Quick Broccoli Pachdi ~ Raita

1 Cup Curd/Yoghurt
10-15 cooked Broccoli florets
[To cook them, you could either microwave them for a few minutes or cook in boiling water. Make sure you dont over cook them, else they lose their crunchiness.]
3 table spoons of one of these powders/podi
[MTR chutney podi/ Paruppu podi/ Mom made-Home made Idli Milagai podi].

Mix them all in a bowl and ta-da !!

Detox @ home

Some mint and basil leaves in water makes one of the best detox fluids made at home. This is with the greens. Try an other traditional one, famously called the Oma/Ova or Ajwain water. Boil drinking water, as it starts to boil toss in a spoon of ajwain. To it, other Indian condiments that can be added are Fennel, Fenugreek, Cumin to name a few.

Quick dinner with Quinoa

Wash the quinoa (preferably in a tea stainer) and cook it in a sauce pan, Quinoa : Water = 1:3. Toss in some spices if you like, I added garlic chives and a couple of basil leaves. Fry the onion and garlic pods in home made ghee or any healthy oil and keep them aside (do not mix with spinach else they will lose the crunch). Stir-fry the spinach separately, add salt and just serve all one on top of the other when u eat.

Evil mom in me strikes

Once in a while we have these ups and downs in our kid's eating behavior. That is when I have to really really come up with a new dish. Believe me, it is quite a challenge! I'm sure all the moms with a 2+ age group at home will empathize with me. Moms always wish for their infants to grow faster so they could fed all the external delicacies of the world. It always remains a wish if the child is not a great eater. It is times like these your child went back to those infant days, where, all it ate/drank was mother's milk and would just quietly go back to sleep with that satisfied look, smile and tummy!

Here's  something that became a huge hit last week at home. Mint + Carrot Chapaties or Parathas, how ever you want to christen it. We named it colorful Parathas. While you prepare the dough,
-> to the flour (2 cups),
-> add a whole big carrot in grated form,
-> chop a cup of mint leaves or spinach or Methi (Fenugreek) leaves or any greens that you want your child to eat, but doesn't eat otherwise ;-)
-> a pinch of salt

Now, mix all and make the dough. When you actually start making the breads, spread it out evenly, apply a thin layer of ghee (melted butter), this adds to the softness if you plan to send it as a snack packed in your kid's bag. Fold it from all sides and again press/ spread it out. If using a chapathi maker, it does both the pressing and cooking job. If doing it manually, heat the frying and make sure the paratha well cooked in both sides.

If eating immediately, it tastes great with butter. If packing as a nutritious snack, apply some ketchup & roll-it-up.

Bitter gourd Kosumbari

On the way back from Coorg, we pit-stopped at Kamat Lokaruchi (on Mysore road) for lunch. We are all fans of bitter gourds at home and any new dish made out of it, we welcome with open hands/mouth :-) Here's one I learnt from them - a kosumbari (pachadi) made with bitter gourd.

1 long or 2 small bitter gourds, chopped into lean, equally sized pieces.

(some senior citizens at home say that we should not cook bitter gourds in odd numbers, one of those "dont know why?" facts)

small and equal quanities of mustard, urad and channa dhal, pinch of Asafoetida for the seasoning.

pinch of turmeric

3 tsp of your favorite sambhar powder (home made/mom made/ MTR or 777)

salt to taste.

pinch of red chilli powder.

1 bowl of curd/yogurt or thick buttermilk

1 large onion, chopped.

some Coriander and curry leaves, chopped.

In a pan or kadai, heat some oil, add the seasoning essentials. To this, add the chopped bitter gourd. To make the dish even faster - just before adding it to the pan, one can steam cook the chopped vegetable (make sure it doesn't get soggy) for 5 mins like idli or toss it in boiling water for 5 mins and drain it well or even cook in the microwave for 10 minutes. You need to wait till it gets deeply fried and becomes crunchy chunks. Add the salt, turmeric and sambhar powder and mix well. Allow it to cool.

