Pasta - Types that Tingles Our Tongue

​Pasta is a very easy to cook healthy Mediterranean diet. It is of four broad types: tubular, ribbon, strand and stuffed. Let's take a deeper look at them and what makes the differences. 

Tubular are long and elongated pasta that take the form of tubes through which the sauce can penetrate through. They are straw-shaped pasta. 

1. Macaroni is the famous tube shaped pasta that is curved like a shell.  The sauce oozes through the holes. 

2. Penne is another famous and trending pasta in tubes. These are straight and elongated short tubes. 

3. Cannelloni are bigger tubes that are stuffed and topped with sauce and baked to serve. 

4. Rigatoni is a tubular pasta but much bigger than penne and comes in a wide range of size. 

5. Bucatini is another tubular pasta that are as long as spaghetti but with a hole in the center like a straw.

6. Manicotti are much rigid bigger tubes like cannelloni that can be stuffed and served with a pasta sauce.

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Ribbon pasta are long stacks of slender pasta flat bread-like sticks. They do not have holes but they come in a wide variety. 

1. Lasagne are getting very common these days. These pasta sheets are flat and are layered with topping and sauce alternating with each other in layers, baked and served. 

2. Fettucine are long flat strands of pasta. They are much like spaghetti but are flatter. 

3. Tagliatelle are balls of flat strands of pasta. 

4. Linguine is 4 mm wide and elliptical type of pasta. 

5. They are broad and flat pasta noodles. 

6. Mafaldine are twisted flat pasta sticks. 

The idea of making ribbon pasta varieties is that the flat strands size and shape blends with the sauce and the toppings in a different manner thereby has a difference in the taste.

Strands are pasta that are like ribbon pasta but are much thinner and longer. These pasta are faster to cook many times merely sauting and mixing with the sauce itself is good enough. 

1. Spaghetti is a very famous italian pasta that are slender and long sticks.  They are little chewy strands. 

2. Vermicelli are very thin and small strands of pasta that are packed as a mesh or broken pieces.   

Stuffed pasta are some of the most delicacy. It is very tasty as the pasta stuffing also gets cooked. The stuffing is packed within the dough, dried and stored. 

1. Ravioli are thin dough filling pasta stuffed with spinach, ricotta and spices. 

2. Tortelloni are shaped differently and the stuffing dough is a little thicker with spinach and ricotta cheese as stuffing. 

3. Agnolotti pasta are stuffed dough with roasted meat and vegetables. 

Just get wired to creativity and make your own pasta bowl. Its the easiest and tastiest dish to be made. 

Pasta - Sauces that Flavours Nostrils to Buds

What I love about eating pasta are the wide variety of fragrances that the sauces can bring to nostrils and taste buds. I like to enjoy my pasta in a wide variety of sauces. Though my favourite is the white sauce, I enjoy eating the red or the tomato sauce as well. Here is a quick look at some of the common sauces and how they are made. 

Alfredo sauce: Add the cream and butter to simmer and when the sauce thickens top it with Parmesan cheese. The creamy and smooth white sauce that sticks to your lips and mouth for some time with a tangy salty taste is inevitably a feast to enjoy. Enhance the flavour with a wide range of herbs like vanila, rosemary, cilantro, coriander and mint. 

Arrabiatta sauce: This is a sauce that is made of tangy tomato and hot chilli that takes your sensation to the next level. It has the option to create variations by adding a zest of extra tangy lemon or a wide range of aromatic herbs from rosemary to mint and coriander. 

Marinara: This is a typical Italian tomato sauce simmered with loads of garlic and a wide variety of herbs to taste. 

Pesto: Pesto is green sauce made with basil and loads of garlic and cheese. This is rarely found in the market but is a delicacy that can be readily made at home. The difficulty in making this sauce is that the basil will start leaving water in the sauce which will reduce the creamy texture and has to be always prepared fresh. 

My White Sauce: Maybe I should name this sauce Cheez. I make my white sauce with milk simmered with creamy cheese and this simmered sauce is flavoured with spices like dry red chilli or pepper and herbs. 

What's the powder fragrance do to your complexion?

What inspired me to blog is the photo of mine that had different colour fragrances showed different complexions. 

The most common powder that changes your complexion to rosy sun-kissed cheeks is Rose powder. The rose powder made with the mild fragrance of rose imparts a rosy color to your cheeks. It adds a bashful you to your face. 

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Usually, all of us think that's the only powder that we think adds colour to our face. Many think the face powder makes our face turn white. But that's not true, the complexion changes according to the fragrance. 

