Day after tomorrow, my sweet little angel turns ONE. He is the one who made our life so busy, engaged always, happy and so responsible too. As a gift of our love marriage, God has sent us a guardian angel, who takes care of both of our families too. He was born after the great loss of our Grandpa, who is the backbone for all our families. Hence my kid is believed as our grandpa returned home to bring back his loss.
He is the first grandchild of both our parents, hence he is the apple of everyone's eye. He is the best entertainer for my sister and brother in laws, and they are the ones who can get him anything in this world. In this 25 years, I can surely say the most unforgettable and treasured moment in my life would be, the time when I saw my kid for the first time, after the painful surgery to give birth. Obviously it would be the treasured moment for every Mom. The only thing which flashed my mind at that moment was, "GOD is always so generous over me". 
We have been enjoying all his milestones, when he turned around, when he crawled, his toddling, his magnificiant walk, his first tooth, his first word...oooh everything. Its all remained a celebration for us. I felt so proud of myself when called me 'Amma', even I was so jealous over my Mama and dad, as his word was 'Thatha'.
He is so gifted that his grandparents are becoming young and playing with him like kids, even when they are gasping for breath. He is pricelss for my Sister, on the otherside my brother inlwas will roam around the world to make him happy. 
I wish everyone of your blessing will be there for him always. I have no powers to predict the future but I am sure that we have a bunch of happy days ahead with our Adhityan... 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADHITYAN

Children nowdays march against veggies and are totally towards fried foods and pasteries. Moms are really finding it difficult to inject the health component into them. Here is one easy and tasty way, to make them have the veggies. This chutney will serve as a good combination for idly, dosa and paniyaram. 

Ingredients:

Ridgegaurd - 1/2 kg peeled and minced

Pearl Onion - 20

Tomato - 2

Green Chilies - 8 (Depends on how spicy you want)

Salt to taste. 

Method:

In the kadai, add 2 tsp oil and saute all the ingredients, till the raw smell goes off.

In the mixer grind it to a coarse chutney, by adding salt. 

Season the chutney with mustard seeds, urad dhal and curry leaves. 

Serve with hot idlys. 

I am sending this as an entry to Vegan Ventures Round 2 conducted by Suganya, I believe this will suit her contest. 

This is the first Non-Veg entry in my blog. We occasionally prepare non veg at home as my inlaws are pure veg. My mom really prepares good non veg that too if its for a crowd. she prepare dum biryani well, but only when it is prepared in bulk.  Otherwise she will prepare it with cooker alone. Coming to the recipe, 

Ingredients:

Chicken - 1/2 Kg

Basmati Rice - 1/2 kg

Curd - 4 tbsp

Chilly Powder - 1 tbsp

Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 tbsp

Cinnamon - 3 sticks

Clove - 3

Bay Leaf - 1

Onion(Big) - 1

Tomato - 1

Green Chillies - 2

Ghee - 4 tbsp

Salt to taste.

Method:

Get the chicken, clean it with water for atleast 5 times properly. Marinate it with half of the ginger garlic paste, curd, chilly powder and half of salt for atleast 1 hr.

Soak the basmati rice in water after washing it. In the kadai, add the ghee and roast cinnamon, clove, bay leaf, then add the onion and saute it till it becomes translucent. 

Add the remaining ginger garlic paste and saute well. Once the raw smell goes off, add the tomato and saute till it gets cooked well. 

Add the marinated chicken and saute well till the water oozes out of the chicken pieces. Add the Rice and mix well (take care not to break the rice). Add the 3/4 ltr of water (2 cups of basmati rice needs 3 cups of water). 

Actually I Prepared this in Microwave, so if you are doing it in Microwave, add the contents and required water in microwave cooker and cook it in high for 20 mins. 

If you are doing it in cooker, add the water and cook it for 5 mins in low flame after the first whistle. 

Serve this delicious chicken biryani with mutton kurma or/and Onion Raitha. 

This is an second entry to Srivalli's Rice Mela

Mutton Kurma...

This time I prepared mutton kurma with this. That is so simple, Add the mutton(1/2kg), ginger garlic paste(1 tbsp), cinnamon(2), clove(2), pearl onion(20), tomato(2), chilly powder (1 tbsp), coriander powder (1 tbsp) salt and 1 cup of water to the cooker and cook it for 15 mins in low flame after first whistle. Grind the coconut and khuskhus to a smooth paste. Once the pressure is released, add the ground paste and cook for 5 more mins. Done with your mutton kurma. Make it little thin if you are going to serve it for biryani, or else make it thick if you serve it with white rice. 

Whenever it rains very heavily and the whether is too cold, my mom used to prepare two dishes. One is this kathirikai kadaiyal with rasam and one more is avarakkai poricha kulambu along with rasam. It will be delicious to have these curries with hot rice in that chill whether. We wont even eat by ourselves, my mom used to prepare urundais for me and my sister and feed us, even when i was doing my college. She is used to prepare it with mansatty only, to increase the taste more. Recalling those golden days.

