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.

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 ;)

For all these years, people have kept on inventing new dishes out of all possible veggies. This dish is one such kind and I have wondered so many times, who would have invented this and how come they could have got such a thought ;) Coming to the recipe, its a delicious vada you can have. It goes well with Mor Kulambu and also with sambar. If you have patience(to sort the veggie), you deserve a great treat.

Ingredients:

Vazhaipoo(Plaintain Flower) - 1 sorted

Bengal Gram Dhal - 2 cups 

Red Chillies - 6

Raw Rice - 1 tbsp

Green Chillies - 2

Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp

Fennel Seeds - 2 tsp

Garlic - 4 pods

Ginger - 1/2 inch piece

Aesfoetida - 1/4 tsp

Salt

Onion - 1 

Green Chillies - 2 minced finely

Curry Leaves and Coriander Leaves - minced finely

Method

Soak the dhal and rice seperately for an hour. 

Sort out the plaintain flower, wash it and cut it roughly to grind. 

In a mixer, add the rice, chillies, cumin seeds, fennel seeds garlic and ginger. Girnd it to a smooth paste by adding little water. 

Then add the flower and grind it coarsely. Finally add the dhal and grind it coarsely(as you do for masal vada)

Add the minced onion, chillies, leaves and salt. Mix well. 

In a kadai, heat required oil for frying. 

Take a small ball of batter, flatten it and fry it in oil. 

This vada wont be too crispy as masal vada. It will be soft only and crispier outside alone. 

Serve hot with rice and curry. Or if you are serving as a evening snack, serve it with pudhina chutney. 

A Great evening time snack. My FIL is a great lover of bajji that too bread bajji. Bread bajji with pudhina chutney will be a great combination. 

Ingredients:

Besan Flour - 1 cup

Rice Flour - 1 tbsp

Chilly Powder - 1 tsp

Garlic Paste - 1/2 tsp

Saunf Powder - 1/4 tsp

Aesfoetida - 1 pinch

Salt - as required. 

Oil for frying

Method:

Mix all the flour and powder together with water.  The consistency matters here. If its watery then the bajji will be oily and if its too thick, then it wont be tasty. So make it to the appropriate consistency and you can alter it accordingly on seeing first bajji result. 

Here I have added all ready made powder and paste. But if you wish, you can grind red chillies, saunf and garlic together to a smooth paste. The taste will be great. 

Coming back to the recipe, cut the bread slices in your desired shape. If you want, you can remove the corner portions of the bread. I don't prefer it as the corner portion of the bread is the more nutritious part and also that will become the crispier part of the bajji. so its beneficial in both the ways as tasty and healthy. Soak the bread pieces into the batter and deep fry in oil. It takes only less time to cook. 

Serve hot with pudhina chutney. 

You can even make this recipe so rich. Prepare a potato masala and make a sandwich kind of. Soak it in the batter and prepare the same way. The taste will be much more heavenly. As its time consuming i am not taking that risk. 

Yesterday I prepared Raagi Adai after a longtime. It was my grandpa's all time favourite. He was no more now, but still I have never seen such a self disciplined person like him in this world. Even at the age of 88, he will take his breakfast only after finishing his bath and prayers. Everyday early in the morning he go for walking, whatever may be the season. And he will have his own milestones to be reached during walking and maintains his punctuality in that. Also while walking he will be humming his favourite Devaram poetry (this is a tamil litreture sung in the praise of lord shiva). He was working as HOD Tamil in the Delhi university. As a diabetic patient, whenever he consult a doctor and finds his sugar level gone up, he will take the immediate steps and bring down to normal within a week. Even doctors have admired this. He will a perfect balanced diet that suits his health. He lived as a legend, leaving us with his fondful memories. 

When I thought of the event Just For You, the next moment I decided that I should dedicate my grandpa with his favourite recipe. Here it is..

Ingredients:

Ragi Flour - 1 cup

Onion - 1/2 cup minced (Preferrably pearl onions)

Green Chillies - 4

Red Chilies - 2

Curry leaves and Coriander Leaves - 2 tbsp minced nicely. 

Salt to Taste

Method:

In the hot kadai, add 1 tsp of oil and seasoning items like mustard seeds, urad dhal and aesfoetida. 

Once the mustard splutters, add the rest of the ingredients and saute well. 

Add this to the ragi flour and mix well. Now add salt and water and mix well. The dough should be like vada dough.

Take a plastic sheet and brush some oil over it. Take a medium sized ball of the dough and spread it with hands in that plastic sheet, to a dosa shape. 

Take it out and put it a hot tawa. Turn it to both the sides and cook well by adding little oil. You must have patience till it gets cooked. If its half cooked, you are sure to get stomach pain. So be little careful and cook it well.  

This can be served as a dinner or as a evening snack. This is very good for growing children and diabetic patients too. 

This Ragi Adai is sent to Just For You event started by Alka. 

My mom made this for my wedding anniversary this year. I don't eat much of sweets either homemade or store bought. I love to eat only spicy ones. But this one was too good, as it had only mild sweetness in it. Also my son loved it a lot. When my mom started preparing it, I really loved the aroma which filled in my entire house. It was a cardamom aroma, it was very pleasant. This needs not much work to be done and it can easily be prepared within minutes, when the batter is ready. The batter can also be stored for a week as it is made of jaggery. This dish is actually prepared during Maatu pongal offering to GOD. 

