Bilberry! Never heard of it, till my daughter’s friend gifted me a jar of homemade Bilberry preserve from Kotagiri in Nilgris (a hill station in South India)for Christmas last year. It was the most awesome berry preserve I‘ve ever tasted!
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| Bilberries |
Bilberries are related to Blueberries, but are smaller and darker in color and since the bilberry plant is difficult to grow, it is seldom cultivated and are collected from forests in hilly regions. Here in south India , Bilberries are found in Nilgris, they have tremendous antioxidant properties which are considered very effective in improving night vision, lowering blood pressure and for diabetics. Armed with this information, I wanted to buy Bilberries when I went to Nilgris for our school reunion in the first week of September2011. To my disappointment, I was told that Bilberries are never available in shops and moreover the harvest season had just got over (between July and August). I was crestfallen. Anyway, the day we were to leave Nilgris, being Sunday, we went to a very cute Church in Coonoor and after service there was the church sale. Guess what I saw on a table? Bilberries! I could not believe my eyes and I nearly jumped for joy! I managed to get just one kg of bilberries and here is the Bilberry preserve I made and trust me, it is the yummiest of all preserves.
The difference between a preserve and a jam is that, with a preserve the fruits are preserved whole in their own jelly whereas with jam the fruits are mashed up into a spreadable consistency.
Bilberry Preserve
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| My home made Bilberry Preserve |
¾ kg sugar (you can reduce the quantity of sugar ) ¼ cup water Nip the tiny stalks and wash and clean the berries thoroughly. Put it in a vessel along with water and sugar. Simmer for about 45mins to 1 hour till setting consistency is reached. Be careful not to break up the berries while stirring . That’s it! Done! Your Bilberry Preserve is ready!
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| Bilberry Preserve on bread |
To test the setting consistence -Chill a plate in the freezer for 5 mins. Pour a tsp of the preserve in the chilled plate. After 30 seconds, tilt the plate. If it moves but does not run, it is done. If it runs, continue cooking for some more time.I prefer it a little runny , as it thickens in the refrigerator and it is much easier to use as toppings for ice creams and desserts.
Bilberry Jam
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| My Homemade Bilberry Jam |
1 kg Bilberries
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| Bilberry Jam |
¾ kg sugar1 lime
Wash the Bilberries, put it in a pan and mash it well with a wooden spoon. Add lemon juice, sugar and simmer.Just before setting point, ladle out a cup of jam and run it in a food processor for just one whirl.Put it back in the pan and simmer till setting consistency .While warm bottle it.That’s it.
Absolutely delicious and scrumptious as toppings on Ice creams, yogurts, pancakes and desserts .
The Church in Coonoor
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| The cute church in Coonoor |
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| My Ice cream maker |
Of course I’m an Ice cream maniac! My family knows that only too well! Hence, when my sister came down from USA she carried a huge parcel for me as a belated birthday gift. When I unwrapped it, guess what popped out? Cuisinart’s Ice cream and Frozen Yogurt Maker! Wow, was I thrilled? Yes and yes. (This ice cream maker is not available here in India.)From now on, no more store bought unhealthy ice creams - only nourishing and wholesome frozen yogurts with fresh fruits and frozen sorbets will do for me! I made Vanilla Frozen Yogurt and Pumpkin Frozen Yogurt the very next day I unpacked my Ice cream Maker. Here is the simple refreshing tangy fresh frozen yoghurt I made : Vanilla Frozen Yogurt Recipe
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| Frozen yoghurt with Bilberry topping |
2 cups strained Yogurt or Greek-style yogurt or Hung curd
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
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| Churning away |
Pinch of salt
Mix together the yogurt, sugar, and vanilla essence and salt. Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.
Pour it in your ice cream maker and run the machine. In 20 minutes your frozen yoghurt is ready!Yum!
Tip:
If you do not have an ice cream maker..no problem! You can freeze it in a tray in the fridge. For softer consistency, when partly frozen, take it out of the freezer, beat it well with a wooden spoon and freeze again. Done!
How to make 1 cup of strained yogurt :
You need-
2 cups - good quality plain whole milk yogurt.
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| Strained Yoghurt |
Take a strainer with very fine mesh, and balance it on the rim of a bowl. Put the yoghurt in the strainer, cover and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The next morning, the liquid from the yoghurt would have drained on to the bowl and the curd in the strainer is thick and creamy. Your strained yogurt is ready for use in any recipe of your choice.
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| Vanilla Frozen Yoghurt |
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| With Strawberry topping |
Suggested toppings- I love to have my frozen yoghurt with : · Homemade Strawberry Preserve , · Homemade Bilberry Preserve · Chopped fresh fruits particularly bananas.
Enjoy! :)
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‘Lead me not to temptation’, I pray as I walk past the sinful array of dark, milk, white, and liqueur chocolates. My spirit is indeed willing but the flesh is weak! I give in to my temptation and buy some of the sweet sensation and as it hits my taste buds and glides through my throat..hmmmmm...heaven on earth!
