MANGO TULSI ICECREAM

The season of mangoes is almost coming to an end. Summers without icecream are just incomplete. And I couldn’t wait for another 6 months to have these super easy homemade mango icecream. People who are regular readers of my blog must have figured out by now, my immense love for desserts and sweets. This is one thing I just cant skip in the season of mangoes. I make it almost on a daily basis. Its super easy, all you need to have is a handy blender. That’s it.

Yesterday, when I was planning to make it again for one last time, I saw a lot of tulsi plant growing in my backyard. I mostly use tulsi  to make tea and I quite like its taste. It has medical properties as well and is said to fight against cold and cough. Well, I am suffering from cold and cough but still had a craving for icecream’s. So thought of mixing the two, I thought tulsi will neutralize the effect of icecream and hence I can safely have it. (You know, I can give any lame excuse to have icecreams :P).

whenever I am trying something new, I make it in less quantities. Initially I tried this with only my cup of icecream. To my normal mango icecream, I just added some tulsi leaves to the last cup and froze it separately for me. It was nice creamy and fluffy. Also I liked the taste of tulsi in it. For my cold and cough, that excuse wasn’t that lame I feel, it has reduced to some extent. Try this out before the season of mangoes is over; the ingredients and method are written below.

Serves- 4

Ingredients:

Whipped cream – 2 cup

mango puree- 1 cup
tulsi leaves – 10-15
sugar- 1 cup (according to the sweetness of your mangoes)
salt- a pinch

optional:

nuts(finely chopped)- 4-5

cherry-2-3

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Method

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1.     Whip cream and sugar in a blender till fluffy. Add mango puree, tulsi leaves, and nuts to it. Finally add a pinch of salt and blend all the ingredients well.

2.     Pour it a container, and freeze it.  When it is half frozen, take it out and blend again. Repeat this step twice till you right consistency and enough fluffiness. At last freeze it completely and its ready to serve.

3.     Garnish it with chopped cherries, and tulsi leaves.

mango icecream

mango tulsi icecream

masala mango chaas (buttermilk)

I am back again with a new experiment. Though this was something that even I was scared before trying, but fortunately it turned out well and may be that’s why I am sharing it here. I just had to find a solution to the same old chaas (buttermilk) that my mom prepares usually. We prefer using home made butter and ghee and as you know the left over liquid or chaas is a by-product that we have to drink (or more appropriately forced to drink :P). I have used this by-product but you can alternatively replace it with curd and water (that will be more of a lassi, I suppose), whatever is easier for you. It is considered one of the best natural appetizer and very good for health.  also a perfect beverage in hot summer. But I was bored with the traditional masala or pudina flavouring, so thought of trying mangoes this time. The combo of traditional masala tanginess with the sweetness of mango blends well. Just remember one thing if you are making it during fast (vart) replace the common salt with sendha namak and don’t add chat masala.

Cooking time- 5 mins

Serves- 2

Ingredients:

Buttermilk– 250 ml (2 glass)

mango pulp - 1 cup
Black salt –  2 teaspoon
pepper powder- 1 teaspoon

Chaat masala – 2 teaspoon

mint leaves(optional) – few to garnish

Sugar (optional) to taste

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Method

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    Put all the ingredients in a blender expect mint leaves. Blend for around few minutes until everything mixes well. Now add crushed ice and mint leaves. Serve chilled.

note- For fancy serving, put little water on the rim of the glass. In a small plate, take few spoons of salt. dip the glass into salt, to get the decorated rim. Pour the chaas into glass, and sprinkle chaat masala add mint leaves, a slice of lemon and a straw to garnish. Serve chilled.

Try other simple mango recipes,

Mango tulsi icecream

Mango milkshake

Mango lassi

Sweet Khoya Paan #festive special

The name sounds interesting. Isn’t it? yup! you read it right, I am going to stuff the khoya mixture in a paan leaf. Paan actually enhances the taste of khoya. (well, I just discovered that). And it’s also good for health. Try this out, you’re going to love it. And paan leaves are easily available everywhere. A good alternative to those unhealthy masala paan’s. happy sweets to you.

  

Ingredients:

·         Paan leaves(betel leaf)- 10 leaves

·         Khoya- 2 cups

·         Sugar- 1 cups

·         cardamom powder- 1/2 teaspoon

·         chopped almond- 10

·         Milk powder- 2 tsp

·         Salt- a pinch

Method

1.       grate and roast the khoya on medium heat till it becomes soft.

