Three Long years have went just like that, in between so much happened including a new addition to my family. I have been tied up with so many commitments and from all that I have taken a small break to enjoy myself as a housewife with my 2 kids. I was thinking for a longtime to comeback to my blog, but always found reasons for not stepping in. Even I have forgotten the password of this email linked. Its today, the ice broke and I am here now. Though I am away from my blog, I can never never keep myself away from the blogger world.  I have been a regular visitor for many blogs and have been trying new recipes from them quite often. With all that flashback I will shoot back again with my recipes. Watch this space......

I can assure you, this recipe will surely be a treat to your senses. I prepared it so many times and it has come out well all the times. I can mention it as my signature recipe even. My inspiration for this recipe is my fiends mom, who is the expert in preparing non veg dishes. I usually get a hint from her for all the non veg preparations.

Ingredients

Sankara Meen/Red Snapper - 1/2 kg

Tamarind - lemon sized ball

Pearl Onion - 15 nos

Tomato - 1 small

Green Chillies - 2 nos

Chilly Powder - 2 tbsp

Corainder Powder - 2 tbsp

Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp

Salt - as required

For Tempering

Gingelly Oil - 2 tbsp

Fenugreek - 1 tsp

Curry Leaves - few

Aesfoetida - 1/4 tsp

Method:

Clean the fish three times. Here we get it cut as a whole fish, with head and tail removed. Otherwise you can cut it in bigger sizes.

Soak the tamarind in water and get a thick extract out of it.

Marinate the fish with chilly powder and salt for 2 hrs.

In a kadai, add the oil and items for seasoning. I usually use the mansatty for this kulambu.

Then add the onions and tomato. Saute them till they become soft. Then add the tamarind extract, turmeric powder, salt, chilly and coriander powder.

When the gravy starts boiling, add the whole green chillies. You dont have to cut these chillies. People love this as a sidedish with curd rice.

Close it with a lid and cook it in medium flame for about 10 mins.

Once the raw smell goes off and the consistency become slightly thick(it should not be too thick) put the marinated fishand close with a lid

It takes only 5 mins for the fish to get cooked.

Be gentle while stirring, so that fish dont get broken after it gets cooked.

Serve hot with Rice and Vanjaram(King Fish) Fry.

After a very long time I am back again. Really it took a lot of time for me to settle down in our own city after spending 5 yrs in bangalore. My kid started with his playschool...and after 4 months now only he started going to school without much toruble. I found, getting him ready for the school is the toughest job in this world and am also mastering in that recently. Ok Stories apart, here's the recipe for today Vegetable Biryani

I have already posted few other version of the same before.

Ingredients

Basmati Rice - 3 cups

Veggies altogether - 3 cups(I used beans, carrot, potato, cauliflower, paneer and frozen Peas)

Bay Leaf - 1

Cinnamon - 1 inch stick

Cumin Seeds - 1/ tsp

clove - 1

Curd - 2 tbsp

Garam Masala - 1 tsp(optional)

Onion - 1

Green Chillies - 3 nos slit

Grind and Extract:

Coconut - 1

Green Chillies - 10 nos(this depends on how hot you want it)

Green cardamom - 3

Method

Soak the Basmati Rice for 20 mins.

Grind the things mentioned in the "Grind and Extract" section and the get the extract. You can add water and get it in three rounds.

In a kadai add a tsp of ghee and add the whole garam masala items. Then add the basmati rice and fry it for few minutes.

Then add this extract, salt and mix well. Close it with a lid and cook until done. Dont stir often. I used 1-1.5 ratio for cooking the rice and i cooked it in a heavy bottomed non stick kadai with a glass lid. The rice should be seperate.

In another kadai, add a tsp of oil and then a bay leaf. Add the onion and fry it till done. Then add the cut veggies (except paneer) and saute well. Add half a cup of water, salt, curd and garam masala. cook them till soft, still they shoudl be rigid.

