I have been baking a lot these days. Usually I bake cakes for my husband’s evening snacks. He simply loves these cakes and I get to experiment a lot. I can say my baking skills have improved in last few days :D. We have a library near our apartment. I go there to study(??) sometimes. Instead of getting bored at home, last week I thought to spend some 4-5hrs in library....

Last few days have been busy. I hosted a surprise baby shower for my dear friend. This was the first big event I hosted at my home (after the house warming). We had total 13 families. I am good at hosting parties where I do everything. But here we decided to divide the task. It was a learning experience for me to coordinate between so many families. In the end, everything worked so well and we all had awesome time....

Let me first translate the Konkani name into English. ‘Bhindi’ is called as ‘bhende’ in Konkani. ‘Olli mirssangi’ is ‘green chillies’ and ‘ambat’ is ‘gravy’ in konkani. This name is to distinguish between the gravies we make with red chillies and this one.Some people use Potato and Tomato instead of bhindi(okra) for this dish. Aayi usually uses bhindi for this gravy. Most of the vegetables used in North Kanara food are grown in their own garden....

I associated bottle gourd (gardudde in Konkani) with mostly with the burfis(khadi) . It was my favorite sweetdish while growing up. So whenever we got this vegetable, which was not that frequent, aayi made sure to prepare the burfis. Thanks to the yoga guru Ramdev’s TV programs, I started hearing more about this lauki(in Hindi). Due to the medicinal values of this vegetable, I started buying it and now it has become a regular in our diet....

Preparing a good breakfast daily morning is becoming a difficult task for me these days. Whatever I do, I can’t get up before 6AM. I don’t like to eat out, so I prepare breakfast and lunch in the morning. I forget to do all the preparations for it on previous evening, so I start from scratch in the morning. Even though I work without stopping, I take one and half hours to finish both, get ready, eat breakfast and reach office....

This is a cake recipe I got from my pachi (mom’s sister). She has an amazing collection of very easy and very tasty food. One among them is this cake. The cake mix requires hardly 2-3 steps and you will have a cake with amazing taste :). This is one of the dishes she always prepared for any parties at her home. It became so popular that everybody started asking her for this recipe....

Some 2-3 months back, Aruna had sent me recipes of many dishes. This was one of them. She said, “You must be knowing we prepare different types of saru-upkari . Basically it is just pressure cooking the pulses and adding a seasoning/ phanna of mustard, red/green chilies and garlic. On the fasting days, curry leaves are used instead of garlic. This is a little different type than the authentic saru-upkari , which my mom makes and we all like it....

Finger millet duddali is usually prepared with coconut especially in coastal areas where coconut is grown and used in cooking. Since many people do not like to use so much  coconut or want to make this very quickly, here is a easy method. The result was also good. In both of these recipes, one can use molasses (liquid jaggery) in place of solid jaggery to make the duddali more tasty....

This month’s Daring Baker’s challenge is French bread hosted by Breadchick Mary and Sara . When I first read about the recipe, I got very excited because bread is something which I always wanted to learn to bake. It is one of the extremely well explained – with attention to even the smallest details – recipes I have come across. So I left a comment to Breadchick and Sara that I love this challenge....

I am back from a long break. I am still trying to get back into my blogging routine. Last month end we moved to a new house(very near to our old apartment). We did not realize how hard it was to move with two little kids. The packing, moving and unpacking was just too much on us. Since it is summer break for Ishaan, he is home full time. There were days when we packed and they unpacked everything!...

Isn’t that very tempting?? This is a Marathi dish I guess, because aayi learnt it from pachi(aayi’s sister). The burst of flavor in the mouth when you taste this is amazing. Some of my bachelor friends keep asking me about easy to do dishes. So I think they will definitely like this one. Preferably Bangada(Mackerel) is used for this. I haven’t tried this with any other fish, but prawns can also be used in the place of bangada....

This recipe was sent to me by Aruna . She has sent me a lot of recipes and I owe her for the immense support she is giving to Aayisrecipes. I have been trying many of her recipes in last few days and loved this milkshake. Here is what she said about this milkshake, “It is summer and the heat is killing. This is good milkshake, and in case it fruit is sweet then no need of sugar”....

I spend a lot of time looking at every corner of Indian store here and I wonder about new vegetables that I have never tasted. Almost during every visit, I saw these frozen pigeon peas and wondered what to make with them. Then I saw my friend P making this delicious subji with them. She mentioned that her family loves these. They look almost like avrekalu(val) but do not have the slight bitter taste....

I wish a very happy mother’s day to all of you. I was thinking of today’s post from many days. I thought of baking a beautiful cake for my Aayi, or cook something that Aayi loves or some of Aayi’s dishes, but then realized she is not a cake fan, I didn’t know what she likes and I have already posted all of her easy dishes and I could not cook something difficult....

The Konkani name of eggplant is “Vayngana”, ‘n’ is pronounced by nose, but usually while typing, I have seen it is written as ‘Vaygana’. The name “bajji” is a bit confusing as this is not the normal deep fried fritter. I am yet to find out the significance of this name. This dish is a kind of “Baingan ka bhartha”, but the Konkani ‘bhartha’ or ‘bharth’ has the ground coconut chutney in it....

Being from the coastal region, fish was a big part of our food. While growing up, aayi would make the traditional fish dishes like this fish fry , tepla ambat , alle kande ambat , dhoddak etc. But over the years, thanks to TV and internet, our food has been influenced by other cuisines too. This spicy fish fry is one such dish I make very often now. Whenever we go out to eat in Bangalore, my brother orders masala fry....

We have found a very good Indian restaurant here in Kansas. We love the dosas there. They have a Spring roll masala dosa which has a spicy vegetable bhaji . I was told by a friend that, usually spring roll masala dosa has a stuffing which is like chinese spring rolls, but this was quite different. I love it. I just tried to recreate it at home. It came out a bit different but I liked it very much....

I don’t have any idea why it is called stew. Aayi used to prepare this. I don’t know where this is originated. I read somewhere that stew has to include coconut milk, but it is not used in this dish. This dish is definitely better than the simple french beans side dish. Ingredients: French beans (cut into long slits) 1 cup Potato (cut into round slices) 1 Onion (cut into round slices) 1 Turmeric a pinch Pepper powder 1 tea spn Ginger (crushed) 2” piece Garlic (crushed)  2-3 cloves Oil 1 tea spn Salt...

I have been trying different chutneys with dosas and idlis apart from my usual chutneys . This recipe is derived from Indira’s bellpepper chutney . I changed it to suit to our taste. We love ginger chutney , and I have developed a habit of using lot of ginger in my cooking these days. So that is what I followed for this chutney too. We love the mild taste of this one....

Ingredients: Bread 4 slices Rice flour 2 tea spns Besan 5 tea spns Onion cut into small pieces 1 Chilli powder 1 tea spn Coriander leaves 2-3 strands Salt as per taste Asafoetida a pinch Oil for deep frying Method: Mix onion, rice flour, asafoetida, chilli powder, coriander leaves, besan with water(It should not be too thin or too thick. Mix to the consistency of bajji flour). Cut off the edges of bread....