In the meantime, take a bowl of thick buttermilk or curd, add the chopped onions and the greens. To this curd, add a pinch of salt and a pinch of red chilli powder. Once the fried bitter-gourd comes to room temperature, add to the curd and mix well.

This is a great substitute for Raita and a yummy side dish for Methi parathas or even plain roti. I have a feeling it will go well with coconut rice aka thengai sadam.

End of Mango season, so what ?

We still have these yummilicious ones...

a Melony-stalactite

Quick Carrot Halwa

3pm to 4pm in the afternoons is when the snack alarm in his tummy usually rings. And today it had a special desserty appetite. He was 18 months old, when the word "Mi Mi" came into existence. We used to give him fruits, sweets and cakes and some exotic cookies saying "yummy yummy". And even more was the influence of the famous Wiggles number "Fruits salad, yummy yummy"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB4MNu6W9sg

So, he comes to me saying, "Amma, edanum Mi Mi venum", meaning he wants something yummy yummy. I ask him if he wanted to eat sliced carrots dipping them in honey or sugar. He suggests back to me, "that Mi Mi you make with carrots, can you make that now ?" So 20 minutes and he had it in his hands. At the time when there are emails floating around asking people not to make use of a microwave, I'm putting up a quick recipe for a microwaved carrot halwa. This recipe comes from a cook book. I gifted a microwave to my MIL in 2005 and she mentioned to me about this recipe that she discovered in the cook book that came with it. Never had i had the chance to try it and have always been doing the traditional grating carrots and cook on stove method. It has taken me 5 long years to try it :-).

8-10 large carrots

100 ml milk

1 cup sugar

1 tsp ghee or melted butter

To garnish : 10 black currants (or) golden raisins (and) 10 almonds (or/and) Cashews, pinch of Cardamom powder or sprinkle some of their seeds.

Cut the carrots in random order, we need not grate them. Transfer the pieces into a blender/mixer, add the sugar on top and add the milk at one go or depending on the efficiency of the blender you could add little by little. Blend well. Transfer this carrot juice into a thick microwave safe container. Place the bowl in the microwave and let it cook for 15 minutes. Bring it out, add the ghee and all the items that you wish to garnish with, mix well and put it in for 5 more minutes.

Zeh Hakol, yummy yummy warm carrot halwa is ready to be served. If you have the habit of stocking ice creams, relish the warm carrot halwa with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Broccoli Dosa

This belongs to the subset of the evil mom's recipes. Thankfully we are in a stage - point of life where I still get to decide and dictate what he should be eating. And I do not think this will go on forever, but as long as I'm in power why not utilize the chances.

After making some stir fried vegetables salad for us,I had some broccoli shoots left behind. I used only the florets in the salad and had a major portion of the stem/stalk left behind. I had not thought of anything for little one's dinner that night. If I was to show him a full bowl of vegetables like ours, no way he was going to oblige and his tumbly would still remain rumbly. Just when i thought I would make him a couple of dosas, i hit upon the idea of broccoli dosa.

Quickly microwaved the broccoli shoots, put them in the blender they turned into a fine paste. Added it to equal portion of the dosa batter and a little salt and voila - brocolli dosa mix was ready.

To start from scratch - (makes approx. 15 dosas)

Soak 1 & 1/2 cup rice and 1/4 cup urad dhal for 3 hours in water

2 cups of finely washed broccoli shoots or florets or the stalk cut into pieces

salt to taste

1 small green chilli (optional)

When it is about time to grind the soaked items, microwave the broccoli for about 7-8 minutes. Add water periodically and grind the rice and the lentil first for a couple of seconds and when the rice is all almost half broken, add the broccoli and grind well until the batter consistency is reached. If you wish to add a little flavor, toss a chilli into the blender.

Heat a pan, pour a ladle of batter at a time to get thin crispy dosas or a little more than that to make thick Adai like dosas which can be enjoyed with butter or ghee + sugar combo by your little ones.

