Silly Saturdays: Weighed down by veggie logic

Getting your child to eat right is a very tough task! Sigh! I try really hard to make sure she drinks milk, eat fruits and veggies along with chicken and fish. Good thing is she likes milk, lentils, fish and chicken and few fruits too. The problem is really to get her to eat veggies. I have constantly come up with new ways to get her to eat veggies. 

After good 3-4 days of eating veggies, she asked me to make chicken for her yesterday. And I couldn’t refuse her for obvious reasons, so I decided to make her favourite chappati and chicken curry. Just as I started prepping for the curry, I took out the chicken curry masala packet. It’s an fragrant blend of all the spices that are traditionally used in a authentic Kerala chicken curry. Looking at the pack my little curious diva had a sudden urge to interrogate me.

Smera: Mamma what is this on the chicken’s tail? Hmm! maybe some beans and carrots. Do chicken eat vegetable?

Mamma: Yes they do and that’s they are so yummy in your tummy. So even you should eat them.

Smera: But I don’t want to be yummy, I want to be Smera only!

Mamma: Looking stumped, continues with the work!!

The point is kids these days are so observant and will not settle down for answer that does not satiate their curiosity. The only way out I guess is to learn to tap these qualities – attention to detail and the ability to think creatively without feeling silly.

 I have been looking at this packet for quite a few years but never really bothered about the packaging so much, until this day and that happened to be green and orange chillies on the chicken’s tail.

This time score is:  Smera- 1, Mamma- 0

Sweet summerish cure !!

I finished up my last post discussing about a Desert, Dessert and Dubai, and so I have decided to continue further on the topic. On our expeditious trip back to Dubai and back we picked up an instant ice-lolly make, just perfect for this summer. Before I tell you anymore about Zoku ice-lolly make, let me enlighten you about another favourite store of ours – Tchibo.

Tchibo is German, value for money store and of course, we particularly love the place for the value it offers and fine products it houses. At 29 Dirhams I thought it was a great deal for an ice-cream maker. However, I was a little disappointed to open the pack and realise it was just a mould to make instant ice-lolly in 7-10 minutes.

As a matter of fact, it was it still a good deal. How can one freeze the lolly mixture in a jiffy at home unless we got ourselves chillers used at ice-cream factories? 7-10 minutes for two of lip-smacking lollies. The only catch is you have to keep the Zoku moulds in the freezer 24 hours prior to making the lollies.

What you really need to do it is blend a smoothie with milk or yogurt or even fresh juice would do the trick and then tick-tock tick-tock. Viola in 7 minutes this is what I made.

The pack comes with ultra easy and interesting recipes and best part you don’t need to go to a Tchibo store if you don’t have one in your city. Just get it from Amazon! 

Silly Saturdays: Arabian Desert

As a pre-requisite to get Oman visa, one needs to follow certain procedures. To complete the formalities we undertook a little road trip back to Dubai to cancel our old visa and finish other paperworks.

The drive from Oman to Dubai is real scenic one especially if the weather is not too hot. You would pass through hilly terrain, see some very refreshing greenery and large spans of the deserts. The nature is amazing, even the dry and lifeless desert looks picturesque. As if someone beautifully carved and landscaped it with great effort.

The very sleepy Smera got up halfway through the drive to see the symbolic Arabian Desert. She stared at the view for a while, spotted a few camels too and then curiously asked us.

Mamma: Is this is a desert?

Me: Yes Smera, that’s the Arabian Desert!

Mamma: Are we going to eat it after dinner Mamma?
Me: (Taken aback, took a minute to think of an answer and then said) No darling this desert is made of sand and we cannot eat sand right? The Dessert we eat is made of nice stuff and is yummy for our tummy.