Lemon Tomato Rasam or Soup

Everyone talks about soups and how they warm you up when you are cold or make you feel better when you are sick. But have you ever thought about our Indian soups, mainly about the yummy rasams we make? They have a even greater effect on how they make

us feel.....

The warmth, the spiciness, the slightly mild tangy flavor....has all the good stuff to really make you feel good!

Whenever we make rasam at home, I usually have a drink of it, just plainly, simply rasam. I love to have it hot and spicy. Rasam is usually made of tamarind pulp or juice but these days making it with fruits and fruit juices has also become common.

I don't mind making it with fruits, but for me it has to be tangy and spicy.

If you have a cough, add some pepper to the rasam. Add ginger if you have a cold.

Add garlic to the tempering if you like smell of it and it never can be bad! :)

We do make our own rasam powder at home, but you are welcome to make rasam with the store bought powder. I will try to soon post homemade rasam powder on my blog!

For the third day of the blogging marathon - Lemon Tomato Rasam.

This Lemon Tomato Rasam doesn't have tamarind in it but instead is made with Lemon and tomatoes to get the tangy flavor. This combined with the spicy rasam powder and tempering is a heartwarming delicious soup which can be not only be eaten with rice but also can be enjoyed in a cup by its own!

Ingredients:

1 lemon, juiced (you can use more, if you require more)

1-2 tomatoes, chopped, depends of how tomatoey you want

water as required 1 - 2 cups

1 tbsp Rasam Powder

Tempering and seasoning:

1/4 tsp Urad dal

1/4 tsp jeera or cumin seeds

1/4 tsp mustard seeds

2-3 dry red chilis, broken

few curry leaves

pinch of turmeric

salt as required

1/2 tbsp oil

coriander leaves for garnish

Method:

Chop tomatoes, add some water and Microwave it for about a minute or two, until the tomatoes are soft and can be squeezed.

Let it cool, before you squeeze it, or it will be hot! :) Just squeeze and make it a pulp.

Add some more water into the tomato pulp and transfer into a stove top pot.

Add the rasam powder and turmeric. bring it to a boil.

Prepare for tempering in a different pan. Heat oil and add the tempering ingredients, one at a time, ending with curry leaves.

Transfer this to the rasam carefully as it will splash around and make noise! :)

Mix in the lemon juice and salt. Let it come to a boil one more time.

Garnish with Coriander leaves.

Serve Hot with rice or enjoy it in a cup.

Enjoy!!!

Check out what the other bloggers are blogging about in this Marathon.

Read More

Reposting Rice sweets in time for Ganesh Chathurthi for SHF

Well next week Thursday is Vinayaka Chavithi or Ganesh Chathurthi. There are a few sweets on my blog, but today I am posting few rice sweets in which rice plays a major part which also can be made for the upcoming festival.

This post is linked to Magpie's Recipes blog for Sugar High Fridays and to Susan's SHF blog.

1. Belam Taalikalu / Rice Noodles in jaggery

2. Modakamlu / Modak / Steamed Coconut jaggery Rice dumplings

3. Kesari Baath / Sweet Saffron rice

4. Paramaannam as Naivedyam / Sweet Jaggary Rice with nuts / Sweet Pongal

Read More

Jeera Gobi / Cauliflower with cumin

There is always jeera aloo to fall back to whenever you need a curry in hurry right?!

Well here I just substituted the aloo or potato with cauliflower and made it in my style of jeera aloo! :)

I love cauliflower and its when I make dishes like these, I cannot stop munching continuously! Tho its a curry and I love eating it with rice, I can just wipe out a whole bowl of it in few minutes and if no one is watching maybe the whole curry! :)

Its a very easy dish to make and I hadn't realized that it would also come under the 'cooking with 5 ingredients or less' theme when you consider the basic tempering ingredients, oil and salt as one ingredient!

This probably is not the regular way of making jeera gobi or jeera aloo for that matter but we do love it this way and since the main ingredients in this dish are jeera and gobi, I called it jeera gobi! :)

Ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower, broken into small florets, washed (frozen cauliflower florets can also be used instead)

1 small onion chopped or 1/2 of big onion

1/2 tbsp ginger garlic paste

Tempering:

1 tsp jeera or cumin seeds

1/2 tbsp oil

pinch of turmeric

1/2 to 1 tsp chili powder

Salt to taste

Chopped coriander leaves for garnish

Method:

Wash the cauliflower florets and keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan.

Add the cumin seeds and let them splutter.

Saute onions till translucent and add ginger garlic paste.

Add the florets and saute them well with the cumin seeds mixture. Add salt.

When the florets are half cooked, add the turmeric, chili powder and mix well.

Cover and let cook until done. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Serve with rice or rotis.

Enjoy!!!

Check out the rest of the guys who are doing this marathon with me here!!

Read More

Easy Cheesy Parmesan Sticks - Blogging Marathon # 8

A new morning, a new day and a new marathon.....ya you heard me right...I am back doing the blogging marathon which I seriously missed doing in the past few months. I am glad I am able to join in this time around with all the wonderful bloggers and their wonderful posts.

