Bachelor Cooking # 2 - Quick Rice Sevai

Quick Rice Sevai Recipe

Get the Sevai/ Iddiappam pack from any grocery store.  

Ingredients:

Mustard: One TSP

Urud Dal (round or broken): One TSP

Green Chilies: 2-3 chopped

One twig of Curry leaves

¼ tsp of turmeric power

Half lemon

Salt to taste

Preparation:

Boil the sevai for two to three minutes, filter the water and keep it aside.

Take a pan, add 2-3 spoons of oil and heat it. Keep the flame  low and add mustard first. After it crackles, add urud dal and allow it to turn brown. Then add chopped green chilies and fry it for a minute. Add turmeric power to the mixture and fry it for half-a-minute. Then add the cooked savai; add salt to taste and mix well. Now add Lemon juice in it and mix well. 

Sevai is ready to be served. Eat it with coconut chutney or coriander chutney or simply curd.

Cheers!

Bachelor Cooking # 1 - Cold Coffee

If you are a bachelor, staying away from home and missing out on your mother's cooking, you will find this month's posts interesting. 

Eating out is becoming more expensive these days with soaring prices of all essential commodities. So, I am going to bring you some simple, healthy recipes which you can try by yourself. Eat healthy and stay healthy.

Before we go on to the first recipe, make sure you have the following ingredients in your kitchen, without which Indian cooking is almost impossible!

1. Red Chilli powder
2. Coriander power
3. Turmeric powder
4. Garam Masala powder
5. Sambar powder
6. Spices - Mustard, Peppercorns, cumin seeds, cloves, cinnamon, cardamon

You will also need in stock:
1. Cooking oil
2. Salt
3. Sugar
4. Milk
5. Curd

Other items you will need:
1. Induction stove
2. Mini Fridge
3. Blender
4. Pressure cooker/ Rice cooker
5. Non stick kadai
7. Non stick tava
8. A couple of tea spoons and table spoons
9. Water Jug
10. Plates and glasses
11. A couple of bowls

Here is a simple beverage to start with.

Cold Coffee Recipe
Ingredients:
• 2 Cup Cold Milk
• ¼ Cup Water
• 4 Tsp Instant Coffee Powder
• 4 Tbsp Cream
• 2 Tbsp Sugar
• Crushed Ice

Method:
• Boil water and dissolve instant coffee powder and sugar and allow it to cool.
• Blend all the Ingredients: together.

Cheers!

Daily dose of Inspiration - Part 30 of 30

Guru Raghavendra Swami's quotes before attaining Jeeva Samadhi  

 

On Dwitiya Day of Sravana Krishna Paksha in 1671, Raghavendra Swami gave a soul-stirring speech in Kannada and Telugu to hundreds of devotees who had gathered to watch the event. Some quotes from that speech are as follows -

• "Without right living, right thinking will never come. Right living is performing one's ordained duties according to one's station in life without hankering the after fruits of the actions and on the other hand offering all one's activities to the Lord. This is real sadachara (right living). This is real karma yoga."

• "Social work done for the good of worthy people should also be considered as the Lord's worship. In short, our life itself is a worship. Every action is a puja. This life is precious. Every second of our life is precious. Not even a second that has gone will come back. Listening to the right shastras and always remembering Him is the highest duty."

• "Always keep away from people who merely perform miracles without following the shastras and yet call themselves God or guru. I have performed miracles, and so have great persons like Srimadvacharya. These are based on yoga siddhi and the shastras. There is no fraud or trickery at all. These miracles were performed only to show the greatness of God and the wonderful powers that one can attain with His grace. "

• "Right knowledge (jnana) is greater than any miracle. Without this no real miracle can take place. Any miracle performed without this right knowledge is only sorcery. No good will come to those who perform such miracles and also those who believe in them."

• "Have devotion to the Lord. This devotion should never be blind faith. Accepting the Lord's supremacy wholeheartedly is true devotion. Blind faith is not devotion. It is only stupidity. We should have devotion, not only for the Lord, but also for all other deities and preceptors in keeping with their status."

