Snacks for Kids

This is something I had posted on my food blog, and I am reposting it here, because both the recipes are great for kids. Many of my food memories center around summer holidays during childhood. One of the snacks that we loved the most was Hacchida Avalakki - something that I also began craving when I was expecting my son. I don't know whether it was because he had so much of it indirectly, but this is a favourite dish of my son's too.

Sometime that year, my cousins had come from Dharwad, and one of them had carried a delicious avalakki( poha/ flattened rice) snack which is ludicrously easy to make and low cal too. I often make it and store it during the summer, as it's light, quick to make and enjoyed by everyone.

Avalakki

2-3 cups flattened rice/ poha ( try to get the thinner variety)

1 cup shelled peanuts with the skin on

1 handful curry leaves

2 tsp black mustard seeds

5-6 byadgi chillies ( Karnataka chillies)

1/2 tsp asafoetida (heeng)

1/2 cup dessicated coconut cut into fine slivers

Salt to taste

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp turmeric

1 tbsp oil

On a sunny day, spread the avalakki out on a clean paper and leave it out in the sun for 3-4 hours. It will get nice and crisp.

In a large bandley (wok), heat the oil.

Add the mustard seeds and wait for them to pop.

Then add the turmeric, the asafoetida, the chillies and the curry leaves. Fry until the chillies and curry leaves are crisp.

Add the dessicated peanuts and cook, stirring occasionally, until the skin darkens and any exposed bits turn pale brown.

Add the coconut slivers and fry until they turn light brown.

Add in the avalakki, the salt and the pepper and stir to mix everything well.

Store in an airtight jar.

I love the smell of heeng so I tend to add more of it than I've mentioned.

Hacchida Avalakki

1 cup avalakki ( plain poha)

1 tsp black mustard seeds

1/2 tbsp oil

2-3 green chillies, finely chopped

Handful grated fresh coconut

1 cucumber, finely chopped

1 red onion, finely chopped

Handful coriander leaves, finely chopped

Juice of 1 lime ( or more, to taste)

Salt to taste

In a bandley, heat the oil.

Add the mustard seeds and wait for them to pop.

Add the avalakki and stir briskly for a few minutes so it turns crisp, and turn off the heat.

Add all the other ingredients, lime juice last, and stir to mix well.

Serve immediately, and eat fast before it turns soggy! Omit the green chillies and reduce the quantity of onions for younger kids. Also, in the avalakki recipe, omit the nuts in case you are worried about allergies.

Kids Food festival

Hi Ladies,
The DesiMomzclub is proud to announce "Kids Food festival". This is a unique online food festival hosted for the first time on DMC and we would like to get inputs from all members. I request each member of DMC to contribute a kid-friendly recipe every week on Saturday, complete with pictures and method of preparation. If you do not have the time or opportunity to post the recipe, please email me (mnamma@gmail.com) the recipes and the pictures and I would post it on DMC on your behalf. So ladies mark your calendars for every Saturday starting from today as ‘Kid food festival day’ and share with us some of your wonderful recipes and let us make this food festival a huge success. All the food bloggers who have yummy, kid-friendly recipes posted on your blog – you are welcome to repost it on the DMC blog. The rules for participating in the food festival are pretty simple as outlined by Sandeepa of Bong Mom’s cook book:

1) Food should be healthy.

2) Food should be suitable for infants who have started on solids or lunch dishes for toddlers and preschool kids.

3) Food should be such that, it can be packed for lunch and be eaten with minimum mess.

4) Food should be primarily Indian in nature as we want the kiddies to develop a love for Indian food.

5) Food should be fun. Colorful foods decorated in creative ways are bound to be well liked by toddlers and preschoolers.

6) Food should not be very spicy, keep in mind the target eaters.

7) Mom or any one should not spend more than 30-40 minutes on preparation.

8) Please use the label ‘kid food fest’ on all your posts related to the food festival.

9) Please specify the age group for which he recipe you would be posting is appropriate.



I am pretty sure most of the Moms reading this would have experienced the dismay of opening the lunch boxes of their toddlers or preschool kids who have returned from school, only to find it untouched or half eaten. The child returns homes cranky, hungry and tired and almost the entire day is ruined because of that. I have faced that situation a lot of times myself. Our wonderful Tharini of Winkies-Way fame had posted on this topic , a few days back on her blog space.

