How To Keep Your Car Clean & Fresh

The Car-avan Culture

With the current state of the roads and the traffic we all face in bustling metros and small towns, we can all agree- we spend a lot of time in our cars. So, shouldn’t we keep it clean and fresh? With a little bit of work and a hint of fragrance, you’ll enjoy your car all the more. We’ll show you how to get your car smelling as good as new, with these simple steps:

1. Time for some Spring Cleaning: Simply use a foam brush or a medium-sized paint brush to clean dust from the AC vents. Use a vacuum cleaner just after you brush off the dust to make sure that it does not settle anywhere else. To ensure that you breathe fresh air, replace your car’s air filters, take out the trash and shampoo your car seats, once every few weeks.

2. New car habits: Can’t seem to keep your car clean? It’s time you set some ground rules. Ensure that your and any passenger’s shoes are clean, with no muck or dirt. Place white paper sheets to ensure that your shoes don’t leave stains on the car mats. Most importantly, do not eat or drink anything in the car as this leaves stains and adds to car trash, if not removed immediately. Treat your car as you would your home and you’ll have a pleasant driving experience anywhere.

3. Make your car smell great again: Before you think of any car air fresheners in the market, pick a scent that appeals to you. Some are designed especially for particular car types. They fit perfectly when placed on an air-conditioned vent or your dashboard. Simply try one of the many Godrej Aer Twist perfumes for cars and enjoy your daily dose of fresh, uninterrupted sweet smelling air. Undoubtedly, the best car fresheners out there,  you can choose from great fragrances from a Rich Irish Cocktail, Bright Tangy Delight, Cool Surf Blue, Petal Crush Pink, Fresh Lush Green or even a Musk After Smoke. They are simply a class apart. Keep them in your car and you will enjoy a fresh and sweet fragrance. A simple refill will ensure that you are never short of freshness. Buy it online here

So, what are you waiting for? Get that freshness that you’ve always wanted for your car with these three simple steps and you can breathe easy!

Breath Easy, Live long!

Haute Kutir

Republic Day Special: Tricolour Healthy Vegetable Pizza

Happy Republic Day, India!

Every Year, on the occasion of Republic Day or Independence Day, I see a flood of tricolour food all over the Internet. The foodie in me gets tempted with the idea to bring up my own version. I always wanted to contribute a recipe from my kitchen or to my kitchen but time and lack of Masterchef cooking skills daunt over.

A few days back when Tupperware sent me a silicon mould that is essentially used to bake a cake or pie, it got me thinking. I threw a glance on the vegetable cart and was enticed by the colourful winter vegetables. Notwithstanding my temptation to pick colourful vegetables and curate a tricolour recipe, I decided to bake a pizza giving my new silicon tray a try.

If you like pizza and looking for an easy-peasy recipe to try at home, read more.

If you do not like Pizza or know a better recipe, you can still read this post to check how you can use new "Silicon Queen Mould" by Tupperware

Tricolour Veg Pizza

It is a simple recipe that anyone can try at home, including bachelors or those who do not know how to cook. The ingredients that I chose are widely available and the method is easy to follow.

Ingredients

Let's segment this recipe into 3 sections-

1) Base 

2) Sauce

3) Topping

For Base

I picked up ready made pizza base from the market. They come in a pack of two and cost as meagre as Rs 20 per pack.

Sauce

Blanched Tomatoes: 4-5 nos

Garlic: 5-6 nos

Basil leaf [optional]: 1-2

Onions- 2 nos

Green Chillies: 2 nos

Olive Oil or Butter: 2 Tablespoon

Crushed pepper: 1/2 teaspoon

Tomato sauce: 2-3 Tablespoons

Salt as per taste

Topping

you can choose any vegetables that you want to add. For tricolour pizza, I picked up my favourite- multi-colored capsicums and chopped them into small pieces

Chopped Onions: I bowl

Black Olives: 5 nos

Shredded Cheese: 1 bowl

Chilli flakes, Italian herbs

Preparation

To make the Sauce:

1) Blanch your tomatoes, remove the outer layer, dice and make a paste in mixer

2)Take a wok or non-stick pan and heat it in stove

3) Pour Olive Oil or butter 

4) Add crushed basil leaves, chopped onions, chillies and diced garlic in the warm oil/butter and stir

5) Add the Tomato paste in it, mix well and cook for 3-5 minutes

6) Add tomato sauce, crushed pepper, salt, mix and cook for another minute and then remove from heat.

