Food Charmers' Treasure Trove # 1

Dear Foodies,
I have been filling up my Treasure Chest from the day I got introduced to blogs, now its time to show you a few that came out of it and landed on my kitchen stove :-)

Below are pictures of the dishes I tried to re-create. Each one of them has been a success and have found a cozy place in my every day menu. I would recommend all these dishes to you guys if they havent yet landed on your plate :-)

I tried out two splendid recipes from Vaishali's Happy Burp

Mirchicha Chatka


Since it was my first trial at this dish, I took her advice and used lesser amount of chillies and dunked them in lots of yoghurt :D , but I must tell you it was lovely with the paratha's, it added a spicy zest to the boring store bought parathas.

Gajbaje

Sorry for the terrible picture !! This dish I should say is a bundle of surprise to your taste buds. It was the simplicity of the recipe that tempted me to try it out, and also the unending packets of mixed vegetable in my freezer :-P. This recipe does not call for any spices, but the harmony of flavors in the end product in unbelievable. And its too darned simple to make, soo simple that the egoistic cook in you will want to churn out another dish to compensate for its simplicity !! :D

Did I say two splendid recipes from Vaishali's, but I just tried another one yesterday !!

Didir Dosa

Her Didir dosa is really quick, dhideer means sudden/without prior notice in Tamil. Though this recipe does not compete with the speed of Rava dosa's or Besan Cheela's , it is a quick recipe for our regular dosa, skipping the soaking & grinding of the rice and dal. All you need to quench your cravings for some nice crispy dosa's is to stock your kitchen with some Urad dal flour and Rice flour at all times and you can have a lovely breakfast anytime :-)

Peanut chutney


To complete the brilliance of the dosa's I made some Peanut chutney to accompany them, and where did I look for an authentic recipe ? Where else but at the wonderful, peanut loving Indira's Mahanandi. Its a very simple recipe and the chutney holds a warm place in every Telugus' heart. I can assure you that a plate of crispy hot dosas, a dollop of peanut chutney and a spoon og allam pachadi (ginger pickle) will surely buy you a free roundtrip to Heaven !!

Now, once I got back to Earth, we were hungry again and it was time for the irresistible Dhansak.

The moment Nandita of Saffron Trail, posted her Parsi dhansak, I knew I had to try it. I was sincere in buying the pumpkin but after that the enthusiasm died down a bit, but then Shammi of Food, in the Main came up with her recipe (the recipe for the dhansak masala is her previous post) for it too. After that there was no more delaying :-)

A few days back, the passionate cook Nabeela who is currently treating us to her Iftar recipes everyday, made some roasted potatoes.

Roasted potatoes

I just bought my first can of olive oil and was eager to experiment with it. This was the perfect starter recipe for a starter :D. The potatoes look oily, but I used just a teaspoonfull of EVOO for 3 potatoes !! I was not sure about the amount of time that I had to leave them in the oven, and I guess I took them out a bit early. I would have liked them crispier, better luck next time :-)

Now its time to close the treasure chest with a dessert.

Eggless chocolate cake

This is from Priya's Kitchen. A wonderful eggless chocolate cake to dig into after a wonderful dinner. The pic is from my second attempt. The first time I tried I found that the 6tsp of cocoa powder mentioned was too less for the chocolately taste to stand up and dominate, probably because of a 'big cup-small spoon' measurement :D . So this time I increased it to 8 tsp for 3 cups of flour. I baked it for a friend's B'day this weekend, and we all enjoyed the cake. I added some icing on top too and used some ready made chocolate icing to decorate the cake. I scooped a lil into a ziploc bag and made a cone of it for decoration.

Thanks to all of you for sharing such delightful recipes !!

I am off now, the treasure chest will pop open more often from now on. I already have a few more waiting to show themselves to you guys :-)

Pongal - Sweetened Rice and Lentils

Dear Foodies,

Here is the first recipe among the goodies I made for Dasara.

My entry to Luv2Cook's JFI-Ghee event

Pongal, is a rice and dal mix that is cooked in jaggery and made rich with generous amounts of ghee and dry fruits, raisins and cashews roasted in ghee in particular. Coming to think of it, the word dry fruit in most South Indian sweets, more often than not implies, raisins and cashews. Very rarely have I seen other nuts used. And interestingly, though there are soo many festivals celebrated in India each one of them has a particular 'traditional festival-menu' attached to it. This was probably deviced to treasure the hundreds of recipes that our forefathers came up with. In our house its not just the sweets and savories but the daily lunch/dinner menu is also a custom-made one for that particular festival !!

