Paal Payasam Recipe

Well this is an adapted version of a recipe that I read some where. I tried it as an experiment and it was awesome. I made 3 payasams for our this year's (2009) onam. Adapradhaman, aval payasam and pal payasam. Everyone liked pal payasam more than the others.
Here it goes.
Take one glass of redrice (matta rice)
I would recommend to wash the rice and soak it a while so that it becomes easy to cook. Otherwise some brands are difficult to cook well. anyways it's upto your choice.

Cook rice with enough milk (instead of water use the same amount of milk) in a cooker. (you can cook it as usual with closed lid and whistle) Once its cooked open the lid and add enough sugar and boil for some more time. This makes the payasam more tasty. The more it boils, the better. You can add milk if you require. Once you feel the rice is cooked properly then add 1 medium size tin condensed milk and boil for 3-4 minutes. Add crushed cardamoms and put off the fire. Heat ghee and fry cashew nuts and raisins in golden colour and garnish.

My family and friends loved it. Hope you will love this too.

Lessons on Life -Moral Story

There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall.

When they had all gone and ! come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.

The second son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise.

The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.

The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree's life.

He told them ! that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up.

If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall.

Moral:

Don't let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest. Don't judge life by one difficult season.

Persevere through the difficult patches and better times are sure to come some time or later.

Simple & Easy Tomato Rasam Recipe

Here is the recipe of a simple and easy tomato rasam. This is been given to me by my friend gisha. I don’t like the taste of the typical kerala rasam recipes and she made this one for me. Very nice

1. Sliced medium size tomato – 3-4nos
2. Whole red chilli (dried) – cut half
3. Green chilli –according to your taste
4. Ginger mashed -1 piece
5. Garlic sliced – 4-5 big pods
6. Turmeric powder
7. Curry leaves
8. Hing power (kayam)
9. Salt 

Heat oil and splutter mustard seeds, then add Whole red chilly + Green chilly, ginger mashed, garlic (sliced) + thin sliced tomato + turmeric powder + salt + curry leaves and sauté well. Add hing powder. once tomato is almost like half gravy add enough water and boil. Put off the fire in 2-3 minutes.
Garnish with coriander leaves and serve

Amazing Body Shots

I received this email about the "amazing body shots" from my freind and was so amazed by the content. It is really interesting to understand how the body cells/organs work and it changed my whole outlook about body. This made me take a decision to take care of my body, eat food that keep body healthy and also get rid of all bad habit that affects body health. Hope this will help all others as well.Almost all of the following images were captured using a scanning electron microscope,

Incredible details of 1 to 5nm (nanometer) in size can be detected.

1. Red Blood Cells

They look like little cinnamon candies here, but they're actually the most common type of blood cell in the human body - red blood cells (RBCs). These biconcave-shaped cells have the tall task of carrying oxygen to our entire body; in women there are about 4 to 5 million RBCs per micro liter (cubic millimeter) of blood and about 5 to 6 million in men. People who live at higher altitudes have even more RBCs because of the low oxygen levels in their environment.

2. Split End of Human Hair

Regular trimmings to your hair and good conditioner should help to prevent this unsightly picture of a split end of a human hair.

3. Purkinje Neurons

Of the 100 billion neurons in your brain. Purkinje (pronounced purr-kin-jee) neurons are some of the largest. Among other things, these cells are the masters of motor coordination in the cerebellar cortex. Toxic exposure such as alcohol and lithium, autoimmune diseases, genetic mutations including autism and neurodegenerative diseases can negatively affect human Purkinje cells.

4. Hair Cell in the Ear

Here's what it looks like to see a close-up of human hair cell stereo cilia inside the ear. These detect mechanical movement in response to sound vibrations.

5. Blood Vessels Emerging from the Optic Nerve

In this image, stained retinal blood vessels are shown to emerge from the black-colored optic disc. The optic disc is a blind spot because no light receptor cells are present in this area of the retina where the optic nerve and retinal blood vessels leave the back of the eye.

6. Tongue with Taste Bud

This colour-enhanced image depicts a taste bud on the tongue. The human tongue has about 10,000 taste buds that are involved with detecting salty, sour, bitter, sweet and savory taste perceptions.

7. Tooth Plaque

Brush your teeth often because this is what the surface of a tooth with a form of plaque looks like.

8. Blood Clot

Remember that picture of the nice, uniform shapes of red blood cells you just looked at? Well, here's what it looks like when those same cells get caught up in the sticky web of a blood clot. The cell in the middle is a white blood cell.

9. Alveoli in the Lung

This is what a colour-enhanced image of the inner surface of your lung looks like. The hollow cavities are alveoli; this is where gas exchange occurs with the blood.

10. Lung Cancer Cells

This image of warped lung cancer cells is in stark contrast to the healthy lung in the previous picture.

11. Villi of Small Intestine

Villi in the small intestine increase the surface area of the gut, which helps in the absorption of food. Look closely and you will see some food stuck in one of the crevices.

12. Human Egg with Coronal Cells

This image is of a purple, colour-enhanced human egg sitting on a pin. The egg is coated with the zona pellicuda, a glycoprotein that protects the egg but also helps to trap and bind sperm. Two coronal cells are attached to the zona pellicuda.

13. Sperm on the Surface of a Human Egg

Here's a close-up of a number of sperm trying to fertilize an egg.

14. Human Embryo and Sperm

It looks like the world at war, but it is actually five days after the fertilisation of an egg, with some remaining sperm cells still sticking around. This fluorescent image was captured using a confocal microscope. The embryo and sperm cell nuclei are stained purple while sperm tails are green. The blue areas are gap junctions, which form connections between the cells.

15. Colored Image of a 6 day old Human Embryo Implanting