Marunthu Kuzhambu by Sowpernica

Pathiya Samayal Contest entry by Sowpernica

Ingredients:
Small onions – 1 cup
Garlic cloves – 10 to 15
Salt – 2 ½ teaspoons
Sesame oil – 1 tablespoon
Tamarind – lemon sized ball
Mustard seeds – ½ teaspoon
Turmeric powder – ¼ teaspoon

Dry roast & grind to powder:
Omam – 2 teaspoon
Pepper – 1 teaspoon
Cumin seeds – 2 teaspoons
Sitharathai, Arisi thipilli, Sukku, Athimathuram –small quantities of each of these
Red chillies – 3 to 4

Method:
Prepare tamarind extract soaking tamarind in 1 ½ glasses of water.
Heat oil in a pan, add, mustard seeds & allow spluttering.
Add garlic cloves & sauté for a minute.
Add small onions & sauté till they look transparent.
Add tamarind extract, salt, turmeric powder & allow boiling until raw smell vanishes.
Add the ground powder & allow boiling until the kuzambu thickens & oil separates .
Serve hot with rice.
Could be refrigerated & used for a week to 10 days.

A perfect kuzambu when you are having a cold & for the winter season.

Brinjal Thogayal by Shripriya

Pathiya Samayal Contest Entry by Shripriya Ramakrishnan

Brinjal is one of the non-gassy vegetables that can be had without any restrictions during the postpartum period. It is one of my favorite vegetables so I prefered having it a lot of times during both of my after-delivery periods. The following is my favorite even now.

Ingredients:
1. Brinjal - 3-4
2. Black pepper - half teaspoon or Red chillies 1 or 2 based on your preference.
3. Tamarind - gooseberry sized.
4. Oil - One-two tablespoon
5. For seasoning - Mustard, urad, asafoetida, jeera, and curry leaves.
6. Salt - as needed.

Method:
1. Fry whole brinjal in a kadai with little oil. Alternatively you can microwave the brinjal and avoid too much of oil consumption.
2. Fry the black pepper/red chillies in just 1/4 teaspoon of oil.
3. Peel the brinjal skin. 
4. Grind the peeled brinjal and the black pepper/red chillies with tamarind and salt.
5. In a kadai, pour little bit of oil and season with all the items mentioned for seasoning.
6. Add the ground brinjal-black pepper/red chillies paste.
7. Fry for sometime until it thickens to desired consistency.
8. Have it with hot rice and ghee or with chappathi.

Variations: 
1. You can add garlic also in the seasoning or fry it separately and grind it with brinjal and black pepper/red chillies.
2. If you want to make it for non-pathiya samayal and want it to be little spicy, omit black pepper and add red chillies and green chillies. And after seasoning, add finely chopped onion and fry them until cooked and then add the ground paste. This will be very good with chappathis.
3. You can just fry the whole brinjals, remove the skin, mash it with a maththu, then season it with mustard, red chillies, hing, urad, and curry leaves and mix it with rice and eat. Curd also can be added to the mashed brinjal.

Manathakkali Keerai Poricha Koottu by Vijaya Venkatesh

Pathiya Samayal contest entry by Vijaya Venkatesh

Ingredients:
Manathakkaali keerai - a small bunch
coconunt - a small piece
red chilli - 1
pepper - 4 or 5
jeera - 1 tsp
salt to taste
boiled moong dal - 1 small cup

Method:
wash the leaves thoroughly and chop them. Add little water, salt and hing and cook. Grind coconut, chilli, pepper, jeera into fine paste and add. Finally add the cooked moong dal and mix well. Season this with mutard seeds, urid dal and curry leaves.
This dish can be mixed with rice and tastes wonderful.

Manathakkali keerai helps in healing the MOUTH ULCER (vaai punn) easily.

Modakkathan Keerai Dosai by Vijaya Venkatesh

Pathiya Samayal contest entry by Vijaya Venkatesh

Ingredients:
A small bunch of modakathan keerai
Soaked parboiled rice and Urid dal as u do normally for dosas

Method:
While grinding, add the leaves also. It gives a light green colour to the batter. Allow it to ferment and make dosas as u normally do.
This Modakathaan keerai is very useful in preventing Arthritis/Rhuematism

Podalanga poricha kozhambu by Geeta Sami

Pathiya Samayal contest entry by Geeta Sami

Ingredients:
Pudalangai- 2 medium
Moong dal- 1/4 cup
Pepper -1 tbsp
Jeera -1 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves- few sprigs
Asafoetida- little
Turmeric- little
Salt- 1 tsp or to taste

Method:
Dry roast pepper and jeer and keep aside. cook moong dhal in pressure cooker or directly in a pan.
Wash the vegetable and cut to small pieces. steam them in microwave steamer and keep aside.
In a pan add water, then add the pepper and jeera powder and bring it to boil. Add the cooked vegetable and add salt to taste. let it cook for few minutes till you get the right consistency. then add hing and dried and roasted curry leaves.

