Nayak period..

Erasakkanayakkanur  Temple:

This temple is in a small village named Erasakkanayakkanur, near Theni, Tamil Nadu state, India. The name come from Erra Jakku Nayakkar. This village was formed during the Nayak rule and could be one of the oldest Telugu palayams or settlements. 

There is no much information about this temple. If some one knows please do post it..

A video of this temple:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzJEdfnH5yE



November 6th 2013 update:

This temple has been renovated by the government of  India and here is the picture of the temple. This information was given by one of my blog reader who's from this place. He has also send the picture of this temple. Thanks!

Hotel vegetable kurma

For 4 persons

Ingredients:

Vegetables 2 & half cups : Carrot, cauliflower, peas, potato, beans etc..
Fennel seed -  2 tsp
Bay leaves - 1
chillies - 3 nos
Big onion - 1no
curd - 2tbsp
Milk - 50ml

To Grind:
Cinnamon sticks - 2 small pieces
Cloves - 4 nos
Cardamon - 1no
Grated coconut - 4tbsp
cashew nuts - 10nos
Coriander powder - 1tsp

Method:

Take oil in the pan and add the fennel seeds, chilli, bay leaves and the onions. Fry the onion till golden brown and then add all the vegetable. Then add salt and water and cook until the vegetables are done.
Then grind the " to grind"items and add this to the vegetables. Then allow it to cook for 5- 10mins. Then add curd. After sometime add milk. Coconut milk can be added to enhance the flavor.


The tasty hotel kurma made easy at home......



Try and post your comments.....

Moong dal .....

For 4 persons:

Ingredients:
Moong dhal: 10 tbsp ( 2 rice cooker cups)
Ginger - a small piece
Chillies -2nos
Jeera- 2tsp
Mustard seeds- 2tsp
Curry leaves and coriander leaves
Dry chillies -2nos
Chopped Tomato - 1no
Lemon -1 no 
Oil for seasoning

Method:

Take moong dhal in the cooker. To this add Jeera, tomatoes,salt, chillies and  half tsp of turmeric powder. Add 3 cups of water ad presure cook it.
Once it is done  in a separate pan add oil, split the mustard seeds and then add the dry chillies. Then add this to Moong dhal. If needed you can also fry 1 onion and can add this t the moong dhal.
Allow this to boil it for some time and garnish with curry and coriander leaves.
Then after 15 mins add lemon juice to this and mix it and the tasty moong dhal is ready to be served with rice or chappathi.

Try and post your comments.....



Nutritional Value:

A cup of Moong Dal boiled with salt at home has 212 calories, 40 g of carbs, 15 grams of protein and only 0.8 g of fat which makes it a perfect choice for weight conscious people.

vegetarian capsicum Gravy

Capsicum Gravy:

Capsicum is one of the vegetable i like the most...but my hubby does not like much :( 

For 3 persons:

Ingredients:
Capsicum 3nos
Onions 2no
Ginger and garlic paste
Fennel seeds 1tbsp
cinnamon a small piece
cloves 3nos
Ground nuts or cashew nuts 2tbsp


Method:
 Take a tbsp of oil in a pan. To this add fennel seeds, cloves, ginger garlic paste, ground nuts and a half onion. Fry them for few minutes until the raw smell goes off. Grind it too smooth paste.

Then cut the capsicum in cube size and add it to the pan.To this add salt and chilli powder and water. Once it is 90 % done add the gridded paste. Then allow to boil for few minutes and then off the flame.

The yummy capsicum grave is ready to eat with rice or chapatti.



Nutritional value:


Capsicum helps in curing many diseases that include lowering blood pressure, reducing cholesterol and warding off strokes and heart attacks, speeding up metabolism, treating colds and fevers, preventing cancer and pain control. Capsaicin is a flavorless, odorless chemical concentrated in the veins of chiles and peppers.

Capsicum contains  Vitamins A and C, and beta-carotene. It’s low in fat, calories and cholesterol. If you thought your diabetic diet was supposed to be boring, try spicing up your cuisine with capsaicin-based products, like hot sauce or jalapeno peppers.

Listed below are some of the health benefits of Capsicum:

* Enhances Metabolism: Capsicum increases the metabolism by lowering triglycerides, which are stored fats in blood corpuscles.This helps in burning calories.

* Anti Oxidant Property: Capsicum is an important source of vitamin A and vitamin C. These two vitamins are powerful antioxidants that help in fighting free radicals in the body and help in treating heart diseases, osteoarthritis, bronchial asthma, cataract etc. The free radicals are responsible for causing cellular damage, damage to nerves and blood vessels.

