From My Home Kitchen

Thai Red Curry

2012-01-23T23:14:00.000-06:00

Holiday season has come to an end and now everything is back to square one.Getting back to routine is one of the most difficult things. That too Monday mornings are so bad, still not out of the weekend mood. Truly miss the holidays and the solid time we got to spend with the kids. You get time to cook different kinds of food during holidays. But now eating the same menu makes us feel even more bored. When we think of eating something different our first choice would be to have Thai food.

Thai Red Curry is an easy to make dish . I won't say this is an authentic recipe but I bet this is a fail proof recipe to impress your guests. Whenever we go the the Whole Foods market we never forget to buy Thai red curry paste and organic coconut milk. These are musts in our grocery list. If you adjust the spice level, kids will love it too. Steaming jasmine rice topped with this spicy curry will tickle your taste buds for sure. If you are bored with your regular dishes gives this a try, you will love this !!!!

Preparation Time : 10 min

Cooking Time: 20 min

Serves : 4

Ingredients

Carrot - 2 no
Eggplant - 1 no
Bell pepper - 2 no
Mushrooms - 6 no
Onion - 1 medium size
Green Chilly - 3 no
Ginger Garlic paste - 1/4 tsp
Thai Red Curry paste - 1 tbsp
Fish sauce - 1 tsp
Coconut milk - 1 can
Salt for taste
Oil - 1 tbsp

Preparation

Clean and chop the vegetables into medium size pieces.

Grind the green chillies into a smooth paste.

Cut the onion length wise.

Method

Heat oil in a pan and add the onion. Cook until it is translucent.

Add the ginger garlic paste, followed by the green chilly paste and saute well.

Add the Thai Red Curry paste and give a quick mix.

Add the chopped vegetables,salt and cook for about 3 min.Vegetables should not be overcooked.

Add the coconut milk and allow it to simmer

Add the fish sauce and give a quick stir. Cook for additional 3 mins

Serve Hot with steaming white rice

Notes

Adjust the spice level according to your taste.

You can add some vegetable broth along with the coconut milk to enhance the taste and increase the quantity.

Vegetables mentioned here are the most suitable for this gravy, you can add zuchinni.

Celebrations : Sakkarai Pongal | Pongal Recipe

2012-01-15T23:23:00.000-06:00

Wishing all my readers and friends a "Happy Pongal". Everyone have their own childhood memories about our Indian Festivals especially Pongal. It talks about our legacy and holds a very special place in our hearts. Pongal is a South Indian festival celebrated to thank the Sun god for giving us a good harvest. A rice porridge called the "Pongal" is made with the first grain and offered to the Sun god on this day. There are so many varities of pongal, usually the sweet pongal made with jaggery is specially made on this day and it surely gives the festive touch with the aroma of ghee and cardamom.

Normally in India, Pongal is made in earthern pots but nowadays everywhere it is only pressure cooker pongal. Lack of space and time have made us learn some cut shorts, but we should make sure that we pass on the legacy to the next generation as our parents did to us. I'm trying my level best to have Shweets involved in all the celebrations and explain her what all we used when we were kids. She is so full of excitement and loves to hear such stories. With all that being said I will come to recipe for the Sakkarai Pongal I prepared today to celebrate P O N G A L !

Preparation Time : 10 min

Cooking Time: 15 min

Serves : 4

Ingredients

Raw Rice - 1 cup
Moong Dal - 6 tbsp
Jaggery - 1 cup
Cardamom - 5 no
Sugar - 1 pinch
Ghee - 2 tsps
Cashews - 15 no
Raisins - 8 no

Preparation

Dry roast the Moong dal in medium high heat until aroma comes out.

Grind the cardamom seeds with the pinch of sugar into a fine powder.

Fry the cashews and raisins in 1 tsp ghee and keep aside.

Method

Wash and cook the rice and dal together with the remaining 1 tsp ghee. For 1 cup rice add 3 cups water and cook for about 3 whistles.

When the rice is cooking, mix the jaggery with 1 cup water in a heavy bottomed vessel and boil it in medium high heat stirring at regular intervals.

Jaggery should be boiled until it reaches string consistency, that is it should not get dissolved when a drop is added to a cup of water.

Once pressure is released from the cooker, smash the rice and dal mixture, add the jaggery liguid after straining it through a filter to remove impurities.

Mix all the contents well, add the ground cardamom powder, fried cashews and raisins along with the ghee and cook in medium low heat for about 3 mins. Serve Hot.

Notes

Make sure you taste your jaggery before you start some are too sweet so adjust according to your taste.

While cooking rice and dal you can add 2 tbsps of milk to make it more richer.

Karthigai Deepam Special : Sweet Appam

2011-12-09T12:25:00.000-06:00

This is a easy to prepare sweet which is specially prepared for Karthigai Deepam "Festival of Lights" in India. Karthigai Deepam occurs on the day when the moon is in conjunction with the constellation Karthigai (Pleiades) and purnima. This constellation appears as a group of six stars in the firmament in the shape of a pendant from the ear. Many legends and lyrical poetry have grown round this star. The six stars are considered in Indian mythology as the six celestial nymphs who reared the six babies in the saravana tank which later were joined together to form the six faced Muruga. He is therefore called Karthikeya, the one brought up by the Karthigai nymphs. Houses and streets are lit up with rows of oil lamps (Deepam) in the evening of the festival day (source:wiki).

I'm not a sweet lover but enjoy the ones prepared from jaggery. I have also had this in my Mom place during our summer vacation not homemade but from a old lady who will bring it our doorsteps. She would prepare it so well and I used to simply love it. I truly miss lighting oil lamps here. I'm planning to prepare a different type of appam for tonight so posted this from my archive the other one will follow soon. Happy Karthigai Deepam to all my readers !!!

Ingredients

Wheat Flour - 1 cup
Rice Flour - 3/4 cup
Jaggery - 1 cup
Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup
Cardamom - 4 no
Sugar 1 pinch
Milk - 1/2 cup
Ghee

Method

Mix the wheat flour and rice in a bowl.

Take jaggery in another bowl and dissolve it in 1/2 cup water and place it on a stove and stir for 2 minutes.

Filter the jaggery into the rice and wheat flour mix. This is done to remove impurities in the jaggery.

Grind the cardamom with the sugar to a coarse powder and add it to the mix.

Add the grated coconut to the mixture.

Add the milk and mix well. Make sure the batter is liquid-ish.

Heat the paniyara kallu, grease it with little ghee and pour the batter into the holes.

After 45 secs or so flip the appams to the other side and cook until appams turns golden brown. Serve Warm.

My Notes

If you do not have the paniyara kallu. Do not use the milk. Let the batter be thick. Make small balls out of the batter and drop it in oil and cook until it turns golden brown.

Chocolate Muffin

2011-08-30T22:58:00.000-05:00

It's time for something special. It's my 150th post. Finally I reached that mark. Yay me !!!! I reached 100 in 4 months and the next bunch has taken so much time. My regular readers would know the reason. I wanted to make something special, ofcourse special in my dictionary is surely something chocolatey. But did not have much of a time so ended up making these simple Chocolate Muffins. I always ask myself what is the difference between muffin and a cupcake. Is it just the frosting ?? No Idea need to google it. Muffins are totally my kind of food easy to make, takes less baking time and end result is awesome.

I got home early today and made these for Shweets. She liked it so much that she finished it in jiffy. She also got sweet scoldings from her dada for spilling the crumbs in the entire house. Whenever I saw her she had one in her hand. Did not want to restrict her on the count as I prepared it after a long time. Some kind of chocolate ganache on it would have pepped up the muffin but did not have the patience do it. The muffin as such was so good. Whatelse are you waiting for...Mix, Bake and Gobble.

Preparation Time - 10 min

Baking Time - 20 min

Yields - 12 Standard Size Muffins

Ingredients

All Purpose Flour - 1 3/4 cup
Eggs - 2 nos
Yogurt - 1 cup
Unsalted Butter - 1 stick
Vannila Extract - 2 tsps
Light Brown Sugar - 1 1/4 cups
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Baking Powder - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Semisweet Chocolate Bar - 1 no

Preparation

Prepare the muffin trays with muffin liners or vegetable oil spray.

Coarsely chop the semisweet chocolate bars.

Lightly beat the yogurt and keep aside.

Melt butter and allow it to come to room temperature.

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Method

Mix the eggs,butter, yogurt and vannila essence in a medium size bowl.

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda,light brown sugar and salt in a large bowl.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated.

Fold in the chopped chocolate bars.

Fill in the prepared muffin tray with 1 scoop of the batter or 2 spoons of batter filling only 3/4.

Bake for about 20 min or until a tooth pick comes out clean.

Notes

As always do not overmix the mixture, overmixing leads to rubbery muffins.

Do not overbake, overbaking leads to dry muffins.

You can fold in some nuts to make a nutty muffin.

Tomato Pickle with lotsa love by Amma !!!

2011-08-14T17:11:00.000-05:00

Getting back to work after a long break is something which is very difficult to accept.The luxury of getting up late, having short naps in the afternoon all of it is gone.Jake being a well behaved cutie, I have been able to manage the first week at work. Having my mom with me has been a real boon. She helps with all the stuff and the transition is so far smooth.After she gets back to India, God only knows. Wish I had four hands !!!

First 2 months she was here, it was so hectic we could never think about food. Now that everything is settling down she prepared one of her signature recipe "Tomato pickle". I have never tasted something like this anywhere. It is totally unique.My little sis asked my mom to prepare this for her, when she left for the US. But as my mom did not have time she was not able to prepare it.So this post is dedicated to her as she is having a tough time in India managing for food. This pickle can be used as a sidedish for dosa, idli, chappati or even even mix it with rice and eat. Try this allpurpose pickle. You are going to love this !!!

Preparation Time : 20 min

Cooking Time - 60 min

Yields - 1 Medium size bottle of pickle.

Ingredients

Ripe red tomatoes - 2 lb
Garlic - 3 bulbs
Ginger - 100 gms
Tamarind - lemon size
Asafoetida - 1/2 tsp
Fenugreek seeds - 1 tsp
Mustard - 1 tsp
Red Chilly Powder - 3 tbsp
Salt - as needed
Seasame Oil - 5 - 6 tbsp

Prepartion

Wash, pat dry and grind the tomato into a smooth paste.

Dry roast the fenugreek seeds in medium flame for about 2 min and allow it to cool. Grind it into a fine powder.

Prepare ginger garlic paste with the cloves out of 2 garlic bulbs and the ginger.

Crush the cloves out of the 3rd garlic bulb and keep aside.

Soak the tamarind in hot water and take the juice out of it.

Method

Heat oil in a heavy bottomed kadai, add the mustard and allow it to crackle.

Add the crushed garlic in medium flame and saute until it turns golden brown.

Add the ginger garlic paste and saute until raw smell goes off.

Add the tomato paste and mix well.

Carefully cook in high flame until all the water evapoartes and the mixture turns thick.

When the mixture turns thick and red, reduce flame add the chilly powder, tamarind juice and asafoetida powder.

Once the oil separates add the fenugreek powder and salt and cook for additional 10 mins.

Notes

When pickle is stored in a airtight container in the fridge it stays super good for about a month.

If ineterested you can add a small piece of jaggery while adding the fenugreek powder.

Thanks a ton Jay for the award you had shared with me !!! Check out the super cool award here.

Lowfat Banana Walnut Bread

2011-08-01T17:29:00.000-05:00

Lovely weather, lushy green grass, slight drizzle, amma's strong filter coffee and most importantly Jake having a sound sleep, perfect time for writing a post. So this has been another hectic week again. Moving to a new place is no joke. Unpacking and arranging is such a pain. One good thing about moving is we can just do a clean up. Atleast got rid 5 boxes of junk.I'm kind of getting settled in the new place, hunting a good daycare is one of most challenging job.When I want to leave my kid with somewhere I want it to be the best place. After days of research I found a good place. Happy that shweets liked it too.

Coming to the recipe. We were on a road trip to Lasvegas and Shweets was asking something called as "WALL BREAD". I did not understand what it meant and just got her a chocolate muffin in starbucks. When we were back at the hotel room she tried to explain to me and finally understood that she meant the Banana Walnut Bread. So I just promised to prepare once we get back home. With kids you have to keep up your promises else you end up answering their questions every 5 minutes. So ended up making this super moist, yummy banana bread. Unlike my previous versions, I prepared a low fat banana bread. It tasted so good. You got try it !!!!

Preparation Time : 15 min

Baking Time - 45 - 60 min

Yields - 1 9*5*3 Loaf

Ingredients

All Purpose Flour - 2 cups
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Egg - 1 no
Sugar - 1 cup
Olive Oil - 1/2 cup
Low fat Yogurt - 2 tbsp
Vannila Extract - 1/2 tsp
Banana - 3 ripe
Walnuts - 1/2 cup + 1/3 cup for the topping

Preparation

Coarsely chop the walnut into medium size pieces.

Mash the banana into a smooth paste.

Preheat the oven to 325 F and place rack in the center of the oven.

Spray nonstick cooking spray into a 9*5*3 loaf pan.

Method

Blend the flour, baking soda, salt and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, olive oil and mashed banana.

Add the flour mixture to the egg and banana mixture and mix well.

Add the lowfat yogurt, vanilla extract and give a quick mix.

Gently fold the 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts.

Transfer the batter into the loaf pan.

Top the batter with the remaning 1/3 cup of walnuts.

Bake for about 45 - 60 min or until a tooth pick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean.

Notes

Try replacing 1 cup of all purpose flour with whole wheat flour and enjoy a fiber rich bread.

Baking time depends upon each oven. Mine took 60 min at 325 F.

Olive oil can be replaced by vegetable or canola oil.

Potato Peas Kurma and a Good News ...

2011-07-18T22:09:00.000-05:00

I'll just start with the good news..We were blessed with a baby boy on the 1st of June and shweets has named him as "Jake". Now you all will know the reason for my absence in the blogworld. The last 10 months was really hectic with a vacation to India, project change and location change. Currently I'm being totally pampered by my parents and I'm kind of enjoying the luxury of just eating and sleeping after a very long time. I'm yet to get back to the routine of cooking so thought of posting something from my draft.

I made this Potato Peas Kurma for a potluck and just managed to click few shots. This gravy goes well with all kind of Indian breads and Vegetable pulao. In my potluck group I would always be given a non vegetarian item and this time managed to get a veggie item. So I prepared this gravy and vegetable pulao. I love the addition of peas in gravies and especially this combo is great. This is a simple and easy to make gravy and surely a party winner recipe.

Preparation Time : 10 min

Cooking Time : 15 min

Serves : 4 people

Ingredients

Potato - 2 no

Peas - 1 cup

Onion - 1 no (large size)

Tomato - 2 no

Ginger Garlic paste - 1 1/2 tsp

Green Chilly - 5 no

Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp

Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp

Grated Coconut - 3 tbsp

Cumin - 1/2 tsp

Fennel - 1/2 tsp

Mint leaves - 6 - 8 no

Coriander leaves

For Seasoning

Fennel - 1/2 tsp

Cardamom - 2 no

Cinnamon - 2 no

Cloves - 2 no

Preparation

Boil, peel and cut the potatoes into medium size pieces.

Grind grated coconut,fennel seeds, cumin seeds, green chillies and mint leaves into a smooth paste.

Finely chop the onion and tomatoes.

Method

Heat oil in a kadai, add cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, fennel seeds and cumin seeds in medium flame.

Add the chopped onions and saute until it turns golden brown.

Reduce the flame and add ginger garlic paste and saute well until raw smell is gone.

Add the tomatoes and saute until it is mushy.

Add the coriander powder, garam masala and saute well.

Add the boiled potatoes, peas, salt and mix well with the masala.

Add the ground paste and required water until desired consistency and allow the gravy to boil in medium flame.

Once the oil comes out of the gravy garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve hot.

Notes

You can add other vegetables and make it as a mixed vegetable kurma.

You can use frozen or raw peas. If using raw peas soak in water for about 6 hours and pressure cook for 1 whistle.

Mango Pickle

2011-04-08T23:29:00.000-05:00

When I think of an Indian summer I will surely get reminded of the home made pickles.I'm a hardcore fan of raw mangoes and would love to have them with little salt and chilly powder.Mango lovers would know what I'm talking about. When we buy raw mangoes from the Indian stores we just finish them in a jiffy and would never think of preparing anything with it. This week we made up our mind to make some spicy, tangy pickle to relish with our curd rice. Curd rice and Mango pickle is a heavenly combo mostly noone could say a no.

We thought of making the pickle slightly different from the usual style. The outcome was too good to resist.This is one dish that has been in my "Coming Soon" tab for about 5 months and finally I made it. Homemade pickles are always better than the store bought ones, as we have control over the addition of oil and ofcourse it is preservative free. My mom would always insist on drinking a lot milk while eating mangoes as it will reduce the heat in or body. Anything within limits is not bad so why wait. Cook, Eat and Enjoy !!!

Ingredients

Raw Mango (Large) - 1 no
Garlic Flakes - 4 no
Onion (medium size) - 1
Tomato (medium size) - 1
Red Chilly - 4 no
Chilly Powder - 1/4 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Mustard - 1 tsp
Gingely Oil - 2 tsp
Salt as per taste

Preparation

Wash and pat dry the mango. Cut it into medium size pieces.

Grind the red chillies into a coarse powder.

Cut the onion and tomato into fine pieces.

Cut the garlic into thin slices.

Method

Heat oil in a pan and add mustard to it. Allow it to splutter.

Add the sliced garlic in low flame and saute until it is golden brown.

Add the onion and saute until they turn translucent.

Add the tomato and saute until they turn mushy.

At this stage add the chilly powder, turmeric powder, ground red chilly powder and salt.

In medium flame saute the ingredients and cook until oil oozes out.

Add the mango pieces and mix them well so that the masala is well coated onto the mangoes.

After about 1 min turn off the heat.

When cooled down transfer to a bottle and refrigerate.

Notes

Adjust the spice level according to your taste.

If used carefully, using a dry spoon etc the pickle can be stored for 1 month or so.

Do not cook for a long period after adding the mangoes.

Greens Stir Fry/ Keerai Poriyal

2011-03-26T00:37:00.000-05:00

Green Stir Fry/ Keerai Poriyal is one of my favorite side dish. Simply love it with bland sambar or spicy gravies. We always make it a point to use greens atleast two times a week in the form of kuzhambu, kootu or this yummy poriyal. It is said that greens should not be taken in the night as it might create digestion problems. So weekend lunch would be a great time for this stir fry.

