Lessons learnt – Fix the deal before work and don’t depend on others for things which we can do ourselves no matter if it’s delayed a bit.

Veggies:

Cubed Carrot – ½ cup

Cubed potato – ½ cup

Cubed bell pepper – ½ cup

Cauliflower florets shredded – ½ cup

Shredded cabbage – 1 cup

Onion – 1 small (cubed)

To Grind:

Chopped Garlic – 2 teaspoon

Chopped Ginger – 2 teaspoon

Fennel / Saunf – 1 teaspoon

Dry red chilly – 7-8 (increase or decrease according to your spice level)

Curry leaves – 2 sprigs

For Batter :

Besan /gram flour – 1 cup

Water – ¾ cup or as required

Baking powder – ¼ tsp (optional)

Asafetida – ½ tsp

Egg white – one eggs(optional)

Oil for deep frying

Salt as required ( I used 1 tsp)

Method:

Coarse grind the spices and apply on the veggies, make a thick batter using the listed items for batter. Adding egg whites reduce the oil consumption while deep frying .Add the spice coated veggies to the batter and mix well. Heat the oil in a kadai and drop the veggies in oil and fry until crispy golden color. Serve it with tomato ketchup as tea snack.

Ingredients:

Yam cubed – 2 cups

Onion – 1 small (1/2 cup)

Tomato – 1 small (1/2 cup)

Red chilly powder- 1 tsp

Turmeric powder- ¼ tsp

Oil – 1 table spoon

Salt – to taste

Masala / spices to grind:

Saunf/perumjeerakam/ fennel – 1tsp

Dry red chilly – 2

Garlic – 1 tsp (2-3 big pearls)

Curry leaves – few

Method:

Pressure cook yam with salt with little water, and mash well. Coarsely grind the masala items except curry leaves, add curry leaves at last to grinder and just turn once. Most of us throw curry leaves and really don’t enjoy its benefits so the best way I follow is to grind them in masala. In a pan heat one 1 table spoon of oil and add the ground masala, sauté for a min until the raw smell goes. Now add the onions and sauté until transparent followed by chilly powder and turmeric powder. Add the tomatoes and cook until oil separates and add the mashed yam. Roast well in the stove for around 5 minutes until all water gets evaporated.

Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with curd rice or any variety rice of your choice.

I didn’t have coriander leaves in my fridge so haven’t garnished it.

The same recipe can be modified in to spicy yam fry . Half cook the cubed yams with salt and little water. Apply the ground spices ,turmeric and chilly powder to the half cooked yams. You can add ¼ tsp garam maala also if you like. In a pan add 2 tablespoon of oil sauté the onions followed by tomatoes , when the tomatoes get tender add the spcied yams and cook until crispy by turning over occasionally. Be careful not to burn the dish, so stir in between.

I do the same with Potatoes too minus the tomatoes.

Hope you like these dishes , please do try and leave your feedbacks.

I learned this from my mom, she makes a variety of dry and wet chutneys as chutneys happen to my dad’s favorite accompanier with any dish.

Here goes the recipe

Ingredients:

Scrapped Coconut – 1 cup

Mint – ½ cup

Coriander seeds – 1 teaspoon

Garlic – 3-4 small pearls

Shallots – 4-5

Dry red chili – 6-7 (adjust according to your tolerance)

Tamarind – one small cherry size.

Salt – to taste (½ tsp)

Oil – 2 teaspoon

Method:

In a non stick pan sauté garlic, shallots, dry red chilly , coriander seeds for 3-4 minutes, add the coconut and sauté again until the coconut changes its colour (don’t make it dark, light golden colour is sufficient) , add the mint and sauté for another minute. Cool the mixture and blend it with tamarind and salt. The chutney is ready to be served with rice, idlis or dosa.

This turned out quite tasty and was welcomed by my kids.

So here goes the recipe:

Ingredients

For Egg cubes:

Egg – 6

Salt – as required

Beat the eggs with salt and in a greased microwave safe dish bake it at 50% power for 7-8 minutes / Bake it at 200 degree Centigrade preheated oven for 7-8 minutes or until done.

Turn over into a plate when cooled and cube them and keep aside.

