Don’t Ignore Your Drains!

The drains in your house are the 2nd most important part of your plumbing system. Without them, we might as well go back to washing dishes in buckets and using the outhouse! Yeah, it’s great to have running water, but if you don’t have a place to get rid of the water when you’re done with it, you will start to agree with my first statement!

Most people don’t even think about their drains until they are ankle deep in nasty water. They see that their sink (bathtub, shower, toilet, etc.) drains slowly, but as long as the water eventually goes down, they don’t do anything about it. This can be a BIG mistake!

The drains in your house can be compared to your arteries: you can get a buildup of materials on the walls of the pipes that can effect the “health” of your house. Unlike your arteries, AB&R Plumbing can clean out your drains and prevent this buildup from giving you problems.

When you actually have a clog, the most common device to use is called a “snake” or drain machine. This uses a blade on the end of a flexible cable to cut through whatever is causing the clog. The cable rotates and pushes the blade into the pipe, so it can be very effective. It can usually cut through soft blockages, small roots, and other problems. Sometimes, though, the blockage is too severe, or you are trying to do preventative cleaning. For this, you need a jetter.

A jetter shoots high pressure water forward to cut through the clog. It also shoots water backward at an angle so that it hits the walls of the pipe. This high pressure water scours the walls of the pipe clean

AB&R Plumbing has 2 different types of jetters. We have electric “mini-jetters” that operate at as high as 1200 PSI. These are great for smaller pipe sizes and when jetting inside buildings

When you need more muscle, we also have a diesel-powered hydro-jetter that can operate as high as 4000 PSI! This machine can cut through just about anything, it emulsifies grease, pushes rocks, cuts roots! It’s so strong that, with one of the nozzles, it can cut a 2” x 4” in half in about 4 seconds!
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If your drains are slow, you might want to think about having them jetted before you have a backup. You know that backups always happen at the worst, most inconvenient, time. If you have your lines jetted, you can schedule it, instead of having to deal with an emergency.

So, save the hassles and extra expense of having a backup. Call AB&R Plumbing and ask about preventative drain cleaning with our hydro-jetters. We can perform this service (and have) in your home, office, condo complex, office park, etc. It doesn't matter if it is your sewer, area drains, storm drains, or almost any other type of drains.

Give us a call today, you'll be glad you did.

South County - 949-642-7900
North County - 714-641-3200
Toll Free - 800-645-2689

Navarathri Day 3 & 4 - Avil Payasam, Kadalai sundal, Arisi Paruppu Payasam & Kesari

Day ~ 3

Aval Payasam & Black Channa Sundal

I have posted the recipe for Aval Payasam earlier.

Brown Chickpeas  Karuppu Kadalai Sundal

Brown chickpeas - 2 cups
Turmeric a pinch
Salt

To season
Coconut Oil - 1 tblspn
Mustard seeds - 1 tspn
Green chilly - 2 nos
Red chilly - 1 no
Ginger - a small piece
Hing
Curry leaves - few
Gated coconut - 2 tblspn

Wash and soak the channa overnight. Rinse and pressure cook with a pinch of turmeric. These variety of chikcpeas doesn't turn mushy on cooking. Even when cooked soft, it remains firm in shape.  Drain the cooked water. Heat a kadai and do the seasoning with mustard seeds, chopped green chillies, ginger , broken red chillies and curry leaves. Add the cooked and drained chana. Mix in salt and let it cook on slow flame for the chana to soak in the flavors. You can add little of the cooked water to retain bit of moisture. Garnish with freshly grated coconut.

Day ~ 4

Arisi, paruppu payasam and Kesari


Arisi, paruppu payasam ( Raw rice, Moongdal Payasam)

Raw rice - 3/4 cup
Moong dal - 1/4 cup
Jaggery -1 cup
Ghee - 2 tblspn
Cashew and raisins - 10 nos each
Cardamom powder - 1/2 tspn

Dry roast rice and ghee separately. Roast rice till the color changes lightly. Dal can be roasted till you can smell the aroma. Leave rice and dal to cool. Wash and pressure cook in 3 cups of water. In a kadai or any thick bottomed vessel, melt the jaggery with 1/4 cup of water. Strain to remove any impurities. Boil the syrup. When the jaggery syrup starts bubbling, stir in the cooked rice and dal combo. Mix well. Continue to cook, till the jaggery flavor is abosrbed by the dal and rice. By then, the mix would have thickened. Remove from fire. Roast cashew and raisins in ghee and garnish the payasam. The paysam will not be very sweet. If you would like it having sweeter, increase the jaggery quantity.

Kesari

You can find the kesari recipe here

Snow Skin Mooncake

My first attempt on making mooncake. Everyone recommend to me to start with snow skin as it's quite simple to make. So, just give it a try.

I cooked the lotus paste, it's hard work but at the end it's nice to know that all made by myself although it's not as tasty as the one I bought and the appearance could tell it's definately a homemade one.

I like to play with the mould more than eating the mooncake. It's fun wrapping the lotus paste with the snow skin and stuff it into the mold and pushing it out. Playing the mooncake mold is really FUN! It's a good try. I'll not share the recipe here as I feel that this batch of mooncake still not the good one. I'll try again next year or may be I shall try out the bake version next year :)