Well back to Pongal, I think its one of the easiest sweets you can dish out, and it is relatively lesser time-consuming and does not call for much of your attention either. Leave the dal and rice to cook and take care of the other things in kitchen till then. Get back to it after sometime, add some jaggery-dissolved water, forget about it yet again and let it simmer, finally add a few dollops of ghee and dry fruits. And Voila,Its done !! You have a comforting and rich dish ready to serve.

Home-made ghee would be the best for this recipe or for any Indian sweet, for that matter, the better the quality of the ghee the more mellowed the flavor and the aroma is just enticing. This month's Jihva event hosted by Luv2Cook is all set to showcase the pivotal role that ghee plays in our cuisine.

This time I made a few variations to my usual recipe. I cooked the rice and dal in half milk - half water mix instead of just water. And I also forgot the amount of dal to add and went ahead and tossed in dal equal to nearly half the amount of rice. And when the final taste was different from what I had planned for, I called Customer Support, my Mom :-) She pointed out to me that we have to use very little dal. She said, the reason a little dal is added to the rice is, plain rice is never offered to the Gods, so we add a lil moong dal and/or channa dal to it. Now you ask might want to ask why not just plain rice...?? According to tradition, plain rice is offered to God only when mourning a death in the family, and so for every other occasion a little dal, even if it is just a few grains, is added to the rice while cooking it and offered as naivedyam. Even for everyday naivedyam, my mother adds a few grains of toor dal to the rice.


Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup - Rice

• 1/4 cup or lesser - Moong dal

• 1/4 cup or lesser - Channa dal

• 4 cups - water (or your usual ratio for 2 cups rice )
  OR
  2 1/2 cups - water & 2 cups - whole milk

• 3 cups - Jaggery (or equivalent amount of sugar)

• 3-4 Tbsp - Ghee

• A handful of raisins and cashews/almonds

• 3-4 nos - Cardamom pods/Elaichi, powdered (optional)

for garnishing:

• chopped fresh coconut pieces
• ghee
• honey
  

Procedure:

1. Pressure cook the dal and rice with the water or a water+ milk mix.
2. In a separate pan toss in the jaggery with a cup of water and allow it to melt. It does not have to get a syrupy consistency, we only want the jaggery to dissolve in the water. This might take just 5-6 mins and so you can do this after you have switched off the rice cooker and are waiting the steam-pressure to ease.
   
3. Add the jaggery water and powdered cardamoms to the cooked rice-dal mixture, stir well and simmer for 8-10mins. Check ferequently to avoid the bottom layers from burning. If using sugar you dont have to make a syrup, you can directly add the sugar with some water to the rice-dal mixture while its hot and stir on low heat.
4. Roast the dry fruits in 1 Tbsp of ghee and add it to the rice along with the rest of the ghee. Mix well, add a little more water if required. Keep in mind that the pongal thickens when it cools, so turn off when it is still holding some water.
   
5. Serve hot or cold. While serving you can garnish it with chopped pieces of fresh coconut and/or a drop of ghee. My father likes to drizzle a spoon of honey on his !! YUMMM :-)
   

Notes:

• I did not have fresh coconut, so I roasted some dessicated coconut flakes in warm ghee and added it to the pongal.
• If you use just water to make the pongal, the final dish will have a deep yellowish brown color from the jaggery. Since I added milk, the color has lighened.

This bowl of Pongal is now off to Luv2Cook's medley of JFI -Ghee dishes :-)

Happy Dasara

Dear Foodies,

~~ A VERY HAPPY DASARA TO ALL OF YOU !! ~~

I made Pongal and Sundal as naivedyam on Friday and here are the pictures. I will be posting the recipes a little later as I plan to make more goodies for Vijayadasami too. :-)

Dasara in our house is a big event. We have the custom of keeping 'kolu/golu', which is an exhibit of dolls(made of clay or wood), majorly consisting of Gods. We usually have a 5 or7 step arrangement. A few dolls that we have in our collection in India are:a Ashtalakshmi set, Dasavataram, a doll set depicting a market place, a collection of animals which we arrange in some wet soil to depict a zoo, a temple with a band of muscians. The most reacent major entrant is a cricket set which is soo much fun to set-up :-). I miss being at home for this festival. It was always soo interesting to help my mom arrange the dolls.