Ingredients:

Rice - 1 cup

Uradh Dhal - 1 tbsp

Jaggery - 1/2 cup (If you need it more sweeter, you can add more)

Cardamom - 5

Coconut - 2 tbsp

Method:

Soak the rice and dhal for 1 hr and grind them together in a grinder.

Before taking it off the grinder, add the rest of the ingredients and grind it. 

The Batter is ready now. In a kadai add oil for frying. 

Once the oil is heated, pour a spoon of batter. Immediately it will swell like a poori.

Turn it aside and take it off. Don't fry it too much. 

Actually this one will have crispier portions at the end and softer portion in the middle. The crispier portion will be like a ring and center portion will be like an idly. 

If it is of less sweet, you can have 4-5 at a time. If it is more sweeter, you can have only 2. 

This Paniyaram goes to RCI:Chettinadu Vegetarain Cuisine hosted by Srimathi. 

This is also one more stolen recipe from my granny's kitchen. Very simple, easy and quick to prepare at the same time healthwise good as we are just baking it. The taste will be delicious and very good for kids.

Ingredients:

Par Boiled Rice (Idly Rice) - 1 cup

Onion - 2

Green Chillies - 3

Red Chillies - 3

Curry Leaves and Coriander Leaves

Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp

Urad Dhal (split ones) - 1 tsp

Bengal Gram Dhal - 1 tsp

Aesfoetida - 1 pinch

Method:

Soak the rice for an hour and grind it to a smooth paste.

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

Add the onion and chillies and saute well till the raw smell goes off.

Add the ground batter and mix well. Switch off the stove once you get a chappathi dough consistency.

Make small balls out of the dough and bake it in a idly pot.

Its done and it doesnt need any side dish as it is spicy.

I am sending this to the EFM Theme - Savouries conducted by Srilekha.

Ingredients:

Rice Flour - 4 cups

Roasted Gram Dhal Flour - 1 cup

Soaked Bengal gram Dhal - 100 gms

Soaked Urad Dhal - 50 gms

Pepper - 100 gms

Salt to Taste

Butter - 100 gms

Oil for frying

Mix all the flour together with the salt. 

Add the soaked urad and bengal gram dhal. 

Put the butter in a pan containing hot water and pour it to the mix

Mix well so that the butter spreads evenly across the flour. 

Make the dough soft, take a portion of it and make small disc in a cloth as shown below. 

Once the wetness gets off, you can fry them in oil to get crispy thattais.

Ingredients:

Besan Flour - 4 cups

Roasted gram Dhal Flour- 1 cup

Red Chillies - 30

Omam - 5 tbsp (soaked in water for 4 hrs)

Method:

Mix all the flour together with the salt. 

Grind the Red chillies and omam to a fine paste. Sieve it with less water and get the water alone. 

Add this water to the mix and mix well. 

Put the butter in a pan containing hot water and pour it to the mix

Mix well so that the butter spreads evenly across the flour. 

Make the dough soft, take a portion of it and add it to the murukku achu with the slide having dots.

Randomly make circles in the hot oil and we can break it after frying.

Ingredients:

Besan flour - 4 cups 

Roasted gram Dhal Flour- 1 cup

Green Chillies - 100 gms

Butter- 100 gms

Salt to taste

Oil for frying

Method:

Mix all the flour together with the salt. 

Grind the green chillies to a fine paste. Sieve it with less water and get the mirchi water alone. 

Add this water to the mix and mix well. 

Put the butter in a pan containing hot water and pour it to the mix

Mix well so that the butter spreads evenly across the flour. 

Make the dough soft, take a portion of it and add it to the murukku achu with the slide having rectangular hole.

Randomly make circles in the hot oil and we can break it after frying.

This year diwali went very exciting for us. This is the first diwali I was celebrating with my in laws and also with my kid, so a different mood altogether. Hope everyone would have enjoyed your diwali, your way. We made a lot of snacks this diwali. This time I involved in everything, from the very first step of grinding the flour to storing the final snack. I didnt take much snaps as I was totally busy and exhausted with the preparations. Enjoy the recipes with minimum picture. 

In general, we got to ground all the flour at the neck of the moment to retain the freshness of the snack. The Major flour involved are

Rice Flour:

Soak the raw rice, dry it for two days, grind it in a saw mill and sieve it well. 

Urad dhal Flour:

Roast the urad dhal till golden brown carefully, cool it, grind it in a saw mill and sieve it well. 

Besan Flour:

Sieve it weel before using. 

Roasted gram Flour:

In the mixer grind the roasted gram and sieve it well. 

Now lets see how these flour are used to prepare various snack. 

Murukku:

Rice Flour - 4 cups

Urad Dhal Flour - 1 cup 

Roasted gram Dhal Flour - 1 Cup

Salt to taste

Sesame seeds - 4 tbsp

Butter - 100 gms

Oil for frying

Mix all the flour together with the salt. 

Put the butter in a pan containing hot water and pour it to the mix

Mix well so that the butter spreads evenly across the flour. 

Make the dough soft, take a portion of it and add it to the murukku achu

Make murukus in your way big, small, round, oval or any shape you like. 

Here are my murukku...... it has been sent as an entry to Festive Food: Diwali Celebration conducted by Priti and also to JFI Festival Treats by Srivalli