Baje Sargam Har Ta… Ek chidiya anek chidiya Jungle jungle baat chali hai pata chala hai…chaddi pahanke phool khila hai phool khila hai and finally, Mile sur mera tumhara..to sur bane hamara Basundi is a very popular Maharashtrian sweet dish. I have tasted it couple of times when I was a kid. But since I am very intolerant to sweets, I never actually gave any attention to any of the sweets....

Aayisrecipes would not be a “Konkani site” if I had missed this dish. Hittu/khotte is one of the most popular dishes for Konkanis (This is also popular among Kannadigas). For most of the people, it is just a festival food, but at my home, aayi prepared this whenever we wanted. She made these small baskets with jack fruit leaves and then poured idli batter and steamed them to get the “ hittu “....

Summer is the season for mangoes and jackfruits. We have few trees of jackfruits which bear different varieties of jackfruit(panas). We use the leaves to make khotte , fresh tender unripe jackfruit to make chips , randayi etc. Ripe jackfruit is very sweet and one of the most loved fruits in our family. We have very fond memories of opening up a ripe fruit in the morning, the entire family gathering infront of it to enjoy it....

Today’s lunch is methi paratha , coconut chutney with asafoetida and fruits(apple, pear, grapes, cantaloupe). I am not able to take good pictures of these lunch boxes. Let me see if I can improve them. Few days back when I posted a ragi drink , I got a few requests for dishes with ragi/finger millet flour. I have a very good article with many ragi recipes in it, but had never tried any of them....

Methi or fenugreek is one of the things I did not care much when I was a kid. But now it has become my most favorite green. I try to include it in curries, dal, pulavs. It gives a very nice aroma and taste to any dish. This methi paneer is one of my favorite things to make with these delicious greens. Cashew paste gives it a creaminess. My kids love it....

Mysore pak or Mysore paak must be one of the most popular sweets in Karnataka. It is one of my all time favorite sweets. But there are different kinds of Mysore pak available in market. When I was a kid, they were always long rectangular shaped(as in this picture ). They used to be solid, very porous, melt in the mouth kind of sweets. But these days we get them either like semi solid ones with dripping ghee or even if they are solid ones, they don’t have pores in them, so they are too hard, they are very light in color (almost the color of besan )....

Many of you requested me to post Christmas special food here, but I am a person who has neither celebrated it at my home nor did I meet anyone who has celebrated it. Christmas to me was always confined to the beautiful arrangements made in every corner of my native town. When I went to do my bachelors, all my cooking was confined to easy-to-do mix and match food, so no special christmas food there....

Last time when aayi told me to eat almonds, I bought a big pack of it, put it in freezer and forgot all about it!. I have been thinking to finish it off for a while now. But that didn’t happen. I tried to give those to Ishaan a couple of times, but he doesn’t like them. Then I made badam milk for him, but forgot all about it soon....

V and I both are big fans of stuffed vegetables. I haven’t been able to make this as often as I used to. I tried this recently and we absolutely loved it. The recipe was for stuffed eggplants(brinjals), but I used okra instead. Check my aayi’s recipe for stuffed okra . Ingredients: 20-25 okras/bhindis 1/2 cup onion Oil Salt Spice paste : 2 tbl spns coconut 2 tbl spn chana dalia(hurigadale/putani) 1 tbl spn sesame seeds 1 tea spn cumin seeds 1 tea spn coriander seeds 1 tea spn poppy seeds/khus khus 4-5 cloves 2-3″ cinnamon 4-5 red chillies 1 tea spn jaggery 1/2 tea spn tamarind...

I haven’t been cooking anything new lately. That explains the quiet here. Today when I was checking pictures on my laptop, I saw many that I am yet to post. So I thought of posting them before I forget the recipes. Sorry for not being able to take any new recipe requests or not being able to reply to emails/queries. Aayi got her computer/internet problems fixed recently, so I am hoping she would be able to post somethings here (if she finds time)....

