Samaithu paarkalaam

Happy Pongal One and All!

2010-01-14T09:00:00.002-05:00

Pongal... Arguably the most important festival in Tamilnadu. This is a day to be thankful for all that we have. We remember all of the people who are involved in the process of our rice production, as rice is the staple of our food. It also marks the first day of Thai month, in Tamil. This is the start of all things positive and auspicious.

I am hopeful that this will be a turning point for me as well. See, 2009 was definitely a memorable year for me... It was the year that I had 2 surgeries which I am still recovering from (Yes, that's why I've been so quiet!). It's also the year that my mother-in-law finally came to visit us. And the year that we found out about my sister-in-law's pregnancy (soooo exciting!!). On top of all that, it's the year we were able to buy a house. So, although the year has had a lot of negatives, there were definitely some great highlights.

Here's hoping that happiness, health and prosperity will overflow to all on this Pongal (literally means "to overflow" in Tamil). For my Tamil friends out there, a small greeting from the internet for you to read:

Happy Pongal!

Mango Mousse Tarts

2009-06-30T20:09:00.000-04:00

Mango mousse... How I do love it!! I've had multiple different versions of it in the past. Some were fluffy like whipped cream, and used as a cake filling. Others were firm, but so creamy and delicious! I've found that most recipes use mango pulp and cream for either version... I then thought, "How can I make this less of a guilty pleasure?"

I rummaged around in the fridge and spotted the container of Stonyfield Oikos yogurt sitting in there. Oikos is Stonyfield's new nonfat Greek yogurt. I know, I know. Some of you are thinking, "How on earth can nonfat yogurt taste good?" Well, throw your fears out the window! I am not the type to preach about any particular product, but this one really surpassed my expectations. It tastes rich and creamy and is not sour at all. Perfect to help satisfy my craving for mango mousse!

So, I used a ripe mango I had sitting around to make fresh mango pulp. Then, sweetened it a touch, added the yogurt and milk. The whole thing was stabilized with gelatin. I couldn't resist adding a crust flavored with almonds and amaretti cookies (Italian almond flavored cookies) to give it more of a cold tart feel. The end result was way more than satisfactory... It was totally awesome!!!

Ingredients:

Crust:

Crushed amaretti cookies - 4 tbsp (can substitute with 2 tbsp almond flour and 2 tbsp all purpose flour)
Almonds, powdered - 2 tbsp
All purpose flour - 1 1/2 tbsp
Melted butter - 1 tbsp

Filling:

Mango pulp (from fresh mangoes) - 1 cup (if using canned pulp, decrease sugar!)
Sugar - 3 tbsp
Nonfat Greek yogurt (I used Oikos) - 1/2 cup
Milk (or cream) - 1/2 cup
Gelatin - 1 packet of powdered gelatin
Water (to dissolve gelatin) - 1/4 cup

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.

2. Combine all the crust ingredients and press into 4 ramekins. The ramekins I used were 5 oz size. Bake the crust for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges. Remove from oven and cool on a rack. The crust may seem a little soft on removal from the oven, but will harden on cooling.

3. Mix together the mango pulp, yogurt, milk or cream, and sugar in a medium bowl. Keep aside.

4. Now, mix the gelatin powder and water in a saucepan. Allow to soak for 5 minutes. Then, turn the stove on to low and stir continuously until the gelatin melts. Remove from the heat.

5. Add the gelatin mixture to the mango mixture whle stirring continuously. Continue stirring for 1-2 minutes to combine everything well and ensure that no lumps remain.

6. Pour the filling mixture into the cooled ramekins (that have the already baked crusts), dividing evenly.

7. Cover the ramekins with plastic wrap and place into the refrigerator for 4 hours to overnight for firm up.

Enjoy these as is or garnished with some freshly cut ripe mangoes and give into temptation...!

Absolutely Off the Hook Brownies

2009-06-24T23:08:00.001-04:00

I remember the first few times I made brownies. I must have been 10 or 11 years old and I was using a box brownie mix from the grocery store. I'd already been regularly baking cakes so I felt pretty confident that I would be able to do this without a problem. I followed the box directions to mix up the batter and put it into the oven as stated on the box. Then, I checked the brownies to see if they were done at the given time. I thought it made perfect sense to test them using a toothpick as I had done for cakes. Well, the toothpick didn't come out clean when inserted into the brownies. So, I continued baking them until the toothpick finally came out clean.

If you've had any experience with brownies, you might know how they turned out. After they cooled down, those brownies could have been used as hockey pucks! Yes, that's how hard they were... I quickly learned that it's more about the baking time and not necessarily about how done they look.

On top of all this comes the eternal debate of what type of brownies you like. Fudgy or cake-like? Semisweet or dark? With nuts or without? Do you like any additional flavorings? It goes on and on.

Well, these brownies are from a tried and true recipe from the King Arthur Flour website. They are fudgy, but not gooey. They are not quite cake-like, but form a nice compromise. There's also a nice kick from some added espresso powder. No, they don't really taste like coffee, but the coffee actually intensifies the chocolate flavor. As for nuts? Not this time for me. Chocolate chips? Any way to add more chocolate is always great for me!

In a nutshell, these brownies are rich and chocolaty enough to satisfy the die-hard chocoholic. At the same time, it's hard to restrain yourself from eating just one! If you're fortunate enough to have leftovers, they actually get even better after a day or 2!

Ingredients:

Unsalted butter - 1/2 cup (1 stick)
Sugar - 3/4 cup (for mildly sweet)
Eggs - 2
Dutch process cocoa powder - 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Espresso powder - 1/2 tsp (or coffee powder 1 tsp)
Vanilla extract - 2 tsp
All purpose flour - 3/4 cup
Chocolate chips (semisweet or bittersweet) - 1 cup

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour an 8 x 8 pan or line it with parchment paper that's lightly greased. I find it easiest to cut the parchment so that it sits flat on the bottom, but has long sides that extend beyond the height of the pan. This way, you can use the parchment to lift the brownies out.

2. Place the butter in a microwave safe medium bowl and melt in the microwave.

3. Now, add the sugar and mix into the butter. Place in the microwave and heat it for about 15 seconds to slightly melt the sugar. Whisk the mixture together well.

4. At this point, add in the salt, espresso powder, baking powder, cocoa powder and eggs. Whisk until combined.

5. Lastly, add the flour and chocolate chips. Mix until fairly well combined. Pour into prepared baking pan.

6. Bake at 350 F for 25 to 30 minutes until the edges of the brownies pull slightly from the pan. Insert a toothpick and you should get just a few moist crumbs remaining on the toothpick.

7. Now, place the pan on a cooling rack. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes (if you have the parchment paper lined as above stated) and then remove from the pan. Otherwise, cool completely in the pan. Once fully cooled (by either method), cut into pieces and enjoy!

The second picture is off to the June edition of CLICK at the Jugalbandi blog, where the theme is "stacks." Click here for more information.

Pudhina Kadalai Chutney

2009-06-19T19:30:00.000-04:00

I remember one day, not too long after marriage, when my husband and I were eating breakfast at my parents' house. We were eating idlis and hubby started talking about "palli chutney." Now, if you speak Tamil, you shouldn't have a problem understanding why I had an absolutely shocked and disgusted expression on my face.

See, palli in Tamil means a gecko... It's one of those little green lizard-like creatures that crawls on the walls and makes noise in India. So, when hubby mentioned "palli chutney", I was inferring that someone must have gotten the brilliant idea to turn these creatures into a chutney. If that wasn't disgusting enough, people would actually eat this stuff??!!

Turns out, he had been exposed to it via an Andhraite friend of his. The name was apparently in Telugu and means peanut chutney! Of course he just sat there and enjoyed the facial contortions from my mother and myself. After taking his sweet time, he finally explained what he meant. First, a sigh of relief and then I spent a while trying to chase him down to smack him. Men!! Anyone else have antics like this going on??

What's all the buildup about? Well, I had some mint lying around in the fridge and wanted to make it into a chutney. So, I thought, why not combine it with peanuts and see how it comes out? It's really good and hubby simply loves it!

Ingredients:

Peanuts - 1/2 cup, roasted
Mint leaves - 1 cup, loosely packed
Garlic - 2 cloves, roughly chopped
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Tamarind - small almond size
Red chillies - 6-8, or to taste
Salt to taste
Oil as needed

Seasoning:

Oil - 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 6-8 leaves

Method:

1. Heat a little bit of oil in a pan. Once hot, add the red chillies, urad dal, tamarind, and garlic. Fry until the chillies darken slightly and the garlic starts to turn slightly golden at the edges.

2. Now, add the mint leaves and fry until the leaves wilt and shrink down.

3. Cool the mixture and grind to smooth paste along with the roasted peanuts and water as required to achieve a chutney consistency.

4. Heat oil for seasoning. Add the seasoning ingredients, allow to splutter and pour over the prepared chutney. Serve with idli, dosai, etc.

So, what did we think? Well, this is like peanut chutney with a kiss of mint to it. Extremely light and refreshing. We had it with dosai, but it would be great with tiffin items. Enjoy!

Mango Cake

2009-06-15T19:00:00.001-04:00

Have you ever finished cutting up a mango and started eating the flesh off of the seed? For me, that's one of the ultimate joys of buying mangoes. I have the immense pleasure of enjoying the flesh around the seed.

Well, the other day, I found myself sucking on the mango seed while standing over the sink. Mango juice was dribbling down my arm and I was suddenly transported to being in India. I remember being at my Mama's house (my maternal uncle's house) when I was a child. There were a couple of mango trees literally right outside of the house. We went during mango season and were rewarded with delicious ripe mangoes right off of the tree... Who needed food when there were such delicious mangoes to eat? All of us little cousins were sitting around and slurping on mangoes with the juice dribbling down our arms without a care in the world... Somehow, time had passed, but there is little else that measures to the joy of eating a mango with the juice running down your arms. *sigh*

On the day I was mentioning, I looked into the box of mangoes and realized that a couple of them were really getting overripe. So, I thought, why not turn it into a cake? Good idea!

This cake has mango flavor, but I find that cooking mangoes can sometimes result in a less pronounced mango flavor. That being said, the cake itself is extremely moist and a real delight. The mango puree helps to keep the cake so moist. The added bonus is that the cake is also relatively lowfat.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 1 cup
White whole wheat flour (or all purpose) - 1 cup
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp, or to taste
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Mango puree, fresh or canned - 1.5 cups
Butter, softened - 4 tbsp
Eggs, room temperature - 2

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, like whipped cream. Meanwhile, sift the dry ingredients (flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom powder) together in another bowl and keep aside.

3. Now, add the eggs and combine well.

4. Once the eggs are incorporated, add 1/2 cup of the mango puree. Combine and then add about 1/2 of the dry ingredients. Again, combine, add another 1/2 cup of the mango puree. Mix in, then add the rest of the dry ingredients and incorporate. Finally, fold in the last of the mango puree.

5. Butter and flour a 10 inch bundt or tube pan. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 350 F for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

6. Remove from oven and cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then, remove and cool completely before slicing and serving. Enjoy!

Note: If you don't have a bundt pan, you can use a standard loaf pan, but the baking time will change.

Update: I'm sending this cake to Srivalli, of Cooking 4 all Seasons, for her Mango Mela. Click here for more information.

Small Onion- Tomato Chutney

2009-06-04T11:00:00.002-04:00

My mother would be laughing hysterically on seeing this post. Why, you ask? Well, the thing is she used to make a version of this chutney quite often when I was young. Of course, I'd start throwing a tantrum saying how much I disliked it and refused to eat it. Poor thing... When I think of all she's put up with from me, all I can say is that Amma is a saint!

Like most people, my tastes seem to have changed as I've grown older. So, today, I decided to make this chutney Amma used to make with a few of my own changes. The original recipe is well over 50 years old in my family. It starts with small onions cooked in a base of tomatoes and is seasoned with fennel and chilli powder. Really, that's it. So simple, right? Yet, it's made by my relatives every morning for idli/dosai.

I decided to change it up and add a little bit of garlic. Also, my tomatoes didn't have much flavor, so I wound up adding a touch of tamarind for a hint of sourness. Can I pat myself on the back, here? The chutney came out awesome!! I think Amma would be both proud and royally surprised.

Ingredients:

Small onions/sambar onions/shallots, peeled - 1/2 cup
Garlic - 2 cloves, chopped finely
Tomatoes - 2 plum tomatoes, finely ground (about 1 cup)
Tamarind (only if tomatoes are not sour)- small almond sized piece, ground with the tomatoes
Chilli powder - 1 1/2 tsp, or to taste
Fennel powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt to taste

Seasoning:

Oil - 1 tbsp; recommended: sesame oil (nallenai)
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dal - 3/4 tsp
Curry leaves - 6-8 leaves

Method:

1. Heat oil. When hot, add the seasoning ingredients. Allow to splutter and the dal to turn golden brown.

2. Now, add in the small onions and fry until slightly softened. It's ok if they turn a little brown at the edges. In fact, it tastes better that way!

3. At this point, add the garlic and fry for 30 seconds or so, until fragrant. Don't brown it or the garlic will become bitter!

4. Pour the pureed tamarind and tomatoes into the pot along with chilli powder, fennel powder and required salt.

5. Add about 1/2 cup of water, cover and let cook on medium low until slightly thickened. The raw tomato smell should have gone and the onions should be fully cooked.

6. Next? Turn the stove off and enjoy with idlis or dosai!

Kitchen Sink Cookies

2009-06-02T14:15:00.001-04:00

Man, it's been such a long time since I wrote a real post... I think that with everything that has been going on in my life, the last thing I wanted to do was cook at all. For me, that's really saying a lot! I'm the type of person who finds cooking and baking to be extremely relaxing and therapeutic. Well, I finally started to feel a bit of motivation to bake again.

I actually made an almond cake last week, but it sort of cracked coming out of the pan and was quickly devoured, so I never took pictures. And now, I made these delicious cookies. I call them kitchen sink cookies because they contain everything but the kitchen sink! I guess I was feeling a bit gluttonous, but they turned out so good. These cookies are chock full of oats, chocolate chips, coconut, walnuts and raisins. Mmm... Just heaven in every bite!

Ingredients:

Butter - 1 cup, softened to room temperature
Brown sugar - 3/4 cup, firmly packed
Cane sugar - 1/2 cup (Feel free to use regular sugar instead. Use 3/4 cup for sweet cookies)
Eggs - 2, at room temperature
Baking Powder - 2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Vanilla extract - 1 tbsp
Milk - 1 tbsp
White whole wheat flour (or all purpose flour) - 1 1/2 cups
All purpose flour - 3/4 cup
Rolled oats (regular or quick cooking) - 2 cups
Semisweet chocolate chips - 1 cup
Raisins - 3/4 cup
Walnuts, chopped - 3/4 cup toasted for 5 minutes at 350 F (until golden)
Sweetened shredded coconut - 3/4 cup toasted for 5-7 minutes at 350 F (until golden)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.

2. Beat butter and sugars in stand mixer or using hand mixer until soft and fluffy like whipped cream.

3. Add eggs, milk, and vanilla. Beat to combine well.

4. Now, add in the flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir together by hand or on slow speed in stand mixer until just combined. Do not overmix or you risk getting tough cookies.

5. At this point, stir in the oats, chocolate chips, raisins, toasted walnuts, and toasted coconut gently to combine.

6. Drop onto cookie sheets by heaped tablespoons or by using a tablespoon sized scoop (My favorite tool!). Bake at 375 F for 8-10 minutes until the cookies are light golden at the edges and are just set. They will not appear fully cooked, but it's fine. This will result in chewy cookies. For crisper cookies, bake for an additional 1-2 minutes, but be careful not to burn them! Keep in mind that this batter is meant for chewy cookies...

7. Remove from oven and allow to cool on cookie sheet for 1 minute. Then, remove to a cooling rack and cool fully.

Enjoy with a tall glass of milk or on their own. Kids will love these too (especially if they like chocolate and raisins).

Update: I'm sending these cookies in to Mansi, of Fun and Food. She's hosting Sugar High Fridays where the theme is Fruit and Nuts. Click here for more info!

It's been a long hiatus...

2009-05-22T13:06:00.003-04:00

I know that this post is really long overdue. I have really missed blogging, but just have not been able to commit to it for many reasons. A lot has happened since the start of the year.

First, I was sick again and it went on for a few months. Eventually, I wound up needing surgery and am still somewhat recovering from that. In the sense that I'm not in pain, but still don't really feel like myself.

On top of all of this, my dear sweet amayee (mother's mother) passed away from this earth 1 month ago. I don't know whether to call it bad luck, lousy timing or what that didn't allow me to spend time with her the way I wanted. That is probably the biggest disadvantage to living so far... I was not able to visit her and she was not in any condition to make a trip here.

Amayee was the strongest woman I'd ever known. She was barely educated, couldn't read, write or tell time. She grew up in a small village and that was really all she knew. She married her maternal uncle and had 6 children, one of whom died very young. Amayee lost her husband at a young age and was left with 5 little children that ranged in ages from 12 to one year old. Yet, she didn't fold. She stayed in her house and fought to raise those children, despite never being exposed to the outside world. There were nights when she went to bed hungry, but she had to keep going to make a life for her kids.

Eventually, they grew up and her son got married and had 4 children of his own. She had the indescribable grief of seeing her son pass away 13 years after his marriage. Seeing her daughter-in-law widowed just as Amayee had been all those years ago killed her. So, she tried to be a source of strength to them for as long as she could.

Over the past few years, Amayee had become ill and was not able to take care of herself anymore. That is a type of torture that no one should have to undergo. Through everything, she was always concerned about everyone else's well being and always showered us with her blessings.

I will always treasure the sweet moments we had together, although they were few and far between. Amayee continues to live on in our hearts and is dearly missed...

I hope to resume blogging soon, as I find it to be so therapeutic. Miss you all and thanks so much for the kind messages and emails.

Here's to a New Year and a Fresh Start!

2008-12-31T22:04:00.003-05:00

This year has definitely been one of ups and downs for me, as most of you know. The year started on a low note and proceeded to oscillate between ok times and bad times. Through it all, I feel I've grown stronger as a person. I've learned so much about life and myself through blogging. I was also able to re-connect with a lot of old friends who I haven't been able to talk to in a very long time.

I participated in the arusuvai chain in the US, won the first round of the open sesame contest (created by Dhivi and Siri), and enjoyed participating in many blog events. Along the way, I've discovered many new bloggers and am constantly inspired by all of you.

I introduced the blog to family members and have even gotten marks of approval on many of my recipes! What more validation could a blogger want, right? I'm glad that they are also able to share this side of me and look forward to creating more recipes from their input, too.

2008 was overall a trying, but inspiring year for me and I am looking forward to a much better 2009! I would like to thank all of you for sharing in the good and bad times I've had this year. I look forward to blogging more and learning more from each of your blogs.

I wish each and every one of the readers of Samaithu Paarkalaam a very happy, healthy, and prosperous new year 2009!

And now, a small greeting from me to you...

Crazy for Cookies!

2008-12-18T19:44:00.000-05:00

So, I've been on a bit of a baking spree for the past few days... Blame it on the upcoming holidays and having to mail things out to people! Guess it's pretty obvious that I've baked a bunch of cookies and want to share the recipes here.

Benne Biscuit:

This is one that my husband and sister-in-law were telling me about. Apparently, it's a butter biscuit that they used to love eating in Bangalore. So, I looked up a recipe and decided to try it. The results were delicious!! Original recipe can be found here. I didn't make any changes to the recipe and they came out awesome!

Eggless Chocolate Oat Cookies:

This one was a special recipe that I found to send to my cousin's kids. Her two little ones have eczema and can't have dairy or eggs. What to send? Well, I didn't have to look far for this one. Sailu's blog came to my rescue with this recipe. The cookies were slightly chewy when warm and turned crisp on cooling. They had a nice chocolatey flavor and the oats texture really shined through. Perfect treat for little ones! No changes to this recipe either. Sailu's instructions were perfect!

Gingersnaps:

These are the perfect all-American holiday cookie... A little spicy, a little sweet and crispy. They keep forever (if you can hold on to them for that long!) and are perfect for dunking in tea or hot apple cider. The following recipe is from my King Arthur Flour cookbook.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 1 1/3 cup
White whole wheat (or all purpose) - 1 cup
Dried ginger powder - 2 tsp
Cinnamon - 1 tsp
Cloves powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Baking soda - 2 tsp
Butter - 3/4 cup, softened
Sugar - 2/3 cup (1 cup for more sweet cookies)
Egg - 1 large
Molasses - 1/3 cup

Coarse sugar to roll cookies in - about 1/3 cup

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

2. Sift or whisk together the dry ingredients (flours, spices, salt, and baking soda) in a small bowl. In another larger bowl, beat together the butter, sugar and egg until light and fluffy (like whipped cream). Now, beat in the molasses until well combined. At this point, add in the dry ingredients and stir together to form a soft dough.

