Cooking Pleasures

To All My Readers and Friends....

2007-09-19T10:18:00.001-07:00

From long time Iam not blogging regularly. The reason behind it is we are expecting a new member in our family after few months. So due to initial nausea and sickness, Iam away from blogging. But apart from this good news, another sad news is my css is not working for some reason. The look of blog is not same any more. Iam unable to find the reason, since every thing in css code looks fine. Anyways, since it may create some inconvenience to the readers, i decided to go with some other new design and required changes. Till then Iam sorry for little incovenience. Though, I was away and even with this inconenience, my readers were never away from me and also continued giving mails and appreciating my work. Iam very very thankful for all of your response. Though unable to respond to each one of your mails, iam reading them and publishing them too.So THANK YOU one and all and I promise to come back soon on blogging regularly.

Whole Wheat Pasta (Simple Meal)

2007-08-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

Pasta is one of the Italian dish, which is, famous almost through out the world. From the time Iam married, I never tried this till recent time. I heard about it a lot. Then, I learned with two to three trials on cooking pasta, that it can be cooked with any seasoning of our likes. Now you know me..:-)) I added my very own basic spices used for making a any simple upma to the pasta. And end result for very very yummy. Iam happy with this because my son too started liking pasta. Now its been adopted by both of us (mother and son) very much, it has become one of our favourite meal. For first couple of times, though I have choosen Italian made as I heard it is the best one, I went for just plain pasta. But this time I went for Organic Whole Wheat Fusilli (made in Italy). I choose fusilli upon other textures. I believe , I liked whole wheat pasta more than others. Now I stick to this! Its worth the cost! Iam sending this entry to Express Cooking Event, hosting by mallugirl of Malabar Spices. I sincerely thanks her for reminding me of this event. Iam very much happy to participate in this event :-)

For two persons: (here for me and my son)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 cup pf whole wheat pasta
1 quater / 1 liter / 32oz of water
Salt a/c to taste
1/4th tsp mustard seeds (aavalu)
1/2 tsp cumin seeds (jilakara)
2 garlic pods (cut and crushed)
1 small onion (Cut onion into small pieces, just as you do for upma)
2 green chillies (slit and cut into small pieces)
1 stem curry leaves (karivepaku)
1 big tomato ( sized into small cubes)
A dash of pepper

Method For Cooking Pasta:

Bring above specified amount of water into full boiling with little salt.
Once the water starts full boiling, add pasta and cook with open lid, stirring occasionally.
Cook till about 10 minutes approx. But do check the pasta in between , to know wheather it is cooked well.
Just take one piece of pasta, press and see wheather you like that chewing consistency. If it is ok , remove from heat or else cook till it reaches texture as you desire.
I like little crunchy texture, so I stopped after 10 minutes of boiling.
Drain water and allow the pasta to cool a little, till you prepare the seasoning.
If it sticks to each other, then just rinse once in cold water and keep aside to drain.

Method For Seasoning The pasta:

Heat a wok, add 2 full tsp of oil (I used olive oil, which is best for such meals).
Now add mustard seeds and cumin seeds, green chillies and curry leaves one after the other as mentioned, giving time for each to splutter.
Now add onions and fry till they turn transparent. Add garlic and fry for 1 more minute.
Now add tomato and sprinkle with pepper powder and very small amount of salt(as already salt is addded to the pasta while cooking). Pour little water (say 1/4 th cup) and close lid.
Allow to cook, mix in between, till tomatoes are soft. Just check the taste for salt and spice. if you think you need little more add here, respectively.
Now add drained pasta and mix well with other ingredients. Close lid and decrease the heat. Allow to cook for couple of minutes more or till all other spices get well with pasta.
Before removing from heat, just check the taste and if needed add like salt or pepper.
Serve hot or warm. This is best one for kids also who like pasta but desire for spices:-)

Simple Black Eye Beans Salsa (Alasanda guggulu )

2007-07-20T09:17:00.001-07:00

"Beans salsa" sounds healthy right? Yes!! it is a very healthy snack and also can be very light meal anytime. It is also good for those who are trying hard to reduce all that extra fat. Unlike using any of sauce in salsa, I made this giving like spice touch. Its simple to prepare any enjoy anytime. If you have less patience or no time or want to eat healthy , then you are at right destination. Lets see the preapration.......

Ingredients:

Black Eye Beans (Alasandalu) 1 cup
Tomato medium sized 1
Black pepper 1/4 tsp
Dry Red chillies 2
Onion 1 medium sized (or half if it is big one)
Tamarind Juice 1tbsp(thick juice --I used one which we use to pake pulusu pulihora) or( 2 tsp lime juice)
Fresh Cilantro 1 tbsp

Method:

Soak beans over night. Wash next day in cold water and pressure cook with little salt upto two whistels.
Drain any water and allow to cool down.
Meanwhile, cut onions and tomatoes into small pieces and set aside separately.
Take beans in a large bowl. Crush red chillies and mix with beans.
Also mix tamarind juice or lime juice and refrigerate for 1/2 hr.
Just before serving, remove and mix with tomatoes, onions, cilantro and desired pepper and salt.

Note: Beans can be substituted with any kind of other means or murmura (puffed rice). Red chillies instead of green chillies really got that spice I needed in my dish. You can always vary salt and spice according to your taste. So enjoy this simple diet.

Nellore Chepala Pulusu (Nellore Fish Curry)

2007-07-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

"Nellore Chepala Pulusu" ! As soon as I hear this name I get water in my mouth. It is very very famous in Andhra Pradesh. My mother prepares fish curry as I prepared Vankaaya pulusu, instaed og brinjal she adds fish peices. Even that too taste good. When I visited my Mils's place two years ago, I tastes this curry prepared my her. From then on wards I just wanted to learn this to perfection. I could achieve that by now; though I like the one prepared by her. Iam waiting for next chance;-) Well, by now you would have gone through above pulusu podi. That is key ingredient in this recipe. So lets get into it with out no delay. I hope you will enjoy this , coming weekend. All you need to do.....

Ingredients:

----------------

1.6 to 2 lbs fish ( I used King Salmon here. This taste little sweet compare to cat fish)
2 big tomotoes ot 3 medium tomatoes (choose those which can get much juice out of it)
2 medium lemon sized Tamarind
2 tsp Ginger-Garlic paste
2 tsp dry Coconut powder
2 tsp Turmeric powder
2 to 3 tsp Sambar powder or Pulusu Powder
1big Onion
1/4 th tsp Hing powder (Inguvaa)
Oil for cooking (1 tbsp)
Salt as required

Method:

Clean the fish with salt especially on the skin side. Cut into desired size of pieces. Drain all the water.
Marinate fish with salt, turmeric powder and pulusu podi. Coat the mixture to the fish pieces properly. Set aside till all other prepartions are done.
Soak tamarind in warm water till it becomes soft. Extract the juice and keep aside.
Make puree out of tomatoes. (or elase you can also put tomatoes in hot water for a while. Peel the skin and squeez the juice the juice.)
Cut the onions into thin long pieces.
Grind ginger, garlic and dry coconut into paste and set aside.
Mix tomato puree and tamarind juice to geather. See the taste. If you feel more tamarind juice is necessary than soak again and take juice and mix with this. It is very important step here. As this will make difference in the taste of the gravy.
Take a wide and depth pan, so that fishes are not broken and can be turend easily.
Heat oil and fry onions till light brown. Add ginger-garlic-coconut paste and fry for few seconds. Now add hing here and fry for few seconds.
Add the tomato and tamarind puree and allow to boil. Now add the marinated fish into it. Mix well and close the lid and cook on high heat for 10 minutes.
Decrease the heat to medium. Open the lid and turn the fishes very carefully or can mix whole thing by holding the handels.
Taste for spice and salt. If you feel you need more add salt and pulusu or sambaar podi little more here . Mix slowly and allow to cook on medium heat for 5 minutes more.
Once you think the taste is set, decrease the heat to low for 2 minutes and remove from heat.

Note: This goes well with hot plain white rice. Also can be a enjoyed as a dip for idli's. Try to choose salmon, tuna or any other oily fishes which has very less mercury and are high in omega 3 fatty acids which increases HDL level.

Sambaar Podi / Pulusu Podi

2007-07-06T10:26:00.001-07:00

This is my first post on spice powders (podi) which are widely used in Indian food, especially in South India. Well, Iam glad and happy to start with this spice powder called "Sambaar Podi" since it is widely used in my kitchen. Speciality of this powder is it can be used in preparation of varoius dishes. Following are the list, in which prepartion, I use this powder(podi).

Sambaar
Chepala Pulusu
Vankaaya Pulusu
Kodi Guddu Pulusu

Apart from above mentioned dishes, you can also use this in some general curries just as an added spicy falvour by reducing the amount of use. Well my next immediate next post is "Nellore Chepala Pulusu" in which this podi is the key ingredient and results in very very tasty curry. When ever we invite our dear guest for dinner or lunch at our home, sambaar will be the one of the compulsory dish among others I prepare. Even if I want to avoid for one time, I can'nt. Beacuse that is the most enjoyed dish by my guest. Thi podi preparation I learned from my mother_in_law. If you prepare once in said amount (below) then it can be used for 3 to 4 times. So lets get into the preparation.

Ingredients:

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1tbsp Dhaniyaalu (Coriander seeds)
1 tsp Menthulu (methi seeds)
2 tsp Pachichenaga Pappu (split chenna dal)
1 tsp Jilakara (cumin seeds)
1/2 tsp Miriyaalu (whole black pepper)
12 to 15 no's Endu Nirapakaayalu (dry red chillies)

Method:

Rosat each one mentioned above separetly till all the raw smell dissapears.
Allow to cool them.
Grind all togeather to fine powder.

Note: If you want to adjust spice according to your taste, just grind the red chillies separately into powder first. Keep aside. Add this to aother spice powder as much needed. Or else you can add red chilli powder directly in the dish.

Eggs in hot gravy (Kodi Guddu Koora)

2007-06-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

Eggs are good for health! Eat daily an egg! Give children daily a boiled egg! Eggs are..........errr! What Iam talking about? No No No....don'nt worry! Iam not going to say anything more about eggs than this. Since I know, that every body know, that eating boiled eggs as often as possible is good for health! For every body:-)) Indeed, most of us know the importance of good food i.e., what to eat and what not to eat etc. All we need is "Execution" which is most difficult part. We often face that problem. All the time we talk about good food and bad food etc, but forget to follow what we say to others. Well, here I don'nt say that one should stop saying to others about good things what we know. After all, god gave us this gift of communicating with others, to spread good things. But, before saying to others, lets do first and then say!! What do you say?? Hope you all agree with me. Now I stop here and proceed to the recipe before I my self deviate from one topic to another:-) Ok! Coming to the recipe,this is another egg curry yet very simple one to prepare. The name "hot gravy" since, almost all the ingredients used are in paste form adding required spices making the gravy hot. This is another dish which will be perfect to serve for a lunch or dinner party. So lets get into the recipe.

Ingredients:

-----------------

6 Eggs

2 Big onions

3 Medium sized tomotoes

2 to 3 Green chillies

2 Tbsp yogurt

2 Flat tsp red chilli powder

1/2 Tsp garam masala powder

2 Flat tsp coriander powder (dhaniyala podi)

1/2 Tsp cumin seeds

2 Tsp of ginger & garlic paste

Few curry leaves

1/4th Cup of fresh cilantro

Salt as required

Oil for cooking (1 tbsp)

Method:

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Boil eggs untill they are completely cooked ;remove skin and keep aside.
Cut onions and tomatoes roughly and make puree of each separately(do not add any water here).
Take a container. Heat oil. Add cumin seeds.(here instead of cumin seeds, you can also add cuimn powder ). Once they start spluttering add curry leaves and wait till they turn crispy. Add green chillies and fry for a second.
Add onion paste and fry till it turns light brown in color. Here it takes more time than usually you fry onions.
Add ginger garlic paste and fry for 1 minute. Add tomato puree and salt. Mix well and cook untill all the water part evaporates.
Add all other spices stated as red chilli powder; garam masala powder; coriander powder. Mix all well togeather.
Cut eggs into half and add them in this gravy. Mix well once. Close the lid and allow to cook on medium heat for 5 to 8 minutes roughly. So that eggs get this spicy masala into it.
Once you see the gravy is togeather leaving sorroundings of the container, add yogurt and mix well. See no lumps are formed here and eggs are not broken further. Allow to cook on low flame for 3 to 5 minutes.
Add fresh cilantro. Mix well. Keep on sim for few 1 minute and remove from heat.
Serve hot with plain rice or any pulav or mixed vege rice or naan or biryaani or simple roti or pulkha. Goes well with all thease.

Note: Always you can vary the spice levels in this dish. For example some may want to go for less red chilli powder, some may want to omit garam masala powder etc. So enjoy the dish with this or your own proprtions of spices.

Indian Version Of Chilli Chicken

2007-06-12T14:47:00.001-07:00

The word in the "Chilli Chicken" it self says that it is "Hot" 'n' "Spicy". Why I added "Indian"
tag to this name? Well it is much Indianized recipe. I will tell you some thing! When ever I try to cook some thing away from Indian kitchen, finally I end up making it Indianized. I think my hands are more friendly to the spices:-) which are used a lot in Indian Kitchen! Is the same with any of you too? If answer is "Yes" then Iam not surprised. Since, I understand the love and effection we all have towards our basic habits, unknowingly hidden some where in our minds, with which we have grown up, though we some times try to deviate ourselfs to new things which we want to adopt. And its is very very hard to leave them behind. Now! you all know "Basic Habits" here I mean reffering to the food! ofcourse!! After all we are all foodie's:-) What ever we talk, what ever the story we share, what ever ...ever....ever.......what ever!! we end up with our food post. With such an intention, Iam proceeding towards my todays post. So here I go..

Ingredients:

-----------------

3lb chicken (cut into small pieces)

2 big onions (cut into very thin layers)

2 medium tomatoes (cut into long and thin pieces)

3 tbsp yogurt(curd/perugu)

2 tsp dark soya sauce

1 tbsp corn flour (mix in some water to form paste with out any lumps)

1 stem curry leaves

6 green chillies (chopped into small pieces)

3 tsp red chilli powder (adjust to your spice if needed)

2 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp ajwain

1 tsp cumin seeds

3 garlic cloves (cut into very small pieces)

2" ginger (cut into very small pieces)

2 tsp coriander powder

1 flat tsp garam masala powder(optional)

Lemon juice extracted from 1 lime

2 tbsp finnely chopped cilantro

salt as required

Oil for cooking (prefferably 2 tbsp)

Method:

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First step is to marinate chicken for 45 minutes to 1 hr. Wash chicken well. Drain all water. Mix curd, salt, turmeric powder, chilli powder, soya sauce, corn flour paste, cumin seeds and 2 tsp of oil. Mix all togeather well, so that each pieces gets well coated with the rest of the mixture and set aside.

Meanwhile, chicken gets marinated, make other ingredients ready as mentioned in the ingredients section.

After 45 to 60 minutes, take a wide and little depth pan. Heat oil. Add ajwain and green chillies. Fry for few seconds. Add curry leaves and fry till they turn crispy. Now add onions and fry till they turn to light brown on thw whole, in color.

Now add ginger and garlic pieces and fry for few seconds. Add the marinated chicken into this and mix well. Fry the chicken for 3 to 5 minutes on high with out closing the lid. See that bottom is not burned.

Now close the lid and reduce the heat to medium and allow the chicken to cook for 10 more minutes. Here if needed add very little water, as chicken will release some water on its own. Just see the bottom of the content is not burned.

Open the lid , add tomatoes and mix well. Close the lid again and allow the tomatoes to be cooked and the its juice gets into the rest of the contents. Cook approximently for another 5 minutes.

Add coriander powder and garam masala powder here if u need and mix well with rest of them. Allow it to cook for another 3 to 5 minutes. Finally, mix the lemon juice and cilantro.

To Garnish:

While serving, sprinkle with fresh cilantro and 1 green chilli cut into small pieces on the top of the dish.

Note: You can make onions and tomatoes into paste and can mix while marinating. Also vineger is added in chinese chilli chicken while marinating. You can avoid coriander powder and garam masala powder. Also can add green and red pepper while frying the chicken. This will lead to near by recipe of Chinese Chilli Chicken. Also in actual recipe of chilli chicken, the marinated chicken is deep fried first and the tossed in soya sauce and tomato sauce and and cooked with peppers for a while. That is exactly what is served to us in restaurants. To avoid deep frying and according to my spice taste, I Indianized this recipe:-)

Soft and Crispy Dosa with Tasty Aaloo Curry(Rice pancakes with Tasty Potato Curry)

2007-06-11T07:31:00.000-07:00

Today Iam back with all time favourite of South Indians "Dosa". It is not just favourite down south but Iam sure through out India. Because I know many north Indian friends who just love to have thease crispy yet soft pancakes with peanut and coconut dips(we call chutneys). Along with such chutney namely "Peanut Chutney" and "Aaloo Curry" which is wrapped in the dosa and served to the customers in almost every South Indian restaurant. This Aaloo curry recipe is adopted from my mother and I love to have with dosa's any time:-) Dosa can be prepared crispy or else soft like cotton to touch. I know they are meant to eat:-) Some like crispy as we say paper dosa and some like very soft. Both thease can be made with same measures of ingredients. So lets get it into the details of thease recipes.

Recipe Of Dosa

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Ingredients:

----------------

2 cups of rice (sona masuri)

2 cups of urad dal (black gram )

1/4th tsp of fenugreek seeds (methi seeds)

A pinch of Baking soda( for soft dosa only)

Required water

Method:

-----------

Soak togeather rice, urad dal and methi seeds in a big container with water , 1 or 2 inches more the level of contents for 6 to 8 hrs.
After that rinse all togeather in cold water for several times.
Grind to soft paste in 2 to 3 rounds with the help of required water.
The result should be soft batter which should flow easily. The consistency should be more than idli batter.
Ferment the batter for overnight or for 8hrs. I keep in the oven with out any heat for over night. It is well fermented so far:-)
For soft dosa, add baking soda in the batter and required salt and mix well. Add little water if needed. See the consistency after fermentation.
Take the pan or tawa heat well. Spread few drops of oil on tawa and then immeditely spread the dosa batter starting from the center of tawa in a round till the table spoon of batter is spread completely. The spoon you use should be round , depth one as shown in above pic.
Pour little oil around the dosa and allow to cook at one side. Once the top side is dry just dip the flat stick in the oil, which will make the job easy to turn dosa around. Now cook another side for few seconds , fold the dosa into half and remove from the heat.
For crispy dosa, just spread the batter from the middle into very thin round. Pore little more oil all around the dosa and cook on high heat. Once up side is dry, turn around to another side and cook for 1 minute. Close into half and remove from the pan. Thus you will get crispy one.

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Recipe Of Potato Curry:

Ingredients:

4 to 5 big potatoes

2 big onions

2 to 3 garlic cloves (crushed)

4 to5 green chillies

1 stem curry leaves

A pinch Asafoetida powder (hing or inguva)

1 tsp mustard seeds (aavalu)

1/2 tsp cumin seeds(jeera or jilakara

1 tsp turmeric powder

Salt as required

oil for cooking (1 tbsp)

Method:

Peel the skin of potatoes and cut into cubes. Wash them and keep them separately.
peel the skin of onions and cut into long and very thin layers. Make a long slit in between of green chillies.
Take a wide and little depth pan. Heat oil and add mustard seeds followed by cumin seeds and green chillies. Fry for a little while and add curry leaves. Fry till they are little crispy.
Add hing to this and onions. Fry the onions till they turn soft. Here onions should not be fried till brown.
Add turmeric powder followed by potatoes. Mix every thing well and sprinkle salt over the potatoes. Pour little water, so that base is not burned. Do not mix here any thing.
Just close the lid and cook on medium heat for 2 to 3minutes.
Now open the lid and mix every thing. Salt should be mixed well. Pour here some more water but very little if required. Close the lid and cook until the potaoes are done.
Remove from the heat, Sprinkle some cilantro from the top if needed. Serve hot with dosa. This curry also goes well with chapathis too.

