Sun_Feb_17_21:01:19_PST_2019

This month, in keeping with the season, I'm in the middle of a whole house Spring cleaning project
Actually, let me correct myself- it is Spring tidying and not Spring cleaning. What I am doing is clearing out clutter and getting our home organized.

The tail end of March threw me a bit of a curve ball in the form of minor surgery on my big toe- minor surgery with some pretty major discomfort which kept me off my feet for a while. A couple of weeks ago I was finally feeling energetic and closer to my usual self, ready to tackle this project. The renovation of part of our home was completed in mid-April which was great timing to be getting the house in order, quite literally. And we have friends and family visiting all the way from Memorial Day to beyond Labor day, so being streamlined is going to be sanity-saving.

Image: Goodreads

To properly psych myself up for this task, I went straight to the library and borrowed a bestseller- class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">

SOAK: In a big bowl, soak together:
2 measures quinoa (I used tricolor quinoa because that's what I had on hand). By measure, I mean the rice cup measure, which is about 3/4 cup.
1 measure ural dal (I use skinned whole- gota- ural dal)
2 tbsp. chana dal
2 tbsp. raw rice

BLEND: After a few hours, use a heavy duty blender like the Vitamix to make a smooth batter, using water as necessary.

FERMENT: Ferment the batter in a warm spot for a few hours.

COOK: Make dosas on a cast iron skillet.

The traditional potato masala (filling) for dosa is marvelous, and I love riffing on the recipe to make all sorts of variations. One is the kale and butternut squash twist that I've posted before. Pictured above is a version made similarly, with a box of frozen chopped spinach (a pantry staple chez One Hot Stove) and a potato. Other vegetables that have worked spectacularly well as dosa filling: eggplant, cauliflower, and believe it or not, mushrooms.

I've seen off-beat dosas made with barley and oats and those would be nice to try.
What are your favorite variations of dosa?

* * * TV Land * * *

Our Friday night family movie nights continue to be an enjoyable kick-off to the weekend. Last Friday we watched Hotel Transylvania 2 and it was pretty entertaining with Adam Sandler as the voice of Dracula. The week before that we watched The BFG, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Roald Dahl's book- a heartwarming and enjoyable movie. We also watched Finding Dory, which was a bit depressing for me with the story line of animals in captivity- I absolutely cannot stand zoos and aquariums.

By far my favorite thing to watch lately with Lila is StoryBots Super Songs- they are so clever and funny and absolutely entertaining even for people of a certain age, shall we say, who are not particularly enamored of dinosaurs, vehicles and such. My favorite storybot songs: colors, dinosaurs, solar system and barn animals.

I'm always partial to British shows and with home remodeling/ decluttering/ design on my mind, I have been watching Grand Designs (about people's ambitious projects to build off-beat homes) and Escape to The Country (pretty self-explanatory: about people leaving behind city life to buy homes in the country). The latter is almost a travel show illuminating the geography, history and culture of the British countryside. Sticking with the British theme, I am enjoying the Father Brown mysteries