I was of the opinion that Dasara and Dussera were just two different ways of spelling the festival name in English, but wikipedia says otherwise....read about the interesting twist:
Dasara and Dussera

I made some Rava Kesari and Bajji(potato fritters) on Sunday for the Saraswati puja naivedyam. A little about the puja from wiki

The goddess Saraswati is worshipped during Navaratri. In South India, Saraswati Puja is a very important festival. The last three days of Navarathri starting from Mahalaya Amavasya (the New Moon day) are dedicated to the goddess. On the ninth day of Navaratri (Mahanavami), books and all musical instruments are ceremoniously kept near the gods early at dawn and worshipped with special prayers. No studies or any performance of arts is carried out, as it is considered that the Goddess herself is blessing the books and the instruments.

I had some batter left even after I used up all the sliced potatoes. It was then in a sudden flash that I realised my mother uses a slotted spoon to make boondi and I was using one such spoon to drain the oil from the fritters. And soo... I happyily made use of the extra batter in making boondi's instead of peeling another potato for the fritters :-) They were nice n crisp and it was wonderful eating them after a looong time :-) I think I am going to make boondi's more often as they are soo simple to make and yet soo tasty.

YaaaHoooooo - My First Muffins !!

Dear Foodies,

( Click on the photo to enlarge )

I was sick and tired of sitting in front of the computer screen all day y'day and decided to make some muffins last night. I had laid my eyes on Saffron Hut's Banana Nut muffins and knew that I had to try them. The best part of the recipe was it dint call for eggs and Saffron assured us that the muffins turned out just as fluffy as any other. I avoid eggs as much as possible as I cant take their smell/texture. So this recipe was just perfect for me. But well.....I had also read Vaishali's Jam-in-the-hole muffins and could not resist making use of this idea.

And so a trip a to the grocery store followed, bought some banana's and along came a box of hard-to-resist strawberry's and raspberry's and no points for guessing where they ended up :-)

I am not going to add the recipe here as I hardly changed anything of significance in the original. I used a little more than 1 1/2 cups of flour and so I added some milk to get the desired dough consistency. I first half-filled the muffin cups and put in a dollop of jam in a few and a few others got the berry's. I was a bit over-confident with my batter and filled the muffin cups just 3/4 expecting them to explode out of the cups !! Well they thought otherwise & dint puff out as much ... as you can see. But they were nice and fluffy, so next time (which is tonight :D) I will probably fill them nearly upto the top so I can get the muffins to raise over the cups' edge. And also I should probably grease the paper cups a bit or add a lil more butter to the dough, as the muffins stuck to the cup at the base.

Well the other thing I did while making them was take a lot of photos, so instead of the recipe I am going to put in the pictures :-) and see if you can spot any of my soft toys :D

Muffin cups ready to take in the batter

Half full cups with the jam/berrys

The filling covered with some more batter and ready for the oven

Hot out of the oven :-) You can see the jam oozing out of a few.

Muffins ready to dig your teeth into :-)

Loads of hugs and Thank yous to Saffron and Vaishali for their recipes and ideas :-) This is a muffin recipe I am going to treasure.

I am going to parcel a few off to Anthony's Curry Mela and Nandita's Weekend Breakfast Blogging :-)

Lime-Ginger Rasam

Dear Foodies,


I'm back after vanishing for quite sometime and I guess this is going to go on until I get out of school ! :-( I havent been taking any pictures of the food I am cooking either and so I have been nagging my mother more than ever to send me photos and recipes :-)

Here is a wonderful rasam recipe from her.This rasam is refreshingly different from the rest, it does not call for any tamarind or rasam powder. Yes...NO rasam powder needed :-). So when you get bored of the sambar/pulusu/usual rasam recipes that use tamarind as the base, then do give this one a try. It is also one of my favourite rasams and soo all the more hype ;-)

Ingredients:

for rasam:

• 2 nos - Ripe Tomatoes, halved

• 4 nos - Green Chillies

• 2 nos - 1 inch piece of crushed Ginger

• 1 no - Lime or 2 Tbsp lime juice

• 1 sprig - Curry Leaves

• 1/2 cup - Coriander leaves
  

• 1 cup - Toor dal, boiled and mashed

• Salt to taste

for seasoning:

• 1 tsp - ghee

• 1 tsp - Mustard seeds

• 1 tsp - Jeera/Cumin seeds

Procedure:

1. Boil one cup of toor dal and mash it well once cooked.
2. In a vessel, add 3 cups of water and toss all the rasam ingredients except the dal and lime juice and curry leaves( i.e tomatoes, crushed ginger,coriander, chillies and salt)
3. Bring the rasam to a boil, the tomatoes would have lost shape by this time.
4. Add in the cooked dal now and mix well to get rid of lumps and bring the rasam to a boil again. You could add a lil rasam powder now if you want.
5. In a separate pan, heat the ghee and add in the mustard seeds and jeera and a few curry leaves. Once the seeds start popping add it to the rasam.Also add in the juice of one lime or its equivalent.
6. Serve hot with rice or enjoy it as a soup :-)

And now this hot rasam is off to Anthony's Curry Mela

A Meme...for Me ME

I am thinking about : Tweetyyyy...the best ever cartoon character !!

