Pakoda Potato Kuruma

A simple yet delicious curry that will make a great combo with pulav, chapathi, dosa or rice. Potatoes and soft pakodas or Bengal gram fritters soaked in the curry filled with flavors of spices and coconut makes it a great dish. My mom usually makes this kuruma with pakodas by grind the kadalai paruppu. I also made it the same way, but for a simpler version, we can also make the pakodas with just Bengal gram flour/kadalai maavu when we are lazy for elaborated cooking.

Read more...

Poppy seed Almond Basundi and Won MLLA 26

Basundi is one of my favorite sweets which I love to enjoy with chapathi and pooris.. This used to be my favorite combo for my lunchbox during my school days.. How can we forget those days.. :) My mom used to make this yummy, rich, simple dessert often. This sweet is simple to make and needs not much of work, that you can fix it up easily for the guests. And there is no way that we could go wrong with this recipe. Just for a twist, I tried adding some poppy seeds and almond to the usual basundi and it turned out really rich and delicious. Poppy seed and almonds added more flavors and a rich body to the milk making it a yummy dessert.

Read more...

Star Gooseberry Pickle/ Nellikkai Urukkai

Me and hubby are not a great fan of pickles. Rather we don't even have any pickles at our home. But I planned to make some pickle for CMT - Pickle event guest hosted by Nivedita started by Jagruthi. In that process, I had a chance to find some star gooseberries in my near by Chinese store. Its very rare to find such stuff here..

Read more...

Happy Saraswathi pooja - Sakkarai pongal/Sundal/Vadai

 Happy Saraswathi Pooja/ Ayudha pooja to everyone. Today being the pooja, I was busy making all the food that have to be offered to God as prasadam. This list includes the Sakkarai ponga, a sweet dish make with rice and jaggery, sundal and vadai. Its a custom in my MIL's place to make only masala vadai for pooja and not the usual Urud dal vadai. I too followed the same tradition. Apart from this prasadams, we also offer rice, paruppu(cooked toor dal), ghee and vegetables of our choice.This pooja is specially referred to as 'Sakthi poojai' in our place and usually performed in the evenings after the sunset.

Read more...

Mushroom and Potatoes in Spicy Minty Almond Curry

Here comes a spicy, rich delicious curry with mushroom and potatoes loaded with flavors from almonds and mint. I usually make use of peanuts, almonds, cashews in my gravy to make it rich. But today just for a change, added few mint leaves along with almonds and got this yummy curry filled with minty flavors. It tasted great with rice or chapathi.

Read more...

Chickpeas and Spinach Stew

This is a simple and light curry or stew made with chickpeas and spinach. This stew could be made in just few minutes if we have cooked up chickpeas or canned garbanzo beans ready in hand. It goes good with idli, dosa, chapathi or as a side for spicy kuzhambu rice. This is my entry to CWF - Chickpeas event by Kiran guest hosted by Nithu.

Read more...

Carrot Macaroni Kheer

Here comes a simple and delicious dessert that will be ready in few minutes and with the simple ingredients available. I was having a pack of baby carrots that needs to be used sooner. So thought of making some carrot kheer. Just for a change tried adding few boiled macaroni to it and turned out to be great. My 18 month old son loves macaroni. That too macaroni in a sweet.. he just loved it and enjoyed eating it by himself... :)

Read more...

Tangy Tomato Chutney/ Thakkali Thokku

This is a simple chutney that can be made in few minutes to be a good combo with idli or dosa. Few people make this chutney just with tomatoes. But I have also added some onions to give in extra flavors.

Read more...

Chocolate Oats Walnut Laddu

Here comes another simple laddu recipe I tried for Celebrate sweets- Laddu event started by Nivedita and guest hosted by Nithu. This is a simple and chocolaty laddu made with oats and filled with nutty flavors of walnuts. Chocolate in any form is always good. Same goes with this laddu too.. It was really yummy and rich with chocolate that we could hardly taste the oats in it.

Read more...

Badam Oats Khoya Laddu

Here comes a yummy and new kind of laddu that I tried yesterday. I was having some leftover khoya I used for gulab jamuns sitting in my fridge. To finish it off, I was thinking of making some sweet. Then came the idea of this laddu. Just oats wouldn't give much flavor to the sweet, so decided to add almonds too. This combo of almonds, khoya and oats resulted in a really delicious laddu.

Read more...