Pizza Base and Topping

1) Take the pizza base and place it on the clean mould

2) If you love butter, you can add a thin layer of butter before pouring your sauce on upper layer

3) Take a spatula and spread the pizza sauce evenly over the base.

4)  Add the chopped capsicum and onions above the sauce

5) Add sliced olives

6) Sprinkle the shredded cheese all over

7) Preheat the microwave for 5 minutes and then place the pizza mould inside and bake it for 5-8 minutes 

Your Quick Tricolour Pizza is ready to eat. Garnish it with Italian herbs, chilli flakes or Oregano and serve.

About Tupperware Queen Silicon Mould

The queen form is a shallow round pie dish, good for baking and freezing different dishes. 

• It can withstand temperature from -25 degrees C to 220 degrees C
• It has an attractive fluted design to give an extra finish to dishes. [In the above case, I used a ready made pizza base which was smaller than the mould size hence, you cannot distinguish the design]
• Apart from Pizza, you can bake traditional pies and flans, lasagna, cakes etc
• It can be used in microwave and conventional oven as well.

What I liked about it:

1) It does not require greasing

2) It has a nonstick finish that makes baking cakes breezy especially removing them from baking dish. Just twist the mould and take the cake out.

3) It has a flexible shape, you can fold it and store it in any of your cabinets.

What could have been better

1) A smaller size for a smaller family

2) At MRP Rs 1990, Price is slightly higher unless you are a regular baker.

Haute Kutir Verdict: I love adding a variety to my regular kitchen recipe and cooking tools. Pizza is one of my favourite food and making one at home is quite a wholesome fun. Yes, you can make your regular pizza healthier by using a multigrain or wheat base at home, adding fresh vegetables and slow cooking your sauce.

While you can make this pizza on a Tava as well, the beauty of a silicon mould is that you do not have to monitor the base in the oven. You can set the oven and finish your other work while the mould happily adds a non-sticky and easy to remove base for your dish. 

So, what are you waiting for? Try out this recipe and the silicon mould today and share your experiences. I would love to hear from you and feature your stuff on my blog. You can write to me at hautekutir@gmail.com and follow me on my social media channels as given:

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Snapchat [ektakhetan]

Happy Baking, Happy Living

Ekta 

___________________________________

PS: It is not a sponsored but a personal post. The mould is however a PR sample.

Get Soft Skin with Himalaya Cocoa Butter this Winter

Pamper your skin with the goodness of Cocoa Butter and fight winter dryness

Who does not love pampering? Including our skin that needs moisturising irrespective of the skin type. Young or old, black or white, dry or oily, all skin needs a good bit of cleaning and lots of moisturising, especially in winters.

Winters, ah! the beautiful season that comes with a lot of dryness too. Dryness strips off essential oils from your skin, leaving it scaly, flaky and prone to wrinkles. Like your body, you need to hydrate your skin. While there is no alternative for drinking the water to keep your skin hydrated, you need a little additional love and care for the exteriors too.

What better than Cocoa Butter to keep your skin soft, supple and moisturised?

Moisturization, the "Cacao" of our lives

You may wonder, what is Cocoa butter and why should I use it? 

Cocoa butter is a vegetable fat extracted from Cacao/ Cocoa beans. It is also called Theobroma oils and is a great emollient for skin. The beans are first fermented, roasted and then separated from their hulls. A majority of the extract, say 51% PLUS residual is the cocoa butter extracted using the Broma Process and hence the oil is also called as Theobroma Oils. The extract of the Cacao beans is also used for making, one of the favourites ingredients of women- chocolate. Ummm, I am sure the thought of chocolate brings lots of pleasurable joys to your mouth and mind.

Cocoa Butter given its high antioxidant properties, pleasant fragrance, velvet smooth texture and good storage life of 1-2 years is considered as one of the best ingredients for making Beauty products. It is highly used for preventing stretch marks in pregnant women and to soothe dry/chapped skin.