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| The cocoa pod and roasted beans |
Have I ever thought how chocolates are made? No, not exactly! Maybe, chocolates just dropped from heaven? Well, I never did have the inclination to really think about it till I visited a chocolate factory during my trip to Malaysia with my husband, sister,brother in law and niece. The tourist guide announced that we were to visit a Choc Factory.
Wow! Was I excited? My first ever trip to a choc factory ! He took us to a place called Beryl’s Chocolate Kingdom. When I entered, I could just see shelves and shelves plus rooms and rooms of varieties of chocolates . It was more like a choc store! I guessed that maybe the guides were paid to take tourists to the store,after all, as tourists we do end up buying loads and loads of stuff- mostly unwanted!
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| Mixing machine |
Anyway, they did have a few miniature models of choc making machines and a staff from the store explained how the chocolates are made from cocao beans in
such a hasty, brief and speedy manner that I hardly got the details. But I was sort of dumbstruck at the amount of work that goes into the making of chocolates . Ofcourse, we do know that chocs are made from cocoa beans harvested from Theobroma cacao tree and it seems that climate and soil play an important role in the flavor of the coca beans. Whatever! The pods look like rugby balls and when they ripen, they turn from green , yellow to orange or red. The beans are left to ferment for several days till they become darker and wrinkled. Then they are sun-dried for a few days and sent to choc factories. Here is the gist of the journey of chocolates from cocoa beans and this brief description is good enough for me as I'd rather concentrate on the finished products on the counter!
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| Conching Machine |
- First, the beans are roasted, to loosen the husk and dry up the nib. Roasting also influences the flavor and color of the final chocolate
- Next, the roasted cacao beans are transferred to a 'winnower'. During this process the beans are cracked by into pieces and then winnowed (blown by air)to separate the husks from the nibs. The nibs contain the cocoa butter and cocoa solids.
- The nibs are then milled or ground to a rich paste to create cocoa liquor.This liquor does not contain alcohol.
- The liquor is then pressed to remove the cocoa butter and a powdery stuff known as 'cocoa presscake' is left behind. This, presscake, when ground, becomes the common cocoa powder.
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| Roller Machine |
- In the next process ,milk powder,sugar,cocoa butter and coco mass are mixed together.
- And put in a Roller Machine for a refining process.The mixture passes through a series of rollers until a smooth paste is formed. Refining improves the texture of the chocolate
- Then, comes Conching. The liquid chocolate is kept in a conching machine which is sort of a kneading machine and it chafes, heats and aerates the batter.
- After this, comes the process of tempering, where the liquid choc is transferred to tempering kettles as it is essential to keep the chocolate in liquid form
- Finally, the mixture is put into molds and cooled in a cooling chamber.
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India is a land of many inequalities ! On one hand you have powerful women ruling the country and on the other hand the plight of women and girl child is appalling.
Click here...
Laila Rajaratnam
...and read on for more.
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| My yummy sugar caramel canape ice cream in Malaysia |
'I scream, you scream We all scream for Ice cream.'
As a kid, I considered that as the most perfect, ultimate rhyming poem. As a teenager, I reflected that Wordsworth, Shelly and Shakespeare's verses in all their glory, were not a patch on this Ice cream rhyme. The very word ‘Ice-cream’ sends a chilly tingling sensation through me! It was love at first taste for me, when the first dollop of ice cream hit my taste bud and did I experience a symphony of ecstasy? Most certainly yes and I was hopelessly hooked!
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| My ice cream bucket planter |
I still remember vividly, standing impatiently in my mom’s kitchen as she churned ice cream in a manual wooden ice cream bucket .That wooden ice cream bucket, the source of a great deal of icy raptures and bliss, is still with me, but then, the wooden bucket coordinated perfectly with my living room decor , that the poor ice cream churner now serves as a container for my plant ! It really does look so very cute though!
Once, while sitting through a very boring sermon half asleep, I heard the word ‘ice cream’ My ears pricked up and I was all attention personified. The preacher was saying that our Maker is like an ice cream maker – he creates us in different flavors. Awesome! What a delightful thought! God, an Ice cream maker? Well, this concept impresses me. I think I would like to be the minty choc chip flavored ice cream, with maybe just a little hint of Kahlua liqueur for added flavor? Done, that’s decided.
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| A birthday sundae I had at Singapore |
Back then, while growing up, Vanilla, Strawberry, Pista, Chocolate and Mango were the only flavors available here, while there were about a couple of exotic deserts like peach Melba and Banana split and a sundae containing two or three scoops of assorted ice creams with chocolate sauce and nuts topping. That’s it!That’s about all ! Surely the present generation will shake their heads in utter disbelief at this measly choice, but we were quite happy, after all, icecream is icecream. Then came along another slogan -‘Monday, Tuesday, we want Sundae.’ Sounds adorable! Now the market is flooded with unimaginable amazing flavors of ice creams and gelatos! I don’t know if the following story is true or a myth. It seems, an ice cream vendor at a fair, did not have enough vessels to serve ice cream, so he took the help of a waffle maker and rolled up the ice cream in waffles and served . Thus, waffles and ice cream were invented. A real innovative genius, in the category of Edison and Newton! Thro’ my life’s journey, I’ve learnt the following frosty icicles of wisdom- “Ice-cream transcends all ages... Ice-cream never lets you outgrow it.’ How very true! The internet is also cashing in on the icecream passion where e-cards sites call July 13th as the Ice cream month! Ice cream cone day is supposed to be on July 23rd , Soft Icecream Day on August 19th, Banana Split day on Aug22nd , Icecream sundae Day on Aug 2nd and so on and so forth. Well, well.. what can one say?