2.      Add one cup sugar and milk powder to it and mix well. Then add cardamom powder to it.

3.      Take it off the heat and add chopped nuts and mix. Cool and keep aside.

4.     Fold the paan leaves in the form of a cone and secure it.

5.      Stuff it with the khoya mixture.

6.   Sprinkle dry fruits to garnish. Your sweet khoya paan is ready.

Parwal Ki Mithai

I made it last week, but just today while having it, I thought to writing this on my blog. Although this sweet is popularly available in sweet shops throughout kolkata, I don't know why I wasn’t able to find it, therefore thought of making it myself. And honestly it tasted better than the outside ones. just one thing I would like to mention please don’t through away the seeds of parwal, you can use it as an ingredient for a different recipe. I made sweet and sour veg tarts out of it. You can try it too (here's the link: https://simplyritu.blogspot.in/2016/07/sweet-and-sour-veg-tarts.html ). enjoy your self made delicacy. I garnished it with some flowers i found in my backyard. looks good isnt it? 

Ingredients:

·         Parwals- 500 grams

·         Khoya- 2 cups

·         Sugar- 2 cups

·         cardamom powder- 1/2 teaspoon

·         chopped almond- 10-15

·         Milk powder- 4 tsp

·         Salt- a pinch

Method

1.       Peel the parwal’s, slit and remove the seeds from inside. (don’t throw away the seeds. You can use it for a different tasty recipe link given above.)

2.      In another pan boil 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup of water to make a thin sugar syrup.

3.      Heat water in a different pan, add a pinch of salt and the parwals and boil for 1-2 minutes.

4.     Drain and put them in the sugar syrup and cook till they soften.

5.      grate and roast the khoya on medium heat till it becomes soft. Add one cup sugar and milk powder and mix well. Then add cardamom powder.

6.     Take it off the heat and add chopped nuts and mix. Cool and keep aside.

7.     Stuff the parwals with the khoya mixture.

8.   Sprinkle dry fruits to garnish. Your khoya parwal mithai is ready.

shahi coffee tukra #eid special

Its Eid, one of the prominent festivals of India. And festivals are so incomplete without sweets, don’t you think? So I thought of making some sweets. What better than shahi tukre to start with. Also it goes perfectively with the festival. Honestly I don’t have any clue, how shahi tukra’s are originally made. its just my version of a shahi tukra. I love the flavor of coffee so I fused in that as well. I  loved it. Hope you love it too.

Ingredients required:

·       Coffee- 2 tsp

·       Milk-1 cup

·       Condensed milk- ½ cup

·       Khoya- 100 gm

·       Sugar-  2 tsp

·       Bread-  4-5 slices

·       Oil- ¼ cup

·       Green cardamom-2

·       Butter- ¼ cup

·       Cherry and nuts(optional)

Method:

1.       Fry bread slices in hot oil till crisp. Soak them in milk for 5 mins. Cut each slice into 4 pieces. Cool them and keep aside

2.     In a frying pan, put butter, let it melt and then add khoya, add sugar to taste.

3.      Mix coffee and milk together. Put it into the khoya mixture. Mix all the ingredients well. Then add green cardamom powder and mix again till the mixture reduces to a fine paste.

4.     Coat the bread slices in milkmaid and pipe out this mixture on each piece.  Decorate with nuts and cherries. Your shahi coffee tukra is ready to serve.

Sweet and Sour Veg Tarts

This is pretty simple to make and its healthy too. I tried it out as a evening snack, its one of the tasty and healthy alternative to all the junk foods. Tarts can usually be stored for around 2-3 weeks. i had some left over tarts from before so all i had to do is shallow fry some sprouts as a filling for my tarts. i had used olive oil to make even more healthier but you alternatively use refine oil/butter. So the next time you feel like having some junk food, try this healthier alternative.

Preparation Time: 30 mins

Ingredients required:

for tarts:

·        plain flour(maida)- 1 1/2 cups

·        salt- a pinch

·        butter- 1/2 cup

for filling-

·        olive oil/refine oil- 1/2 cup

·        sweetcorn- 1/4 cup

·        sprouted pulse (moong dal)- 1/4 cup

·        sprouted chickpeas(kala chana)- 1/4 cup

·        curd- 1/2 cup

·        chaat masala- 2 tbsp

·        tamarind(imli)- 1

·        green chilli-2-3

·        onion-1 medium

·        tomatoes- 2 medium

Method:

for tarts:

1.       Sieve the flour and salt together.

2.      mix butter into the flour mixture. slowly add cold water and knead it into a stiff dough. cool for at least 10 mins.