Grease a pressure cooker with ghee/oil and add the rice layer first and then with veggie masala, then with rice like that. Close it with a hot tawa at the top. Cook it in a low flame for 10 mins.

Gently mix the rice and masala together. Serve hot with Raitha.

Its always raining here, this entire month and am finding it difficult to dry all the clothes. This is the best season to get cold, cough etc. Manja Paal is the one, we often prepare at home as one or the other one will have some throat problem. This drink will be very soothing to the throat and you can get good sleep after drinking this without any dry coughs. When i came to know about the event Think spice - Think Turmeric, this one flashed my thought immediately. My FIL is having a slight cold and he drinks it for the past two days.

Here are few medicinal values of turmeric

It is a natural antiseptic, antibacterial, anti inflammatory, stomach soothing agent

Is a natural liver detoxifier.

Reduces the risk of childhood leukemia.

Used to heal any cuts on skin

It plays a mjor role in anti cancer activities

Ingredients

Milk - 1 cup

Turmeric - 1/2 tsp

Pepper crushed or powdered - 1/2-1 tsp

Palm Sugar - 1 tsp

Method

No specific preparation done here.

In a cup of hot milk, add all the ingredients and mix well.

Drink before going to bed. Thats all.

I am sending this to Think Spice - Think Turmeric hosted by Sudhesna

and also to Healing Foods hosted by Yasmeen

This halwa reminds me of my childhood times. when i was doing my schooling, we had a petty shop near our school and there we get so much of kids cookies, chocos, biscuits and this one. I love this halwa a lot. I never knew this can be made at home. I didnt even know that this one is made out of maida. when i was browsing through net, I found this recipe from Srivalli's blog. It was so simple, that made me to try it at home on the same day.

Ingredients

Maida - 1/2 cup

Sugar - 1 cup

Kesari powder a pinch

Cashew - few

Ghee - as required.

Method:

Make the sugar syrup till one thred consistency

Prepare a batter with maida, kesari powder and water.

Pour this batter into the boiling sugar syrup and keep on stirring.

Keep adding the ghee till you get a well formed halwa.

Once it is ready, pour it on a greased plate and decorate it with roasted cashews.

I followed the exact recipe from hers and found it very tasty. My kid too loved it.

Being a parent, whenever they plan for a trip, my only concern would be my kids convenience. Here is a great site which has good information about Baby friendly Travel. They also have a list of products for baby travel like sleep gear, strollers etc.

I am back to the blogosphere. It was really a tough time to settle down and get things done. I really faced a very tough time as there were continuous doctors visits one after other in the family. I don't know what would have went wrong. Even now there are few more packed boxes, yet to be unpacked...and god only knows when it can be done.

Coming to the Indian Cooking Challenge, already I missed one (Murukku) last time. So I didn't want to miss this time too. I was planning this for almost one half month, got print outs of this recipe at least five times...got delayed....delayed and at the end I made it on sat evening.

Appah how many hurdles I should cross. I was grinding batter for Sunday breakfast and preparing the khova. All of a sudden my husband peeped into the kitchen and asked whether I will be able to prepare bajjis for him. It was raining outside and its a perfect time for a bajji too. It was really shock for me, as he is not a fan of bajji and he asked me for the first time in 3 years of my married life. What else...I got things ready for a bread bajji, the easier one. Finished off with the bajji session and I was very happy that my husband and kutty had a great time with the bajji.

Then started off with the jamuns, by that time the khova got ready and made the batter with the ingredients mentioned. Closed it and kept it. Kept the sugar syrup boiling. Used all the buffer time to finish off with my batter mixing. Once everything got ready, I fried the gulab jamuns and put it in the sugar syrup.

And then the comedy session started...I waited for half an hour....1 hr....8hrs....the next day morning too came....but jamun still remained hard enough.....ooops then only I realised on seeing the unopened cooking soda packet. :'( wat to do....Mission Failure. But the taste was good...but hard.