Back in India we used to fresh greens as bunches, it would be a time consuming task to remove the leaves from the stem and clean them.Here in the US we get easily usuable packs, just one wash should be enough.Easier the process the more we tend to use it. So just cook , eat and stay healthy !!!!

Ingredients

Greens - 1 pack or 2 bunches
Garlic flakes - 6 nos
Onion - 1 medium size
Red Chilly - 5 nos
Coconut pieces - 3 nos
Oil - 2 tsp
Salt for taste

For Seasoning

Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Urid Dal - 1/2 tsp
Asafoetida - a pinch
Curry Leaves

Preparation

Wash and chop the greens into small pieces.

Crush the garlic flakes.

Grate the coconut and keep aside.

Method

Heat oil, add mustard and allow it to splutter.

Add the urid dal, followed by asafoetida and red chillies in medium flame.

Add garlic flakes and saute until it turns golden brown.

Saute until onion turns translucent.

Add the greens, salt and mix so that the seasoning is well coated onto the greens.

Allow the greens to cook by occasionally stirring it.

Once the greens is cooked and dry, add the grated coconut and mix well.

Serve Warm with any rice item as a side.

My Notes

Any type of greens can be used for this stir fry.

Sprinkle little water if required for greens to cook.

Make sure the greens are fresh. It surely tastes better

Rava Ladoo

2011-03-23T17:48:00.000-05:00

It's been a long long time since I had posted something in the blog. A hectic 6 week India trip, new project and other totally unavoidable situations were the culprits. I should admit, I really missed my blog and felt extremely guilty. There were times when I badly wanted to post something, but did not cook anything new. Now that I have the time, thought of making something sweet and simple.

When I was thinking of various sweets just got reminded of the Rava Ladoo Mom used to prepare. I used to help Mom during festval times...good old times. Never made these in recent times, always stuck to the ones from the famous sweet stall in India. This is one of the most easiest sweet I could think of which can be prepared in a jiffy.

Ingredients

Rava - 1 cup

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Cashews - 15 nos

Raisins - 15 nos

Ghee - 2 tbsp

Milk - 1/2 cup

Cardamom Powder - 1/4 tsp

Preparation

Add 1/2 tsp ghee to a small kadai and roast the cashews until it is golden brown.

In the same kadai roast the raisins for few seconds.

Boil the milk and keep aside.

Method

Add remaning ghee into a medium size, heavy bottomed kadai and roast the rava until aroma rises.

Transfer the roasted rava into a plate and add sugar, cashews, raisins, cardamom powder and mix well.

Add the warm milk to the mixture and make small balls out of it. Make sure each ball has cashew and raisins in it.

Notes

Make sure to continuosly stir the rava else it might burnt.

Carefully add the milk in small amounts, just enough to make the balls.

Also we can completely avoid milk and use heated ghee to make the balls. This increases the shelf life of the Ladoos.

Virtual Party - Chocolaty Dreams Round up !!!

2010-10-10T21:34:00.000-05:00

Are you all ready for a Virtual Party..It's going to be a super cool party with all the Chocolaty and Dreamy dishes. It's real feast to the eyes and truly a drool worthy spread. Each and every entry sent to the event was so chocolaty and tempting ones. Now we have an array of desserts to try. Just sit back, relax and enjoy all the Sweet Treats !!!

Hosting an event is truly interesting. You get new friends, get to know a lot of new recipes and most of all each and every sent to your own event makes you feel as though you have achieved something real big. Thanks to all the fellow bloggers who participated in the Chocolaty Dreams. I know it takes solid time to cook for an event, blog about and send it. Thanks for all the effort that was taken to send a recipe to the event. I have posted the recipes in the order I got it....

Chocolate Coconut bars from Lena Rashmin Raj of Lemon N Spice

Chocolate Walnut Muffins from Lena Rashmin Raj of Lemon N Spice

Chocolate Chip Cookies from Lena Rashmin Raj of Lemon N Spice

Black Forest Cake From Azee's Kitchen

Homemade Chocolate from Premalatha of Prema's Thaligai

Molten Chocolate Lava Cake from The Taste Space

Chocolate Sugar Cookies from Namitha of Collaborative Curry

Chocolates from Soumya of Soumya's Kitchen

Chocolate Nutella Truffles from Aipi of US Masala

Eggless Double Chocolate Mocha Muffin from Aipi of US Masala

Molten Chocolate Nutella Cake from Aipi of US Masala

Nutella Brownies from Aipi of US Masala

Marbled Banana Bundt Cake from Aipi of US Masala

Beetroot and Chocolate Steamed Cake from Suneetha's Kitchen

Red Velvet Cake from Preethi of Ising Cakes

Chocolate Balls from Preethi of Ising Cakes

Black Forest Cake from Preethi of Ising Cakes

Chocolate Chip Cookies from Sujatha

Chocolate Cake from Rekha of Rekha's Recipe

Eggless Pressure Cooker Cake from Deepa of Hamaree Rasoi

Rich Chocolate N Almond Tea Cake from Satya of Super Yummy Recipes

Chocolate N Vanilla Marble Cake from Roshan of Roshan's Cucina

Double Deck Chocolate Mousse from Sudha of Malaysian Delicacies

Nigella Biscuits from Umm Mymoonah of Taste of Pearl City

Chocolate Oats Walnut Ladoo from Sangeetha of Sangi's Food World

Cake Balls from Gayathri of Gayathri's Cook Spot

Chocolate Mousse from Denise of Oh Taste N See

Eggless Chocolate Cake from Aparna Mallys of Apy Cooking

Zebra Cake from Aparna Mallya of Apy Cooking

Milk Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies from Aparna Mallya of Apy Cooking

Cupcake Pops from Everybunny Loves Food

Chocolate Cake Truffles from Nithu of Nithu's Kitchen

Eggless Chocolate Cake from Nithu of Nithu's Kitchen

Chocolate Bundt Cake from Fathima of Thattukada

Chocolate N Peanut Butter Cupcakes from Priya of Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes

Chocolate Orange Cake from Priya of Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes

Chocolate Puffs from Priya of Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes

Vegan Dark Chocolate Walnut Brownies from Priya of Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes

Cocoa Banana Bread from Cool Lassie of Pan Gravy Kadai Curry

Chocolate Flax Seeds Cupcakes from Cool Lassie of Pan Gravy Kadai Curry

Cocoa Banana Apple Sauce Muffins from Cool Lassie of Pan Gravy Kadai Curry

Cocoa N Safforn Vermicilli Pudding from Cool Lassie of Pan Gravy Kadai Curry

Chocolate Strawberry Kesari from Cool Lassie of Pan Gravy Kadai Curry

Cocoa Pancakes from Cool Lassie of Pan Gravy Kadai Curry

Vegan Chocolate Banana Cake from Cool Lassie of Pan Gravy Kadai Curry

Spiced Beet N Cocoa Muffins from Cool Lassie of Pan Gravy Kadai Curry

Chocolate Chip Cookies From My Home Kitchen

Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes From My Home Kitchen

Special thanks to Cool Lassie, Aipi, Priya, Aparna Mallya, Preethi and Lena for sending more number of entries to the event.

All the bloggers who joined me in the Virtual Party - Chocolaty Dreams, please do collect the participation award. Thanks Again ..See you at the next Virtual Party at Ruchika Cooks with the theme as Snacks. Click here for details.

Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes

2010-10-07T11:06:00.000-05:00

Did I choose the theme "Chocolaty Dreams" for my event just to indulge in some chocolate treats without much guilt. I'm wondering now..I prepared this lava cake some 2 weeks back and was very busy with all other stuff and forgot to upload the pictures. Yesterday I made it a point to do it as the event is nearing it's end date.Uploaded the pictures, drafted the post and was all set. Suddenly when I open my reader today it is filled with the Lava Cakes for sweet punch. So many cute cakes out there, I just cannot wait to post this chocolaty treat we thoroughly enjoyed !!

These cakes are simple and elegant cuties to which no one could say a no. A wonderful party dessert recipe. You can make these in muffin pans or in ramekins.You can pop these into the oven just when you start eating the main course so that it will be all set in the next 10 min and you have a super cool dessert with no hassles. If you are using ramekins you can directly serve them with topping of your choice or invert them in a plate and decorate with some sugar coated raspberries like I did.

Ingredients

Chocolate Bars - 8 oz
Eggs - 5 no
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Salt - a pinch
Flour - 4 tsp
Raspberries - for topping

Preparation

Cut the chocolate bars into bite size chunks.

Line a standard-size muffin tin (1/2 cup capacity) with 8 extra-large muffin papers with papers extending above cups to facilitate removal and spray vegetable oil on the muffin papers or grease individual ramekins.

Method

Melt butter and chocolate in a medium heat-proof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water; remove from heat or microwave for about 1 minute.

Beat eggs, sugar and salt with a hand mixer in a medium size bowl until sugar dissolves.

Pour egg mixture into melted chocolate, butter mixture and beat until smooth.

Mix in flour until just combined.

Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 425 degrees.

Divide batter among muffin cups or the greased ramekins.

Bake until batter puffs but center is not set, 10 - 12 minutes. Carefully lift cakes from tin and set on a cooling rack.

Pull papers away from cakes and transfer cakes to dessert plates or invert the cakes from the ramekins onto a dessert plate.

Top each with sugared raspberries and serve immediately.

My Notes

This recipe was adapted from all recipes.com. According to it the batter can be prepared earlier and refrigerated. Batter Needs to be bought to room temperature before popping into the oven.

Try different toppings. Fresh fruits is a very good choice.

Sending this delightful and Chocolaty treat to my own event Virtual Party - Chocolaty Dreams.

Please rush in your entries only 2 days left !!!!

Uppu Kozhukattai/Indian Savory Dumpling

2010-09-29T14:01:00.000-05:00

After last week's awesome treats, this week I'm really playing low with some subtle dal, stir fries etc. Nothing new from my kitchen and I donno how long it will atlast may be tomorrow I will post some spicy chicken or some chocolaty treat. This dish I share today reminds me of the festive mornings back in India where my Mom would wake us up at around 5 am to get ready to decorate the puja room.We would throw in all our creativity and help her in arranging for the celebration. Especially during Ganesh Chaturthi I would never have any breakfast, will just stick to the sweet and savory kozhukattai. Late lunch in vazhayilai and will make us so full . We just sit and watch the special TV programs. I'm planning for a vacation during Diwali and eagerly waiting such an festive morning after so many years !!!

This is one variety of prasadham offered to Hindu god Lord Ganesha on the auspicious day of Ganesh Chaturti. It is an easier and savory version of the Kozhukattai. I have shared the Sweet version here. We simply love kozhukattai and do not wait for the festival. It turns out be a usual evening snack in our place. It is a quickie and can be prepared in half an hour if you are using store bought rice powder. It requires no expertise , so Prepare, Steam and Enjoy !!!

Ingredients

Rice Flour - 1 cup
Water - 3/4 cup
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 drops

For Seasoning

Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp
Channa Dal - 1 tsp
Urid Dal - 1 tsp
Green Chilly - 4 no
Curry Leaves
Oil - 1 tsp

Preparation

Add salt to the water and boil it well.

Add the boiling water to the rice flour and knead it into a smooth dough.

Finely chop the green chillies and curry leaves.

Method

Heat oil in a small pan, add the mustard and allow it to splutter.

Add the channa dal, urid dal and saute in medium flame until they turn golden brown.

Add the chopped green chillies, curry leaves and saute them.

Transfer the seasoning to the prepared dough.

Mix well and shape them into small cone like structures.

Place the kozhukkatai's in greased idly plates or any steamer and steam for about 5 -7 minutes.

Serve Warm.

My Notes

You can use ready made rice flour available in stores or soak raw rice, dry it and grind it to a fine powder and use it.

If you are using store bought powder, buy the one especially for kozhukattai or Idiyappam.

Kozhukattai will become dry if over steamed.

Please do keep sending your entries for the Virtual Party - Chocolaty Dreams event happening at my place from September 8th - October 8th.

I have shared the participation award sent by Jay for participating in the Letz Relish - Paneer here.

Sending this simple snack to Only Low oil or Low Calorie event guest hosted by Priya Mitharwal and started by Pari.

Also would love to link this quickie to Ayeesha's Any One Can Cook weekly event.

Carrot Halwa

2010-09-27T16:12:00.000-05:00

Last week was like Food Festival at our home. We cooked special food each and every day due to my brother in law's visit. I think we need to fast this week to compensate last week's high calorie diet. How could I call it a food festival without any sweet treats. I prepared Carrot Halwa one of our favorite sweet. I'm not a big sweet lover but I just like some of the homemade ones. This one is my Mom's specialty. I just remember the days when I was back from school, I would smell the aroma of the ghee and carrots in air when I'm inside my block. I would run upstairs and ask my Mom whether she prepared the halwa and she would say no, may be the aroma is from the neighbor's house. I would not believe her and I would pull a chair and check all the shelves and finally jump out of joy when I find it. She prepares it so well, I used to finish my quota very soon and pester her for more..

Carrot Halwa is a wonderful blend of carrots, milk and sugar, flavored with the exotic cardamom and garnished with the roasted cashews. It is a simple dessert which is a good party recipe. My mom used to spend a lot time in grating carrots but now we can use our food processor and it hardly took 2 minutes. It can be served both warm and cold. I love it both the ways. This is a must try dessert. Just Cook Eat and Enjoy !!!

Ingredients

Grated Carrots - 4 cups
Milk - 3 cups
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Ghee - 4 tbsp
Cardamom pods - 4 - 5 no
Cashews - 8 - 10 no

Preparation

Heat 1/2 tsp ghee and fry the cashews until golden brown and keep aside for garnishing.

Grind the cardamom seeds with little sugar into a coarse powder.

Method

Heat ghee in a non stick pan and add the grated carrots to it.

Saute the carrot for about 10 minutes until it is tender and has changed color.

Meanwhile in a heavy bottomed pan boil the milk until for about 10 minutes. Stir the milk often so that it does not gets burnt.

Add the milk to the carrot and cook in medium flame until all the milk is dried up. It might take about 10 minutes.

Add the sugar to the cooked carrot mixture and mix well.

Saute continuously until the halwa starts to leave the edges of the pan and starts to roll.

Garnish with the fried cashews.

My Notes

Adjust the sugar level according to your taste.

You can use other garnishing like golden raisins to make it more richer.

Keep an eye on the flame and continuously saute the contents else it might get burnt.

Mint Chutney

2010-09-25T21:58:00.000-05:00

Mint is of one my favorite herb. They are aromatic and has a pleasant, fresh taste.The minute mint is added to any dish the aroma lingers around the kitchen especially while cooking biryani..

Mint is said to have medicinal value and cures common cold. It is also used alleviate stomach pain and whiten teeth. Without of pack of mint leaves my weekend shopping is incomplete..

Today I wanted to prepare mint chutney and Thakkali thokku (Tomato Chutney) for Idly..but my shweets poured the whole bottle of paint on her dress..wiped it with her hands and cleaning up the mess took away all my time and ended up only with the mint chutney.But the mint chutney and Idly were quite satisfying and did not miss the tomato chutney much...:-)

Ingredients

Mint Leaves - 1 cup
Urid Dhal - 1 tsp
Channa Dhal - 1 tsp
Red Chilly - 3 nos
Tamarind paste - 1/4 tsp
Coconut flakes - 1 tsp
Jaggery - 1/2 tsp
Salt - for taste
Oil - 1/2 tsp

Method

Heat oil, add urid dal, channa dal in medium flame.

Once they golden brown, add red chillies, coconut flakes, and saute well.

Add mint leaves, tamarind paste, salt and saute for 5 min. Allow the contents to cool.

In a blender add the sauteed mixture, jaggery and little water and grind it to a coarse paste. Do not make it a smooth paste.

Serve with Idly/Dosa.

Sending this flavorful chutney to Jagruti's CMT - Chutney event.

Onion Chutney

2010-09-24T17:01:00.000-05:00

What should I call this dish...

I used to call this "Kara Chatni (Spicy Chatni)" but during potlucks my friends asked me why do u call it that way because it was not that spicy..I had to reduce the chillies keeping the kids in mind..

My niece used to call this "Red Chatni" and would be happy even if we gave it to her for breakfast and Dinner... :-) I usually get reminded of my Mom when I prepare this..it is her specialty and it is big hit among my cousins...Of course my cousins gave it a different name "Periyamma Chatni"Ahhhhhhhh...Finally after so much confusion I named it Onion Chatni..

This simple and easy side dish goes well with Idly, Dosa varieties, Pongal etc.,One of my favorites and all my friends like it a lot...

Ingredients

Onion - 2 no
Garlic - 6 no
Tomato - 2 no
Red Chilly - 5 no
Coconut flakes - 2 tsp
Roasted gram - 2 tsp
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves
Salt - for taste
Oil -2 tsp

Method

Cut the onions, garlic and tomato into small pieces.

Heat 1 tsp oil, add onions, garlic, tomato, red chillies one after other and saute well.

Once the ingredients are cooked allow it to cool.

In a mixer add the coconut flakes, roasted gram, cooked mixture, salt and grind it to a coarse paste.

Transfer to a vessel and add water until desired consistency.

Heat remaining oil, add mustard and curry leaves in medium flame.

Add the seasoning to the chutney.

Sending my Mom's special chutney to Jagruthi's CMT -Chutney event.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-09-23T15:19:00.000-05:00

I was all alone at home when all the others went to the Aquarium. I almost finished all my work around 4.30 and was sitting idle with nothing much to do. As we had plans of eating out at a famous Japanese restaurant there was no need for any dinner prep work. The place was so still and silent which made feel very lonely and dull. I sometimes used to wish that I could have time of my own without anyone around me. That never happened. This day was something close to that but I started to feel so bored. After much thinking I thought I will bake some cookies and have it with my tea. I always prefer crispy cookies and not the chewy ones atleast with my tea I want something crispy and crunchy !!

I almost fell in love with baking cookies. One thing that interests me in cookie baking is that it it takes very less time and you can make a number of variations based on your taste. I did some research on making crispy cookies, high moisture content in the cookies causes the cookies to be chewy. So baking time and temperature plays an important role in deciding the texture of the cookies. The amount of dough you drop decides whether it will be thick or thin cookies. So with all the tips I got I baked some delicious crispy cookies. They are perfect ones with a cup of tea !!