My twin daughters have strong likes/dislikes with regard to food and it is quite a challenge to keep them happy and cater to their taste and at the same time be uncompromising in nutrition. They want their food not too hot or spicy, not too bland, not too hard to bite, not too mushy but just right – like the story of 'Goldilocks and the three bears'. I have a few recipes that have been a hit with my 4 year old daughters and I would like to share them with you. The recipe that I am posting here is the ubiquitous 'vegetable rice' or 'vegetable pulao'. This one has a lot of nutrients in it and is also very easy to prepare. This dish is suitable for toddlers and preschoolers in the age group of 3-6. This is how I prepare it:

Ingredients
Basmati rice – 2 cups
Cardamom – 3
Cloves – 2 or 3
Bay leaves – 1 or 2
Cinnamon stick - one inch piece
Mustard seeds, cumin and fennel seeds for seasoning.
Garam masala powder – a pinch
Salt – according to taste
Olive oil – 6 teaspoons
Butter or ghee – a small quantity for the aroma.
Onion
Ginger garlic paste – about half teaspoon
Green chilies (minced) – 1 (This is optional and if your toddler or preschooler doesn’t eat hot food you don’t need to add chilies)

Carrot
Beans
Cauliflower
Red Bell pepper (I use this because of the sweeter taste and the color)
Potato
Peas
Coriander – for garnishing
Any other vegetable that your child may prefer.





I use about 3 cups of all these chopped vegetables. You may add more according to your taste. Cook the basmati rice separately in a rice cooker with a little bit of salt, bay leaves, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon stick added to it.
In a pan, sauté mustard seeds, cumin and fennel in a little bit of olive oil. Add onions and ginger, garlic, green chili paste. Sauté it until the onions change color. Then add the veggies. Cook until the veggies are cooked and then add salt and the garam masala powder. Mix the cooked rice with the veggies and then add the butter or ghee and mix together well. Garnish with coriander. Serve with cucumber or onion raitha. This recipe takes about 40 minutes including chopping the vegetables.

Posts from Moms of Infants who have just started solids are also very welcome. We would love to hear about a tasty and nutritious first food you made for your baby. I remember Poppins posting a recipe like this a while back. So come on ladies – put on your chef caps and show us the magic you can create to bring a contended, well-fed smile to those little faces.

Traditions

What a lovely theme as we begin the festive season. It's interesting that each and every family has its own traditions and rituals, quite apart from social traditions, that we adopt, and over time these play such an important role in knitting the familt unit together. Some of the traditions are so strange, at times, that only the family will ever understand the in-joke!

We're not a very traditional family ( tradition in the social/ religious sense) - by family I mean me, my husband and our two kids - because my husband and I are from opposite corners of India - I'm South Indian, he's from the North, I'm Hindu, he is Muslim. My parents are extremely traditional, and you will hear the lovely strains of Sanskrit shlokas being chanted every morning as each of them does their puje, and the food is by and large typically traditional Kannadiga/ Mysore food too. Each festival has some set things in the puje, and on the menu. For Gowri Habba, we used to make little Gowri figurines out of turmeric, and always buy a Goowri and Ganesha idol made of clay from Bangalore. My mother decorates the Gowri idol beautifully and till date has kept up the tradition of calling friends and neighbours over for Arshna-Kumkuma ( haldi-kumkum) in the evening on those two days. Guests are always served Shundal in little leaf-cups. My father, if he happens to travel South before the festival, always gets beautiful flower strings - Mallige, sampige, kanakaambra - which are also given away to the guests. Ganesha Chathurthi always meant Karjikaayi and Diwali usually means Holige of some kind. On birthdays, my mom always made a festive meal, complete with the birthday person's favourite kheer.

One of the traditions my parents started was that of Christmas. We always used to have a christmas tree at home, sometimes even one just made out of paper and pasted onto a wall. My folks would play Jim Reeves' carols all day. On Christmas eve, dad would sneak a present under our pillows. That's a tradition we continue in our home too. I decorate a Norfolk Pine tree, which has nice weight-bearing branches, with lovely Kashmiri papier mache decorations and we play carols at home. I try and bake cookies, or at least bring home a fruit cake. We usually have a festive Christmas meal, which is as continental as I can make it, with Red pepper soup, Potatoes Dauphinoise, a quiche or vegetable pie, salad and the cake, of course. And presents - but of course!