Poosani Vithai Thogayal

Pathiya Samahyal Contest Entry by Malini

Ingredients:
Pumpkin seeds - 2 cups(Use only the seeds & fibre portion of the pumpkin wedge)
Tamarind - 1/2 the size of a lemon
Coconut scraped - 1/2 cup
Dry red chillies - 3 or 4
Urad dhal - 2 tablespoons 
Perungayam,S alt - as per taste
Oil - 2 tsp.

Method:
Take out the tender seeds alongwith the small fibres (only the seeds and soft portion) from the pumpkinThe seeds should be very tender , else the thogayal will not taste good.
Fry chillies, perungayam and seeds in oil, till it shrinks well & the raw smell goes away.
Fry urad dhal till golden brown.
Allow it to cool. In a mixie, grind scraped coconut, chillies, e urad dhal, tamarind and salt. Then add the seeds and grind it till soft.

Poricha Rasam by Malini

Pathiya Samayal contest entry by Malini

Ingredients: 
Tomato – 2
Toor dall – ½ cup
Turmeric powder , Salt,perungayam – to taste
coriander & karivepilai for garnishing
Ghee – 1 tsp
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp

To be ground to a paste
Dhaniya– 1 tbsp
Channa dall - ½ tbsp
Milagu– 8 nos.
Jeera 1 tspRed chillies – 2
Oil (எண்ணெய்) – 2 tsp to roast above

Method:
Cut tomatoes put in the vessel, add water, salt and manjapodiand let it boil till the tomato pieces are cooked.Pressure cook the toor dall and keep it aside.

Add oil to a kadai. Add daniya, channa dal, milagu, jeera one after the other and roast well, Finally add the red chilles and switch off the stove. Let this cool and then grind it in a mixie adding little water to make a paste.Add this paste to the boiled tomato water, let it boil once and then add the cooked toor dall. Add water to bring it to the consistency of rasam. After adding water, just let the rasam boil once.

In a kadai, pour a teaspoon on ghee and when hot, add mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds crackle, add it to the rasam. Garnish with Corriander and Karivepilai

Leghiyam by Malini

Pathiya Samayal Contest Entry by Malini Mk

This is also called as Prasava Leghiyam

Ingredients:

Arisi Thippili) - 10 sticks.
Sukku - small Piece
Basil - 100 g
Pepper - a table spoon
Jeera – Half table spoon
Dhaniya - Half table spoon
Elakai - 2 or 3
Vellam - 100 gm
Ghee - 1 tsp

Method:
Sun dry all the ingredients for two days except vellam.
After two days, dry grind the ingredients in a mixie .
Filter the grounded powder two to three times to get the fine quality.
Add half glass of water with the vellam and filter it to remove the solid .
Take a thick bottomed vessel and pour the vellam water.
Keep in medoum flame.When it starts boiling, add the powdered ground powder stir continuously.Keep the flame in low and stir for another ten minutes.
When the consistency becomes semisolid then add the ghee and stir for another five minutes.
Store in airtight jar once the legiyam cools down

Sukku Thippili Marunthu

Pathiya Samayal Contest entry by Rajeshwari Ganesh

Ingredients: 
Sukku Powder - 1/2 spoon
Kandathipili - 5 gms

Omam - 1 spoon

Milagu - 2 spoon

Jeera - 2 spoon

Virali manjal - 1 spoon

Dhania - 4 spoon

Jaggery - 1/4 cup

Ghee or Sesame Oil - 8 spoons

Method:
Dry fry and grind them. Dissolve jaggery in water and add the syrup to the above mixture. Now, add ginger juice and when the mixture got solidifies, add sufficient ghee or sesame oil.

How to cook punarbagam for Pathiya Samayal - Uma Sridharan

After delivery, a woman's body and stomach is quite tender. It needs to be treated with care and so soft and easily digestive food should be given. Making of this punarbagam is one of the lost recipes or a recipe that many modern people dont know or understand. Here is the method to do it. Infact this is good for those even who have stomach upset or stomach ailments. Any one can have this during peak summer too which acts as a coolant to the body when combined with unsour buttermilk and salt. 