Ingredients

All-purpose flour - 1 cup
Butter - 1/2 cup
Firmly packed brown sugar - 1/2 cup
Granulated sugar - 1/3 cup
Vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp
Baking soda - 3/4 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Semisweet chocolate chips - 1 cup
Pecans (optional) - 1/2 cup

Preparation

Melt and cool the butter to room temperature.

Coarsely chop the pecans.

Method

Preheat oven to 300F.

To a bowl add butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed,until well blended.

Add 3 tablespoons water and the vanilla extract and beat until smooth, scrape down sides of bowl as needed.

In another medium size bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and salt.

Stir the dry mixture into the butter mixture until well incorporated.

Fold in chocolate chips and pecans.

Drop dough in 1 tablespoon portions, 2 inches apart, onto greased cookie sheets.

Bake in the oven until cookies are lightly browned around 18 to 20 minutes.

Using a spatula, transfer cookies to wire racks to cool.

My Notes

If the cookies start to break when it is hot let stand on pan to firm up to 5 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely.

Firmly packed brown sugar is a way to measure the correct amount of sugar.Brown sugar is kept moist and the water content will vary according to the environmental humidity, it is difficult to measure the exact same amount when fluffy and moist compared to when dry and more compact.you use the back of a spoon to press the sugar down into the measuring cup to pack it in and remove all the air trapped by the moisture (source: wiki)

This measures yields about 30 - 32 cookies.

These crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies proudly enters my own event Virtual Party - Chocolaty Dreams

An upcoming CSN Product Review

2010-09-22T16:10:00.000-05:00

I was super excited when I was contacted by CSN stores to review one of their products. CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find everything from cheap bedroom furniture to fantastic fitness equipment to cookware!. They have so much to choose from. You can just sit and spend the whole day browsing through their wonderful products. It is my own personal experience and simply loved all their bedroom furnitures and accessories.

Obviously one of my favorite site was the Cookware.com I'm sure you are going to love it. God knows what I would pick for the review I'm so confused everything looks good and priced very low. The review could be either about a grill or a bake ware set or hmmmm....I'm still thinking. So Keep Guessing !!!!

Coconut Chutney

2010-09-21T19:32:00.000-05:00

Coconut Chutney is one of the easiest side dish you can prepare in about 5 min..This goes on well with Idly, Dosa, Pongal etc., When I'm really tired after work and find Idly batter in the fridge this dish will be the first one to come to my mind..I love it with Pongal. Everybody will like this one..no doubt about that.. and it comes handy when you want to set your table fast...

This side dish is a South Indian side dish made out of coconut paste and roasted gram.

Ingredients

Coconut flakes - 1 cup
Roasted Gram - 1/2 cup
Green Chilly - 2 nos
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Split Urid Dal - 1/4 tsp
Curry Leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 1 tsps

Method

Add grated coconut flakes, roasted gram, green chilly, salt, little water to a blender and grind until they turn into a coarse paste.

If required add water while grinding.

Heat oil, splutter mustard, add split urid dal, curry leaves and add it to the chutney.

Serve with Idly, Dosa etc.,

Sending this simple and easy chutney to Jagruti's CMT - Chutney event.

Achari Aloo

2010-09-21T11:11:00.000-05:00

This weekend as expected was a totally busy one. Planned to make something new but MK suggested to stick onto the usuals.So we just went with spicy gravies, side dishes and had cool fun. Asusal Monday was hectic with all the catching up and loads of mails to answer so thought of having pizza dinner. But shweets was not keeping well so decided to make some home food. Suddenly got reminded of the baby potatoes I bought this weekend and tried out the flavorful Achari Aloo.

Achari Aloo is a spicy, tangy potato dry dish with lot of flavors. I had planned to make this dish for a long time and searched for a good homey recipe. I got reminded of the recipe in US Masala and followed the recipe exactly. It tasted so good and everyone at home loved it with Onion and Chili paratha. I was able to feel the taste of all the different pickle spices and the tanginess due to lemon juice in the dish. Totally our type of dish. Do not get dizzy about the list of the ingredients they all are readily available in Indian Stores or International Markets. It truly tasted awesome. You got to try this for sure !!

Ingredients

Red Potatoes - 12 no
Onion - 1 no
Tomato - 2 no
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1/2 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Coriander Powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Garam Masala - 1/2 tsp
Amchur - 1/2 tsp
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Fennel Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Cumin Seeds - 1/4 tsp
Fenugreek Seeds - 1/8 tsp
Nigella Seeds - 1/8 tsp
Ajwain - 1/4 tsp
Asafoetida - a pinch
Lemon juice - 1 tbsp
Coriander leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsp

Preparation

Boil, peel and cube the potatoes into medium size pieces.

Finely chop onion and tomatoes.

Method

Heat oil, add mustard, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, ajwain seeds, nigella seeds, fenugreek seeds, asafoetida in medium flame.

Add the onions and saute until it turns translucent.

Add in tomatoes, turmeric powder, salt and mix well and cook until oil separates.

Add the ginger garlic paste and cook until raw smell is gone.

Add the potatoes and cook for about 6 - 7 minutes.

Add the coriander powder, garam masala, amchur, chilly powder and mix well.

Sprinkle some water and let the mixture get cooked for additional 5 minutes.

Once it is done add the lemon juice and mix well.

Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves and Serve hot.

My Notes

If you get baby potatoes you need not cut them. Just use as whole potatoes.

Authentic Achari Aloo calls for deep frying. I added only 2 tsp of oil. Cook as per your choice.

Linking this recipe to Bookmarked Recipes every Tuesday event hosted by Priya Mitharwal and co-hosted by US Masala.

Also would love to send this flavorful Achari Aloo to Cooking with Seeds - Nigella Seeds guest hosted by Ayeesha of Taste of Pearl City event started by Priya

Tomato Chutney

2010-09-20T23:28:00.000-05:00

After missing this delicious side dish day before yesterday was hoping to make it soon..Today had a wonderful lunch at my friends place and wanted to have something light for dinner.Thinking of light dinner.. there comes Idly(Rice cakes) on its way..moreover wanted to finish my Idly batter soon.On deciding the main dish,thought to make the Tomato Chutney which goes along well with it. It is easy and taste different than the normal chutney's we make as we do not use coconut in it..

This side dish is made out of Tomatoes, onions and can be had with Idly, Dosa, Chapati.

Ingredients

Tomato - 4 no
Onion - 2 no
Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Fennel Seeds - 1/4 tsp
Curry Leaves
Coriander Leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsp

Method

Finely chop onions and tomatoes,curry leaves, coriander leaves.

Heat oil, add mustard,fennel seeds in medium flame.

Add onion, curry leaves and cook until onion is translucent.

Add ginger garlic paste and saute well.

Add tomatoes, turmeric powder, chilly powder, salt and saute well.

Smash the tomatoes and add 1/2 cup and allow it cool.

Once the tomatoes are well cooked and oil separates garnish with fresh coriander leaves.Serve Hot.

Sending this colorful chutney to Jagruthi's Complete My Thali - Chutney event.

Classic White Bread

2010-09-16T16:56:00.000-05:00

This weekend is going to be busy one for me. I have a guest at home, a birthday party for which I promised to make some item and some trips. So obviously there a lot of things going on in my mind menu for the weekend, dress for the party and what not. I think a lot of dishes when I'm in the car after work. But when I reach home the sun is all down and I'm no mood to cook something new because I will not be able to take good pictures. So when I'm requested for a new dish I simply say "Wait till the Weekend" .

I prepared this White Bread 2 or 3 weeks back. Preparing homemade white bread was a different experience. I had not baked any bread with yeast till now and this was in the wish list for a long time. While baking the aroma of the bread filled my entire kitchen and was eager to eat a slice. It was too good with homemade Strawberry N Plum Jam. Shweets liked it a lot and always asks me to make them again. Though it is a long process the outcome made me happy. I'm surely making this again !!

Ingredients

Bread Flour - 3 cups
Sugar - 2 tbsp
Salt -1/2 tsp
Oil - 2 tbsp
Active Dry Yeast - 1 pack
Milk - 1/2 cup
Water - 1/2 cup

Preparation

Place the water in the stove or microwave and heat it for less than 1 min until it is warm

Similarly heat the milk until it is Luke warm.

Grease a 9X5x3 loaf pan.

Method

Combine water, milk, sugar and yeast together in a large bowl.

Keep aside till it becomes frothy.

Add salt and oil to frothy mixture and mix well.

Slowly add the flour and knead while you add.

Knead the dough for 10 to 15 minutes.

Rub the dough with oil and cover with clean towel for about a hour until dough is doubled in volume.

Gently punch down the dough and shape it to a loaf in a floured surface.

Place the shaped dough in the pan, cover it with a cling wrap and place it in a warm place for about a hour.

Dough would have raised to rim of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Bake for about 35 min until crust turns brown.

Cool on a wire rack for about 10 min and slice after it is completely cooled.

Serve with jam or any other spread of your choice.

My Notes

Bread flour can be replaced with the All Purpose Flour.

If the bread is browning to fast cover it with a loose aluminum foil after first 15 min.

When the bread is warm brush it with melted butter for a softer crust.

Nan khatai/ Butter Cookies

2010-09-14T15:32:00.000-05:00

After an enjoyable weekend in the sunshine city, I was in good mood to bake something after I returned from work. But I wanted to finish it off fast so that it will not disturb our dinner schedule. If I serve dinner late then surely we would end getting up late and you know the consequences. So thought of some simple cookies and searched for it and finally got hooked to the Nan khatai recipe at Manjula's Kitchen. Easy to make and tasted awesome what else do you need. It hardly took 30 minutes for me to bake the cuties and we relished it with our evening tea.

I did not make any major changes to the recipe, just reduced the sugar level to suit our taste buds. After the first 10 minutes of baking the entire kitchen was filled with aroma of the butter and cardamom in the cookies. Simply loved the texture and taste so much that I will be making this often. All the ingredients used for Nan khatai should be readily available in any regular kitchen moreover it is an egg less cookie. This is surely a keeper. Try these out and Enjoy as we did !!!

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 1/3 cup
Fine Sooji or semolina - 1/3 cup
Besan flour - 1/2 cup
Baking soda - a pinch
Green Cardamom Pods - 5 no
Unsalted butter - 1 stick
Sugar - 2/3 cup
Almond - 10 - 15 no

Preparation

Grind the cardamom seeds with little sugar to make a coarse powder.

Slice the almonds into equal halves and keep aside for garnishing.

Method

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

In a bowl, mix the all-purpose flour, gram flour, sooji, baking soda and cardamom powder and set aside.

Let the butter come to the room temperature.Butter should be soft not melted

Add butter and sugar in a larger bowl and beat in medium speed for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy.

Add the flour mix to butter and sugar mixture and knead them together to make a smooth dough.

Divide the dough into equal parts and make them into balls.

Press each ball between your palms lightly; every piece should be about 3/4 inches thickness.

Take the sliced almonds and press them into the dough gently.

Place the Nan khatai on a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake for about 13 to 15 minutes.

After they are lightly golden brown remove the cookie sheet from the oven.

Allow the Nan Khatai's to cool down for about 3 minutes and then remove them from cookie sheet.

Serve with Hot tea or coffee.

My Notes

Adjust the sugar level according to your taste.

Use garnishing as per you choice.

Store the Nan Khatai's in air tight containers to retain crispiness.

I used standard measuring cups used for baking and made 16 cookies out of it.

Sending this delicious Nan Khatai to Bookmarked Recipes Every Tuesday event Started by Priya Mitharwal and co-hosted by Aipi of US Masala.

Also would love to send it to the EFM Bakes and Cakes series event hosted by Srilekha.

Pepper N Cardamom Chicken Dry

2010-09-13T17:13:00.000-05:00

Should confess that I'm getting too obsessed with blogging. I try to refresh my dashboard every now and then, checking for new recipes and to read all the wonderful comments. I'm not sure it is the way with all of you. It is a real good feeling when you have something of your own to share what you feel,cook and eat. The friends circle that is building out my blog makes me feel too good and other social networking sites are helping a lot. I see a lot food blogger meets going on and wish I could join them !!! With all the senti stuff going on I had prepared a flavorful chicken recently and would love to share it with you all.

Simply love to try different chicken varieties by adjusting ingredients or just remove usual ingredients and develop some flavorful side dishes. This is one such recipe. I did not use chilly powder or turmeric powder the spiciness is some from the pepper and red chillies. Loved the peppery chicken with aroma of the cardamom seeds and exotic flavor of the cumin seeds. Cook Eat Enjoy and have a great day !!

Ingredients

Chicken - 1/2 lb
Pearl onion - 15 - 20 no
Garlic Cloves - 4 no
Tomato - 2 no
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 tsp
Dry Red Chillies - 5 - 7 no
Curry Leaves - 20 leaflets
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsp

For Spice Powder

Pepper Corns - 15 - 20 no
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Cardamom - 3 no

For Seasoning

Cinnamon - 2 pieces
Fennel Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Cardamom - 2 no

Preparation

Wash and cut the chicken into small pieces.

Finely chop the pearl onion, garlic and tomatoes.

Dry roast pepper corns, cumin seeds and cardamom in medium flame for about 5 minutes and allow it to cool. Grind it to coarse powder.

Method

Heat oil in a wok, add the cinnamon, fennel seeds and cardamom in medium flame.

Add the onions, garlic and the curry leaves and saute well.

Add the red chillies followed by the finely chopped tomatoes and salt.

Once the tomatoes are well cooked and oil oozes out add the chicken and saute well.

Add the ground powder to the chicken mixture and mix well so that the spice powder is well coated onto the chicken.

Sprinkle little water and allow the chicken to cook.

When the chicken is well cooked increase heat and dry it.

Garnish with some fresh curry leaves and Serve Hot.

My Notes

In the absence of pearl onions use 2 medium sized onions.

Adjust pepper level according to your taste.

When increasing the flame make sure you don't burn the chicken.

Celebrations: Purana Kozhukattai

2010-09-12T00:15:00.000-05:00

Happy Vinayaka Chaturthi to all my friends and readers !!! We celebrated it in full swing with the usual prasadham just like we used to do it in India. I normally used to make around 10 varities of prasadham for offering to Lord Ganesha. After pooja I would love it place them in a big plate covered with plantain leaf and give it to my in laws. I used to feel so good when they used tp praise me.Last year we did not celebrate any function for different reasons and so this year was very special to us !!

When we think of Chaturthi first thing that comes to our mind would be Kozhukattai. I simply love purna kozhukattai with channa dal and MK loves it with sesame seeds. So I prepared both types. Normally we used to grind rice flour at home but nowadays I buy rice flour suitable for kozhukattai. We enjoyed it with Uppu Kozhukattai, Sundal, Vadai etc., Recipes will follow. For now I will share the Kozhukktai recipes.Try, Eat and Enjoy !!!

Ingredients

Rice Flour - 2 cup
Water - 1 1/2 cup
Salt for taste
Oil - 1 tsp

For Filling 1

Jaggery - 1 cup
Grated Coconut - 1 cup
Channa Dal - 1/2 cup
Cardamom pods - 4 no
Sugar - 1/2 tsp

For Filling 2

Jaggery - 1 cup
Grated Coconut - 1 cup
Sesame seeds - 1/2 cup
Cardamom pods - 4 no

Preparation

Add salt to the water and boil it well.

Add the boiling water to the rice flour and knead it into a smooth dough.

Grind cardamom powder with little sugar in a mixer.

Method For Filling 1

Pressure cook channa dal and grind it into a coarse paste.

Add little water to the jaggery,mix well and boil it.

Filter the impurities in the jaggery mixture and add channa dal to it.

Cook until everything comes together. Add cardamom powder and coconut and mix well.

Grease palms with oil and make small balls out of the kneaded dough.

Flatten them into small circles, place little filling and close it and seal the edges.

Place the kozhukkatai's in greased idly plates and steam for 5 -7 minutes.

Method For Filling 2

Dry roast sesame seeds until it turns brown.

Allow it cool down and grind it into a coarse powder.

Add the ground sesame seeds to grated jaggery and coconut and mix well.

Grease palms with oil and make small balls out of the kneaded dough.

Flatten them into small circles, place little filling and close it and seal the edges.

Place the kozhukkatai's in greased idly plates and steam for 5 -7 minutes.

My Notes

While steaming the kozhukattai cover them with tissue or cloth so that color will not change.

The dough needs to be soft else the kozhukattai will turn out to be dry.

CSN Giveaway at Little Food Junction. Click here for details to win the 75$ gift certificate.

Celebrations : Pal Payasam/Milk Pudding

2010-09-10T15:44:00.000-05:00

Back in India my Mother in Law cooks very special dishes for Kirthigai which is the auspicious day for worshiping Lord Muruga and it is celebrated in a grand manner at our place. She used to make atleast 6 dishes for offering to the lord. All of us would eagerly wait for her to finish the pooja and just jump into the dining room for the wonderful lunch. So as I mentioned in my previous posts I have planned to celebrate all the festivals celebrated in our household without fail. I made this Pal Payasam for last Kirthigai and enjoyed every spoon of it !!!

Pal payasam is the most easiest prasadham as we can make it in a jiffy. We can make it rich by adding a lot of nuts, saffron etc. This version is the most simplest with just the cashews. This is also prepared for full fledged South Indian Lunches. I just get reminded of the feast we used to have in the Thalai Vazhayilai (Plantain Leaf). With all sweet memories here I'm with the simple and homey Pal Payasam.

Ingredients

Milk - 5 cups
Vermicelli/Semiya - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Cardamom Pods - 5 no
Ghee - 1 tsp
Cashews - 10 no

Preparation

If you are using unroasted semiya, Add 1 tsp ghee to a kadai and roast in medium flame until it turns golden brown.

Add little ghee and fry the cashews until it turns golden brown. Keep aside.

Grind the cardamom with little sugar in a mixer to make a coarse powder.

Method

Add milk to a heavy bottomed pan and bring it to boil.

When milk starts to boil add the sugar and mix well until the sugar is dissolved

Add the roasted semiya and allow it to cook for about 5 -6 minutes.

When the semiya is cooked add the cardamom powder, fried cashews along with the ghee and stir for additional 2 minutes.

Serve Warm.

My Notes

Adjust sugar level accordingly

Using roasted semiya saves atleast 10 min of the cooking time.