Another tradition my parents started when we lived in Bangalore was that of Beladingalu Oota - Dinner by moonlight. On full moon nights, my mother would set our food out on the floor of the enormous balcony of our house in Bangalore. We would eat only by the light of the moon, enjoying the strange, pale light and the unusual flavour it added to the food. That's something I plan to start as soon as my daughter turns three.

One of the most beautiful rituals we have is that a baby's first outing, apart from doctor's visits, has to be to a place of worship. Of course with our mixed up household, we went the whole hog. First we took our kids to the Baha'i Temple, as being a neutral place, then a mosque, a gurdwara and then a temple!

We have started a tradition of having an open house party midway between Id and Diwali. We call all our friends and colleagues - with the caveat that the colleagues have to be friends, not just co-workers - and we have a menu which is kind of set by now. We cater in the Biryani and kebabs from one particular place called Matka Pir in Delhi. I usually make a spiced rice dish for the vegetarians. And one dish that all our guests remember year upon year and pre-request just in case I had plans of turning lazy that year is Badaam Halwa. it's quite a painstaking dish to make, and last year, since I was back at work full time with a 4 month old baby in tow, it took me a full week to make it. All our friends look forward to this party, since it is one place they know they'll meet everybody, and our guest list keeps growing. Last year we counted 94 people before we gave up! We love hosting this year after year, even though we're dog tired by the end of it, because with today's crazy schedules, that's the only time we can count on seeing all our friends.

Our Community Playgroup

Last year when we moved here, my daughter was about one year old. Soon, I realized she was getting bored playing with only both of us and now its time she need some new faces or may be some kids or friends with whom she can mingle with. But being early winter, kids were hardly seen in the play area of our community. And as we just moved into the community we hardly knew any families with kids except for two newly wed couples.
I was looking for a group where I could share some information about parenting and my kid could also get some company. I could not take her to the playgroups organized in the public libraries or other places regularly outside our community as I did not drive car at that time.
But, with all these constraints I did not give up. Just like any other mom I was also playing with my kid, reading stories, showing books with different pictures and trying other fun activities for her. I was also acting and singing rhymes to her. And that rewarded me later.
Early this year, some families with kids moved into our community. Some of the kids were around my daughter’s age. Slowly we were acquainted with some of them. As spring came in we could see some kids even in the play area and that was a time even my daughter was enjoying the play area. She then entered the “toddler “age.

That was when the concept of ‘playgroup” came into my mind. I knew that a playgroup is for young children to learn and play in small groups, often close to their homes.
More information about play group can be found here.
When I told this my thought about playgroup, other mom’s were also happy and delighted. Almost everyone readily wanted to start this. Everybody was looking for some regular informative company and a fun place for their kids. That is when our Playgroup started.
Before starting playgroup we assigned ourselves some easy to follow rules like
Each of us we’ll have turns in hosting
Concept is fun and interactive place for kids so no force and pressure if one cannot host under any circumstances.
Flexible kid friendly hours (afternoon time after they finish their nap)
Not to take kids when they are sick
More playgroup tips can be found here

To start with, it was my turn .and then there were 5 kids.2 of them were little older but other three kids were around my daughter’s age.
Initially we had only playtime where majority of the time was dedicated as playtime. That was a time when all of our kids were loners and they just needed some other kids of their age to mingle along with. Initially they were sticking to their mommy. But slowly, they started mingling and sharing their toys.
Then, we introduced rhyme time in which we moms acted and sung rhymes along with kids. That was the time when we started fun game for them like ring –around the Rosie.
Now that was the beginning. Slowly seeing how the kids were doing we were increasing the rhyme time. We were acting and singing about 5 rhymes. Initially only the moms and older kids were doing it. But we did not give up. Most of us knew kids learn by seeing others.so, we kept on doing and after 1 month my daughter learned 2 rhymes. The older kids were singing and acting along. But our young toddlers were watching us do .after few weeks even they started doing. They cannot sing but they act when we sing. My daughter will be two late this month and she now acts 4-5 rhymes if I sing.
Then we introduced story time. For the older kids we read out stories of their choice in an interactive way. For the toddlers we used books with pictures like fruits, vegetables, shapes and animals. Now they are able to recognize the pictures and tell what it is.
.
Sometimes, we have birthday parties of kids in the playgroup. Sometimes, we take the kids out mostly during weekend evenings to a park, zoo or beach.
The basic idea behind our play group was a place or way for healthy and safe fun for our kids.So, we never force them to take part in any of the above things. Some kids just prefer playing while some want to have fun doing rhymes. There are some kids who stick to mommies watching other kids doing. Its OK too. Because they are watching other kids and some kids show back in homes what they learnt in playgroups earlier. Every child is unique so every child has their own way to express what they have in their mind. I believe repeating with hope helps. It can be any thing from saying ‘please and thank you’ or any learning sources
In my opinion, playgroups are fun way of learning for toddlers and young kids. In these days when safety is a concern for most of the moms, this is one option to let kids mingle in a safe environment.