Uppu Chekkalu / Vadappalu

2007-06-05T14:39:00.000-07:00

Uppu chekkalu is another Andhra Pradesh snack which is perfect for any evening to have with hot tea. We south Indians have apractice of having it along with any rice item too or just like a time pass one which is enjoyed while watching a movie, gup-shup(chatting) with friends or family etc. I mean here, murrukulu, uppu chakkalu kind of foods are meant to be enjoyed any time:-) This is a simple recipe yet easy one to prepare adopted from my mother. They are made using riceflour, maida, all purpose flour etc. Here I go with recipe.....

Ingredients:

------------------

2 cups rice flour / all purpose flour( if you want more crispy just go with rice flour or else can use all purpose flour. Another option is to mix chickpea flour/ gram flour with rice flour in 2:1 ratio for little soft uppu chekkalu being crispy).

1 medium sized onion (cut into small pieces)

1tsp ajwain /carom seeds (optional)

1 tbsp split yellow peas / channa dal(thine chenaga pappu) (soak in water for 1 hr before preparation) or handfull of skinned and split peanuts(versenaga pappu)

1 tsp red chilli powder / 4 to 5 green chillies paste

Salt to taste

Oil for cooking

White sesame seeds (nuvvulu)

1 stem curry leaves

Water as required

Method:

------------

Step1:

Mix all the ingredients and add 1 tbsp of hot oil into the mixture and mix well with a spoon untill no lumps are left over. Then make a dough with the help of required water. Dough should not be sticky.

Step2 & Step3:

Make a small lemon size round ball out of the dough. Take any container whose base is round enough to press on the ball. Also take a soft plastic cover or ziplock cover. Clean the cover and spread over a roti maker or any flat and soft base thing. If you have roti maker then just put this ball on plastic cover on the roti maker top and press into thin flat round, using little oil to remove it . Or else press with the container as shown in above pic and spread with your fingers dipped into water.

Step4:

Heat the oil for deep frying , take this flat round from the plastic cover with the help of fingers dipped in the water and allow it to slide in the oil slowly. Start with one, once you pickup, fry 2 to 3 at a time. Remove them and drain on paper towel to observe excess oil and transfer into another container. If you are well practiced with such foods then its time for me to put the fullstop:-)) These can be stored in air tight conatiner for longer fressness. So Uppu chekkalu / vadappalu( at our mother's side in telangana we call vadappalu) are ready to have with hot tea.

Note: Instead of channa dal, peanuts can be substituted. If you are lack of sesame seeds, still you can go with this recipe with out those. Because the day I prepared this I had no peanuts and no sesame seeds in my store. Also remember always go with white sesame seeds, as black are more sweeter than white and are not suitable for such savouries.

The Foodie Blogroll

2007-06-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

HI Friends!. I just found this new foodie blogroll . As soon as I came to knew about it, thought this is one of best way to knew about other foodie's in blogger world. So why late ...so go ahead and just click here to join the roll....http://www.leftoverqueen.com/the-foodie-blogroll.
So see you friends in blogroll:-)) Jenn of The Left over Queen has got this idea of building up the foodie blog roll. Great idea. Good going. Well done Jenn:-))

Gongura Pachadi / Chutney

2007-05-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

Gongura Pachadi or chutney is no doubt an "Andhra Special" dish. In olden days this used be one among other special dishes on any special occasions for Andhra People. Iam happy that thease leaves are easily available in Indian stores here(United States). Today Iam going to present two methods of preparing Gongura Pachadi. One is a simple & fast method; another one is little elaborated which Iam presenting with some pictures. Before proceeding I would like to say this is another versatile food item; since you can prepare Gongura Pachadi; Gongura Vepudu; Gongura Pappu from thease sorrel leaves. Below both methods are adopted from my mother and mother-in-law respectively. My mother does the same way with a little variation. I.e., aadding black chenna in pachadi. Soak the channa overnight ; wash them next day ; fry in little oil and add them after grinding all the ingredients i.e., to the paste. This we used to have with Jonna Rottelu (jawar ki roti). Soon I will blog how to do the jawar ki rotti. Some times, we distribute this as "prasadam" in Saibaba temple. Iam sure some of you who have visited or visit saibaba temple frequently, can notice this as one among other "Prasadam" served at the Baba Temple. You can try this variation too; and can have with hot rice or chapathis.

First Method:

--------------------

Ingredients:

--------------

2 big bunches of gongura (red sorrel leaves prefferably)

1tsp mustard seeds (avaalu)

3 or 4 tsp coriander seeds (dhaniyaalu)

6 dryred chillies (endu nirapakaayalu)

1 tsp Methi (menthulu)

A pinch hing /Asafoetida(inguvaa)
Salt as required
2 tbsp of cooking oil

Method:

----------

Separate gongura leaves from the respective stems. Wash and keep separately till all the water is drained.

Take deep fry pan. Pour some oil (2 tsp) warm up. Add gongura leaves and fry till all the water is evoporated as shown in beside picture.
Since the leaves are sorrel , no need to add any tamrind pulp or tamarind itself.

Take out the fried leaves and keep it separately.

In the same pan, heat oil and add mustard seeds , coriander seeds, dry red chillies, methi seeds and hing respectively, one after the other.
Fry till the seeds starts spluttering. Now add fried gongura to this and mix well.
Swith off the stove. Here at this stage you can just make paste of it using pappu gottam (which is used to mash any dal cooked in the pressure cooker) or else after it cools down make paste of it in a grinder with required salt.

Gongura Pachadi (before grinding it into paste)

Second Method:
---------------------

Same till 4th step of first method.
Fry dry red chillies, asafoetida or hing and mustard seeds in oil.
Add the leaves to this and mix well and remove from the heat. Grind to the fine paste.

Chicken Regular & Gudur Chicken

2007-05-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

Hi Friends! Iam back to blogging world ! Truely speaking I was never far away from it. I used to and Iam going through all my fellow bloggers new recipes, events and articles frequently. Due to my toddler activities and other work at home, it is very hard for me to join my regular blogging. Also I thought of changing my blog look..tried this and that, but finally Iam in love with my old blog. I started liking it more as more I started looking for new designs:-))

Coming to details of my trip; It was very good; especially in terms of quality of time I have spent with my near and dear. Thanks to KA (of Krishna & Arjuna's World) who gave some tips on travelling. I took care of them and had good and safe journey overall. While going we three went togeather, so there was no problem, but inreturn I was with my naughty toddler, which was also good unlike I expected:-) What all I got for my kitchen from home are some new cooking dishes (aluminium based), two aluminium pans (chapathi and dosa pans) replacement for non-stick pans. And we brought a new change in our kitchen i.e., we totally free of micro oven and successfully living with out it from one month. It was easy for me to get rid of it, as I used to heat some food and boil vege's only; which Iam doing on regular stove now. As I heard, cooking with micro oven means like keeping our head in it. Ofcourse in today's world we are totally surrounded my electronic equipments; And it is very very hard to get rid of all this and live in a natural environment which is healthy. But I think all we can do is atleast try to get rid of those things with out which we can really live. So let's try! and make our earth worth living for every body and for our self too:-))

Friends..I wanted to share some above mentioned things with all my readers..hope you enjoyed reading it and may be helpful to you in your lifes. Today Iam here with a simple chicken recipe which is very regular at many of our homes unlike butter chicken; ginger chicken; chicken in cashew nut sauce.... etc. Most of the sunday's we cook this in our homes though not special but equally tasty as good as others. Thus, I gave this name as "Chicken Regular"! And another one "Gudur Chicken" is my MIL special recipe which we enjoy with dosa when ever we visit India. This I did not take any photo yet. I will add soon when I cook. Here comes both the recipe's.....

Chicken Regular
-------------------------
Ingredients:
-------------

Whole Chicken

2 medium onions

3 to 4 medium sized tomatoes

1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste

2 tsp turmeric powder

3 tsp chilli powder

2 tsp coriander powder (Dhaniyaala podi)

1/2 cup curd

Salt a/c to taste

1 to 1 1/2 tsp garam masala

1 tbsp cilantro

Oil for cooking

Method:
-------------

Wash chicken and cut into desired pieces.
Then marinate chicken with curd, 1/2 tsp oil, 1 tsp salt for 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, cut onions and tomatoes into thin slices and keep aside.
Heat oil in an big vessel. Add onions and fry till light brown in color.
Add ginger-garlic paste and fry of couple of minutes.
Add turmeric powder and mix well with onions.
Now add marinated chicken to the vessel and mix well.
Fry for 3 to 4 minutes. Add needed salt as already some salt is added while marinating chicken. Mix and allow to cook for 3 to 4 minutes more.
Now add tomatoes and chilli powder, garam masala powder and coriander powder and mix all togeather well.
Close the lid and cook on medium heat untill all the tomato juice get into the chicken along with other masala.( Approx about 5 to6 minutes)
Open the lid and add required water if you want more gravy .(At this point you will come to know how much to add)
Finally add cilantro and sim the stove for 5 more minutes. Before swithching of the heat check for the salt and chicken is well cooked or not.

Note: Chicken is cooked very fast, so whole process may take 30 hr to 40 minutes

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gudur Chicken

---------------------

Ingredients:

---------------

Whole chicken

1 big onion

3 medium tomatoes (ripe)

1tbsp ginger-garlic -coconut paste ( grind ginger, garlic and dry coconut pieces togeather to make paste)

Corinader powder (Dhaniyala podi)

3 tsp chilli powder

2 tsp turmeric powder

3 to 4 cloves (lavangalu)

1 bay leaf

2 Cinnamon sticks (dalchina chekkalu)

salt as required

Oil for cooking

Method:

--------------

Wash chicken and cut into small pieces(or as desired).
Take this washed chicken in a wide and deep container. Add turmeric powder and salt and mix well.
With out adding any water put this on stove and on medium heat with covered lid cook the chicken.
As chicken will release some water no need to add any water to it.
Cook until almost all the water is evaporated.
Add chilli powder at this stage and mix well. Do not put any spoon to mix it. Just mix it holding the container.
Decrease the heat and allow it to cook for 2 miuntes and remove from heat. Keep this aside.
Take an another vessel. Heat oil. Add cloves bay leaf and cinnamon sticks. Fry for few seconds
Now add onions and fry till light brown in color. Add ginger-garlic-coconut paste and fry for 2 minutes.
Now add the tomatoes , mix well and cook till they are soft. Add little water here if you want more gravy . Now add cooked chicken and mix all togeather well.
Allow to cook for 5 minutes approx. Remove from the heat and serve hot with hot dosa.

Note: Till 5th step you can cook chicken always and can refrigerate for later use. Or else can fry in little oil with desired pepper or chilli powder (chicken fry) and can have with sambar rice.

Iam Back after Long Break!

2007-05-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

HI Folks! Iam back from India few weeks ago, but took time to blog here. Now you know the reason :-( Anyways its hard to come back here, all alone (ofcourse with my little one)..but knowing some one dear are waiting for us, brings us back. I thank to all those who mailed me and left comments and enquired about me. Though I was not blogging any recipes; I was seeing all my fellow blogger sites regularly. I think lot of recipes to try a head; missed lots of events..but hopefully, I will catch you all soon , with lots of traditional and healthy home made recipes. Hope to see you soon...once Iam done with my left over work! Until then Happy Blogging!!

Chicken Biryaani & Perugu Chatni (Hyderabadi Special)

2007-01-31T12:06:00.000-08:00

Hi Friends! Today Iam back with my native place special dish "Chicken Biryaani". This is very special to me, because my mom is expert in cooking this dish and enjoyed by all of our family members on some special occasions. As the dish is almost cooked, every body comes to know about that. How? "The Aroma by which whole house is filled". And now, as a saying in hindi "Petme choohe doudrahe hey!!" every body goes directly to the dinning table and eagerly awaits for my mom, that when she will be back from the kitchen with a dish full of biryaani:-) I learned this dish from my mother. Till now I cooked several times for my family members and friends. Once I mentioned in food meme, this is one of my favourite food among those five. Generally, this is served with perugu chutney (yogurt spicy dip) or with any chicken gravy or masala gravy wich is given with the parcel of biryaani at any restaurant in India or Hyderabad. So today I go with the step by step traditional preparation of Chicken Biryaani .

Ingredients For Marinating Chicken:
----------------------------------------
Whole chicken 1 (skinned)
Pudina (Mint Leaves) bunch 1
Cilanto or Coriander bunch 1
Yogurt 1 cup (prefferabley 1 or 2 days set before yogurt) (can use low fat yogurt too)
Ginger-Garlic paste 2tbsp
Green chilli paste 2 to 3 0z (or make paste of 100gms of green chillies)
Elaichi or Cardamoms 20 no's (remove skin and make powder in a motar of 20 elaichi's)
Sajeera or Ajwain 1/2 tsp (they looks like cumin seeds but are little tiny and in double color which are not fennel seeds)
Lavanga or cloves(dried) 2
Bay leaf 2 (if small) or 1 (if big)
Cinnamon Sticks or Dalchini Patta 2 to 3
Salt a/c to taste (See the content and mix the salt. Just check with your finger tip dipped in marination and taste. Generally based on chicken and rice content)

Method For Marination:
--------------------------

Wash the chicken well several times, drain water competely.
Taken the chicken in a wide and deep pan (same pan in which you are planning to cook biryaani).
Cut cilantro and mint bunches into small pieces.
Mix with chicken. Also mix all above mentioned ingredients along with salt.
Mix well every thing with chicken and keep aside. Marinate for minimum 1/2 hr (if you have plenty of time and plan this dish in advance, then better to marinate for 45 minutes)

Ingredients For Rice preparation:
-----------------------------------
Basmati or long grain rice 5 or 6 cups (above chicken consistency is sufficient for 5 cups and 6 cups rice also)
Saffron strands(or kunkum puvvu or kesari) a pinch of
Big onions 2
A cup of whole milk (also can take reduced fat milk)
Oil for deep frying
2 tbsp of Ghee or clarified butter (optional)
2 small lemons
Water as required

Method For Rice Preparation:
-----------------------------------

Cook rice in 1: 1 1/2 ratio (i.e., for 1 cup of raw rice take one and half cup of water). Drain rice on a paper or in any mesh container. Soak saffron strands in cup of milk and keep it aside. Cut onions into very very thin and long pieces. Deep fry them in the oil batch by batch. (Becareful here, as you deep fry onions , oil suddenly raises up, then decrease the heat. That is why it suggested to deep fry them in smal batches , till they turn into golden brown in color. drain them on a paper towel and finally remove them in a plate. Take juice out of lemon's and keep it aside.

It is suggested to prepare rice and deep fry onions in advance or prepare them while chicken marinates. Because, rice should be dried completely before proceeding to the main dish preparation. But also remember, first prepare chicken marination and allow it to marinate while you prepare other things. So plan accordingly in advance. Pour very little amount of oil(same oil used to deep fry the onions) in the chicken marination to avoid it from burning. Now, after the rice is dried completely, place a layer of rice on the chicken(which is kept for marination). pour some saffron milk on the first layer rice. Spread some deep fried onions on it. Again, place a layer of rice followed by saffron milk and deep fried onions. Repeat this till all the rice is placed in layers. Here divide the oinions and saffron milk equally for all the layers of rice. Once all the layers are over, on the top layer make some small wholes with your two fingers (say about 5 to 6). In that wholes, pour some oil in which onions were deep fried. (Here you can also add ghee along with oil for more taste). Pour the lemon juice all over the rice from the top.

Now, the final step is very very important in the birayaani preparation. We need to cover the pan with a plate which is equal size of the pan with some heavy weight on it so that no air can go inside. In olden days, they used to cover the pan with a plate and used to cover the complete edge with the dough by twisting itall around with the help of little water. And finally used to put some heavy weight on it. Another method is, take a clean, washed long cloth. Wet the cloth, twist it completely and tie around the edge of the pan. But, I followed simple method here. I covered with a flat plate which is little bigger than the pan in reverse direction and kept a heavy weight (used a heavy weight stone). I made sure that no air goes into it. But always if possible follow the ancient method, if not follow my easy method:-) Am I Confusing u??? Anyways...cook this on medium heat about 20 minutes. never increase the heat or decrease. Finally you will start getting the aroma, once the dish comes to end of the preparation. Reduce the heat to low for 5 minutes and remove from the heat. Just before serving, mix whole thing well. To avoid any problems in mixing whole thing always preffer large, wide and deep container to cook. It should have enough space to mix the whole thing properly. Chicken Biryaani is ready:-)

Perugu Chutney Preparation:
---------------------------------
Take 2 cups of fresh yogurt. Add 1/4th cup of mint leaves diced very finely. Add 2 ro 3 green chillies cut into very very smal pieces. Finally add required salt and water according to your desired consistency of chutney or pachadi. (you can also add cucumber pieces (skinned) and onion cut into very very small pieces just before serving). Prepare this in advance before biryaani preparation starts. Serve chill perugu chutney with hot biryaani rice.

Biryaani can also be cooked with not only chicken but also with mutton and for vegetarians with different vegetables know as vegetable biryaani or some name it as vegetable pulav. Ofcourse pulav has it own preparation method again. Biryaani also taste best with any chicken gravy or if you want have simple then go with perugu chutney. So friends, go a head and plan this for your next party or for your dear family on weekend or any day. Make sure you have enough time for this. I enjoy this preparation too. And ofcourse the final step where I get my favourite aroma which pulls me, where ever Iam in the house towards the kitchen. So here I present a plate of chicken biryaani with perugu pachadi for you and only 'YOU' !!