Please do read the comments from my husband and in laws

Husband - "I have sent one to Dr APJ, to try it as a new weapon and one more NASA to do a research on it"

BIL 1 - When my kid had a jamun in hand "Pappu hold it safe otherwise u may harm ur legs when it falls down"

BIL 2 - "Oh my god, you tried it a wrong time....we are done with the remodelling of our house and we don't need stones any more"

Its my fault and I am really scared of trying it anymore...as i was boiling 2 litres of milk on a LPG.

But anyway am posting this as I tried it. I am eager to see all your comments.

I got a transfer to Chennai and I am really busy with the things related. I was trying hard for this transfer for the past few months and it got clicked recently. This time I think it be will really really tough shifting things from here to there, settling down etc. So I thought I will come back to this space, once I settle down there. It wont take much time I guess. Moreover I can come back with a bash, as I would be having access even at home.

Here's a small recipe from my drafts,

Recipe for Masala Vada:

Ingredients:

Channa dhal - 1 cup

Onions - 1 big

Green chillies - 3

Red chillies - 3

Saunf - 1 tsp

Ginger - a very small piece

Garlic - 3-4 pods

Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp

Aesfoetida - 1 pinch

Salt - as required

Curry leaves and coriander leaves

Method:

Soak the channa dhal for 3 hrs. Drain the water fully.

In the mixer, add the 1 green chilly and 3 red chillies, cumin seeds, saunf, ginger, garlic.

Grind them together smooth. Then add the soaked dhal. Using whipper, whip to get a coarse batter.

The batter should be thick enough.

Mince the onion, 2 green chillies and the leaves. Add it to the batter. Add salt and Aesfoetida. Mix well.

Heat cooking oil in the stove, slightly simmer it and fry the vadas in hot oil.

If you want a different taste, you add cinnamon and mint leaves to this.

Serve hot with chutney.

Please keep visiting my space, still I am back.

One of my mallu friend got me 'Erisseri' on the onam day. It was so delicious and I immediately wrote down the recipe from her. Then I tried it today morning. It came out very well and heres how I prepared it.

Ingredients:

Black Channa - 1 cup

Raw Plaintain - 1

Yam - 100 gms

Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp

Chilli Powder - 1 tsp

Pearl Onions - 6

Coconut - 1/2 cup

Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Pepper - 1/2 tsp

Seasoning

Mustard and urad dhal - 1 tbsp

Curry Leaves - few

Red Chillies - 2

Obviously we have to use coconut oil.

Method:

Soak the channa overnight. Pressure cook it with salt and 1/2 tsp chilli powder. Add only little water as this curry will be dry.

I microwaved the cubed Yam and plaintain seperately(with 1/4 tsp chilli powder each). They should be well cooked.

Once the pressure is released, add the yam and plaintain to the cooked channa and allow it to cook.

In the meanwhile, grind together coconut, pearl onions and cumin seeds coarsely.

Add this to the vegetables and mix well. Adjust the salt if required.

Cook for some 5 minutes and switch off.

Do the seasoning with the items mentioned for seasoning.

Thats it delicious curry ready to serve with hot sambar rice and pappads.

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Vinayaga Chathurthi is always my favorite festival. Since I was brought up in a village, its always a joyful event to buy clay ganesha. I will be roaming around to get all decorative things like umbrella, erukka maalai and so on for that ganesha. But this time we missed this festival, as we had to attend a close relative's marriage at chidambaram. After that travel, I couldn't find time to prepare this, as I had to bring back home to normal. I missed khamam dhokla also, so I didn't want to miss this time too. So I made myself to prepare something at least for Indian Cooking Challenge. I reached home by 8.30 PM after that I started my venture. When I read through the procedures, I realized only 2 recipes can be made easily at that time. So ended up my list to kozhukattais and peanut ladoos(from Valli's recipe)

I prepared the same way as mentioned by Valli. This is the second time in my life, I am preparing kozhukattai. Because my mom used prepare only pidi kozhukkattai and not this one, so I never had a chance of learning this. As my husband is very much fond of this sweet, he is very particular about the taste and texture. He has a great list of specification on how a kozhikattai should be. Even after 25 years of excellence in kitchen, he will find faults with my MIL's preparation of this sweet. This made me keep away from preparing this. No other go, I ought to prepare this at least once in a year during this pooja. I thought I am saved this year, but this ICC trapped me into trouble :( .

