Showing posts with label kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kitchen. Show all posts

Monday, September 07, 2009

Bottles, Dals and Kitchen decor!

Most of my pet-jars in the kitchen seem to have one or the other kind of dal. Some white, some round, some cut, some yellow, some small, some large. I don't have a clue what half of them are. Thanks to this great fact that you can't substitute one type of dal for another in any Indian dish, I ended up with all these varities. And with each visit of parents, one more new type gets included!
This weekend, as I washed and dried all the bottles under the sun I decided to do some dal-sorting. Most of the dals were beyond their expiriy date. Some jars even had a small, yet, thriving eco-system in them.
Idea! I had 3 pretty-OK shaped bottles. Few nice looking but not edible dal packets. And some time to spare.
So came up with these for my kitchen window sil :-D
Felt they looked nice!

(click image for an enlarged view)

Want to try? Its too simple to be explained in steps. So here goes some tips:
  1. Ensure that the jars are perfectly dry before you begin this!
  2. Take care to use a funnel to put the dal through narrow-mouthed bottles.
  3. Masoor dal gives a vibrant look to it. Use it in plenty.
  4. I used an old packet of rock salt for the white portion. Salt/Sugar can also be used.
  5. I even stuffed a few dried-red-chilles near the top of the bottle.
  6. You can add ANY stuff from your kitchen here. Don't stop at dals. I have added even a saunf layer!
  7. And yes, you might have to sacrifice some of the good green-gram and other dals which you use frequently. Don't depend ONLY on the stuffs which have outlived their expiry dates!

That is it, I guess :-D
My attempt doesn't look all that neat. But I got so excited with the idea that I had to-had to-had to blog it :-p