After 1 -2 hours all the milk might be absorbed by the semiya. In that case add little milk and sugar and boil it for about 2 minutes before serving.

Use nuts and other garnishing of your choice to make it more richer.

Sending this Friday Special to the Vegetarian Foodie Friday # 17

Strawberry N Plum Jam

2010-09-09T12:04:00.000-05:00

Nowadays I'm totally into hunting different recipes and trying them out in my kitchen. Certain foods I never thought of making sounds very easy now and gives me a great satisfaction when it turns out great. One such recipe is the Strawberry N Plum Jam I had prepared recently. Never tried making jam before,the huge boxes of strawberries and plum made me think of making something with that. One other reason for making this jam, is that I broke the huge jam bottle we had brought over the weekend.I was cleaning the counter after our weekday breakfast and the jam bottle slipped and broke into pieces. I felt bad and did not want the two to hold onto the butter.

On a different note, shweets positively ran upstairs to inform her dad about me breaking the jam bottle. When I asked her have you told Dada. She innocently answered "yes mommy". Just came home early after work and was in good mood to make something. I got hold of a simply recipe in allrecipes.com and made my changes to it. It came out very well and simple loved the color. Actually pectin is added to the jams for it to set and have jelly like texture. I wanted the jam to be homey and just made it without pectin.Strawberries and Plums have natural pectin and it will be lost if the fruit is crushed too much. I read some lengthy processes of storing the fruit overnight etc., But I wanted something simple and easy to make and more important a small quantity so that I can prepare different varieties depending on the season.

Ingredients

Strawberries - 1 lb
Plum - 3 no
Sugar - 1 1/2 cup - 2 cup
Lemon juice - 1 tbsp

Preparation

To hull the strawberries - Hold the strawberries in one hand and a sharp knife in another and insert the tip of the knife into the flesh next to the stem. Turn the strawberry slowly angling the knife towards the center core of the strawberry. This will remove the cone shaped stem off the strawberry.

Wash and cut the plum into medium size pieces.

Add the strawberries and plum into food processor and chop them.

Method

In a heavy bottomed pan, mix strawberries and plum mixture, sugar and lemon juice.

Stir in low flame until the sugar is dissolved.

Once the sugar is dissolved increase the heat and bring the mixture to full rolling boil.

Boil and stir mixture until the mixture reaches 220F.

Transfer to hot sterile jars leaving 1/2 inch head space and refrigerate.

My Notes

Adjust the sugar level according to your taste.

I did not have thermometer to check the temperature so I just boiled it for 10 + 5 min.

To test the jelling of the jam, place a plate in freezer and after 10 minutes of boiling the mixture place a liquid of the jam onto the cold plate.Return the plate to freezer for a minute then run a finger through the jam if it does not try to run back together then it is ready.

When the jam is done it will look like a thick syrup it will take some time to set. If you over boil, the jam may become too rubbery.

After refrigerating for about 24 hrs if you feel the jam is runny then boil it again for some 5 - 7 min.

If you find jam too thick add some fruit juice to it or microwave the required amount for about 20 secs. This will make it spreadable.

If you are planning to store the jam for a longer period process in a water bath before refrigerating.

Check out CSN giveaway at Kiran's space. Click here for details.

I'm sending this colorful Strawberry N Plum jam to Sanyuktha's Visual Treat Event.

Event Announcement : Virtual Party !!!

2010-09-08T12:37:00.000-05:00

When I was new to the blog world, I used to wonder what's all about these blog events. Slowly I understood the fun and facts behind these blog events. I simply enjoyed being part of these events and hosted one too. Truly it needs lot of commitment and quality time to conduct an event but the end result makes you feel so happy. Each and every entry that hit my mail box, boosted my energy. So here I'm with my second event.

I wanted to make this a monthly event so that it will be fun with different themes every month. I know there are lot of events around the blog world, but I feel More Events, More Fun What say ?? So as I'm done with the background of the event, now to the theme and the boring rules.

This Month's theme would be "Chocolaty Dreams" I wanted to start with a peppy theme and I know no one would dislike chocolates !!! So get ready to dream about chocolates and prepare something with Chocolates and Chocolate byproducts it can be a cake, cookie, drink whatever that features chocolate and fits the theme.

I will be accepting dishes for the party till the date mentioned under the rules section and will host the party within a week after the end date. So what are you all waiting for Get Ready to Party !!!

Virtual Party Rules

Prepare a dish that fits the theme and send your entries between September 8th - October 8th 2010.

Multiple entries are allowed.

Please make sure you link back to this announcement page.

Archive posts are accepted if they are re-posted with the link to the event.

Please email the details of the post to shabithasblog@gmail.com with subject as Virtual Party - Chocolaty Dreams with the below details

         Your Name:
         Blog Name:
         Recipe Name:
         Recipe Url/Link:
         Picture of the dish: 300pixels wide

Non Blogger's please send out the entries to the above mail id.

Kadai Paneer

2010-09-07T23:16:00.000-05:00

After a fun filled long weekend it was a dull and not so interesting day. We had super fun at the Florida beaches.Totally enjoyed the para sailing, dolphin watch, snorkeling wow it was a blast.These kind of relaxing breaks are needed for us once in a while to cope up with all the hectic schedules. It was not a planned outing and everything was booked on the go but turned to be good.

Though I prepared some new dishes today I wanted to post the paneer dish from my draft as the end date for the paneer event is nearing I wanted this one to go first !I had prepared Kadai Panner for our anniversary dinner and served it with paratha's.It is a simple and a flavorful North Indian dish which goes well with all kind of Indian flat breads. I used homemade paneer to make this dish and it turned out to be too good. Making all the store bought items like paneer, bread at home is so cool.Thanks to blogging !!!

Ingredients

Paneer - 10 - 12 cubes
Bell pepper - 1 no
Onion - 2 no medium size
Tomato - 2 no medium size
Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Pepper Powder - 1/2 tsp
Cumin Powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Kasoori Methi Leaves - 1 tbsp
Butter - 1/2 tbsp
Cardamom - 3 no
Oil - 2 tsp
Salt to taste

Preparation

Chop the bell pepper similar to the size of the cubed paneer.

Finely chop onions and tomatoes.

Method

Heat oil in a kadai, add onion and saute until onion turns translucent.

Add the ginger garlic paste and cook until it's raw smell is gone in low flame.

Add the tomatoes and cook until it is mushy.

Add the chilly powder, cumin powder, pepper powder, turmeric powder and salt and mix well.

Once the mixture is cooked well and oil oozes out turn off heat and allow it to cool and grind it to a coarse paste.

Heat butter add the cardamom, followed by the ground mixture.

Add the bell pepper and allow it to cook.

When the bell pepper is half cooked add the paneer cubes and the kasoori methi leaves and mix well.

Cook for additional 5 - 7 minutes.

Serve hot with flat bread of your choice.

My Notes

Increase the quantity of butter if preferred.

If you are in a hurry just skip the grinding part and make it like a coarse mixture by cooking in medium flame.

My Kadai Paneer along with Paneer Butter Masala participates in the Let's Relish - Paneer event hosted Jay of Tasty Appetite.

It is also sent to the Show me your curry event hosted by Divya of Dilse.

Celebrations : Besan Ladoo

2010-09-03T10:20:00.000-05:00

Back in India I used to celebrate all the festivals with full enthusiasm and would never miss any. But lately all enthusiasm went down and now back in form. Shweets is big enough to understand everything and helped me to decorate for the Pooja. It is very important for us to pass the tradition to the next generation. When she was decorating she said "God already so many ladoo why did you make some more" she was referring to the ladoo in the photos. I tried to explain to her all our rituals and she was quite convinced. The interest she showed towards festivals made me realize I should never miss any !!!

Besan Ladoo is one of the quickest and suitable sweet for Krishna Jayanthi which I could think of. I'm a big fan of sweets made out of jaggery and wanted to make the vella sedai but due to time crunch I prepared our favorite ladoo. Usually we fry the besan flour in low flame for about half hour until it turns light brown and then it needs to be cooled for another half hour. I just thought of using microwave and googled "microwave besan ladoo" search engine returned lot of sites. Then I told myself yes it is possible and used my proportions to make the ladoo. It was too good and I could save only a few for the clicks !!

Ingredients

Besan Flour - 1 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp
Ghee - 5 - 6 tbsp
Cashew - 10 - 15 no

Preparation

Powder the sugar in a mixer until it turns into a very fine powder.

Fry the cashew in 1/2 tsp ghee until it turns golden brown.

Method

In a microwave safe bowl mix the ghee and besan flour and microwave in high for about 5 min.

Stir the contents after every minute, scraping the bottom.

After 5 minutes the mixture should have turned light brown and crumbly.

Allow it to cool completely for about half hour.

Add the powderered sugar, cardamom powder to the cooled besan mixture and mix well.

Apply very little ghee onto to your hands and shape the mixture into small balls.

Place a cashew on top when you are making the balls.

Quick and Easy besan ladoo is ready to be served.

My Notes

Microwave for additional 2 minutes if your mixture is not light brown.

Add little hot ghee to the mixture if it is too dry and it is not holding on.

Refrigerate the ladoo for about half hour so that it will set well.

I'm sending this Besan Ladoo to Nithu's Celebrate Sweets - Ladoo event which was started by Niveditha

CSN giveaway winner

2010-09-02T15:06:00.000-05:00

It has been a long and hectic week with work and celebrations. Eagerly waiting for the long weekend and and our trip to Florida Beaches. I wanted to make sure that I announce the winner of the CSN giveaway before I leave for the trip. I used random.org for selecting the winner.

The winner of the CSN sponsored $50 giveaway is Ragini Miranda who left comment #71. She writes at Happy Healthy, Fun Cooking.

Congrats Ragini !!! Please send me valid email address to shabithasblog@gmail.com.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway and always there is a next time. Have a great day !!

Celebrations : Chocolate Cake

2010-09-01T10:23:00.000-05:00

Celebrations are times which we really look forward and enjoy. We had celebrated our Wedding Anniversary last week and enjoyed the day to the fullest.Temple visit followed by a lunch in one of our favorite restaurants lightened the day. To add pep to the evening I baked this Chocolaty Cake. Shweets enjoyed helping me bake the cake. It was real fun and enjoyed our evening with cakes, clicks and music.

I wanted to make a simple and tasty cake because I did not want to spend time on elaborate cakes and miss the evening fun.Googled some for some cakes and got hooked to this simple chocolate cake in Hershey's Kitchen. Looked simple and moreover I had all the required ingredients what else to wait for !!Cake turned out to be super moist and yummy. Shweets finished 2 big pieces in no time and was ready for the third piece. I'm not a big cake eater just managed to have a small piece and I loved it too. Bake Eat Enjoy !!

Ingredients for the Cake

All-purpose flour 1 3/4 cup
Sugar - 2 cups
Cocoa powder - 3/4 cup
Baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Baking soda - 1 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Eggs - 2 no
Milk - 1 cup
Vegetable oil - 1/2 cup
Vanilla extract - 2 tsp
Water - 1 cup

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

Boil the 1 cup water.

Method for Cake

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl.

Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes.

Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin).

Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool for about 10 minutes and then remove from pans to wire racks.

Cool completely.

Ingredients for Chocolate Frosting

Butter - 1 stick
Cocoa powder - 2/3 cup
Icing sugar - 3 cups
Milk - 1/3 cup
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

Method for Chocolate Frosting

Melt butter and cool it.

Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency.

Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla extract.

Makes bout 2 cups of chocolate frosting.

Place the first cake layer on a cake plate and slowly spread the frosting with a knife on the top surface.

Place the 2nd layer on top of it and spread the frosting on all sides and smooth the surface.

My Notes

I halved the above mentioned ingredients and made a single layer cake.

I had decorated with some chocolate sprinkles and strawberries. All kind of decorating items are available in the stores.

I'm sending this yummy Perfectly Chocolate Cake to Champa's Bake Off Event.

Microwave Choco Walnut Cake

2010-08-27T18:26:00.000-05:00

We had BBQ followed by a movie on Friday which went till 3 in the morning. Obviously all the routines got disturbed and we did not get the cake that we had promised for Shweets. Unfortunately she remembered it and started to cry. Thought of some quick microwave cake and made her do all the mixing. She enjoyed making and eating the cake. As it was a quick fix I did not frost the cake just topped it some chocolate syrup I think it would be good with some ice-cream on top.

It was a good one. Instead of the cocoa powder you can also try it out with the coffee powder and call it Coffee Walnut Cake.I made two small cakes with the below ingredients and hardly took 5 min. Microwave cooking turns out to be interesting !!!

This easy breezy Choco Walnut Cake makes it way to Aparna's No Bake Cake event

Sending this to Microwave Easy Cooking - Favorites event hosted by PJ of Seduce Your Tastebuds originally started by Srivalli.

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Cocoa powder - 2 tsp
Baking Powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt - a pinch
Walnut - 1/4 cup
Vanilla Extract - 1/2 tsp
Milk - 1/2 cup
Oil - 1 tsp

Method

Coarsely chop the walnuts and place in microwave for about 20 secs.

Mix all the dry ingredients together.

Add the milk,vanilla extract, oil to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Add the nuts and stir until smooth.

Spray little oil in a bowl of your choice and fill upto two-third as the cake will rise.

Microwave for about 1 to 1 1/2 min.

Serve warm with any topping of your choice.

Chicken N Egg Rice Noodles

2010-08-26T14:26:00.000-05:00

In recent times I just fell in love with the Thai cuisine. We usually get bored after trying a particular cuisine for 2 or 3 times and then we think of switching. Anyways this does not happen with our Indian food. If we have some activity planned for the weekday evening then we decide not to cook or should I say we plan a activity so that we can eat outside the next day. At 12.00 we start messaging to decide the place. After much discussions we would finally opt the Thai restaurants around.

Thai cuisine has some fresh tasting and interesting recipes which I would love to try. I'm reading cookbooks on this cuisine and will surely come up with some dishes. Usually I order the Spicy Chicken Noodles with spice level as "HOT" and last time my noodles was not as hot as expected I had to add chilly flakes to it so next time planning to order the Native Thai version. This noodles cannot be branded as a authentic dish because I made it my way ! I did not add the fish sauce and replaced it with the soy sauce. It was too good !!!

Ingredients

Thai Rice Noodles - 3/4 pack
Chicken Breast - 1 no (Boneless, Skinless)
Eggs - 2 no
White Onion - 1 no
Bell Pepper - 1 no
Carrot - 1 no
Tomato - 1 no
Garlic clove - 2 no
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Chilly Flakes - 1 tsp (optional)
Pepper corns - 1 tsp
Soy sauce - 2 tsp
Vinegar - 1 tsp
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsp

Preparation

Boil water and little salt in a vessel and soak the rice noodles in it. Once noodles is cooked, drain the excess water and transfer to another big plate or Cook the rice noodles as per instructions in the pack.

Chop the onions, bell pepper,carrot and tomato lengthwise.

Finely chop the garlic and crush the pepper corns.

Cut the chicken breast into thin slices.

Method

Heat oil in a wok, add the onions and garlic and saute until it turns light brown.

Add the chicken, salt, chilly powder, little water and saute well.

Once the chicken in 3/4th cooked, add the bell pepper, carrot, tomato and stir fry.

Add the eggs and scramble it followed by soy sauce, vinegar, crushed pepper and chilly flakes.

When the vegetables and chicken mixture is cooked, add the cooked rice noodles and mix well.

Saute until everything is mixed well. Serve Hot.

My Notes

Addition of chilly flakes will make it more spicier. Adjust accordingly.

Instead of soy sauce, add the fish sauce to make it more authentic.

Spicy Garlic Chicken

2010-08-24T00:06:00.000-05:00

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Back to work...that's kind of boring, that too Monday is the most difficult day atleast for me.I still remember the childhood days when I used feel so bad on Mondays. We will be hunting for white ribbon, polishing canvas shoe, would run now then to the kitchen questioning mom on where she had left my stuff. Every Monday morning would be a big headache for my mom as I would make a fuzz to get up in the morning after sleeping till 10 during weekends. Good old childhood memories !!!! Now I have taken my Mom's place..

We normally reserve the special cooking to Sunday and I would always skip breakfast and will eagerly wait for the delicious lunch. Chicken is my favorite and I love almost all varieties. I had prepared Garlic Chicken for Sunday Lunch and we simply loved it. Garlic and Pepper lovers will surely like this one. Garlic Chicken is a flavorful and quickie and it turned out to be a wonderful sidedish. Cook Eat Enjoy !!!

Ingredients

Chicken - 1 lb (Boneless, Skinless)
Garlic Cloves - 15 - 20 no
Pearl Onions - 15 - 20 no
Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp
Pepper Corns - 2 tsp
Curry Leaves - 20 leaflets
Oil - 2 tsp

For Marinade

Tomato - 1 no (Big)
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Coriander Powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Soy sauce - 1 tsp
Salt for taste

For Seasoning

Fennel Seeds - 1 tsp
Cardamom - 3 no
Cinnamon - 2 pieces

Preparation

Wash and cut the chicken into small pieces.

Crush the garlic and pearl onion and pepper corns separately.

Grind tomato into a smooth paste.

Method

Marinate the chicken with tomato paste, ginger garlic paste, chilly powder, turmeric powder,coriander powder, 1/2 tsp soy sauce and salt for about 30 min.

Heat oil in a wok, add the seasoning items one after other in medium flame.

Add crushed onion,garlic,curry leaves and little salt. Saute well until onion turns translucent.

Add the marinated chicken, garam masala and saute well.

Sprinkle little water and allow the chicken to cook.

Once the chicken is 1/2 cooked, add remaining soy sauce, crushed pepper and saute well.

Garnish with fresh curry leaves and Serve Hot.

My Notes

If pearl onion is not available use 2 medium size onions.

Add little lemon juice before serving for a peppy taste.

Spicy Garlic Chicken makes it's way to the famous Cooking with Seeds - Fennel event hosted by Priya.

Collard Greens Stir Fry

2010-08-19T11:28:00.000-05:00

I have always had a big group of friends wherever I go. Be it the different schools I studied or my college or the places I have worked.To add to that, it used to be most popular gang both on the positive and negative side. When I had reached Nashville, 3 years back I never felt that I'm living in another country because I had so many friends. For lunch in the cafeteria, we used to pull 3 tables together and you can imagine the size of the gang. It was like I was back to college days. We had get together every week and outings once in a month and never felt bored.