Ingredients:

Brinjal - 300 gms

Pearl Onion - 20

Green chillies - 7

Tomatoes - 2

Tamarind - very small piece

Coriander Leaves - finely chopped 1/2 cup

For Seasoning:

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp

Urad Dhal - 1/2 tsp

Cumin Seeds - 1/4 tsp

Aesfoetida - 1 pinch

Red chillies - 2

Method:

Mince the onion, tomato, brinjal and chillies into small pieces. Cook them in a kadai with 1 cup of water.

Once it is cooked well, transfer the contents to a mansatty, add salt required and grind it coarsely with a matthu.

Soak the tamarind in 1/4 cup of water and take out the juice.

In a kadai, add 1 tsp oil and season the curry with the items for seasoning and add the ground contents to it.

Now add the tamarind juice and boil it for 5 mins. Garnish it with coriander leaves and serve hot with white rice & rice friyums.

I am reposting it for the FIL-Brinjal conducted by Sanghi

This is also one more stolen recipe from my granny. There they will prepare this only with potato, just i have added some green peas to it. We use it for all kinds of tiffins like chappathi, dosa, poori and idly. Its a good combination with everything. Ours is a very big family and we gather together for pongal in my native village. To serve everyone she used to prepare either this kurma with idly or else sambar. But the taste will be great there, as she will grind the masala with hand grinder. She have never missed the proportion even while preparing in big big vessels and that will serve for everyone. Great people. Here goes the recipe.

For Poori:

Ingredients:

Wheat Flour - 3 cups

Sooji - 2 tbsp

salt to taste

Gingelly oil - 1 tbsp

Hot water for making the dough.

Method: 

Mix all the ingredients(except water) well. Then slowly add the hot water and make a very tight dough, thats how we can prepare poori with less oil. Make small balls out of the dough and roll into circles with the chappathi stone. Deep fry it in oil and serve hot with kurma. 

For Kurma:

Ingredients:

Potato(Cooked) - 4-5 

Green Peas - 1 cup

Onion(big) - 2

Tomato - 1 big

Ginger Garlic Paste - 2 tsp

Cinnamon - 2 sticks

Clove - 4

Garam Masala Powder - 1 tsp

Salt to Taste

To Grind:

Coconut - 5 tbsp

Pearl Onion - 10

Green Chillies - 7 (depends on how spicy you want)

Fried Gram - 1 tbsp

Khus Khus - 1 tsp

Saunf - 1 tsp

Jeera - 1 tsp

Coriander Leaves - 1/2 cup (finely chopped)

Method:

First bake the potatos, peel the skin off and smash it into small pieces. Mince the onion and tomato. 

In the kadai, fry the pearl onion and green chillies with 1 tsp of oil till the raw smell goes off. In the mixer add this fried onion and green chillies along with rest of the items mentioned to grind and grind it to a smooth paste. 

In a kadai, add 2 tbsp of oil and saute the cinnamon and clove. Then add the onion and saute it till it becomes translucent. 

Add the ginger garlic paste and saute for a while. Now add the tomatoes and saute till they are cooked well.

Add the peas, potato, garam masala powder salt and 2 cups of water. Once it starts boiling, add the ground paste and cook for 10 mins, by sauting in between. 

Garnish it with coriander leaves and serve hot with poori. 

This rice has a special attachment in my heart. My mom prepared this rice for my valaikappu function for the first time and has never tried this before. But for my surprise, everyone was asking me for this recipe and who has prepared this. It was so excellent and the flavour of the food was also marvellous. This is an easy to make recipe which can be packed for lunch for school kids. Its really good to use pudhina atleast once in a week, as it is rich in calcium. Ok here comes the recipe. 

Ingredients:

Rice - 2 cups

Pudhina - 1 bunch sorted. 

Green Chillies - 7 can be more if you want it too spicy.

Lemon - 2

Channa Dhal - 1 tbsp

Urad Dhal - 1 tbsp

For Seasoning:

Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp

Red Chilies - 3

Aesfoetida - 1 pinch

Curry Leaves - few

Method:

Sort the Pudhina leaves, wash it and dry it in a cloth to get rid off the moisture. 

In the Kadai, roast the Green Chillies, urad dhal and channa dhal in 1 tsp of oil and keep it aside. 

In the same kadai add the Pudhina leaves and roast well. 

In the mixer first grind the pudhina leaves and green chillies alone without adding water. Even the mixer should be dry. 

Once they are grounded coarsely, add the dhals and grind once. The dhal should not get fully ground. 

Cook the rice and cool it so that the rice gets seperated which is very good for variety rice preparations. Even while cooking if you add 1 tsp of gingelly oil the rice will be cooked well and they will be seperate. 

In the kadai, add 2 tbsp of gingelly oil and season it with the items for seasoning. 

Add the ground paste and saute well and switch off the stove.  

Mix the rice with this paste and mix well so that the paste gets evenly spreaded. 

Add salt according to your taste and serve it with potato chips or plaintain chips. 

I am sending as an entry for the Rice Mela conducted by Srivalli.

I am republishing it for the Flavoured Rice event, which is an extension of COT-Powders hosted by Kadumanga