3.      Knead the dough again, divide it into 10 equal portions.

4.     Roll out a portion of the dough into a circle. Place the circle into a tart case and press the circle gently around the sides of the tart case. Prick all over the tarts with the help of a fork.

5.      bake it in a pre-heated oven at 200ºc for approx. 10 to 15 minutes.

for filling:

1.       heat oil in a frying pan, then add chopped tomatoes, chillies and onion. Add salt to it and shallow fry till onion change its colour to pinkish brown.

2.      Add pulses, kala chana and sweetcorn to it and swallow fry it again for few mins.

3.      Finally add chatmasala and tamarind paste to it and mix all the ingredients well.

4.     Fill the mixture in baked tarts and garnish it with ½ tsp of curd on each tart.

5.      Your sweet and sour tarts is ready to dig intoJ

Elon musk - the man of 2050.

We all have wondered, at some point of time, what our destiny has in store for us? But have we ever thought about the things that would have the greatest impact on the future of mankind?

Technology is constantly evolving and it has a significant role in changing our lives for a better future.With a vision of creating the impossible, Elon Reeve Musk has made a powerful impact to our changing societies. Born in a South African family he has become a Canadian-American business magnate with an estimated net worth of US$12.7 billion, making him the 83rd wealthiest person in the world (as on June 2016). An engineer,  inventor,  explorer and an entrepreneur, who dares not only to dream big but also has the power to turn his visions into reality. Musk felt that ‘humans, are at edge of extinction’ and hence his primary goal included, reducing global warming and "making life multiplanetary" by setting up a human colony on Mars.

His life changing works include, SpaceX, Tesla Motors, SolarCity, OpenAI, Zip2 and the most renowned PayPal . He personally participates in designing electric cars and spaceships. To reach his goal at the highest possible speed, he has also envisaged high-speed  transportation system known as the Hyperloop, and has proposed a VTOL supersonic jet aircraft with electric fan propulsion, known as the Musk electric jet.

founder, CEO and CTO of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors; co-founder and chairman of SolarCity, co-chairman of OpenAI; co-founder of Zip2; and co-founder of PayPal

Zip2:

Musk always thought ahead of time. In 1995, when internet was experiencing a rapid growth, he together with brother Kimbal created their first IT Company, Zip2, an internet cityguide for the newspaper publishing industry. He created a platform where eminent newspapers like New York times and Chicago Tribune could offer their customers additional commercial services. He started this company with a meager funding of US$28,000 and sold it after 4 years in 1999 to the biggest search engine of that time AltaVista (later acquired by Compaq), for US$307 million in cash and US$34 million in stock. Musk received 7% or US$22 million from this sale.

X.com and PayPal:

Musk was among the first ones to think about internet payment services and therefore In March 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company, with US$10 million from the sale of Zip2. . In March 2000, X.com merged with a rival company Confinity that was running by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin.

Confinity developed software to allow owners of PalmPilots and other PDAs to store encrypted information on their devices, creating the first digital wallet. In 2001, after the merger, X.com was renamed to PayPal and Elon Musk became the chairman and chief executive of PayPal. In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk received US$165 million.

SpaceX:

Musk’s thought of colonizing Mars; hence his next venture was space exploration Technologies Corporation or SpaceX. It was inspired by an idea of reducing space transportation costs to make life possible even on Mars. In 2001, Musk conceptualized "Mars Oasis"; a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars, containing food crops growing on Martian regolith, which could have become a basis for a self-sustaining ecosystem.

The major problem was huge delivery cost of greenhouses to Mars. He along with his friends met with Kosmotras, who offered them one rocket for US$8 million, which according to Musk was too expensive. He calculated that the cost price of all parts required for constructing a launch vehicle was only 2% of the launch vehicle price in U.S.  It was only then, he felt the need of starting a company that could build affordable rockets. He assured to reduce the cost of launch vehicles and space ships by tenfold. Musk ended up founding SpaceX (in June 2002) with the long-term goal of creating a "true spacefaring civilization.” Musk is the chief executive officer (CEO) and chief technology officer (CTO) of the Hawthorne, California-based company, spaceX.

 The primary mission of SpaceX was not a delivery of astronauts and cargo into orbit, but colonization of other planets like Mars. On November 9, 2010, SpaceX raised an external investment of $50.2 million.

