Every Indian cusine has its own recipe for this dish. I have been reading about this (‘Baingan ka bhartha’) in many blogs now. So I thought of posting the Konkani recipe of this dish. At my native, we never had electric boiler to heat water for bath. Instead we have a big iron vessel where water is heated (the vessel is called ‘bhaan’). Dry wood is used to heat water (the arrangement where the fire is put is called as ‘bhaana ranni’)....

As I mentioned earlier, I am trying to use spinach in all its avatars these days. I always have a huge batch of pre-washed baby spinach in my refrigerator. I use a handful of it in whatever dish I can. Today I made this delicious spinach chutney with appe for breakfast. Ingredients: 2 cups spinach 1/2 cup coriander leaves 1/2 cup onion 5 red chillies 1 tea spn chana dal 1 tea spn coriander seeds 1/4 tea spn tamarind extract 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn urad dal A pinch asafoetida Oil Salt...

I don’t cook sweets very frequently. But when I cook, I have few favorites. This khichdi is one of them. There are many ways of making this dish, this is my Aayi’s recipe for khichdi . At my home, sweet was prepared only during festivals and other special occasions. So this khichdi was a festival food for me. I think this is served in semi solid form in some places, but Aayi would cut them into square pieces and serve with ghee....

Udupi is very famous for its temples. Udupi food is very popular in many parts of the world. The temples here serve one of the tastiest meals. I had never tried making any of the Udupi dishes until recently. When I found an Udupi special in a Kannada weekly, I was more than happy to try them. The first recipe I made from this article, beans koddel , was a huge hit....

Papad (happolu in Konkani or happala in Kannada) is one of the constituents of Konkani as well as many other Indian meal. There are many types of papads . Banana papad is already on this blog. Jackfruit papads and wheat papads are known to many people. Many people make garlic papads . Making all these were possible in many joint families, because all the women joined hands in carrying out the project....

This is one of the most popular sun dried items among Konkanis (after papad ). All these days, I had thought it is specific to Konkani(and Kannada) cuisine, but then I saw Mythili’s ash gourd fritters . After that I saw these fritters in many different places and it looks like everyone has their own version of these fritters. When we were growing up, aayi used to make this every year....

My mom’s pickles are very famous among our friends and family. She even gives them to most of the functions at the temples at our native. Her pickles had the perfect blend of spice, salt, asafoetida etc. She uses a very little oil in them. We always ask my mom to start a pickle business, but she thought we are just kidding. I never like the store bought pickles because of oil....

We have a big breadfruit tree in our garden which gives big fruits, sometimes twice a year. My children loved this. We usually share them with our neighbors. Besides preparing randayi , phodis, bhajes and talasani , I prepare these chips very often. They are crispy and tasty when prepared from fully grown up breadfruits. The chips are not prepared from yellow coloured ripe fruits or the ones that fall down....

I loved Chettinad dishes a lot when I was in India. It was on the menu of almost all the non-veg restaurants there. These dishes are spicy and very tasty. I started missing these when we moved to US. I haven’t seen it on the menus of any Indian restaurant here. So, when one of my readers asked for this recipe, I was more than happy to try it. But then, I had to wait for few days to cook it....

Couple of months ago, V’s maternal uncle and aunt visited us in Kansas. Did I mention I love to have guests at home? Their stay was packed with lots and lots of travel in and around Kansas. In between, we squeezed in some time for food. I baked a cake for them, which aunt requested, and she gave me couple of her signature recipes. This is one of those recipes....

This must be the easiest cookie recipe ever. I wanted to bake a large number of cookies to give as “Thank You” gifts to all guests that attended Ishaan’s birthday. Initial plan was to make Nankatayis – I actually stole this idea from my friend Deepa who did this for her son’s birthday. But making nankatayi in such a big batch would take a long time and lot of effort, as it is I was finding it hard to spend so much time in kitchen with a 12 month old baby....

Note : We will be reposting some of the old recipes back as and when we prepare them. This is to ensure we have better pictures for the post and also, we can rectify errors, if any, in the post. I am starting with one of our favorite dishes Mosaru vada. Dahi (Hindi) or Mosaru (Kannada) is yogurt. Dahi vadas are vadas soaked in tasty yogurt mixture. As any other Indian dish, this is also prepared in many different ways....

This is my own version of  eggplant Parmesan that I made couple of days ago. Eggplant Parmesan is a dish which has eggplants coated with breadcrumbs, shallow fried or baked, then layered with pasta sauce/marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese. I adore this dish. When I bought a eggplant during my last grocery trip, this was the first thing that came to my mind. Planning ahead in cooking is something I will never be able to do....

I am not sure why this recipe was not on the blog yet. My brother and I absolutely love this fish pulav. My pachi (aayi’s sister) makes a delicious pulav and a fish gravy that goes with it. It was a regular whenever we visited her in Belgaum. A perfectly cooked rice is layered with cooked fish to make a delicious pulav (I think it can even be called biryani)....

One of the questions I get asked very frequently is ‘how I manage to cook with a very active child at home’. So I thought of writing this post. I am by no means a person who can give tips on this topic, but I am happy to share how I manage. If it helps anyone, I will be very happy. I grew up watching my aayi cooking for large functions at home....

I saw this recipe in one of the cooking shows. As usual I had written down but never tried. Few days back, I was going through my recipe diary and I found this. I was not having soaked chana (chick peas) or spinach. But I was not feeling like going to shopping for just two things. So I used potato instead of chick peas and coriander leaves instead of spinach....

Poha is a very famous dish. Aayi prepares some 3-4 types of poha. I like this one very much. Phova pitto is used in a variety of dishes like this. But aayi uses the Sambar powder for this. It tastes great. (I will blog about ‘phova pitto’ soon). ‘Phanna’ means ‘Tadka’ and ‘phovu’ is ‘poha’ in Konkani. The name ‘Phanni phovu’ is used because tadka(tampering) is used in this dish....

Massaru – Maseda (mashed) saru (a thin soup kind of gravy) is very popular among the ragi mudde loving Kannadiga people. I had read/heard about this so much, I wanted to give it a try. I am not sure if this is the traditional way of making massaru , because I have never tasted this before. This recipe is from a Kannada book. But I can say I absolutely loved it....

My deepest condolences to Mumbai attack victims and their families. I salute NSG, police and hotel staff who put their lives into danger trying to help people. I hope atleast now our Indian government does something to stop this madness. Few years ago, I was in San Diego for a short business trip. That was my first travel outside India. One dish that I clearly remember from that visit is mashed potato that I had tasted at a get together....

About a year ago or so, somewhere on this blog I had mentioned that we both love pastas. So Gowri sent me this recipe. Thanks a lot Gowri. I am not very fond of soya products even though I know it is good for health. Something about it’s taste used to put me down. (But for next few days it is one thing I want to work on. I will be cooking more with soy products)....