Lunch for the little one...

Been a while since I posted something on this site, lets just say life has kept me busy. Its a good thing :). In this new phase of my life, my greatest challenge is preparing lunch for my toddler, something healthy, nutritious and something that he will eat.

ps: If people thought passing out of school, landing a job and earning money was the hard part of life, wait till you get to this stage.

So in my quest for unearthing nutritional recipes that would captivate the attention of a toddler, I have stumbled upon many a good finds. One such recipe is my steamed blueberry oats appams, prepared hoping he would gobble down those much needed power packed carbs/proteins/vitamins/minerals, in my absence at daycare.

Blueberry Oats Appams:

Ingredients:

1 cup urad dal

1/4 cup green gram

1/4 cup tuvar dal

1 cup rice

1 table spoon methi seeds

2 cups oats

1 cup coconut

2 table spoons cumin seeds

Salt to taste

Sugar to taste (feel free to substitute with maple syrup, agave syrup or pani)

1 cup blueberry

1/4 cup Ragi floor

Step 1: Soak the following for 8 hrs

1 cup urad dal

1/4 cup green gram

1/4 cup tuvar dal

1 cup rice

1 table spoon methi seeds

Step 2: Grind the soaked ingredients with the following into an idli batter consistency,

2 cups oats

Salt to taste

1 cup coconut

2 table spoons cumin seeds

Sugar to taste

1 cup blueberry

1/4 cup Ragi floor

Step 3: Allow the batter to sit over night

Step 4: Pour the batter into idli or ramekin cups and steam

Here is a picture of the same recipe with banana instead of blueberries,

They turned out to be super delicious and since blueberry is his favorite berry, I'm hoping it would be a hit in the toddlers mind too. A big thanks to my friend Prinkl for the oats dosa recipe. If it wasn't for that I'd still be sticking to oats porridge. Lastly a big thanks to my husband for his banana idea that worked great on a toddler. 

Vacation Bible School

Every year they call me to accompany the kids at Vacation Bible School and teach them and I have always been pre-occupied. This year for a change I decided to make myself free and a good decision it was.

As kids we were sent to our native village for Vacation Bible School (VBS). It was supposed to be a fun time learning the virtues of a good life through the parables from the Bible and loads of fun activities. There are a few things about VBS though that come to my mind, like hot karingali water. Kottayam has a very tropical climate and during the summer temepratures would soar really high, imagine being served hot water to quench your thirst.

We were practically thinking of living in the Meenachil river and people were serving hot water here. There were loads of other fun things to remember but let me concentrate on my tryst with destiny as the VBS teacher my first time ever :), needless to say I was super excited about it.

So here is the deal you need to teach 6 year olds concepts such as Gratitude, Compassion, Forgiveness, Grace and Faithfulness. Basically walk them through parables in the Bible that emphasis on the importance of each of these characteristics and get them to talk about their real-life experiences where they have displayed these characteristics and I'm thinking, more than children its the elders who need this training class from a humanitarian aspect.