Stuffed Vine/Grape Leaves

Stuffed Vine Leaves or the Dolma is a total Mediterranean dish famous from Greece to Turkey to Israel. This is actually quite simple to make and has no standard recipe - at least that is what I figured out after asking many a women here and browsing through recipes on the net. This dish is mostly done with meat, without it a great veggie dish.

Main ingredients would be vine leaves, rice, lemon and some mint, rest is all extra and the more you add the more flavor you get.

Ingredients that I made use of,

1 cup rice

20 vine leaves soaked in salt water/ Fresh leave can also be made use of but they have to be boiled well before using.

2 lemons

2 onions, cut into tiny pieces

1 cup peas

1 cup corn

2 carrots - grated

3 cloves garlic, cut into tiny pieces

2 green chillies

some mint leaves

salt to taste

4 tsp olive oil

1. Allow the cup of rice to cook well.

2. Soak the vine leaves in hot water for 15-20 mins in order to get rid of the salt.

3. In a wok, heat olive oil and saute the onions & garlic until golden brown. This preparation was unplanned so i didn't think about any other vegetable and ended up using some frozen peas and frozen corn and added the grated carrots. When they are cooked, add salt and squeeze a full lemon's juice onto the vegetables.

4. Check if the rice is cooked, if so, add the rice on top of the vegetables and mix well. This forms the filling. This is a great vegetable pulav or a veggie lemon rice (whatever you want to name it) for the little ones since there is no chilli factor in it. Especially for the kids who love the tangy lemon taste, this is a great meal.

5. Pull out the vine leaves from the water, just dry them for a couple of seconds in order that the water drips off and spread them out on a sheet or a plate.

6. Take a spoon full of the mixed rice and place it in the middle of the leaf. Cover it from the bottom and the 2 sides and start rolling it upwards till the tip of the leaf. Watch this video for an alternate preparation with meat and on how to roll the leaves too.

7. When all the leaves are stuffed, place then a sauce pan and cover the leaves with a plate that goes into the vessel. This is done to prevent the leaves from expanding/get unrolled when they get cooked. Fill the sauce pan with water until above the plate.

8. Cut a lemon into 4 pieces and the chillies into 2 halves each and some mint leaves -> drop them into the sauce pan. Add a tsp of salt too.

9. Place a lid on the sauce pan and allow it to cook for 15 mins.

10. Open up and serve hot or cool and store with the syrup in the refrigerator and use as a snack on a later day.

Folks who possess idli plates can skip steps 7 through 9 and can steam cook the stuffed leaves for 30-40 minutes. Make the syrup separately and soak the cooked leaves in the syrup for 30 minutes.

Tangy Tomato Dosa

In a land where there is no Urad dhal, this dosa comes in handy. Not that we are surviving without urad dhal at all. We managed to bring a kilo or 2 during our last home trip and i'm just being a little thrifty in using since we have couple of months to go before we return. I found this recipe on a friend's blog and altered it a little.

The below quantity of ingredients make 15 dosas of 6 inch diameter each.

1 & 1/2 cup rice

1/4 cup urad dhal

1/4 cup red lentils

2 tsp fenugreek seeds

Wash them well and soak them separately for 2-3 hours.

1 long green chilli

1 inch tamarind or 1 tsp of tamarind juice

2 tsp salt

2 small tomatoes

Grind the above with the well soaked rice and lentils and fenugreek to the usual batter consistency.

One would easily mistake the batter to thick strawberry milk shake;). Heat a pan, pour the batter one ladle at a time - use butter or ghee or oil of your choice around the dosa. Best had with chutney or sambhar, but we had an appetite for milagai podi and the little one enjoyed his tangy tomato dosa by dipping it in yogurt.

Minty minty spaghetti

Yes, I'm obsessed with mint.

Little A wanted spaghetti for dinner last night. So while he assisted me in cooking the spaghetti, I worked on making the sauce. His way of assisting me is to count the spaghetti sticks and drop them into the boiling water in the saucepan at his own pace.

Cook the spaghetti noodles al dente.

1 cup fresh mint leaves

1 green chilli

salt to taste ( i added 2 tsp for the given quantity)

1 garlic clove

1/4 cup of water

Grind the above and keep aside.

