Illustrated Recipe with Yoga Art

I created this illustration of my original recipe for They Draw and Cook a few months ago.(You will find the full step-by-step instructions with photos here  I finally got around to creating a print version for sale in my Etsy shop. This is the first time I have done an illustrated recipe and combining my signature yoga art with vegetarian cooking and it is an exciting new path. I hope to do more.

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(Republished as a new post as part of Seth Apter's 2013 Treasure Time)

Tips and Tricks for a Perfect Homemade Yogurt

Yogurt is the third rail of south Indian cooking (rice and spices are the other two). No meal can be complete without yogurt or yogurt rice at the end. My husband and I have yogurt every day at least once. Although my husband like store bought yogurt, I find it too sour and unnaturally thick. As often as time permits, I make yogurt at home. 

Mind you, making yogurt is both a science and art. A well made yogurt should be solid and sweet tasting with just hint of tang. Room temperature of around 110°F ± 5°F for 7-8 hours is essential for the fermentation process that converts the inoculated milk into yogurt. Making yogurt is an unfussy task in tropical places like Chennai where even night time temperatures for most of the year hover around 90 degrees. However in colder climates like the New England, there is a lot of cosseting and coddling involved in getting the yogurt to form. The method I use has been very successful in producing consistently thick and sweet tasting yogurt. I must confess, I came upon this method by remembering how my mother used to make delicious yogurt in Delhi's freezing winters.

Ingredients

a. Fresh milk, 1 quart (whole, 2% or 1%)

b. 3 tablespoons of yogurt with active cultures as starter (plain regular or low-fat; if you are doing this for the first time, you can buy a small plain yogurt from the grocery store)

c. an incubator

Instructions

1. Heating: Boil the milk in a stainless steel sauce pan. Here the operative word is boil, not "heat". As you can see in photo 1, the milk is boiled to the brim. This boiling causes the milk proteins to denature and solidify. 

2. Cooling: Let it cool for five minutes. Test the temperature of the milk with your little finger. It should feel hot but not scalding. 

3. Inoculating: Stir in the the yogurt into the milk and gently mix it in. Cover the sauce pan with a lid.

4. Incubating: The purpose of the incubator is to keep the milk warm for several hours while the fermentation is taking place. There are many ways to incubate the milk (check the internet) . Mine is pretty simple. I have a stainless steel box, a fairy deep one, which I use for storing  rice/wheat flour. This  is my incubator. I put the sauce pan containing the milk into this container (flour and all), cover it and let it sit undisturbed for 7-8 hours. 

5. At the end of 7-8 hours, you will have your fresh, thick and sweet yogurt. Works every time!

Note: The thickness of the yogurt is totally dependent on the fat content of the milk. Whole milk produces the thickest yogurt. No matter what the fat content, all home made yogurts taste fresh and sweet.

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Birds on a Wire UMT

This is the first Monday of the month and it is UMT at I am the Diva. The tangle that was chosen came from Mary Kissen and is called Birds on a Wire. It is a very pretty tangle and I decided to dress it up with an actual bird image. The bird comes from one of my watercolor paintings. I printed it on an old book page and filled the space around with various tangles. I also added a little bit of color to the tangles as a way of complementing the colorful bird.

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Found Prose and Zentangle: Challenge #120

The challenge at I am the Diva is called Tangellation Nation and the task is to just use "Bales" as the solo tangle. Bales is easy and versatile and lends itself to much variations. I decided to create an altered page ZIA with found prose. The trick is to highlight certain words and phrases on a printed page while blacking out all other words to create new prose. I have been wanting to do this for a long time. I took a page out of Deepak Chopra's Ageless Body and Timeless Mind and created what you see above. The words that I chose to highlight changed the whole message of that book! I guess that's what artistic expression is all about.

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Weekly Challenge: UMT "KUKE"

This week I am the Diva-CZT uses Katy Abbot "KUKE" tangle for the UMT challenge. The tangle reminded me of a millefiori glass bead, so I thought I would make a jewelry out of it! I like the overall effect especially on the large bead, even though the tangle does not look as crisp on the smaller beads. I used Prisma color pencils and graphite pencil for most of the tangle. I did the red outline with a pen.

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Challenge #115: Earth (aka Amanda) Day

At I am the Diva CZT, we are celebrating Earth Day. In honor of this day, I did my tangle on leaves. These are leaves that had fallen from the beautiful Evergreen Magnolia (magnolia grandiflora) that stands magnificently tall on my front yard. I used acrylic ink and calligraphy pen to draw those patterns.

Below, these leaves are held by my favorite monkey, carved out of hard coconut. Doesn't he look cute?

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Weekly Challenge 114: With the Stars

For this week's challenge at I am the Diva CZT, I fell on an old standby, the South Indian kolam, which is very well suited for angular shapes like stars. The pattern I chose and modified is not a difficult one, but, did not turn out as well as I wanted to. I used calligraphy ink for drawing and because it does not dry quickly I ended up smudging some lines. However, with a regular micron pen you can get a  precisely and cleanly drawn zia. I will post one later when I have a little more time :)

Below are the steps to draw this kolam:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

Step 5: 

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