Note: Click on the images to see a better picture and idea. To make this dish more rich, add boiled eggs cut into half from top of biryaani and cover the pan.To enjoy this more keep some cut lime pieces to squeeze in the rice and some roughly cut onion rings to chew them in between:-)

Recently Tried Fellow Bloggers Recipes

2007-01-29T13:29:00.000-08:00

Recently I have tried few recipes of my fellow bloggers. As usual I did'nt take any photographs of those to show you all, how great was the outcome. I know, Iam Lazy...I agree a bit;-) But more than that, when ever I think of trying any new recipe..I will be very busy in collecting all the ingredients. And once I prepare the dish..Iam more busy than before to eat that and also to know the opinion of my family members and how much they are happy with the dish. Since this time too, I failed to take any photographs, I thought, I will not post any thing related to this. But sooner or later I realized that, even mentioning of recipe names which I tried and saying my opinion about them, really matters to all those who missed out to cook them, and hopefully they will give a try atleast once. So, following are the recipes which I thoroughly enjoyed (cooking as well as eating:-))

The Arisiupma : When I was looking out for some different breakfast, which I have never tried and also should be easy one too cook, I got this recipe from Mahanadi. This recipe is a traditional one, which actually belongs to Janani Srinivasan from Toronto and Posted By Our Dear fellow blogger Indira. Friends this is a must try recipe. I prepared this with par boiled rice. First I made the basic ingredients, grinding parboiled rice to coarse with dry red chillies, urad dal , toor dal, peppercons and cumin seeds. You know what, I prepared this base and stored it in closed box and cooked after one week of time. It was so fresh, when I cooked the upma the taste was too good. As Indira said in her post, this can be taken as it is with out any chutneys or any other dip. Yes! It si 100% true. It was great as it is. Thank you Janani for such a nice traditional recipe and Indira for posting and making all of us known about this dish.
Peas Stir Fry: This was really quick to make and enjoy any time side dish. This one I made for our evening snack with tea. This was really good. Usually, I just fry cooked peas in little oil with desired pepper and salt. It is my favourite. My mother used to give this when I come back from college. It is really a comfort food, after a long tired day. Ashwini's Peas stir Fry was more tastier than mine. So friends, just go with this when ever you really want to have some thing tasty and left with little time. Thank you Ashwini for such a nice real quick fix:-)
Nutty Green Beans: This is the latest one which I have tried. When ever I prepare with beans I generally go for my recipe Beans fry for easy and healthy one. But adding some masala and groundnut powder to it really gave a zing to the taste. Thank you Manisha for such a wonderful recipe. I tried with out the Kanda Lassun masala, but added all those ingredients which are in masala powder mentioned by her. It was very good and we enjoyed with hot chapathis and rice too:-)
Crisp & Brown Paper Dosa: This was another real good breakfast. We enjoyed thease dosa's for dinner. Friends with little variations I cooked them. Like I did not add besan and did not go for fermentation of dosa batter. Though it was a typo mistake by Seema, it really served as a quick dinner. Thank you Seema for clearing my doubts about fermentation. The picture of this dosa, taken by seema really makes any one to try this soon:-) More than that, to eat soon;-)

Thank You Friends for all those nice dishes. I don'nt promise this time, as I already did and did not post this recipes with picks:-( But will try to post next time, with some other intresting, new and delicious recipes of fellow bloggers with pics of course:-) Enjoy! and will be back soon with a hyderabadi traditional recipe.

Kajjikaayalu (Stuffed Halfmoon Dumplings)

2007-01-22T13:07:00.000-08:00

Kajjikaayalu are one among those traditional sweets made during festivals, namely "Sankranthi" which falls in Jan; "Ugadi" in Mar/Apr ; "Deepavali" in Oct/Nov etc. Also made especially for marriages in India. This recipe I adopted from my mother. The speciality for this recipe is, they are made for my marriage with same stuff which is wrapped by the flour and are deep fried.Usualy, the stuff inside the kajjikaayalu varies. Some prepare with simple semolina, coconut and sugar mixture; and some also add peanut powder , chickpea flour etc. You are going to know about this mixture contents today in my recipe, which really makes kajjikaayalu more rich in taste. In Hyderabad we call it "Garijelu". But this sweet is famous with the name "Kajjikaayalu" all over Andhra. So with no delay further, Iam happy to proceed to todays recipe with detail explanation and pics to help you, in understanding and preparing this sweets.

Ingredients: (Makes Upto 20-25 no's Kajjikaayalu)
---------------
Maida or All purpose flour 1/2kg
Fresh Coconut 1 (or 1cup grated dry coconut)
Ravva or semolina (generally used for making upma) 1/2 cup
1/4th cup chickpea powder/ putnala podi (can add even 1/2 cup as you desire)
1/2 cup peanuts
10 to 12 Elachi' in No's
kaaju & kishmish (dryfruits) 1/4th to 1/2 cup
Sugar(fine) 1 1/2 cups (or as per taste)
1 tbsp ghee or clarified butter
Oil for deep frying and preparation
Water as required

Method For Preparing Dough:
---------------------------------

Take maida in a deep vessel (enough to need freely) . Make a whole in betweet(some space with your fingers upto 3 fingures length). Heat one table spoon of oil and add in this whole, with a help of spoon mix the oil with flour well. (Caution: take care not to burn your hand or fingers here)
Knead the above maida with required water to form a dough. Here this dough should be little harder than puri. Keep this aside.

Left: Dough ready to be filled Right: Filling & Dryfruits are ready to be wrapped

Method For Preparing The Filling:
-------------------------------------

If you have fresh coconut, then separate the coconut from shell and make small length wise pieces and dry them in sunlight for 2 to 3 days. When they dry completely ,roast them till the raw smell disappear and make powder in a food processor or grinder. (Or else use ready made dry coconut powder available in Indian stores or in any other stores)
Fry semolina or ravva in a 2tsp of ghee till all the raw smell disappears.
Roast chickpeas, powder and keep it aside.
Roast peanuts, remove skin, powder them and keep it aside.
Remove skin of elachi and powder them.
Fry dryfruits in 2 to 3 tsp of ghee or clarified butter.
Mix all above powders togeather and measure the amount. For example, if above powders make 2 cups then add 1 1/2 cups of sugar to it.
Finally add dryfruits to above mixture and mix well. Keep this filling aside.

(In Picture above) Roasted Powders : Left: Peanut powder + Elachi powder Above: Roasted Dry Coconut powder Below: roasted Chickpea powder Right: Fried semolina

Method To prepare Kajjikaayalu:
------------------------------------
Step1:

Make equal rounds out of the dough. (Approx 20 rounds). Take a round, flatten it like puri (little thin) spoon it with mixture, as shown above. Remember the spoon amount should be same for all the fillings. Here you can choose the amount to be filled. I like kajjikaayalu to be filled completely with the mixture, so I used more.

Step2:

Fold into half and close with the help of little water as shown above. Press the complete one end firmly.

Step3:

Above:Kajjikaayalu First Batch Is Ready For Deep Frying

Twist the complete one side end with your fingers as shown in the above pictures. You need very little practice to do this. Enarge the pictures above by clicking on them to have a clear view. Make batches , each batch should have same number of dumplings. It makes your job easy to divide them and store them. Slowly slide the duplings into oil for deep frying. See that oil is heated well prior to deep frying, so that dumplings does'nt absorb more oil. Fry them both the side on medium heat through out. Remove them once they are well fried into another plate witha paper towel on it, to absorb excess oil. Before you fry another batch and take them out, let the first batch of kajjikaaylu get dried on the paper towel. remove them and now keep in the container to be stored. Now!! Kajjikaayalu are ready to have with mudda pappu (cooked and mashed plain toordal with little salt) and little ghee on top. (this used be our breakfast for some days at my mom's place after they are made. Try this for sure. This combo is great (Kajjikaayalu with mudda pappu) You will just love this and will stick for sure:-))

Note: Store in the air tight container for freshness. You can enjoy eating this sweets for one week long. For more crispyness, make the flat round thin and see the mixture does'nt come out of it.

Happy Pongal/Sankranti And Healthy Beans Fry

2007-01-14T14:41:00.000-08:00

Wish U A Very Happy Pongal / Sankranti to all my readers and my dear blog friends. Tomorrow we are going to celebrate sankranti. And today whatt we call is Bhogi. At my In-law's place we eat non-veg on bhogi and only vegetarian food on Sankranti. Generally, some days before the festival itself, actual preparations starts. Like preparing murukulu, appadalu and many different kinds of sweets and will be stored for the whole month to enjoy the food just like children, elders enjoy flying kites, before and after the festival. At my mom's place we all used to join my brother's as they fly kites we used to shout from back irrespective of who lost the kite:-)) It was great fun and I miss badly now. For bhogi at my Inlwas place, we prepare Dosa with spicy chicken curry. Last year at this time we were at my inlaw's place to celebrate this festival. Friends, dosa with chicken curry is very famous in Gudur and real tasty combo to eat. I shall post this combo some day after I come back from India or some time soon...I hope it to be today. But, unfortunately this is not that day. But today my post is quite opposite to the above I mentioned. Its a simple Beans Fry. This method can be applied to some other vegge's too. Like Goruchikkudu, Chikkudu, Dondakaaya and any kind of beans. I think it is also said to be Poriyal in Kerala. If Iam wrong please forgive me my friends and do correct me:-)

Ingredients:
--------------
2 cups of Fresh Beans (cut into 1 to 2 inches)
3 to 4 dry red chillies
1/2 tsp channa dal
1/2 tsp urad dal
2 tsp chickpea powder/putnala podi(chick peas are roasted and made into powder)
2 small garlic cloves
1/4th to 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/4th to 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 full stem curry leaves
1 to 2 tsp fresh grated coconut
A pinch or two Hing powder (or desired. I recommend not more than that)
1/4th tsp turmeric powder
Salt as per taste
1 tbsp Oil for cooking (or as required)

Method:
-----------

Cut Beans into above mentioned size and wash them. Now micro wave or pressure cook or boil on stove in the water with some salt (approx 1/2 tsp) until they are almost cooked.(Here If you want them not to be too soft then boil till they are half cooked) Drain any water if left and keep them aside. Here salt is added, so that it does'nt loose its color, which is optional.
Keep ready all the ingredients. Like wash dals in cold water for few minutes and drian water completely and keep aside. By doing this dals will be liitle soft and easy to chew. And cut garlic into tiny pieces.
Heat oil in deep pan, add mustard seeds. Once they start spluttering add cumin seeds and fry till they change color. Now add, dry red chillies (crush them little while adding with your hands) channa dal, urad dal (lentils) and hing. Fry for till dals turn into light golden color.
Now add curry leaves and fry till they are in crispy texture. Add boiled beans to it and mix well with other ingredients and fry for few seconds and cover the pan for couple of minutes, for beans to be settle down a little.
Remove the lid, add turmeric powder and required salt(be careful here, if you have already added some salt while beans are boiled) and fry for few minutes. Add grated coconut and mix well and fry again for few seconds.
Finally add chickpea powder/putnala podi as desired from above mentioned amount in ingredients. Mix well with all the ingredients and allow it to rest for 1 to 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and serve with hot chapathis or hot plain rice or as a side dish.

Note: Instead of beans try the same with various beans like Goruchikkudu, chikkudukaaya, dondakaya etc.

Tasty Cabbage Curry

2007-01-11T15:32:00.000-08:00

Today Iam back with some simple curry yet tasty one, from my MIL. This vegetable is rich source of fiber. Also it is useful for the new mothers to get relief from the pain they get while feeding milk or from engorged breast. Though it has some uses, many of us hate eating this vegetable because we are left with very few methods to cook this. How ever we cook it taste the same..this is what exactly we think. But my view changed when I tasted this curry. I took this recipe from my Mil. The dal or lentil part of this recipe really makes it more tasty. But I like cabbage when it is cooked with just some popu or tadka with chapathi then rice. It serves as best side dish. But today when I went to prepare usual cabbage fry just with tadka for chapathis, I found Iam not left with any chapathi flour. Too late to know haa..;-) Then I rememberd this recipe told long back by my MIL and I cooked it only once. So I cooked this with little variations, suitable to be taken with plain white rice. For thsi all I need is..

Ingredients:
---------------
1 Medium sized cabbage
1/2 cup or 4oz or 125ml uncooked moong dal or pessarpappu or green gram( washed)
1 Small onion or 1/2 of big onion
4 to 5 Green chillies (as per ur wish)
2 garlic cloves
1/4th or 1/2 tsp mustard seeds(adjust to ur spice)
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp flat turmeric powder (or less If u want)
Hing a pich(optional) (Inguva) (obtained easily in Indian Stores)
Salt for taste
1 tbsp Vegetable oil (or as per ur taste & choice)

Method:
-----------

Cut the cabbage into small pieces, and grate them to fine or in a food processor bit by bit. Wash and keep it aside to drain the water completely.( You can enlarge the picute above a see)
Meanwhile, wash the moong dal in cold water several times and micro wave for 15 minutes with enough water to be cooked. Or can cook on stove directly. When I cooked in micro wave no water was left and it cooked as I desired. I.e., it should not be over cooked nor completely smashed as we cook in pressure cooker. So take care of it.(Can see in above picture) Keep it aside.
Cut onion into thin slices and slits to the green chillies. Crush the garlic cloves or ito tiny pieces.
Take a wide pan, heat oil. Add mustard and cumin seeds respectively. Once they are done spluttering, add green chillies, crushed garlic and hing. And fry for few seconds.
Now add onions and fry till light brown in color and they should be soft. They should not be over cooked.
Now add grated cabbage and turmeric powder , mix with all other ingredients and cover the pan with lid and allow it to settle down and half cooked.
After it is cooked for 3 to 4 minutes, add dal or green gram along with desired salt and mix well.
Cover the pan and cook for another 5 to 8 minutes, so that cabbage is cooked competely.
Serve with hot plain rice, some papadams and spicy yogurt mirchis which are deep fried. Thus completes your any time meal. It was our today's meal:-)

Note: Timings mentioned above or in any recipe of mine is approximate one, not exact timing. So do take care while cooking to avoid any over cooked or under cooked dish.

Happy New Year 2007

2007-01-10T10:24:00.000-08:00

My dear readers, blog friends and every body there ,reading this right now..Wish U All A Very Very Happy New Year and Have A Great Time In Your Kitchen, Cooking Wonderful Dishes and Sharing With All Of Us!!

Above: My Son and The White Duck trying to chase each other

I have taken a small break from blogging, as I was little busy in moving to new home. Now we all set, though not every thing organized yet, but the work is progressing slowly. And another news is, Iam going to take a two months long break from feb of 1st week to apr 1st week. Now this is for my India vacation. But before that in thease 3 week period, I will be posting some of my recipes, which are ready to be posted from long long time:-) Thank you friends, for all the wishes, I got from my dear blog friends. Once again I wish all the success, peaceful life, tons of happiness to all my readers and dear friends. From long long time my Atlanta trip and Orlando trip photos are pending to be posted which I said I will do long ago. Enjoy some of them here.

Above :Two Wahles At Orlando Sea World
Below: Luanch PadB At JF Kennedy Space Center, from where recently they launched the space shuttle.(Click on the photo to see more clear picture)

Above: Sample of a space shuttle explaning about its parts seperatley in detail
Below: Two Lovely parrots at Animal Kingdom

Above:Pink Flamingoes standing on one leg (In telugu it said to be Konga Japam--> means Standing On One leg and doing meditation or prayer)

Above: Parade at disney land
Below: Some of photogrpahs taken at Atlanta Aquarium (which is said to be the world's biggest Aquarium which has all types water species, which in deed not yet completed and take 2 new species every month I guess)

Above: Jelly Fish which is said to be dangerous one though looks beautiful but can kill any thing with its tentacles(Unbelievable!!)
Above: My son trying hard to catch the fish with his little hand
Below : Two photos taken from inside the flight returning from Atlanta to Sanjose (one:Beautiful Mountains Second: Spread of clouds and can see one of the wings fo the aeroplane)

Hope you all enjoyed thease some of photographs taken in our trips among many other hundreds of them. Enjoy!!

Tri Color Bell Pepper Fried Rice & Bell Pepper Chutney

2006-12-19T12:54:00.000-08:00

HI Friends,

I changed my blog to beta version today. I found some changes in comments. Like, those who have chaged to beta version, there names are not shown and converted as Anonymous. Iam sorry about that. So, my request is please do mention your name when you leave a comment. So that I will know you and can reply back. This thing, to say,I really found strange. Can any body say the reason why?? Thank You:-))

Coming to today's post, Iam here with two recipes at a time. Bellpepper FriedRice & Bellpepper Chutney. Though, both are prepared at different times (I mean day too!!). But thought of posting at a time, togeather, since both are co-related with there names starting with same vegetable i.e., Bell Pepper:-) To say about fried rice, I had to beg my brother "Ravi" for this recipe. After reading this recipe, you may think do any body really need to beg for this?? Answer is "Even I thought the same thing after he told me the recipe":-)). It such an easy, yet, very delicious recipe. I should say, Instant Fried Rice. But I thank him for such an easy and wonderful recipe. He actually cooked this fried rice with peas and beans as vegetables along with bell peppers, for my son's cradle cermony. Each and every guest of ours enjoyed a lot:-) Next is Bell Pepper Chutney. I read many post on Red Bell Pepper Chutney. I found all of them very intresting. Since I had above three bell peppers (tri color) in store, which are actually bought to prepare fried rice, with left over ones, I went and prepared the chutney. It is really good as our fellow blogger and dear friend Indira of "Mahanandi" said (in her words) "Red Bell Pepper chutney goes well with any break fast dishes like idli, dosa, upma, rice or chapathis". Here is her version of Red Bell Pepper Chutney. Though my version is completely different from her's, I was much inspired by her recipe to prepare this chutney. Thank You Indira:-) Iam also sending thease recipe's for Kalyn's Kitchen most happening event "Holiday Cooking With Herbs".

With not much delay here I go with both recipes.....

Bell Pepper Fried Rice
-------------------------------

Ingredients:
--------------
3 small sized bell peppers different colors( I took green, orange & red: used 1 small green pepper;1/2 of each orange & red bell pepprs. Since they both were big)

2 Cups Basmati rice (or long rice)

1 Medium sized white onion

2 Green chillies

1 tsp Cumin seeds

2 tsp soya sauce (or even less if you don'nt like the sauce taste and flavour)

Oil for cooking (1 Tbsp or 3tsp)

1 to 1/2 tsp Freshly grated pepper(or as per your taste)

Salt (as per taste)

Method:
-----------

Rinse rice in cold water only once (to avoid them from breaking).

Cook in pressure cooker with 1:2 ratio (i.e., if 1 cup rice then 2 cups water).

Cook rice with 1/2 tsp cumin seeds in it and 1 to 1/2 tsp oil(for rice grains to be separate from each other)

After rice is cooked, allow it to cool in a wide plate.

Mean while, cut bell peppers into thin & long pieces & don'nt forget to deseed them.

Cut onion also into thin & long pieces. Cut green chillies into small pieces. keep all of them a side.

Take a wide non_stick pan(because, in non stick when you fry any vegetables, on high heat , they take less oil), heat oil, add another 1/2 tsp cumin seeds and fry till they start spluttering.

Now, add green chillies and fry for 2 seconds. Add all three bell peppers and fry till they become little soft yet little crunchy too. This is very important here, to enjoy their flavours while eating fried rice:-)

First fry them for 2 min with open lid. Then cover the lid and allow to cook for 2 to 3 more minutes.

Once they are cooked as desired, add salt and pepper. Mix well and fry with open lid for couple of minutes.

Now add soya sauce and mix well. Finally, add rice bit by bit (i.e., in small portions) and mix well with other ingredients. Use some wooden spectula to avoid rice from breaking.

Fry for 2 to 3 minutes with open lid and serve hot.

Note: You can add peas & beans(if fresh vegetables cook them before and keep aside). They really make dish more rich. Also you can add soya granules (soaked in warm water for 1/2 hr and add to the dish with other vegetables). I cooked only with bell peppers, to know there flavour more and enjoy them. It was very good with oit adding any other begetables too:-) Also, if using fresh pepper, then add carefully, since fresh pepper will be more spicy than others.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bell Pepper Chutney:
-----------------------------Ingredients:
----------------
2 small size green bell pepper

1/2 of orange and 1/2 of red bell peppers of medium sized

2 tsp chenna dal

2 tsp urad dal

1 lime size tamarind

1 big stem curry leaves

1 tsp cumin seeds

4 to 5 red dry red chillies

3 tsp oil

salt to taste

Fresh cilantro to garnish

Method:
---------

Before proceeding, wash and soak tamarind in warm water till other preparations are done.

Cut bell peppers into roughly small cubes. Do not de-seed them.

Heat oil, in a wide and little depth pan, add cumin seeds and fry till they start spluttering. Add channa dal and urad dal and fry till they change into light brown.

Now break and add dry red chillies and fry till they start changing color into dark. And add curry leaves and fry for few seconds.

Now add all cut bell peppers and fry till they become little soft.

Finally add soaked tamarind and fry for 1 minute and remove from heat.

Allow the contents to cool and grind them bit by bit with desired salt in a food processor into a fine paste.