3. Now, take 1-2 tsp of dough for each cookie, form into a ball and roll each ball into the coarse sugar to coat. Place about 2 inches apart on the greased or lined cookie sheets.

4. Bake at 375 F for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. They will appear soft when you remove them from the oven, but will harden on cooling. Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes, then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy with beverage of your choice!

In honor of the events going on in the blogosphere, the first 2 cookies are going to Sharmi's cookie event as well as JZ's Santa's Holiday Challenge.

Gingersnaps are headed to the monthly mingle at Meeta's blog!

And with that, my friends, am going on vacation and will be back in 10 days or so. Hope everyone has a great rest of the year!

Baby Turns One!

2008-12-12T12:40:00.001-05:00

My baby (I mean, my blog) is one year old already! I really cannot believe that it's been a whole year since I started my blog. Time really flies. I remember not having any idea of how to start and what to post... I started visiting blogs that I'd seen from before starting my own blog. Slowly, ideas began coming to me. I've learned so much through blogging!

I've found that I have grown tremendously as a person in this past year. I have found an outlet for something that I truly love. I am able to express myself in a completely unique way via blogging. I love cooking, baking and sharing. This blog has been a perfect vehicle for all of those things. In addition, I've learned a little bit about recipe writing and photography (OK, very little).

I am also thankful for all of the amazing souls I have "met" virtually through blogging. Dear friends who didn't know I existed a year ago have been so kind, sweet, encouraging, and supportive in good times and during rough patches. I am truly grateful for each and every interaction we've had and look forward to deepening friendships and new friendships in the coming year.

As always, I am open to any comments/suggestions as to how you think this blog could be improved or for any specific post requests. Once again, thank you all and let's get the party started!

I thought it would be best to celebrate with the fruits of the season. So, I made an apple cake to share with you all. This cake (adapted from my King Arthur Flour baking book) is perfect for snacking or can easily be dressed up for a simple, elegant dessert. Sweet apples are complemented by raisins, dried cranberries, and spices. The result is sheer bliss without much effort on your part!

Apple Cake (yields 16 pieces):

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour - 1/2 cup
All purpose flour - 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp
Sugar - 1/4 cup (for mildly sweet; can increase to 1/3 cup for sweeter)
Brown sugar - 1/2 cup
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 3/8 tsp
Cinnamon powder - 1 tsp
Allspice - 1/4 tsp
Nutmeg - 1/4 tsp
Softened butter - 4 tbsp
Crystallized ginger or fresh ginger (optional) - 1 1/2 tbsp, minced finely
Apples - 2 cups, peeled and chopped
Raisins - 1/4 cup
Dried cranberries - 1/4 cup
Egg - 1

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 325 F. Line an 8 inch square baking pan with greased parchment paper or grease and flour the pan.

2. Whisk the dry ingredients (flours, salt, sugars, baking soda, and spices) together. Cut the butter into pieces and add it along with the apples, ginger, raisins, cranberries, and the egg. Beat at medium speed until well blended. Note: The batter may seem a bit thick, but it's ok!

3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Smooth the top and bake at 325 F for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely, slice, and serve!

We had ours plain (mine with whipped cream) with tea or coffee. So moist and flavorful with spices. Juicy bursts of raisins and cranberries throughout made it the perfect cake for the season! I think that a cream cheese frosting would be delicious on it, too. This is one that I will definitely be making again. Hope you enjoyed my celebration and here's to another wonderful year of blogging!

Update: I'm sending this in to JZ's Santa's Holiday Challenge event.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

2008-11-29T18:17:00.006-05:00

I'm not sure how many of you have seen Sesame Street (the kids show). Well, cookie monster is a character on the show who is obsessed with cookies. Every time he sees a cookie, he becomes a little crazy and proceeds to devour it with such enthusiasm, it's hilarious! No idea what I'm talking about? To see Cookie Monster in action, click here.

So, what does Cookie Monster have to do with this post? Well, these peanut butter chocolate chip cookies could very easily turn you into a cookie monster who wants to devour them all in one sitting!!

I have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe that I've used for years. I don't know about you, but I am a die hard fan of the soft and chewy type of chocolate chip cookie. Just the thought of them makes me drool!! One fine day (many years ago), I decided to see what would happen to my favorite cookie recipe by adding a bit of peanut butter. Well, after some experimentation, I think I got to the right level of peanutty goodness to compliment the chocolate chips. And, viola! A new cookie favorite was born!

The recipe I've used is based on a recipe from my Pillsbury Complete Book of Baking book.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 4 1/4 cups
Baking soda - 2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Butter - 1 1/2 cups, softened
Brown Sugar - 1 1/2 cups, firmly packed
White Sugar - 3/4 cup (increase to 1 cup for more sweet)
Vanilla Extract - 2 tsp
Eggs - 3
Peanut Butter - 1 cup (I used creamy)
Chocolate chips - 1 (12oz) bag of semisweet or bittersweet chips

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F.

2. Using a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat the butter with both sugars until light and fluffy. It will look sort of like lemon colored whipped cream at this stage.

3. Add vanilla extract, eggs, and peanut butter. Blend well to combine.

4. Now, mix in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Once everything is well mixed, toss the chocolate chips in and stir to combine.

5. Drop the dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Note: I find this easiest to do with a tablespoon sized scoop.

6. Bake at 375 F for 8-10 minutes until barely light golden brown. They will feel soft and mushy if you try to touch them, but will firm up on cooling! If you continue to bake them until they appear firm, they will not be chewy after you've cooled them.

7. Cool on the pan for 2 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely. Enjoy with a glass of cold milk. :)

Seeing as how chocolate chip cookies are the quintessential American cookie, I'm sending these delectable morsels to Dhivi at Culinary Bazaar for AWED American. Hope all my friends in the US had a wonderful Thanksgiving! :)

One long acceptance speech!!

2008-11-12T15:51:00.006-05:00

Well, as part of getting back into the swing of things (sort of!), I realized that I had received so many awards during my break that I never posted about. So, please bear with me as I thank everyone who has been so kind as to pass me awards!

1. The Blogging with a Purpose Award

This award was passed to me by Cham, JZ, and Veda. Thank you all so much! I am truly honored and will wear this on my blog with pride.

I'd like to pass this on to Indosungod, Uma, Sig, and Maheshwari. Enjoy, ladies!

2. The Yummy Blog Award and Yum-Yum Blog Award:

This award was passed to me of Sailaja of Sailaja's Recipes. Thank you!

Yum-yum blog was passed to me by Amrutha of The Chef in Me. I am so flattered!! Thanks!

I'm passing both the yummy blog award and the yum-yum blog award to Lavi, Dhivi, Cham, and Uma. Congratulations, ladies!

3. Rockin Girl Blogger

This one was awarded to me of Maheshwari and is definitely an honor to receive this from a blogger that I've admired since long before starting my own blog. Thank you so much!! I think that most of you have received this already, so I pass it on to all of you dear girls who rock!

4. Chocoholic Award:

I'm not sure how Anu knew it, but I am a chocoholic of the worst kind. When I start craving chocolate, do not stand in my way!! I adore dark chocolate and really don't understand why white chocolate exists (sorry!). Brownies are my ultimate chocoholic indulgence! Thank you, Anu for this one!

5. Inspirational Award, Butterfly Award, Hard Working Food Blogger and Good Job:

The inspirational blog award was given to me by dear Pravs of Simply Spicy. To receive this award from her means so much to me. She has one of the most inspirational blogs I've ever had the pleasure to visit! I adore her pics and recipes. Thanks so much, Pravs!

The butterfly award was passed to me by Anu of Chandrabhaga and Raji of Rak's Kitchen. Thank you for thinking my blog is cool!

Both of the above awards were passed to me by Anu. Thank you for these, too!

I'm passing all of these awards to Pravs, Valli, Sia, Sailu, Raaga, Sagari, and Cham.

6. Giant Bear Hug, Friendship Award, and Perfect Blend of Friendship

This bear hug was given to me by Cham and Sailaja.

This symbol of friendship was given to me by Sowmya of Creative Saga.

This perfect blend of friendship was given to me by Anu.

I'd like to pass all of these awards on to Cham, Lavi, Dhivi, Sailu, and Revathi.

I am so, so, so thankful and flattered to have received all of these awards. If I inadvertently missed anyone who has passed me awards, please just give me a swift kick in the pants and I will surely acknowledge them! Thanks again!

Jammin' with Jamuns!

2008-11-09T18:51:00.006-05:00

I have to say once again that I am so thankful for all of your kind wishes, thoughts, and prayers. Every comment that everyone has left on my last couple of posts have really helped to pick up my spirits. Each comment has made me smile and has touched my heart. I cannot thank you all enough for all of your support. I'm really lucky to have found so many kind souls in this world!

Ok, I should stop being so ultra sentimental before I start getting tears in my eyes! So, let's get to the subject of today's post, shall we?

This actually goes back to Deepavali. Somehow, I wasn't able to get my act together and take pictures to post right after Deepavali. Well, better late than never, right? :) I made these gulab jamuns for Deepavali along with carrot halwa (long gone before I could get the camera out), murukku (chakli), and thattai. I was truly lazy about taking pictures and this was the only one that I managed to click some photos of.

I have to say that the gulab jamuns were so much easier to make this time since I had Amma's help! I learned that the dough for the jamuns should be fairly stiff (sort of like poori dough). Also, the jamuns should be fried at medium temp.

If they're fried at too high a temperature, they will brown on the outside before getting cooked on the inside. On the other hand, if they are fried at a very low temperature, they will break apart in the oil! Just great, I thought! The key is to heat the oil at medium to medium low heat and keep the heat at a constant temperature. If you're not sure if the jamuns are cooked, just poke a cooked one with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, they're done!

I've read many, many recipes that say to drop the hot fried jamuns directly into warm syrup. I have to say that every time I've tried it that way, my jamuns wind up blowing up like over inflated balloons and collapse in the syrup. So, I did it Amma's way. I allowed the jamuns to cool until slightly warm before dropping them into warm syrup. I also let the flavors marry in the fridge for a day. The end result was perfectly soft, spongy jamuns!!! All it took was a little patience. Well, that's asking a lot of me (patience is not my forte!), but I finally managed to do it!

Ingredients:

Jamuns:
Nonfat milk powder - 1 cup
All purpose flour (maida) - 1/2 cup
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Melted butter - 2 tbsp
Salt - pinch
Milk - enough to make a medium stiff dough

Syrup: (make earlier and keep warm)
Sugar - 1 1/2 cups
Water - 1 cup
Cardamom - crushed seeds of 2 pods

Oil to fry

Method:

1. Combine the sugar and water in a pan. Heat until the sugar dissolves. Then, add crushed cardamom and remove from heat. (The syrup should be slightly warm when adding jamuns.) If you like more syrup, just make 1.5 to 2 times the amount stated in the recipe.

2. Heat oil on medium heat. As the oil heats, combine flour, milk powder, baking soda, salt, and butter. Slowly add milk to make a medium stiff dough. Take small pieces of the dough (about nutmeg sized) and roll into balls. (Note: Keep in mind that the dough will expand and enlarge on hitting the oil, so make the balls smaller than you want the end size to be!) Keep the dough balls aside, covered with a slightly damp cloth to prevent them from drying out.

3. Slowly, slip the balls into the warm oil. You may need to fry them in 2 batches, depending on the size of your pan. Gently and slowly, shake the balls around in the oil to cook them evenly. When they are golden brown and rise to the top of the oil, remove them and allow them to cool until just slightly warm.

4. Add the cooled balls to the warm syrup. Allow the flavors to develop in the refrigerator for 24 hours before serving, for best results. Warm jamuns before eating and enjoy every luscious bite!

Temptation in a spoon!

I know that many of you have passed awards to me in the recent past. I'll post them soon, so please forgive me. I am so grateful for each one! :)

Back with Blueberry Scones!

2008-11-03T18:32:00.006-05:00

First of all, I just want to say it feels really good to be doing something productive again! I also want to thank each and every one of you sweet girls who have been so supportive with your emails, comments and positive energy for me in what's been a difficult time. Without getting into too much detail, suffice it to say that I've been dealing with major health issues for a very long time and things were getting to be too much to handle in the past few months. My mind was just not able to function and somehow even blogging didn't seem like a release! I'm still going through a lot of procedures, tests, etc., but will definitely be blogging when time and energy permit.

So many of your comments touched me and goodness knows I've missed you all dearly! I love the unique connection that blogging allows all of us. To think that so many lovely women whom I've never had the pleasure of meeting are so encouraging and truly care about my well being has touched me in ways that I never imagined. You gals are the best!

Tired of my self-purging? Ok, ok, ok. Thanks for bearing with me! I'm getting to the recipe now. With the weather here getting colder and this awesome scone recipe in my drafts, I figured I'd give one last throwback to summer before kissing it goodbye (sigh).

I absolutely adore blueberries! I always have since childhood. So, all summer, I tend to be on the lookout for more recipes to use these gorgeous berries. This summer, I wandered onto the King Arthur Flour recipe website and found a recipe for blueberry scones that sounded awesome! (The link is here.)

These scones are almost more along the lines of drop biscuits. They're pretty easy in the sense that you just scoop the resulting dough out using a measuring cup or ice cream scoop. There's no requirement for kneading or shaping. So, you can bet I made these more than once!

They just melt in your mouth and the juicy, sweet blueberries provide a pop of flavor that is just amazing! Talk about a symphony of flavors!! Enough buildup, you say? Well, let's get to the recipe! I pretty much followed the recipe on the website, except to substitute 1/2 whole wheat flour for 1/2 of the all purpose flour.

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces
1 cup fresh blueberries
2 large eggs, beaten
1/4 cup plain, lowfat yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons coarse sugar, for sprinkling on top

Recipe:

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a baking sheet, or line with parchment.

2. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the butter and work it into the dry ingredients using your fingers until the butter crumbles so that some of it is like coarse crumbs and others are like peas. Mix the blueberries into this dry mix. Be careful that you don't break the blueberries while tossing!

3. Stir together the wet ingredients (eggs, yogurt, vanilla extract, and lemon zest) in another bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir very gently, just until combined. The dough will be pretty moist at this point. Don't worry! It's supposed to be moister than biscuit dough! :)

4. Use a muffin scoop or 1/4-cup measure to scoop and drop the dough onto the prepared sheet, leaving about 2" between the scones. Brush each ball of dough with a bit of milk or cream, and sprinkle with coarse sugar.

5. Bake the scones at 375 F for 20 to 24 minutes, or until lightly browned and a cake tester inserted into a scone comes out dry. Remove from the oven, remove to a cooling rack and allow to cool slightly. Serve warm with butter or jam and enjoy with tea!

Makes 12 scones.

Note: These scones reheat well, too! That is, if you have any leftovers... Just pop them in a 350 F degree preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes loosely wrapped in foil! :)

P.S. Best of luck to all those running the recipe marathon!

Happy Deepavali!

2008-10-28T15:33:00.003-04:00

Wish each and every one of you a very happy, healthy and prosperous Deepavali 2008. I am in a bit of a better state at the present time. Will be back to blogging soon. Hope you are all enjoying the celebrations with your families!

உங்கள் அனைவருக்கும் என் இனிய தீபாவளி நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்!

Happy Deepavali!

Why the Silence?

2008-08-12T18:19:00.003-04:00

First off, I'd like to apologize for the long, unexplained silence. As I mentioned before, I was a bit preoccupied with sending my parents off to India for a short trip. They just left this past weekend. I also have been dealing with a lot of personal issues that have me really emotionally and physically drained. I haven't had the energy or motivation to post lately. For the same reason, I haven't been able to visit your blogs and comment regularly. I will probably continue to be irregular with posting and events for the next month or so. Thanks so much to each and every one of you who have sent me concerned comments and emails. It feels so great to know that you care about me! I also want to thank all of you who sent me treasured awards in the recent past. I promise to post about them and pass them on just as soon as I'm able. I will be visiting when time permits and hope to be back to posting soon. Thanks so much for understanding!

Mango Chicken

2008-07-14T18:07:00.004-04:00

My husband had a bout of enthusiasm on going to the Indian store one day and brought a crate of mangoes home. After giving some away, I still had a bunch to deal with. Mind you, this was one problem I didn't mind dealing with in the least! After eating a good number of them out of hand, I thought about making something for dinner one day and decided on making a savory dish using mangoes.

The inspiration for creating this mango chicken was actually from a dish I had at a restaurant that served Thai and Malaysian food. The dish we ordered there had shrimp, but I substituted chicken as I didn't have any shrimp at home to make this with. Sweet mangoes marry with spicy green chillies, salty soy sauce, and crunchy bell peppers to produce a symphony of flavors in one's mouth. Add some hot rice to that and what more could you want??

I think that this would be even more delicious with shrimp. If you don't do meat, then by all means try it with tofu. I'm sure the results would be fabulous!!

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken breast - 1, diced into bite sized pieces
Red onion - 2 small, coarsely chopped
Red bell pepper - 1 medium, chopped into large dice
Green bell pepper - 1 medium, chopped into large dice
Mango (ripe) - 1 medium, chopped
Garlic - 3 cloves, grated
Ginger - 2 inch piece, grated
Green chillies - 6-8, or to taste, chopped
Soy sauce - to taste
Rice vinegar - 2 tsp or to taste
Cornstarch - 1 tsp
Scallions - 2 stalks, chopped for garnish

Method:

1. Marinate the chicken with soy sauce to taste, cornstarch, and half of the grated garlic and ginger for 15 - 30 minutes.

2. Heat oil in a pan. When hot, add the marinated chicken and fry on high heat for 1-2 minutes until the chicken becomes slightly golden, but is still not cooked through. Remove from the pan.

3. Now, add the bell peppers and onions to the same pan. Saute until the veggies start to become slightly tender yet crisp.

4. Add the green chillies along with the remaining ginger and garlic. Fry until the raw smell disappears, about 2-3 minutes.

5. At this point, the sauteed chicken gets added back to the pan along with soy sauce to taste, rice vinegar and 1/2 cup of water. Allow to simmer for 3-4 minutes for the flavors to infuse. If the sauce seems to thick to you, add some more water. Alternatively, if you want it thicker, add another 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of cornstarch dissolved in 2 tbsp of water and simmer for 2 minutes for it to thicken up.

6. Now, add in the chopped mangoes and stir for another 30 seconds or so. Turn off the heat. Garnish with scallions and serve with hot rice. Enjoy!!

We loved this dish and so I'm sending it off to Meeta for this month's monthly mingle with the theme of Mango Mania!!

Arachuvitta Meen Kuzhambu (Fish with Ground Masala)

2008-07-01T16:03:00.006-04:00

Voting for Open Sesame 2 has started today. If you liked my baklava buns, please vote for me by clicking here and logging in. Thanks in advance for your support!

I've probably mentioned before that fish addiction runs in my family. Let me give you an example... My grandfather would go fishing late at night at a lake in our village. I'm told that he would tell my grandmother to grind the masala and keep everything ready for when he got back. As soon as he returned with the live fish, she would quickly prepare the fish gravy. He HAD to eat it before he'd be able to get some peaceful sleep.

My mother and amayee (my maternal grandmother) both start drooling the second they set their eyes on fish. I wasn't a huge fan of fish as a child, but I think the fish bug has bit me too! I often find myself in a fix getting a really strong fish craving only to run to the fish market, buy some really good fish, make some fish kuzhambu and proceed to devour it!

This recipe is one that always hits the spot! It's inspired by a recipe that I saw on the internet long before I started this blog. I quickly scribbled down some of the points and didn't record the website. So, I apologize for not being able to give that person credit.

The awesome thing about this recipe is that you grind all of the required masala. Seasoning is done with onions and garlic. The fish is then cooked in the ground masala and tamarind. It's really delicious without the addition of any coconut (if you're concerned about that)!

Also, if you have any reservations about your fish (i.e. you're not sure it's the best), this is the recipe to go with! The combo of the fennel flavor with black pepper, green chillies, and garlic is really special and will help to overcome any possible fishy aroma you may be concerned about. Without any further ado, let me get to the recipe!

Ingredients:

Fish - approx 2 lbs, cleaned, cut into thin slices
Tamarind - small key lime size, soaked in water, and juice extracted
Shallots - 2 medium, sliced finely
Garlic - 3 cloves, chopped finely

To grind into paste:

Shallots - 1 medium
Tomato - 1 medium
Black peppercorns - 1/2 tsp
Fennel seeds - 1 tsp
Green chillies - 3-4, or to taste
Curry leaves - 6-8 (optional)
Chilli powder - 2 tsp, or to taste
Coriander powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

For seasoning:

Oil (recommended: sesame oil)
Methi seeds/vendheyam - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 10

Method:

1. Wash the fish in water with turmeric powder and keep aside.

2. Heat oil in a pan. When hot, add the seasoning ingredients. Once the methi seeds have browned and spluttered a little, add the sliced shallots.