* Pain Relief: Scientists believe that the compound capsaicin found in capsicum blocks the transmission of pain from the skin to the spinal cord. This is considered helpful in treating neuralgia, pain associated with herpes zoster and postoperative amputation trauma.

* Cancer Prevention: The compound capsaicin is also believed to treat cancer by preventing carcinogens from binding with DNA. As a regular dietary intake, it has been found through various studies that eating capsicum can provide some protection from cancer.

* Prevents Clotting of Blood: Studies suggest that capsicum has the capacity to prevent clotting of blood. Vitamin C is found to play a major role in dissolving blood clots.

* Fights Food-Borne Bacterial Diseases: In a study it has been found that capsaicin content in capsicum is effective in fighting off food-borne bacterial diseases like Vibrio vulnificus bacteria found in raw shellfish.

Nutritional Value of Capsicum

• Carotenoids (Capsanthin, Capsorubin, Carotene and Lutein)
• Proteins
• Fats
• Vitamin A
• Vitamin C
• Capsaicinoid Oleoresin
• Provitamins E, P, B1, B2 and B3
• Steroidal Alkaloidal Glycosides (Solanine and Solasadine)
• Scopoletin (Coumarin)

Health & Nutrition Benefits of Eating Capsicum

• Beneficial to the mucous membranes, eyes and skin
• Helps wards off infection
• Promotes cardiovascular health, by helping lower blood pressure
• Has antioxidant properties that neutralize the free radicals responsible for damaging tissue and cells
• Has anti-inflammatory properties
• Helps reduce cholesterol and thus, is effective in warding off strokes and heart attacks
• Speeds up the metabolism and helps burn more calories
• Good for treating colds and fevers
• Stimulates stomach secretions and improves digestion
• Lowers triglycerides
• Has a laxative effect
• Triggers the release of endorphins
• Good for diabetics

Health benefits of Peanuts

• Peanuts are rich in energy and contain many health benefiting nutrients, minerals, antioxidants and vitamins that are essential for optimum health.
  
• They are especially, rich in mono-unsaturated fatty acids like oleic acids that help to lower LDL or "bad cholesterol" and increase HDL or "good cholesterol". Research studies suggest that Mediterranean diet, which is rich in monounsaturated fatty acids helps to prevent coronary artery disease and strokes by favoring healthy blood lipid profile.
  
• These nuts are good source of dietary protein compose fine quality amino acids that are essential for growth and development.
  
• Research studies have shown that peanuts contain high concentrations of poly-phenolic antioxidants, primarily in p-coumaric acid, which is believed to reduce the risk of stomach cancer by reducing the formation of carcinogenic nitrosamines.
  
• Peanuts are excellent source of resveratrol, another polyphenol antioxidant, which has been found to have protective function against cancers, heart disease, degenerative nerve disease, Alzheimer's disease, and viral/fungal infections.
  
• Studies suggests that resveratrol reduces stroke risk by alteration of molecular mechanisms in blood vessels (reducing susceptibility to vascular damage through decreased activity of angiotensin, a systemic hormone causing blood vessel constriction that would elevate blood pressure) and by increasing production of the vasodilator hormone, nitric oxide.
  
• Recent research studies suggest that boiling enhances antioxidant concentration in the peanuts. It has been found that boiled peanuts have two and four fold increase in isoflavone antioxidants biochanin A and genistein content, respectively.
  
• The nuts are an excellent source of vitamin E (a-tocopherol); containing about 8 g per100 g. vitamin E is a powerful lipid soluble antioxidant which helps maintain the integrity of cell membrane of mucus membranes and skin by protecting from harmful oxygen free radicals.
  
• The nuts are packed with many important B-complex groups of vitamins such as riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B-6, and folates. 100 g of peanuts provide about 85% of RDI of niacin, which contribute to brain health and blood flow to brain.
  
• The nuts are rich source of minerals like copper, manganese, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, and selenium.
  

Just a hand full of peanuts per day provides enough recommended levels of phenolic anti-oxidants, minerals, vitamins, and protein.

Try this recipe and enjoy your day.......

Lost History-Cholas of South India

My native is kumbhakonam, but my brought up was in chennai.......I dont know the value of our culture when i was in India. I used to go to many temples in and around kumbhakonam but at one point of time i realized about the glory of our history. 
In  April 2011 we went to India and we traveled to few temple which  is related in Ponniyil Selvan book.....that inspired be to write about my experience and the history about the temples.


The journey started from Erode and we reached Thadhiyur.... we had the plan from the next day....