And finally, in conclusion I’d like to add, a teeny weeny twirl to the Bards famous words:
”Age cannot wither the fascination for ice creams nor custom stale its
infinite flavors”
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| My sister and I in Singapore. |
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| Why am I eying my niece's ice cream ? |
Copyright © 2011 Laila. All Rights Reserved
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| Coconut leaves |
Look around your garden! You will find umpteen varieties of twigs. Why not make an arrangement out of those twigs? Nothing is as satisfying as making your own arrangement. This twig arrangement was made out of the stuff from my garden!You need.
- A cane bowl or any bowl,on which twigs can be stuck.
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| Materials |
- Styrofoam or oasis
- Soft twigs. (I had used dried coconut leaves cut into strips)
ethod Step 1. Apply white glue on the container. Gather the soft twigs and spread white glue on it as well. Smoothen the twigs and press it on the container. Press it well. Let it dry. Step 2.
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| Glue twigs onto the container |
Cut the styrofoam or oasis to fit the container and arrange the twigs and flowers according to your imagination. Step 3. If you want to paint the container to match your décor ,use a suitable matching paint. I had painted it dark brown, to go with my decor. Step 4.
Place the dried arrangement inside the container.
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| Paint Twig and place the arrangement inside the twig container |
Yes, that’s it! Your home made twig arrangement is ready!
(Never mind if they are grand moms , moms in law and in-waiting moms in law)
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| The Seven Damsels |
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| Party time! |
There are these seven damsels,Tucked away in a remote corner
of South India, But then, there burns a flame Inside each one of them, To make footprints in the sands
of time.
Munira, loaded with fun ideas to
create terrific get-togethers, Bindiya, the fashion diva, Uma, the dancer with delightful twinkle toes, Sureka, the writer and journalist, Lashmi, the resourceful, handling everything over her cell phone, Shashi, the social worker and Tamil poet And last but not least, Laila the dreamer!
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| Potluck Lunch |
Like crayons of various hues, This bunch of assorted damsels Share a common love for Laughter , fun and cooking . Each damsel is an unique individual Doing her own thing her way But together times are beautiful times!
These damsels sowed seeds
of friendship,two and a half decades ago,
And now they reap bushels of amity and happiness!
Like fine wine their friendship has gotten sweeter, Like antique it has become valuable, Like river it just flows! Whether they could make footprints in the sands of time one cannot tell, But they have certainly made footprints in each others' hearts!
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| The Trekking Damsels |
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| The Eco-Friendly damsels.. |
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| Planting trees at Lakshmi's estate. |
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| The Symbolic Damsels on Women's Day! |
I’m back! Back to our world! Back to our normal, regular good old chaotic world. Good. But then, where had I been? Maybe, kidnapped to an alien world? No, I was just sort of sucked into a virtual world, a world that had me in its clutches for a year and a half. I was dangerously close to being devoured by this virtual world’s quicksand.
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| My villa and crops |
It all started in such a harmless manner. I bought a piece of land in this virtual idyllic world, where I built my own house, my sheep and pig pens, nursery barn, chicken coop, with the help of amazingly wonderful neighbors. I ploughed , sowed the lush virgin soil and harvested bushels of crops, raised chickens , watered the seedlings ever so lovingly and grew them to trees. I even bred polka dotted and star sheep and not to mention the checked and striped pigs. Awesome! I had a stable with a variety of such handsome stallion and mares, that they could put any Arabian horse to shame. I was so very engrossed tending to my farm from morning till midnight , that I shunned my real-time friends and outings. I abandoned my passions like dressing, cooking and writing. But the biggest casualty was my figure. Did I go out of shape? Of course not, I am still in shape! Round is a shape is’nt it? The virtual world to where I was transported is, FARMVILLE- a farming game in Facebook. It ‘s a wonderful ,peaceful and beautiful world where neighbors lived in perfect harmony - ever ready to help you out, the animals and birds were so cute and colourful and to top it all, you could even harvest cupcakes, fruit bars and grow cotton candy trees, bubblegum trees , gem and crystal trees as well. Is’nt it just perfect! The ultimate Eden. Let me hasten to add that I am not giving up on Farmville totally but just spare it a limited time each day!
Returning back to reality, I decided to rehabilitate myself by doing the following:
- Wrote this blog
- Cleared my outdated cosmetics and expired dated cream and lotion jars.
- Emptied my closet of those nightmarish clothes I used to hang around at home while working hard at my farm.
- Enrolled myself at a gym
- Planned a shopping spree over the weekend
My friends and loved ones rejoice that they have found their lost one. Am I a prodigal daughter?
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| A corner of my English Country side |
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| My fruit-bar crops |
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