3. Fry the shallots until softened. Then, add the chopped garlic and fry until fragrant.

4. Pour in the ground masala, tamarind extract, and required salt. Allow to boil until thickened to desired consistency. Note: Make this a little thicker than your ideal gravy consistency as the fish will cause the gravy to loosen once it's added!

5. Now, gently place the fish pieces in the gravy. Do not mix with a spoon at this stage. Just pick up the pot by the handles and gently swirl the gravy over and around the fish. Allow to simmer until the fish is cooked, about 5-6 minutes. Turn off and enjoy with hot steaming rice!

This delicious bowl of meen kuzhambu is on its way to dear Sig who is hosting JFI tamarind this month. Hope she enjoys it as much as we did!

Baklava Buns

2008-06-30T12:22:00.006-04:00

When Dhivi and Siri announced the start of Open Sesame II, I was only more than happy to participate in this round as well. This time, I selected box 4 and received the following riddle:

I am a flower but adorn a bouquet, I do not
I have an inbuilt perfume in my being
So strong and so intense that my oil will make your insides 'hot'
My medical impact all over the world seen.

My 'Yorubas' infusion is the 'savior' of star wars
I have been used as a barter by the fellow 'sadiqi's' during trades
One does not have to fight tooth or 'nail' for me
I am usually pink but mostly available browned in shades

I may be dry , I may overpower your tongue
But add a little for that midas touch
Come now, start thinking of that spice
Whose bite make your 'teeth' say Ouch!

After an initial incorrect guess, I got it right with 1 hint. The answer is CLOVES! Yes, the fragrant spice that can add the right pizazz to a given dish.

I tend to use cloves in either non-veg dishes, pulao/biryani, or tea for the most part. So, I sat around for days waiting for inspiration to strike. Well, days turned into weeks and suddenly it came to me... I thought why not combine the flavors of baklava with the concept of a cinnamon roll and see what happens. The result was sheer bliss! :)

For this recipe, I took a basic cinnamon roll dough recipe that I've used in the past. The dough recipe is originally from FoodNetwork.com and can be found here. I then took the flavors of baklava (nuts, cinnamon, cloves, sugar) and formed these into a filling. For the icing, I used honey and cream cheese.

Making this took a bit of time, but wasn't too hard if you're not too scared of yeast. Even if you are scared, it's still not going to be too hard! :) The great thing about this recipe is that the second rise of the dough is done in the fridge so that you can break it up into 2 steps. This way, you can have these for breakfast and not break much of a sweat! :)

Ingredients:

Dough:

4 egg yolks, room temperature
1 whole egg, room temperature
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Butter - 6 tbsp, melted
Buttermilk - 3/4 cup, room temperature
All purpose flour - 3 3/4- 4 cups (optional : use 1/2 wheat or white whole wheat)
Yeast - 1 packet (2 1/4 tsp)
Salt - 3/4 tsp

Filling:

Dark brown sugar - 1/2 cup, packed
White sugar - 1/4 cup (or use light brown sugar)
Ground cinnamon - 2 tsp
Ground cloves - 1 tsp (use 1/2 tsp for a mild clove flavor)
Walnuts - 2/3 cup, toasted for 10 minutes in 350 F oven, chopped, and cooled
pinch salt
Softened butter - 1 1/2 tbsp

Icing:

Cream cheese - 3 ounces, softened
Honey - 1/4 cup (adjust per taste)

Method:

1. Fit a stand mixer with whisk attachment and whisk the egg yolks, whole egg, sugar, butter, and buttermilk. Add 2 cups of flour, yeast, and salt and whisk until moistened. Now, switch to the dough hook attachment. At this point, add all but 1 1/4 cup of flour and knead on low speed for 5 minutes. Check the dough now and see if it's sticky. If so, add flour 1/4 cup at a time and allow to combine. Knead on low speed until the dough clears the sides of the bowl, about 5 more minutes. (Note: I needed 3 3/4 cup of flour to make the dough) Place dough in an oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and allow the dough to double in volume in a warm place. This step takes 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Note: The dough will rise well even though the liquids have not been warmed. Just make sure everything is at room temp!

Unrisen dough

2. Meanwhile, prepare the filling by combining the sugars, cinnamon, clove, salt and nuts in a bowl. Keep aside.

3. Once the dough has risen sufficiently:

Ooh... Poofy!

Turn out the risen dough onto a floured surface. Gently shape the dough into a rectangle. Now, roll this into a rectangle that measures 18 inches by 12 inches. (Note: I made half of the amount, so my rectangle looks half the size!) Brush the rectangle with the softened butter, leaving a 1/2 inch border on the top and bottom edges. Sprinkle with the sugar/nut mixture made in step 2.

4. Once you've done this, start rolling the dough into a cylinder. Start with the end closest to you (bottom edge of the pic) and roll towards the far end (top edge of the pic). Since I made half of the amount, my rectangle was 9 x 12. You'd have the 18 inch edge at the bottom of the pic and would be rolling the same way. Now, make sure you've press the edge of the roll to seal it and place the roll seam side down on your surface:

5. Using a serrated knife, cut the cylinder into rolls about 1 1/2 inch thick. This will yield 12 rolls. Butter a 9x13 pan and arrange rolls in the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in the refrigerator overnight (up to 16 hours).

6. The next morning, remove the rolls from the refrigerator and place in a warm place for 30 minutes- 1 hour. You want the rolls to reach room temp and to become somewhat puffy. Sorry, I forgot to take a pic of this!

7. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Then, place the baking pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake for about 20-30 minutes or until slightly browned and an instant read thermometer reads 190 F when inserted into the bun.

8. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly. Whisk the honey and cream cheese together until smooth and creamy. Spread over the rolls and serve warm.
So, do you like yours iced or not? The rolls were so delightful! They really had a delicate crumb and delicious texture... The filling was so fragrant and the toasted nuts just took it over the top. It was not as gooey as a cinnamon roll that you might buy at the mall, but was actually a bit lighter and the crumb melts in your mouth. Honey with the cream cheese icing was just wonderful!! Overall, this was a refreshing change from the usual cinnamon roll and makes for a decadent treat!

My dear Dhivi and Siri, I hope you guys like this as well. It's on its way to Open Sesame II at Dining Hall. Impressed with this dish? Well, then, please remember that voting starts on July 1! Thanks and enjoy!

Rava-Coconut Ladoos

2008-06-24T11:35:00.005-04:00

I know I've been pretty irregular with my posts lately, but I've had a lot of random stuff going on these days. My parents will be leaving for India in a few weeks and have been a bit occupied with last minute prep to send them off. Plus, other family stuff has had me a bit preoccupied, too.

You might have wanted to see the rava ladoo that I mentioned I sent to my SIL in my last post. I love making this rava ladoo because it's so easy to throw together and fast. Add to that that it's one of my SIL's favorite sweets and mails well and I had a perfect item to send her. :)

Nothing really new about this rava ladoo. I like my sweets to be moderately sweet, so I've used 1 cup of sugar. If you like very sweet sweets, you can increase the sugar as per your taste. These wind up being sweet, firm, melt in your mouth ladoos flavored with cardamom and the mild sweetness of coconut. Add to this raisins and cashews and you've got a delicious treat!

Ingredients:

Rava - 2 cups, roasted until golden brown in 3 tbsp of ghee and cooled
Ghee - 1/3 - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 cup, or as per taste
Grated coconut or dessicated coconut- 1 cup
Milk - 1/4 cup
Cardamom - 3, powdered or 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
Cashews - 2 tbsp, roasted in ghee and kept aside
Golden raisins - 2 tbsp, roasted in ghee and kept aside

Method:

1. Grind roasted and cooled rava in a mixie with sugar until it's fairly finely powdered. Remove from mixie.

2. If using fresh coconut, microwave for 1 minute to dry it out. Cool it, then grind in mixie until powdered. If using dessicated coconut, just powder it until finely powdered. Add to the rava/sugar mix along with cardamom powder.

3. Now, add milk along with fried raisins and cashews to this and mix to combine. Slowly add ghee until you have a slightly loose, but not extremely loose mix.

4. Form the mix into balls of the size you like. I got about 15 ladoos with this recipe. Place the balls on a piece of wax paper or parchment paper and allow to firm up. This takes 15 to 30 minutes.

Enjoy rava ladoo with a cup of cardamom tea or mail them to your loved ones!

Given the addition of coconut in these delicious treats, I'm sending these to Suganya for AFAM coconut!

Click for Bri and Couscous

2008-06-14T14:44:00.004-04:00

The dynamic duo at Jugalbandi has asked us for our support in this month's special edition of Click. This month's photography competition has been combined with a fundraiser for Bri's treatment. Who is Bri, you ask? Bri is Brianna Brownlow of the blog, "Figs with Bri." Currently, Bri is in a situation where she has explored many treatment options for her breast cancer, yet the cancer has reccurred. The cancer has metastasized to many areas of her body. As many of us probably know from the media, health insurance will not cover many treatments that can be potentially helpful. So, bloggers are uniting to help raise money for Bri to help out in her toughest fight to date. Please check out the full details at Jugalbandi's site by clicking here. You can find out more info on how to donate money, more details about Bri's health situation and what prizes are potentially in store for you!

I thought that this dish of saffron couscous would be quite fitting with the theme of yellow for this month's click. It just seems so sunny and happy to look at, I thought.

We had this for dinner last night and it was fantastic. Yellow from the addition of saffron, combined with sweet bites of raisins, and crunch from the almonds and scallions. It tasted great on its own and makes a perfect foil for any Middle Eastern type of curry.

Ingredients:

Couscous - 1 cup
Water or stock - 1 cup
Raisins - 2 tbsp
Scallions - 2 stems, chopped
Sliced almonds or pine nuts, toasted - 2 tbsp
Saffron - pinch
Salt to taste

Method:

Bring saffron and stock/water to a boil in a medium pot. Add the raisins, salt and couscous. Cover, turn the heat off and let stand for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork. Add scallions, almonds, toss and serve. Enjoy!

Seeing as how this is also a Middle Eastern dish, I am sending this in to AWED at Siri's Corner! AWED was started by Dhivi of Culinary Bazaar.

Beetroot Halwa, Ramblings and a Prize

2008-06-10T18:23:00.007-04:00

Like many people, my feeds haven't always gotten updated on taste of India, so please use the subscribe button on the right side bar to get regular updates of my blog.

It's been a very strange few weeks, I feel. I was sick for several days. Then, I seemed to be doing a bit better. We heard that one of my cousins will be getting married soon which was great news! They grow up so fast, don't they?

But, after that came the news that my Amayee (grandmother) was sick. I mean really sick. I think about the active, lively person she used to be and to see and hear of her state now just makes me so sad. The day we heard about this, none of us were in a very good mood at all. Thank goodness it turned out to be severe dehydration (which was caused by intense diarrhea) and she's doing a lot better now.

So, my mood has been pretty lousy lately due to all of these things. Add to that the killer heat we're having here and I think some of my brain cells have gotten fried in the process. I haven't felt like doing much of anything for a while...

I just got the news that I won the Open Sesame contest at Dining Hall. That totally made my day!! Funny enough, I learned about it when I read some of the comments on my blog. Thanks so much to each and every one of you sweet souls that voted for me. Thanks also to Dhivi and Siri for coming up with such a fun idea!! Let's see how round 2 goes, eh?

Given this happy news, it seems fitting to share some sweets with you all. Plus, yesterday was my SIL (husband's sister) and her husband's anniversary. Can't believe time has flown by! I sent them a care package with rava ladoos (for her) and beetroot halwa (for him) in honor of the occasion. This is the recipe for the halwa that I sent. Revathi, this is the same recipe for the halwa I sent you as part of arusuvai. :)

I'm not going to lie and tell you that the entire taste of the beetroot is covered up in this sweet. So, if you are someone that detests beetroot, you may or may not like this one. It has all the creamy decadence of a halwa recipe and is a really nice way to get the nutrients of beetroot into your system, though! As per my husband and me, it gets 2 thumbs up!

Beetroot Halwa:

Ingredients:

Beetroot, grated - 3 cups
Milk or half and half - 1 1/2 cups (I used 2% milk)
Ghee - 3 tbsp
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Cashew nuts - 10-15, broken
Raisins - 10-15
Cardamom - seeds of 3 pods crushed or 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
Salt - pinch

Method:

1. Heat 1 tbsp ghee in a pan over medium high heat. Add the grated beetroot and fry until the raw smell goes away.

2. Now, add the milk, salt and sugar. Lower the heat to medium and allow it to cook until all the liquid is absorbed. Stir occasionally. This may take 15-20 minutes, so be patient. As the mixture thickens, add 1 tbsp of ghee (or more if you wish).

3. Turn the heat off of the pan. In another pan, heat 1 tbsp ghee and fry the raisins and cashews until the cashews are golden and the raisins plump up. Add to the halwa with cardamom powder. Stir well and serve hot!

Enjoy the halwa and thanks for listening to my ramblings! :)

Rotis and an Award!

2008-06-03T19:23:00.006-04:00

I just received another award!! It's the good chat award from Cham of Spice Club. Thank you so much for thinking of me, dear! Our friendship started in the early days of our blogs. Cham, I still have some of the masala powder you sent me for arusuvai. I think of you every time I use it!

One other topic is about the Open Sesame event at Dining Hall. As you probably know, voting has started. If you liked my okra corn cakes, please log into Dining Hall and vote for me. To vote, click here. Thanks to all in advance!!

Coming to the food part of this post, I'm going to write about 2 rotis. One has been in my drafts for a while and the other is newer. They are dill-vegetable roti and spinach-corn roti.

Dill-Vegetable Roti:

This one came about when I was thinking about akki rotis I've had in the past. I don't know if it was the person who was making it or what, but I haven't been a fan of the texture of akki rotis that I've had to date. No offense to anyone! However, I love the flavor components involved and decided to change things around to my taste.

The result is a soft roti that is loaded with the goodness of vegetables and perfumed with the fragrance of fresh dill. It explodes with flavor and is a meal in and of itself!

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour/atta - 2 cups
Fresh dill, chopped - 1/4 cup
Zucchini - 1 small, grated
Carrot - 1 medium, grated
Onion - 1 small, finely chopped
Green chillies - 4-5, or to taste, finely chopped
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Oil - 2 tsp
Warm water to mix dough

Method:

Mix the flour with oil and salt. Add all of the other ingredients with warm water to make a slightly stiff dough. It should be a little stiffer than normal chappathi dough. Allow the dough to rest for 15-30 minutes. Then, roll out using flour as required. The thickness will be a little thicker than chappathis. Fry on hot tava/griddle adding a few drops of oil until brown spots appear on both sides.

Tastes great hot, but reheats well. Enjoy on its own or with pickle/curds/side dish!

Spinach Corn Roti:

This one came out of a bit of randomness. I think I was still in a corny mood after making my okra corn cakes (excuse the pun!) and decided to try corn flour in a roti. I had some frozen spinach on hand and was able to throw these together. The taste was awesome, but these should definitely be eaten hot. They won't reheat well, so just keep that in mind.

Ingredients:

Corn flour - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour/atta - 1 cup
Frozen spinach - 1/2 cup (I didn't squeeze it dry)
Green chillies - 4-5 or to taste, chopped
Garlic - 2 cloves, grated
Ginger - 1/2 inch piece, grated
Chilli powder - 1 tsp, or to taste
Cumin powder - 1/2 tsp
Amchur (dried mango) powder - a pinch, optional
Salt to taste
Oil - 2 tsp to mix into the dough
Warm water

Method:

Mix the oil and salt into the flours. Now, add the remaining ingredients except water. Toss to combine and add enough warm water to make a slightly stiff dough. Allow to rest for about 30 minutes. At this point, I wasn't able to roll the rotis out, so I just took balls of dough and patted them out with my hand as thin as possible. Then, place them on a heated tava/griddle and drizzle a few drops of oil. Cook until you get brown spots on both sides and serve hot.

These came out pretty thick, so the texture was a bit different, but still tasted great! They were good on their own, but even better with a little bit of South Indian style mixed veg pickle!

Needless to say, these are both off to Srivalli for her roti mela. I'm also sending the following previously posted rotis:

Garlic-Avocado Rotis
Methi Rotis

Southwest Hash

2008-05-31T13:00:00.004-04:00

Ever feel like being in the shoes of an old time cowboy? I mean like back in the days of Clint Eastwood. What on earth am I talking about, you ask? As usual, I'm being a little random, but with some relevance. I always have a vision of cowboys sitting around a campfire with a pot of beans and eating hearty food. So, what would be a fitting cowboy breakfast? Well, hash and eggs, of course!

Ok, enough of my flashback to cowboy days. Hash is a very easy dish to whip up. It combines the heartiness of potatoes with the flavors of onions and bell peppers. From there, it's really up to you whether you want to use mushrooms or not and how you want to flavor it up.

For this one, I went with my basic hash recipe which uses potatoes, bell peppers, and onions. It's flavored simply with garlic, black pepper and green chillies. Throw yourself an egg (any style you please) on top and you've got yourself a hearty and delicious breakfast. For a real treat, make some of my whole wheat biscuits to have on the side!

Ingredients:

Baby potatoes - 5-6, cut into bite sized chunks
Red onion - 1, chopped into large chunks
Bell pepper - 1/2 green, 1/2 red chopped into chunks
Green chillies - 5-6, or to taste, chopped
Garlic - 3 cloves, finely chopped
Black pepper - 1 tsp, or as desired
Pepper jack cheese, grated - 1/3-1/2 cup, optional (depending on your preference)
Eggs - 4, cooked any style
Oil
Salt to taste

Method:

Heat oil in a pan. Add potatoes to the pan, cover, and cook on medium heat until the potatoes are mostly cooked. Toss in the onions, bell peppers, green chillies, garlic, salt and pepper. Cook on medium-high until the veggies are a bit caramelized and are crisp-tender. Sprinkle the cheese over the top, if desired and cover to melt. Meanwhile, heat another skillet and cook the eggs any style you like. To serve, place a bit of the hash on your plate and top with the cooked egg. Serve with salsa, if desired. Enjoy!

This plate is off to Pooja for her VOW/JFI event themed bell peppers!

Rockin' with Mango Scones and Okra Corn Cakes!

2008-05-30T16:37:00.006-04:00

Are you someone who likes a sweet breakfast? Something light, flaky, and warm that doesn't take up lots of time to make? If so, you'd probably like this recipe. I was in my kitchen the other day and had a ripe mango that needed to be used up badly. After a bit of deliberation and perusal through some baking books, I settled on making scones using mango and coconut.

Let me tell you that these scones are definitely a treat for the taste buds. Be sure to use the ripest, most flavorful mangoes you can find. The flavor of mango is accented by bits of sweetened shredded coconut and perfumed with the ethereal fragrance of cardamom. Need I say more? If you don't want them for breakfast, they'd make a fabulous snack with tea!

Ingredients:

Mangoes, diced - 1 cup
Shredded sweetened coconut - 1/2 cup
All purpose flour - 1 cup
White whole wheat flour - 1 cup (you can use AP flour instead if you want)
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Baking powder - 3 tsp
Cardamom powder - 1 tsp
Yogurt - 1/3 cup
Eggs - 2, beaten
Cold butter - 6 tbsp, cut into pieces

For the top:

Melted butter - 2 tbsp
Granulated sugar - 1-2 tbsp

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.

2. In a large bowl, combine the flours, sugar, salt, cardamom, and baking powder together. Whisk lightly or sift. Add the butter pieces and break them up using a fork or your fingertips. You want to get to a consistency where you have some pieces of butter that are the size of peas and some that are like grains of sand. Don't overwork it or else your scones won't be light and flaky.

3. Mix the eggs and yogurt together in another bowl. Add to the dry ingredients along with the mangoes and coconut. Stir until it's just barely mixed together. The dough will be very sticky, but that's ok. The end result will be worth it!

4. Turn out the dough onto a very well floured surface. Sprinkle the top with flour and knead it 2-3 times to just pull the dough together. Pat it out into a rectangle about 1 inch thick. Cut the dough into triangles using a sharp knife. I was able to get about 12 triangles out of this batch.

5. Place the cut scones on a baking sheet/cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush the tops of the scones with melted butter and sprinkle with granulated sugar.

6. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until golden on top. Enjoy warm from the oven with tea!

Off these go to Arundati of Escapades who's hosting this month's WBB with the theme of mango madness. Hope she likes them as much as we did!