Sandal powder turns your face to a tint of yellow complexion that glows your inner beauty. If the colour of your complexion is fair, then use sandal powder and flaunt the beauty of your radiant skin. 

If your complexion is brown to dark then use powder with fragrances like Jasmine and mild white flowers that the powder will just leave you the long-lasting freshness and fragrance. Lavender fragrance is another powder that suits and radiates the freshness and beauty for any complexion. 

This is my experience with different powders and varying fragrances. 

Beauty tip: I choose my powder fragrance according to the seasons: sandalwood for summer, dreamflower to lavender for winter and rainy seasons.

Tea - The Indian Drink - Flavour and Flavoured!

Tea is the thirst quencher for Indians. The drink of China and Japan is also the secret for the longevity of youthoood in Indian race too!!!

Tea known for the voluminous antioxidants, flavanoids and phenols powered with the milder theamine is a rejuvenating drink that does no harm. This do not dehydrate but rehydrate and is good for your heart. India is a tea-drinking country.

I want to list out the different varieties of tea.

Milk Tea and Black Tea: Milk tea is tea brewed in milk with sugar added to taste. Black Tea brewed in water and drunk with sugar or jaggery added to taste. Milk tea has its advantages of milk absorbing all the harmful phenols and other chemicals in the tea, black tea is considered to retain the medicinal properties of tea intact. Black Tea is known to reduce weight. Both use fermented tea leaves. 

Indian Teas:

Masala Chai: It is milk tea mixed with spices like cardamom, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. the proportion of spices make the tea is an identity to many households. 

Butter Tea:Butter  tea is also known as Gur Gur. It is made of yak butter, tea and salt. This tea is suitable for high altitudes as it provides a good amount of calories that need to be burnt. 

Kulhad Chai: Tea served in kulhad, clay pots are kulhad tea. There is an alternative version when the kulhad are made hot on tandoori stove, brewed in these hot kulhad and served in cold kulhad. 

Amrut Tulya: Mumbai version of tea made with freshly ground ginger, cardamom and few other spices. The tea is made in brass vessel and is served sweet. 

Mamri tea: Like how coffee is brewed and served fresh, tea leaves can be crushed, torn and curled and served fresh. This is common way of serving fresh industry tea in Assam and Nilgiris. 

Herbal Teas: Herbal teas are tea leaves infused with or homogenised with herbal leaves from various resources like chamomile, shoeflower, lemon, lemongrass and so on. 

Green Tea: Green teas are made from fresh green tea leaves that are not fermented but dried and made into tea leaves. They contain catechin that make them very healthy alternative to black tea. Green tea are infused with lemon, honey, ginger and a number of other spices to give the flavour and taste. 

Tea is such a drink that one finding it "taaza" reviving the spirit. 

Reducing Thrash - Small Efforts Bigger Contributions

Small efforts will reap bigger contributions. Thrash is a menace; global weather is fluctuating drastically to blame of climate change. Let me list here what small deeds of us can lead to bigger contributions. I don’t have the statistics but I have the ideas and deeds listed out: 

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Give up single-use plastics. Use paper cartons and clothe bags. It’s fun to carry your bag to the market. 

2.     Switch off lights as much as possible. 

3.     Use technology wisely and less. The more you rest and indulge in other forms of leisure your emotional bonds also will grow.

4.     Stoop throwing garbage on the streets. 

5.     Turn off your TV and computer in the office as you leave the room or desk.

6.     Do group events or family leisure time. 

7.     Grow trees

8.     Keep your vehicle clean and smart that uses nominal fuel and doesn’t form soot.

9.     Stop burning your Agri produces in mass

10.  Electrocute organic material

11.  Judicious use everything in our daily lives

12.  Encourage nature-based products for decoration

13.  Use leaf based and organic material for your family gathering and business conference souvenirs and dinners

14.  ….add your points to this list

Consumerism - Unspoken stressor to Indian Corporates

This is my opinion and observation. Stress, depression, and burnout are the buzz corporate words. People just have the habit of saying they are feeling depressed when the fact is their body and mind are only stressed. How can one stay with them if they are depressed?

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When you face physical fatigue and a mental block, this is only a burnout. Consumerism, your needs forcing you to do workloads of others, is the one that forces you to exert your body and mind. This results in burnout. Continuing and stretching your burnout for your buying sprees is only stress. What to do that we desire and the society sells clothes that wear out after wearing for 2 or 3 times. The consumeristic economic strategies are to be blamed.