Ingredients:
Cooked raw rice (sadam) 1 cup
Water 3 cups

Method
Boil water and add cooked rice.
Let it boil for another 10 mts.
Drain.
Punarbagam is a good food for delivered ladies, indigestion, fever and stomach upset.
It is easily digestible.
Drained water or otherwise called as punarbaga kanji can be taken with buttermilk and salt, which is first class medicine for urinary infection and heat.

Pathiya Samayal contest entry by Uma Sridharan

Breast Milk - Am I producing the right quantity?

Many lactating women's primary concern is the amount of breast milk they produce. Many fear that they are not producing the right quantity that is needed for their babies. Lots of questions arise in their mind with regard to breast feeding. This article is a small intro into breast feeding. 

Lactating women fear on so many things like small breasts, inverted nipples, am I getting enough milk to feed the baby (ies in twins), is breast milk alone enough for premature babies , should I take medicines to increase my breast milk and so many others. 

But lactating women, should remember one particular thing, that breast milk which is produced by her, keeps increasing with the sucking of the babies. Mothers should feed the babies in both the breasts so that the baby gets to know to change sides if needed. When the baby sucks more, the breast produces more milk and never leaves it empty.

The size of the breasts of the mother have no relativeness to the amount of milk produced by her to feed the babies. The milk glands which are the back part of the breasts secrete enough milk that is needed for the baby. Mothers with inverted nipples have to take care of it even before delivery after proper consultation with the gynecologist. 

Breast feeding mothers should drink lots of water and also should avoid tea, coffee and other drinks which are rich in caffine

Nutritious Diet plan for lactating mothers

Lactating or Nursing mothers should take nitritious and balanced diet which includes fruits, green vegetables and vitamins provided by the doctor if any. The food intake should include all types of food and the food should be highly rich in protein and fibre and less of fat. The calorie intake should be atleast 1800 calories per day. Lactating mothers should avoid junk food and heavy dieting should be avoided during the entire period. 

There should be considerate amount of calcium intake also in one's food which comes from milk, yogurt, cheese etc. To avoid dehydration, lactating mothers should intake lots of water as the oxytoction that is released during breast feeding makes the mothers more thirsty. Whenever thirsty, the lactating mothers can take water, fruit juices, vegetable juices and soup. Low fat milk can also be taken. It is better to avoid coffee and tea as much as possible.

For Lactating Mothers

Lactating mothers need lots of strength both mentally and physically to feed the baby and also to keep them hale and healthy. Indian recipes, which are called as Pathiya Recipes or Pathiya Samayal, helps a lot in regaining the lost energy and keeps the mother and baby healthy too.

The food that the mothers take should help them relax and improve the milk flow. A well balanced meal that provides all round nourishment for both the mother and baby is the most important during the period of lactation. One should include lots of vegetables and fruits in the diet (as per the doctor's advise or the family elder's advise)

Food should be taken at the proper time and whenever the baby is asleep, it is better to eat. Take the evening dinner light and early (by around 7.00pm). This will help in avoiding indigestion. Indian diet includes taking beetel leaves after meals especially for the lactating mothers to help in easy digestion and to reduce the heaviness of the food. Avoiding fried pappads and appalams will help in keeping the skin clear and also helps in avoiding of putting over weight. Instead, one can take sutta appalam (or microwaved appalam) or Thalir Vadam.

It is better to avoid or to take lesser quantity of Thuvar Dal and take moong dal instead. It is better to take any drink in the room temperature rather than too hot or too cold. Instead of green or red chillies black pepper can be used to cook the dishes, especially for the lactating mothers.

        The food that a lactating mother intakes should contain Cumin (a rich source of calcium and iron and it helps in the secretion of milk), Fenugreek(methi-vendayam)-(helps in increasing the constant flow), Fennel(Saunf) helps in digestion and prevents being colic for both the mother and the kid. Many of the Pathiya food dishes include Dried Ginger or Sukku which again helps in easy digestion. Garlic again helps in digestion and prevents being colic.

        Though it is said that certain foods are to be avoided by the lactating mothers, one can eat food that they like as ever.  Foods like Chocolates, Coffee, Pineapple Juice etc can make the baby colic. (This is not for all the babies). It is in the hands of the mother to decide what to eat and what not to eat.

Find a list of Recipes for Lactating Mothers here.

For more articles and health tips for Lactating Mothers