Not in the mood for something sweet, you say? How about something savory?

Dhivi and Siri had started dining hall and I was intrigued by their International Food League event. So, I cracked open my account to receive the following riddle:

I have a crown yet I am not the king
You cut my crown and feet off with a fling

I carry lots of eggs, yet I nothing but a veggie
Even with all that I am thin and long not pudgy

I am green and I am gooey
If u don't pay attention, I will make your dish go mushy and chewy

I do good to your health and to you brain
Which is what your elders told you without refrain
Now its up to you to think and guess
To who I am ...Cos I am good too and no less

Luckily, I managed to guess okra correctly on the first guess! My next task was to come up with a dish using okra. What have I cooked up this time, you ask with bated breath? Yes, that was my idea of a lame joke. Haa haa.

The dish is Okra Corn Cakes. I was browsing recipes on the net and saw a lot of Southern style recipes using okra, mostly fried. Eventually, I saw a few that were more along the lines of corn cakes using okra. After a lot of serious Indianization and modifications, this is what I came up with:

Without any further ado, let me get to the recipe... :)

Ingredients:

Okra - 1 cup, sliced finely
Onion, chopped - 1 small
Green chillies - 6-8, chopped, or to taste
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Chilli powder - 2 tsp, or to taste
Salt - to taste
Egg - 1, slightly beaten
Water - as needed
Cornmeal - 1/2 cup
All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
Salt - to taste
Baking powder - 1 tsp

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan for shallow frying on medium-high heat.

2. In a large bowl, mix okra, onion, chillies, salt, chilli powder, cumin powder, and egg. Add the flour, cornmeal, and baking powder. Stir together. Now, slowly add water and mix until you get the consistency of a pancake batter to bhaji batter thickness.

3. Drop the batter by spoonfuls (I used a small ice cream scoop) into the hot oil and shallow fry until golden brown. It takes about 2 minutes per side or so. Drain on paper towels and serve warm with ketchup, chutney, or a sauce of your choice. Enjoy!

These delicious bites of brain food are on their way to Open Sesame at International Food League.

I'm also sending them in to Mansi who's hosting this month's monthly mingle themed appetizers. Monthly mingle was started by Meeta of What's for Lunch, Honey?

Just to make my day perfect, Madhavi of Vegetarian Medley passed on the rocking girl blogger award to me! Thank you so so so so much, Madhavi!!! I am totally thrilled and ecstatic to have received this from you, dear! I know that a lot of you have already received this award, but would like to extend it to Cham, Uma, Sagari, Pravs, Namratha, Dhivi,and Siri. Congrats and enjoy it! :)

Have a wonderful weekend, all!

Cardamom Cranberry Tea Bread

2008-05-24T18:12:00.004-04:00

Alright, so this is really last minute even for me!! This is my entry for think spice - cardamom, hosted by Easycrafts. I actually had this in my drafts and hadn't been able to get around to posting it until now.

This bread is a yeast bread that I would say is similar in texture to challah, but not as rich. I added dried cranberries for a sweet-tangy bite to the bread. We actually loved the taste of the cranberries augmented by the tantalizing aroma of cardamom! This is great with tea, buttered or not. Tastes wonderful warm and leftovers make killer french toast!!

If you're one of the people who's intimidated to use yeast, you really shouldn't be at all! Just be a little careful and soon you'll be confident. I'm still working on it and was pleasantly surprised at how good this came out! This recipe might seem like it has a lot of steps, but the only thing required is a bit of patience. It's truly not that complicated.

I used 3/4 cup of dried cranberries and we found ourselves wanting a bit more, so if you're like us, you'll probably want to increase the amount to 1 cup. I wrote the recipe as I made it, but will probably increase the amount of cranberries next time! :)

Cardamom-Cranberry Tea Bread

Ingredients:

Yeast - 1 package (2 1/4 tsp)
Warm water - 3/4 c (120-130 F)
Warm milk - 3/4 cup (120-130 F)
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Butter - 1/4 cup, softened
Egg - 1 (optional, but adds richness)
Cardamom powder - 1 1/2 tsp, freshly ground preferred
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Dried cranberries - 3/4 cup
White whole wheat flour (or bread flour) - 2 cups
Bread flour - 2 to 2 1/2 cups
Granulated sugar to sprinkle over the top - 1 tbsp, optional
Egg wash - 1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp of water, optional

Method:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the white whole wheat flour and 1 1/2 cups of bread flour, salt, sugar, cardamom and yeast. Use paddle attachment to mix well.

2. Now, add the warm milk, warm water, and egg. Beat until smooth. Switch to a dough hook and let the mixer knead the dough, adding 1/2 to 1 cup of bread flour as needed until the dough is smooth and elastic. Don't worry if it's a little sticky. Just make sure not to add to much flour and make the dough too dry which would result in a coarsely textured loaf!!

3. Oil a bowl and place the kneaded dough in the bowl. Alternatively, you can leave the dough in the bowl of the mixer itself, but just oil the bowl. Cover with a damp cloth and/or plastic wrap and leave it in a warm place until it's doubled in bulk, about 1 1/4 hrs. I find that my oven which has a pilot light on works best for this.

4. Now, remove the dough from the bowl and place on a floured work surface. Fold the dough gently over itself a few times to deflate it. Pour the cranberries on the work surface and knead them into the dough by hand. Cover the dough and allow it to rest for 10-15 minutes before shaping. Preheat the oven to 375 F.

5. At this point, I chose to make a braided loaf the easy way. You could just as well shape it into a loaf and bake it if you don't feel like braiding! For the braid, I divided the dough into 3 roughly equal pieces and braided the pieces like you braid your hair. Pinch the ends to seal them and tuck them underneath the surface.

6. Again, cover the dough and allow it to rise in a warm place until doubled in size. This takes about 45 minutes. I find that my kitchen counter works pretty well at this point.

7. Once the dough has risen sufficiently, remove the cover. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with granulated sugar, if desired. Bake at 375 F for 40-45 minutes, or until an internal read thermometer reads 190 F. Cover loosely with aluminum foil after 25 minutes if the top seems to brown too quickly.

Enjoy with tea and use leftovers for French toast or bread pudding!

Bread with a spot of tea!

You make my day, Muffin!

2008-05-15T15:36:00.005-04:00

You can imagine my pleasant surprise when I logged on to see this award waiting for me at Uma's blog! Thank you so much for feeling that I am worthy of receiving this award, Uma. You definitely make my day with your sweet comments on my blog, dear. Now comes the difficult task of deciding on who to pass it on to!

After much soul searching, I've finally decided to pass the award on to:

Pravs of Simply Spicy
Cham of Spice Club
Revathi of En Ulagam
Dhivya of Dhivya's Cuisine (best of luck with the pregnancy!)
Lavi of Home Cook's Recipes
Indosungod of Daily Musings
Sra of When My Soup Came Alive

Congratulations to you ladies and thanks to you and every one else who takes the time to read on comment on my recipes. It means so much to hear your feedback!

So, you want to celebrate?? I think something sweet would be appropriate. AFAM is coming up, you say? I've got just the thing... Raspberry Almond Muffins!

These muffins came about pretty much on a whim. I've never been the biggest fan of raspberries simply because the seeds annoy me. But, I was in the grocery store and saw these gorgeous, ruby red berries that seemed to call to me and couldn't resist buying them. Once I came home, I pondered what to do with them. I finally decided on muffins.

I used a combo of AP flour and oats in this muffin. It's actually fairly healthy considering the addition of 2 cups of raspberries and the minimal sugar used. I used 1/2 cup of brown sugar which resulted in very mildly sweet muffins. This was totally fine with me, but I can see people with a moderate sweet tooth needing more along the lines of 3/4 to 1 cup (very sweet bakery type taste) of brown sugar. My husband has a pronounced sweet tooth and these were not sweet enough for him, so just keep that in mind. Hey, it just meant more for me! :)

Enough dilly-dally, right? Off to the recipe!

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 1 1/3 cup
Oats - 1 cup
Brown sugar, packed - 1/2 cup for very mild sweetness (increase to 3/4 cup or so for sweeter)
Baking powder - 1 tbsp
Nutmeg - 3/4 tsp
Lemon zest - 2 tsp
Almond extract - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Egg, beaten - 1
Milk - 1 cup
Vegetable oil - 1/4 cup
Raspberries - 2 cups (2 4.4 oz packs), coated with 2 tbsp of AP flour

Optional:

Slivered almonds - 2 tbsp
Granulated sugar - 1-2 tbsp

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 425 F. Line muffin tin with paper liners or grease them.

2. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, oats, sugar, salt, baking powder, lemon zest, and nutmeg. In another bowl, whisk the egg, milk, extract and oil together. Pour into the dry ingredients. Fold the mixture together gently so as not to overwork the batter. Then, fold in the berries coated with flour. Note: Coating with flour prevents the berries from sinking to the bottom of the muffins. Gently folding the berries in will prevent them from breaking up. This batter might seem a bit runny, but everything turns out fine once they're baked!

3. Divide batter evenly between muffin cups. Sprinkle some almond slivers on top and granulated sugar, if desired.

4. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Serve warm with or without butter!

These delicious beauties are off to Ammalu's Kitchen for AFAM. AFAM was originated by Maheshwari of Beyond the Usual.

Chow Chow Chutney and a Meme

2008-05-13T16:05:00.005-04:00

This chutney came to life when I was rummaging through my fridge one day and found a chayote (chow chow). I was thinking of what to do with it when the idea of chutney popped into my head. It was the first time that I'd made chutney using this vegetable and it was fabulous!!

I made it similarly to the ridgegourd peel chutney I'd previously posted. I fried the chow chow, added coriander seeds to give it a special flavor, and a good amount of urad dal for body. The slight sweetness of the chow chow balanced by the tart tamarind, the spicy chillies, and the earthy coriander was truly a winning combination! All in all, I will definitely be making this one again and again!!

Ingredients:

Chayote/Chow Chow - 1 medium, coarsely chopped
Red chillies - 15-20, or to taste
Coriander seeds - 1 tbsp
Urad dal - 2 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Grated coconut - 3 tbsp
Curry leaves - 5-6 (optional)
Tamarind - key lime size
Salt to taste

For seasoning:

Oil
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves - 6-8

Method:

1. Heat oil. Add the mustard seeds, urad dal, red chillies and curry leaves. Fry until the dal turns golden brown and the red chillies have darkened. Remove to a mixer jar.

2. In the same pan, add a little more oil, if required, and fry the chayote along with coconut until the vegetable is cooked. The coconut shouldn't develop color during this step, so don't put the heat under the pan too high. Or, just add the coconut to the mixer jar (without frying).

3. Once the chayote has cooked, turn the heat off and allow to cool. Add to the contents in the mixer jar along with salt and tamarind and grind to a slightly coarse paste.

4. Season with mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add the seasoning, stir and serve with any tiffin item. Enjoy!

Sorry, sorry! I was tagged to do a meme by Dhivya of Dhivya's Cuisine, Divya Vikram of Dil Se, and Namratha of Finger Licking Food. Lazy me had not gotten around to doing it until now! Ok, here goes:

1) LAST MOVIE U SAW IN A THEATRE?
English - Iron Man (awesome!)
Tamil - Santosh Subramaniam (nice family film)

2) WHAT BOOK ARE U READING??
Do cookbooks count? Sad to say, I'm not reading a real book at the moment!

3) FAVOURITE BOARD GAME?
Life, Monopoly, Checkers

4) FAVOURITE MAGAZINE?
I love reading the covers of cheesy gossip mags while at the check-out counter of the grocery store. Sad, but true.

5) FAVOURITE SMELLS?
Roses, jasmine flowers (I miss them so!), garlic-ginger sauteeing, biryani, anything cooking in mom's kitchen!

6) FAVOURITE SOUNDS?
Gentle waterfalls, tamil folk music (dappanguthu rules!), tabla, mrindangam, sound of salangai when dancing (the heavy Indian ankle straps loaded with bells) bharatha natyam

7) WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?
Loneliness

8) WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN U WAKE?
Do I have to get up already??

9) FAVOURITE FASTFOOD PLACE?
I'm really not into the usual fast food stuff. It's true. I guess I had my fill of all of that stuff a long time ago! If you put a gun to my head, I'd have to say my local pizza place.

10) FUTURE CHILDS NAME?
Maybe Shanthi for a girl. Still haven't given it lots of thought!

11) FINISH THIS STATEMENT—’IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I’D’
work on charitable causes to try and make this world a better place, starting with worldwide vaccination against common diseases.

12) DO U DRIVE FAST?
Faster than my husband... Does that count?

13) DO U SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
Yes. My husband is my teddy bear. Got a problem with that? *laugh*

14) STORMS–COOL OR SCARY?
Scary..

15) WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
Nissan Sentra

16) FAVOURITE DRINK?
Cosmopolitan, mango lassi, rose falooda

17) FINISH THIS STATEMENT-IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD…
I do have time, but if I had the stamina, I'd love to read more and do volunteerism.

18) DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?
Yes, why not?

19) IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY OTHER COLOUR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?
No thanks! I don't want my hair any color other than my own natural black! :)

20) NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS U HAVE LIVED IN?
NJ, Long Island, back to NJ

21) FAVOURITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Figure skating, gymnastics. What? I'm girly! Ok, I am willing to watch basketball or baseball occasionally!

22) ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Dhivya - expecting a baby and is a sweetheart.
Divya Vikram - nice homey recipes that are delicious.
Namratha - makes such beautiful cakes and doesn't share. Kidding!!

23) WHATS UNDER YOUR BED?
Probably some dust

24) WOULD U LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN??
Yes if I were born to the same set of parents!

25) MORNING PERSON OR NIGHT OWL?
Night owl all the way. My husband's a morning person. I don't get it!

26) OVER EASY OR SUNNY SIDE UP?
Sunny side up!

27) FAVOURITE PLACE TO RELAX?
The beach... Any state, any country. :)

28) FAVOURITE PIE?
Cherry, apple, peach

29) FAVOURITE ICE CREAM FLAVOUR? chocolate, strawberry, mango

30) OF ALL THE PEOPLE U HAVE TAGGED, WHO IS THE MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST? No idea and no pressure!

I know that lots of you have already done this meme, so if you feel like taking it up, please feel free!

Thakkali Sadham (Tomato Rice)

2008-05-06T15:43:00.004-04:00

Aaah... Thakkali sadham... Just thinking of it brings a huge smile to my face! Amma used to make it a lot when we were younger as it was one of her and my brother's favorite things to eat. The thing is, I never used to be very fond of it as a child. Now, I simply adore it! Funny how tastes change with age, huh?

This version that I'm showing you here is a very simple one and pretty much sticks to Amma's original recipe. I called my mom the other day because I suddenly realized that I had a bunch of tomatoes and wanted to make her special (to me) thakkali sadham. She gave me the recipe over the phone and I made it that very night. Can I tell you the amazing things I felt while cooking it?

Gosh! The fragrances that were emanating from the pot took me right back to my childhood! I almost had tears in my eyes from being so happy! And the taste... Oh, the taste... That first bite and I knew I had done it. Amma's thakkali sadham was recreated in my own kitchen and now I'm sharing the simple, but special recipe with you!

Thakkali sadham putting on airs!

Ingredients:

Cooked rice - 1 cup
Tomatoes - 2 vine-ripe or 3 medium plum tomatoes, chopped
Green bell pepper - 1/2 medium, chopped
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Garlic - 2 cloves, finely chopped
Peas - 1/4 cup cooked or defrosted frozen peas
Green chillies - 4, or to taste
Chilli powder - 2 tsp, or to taste
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Oil
Lime juice - 2 tsp, or to taste

For seasoning:

Oil
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
Urad dal - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - 6-8, torn

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds, urad dal and curry leaves. When they splutter, add the cut onions and green chillies. Fry until the onions soften a bit.

2. Now, add the bell peppers and fry until crisp-tender.

3. At this point, add the chopped garlic, peas, tomatoes, salt, and masala powders. Fry until the raw smell disappears and the tomatoes have softened. This is the time to add the cooked rice and stir well. Check for seasoning. Turn off the heat and add lime juice. Mix once more and serve hot with raita, chips, appalam, or all by itself! Simple, right?

A bite for you!

Sevai Upma

2008-05-05T17:52:00.002-04:00

This dish is a really simple, somewhat different version of upma. What I had wanted to do was make semiya upma (i.e., using vermicelli). However, I had no semiya in the house and saw this packet of instant sevai (instant idiyaapam) that Amma had bought when we went to the Indian store once. I figured, why not use this and turn it into upma?

Well, it turned out to be a brilliant idea, if I may say so myself. Wait a minute, it's my blog so I can claim to be brilliant, right? Hee hee. Sorry, I digress...

Anyway, I added some veggies to it to turn it into a quick and light meal. Feel free to make alterations as you like! You can easily do the same thing with semiya and have awesome results, too.

Ingredients:

Instant sevai - 3 cups raw, place in hot water and soften per package directions
Onion - 2 medium, sliced
Tomato - 1, chopped
Carrot - 2 medium, chopped
Green bell peppers - 2 medium, chopped finely
Green chillies - 8-10, or to taste, slit
Ginger - 2 inch piece, finely chopped
Cashews - 10-15, broken in half, fried in oil or ghee and kept aside

For seasoning:

Oil
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Method:

1. Soften sevai per package directions. Mine said to pour boiled water over it and leave it for 10 minutes, then drain.

2. Heat oil in a pan and season with mustard seeds, urad dal, and curry leaves. Then, add the sliced onions, green chillies, and ginger. Saute until softened. At this point, add all of the veggies along with salt. Fry until the veggies are as tender as you like. Now, put the softened sevai into the veggie mixture and mix well. Check for seasoning and turn off the heat. Garnish with fried cashews and serve hot. Enjoy with chutney, pickle, sugar, or nothing at all! Stands on its own really well, too. :)

A closer look:

Now, that's finger lickin' good!

Mexican Pizza

2008-05-01T16:08:00.009-04:00

This is a very simple recipe for those lazy evenings when you don't feel like making anything elaborate for dinner or don't have time. Plus, it just tastes awesome!

I used store bought whole wheat tortillas and topped them with quick sauteed onions, garlic, red bell peppers, olives and salsa. Let's not forget the cheese. It was habanero jack cheese! Overall, the pizzas were filling, yet light. Adding a little bit of homemade guacamole put them over the top. California pizza kitchen ain't got nothing on these babies!!

Ingredients:

Red onion - 1 medium, sliced
Red bell pepper - 1 medium, cut in half and sliced into strips
Garlic - 2 cloves, chopped
Chipotle in adobo - 2, chopped finely
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Black olives without pits - 15-20, coarsely chopped
Salsa (I used store bought) - about 4 tbsp (enough to just coat each tortilla)
Whole wheat or flour tortillas - 4
Guacamole - optional
Pepper jack or habanero jack cheese - about 1/2 -1 cup, depending on your preference
Salt to taste
Oil

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400 F.

2. Drizzle a little bit of oil in a skillet. When hot, add the onions, bell peppers and garlic. Saute until the veggies are just barely crisp-tender. Add the chipotle, cumin powder, and salt and toss for another few seconds. Remove from the heat.

3. Spray a sheet pan with cooking spray or lightly coat it with oil. Place the tortillas on the pan and bake for 2 minutes (makes a crispier crust). Then, coat the tortillas with salsa, cheese, sauteed veggies, and olives. Bake again for about 7-10 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

4. Serve hot garnished with guacamole and scallions, if desired. Enjoy!

Hot and Spicy!

We loved these so much that I'm sending them to sweet Dhivi for her AWED event with the theme of Mexican food!

Craving more Mexican??
Take a look at my Veggie Enchiladas and Veggie Quesadillas.

Doubly Surprised and Grateful!

2008-04-30T16:12:00.004-04:00

You can imagine my surprise and excitement when I saw an award waiting for me on not one, but 2 blogs!! Both Dhivya of Dhivya's Cuisine and Jayasree of Experiments in Kailas Kitchen awarded me with the Yummy Blog Award:

"Yummy blog award is the award given to the blog with most yummy recipes/photos”

Thank you both so much for deeming my blog deserving of such a wonderful award!

First of all, I'm told that I should tell you all about the yummiest desserts that I have prepared or tasted. This is a tough one since I really love to bake...

Rasmalai

Black Forest Cake (my fave cake!!)

Tiramisu

Kaju Katli

Payasam

They're not in any particular order and this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Now comes the challenge of passing this award on to only 4 yummy blogs. I had many blogs to consider, but a lot of people have already received this award. Of the people who are left, I tried my best to narrow it down to 4 awesome blogs.