The 1st place we visited was Palayarai, was the first capital of the Medieval cholas.This is 7kms from kumbhakonam. Here is the 6th century sri somanathaswamy temple.

 This is the entrance of the temple....and i am v depressed about the maintenance of this temple. To my surprise, i saw a couple who was a big fan of ponniyin selvan was cleaning this place out of there own interest. 

 Remains of this temple.......

A sad state of our history.....which was one of the capital city of the cholas....


One of them told in the temple, there is The great Rajaraja cholan resting place near by. So we drove the car to see the samadhi of the Great King. My heart sank when i saw the place. His samadhi was on the road side with a small shelter made of coconut tree leaves. There was a man who takes the responsibility of lighting the lamp and cleaning the samadhi.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GqmsZIwNkY&feature=related


Subramanya murugan temple :

The Subrahmanya Temple at Thiruvizhchil, (Saluvankuppam), Mamallapuram, Tamilnadu  was dedicated to lord Muruga. This was constructed during the Tamil sangam period.
This was discovered after the Tsunami hit this place on 2004.This brick temple is about 2000 years old and it one of the ancient temple discovered. This temple has two layers of construction: first the brick layer during the Sangam period and a granite layer on the top of the brick during the Pallava era ( 8th century ).

They have discovered three pillar, which had an inscription belonging to the seventh regnal year (813 A.D.) of Dantivarman, talks about a Brahmin woman named Vasanthanar, wife of Sri Kambabhattar of Sandilya Gothram, belonging to Manaiyur, near Tiruvallur, donating 16 "kazhanchu" (small balls of gold) to the Subrahmanya temple. The interest from this gold was meant to be used to maintain the temple's perpetual lamp.

The other pillar, with the inscription belonging to the 12th regnal year (858 A.D.) of another Pallava king, Nandivarman III, mentions that one Kirarpiriyan of Mamallapuram donated ten "kazhanchu" of gold to the temple.The third pillar inscription says about The Raja Raja Chola 1. Apart from these they also have other pillars which says about the Pallava kings Dantivarman I, Nandivarman III and Kambavarman, the Rashtrakuta king Krishna III and the Chola king Rajendra Chola III.

Even thought, the Temple is not a complete structure today, it makes us proud and excited about the greatness and richness of our ancient architecture work. 

 please post your comments....

Kailasamundhiyar Temple:

This temple is  in Cholamadevi  village near Thiruverumbur, 12 km away from trichy  City. This is a shiva temple built in 1065AD. The temple, dating back to the 11th century, is a virtual treasure house of historic information pertaining to the Cholas. The adhistana and the walls of the temple are fully covered with inscriptions belonging to the periods of Raja Raja Chola I, Rajendra Chola I and Vira Rajendra Chola I. A majority of the inscriptions belong to Raja Raja I. Further, the inscriptions contain the earliest known reference to Sankara Bhashyam, a commentary on Sankara's philosophy, written by Chidaananda Bhattaara. The inscription is in Tamil with a few Sanskrit words in between written in Grantha characters. 

Apart from the importance of the inscription, the temple itself is rated as an architectural marvel and built as per specifications of the Silpa Shasthra. The Siva temple consists of a central shrine, ardha and Mahamandapas. The presiding deity, the Linga has a square base. The four-pillared ardhamandapa has exquisite in the front. Two dwarapala sculpture adorn the entrance of the ardhamandapa. 


Some say these sculptures belong to Parantaka period.


A you tume link about this temple...

     
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwCXrrE-zmI

 Picture of the temples....






 



 


 

The historical importance of its majestic ruins should me maintained by both people and the government........

Travel

All of them love to travel.....so i tooo love to travel. I have traveled a few places...but my 1st place to travel out of India is Eindhoven, the Netherlands. This place is a very nice place and my 2nd stage of life started here....that is my marriage life :)))))

In eindhoven i got a good friends and also i had a very good time. Kaushik also finished his Phd here and even with his busy work he took me too few places which always cherish my memories.

The 1st place he took was to Rome......and then to Barcelona, this was with my close friend and we had a v nice time.....we spent 3 days there ad we were walking walking and walking.....just enjoyed the place. we were not eager to see the places but we just relaxed from the routine works....
Next we went to Innsbruck, Austria with Sankaran. The place we stayed was a country side....wow what a beautiful place....always i wish to go there....

Then in June 2011, kaushik got a job in Norway and we came here....the most beautiful place...
We are having a good time here with friends.....

Marriage day gift (5/06/12)

happy to get a gift from my hubby......i got a cycle and i love it soooo much.....i went for a ride ad found it difficult to ride in the slopes....anyways it is always a very good experience to ride a cycle.