I had many requests for this recipe for last couple of months. Many times I thought of posting my version of tomato rice, but it is way too simple and I was not sure if I wanted it here. Then I remembered my friend Poornima’s tomato rice. She used to bring it in her lunch box, when we were in Bangalore, and I used to love it very much, like all other dishes she used to carry in her box....

I was thinking about making some sweet potato fries for a long time now. We first tasted them in a restaurant few months ago. We all loved them. When I started making them, instead of deep frying, I baked them. They came out really great. I topped them with some chaat masala for some extra taste. Ishaan loved these :). Ingredients: 1 big sweet potato (about 3 cups cut into thin long pieces) 1/2 tea spn chilli powder 1/4 tea spn chaat masala Olive oil Salt...

Black eyed beans or alsande is my all time favourite. Any dish with this gets a distinguishing taste. Here are few interesting traditional uses of black eyed peas. Ingredients: Coconut 3/4 cup Black eyed peas(alsande) 1/2 cup Yam(surnu)/green banana (Plantain)/potato (cut into bite size pieces) 1/2 cup Red chillies 4-5 Oil 1 tea spn Coriander seeds 1 tea spn Asafoetida a pinch Mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn Curry leaves 5-6 Tamarind 1/2 tea spn Salt...

Most of the people like to plan way ahead for dinner/lunch. Somehow, that never worked with me. So most of the time, I end up combining some unusual ingredients to make a dish. This was one such combination that I had never seen before. I use bottlegourd (lauki/gardudde) a lot these days. I wanted to make something different with this vegetable. I thought of pairing it with something else. All the beans that I had in pantry needed soaking, then I saw black eyed peas (alsando)....

This is a ready to serve pickle. Can be preserved in refrigerator for at the max 1 week. Cauliflower should be very fresh and crunchy for the best results. V loves this pickle, aayi makes this all the time when he is at home. We prefer this pickle made with only cauliflower, but the same can be made with a mixture of cauliflower and carrot too. Ingredients: 3 cups cauliflower and/or carrot (cut into small pieces) 2 tea spn chili powder 1 tbl spn lemon juice 1/2 inch piece asafoetida(hingu) or 1/4th tea spn powder 2 tea spns ginger(cut into small pieces) 1 tea spn green chilies(cut into small pieces) Salt As per taste...

Some of you already know my love for baking. I have been baking atleast one new kind every 15 days or so. I want to post them here so that I remember them. This is one such bread I baked a while ago. I got the recipe in Taste of home magazine. I made quite a number of changes to original recipe. We love spicy breads, so I included chilli flakes in it....

Last few months have been no-chicken days at my home. I got many requests for chicken recipes, but both my husband and I absolutely didn’t want to eat chicken. So these days I cook it only when we invite someone for lunch/dinner. Now the problem with that is, it is very difficult to take pictures when I am cooking some elaborate meal for guests and all that I want to do after cooking is, just sit down and take a deep breath....

Different people have different ways of preparing curd rice. I like this one the most. This is my aayi’s version. I used to run away from it when I was growing up. Now it is one of my comfort foods. Ingredients: 2 cups cooked rice 5 tbl spns curd(yogurt) 4-5 green chilies 5-6 curry leaves 1/2 tea spn each of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, urad dal 2 tea spns oil or ghee A pinch asafoetida 1/2 tea spn pepper 5-6 coriander leaves Salt...

Our dear friend Srivalli is organizing a fund raiser to help Lakshmi, who is suffering from Coronary heart disease. It is very unnerving to know about Lakshmi who is 28 years old, mother of two, fighting for life. If we can help even in a small way, it may save a life and along with it, life of those two small kids. So please please do whatever you can for this humble cause....

What do you do with the extra cooked potatoes that remain after cooking some potato dish? It happens with me frequently. While making batata vada or masala dosa , I start by boiling potatoes and many times, I realize I have cooked too many for one dish. In such situations, aayi makes this tasty gojju with it. This is also great for quick fix meals when you are out of all vegetables/meat in the refrigerator, but you want to make something to eat....