1. Mallugirl of Malabar Spices - Am constantly wiping drool off my face on visits to her blog.

2. Deeba of Passionate about Baking - She's stolen my heart with her delectable goodies and style of presentation!

3. Pravs of Simply Spicy - Need I say more? One visit will leave you craving for more!

4. Dhivi of Culinary Bazaar - Not only are her recipes mouthwatering, she actually takes the time to show you each one with step by step instructions and
details!

Congratulations, ladies, on the extremely well deserved awards! Hope you enjoy them and wear it with pride. :) Will be back later today or tomorrow with a recipe.

I feel like there should be an announcer with a funny voice saying this part:

Rules for the ‘Yummy Blog’ award Reciver:

The person who receives the award should display the "Yummy Blog !" logo on their blog and also the meaning of the award which is "Yummy blog award is the award given to the blog with most yummy recipes/photos".

The receiver should also quote their favorite yummy-licious :) dessert(s) that they have ever prepared/eaten. Don’t restrict yourself to any dessert, chocolate bars also welcome.

Also the receiver should pass on the award to four other bloggers whose blog they find "yummy" and let them know about the rules.

Toasted Orzo Salad

2008-04-25T17:29:00.005-04:00

Orzo is one of my favorite things to eat! If you don't know what it is, it's a pasta that's shaped like rice. My favorite way to eat orzo is in salads (pasta salad type dishes). I guess that's why I tend to think of eating it more in the warmer weather months.

This particular dish involves toasting the orzo in oil to add a slightly nutty background flavor to the dish which is really delightful. I used basically whatever vegetables I happened to have on hand on that day, so feel free to substitute whatever you like in this dish! I went with a very simple springtime flavor mix of asparagus, roasted red peppers, and peas accented with garlic and lemon.

This salad is perfect for entertaining, too because it can be served cold or at room temperature. For the same reason, it's perfect for road trips or picnics! Hence, I'm sending this straight over to Easycrafts' Fun in the Sun event.

FYI, leftovers make a great cold lunch the next day!

Ingredients:

Orzo - 3/4 cup
Red onion - 1 small, rough chopped
Garlic - 2 cloves, chopped finely
Red bell pepper - 1 medium, roasted, peeled and rough chopped
Frozen peas - 1/2 cup, defrosted
Asparagus - 1 cup, cut into large pieces (about 1 inch long)
Lemon juice - 1 tsp, or to taste
Water - 1 1/4 cups to 1 1/2 cups
Chili garlic sauce - 1 tbsp, or to taste
Salt to taste
Oil

Method:

Heat oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the orzo and let it toast to a pale golden color. Then, add the onion, garlic, and asparagus. Saute until the veggies are crisp-tender. Now, add the water, peas, and salt to the same pan. Reduce the heat to simmer and cover the pot. Allow the water to absorb into the orzo. (Note: You may need a little more water depending on the heat level you're using. Be careful not to use too much water or else the pasta will get mushy on you.) At this point, transfer the orzo to a bowl and add chili garlic sauce to taste along with lemon juice and roasted peppers. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or until ready to serve. Enjoy chilled or at room temperature!

I was so excited to find out that I'd won best presentation for VOTW bittergourd. In fact, I was jumping up and down like a little kid when I was telling my husband about it! Thanks so much to each and every one of you that voted for me. I cannot put into words how good it feels! It seems like just yesterday that I started my little blog. I really appreciate everyone's support and encouragement as well as your brilliant ideas (cooking and otherwise). I find myself learning something new from you all each day!

Vegetable Enchiladas

2008-04-23T18:50:00.007-04:00

I don't know about you, but I love enchiladas. All types just make me plain happy! I made these on a night where I didn't feel like eating meat. Ok, ok. I know that totally contradicts with everything I said in my last post, but so what? Believe it or not, there really are days when I don't feel like eating meat. There, I admitted it. Hey, even carnivores need their veggies sometimes, right? :)

I had a bunch of random vegetables in the fridge and thought, "Why not make enchiladas with these?" The result was definitely a home run! Even my husband didn't mind eating his veggies that night. He's going to kill me for that one, but oh, well!

Back to actual food talk... You can really use just about any veggie you want here. I used bell peppers, eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes. For flavor, I used Mexican chili powder, cumin powder and oregano as well as chipotle peppers. Chipotles are smoked jalapeno peppers. I buy them canned in adobo sauce, which is a red, somewhat tangy sauce. They keep in the fridge for months with no problem. If you've never tried them, they give your food a spicy (duh!), smoky bite which is really addictive.

I chose to make my own red sauce, but feel free to buy your own or use green sauce (made from tomatillos). You can even use store bought salsa (green or red) or enchilada sauce as your topping sauce. The recipe might look a little long, but it's really not complicated. I promise!

Ingredients:

Filling:

Bell pepper, any color - 2 medium, chopped
Eggplants - 4-5 small, chopped
Zucchini - 1 large, chopped
Onions - 1 medium, diced
Tomatoes - 2 medium, chopped
Garlic - 4 cloves, ground to paste
Mexican chili powder - 1 tbsp
Cumin powder - 2 tsp
Dried oregano - 1 tsp, crushed
Chipotle in adobo - 3, chopped - increase if you want it more spicy
Salt to taste

Scallions - 1 small bunch, chopped
Pepper jack cheese - 2 cups, shredded
Tortillas - 10-12 flour or corn, softened per package directions

For sauce:

Garlic - 1 clove, grated or finely chopped
Chili powder - 1 tsp
Chipotle in adobo - 1, chopped (optional)
Tomato sauce - 1 28 oz can
Sugar - 1/2 tsp (optional)
Salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan. Fry onions until softened. Then add the chopped veggies (tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplants, zucchini) and garlic. Saute until the vegetables are cooked. Add chili powder, cumin powder, oregano, salt, and chipotle. Toss for a minute until the raw smell is gone and everything has come together. Turn the heat off and let this cool.

2. In a small saucepan, combine the sauce ingredients and allow to simmer until thickened and the flavors have melded. Takes about 10 minutes. Keep aside.

3. Preheat oven to 375 F. Prepare a 9x13 pan by sprinkling a few drops of oil and a spoonful of the sauce on top.

4. When ready to assemble, keep the filling, sauce, cheese and tortillas ready. Take a tortilla and place some cheese in the middle (say 1-2 tbsp). Then, put some of the filling on top of the cheese, being sure not to overfill. Fold the sides in (like you would for a wrap) and place in prepared pan, seam side down. Repeat for the rest of the tortillas. Note: You might not be able to fit all of the enchiladas in one pan. If so, just prepare another pan in the same manner and continue.

5. Once all of the enchiladas have been placed in the pan, pour the remaining sauce on top. Then sprinkle the rest of the cheese as well as the scallions. Sometimes, I do green chillies on top as well!

6. Now, bake the whole thing covered (use some aluminum foil to cover the pan) for about 15 minutes at 375 F. Then, broil the top, if desired for 1-2 minutes until bubbly and slightly browned. Let it rest for 5 minutes and serve with sour cream, jalapenos, etc.

I'm sending this in to sweet Dhivi for her AWED - Mexican food event. Hope you all enjoyed this one! :)

Kheema with Vegetables

2008-04-22T20:41:00.005-04:00

This post is dedicated to all of you carnivores out there. Have you ever found yourself with a die hard meat craving?? I mean, you feel like you need meat NOW and nothing but mutton will do...? I get into these fixes every so often and start acting like a crazy woman until I've actually eaten the mutton.

So, one day, I found myself in the aforementioned state but didn't really feel like making 10 different things. I thought about Amma making kheema sometimes and remembered having ground mutton on hand. Then, I thought adding a bunch of vegetables would make it into a complete dish to eat with leftover chappathis.

This dish turned out to be a winner in more ways than one. First of all, it was meaty enough to handle my meat craving. Plus, it was loaded with vegetables, making it a complete dish paired with rotis or rice. I used whatever veggies I had on hand that day, but you can use anything from beans, cabbage, mushrooms, eggplants, bell peppers, cauliflower (maybe), carrots, etc. Also, you can change the masala to suit your tastes, too. Go crazy!!

Ingredients:

Ground mutton - 1 1/2 lb
Baby eggplants - 3-4, chopped
Green bell peppers - 2 large, chopped
Frozen peas, defrosted - 1/2 cup
Potatoes - 2 small, chopped
Tomatoes - 3 medium, chopped
Onions - 2 medium, chopped
Garlic - 5 pods, chopped or crushed
Ginger - 2 inch piece, chopped or crushed
Green chillies - 8-10, chopped
Fennel (sombu) powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder - 2 tsp
Chilly powder - 3 tsp, or to taste
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Yogurt 2 tbsp
Pepper powder - 2 tsp
Salt to taste
Lime juice - 1 tbsp
Oil

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan. Add the ground meat and brown.

2. Now, add the onions and green chillies. Saute until the onions have softened.

3. At this point, ginger and garlic are added and fried until the raw smell disappears. Then, add yogurt, fennel powder, coriander powder, chilly powder, and turmeric powder.

4. Fry until the mixture thickens and the masala smells roasted. Now, add the vegetables (eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, peas, bell peppers) and salt. Cover and cook until the veggies are done.

5. Finally, open and check for seasoning. Add the pepper powder and lime juice and serve this spicy, rich kheema hot with rice, pulav rice, or rotis. Enjoy!!

Bittergourd Two Times

2008-04-15T15:32:00.002-04:00

Growing up, bittergourd was one of my favorite vegetables. Hey, I never claimed to be normal in any respect! I think my mother was shocked that I would relish it, but she could never bring herself to eat it. I still adore this gourd that gets so little respect, so when Pooja announced bittergourd for this month's VOTW, I was totally excited!!

I'm sharing two recipes here. One is my Amma's recipe for bittergourd fry that she used to make all the time at home and I just adore it. It's a very simple one that even Amma will eat! The other recipe is one that sort of came about in Amma telling me about something that my Anni (brother's wife) made recently with green bananas. I tweaked things around and a new dish was born. It's a beautiful baby, if I may say so myself!

Amma's Bittergourd Fry:

One thing to keep in mind is that the bittergourd amount will reduce dramatically in cooking them. 2 medium bittergourds will feed about 2-3 people as a side dish.

This particular dish is meant to be fairly spicy with the heat coming from green chillies and black pepper. It sounds so simple, but is absolutely delightful! You can soak the bittergourd in salt and squeeze it out, if you want, but we never do.

Ingredients:

Bittergourd - 2 medium, chopped finely
Green chillies - 5-6
Black pepper powder - 1 tbsp
Salt to taste

For seasoning:

Oil
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves - 4-5 leaves

Method:

Heat oil in a pan. Season with mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add the green chillies and fry for a few seconds. Now, add the bittergourd pieces and salt to taste. Fry on medium heat until the bittergourd is cooked and crispy. Turn off and serve as a side dish. It goes really well with sambar, rasam, even non-veg dishes and curd rice. Enjoy!

Bittergourd Tamarind Masala:

This one involves cooking of the bittergourd with tamarind and then seasoning it with masala. Onions, tamarind, and a little sugar are used to compensate for the bitterness. Like I said, it's the first time I made this and I will definitely be making this again!!

The taste was out of this world! I adored the combination of the sourness with the spice and slightly bitter taste of the gourds. Simply fabulous!!

Ingredients:

Bittergourd - 1 medium, chopped into large dice
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Tamarind - 1 gooseberry size, soaked in water and pulp extracted
Jaggery - 1 tsp, or to taste (optional, to balance the sourness)
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Chilly powder - 2 tsp, or to taste
Fennel powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste

For seasoning:

Oil
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves - 4-5, torn

Method:

1. Place bittergourd in a pan with tamarind pulp, jaggery, a pinch of salt, and just enough water to cook the gourds. Cook until done and keep aside.

2. In another pan, heat oil until hot. Season with mustard seeds and curry leaves.

3. Add onions and fry until golden brown. Then, add the masala powders (turmeric, chilly, fennel powders) and fry for a few seconds until you smell their aroma.

4. Now, add the cooked bittergourd and salt to taste. Saute on high heat until the masala has coated the bittergourds well and the flavors have come together. If it looks too dry, add a touch of water. Turn off and serve.

You can serve this as a side dish or a main dish. It is just too good mixed with rice!!

Also, vary the consistency to your liking. You can certainly make it thinner for more of a gravy consistency as well. Enjoy!!

I am sending both of these delicious dishes to dear Pooja. I hope she enjoys these as much as I do!

Happy New Year!

2008-04-14T12:16:00.002-04:00

Wishing each and every one a very happy Tamil New Year! A fresh start, a new beginning that coincides beautifully with spring. Hope those of you who celebrate the festival had a great one!

Green Sprouts Adai

2008-04-09T16:55:00.004-04:00

Amma was visiting last week, so we were having a bit of fun planning meals. One day, we were thinking what to make for dinner on a day later in the week. I remembered that I had some kollu (horsegram dal) and thought we could make something with that. Somehow, the idea of adai came up. Usually adai is made sort of similar to uthappam in thickness, but the batter consists of a combination of lentils/dals. Suddenly, inspiration struck and I thought, we could use whole moong dal in combination with the horsegram dal and sprout both dals before using them.

To make sprouts, take the required amounts of the dals and soak them in water for about 12 hours. Then, drain off the liquid and place the dals in a moist cloth towel for 24-48 hours. You will see the dals sprouting by that point. Just make sure that the cloth stays damp and you'll have no problems.

For the adai, we didn't stray much from the usual adai ingredients. We added ginger, green chillies, and chopped onion. But, we also decided to add a bunch of spinach to give it even more nutrients. So, this is one power packed meal that Popeye would be proud of!

nutritious and delicious!

Ingredients:

Whole moong dal - 1 cup, measured before sprouting
Horsegram dal - 1 cup, measured before sprouting
Red onions - 2 medium, chopped
Ginger - 2 inch piece, rough chopped
Green chillies - 15, or to taste
Spinach - 1 medium bunch, rough chopped
Salt - to taste

Method:

1. Sprout the dals first. Soak them in water for about 12 hours. Then, drain off the liquid and place the dals in a moist cloth towel for 24-48 hours. You will see the dals sprouting by that point. Just make sure that the cloth stays damp and you'll have no problems with this step!

2. Now, take the sprouts, ginger, and green chillies in a mixie or blender and grind to a coarse, fairly thick paste.

3. Add the spinach to the above mixture and pulse until combined. Add salt to taste and onions.

4. Heat a tava or griddle on medium heat. Place a small amount of batter on the tava and slowly spread it using a spoon until it's thicker than dosa, but a little thinner than uthappam. Drizzle a few drops of oil around and cover.

5. Flip over and cook until done (about 3-4 minutes per side). Be careful that the pan is not too hot or else the adai won't be cooked through by the time it browns!

Serve warm with coconut chutney or any other desired chutney. Enjoy!

This power packed adai is off to dear Srivalli for her awesome dosa mela!

Coconut-Onion Chutney (Thengai Vengayam Chutney)

2008-04-07T16:28:00.004-04:00

This chutney is one that my cousin's wife made on her first visit to our place. I will admit that I'm not the biggest fan of coconut chutney, but this conconction totally won me over!

Coconut is combined with tamarind, red chillies, and seasoned with the special addition of fried onions. Absolutely a gorgeous mix of flavors and a very versatile chutney. Try it and see what you think!

Ingredients:

Coconut, grated - 1 cup
Fried gram dal (pottu kadalai) - 2 tbsp
Tamarind - small gooseberry size
Red chillies - 10, or to taste
Salt to taste

For seasoning:

Oil
Curry leaves - 8-10 leaves
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Red onion - 1/2 small, chopped or 1 shallot chopped
Asafoetida (perungayam) - pinch
Red chillies - 2, broken

Method:

Grind together coconut, red chillies, salt, tamarind, fried gram dal to a smooth paste. Heat oil in a pan. Add red chillies, mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves. Once everything is roasted and the seeds have spluttered, add the onion. Fry until softened. Add the asafoetida and turn off the heat. Pour the seasoning over the ground chutney and serve with any tiffin items (idli, dosa, uthappam, etc). Enjoy!

Garlic-Pepper Rice (Poondu Milagu Saadham)

2008-04-02T15:29:00.002-04:00

By now, I'm sure that most of you know that I am a self-professed garlic addict! Needless to say, I was pretty psyched about this month's JFI hosted by Mathy with the theme of garlic.

I chose to make a variety rice dish that is really easy to throw together. The flavors of garlic and black pepper are complemented by green chillies, cumin, and curry leaves. You can have this rice done with only a few minutes of prep work.

The results?? Huge hit with us! It makes a perfect foil to most curries or dry items. Perfect for when you don't feel like bothering to make a huge, elaborate rice dish!

Ingredients:

Basmati rice - 2 cups, washed, soaked in water for 20 minutes and drained
Freshly ground black pepper - 2 tsp
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Frozen peas - 1/2 cup
Salt to taste

To grind to paste:

Garlic - 10 cloves
Green chillies - 10, or to taste

For seasoning:

Oil
Curry leaves - 6-8 leaves, chopped
Black peppercorns - 1 tsp

Method:

Heat oil in a pan. Add the peppercorns and let them sizzle. Now, add the curry leaves. When they've finished spluttering, add the ground paste. Fry until the raw smell is gone. Then, add the rice, cumin powder, pepper powder, and fry for a few seconds. To this, add 3 cups of water, peas, and required salt. Bring to a boil. Then, reduce the heat to low and let cook until the rice is cooked and water is absorbed (about 15 minutes). Turn off the heat and let stand for another 10 minutes. Then, fluff with a fork and serve with side dish of your choice!

Gaaaarlicky goodness!!

We had this with pepper chicken and spinach. Enjoy!

Yes, I really used 10 cloves of garlic and it was awesome! Feel free to decrease per your taste, though.

Want more garlic? Check out my garlic avocado rotis!

Cocoa Brownies

2008-04-01T12:58:00.003-04:00

I know I've been missing for a little while. Unfortunately, I've been sick for the a few days and have not had any energy to bother with anything! Am doing a little better now and have been wanting to post this brownie recipe (modified from an Alton Brown recipe found here) for a while now.

These brownies are truly a decadent delight! They use cocoa powder and have a texture that's similar to flourless chocolate cake. So, if you're looking for chewy, fudgy brownies, this is not your recipe. The end product here will be cake-like with an intense chocolate flavor. Try them and you'll be in love!

Mansi, this is the recipe for the brownies I sent you, if you were wondering! :)

Ingredients:

Butter and flour - to prepare baking pan
Eggs - 4 large
Sugar - 1 cup
Brown sugar - 1 cup
Melted butter - 8 ounces (2 sticks)
Cocoa powder - 1 cup
Vanilla extract - 2 tsp
Instant coffee powder - 1 tsp
All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
Salt - 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 300 F. Butter and flour 8 inch square baking pan, line with parchment paper (if desired) and keep aside.

2. Attach the whisk attachment in a stand mixer. Beat the eggs at medium speed until light yellow and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes). Don't overbeat the eggs or you could wind up with a mess!

3. Add the sugars and whisk to combine. Once combined, add all of the other ingredients and whisk again for about 2-3 minutes until well combined.

4. Pour batter into prepared 8 inch square baking pan and bake at 300 F for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

5. Cool on a cooling rack for about 15 minutes, then turn out of the pan and cool completely. Cut into squares and enjoy!

Yield: about 16 brownies.

Note: Wait until the brownies have cooled to cut them, or else the cut edges won't be as sharp. I know it's hard, but try to have some patience... Or just stand next to them and start eating pieces from a corner like I did!

Filter Coffee

2008-03-22T13:23:00.003-04:00

I recently saw a recipe for filter coffee on Viji's blog and it really piqued my curiosity. I mean, I'd been playing around with filter coffee for a while, but never grew up around it, so it's really been trial and error for me. I have to tell you that Viji's method is right on! The only thing I changed was decreasing the amount of coffee powder because we don't take it quite as strong. Just follow her recipe to the tee and you'll have yourself a really awesome cup!

This is my entry to Sig's MBP for mixed drinks. If you've had too much of some of the other drinks one night, you'll definitely need a good cup of coffee in the morning! :) MBP was started by Coffee of the Spice Cafe. Enjoy!

Just for kicks, I've decided to send this in to Jugalbandi's Click Metal for this month.

Update: Sorry all! I've just been reminded that Viji's blog is restricted, so I'm including the recipe I used here as well.

Visit this page at Wikipedia for a pic of the Indian coffee filter.

Assemble the top part of the filter onto the bottom part. Put about 1-2 tbsp coffee powder (for 2 people) and press it down with the plunger shaped sieve press. Remove the sieve press. Boil water and pour about 1/2 cup of water evenly over the coffee powder. Cover the filter and allow decoction to drip down.