After this speech, Sri Raghavendra entered the Brindavana specially constructed for him with stone brought from Madavara village, near Manchale. Per his advice these stones were sanctified by Lord Rama, Sita and Lakshmana's footsteps when they visited the village during Treta Yuga.

He had advised his disciples to start arranging slabs around him once the japamala rolling by fingers in his hand become still.

He began reciting the pranava mantra and slipped into deep samadhi. Once his japamala became still, his disciples arranged the slabs up to his head and then, as per his earlier instructions, they placed a copper box containing 1200 Lakshminarayana saligramas that had been specially brought from Gandaki river in Nepal. Then they placed the covering slab over it and filled it with earth. They poured twelve thousand varahas (abhisheka) over the brindavan that they had built.

Thus Sri Raghavendra Swami attained Jeeva samadhi on Dwitiya Day of Sravana Krishna Paksha in 1671. This date is celebrated each year as Sri Raghavendra Swamy Aradhana at Brindavans all over the world. The Raghavendra Mutt in Mantralaya housing his Brindavan is visited by thousands of devotees every year.

It is believed he would live for

• 76 years physically on the Earth.
• 300 years in the Brindavana, through his literary work among the people.
• 400 years in the Brindavana without a physical form.

Totally 700 years in the Bridavana helping the society and the mankind to come-out from troubles and miseries.

Cheers!

Daily dose of Inspiration - Part 29 of 30

 Shirdi Sai Baba sayings

1. Meditate on me either with form or without form, that is pure bliss.

2. Give food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, and clothes to the naked. Then God will be pleased.
 

3. Do not be obsessed by egotism, imagining that you are the cause of action: everything is due to God.
 

4. Those who think that Baba is only in Shirdi have totally failed to know me.
 

5. Harsh words cannot pierce your body. If anybody speaks ill of you, just continue on unperturbed.

 

6. Choose friends who will stick to you till the end, through thick and thin.
 

7. I give my devotees whatever they ask, until they ask for what I want to give.
 

8. What you sow, you reap. What you give, you get.
 

9. Have faith and patience. Then I will be always with you wherever you are.
 

10. Spend money in charity; be generous and munificent but not extravagant

 

Cheers!

Daily dose of Inspiration - Part 28 of 30

Quotes by Swami Chinmayananda

1. The tragedy of human history is decreasing happiness in the midst of increasing comforts.

2. Faults become thick when love is thin.

3. Temper takes you to Trouble, Pride keeps you there

4. Remember, `Even This Will Pass Away'.

5. To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

6. A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.

7. Don't put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket.

8. To forget oneseff totally, one's mind should keep awake at every moment. A mind that has forgotten the past and the future, that is awake to the now, to the present, expresses the highest concentration of intelligence. It is alert, it is watchful, it is inspired. The actions of a man who has such a mind are exceptionally creative and perfect. Verily to forget oneself totally, is to be in perfection

9. Silently hear everyone. Accept what is good. Reject and forget what is not. This is intelligent living.

10. Bhakti is the attitude of the mind, and jnana is the attitude of the intellect, both flow towards the Lord.

Cheers!

Daily dose of Inspiration - Part 27 of 30

Quotes by Sri Ramana Maharshi

1. Mind is consciousness, which has limitations. We are originally unlimited and perfect. Later on we take on limitations and become the mind.

2. Meditation depends upon the strength of mind. It must be unceasing even when one is engaged in work. Particular time for it is meant for novices.

3. When one makes the mind stick to one thought, the mind becomes rock-steady and the energy is conserved.

4. The mind is only a bundle of thoughts. The thoughts have their root in the I-thought. Whoever investigates the True "I" enjoys the stillness of bliss.

5. When the mind is left without anything to cling to, it becomes still.

6. The inquiry "who am I" turns the mind introvert and makes it calm.

7. There is no mind to control if you realize the self. The mind having vanished, the self shines forth. In the realized man, the mind may be active or inactive, the self remains for him.

8. Meditation helps concentration of the mind. Then the mind is free from thoughts and is in the meditated form.

9. Meditation is sticking to one thought. That single thought keeps away other thoughts; distraction of mind is a sign of its weakness; by constant meditation it gains strength.

10. When we turn the mind inwards, God manifests as the inner consciousness.

Cheers!