(portions for 300 gm noodles, good enough for 3 people)

1 big onion

1 big tomato

1/2 red pepper

1/2 green pepper

1/2 yellow pepper

Chop the above vegetables into not so tiny - not too big pieces. Heat 2 tsp of olive oil and toss all the vegetables together. Keep stirring on low flame. Remember not to give too much heat else the tomatoes get soggy with their juice. The vegetables should just taste lightly grilled. In the meantime, heat pan or wok with 3 tsp of olive oil, add the cooked spaghetti noodles and mix well until all the oil is taken by noodles. Add the grilled vegetables and pour the mint paste. Mix well, serve hot and enjoy the minty minty spaghetti.

Broccoli Paruppu Usuli

Banana flower paruppu usuli is said to be the mother of all paruppu usuli. This lentil paste side dish has become a mandatory item in the menu of most weddings these days. My mom used to make paruppu usili during our summer breaks or when ever we had our relatives come over - long list from paati to cousins and we had a crowd of about 10+ at home. My grandma used to say that earlier days, they used to buy vegetables just enough for the family, when unexpected guests arrive in order to bring the vegetable/curry to required extra quantity during lunch they used to make paruppu usuli. Paruppu usulies are traditionally done with any vegetable from the beans family like green beans, avarakkai (broad), kotha varangai (cluster) etc. They are everyone's favorite as far as i know, i have never heard someone disliking it. Kids love it too, especially little A loves it too for the reason that it tastes like Vada.

Broccoli has been a vegetable that i mostly use in our stir fried salads or mushroom-broccoli salad. I have never made or cooked (should i say) an indian curry or side dish out of it. When AA's aunt and family visited us last month, we made a little snack with broccoli. Just microwave the shoots for 5 minutes and dip it a little in olive oil and simultaneously in (idli) milagai podi. Its a nice crunchy-karam desi appetizer for all. When the talk was about broccoli, AA's aunt happened to mention that she makes paruppu usuli with them. I had been wanting to try it since we all love brocolli and we all love paruppu usuli too.

To make the lentil mix (usuli) we need,

1/2 cup of channa dhal

1/2 cup of toor dhal or Masoor dhal (red lentil)

Soak them both separately for 30 minutes.

Drain well and grind them both by adding,

4 red chillies

some curry leaves

pinch of turmeric powder

pinch of asafoetida (hing)

salt to taste

Add very little water only if required, the paste should be thick just the way we grind for paruppu vada. Once the paste is ready, steam cook it for 10-15 minutes just the way we steam cook idli. It should cook till the time when you put in a tooth prick it should come out clean. Once done, allow it to cool.

Cut the Broccoli into tiny shoots and wash them well. Microwave them for not more than 10 mins or just steam them over boiling water for 10 minutes. We do not have to essentially cook them soft. The broccoli shoots should stay a little hard and crunchy.

When the lentil paste and shoots are ready, heat a wok or tava. Add,

2 tsp oil

Saute some mustard seeds, urad dhal and pinch of hing for tadka

3 red chillies

curry leaves

Stir fry briefly and add the broccoli shoots and crumble the lentil paste over it. Mix them well and leave the wok closed with a lid on low flame for a couple of minutes so the crumbs and broccoli blend well. Voila, broccoli paruppu usuli is ready to be had with rasam rice or the world famous satvik food - yummy bagala bath/curd rice/dadhyonnam. I fry it for a little bit longer since we love eating it as a starter or appetizer :-).

Oznei Haman

Oznei Haman (meaning Haman's ears) or Haman Taschen are the triangular shaped Purim delicacy of Israel. Purim is celebrated on a full moon day according to the lunar calendar followed by the Jews. It occurs any time between mid Feb to mid March. Surprisingly it coincides with Masi Magam of Tamil Calendar and Holi. Anyways, Purim marks the celebration of the victory over the enemy, Haman. Its a kid's affair like the Halloween in the US.

Thanks to Ora who gave me the method of preparation.