For gravy:

Oil – 2 tablespoon

Onion -2 medium ones

Tomato – 1 large

Ginger chopped – 1-1½ tsp

Garlic chopped – 1 tsp (optional)

Green chilly -2 slit

Pepper powder – 1 tsp

Chilly powder – ½ tsp

Turmeric – ½ tsp

Coriander powder – 2 tsp (substitute with chicken/meat masala and reduce chili powder and turmeric powder)

Garam masala – ½ tsp (I used homemade)

Curry leaves – few

Coconut milk powder – 3 heaped tablespoon diluted in 1 cup of like warm water)

Chopped coriander leaves – 1 tbsp (for garnishing)

Method

Sauté ginger and garlic in 2 table spoon oil followed by sliced onions curry leaves and slit chilies. When onions get light golden add the spices (turmeric, chily, coriander, pepper powders and garam masala), when the raw smell of spice vanishes add chopped tomatoes and cook until tender. Add 2 cups of water let it boil, followed by 1 cup of coconut milk. Add the cubed eggs and cook in low flame for 5 minutes for the eggs to soak up in the gravy. To make a runny gravy add more coconut milk. Add salt to taste, granish with coriander leaves . Serve it with hot phulkas. If the gravy is runny you can serve it with appam and puttu.

There was a request from a friend of mine to post the recipe of my vellayappam, each and everyone has their own style though the contents (quantities may slightly vary) remain the same mostly. So here am with my version of vellayappam and Nisha this one is dedicated to you.

Ingredients:

Raw rice – 2 cups ( I use Pakistan Basmati rice (not those high quality ones which are for biriyani))

Urad Dal – 2 tablespoon

Desiccated coconut – 1 cup (substitute with fresh scrapped coconut)

Coconut milk powder – 2 tablespoon (optional – those using fresh coconut don’t use)

Yeast – ¾ tsp

Sugar – 1 table spoon

Water – 4 cups + 1/2cup (for cleaning the grinder or mixer)

Poha /Beaten Rice/ Aval (white) – 1 cup (substitute with 1 cup cooked rice)

Salt – as required (I used 1 teaspoon)

Method:

Soak raw rice and urad dal for 4 – 6 hrs. Grind all the contents to a fine paste except salt. Poha/ Aval is the best, even cooked raw rice or parboiled rice also will do. While using fresh scrapped coconut, use frozen ones(scrap and freeze it a day ahead for next day’s use), they give better texture for appam, this is a tip from my mother in law. Also using ice cold water for grinding improves appam texture.

The ground mixture should be kept for fermenting in a big vessel as the batter rise up. Keep it in a warm place for quick fermentation, it takes 7-8 hrs during normal weather, but during winter it takes longer around 12 hrs.

I usually grind it the previous night for next day’s preparation. When fermented add the salt mix well and pour two ladles of batter into the heated (don’t over heat) appam chatty (preferably a none stick one for the ease of usage).Rotate in both clock wise and anticlock wise direction and spread the batter and let the remaining batter settle in centre to give the appam its desired shape. Close and cook over high flame for a minute and lower the flame and cook until the centre is done and the edges get crispy(matter of another 2-3 minutes). This appam has crispy edges and soft center, serve it with freshly squeezed coconut milk, cardamom and sugar mixture or any spicy curry of your choice.

I have tried the instant appam mix and also the powder which we need to ferment but somehow never liked the taste. I have always felt this is the best, tastier and healthier way, only drawback is we tend to forget to soak the rice.

Please excuse my pictures, am not very good in photography, but I can give a 100% guarantee about the recipe.

I know that most of you might be making appams, please do try my version and give me your feedback.

Plus Ragi is rich in iron and easily digestible.
The first solid food we give to infant at 3-4 months is ragi kurukku (ragi cooked with milk and sugar).

So here goes the recipe for ragi puttu.

Ingredients

Ragi powder – 2 cups

Salt – 1 tsp (as required)

Water – ¾ cup

Scrapped fresh Coconut – 1 cup ( for mixing with flour) + 1 cup for layering in the puttu mould

Method:

In a vessel combine ragi powder and salt, add water little by little and mix well, the mix should resemble crumbled bread texture, add 1 cup grated coconut(optional can reduce the quantity also) and mix well. Adding coconut to the puttu mix makes it tastier.

