I distinctly remember that as a child, I did not like the taste of anything sweet anytime of the day, but especially during breakfast. I hated cereal, bread with jam, pastries, etc. To be honest, I still hate all those for breakfast. For me, breakfast has to be savory and preferably Indian. I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been for my mom that I didn’t eat the most ubiquitous of foods!

However, it all comes back – my daughter now has almost same food preferences! She hates sweets and prefers a savory Indian breakfast. Her favorite is dosa, and idly comes in a close second. I’ve been experimenting with different varieties of idly and dosa, in order to balance her nutrition. One of my favorites has been oats idly.

Coming back to our trip and planning out A’s meals, I decided I would make some instant idly and dosa mixes which could be mixed with water / yoghurt and used to prepare idly or dosa quickly at our AirBnB accommodation. I have a microwave idly plate similar to this one. While I’ve not had great success with idlies made from the standard fermented urad dal + rice batter, I have been quite satisfied with rava idlies. Oats idlies are similar to rava idlies in principle and lend themselves well to instant formulae, so I figured why not. There are two stages to this recipe: making the mix, and then making the idlies. In this post, I’ve shared both stages. I’ve shared the stove-top method for making the idlies here, plus a guideline for the microwave method. The microwave method may vary across microwaves due to differing powers, differing sizes of microwave idly plate, etc. Anyway, on to the recipe. It is inspired by Veg Recipes of India.

Mix:

Ingredients (makes 4 cups of mix):

Oats (rolled or quick-cooking) – 2.5 cups
Semolina / rava / sooji – 1.5 cups
Oil – 2 tsp
Dry Red chillies – 5
Urad dal – 2 tsp
Cumin seeds / jeera – 1 tsp
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Green chillies – 6 -8 or to taste
Ginger – 1 inch, grated fine
Asafoetida / hing – 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste (I used 2 tsp)
Dehydrated coriander leaves (optional) [*]

Method:

1. Powder oats, keep aside.
2. Heat oil. When oil is hot, add mustard seeds.
3. When mustard seeds splutter, add cumin seeds, urad dal, dried red chillies broken in half and asafoetida.
4. When the above ingredients turn brown, lower the heat to a minimum. Add the green chillies and ginger. Fry these until the green chillies and ginger are both crisp and all the moisture has been cooked out. This is important as we want the idly mix to last for a few weeks and for that, the mix shouldn’t have any excess moisture.
5. Add the powdered oats and the rava. Roast until the entire mix is golden.
6. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. Add salt and dehydrated coriander leaves [*].
7. Store in an airtight jar and use as per need following the method below.

[*] If you love coriander in your food as much as I do, you can add dehydrated coriander leaves to your mix! Here’s what you do. Heat the oven to the lowest temperature you can. Finely chop a couple of tbsp of coriander leaves and spread on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (important – the leaves shouldn’t be in direct contact with the baking sheets). Leave in the oven until dried out completely. I turned off my oven after 10 minutes, and then left the leaves in there for 6 hours until they were dehydrated.

To make idlies from mix:

Ingredients:

Instant idly mix – 1/2 cup (makes 6 idlies)
Plain yoghurt – 1/2 cup
Eno fruit salt – 1/2 tsp
Water – 1 tbsp if required

Method:

1. Beat yoghurt and idly mix together. Leave aside for 5 minutes.
2. Grease idly plates.
3. Add water if the batter has thickened too much.
4. Add Eno fruit salt.
5. Stovetop method: cook for 15 minutes and allow to cool for 5.
6. Microwave method: cook on high for 1 minute, flip, cook on high for another 30 seconds.
7. Serve hot with condiment of choice.

Although sand play as a sensory play has been touched upon time and time again, I still wanted to bring it up on this blog because it’s very easily accessible to most of us, cheap and such a a great part of a healthy sensory diet. Your child is typically ready to play in sand between the age of 12-18 months (of course, bear in mind that every child is different, sooner or later is just as fine too!)

My criteria for allowing A to play in the sand pit at the neighborhood park was a crucial one to me: I allowed her to get her hands dirty when I saw that she had (for the most part) understood the distinction between playing and eating. It is important to note that mouthing is how children at this age explore things. If your kid is trying to eat dirt, or sand, it is because that’s part of their process of exploring. Not that I’m justifying eating the sand! I bring it up because once you understand why they do it, it may make it easier to deal with it!

As A learnt to eat different kinds of solids, she also learnt about taste, developing tastes of her own, she also learnt what doesn’t taste good. While I did not let her enter the sand pit for many months, she always knew the texture and feel of sand from here and there – on the steps of the slide, the slide itself, etc. For many months, she also tried to eat it. One fine day, I realized that she was just playing with it and not eating it. The very next day I decided she was ready to play in the sand pit, with her sand toys!

Eating or not, sand is a wonderfully sensory toy. You could start off by making a non-toxic sand pit at home using edible items such as roasted semolina (rava / sooji), or cornmeal. That way, even if your ever-curious child tries to mouth some, it isn’t the worst thing. Eventually, they will learn that there are way more fun things to do with the sand than eat it!

We also introduced sand toys at this stage. They don’t have to be fancy or sophisticated toys! sand toys can be as simple as empty plastic containers and extra ladles from your kitchen. Your little one will love trying to scoop out sand from the pit and pour it in the bucket! Of course, she may try to pour some on herself too. My little one pretty much needs a wash and a new set of clothes by the time she’s home, but so what! You could also take an old sieve and pour sand through it, or use a mould of some sort and wet sand to make sand sculptures. Using sand toys in the park has also introduced the practice of sharing to A, as she learns to share some of her toys with her friends at the park.

Sand play has become her favorite new addition to her long list of park activities. It’s a great form of independent play – of course, a huge plus in my book, giving us time to catch up on some reading or with some friends. I’m so happy she’s learnt how to play with sand. Do try it out !

On the outset, let me just say that I do not know much about politics. I have made no pretense of understanding much about political matters, nor do I try to feign an opinion.

But living in US during what appears to be one of the most hard-fought presidential campaigns ever, one can’t help opining peripherally. I think, for me, the real shock is not that Donald Trump is the next President of the United States. Sure, I understand, we all live in our social bubbles and social media had me convinced that Clinton would win. I was all-for a female leader, but that still wasn’t the biggest disappointment.

No, the real shock is that he has enough supporters for this to happen. It is one thing that his values are far from ideal, and his treatment of women sub-par to say the least. But the fact that he had more than half the voting population support said values? As women, we want to see the world move towards equality, and respect to womenkind. We do not want to see ourselves regress. As a woman, I am sad to see this regression. As a mother to a baby girl, I shudder to think that society can regress further.

Is this what we want for our kids? Is this the world we want them to grow up in? Isn’t this world, that we work towards building, all for them? Aren’t we supposed to progress, and not regress? These are just some of the issues that shock me about yesterday’s outcome. I hope and pray that things get better, moving forward, and that the people on either side of the divide in this country are able to overcome their differences, and understand that they are all here for the same important reasons – to make a better society, for all mankind.