We require,

2 eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 & 1/2 cup of sugar

a pinch of salt

vanilla or rose essence

2 spoons baking powder

any filling - chocolate/dates spread/poppy seeds/marmalade/strawberry jam. I used chocolate in some and dates spread in a few. Traditionally it is made with poppy seed filling.

Preheat the oven to 180 degress.

Beat the eggs. Pour in the sugar, baking powder, the essence, pinch of salt and mix well. Add the flour and mix well. Spread the dough out and use a cookie cutter to make small circles or alternately just use your palm (grease your palm with olive oil or melted butter for it may stick) to spread out a lemon sized dough. Fill a small amount of chocolate and fold it in the form of a triangle.

That's it, make as many as you can. With the above quantity of ingredients I made 25 of the sizes in the picture. Place them on a cookie sheet or aluminium foil and bake for not more than 10 minutes.

Best had with a cup of chai :-)

The delicious Vangi bath

For all those Brinjal /egg plant lovers - the delicious Vangi bath (brinjal rice)

The simplest way is to use MTR Vangi bath powder on cooked brinjal and mix with steamed rice.

To make it freshly at home we need to prepare the Vangi bath powder first. It requires,

2 tsp corainder seeds

1 tsp Urad dhal

1 tsp channa dhal

6 red chillies

1 inch cinnamon

1 cardomam

5 cloves

less than 1/2 tsp fenugreek

1/2 cumin seeds

less than 1/2 tsp peppercorn

Heat a spoon of oil and fry the above. Allow it to cool and make it into a fine dry powder. Folks having trouble with their mixer like i do, can add little water and make it into a thick paste. The advantage of making a powder is you can re-use it later and it stays longer than the paste.

Vangi bath is best made with the long green brinjal , but any brinjal/egg plant also tastes good.

Long brinjal - 5 (or) 1 big Egg plant, cut into small cubes

1 cup of rice to cook

2 tsp of Ghee or oil

Mustard seeds, Urad dhal, 3 Red chillies, Asafoetida (Hing)

Salt to taste and turmeric powder.

50ml of tamarind juice. (adding this is said to remove any kind of bitterness from the brinjal)

Roasted Copra (dry coconut powder)

Some curry leaves, cashew nuts and coriander leaves to garnish.

• Cook 1 cup of rice and keep aside.
• Heat oil or ghee in a pan and fry mustard seeds, urad dhal and red chillies. Sprinkle some Asafoetida powder on top.
• Add the cut pieces of brinjal and the tamarind juice, salt to taste and a pinch of turmeric powder on top and cook till the brinjal is done.
• Bring the flame to a minimum/low & add the roasted copra and the vangi bath powder/paste. Let it stay on low flame for a couple of minutes before you turn it off.
• Once the brinjal and the powder are finely mixed, add the cooked rice and mix again.
• Roast some cashew nuts and coriander leaves and add on top of the rice and serve hot. Garnish with freshly cut coriander leaves.

Kannadigas say this is best had with a coconut chutney, but i prefer having it with a cool cucumber raita.

Mint-Tofu rice

Blogging took a back seat as we started concentrating more on travel and photog. But i never said i stopped cooking and trying out new recipes :-). Yesterday was one of those lazy evenings when i didn't feel like - cutting vegetables, adding too many spices, using too many utensils but still had that feeling, "edanum nanna sapadanum". Opened the refrigerator and found some mint, coriander, Tofu, boxes of strawberries and many many colorful vegetables which only my eyes were eying but my mind was already working on something minty - Voila! why not a mint-tofu rice ? It only took 15 mins to prepare.

1. A cup of rice to cook/steam in the rice cooker.
2. Cut the tofu into chunks and toss them in a pan so they become golden brown/crunchy and keep them aside.
3. Grind the following,

1. 2 handful of mint leaves

2. 1 green chilly

3. 1 medium sized onion

4. 1 medium sized tomato

5. 2 garlic cloves.

Pour this gravy/mix into a wok or pan, add salt to taste and bring it to boil and switch the burner off. Thats it!