Slowly over the past one year all my friends moved back to India and I have no company now. Now we just have 2 or 3 families around and have occasional get together. When I was talking to one of my friend during a party, I was stating how I miss drumstick leaves. Drumstick leaves stir fry was one of my favorite item and my Mom would get it for me some way or the other. She suggested that the Collard Greens available in the stores here would taste exactly like the drumstick greens. I wanted try it badly and picked one bag this weekend and prepared this stir fry. Simply loved it and it tasted exactly like our drumstick leaves.This is surely a keeper !!!

Ingredients

Collard Greens - 1 pack
Pearl Onions - 8 no
Garlic flakes - 6 no
Mustard - 1 tsp
Urid Dal - 1 tsp
Asafoetida - a pinch
Dry Red Chillies - 5 no
Grated Coconut - 3 tbsp
Salt for taste
Oil - 1 - 2 tsp

Preparation

Wash and chop the collard greens into small pieces.

Crush the pearl onions and garlic flakes.

Method

Heat oil, add mustard and allow it to splutter.

Add the urid dal, followed by asafoetida and red chillies in medium flame.

Add the crushed onions and garlic flakes. Saute until onion turns translucent.

Add the greens, salt and mix so that the seasoning is well coated onto the greens.

Allow the greens to cook by occasionally stirring it.

Once the greens is cooked add the grated coconut and mix well.

Serve Warm with any rice item as a side.

My Notes

Collard Greens are available in pre-washed and pre-cut packs or as whole leaves. If you are buying whole leaves remove the thick stem in the center before chopping.

If pearl onion is not available use a medium size onion.

Do not add water for the greens to cook.

Collard Greens Stir Fry one my favorite recipe is sent to Aparna's My Favorite Recipe event.

Egg Puffs

2010-08-17T15:57:00.000-05:00

An evening after a hectic day at work is the most difficult time for us.Cookies or any other ready made snack will not suffice our urge. Moreover we will be super tired and totally in no mood to make something and eat. But when we think of the puff we truly get some interest and it gives us some enthusiasm and we just jump in !!! I earlier made the vegetarian version and liked it so much and wanted to make the puffs with some other stuffing. It is an easy to make snack which needs only 10 minutes of prep work and 10 minutes of baking.

I simply fell in love with the puff pastry sheets and started to buy them often. There is one recipe I wanted to make with these sheets but somehow never made it. I'm just waiting for the auspicious day I will prepare it. I have many recipes in my wish list and just want to cook them when there is good sunlight so that I can get good pics.But when the sun is shining I have no mood for cooking. So it's all my fault. Hoping to exhaust my wish list soon !!!!

Ingredients

Puff Pastry Sheets - 1 no
Egg - 3 no
White Onion - 1 no
Tomato - 1 no
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
Coriander Leaves
Salt
Oil - 1 tsp

Preparation

Boil, remove shells and slice the eggs into equal halves.

Remove the egg yolk.

Thaw the puff pastry sheets for about 40 min or as mentioned in the pack.

Method

Preheat oven to 250 F.

Heat oil, add cumin seeds, finely chopped onion and saute until onion turns translucent.Add tomato and saute well.

Add chilly powder, turmeric powder, salt and mix well.

Sprinkle some water and allow it cook.Garnish with freshly chopped coriander.

Puff Pastry sheet would be a single big sheet. Place it on a floured surface and cut into equal halves. Out of each half you can make 3 puffs.

Place 1 spoonful of stuffing inside the egg and place it into each rectangular piece (made out of each half) and close it.

Brush oil on top and bake for about 10 - 12 minutes or until turns golden brown.

Serve hot with tomato sauce.

As I had promised in my previous post, I will try to send my entries to all the ongoing events. This easy snack goes to Sharmi's Let's Munch : Light Tea Time Snacks event.

Check out the giveaway going on in my blog. Click here for details !!! Few clicks and you can win 50$ CSN Giftcard

Mixed Sprouts N Raw Mango Salad

2010-08-15T20:35:00.000-05:00

There are some things we normally forget as we go on. Sprouts is one such thing. I remember the days I used just live on these. It is a very good ingredient which can be used in various recipes and helps a lot during the dieting process. I normally stick to making some simple salads and gravies with the sprouts. Back in India, my Mom used to help me with the sprouting and it made things easier, after that there were ready-made packs available in the vegetable markets and after moving to the US totally stopped using sprouts. When I had seen the Let's Sprout event announcement
by Priya, made up mind to indulge in sprouting.

When I was new to the blog world that is sometime in March 2010, I was wondering what's all about this events as I saw every blog hosting an event. Now I understand these events help us to bring out our imaginations, pushes us towards trying cuisines, prepare authentic food and most important to use healthy ingredients. I should admit now I'm not actively participating in the blog events as I used to. This is just because of the hectic work,home schedule and most importantly the blog move gave me a lot sleepless nights. It is true. I'm not sure why but I was so much into it and did not show much interest in other stuff. I'm back and will make it a point to participate in most of the blog events if not all.

When I prepared this salad for me, Shweets and MK never bothered to taste it. I liked the taste and forced them and they just took a spoon after much murmuring.As expected they liked it so much and the whole bowl vanished in no time. It was refreshing and makes you feel so full. OK I think that's enough of my rambling,straight to the recipe.Good One worth trying !!!!

Ingredients

Mixed Sprouts - 3 cups
Raw Mango - 1 (small size)
Cucumber - 1 (small size)
White Onion - 1 (small size)
Tomato - 1 (small size)

For Salad Dressing

Olive oil - 2 tsp
Lime Juice - 2 tsp
Pepper Powder - 1/2 tsp
Salad Vinegar - 1 tsp
Salt for Taste

Preparation

Sprouting - Soak equal measures of green moong dal, brown channa, white channa, horse gram for about 12 hours. Drain the water and cover the vessel with a white cloth and place it by a window or where there is sunlight. Rinse the sprouts after 10 hrs and again cover it and place it under sunlight. After say 8 hrs the seeds would have sprouted. Store in a refrigerator. Use within 1 or 2 days.

Finely chop Mango, Cucumber, White Onion, Tomato.

Method

Microwave the mixed sprouts for about 4 min with little salt.

In a large bowl, add the sprouts, mango pieces, cucumber pieces onion, tomato and mix well.

In a small cup, mix the olive oil, lime juice, salad vinegar,pepper powder,salt mix well.

Slowly add the dressing to the sprouts mix and toss the ingredients well.

Serve immediately.

Mixed Sprout N Raw Mango Salad obviously participates in the Let's Sprout event hosted by Priya.

Check out the giveaway going on in my blog. Click here for details !!! Few clicks and you can win 50$ CSN Giftcard

New home for my blog and a Giveaway Announcement !!!

2010-08-12T16:23:00.000-05:00

After 2 weeks of dormancy..did I just say dormancy it just means "NO POSTS" actually I was working hard(???) on the transition of my blog to its own domain, designing the whole layout, choosing widgets, water marking all the photos with the www.frommyhomekitchen.com tag, formatting the post...hmmm that's a big list. Now I'm almost done with all the things on my to do list.To celebrate this big move, I would love to announce a giveaway sponsored by CSN stores.

CSN Stores has amazing online stores where you can find everything from cookware to lights to furniture! A lucky "From My Home Kitchen" reader can win a one time use $50 gift certificate to use on any of CSN stores US websites. Nothing comes free so there are some simple rules. This contest is open only for US and Canadian Readers and will end on August 31st and winner will be announced on the 1st week of September.

Rules for the Give Away

Mandatory: Follow "From My Home Kitchen" publicly through Google Connect(Scroll Down..)
Mandatory: Like "From My Home Kitchen" on Facebook.
Mandatory: Subscribe for "From My Home Kitchen's" RSS feeds.
Optional: Blog about this giveaway for 2 additional entries.
Optional: Follow me on Twitter for additional 2 entries.

Please leave separate comment for each entry...

It is as simple as that..What are you waiting for.. hurry up and win the 50$ gift card and invest in something useful . All the best to my dear friends !!!

Spinach N Walnut Stuffed Mushrooms

2010-07-28T15:18:00.000-05:00

I had been planning to make these stuffed mushrooms for a long time. I always prefer the ones in Costco. They are big, fresh and perfect enough to make stuffed mushrooms.They are very cheap too. I wanted to start with an vegetarian version .I was thinking of some easy and healthy and just saw the big bag of spinach in my fridge..decided go with it along with some walnuts.

It was really good and I used very little oil which is a added advantage. It will be good treat for all mushroom lovers. A different party appetizer too. Planning to experiment with different stuffing's !!!

Sending this Monthly Mingle - Party Treats event hosted by Sara originally started by Meeta of What's for Lunch Honey

Ingredients

Big Mushroom - 8 - 10 nos
Spinach - 3 cups
Walnut - 1/2 cup
Grated Cheese - 2 tsp
White Onion - 1 no
Tomato - 1 no
Basil Leaves - 1 tsp
Pepper Powder - 1 tsp
Nutmeg Powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt for Taste
Olive Oil - 1 tsp

Preparation

Wash the mushrooms and remove the stems carefully.
Wash and chop the spinach.
Finely chop onion and tomatoes.
Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray very little oil.

Method

Preheat oven at 375F.
Heat oil in a non stick pan and add the onion in medium flame and add the spinach, salt, pepper, nutmeg and saute well.
Add the walnuts followed by the tomato then add the dried basil leaves and mix well.
Mound the stuffing into the mushroom caps and top each cap with little grated cheese.
Place the caps on the prepared sheet leaving enough space between each of them.
Bake for about 15 minutes until the cheese is melted and water oozes out of the mushroom caps.
Serve warm with soup of your choice.

My Notes

Had some stuffing left behind. Added some salt to pan and placed the caps on it and cooked for additional 3 - 4 minutes to ensure the mushroom had enough salt. Make sure it is does not get blackened.

Baked Chicken with Sauteed Vegetables

2010-07-26T15:58:00.000-05:00

This is healthy chicken recipe. I loved this a lot..Sometimes we get bored of our normal routine and want to try something new and of course it should be filling..can't get up in the middle of the night. I had bought chicken breast to try out a different dish which I'm planning for ages. I tried this recipe dinner with some mild soup and it was too good. Very less oil and inclusion of favorite veggies made it a instant hit.

I'm not a big fan of adding veggies to non veg dishes. Would normally oppose when MK suggests adding potato into fry items. But will do it only when it is a big crowd. But Bell peppers and Mushrooms are good choices ans made a good combo with the Chicken.

Ingredients

For Marinade

Chicken Breast - 2 no
Chilly powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Coriander Powder - 1/2 tsp
Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 tsp
Curd - 2 tsps
Lemon juice - 1 tsp
Salt for taste

For Saute

Bell Pepper - 1 no
Mushrooms - 8 - 10 no
White Onion - 1 no
Tomato - 1 no
Basil Leaves - 1 tsp
Crushed Pepper - 1 tsp
Salt for taste
Olive Oil - 1 tsp

Preparation

Wash and cut chicken into medium size pieces.

Add chilly powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, garam masala, ginger garlic paste, curd, lemon juice salt to the chicken pieces and marinate for 1 hour.

Cut the Bell pepper, Onion, Tomato as julienne strips.

Remove stems from the mushrooms and cut into halves.

Method

Preheat oven to 375 F. Line a baking dish with aluminum foil spray very little oil.

Place the marinated chicken on the dish leaving space between each piece.

Bake for about 10 min. Flip the chicken into the other side and cook for another 10 min.

Meanwhile in a nonstick pan, heat oil, add onion,salt, bell pepper, mushrooms, tomato one after other after sauteing each for about 1 min.

Once the vegetables are 3/4th cooked add the dried basil leaves, crushed pepper and keep it closed state in low flame.

Carefully remove the chicken from the baking dish and add it to the vegetables.

Mix well and leave it closed state for about 5 - 7 min. Mix the contents for every 2 min.Serve Hot with Soup of your choice.

Apple Banana Halwa

2010-07-25T22:14:00.000-05:00

After a "not so interesting week" I was just bored in the evening not knowing what to do..Wanted to do something interesting..one thing I had never tried doing is to cook entirely in a microwave. Always wanted to try it..but never got a chance to do it !! Inspired by Srividhya's 5 in 1 halwa thought of doing something similar and prepared the Apple Banana Halwa.

It was so easy and Shweets loved it a lot. She did not even wait for me to take a picture was trying to put a finger into the halwa.She was going on asking what was this and badly wanted to taste it..So I just settled down with what I clicked and served it to her.As I'm not a great sweet lover I just had a spoon and it was too good. Hunting for more microwave recipes...

Sending this quick and easy to make halwa to Nivedita's Celebrate Sweets - Halwa and to Microwave Easy Cooking Event hosted By PJ at Seduce Your Tastebuds originally started by Srivalli

Ingredients

Apple - 1 no
Banana - 1 no
Wheat Flour - 1/2 cup
Oats - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp
Milk - 1 cup
Ghee - 2 tbsp
Cashew - 10 no

Preparation

Wash, peel and dice the apple into medium size chunks.

Cut banana into medium size pieces.

Method

Add the apple, banana, wheat flour, oats, cardamom powder and milk to a blender and grind it to smooth paste.

In a microwave safe bowl, add ghee and place in the microwave for about 20 secs.

Add the ground paste to it and microwave at high for 5 min. Stir the contents after 2 min.

Add sugar and mix well.Microwave for 5 min. Keep stirring every 2 min.

Add the cashews and microwave for additional 5 min.

Serve warm.

Shredded Cauli Masala

2010-07-22T10:31:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you get bored with the normal stuff and want to try something new not knowing what is going to be the output.This is one such try out. Shweets is not a big fan of Cauliflower and I need to prepare an alternative veggie when I prepare any curry using it. Recently I read recipe in Pazham Papaddam Payasam about finely chopping broccoli. Thought of making the same with Cauliflower. This was a good and different recipe.

I overdid the chopping part and end up naming it as Shredded Cauli Masala. I was watching (starring??) shweets playing in the yard and left the pulse on for a longer time. Anyways it turned out good. It can be used as a side dish for rice or chappati.

Ingredients

Cauliflower - 1/2 floret
White Onion - 1 no
Tomato - 1 no
Garlic - 4 pods
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Garam Masala - 1 pinch
Crushed Pepper - 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon - 1 no
Curry leaves
Coriander Leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsps

Preparation

Wash, separate and dry the cauliflower florets.

Using the chopping blade in a food processor, finely chop the florets.

Finely chop the onion, tomatoes.

Slice the garlic to thin pieces.

Method

Heat oil, add cinnamon followed by onion, garlic, curry leaves and saute until it turns translucent.

Add tomatoes and saute well until it is just cooked.

Add chilly powder, garam masala, salt and cook until oil separates in medium flame.

Add the chopped cauliflower and mix well.

Sprinkle little water and cook until vegetable is cooked.

Add crushed pepper when veggie is 3/4th cooked.

Garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves.

Serve warm with rice or chapati.

Chicken Chukka

2010-07-20T16:39:00.000-05:00

This is a spicy dish from our kitchen.Yet another Sunday afternoon special. I planned to make chicken gravy,but MK wanted something different along with the gravy. We used the chicken out of the gravy and made this spicy chicken side dish. It really tasted great. Must Try !!!!

After removing some pieces from the gravy for the chukka, we just added coconut milk, coriander leaves and prepared the gravy..two in one..Had a wonderful lunch followed by a boring movie...absolutely no logic :-(

Ingredients

Chicken - 1 1/2 lb
Red Onion - 2 1/2 no
White Onion - 1 no
Tomato - 3 no
Ginger Garlic paste - 2 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Coriander Powder - 1 tsp
Garam Masala - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Pepper Corns - 10 - 15 no
Cinnamon - 2 no
Fennel Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry Leaves
Coriander Leaves
Salt for Taste
Oil - 4 tsp

Preparation

Wash and cut chicken into medium size pieces.

Finely chop red onion,2 tomatoes and curry leaves. Cut white onion and 1 tomato lengthwise.

Dry roast pepper corns and grind it to a coarse powder after cooling for sometime.

Method

Heat 3 tsp oil, add cinnamon and fennel seeds in medium flame.

Add red onion, curry leaves and saute until onions are translucent.

Add ginger garlic paste in low flame and saute until raw smell is gone.

Add tomatoes and cook until they turn mushy.

Add chilly powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, garam masala and salt and mix well and cook until oil separates.

Add chicken and mix well until masala is well coated on it. Add little water and cook in closed state.

Meanwhile heat 1 tsp oil in a non stick pan, add the white onion and saute well, add tomatoes, little salt and saute for few mins. Make sure they don't get mushy.

Once the chicken in gravy is almost cooked, remove some pieces suitable for chukka along with some gravy and add it to the non stick pan.

Add the ground pepper powder freshly chopped curry leaves and coriander leaves and saute well.

Dry it in the pan in medium flame. Serve Hot.

This dish makes it's way to Umm Mymoonah's Iftar Moments Hijri 1431 event.

Mixed Lentil Adai

2010-07-19T14:49:00.000-05:00

I really have a tough time when I don't prepare the dosa batter during weekends. I need to hunt for dinner recipes which is really a challenging task. This recipe falls into such a category. Mixed Lentil Adai is a fusion of Pesarattu and Adai.We liked this a lot and I even prepared this batter for this week along with the usual dosa batter.

It needs some soaking time.I just soaked after I came back from work and ground it during dinner time. Should be around 4 hrs.Moong dal requires more soaking time.But it got ground well. It will be better to soak Moong Dal overnight.There is no need to ferment this batter. I topped it with sauteed onions and served with Spicy Tomato Chutney and Tangy Mango Thokku.Surely a keeper !!!!

Sending this protein filled Mixed Lentil Adai to My Legume Love Affair # 25 hosted by Siri and originally started by Susan.

Ingredients

Toor Dal - 1/2 cup
Channa Dal - 1/2 cup
Moong Dal - 1/2 cup
Yellow Moong Dal - 1/2 cup
Urad Dal - 1/2 cup
Red Chilly - 6 - 8 no
Salt for Taste
Oil for Adai
Onion - 1 no (optional)

Method

Wash and soak the dals for about 4 hrs. Moong Dal requires more soaking time(I soaked it only for 4 hrs).

Grind the soaked dals into a coarse batter along with salt and red chillies.

Add little water and mix well until it reaches adai consistency (slightly liquid-ish).

Heat tawa, pour a little of the batter and spread it to a thick circle.

