Snacks: Methi Mathi & Matar Mathi

Methi Mathi

Ingredients:

1 cup Wheat flour.
1 cup refined flour (maida)
0.5 cup Besan
0.5 cup sooji
1 pinch baking powder
1 tea spoon salt (adjust according to taste)
1 bunch methi (1 handful) or 2-3 spoons dried kasori methi.
2 table spoons grated coconut.
2 green chillies.
2 table spoon ghee/refined oil

Method:

If using fresh methi, crush it using grinder into coarse paste. Crush green chillies as well.

Take all the flours and sooji and baking powder and sieve them together.

Heat ghee to luke warm. If using refined oil, heat it to high and allow it to cool to luke warm.

Mix oil with flour mixture, a little at a time. End result should be when pressed tightly, the flour mixture should hold together, but it should not be wet with oil.

Kend using little warm water. Add the methi paste also.

Dough should be hard.

Make small rounds and press with hand. MAke them atmost 2-3 mm thick.

Fry in refined oil. Use thick bottomed vessel. Frying must be done at low heat, but when about to put the fresh mathi to fry, increase the heat to high. Similarly increase the heat to high when about to take out. It should take about 5-8 mins of frying till they turn golden brown.

Matar Mathi

1 cup maida
1 cup wheat flour
1 tea spoon ajwayn.
Salt to taste.
Ghee /oil for kending.

Mix ghee as described above. Kend the dough as done for methi mathi.
Divide dough into 2 or 3 portions. Flatten it so that they are not more than 2-3 mm thick. Fry as for methi mathi.

Cleaning bathing towels

Last weekend when washing my towels I realized that even after being washed properly, over the period of last few years they have lost there soft fluffy feeling. A little google search reveled that I was not the first person to face it.

To restore softness back to the towel, what was suggested most was to rinse the towel in vinegar mixed in water. Wash the towel, remove all the soap from it by rinsing. Take a bucket with just enough amount of hot water, add quarter of a cup of vinegar per towel and leave it soaked for few hours. Vinegar will help disinfect the towel, will help get rid of detergent residue and repeated such treatments will make the towel softer.

I am done with first such treatment. Lets see how it works out.

How to determine what inverter I need.

With the worsening power situation in our cities, Inverters are becoming an essential part of our lives. In this post I will just summarize how to determine what capacity inverter to buy.

Step 1: Determine your usage. I.E. list out what all appliances you would want to run on the inverter.
For our calculation let us say that we are going to run 2 CFLs, 1 fridge, 2 fans and one laptop+1DSL modem on inverter.
In my house the power rating for these appliances are
CFL 25W = 2*25 = 50Watts
Fridge 300W
Laptop 90W
Modem 25W
Fans 40W = 2*40 80W

Total usage = 545Watts or 545VA

Add 25% to it as conversion loss , 545+136=681 VA is the bare minimum rating of the inverter that you would need.
In the market, generally 800 VA is what is available. So that is the one that you should be getting.

Step 2: Determine how long you would need your backup system to run.
Assuming that you are going to run at full load, how long would you want your backup to run.

For my usage, I decided that I would want my backup to run for at least 4 hrs.

The ampere hour attribute of the inverter battery determines how long it will last.

So 800 VA *4 hrs = 12 V * Ah is the formula. Here your battery is 12V battery. Ah is the ampere hour.
This gives 266 Ah.

So an inverter with a rating of 800 VA with a battery pack of 250 Ah is what I need to run my backup for roughly 4 hrs at full load.

Running on a minimal load, however will help me achieve more mileage out of my inverter.

A key factor to keep in mind when buying an inverter is to check the rating of the battery because this is where the big money is hidden and this is where the sellers will try to dupe you.

Generally sellers will talk about "optimal" load(which will be 60% of the maximum load) when informing you about the duration of backup.

Hope this helps.