Finally garnish with fresh cilantro. Enjoy with chapathis, hot plain rice, idli, dosa etc.

Coconut & Mint Chutney (Kobbari-Pudina Chutney)

2006-12-12T10:49:00.000-08:00

Coconut is offered to god as Prasaadam in our Indian Culture which is symbol of Purity. I.e., As we remove all the external fiber on the coconut and break it and offer to the god, one should remove all the desires from heart and offer our soal to god.

Hi Friends, now a days Iam little slow in blogging, though I have got lot of recipes to blog. The reason is we are shifting to new apartments this month end. So I was quite busy in searching an apartment. And we got one. Finally moving this month end to new apartment. After that , again I may be bit slower in blogging. Now you know the reason:-)) Anyways, coming back to my cooking world, this weekend we got two big sets of whole wheat bread from costco. So, Iam into preparations of chutneys for our daily breakfast i.e., Bread Sandwage. In the preparation of, this series of chutneys, Iam planning to blog a couple of chutneys useful for Bread Sandwage. Thease chutney recipes are adopted from the one and only book from which I usually adopt.."Shehzad Husain and Manisha Kanani" 's "Healthy Indian Cooking" book. You may wonder, why I always adopt from this book only. The secret is I have got only couple of cook books with me. So I keep trying from them on and off. Then why not from other cook books? This question may rise in your minds. And my answer is why should I? When I have got so many blogger friends and there blogs which has got bundle of variety, traditional, authentic and recipes from all over the world. You know what, when ever I visit any book store, and find good cook book and want to purchase...finally I end up coming out of the store with out any cook book:-))...Thanks to all my blogger friends for sharing wonderful recipes. Before coming to the recipe, I would like to say some thing about coconut.

You know it is said that the origin of coconut is from our own mother land "India: Rajasthan and Maharashtra". Though it is unclear, but the fact remains always as a fact. Now this coconut is widely used all over the world and became necessary in our daily food. In India, as soon as we remember coconut, we remind of "God's Own Land" Kerala. In kerala, coconut is used widely in different ways. To say, in the form of oil, which is used for cooking food; hair oil, which many of us still use; coconut water for instant energy especially in summer, which becomes must for many of us in india. You know what I miss coconut water here a lot. Though we get here in different forms...in tins, in Inidan stores and other general stores too...I always miss buying coconut water by the road side and having them after a tired afternoon, returning from shopping or from school or college in hot summer. The water are so sweet and has become very precious here for me atleast:-))....But thanks to blog world, here that sweetness which I miss is compensated by many blog friends from Kerala, with there traditional recipes, in which coconut becomes necessary one. One such blogger friend, Ashwini from "Food For Thought" is hosting Jhiva For Coconut in new year i.e., In Jan, 2007. Thank You Ashwini, in advance for this event. And also thanks to Indira of "Mahanandi" who originally started this event.I hardley said some thing about coconut but words are less to describe this versatile Ingredient and also great food as it is. But to know more about coconut, click on following link..here. Today's my post is Coconut-Mint Chutney, which serves as best base for bread and this is my entry to the Jhiva For Coconut. Also, I found, it was great with any hot rice or vegetable pulav. Here comes my recipe....

Ingredients:
----------------
40z fresh mint leaves
12 tbsp desiccated(dry) coconut
2 tbsp sesame seeds (prefferably white sesame seeds)
1/2 tsp salt (or as required)
1 cup natural low fat yogurt

Method:
----------

Finely chop the mint using a sharp knife.
Put all the ingredients into food processor or blender as shown in above pic untill smooth.
Cover and chill.

Note: "This delicious chutney can be made in advance and will keep covered for up to 5 days in the refrigerator" as author says. It was great with toasted whole wheat bread. Bread was warm and this cold chutney as a base on bread with thin slices of tomato's made complete break fast.

Masala Brinjal Curry (Vankaaya Masala)

2006-11-28T11:45:00.000-08:00

Hi Friends! Iam back after a short trip to Atlanta & Orlando for Thanks Giving Holidays. We had a very good time there. I hope same with you too:-) I will update some of my trip photographs in my intoduction post after some time. Right now as I said..I will be back with good recipes in store, today Iam here with one of the traditional recipe and all time favourite from my mom's kitchen called "Vankaaya Masala". We call this recipe vankaaya Masala (brinjal spices), since masala(spices) used in this recipe is the key for this tasty dish, ofcourse Brinjal's should be very tender and fresh once to get more taste and flavour to the dish. I thought to blog some specific recipes with photographs as main, to explain the dish. One I did mooli paratha and now Iam going to do with this recipe. With no delay..here I go....

Ingredients For Main Cooking:
-----------------------------------------
..Fresh Brinjals 10 to 12 of same size
..1 big onion
..2 medium lemon sized tamarind
..1 big stem curry leaves
..zeera or cumin seeds 1 tsp full
..1 tbsp fresh cut cilantro
..oil for cooking (2tbsp) (you can decrease if you want to 1tbsp, but for more taste 2tbsp)

Ingredients For Masala:(you can see all masala powders in below pic togeather)
---------------------------------
..2tsp white sesame seeds roasted powder (Nuvvula podi)
(here I roasted sesame seeds and mixed with other powders in blender since I did not had its powder ready)
..1tsp cumin seeds roasted powder (Jilakara podi)
..1/2 tsp Methi seeds roasted powder (menthula podi)
..2 or 2 1/2 tsp Coriander roasted powder (Dhaniyala podi)
..2 tsp Dry coconut powder (kobbari podi)
..2 or 2 1/2 tsp Red chilli powder
..2 tsp turmeric powder
..Salt as per your taste (I recommend 2 to 2 1/2 tsp salt)
..2 tsp Ginger-Garlic paste

Method:
-----------

Cut onions roughly and fry in little oil in a wide and deep container till they turn to brown in color. Or else the traditional method is Fry onion whole on flame all around if it is possible and keep aside. I follow first method here. In india the another method. Keep thease onions aside. After it cools down, add this to above all masala ingredients in a blender or grinder and paste them. If needed you can add little water. Keep the paste aside.

Wash the brinjals and do not remove the tail. Since they help while eating brinjal or vankaaya in the curry. You can just grab a full one brinjal into your mouth with the help of tail:-)) But ofcourse again its your choice:-) I prefer keeping them as it is. Cut each one of the brinjals across. See here they are not cut completely till end. That means brinjal should be one, not four pieces. You can check in the beside pic. They are waiting to dip in the masala;-)

Wash the tamarind and soak in a warm water till tamarind becomes soft. After that take juice out of it. Here, the tamarind juice should be thick. In the same container, in which you fried the onions, heat the recommended oil or as per your requirement and taste for main dish to cook. Add jeera or cumin seeds and fry until they start changing color. Cook this dish on medium heat. Now add curry leaves and fry them. Remember they should be crispy. Now add cut brinjals in to the container and fry till they turn into dark color all around. See the brinjals should not break.

Now add the masala paste to above fried brinjals and mix well. See again brinjals should not break into pieces. Cook for 2 minutes with closed lid so that masala or spices get into the cut brinjals. After that add tamarind juice and mix well. Do not add any water here. That is why tamarind juice should be taken a/c to your gravy requirement. I.e., if you want more gravy than soak little more tamarind.

Allow to cook whole thing on medium heat till the brinjals are cooked well. They should be soft and cooked well. Remember, brinjals are cooked fast like fish. Finally, add cilantro and close the lid and cook on low heat for couple of minutes and turn off the heat. Here, you can taste the gravy and can add required chilli powder, salt and coriander powder if needed. The Vanakaya Masala is ready to serve. This dish taste more better the next day or another day. So if you have some work next day than you can prepare this and keep aside (no need to refrigerate) and can enjoy next couple of days if you are going to cook in lots:-))

My Variations:
-----------------
You can replace brinjals with fish pieces too. My mother cooks the same way for both fish and brinjals. Only difference is here you add brinjals first, where as If you use fish than add it after all the the masala and tamarind juice is cooked togeather and cook till fishes are done. Though brinjals are cooked fast, remember fishes are even cooked more fast comparitively.

Note:
---------
You can prepare all the spice powders by roasting them individually and powder them and can store, so that, when ever you want prepare this dish you can just add masala powders or spice powders then, which can save your time and energy. Also add methi powder still less if you want, since it gives little bitter taste, if added more. Recommended amount in this recipe is fine. Enjoy the dish:-))

Dryfruits Sesame Bar (Dryfruits Til Chikki)

2006-11-15T12:43:00.000-08:00

Black Sesame Seeds & Dryfruits(Baadam,Kaaju and Kishmish) Jaggery Chikkis

This recipe is adopted from TarlaDalal's Calcium Rich Recipes. As soon as I read this recipe, I was very much eager to try this out. Because, it is rich in calcium and very much good for growing children. Also, the recipe was very simple to try out. So why late?? With little variations in the recipe (or in correct words, I used some extra ingredients, to make it more rich in calcium as well as in taste). This is also another entry to the Jhiva For Jaggery, going to be hosted by Kay of "Towards A Better Tomprrow". Actual version name was Badaam Til Chikki. Since I added kaaju and kishmish (another two dryfruits), I renamed it as "Dryfruits Til Chikki". Sesame seeds, one of the ingredients in this recipe, is rich in calcium. I.e., is the reason for choosing this ingredient. You can read more about sesame seeds and black sesame seeds here. The another main ingredient used here is Jaggery or Gud or Bellam. This is used from ages in Indian culture especially for preparing sweets. It contains not only calcium, but also protiens, vitamins, iron etc. So here I go with the recipe....Before that A Very Happy Thanks Giving Holidays to all my readers and fellow bloggers. Iam going on a short trip on this vacation. I will be missing all your daily post for thease few days...but I will return with same enthusiasm, with which Iam ready to go for trip:-)) and will return with lot more traditional, religious and other intresting recipes to blog. And will catch you all at..Kay's Jhiva event for Jaggery. Happy Holidays!! Enjoy!!

Ingredeints:
--------------
Jaggery or Gud or Bellam 3/4th cup
Black Sesame seeds or Nalla Nuvvulu 1/2 cup
Dryfruits 1/4 cup (mixture of Baddam, Kaaju & Khishmish)
3tsp Ghee (I used cow ghee)
Little water (If required)

Method:
-----------

Grate Jaggery and keep aside.
Grind or grate dryfruits too and keep aside (as shown in above pic)
Roast sesame seeds till they turn into light golden color (which acutually not much visible as golden color, but can find out when they start changing color, so roast for few minutes)
Roast dryfruits too, separately not with sesame seeds. Allow to cool them both.
Take a flat plate or on any flat surface, grease it with 1 tsp of ghee.
Heat 2 tsp of ghee in a container, and add grated Jaggery to it. Stir continously, untill it melts completely and should become thick enough for makking chikkis. Just as we do for sugar syrup. But see that, If you put a drop in the syrup it should form a hard ball.
Remove from the heat and add roasted sesame seeds and dryfruits and mix well.
While the jaggery melts, if you think the syrup is less for making chikkis, add 1/4th cup of water and heat till syrup consistency. Or elase can take little more jaggery if needed.
Pour the above mixture on the greases surface and roll with greased rolling pin. (Here I greased the chapathi making pin with little ghee and rolled over the mixture)
Cut them into diamond or square or any other desired shape after it cools down. Healthy, rich in calcium Chikkis are ready to serve for children or any body as a snak or a sweet:-)

Note: Out of this praportion, I got 20'no chikki's. If you make more than store in a airtight container for long freshness.

Egg Dosa (Egg Double Toast) & Jaggery Dosa (Gud Dosa/Bellam Dosa)

2006-11-09T15:23:00.000-08:00

LEFT: Jaggery/Gud/Bellam Dosa RIGHT: Egg Dosa

Gud Dosa or Jaggery Dosa and Egg dosa were our breakfast yesterday. They both are easy in a way, can be prepared on finger tips:-) Jaggery Dosa and Egg Dosa, I prepared using regular Atta flour or Wheat Flour. But both can also be prepared with actual dosa batter. I prepared once, egg dosa was heavy and superb, but jaggery dosa with actual dosa batter did'nt turp up that well. But as soon as I try next time and taste it...I will blog that too. Now coming to this breakfast, Gud Dosa or Jaggery Dosa is my entry to the JFI Jaggery going to host by Kay of Towards A Better Tomorrow. Thank You Kay, being a busy mother, took this work to do a round up. I appriciate it very well and wish you all the best:-) I will re-post again on dec 1st a/c to her rules. Anyways...coming to recipes, here I go...

LEFT: Batter of Jaggery Dosa RIGHT: Batter of Egg Dosa

Ingredients For Egg Dosa:
---------------------------------
1 egg (raw)
little less than 1/4th cup wheat flour
1 tbsp milk (or less/more as required)
Salt a/c to taste
Chilli Powder 1/4th tsp or less (a/c to your spice taste)

Method:
------------

Mix all the ingredients with the help of desired milk into thick batter just like we do for uttapam. Make sure the pan you use is wider so that the dosa cooks well. You can also make two dosas, out of this batter. It takes little more time than an omlette to be cooked. Since it becomes double in size, the batter should spread into thin circle on the pan. Spray oil on the pan and then spread this batter. Cook both sides well and serve hot with tomato ketchup or any tomato chutney. It was like double bread toast with one big omllette:-) Important thing to remember is don'nt add any water..just use milk for making batter.

Ingredients For Jaggery Dosa:
----------------------------------------
1/4th cup fine grated Jaggery/Gud/Bellam (or as required can increase or decrease amount)
1/4th cup wheat flour
1 tsp roasted sesame seeds/Nuvvulu
Water as required

Method:
-----------
Mix all above ingredeints except sesame seeds to make a dosa batter with the help of required water. Mix untill, Jaggery or Gud or Bellam competely dessolves into the batter. Heat the pan, spray oil and spread this batter on the pan. Make sure the circle should be little thick, not like regular dosa. Since we use jaggery here, to avoid it from sticking to the pan, the spread of batter should be small, so that the dosa becomes little thick. Spray sesame seeds on both the sides before the dosa is cooked. i.e., when one side is almost cooked, before turning to another side, spray sesame seeds and press them into the dosa with wooden stick (or which ever your using to make dosas) Reapeat the same other side too. Remove from heat & have when it is warm. With the touch of sesame seeds, the Jaggery Dosa was too tasty:-))

Okra Bake (Bendakaaya Bake)

2006-11-06T14:13:00.000-08:00

Okra and Tomatoes Baked Dish

Few weeks back, we three went to our usual bookstore called "Barnes and Noble". We do visit other book stores too like "Borders". But apart from our choice, my son loves to visit B&N. Because, he has got lot of freedom over there, to choose his own books, irrespective of choice, size and language. Any book which appeals to the eyes my darling 18 months old son, is his choice. He gets freedom there, which his mom, i.e., me don'nt give at home, by restricting him from touching many things:-)) I think, this happens to all those poor toddlers, for whom, home is very little place to explore new things and do trial & error. Ending this mother and son, daily story and switching back to the world of food, I was going through some cook book for diabetics. I really don'nt remember the author, since I was just giving a glance, I found some recipes in that book, of which most of them are baked one's. Since, it has less oil, less cholesterol and all suitable for diabetics. Now a days it has become a big problem. Because other than family history of diabetics, it can attack to any body irrespective of age bar, say from 10 yr old to 90 yr old. So, it has become necessary to take lot of precautions for our good health. In that perticular book I found this simple recipe of Okra ("Bendakaaya" or "Lady Finger" or "Bendhi"). I even don'nt remember the ingredients, the author mentioned. So, I just added my flavours to it. It is easy to cook and you need to use your hands almost "No"!! Since, it is a baked dish. And this is my entry to the Saffron Trail's WBB#7 Baking For BreakFast! As our friend Nandita said "Explore baking with any thing like sweet, Savoury, Spicy etc...". My okra Bake comes under Spicy options. This goes best in breakfast with chapathis or parathas, also easy and fast to prepare for busy morning:-) So lets go to the recipe....

Ingredients:
---------------
1 lb Okra (Bendakaaya)
2 medium sized Tomatoes
1 big Onion
1 to 2 tsp Chilli powder
1 tsp Coriander powder
1tsp Turmeric powder
Salt as per required
oil (use low cholesterol spray oil ) I use palm spray oil

Method:
----------

Wash, top and trail the okra, cut into 1cm in pieces.
Cut tomatoes and onions into small pieces.
Mix all ingredients and keep in the baking sheet, spray oil from the top as shown above.
Preheat oven for 10 to 15 minutes on 350 F.
Bake for 1/2 hr to 40 minutes on 350F, until okra and tomatoes are cooked well.
Stir in between to avoid burning.
Serve hot with chapathis.

Note: The day I baked this dish, from then onwards when ever I get okra, I bake it. Every time I bake this dish, my son & my husband have it, almost, before I serve chapathis. They taste great as it is and can be served as side dish too.

My Variations: You can add other masala or spices to this dish. Onions are optional. I baked okra once with onions and once without onions. Both were yummy and little crispy.

Fruit Custard

2006-11-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

Custard Served With Fresh Fruits Namely: Apples,Bananas and Grapes

Fruit Custard is the easy one on the earth among sweets I think. Yeah!..even you think so. I knew that. Then why to blog?? The answer is simple..because I like it:-)) It really gave lot of comfort while enjoying this one. Actually speaking in true words..I made this for my son, who love fruits a lot, but not much in favour of sweets. Some times for his healthy fat requirement I make sweets for him. Stories about children just goes on, on & on....But always love to listen to their stories. So coming to this sweet, unlike traditional preparation, it is cooked in oven, just in 10 minutes. This was suggested my one of my friends, Chaaru. Thank you Chaaru..it was a delight. As she said I bought Jello-0 Custrad pack and made a/c to the instructions. You can always choose traditional method. But the one my mother used to make is more richer and tastier than this. But If you speak in terms of fat, calories..etc, etc.,....then better to go for this:-)

You Need:
----------------

Any Custard Ready Pack (I used Jello-O Custard) (As you all can see in the above pic)
3 cups of milk (low fat milk for Diet Conscious & Whole milk for Children&sweet lovers for best results)
A whole cup of Fresh Fruits a/c to your choice (I preffered- Bananas, Apples and Grapes)
An Egg (optional--Add in the mixture before boiling, If you want more rich custard) (I did not add)
Sugar (optional ---If you want more sweet than go for it a/c to your taste) (I did not add, but still very yummy!)

Micro Oven Method:
------------------------

In a micro oven based container (always choose glass or thick plastic oven based but not thin plastic, since they are not good for health), take 3 cups of milk and mix the Ready Custard Powder in to that. See it is mixed well.
Cook in micro oven about 10 minutes or untill the mixture comes to full boiling.
In between cooking time, for every 3 minutes stir into the mixture to avoid any lumps formation.
Allow to cool the mixture to the room temperature by sttiring in between. Remember, as it cools down it becomes more thick.
Once it comes down to room temperature, store in the fridge for 1hr. And finally while serving, add your favourite fresh fruits and serve.

Note: After few hours in the fridge, the custard becomes more thick and very cool. In this winter for children or of any body best is...just warm the custard say about 30 to 40 sec and add fruits and serve. (Which I did for my son and my self:-)) Traditional method is also mentioned on the pack like micro oven method.

My Variations: You can add chocolate cream or fresh home made cream on the top of the custard and serve. My mother used add fresh home made cream i.e., taken above from the milk which is formed, after the milk is boiled and cool down.