I said : isnt tweety cuteee...!!

I want to : fill my bedroom with soft toys of all kinds..!!

I wish : I could get a life size Teddy :-)

I regret : not having a big enough apt to store my soft toys ;-) .....soon my room mates and I will have to find a new apt to live in :D

I hear : the radio playing songs ...non stop

I am : crazy about soft toys and anything that has chocolate and/or coffee

I dance : very very rarely....the party more often than not ends before I can convince myself to shake a leg .. :D

I sing : along with the song currently playing

I cry : at the slightest change/raise of tone of the ppl close to me !! And I have also been a expert in shedding crocodile tears when fighting with my brother :D

I am not : good at maintaining house accounts !!

I dream of : having a room filled with soft toys and owning a complete Enid Blyton book collection

I am with my hands: typing all the time or trying to whip up good food :-)

I write : with a pen pencil most of the time...I prefer them over pens..

I laugh : whenever I can ...with the side effect of making the others around me laugh too !

I confuse : myself and others ...and have gained some expertise there too :D

I value : my soft toys the mostttttttttt ..hehe

I need : more ...more ...and many more soft toys...

Well I did better put up the theme of this meme to be Me...Me and My Soft Toys ....!! ( and I hope everyone reading it got the hint and know what to send me )

RJ-The Ring Leader (My latest buy)

Thank you Annita for tagging me on this Meme :-) And now for me to tag someone with this Meme, its going to be Anita of A Mad Tea Party and Anthony of Anthony's Kitchen from the food blogosphere. I would also like to share it with my friends Aravind and Jaya

A Simple Dish - Aloo Fry

Dear Foodies,


When its raining, and I'm in no mood to cook, and looking for something simple and comforting to eat potatoes come to the rescue. Some aloo fry with steaming rasam or sambar is just heavenly. If you have the patience to make pulka's, there's nothing better.

Infact the first breakfast that I remember eating with relish was chapati and aloo fry. My mother had packed it for one of my Saturday tiffin boxes when in school. Saturdays are generally half days at school and we are back home at 1 with a lil 15 break at around 10. And to eat before I go to school was something I avoided. I just could'nt get myself to eat anything at 8 in the morning. But on that day, I saw chapati's and aloo fry in the tiffin box when I was placing it in the bag and they vanished even before I left home !!


Now to the recipe, it could'nt get any easier !! I use red potatoes or the white/pale yellow colored ones. I just hate the other huge brownish ones that we get at the stores. They are lumpy and dont taste very good either.


Ingredients:

• 5 -6 nos - Red potatoes

• 1 tbsp - Cummin seeds

• 2 tbsp - Red Chilli powder

• 1 tbsp - Urad dal

• 1 tbsp - Channa dal

• 4 tbsp - Oil
  

• Salt to taste

Procedure:

1. Wash the potatoes in running water and peel them if you think it necessary. Cut them into small pieces, roughly 1/2 -1 inch. As you cut them, place the pieces in some salt water so that they dont discolor.
2. Heat 3 tbsp of oil in a wide pan. Add the cummin seeds and the dals. I add them for some crunch, so you can change the quantity according to your liking.
3. Once the dals turn a slight reddish color drain and toss in the cut potatoes and salt. Cover with a lid and cook. Stir every few minutes to see that the potatoes dont get burnt/charred. You can add extra oil if needed.
4. When the pieces are cooked i.e they feel soft when held, add in the chilli powdernd mix well.
   
5. Serve hot with rice or chapati's and enjoy your meal :-)

Wheat Rava Khichdi/Dahlia Upma

Dear Foodies,

My mother's entry to Pavani's WBB # 4 event this fortnight
and also to Anthony's Curry Mela :-)
( This pic is a bit blurred, will try putting up a better one soon)

Here comes another wonderful tiffin recipe from my mother. Its a really healthy and very tasty breakfast recipe. Though the recipe is very similar to the usual upma recipe, the taste is distinctly unique. I for one have always hated the normal upma made from rava/sooji. Whenever my mother made it, she had to make something else for me or I would'nt eat. But this was restricted to rava upma alone,I just love this wheat rava khichdi.

