Kesar Balushahi

By    11:41 AM // 3 comments
It's the festive time of the year again knocking at our doors. Yay! Diwali is approaching fast !!! A festival of lights celebrated with pomp for 5 days throughout the country and abroad too where people perform pooja followed by bursting fire crackers. You can read more about the festival, spiritual significance and how it is celebrated across India over here.

 This is one of the most popular festivals of India, where you get to know its arrival prior to the the actual day of Diwali, due to sparkling night sky with fireworks, the smell and sound of crackers filling the air, houses getting decorated and lit up, shopping new clothes, decor items, etc. The celebration is incomplete without traditional mithais, and you find women in their house across India busy preparing great food for family. Distributing these mithais, namkeen among relatives and friends gives that additional touch to the festive mood. I remember amma would prepare a separate batch of mande/chavde, undo/laddoos, chakulis/chaklis, chivda and plates of these goodies would get exchanged when neighbours would drop in to wish us.  Remembering all those goodies, I could not escape from this festival fever and sat down listing the ones to do for this Diwali. My mind was racing up and down to try and prepare everything :D. But then looking at my work schedules settled down with 2-3 items on "To do list". The sweet I selected to prepare was Balushahi, a traditional dessert from North Indian cuisine. It is somewhat similar to glazed doughnuts. In South India, it is known as Badushah made during Diwali and other important festivals as well as during marriages. I had bookmarked the recipe that was shared by one of food group member on social website and thought it perfect to prepare for the occasion.




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Rajma

By    7:21 PM // 2 comments
Rajma is a popular Indian vegetarian dish prepared with red kidney beans. This spicy, thick gravy which is prepared by combining Indian spices tastes delicious when served with steamed rice, a combination known to be favorite of many North Indians.

Recipe source: FB friend Lata Pai


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Pumpkin Fritters

By    8:30 PM // 12 comments
" You are my pumpkin pumpkin, Hello honey bunny...." Do you remember this jingle...yes idea adv. Kids used to sing it like daily mantra at home for those initial days ... luckily the craze has come down ,,, and now its limited to the days when I cook any dish with pumpkin. 

 Posting a yummy dish today made from pumpkin. You can substitute pumpkin with butternut squash in the below recipe



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Karathey Kismuri

By    4:51 PM // No comments
Today's recipe includes bittergourd as the main ingredient. The name itself suggest the taste of this veggie, yes its bitter and many of you may not be liking it .... So are you trying to skip this page or go to some other recipe ... WAIT ... Believe me, this is a must try recipe and you will instantly fall in love with the crunchy not so bitter taste of this vegetable. The traditional recipe calls in for deep frying, but I follow the method of shallow frying obviously for health reasons.  Karathe is konkani word for bittergourd and kismuri means dry dish or salad type served as side dish. I love eating this dish just as it is or mixed with plain hot rice. 




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Shengdana / Salted Peanuts

By    4:24 PM // 4 comments
It was a long weekend at my side. Schools and offices were closed for nine long days due to Eid. We chalked out on plans to keep kids entertained and at the same time busy with their activities. This meant I had to think of some delicious power snack to help kids re-fuel between meals while carrying out their activities. The first thing that came to my mind was peanuts, the legume with nutritional punch and the snack I prepared was "Salted Peanuts". You can read about the nutrients that peanuts provide over here.



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Corn Sundal

By    8:09 PM // No comments
Navratri is being celebrated from 5th October till 13th October this year.

Wishing you all a Happy Navratri, 
Stay blessed today and always!

 This festival is celebrated in different ways for nine days across different parts of India. All the nine days are considered auspicious and spent in worshiping Mother Goddess, in her nine different avatars. Devotees generally fast, consume special food/ vrat ka khana and many of them avoid the consumption of onion garlic. Variety of special foods are prepared as neviedyam and offered to God which is then distributed as prasad amongst friends and relatives. "Sundal" is one such prasad prepared during this festival. You can read more about the festival here and and how sundal got popular as Navratri prasad here.  




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Green Moong Savory Cake/ Khaman Dhoklas

By    6:52 PM // 1 comment
Dhokla is a popular Indian snack from the state of Gujarat and traditionally made with base of fermented rice and chana dal mixture. These days you will find many variations been done, like khatta dhokla, cheese dhokla, rasia dhokla, sandwich dhokla. They are made from different dals, suji or semolina and the instant ones are made from chickpea flour/besan. I thought to give a try to its recipe from here which I had bookmarked few days back. While going through the recipe I got confused - the recipe had no rice in it and had no fermentation mentioned in its steps so,,, will I be preparing a Dhokla or Khaman dhokla ? You too confused ??? Whatever it is... I would call them steamed savory CAKE. This was an easy recipe resulting in spongy delicious savory cake [steamed them in cake pan and so the name :P] infused with sugar lemon juice solution and they made a great evening snack with tea.




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Nuchinunde

By    3:47 PM // 2 comments
I got to know about "Nuchinunde", a traditional Karnataka breakfast snack from Kudpi Raj maam. He is the author/owner of Kudpiraj's Garam Tawa where he has put down his culinary experiences and posted tried and tested, veg as well as non-veg recipes picked up from traditional to international cuisine. More than the rock solid recipes, I like the simplicity in his writing and the amusing anecdotes associated with these recipes which gives the reader a glimpse into respective culture and the history that goes with it [whenever possible]. 

When I came across his Nuchinunde recipe here, I was happy to find an idea that was so easy to make especially for breakfast or even for kids tiffin [provided the school has facility to warm up the food from the tiffins, otherwise they turn bit hard on cooling]. With the combination of dals, leafy vegetables that goes into its preparation, and the process of steaming, this surely is a wholesome healthy snack/ dish full of proteins and fiber rich. I decided to prepare them the next day itself. [It needs a bit of pre-planning as it calls for time to soak the dals]




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