eBook Review - 60 great recipes for your baby by Roma Sharma

All you new mothers out there - Ever wondered what to feed your baby ? Has the baby eaten enough ? How your baby will react to certain food ? Is your baby really full ? Are you doing the right thing with your baby's nutrition needs ?

I've been through this phase years back when my boy was little. Luckily, my mother helped out a lot and my baby had a good, nutritious beginning. He was introduced to all vegetables and fruits by the time we was 18 months old and now thankfully, he is a non-fussy eater. And that is a huge blessing !

If you are in doubt and wondered if those grandma recipe are still relevant, and if you always wanted those nutrition facts alongside, this e-book by Roma Sharma, is what you're looking for.



Roma is an active food blogger and blogs at Roma's Space and has written this book on baby food recipes, based on her personal experience with her two little girls

Of course every child is unique and has her own set of likes and dislikes, so you can't really have standard recipes that work for all babies, but luckily in this book, there are a lot of options available

She starts with explaining the benefits of breast-feeding and how it helps the mother and the baby, without sounding preachy. Its got what your baby needs at each stage categorised into different phases: 6-7 months, 8-9 months, 10-12 months and 12 months upwards. Since this is the age where the baby develops the fastest, it is also critical that you give the relevant type of food at each stage.

What I liked in this book, is that the recipes are from the North and South of India. Every family tends to stick to what they have followed for generations and sometimes, miss out on what's followed locally, based on the climate and local produce.
She has simple recipes for soups, juices, porridges and finger foods for different stages of their growth.
Small notes on what to include and what to avoid are particularly useful. Little pictures accompanying it make the reading more pleasant

Also, its not just a book with recipes, its a little guide on how to deal with fussy eaters, what feeding equipment to use, how to deal with teething problems, etc...
It handles how you should introduce new food to your little one and how to check for any allergic reaction to that particular food.
She also talks about the home remedies for problems like constipation, cough and cold and stomach upsets which babies face more often that you'd like them to. Invariably, these problem crop up in the middle of the night and they can drive you crazy with their non-stop crying. I am talking from experience here !
The other neat part here is travel food for babies, which I think is one huge task that sometimes makes families forgo travel plans for the first couple of years !

I have always believed that home made baby food is really what helps babies the most, and in spite of our nuclear families, hectic work schedules and availability of packaged baby food, I think we owe our little ones this much.
My son was raised on home made baby food for the first one and half years, with most of the vegetables and fruits included, all made interesting enough for him to enjoy.

I have friends and cousins who have little ones, calling up to find out what they should feed the baby, how do they start on it, what about food-allergies and all those queries that new moms always have...

I would recommend this e-book by Roma for young mothers. It has been categorised well and has a simple style of writing. It has recipes that mothers and grandmothers have passed down plus what has worked with her kids, all documented well. It has simple recipes, that can easily be made at home, along with the nutrition facts.
She has also checked with her child's paediatrician and so that all the information is accurate enough.

This book is available here on amazon

Book Review : Southern Flavours by Chandra Padmanabhan

For many years now, I have been reading cookbooks like I read any other novel, its always been as interesting, if not more ! At first I assumed I was the only one, but after I started my blog, I realised I have lots of company !!

I got this beautiful book called 'Southern Flavours, the best of South Indian Cuisine' by Chandra Padmanabhan from Blogadda, as part of their book review program. I have read some of her recipes from other blogs, but never owned any of her books until now


Luckily for me, this book has the best recipes from her three previous books, Dakshin, Southern Spice and Simply South with an added 50 new recipes

Southern Flavours has a wide array of vegetarian recipes from all four southern states - Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, all neatly categorized into various sections like Sambar, Rasam, Poriyal and Kootu, Rice, Snacks, Sweets and Accompaniments like Chutneys, Podi and Pachadi.
The category names are more Tamil-centric, but it does have many recipes from each region
Like the section on 'Sambar' has a Vatral Kuzhambu from Tamil Nadu, Nupindi Pulusu from Andhra, Theeyal from Kerala and Majjige Huli from Karnataka, in addition to many more.
This book has a good share of recipes from all four states, though I felt a few more from Kerala would have balanced it better.


If you have a kitchen that stocks basic ingredients used in an Indian kitchen, then you should be able to make almost all the dishes mentioned in the book. The instructions are detailed and clear, making it simple to follow.
There is also a 'Table of measures' with metric and US equivalents
A list of the special utensils like the paniyaram chatti, used in South Indian cooking is also mentioned, with pictures

This book even has the right way to cook rice - in a pressure cooker, on the stove-top or in the microwave. I thought this is very useful to new cooks and to people who are not very confident with cooking rice in either one of these methods



It features some typical Udupi recipes, Chettinad recipes and recipes from the Hebbar Iyengar and Palghat Iyer communities, in addition to the more popular recipes from the four states
What really warmed my heart was that there were quite a few recipes from the Saraswat Konkani kitchens of Mangalore like Song, Ghashhi, Mangalore Saar and Kairas. This cuisine doesn’t get featured so much in any of the regular South Indian cookbooks, from what I have seen so far, so it was a nice surprise to these here !

A real value add here in this book is the number of healthy options for some traditional recipes, like an oats upma, ragi (finger millet) idli, oats rava idli, ragi (finger millet) vadai, kadhamba dosai (multigrain pancakes) and some recipes that use broken wheat instead of rice. This is very useful especially now, when more and more people are getting conscious about cooking and eating healthy.



There are quite a few family favourite recipes, some from her sister-in-law, mother, aunts and her mother-in-law, who had the biggest influence on her cooking. There are some recipes picked up from cooks she had along the way and some from her friends.
An interesting one is Chitra’s keerai parrapu ussili – I have always had and heard of ussili made with different varieties of beans, but never with greens. There is also a Vendhayam poriyal, fenugreek sprouts stir fry, which is something really unusual and as she says, its considered good for diabetic patients

A really interesting feature in this book is the section on ‘Buffet Spreads’ and ‘Suggested Menus’. The buffet spreads have 2 options that cover recipes from all four states and there are 6 ‘Suggested Menu’ options that are something that can be made for a regular meal and not as elaborate as the buffet spread
This will definitely be a big help to people who are not familiar with South Indian cuisine and are not sure what to pair with what, and even to the ones cooking it regularly who would like to add some twists to a routine combination of dishes



Colourful pictures of some mouth-watering food (though I would have loved to see more of them), easily explained recipes for a new cook, some unique and interesting recipes and healthy alternatives to traditional recipes makes this book a really good one for a collection of South Indian recipes!

About the author

Chandra Padmanabhan, a graduate from Calcutta University, has been associated with the publishing industry for a long time. 'Dakshin', her best selling book published in '94 is still popular in many countries across the world. Her other book 'Simply South' has won the GOURMAND award for the second best Vegetarian cookbook in 2009

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

This is my first ever book review and the longest post I've written !
I hope you enjoyed reading it.

I am sure many recipes from this book will show up here soon.



Update:
April '12: Made Mangai Ogaray / Raw Mango Rice from this book. Click here to see the recipe



Aug '12: Made Kancheepuram idlis from this book. Click here to see the recipe