Egg Pulusu (Kodi Guddu Pulusu Koora)

2006-11-01T13:40:00.000-08:00

Egg Pulusu is my favourite among egg dishes I know. Since my son started eating eggs, we too started buying organic eggs for all of us. You can see them behind this one cooked egg, talking to each other:-) The recipe is very simple and tastes greater day by day. As you know, any dish with pulusu taste great, the next day than the day it is cooked. Namely, Pulusu Pulihora, Egg Pulusu, Chaamagadda Pulusu, Vankaaya Pulusu ......etc. I forget to mention famous Chaapala Pulusu i.e., Fish Pulusu Koora. I love the one my mother-in-law cook and famous in Nellore, know as "Nellore Chepala Pulusu Koora". The day I could cook like my mother-in-law, I will blog that. Till then I will go with rest of the pulusu kooralu. Right now its the time for Egg Pulusu Recipe.....Here I go......

Ingredients:
---------------
5 to 6 eggs (preferrably organic)
Tamarind or Chinthapandu equal to 2 lemons ( For more gravy..you need to soak more tamarind)
2 to 3 medium sized tomatoes
1 or 2 big onions (2 onions are preffered)

2 to 3 green chillis

1 tsp cumin seeds
1 stem curry leaves
1 tsp ginger pulp
1 tsp garlic pulp
1 tsp turmeric powder (pasupu)
2 tsp red chilli powder
1 to 1/2 tsp ground coriander powder
Salt a/c to taste
Oil for cooking
1/2 cup fresh cilantro or kothmeeru(optional)

Method:
--------------

Boil eggs well, remove shell, make cuts in between the eggs with knife (as you can see in the picture above) and keep aside.
Wash once and soak tamarind or chinthapandu in warm water. Water level should be 1 or 2 inches more than tamarind level.
Cut onions into very thin slices. Make slits in the green chillies.Cut tomatoes into medium thick slices and keep all of them aside.
Now heat oil in a deep sauce pan, add green chillies, curry leaves, cumin seeds and fry for 1 minutes. Now add onions and fry on medium heat till they all turn into dark brown in color. For this curry it is necessary that onions should be fried well i.e., into dark brown color(so that curry stay fresh for 2 days and also for that dark color we want in the curry)
After that add ginger and garlic pulp and fry for 1 minute. Add turmeric powder and mix with other ingredients.
Now add tomatoes and mix with other ingredients. Add salt from above and cover the sauce pan. Allow tomatoes to become soft. Then mix salt and add chilli powder and coriander powder with tomatoes and mix well. Add little water and allow to cook for 1 to 2 minutes more.
Meanwhile, take juice outof tamarind in the same container it is soaked. Remove tamarind and add juice to the saucepan. Also add eggs with slits to this curry.
The overall curry should be thick..see and add little more water if you want.
Now cover the saucepan and allow to cook for abt 10 to 15 minutes or untill the eggs change its color from white to light brown. this is beacuse the pulusu or gravy should go into the eggs through cuts made on them. The real secret for this curry lies here. The taste of eggs changes ..ofcourse very yummy:-)
Finally add fresh cilantro , mix and sim heat with cover on saucepan for 1 minute more and turn off the heat.

Note: Serve hot with chapathis or plain rice or biryani. It taste great with all of them. I like eggs in this gravy as much as they become dark.

Tomato Baath With Semolina & Peanut Chutney

2006-10-30T15:28:00.000-08:00

Tomato Baath With Peanut Chutney

Tomato Baath, as know is preparing with Semolina, just like Upma with an additional guest that is, Tomato. This dish I tasted for first time in my PostGraduation Days at one of my friends home. It was really too tasty. Later, after my marriage I heard about this dish from my husband. It is very common and a must breakfast served along with peanut chutney for the guest in marriages at my In-laws-side i.e., famous in Nellore and near by areas. About one more thing I was surprised at is, when I started searching for this recipe (expecting some other variations), I found this mostly made with rice. This is another new thing I came to know about tomato baath:-)..Thanks to all other food bloggers, helping a lot in discovering different kind of recipes through out the world. Peanut chutney seen in the picture is the recipe I always do, adopted from Falvours Of Indian Rasoi by Lakshmi. This time I wanted to mention the method for it in my blog with little variations. Here I go with thease two recipes.....

Main Ingredients For Tomato Baath Namely: Green Chillies, Garlic Cloves, Onion, Tomato, Curry Leaves and Semolina Or Upma Ravva

Ingredients For Tomato Baath:
-------------------------------------------

2 cups of Semolina or Ravva (cup here is equalant to rice cooker cup)
1 medium sized tomato (cut into small pieces)
5 to 6 curry leaves
1 small onion or 1/2 of medium sized 1 big onion
4 to5 green chillies (slitted or cut into small pieces)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds (aavalu)
1/2 tsp cumin seeds (jilakara or jeera)
2 garlic cloves
1/4 tsp of turmeric powder( pasupu)
5 cups of water (cup here is equalant to rice cooker cup)
salt as per taste (I add 1 1/2 tsp fo salt for two cups of ravva)
oil for cooking (I use 4 to 5 tsp of oil)

Method:
-------------

Roast semolina or ravva on low heat in a deep sauce pan till it changes evenly in color to light brown. Here you can also fry with 1tsp of oil or 1 tsp of ghee (which are optional) and keep aside.
In the same sauce pan heat oil for cooking, add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, mashed garlic cloves (or cut into tiny pieces), green chillies and curry leaves in mentioned order, one after the other giving time for spluttering of mustard seeds and cumi seeds. Fry all togeather for 1 to 2 minutes.
Now add onions and fry till they become soft and trasparent.( Remember here, for upma and tomato baath, onions should not change there color. They should not be fried for long time. They just need to become soft and transperant).
Now add tomatoes and 1/4 tsp of turmeric powder. Mix well and cook till tomatoes become soft.
Add water and salt. Cover the sauce pan and bring the contents to boil.
Once the water starts boiling, reduce the heat to low and start adding semolina or ravva with your left hand taking semolina a handfull every time and use right hand for mixing the ravva in the water simultaneously. This is to avoid forming any lumps. Here you should be very careful. i.e., why I mentioned reduce the heat and add slowly so that you will get time to add complete ravva step by step and could mix well.
Mix well after adding complete ravva with other ingredients and allow to cook with covered lid on medium heat for about next 5 to 6minutes or until ravva is cooked well.
Serve hot with peanut chutney.

Note: This procedure is same for upma too, except tomato. Other variations for upma, you can add pieces of carrots, small cubes of potatoes before bringing water to boil. Water measurment for upma or tomato baath I always take like this: For one cup of semolina or ravva, I add 2 1/2 cups fo water. thus added 5 cups of water for 2 cups of ravva or semolina.

Ingredients For Peanut Chutney:
-------------------------------------------
1 cup peanuts (roasted and skin removed or can be made with skin too as per your choice, not being any difference in taste)
4 to 5 green chillies
1 tsp channa dal (optional)
1tsp fresh grated coconut (optional)
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
small size tamarind (soaked in warm water)
1 tsp jeera or cumin seeds or jilakara
1 small onion
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 stem curry leaves
1 or 2 dry red chillies
salt as per taste
oil for cooking
water as required

Method:
-----------

Roast peanuts and keep aside to cool. They should be roasted evenly. So maintain low flame through out.
Heat 1 tsp of oil, add cumin seeds and fry for few seconds and then add green chillies and onion (cut into big chunks).
After onions turn soft, add soaked tamarind from above and keep aside till its temperature comes down to room temperature.
Now in a blender, add roasted peanuts, above fried mixture (mentioned in step 3), channa dhal, grated coconut , salt and required water (decide a/c to the thickness of the paste you want).
Finally add tempering to the above mixture by heating 2 tsp of oil and adding mustard seeds, 1 to 2 dry red chillies and curry leaves.
Serve this chutney with upma or tomato baath. Tastes great for both, especially for tomato baath.

Kheera Kesari (Cucumber Sweet)

2006-10-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

Kheera Kesari is my entry to Jhiva_Diwali Event. I made Boondi Laddoo's For Diwali, but was unable to take any snaps. I was quite dissapointed then. But as Manisha of 'Indian Food Rocks' said as far as we enjoy diwali, nothing much matters. Her words really gave a soothing touch. Thank you Manisha for those nice words. But to remove that little dissapointment, Vee of Past, Present and Me decided to make another round up for diwali event. Thank You Vee. But to say folks, we had really great diwali this year, sharing happiness with couple of friends and lots of lights in our home than any time before.

I thought of this sweet, seeing kheera in the refrigirator. Since it is cold season, we were avoiding eating kheera from long time. But, for my son I cooked this and gave him when it is warm. The taste was very good, good more than I thought of:-) I choose, this name, beacuse kesari (Saffron) gave real good aroma, color and taste to the sweet. And kesari being one of the ingredient, infact played a vital role in this, how can miss the name kesari for this dish. Also friends, do you remember "Kesari Vilaayathi" the villan in the famous, hindi movie called "Ram Lakhan". Can u tell the name of the actor who played Kesari Vilayathi role in the movie?? Lets see the response...Iam waiting??? So here I go....

Ingredients:
------------------
1 medium Cucumber(kheera)
4 tsp Sugar
1 tsp of Khus Khus
1 full tsp of Ghee (I used cow ghee)
1/4 cup of Milk (I used whole milk)
few Kaaju and Baadam
few strands fo Saffron (kesari or zaffron)

Method:
-------------

Cut one round from both ends of cucumber and rub those ends with respective cut pieces. This I practice every time, because, it removes the sour taste which cucumber has or atleast I can say reduces to much level.
Peel the cucumber skin . Cut into two halves and remove the seeds from it. Now cut them into small pieces and grate them in the food processor or as you do with carrot while preparing carrot halwa.
Take a deep sauce pan, heat ghee and fry dry fruits till they are light brown in color and keep them aside.
In the same pan, add grated cucumber and fry till all the water is evoparated. If you want you can add little more ghee before started frying cucumber.
Now add 4 tsp of sugar , fry by mixing well till sugar is competely dessolved in it.
Add milk, khus khus and saffron and cook until the sweet starts leaving the edges of the pan and coming togeather.
Finally, remove from heat and serve warm with few more saffron strands soaked in little warm milk from the top.

Note: Since cucumber taste little soar, to remove that soarness do follow the steps I mentioned in the method above also fry it very well. I used only badaam and kaaju here, yo can also add kishmish (dry grapes) in it. One more important note is...the amount of sweet showed in the picture is result of only one cucumber. Since I cooked only for one person I used one ccucumber, if you are using two then double the ingredients accordingly or as per your taste which can always vary and we can make changes. Thank You!!

Potato In Yogurt Sauce

2006-10-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

First picture looks hot and second one looks cool..hmmm..do you feel the same? But both are same..i.e., potatoes in Yougurt Sauce. This simple dish, both to cook as well as in look is adapted by me from the one old cookery book called "Healthy Indian Cooking" By Shehzad Hussain and Manisha Kanani. Remember my another recipe adopted from same book called "Balti Dhal".
Coming to the dish, I will say when ever you have lot of yougurt and some potatoes in store go for this easy making dish, yet, delicious one. This can be one of the best dish among all other dishes served for the guest in your home. All you need to prepare this dish are......

Ingredients:
-----------------
12 tiny potatoes halfed ( or 6 normal potaoes cut into samll cubes..this is my variation)
1 1/4cup or 10oz natural low fat yogurt
1 1/4 cups water or 300ml
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1tsp chilli powder
1tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin (instead of ground cumin, I added cumin seeds while cooking directly..this is my variation)
1 tsp cumin seeds( used by author too other than cumin powder..I used only cumin seeds)
1tbsp or 15ml chopped fresh cilantro
2 green chillies, sliced
salt as per taste
1tbsp oil or as desired ( I used very less oil..but In the pictures it looks as it floats since yogurt is the main ingredient and when cooked in oil..oil floats on the surface)

Method:
------------

Boil the potatoes in salt water with their skin on until they are just tender, then drain and set aside. ( My variation here is..I pressure cooked potatoes and peeled the skin away and used them to cook. But author suggested to cook them along with skin..its upto your choice)
Mix togeather the yougurt, water, turmeric, chilli powder, ground cumin(if using now), ground coriander, sugar(optional but used by author..I did not add sugar) and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
Heat the oil in a medium heavy based saucepan and fry cumin seeds for 1 min.
Reduce the heat, stir in the spicy yogurt mixture and cook for about 3 minutes over a medium heat.
Add the chopped fresh cilantro or fresh coriander, green chillies and cooked potatoes. Mix all togeather and cook for a further 5 to 7 minutes, stirring from time to time.
Serve hot with whole wheat chapathis or regular one or pulkhas...They taste well with chapathis. Not much preferable with rice (a/c to my suggestion)

Note: Potatoes cooked along with skin is always preferable as author suggested, since most of the vitamins are under the skin of vegetables. If you can eat with skin go a head. I never tried yet not knowing wheather my family will adopt them easily or not. But ofcourse one can only know when they give a try ;-) Finally, thanks to the authors for giving us such an easy and wonderful dish for thsi busy life.

Methi Roti with Fresh Curd

2006-10-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

Methi roti is a simple yet healthy dish for breakfast or lunch or dinner. They are not only easy to prepare also will stay fresh for 2 to 3 days (no need to store in refrigerator). They taste great with any 'hot' chutney i.e., spicy. Also goes well with fresh curd. With out any delay here is my recipe for methi roti's also for fresh home made low fat curd, since I got some request from Pavani of Cook's Hideout and Shaheen of Malabar Spice's for detail method post on setting curd.

Ingredients For Methi Roti:
---------------------------------------
2 cups of wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp salt (or as per taste)
1 1/2 tsp chillipowder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
2 bunches of fresh fenugreek leaves( preferably small leaves bunch)
oil for cooking (little oil required to make roti's)
water for making dough (preferably warm water)

Method For Making Methi Roti's:
-------------------------------------------

Separate fenugreek leaves from the bunches, and wash them well in the cold water.
Cut them very small as much as possible.
Take flour in a wide and depth mixing bowl. Add salt, fenugreek leaves, chillipowder, turmeric powder and 2 to 3 tsp of oil.
Mix well all above ingredients with the flour and make a dough like you make for chapathis with warm water.
Set aside for 15 minutes.
Heat tawa( or pan for making chapathis). Meanwhile divide dough into equal portions a/c to the size you desire to make a roti ( I made little bigger than the round we make generally for pulka).
Take a round and make a flat round like pulka and with little oil cook on tawa, on both the sides well by maintaining medium heat all through. (they should be cooked well, so that they stay fresh for couple of days, if you are making in lots)
Repeat with other rounds too. Now have them hot or cold with any chutney or fresh curd. You will enjoy.

Note: I like methi rotis' to have them just like that with out any chutney or pickle:-)) They taste great even next couple of days too.

Before giving you detail method for setting curd at home, I would like to say some simple points to remember. I use, 1% reduced fat organic milk for setting curd, which taste little less sweeter than 2% reduced fat milk. As we all knew whole milk taste great as per the taste is concerned. So its upto your choice to choose any kind of milk, irrespective of that, the method is same for all. Here I go...

Method For Setting Curd:
---------------------------------

Heat milk in a container till they boils well. i.e., once they boil and are raised till up of the container, reduce the heat and stir milk with a spoon and allow to boil again for few more minutes.
See that they don'nt change color from white to some what pinkish. Also see that the base does'nt burn. So select clean container, preferably always use the same one for setting curd. ( I use always the same container for setting curd to avoid any bad smell or breaking of milk while boiling, which can happen if containers are not cleaned well once in a while).
Now remove from heat, and allow it to cool down for a while. This is first important step to remember for setting curd. Milk should me so warm that you should be able to put your fingure in the milk. If you remove it immmedietly i.e., unable to put your fingure any longer that means milk should cool down to further less temperature.
In winter, milk can be little more warmmer than usual one.
Second step is, take 1/4th tsp of left over curd or little less than that also is ok. Mix in the milk ready to set for curd, by taking little milk in the same teaspoon and mix that curd with milk using your finger and later mix in the container with rest of the milk very well.
Now close the container i.e., airtight and keep in the warm place preferably oven. Set oven to warm setting and keep this container in it, for overnight or atleast upto 6 to 8 hrs by checking after 6 hrs once in a while. This is to avoid tangy taste. (''pullaga antaru kada telugulo adi'')
Remove from oven and refregerate immmedietly if not using then for fresh and chilled curd to have later.
The fresh home made curd is ready:-))

Note: In summer you may not need an oven. But in cold regions, you may need always. In India, we never need any ovens to set curd. But here I always use oven to set curd to avoid any accidents...You know accidents can occur any time;-)) I hope this post on setting curd is helpful to many of you. Thease are results of my trial 'n' error methods when I came to United States:-))

Creamy Strawberry Treat

2006-10-21T00:24:00.000-07:00

A glass of Strawberry Juice with Fresh Strawberries

A Very Happy Diwali to all my readers and my fellow bloggers. I have visited all my fellow bloggers sites...they are excel in there work as usual:-)...Sorry folks I could not mail any sweet or snaak on this occasion also anable to participate in Vee's Jhiva-Diwali's event. Hope I could participate. But I try to make for another Jhiva event. This time again its time for me and many of readers and fellow bloggers to celebrate this diwali with lot of sweets available at Vee's event.Have a look them...:-))

For this event...all I could post is this simple strawberry drink which I made for my son long ago. Remember Sooji-Banana Cake, I used Vanilla Whipping Cream and Chocolate Heavy Cream for decoration. There was leftover of thease creams till yesterday. I tried to mix thease two along with some milk and fresh strawberries, instead of just serving strawberry juice to my son. The result was yummy.....Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients:
---------------
2 tsp of Vanilla Whipping Cream
1 tsp of Heavy Chocolate Frosting
1 tsp sugar (optional..I added to make it more sweet for my son:-))
1/2 cup whole milk ( or low fat milk)
1 cup of fresh strawberries

Method:
-----------

Add every thing into the blender and little water if desired.
Blend all togeather on high speed for 1 to 2 minutes.
The result is creamy, delicious strawberry milky shake or call it as creamy juice or treat.

Note: My other variations are..you can try with some other berries too or with apple instead by changing the ratio of creams according to the like and dislike of flavours. I hope you will like this simple drink, especially for children..I did this for my son excluding me and my husband..you know for what:-))

Tomato Rice With Spring Onions & Capsicum

2006-10-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

Tomato Rice with Fresh Home Made Low Fat Curd

Tomato rice is another very common dish liked by many of us. Unlike regular one, which I usually make, this time I tried with little variations. Like instead of onions I used spring onions and capsicum as an additional vegetable to rice along with green peas, which is must every time I make this rice. The taste was much greater than usual one. Remember balti dhal, one of my post, that week I had capsicum and spring onions in my store. Thus this Tomato Rice with Spring Onions & Capsicum.

Ingredients:

------------------

2 cups of rice (plain cooked in rice cooker or as you follow)

3 medium size tomatoes

A bunch of spring onions or 1 big regular onion(sliced into small pieces)

1 capsicum (cut into thin long pieces)

2 green chillis (optional here)
3 to4 curry leaves

1 tbsp fresh cilantro

A cup of green peas (fresh & washed)

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1 1/2 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp garlic pulp

1 tsp ginger pulp

1/4 tsp ghee

1 cup water

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp cumin seeds
Salt a/c to your taste (I add 1 1/2 tsp salt for two cups of rice including all other vegetables)

1 tbsp oil or (a/c to your measurments)

Method:

------------

Boil rice in rice cooker with 4 cups of water for 2 cups of raw rice with a 1/4 tsp of ghee which is optional.
Meanwhile, cut tomatoes into thin slices, and get ready with other ingredients mentioned above.
Take a big and more depth pan, heat oil. Add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves, capsicum( if using green chillis), spring oinions(if using onions), peas one after the other by giving as usual time for frying.
Capsicum pieces should be little crispy. Now add ginger and garlic pulp respectively and fry for one to two minutes.
Add turmeric powder and mix well. Now add tomatoes and mix with all other ingredients.
Sprinkle salt from above on tomatoes, close the lid and allow to cook on medium heat for 2 to 3 miunutes.
Now mix salt with tomatoes and chilli powder. Mix well and add water now. Allow to cook all the vegetables well for 5 minutes ot until they all become soft.
Finally, add cooked rice into this and cilantro and stir for 2 to 3 minutes with open lid. After that close the lid and sim for another 3 to 4 minutes. See that the base of the content or rice is not burnt. Also all the water should be evaporated.
Remove from heat and serve this hot tomato rice with chilled curd.