Saute finely chopped onions in 1/2 tsp oil and sprinkle a little of it in all of it.

Pour little oil on the sides of the adai and cook in medium flame.

Once it is cooked flip the adai and cook the other side.

Serve Hot with your favorite chutney.

Mutton and Bellpepper Stir Fry

2010-07-14T12:50:00.000-05:00

After a special weekend lunch, I had a little mutton left and wanted prepare something spicy out of it.I normally make mutton chukka by adding potatoes to increase the quantity.I was in no mood to do it and wanted to prepare something different and thought of other vegetable options and ended up with Bell Pepper.It is definitely a good combo and a good party recipe.This goes well with rice and roti.

Ingredients

Mutton - 1/2 lb
Bell Pepper - 1 no
White Onion - 1 no
Tomato - 1 no
Garlic Cloves - 5 no
Ginger - 1" piece
Green Chilly - 2 no
Cinnamon - 1 piece
Fennel Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Garam Masala - a pinch
Curry Leaves
Coriander Leaves
Salt for taste
Olive Oil - 2 tsp

Method

Wash and cut the mutton to medium size pieces.

Cut onion and tomato lengthwise. Crush the garlic and ginger.

Pressure cook mutton for 2 whistles with a little onion, tomato and 2 garlic cloves, turmeric powder, slitted green chilly, curry leaves and little salt.

Heat oil, add cinnamon, fennel seeds in medium flame.

Add crushed ginger, garlic and saute until raw smell is gone in low flame.

Drain the mutton and add it to the pan and saute for 5-7 minutes.

Remove the mutton from the pan and keep aside.

Add the remaining onion and saute for 2 min, add tomato followed by chilly powder, garam masala, salt (remember the salt added for cooking mutton).

Add the bell pepper and saute well, add the mutton broth and allow the vegetable to cook.

Add the mutton back and saute well and cook for additional 5-7 minutes.

Garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves and Serve hot.

More Kuzhambu 2

2010-07-08T15:35:00.000-05:00

More Kuzhambu comes in handy when you don't have the time for preparing any gravy for rice. This is MK 's version..My version is totally different check here for the same. I never had this until we came here. At first I was doubtful about it but when he prepared it, I liked it so much. As this version is easier and requires no grinding, we go for this when we are lazy to cook. Shweets loves this too !!!

You can also saute okra and add it to the kuzhambu. It adds more taste. Pappad or More Mizhagai would go very well with this and it will turn to be a good lunch in no time...

Ingredients

Curd/Buttermilk - 2 cups
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Asafoetida - a pinch
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves
Coriander leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 1 tsp

Method

Add water to the curd and stir it until uniform consistency or use buttermilk and skip this step. Add salt and mix well.

Heat oil, add mustard and allow it to splutter.

Add cumin seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida, turmeric powder, chilly powder, coriander powder in medium flame and saute until raw smell is gone. Make sure the powders does not get burnt.

Add the buttermilk and cook for 2 min in low flame. Do not overcook.

Garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves. Serve with rice.

Authentic Chettinad Chicken Kuzhambu

2010-06-30T23:15:00.000-05:00

When I think of Authentic Chettinad dishes, I just go to the one and only Solai Aunty's True Chettinad Kitchen for it. I have prepared another Chettinad Chicken Gravy..but it was my style. I was planning to try this recipe for a long time. As Sunday afternoon is reserved for spicy non veg dishes I prepared this gravy and it was an instant hit..As the recipe was from a experienced cook, did not want to do any changes just followed the recipe.It's surely a must try recipe...Never miss it when you have the time !!!!

For the kuzhambu milagai thool mentioned in the marination section, I had used Aachi brand thool which is good and has good flavor.

This authentic, spicy chettinad gravy makes it way to Jay's I Love My Dad event. Along with this I want to send my Mom's special, My Dad's favorite Fish Gravy to the event.

Ingredients

Chicken - 1 lb
Pearl Onions - 30 no
Tomato - 2 no
Garlic pods - 15 no
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Curry Leaves
Coriander Leaves
Mint Leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 3 tsp

For Marination

Ginger Garlic - 1 tsp
Kuzhambu Milagai thool - 1 tsp
Salt - little
Curd - 1 tsp

For Grind 1

Ginger - 1 piece
Garlic - 10 pods
Pearl Onion - 10 no
Green Chilly - 2 no
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 2 tsp

For Grind 2

Grated coconut - 5 tbsp
Cashew nuts - 6 no
Fennel seeds - 1 tsp

For Seasoning

Cinnamon - 2 no
Fennel Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Clove - 2 no
Cardamom - 2 no
Bay leaf - 2 no

Method

Wash and cut chicken to medium size pieces.

Marinate the chicken with the ingredients mentioned under marination for about 1 hour.

Grind the ingredients mentioned in grind 1 and grind 2 into separate paste and keep aside.

Heat kadai, add oil and add items given under seasoning one after other in medium flame.

Add chopped pearl onions followed by crushed garlic and saute until it onion turns translucent.

Add curry leaves followed by tomatoes,salt,turmeric powder and saute well until oil separates.

Add ground masala 1 and saute well until raw smell is gone.

Sprinkle little water to the masala so that it is cooked well.

Add chicken and mix well. Roast the chicken in the masala for few minutes in medium flame.

Add little water and allow it to cook in a closed state for 10 minutes.

Add ground paste 2 and allow it to cook for 5 - 7 minutes.

Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve with hot rice/rotis.

Plantain and Egg Plant Roast

2010-06-24T17:08:00.000-05:00

This one is a different dry dish which MK made yesterday. When I was preparing dinner he was making this dish and I was really doubtful on what he was doing. But did not question him as normally the final outcome of his cooking would be tasty. As expected or should I say more than what I expected, it tasted awesome and turned out be a great side dish. It is a different combination which I had never tried before.He made it using our electric griddle with very less oil . I simply loved the color and taste and enjoyed eating it... It's surely a must try dish !!!

Sending this dish to Healing Foods - Onion event guest hosted by Priya of Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes started by Siri.

Ingredients

Plantain - 2 no
Egg Plant (lengthy ones) - 2 no
Onion - 1 no
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Soy Sauce - 1/2 tsp
Curry Leaves
Coriander Leaves
Jalapenos - 1 no
Lime Juice - 1tsp
Salt for taste
Oil

Method

Cut the plantain into two halves and microwave it for about 5 mins sprinkling little water and salt.

Now the outer green layer can be removed easily. Cut the plantain into thick circles

Cut the eggplant into thick circles and onion into desired shape.

Place the plantain and egg plant pieces in a vessel and add the chilly powder, turmeric powder, salt (remember the amount you added to cook the plantain) and mix well until they are well coated.

In a griddle or pan, sprinkle little oil and place the pieces and roast it carefully. Sprinkle water now then to make sure they are not too dry.

When the vegetables are 3/4th cooked add the onion, chopped jalapenos and saute everything together.

When it is cooked add the soy sauce, lime juice and saute for few minutes.

Garnish with freshly chopped curry leaves and coriander leaves.

Serve Hot.

Onion and Potato Bhajji

2010-06-21T12:16:00.000-05:00

Bhajji or Fritters is a easy to make evening snack that can be enjoyed with tea or coffee. After office we were tired and badly wanted to have something spicy..no mood for cookies or anything of that sort.So we went through our pantry and found the besan flour pack, at once decided to prepared this and totally enjoyed it.

This recipe can be made with onions, potatoes and Chillies.We made chilly bhajji's too..but did not last long.Crispy Onion Bhajji is sent to the Healing Foods - Onion event started by Siri and guest hosted by Priya of Priya's Easy N and Tasty Recipes.

Ingredients

Onion - 2 no
Potato - 1 no
Besan Flour - 2 cups
Corn Flour - 3 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Chilly powder - 1 tsp
Salt for taste
Oil for deep fry

Method

Cut the onions and potatoes into thin slices.

To a bowl add besan flour, corn flour, turmeric powder, chilly powder, salt.

By adding water slowly, mix all ingredients into a little watery paste.

Heat oil and carefully drop the onion and potato slices after thoroughly dipping into the batter.

Fry in medium heat until it turns golden brown.

Remove excess oil using tissue and Serve hot with spicy chutney.

Shrimp Fry

2010-06-17T13:46:00.000-05:00

When we went for monthly grocery shopping to COSTCO these jumbo shrimps caught our eyes. We were having a dilemma between the shrimp and King crab..I have not cooked crab till now and had tasted it only once till now. As it was very expensive, did not want to take any risk and settled with the shrimp. Normally we make gravy or thokku with the shrimp but this jumbo needs to FRIED !!! Anything that to be fried will be handed over to MK.It tasted so good and everyone loved it.. Worth trying !!!!

Bigger the shrimp easier it would be to de-vein it. Cleaning is a very important task when we plan to cook shrimp. To de-vein, use a small, sharp knife and make a small slit on the back of the shrimp and pull out the black vein like stuff. Clean well in cold water for at least 5 times. One more thing, my MIL always says not to give shrimp to kids below 5. It might cause some digestion problems in them.

This is sent to the CWS - Pepper event guest hosted by Padma of Padma's Recipes and started by Priya of Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes

Ingredients

Jumbo Shrimp - 10 - 12 no
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Cinnamon powder - 1/4 tsp
Ginger Garlic paste - 3/4 tsp
Pepper Corns - 1/2 tsp
Cardamom powder - a pinch
Red food color - a pinch (optional)
Yogurt - 1 tsp
Lemon Juice - 1 tsp
Salt of taste
Oil for frying

Method

Remove shells, de-vein and clean the shrimp. Pat dry to remove any water.

Place the shrimp in a vessel and add chilly powder, turmeric powder, cinnamon powder, cardamom powder, crushed pepper corns,ginger garlic paste, salt, yogurt, lemon juice.

Mix the food color in drops of water and add it to the shrimp.

Marinate for about 1 hour.

Heat oil, carefully place the shrimp in the oil and take out when it is golden brown.

Place fried shrimps on a tissue to remove excess oil.

Transfer it to serving plate and garnish with fresh coriander and fries chillies !!!

Mango Rice

2010-06-16T13:53:00.000-05:00

Mango Rice has become a big hit in my family. This is one of the recipe I wrote it down from my Mom long time ago. Planning to prepare this dish I would buy 2 or 3 mangoes every time I go to the Indian stores. But we will end up eating them raw with salt and chilly powder.Still I feel the sour taste in my mouth. Back in India whenever I go to Nalli (Silk House in Chennai) first my eyes onto the mango slices being sold outside the shop. MK would scold me for eating on the road..but I never used to listen. During our last vacation, MK also joined the club and we were roaming thorough out T.NAGAR with the Mango slices in our hands :-)

Coming to the recipe it is similar to our good old lemon rice but addition of mango adds more taste. Shweets started to love this a lot. Whenever I ask what she wants to eat..she says "MANGO RICE" be it breakfast, lunch or Dinner time. Surely kids will like it.Try and Enjoy !!!!

Ingredients

Cooked Rice - 2 cups
Grated Mango - 1 cup
Grated ginger - 1/4 tsp
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Asafoetida - 1 pinch
Channa Dal - 1 tsp
Urid Dal – 1 tsp
Dry Red Chilly - 4 no
Peanuts - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder -1/4 tsp
Curry leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsp

Method

Cook the rice with 1/4 tsp oil so that rice is not sticky.

Heat oil, add mustard and allow it to splutter in medium flame.

Add asafoetida, channa dal, urid dal, peanuts, curry leaves, grated ginger and red chillies one after the other in medium flame.

Add the turmeric powder, grated mango, salt and mix well.

Cook the mixture for 3-4 min.

Add the mixture to the cooked rice and mix well.

Serve Hot with pappad or chips.

Mixed Vegetable Curry

2010-06-15T14:48:00.000-05:00

Here we get fresh vegetables in the Indian stores on Thursdays. So normally we try to finish off every week's stock before that...but sometimes we fail and end up throwing way stuff :-( which makes me feel bad. The mixed vegetable curry is a savior on such situations. We can add any veggies you wish and can be prepared as a thick gravy and served along with rotis ,naan for dinner or make it dry and serve it along with rice for lunch or for serve it for both lunch and dinner LIKE ME !!!

I had used Carrots, Cauliflower, Potato, Peas for the curry. Other suggested vegetables would be Capsicum,Green Beans, Corn, Broccoli. Normally I add tomato sauce to this curry and reduce the amount of actual tomatoes. This gives a better taste and color.Try out !!!

I'm sending this to the Healing Foods - Onion event guest hosted by Priya Started by Siri and to Think Spice - Think Garam Masala event guest hosted by Sara started by Sunitha.

This Mixed Vegetable Curry is being featured in the Indian Cuisine Feature post at Lisa's blog Korean American Mommy

Ingredients

Cauliflower - 1/2 floret
Carrot - 3 no
Potatoes - 2 no
Peas - 1 cup
Onion - 2 no
Tomato - 1 1/2 no
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander Powder - 1/2 tsp
Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1/2 tsp
Tomato Sauce - 1 tsp
Coconut Milk - 2 tbsp
Curry Leaves
Coriander Leaves
Cardamom - 2 no
Cumin seeds - 3/4 tsp
Salt for taste
Oil - 3 tsp

Method

Chop the vegetables into small pieces and microwave with little water and salt for about 4 min.

Chop 1 onion, tomatoes into small pieces, saute them in 1/2 tsp oil and grind it to fine paste.

Heat remaining oil, add the cardamom and cumin seeds in medium flame.

Add the remaining chopped onion, curry leaves and saute until onion turns translucent.

Add the ginger garlic paste, ground onion tomato paste and saute well in low flame.

Add chilly powder, coriander powder, garam masala, turmeric powder,salt(remember the amount of salt added while cooking the veggies) and mix well.

Add the cooked vegetables,tomato sauce, and mix thoroughly and cook in closed state with little water.

Once the vegetables are cooked add the coconut milk and cook for additional 5 min.

Garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves.

For dry : Saute for additional few minutes in open state.

Won 100$ Giveaway and Carrot Cabbage Stir Fry

2010-06-14T15:26:00.000-05:00

I got lucky again !!!!! Won 100$ giveaway at Snacksgiving..Check out for the details here.I'm totally excited and still not yet decided on what to select. Thanks to Snacks giving, and beso.com.

Carrot and Cabbage are great combination for making side dish for rice items. I simply love it from my childhood and always get reminded of my little sister who always wanted to have this veggie mixed with white rice. Shweets loves it a lot !!!

Sending this to Vegetable Marathon - Carrot Event hosted at Seduce Your Tastebuds by PJ started by Silpa.

Ingredients

Grated Carrot - 2 cups
Grated Cabbage - 2 cups
Grated Coconut 2 tbp
Onion - 1 no
Curry leaves
Mustard - 1 tsp
Urid dal - 1/2 tsp
Red Chilly - 3 nos
Salt for taste
Oil 2 tsp

Method

Heat oil, add the mustard, urid dal in medium flame.

Add onion, curry leaves and saute until onion turns translucent.

Add red chillies, followed by the grated carrot, cabbage and salt.

Sprinkle little water and allow the veggies to cook.

When it 3/4th cooked add the grated coconut.

Serve Warm with rice.

Soya Chunks Masala

2010-06-11T12:07:00.000-05:00

Normally I buy Soya Chunks to add them in vegetable briyani but totally forget about the chunks when I make the briyani. After a enjoyable weekend at the mighty Niagara we did not have any vegetable, suitable to make curry for our dinner. Got reminded of the chunks and prepared this spicy Soya Chunks Masala and served it with Naan. Try and Enjoy !!

Sending this Spicy Soya Chunk Masala to Healing Foods - Onion event guest hosted by Priya started by Siri and to Think Spice - Think Garam Masala event at Sara's Corner started by Sunitha.

Ingredients

Soya Chunks - 1 1/2 cup
Onion - 2 no
Tomato - 2 no
Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1/4 tsp
Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp
Coconut milk - 1/2 cup
Cashew nut - 5 no (optional)
Curry Leaves
Coriander Leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 3 tsp

To Grind

Pepper Corns - 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Red Chilly - 4 no
Grated Coconut - 2 tbsp

To Season

Cinnamon - 2 no
Cardamom - 2 no
Fennel - 1/2 tsp

Method

Boil 2 cups water with little salt and drop the soya chunks. Cook in medium flame until it becomes double in size.

Drain the water and chop the chunks into small pieces.

Dry roast pepper, cumin, red chilly and grind it to coarse paste along with grated coconut.

Heat oil, add cinnamon, cardamom and fennel one after the other in medium flame.

Add finely chopped onion and curry leaves and saute well.

Add ginger garlic paste in low flame and cook until its raw smell is gone.

Add finely chopped tomatoes and cook until it is mushy.

Add turmeric powder, chilly powder, garam masala, ground paste, salt and mix well. Cook until oil separates.

Mix the soya chunks until the masala is well coated on the chunks, add little water and cook for about 5 min .

Add the coconut milk,cashews cook and for additional 5 min or until oil separates.Garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves and Serve Hot.

Celebrating MOM event round up !!!!!

2010-06-10T11:27:00.000-05:00

I have never stayed without my Mom till marriage and never realized I would miss her so much. I would sit and think what all she used to do, to make our life's easier. So in whatever I do, I wanted to give her a special place and came up with the idea of this event. But I was a little hesitant as I was relatively new to the blogging world. But now I'm extremely happy that I decided to give it a shot.

Here I'm with the round up of my first Blog event "Celebrating MOM". I have posted the recipes in the order I received it. Special Thanks to Sathya, Priya, Nithu, Sanyukta,and Menaga for sending in a lot of their Mom's specialties.

Aruna Manikandan of Veggie Paradise has shared Tomato Rice one of her Mom's Specialty

Prani of PranisKitchen sent her Mom's favorite KadalaPradhaman

Cham of Spice-Club sent her Mom's Favorite Mysore Pak

Sudha of Malaysian Delicacies sent her White Chocolate Peach Ring Cake

Priya Mitharwal of Mharo Rajasthan's Recipe sent a delicious sweet Kalakand one of her Mom's favorite

Sathya Sridhar of Samayal Corner had sent her Mom's speciality Tomato Kuruma

Nayna of Simply Food sent her Saffron Cardmom ice cream

SS from SS blogs here sent her Mom's specialty Apple Jam !!!!