The company's first two launch vehicles were the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets and its first spacecraft is the Dragon. In 2006-2008, the first three flight attempts failed. In the period of 2006 to 2015 companies like DARPA, NASA, ORS, Celestas, ATSB, SpaceDev, Orbcomm, NSPO, Astrium got interested in SpaceX and ran several test launches of Falcon 1 rocket.

 In the next seven years, SpaceX designed the family of Falcon launch vehicles and the Dragon multipurpose spacecraft. In September 2008, SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket became the first privately funded liquid-fueled vehicle to put a satellite into Earth orbit. On May 25, 2012, the SpaceX Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, making history as the first commercial company to launch and berth a vehicle to the International Space Station.

 Tesla Motors

In 2003, engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founded Tesla Motors, a company dedicated to producing affordable, mass-market electric cars. Musk participated in designing of their first electric car, called Tesla Roadster, it was a sports car capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, as well as traveling nearly 250 miles between charges of its lithium ion battery. Musk insisted on using carbon fiber composite materials in the hull to minimize weight, developed the battery module and even some elements of design, like the headlights. By 2006, the project has got into newspapers and Musk received Global Green 2006 product design award for Tesla Roadster design. His other successes include the Model S, the company's first electric sedan, Capable of covering 265 miles between charges, it was also honored as the 2013 Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine.

There is an upcoming cross-over Tesla Model X, which is planned to be delivered for new reservations in the latter half of 2016. Model X P90D has 259 hp front, 503 hp rear motor power and a 0-60 mph (0-97 kmh) run of 3.2 seconds with Ludicrous Speed Upgrade. The car is equipped with the first true HEPA filter with “Bioweapon Defense Mode” button in a car. Musk stated that when the HEPA filter operates at a maximum performance no pollen, bacteria or viruses could be detected in the cabin.

 

model S and model X

Hyperloop

Forget about all your transportation problems with this new venture of musk, called hyperloop. Musk claims that his proposed Hyperloop will cost just $6 billion (which is one-tenth of the cost for the rail system in California) and will be able to cover a distance of 615 km in a mere 30 minutes.

The Hyperloop looks like something out of Futurama. Passengers would enter a 2-meter wide pod that would be zipped through a long low pressure tubes. Its speed would be more than 700 mph. The entire thing would run on renewable electric energy and would be resistant to weather as well. This would result in a low impact form of transportation that could help alleviate traffic burden across the country (when installed elsewhere).

SolarCity

Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which was then co-founded in 2006 by his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive.  Musk is the largest shareholder. SolarCity is now the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States

The underlying motivation for funding both SolarCity and Tesla is to help combat global warming. In 2012, Musk announced that SolarCity and Tesla Motors are collaborating to use electric vehicle batteries to smooth the impact of rooftop solar on the power grid, with the program going live in 2013.

On June 17, 2014, Musk committed to building in Buffalo, New York, a SolarCity advanced production facility that would triple the size of the largest solar plant in the United States. Musk stated the plant will be "one of the single largest solar panel production plants in the world", and it will be followed by one or more even bigger facilities in subsequent years.

The Tesla Battery

The Tesla battery is a part of the clean energy company SolarCity. Founded in 2006, this company seeks to make renewable energy something that every home will not only be able to afford but will want to incorporate.

SolarCity designs and installs clean energy systems in residential and commercial settings. They have designed the Tesla Battery, a high-efficiency sleek looking battery, which can be enough to completely remove someone from the grid (given adequate solar panels, low consumption, and other factors). The big idea here is that by using SolarCity’s clean energy updates a household can become less dependent on electricity, power their electric vehicle, and ultimately reduce their footprint on the environment without spending an outrageous amount of money.

OpenAI

In December 2015, Elon Musk announced the creation of OpenAI, a not-for-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company. OpenAI aims to develop artificial general intelligence in a way that is safe and beneficial to humanity.

DeepMind Technologies

Musk struck buyout gold again with his artificial intelligence company DeepMind Technologies. The company launched in late 2010 with Musk as one of the key angel investors. The company would eventually sell to Google for an unconfirmed amount, but most reports put the value between $400 and $600 million.

The Bottom Line:

Musk has always ahead of time. From PayPal taking over the digital currency world to SpaceX already making flights to Tesla building, Musk’s inventions and companies will definitely change the world and our lifestyles by 2050. He believes in using renewable forms of energy, making the world a better place, not only for us but for the generations ahead.