Note: Usually, rice is cooked along with all other vegetables, but I follow this method by cooking rice separately and adding to the other ingredient. Some how we started liking this one, so I follow this method..you can follow either of them.

Sooji & Banana Cake (From Fellow Blogger)!!

2006-10-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

Yummy!!! I just wanted to try this or I can say I decided to give a try when I saw this cake recipe in Shilpa's blog Aayi's Recipes. You can find step by step procedure here. Though I also taken photos step by step, Iam not posting it because complete credit goes to her. Thank you shilpa for sharing such an easy and very tasty cake recipe. Every body at my home and one of my friends also loved this cake a lot:-)) Those who did not give a try yet..do give!!..Trust me friends its real tasty. My friend and my family members could not believe that it was made with sooji( ravva). I gave my touch to this cake by decorating it with vanilla and chocolate Betty Crocker's frosting cream also I used 2 long bananas instead of three which is in actual recipe. Next time Iam going to try with three bananas. Still the result was tooo yummy!!

Steps For Icing or Decoration:
-----------------------------------------
I was quite much inspired by the cake preparation and respective designs on the cake from Archana's blog. Do check , different cakes in her blog...you will just love them all. Not much like her, since I have some idea of preparing cakes which I did some in my childhood and learned from my mother. To name few of them..Pineapple cake, Chocolate cake, Vanilla cake..etc. Now since this generation is in weight reducing race (in which Iam one among them:-) we are avoiding lot of sweets and cakes. But they become exceptional on festivals or birthdays:-)) Iam Happy!!! So away from weight reducing race for some time, I did this cake ......

I used Heavy Dark Chocolate frosting to cover the whole cake except base. Since it is very heavy I did not use for writting up or designing on the cake.
For that designing and writting up, I used The Lightest & Fluffiest Whipped Vanilla Frosting.
To give a lovely touch to the heart on the cake , I used a small piece of straw berry(You can see in the above pic)
Finally, to give some colors, I used some colorful candiles (Irrespective of any age group, which you can do a/c to the occassion and age group)
Once the cake is cut, that final small piece was very delicious to eat

Note: Do any icing or decoration on the cake only after it cools down to the room temperature. I did after half-an-hour. And I, my family members and my friends could enjoy the cake for next 3 days. It was yummy all over:-)) Enjoy cakes in this beautiful festive mood..coming days are thanks giving and christmas celebrations...In advance Happy Thanks Giving and Merry Christmas to all my readers and friends.Enjoy!!

Vegetarian Kheema ( Minced Soya Curry)

2006-10-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

Soya Granules Curry with Whole Wheat Chapathis

I named this dish as Veg-Kheema though it is a pure vegeretarian dish, because it looks like kheema curry(non-veg dish cooked with minced mutton). Not only that all other ingredients which I have used here to cook this dish are or can be used in non-veg kheema also. I gave this name when my mother used to cook this dish. As I said in my another soya granules post, I love adding thease granules in any dish. This is another version of soya granules. As you all liked soya-methi curry, Iam sure you will love this too. By this time as far as my knowledge many of you might be aware of different version with soya chunks or soya granules. Try this too if you did not. Here it goes.....

Ingredients:
-------------------
Soya granules 1cup
Tomatoes 2 to 3 meduim size
Onion 1 medium size
Ginger & Garlic paste 1tsp each
Turmeric powder 1tsp
Chilli powder 2 tsp
Salt a/c to taste
Dhaniya or Coriander powder 1 tsp
Garam masala 1/2 tsp (optional)
Fresh cilantro 1/2 cup
Lime juice 1/2 tsp (optional if not adding garam masala)
Oil for cooking

Method:
------------

Wash and soak granules in warm water for 1/2 hr
Menawhile, cut tomatoes into thin slices or make puree and keep aside
Cut onions into thin slices
Take a wide pan, heat oil and add onions and fry till light brown in color
Add ginger-garlic paste and fry for 1 min
Add turmeric powder and fry for few seconds, add soya granules by squeezing all water from it into the pan and mix well.
Fry for 2 minutes. Add all other masalas including salt and mix well (if needed very little water ) and allow to cook with closed lid on medium heat for 5 minutes.
Now add tomatoes and mix well. Again allow to cook for 5 more minutes or untill tomatoes are cooked completely. (Here if you are adding tomato puree, then add it after 5th step.
Finally add cilantro and lime juice and mix well and sim for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and serve with hot chapathis or plain rice.

Note: Another recipe from soya granules is here.

Balti Dhal and Boiled Egg Fry In Curry Leaves Paste

2006-10-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

Balti Dhal with Boiled Egg Fry in Curry Leaves Paste

Dal with fried eggs taken along with hot plain boiled rice makes wonderful lunch or dinner especially in cold wheather. Balti dhal, I have made previously two to three times but never thought of blogging it. This balti dhal dish I have learned from a cook book called "Healthy Indian Cooking" by "Shehzad Husain and Manisha Kanani". This book contains authentic dishes with less fat. Thanks to the authors for sharing wonderful dishes ..all Vegetable,Non-Vegetable dishes, Soups, Snaks and Salads. Though not exactly, I cooked dal with little variations suiatble to regular dal taste. The result was amazing.

The another dish is Boiled eggs fry in curry leaves paste. This dish is from my mothers cook book. I love this as side dish along with dhal or biryani or sambar or just like that. It has got curry leaves paste taste which is good to health with eggs. Do give a try ..it is very easy to make and much tasty to eat:-))

Ingredients For Balti Dhal:
----------------------------------
1/2 cup toor dhal
1 medium bunch spring onions roughly chopped
1/2 capsicum (or green pepper) seeded and sliced thinely
1tsp garlic pulp
1tsp ginger pulp
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp salt (or a/c to taste)
1 stem curry leaves (which are absent in author's version)
1/2 tsp Coriander powder (which is absent in author's recipe)
2 small tomatoes(sliced into thin long pieces) or (a/c to author 6-8 cherry tomatoes)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds or (a/c to author onions seeds. I used mustard since I was lack of onion seeds)
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds (or a/c author fresh 1 cup fenugreek leaves)
small lemon sized tamarind(soaked in warm water) or (a/c author 1 tbsp lemon juice)
fresh coriander leaves to cook in and garnish
oil for cooking (a/c to author 2tbsp oil)

Method:
-------------

Cook the dhal in a suacepan of boiling water until soft and mushy. Drain and set aside.
Take the tamarind juice out of soaked one and keep aside.
Heat the oil with oinion seeds or mustard seeds till they splutter.
Add spring oinions and curry leaves and fry for 2 to 3 minutes.
Add cooked dhal and fry for 2 to 3 minutes.
Now add turmeric, salt, chilli powder, coriander powder, ginger and garlic pulp respectively, mix and fry for 2 to 3 minutes.
Then add cut tomatoes or cherry tomatoes as it is and cut capsicum into the dhal. Mix well and cover the pan with lid and allow to cook for 3 to 4 minutes. See that tomatoes become soft if using cherry tomatoes or if using regular one's see that they are not over cooked and mashed up. They taste best with dish when they are just soft and as it is.
Finally add tamarind juice or lemon juice and mix well and allow to cook for 2 more minutes if using tamarind juice.
garnish with some cut spring oinions and fresh coriander leaves on top( also can add some coriander leaves while cooking, which I did.

Egg Fry In Curry Leaves Paste
--------------------------------------------
Ingredients For Egg Fry:

4 eggs
1 packet of curry leaves available in indian store or 5 to 6 curry leaves stems
salt a/c to taste
ground pepper a/c to taste
1 garlic (shredded finely) optional
2 to 3 tsp of oil for frying

Method:

Boil eggs and remove shell , pork them with knife or tooth pick all over the eggs and keep aside.( this is done to let the paste go inside the egg)
Wash curry leaves separated from stem and grind to fine paste or as much as possible.
Heat oil in a deep sauce pan. Add curry leaves paste and fry till all water evaporates.
Now add salt , pepper and shredded garlic (I did not use garlic here). Mix well with paste and fry for few seconds.
Now add eggs , mix well and fry till the color of eggs changes to light brown. Not necessarly the color should be even all through the egg.
Serve hot with boiled plain rice or with any dhal of your choice.

Note: A small tip for good boiled eggs. Boil eggs for long time and to remove the shell with out any damage to the egg, after they are boiled, keep them in cold water or under cold running water for some time. And before removing the shell again wash it under cold water. Now the shell will come very easily with out any damage to the egg.

Yummy !! Recipes From Fellow Bloggers

2006-10-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

Hi Friends!! this time Iam here to blog some of my fellow bloggers recipes, which I tried at my home and took some snaps. Click!! Click!! :-)) Just not only thease infact I tried many from other fellow bloggers too. But some time I could take photos and some times not. Next time I will make sure to take them though Iam in hurry:-) Today Iam posting two recipes one is Bendakaaya pakodi vepudu from Krishna 'n' Arjuna's blog and another is Carrot Kheer from Mandira's Ahaar blog. One Hot and One Sweet.Yeah! both were really tasty.Give a try who did not yet...Iam sure you will like both to be taken warm in this cold season. Here they are.....

Bendakaaya Pakodi Vepudu

This dish when I gave a try and was having it as Arjuna said really I remembered marriage events of not only mine , but all of them where I have eaten this dish., though I don'nt remember exactly place, name and who's marriage it was.....;-) Friends do try this one its very tasty..though it does'nt look exactly as Arjuna's photo...I hope the taste was same:-) The recipe for this is here. In my dish bendakaaya looks more than pakodi unlike Arjuna's and also pakodi became little soft which actually taste good when they are crispy..so add them at the end of cooking to the bendaakaya and just fry for few seconds as they are already deep fried pakodi's.

Carrot Kheer

This thick creamy kheer was really tempting and was handy..that is the reason I tried it too soon, but with little variations in ingrendients and method..though not much.

Ingredients:

2 long carrots

2 to 3 tsp sugar

1 1/2 cup whole milk

1/4 cup water

2 tsp ghee

2 cardamom (make powder)

2 to 3 saffron sticks (for color and aroma)

few badaam and kaaju (dry fruits..can take any of your choice)

Method:

Peel the carrot skin and wash them and grate them to very fine, best recommended is in food processor( If food processor is not there, can use hand grater too)
In a deep skillet, add two tea spoons ghee and heat it. Then add grated carrots and fry till raw smell dissappears.
Add sugar to that and fry for 1 to 2 min.
Mean while make paste or tiny granules of dry fruits.
Now add this paste and fry for 1 or 2 more minutes.
Finally, add milk and water mentioned in the ingredients to this mix and allow to boil.
Once it starts boiling add cardamom powder to it and allow to boil for 2 to 3 minutes.
Remove from heat, allow to cool it to the room temperature.
Now blend this total mixture in the blender for 1 to 2 minutes..so that it becomes more thicky and creamy. Add saffron to the kheer.
The thick, creamy and flavored carrot kheer is ready to serve.

Note: Serve this warm or cold, I liked it both the ways!!

Actual version of this Carrot Kheer is here. Mandira..thank you so much for sharing such a wonderful recipe and also to the Arjuna. Though I made thease two dishes at different times..I think they go very well when served one after the other. I prefer hot first then sweet later..you can alter anyways:-)) Enjoy thease wonderful recipes. I will try to blog the other recipes of my fellow bloggers in the future when ever I give a try.

Banana Bread Halwa

2006-10-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

Sweet Made with Whole Wheat Bread and Banana

Wish You A Very Very Happy Dassera!! to all my readers and to my fellow blogger friends. I wish a very good and peaceful life to all of us. After a week Iam back with a sweet dish, made for this festival. Also this is my entry for Jihva for Ghee and Butter for this month october declared by Cooking Medley. Iam bit late to post this as far as jihva for october month. Since, today is the festival Iam able to blog today.I hope she will accept this entry. Thank you!!!

Coming to this recipe, I got the idea of making some sweet from bread by seeing a mouth watering picture from sailu's food blog of Bread Halwa. I can not only imagine also can feel the taste of her bread halwa. Thank you sailaja for sharing such a beautiful recipe. I also had bananas at home, ofcourse for festival, but we do get them regularly since it is good in fiber. So both bread and banana being handy..I thought of this halwa:-)) Coming to recipe....

Ingredients:
-----------------
4 slices of oatmeal whole wheat bread (can use anybread, but may vary little in taste)
1 banana
3 cups of whole milk (1 cup equal to 250ml)
1/2 cup to 3/4 th cup of sugar ( vary a/c to the desired sweetness. I used 1/2 cup may be around 125 ml)
1/4th cup of water
Few cashews, almonds and raisins(dry grapes or kishmish) for garnish
3 to 4 tsp of ghee

Method
----------

Mash banana and keep aside.
Make small pieces of bread slices and fry them till brown in color in 2 tsp of ghee in a wide non stick pan. Make sure they are not burned. Keep them a side.
In the same pan add 1/2 cup of sugar to the 3 cups of milk and water as mentioned in the ingredients.
Allow milk to boil. Once it starts boiling, add mashed banana and mix well. Allow to cook for few minutes.
Now add bread pieces to it and allow to boil. Since bread absorbs milk fast, overflowing of milk from the container can be avoided soon by just keeping it open till the bread absorbs the milk.
After that, cover the pan and allow to cook on medium heat.
Meanwhile, prepare for garnishing the dish. Heat 1 or 2 tsp of ghee in a small different container, and fry all the nuts and rasins till they turn light brown in color and keep them aside.
It took 25 minutes for me to cook this dish. Cook till the halwa separates from the container. Just before removing from the heat add all fried nuts and raisins along with ghee into this halwa and mix well.
In between cooking time, do mix the halwa frequently to avoid any burning.

Sweet Made with Whole Wheat Bread and Banana and Curd Rice with pepper Tempering

Note: Serve this dish warm in cold wheather or cook when you are watching an intresting movie and want to have this halwa. Hope you will all like as I did very much:-))

Chicken In Cashew Nut Sauce

2006-09-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

Chicken Curry is going to be my first Non-Vegeterian dish in my blog??..I never thought!! Really, I wanted to introduce Non-Veg items in my blog with Chicken Biryaani. Since we limited our selfs from eating Non-Veg, Iam getting chance to cook Non-Veg very rarely. But, from now onwards I will make sure to blog them when ever I cook at home. This curry actually I made for the small Barbeque type of get-to-geather in Srinivas's office. Then, very limited choice was given to me by him. That is, If I have to prepare Non-Veg then that should be less spicy yet very tasty:-)) Then I thought of making this dish. With no other delay and no more stories here I go with the recipe details.........

Ingredients:

------------------

6 chicken thighs (skinned)

2 big onions

2 tomoatoes (or 3 if needed more gravy)

1/3 cup cashew nuts

2 tsp garlic paste

2 tsp ginger paste

2 tsp chilli powder (can adjust a/c to taste)

1 1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1 cup natural low fat yogurt ( 1 cup here I mean rice cooker cup)

2 caradamom pods (elaichi)

2 cloves (lavanga)

1 bay leaf

1 tsp garam masala

2 tsp coriander powder

salt a/c to taste

Oil for cooking (1 to 2 tbsp oil)

Method:

-----------

Cut chicken thighs into halfs or a/c to your choice size probably small pieces.(Here, we got chicken thighs since I was not decide any dish then, later I made two halfs from one thigh. You can also use boneless chicken, cubed and skinned for this recipe). Wash them mix in with curd (preferably one or two day before curd) and marinate for half-an-hour.
Make onions puree and keep aside.
Make tomato puree with cashews in it. i.e., grind both tamatoes and cashew togeather.
Heat oil in a wide , deep pan (for chicken to be cooked easily).
While chicken get marinated...prepare all other spices and purees as mentioned above.
Add caradamom pods (open the cover and add seeds along with it), cloves to bay leaf in the oil. Fry for 1 min.
Now add onion puree and fry till it starts changing color from white to light brown.
Add tomato and cashew puree along with salt, turmeric powder, chilli powder, coriander powder, garam masala. Mix well and cover the pan and allow to cook on medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes.
Now add marinated chicken and required water if necessary and mix well with all other ingredients.
Cover the pan and cook on low heat for half-an-hour or till the chicken is cooked well by stirring it ocassionaly. Here I mentioned half-an-hour time because chicken should be cooked well.
Once it is done you can garnish with fresh cilantro and very little lime juice if required. Since already curd is present more lime juice can change the taste of the curry.

Note: Cashews reduces the spice also makes the gravy light in color and gives little thickness to the gravy. I had to use them here for Srinivas's office staff memebers:-)) Other wise I generally avoid cashews in chicken or any other non-veg curry. We prefer non-veg items more spicy.

Sweet 'n' Tangy Mango Curry

2006-09-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

I was too in hurry to post this recipe..but it took that late to post it:-)) Anyways, Iam happy I could do before this weekend. Mangos are liked by almost every one..some like ripe mangoes and some like unriped. I like both. Ripe mangoes, as said its fresh juice with hot puris..Yummy!! I got an unriped mango from indian store. Usually, I used to get this one for adding into dal so called "Mamidikaya Pappu" in telugu or mango dal in general. What ever, it taste well with rice also with chapathis. This time I wanted to do some thing different, I think all of us one or the other time are in this unusual mood or say nauty mood and want to try with different recipes especially giving a new name and called as A Unique dish :-)) As soon as I say this to Srinivas, his face expressions changes, from which I can make out his fear to eat my creative dish:-)) I was quite inspired by JIHVA FOR MANGO, from Mahanandi. The round up was very good. To say, I tried couple of recipes from that like mango rasam..and the result was very good. Then, I decided to cook or to make some curry with mango. I started.......

Ingredients:

------------------

1 unriped mango ( liitle sweet and little tangy in taste..the one which I bought was like that or any)

1/2 cup toor dal (pressure cook or cook with one or two drops of oil and 1/2 tsp of turmeric)

2 to 3 green chillies (cut as you like a slit in it or into small pieces)

1 small stem curry leaves

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp garlic paste or (can use both garlic and ginger paste 1/2 tsp each a/c to your taste)

salt as required

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp dhaniya or coriander powder

1/2 tsp mustard seed

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp urad dal (minapappu)

1/2 cup fresh cilantro

some water for gravy as required

oil for cooking(as you require)

Method:

-------------

Wash mango very well in cold water and cut into very small cubes along with skin and keep aside.
Toor dal as mentioned in the ingredients. That is method I always follow.
Take a wide, little depth pan and heat the oil. Once it is heated up add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, green chillies and curry leaves one after the other as mentioned.
Now add cut mangoes and fry for 2 minutes.
Then add garlic paste, turmeric, red chilli powder, coriander powder and salt one after the other and mix well with mangoes. Fry for 2 more minutes.
Add some water, mix well, cover the pan and cook on medium heat till mangoes become little soft (see that they sare not mashed).
Now add cooked toor dal and mix well with other ingredients. Allow to cook for some more time. Now here you can add some water if you want more gravy. You will know by this time by tasting it and seeing that how much more gravy you required as per your need.
Finally as usual add cilantro and mix with other stuff. Keep on low heat about 1 minute and remove from heat.