Preethi from Write food sent her Mom's Famous Tea Cake

Sathya Sridhar from Samayal Corner sent her Kadala Curry

Sathya Sridhar of Samayal Corner sent in Kola Urundai her Sunday Special

Sathya Sridhar of Samayal Corner sent in Lamb Kuruma

Yet another Sathya's Mom's Specialty one and only Chicken Biryani

Sathya's next sweet entry Rice and Dal Payasam

Crispy Masala Vadai from Sathya's Samayal Corner

Awesome Breakfast recipe Idiyappam from Samayal Corner

Evergreen Ven Pongal from Sathya's Samayal Corner

Spicy and Tangy Brinjal Curry from Sathya

Sp and Mj from Turmeric n Spice had sent in Kesari bhaath and Khara bhaath which they had learnt from their Mom !!!

Suma from Veggie Platter sent in her Mom's specialty Guntha Ponganalu

Suma's sent in her Yogurt Rice and Mangoes with fond memories of her Mom !!!

Niloufer from Kitchen Samraj sent this Innovative Adukku Cake one of her Mom's specialty

Healthy Ladoos from Rachana of Sizzle N Spice

Gayathri Raj of Heaven on Spoon sent her Mom Specialty Fish Pulusu

Priya from Priya's Easy and Tasty Recipes sent in her Mom's speciality Arachivitta Kadhamba Sambar

One of Priya's Favorite dish from her Mom's Cooking - Poricha Kozhi Kuzhambu

Mouthwatering Prawn Pickle from Priya's Mom

Spicy and Tangy Garlic Chutney from Priya

Rasa Vadai from Padmaja of Seduce your Taste buds

Sanyukta of Creative Sanyukta shared her childhood favorite Almond Milkshake

Favorite soup of Sanyukta's Mom - Vegetable Sweet Corn Soup

Favorite Paneer dish of Sanyukta's Mom - Palak Paneer

The favorite childhood dish Samyukta's Mom left after her marriage - Gulab Jamoon

Healthy protein packed Green Channa Tikki from Samyukta's Mom

Umm Mymoonah of Taste Of Pearl City had sent her Mom's special Pudding - Kinnathappam

Nithu Bala of Nithu's Kitchen sent her Mom's favorite Jack fruit MilkShake

Capsicum & Cashew Rice that Nithu learnt from her Mom

Sprouted Black Channa & Tamarind Poha Upma from Nithu

Coconut burfi Nithu Mom's favorite..Mine too

Nithu and her Mom are great Mango Lovers..No wonder she sent this Mango Kuzhambu

Fruits and Nut Dessert Nithu prepared for her Mom's Bday

Rich and creamy Mango Dessert from Nithu

Nithu sent a gorgeous colored Mango Chutney her Mom's specialty

Kanchan sent the world's best Soya Kheema from her Mom

Menaga from Sashiga sent her Mom's specialty Small Onion Chutney

Menaga's Dry Mango Seed Kuzhambu ..Sounds Interesting

Menaga's sent her Coconut Rasam

Raw Banana Puttu from Menaga

Jay of Tasty Appetite sent in her Attukal Paya

Spinach Sesame Seed Fry from Swathi of Zesty South Indian Kitchen

Cabbage Thoran from Swathi her Amma's Specialty

Denny of Oh Taste and See sent in her Mom's special Chicken Briyani

Preethi Rajeev of Dreamy Delights sent her Mom's special Jalebi/Jangri

Finally My Mom's special vegetarian rice - Carrot Rice

My Mom's special Fish Gravy worth showing off !!!!

Hope you all enjoyed the colorful array of 55 wonderful dishes. This is truly a treasure as each recipe is special in a way..Either it is from a Mom or cooked for a Mom !!!!!

Please let me know incase I have missed any recipe. Thanks to all for making my first event a super success !!!

Mango Thokku

2010-06-09T15:45:00.000-05:00

This is a different side dish made out of unripe mangoes. I never tasted it before until MK prepared it.My MIL used to prepare it but he did not know the exact recipe, so he tried calling her but she did not pick up..After much thinking and showing off he made this. I was teasing him about the final outcome..But when I tasted it, I simply loved it.I'm a great mango lover and I enjoyed this thokku with rice....It can be refrigerated and used for 4-6 days.

Mango thokku can be served with plain rice or as a side dish for any rice item. It makes its way toFestive Food: His Cooking Event at Indian Khana.Along with this I'm sending Vegetable Puff and Thai Red Curried Chicken Noodles to the event.

Ingredients

Mango - 1 no
Grated Jaggery - 1/2 cup
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Chilly powder - 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsp

Method

Wash, peel and cut the mango into small pieces.

Add little water and salt and microwave the mango pieces for about 4-5 minutes until it turns mushy.

Heat oil, add mustard and allow it to splutter in medium flame.

Add the turmeric powder and chilly powder and saute in low flame.

Add grated jaggery, 2 tbp of water and saute for about 2 minutes.

Add the cooked mango and mix well.

Carefully and continuously saute until it reaches thokku consistency.

Serve warm.

My 100th Post - Choco Banana Loaf

2010-06-08T10:39:00.000-05:00

After 4 months of blogging, I have reached another benchmark of completing 100 posts. I'm really happy and feel super good.I get thrilled to the core when my friends (lot of newbie's) call me after trying out recipes from my blog. When people talk about something you do.. it really makes you feel so happy and it pushes you to do more. I also owe a big thanks to my blogger friends as they are a great source of encouragement to me.Thanks to All !!!!.

Today I wanted to share some recipe which I personally like and love to prepare whenever I get a chance.

Banana Bread is one of my favorites, I had already tried out the plain version check here for the same.I wanted to bake something slightly different and got this recipe from Joy of Baking. It tasted so good and it is a real feast for chocolate lovers. The original recipe called for Dutch Processes Cocoa powder but I used Unsweetened Cocoa powder Usage of the dutch processed enhances color and flavor it seems. Need to use it the next time.My loaf tasted so good and I loved it.

Dry Ingredients

All purpose flour - 1 3/4 cup
White granulated sugar- 1 cup
Baking Powder - 1 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp
Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder - 1/4 cup
Salt - 1/4 tsp

Wet Ingredients

Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Eggs - 2 no
Unsalted Butter - 1/2 cup
Ripe Bananas - 3 no

Nuts and Topping

Pecans - 1/2 cup
Chocolate Chips - 1/2 cup
Brown Sugar - 2 tbsp

Method

Preheat oven to 350 F and place the rack in middle of the oven.

Butter the loaf pan and dust it with a little all purpose flour and set aside.

Place the pecans on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 min and coarsely chop them. If they are already chopped toast for about 4 min.

Melt and cool the butter.

In a large bowl, Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder and set aside.

In another bowl, add eggs and slightly beat them.

Add the cooled butter, vanilla extract, mashed bananas to the egg and mix well.

Now carefully fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients using a wooden spatula.

Fold the nuts and chocolate chips into the batter.

Do not over mix. Just mix until the flour is moistened. Over mixing leads to rough and rubbery bread.The batter should be thick and chunky.

Scrape the batter into the loaf pan,sprinkle brown sugar on top.

Bake for about 55 - 65 min.

Check if a tooth pick comes out clean to make sure the bread is done.Serve Warm

My Notes

Place on a wire rack to cool and then remove the bread from pan. This is done to improve air circulation at the bottom of the pan so that the bread does not get soggy. All the ingredients mentioned above will yield a bread of 9*5*3 size. Pecans can be replaced by walnuts.

Paruppu Rasam

2010-06-07T14:53:00.000-05:00

My Mom makes a variety of rasam recipes for our lunch..Somehow I stick to the Tomato Rasam and just to break that trend I had prepared Paruppu Rasam which is slightly similar to it. It goes well with rice and pappad.It makes our job easy on lazy days.

My friends surprisingly ask me about the addition of onions in rasam. We add it at our place and I simply love its taste with onion. I'm sending it to Healing Foods - Onion event guest hosted by Priya and started by Siri.

Ingredients

Toor Dal - 1/2 cup
Onion - 1/4
Tomato - 2 no
Garlic - 5 pods
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Curry Leaves
Cumin Seeds - 1/4 tsp
Pepper Corns - 1/4 tsp
Coriander Leaves
Salt for taste

For Tadka

Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Asafoetida - one pinch
Crushed onion and Garlic - 1 tsp
Rasam Powder - 1 tsp
Curry leaves
Oil - 1 tsp

Method

Pressure cook toor dal, onion, tomato, garlic, turmeric powder, curry leaves, coriander leaves, salt, cumin seeds,pepper corns with 1 cup water for 2 whistles.

Once the pressure is released smash the dal and add little water if required to get to rasam consistency.

Heat oil, add the items mentioned under tadka one after other in medium flame.

When the raw smell from onion and garlic gone add the rasam powder followed by the cooked dal mixture.

Boil in medium flame until you see bubbles. Do not over boil rasam might lose its taste.

Serve Hot with rice.

Ridge Gourd Gravy

2010-06-06T23:42:00.000-05:00

After a wonderful 4 day vacation at Niagara here I'm with a recipe from my draft...I don't even remember the last time I had Ridge Gourd.May be I would have had it during my college days.I did not know any special recipe with it and stuck to snake gourd and pumpkins for kootu. So always ignored this vegetable. When I saw this gravy recipe in Rak's Kitchen surely wanted to give it a try. So I just grabbed one when I had been to the Indian stores and tried this one.

I have a guest from India and when MK saw me making this gravy he was not sure how it is going to taste. I prepared it, took some pics and left for refreshing.When I came back I had only 2 spoonfuls. So you can imagine how it would have tasted. From my side I just added some grated coconut to the gravy otherwise followed it exactly. It was awesome with a little ghee and quite different from the gravies I make. Thanks to Raji !!!!!

Ingredients

Ridge Gourd - 1 no
Onion - 2 nos
Green Chilly - 4 no
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Tamarind - Gooseberry size
Grated Coconut - 3 tsp
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Fenugreek seeds - 1/4 tsp
Urid Dal - 1/2 tsp
Curry Leaves
Asafoetida - a pinch
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsps

Method

Wash and peel the sharp edges and cut the ridge gourd into medium size pieces.

Pressure cook the veggie by adding 2-3 tbsp of water.

Grind it to a smooth paste.

Extract juice from the tamarind and keep aside.

Heat oil, add mustard, urid dal, asafoetida, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves one after the other in medium flame.

Chop the onion into chunks and add it to the seasoning.

Add the green chillies and saute well until onion turns translucent.

Add the tamarind juice, salt , turmeric powder and allow it to boil in closed state for about 3-4 min.

Add the ground ridge gourd paste , mix well and boil for additional 4 min.

Add grated coconut and Serve warm with rice and ghee.

Spinach Potato Curry

2010-05-31T23:04:00.000-05:00

I truly feel guilty that my post count per week has gone down. I never realized it until my Mom asked this during my weekend call.My bad..though I prepared I variety of dishes and took pictures did not have the time to blog about it. I prepared this dish for lunch and served it with Rasam rice and people loved it.

I normally prefer to use the Spinach the day it is bought. Those dishes surely has added taste. This is one of my favorite dishes and it is kid tested. It's easier to feed them when spinach is mixed with a vegetable they love !!

Spinach Potato Curry is sent to Preethi's Green Gourmet event along with Kovakkai Roast, Bitter Gourd Curry

Ingredients

Spinach - 2 cups
Potato - 2 no
Onion - 1 no
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urid Dal - 1/2 tsp
Chilly Powder - 3/4 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Grated Coconut 4 tsp
Curry Leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsp

Method

Wash, Peel, Boil and dice the potatoes into medium size pieces.

Heat oil, add mustard, cumin seeds, urid dal in medium flame one after the other.

Add finely chopped onion, curry leaves and cook onion until turns translucent.

Add the potatoes followed by turmeric powder, chilly powder, salt and mix well and cook for 5 min.

Add the spinach leaves and mix well.

When the vegetable is done add the grated coconut and mix well.

Serve Hot with rice item.

Aloo Mutter

2010-05-28T15:13:00.000-05:00

Aloo Mutter is a North Indian side dish suitable for Roti, Naan etc., I had 3 packs of frozen peas sitting in my freezer. MK justs gets one whenever he goes for grocery shopping without knowing whether we have used last week's stuff :-(. So after preparing Peas Pulav, Vegetable Briyani etc., I thought of making this side dish along with naan. People at home enjoyed it.

We can add a little cream to make the gravy have a restaurant touch. I did not add any sort of milk or cream but the taste was good. Try and enjoy !!!!

Aloo Mutter is sent to CWS - Cumin seeds event hosted by Sara started by Priya.

Ingredients

Potatoes - 4 no
Peas - 1 cup
Onion - 2 no
Tomato - 2 no
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 tsp
Green Chilly paste - 1/2 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp
Red food color - 1 pinch (optional)
Kasoori Methi Leaves - 1/2 tsp
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves
Coriander Leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 3 tsp

Method

Wash, Peel, Boil and Dice the potatoes into medium size pieces.

Add 1 tsp oil, saute the onion until it is translucent and puree it.

Heat oil, add cumin seeds in medium flame.

Add onion puree followed by curry leaves.

Add ginger garlic, green chilly paste in low flame and saute until raw smell is gone.

Add finely chopped tomatoes and cook until they turn mushy.

Add chilly powder, turmeric powder, garam masala, salt in medium flame and cook until oil separates.

Add the potatoes, peas and mix well. Mix the red color in drops of water and add it to the gravy.

Add 1 cup water and smash some of the potatoes to make the gravy thick. Gravy needs to be semi liquid-ish.

Once oil separates crush the kasoori methi leaves and sprinkle on the gravy.Garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves and Serve Hot.

Bittergourd Curry

2010-05-24T23:57:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid I never used to like this..and my mom used to force to eat this one...She will also give small balls made out of young neem leaves (Kozhuthu)..My sister used to run around the whole house with a big jug of water and will almost get beaten up to have it..funny girl..I think still she hates the bitter gourd stuff...Grow up girl...As time passed I started to like it :-)..not only the fried stuff..also the curries.

Bitter Gourd is said to have medicinal value..It is said to be anti diabetic and helps to improve digestion..Normally we deep fry the vegetable for the bitterness to go..But this curry is good and not so bitter..Do not buy dark green ones..they are said to have more bitterness..

Bitter Gourd Curry is sent to Bitter Better Health event hosted by Yasmeen and Preethi's Green Gourmet Event.

Ingredients

Bitter Gourd - 3 no
Onion - 1 no
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Coconut flakes - 2 tsp
Roasted Bengal gram - 2 tsp
Curry Leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 4 tsp

Method

Remove the seeds and cut the bitter gourd into desired shape and

add chilly powder, turmeric powder, salt and marinate for 15 min.

Heat oil add onion, curry leaves and saute well.

Add the vegetable and saute well.

Sprinkle water and allow the vegetable cook in medium flame.

Grind the coconut flakes and roasted gram into a coarse powder.

Once the vegetable is cooked add the coarse powder and saute well. Serve Hot with rice items.

Kovakkai Roast

2010-05-24T17:27:00.000-05:00

Tindora or Kovakkai is said not to have much of nutrients..we cannot always think about nutritional factors..Come on we have to delight our taste buds now and then...Normally people deep fry this veggie but this one is tastier than deep fry.It does take little more time than the normal vegetable cooking but you should you wait for the reaction from your loved ones to forget that..Though it was spicy my shweety asked "Mommy want some more"

This spicy veg side dish is made with freshly ground spices..It is yummy with all rice items.Try out.Sending this to Preethi's Green Gourmet event.

Ingredients

Tindora - 1/2 lb
Chilly Powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric Powder 1/4 tsp
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Salt - for taste
Oil

To Grind

Red Chilly - 4 nos
Coconut flakes - 3 tsps
Urid Dhal - 1 tsp
Channa Dal - 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp

Method

Heat 1/2 tsp oil and roast urid dhal, channa dal, cumin seeds, coconut flakes, red chilly.

Allow the contents to cool and grind it to a coarse powder.

Cut the vegetable lengthwise.

In a vessel add the vegetable, chilly powder, turmeric powder, salt, ground powder and mix well.

Heat 2 tsp oil and add the mustard and allow it to splutter.

Add the vegetable mix and sprinkle some water and allow it to get cooked.

Make sure the masala does not get burnt. This will spoil the taste.

Once the vegetable is cooked, reduce the flame and dry it.

Serve Hot.

Yellow Pumpkin Kootu

2010-05-24T14:11:00.000-05:00

Totally exhausted after attending 4 parties in 3 days.For the past 1 month I had spent most of my free time googling about party themes, cakes etc., and I'm extremely relieved that the parties turned out great. Though I did some cooking this weekend nothing was special so I'm posting one of my favorite kootu recipe from the drafts.

Earlier I never liked this veggie. I would ask my Mom to make something else for me if she was planning to cook yellow pumpkin.After coming here, MK prepared this kootu once and as I do not have the luxury of being choosy.. hmmmm If I say no then I need to cook something for myself :-) and moreover I'm a person who cannot survive without side dish for rice ..So I ate it. I must admit it was extremely good.

This kootu goes well with Sambar and Rasam rice. Yellow pumpkin is at its best when it is cooked the same day it is bought. This kootu makes its way to Suma's Delicious Dals of India event

Ingredients

Yellow Pumpkin - 1/2 lb
Channa Dal - 1 cup
Onion - 1 no
Tomato - 1 no
Garlic Cloves - 4 no
Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Mustard - 1 tsp
Curry Leaves
Coriander Leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsp

Method

Wash, peel and dice the yellow pumpkin to medium size pieces.

Pressure cook the channa dal for 1 whistle.

Heat oil, add mustard in medium flame.

Add onion, crushed garlic and curry leaves and saute until onion turns translucent.

Add tomato and until it turns mushy.

Add turmeric powder, chilly powder, salt, sprinkle some water and cook in medium flame.

Add the vegetable, cooked dal, 1 cup water and cook until the vegetable is cooked. Add extra water if required.

Add grated coconut and mix well. The mixture needs to semiliquid-ish.

Garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with any rice item.

Thai Restaurants in Nashville

2010-05-18T10:30:00.000-05:00

I have nothing to post as of now..thought of writing about my favorite THAI restaurants in our city.Hope it helps my Nashville gang !!!! We used to prefer Mexican food and after repeated visits we kinda got bored and switched onto THAI.I had visited this place for a team lunch and was greatly impressed by their food.Food was fresh and tasted awesome.Their table service was also good and rates were nominal. SIAM'S CAFE a great place for giving treats. After that visit we used to go there regularly and totally enjoyed each and every visit

I would highly recommend the Spicy Chicken/Tofu Noodles and Red Curry with rice...Order it as hot and have a wonderful spicy meal !!!