Then when you are depressed. You are depressed when you don’t feel the stress and burnout; your buying spree is uncontrollable and you stock up beyond your needs. Your addiction makes you depressed when is not satiated. Depressed that was once a societal taboo these days has turned out to be a fancy word today, without which you are considered normal and odd one in the crowd.

To be normal should one be depressed?

What make FATS - Good or Bad?

If you are working 8 hours a day and give hours at the desk, then you are leading a sedentary lifestyle. On the contrary, if you are going to a gym, walking daily to the office, or actively doing physical exercise then you are leading an active lifestyle. 

The carbs and proteins that you consume despite the fatty avoidances will still form the bad fats in the body from these sources. They form cholesterol and are deposited beneath the skin. Even when you are active these fats do breakdown but make the scenario worse by getting into the blood circulation. Thus these fats pose you to higher risk. 

If you don't consume good fats then you will lose the fat homeostasis in the body causing a number of ailments. The good fats will scavenge these bad fats and keep them in balance and you safe. So consumption of good fats is mandatory. The good fats are the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids that are found in avocado, nuts, and fatty fishes. So consume these daily in proportions and increase your protein intake especially when you plan a weight management schedule.

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An Hour of Animal Helper at Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Center

On the day of Lohri, 14^th January, 2020, which is Bogi in my state of Tamil Nadu where I was born, I decided not to sit with my computer searching for opportunities but spend some break off and relax with animals. I had the day planned with an evening for an alumni event at the Australian High Commission with the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Scott Morrison, in pressing times when I was really wanting a break back to Australia. But the event stood cancelled. And, that didn't push my spirits back to my system in search for a job. So, I took the local metro in Delhi only with the comfort of standing to SGACC, both to and return. This required me to take a hard ride on shared auto as well to their animal hospital for “Indian Roads”. I was dreaming of helping as in Animal Planet series like being a paravet or a helper to the vets but they gave me a broom and dustbin to help their “animal helper” whom I will call as “animal housekeeper”. I took up the job.

SGACC has a root to Australia and so I dropped to them claiming my Australian alumnus status too. We are entitled to do some charity as a give back to the country, especially in collaboration of our passion beyond work. What I always loved are the love-seeking stray animals beyond my own life and my pets that are part of my family. I used to feed the stray and celebrate or share my Christmas time. Thus, my charity is usually taken for granted as I don’t spend “the money”; I was challenged. 

My day was fabulous, as the housekeeper is a very honest woman who asked me to leave the bag and get started. We mutually shared our tactics to clean these animal droppings. I taught her some of our family tactics like using the “dropping powder” everywhere first before starting to pick up that the smell will go away. But she taught me many things in return to get her job done. This was a challenging experience for me as I took the puppy place where there were dogs and cats, specifically a golden brown, a black and white puppy and a cat. The black and white puppy was tamed and it knew that the room will be messy if it didn’t allow me to clean. However, the golden brown was such a big challenge – it was heavy too – wanting my pampering and kind hugs than focus on cleaning its mess. I had to explain it and told it to stop snatching the broom from my hand. On top of this was the black and white cat which was matured enough wanting to purr on my lap when it saw my comfortable squatting position to sweep away the dirt as a desirable it’s purr placement time. Dollie, the housekeeping lady assured me that they behave in this manner with everyone. But how one can forget the sighs when I removed their dirt and monitored interestingly me cleaning up their messes. Never knew how much they missed covering their dirt with sand. I wish they had sand floor in their compartments and is open, if not for the warmth they need during the winter season and the need to tame them for adoption to a home.

Needless to mention, my spondylosis was a real challenge. I could not do my work bending and so I started to paralyse for the amount of physical activity involved. Yet, I wanted to overcome this challenge and took it up till the end. I know I may not have cleaned entirely with Dollie having to dig up the hard and long-time dried stains, which when I asked her about her daily duties. I mopped the entire floor and I learnt the trick of the clothe used by housekeepers.  Yet I found I only won the challenge that I made for myself as I only had to fight the muscular pain later as I enjoyed the hot water bath and sleep on retuning back to hostel. Even otherwise I would have faced for sure this muscular pain for the physical activity involved but probably at a lesser intensity. I was finding awe at the immense stamina that Dollie has to clean up these sheds on daily basis. 

What makes these sheds very difficult to clean are the sofas and pillows they have, but still the cats and dogs, know that they should not dirty them? I’m curious how and where they learn good habits which they don’t do at our home. Is it because we don’t let them be the beast they can be?  