After I tasted this curry, with no delay I prepared stuff for puri's which I knew goes very well with this Sweet 'n' Tangy Mango Curry. It was too good. Next day I told this recipe to my mother on phone. She too tried it and every body at home liked it a alot. Hope you will also like this. Mangoes are too expensive right now..knowing this I bought another one for this weekend, since I could not resist the taste:-))

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here I go with a brief explanation of making puri's as many of us do know but secret lies in getting little crunchy and little soft and little redish in color and sweet in taste. This is my method in making puri's.....

Preparing Dough For Puri's:
-----------------------------------

Take Wheat Atta or Wheat Flour as you require.
Put a pinch of baking soda or eating soda in it for soft and fluffy puri's(not more than that, since it absorbs more oil if soda is added more).
Add some salt in it. See that it is not more because..puris always we eat with some or other curry. I add 1/2 tsp of salt in 4 cups (i.e., a/c rice cooker cup). Even when we eat puri as it is it taste good.
With clean hands, mix well all three ingredients and make dough with warm water. Always add water in small amounts and knead the dough accordingly, progressing slowly. The dough sould be not too soft which stick to your hands nor too hard to knead any more.
Once kneaded, push the dough with your hands with a touch of little water on top i.e., air tight, so that no air enters into the dough. Do not add oil here. Close the container with dough, with a lid and keep aside for minimum half-an-hour and maximum 1 hr.
After 1/2 hr, put some oil on top of the dough and again with clean hands(i.e., wash your hands always though fresh, again before kneading the dough) start kneading it again, till you get a soft dough or atleast for 10 minutes at a strech.
The dough is ready for puri's. I follow same for chapathis or pulkhas too except adding eating soda and salt. Yes, I eliminate salt and oil in my chapathis (except oil to knead the dough), still the out put is very good.
For puri's never add dry flour more on top while making flat rounds(here you don'nt need any dry flour if dough is good enough to knead), because they will not rise while deep frying.

Note: Some time in future I will make sure to add good photographs on making this one's. Though Iam good at chapathi's and puri's ...quite opposite in making naan's. My next venture is that..wish me good luck:-)) Hope you will find this article useful to an extent. Thank You!!

mEmE (Five Things To Eat Before I Die !!)

2006-09-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

Writing some thing about our self in previous Meme was like digging into self and sharing with all wonderful people. Now again I got chance to say some thing about food I like to eat before I die...again very difficult, yet got a chance to think for my future :-))

Are you thinking, what your seeing..???..No.No..I will not be satisfied with just thease small amount of food.This picture is from my next post. I read many post on Food meme. Every one's was quite intresting and really took me back to my child hood days where I just use to enjoy my mom's cooking.I miss her cooking a lot..ofcourse her too:-))

Here comes my list----

CHICKEN BIRYAANI: The one which my mom cooks. I just love the aroma, which comes while cooking itself...I could imagine now that Iam having a mouthfull of biryaani rice. Hmmmmm...which I enjoy when ever I visit my mother's place.

KHEEMA SAMOSAS: I just love them. I remember, on my birthday every year my mom use to cook this for me. Me, Me and Only Me !!! I think every one of us like that special attention given to us on that perticular day.

KOVA GULAB JAMUNS: They are soo soft, just melts as you keep into your mouth. I love my home made gulab jamuns, also the one made at marriages using kovaa. I can have them any time...I can just make out the taste difference very easily, which one is the best. This shows how much I love them:-))

DAHI PURI: At Gokul Chaat...only at Gokul Chaat at Koti, Hyderabad. Here Iam giving free advertisement for Gokul Chaat (LOL). Truely speaking..it does'nt need any..atleast for people from hyderabad or who knew hyderabad very well. Hope I can prepare them at home with the same taste and same chutney one day.

PURI IN MANGO RASAM: Last in the list, but not in mine:-)) This combo, I remeber it when ever I make puri's at home. It was a must at my mom's place, in every summer with sweet ripe mangoes. Taking out mango rasam from mangos with hand and collecting in a bowl. Mixing little milk and little ghee on top and having with hot hot puri's. It's a heaven.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I love to prepare all above listed at my home, and serve to all my friends(including you all) and my family members ofcourse. Thank You Arjuna for tagging me for this meme. I really went back to my mom's place and into my child hood memories for some time. It was a quite good experience.

I tag Chandrika(AkshayaPatra),Manisha(Indian Food Rocks) and Priya(Sugar'n'Spice).

Moth Beans Curry(Matki Ka Sabzi)

2006-09-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

Don'nt they look like some brown pearls??? Yeah, they are!!! I mean they are so precious in food world not though in pearls :-)) Thease, beans we found in indian grocery, where we were actually searching for alasandalu (black eyed beans). I bought them with out knowing anything about. Then after seeing the name Moth Beans on the packet, I started searching on the net for information. Then I found some sites, stating they are called Mat or Matki in maharashtra and are used to make sav or chaat or curry. They were in my store for long long time untouched. When I was lack of vegetables except onions and tomatoes in my store, I took them and made some dry curry, finally. And ask what? ...the end result was very good, more than I expected. And yesterday, when I was going through Vaishali's Blog, I found matki farasbee bhaji, which is combo of beans and moth sprouts. You can check the recipe..its very intresting and Iam going to try this next time with moth beans. So some how I made a curry with thease beans using my regular masala ingredients. Hope you will like it:-)) Here I go....

Ingredients:
----------------
1 cup moth beans (soaked overnight in water)
2 medium sized tomatoes (chopped finely or sliced into thin pieces)
1 medium onion (cut into thin slices)
1 tsp turmeric powder
2 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp garam masala powder (optional)
1 tsp lemon juice
oil for cooking( as required)
salt as per taste

Method:
------------

Wash moth beans soaked overnight , drain and keep aside.
Heat oil in a wide pan, fry onion till light brown. Add ginger and garlic paste, fry for 1 more min.
Add all other spices and fry for 2 min.
Now add moth beans and little water. Mix all other spices and salt with moth beans and close the lid. Allow to cook for 3 to 4 min on medium heat.
Now add tomatoes ( can reduce to 1 tomato, if you want less gravy or like to eat as a chaat). Mix all other ingredients with tomatoes and allow to cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Once you see the gravy become thick or there is no water, remove for the heat.
Add lemon juice , just before removing from the heat.

Note: Serve with hot chapathis or pulkhas. If you are serving, some time later, then can be served as a chaat with cut onions, fresh coriender and cut lemon pieces as desired. I liked this dish in both ways.

Moodu Pappula Dosa (Triple Lentils Dosa)

2006-09-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

As I said in my Mooli Paratha post, that I learned some couple of dishes from a good cook. One I posted i.e., mooli paratha and another one is Moodu Pappula Dosa, which Iam blogging today. I heard before, that with many combos of pappulu or dal's different dosa's can be made. Every combo has its own taste I think. Because, when I tasted this one it was quite different unlike dosa yet very tasty. I hope you will all like too. Another speciality of this dosa is, it does'nt require any marination time, which is perfect for weekends for a quick dish. With no delay here I go...(This measurement is for 2 to 3 people and comes for 2 days breakfast, since its quite heavy unlike regular dosa) Though different appetites has different measurement :-))

Ingredients:
------------------
Pesarpappu 1 cup (moong dal)
Minapappu 1 cup ( urad dal )
Chenagapappu 1 cup (chenna dal )
Menthulu a pinch (fenugreek seeds)
Small size ginger 1
Dry red chillies 10 no's( can reduce as per taste)
Dhaniyaalu 1tbsp or (can use dhaniya powder which should be equal to 1 tbsp dhaniyaalu when powdered)
Jeera 1tsp
Coriender(Fresh) 1/4 cup
Salt as per taste (my measurement is 1 to 1 1/2 tsp)

Method:
-----------

Soak 3 dals over night (or else if you want to make same day, soak for 3 hrs). More soaked , more soft as usual. But there will be no change in taste. I tried both ways, and both were good.
Grind menthulu(fenugreek seeds), red chillies, ginger, Dhaniyalu and Jeera(cumin seeds) togeather.
Grind dals in small amounts along with above mixture plus salt and coriender(add little water if needed).
After batter is ready, heat thawa and spread like dosa and oil all around as needed. This will be little thicker than regular dosa, which makes stomach full soon :-)
Serve hot with any chutney or just like that.

Note: This dosa taste's at its best, when it is served hot. Enjoy!!

mEmE (About Me, Me & Only Me)!!!

2006-09-11T23:13:00.000-07:00

Before I start saying about myself, look at some pictures (above) taken at one of the Japanease gardens near by our place. Hope you will like them. Its a small garden, which has nothing but a pound in which some fishes, turtles and trees and couple of huts around. Though strongly not recommended for any one..my son enjoyed a lot seeing animals in the pond :-)) After all we follow kids :-(

Thank You Maneka Nirmal for tagging me!!! Meme is really a good way to know about our fellow bloggers. I really thank one who started this. Iam getting to know little about my fellow blogger friends apart from there cooking skills of which Iam aware off :-))

I am thinking about: I should blog this meme first and then go to sleep.

I said: Atlast I did some constructive work; BLOGGING!!!

I want to: Sleep early always, but hangup with blogging finally.

I wish: Every body should be happy souls!!

I regret: No regrets in life!! What ever happens, happens for good

I hear: Sprinklers started its job at late night 11.30 pm.

Iam: Very simple in dressing...You can say or I say Iam bit lazy:-)

I dance: Before my son or alone when Srinivas(my husband) is not there!!

I sing: When ever I like..now this I do before Srinivas..because I too hear him;-))

I cry: When some thing bad happens to my near and dear.

I am not: A lier.

I write: After my post graduation notes, I write recipes now for my blog:-)

I confuse: Others, when I want to say more and end up confusing them.

I need : Peace all the time.

And now its time for me to tag.....Sailaja of sailu's kitchen and Arjuna of krishna & arjuna's world.

Ridge Gourd (Skin Pickle)

2006-09-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

Beerakaaya Thokku Pachadi, this is the name which can be give to this recipe in telugu, since it is made using Ridge Gourd skin :-) Yeah!!! don'nt want to believe..but its true. When I heard from my mother about this recipe, I said how it is possible?? But when I tasted this pickle I said WHY NOT?? This is very simple to make and can be served with dosa or along with chapathis or hot rice. This can be kept fresh upto 3 days if it is stored in the refrigerator. But I preffer to make it in small amount and finish it off the same day or maximum next day. Here I go with the recipe:-

Ingredients:
-----------------
Skin of 2 Ridge Gourd (peel the skin, wash in cold water and drain)
1 tsp cumin seeds
3 to 4 green chillies or 4 to 5 dry red chillies
small lemon size tamarind (chinthapandu--wash and soak in warm water)
1 tsp oil
salt as required

For Seasoning:
-------------------
4 to 5 curry leaves
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 to 3 tsp oil

Method:
------------

Heat the oil, add cumin seeds. Once they start spluttering, add ridge gourd skin and fry till becomes soft.
Now add green chillies and fry for two more minutes. Add soaked tamarind from above and remove from heat. Do not mix. Allow to cool down.
After it cools down, make the paste of above with required salt in a blender. Do not add water if possible( or little if required).
Make seasoning, add to the above paste. The pickel is ready:-))

Note: If green chillies are not available or like to use red chillies instead, first fry red chillies in little oil and keep aside. Add to the blender while making paste. In this chutney I used Dry red chillies since I did not had green chillies in store. It tasted great!! So go a head.....:-))

Soya With Fenugreek

2006-09-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

Soya Granules are another healthy yet tasty choice. Before I state actual recipe, I would like to give a brief information (though known to many) about Soya. I feel happy if this inforamtion is really helpful to even one reader. Soya is strongly recommended for diabetics, expectant mothers, growing children, cardiac patients , slimmers and the aged. Again Soya is rich in proteins and essential amino acids and it is 100% vegetarian. 52% of Nutrela i.e., soya granules is equallant to (22% of meat + 14% egg + 12% wheat +4%milk) . This information is mentioned on Nutrela box which I purchase. I prefered to mention this for its awareness. Soya absorbs the taste and flavour of whichever dish you add it to or whatever is added to it. Thus, it can be a good substitue for items like paneer, vegetables, meat, potatoes(which contain high carbohydrates) etc. It can be used in all kind of dishes indian, chinese, continental and sweet dishes.

To add soya in any dish:
------------------------------
Wash soya in warm water twice or thrice then soak them in warm water till it softens or pressure cook till one whistle. Again rinse once. Now soya is ready to add in any dish:-)

This dish I learned from my mother. It was very uncommon in my relatives till they tasted at our home. From then all most every body started liking it. I use Big soya granules in Methi Aloo dish instead off aloo(potato); Methi Soya dish; Palak Aloo instead of aloo soya; Tomato Soya ect., the list is long:-)) Here I come to the main recipe without any more delay:-

Ingredients:
----------------
2 bunches of Fenugreek Leaves( small methi leaves with out stems washed and kept aside to drain).
1 cup of Soya granules (fine soya granules as shown in above picture)
1 medium sized onion (cut into long thin slices)
1 tsp of ginger paste
1 tsp of garlic paste
1 to 2 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp of coriander powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
salt as required
2 to 3 tsp of oil

Method:
------------

Heat oil in large pan. Once oil get heated, add onions and fry till they turn light brown in color.
Add ginger and garlic paste and fry for a minute. Add turmeric powder and mix well.
Squeeze all the water from soya and add bit to bit in the pan. Mix well and fry for 2 min.
Now add methi and mix well with soya and put salt from above(do not mix now). Close the lid and allow to cook on medium heat till methi settles down.
Mix all the ingredients well. Now add other two spices..red chilli powder and coriender powder. Mix well and allow to cook on medium heat again for about 15 minutes.
See it should not be burnt. Don'nt add any water.

Note: This taste best with hot rice and also with chapathis. Due to fenugreek leaves you may taste little bitterness but loved by all those who love fenugreek leaves and ofcourse vegetables which taste bitter are always good for health :-))

'Hot' Aubergine Curry (Vankaaya Koora)

2006-09-03T16:23:00.000-07:00

Aubergines are one such vegetable which can be said as "Versatile". Here I mean , when they are cooked along with any other vegetables, it does'nt loose its flavour and easily "Adaptable". Here again I mean, it can be cooked with different vegetables. I felt this is the best way to explain Augbergines also called "Brinjal", also called "Egg plants" (which are called "Vankaayalu" in telugu "Baingan" in Hindi). Like its nature it has got many names in one language :-))Today I have choosen this recipe with Brinjal, because it itself is a main ingredient in this curry.Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients:
---------------
Augbergines 10 to 15 No's ("small Brinjals" cut them into small cubes)

1 large onion (cut the onions into thin slices)

3 to 4 garlic cloves (washed and grated thinely)

3/4 tsp fenugreek seeds

3/4 cumin seeds

1tsp moong dal

4 to 5 curry leaves

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp red chilli powder

salt as per taste

1 tbsp oil (or else restrict to 2 to 3 tsp as desired)

Method:

-----------

Cut the Augbergines into small cubes. Wash them, sprinkle with salt and keep aside for 1/2hr. By doing so, impurities in Brinjal will be cleared.
Heat the oil and add the fenugreek and cumin seeds. When they have started to crackel, add the oinion,garlic,lentils and curry leaves.
As soon as onions starts changing color add all the ground spices.
Until above ingredients cook a little, meanwhile rinse the Augbergines and pat dry.
Now add them to the pan, and allow to cook till they become tender.(Be careful that they are not over cooked and lose their shape)
This dish can be served hot or cold with rice or chapathis.

Note: Here Tomatoes can be used if you desire. But I did not choose here to get full flavour of Augbergines.

Mooli Paratha

2006-08-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

Mooli Paratha is one dish which I make very frequently. Though it needs little patience to make and time, it tastes great and also healthy breakfast or brunch or dinner as you like. Last time when I went to India , I learned this and a variety of dosa which Iam going to blog soon, from a good cook who was appointed for few days at my mothers' place.

Ingredients For Stuffing:

------------------------------------------

2Raddish (mooli) (grated and suqeeze water from it completely and keep aside)

1 tsp red chilli powder

1 tsp salt or as required

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp garam masala powder

1/2 tsp coriender powder

1 green chilli (cut into small pieces) optional

1 medium sized onion (cut into small pieces) optional

1/2 cup fresh coriender (washes and cut)

***Mix all above with grated and squeezed mooli and keep aside.

Ingredients for Dough:

------------------------------

2 cups wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt (optional or as required)

1/2 tsp cumin seedswater required for making dough

Method For Making Dough:

----------------------------------

Knead the dough with sufficient water not too hard nor too soft and keep aside for 1/2 hr.

This makes parathas fluffy and soft.Add some oil for in the dough, to knead it again to make soft rounds.

Make equal medium sized rounds as shown in beside picture.

Method For Making Parathas:

----------------------------------------------------------------

Take one round of kneaded dough and with the help of chapathi rolling pin (bellan) roll the dough into puri sized circle.Fill the stuff into the above flatten circle and close all ends with the help of little water as shown in beside picture.Repeat with all other rounds of dough.

Now take each filled round and flatten for the size of paratha. i.e., it should not be too thin that stuff comes out nor too thick that paratha does'nt cook well.

Heat a heavy griddle (thawa or penam), when hot cook the paratha on each side . Add little oil on top of each side and spread the oil.

Paratha should cook well on both the sides. Cook on medium heat to avoid burning or over cooked paratha. Before removing from heat , spread little oil to the side, which will be folded inside. Serve with fresh chilled curd or with any chutney.

Dry Mushroom Manchurian

2006-08-29T23:48:00.000-07:00

Today in the evening time I was yet to prepare for the dinner, I found white little Mushrooms in store. Thinking to prepare a gravy with Mushrooms, I remembered a crunchy snack, which we use to enjoy in "Shilparamam" an handicrafts mela held in Hyderabad at Hightech City every year or in a period of 6months. I just love to shop at this mela. I find every thing beautiful over there. Never missed till I was in Hyderabad. I hope next time my visit maches with it. Coming back to my recipe here it goes.

Ingredients:

----------------

1 cup White mushrooms (available in indian stores)

1tbsp corn flour

2 to 3 tsp chickpea flour(chenna besan)

1/2 tsp salt (or as desired)

1/2 tsp soya sauce

1/2 tsp veneger

3 to 4 green chillies (cut into very small pieces)

little water (as required)

oil for deep frying

For Garnish:

--------------

1 small lime (cut into small cubes)

1/2 onion (cut into thin wide slices)

Method:

----------

Wash mushrooms twice or thrice. Cut into half if big in size or else keep as it is.
Mix all other ingredients with mushrooms except oil. Check for salt and thickness. i.e., each mushroom should be well coated with the paste.
Allow to marinate for 1/2 hour.
Heat the oil and fry coated mushrooms till the color changes to dark brown. Even mushrooms should also cook. It should not be soft or wattery from in side and should be hard from out side.
Remove and allow to dry and absorb extra oil on a paper towel.
Once done, sprinkle some lime juice on them and mix well.
Serve hot with lime pieces and onion. Enjoy along with tea or just as a crunchy snack with tomato ketchup.