By now, (considering you took 12-15 mins in gathering the above requirements and grinding them) the rice should have been cooked. Allow the steamed rice to cool for a couple of minutes and then add it to the mint gravy in the wok and mix. Once you feel the rice is well mixed, add the chunks of tofu on top of it. Yummm, i'm a big fan of mint, the flavor, the fragrance, the health benefits - everything is good about mint. If one prefers paneer to tofu, you could do that too and even garnish with some roasted cashew nuts.

Hummus and an easy sandwich

Its was 4pm was the time to think and plan for the night's dinner. I wanted to try something new. Checked the refrigerator and the can of chick peas caught my attention. I thought why not hummus or falafel balls. Hummus is wa easier than the later, which involves oil and frying etc etc.

So here we go, yummy hummus ready in no time (10 min).

1 can ~ 340 gm of chick peas
(If you do not have a can, soak the chick peas overnight, boil them for 45 min in a big sauce pan or in a pressure cooker up to 3 whistles, allow it to cool)
10 ml lemon syrup
10 ml olive oil
4 garlic cloves
2 - 4 red chillies (depending upon your the spice level)
2 tea spoon Tehina (If you do not have Tehina/tahini at home, try making a paste out of 50gm of sesame seeds)
To add more flavor one could optionally add, cumin powder and pepper powder.
Salt, to taste.

In a mixer or food processor, add all the above ingredients and grind by adding small portions of water as and when essential. For folks who do not like the smell of raw garlic, you could toss the sesame seeds (instead of tehina),garlic cloves and red chillies in little oil, allow them to cool and grind them well into a paste before adding the rest of the ingredients.


OK my hummus is ready. Now what for dinner ? Little A and I played some indoor cricket. It was around 6-ish and i had to pick AA from work. Way back home we were discussing about dinner with dishes involving freshly made hummus. We had pitas and some vegetables for a good sandwich. We hit across this idea of a good crunchy mushroom-pita salad with hummus spread :-) What a long name for an easy dish!

No sooner did we enter the house, i was at it - cutting cucumbers, tomatoes and boiling mushrooms. AA takes over the stage in frying the mushrooms in olive oil and red wine. Most of the time, the mushrooms dont reach or survive till their desired end, they get eaten up much before that. But this time they survived since i was busy helping little A with his dinner. Anyways, AA quoted the pitas with hummus, filled it up with the cut vegetables and those crunchy mushroom chunks. To add an indian touch to it, we sprinkled somce spicy coriander thogayal (made out of coriander, urad dhal, tamarind and red chillies. No coconut!) - left over's from the day before.

Thats it, end of a quick hummus making and quick sandwich for dinner.

Garma garam whole wheat cookies, anyone ?

He makes his own dessert!

The protein rich Pottukadalai + Sugar podi :-). This is how you keep a hyperactive toddler occupied for a while. He works hard for that sweet result!

supper time...

Thanks to my mami, who introduced this easy & healthy recipe for us - the Ragi Sevai. In our school days, Upma used to be the least desired breakfast/tiffin/ dinner or whenever it has to be made or eaten during the day. But when i took control of the kitchen, post marriage, i realized how 'easy' on earth it is to make an upma! and geeeeeeeeeeee i started liking it :) But i had to convince A & A too that it is ofcourse a good one to have for dinner. Then i started exploring various means of making it eatable / edible for the boys!

In Oct 08, my sis and I visited our mama/mami and who had made an amazing tiffin for us, we instantly fell in love with it when we know the preparation time was hardly 5 minutes :-) less utensils used too! It was the ragi sevai - we get those ready made ragi vermicelli or ragi sevai sticks. One has to just soak them in water or rather wash it in running waters, steam heat for 3-5 mins. Then comes the fun, stir fry how many ever colorful vegs we got at home just the way we do it for the 'upma(s)' and ta-Daa - as you mix the steamed ragi sticks - delicious - ragi upma - ragi sevai - ragi vermicelli - whatever on earth one has to call it - is ready!