Siam Cafe
316 Mccall St,
Nashville, TN 37211-2918

Another THAI restaurant I really liked is the SOKHO THAI, we visited this place to celebrate the successful completion of our 2 1/2 year long project.The place was fully packed and we had to wait for a while..to our surprise there was only person serving. Again we had to wait for our food..but worth the waiting. Food was excellent and had a great lunch for under $10. Good choice for lunch or dinner. I did not have time to take pics of our food.. hmm...after waiting for a while I was totally hungry..

Sokho Thai
2450 Music Valley Drive,
Nashville, TN 37214-1004

Blueberry Streusel Muffins

2010-05-17T11:40:00.000-05:00

It was again a rainy weekend and absolutely no way of going out. Perfect time to bake !!!The next 4 days are going to be real busy days at both work and home. We have planned 3 parties for Shweet's Bday and very busy fulfilling her demands. She has selected a theme and has a list of items and continuously questions me whether I have ordered all stuff..

Coming to the recipe I had bought a box of fresh blueberries while I was shopping and wanted to bake something with it. I found a recipe at joyofbaking.com and followed it exactly. Just reduced the measure of blue berries.

It was a great evening snack but I felt it was a bit buttery. As I'm not a big butter lover planning to make another version with buttermilk and no butter.

Ingredients

All purpose Flour - 3 cups
Eggs - 2 no
Milk - 1 cup
Granulated Sugar - 1 cup
Baking Powder - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Butter - 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Lemon zest - 1/2 tsp
Fresh or Frozen Blueberries - 1 cup

Method

Preheat Oven to 350F. Place rack in middle of oven. Spray vegetable oil on the muffin pan and keep aside.

Beat the eggs slightly in a bowl. Add milk, vanilla extract and mix well.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the flour mixture and mix well with a blender or two knives until it looks like coarse crumbs.

Remove 1 cup of the flour mixture for the and keep aside for the streusel topping.

Gently fold the blueberries and lemon zest into the flour mixture.

Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined.

Do not over mix as over mixing might result in rough muffins.

Fill muffin cups with either 2 spoons or 1 scoop of the batter.

Streusel Topping

Melt the remaining 2 tbsp of butter and add it to the 1 cup of flour reserved for the topping.

Mix well until it looks like a coarse meal.Sprinkle on all the muffins.

Place the muffin pan in the oven and bake for about 20 min or until a tooth pick comes out clean and the muffin surface has a light brown tinge.

Serve Warm.

Mushroom Chops

2010-05-14T16:16:00.000-05:00

There are some days when you will not be allowed to eat Non Veg but will be craving to eat it.This dish will come as a savior on those days. Back in India my Mom would impose a lot of rules about eating non veg, normally we would switch to mushrooms as she will not budge. Mushroom Chops goes along well with rice, chappati, dosa and what not.

This recipe was from my Mom, she had read it in a cook book. I got some fresh Jumbo Mushrooms in Costco and wanted to prepare this. I had served them with chappati for dinner and enjoyed with rasam rice the next day.Try and Enjoy.Happy Weekend !!!

Ingredients

Mushrooms - 8 - 10 no
Onion - 2 no
Tomato - 2 no
Cardamom - 3 no
Fennel - 1/4 tsp
Curry Leaves
Coriander Leaves
Coconut milk - 1/4 cup
Salt for taste
Oil - 3 tsp

To grind

Garlic Cloves - 6 no
Ginger - 1 big piece
Fennel - 1/2 tsp
Cumin - 1/4 tsp
Pepper - 1/2 tsp
Grated Coconut - 3 tsp
Red Chilly - 5 no

Method

Wash cut the mushrooms to medium size pieces.

Microwave the mushrooms for about 4 min by sprinkling little water.

Grind the garlic, ginger, fennel, cumin, pepper, grated coconut, red chillies to a smooth paste.

Heat oil, add cardamom and fennel in medium flame.

Add onion, curry leaves and saute till onion turns translucent.Add tomatoes and saute well.

Add the ground masala, salt and cook in medium flame until oil separates.

Add mushrooms, 1/4 cup and allow the it to cook in closed state.

Once mushrooms are cooked add the coconut milk and cook in open state.

Saute until the mixture is semi liquid-ish as shown in pic.

Garnish with fresh coriander leaves and Serve Hot.

Guess What !!!!!

2010-05-14T11:56:00.000-05:00

Luck has favored me for the second time..Hurray !!!! Yes I won the CSN sponsored
give away at Thattukada Thanks to Fathima !!! There were 9 items out of which I need to select one...After much thinking I chose the Cuisinart Power Advantage 5-Speed Hand Mixer.Hoping to use it effectively.

When I saw Fathima's email with Guess What as the subject, I was thrilled...This is the second give away I participated and for a wonder I won both...I'm so happy.. may be I should try buying some lottery tickets (suggestion from MK).

Mushroom Chops will follow soon...

Vegetable Puffs

2010-05-13T11:14:00.000-05:00

We were hunting for something to munch with our evening tea and we did not have anything interesting.So we decided to make Vegetable Puffs...ok ok MK decided to make it. It was totally done by him.I was searching for puff pastry sheets for about 3 weeks in all the grocery stores I normally shop. But never found it.Finally I found it in Publix and happy that I can make the pie I was planning for a long time. He had an eye on my sheets and used it to make the puffs. hmmm I was so angry but after tasting the puffs I was totally moved and forgave the puff pastry sheet stealer...

The sheets were real good. We used the one from Pepperidge farm. Cost of it was around 4.65$ and it had 2 big sheets.Out of 1 sheet we..sorry..he made 6 puffs. I think it will be great party recipe....You can make any kind of stuffing.We are planning to make chicken or egg puffs soon..

He left the puffs 2 minutes extra in the oven and it had a black tinge. So make sure you take it out when its golden brown. But the taste was so good..

Sending this to Festive Food: His Cooking Event hosted at Indian Khana

Ingredients

Puff Pastry Sheets - 1 no
Carrot - 2 no
Beans - 15 no
Potato - 1 no
Peas - 3/4 cup
White Onion - 1 no
Tomato - 1 no
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
Coriander Leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsp

Method

Preheat oven to 250 F.

Thaw the puff pastry sheets for about 40 min or as mentioned in the pack.

Finely chop the vegetables and microwave for about 4 min.

Heat oil, add cumin seeds, finely chopped onion and saute until onion turns translucent.

Add tomato and saute well.

Add chilly powder, turmeric powder, salt and mix well.

Add the veggies and sprinkle some water and allow it cook.

Once the veggies are cooked garnish with chopped coriander.

Puff Pastry sheet would be a single big sheet. Place it on a floured surface and cut into equal halves. Out of each half you can make 3 puffs.

Place 2 spoonfuls of stuffing inside inside each rectangular piece (made out of each half) and close it.

Brush oil on top and bake for about 10 - 12 min or until turns golden brown.

Serve Hot with tomato sauce.

Vegetable Clear Soup

2010-05-12T16:06:00.000-05:00

Yet another recipe to easily materialize the 5210 rule explained in my previous post. I did not copy the pictures of the dishes I cooked last week from my SD card so posting this simple recipe which I had made for my daughter. You can customize it by adding other vegetables, or tossing the vegetables in olive and then pressure cook or after cooking drain the veggies and grind it a smooth mixture and add it back to the soup. You can serve this either as a soup or you mix with rice and give it as "Soup Rice" it worked both ways.

Ingredients

Carrot - 1 no
Beans - 6 no
Peas - 1/2 cup
Shredded Cabbage - 1/2 cup
White Onion - 1
Tomato - 1/2
Pepper Corns - 5
Cumin - 1/4 tsp
Coriander Leaves
Salt for taste
Oil - 1/2 tsp

Method

Wash and cut vegetables into medium size pieces.

To a pressure cooker add the vegetables, chopped onion, tomato, pepper corns, cumin seeds, coriander leaves salt,oil, 1 cup water and pressure cook for 2 whistles.

Add freshly ground pepper powder to make it more spicy.

Serve Hot.

Moong Dal Curry

2010-05-11T12:14:00.000-05:00

I'm getting kinda busy and not able to post the same day I make the dish. I had prepared this 2 weeks back for my daughter. So it is kid tested and was a great success..she had one dosa extra.Whenever I cook something for shweets I make sure I add cumin and pepper corns as they help to cure cold. Constant climate changes causes the kids to get affected with cold quite often.This really helps...

Also this dish also helps in the 5210 rule...info from blendcentralmn.org.

5 - Eat 5 or more vegetables a day
2 - Restrict TV and Computer time to 2 hrs
1 - Make it a habit to have atleast 1 hr of moderate physical activity
0 - Say no to soda's, sugar sweetened drinks

I think it is very important to integrate these healthy habits at early ages. Our childhood was totally different TV was just reserved for Oliyum Oliyum, Sunday movie, He-Man etc..But now they are happy watching TV the whole day.When I say no to TV my 3 year old says "Mommy its boring". We try to keep her busy in other activities and make sure she does not get addicted to TV.Trying our best !!!!!

This simple dal curry is cooked with Yellow Moong Dal, Vegetables with a mild seasoning. Goes well with Chapati, Idly, Dosa etc.,and is sent to Cooking with Seeds - Cumin event hosted at Sara's Corner started by Priya .Also makes its way to Suma's Delicious Dals from India event hosted at Veggie Platter

Ingredients

Moong Dal 1 1/2 cup
Carrot - 1 no
Beans - 10 no
Green Peas - 1/2 cup
Potato - 1 no
White Onion - 1 no
Tomato - 1 no
Garlic Pods - 4 no
Green Chilly - 2 no
Pepper corns - 5 no
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt for Taste

Seasoning

Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
Onion - 1/2 no
Curry leaves
Ghee - 1 tsp

Method

Wash and add the moong dal to a pressure cooker.

Add chopped, onion, tomatoes, carrot, beans, peas, potato to the dal.

Add green chillies (Cut the ends or split it),turmeric powder, garlic pods, pepper corns, salt required amount of water, and pressure cook for 2 whistles.

Heat ghee, add mustard, cumin seeds, and allow it to splutter.

Add onion, curry leaves and saute until onion turns translucent.

Transfer the seasoning to the dal and boil for 2 min.

Serve Warm with Chapati or Dosa.

Venn Pongal

2010-05-10T16:19:00.000-05:00

Venn Pongal is the one of the most common breakfast in Southern India. At our place we normally make this dish for Friday Mornings.This is also prepared as a prasadham (offering) to god during festivals. It is kind of heavy because of the ghee.If you are planning to have it along with vada then plan this for weekend breakfasts..because this one makes you feel sleepy :-) atleast it makes me.

This is a simple recipe but never tastes the same at all places. I have just the version I follow.It can be served with Coconut Chutney or Sambar. Having Vada with it would be a great combo !!!!

Venn Pongal is sent to Cooking with Seeds - Cumin event hosted at Sara's Corner started by Priya.

Ingredients

Raw Rice - 1 cup
Yellow Moong Dal - 1/2 cup
Salt for taste
Ghee - 3 tsp

Seasoning

Pepper Corns - 10 no
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Cashew - 10 no
Curry Leaves
Grated Ginger - 1/2 tsp

Method

Wash the rice ,dal and pressure cook along with salt, 1/2 tsp ghee for 4 whistles.

Smash the rice with a spatula if it is not mushy.

Heat ghee, add cumin seeds, pepper corns.

When it splutters, add the grated ginger, chopped curry leaves,cashew in medium flame.

When the cashew turns golden color add the seasoning to the cooked rice and dal mixture.

Mix well and Serve Hot.

My Notes

Normally when we cook rice, water ratio would be 1:2 but for pongal we need to add a extra cup. for ex: for 1 1/2 cup I added 4 cups water.

Tomato Gravy

2010-05-07T13:09:00.000-05:00

Hurray its Friday !After 5 looonggg days in the Grey World will get to see some colors for the next 2 days.I will be busy shopping for the next 2 days for Shweets B'day.Hoping to have fun in the sun.Also eagerly waiting for Mom's parcel from India..hmm dresses for the party.So this weekend theme "Less Cooking More Shopping"....

Coming to the recipe..this gravy is easy to make and can be served with Rice, Idly, Dosa etc., I normally prepare a more complicated (meaning I grind fresh masala) version. But I was kind of tired and wanted to cook something simple. I will share the original version soon.

Tomato Gravy makes its way to Cooking with Seeds - Cardamom event hosted by Priya. Along with this I'm also sending my Peas Pulao, Coriander Chicken Dry, Mushroom Briyani.

Ingredients

Tomato - 4 no
White onion - 1 no
Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
Curry Leaves
Coriander Leaves
Cinnamon - 1 piece
Cardamom - 2 no
Salt for taste
Oil - 2 tsp

Method

Wash and cut the tomatoes to medium size pieces.

Puree the tomatoes along with chilly powder and turmeric powder.

Heat oil, add cinnamon, cardamom in medium flame.

Add finely chopped onion, curry leaves and cook until onion turns translucent.

Add ginger garlic paste and saute until raw smell is gone in low flame.

Add the tomato puree, salt , water until desired consistency and cook in closed state.

Once oil separates, Garnish with fresh coriander leaves. Serve Hot.

Bread Masala

2010-05-06T12:17:00.000-05:00

Never went out for 3 days... In my earlier post I said we enjoyed watching movies over the weekend. But when I just did only that I got so tired.Nowadays after watching so many English movies we are able to guess the ending in no time.So for a change watched some Tamil Commercial Movies and must admit I really enjoyed it.

Had no Idly batter so I had to hunt for some dinner recipes. My people are so choosy and would not agree if I just cook something.Opened my fridge,pantry and was gazing at the groceries thinking what to do, saw 2 new packs of bread (MK had got it) when we have not finished the one we had bought earlier. Suddenly got reminded for Priya's Tandoori Bread Masala..decided to prepare it.But I had no Tandoori Masala in stock.So I googled some recipes for tandoori masala powder, but they were not easy to prepare. So I used chilly powder and called it Bread Masala. People at home loved it a lot.Thanks Priya !

Ingredients

Bread - 10 slices
White Onion - 1 no
Big Tomato - 1 no
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 tsp
Green Chilly - 2 no
Cumin Powder - 1/4 tsp
Garam Masala - 1/2 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander Powder - 1/2 tsp
Bay Leaves - 2 no
Clove - 2 no
Cardamom - 2 no
Salt - for taste
Oil

Method

Cut the bread into cubes. Preheat the oven to 425 F and bake the bread cubes for about 10 - 12 min until the bread turns golden brown.

Chop the onion and tomato length wise.

Heat oil, add the bay leaf, clove, cardamom in medium flame.

Add onion and saute it turns translucent.

Add green chilly followed by the ginger garlic paste and cook until raw smell is gone.

Add tomato and mix well.

Add the cumin powder, garam masala, chilly powder, coriander powder, salt and cook well until oil separates.

Add the baked bread cubes and mix well. Allow it cook for some time so that the masala is well coated on the bread.

Garnish with mint leaves and Serve Hot.

Mushroom Biryani

2010-05-06T00:41:00.000-05:00

When we are forced to have veg and want to have some spicy rice..Mushroom Biryani is a good choice.It is said mushrooms have low nutritional value not sure about that but can use the vegetables and compensate it.So I always prepare it with the veggies..

Mushroom Biryani is sent to the Cooking with Seeds - Cardamom event hosted by Priya

Ingredients

Mushroom - 10 - 15 nos
Carrot,beans,cabbage,peas - 2 cups
Basmati Rice - 2 cups
Onion - 4 no
Tomato - 3 no
Ginger - 2 pieces
Garlic Cloves - 6 no
Green Chilly - 3 no
Coriander leaves
Curry leaves
Mint Leaves
Bay leaf - 3 no
Cinnamon - 2 sticks
Cardamom - 2 no
Cloves - 2 no
Fennel seeds - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
Chilly Powder - 1/2 tsp
Coconut milk - 1 cup
lemon juice - 1 tsp
Salt - for taste
Oil - 3 tsp
Ghee 2 tsp

Method

Wash and cut the mushroom into medium size pieces. Wash rice and soak for 10 min.

Grind ginger, garlic, green chilly, turmeric powder, fennel seeds

Place a pressure cooker,pour the oil and ghee, add cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, bay leaf in medium flame

Add onions, curry leaves,mint leaves and saute well until onion is transparent

Add ground mixture, followed by tomato and saute until oil comes out.

Add required water (include coconut milk in the water count) and allow it to boil.

At this stage add the rice, sprinkle the lemon juice and pressure cook for 2 whistles in high.

Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with onion raitha.

Coriander Chicken Dry

2010-05-04T16:50:00.000-05:00

This is a great Chicken Side dish which goes on well with any rice item.I got this recipe from a cooking column in a magazine long time ago.It was named as GONGURA chicken,but there was no sign of gongura in it.I was little doubtful about grinding the whole bunch of coriander leaves into a paste.Finally it turned out to be a different dish..of course it tasted great.

If you want it more spicy add chilly flakes at the end which would also create a good color combo.We normally do this so that Shweets can have a less spicier version.

This wonderful dry is sent to the Cooking with Seeds - Cardamom event hosted by Priya

Ingredients

Chicken - 1/2 lb
Onion - 1 no
Tomato - 1 no
Green Chilly - 5 no
Ginger Garlic Paste - 2 tsp
Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves
Mint Leaves
Coriander Leaves - 1 big bunch
Cinnamon - 2 no
Clove - 1 no
Cardamom - 2 no
Salt - for taste
Oil - 3 tsp

Method

Wash and cut chicken into small pieces.

Grind the coriander leaves,mint leaves, green chillies into a coarse paste.

Dry roast the cinnamon, clove, cardamom and grind it to a powder.

Heat oil, add fennel seeds in low flame.

Add finely chopped onion and curry leaves and saute well.

Add ginger garlic paste and saute until raw smell is gone.

Add finely chopped tomato, salt, ground powder and saute well.

Add the green paste and allow it to cook in medium flame until oil separates.

Add chicken and mix well so that the masala is well coated to the chicken.

Cook the chicken in medium flame. Once it is cooked increase the flame allow it to dry.

Garnish with finely chopped curry leaves.