Guys please bear with me as I am still not fully prepared to do the marathon and I am still taking my own sweet time....but maybe I will be able to get thru this easily and mainly highly motivated!! lol...seriously!!

Anyways, this time around I chose the theme ' Cooking with 5 ingredients or less'. It might seem easy enough but believe me...its not that hard or easy to say!

If you think about Indian cooking and count all the ingredients, we are sure to go above limit! For this reason, Srivalli has allowed us to consider all the tempering ingredients including, salt, oil as one.

So with this I am starting with my Day 1 post ----- Easy Cheesy Parmesan Sticks.

This is an interesting snack for tea time or for kids, or just to munch on and much easier to make with regular puff pastry sheets.

I made it using a dusting of paprika, but if you want to make it more spicy, you can add a pinch of chilli powder and Indianize it with garam masala...what say!?

I haven't written any measurements, because, its better to make it to your taste and requirement.

Ingredients:

1 pack of puff pastry ( 2 sheets)

paprika (as required)

Monterrey jack cheese, shredded (as required) or any other cheese you prefer

Parmesan cheese (as required), to sprinkle on top

egg wash or milk wash (egg wash makes it slightly crispy)

A cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or tin foil

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 400 degree F.

Thaw the puff pastry sheets according to directions on the box.

Slightly flour the area on which you will lay the puff pastry sheet out.

Sprinkle paprika all over the surface of the sheet.

Then give a generous sprinkle of the shredded cheese.

Carefully lay the other sheet on top of this sheet.

Brush the top with the egg wash or milk wash.

Sprinkle the washed top with shredded Parmesan cheese or powder.

Cut into desirable length and bake in the 400 degree oven, till golden brown.

Serve immediately or warm. I even liked then when they were cold :)

Enjoy!!!

Check out the others bloggers posts here!

Read More

Simple Cluster Beans/ Guvar/ GoruChikudu fry with podi

So as days fly by and me doing nothing but reading and more reading....ya I got back into my mode of reading and when I get into that mode, I don't do anything much!....just the day to day stuff and nothing else...I don't even find time to come online or even FB!!......

And then I fall sick! A bad attack of summer cold..sniff sniff....and achchooo! looks like everyone in the house is sick with a mild form of it.....and what better time to lie on the bed and do nothing!....

Well I cant just do nothing...I have so much stuff to do....last week I couldn't perform my Varalakshmi puja...so this week Friday, I will be doing it...so have to get shopping and cleaning for the coming Friday!

Here is a simple and easy recipe for such days (the only difficult part in this is the chopping or what do you say....plucking the cluster beans into pieces by hand....you can surely use the knife, if that suits better for you! )....a simple Cluster beans fry with podi.

Here I used Kandi Podi, which I always have handy and just recently made a fresh new batch when my Mom was here....but you are welcome to use any pappula podi or even gun powder or idli podi for this dish. What the podi does is, as a new and flavorful spice taste to the curry. You can use it for any fry you make, like even bendi or eggplant or any other kind of beans too.

Don't use too much, so that it doesn't overpower the dish, just use it mildly.

Ingredients:

1 pound of cluster beans, guvar, goru Chikudu, washed and broken into 1/2 inch pieces.

1 small onion chopped

1/4 tsp mustard seeds

1/4 tsp jeera or cumin seeds

1/4 tsp urad dal

2 dry red chilies. broken

few curry leaves

1/2 tbsp ginger garlic paste

pinch of turmeric

1/2 tsp - 1 tsp chili powder (suit your taste)

1 tbsp kandi podi (more or less)

Salt to taste

1 tbsp of oil

Chopped coriander leaves for garnish

Method:

Heat oil in a pan and add the tempering ingredients. When the urad dal browns, add the red chili and curry leaves.

Add chopped onions and when they turn translucent, add the ginger garlic paste and saute a little.

Add the goru chikudu pieces along with some salt, cover and let cook until the beans are tender.

Add the red chili powder, turmeric along with kandi podi and mix well.

Saute for couple of minutes more till the beans are fully cooked. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Serve along with rice or chapatis.

Enjoy!!!

Tip: If you notice the beans are burning or sticking to the bottom or the pan, add a few drops of water and mix well. This will not let them burn and also cook faster.

Read More

Simple, Easy and Fun to make Churros......... and me back!!!

Hi Everyone! and yes I am back after a very long period of gap.....moving from east coast to the west coast is a very big job and takes a long time. But it did happen and has happened smoothly, Thanks to every one's well wishes, we are here still settling in the Bay area, getting used to the weather, which actually needs very less getting used to since its beautiful weather down here which doesn't go up more than 70-80 degrees even in the summer season.

But I do miss my hot summers back in the east coast! my home and my garden tooo....but more than everything else...I miss my friends back home...Guys I really miss you all! :(

This moving has kept me on my toes for a long time and getting settled in a new place all over again has me nervous sometimes and then there are tons of boxes to open and arrange and adjust in the 'small house'...Gosh how will I ever accomplish that!

