I love any vegetable in the form of kootu, as it requires only very less oil and rich in protein. From the beginning, instead of giving only pappu, I used give any veg kootu to my kid. He loves to have kootu rice with ghee. I usually prepare this kootu as a side dish for any kulambu. Today i prepared pachai mochai kulambu along with kootu.

Ingredients:

Snake Gourd - 3 pcs

Bengal gram Dhal - 1/2 cup

Onion - 1

Green Chillies - 3-4

Red Chillies - 2

Aesfoetida - a pinch

Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp

Mustard and urad dhal for seasoning.

Method:

Pressure cook the dhal. Cut the gourd, onions and chillies.

In a kadai, add 1/2 tsp of oil and add the seasoning items and cumin seeds.

Once the mustard splutters add the onion and chillies and saute well.

Now add the snake gourd and saute for a while.

Now add the cooked dhal, salt, and turmeric powder. Close with a lid and cook till the veg is done.

Add curry leaves and coriander leaves for extra flavor.

If you want, you can also add a small tomato for this.

Serve this kootu along with kulambu or rasam rice.

One of my friends recently moved to a rented apartment. There she found so much of bed bugs and her entire family is suffering. Now she got a remedy to get rid of the bed bugs. Even though it doesn’t call for any serious health problem, there is no exact bed bugs bite treatment. Only thing is the family suffered from severe itching for many days. They called in for some pest control company and got rid of it. In my point of view the best way is to use a mattress encasement, which will zip around the mattress entirely and seals up the inside - meaning no bugs are getting in or out.

Recipes are transferred from generations. In my case both my Mom and my MIL learnt cooking from my mom's mom. She was an expert and till now some of her masterpieces remains unacheivable. Like athirasam, idyappam, suzhiyam etc. Some of them were tried several times and left as it didnt turn out upto her level. Later they stopped trying even. When I heard of this Indian Cooking challenge, I felt very happy to get a chance to try out the tough ones. After mastering them, I can challenge my Mom and MIL ;) hehehe

Coming to the trial run, my trial run was a great success. As it is already month end, I decided to prepare it yesterday. I had all the ingredients ready at home. But when I started, immediately the power went off. Ooops what a bad sign I got. I determined to go ahead and finish it off with the charged light. Cooking in Candle Light:) As I am doing it for the first time, I took a print out of the recipe mentioned there. My hubby dear helped me in getting things done and reading out for me. The only thing is he was very keen on measurements. I wanted to have less sugar, but he was jumping on not use different measurements. It appeared so kiddish, but I really loved the overall experience.

I used the exact measurements and the same procedure as mentioned.

Only thing I couldnt achieve was, I couldnt get a good round shape, as it was so hot. I prepared the balls immediately, after I took off from the stove. Later I realised I would have waited for some more time, so that it would have cooled little bit. Any which ways, I will be preparing it often, as it turned out well.

The most lovable thing was, my son loved it so much. He was asking for it, before he went to bed. Later the next morning as soon as he got up, he took that box and was asking me to open it and give him one. Thats the appreciation I got.

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For the past two years I was not able to relish the taste of mango. Firstly I was pregnant and that was my morning sickness time. The next year, I was feeding my kid and was not allowed to take mangoes. So I was eagerly waiting for this season to come. From the time the season started, I was having mangoes like anything. Upon that we got a box full of Organic Mangoes from the orchid, as a gift from a friend. Those were so natural and tasted so heavenly. That's was really a great treat for my mango quest.

Ingredients

Mangoes (Fully Ripen) - 2 or 3

Milk - 1 cup

Sugar - 1/4 - 1/2 cup depending on your liking of sweet. I didn't add sugar at all as the mangoes were extremely sweeter.

Method:

Peel off the skin of the mangoes and cut them into pieces.

In a blender add the mangoes, sugar and blend them well.

Add the milk and blend it once. That's it. If you want it more cold, store it in fridge and have it after sometime. Or you can have right away.

This Mango Smoothie enter the Mango Mela conducted by Srivalli.

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Because of hectic work both at home and office, i couldn't manage to post regularly. Nowadays my kid also giving me tough time for feeding him. In that I am not at all getting involved to take a snap of what i prepare.

We were been to a relative's wedding and I took a week off to help them in the preparations. There will be around 20-30 people at home for one or the other function. For a lunch the cook prepared potato podimas. As there were so much of diabetic patients in our family, they didn't had much. In the evening the cook prepared sweets and savories. While preparing mixture i asked them to prepare some batter extra and asked them to prepare aloo bonda with the leftover potato podimas. All the children and youngsters loved it and everything got over in minutes.

This is a very simple evening snack, especially on a rainy day.

Here goes the recipe...

For the Batter:

Besan Flour - 1 cup

Chilly Powder - 1 tsp

Rice Flour - 1 tbsp

Salt - as Required

For the Stuffing

Potato - 2 big

Onion - 1

Green Chillies - 4

Lime juice - 1 tbsp.

Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp

Mustard and Urad dhal - 1 tsp

Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp

Bengal Gram dhal - 1 tsp

Curry Leaves and Coriander Leaves - few

Method:

Bake the potatoes and mash it. Mince the onion and chillies.

In a kadai, heat 1 tsp of oil and add the seasoning items like mustard, urad dhal and bengal gram dhal.

Once it splutters, add the onion, green chillies and turmeric powder.

Once onion is sauted well, add the mashed potato and mix well.

Before switching off the stove, add the lime juice and leaves.

Stuffing is ready now. Make small balls out of it.

In a vessel make the batter with the items mentioned in 'For the Batter'

Dip the balls into this batter and fry them in oil.

Aloo bonda is ready and serve it hot with Coconut chutney.

Note - You can make the stuffing like this or you can reuse the leftover potato podimas as I did ;)

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This is one more easy dish, which can be made on the days we grind for idly batter. I either prepare paruppu adai or this one, on every batter grinding day. I have added drumstick leaves jus to add to the taste of the adai.

Ingredients:

Raw Rice - 1 cup

Par Boiled Rice - 1 cup

Thuar Dhal - 2 tbsp

Green Chillies - 4

Red Chillies - 4

Fennel Seeds - 1 tsp

For Seasoning

Mustard+Urad dhal+ cumin seeds mixture - 2 tsp

Aesfoetida - 1 pinch

Onion - 2 big

Green chillies - 2

Curry Leaves + coriander Leaves - few or Drumstick leaves.

Method:

Soak the rice and dhal together for 4 hours. In a grinder, add the chillies and fennel seeds.

Once they are grinded well, add the rice and dhal. Grind it to a smooth batter.

In a kadai, heat 1 tsp of oil and add the items mentioned for seasoning.

Saute well till the raw smell goes off. Mix this with the batter, add salt and mix well.

The batter should be little thinner.

Heat the tawa and prepare adai's out of this batter.

If you add drumstick leaves, the taste will be heavenly.

I am sending this Arisi Adai to the Ravishing Rice event conducted by Nags

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