It is an expensive ingredient and is often substituted with Shea Butter, Coconut Oil or off late, Rapeseed Oil [widely known as Canola Oil]

A few months earlier, I have learnt about a video where some dexterous women were extracting cocoa butter. They apparently in an interview alleged that during the extraction process which requires their hands to be constantly dipped in the cocoa butter, their skin becomes so smooth and young that it does not reflect their real age. Yes, they alleged that while they were 40+, their hands still looked like of a 22 years old. Ain't that amazing?

Now we all cannot access the cocoa butter extraction process to attain the magical touch but we can still derive the goodness of cocoa butter at the comfort of our homes, offices and travel, with new Himalaya Rich Cocoa Butter.

Himalaya Rich Cocoa Butter

Himalaya is one of the popular skin care and health brand from India. They have recently launched a new body butter viz: Rich Cocoa Butter. The product claims to intensively moisturise your skin towards making it healthy and glowing. 

It is a thick formula and spreads well on your body. The effect stays till next wash or 3-4 hours, whichever is earlier.

What is it consists of?

Here is the list of ingredients plus other details of the product.

How to use: Take a swipe of the product on clean fingers and apply all over your cleansed body, rub and spread gently. You can use it all over your body from decollete to feet, baring your face. 

I was not a fan of chocolate in my beauty products and often found their smell intoxicating. However, this product has a good rancidity and emits a mild yet pleasant fragrance. I have used the product in lotion variant in past and it is among one of my current favourites.

What I Liked

1) Smooth and creamy Texture

2) Spread evenly

3) High Emulsifying properties

4) Mild Fragrance

5) Sturdy packaging with a seal lock cover

6) Value for money

What I did not like

You just cannot have enough of it

Do I recommend buying/using it: Yes

Overall verdict: I have a dry skin and I cannot afford to skip moisturization. Though I am staying in Mumbai, where technically there is no winter yet, I could sense the dryness and discomfort in my skin. I may skip makeup but I love moisturisers and cold creams, and simply could not have enough of them. 

I have used Himalaya's other moisturisers in the past, including the cocoa butter lotion that soothed my skin best in the category. The body butter is thick yet easy to spread. It is smooth and leaves you with a tingling fragrance of Cacao. 

The packaging is quite handy and the portion is good too. The product is good and worth trying. I am not sure if it claims to repair your parched skin but it definitely soothes and comfort.

At Rs 270 for 200 ml it is a steal and cost effective too.  The cream is good for people with Normal to dry skin. Give it a try and let me know your feedback. I am sure you will like it and will replace it over some of the other expensive body butter variants as available in the market.

Rating: 4/5

Haute Kutir Tips: Before going to bed, wash your feet and hands, apply a generous dose of the cream. Use a hot towel to fold to cream inside your skin and then apply a thin layer of the cream again. It will keep your skin moist and soft for the night and you will wake up with a soothing skin.

I hope you liked my post. For the review of other Himalaya products check my previous post or my YouTube Video.

Do subscribe to my blog!

Love,

Haute Kutir

____________________

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#GetUpAndBoogie with My Envy Box January 2017

Howdy!

Hope the New Year 2017 is treating you good thus far. Let's make it merrier. Leave that morose feeling out there. It is time to get up and Boogie!

Yes, for beauty and makeup aficionados like us, the party never ends. It only gets deeper and fancier by the day. And with Beauty subscription boxes like My Envy Box, there is no dearth of pampering for your makeup kitty.

#GetUPAndBoogie

My Envy Box | Review & Unboxing | Jan 2017

Blockbuster Barbeques at Barbeque Nation

What: Blockbuster Barbeques Food festival
Where: Barbeque Nation
What is it famous for: DIY Barbeque, Sumptuous meals
Cost: Rs 1600 for two



This New Year, Barbeque Nation brought some lights, camera & action to the dining with its themed festival- ‘Blockbuster Barbeques’. As the name suggests, it is a celebration of some of the favourite Bollywood flicks. The theme was incorporated thoroughly into the décor and the menu.

Here's a dekko-

Happy New Year 2017

Taking a moment of time to wish you all a very Happy New Year!

May this year be a beautiful year, fashioning your most desired lifestyle and laden with great food!

Sending you a plethora of good wishes from the blog.

Year 2016 was interesting indeed and am sure 2017 will be bigger and better.

Stay tuned and keep reading- haute kutir. com

Love