Mixed vegetable curry or ‘gajbaje’ (randayi means a side dish with coconut masala) is one of the most popular dishes among Konkanis. It is usually prepared using vegetables like okra, ridge gourd and cucumber (Usually a special kind of cucumber called as magge or moggem in Konkani is used for this dish. Cucumber can be used instead of magge since both taste almost same. Unlike cucumber, magge cannot be eaten raw)....

Wish you all a very happy Diwali. I finally got to making some dishes for Diwali. My 6 month old was down with cold for last few days and I was really trying hard to keep up with just day-to-day cooking. Since Ishaan is 4 years old, I thought he would have fun during this festival. I had a long list of dishes that I wanted to make, but I am glad I am slowly getting to atleast few of them....

Wish you all a very happy new year 2017. The highlight of 2016 for me was having my parents visit us here in Kansas. They stayed here for 2 months. We had the best time and food. Aayi cooked all my favorites from my childhood. Kids had a fantastic time with grand parents – It was awesome to see the kids running behind aabbu(grand dad) all day long. We took them to all our favorite restaurants....

Ingredients: Dosa rice 2 cups Maida 1 cup Wheat sooji 1 cup Onion 1 Ginger 1 inch piece Green chillies 2-3 Salt Oil Method: Soak rice for around one hour. Grind with salt. Keep this batter for around 5-6hours. Add maida and sooji. Add finely chopped onion, ginger and chillies. Add sufficient water and make dosas. Serve with coconut chutney. Serves : 4 Preparation time : 15min I have garnished this dish with some coriander leaves in above picture, but in the original dish, coriander is not used....

Cholko – A piece of leaf. Usually a piece of banana leaf is called ‘cholko’ in Konkani. Vayli – on top of ‘Cholkya vayli bhakri’ or ‘cholkya bhakri’ means a rotti prepared on banana leaf. I have no such explanation for the name ‘mumbri’ :). As I mentioned here , this is one of my favorite breakfasts. Aayi serves this rotti with chutney pitto -ghee or vaygana bajji or ‘dhidir chutney’ (Mix 1/2 cup grated coconut with 3/4 tea spn chili powder, 1/2 tea spn sugar and salt....

Most of us Indians have one or the other kind of favorite sambar which we like to go back again and again. I have an undying love for any type of sambar . So I feel I can never have enough recipes for this dish. Just change the spices and vegetables used and you get a whole new comforting meal. I have some categories of sambar. – Our favorite Konkani sambar(Kolmbo) that goes well with rice....

Last December when Shilpa visited us, we were trying to remember if there were any recipes that my mother prepared, which we have not posted on this site. While discussing this with my brother, he suggested this shrimp pickle. My aayi was a vegetarian, but she cooked nonveg for us. But they basically started making nonveg dishes at home after my marriage. I had heard my brother and father mentioning about this shrimp pickle many times....

Corn or Jola(in Kannada) is in season now. I saw this recipe in a magazine a while back Since we all love corn, I have tried it many times at home with my own little modifications and it comes out great. Since these balls are steamed, these are healthier options compared to the fried cutlets. Pictorial: Make a coarse paste of corn and then of all other ingredients. Make balls from the mixture and steam....

I had many requests for palak paneer in last few months. The thing is, I don’t prepare palak paneer. V and I must be the only two people in the whole world, who do not care much for this dish. About 5 years ago, I saw a recipe on one of the TV shows, where the chef had used kasoori methi in palak paneer. I tried it once and then gave up....

If you are a blogger, you probably know the Arusuvai friendship chain started by Latha and Lakshmi of The Yum blog . It is basically an event where you send a “secret ingredient” to some of your friends. They cook something delicious with the ingredient and blog about it. This chain which was very popular among the bloggers in India, was started in US by Latha of Masala magic ....

Ganva(konkani) or Genhu(hindi) (I donno how to write down the pronunciation of ‘n’ in Ganvu/Genhu, hope all my Indian friends know how to say this word) means wheat. GuLi is laddu in Konkani. This sweet is called ‘Chirmund’ in South Kanara. ‘Ganva laddu’ is the most famous sweet in North Kanara. If you go to any house, you will find this. It remains good for a long time. So people make them and store for months....

A couple of days ago, one of my reader asked me to post KuvaLe (ash gourd) sasam . Since it is not prepared at our place, I started searching for the recipe. The first place I looked was a Kannada magazine which had Udupi special food. In this article, I found this recipe which caught my attention. This is supposed to be a Udupi Kannada brahmin special dish. The article also says, this dish is prepared for shraadha – A ritual performed yearly in the remembrance of the deceased in family....

I had a large stock of bananas and carrots with me and that was the time I was learning to bake the cakes. Before that I never knew about carrot cakes. Thanks to google, I found a recipe for banana-carrot cake. It looked very easy. So I baked it. Grated carrots make this cake very very soft and tasty. One piece of this cake leaves you with full stomach. These days I bake a lot of carrot cakes since I keep a big stock of carrots always :)....

I have been going through different food blogs and saw dishes from different parts of India. But couldn’t find any Goan recipes. So this is my entry from beautiful Goa for the Independence day parade . I baked this one today, just to be sent to the parade. I wanted to decorate it like Indian flag, but didn’t manage to get it right. When I bought different colored icings from Walmart, the lady on the counter asked me – “planning to decorate cake?...

Beetroot is one vegetable, from which I used to stay away for a long time. This was mainly because of the mess it would create while cooking. I like to cook dal , vegetables, rice at once in cooker, because it saves a lot of time. When beetroot is cooked like this, the pink color would spread to dal and rice. Then I read this comment from Anisha . It changed everything....

My friends used to tease me saying give anything to Shilpa & she will make dosa out of it ;). So I thought twice before even trying this, bcos I did not want them to laugh on me. But this came out well. I saw this in some TV show & modified a little. Ingredients: Bread slices 4 Rice flour 1 cup Sooji(Rava) 1/2 cup Curd 1 cup Chilli powder 1/2 tea spn Mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn Urad daal 1/2 tea spn Curry leaves 3-4 Ginger cut into small pieces 1/2 tea spn Onion 1 Salt Oil Method: Soak bread in water & squeze out the water....

As I had explained in one of my old posts , the next day after Janmashtami is also very special for us. One of the special dishes offered to god on this day is this colocasia-chana cooked in coconut base. VenTi or aLva panna is the stem of colocasia. Some of the leaves are tied into knots and added to the dish. Others are chopped and added. When these leaves and chana are cooked, it gives and amazing taste and a unique aroma....

After a long time I cooked chicken in Indian style. Since my cousin loves non-veg, it was all non vegetarian meals for the long weekend. He was very excited when he saw I had bought chicken with bones, he was very tired of eating boneless chicken here in US :). I saw a Goan chicken recipe a while ago which I wanted to try. So this time I tried this....

Some of my friends surprised us on our anniversary last month with a cake. It is such a great thing to take out some time from our busy schedule and have fun with friends, at the same time making someone feel very special. One of my friends had her birthday last week. We decided to surprise her by showing up at her place with a cake and food. Since she is a vegetarian, I decided to bake an eggless cardamom cake....

In winter, we usually get fresh gooseberries. The local ones we get are quite small, but I usually buy the big-ping pong ball sized ones from Bangalore. Gooseberries are full of vitamin C, minerals and fiber. They increase the resistance power of the body. They are extensively used in Ayurvedic medicines. Earlier, I was preparing gooseberry pickle (Avale Hindi) whenever I got them. The other day I got the recipe of this gooseberry tambli in a Kannada weekly....