and joined us as we bounced along a narrow footpath around grandma’s ancestral two-storey art deco styled house with huge panelled windows.

KaaTu Mavina Hannina Saaru/Gojju Recipe | Wild Mango Soup from Udupi-Mangalore

Learn how to make KaaTu Mavina Hannina Saaru/Gojju ~ Sweet, spicy and tangy wild mango soup/curry from Udupi-Mangalore

A big hello from India! :) It’s been 3 weeks since we landed here and the life has been, well, little chaotic trying to do hundred and one things at once! We have been struggling to come up with the fact that this is not our annual month long holiday with our loved ones and we are actually going to live here permanently!

Sometimes I feel it’s all a dream and I will wake up next moment in our old house in England listening to the howling wind, grey skies and rain drops splattering around! But that is not the case as every time I wake up here in my parents’ home, all I can hear are the noise of tweeting birds, bright sunlight streaming through the curtains and to the lull of ceiling fan… Life is so much different to the life that lived just a month ago… I will write more about our Indian adventure later as we are still living out of suitcases.