So,if any of you moms also attend palygroups plz come forward and share your experiences with us and let us know your opinions and thoughts
Madhavi

"Grounded Till You're 36" video clip

Hi all you lovely momz, and thanks to all who posted for September's Theme of the Month, Back To School! I'm sorry I didn't get time to chime in with a real post of my own; my kids' dad was hospitalised most of the month so things got a little crazy around here! He is on the mend now, and needless to say both my kids are back at school. My son is in his sophomore year at college, invited into the honors program (hooray! this is not the kid I knew in high school!) and my daughter busy in her soph. year of high school with the fall musical and also invited into an honors english class. Best school year yet, for us! Hope all your kids are thriving in their schools too :)

With everything looking up, I did want to pop in with an enthusiastic "nice choice" for October's Theme of the Month -- Traditions (hope I got that right -- I'm not used to posting via blogger so I can't check back to the original :) )

If the kids and I get to relive our October tradition this year, I will certainly post about it (hopefully with pics!); I look forward to reading about all of yours.

Tonight I had a few minutes to sit down and catch up on blogs and bills and general internet browsing -- and I found this hilarious video clip. Dear Moderators, I hope it's ok to embed a clip! It goes very fast, so I listened several times to be sure it didn't include anything offensive -- I think it's safe. It sure made me laugh at the end of a busy day. Although some is geared toward moms of older kids, I think it's universal in its theme and I hope it gives some of you a chuckle too.



And in case the embedded file doesn't work, here's the link.

cross-posted at Out Of The Garden

Desperately Seeking Advice

Hi ladies,

Sorry for not contributing more often, but I am currently going through a divorce and so have been on an emotional roller-coaster over the past few months.. I didn't want to touch on it in my food blog (because my husband is a fan of it), and I don't really want to dwell on it here either, because it's not the reason for my post today, but I thought it was worth mentioning since I'll definitely be posting more about it in the coming months.

Err, see, my son (I call him "Jojo" all the time) just turned 4 in August and until now, still refuses to eat anything but mash even though he has 18 beautiful little teeth!! Anyone has this problem, too? The strange thing about him is that he displays ZERO curiosity about food, and strangely, the only things he deigns to bite are M & Ms and gummy candies (I know I shouldn't be giving him too many of them, but there are days bribing as a last resort gets the better of me, haha)... if anyone has had the same experience as mine with their kids, I'd like to know how they managed to "convert" their kids to solids. :) I don't want to use heavy-handed tactics, but my kid is terribly stubborn and I suspect only reverse psychology will work on him! And he's only 4! Yikes! :)

Thanks in advance for your help!
Hugs!

Theme for October

[This post is written by Tharini of Winkie's Way.]

Hi Girls...

Please excuse me for the delay in introducing the theme for October. I meant to do it on Friday, but Sathya went into a viral, and we had guests over the weekend. So this got skipped.

I have always wondered about family traditions. The kind that is created within each family, and unique to them. The kind that brings every member together in a close knit circle, and deepens the existing bonds. Something, that gets cloaked in years of memories, to be retrieved by the trigger of something innocuous...and you find yourself dusting the layers off of them and feeling warm and cosy inside. These are the traditions I wonder about, and I know there will be many.

And this, will be the theme for this festive month on DMC. What are the family traditions that you recollect from your own childhoods and growing years? Is it something that you still continue with your own family even now? Or is there something in special that you would like to adopt and hold on to? It could be anything (no rigid criteria here).....family prayers times, a special game, a special kind of meal, traditions around festivals, travel traditions, a special book....anything...anything at all. Anything that brings you all together in it.

I hope we can look forward to a lot of responses and a lot of sharing of stories. Happy October DMC'ites! :D