My poornam came out well and the dough too. But after seeing my first set of kozhukattais, my husband thought he only will prepare it. I was very conscious on the getting a fully covered kozhukkattai, but he felt that the cover is too thick. So he only did all the kozhukatais after that. Really it came out well and you can see the snaps.

Making peanut ladoos was not a big deal and it also came out as expected. Actually I thought of doing a small pooja with this as the neivedhyam, but its was toooooooooo late.

I found it very difficult to dump all my important things in a safe place, while we were doing remodeling of our house. Actually when we decided to remodel, we didn’t think of this point anytime and we thought we can dump in room. But at the last moment both of my brother in laws came back home, finishing their college days. We have to give them a room and obviously that’s one where we kept all our important things. When was looking for a good solution, I found out his website, who provide Storage Units on rental.

They are providing a wonderful solution with storage units in all sizes and according to our specific needs. Their site is accessible throughout the year. They also provide a Free Move in Truck with a Self Storage Unit Rental. I really felt it to be a very useful and compact for my needs. All you have to do is you have to create an account there and make payment online. They also provide valuable points to be considered while packing and moving. They have online payment centers also, which made my job easier. I think this will be a useful piece of information for those who are shifting or remodeling your house.

Drumstick leaves are always my favourite. I love everything made out of it. As you all know its rich in iron content and especially ladies who are pregnant need to take it for sure. Every doctor will prescribe iron tablets throughout pregnancy and even after post pregnancy. So it becomes a must take greens during pregnancy. When i was pregnant, we found it very difficult to get this leaves here. So my mom used to carry this greens wrapped in a wet cloth(to keep it fresh) from my hometown. I will soon post one more recipe on murungaikeerai kashayam, which i drank to get rid of the excess water accumulated. Everyone will face swelling in their legs during pregnancy and if you drink this kashayam, immediately the swelling will go off.

Coming to the recipe

Ingredients:

Drumstick leaves - 1 cup

Toor Dhal - 2 tbsp

Pearl Onion - 10

Green chillies - 4 nos

Seasoning

Mustard Seed - 1 tsp

Urad dhal - 1 tsp

Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp

Aesfoetida - 1 pinch

Method

Pressure cook the toor dhal to a level, that it is done 3/4th.

Mince the onion and chillies.

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

Once the mustard splutters, add the onions and green chillies.

Then add the greens and dhal(along with the little excess water used for cooking the dhal)

If you want you can even garnish it with scrapped coconut.

That's all serve it with hot sambar rice.

This is my lunch box with Raddish Sambar, murungaikeerai thuvattal and curd rice.

This lunchbox enters the Wholesome Lunchbox event conducted by Margot.

Also this am sending for the Food for 7 stages of life - Pregnancy (Zero hour) event hosted by Radhika and Sudeshna

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This is one more for the Viki's Side Dish for Chappathi event.

Ingredients:

Cauliflower florets - 1 cup

Potatoes cubed - 1 cup

Green Peas - 1/2 cup

Paneer - 1/2 cup

Capsicum - 1

Onion - 1 big

tomato - 1 medium

Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 tsp

Turmeric powder - 1 pinch

Chilli Powder - 1 tsp

Coriander Powder - 1 1/2 tsp

Garam masala - 1/2 tsp

Saunf Powder - 1/4 tsp

Cumin Powder - 1/2 tsp

Coconut Paste - 2 tbsp

Cinnamon - 1 piece

Mint Leaves for garnishing

Method:

In a kadai add some oil and fry the cubed paneer. Drain them and put in a bowl containing water.

In the remaining oil, add the cinnamon and then onion. Then add the ginger garlic paste.