Once the decoction has finished dripping, boil milk (we used 1/4 decoction to 3/4 lowfat milk but you could go stronger, if you like), about 1 1/2 cups to make a full 2 cups of coffee. Once the milk has boiled, add the decoction to the milk. Now, pour into cups. Add sugar and froth it by pouring it back and forth between the cup and a bowl.

For a real homey touch, use the traditional tumbler and dabarah as I have in the photo!

Spring Vegetable Frittata and Whole Wheat Biscuits

2008-03-20T15:40:00.006-04:00

It's been ages since I made a frittata. If you're not familiar with them, frittatas are like crustless quiches. Basically, they're composed of eggs and whatever you want to add to flavor them. They're started in a pan and baked in the oven to finish. The end result is an egg dish that looks like a pie and can be served hot, warm, or room temperature.

This time, I decided to load up my frittata with veggies. I used a combination of onions, asparagus, zucchini, spinach, and roasted red peppers. It turned out to be very light on the eggs, which was fine with me. I used only 4 eggs to make this dish, but if you'd prefer to have more eggs to balance the veggies, you could go up to even 6 eggs.

Frittata: (Serves 6-8)

Ingredients:

Eggs - 4
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Garlic - 3 cloves, grated
Asparagus - 5-6 spears, cut into 1 inch long pieces
Zucchini - 1 medium, cut into medium dice
Frozen spinach - 1 10 oz package, defrosted and squeezed dry (You could use fresh, if you have it)
Roasted red pepper - 1, coarsely chopped
Salt - to taste
Parmesan cheese - 2 tbsp
Milk - 2 tbsp
Crushed red pepper flakes - to taste
Olive oil

Method:

1. Beat the eggs with milk, Parmesan cheese, salt to taste, and black pepper. Keep aside. Preheat the oven to 425 F

2. Heat oil in a 10 inch skillet. When hot, add the onions and crushed red pepper flakes. Fry until the onions turn translucent.

3. Now, add the asparagus, zucchini, garlic, and a little salt. Fry until the veggies are crisp-tender.

4. Add the frozen spinach and roasted red peppers. Toss for a few seconds.

5. At this stage, add the egg mixture. Stir gently to combine. Allow the whole thing to start to firm up a little around the edges.

6. Now, place the pan in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, or until the eggs are fully cooked and the frittata is solid. You can check for doneness with a toothpick, if you're not sure. The toothpick will come out dry (i.e., no uncooked egg) when it's done.

7. Remove from the oven. Carefully run a spatula around the edges and the bottom of the frittata, being careful not to break it. Gently slide it out onto a serving dish. You could just serve it out of the pan, if you want.

I garnished it with just a little bit of shredded Parmesan, but that's totally optional. Cut into wedges and serve!

Frittata slice!

I served these with whole wheat biscuits, since my husband loves biscuits. The recipe is my modification from one I originally saw on Lisa's blog here. I used garlic and Parmesan to flavor these and boy, were they a hit!!

I love these because they're wheat and they use olive oil instead of butter and/or shortening. You wind up with biscuits that are soft and fluffy as clouds. Truly wonderful!!

Whole Wheat Biscuits:

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 3/4 cup
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Baking powder - 1 tbsp
Olive oil - 5 tbsp
Milk - 1 cup
Parmesan Cheese - 2 tbsp
Garlic - 2 cloves, grated
Black pepper powder - 2 tsp, optional

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 F

2. In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flours, salt, baking powder).

3. Now, add the olive oil, milk, cheese, and garlic.

4. Stir until just combined. Do not over-stir or the biscuits will be tough!

5. Drop onto a greased baking sheet in 1/4 cup amounts. Sprinkle black pepper on top, if desired.

6. Bake at 450 F for 10-12 minutes until light golden.

Makes about 12 biscuits.

The final resulting breakfast:

Breakfast of Champions!

I am sending these over to my dear girl Mansi, over at Fun and Food. She's hosting this month's WBB, with the theme of balanced breakfasts. I hope she is satisfied with the balance of protein, veggies, and whole grain in this breakfast! :)

Asian Chicken Soup

2008-03-19T15:23:00.003-04:00

So, I was rummaging through the fridge one day and really had nothing on hand to eat for lunch. To top it off, I was already hungry and was thinking of something quick cooking that I could make. Suddenly, I remembered this soup I used to make quite a bit when it's cold. I had ingredients that would work, so I figured, why not? It was excellent!!

This soup is basically an Asian inspired spin on chicken noodle soup. I combined boneless chicken with carrots, celery, bell peppers, and rice noodles. You could really use any veggies you want, including snap peas, mushrooms, cabbage, bok choy, bean sprouts, etc. You could also use tofu instead of chicken, and make this a vegetarian soup. It's warm, spicy, and comforting. If you're sick (as I was on said day), it really hits the spot!!

I'm giving the recipe for the mix of stuff I used, but you're only limited by your imagination! Of note, this soup is very light on the chicken and heavier on the veggies, but that's personal preference.

(This recipe serves 3-4)

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken tenders - 1 piece, chopped
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Carrots - 1 large, coarsely chopped
Celery - 2 stalks, coarsely chopped
Bell peppers (any color) - 2 medium, coarsely chopped
Rice noodles - 1/2 cup
Chicken stock - 4 cups, plus more, if needed
Soy sauce - to taste
Salt - to taste, optional
Green chillies - 5-6, or to taste
Garlic - 5 cloves, chopped finely
Ginger - 2 inch piece, chopped finely
Oil

For garnishing:

Coriander leaves - a handful, chopped
Scallions/green onions - 2, sliced
Lime wedges to squeeze on soup
Chili garlic sauce - optional
Green chillies soaked in vinegar - optional

Method:

1. Heat oil in a soup pot. When hot, add the onions, green chillies and saute until the onions soften.

2. Then, add the vegetables (carrots, celery, and bell pepper), garlic, and ginger and cook for 2-3 minutes.

3. Add chicken stock, soy sauce, and a little salt, if desired. Allow to simmer until the vegetables are mostly cooked.

4. Now, add the chicken and the noodles. Simmer until everything has gotten cooked. Check for seasoning. If the soup has gotten too thick while cooking, add a little more chicken stock or water.

Pour into soup bowls and garnish with coriander leaves, scallions, lime wedges. If you want more of a kick, use some sriracha sauce, chili-garlic sauce, or chillies soaked in vinegar. The flavor punch is really amazing!!

my lunch!

This is really a complete meal in and of itself, but feel free to eat it with spring rolls, dumplings, wontons, or anything else your heart desires! Enjoy! :)

Pumpkin and Eggplant Curry

2008-03-18T13:06:00.004-04:00

A while ago, I saw a recipe for eggplant and pumpkin/butternut squash curry on Suganya's blog and have been wanting to make it since. Well, I finally got around to making it with my own modifications. In my frantic rush on the night I made this, I totally forgot to add mustard seeds and urad dal to season it. I had originally thought to do this, but it was great even without these! Thanks, Suganya, for the inspiration!

I chose to use some of the curry powder that Cham sent to me as the main flavoring to this dish. The end creation was a vegetarian dish that gives you the same satisfaction as eating a non-veg dish. (I think carnivores understand what I mean, right?)

I will qualify this by saying that if you're not a fan of pumpkin to begin with, this dish might not convert you to being a pumpkin lover. However, combining it with another vegetable, and adding spices definitely cuts the sweetness and makes it taste great. So, I'd still urge you to try this out. If you really hate pumpkin, you could try using potatoes or other types of squash instead for a different flavor.

Ingredients:

Yellow pumpkin - 1 cup, diced
Baby eggplant - 1 cup, diced
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Green chillies - 5, chopped (or to taste)
Tomato - 2 medium, chopped
Cham's curry powder - 1 tbsp (you can use your favorite curry powder or sambar pwdr)
Black pepper powder - 1/2 - 1 tsp, per your taste
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Salt to taste
Oil

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan until it's extremely hot.

2. Add the eggplant and saute it on very high heat so that the edges char a bit and the eggplant softens slightly. Remove from the pan and cook the pumpkin in the same way (char it slightly on very high heat and remove from the pan).

3. In the same pan, heat a little more oil. Add the onions, green chillies, and curry leaves. Fry until the onions brown a bit.

4. Now, add the tomato and curry powder. Fry until the tomatoes soften and the raw smell of the masala goes away.

5. Add the cooked vegetables, salt, half a cup of water and cook on medium low until the vegetables are fully cooked and have absorbed the flavor of the masala.

6. Turn off the heat, add pepper powder, check seasoning. If desired, you can add a squeeze of lime juice to heighten the flavors. Suganya used coriander leaves at the end, but I had none on hand that day. Feel free to use them if you like!

Tastes great with any roti, chappathi, etc.

Dinner anyone?

Curried Chicken Burgers and Spiced Oven Fries

2008-03-14T11:06:00.008-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I received my surprise ingredient from Cham, of Spice Club. She sent me her homemade curry powder which smells out of this world!!

Ok, so you might be wondering what I made with Cham's curry powder. Well, my twisted brain was at work again and I came up with this idea to use it in a burger... My initial thought was to use ground lamb, but I didn't have any on hand and just couldn't get to the store. So, I thought it would still work with ground chicken. Boy, did it ever work!! Paired with oven fries, also using the same curry powder, this made one spectacular meal!

Cham, you are such a dear to send me your curry powder. I am so glad to have received it and to have used it to make such a delicious burger! I do have a more "normal" use also in store for it, but will post that later.

Curried Chicken Burgers:

Ingredients:

Ground chicken - 1lb
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Garlic - 5 cloves, grated
Green chillies - 10, or to taste, chopped
Coriander leaves - 3 tbsp, chopped
Cham's curry powder - 1 tbsp
Pepper jack cheese - 8 small slices (1 slice per burger)
Salt to taste
Oil
Small buns - 8 (figure 1-2 per person, depending on appetite)

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients together and let soak for about 1/2 hr.

2. Form into small patties (I was able to make 8 small patties) and place into skillet on medium heat. Cook on both sides until browned and cooked through.

3. Place cheese on top of the burgers, cover loosely with foil, and allow to melt while keeping the pan on low heat.

4. Toast buns.

Place burgers and desired toppings (lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, etc.) on buns and enjoy hot! You can use any desired dressing or sauce on these as well (ketchup, chutney, etc.) We used a green olive spread (crushed green olives, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and crushed red pepper) as our dressing, but ketchup or chutney would be equally delicious!

If you have leftovers, don't worry... They taste even better! I just had the last of them for lunch and it was awesome!! :)

Spiced Oven Fries:

Ingredients:

Potato (russet) - 1 medium, chopped into sticks
Sweet potato - 1 medium, chopped into sticks
Cham's curry powder - 1 tbsp, or to taste
Salt - to taste
Olive oil

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.

2. Toss potatoes and sweet potatoes lightly in oil and spread on lightly greased cookie sheet or sheet pan.

3. Bake at 425 F for 25-30 minutes. Lower the heat to 400 F and cook for another 15-20 minutes.

4. Once cooked, remove from oven, toss with salt and curry powder. Serve with burgers and enjoy!

I will be passing on the love to Revathi of En Ulagam, and Mansi of Fun and Food. Get your creative juices flowing, ladies! Am looking forward to seeing your dishes!

Mystery Ingredient!

2008-03-14T10:59:00.005-04:00

What is Arusuvai? It is the brainchild of Latha and Lakshmi of the The Yum Blog – the Arusuvai Friendship chain is, in Latha 's own words,

"about sending along a surprise ingredient as a gift to your friends for them to prepare something tasty with it, share the recipe, and pass on other surprise ingredients to more people. Arusuvai means six tastes (aruu = six, suvai=taste) in Tamizh and is used to refer for Tasty preparation with six tastes - inippu/ thithippu (sweet), orappu/ karam (hot), kassappu (bitter) , pulippu (sour), uppu(salt), tuvarpu (tastes that one gets in raw leaves).”

Latha, of Masala Magic, has started the arusuvai chain here in the US. I am just so happy that I've been able to participate in the fun!

I was so excited when Cham, of Spice Club, contacted me to ask if I'd like to receive a surprise ingredient from her! Would I like to receive something?? Was that really a question? Of course I'd love to get something!! :)

When Cham told me that she'd sent the package, my eager, impatient side set in. I couldn't wait to see what she had in store for me. When I opened the package, she had enclosed a sweet card that said, "Good Luck" in huge letters on the cover... Was she trying to tell me something? *laugh* Inside was a pair of cute earrings and a packet with the secret podi (spice powder).

The smell was just divine... I could smell fennel, black pepper, and cardamom for sure. Maybe some cloves, too, I thought. So, I consulted with her and found out what it really is.

Mystery Powder!

Turns out, this is Cham's own curry powder blend. She actually went through my blog, saw that I had a lot of non-veg dishes, and thought I might like this particular podi! I can't thank you enough, Cham!

So, what did I make with this wonderful podi? Stay tuned for my next post!

Tomato Onion Chutney (Thakkali Vengayam Chutney)

2008-03-12T15:44:00.004-04:00

This is another quick and easy chutney that tastes awesome. I've modified this from a recipe that I saw on www.pachakam.com. Tomato is the predominant flavor, which is accented by sweet onion, tangy tamarind, and the unique, earthy flavor of coriander seeds. It's the roasting of the coriander seeds and grinding them into the chutney that truly makes this a special dish!

So, if you've got minimal ingredients around and are in a fix, give this chutney a try. You'll be glad!

Ingredients:

Tomatoes - 3 medium plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped
Onion - 1 medium, coarsely chopped
Tamarind - small gooseberry size
Red chillies - 6-8, or to taste
Coriander seeds - 2 tbsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Asafoetida - large pinch
Salt to taste

For seasoning:

Oil
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - 5-6 leaves, torn

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan. Add red chillies, fry until they've darkened, and remove.

2. In the same hot oil, add onions, curry leaves, coriander seeds, and fry until the onion is translucent.

3. Now, add the tomatoes and allow to soften slightly. Add asafoetida and turn off the heat.

4. Grind the cooled mixture with tamarind and salt.

5. At this point, do the seasoning with mustard and curry leaves and pour over ground chutney. Mix well and serve.

Enjoy this with idli, dosa, uthappam, or any tiffin items!

Eggplant Potato Curry

2008-03-11T13:30:00.003-04:00

This is another one of those quick side dishes that sort of comes together when I open the fridge and see what's there... Decide to pair this with that, add some of x, y, and z spice, and voila! Yumminess!!

Eggplant was paired with potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and spices to make a dish that was tasty with rice, chappathi, roti, etc. Am sending this over to Pooja for her VOTW event this month!

Ingredients:

Baby eggplants - 4-5, chopped into bite sized pieces
Potato, thin skinned - 1 medium, chopped
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Tomato - 2 medium plum tomatoes, chopped
Chilly powder - 2-3 tsp, or to taste
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Fennel powder - 1 tsp
Salt to taste

For seasoning:

Oil
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan. When hot, add seasoning ingredients. Then, add onion and saute until they soften.

2. Now, add the eggplant and potatoes. Saute until the color of the eggplant changes slightly.

3. Add the tomatoes, salt, and spice powders. Cover and let cook until the veggies are cooked, the sauce has thickened, and the raw smell of the masala is gone. Turn off and serve!

Enjoy with white rice, on the side with sambar, rasam, chappathi, roti, etc.

In other news, I've received my Arusuvai from Cham and am contemplating the possibilities... Stay tuned! :)

Aatu Kaal Soup (Mutton Bone Soup) and a Meme

2008-03-05T15:10:00.007-05:00

It's been a few days since Uma tagged me for a meme. I'd been postponing it a bit, but I'm finally doing it.

Here are the rules for the Meme..

Link to your tagger and post these rules.
Share 5 facts about yourself.
Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them)
Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Five facts about me...? Ok, here goes!

1. I hate bananas. I don't mean dislike. I mean cannot stand them, do not get them within 10 feet of me, the very thought of them creeps me out kind of hatred. I have no idea how or why this happened, but it's a very deep hatred (emotional scarring??!!). It got to the point that one day I was sitting in the exam hall and one of my classmates brought a banana for breakfast, but I didn't know it. Suddenly, while writing the exam, I could smell the stench of banana... It was so bad, I had to leave the room for a few minutes!

2. I am, shall we say, "vertically challenged?" I'm talking short, people. Very short. I mean, I can't survive one day in the kitchen without my footstool!

3. I have a tendency to put everyone and everything else before myself. Not sure if that's just a female thing, but I've always been guilty of it!

4. I am a hopeless romantic! I'd always been one of those girls with fantasies of Prince Charming on a white horse. Well, my husband doesn't know how to ride a horse, but oh, well!

5. Dogs creep me out, too! I've always been a bit scared of them. I mean, it's fine if they're not within reach, but the minute they can touch me, I'm a little scared. My poor in-laws had to lock up their dogs when we were in India on our wedding trip!

I guess that's plenty for now, huh? Let me pass on the love, now. I'm going to tag Anu, Laavanya, Dhivya, Lavanya Raj, and Sagari.

Now, for a comforting, warm, spicy soup!

This aatu kaal soup is one that I made using bones (with little bits of meat attached) from a goat leg that I'd bought. I had a really bad sinus thing going on a couple of weeks ago and this soup was just what the doctor ordered! The idea is basically using the bones to create a quick mutton stock and seasoning it up with awesome spices to make a flavor combo that really rocks! Hope you guys like this one as much as I did. :)

Ingredients:

Mutton bones - 2 lb, cleaned of excess fat
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Tomato - 1 medium, chopped
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Chilly powder - 3 tsp, or to taste

Dry fry and coarsely powder:

Whole black peppercorns - 2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
Fennel seeds - 1 tsp

For seasoning:

Oil
Onion - 1/2 medium, chopped
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Fennel seeds - 1/4 tsp
Garlic - 3 cloves, crushed

Method:

1. In a pressure cooker, place the mutton bones, coriander powder, turmeric powder, chilly powder, onion, tomato, salt, and about 3-4 cups of water. Use more water to make a thinner soup or slightly less for a thicker consistency.

2. Cook all of the above on low heat for 30-45 minutes. This is basically a mutton stock.

3. Once the pressure has subsided, open the cooker. Add the coarse powder (black pepper, jeera, and fennel) and allow to boil to the desired consistency. Now, reduce the heat to low.

4. In a separate pan, heat oil. When hot, add the fennel seeds and let brown and splutter. Then, add the seasoning ingredients and fry until the onions have softened. Pour this into the soup.

5. Once the whole thing comes to a boil, turn off. Enjoy by itself or with hot rice to make a quick and satisfying meal!

Aatu Kaal Soup for you!

Update: Also check out Shaheen's version here.

Poached Pears

2008-03-03T13:46:00.006-05:00

I had made this for a dessert recently. Poached pears are so easy to prepare and are such a showstopping dessert! The color that gets absorbed from simmering them in wine is truly amazing. So, if it's a special occasion or if you want to treat yourself, this is the perfect dessert!

Basically, the idea here is to cook the pears in wine (poach them), flavored with spices and sugar, cool them, and fill them with a creamy, slightly sweet filling. It's light and decadent all in the same bite!

I used mascarpone cheese, which is a really creamy Italian version of cream cheese. If you can't find it, cream cheese would be fine as a substitute. I found the original recipe here from Food Network's website, but made lots of flavor changes. Also, I made this for 2 servings, but you could easily scale up. A full bottle of wine will be enough for 6 servings (6 pears).

Ingredients:

Pears, any firm variety - 2, peeled with stem intact
Red wine - 250 ml (1/3 of a bottle)
Water - 250 ml
Sugar - 1/2 cup, or to taste
Star anise - 2
Cloves - 5
Cardamom - 2
Butter - 2 tsp

For filling:

Mascarpone cheese - 4 oz (1/2 of an 8 oz container)
Cream or milk - 2 tbsp
Confectioner's sugar - 2 tbsp, or to taste
Ground ginger - 1/4 - 1/2 tsp (optional)

Method:

1. Bring water and wine to a simmer in a medium pot. Add star anise, cloves, cardamom, and sugar.

2. Now, add pears and simmer for about 20-25 minutes or until tender. You can check if they're done by piercing with a fork or butter knife.

3. Turn the heat off the stove and allow the pears to cool completely in the liquid. At this point, they can be refrigerated until you're ready to fill them. Allowing them to soak in the liquid for at least 24 hours will really deepen the color to an amazing ruby red!

4. When you're ready to fill the pears, remove the cores from the pears using an apple corer or paring knife. Be careful to leave the pear whole!! Keep the poaching liquid as we'll use it soon!

5. Whisk the mascarpone, cream, confectioner's sugar, and ginger (if using) until smooth. Transfer to a pastry bag or place in a ziploc bag, force the mixture towards one of the bottom corners, and cut about 1/4 inch off of the bag's corner to make a "poor man's pastry bag".

