This Thursday was the last class of course-1, it was basically a practice of making roses. I was very excited as well as sad that day, since the classes for course-1 got over. I enrolled for the course-2 which starts in April first week. Now coming to the last cake; this week was one of the most pressurized weeks at my office. There were some unexpected problems in the project and I was really stressed, more than that I was suffering from an eye infection....
I love parathas of all kinds. I remember those days in India, when I used to eat them every time we went out for a meal. Everyone would order some naan or roti or kulcha and I always ordered a stuffed paratha . I feel it is a lot of fun to make as well as eat them. I still remember I had spent a lot of time trying to make those perfect stuffed parathas ....
Anyone who is regular to this blog, knows my love for biryanis or any kind of flavored rice. It is also known fact that, I like to make something new instead of following same recipe again and again. When we were in India, we had so many favorite restaurants and whenever we felt like, we would go out and eat. But here, the Indian food choices are not very good....
Kayi (Kannada), Narlu (Konkani) means coconut. Obbattu (Kannada), ubbatti(Konkani) – a kind of sweet roti, is very popular in Karnataka. I have tasted it many times at different places, but the best among them was my friend Poornima ‘s obbattus. They make this at many festivals. She used to bring these in her lunchboxes and I simply loved them. Few days back when I was reading my Kannada magazine collection, I found a recipe for this dish....
Dried green peas are one of my favorite dried beans, they taste quite different than the fresh/frozen green peas. I like to sneak them in wherever possible. This time when I had a bunch of soaked peas, I thought of mixing them with rice to make a one pot dish. I added eggs to it as we love eggs, but this is fully optional. Fennel seeds give a very strong and nice flavor to this dish....
One of the biggest jobs I have after any big festivals is to finish all the fruits, vegetables, coconuts before they go bad. We bought a big batch of coconuts and fruits for the Ganapathi festival this year. While I am still working on coconuts, bananas needed immediate attention. V kept reminding me to make something with them, since they were a little bit overripe and no one likes over ripe bananas....
I always loved the garlic bread sticks served with pizzas in Domino’s pizza, Bangalore. Though many people did not like Domino’s, I loved them back in B’lore. I am yet to try them here in US. I never knew how they prepared the garlic bread sticks, which were soft, crunchy and had amazing taste. Then, while watching a recipe show on TV, I saw this dish. It was a program on ‘Udaya news’, a Kannada channel, were people from all over Karnataka used to come and show their favorite recipes....
The temperature is dropping very fast here. With the cold weather, we both caught up cold too. Aching throat, runny nose and heavy head was just making things difficult. So after few days of pretty bland food, we started craving for some hot and spicy food. The first thing that came to my mind were idlis. So last weekend, during our ThanksGiving holidays, I made these idlis. We enjoyed them with a steaming hot bowl of sambar....
Many readers who read crab recipes here, asked me to explain how I clean crabs. This is an account of how I do it. I checked in few of American grocery stores. They had the ‘snow crabs’, which were too big compared to what we get in India. I am not sure how they are cooked. Then in the Chinese shop, I found two different kinds, one was ‘Dungeness crabs’, which were again big compared to Indian crabs and were red in color....
Ever since I came back from India, I am trying my best to get adjusted back here. My feelings are also something similar to Sia’s . I am missing home terribly and have become very very lazy. So thats the reason I haven’t replied to any queries here or the mails. I am sorry about that. While in India, I took pictures of seasonal fruits and flowers. So apart from traditional recipes, I am going to post them too....
Few days back, when I posted a recipe for Kanchipuram dosa , many of you mentioned about this idli. Then I saw this recipe in my diary. I am not sure if it is authentic, but I liked these idlis very much. I saw this recipe in one of the TV shows in India. These idlis have a distinct taste of cumin seeds, ginger and pepper. This tastes very good with onion chutney ....
Doctor had adviced me to be on a high fiber food these days. So I try to use as much greens as possible in my cooking. I buy any green vegetable in the grocery stores. I wanted to use the methi sitting in my freezer. I had tried some dishes last week with methi (I will post them soon), then I got this recipe and I just loved the way it came out....
Usually whenever I try new recipes from other food blogs, I update “ from other blogs ” link which I created recently. But since many of my readers had asked for this recipe, I thought of posting it here. Few days back I had tried preparing chocolate cake without eggs. It came out well, but had completely forgotten the measurements I used. So when I saw Priya’s chocolate cake , I gave it a try and I loved it very much....
Muga dali paays (Konkani) or Hesru beLe payasa (Kannada) is one of the sweets that makes its appearance in most of the festivals back home. One of my readers had requested this recipe many times, so I finally prepared it for a small get together that we had for one of our friends. I was eating this after ages and I am still wondering why I don’t make such delicious dishes more often :)....
I promised Zlamushka that I would send her some Christmas special recipes for her Spoonful of Christmas event . When I said that, I had Kuswar- traditional Christmas dishes prepared at Mangalore , recipes in mind. But what I had not checked was the fact that all the Kuswar dishes that I had involved deep frying. They are all so tempting, but I am not in a mood to prepare anything deep fried after the Diwali overdose....
Its been many days I was thinking about posting this recipe. Finally today I am doing it. When I was in Bangalore, I brought this powder from my native. I never tried to prepare it at home. Even if I keep it for 1 year, it retains its nice aroma (unlike the other sambar powders which we get in shop). Aayi prepares this in a lot so that she can give it to me, my brother and aunty....
These days my cooking is inspired by what my little baby eats. There are two vegetables that he totally adores – sweet potato and butternut squash. I try and add these to most of the dishes that I cook. Today I made these simple phodis for him. The sweetness of the sweet potato (or yam) outshines the spiciness of the red chillies. Ingredients: 10 pieces of sweetpotato (or yam) cut into round pieces 1/2 tea spn chilli powder A pinch asafoetida Sooji/rava Oil Salt...
Ingredients: 4 cups breadfruit pieces 1 tea spn chilli powder 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds A pinch asafoetida 4-5 curry leaves Oil Salt Method: Cut the breadfruit into two pieces(like shown in picture below). Discard the outer green layer and white portion in the center(which is clearly visible). Cut the middle portion (between the green outer layer and white in the center) into pieces. Put the pieces in water for sometime....
This is a recipe from my friend Aruna. She asked me for this recipe about 1 year ago, but I had no luck finding it. At my native, chow chow means a kind of spicy crunchy mixture. So I was a bit surprised when she said it is made of vegetables. I think in Tamil, chow-chow means chayote squash. Do not confuse this dish with any of these. Aruna finally got it from her MIL and passed on to me....
Life has gotten so busy for me with a full time job and two little kids. Somedays I find it very hard to cook anything. I have been freezing food a lot, whenever I cook, I make the double the quantity and freeze half. So these become my weekday dinners. But once in a while – atleast once or twice a week, I make something different. It is my way to enjoy my favorite thing – cooking....