What we can do to these animals who bark in the street and fighting for us only for a wave of greeting at them or occasional bites or a pat that they fight for us from miscreants. So, what the cat does or get in return and keep away the pests away from our houses? I realised that sharing my kindness made me feel good and loved – I had someone wanting love in return and are harmless and is pennies lesser.   

My Christmas poem for 2018

Christmas Biochemistry

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Roaring out in laughter,

Belly fat jumping up and down in joy,

For the season is “Oh...oh...oh!”,

‘‘Tis Christmas season,

Shooting up the endorphins,

Dwindling down the cortisol,

Giving life a balance to fill with joy and hope.

Twinkling stars lighting the dark clad sky,

Lit by moonlight soaring melatonin high,

But Santa’s sleigh speeding past with sparkles that fills stockings, 

Decored houses with many longing happy hearts sleeping tight,

Dreaming of boxes to be opened,

Filled with warmth that has packed love and joy,

Releasing pheromones that is to rapture the Spirit of Christmas.

Jingling bells and hopping choirs with lanterns leading the way,

Shedding warmth to these late-night Christmas messengers,

Knocking doors with joy thumping up a bash of adrenaline,

Sharing ecstatic applause to emulate serotonin into action,

Doesn’t these fill the season with joy and merry? 

A reason to wish everyone and X’changing undoubtful smiles!

- (C) Rachel Predeepa  

What to Serve on Christmas Day?

Christmas symbolises Hope and Peace which in turn brings Prosperity meaning good food, health, wealth, family and people.

Something that my family focuses on Christmas Day celebrations as a tradition is to plan the day’s recipe.

I thought this Christmas that I will collate the global recipes and their base ingredients into one single post. I want to share this as I want people to prosper and never go without food.

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Let’s do it alphabetically:

Angola: Corn meal or cassava flour food, rice, spaghetti, French fries, turkey, fried chicken, cold fish with vegetables, fired fish or beef with tomatoes, garlic, ladies fingers, sweet potatoes, spinach, grilled fish with palm oil beans. Dessert is Bolo Rei cake.

Argentina: Roasted turkey, pork or goat, creamy anchovy and tuna sauce, stuffed tomato, salads, tuna sandwiches, tortillas. Dessert: Christmas bread, pudding, fruit salads, ice cream, pies, sweets like chocolate resins, sugar coated almonds, peanut butter.

Armenia: Rice, fish, chick pea, yoghurt, wheat soup. Dessert is dried fruits and nuts, walnuts in grape jelly, bastukh.

Australia: Cold Christmas dinner, barbecue, prawns, lobsters, seafood. Dessert is Christmas pudding.

Austria: wine, fried carp, roast turkey, roast goose. Dessert is chocolate, apricot cake, gingerbread, Austrian cookies.

Bangladesh: Rice with chicken and vegetable curries. Dessert is rice cake and rice pudding.

Belarus: 12 dishes. Kuccia, pancakes, fish and mushrooms. Dessert is oatmeal fruit, berries and potato starch with milk.

Belgium: Crisps, mini pizza, soup as starters, game or seafood, turkey or chicken, potato croquettes. Dessert is ice cream cake.

Bolivia: Stew or soup of chicken or beef or pork, corn, potatoes, salads, roast beef or turkey. Dessert is tropical fruits.

Brazil: Pork, turkey, salads, dried and fresh fruits, rice cooked with raisins. Desserts is tropical and raisins.

Bulgaria: Rich vegetarian meal, cabbage leaves stuffed with rice, beans soup, peppers stuffed with rice, boiled wheat with sugar and walnuts. Dessert is pastries, dried fruits, oranges.

Canada: Roast turkey with vegetables, mashed potatoes, vegetables. Dessert is Christmas plum pudding, mincemeat tart, Christmas crackers, Christmas fruit cake.

Chile: Barbecue chicken, turkey or pork. Dessert is Chilean Christmas cake, Christmas drink.

China: Apples. Brussels, sprouts, turkey. Dessert is Christmas pudding.

....

Then what about India?

Biriyani is favourite lunch accompanied with dishes that can be vegetables or non-vegetarian; and salad. Desserts will include cake and a range of Indian sweets and savouries. Plum cake is the hot, stolen bread and such are served after church service during coffee fellowship. Ice cream is also a favourite dessert. Chiristmas cookies and chocolates are other favourite. Christmas breakfast and contemporarily dining outside has become a family event on Christmas night. Family games and worship are also entertained with family members.