In a puttu mould add coconut and puttu mix alternating each other until it gets filled up. Steam it in a puttu steamer for 5-6 minutes.

Delicious and healthy ragi puttu is ready, serve it with curry of your choice or simply have it with sugar and plantain.

Here goes the recipe:

For Dough:

All purpose flour – ¾ cup

Cream cheese – ½ cup

Salt- ¼ tsp

Butter – 2 tablespoon

(Butter and cream cheese at room temperature)

Preheat the oven at 200 degree centigrade for 10 minutes.

Mix all the above to make a soft dough, divide it into 12 portions and make balls. Now grab your donut moulds, grease them and flatten the balls in the mould. If you don’t have mould, flatten the balls into small circles and place them on muffin trays and bake it. The snack is crispy outer and soft inner.

Serve it as an evening snack for kids with tomato ketchup.

A very easy stuff and kids would love it; they can carry it in their snack box and fancy it as nuggets. My husband is damn against all these frozen nuggets, burgers, French fries and stuff and even sausages. But kids love them. So to deceive them I make these potato patties, sometimes I do add some minced chicken (cooked chicken from curry, wash it well with water and chop them finely or just turn once in a mixer).

Ingredients:

Potato – 1

Bread powder (some 1-2 old slices of bread minced in a mixer)- ¼ cup

Salt to taste – ¼ tsp

Oil for shallow fry

Wash and Peirce the potatoes randomly with fork and microwave them for 5 minutes in high. Remove the skin and mash them. You will get approximately ½ cup , add salt and bread powder to make a soft dough, make small balls and flatten them and shallow fry in oil. With ½ cup potato and ¼ cup bread powder you can make 6 small patties to pack your kids snack box.

For kids

Rava or suji or semolina – 1 cup

Yoghurt or curd – 1 cup

Salt as required

Boiled veggies – 1 cup (optional ) ( I used finely minced carrots in a food processor )

Eno or fruit salt – 1 teaspoon

Carrots add to the nutritional value plus give it a lovely appearance as to deceive kids.

Mix rava, yoghurt and salt, if using veggies add them and mix well and the batter should be a slightly thicker than regular idli batter, if it’s very thick you can dilute by adding milk or buttermilk. It mostly depends upon the water content in curd used since i use store bought yoghurt water content is less so have to add ¼ cup water. Semolina tends to soak up quickly so prepare the idli molds by greasing them and let water boil in idli steamer/ cooker before you do the mixing process.

Just before you pour the batter into the moulds, add 1 tsp eno, mix well, fold well as to aerate the batter and then scoop it out into the moulds. Cook in the idli steamer for about 10-12 minutes. Check whether it is cooked by inserting a tooth pick , it should come clean. Remove the idli pans, cool them and transfer them into a serving plate. Enjoy with freshly prepared coconut chutneys of your choice or Sāmbhar.

Ingredients

For seasoning

Oil – 1 tablespoon

Mustard – 1 tsp

Gram dhal – 1tsp

Chopped cashews – 5-6

Curry leaves – 6-7

Chopped ginger – 1 tsp

Dry red chilly – 2 or substituet with chopped green chillies

Chopped Coriander leaves – 2 table spoon

Cooked veggies – ¾- 1 cup (I used carrots and peas)

Salt as required.

Rava – 1 cup , yoghurt – 1 cup , salt as required , eno – 1 tsp

While preparing idli for adults , in a pan add 1 tablespoon oil, splutter mustard seeds followed by gram dhal, chopped cashew and curry leaves, saute until cashews turn golden, now add chopped ginger, chilies and sauté for a minute add the shredded carrots(1/2 cup) cook for around five minutes, add boiled green peas (1/4 cup) sauté again and then rava/semolina/suji , mix well in pan for 3-4 minutes. Transfer them into a mixing bowl, add 1 cup yoghurt, required amount of salt and mix well. Add 1 tsp eno mix and fold well and scoop out into molds and prepare the idlis. Cooking time is around 12 minutes.