When the raw smell goes off, add the tomato and all the vegetables except capsicum & paneer.

Now add the turmeric, chilly powder, saunf powder, coriander powder and salt. Mix well and close with a lid. Once the vegetables are cooked, add the capsicum, garam masala and the coconut paste.

Cook it for 2 more mins and garnish with mint leaves.

Serve with hot chappathi.

My husband really loved this gravy and it was a great happiness for me.

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Work has become so tight nowadays and am finding it very difficult to post anything. Also we have been on continuous travel for some or the other functions. I have been silent viewer of my favourite blogs and kept worrying on seeing my blog silent. I just found some free time after a long gap. Just thought posting in all my pending dishes.

This is a very quick and delicious recipe, which goes well with chappathi.

Ingredients:

Cauliflower - 1 big

Green Peas - 1/2 cup

Onion - 1 big

Green Chillies - 2 nos

Crushed Pepper - 2 tbsp(a/c to ur taste)

Salt - as per taste

Curry leaves and coriander leaves for garnishing

Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tsp

Method:

Put the cauliflower florets in boiling water and drain them.

In a kadai, add 1 tbsp of oil and add the onions.

Once onion is cooked, add the ginger garlic paste.

Once it is done, add the florets, green peas and mix well.

Now add the pepper powder, salt, sprinkle some water and close with a lid.

Once the veggies are done, garnish it with curry leaves and coriander leaves.

Serve it with hot chappathis and onion raitha.

I am sending this to the Side Dish for Chappathi event conducted by Viki's Kitchen

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This is recipe tried following a TV show.

Ingredients:

Paneer - 200 gm

Potato - 2

onion - 1

To Grind:

Pearl Onions - 10

Garlic - 10

Tomato - 1

Red Chillies - 10

Coriander Powder - 2 tbsp

Cinnamon - 1

Clove - 2

Cardamom - 2

Khus Khus - 1tsp

Fried Gram - few

cococut - 2 tbsp

Method

In a kadai, add 1 tbsp of oil and fry the cubed paneer. Drain it and put it in a bowl containing water and turmeric mixed.

Bake the potatoes and keep it aside.

In a kadai, add 1 tsp of oil and add the cinnamon, clove and khus khus. Once it starts spluttering, add the onion and saute well.

Then add the garlic, red chillies. Saute till the chillies become crisp.

Now add the tomato and the coriander powder.

Put the coconut and fried gram in to the mixer along with the sauted ingredients and grind it to a smooth paste.

Keep a kadai add 1 tsp of oil and saute the onions. Then add the paneer and potatoes and the ground masal. cook it for 5 mins in simmer by closing the lid.

Serve this with Roti and hence I am sending this to Side dish for chapathi event hosted by Viki's Kitchen.

Mushroom has become a mandatory item for lunch on every weekend. Rarely we prepare non veg and rest all times its mushroom curry, with rasam/sambar. We will late lunch by around 3-4 pm on weekends. Nowadays my kid is insisting on eating with his dad alone. My hubby dear finds it difficult to have his food properly. but its truly a great enjoyment. I will be busy cooking in the kitchen and my kid will come & take a plate for my husband (whenever my kid feels hungry). He will show that plate to me and ask "Tha" (which means give). I will put something in that plate, he will go running with that to his dad and have the food with him. He come back for the second serving. So cute of him.

Coming to the recipe

Ingredients

Mushroom - 200 gms

Potato - 1 or 2

Onion - 1 big

Tomato - 2

Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 tbsp

Chilly Powder - 1 tsp

Coriander Powder - 3 tsp

Coriander Leaves - few

Method

Clean and cut the mushroom and all other veggies.

In a kadai, add 1 tsp of oil and add the onions.

Saute till it becomes translucent. Then add the ginger garlic paste and saute till the raw smell goes.

Add the tomatoes and all the powders and salt.

Now add the potatoes and mushroom. Mix well.

Sprinkle some water and close the kadai.

Stir in between till the veggies are done.

Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve hot with rasam or sambar rice.