6. Using your desired bag, fill the pears and keep aside.

7. Now, strain the poaching liquid and place in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and reduce by half. Add the butter to the sauce and drizzle the sauce over the pears. Allow to reach room temperature and serve!

Am sending this off to our singing chef, Raaga, who's hosting AFAM this month where the chosen fruit is pear! Enjoy!! :)

Lemon Pudding Cakes

2008-02-29T22:41:00.005-05:00

You know, I was a strange child... Well, I guess not much has changed...! What I'm referring to is the fact that I've always loved lemons. Lemon flavored anything and I was all over it. So what's weird about that? I was so lemon obsessed that I would take slices of raw lemon and eat them. No salt, no sugar, no nothing. I'd even walk around sucking on lemon slices at our family friends' houses. Man, those aunties gave me some weird looks!! I still love lemons, but have managed to restrain myself from sucking on them (well, for the most part, anyway!).

So, when Coffee announced that this months JFI was for lemons and limes, I thought this is going to be a piece of cake! Turns out, it wasn't! I thought of lemon desserts and wanted to try something new. I've been indecisive on what to make for so long until I finally settled on this lemon pudding cake recipe from my Pillsbury Complete Book of Baking book.

I'd never had pudding cake before, but the description sounded really great. "A lemony cake rises to the top, leaving a delicious sauce on the bottom," is the preface to the recipe. Now, that was an offer too good to refuse!! Sure enough, the result was a delicious, spongy cake on top with a lemony pudding on the bottom (sort of like lemon curd). The taste was light, refreshing, and delectable! The bonus? This dessert is actually LOW FAT and relatively low-cal!! I decided to make these in individual ramekins and they're so cute!!

awww!!

Ingredients:

Eggs - 3, separated
Milk - 1/2 cup
Lemon juice (fresh squeezed!) - 1/4 cup
Lemon zest - 1 tsp (about the zest from 1 medium lemon)
Sugar - 1/2 cup
All purpose flour - 1/3 cup
Salt - 1/8 tsp

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease four 6 oz ramekins and keep aside.

2. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks. Stir in milk, lemon juice, and lemon peel.

3. Add the sugar, flour, and salt. Now, beat this until it's smooth.

4. In a separate bowl, use clean beaters and beat the egg whites until you have stiff peaks. Don't over-beat the egg whites until they dry out!

5. Fold the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Don't worry about getting everything perfectly mixed. Let there be bits of white color running through the yellow. If you over-mix, you'll just deflate the air you've already beaten into the egg whites!

6. Now, pour the batter into the greased ramekins and place the ramekins in a 9x13 pan.

7. Pour boiling water in the 13x9 pan around the ramekins so that it comes up to a depth of 1 inch.

8. Bake at 350 F for 20-25 minutes, until light golden brown.

Tastes great warm, but good cold, too!

A bite for you!

Spiced Oatmeal Muffins

2008-02-29T11:58:00.006-05:00

I was rummaging through my fridge when I realized that I had a container of buttermilk that was a little old, but not quite expired. After I checked to make sure it was ok, I wanted to find a way to use it up quickly! Plus, I was sort of in the mood to bake something. So, I rummaged through this new baking book I got (The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion) and found a recipe for oatmeal muffins. Mind you, I still can't bring myself to eat oatmeal on its own, but that's another story!

Anyway, the recipe sounded really easy and healthy (oats, buttermilk, raisins, brown sugar). So, I thought, why not add some spices to the basic mixture and jazz it up a bit? My initial thought was to try to add a mix of spices that would resemble Indian tea masala. Masala chai meets oatmeal. Neat idea, huh? I thought so, but that's my twisted mind at work!

It turned out to not have as much of a spiced kick as I wanted, but was still delightful. The spices wound up more in the background and were subtle, combined with the flavor of the oats (without any sliminess!), juicy pop of raisins, and sweetness of brown sugar. Not only are these muffins really satisfying, they make a great start to the day! (Just keep in mind that the oats need to be soaked overnight.) I'm giving you the spice measurements that I used, but feel free to tweak them to your taste. :)

So, they're off to Suganya who's hosting WBB healthy eats this month! Without any further ado, let's get to the recipe, shall we?

This recipe yields 12 muffins.

Ingredients:

Quick cooking or rolled oats - 1 cup
Buttermilk - 2 cups
Brown sugar - 1/2 cup, packed (you could cut back a bit for less sweetness)
Butter - 4 tbsp, melted (1 tsp per muffin!)
Egg - 1, lightly beaten
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Baking soda - 3/4 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
All purpose flour - 1 1 /2 cups
Raisins - 1/2 cup

Optional spices:

Allspice, ground - 1/4 tsp
Nutmeg, ground - 1/4 tsp
Cinnamon, ground - 1/2 tsp
Ginger, ground - 1/2 tsp
Clove, ground - 1/4 tsp
Cardamom, ground - 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Soak oats in buttermilk overnight.

2. Preheat the oven to 425 F.

3. In a large bowl, combine the oat and buttermilk mixture, butter, egg, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

4. In another bowl, stir the raisins and spices (if using) into the flour. Pour into the large bowl used in the previous step and combine quickly and gently. Overworking will result in tough muffins!

5. Line muffin cups with paper liners or grease them.

6. Divide batter evenly between the cups and bake at 425 F for 20 minutes, until tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

7. Remove from oven and allow to cool on a rack for 5 minutes. Then, remove from pans and allow to finish cooling.

Enjoy warm! They really don't need anything on them!

For a real treat, take the leftover muffins, cut them in half, and warm them in a hot oven until the edges become slightly crispy. Enjoy with or without butter. Delicious!! Alternatively, you could toast them (cut side down) on a slightly buttered griddle for the same effect. Try it. You'll be glad that you did! :)

Meen Kuzhambu with Ground Onion (Fish Gravy with Ground Onion)

2008-02-27T12:32:00.007-05:00

I had the worst craving for fish the other day. It's funny that when I was a kid, I never used to care for fish very much. I'd much rather eat shrimp or crabs and used to get quite irritated when Amma would buy fish. Funny how times have changed! I've become a self-professed fish addict as well! I found myself dying for fish and drove to the fish market, cooked the fish right away and ate it. Man, was that ever satisfying!!

When I was thinking about how to make the gravy, it occurred to me that I could add a bit of coarsely ground onion with the masala. I found it to help balance the sourness of the tamarind a bit as well as give the gravy a bit of richness that was really divine! Just be sure to compensate with enough extra spice or the gravy will be dull, since the onions will make it feel less spicy than usual!

Ingredients:

Fish - 1 1/2 lb, cleaned and cut into small steaks
Shallot - 3 medium, sliced finely (you could use 1 medium onion instead)
Tomato - 2 medium, chopped
Tamarind - small lime size, soaked in water, juice extracted

Dry roast for a few seconds and coarsely grind with 1 shallot (or 1/4 onion):

Coriander powder - 2 tsp
Fennel powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Chilly powder - 3-4 tsp, or to taste
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

For seasoning:

Oil (recommended: sesame oil)
Fenugreek (methi) seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Method:

1. Wash the fish well with turmeric powder and lime juice. Keep aside.

2. Heat oil in a pan. When hot, add the fenugreek seeds and toss for a few seconds until lightly brown.

3. Add the curry leaves and shallots. Fry until the shallots brown.

4. Then, add tomatoes and saute until they soften a bit.

5. Now, add the tamarind juice, masala paste, 1 cup of water, and required salt. Bring to a boil and simmer until the gravy becomes thick (to your desired consistency).

6. Now, lower the heat and add the fish pieces. Cover the pan and cook for about 3-5 minutes on medium low until the fish is cooked. Re-check for seasoning and turn off.

Serve with a platter of steaming hot white rice and enjoy with some fish fry!! :)

a serving for you!

Asparagus Poriyal (Asparagus Side Dish)

2008-02-26T20:23:00.007-05:00

Asparagus... How I love it!! It's good for you and apparently an aphrodisiac, too (more info on asparagus here). Tastes delicious on its own, in pastas, soups, etc. What's not to like?? So, I thought of making it Indian style for a change and it turned out to be a nice change from my usual asparagus methods. Really simple dish for anytime use!

Ingredients:

Asparagus - 1 bunch, cleaned and cut into small pieces
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Garlic - 3 cloves, chopped
Salt - to taste

For seasoning:

Oil
Red chillies, broken - 5, or to taste
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - few

Method:

1. Heat oil in pan and do seasoning with ingredients listed. Add onions and fry until translucent.

2. Then, add garlic and fry for 1 minute until garlic softens a bit.

3. Now, add the asparagus and required salt. Lower the heat and cover the pan.

4. Cook until the asparagus is almost done. Then, open pan and finish cooking.

asparagus poriyal

Goes well as a side dish for any gravy, rice, chappathi, roti, etc. Do try it out and enjoy!

Chinese Chilly Chicken

2008-02-25T15:24:00.009-05:00

The idea to make this dish had popped up over the weekend when my husband and I were in the mood for something different to eat. I thought of making a Chinese style fried rice, but my husband was in the mood for chicken. I had some bell peppers and onions and made this concoction that wound up tasting pretty similar to dishes you get in Indian-Chinese restaurants. It's sort of like a moister version of chilly chicken.

I've used a chili-garlic sauce, for spice, that's a variant of sambal oelek just because I'm a garlic addict, but I'm recommending sambal oelek for the normal people out there! Sambal oelek is a chili sauce that is made with ground chillies. You could substitute with any chili sauce that you like (sriracha, Maggi sauces, etc.). It would all work! In the end, this dish was definitely a thumbs up!! :)

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken, cut into small pieces - 1 lb
Onion - 2 medium, cut into large chunks
Bell pepper - 1 large, cut into large chunks
Garlic - 4 cloves, crushed or chopped finely
Ginger - 1 1/2 inch piece, crushed or chopped finely
Soy sauce - to taste
Tomato ketchup - 3 tbsp
Sambal Oelek - 3 tbsp, or to taste
Green chillies - 3, chopped
Scallions (spring onions) - 1 small bunch, chopped for garnish (optional)

To marinate chicken:
Egg - 1, beaten (optional)
Soy sauce - to taste
Sambal Oelek - 1 tbsp
Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tsp (optional)
Cornstarch - 1 tsp

Method:

1. Marinate the chicken with the marinade ingredients for 30 minutes. Then, lightly fry the chicken pieces in a couple of spoons of oil until light brown. Remove from pan and keep aside.

2. To the hot pan, add the onions, bell peppers, green chillies and saute for 2 minutes.

3. Add the crushed (or chopped) ginger and garlic and saute until the veggies are crisp-tender and the garlic and ginger have softened a bit.

4. Now, reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the sauces, salt (if needed) and the cooked chicken pieces. Let simmer for 3-4 minutes and turn off. Sprinkle scallions over and serve hot.

Goes well with white rice or fried rice or even as an appetizer. Enjoy!

For more of a gravy consistency, add a teaspoon of cornstarch dissolved in half a cup of water to the pan and allow to cook for 2-3 minutes.

The little bit that's left is off to Bindiya of In Love With Food for her Chinese food event!

Btw, I've joined the foodie blog roll which is for people who have food blogs. For more info, click here or on the banner on the side of my blog!

Award Show and Cinnamon Quick Bread

2008-02-22T14:55:00.005-05:00

2 awards on the same day??!!! Oh, my goodness! I am so touched and flattered at the same time. My blog is still a baby... All of barely 3 months old and people have thought that I'm worthy of deserving awards already? I'm speechless.

This "Nice matters Award" was presented to me by dear Uma of the Essence of Andhra blog. Thank you so much, Uma! I am so flattered that you would think of me to pass this award to! I'd like to pass this on to each and every one of the bloggers (established and new) out there as well as the readers of our blogs. You guys rock!

This next award was presented to me by our very own Cham of Spice-Club who says that I give usual recipes a twist. Thanks so much for choosing me, Cham. It means so much! There are so many bloggers that I'd like to pass this on to, but I'm told I have to choose only 5. So, here goes:

Mansi of Fun and Food for her mouthwatering recipes, fun and funky style. This girl knows how to have fun and make you have fun with her!

Pravs of Simply Spicy. Her gorgeous pics would tempt a vegetarian to want to eat non-veg! I get the urge to try all of her recipes as soon as I read them. I can't thank you enough for all of your encouragement in the first posts, Pravs. You were the first person to comment!

Shn of Mishmash. Her stories draw me in to them and her photos... Words cannot describe them! Lots of wonderful Kerala recipes here.

Sig of Live to Eat. Her dedication and the effort in each of the posts she's published is apparent on reading them. Recipes from every corner of the globe with drinks to match!

Maheshwari of Beyond the Usual. The title of her blog speaks volumes about its content. I was a regular visitor to her blog from before I started mine. Awesome recipes, Mahesh!

Plus, all of the other wonderful bloggers out there that I wasn't able to mention. You are my inspiration every day! I love visiting each and every one of your blogs to see the latest surprises you've got in store for me!

To celebrate, I'm offering you all some cinnamon quick bread! This is from my Pillsbury complete book of baking cookbook. It's fast, easy, and tastes awesome with my minor adaptations which I'm including here! :)

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Baking powder - 4 tsp
Cinnamon powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Raisins - 1/2 cup
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Buttermilk - 1 cup
Oil - 1/3 cup
Vanilla - 2 tsp
Eggs - 2

For streusel:

Sugar - 2 tbsp
Cinnamon powder - 1 tsp
Butter, softened - 2 tsp

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour bottom only of 9x5 or 8x4 loaf pan.

2. In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients (except streusel ingredients and raisins) and beat for 3 minutes on medium speed.

3. Toss raisins with a tbsp of all purpose flour and fold into batter. Pour batter into prepared pan.

4. Combine streusel ingredients on a small bowl until crumbly. Sprinkle over the batter and swirl with a knife or fork so that the batter and streusel are marbled.

5. Bake at 350 F for 45-55 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely on a rack.

Can be wrapped tightly and stored in the fridge.

A slice for you:
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Masala Shrimp

2008-02-21T15:48:00.006-05:00

I came up with this dish on a spur, really. I was thinking of what to make for Sunita's Think Spice - Star Anise event and was royally stuck. I googled for ideas until my eyes hurt (just kidding!), and kept reverting to the idea of making pulav rice. But, I wanted to do something a bit different. Then, I realized I had some shrimp... What if I ground some star anise with the masala?? And, voila! A new dish was born.

So, how did it come out, you ask? Well, we ate it for dinner last night and my usually silent husband couldn't stop complimenting me on the dish. Coming from him, this is huge!! Then, I took a bite and had to agree. It was sooooo good. By now, you want to look at the recipe, right? I hope you do, so here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

Medium shrimp - 1/2 lb, cleaned (I left the tails on, but that's up to you!)
Onion - 1 medium, sliced finely
Tomato - 1 medium, chopped finely
Coriander leaves - 2 tbsp, chopped
Butter - 1 tbsp
Oil, as required
Salt to taste

Grind to a paste:

Red chillies - 6, or to taste
Black peppercorns - 1 tsp
Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp
Coriander seeds - 2 tsp
Star anise - 2
Cloves - 3
Cinnamon - a small piece
Garlic - 4 cloves
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Heat oil and butter in a pan. When hot, add the onions and fry until golden brown.

2. Then, add the ground paste. Fry until the raw smell is gone.

3. Add the tomatoes, salt to taste, and 1/2 cup water. Saute until the tomatoes soften and you get a thick consistency.

4. Add the shrimp and continue to saute on medium-high heat until the shrimp is cooked and coated with the masala sauce. This should only take 5 minutes or so. Be careful not to overcook the shrimp or they'll be rubbery!

5. Turn the heat off, add coriander leaves and a squeeze of lime juice, if desired. Check for seasoning.

Serve hot. Tastes great with pulav rice or by itself as a starter. If you make it a little looser, you could mix it with white rice. Enjoy!

Kovakkai Pirattal (Ivy Gourd in Thick Gravy)

2008-02-20T08:11:00.009-05:00

This dish features one of my favorite vegetables - kovakkai or ivy gourd. Another one that is based on a segment from Sun TV's Unavum Aarogiyamum series with chef Jacob. I've been meaning to make this for a long time, but somehow hadn't been able to get around to it until recently.

According to the chef, kovakkai pirattal is a Naanjil naadu dish. Naanjil naadu area of Tamilnadu extends from Madurai to Kanyakumari, he said. He also said that the use of deeply roasted coriander powder is characteristic of this cuisine.

This particular dish utilizes the roasted coriander powder, green chillies as the exclusive source of spice, and both coconut and poppy seeds to give a creamy texture. The ivy gourd remains crisp-tender after cooking and the explosion of flavors is amazing!

Ingredients:

Kovakkai/Ivy gourd - 2 cups, cut in half lengthwise (if very large gourds, cut in four lengthwise)
Onion - 2 medium, chopped
Tomatoes - 2 medium, chopped
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander seeds - 3 tsp, dry roasted until dark brown and powdered
Fennel powder - 1/2 tsp
Garlic-ginger paste - 2 tsp
Poppy seeds/gasagasa - 1 tbsp, soaked in warm water for 15 minutes
Coconut, grated - 1/4 cup

For seasoning:

Oil
Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp
Green chillies - 10-15, finely chopped
Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Method:

1. Grind coconut with poppy seeds and keep aside.

2. Heat oil in pan. When hot, add fennel seeds and fry until they turn brown and splutter a bit. Add the curry leaves and green chillies.

3. Add onions and fry until golden brown. Then add garlic-ginger paste and fry until the raw smell disappears.

4. Then, add tomatoes, turmeric powder, roasted coriander powder, fennel powder and fry until the tomatoes soften a bit.

5. At this point, add the kovakkai/ivy gourd, salt, and enough water to cook the gourds. You can cook them on medium-low heat without closing the pan, but it will take longer than if you close the pan for a bit. So, if you're in a rush, close the pan and cook (on low heat) until mostly cooked, but still a little crunchy.

6. When the gourds are crisp, but tender add the coconut-poppy seed paste. Let it barely simmer (just a bubble or 2 on the surface) and turn off.

This kovakkai dish goes extremely well with rice dishes, pulav rice, white rice, or even chappathis. It was excellent and would be equally delicious without the coconut paste (in my humble opinion!).

One more look:

kovakkai pirattal

Mini Orange Scones

2008-02-18T19:06:00.008-05:00

My husband happened to be working from home last week. He loves sweets, so I was trying to find something quick and easy to make for him as a tea time snack. I had a craving for scones and found a recipe for mini orange scones in my Pillsbury's "Complete Book of Baking" book.

It served as a great springboard for me. I decided to use raisins instead of mini chocolate chips (I didn't have them on hand), and added some ground ginger to the dough. The pictures probably don't convey this, but the end product was absolutely lip-smackingly good! I'm not going to pretend that these are very healthy, but they're great for a treat. My husband was very happy to have these! :)

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Sugar - 1/3 cup
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Baking soda - 1/4 tsp
Ground ginger - 1/2 tsp (more or less according to your taste)
Butter - 1/3 cup, cut into chunks
Orange juice - 1/3 cup (the juice of 1 softball sized orange)
Milk - 1/3 cup
Orange zest, grated - zest from 1 orange
Raisins - 1/2 cup

Topping:

Sugar - 3 tbsp (I only needed about half of this)
Cardamom - Seeds of 3 pods powdered

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, ground ginger). Mix well with fork or whisk.

3. Add butter to this and break into bits using fork or your fingers. Combine well with the dry ingredients so that the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.

4. Add the raisins and toss lightly. Then, add the orange juice, milk, and orange zest.

5. Stir gently just to moisten the dry ingredients.

6. Drop by teasponfuls (I just used a mini ice cream scoop) onto prepared cookie sheets.

7. Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle over the scones.

8. Bake at 375 F for 8-10 minutes, until light golden brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheets.

Makes about 30 scones.

They taste great warm with orange marmalade and reheat well, too!

warm scone with orange marmalade :)

Loved these so much, I'm sending these to Marta of An Italian in the US for her fresh produce of the month - orange event!

Red Bell Pepper Chutney

2008-02-15T16:19:00.005-05:00

I had this whole batch of idli maavu sitting in the fridge and was running low on chutney. I was thinking of my options as far as making chutneys and for some reason, I was totally stumped. If it were left up to my husband, he'd want coconut chutney every day. I don't do this mainly for health reasons.

Anyway, I was searching around for recipes, when I came across a recipe for red bell pepper chutney on pachakam.com. I happened to have a red bell pepper in the fridge, so I tried it and it was FANTASTIC! Even my husband liked it, and that's saying a lot. Basically, if it's not coconut chutney, peanut chutney, or mint chutney, he's not thrilled. So, I was pleasantly surpirsed with this one.

It's got the fragrance of bell pepper, and is hot and a little sour from tamarind. Easy, quick, and yummy!!

