During my Engineering college days at Belgaum, we had a few senior students who were ultimate singers. Even though I don’t call myself as a music lover, I particularly liked the songs of one person. Some of us called him Junior S.P.Balasubramanium (a famous playback singer). After college, I heard from few common friends that he is taking his singing very seriously and working towards a career in it along with his job of software engineer....

I always liked the green colored rotis/parathas. I had seen them in one of my friend’s lunch box. Recently I tried to make them(though the procedure and taste was completely different), they were delicious. I served it with Masala Dahi . Ingredients: Wheat Flour 2 cup Palak(Spinach) leaves 1 Cup Ginger 1″ piece Green Chillies chopped 5 Nos Corriander leaves 1/2 cup Jeera 2 tsp Salt Method: Mix all the ingredients(except flour) and blend it in a mixer to a fine paste....

Today is “Anant Chaturdashi” commonly called as “Nopi”. This is usually celebrated on ‘Bhadrapada shukla Chaturdashi’ which comes on the 11th day after ‘ Vinayak Chaturthi ’. There are two significances to this day. First one , the Ganesha idol brought home at Vinayak Chaturthi is immersed in water on this day, only in those houses where Ganesha festival is celebrated for 11 days and in “Sarvajanika(public) Ganeshas”. Second one,it is celebrated as “Nopi”....

I saw the recipe of this dish in one of the Kannada TV shows. In the ariginal recipe, something called as Karbuja seeds was used for this. I have no idea what is it called in English, it is not even a very common spice, so instead of that I had some cashew nuts in my pantry. So I used them. Actually Karbuja seeds were used to give thickness to the gravy....

Today is celebrated as “ Ram Navami ” by Hindus. This festival is celebrated on the 9th day from Ugadi , Hindu new year. Ram Navami is celebrated as the birth day of lord Rama , from epic Ramayana . On all the 9 days from Ugadi to Ram Navami , poojas and bhajans are performed in the temples. The main attraction for the kids in this festival is prasad that is served after the pooja ....

One of the queries I got over and over from my readers is a recipe/method for baking a cake in pressure cooker. I rarely have any free time to experiment these days, so although this request was always there in the back of my mind, I never tried it. But recently I got a chance to do it. I finally prepared a pressure cooker cake and then decorated it for my beautiful niece....

Rave laddu or rava laddoo is one of my favorite sweets from my childhood. Aayi used to make these beautiful yellow colored laddoos with one kishmish (raisin) in each. I absolutely adored these. Though I always ran away when she made these (I was a very lazy kid), I promptly reached to taste them when they were done. Then there were some instances where I offered help and almost burnt my hands by putting them in hot laddoo mixture....

I had invited one of our friends for Diwali dinner yesterday. I wanted to make an elaborate dinner for the festival. He and his friend brought a sweet vermicelli payasa with them. Everything was simple but I enjoyed cooking as well as eating it. Here is my entire Diwali spread, since this is a festival spread, I made everything without onion and garlic, ie, a ‘satvik’ food. In the bowls – Varn , vermicelli paays , shrikhand In the plate – Puris , capsicum & cauliflower bajjis , muga dali usli , tendli buthi , batate talasani , rice....

Long back, I had promised my cousin to post few breakfast recipes, but I kept on forgetting about it. So now on, once in a while I would post few of the dosa recipes that I tried in last few days. These dosa recipe collection is from a Kannada weekly (2004). They had the article about 62 different dosas. I tried most of them and absolutely loved them. This is my entry to Nandita’s ‘ A twist in the plate ‘ event....

I don’t remember when was the last time I made any elaborate dish at home. For last few months, it was just – cook for the sake of filling the stomach. Even the attraction of posting the recipe on the blog could not get me cooking anything special (Does 4 and 1/2 years of continuous non-stop blogging takes away the fun?). Anyway, today I decided to make something elaborate. The first thing that came to mind was biryani....

Weather is changing and it is getting cold here. It is a time when many of us are down with cold or fever. Few of my readers asked for the ‘Kashay’-A good for health drink used to cure many diseases. The other traditional Kashay I posted many days ago is an all time substitute for tea/coffee at our native. But sometimes it aggravates cold, so better to use it in summer if you are not accustomed to it....

Wish you all a very happy raksha bandhan . Raksha bandhan is a Hindu festival, signifying the love between brothers and sisters. On this day, sister tie Rakhee to brother and in return brother promises to look after her. He also gives gifts to sister. More about this festival here . As few of you know, I have an elder brother. So this festival always had a special meaning. He is kind of a second parent and mentor for me....

This is another dish that I cooked from Coorg special . This is a very simple dish to make and turns out lip smacking good. I love such simple dishes when I am making a big spread. It helps to increase the number of dishes ;). Ingredients: 1/4 kg chicken 1/4 tea spn turmeric powder 1/2 tea spn red chili powder 1/4 tea spn cumin powder 1/2 cup onion 3-4 strands coriander leaves 1/4 cup tomato 1 tea spn chopped garlic 1/2 tea spn pepper powder 1 tea spn chopped ginger 4 green chilies 1 tbl spn lemon juice Oil Salt...

I had read/heard about edamame before and had tried it a couple of times in stir fries. This time when I bought a frozen pack of edamame, I wanted to try making something different. One of the dishes that we all enjoy is paratha. I make parathas with almost all vegetables. I feel this is a very good way to eat most of the vegetables. So I thought of making some paratha with them....

Wish you all a very happy new year. We returned from our holiday trip last week. I had cleaned out the fridge before going on a week long vacation. The only available things were a couple of tomatoes and eggs. We were craving for something spicy and I made this dish similar to egg patia . Some 4 years ago, few of our friends had invited us for dinner and they had served something similar....

I learnt the lemon rice from my friend from Andhra, Swati, when I was in college. The best part in her lemon rice was the crispy urad daal . It tasted great. When I went to Bangalore after my college, I found Chitranna was a very famous dish there. My friend Poornima prepared different kinds of chitranna , with beet root, with capsicum etc. But my favorite was her simple lemon rice....

My kids love shenga chutney pitto , probably that is the only way they eat peanuts without a fuss. So I have been thinking to use similar combination with vegetables. I have seen my Marathi friends adding a peanut powder to raitas, green beans and some other vegetables. So I prepared this nutty green beans last week and it was received pretty well, the two year old was pretty excited to (atleast) try the green beans....

Here is an easy soup recipe. I am in no mood to write any stories today. So here is the recipe… Ingredients : Onion 1(medium size) Coriander leaves 4-5 strands Corn flour/maida 1 tea spn Pepper powder ½ tea spn Butter 1 tbl spn Salt Method: Heat butter and fry onions(finely chopped) for 2-3 minutes(till the raw smell goes off). Add 2 cups of water and let the onions cook completely....

I am extremely happy for the response of my papaya dilemma . I was in no mood of making any sweet with papaya and by my good luck all the recipes given by you all are spicy dishes. I wanted to make all of them at once but thought I would take it a bit easy. I started with Pappayi ghashi/gassi . For last one week, I hardly cooked anything....

For the last few days I was too much held up in something, so I couldn’t go to purchase any sea food. The only place where I get fish (I mean the fish I know), is City Market and it is open only on weekends :(. But last week I bought a pack of frozen shrimps from Price Chopper . My piece of advice would be, if possible always use fresh shrimps, becasue the frozen ones are a bit harder even after cooking and they have some smell :(....