I have'nt tried making this upma here, and when my mother sent me the recipe with the pictures, I knew it had to be sent to the WBB event. So here goes the recipe for wheat rava 'Khichdi',

Wheat rava khichdi(Dahlia)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups - Wheat rava (dahlia)

• 1 nos - Onion, sliced

• 1 nos - carrot, julienned/grated
  

• 5 nos - Green chilles, slit across the length

• 2 nos - Red chillies

• 1 sprig - Curry leaves

• 4 Tbsp - Oil

• 1 tsp - Mustard seeds and Channa Dal
  

• Salt to taste

• Coriander leaves for garnish
  

Procedure:

1. In a pan/cooker, heat the oil, and let the mustard seeds splutter, then add the channa dal, chillies, curry leaves and onions. Saute till the onions turn transparent.
   
2. Add the carrots, saute for a while and add 6 cups of water (rava-water ratio is 1:2).
   
3. As the water begins to boil, add the salt and then slowly stir in the Rava, avoiding any lumps.
4. Steam cook the upma for 5-8 mins if using the cooker or cover the pan with a lid and cook for the same amount of time.
   
5. Garnish with coriander and serve hot :-) I just love it with some ginger or tomato pickle and thick curd ;-)
   

Notes:

• You can add vegetables of your liking to the upma. Eg: peas, tomato, potato.

Here is another variation (with better photos).

Rava Ladoo

Dear Foodies,


I made Rava ladoo's this weekend. My brother was coming over to visit me, and rava laddoos are one of his favorite sweets. So I took the brave step of trying to make them for him. They tasted good, but lacked my mom's touch :-( A few of the laddo's were a bit hard and had to be microwaved for a couple of seconds to regain their softeness.

Here is the recipe I followed, making these ladoo's is a lot easier than I thought it was, so do try them out.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups - Rava/Sooji (Upma rava)
  

• 2 cups - Sugar ( adjust depending on how sweet u want them, starting from 1:3/4)

• 5-6 nos - Cardamom/Elaichi

• 1/4 cup - Raisins

• 1/4 cup - Cashews/Almonds

• 1 cup - Ghee

Procedure:

• Heat 1 Tbsp of ghee in a wide saucepan and roast the rava in it for a few minutes. When you start getting the pleasant aroma of the rava, switch off the heat and let the rava cool. The rava will have turned a slight orange, do not let it brown though.
  
• Once the rava is cooled, transfer it to a blender along with the sugar and cardamom seeds. Blend them for a few minutes so as to mix the sugar and rava well. But see to it that the rava does not become too fine.
• Heat 1 tbsp of ghee and roast the raisins and cashews/almonds and allow to cool.
  
• Now in a small kadai melt the rest of the ghee, you can reduce the heat to the minimum amount so that the ghee remains in its liquid form until u are done with the laddoos.
  
• Take the rava+sugar mixture in a wide vessel or plate. Separate small portions of the mixture and add required amount of ghee to form small ladoo's. Initially I was placing the dry fruits in each laddoo individually while making them. But towards the end I lost interest and added the dry fruits to the whole mixture !! hehe

My Notes:

• When I was making the first few ladoo's my mind dint let me use just ghee to make the ladoo's and so I was adding a few drops of milk (read it in a website) This did make the process easier but the laddoo's turned out to be hard and were mistaken for Golf balls !!! So dont heisitate to add the required amount of ghee :-)
• You can add coconut pieces roasted in a litlle ghee to the ladoo's too.
• Another variation here, using a combination of roasted urad dal flour and rava.
  

Varalakshmi Vratam

Dear Foodies,

Here are a few photos my mother sent me last week after the Varalakshmi Vratam at our home on August 4th.

Goddess Lakshmi fully decked with jewels and flowers. The alankaram has been done this very same way every year.

The Goddess along with the naivedyam my mother prepared.

A closer look at the delicacies
Clockwise: Idli, Sundal,Pulihora,Rice,Coconut Burfi,Sweet Pongal,Vada,Dahi vada and dal in the center
You can also spot milk,coconut water and assorted fruits

Some neivedyam recipes - Paal payasam, Poli/Bobatlu, Sweet Pongal, Kozhkattai/Modagam,
Temple-style Tamarind Pulihora, Sundal (Sundal again), Rava Idli, Medu Vada & Dahi Vada, Savory Mixture,