Ingredients:

Red bell pepper - 1, coarsely chopped
Tomatoes - 1 large or 2 medium, coarsely chopped
Green chillies - 10, or to taste
Garlic - 3 cloves, coarsely chopped
Tamarind - small gooseberry size
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Salt to taste

For seasoning:

Oil
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Method:

1. Heat oil in pan until very hot. Add tomatoes and fry on very high heat until they soften a bit on the edges.

2. Add the bell pepper, garlic, green chillies, curry leaves and continue to fry on very high until the edges char a bit and the veggies have softened.

3. Cool completely and grind with tamarind and salt to taste. Add a little water if necessary to grind or if you don't want a very thick chutney.

4. Heat oil in pan and season the chutney using mustard and curry leaves. Pour seasoning over the chutney.

Serve with any tiffin item like idli, dosa, uthappam, etc. Enjoy! :)

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

2008-02-14T19:01:00.006-05:00

Seems like pineapple upside-down cakes have been popping up all over the blogosphere, huh? Well, this past weekend was my mother's birthday and I was thinking of what to make. She loves pineapple, and this cake is also one of my husband's favorites. Add to that the fact that it's really easy to whip up if you have the ingredients on hand, and it was perfect for me. Plus, it's a real crowd pleaser!

This recipe comes from Pillsbury's The Complete Book of Baking, which has been a go to book for me for years. :)

Ingredients:

Firmly packed brown sugar - 1/3 cup (can go up to 1/2)
Melted butter - 2 tbsp (original uses 1/4 cup)
Canned pineapple slices - 6, or enough to cover pan base
Maraschino cherries - 6
Eggs - 2, separated
Granulated/white sugar - 1/2 cup
All purpose flour - 3/4 cup
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Pineapple juice - 1/4 cup (I used the juice from the canned pineapple)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Combine melted butter and brown sugar in bowl and spread on bottom of ungreased 9 inch round cake pan. Place pineapple slices over mixture, placing cherries in the middle of each pineapple slice (i.e., in the hole).

3. Beat egg yolks in a small bowl until thick and lemon colored. Beat well, gradually adding sugar.

4. Add flour, baking powder, salt, and pineapple juice and mix well.

5. In another small bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. (When you pick up the egg beaters, you should have peaks of egg whites on the edge that don't fall off.) Now, fold the egg whites gently into the batter in the other bowl.

6. Pour the batter over the pineapple and cherries in the cake pan and spread to form an even layer.

7. Bake at 350 F for 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 2 minutes (DO NOT FLIP OVER YET).

8. Then, turn over onto serving plate carefully. Slowly remove the pan and replace any fruit/sugar mixture that may have remained stuck to the pan.

Serve warm with ice cream or whip cream, if desired! Sooooooo yummy! This is not a huge cake, so it's ideal as a quick dessert for a small crowd. You can also alter this by using other fruits as you please. :)

want a slice?

Pomegranate Rice

2008-02-13T16:53:00.008-05:00

Valentine's day is tomorrow!!! Crazy, huh?? Everyone seems to be in a loving mood. I'll spare you a lot of the deep romantic mushy poetry and give you a brief glimpse of a day in my life:

It's early morning before S has to go to work. I get up and he's invariably downstairs in front of the computer doing who knows what (software eng... go figure!). I go into the kitchen to start making breakfast. It's probably 1/2 hour until he has to leave. I start reminding him to get ready. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," comes his voice from the basement. 10-15 minutes later, he goes upstairs to take a shower and appears 20 minutes later. It's now about 15 minutes until he has to leave. Breakfast is made and I'm calling for him to come and eat. "I'm coming, " he yells and finally appears 10 minutes later in a frantic rush. Barely manages to choke breakfast down, grabs his lunch, and is about to run out the door when he stops and turns around. "Have a good day, sweetie. I love you," he says with that look in his eyes and leaves.

That look in his eyes... It was that look in his eyes that made me weak in the knees the first time we met. And it still happens every time he looks at me! Ok, ok, I'll stop boring you with my love story! *laugh*

With Valentine's day coming upon us, I was thinking of what to make for Pooja's Valentine day event as well as AFAM - Pomegranate hosted by Sra when this idea suddenly came to me. I thought, what about making rice with pomegranate juice?? The more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed to me and I figured I could make it work.

The overall result was a variety rice dish that was a bit tangy, but not overly so. We really liked it a lot! Now, I share the recipe with you all...

Ingredients:

Basmati rice - 2 cups, soaked in cold water for 30 minutes and washed
Pomegranate juice - 2 cups
Water - 2 cups
Chilly powder - 2 tsp, or to taste
Fennel powder - 3/4 tsp
Coriander leaves - 3 tbsp, chopped
Raisins - 1 tbsp (optional)
Cashews - 1 tbsp
Salt to taste

For seasoning:

Cinnamon - 1 inch piece
Cloves - 5-6
Star anise - 2

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add the seasoning ingredients.

2. When they are sizzling and fragrant, add the chilly powder and fennel powder. Fry for a few seconds until fragrant. Do not over-fry or the chilly powder will burn and get bitter! :)

3. Now, add the pomegranate juice and water.

4. Bring to a boil and add coriander leaves, salt, and rice.

5. Reduce the heat to simmer and allow to cook until the rice has absorbed all of the water (15-20 min)

6. Allow to rest for 10 minutes, fry raisins and cashews in little bit of ghee, and add to rice. Serve with raita or any side dish of your choice.

I hope you all, Pooja, and Sra enjoy this one! :)

Keerai Poriyal and a Royal Side Dish!

2008-02-12T14:18:00.002-05:00

A couple of more simple side dishes for busy weeknights.:)

Keerai Poriyal:

First, we have keerai poriyal (spinach stir-fry). You can absolutely use frozen spinach if you're in a real rush, but nothing beats the taste of fresh! This is a very easy yet amazingly flavorful way of preparing spinach. The spinach is scented with garlic, onions, and infused with the smoky taste of fried red chillies. Definitely a winning combo!

Ingredients:

Fresh spinach - 1 medium bunch, cleaned and cut into small pieces
Onion - 1 small, chopped
Garlic - 2 cloves, chopped finely
Salt to taste

For seasoning:

Oil
Red chillies - 5, or to taste, broken in half
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig, torn in half (optional)

Method:

1. Heat oil in pan and do the seasoning. Add onions and fry for 2-3 minutes.

2. Add garlic and fry until garlic softens and onion is translucent.

3. Add cut spinach, squeezing well before adding to pan to make sure you're not adding excess water. Spinach has a tendency to let out a lot of water as it cooks, so make sure you've removed any water used in washing it before adding to pan! :)

4. Now, add salt and blast the heat as high as it will go on your stove! Stir frequently until the spinach has wilted and there is no liquid left in the pan.

Enjoy as a side dish with any rice, roti, sambar, rasam, etc. As my appayee (father's mother) used to say, make greens so that they retain their green color! Looks appetizing and they retain their vitamins. :)

Royal vegetable side dish:

This next one is based on a dish I saw on Sun TV's Unavum Aarogiyamum cooking series presented by chef Jacob. This dish was apparently made a very, very, very long time ago for royalty. But it tastes awesome for commoners like us, too! The combo he used was eggplants and 2 other root vegetables. I had tapioca (yucca) and potato on hand, so that's what I decided to use. It was soooo phenomenally good!

The taste was sort of nutty from the roasted dal flour and a bit spicy from black pepper. Black pepper is the only source of spice in this dish, so be sure to adjust accordingly! It is so comforting, especially with the cold weather!

Ingredients:

Small eggplants - 8-10, cut into large dice
Tapioca/yucca/maravali kizhangu - 1/2 cup, cut into large dice
Potato - 1/2 cup, cut into large dice
Urad dal - 1 tbsp, dry roasted and powdered
Rice flour - 1 1/2 tbsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Coarse black pepper - 2 tbsp, or to taste
Salt

For seasoning:

Oil/ghee (Ghee is traditional, but feel free to use oil)
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - 2 sprigs

Method:

1. Boil the potato and tapioca/yucca until cooked, but still retaining its shape. Strain and keep aside.

2. Heat oil in a pan and do the seasoning. Add the eggplant and turmeric powder.

3. When this is 3/4 cooked, add the urad dal powder, rice flour, salt, taro root, and potatoes.

4. Fry, stirring constantly until the roasted smell of the dal comes out. Make sure you stir constantly, without breaking the vegetables, to make sure the powders don't stick on the bottom of the pan. I found a non stick pan verrrrry useful here!

5. Once everything has cooked and is nicely browned and crispy, add the coarse black pepper. Allow to heat through and turn off the heat.

This is also very versatile and can go with a variety of dishes (rice, rotis, pulav, sambar, rasam, etc). You can also substitute the eggplant with other vegetables that retain their shape well. Alternatively, the tapioca and/or potato can be subsituted with other root vegetables.

Green Chicken

2008-02-11T10:23:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if any of you remember the Muppets, and specifically, Kermit the Frog. Somehow, thinking of this green chicken reminds me of Kermit singing his famous song, "It's not easy being green." (Click here for more info abt that and sources for the song.)

Anyway, back to green chicken. I'm not sure how the chicken feels about being green, but it's certainly very easy to eat lots and lots of this green chicken! So much so that Amma will eat this.

We always tease my mother that she has a "chicken allergy" because 90% of the time, she will out right refuse to eat any chicken preparation. However, she loves this one every time I make it! To me, that's a huge compliment!

Overall, this is a very simple recipe that just involves grinding, marinating, and cooking. A great and light side dish with any biryani, pulav, chappathi, roti, etc.

And now to the recipe:

Ingredients:

Chicken - 2 lbs, cut into pieces
Onions - 2, sliced finely
Lime juice - juice of 1/2 of a lime
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Garam masala - 1/2 tsp (OPTIONAL)
Oil
Salt to taste

For grinding to paste:

Mint leaves - 1 cup
Coriander leaves - 1 cup
Green chillies - 15, or to taste
Garlic - 8 cloves
Ginger - 1 1/2 inch piece
Cumin seeds or powder - 1 tsp

Method:

1. Marinate the chicken with the ground paste, turmeric powder, and salt for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

2. Heat oil in a pan. Saute the sliced onions until translucent.

3. Now, add the chicken with the marinade. Saute for 2-3 minutes.

4. Then, close the lid and lower the heat to low and allow the chicken to cook until it's done (about 20 minutes or so). Add water during the cooking process only if necessary.

5. Open the lid and see how much liquid is left. If there is still a lot of liquid in the pan, increase the heat and allow the gravy to concentrate.

6. Turn the heat off, add lime juice and garam masala (if using). Adjust salt if necessary. Serve with any pulav, rotis, etc.

Note: This dish doesn't go very well with white rice.

Roasted Potato and Bell Pepper Poriyal/Masiyal

2008-02-07T20:40:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I impress myself. This was a creation from a moment of inspiration. I was thinking of making a potato poriyal (side dish) when I realized that I had some bell peppers (capsicum) in the fridge. So, I thought, why don't I put them together? Then, it occurred to me that I could take it one step further... I could take baby potatoes, roast them in the oven, and then use them to create a new dish. The consistency was close to a masiyal, but not quite. Hence my ambivalence in naming it. Call it what you want!

The result? So good that my husband took one bite and said, "Are you going to blog this??!! You absolutely should!" And now, I share that awesome recipe with all of you. :)

Ingredients:

Small red potatoes - about 8
Bell pepper - 1 medium, chopped
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Green chillies - 6-8, or to taste, chopped
Garlic - 3 cloves, chopped
Turmeric - 1/2 tsp
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tsp

For seasoning:

Oil
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 450 F. Clean potatoes, drizzle them with a little oil and salt. I chose to leave the skins on the potatoes because they are tender, but you can peel them if you want.

2. Spread oiled potatoes on a cookie sheet/sheet pan and bake at 450 F for 40 minutes, turning once halfway through the cooking time.

3. Remove potatoes and allow to cool for 2-3 minutes.

4. Using a fork or potato masher, lightly mash the potatoes. The goal is to break them up a bit, not turn them into mashed potatoes! Alternatively, you could chop the potatoes if you prefer a more uniform look or mash them if you want a more smooth texture.

5. Now, heat a pan with oil and do the seasoning. Add onions and bell peppers and fry for 3-4 minutes.

6. Then, add garlic and saute until onions are translucent. I like the bell peppers to be crisp but tender. If you want them softer, just cook it a bit longer.

7. At this point, add all of the masala powders and fry for a few seconds until the raw smell disappears.

8. Add the potatoes and required salt and stir gently to combine. Reduce the heat to low and leave it on the stove for 2-3 minutes for the flavors to combine.

9. Turn the heat off, adjust salt, and enjoy as a side dish with sambar, rasam, chappati, rotis, etc.

Hope you guys like this as much as we did. Am sending this to Sia (ode to potato event) of Monsoon Spice and Dhivya (potato feast event) of Culinary Bazaar as this is potato month!

Mor Kuzhambu (Buttermilk gravy)

2008-02-06T17:01:00.001-05:00

Any Tamil movie fans out there? Do any of you remember that song, "Ada yennatha solvenungo? Vadu maanga oorudhungo... Thayir sadham ready pannungo!" from the movie Sivakasi? Well, anything to do with curd (curd rice, mor kuzhambu, etc) reminds me of this song and makes me laugh.Yeah, yeah, yeah. Major digression, I know. :)

Ok, ok. I'll get to the point now. This is another simple dish that you can make with water based vegetables (white pumpkin, chayote, bottlegourd, even zucchini!) or okra (fried in oil first) and makes for a light meal. Warm, tangy, and a little creamy, it's a great one especially in this cold weather. I used chow chow (chayote) here, but you can use the same method with any of the other veggies I mentioned!

Ingredients:

Chayote (chow chow) - 1 medium, chopped into bite size pieces
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Buttermilk or beaten curd - 1/2 cup
Salt to taste

Grind to smooth paste:

Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Green chillies - 8, or to taste
Coconut - 2 tbsp
Fried gram dal (dalia, pottu kadalai) - 2 tsp

For seasoning:

Oil
Whole red chillies - 2
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Method:

1. Place cut chayote in a pan with very little water, turmeric powder, and a pinch of salt. *Be sure not to add too much water, as the vegetables will let out water as they cook.*

2. Take the ground paste and mix the curds or buttermilk with it.

3. Once the chayote is cooked, add the buttermilk paste, salt, and lower the heat to low. When tiny bubbles are just starting to form on the surface, the gravy is done. **DO NOT let this boil because the mixture will separate (due to buttermilk and coconut combination), so be careful with this step. :)**

4. Do the seasoning and pour into the cooked gravy. Again, heat until tiny bubbles start to form and turn off the heat.

5. Enjoy with hot rice and pickle! My choice of pickle? Vadu mango, of course!

chow chow mor kuzhambu

Keerai Kootu (Spinach in Lentil Gravy)

2008-02-05T17:00:00.001-05:00

This is basically just a quick and delicious dish that you can make with fresh or frozen spinach. Great for those days when you really don't feel like doing anything, but still want a tasty and healthy dinner!

Ingredients:

Spinach, fresh - 1 medium bunch (or a 10 oz package of frozen spinach)
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Tomato - 1 large, chopped
Green chillies - 7,or to taste, slit in halt vertically
Moong dal (paasi paruppu) - 1/2 cup
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

For seasoning:

Oil
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp (optional)
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Whole red chilly - 1 (whole or broken in 1/2 for more spice)

Method:

1. Wash moong dal and place in pressure cooker along with onions, tomatoes, green chillies, turmeric powder, water and a pinch of cumin powder. Do not keep too much water or the resulting kootu will be watery.

2. Pressure cook for 2 whistles. Let pressure release and open cooker. If a lot of water remains, evaporate some of the liquid (place on medium high heat for a few minutes) before adding spinach.

3. Now, add spinach, cumin powder, and salt. Cook until spinach is cooked and kootu has thickened. Try not to let the spinach lose its vibrant green color.

4. Do the seasoning and add to the kootu. Let it come to a boil and then turn the heat off.

5. Serve with piping hot white rice, pickle, papadam, ghee and enjoy! :)

Note: I normally go a little heavier on the spinach, but this was all I had the day I made this dish. If you're like me, you can put up to 2 bunches of spinach or a 16 oz bag of frozen spinach!

Palak Paneer

2008-02-04T15:46:00.000-05:00

I am sitting here shocked and a bit amused. Why, you ask? Well, after all of these years I have managed to resolve issues with my arch enemy: palak paneer! Yes, I'm sure there are many die hard fans of this dish, but I have never been able to handle it. I guess that's because it was always slimy any time I saw it being served. On top of which, it was a standard dish at any Indian function, so I was forever tormented by that slimy pile of green goop!

So, what did it take to convert me? Well, I was looking at Sailu's site one day and there was a photo of palak paneer that actually looked somewhat appetizing?! I decided at that point to try out her recipe and it was fantastic!

I did make some minor changes, such as using curd instead of cream, but it was her recipe that converted me. Thanks so, so much to Sailu for converting me to liking palak paneer! I even ate the leftovers! :) I'm not actually going to write a recipe here since I basically followed hers. Do try it out. You'll be very pleased!

Teriyaki Chicken Wings and Superbowl XLII

2008-02-04T15:45:00.000-05:00

First of all, I have to say that I hope people had a chance to see the Superbowl last night. What a game!!! It was fantastic (for details, click here). To top it all off, our local Giants beat the pants off of the undefeated Patriots!! Victory tastes so sweet!!!!

But, I digress. I couldn't help myself! Coming to the point... I wanted to share this recipe for Teriyaki BAKED chicken wings that are so fantastic, it's unreal! We had a plate full of wings and the four of us had devoured them in no time. I saw the original recipe on food network a long time ago (click here), but made lots of changes.

I used chili-garlic sauce, but you could just as easily have used green chillies. You can basically tweak this around any way you choose. :)

My modified recipe:

Ingredients:

Chicken wings - 18, separated into pieces (cut at wing joint to separate)
Salt and pepper to season wings
Green onions (scallions) - 3 stems, chopped for garnish
Coriander leaves - 2 tbsp, chopped for garnish

For teriyaki basting sauce:

Soy sauce - 2 tbsp, or to taste
Orange juice - Juice of 1 medium orange
Hoisin sauce - 3 tbsp (Asian barbeque sauce available in Asian section of grocery stores)
Ketchup - 3 tbsp
Rice wine vinegar - 1/4 cup
Brown sugar - 2 tbsp
Chili-garlic sauce - 3 tbsp, or to taste
Garlic - 6 cloves, finely chopped
Ginger - 2 inch piece, finely chopped

Method:

1. Combine all sauce ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 20-25 minutes until thickened to a glaze consistency.

2. While the sauce is thickening, preheat oven to 400 F.

3. Sprinkle wings with salt and pepper. Keep in mind that there's soy sauce in the sauce to use later, so don't over-salt the wings!

4. Coat a sheet pan or cookie sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil lightly drizzled with oil. Spread wings out in a single layer. Bake for about 15 minutes.

5. Raise oven temperature to 450 F and bake for another 10 minutes, or until somewhat crisp and mostly cooked.

6. Now, take wings and coat with teriyaki sauce made in step 1. Bake at 450 F for another 10 to 15 minutes.

7. Remove from oven and garnish with green onions and coriander leaves. Use extra glaze as a dipping sauce. Enjoy with your beverage of choice!

finger lickin' good!

Ridge Gourd Skin Chutney (Peerkangai Tholu Chutney)

2008-02-01T10:39:00.001-05:00

Some of you might be a bit confused at reading the title of this post. Yes, I made chutney with the skins of ridge gourds (peerkangai). Yes, I ate it and it was fabulous! I'd heard about this previously from my mother, who used to make this occasionally. I'd bought the ridge gourd for another use when it occurred to me that I could make chutney with the peels. I love when I do something right!

Here's the yummy (yet simple!) recipe:

Ingredients:

Peels of 2 medium ridge gourds (peerkangai) - about 1 cup of peels
Red chillies - 4, or to taste
Urad dal - 1 tsp (to give the chutney some thickness and body)
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Coconut - 2 tbsp
Tamarind - small gooseberry size
Salt to taste

For seasoning:
Oil
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Urad dal - 1 tsp (optional, for flavor)

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add urad dal, curry leaves, red chillies. Fry until the dal browns and the chillies darken in color.

2. Then, add the ridge gourd peels and coconut and fry until the peels soften.

3. Cool this mixture and grind in a blender or mixer with tamarind and salt.

4. Do the seasoning and mix into the ground chutney. Serve with idli, dosa, uthappam, etc. Enjoy!

ridge gourd peel chutney

I guess you could say this is a delicious way of "going green." I mean, you are recycling in a way, right? :)