Vinaayaka Chathurthi

2006-08-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

Vinaayaka Chathurthi is one festival which is celebrated through out india and indians althrough the world for 11 days.Complete 10 days we pray to god, do pooja, preparing prasaadam etc, etc. I and Srinivas celebrate this festival very well every year.This year too, though took lot of time for preparations and pooja , it was all done very well.Iam happy to share all thease with all my readers and my other blogger friends. I wish this Chathurthi bring all good things and lots of peace and happiness to all of us.

I always prepare five items for this festival for NAIVEDYAM. This time I prepared Undraalu, Wadalu, Paayasam, Pesarpappu, Bellampayasam(Bellamannamu). This photograph was taken before we performed pooja to Lord Ganesha. I also offered some Navaddanayalu to him. Every thing we get to eat is, his gift to us. Thanks to all the cooks, who really gave a sence , good taste and different flavours to the food. Especially, indian food has got many shades in it. Shades here I mean just not the colors ;-). I mean taste, flavours and ofcourse colors too :-). I have seen photos and read about Chavithi in most of my fellow bloggers sites. They all really did a great job. Getting an idol and performing pooja is one side and making god idle with our hands is another greater side. That great work I have seen in one of my fellow blogger "Cooking Medley" . Its just not only pleasure to do but also great divine work.

Above photograph was taken after we did pooja. This time an indian grocery shop called "Cash 'n' Carry" in Bayarea has really imported beautiful idols. Thanks to them!! Also some books are kept before Lord Ganesha to bless us with great knowledge. I remember when I and my brother were in school we had to keep those books which are optional to carry to the school. And we use to make some excuse saying that, we kept the books before god and can'nt be removed till three or five days to the teachers, especially for the Maths text book. Since it use to weigh alot;-)) Now its time for the next generation to do all those tricks:-)) All thease are fun to remind and gives lot of happiness to us though for few minutes. I wish once again Happy Vinaayaka Chathurthi to all viewers!!!

Idli

2006-08-23T15:31:00.000-07:00

Idli is one among the best tiffins south indians ever have. Though it is liked by all our indians and now becoming world popular as our restaurants are exploring our food culture in different places of world. It is good for health, contains more carbohydrates which are needed for breakfast and easy to digest, since it is cooked on steam. It contains almost no oil. Idli is made almost same by every one except little variations. And that little variations makes lots of difference. Here I prepared Peanut Chutney from Lakshmi's Blog and Endu Kobbari Podi from Sailaja's Blog . I Like both very much. I prepare peanut chutney almost every time I prepare idli or dosa. Thank You Lakshmi!! also Endu kobbari podi is liked by us a lot.Thank You Sailaja. So for the break fast I have choosen thease two along with idli. Here goes the recipe of idli (my version).

Ingredients:

-----------------

3 cups boiled rice (I preffer ponni boiled rice)

1 1/2 cup Urad dal (Black Gram or Minnapa pappu)

Salt as required

Pinch Of Soda( Biocarbonate of Soda)

Required water

Method:

----------

Soak both boiled rice and urad dal overnight( I soak both togeather and 10 to 12 hrs).
Wash both boiled rice and urad dal in cold water for several times.
Grind them in 3 or 4 rounds, so that it becomes soft paste and grinder does'nt get heated up soon and delay in the process.Also if so done you require less water, which is good for idle batter to ferment.
After you grind completely mix the batter well for some time.
If it is winter, put the batter in oven (on warm) which allows the batter to ferment better.
Thus, allow the batter to ferment for 10 to 12 hrs.It will rise to the double the size of original batter.
Mix salt and soda to the batter very well.
Grease the idli plates with little oil and fill them with batter.
Do not fill much, because due to soda, idli will rise after cooking.
Steam for 15 minutes, and see wheather they are cooked before taking from the heat.

Note: I steam idlis in pressure cooker, which I do for 15 minutes and sim for 1 min and remove from the heat. The batter should ferment very well, to get fluffy and soft idli's. And use less water while grinding.

Baadam And Kaaju Ka Sharbhat(Dryfruit Drink)

2006-08-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

I came to know about JFI Event while going through Veneela's Blog. This event actually started by Indira of Mahanandi .Thank You Indira ,to start such a great event. And thanks to Veneela too for choosing "Milk and Milk Products " as september JFI#5 event. I was thinking what to make for this event. I came across almost all the sweets in all my fellow bloggers, though every one has there own richness and taste in it. Badam Milk or Badam Sharbath are very famous drinks. Based on that I got an idea of making a delicious drink with blend of dryfruits and milk.

Here is the recipe of this drink.

Ingredients:
----------------

1/2 cup of kaju and baadam powder (make powder of both fine or with little nuts left over i.e., crunchy mixture, as you can see in the above picture)
2 cups of 1% reduced fat milk or skimmed milk (as desired)
2 or 3 tsp sugar (as per taste)

Method:
-----------

Mix the paste and sugar in milk very well.
Serve this drink always chill, one to enjoy its rich flavour of dryfruits.

Note: Those who does'nt like the crunchy taste of dryfruits can make a fine powder of those.And can garnish with little dryfruits. Here You can also garnish with pistacho nuts. This drink is best when it is served after a hot day or after hot indian meal or any other meal.

Tofu Masala Curry

2006-08-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

This was my today's breakfast.Two pulkas,2 tomato slices with Tofu curry.Sounds healthy! Yeah :-) It is said that, always breakfast should be heavier than lunch and dinner.Lunch should be more than dinner in amount and dinner should be less or lighter than previous two.Always the breakfast should contain more carbohydrates to give a good kick for rest of the day.Breakfast like chapathis,parotha,idli or fruits always preferable.Here I gave chinese touch to the indian tofu curry, which can go well with chapathis and rice.Here comes the recipe.

Ingredients:
-----------------

1 lb firm tofu (sliced into small cubes)
3 meduim sized tomatoes (cut into long thin slices)
1 meduim size onion (cut into long thin slices)
1 capsicum (cut into thin slices)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp garam masala powder
2 to 3 green chillies (slit into long)
2 tsp red chilli powder (can decrease as per spice required)
1/4 tsp soya sauce
1 to 2 tsp corn flour
1 cup water
1 tsp turmeric powder
2 to 3 tsp oil
Salt as per required
1/2 cup coriander leaves

Method:
-----------

Heat oil in a pan add cumin seeds.Once they start spluttering add onions and fry till light brown.Before onions starts turning light brown add tofu and fry for till they also turn light brown on all sides.Then add capsicum and fry They should be little crunchy.
Now add all masalas one after the other.Ginger garlic paste,turmeric powder,red chilli powder,coriander powder,garam masala powder and salt.
Mix well all the ingredients and allow to cook to medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes.
Then add tomotoes and 1 cup of water, soysauce and mix well.Allow to cook on med heat untill tomatoes become soft.
Now to make gravy thick add corn flour as required i.e., 1 or 2 tsp.Not more than that. Because the flavour changes.
Finally add coriander and mix well and remove from the heat.

Note: Spices can vary , more or less a/c to your choice. Tofu is good for health if they are cooked as it is with out deep frying also taste good too.

Chole For Sunday(Chick pea Curry)

2006-08-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

Chole was our weekend special. This stood always our special dish. This goes well with Puri famous as Chole Batura or with chapathi and also with plain rice. This dishIused to prepare before by adding chole masala which we get from out side.But now to avoid that, I started adding masala from my kitchen. This tastes little different from the one in which chole masala is added. You can always add that when ever you want.But this is my my version of recipe.Hope you will all like this too:-)

Ingredients:
----------------
8oz or 1 cup chole (chick peas) (soak over night)
2 big tomotoes (cut into either small pieces or as long thin slices)
1 big oinion(cut into small pieces can be little thick to enjoy while chewing)
2 cloves (lavanga)
2 cinnamon sticks
2 elaichi
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp garam masala powder
1 tsp coriander powder
4 to 5 green chillies (slit in to long)
1 1/2 red chilli powder
1/2 cup coriander leaves(washed and cut)
2 tsp lime juice(optional)
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 cup water for gravy
oil 1tbsp
Salt as per the taste

ToGarnish:( This is for 1 or 2 persons )
--------------
1/2 tomato (cut into small pieces)
1/2 onion (cut into small pieces)
1/2 lime (cut into small pieces)

Method:
-----------

Wash soaked chick peas well and pressure cook till chick peas become soft , drain and keep aside.
Take a wide cooking pan. Heat oil and add cloves,sticks,elachi and cumin seeds and fry for 1 min.
Add green chillies, onions and fry till light brown. Add ginger garlic paste to it and fry for 1 min.
Add turmeric powder and chick peas , mix well and fry for 2 min.
Now add tomatoes,red chilli powder, salt and water for gravy and mix well.
Cover the pan and allow to cokk on meduim heat for 10 min.
Add coriander powder,garam masala powder and dry coriander and mix all the ingredients well.
Allow to cook for 2 or 3 min more, so that all spices mix well with chick peas.
Finally, add lime juice, mix well and sim for 1 min and remove from the heat.
Garnish with tomotoes,onions and some more coriander if want.

Note: Chole also best serve as a side dish or as a chaat. While you take this as chaat,add oinion and tomotoes above and add little lime juice and serve. You will love the dish:-)

Spicy Cauliflower Curry(Gobi Sabzi)

2006-08-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening , there was lack of time and I wanted to make some thing which takes less time and also goes well with chapathis. Usually, we take chapathis for dinner. And we like some thing dry and also can be taken with chapathis. Then I thought of making this simple, yet delicious and spicy curry i.e., Gobi Zabzi (or) Cauliflower Curry what ever name it is give in different languages, it has its own flavour. This time I prefered to present this recipe with more photographs, unlike I do. My request to all fellow bloggers and who ever view this recipe is, do tell me wheather a recipe with more photographs is good way to understand it or less photographs and in detail recipe is good. This will help me in presenting further recipes. Thank You!

Ingredients:

----------------

1 meduim size cauliflower
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds(jeera)
1/2 tsp Fennel seeds(usually, we take fennel seeds after lunch or dinner as a mouth freshener.This we also say saunf in telugu and sombu in tamil.
10 to 14 dry red chillies (crushed and a/c to your taste vary in your number)
1 tsp grated fresh ginger or 1tsp ginger garlic paste
1 meduim onion (cut into small pieces)
3/4 cup coriander (washed and cut into small)
1/2 tsp turmric powder

salt a/c to your taste.
1 tbsp oil (if you want less you can reduce 1 or 2 tsp)

Method
---------

Cut cauliflower into different florets. Boil cauliflower in water to its level, till it starts boiling. Remove from the heat once its start boiling because, if it boils more, then it produces some sort of smell, which does'nt taste well when cooked. Or else you can put cauliflower in hot water for some time. Then drain them and keep aside. Heat oil in a wok, add cumin ,fennel seeds and red chillies. Allow them to splutter.

After that add oinions and fry till they turn light brown. Now add grated ginger or ginger garlic paste and fry for 1 min. Add turmeric powder and Cauliflower. Stir well so that all spices mix well with cauliflower. Now add salt on top and cover the wok and allow to cook to medium heat for 5 min. See the ingredients should not burn. Here if you want some gravy with this add very little water like 1/4 cup not more than that.because already cauliflower is cooked. If it is not cooked , then add more water as per your ratio.

Now stir the contents well, so that salt mix well with them. Allow to cook on low heat for 2 or 3 min and add coriander and mix again. Once you see cauliflower is dry and all the spices mixed well, remove from heat. Here you can take one floret and taste, so that you can add salt if you want:-)

Note: This goes well with chapathis also serves best as a side dish. You can also enjoy with plain rice. This taste little sweet in depth, though it does'nt contain any sugar. That is due to fennel seeds.

Tofu Burji

2006-08-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

Tofu is a source of high protien.Especially firm Tofu contains more protien ratio than other forms of Tofu.This can be taken in any form and can be added into any of your dishes.This recipe Tofu Burji, i learned from my brother.He is also a good cook.I do take some tips about cooking from him apart from my mother and mother-in-law.I think men cook equally good as us.:-)

This dish is already common for many of us.This is my version of recipe.Hope you will all enjoy.In future I will add some more intresting and tasty recipes with Tofu.

Ingredients:
---------------

1lb firm tofu (remove excess water from it by pressing it firmly.
Crush the tofu and keep aside)
1cup peas (fresh peas boiled or frozen.Both washed properly)
1 cup fresh coriander (cut into small and washed)
1 - 1 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
6 to 7 green chillies(cut into small pieces)
1 medium onion (cut into small pieces)
1 or 2 meduim tomatoes(cut into small pieces)
2 or 3 tsp oil
salt a/c to taste

Method
----------

Take oil in a pan and heat for some time.Then add mustard seed.After they start spluttering,add cumin seeds and fry till they turn little brown.
Now add green chillies, fry for 1 min, then add onions and fry till they turn light brown in color.
Add ginger garlic paste to it fry for 1 or 2 minutes.Then add turmeric and fry for 1 min.
Now add crushed Tofu and peas and fry till Tofu turns light brown in color.Keep sttiring to avoid Tofu and other ingredients from burning.
Once it turns light brown, add red chilli powder,salt and mix well with ingredients.Should not add any water here.
Allow to cook on medium heat for another 2 to 3 minutes.
Now add tomatoes and mix well.Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes.
Finally, add coriander and little lime juice which is optional.
Cover it and keep on low heat for 2 minutes and stop.

Note: The final result of recipe should be dry, which taste better with fried rice and chapathis.Can also have with plain rice, which we can give to children and equally healthy.
Reduce tomatoes to 1 instead of 2, if you want its taste to be less in the curry.

Sabuddaana Upma

2006-08-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

I would like to convey my Happy regards on Independence Day.Happy Independence Day to all the Indians around the world.Indian flag has three main colors in it.Saffron,Green,White and Blue Chakra.All has some meaning.Chakra has 24 spokes, which intends to show that there is life in movement and death in stagnation. The saffron stands for courage and sacrifice; the white, for purity and truth; the green for growth and auspiciousness.

On this eve, my recipe is Sabuddana Upma. I love this recipe which is from my mother's cook book .(Here I tried to bring our nation's pride by using colors from our flag in this recipe text and some can find in the pictures too :-))

Ingredients
---------------
2 cups of Sabuddana
1 meduim onion(cut into small pieces)
6 to 7 green chillies (make a cut in th middle of each one or else into small pieces)
1 stem curry leaves
1 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
1 tsp mustard seeds(avaalu)
2 meduim sized potatoes
2 tsp lime juice (optional) or 2tsp groundnut powder (optional)
3/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp ginger grated or 1 tsp ginger garlic paste (a/c to your choice)
1/1 tbsp coriander(cut and washed)
2 to 3 tsp of oil
salt (as required)

Method
--------------

Wash Sabuddana 2 to 3 times.Fill water upto its Sabuddana level or little less and soak for over night.
Boil potatoes , peel them and cut into small cubes and keep aside.
Heat the oil in a wok, add mustard seeds and fry until they begin to splutter.
Now add cumin seeds and fry for few seconds, then add green chillies,curry leaves and fry for a minute or two.
Now add onions and gingergarlic paste and fry till onions turn light brown in color.
Now add boiled potatoes,sabuddana and turmeric powder and salt.
Mix all the ingredients well on medium heat.Once mixed well add lime juice or peanut powder and coriander.Mix well and keep on low heat for a minute.
Stop and remove wok and keep aside( other wise it will start forming lumps)
Serve hot and enjoy as a break fast (or) as a light dinner (or) on a cold wheather day:-)

Note: Here peanutpowder is optional.If you use it roast peanuts first and remove the skin then powder them in a blender.This adds little sweetness to the dish. If peanut powder is used donot use lime juice.Use any one of them.

Aloo Kurma

2006-08-04T22:49:00.000-07:00

Today, since its a weekend(Happy friday), I thought of making some thing apart from rice and enjoy it along with a movie.So, I made Aloo kurma and Puri, which are easy and does'nt need any prior preparations.We were watching "Bombay to Goa" movie.yeah! It's an Amithab Bhachan movie.We were wordering, seeing him so young and thin and tall.It seems after this movie only he got his first break as full fleged hero in "Zanzeer".It is always pleasant to watch old movies.Haa..now coming back to my recipe "Aloo kurma", here is the preparation.

Ingredients
-----------
3 potatoes (peeled, cut into small cubes and washed)
1/2 cup frozen or fresh peas(fresh need to be boiled separately, to avoid delay while cooking)
1 small size onion (cut into thin slices)
3 Tomatoes (cut into thin slices)
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp kuskus (gasagasalu)
1 tsp fresh coconut powder
1 tsp coriander powder( dhaniya powder)
1/4 tsp Garam masala
1/2 cup fresh coriander (washed and cut into small)
Salt as required
Oil as required

Method
------
1. Heat oil in a container for few seconds then add onions and fry till light brown in color.
2. Add peas,potatoes and fry for some time.Add ginger garlic paste and turmeric to it and fry for few more minutes.
3. Add tomatoes and salt and allow to cook on medium heat till potatoes become little tender.
4.Now add red chilli powder,coriander powder,garam masala powder and little water if needed and cook for some time till all spices mixed well with other ingredients.
5.Now finally add coconut powder,kuskus and fresh coriander and cook for some more time.
6.Finally you can add some lemon juice(1/2 tsp) which is optional.

Goes well with puri (also with rice and chapathis).

Kaaram (also know as "Errakaaram")

2006-08-02T22:08:00.000-07:00

This is my first recipe in the blog.The reason behind choosing this as my first recipe here is, its simplicity,its unique and easy to make and enjoy with many dishes like, idly,dosa,wada also with chapathis(This can be applied on chapathis as a paste and can enjoy as a chapathi roll, which I do generally.)This recipe I took from my mother-in-law's cookbook.Hope you will all like and enjoy it too.On that day we enjoyed with wada as you can see in the picture above.

Main recipe
-----------

Ingredients used:
-------------------
10 to 12 dry red chillies(endu nirapakayalu)
1/2 the size of small lime tamarind(chinthapandu)(washed and Soaked in small amount of warm water for few minutes)
2 tsp chenna besan (thine chenagapappu pindi)
1 tsp fresh or dry coconut powder(kobbari podi)
1/2 onion cut in into thick cubes
Salt (as required)
Water (as required)

For Seasoning
-------------
1/2 tsp mustard seeds(or as required)
1/4 tsp cumin seeds(optional)
5 to 6 curry leaves
required oil for seasoning(use very little,not much required for this recipe)

Method
------
1. Roast red chillies for 2 to 3 min in low heat(pachi vasana raakunda)
2. Wait to cool down
3. Add coconut powder,chenna besan,onion,tamarind (along with soaked water)and salt to the redchillies in a blender(or grinder what ever you choose to use).
4. Make a fine paste of all above ingredients by adding more water if you want it to be thin paste or else ramarind soaked water will be enough.
5.Finally add the seasoning to this paste.

Note: Number of red chillies can be vary according to your taste.That is if you want more spicy , increase the number or else decrease by one or two, which will do.

About me and my family

2006-05-12T16:14:00.000-07:00

U Can see my son .His name is Revanth Kandlakuti. He is the reason behind my interest in cooking now a days.How??? he is growing up fast so i need to learn and experiment lots of food and prepare for him.......hmmm .Yummy!!! My idea is not let him get habituated to fast food.i want to give him healthy,tasty and home food.
Another reason is, i was looking to other bloggers from long time like mahanandi,myrasoi,krishnaarjun etc.I really appreciate them for there work.They are also one of the reason behind my inspiration.Thank you to all of them.I hope you will all like my recipes too.

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We went to 17 miles drive some time ago.It was a good ride.Iam adding some of photographs of the nature.Hope you will all enjoy them.This is one trip which is compulsory we go with all our guests and friends.Its in california.Have a look at them.