And then, I missed blogging and being in touch with all my readers and friends....so I couldn't wait to come back to write a post, for which I did do a lot of thinking, cos I wanted to do something special for a come back post!

So last weekend, we happened to have a amazing churro to bite into...and booooom..it gave me an idea, why not try to make it at home...well I did know that it wasn't that hard to make, so why not try it out. The only other encouragement I got was that my kids even loved the idea of making it at home.

I have always seen churros being sold on side stands at piers or beaches or at fairs. They are also eaten as breakfast or even as a snack during any time of the day. I dont mind having then as a snack any time. You can eat them plain dipping them in a chocolate sauce or melted chocolate dripped on them lightly!

So after some research, I settled on Daisy Martinez's recipe from Food Network.

It seemed pretty easy and fun to make. Only thing I thought was that 4-5 eggs were a lot and I didn't want the eggy taste, so I used only 2 eggs. I had also seen recipes using 2 or 3 eggs, so I took this step. I even found a recipe which used no eggs at all...but I was scared that the churros would come out tough. Well I will try that soon and let you all know if with eggs or no eggs is better. :))

Ingredients:

1 cup water

4 tbsp unsalted butter

2 tbsp brown sugar (I used light brown)

1 tsp vanilla extract 

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted

2 eggs, beaten

Oil for deep frying

To coat: Enough Cinnamon and sugar to suit your taste.

a pastry bag fitted with a big star tip

Method:

Heat oil in a frying pan.

In a medium sized pot, bring water, butter, brown sugar, salt and vanilla extract to light boil.

When the mixture starts to boil, add the sifted flour and mix immediately using a wooden spoon continuously so that no lumps are formed.

Remove from heat and add the beaten eggs and mix immediately to get the eggs incorporated well into the dough. You can also do it in a stand mixer if you wish.

Carefully spoon it into the pastry bag fitted with big star piping tip.

Carefully squeeze 5-6 inch long strips into oil.

Let them cook until they are brown on one side before flipping over to brown on the other side.

When they are brown on both side, remove onto a paper napkin.

While they are still hot, toss them in a paper bag containing sugar and cinnamon. Dust the excess off and serve warm.

Serve warm with hot chocolate dipping sauce or eat them just like that.

They are crispy when eaten warm.

Enjoy!!!

Read More

Homey comforting Dal - Spinach with split green lentils or Mung lentils / Spinach Pesarapappu kootu

I know, I know!! I disappeared from the blogging world all of a sudden. I totally dropped out of this scene altogether....right!!!...yeah yeah....sorry guys!!....I totally miss you too and miss blogging!! but some really bigger things are keeping me away and I hope to be back to regular blogging in a couple of months hopefully. Till them I won't disappoint you all and whenever I have time and am not tired to fall asleep right away, will make time to post something.

But till then I think, I wont be able to take part in any of the fun stuff happening here in the blogging world. I wish I can, but right now it won't be possible until next couple of months. But Soon I will be back onto a full swing surely!!!!!!

So as promised, whenever I get time to write something up, I will surely do!
For that sake, here is a comforting and homey Spinach pesarapappu kootu. Easy and quick to make and if you love the taste of moong daal more than toor daal (like me!)...you are sure to love this.

Tho usualy, dal or pappu means making it out of toor daal or kandi pappu. But pesarappu or moong daal has a very yum taste, which I totally adore. So which ever daal I make out of toor dal, I make it with Pesarapappu too. But since, when we make it with pesarapappu, it is kept whole and not completely mushy and is called kootu instead of pappu!! And is made the following way ---- :))


Ingredients:

A big bunch of fresh spinach or 1 cup frozen spinach can be used
1 cup of pesara pappu, moong daal, split mung bean

1 small onion, chopped
4-5 green chillies slit

3 garlic chopped
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tbsp chana dal
1/2 tsp urad dal
1/4 mustard seeds
1/4 jeera, cumin seeds
pinch of hing, inguva, asfoetida
few curry leaves
2-3 dry red chillies, broken
salt to taste
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
Chopped coriander leaves for garnish.

Method:

Wash spinach and chop roughly.

Dry roast the pesara pappu to light brown color, wash and cook in water covering the lentils till they are cooked, but not mushy totally. Add more water in intervals if required.
Add the chopped spinach and cook until spinach is cooked, which shouldn't take more than 5 minutes.
Add the onions, green chillies and cook for another 5 minutes. Add salt and turmeric.
By now the daal will be totally cooked, almost to get mushy.
Now you can prepare the tempering with the rest of the ingredients.
Heat Oil in a small pan.
Add the channa daal and urad daal along with garlic. Let them brown.
Add the mustard and jeera and let them splutter.
Add the curry leaves, dry red chillies and hing to the tempering oil.
After few seconds, add this to the cooked pesarapappu and spinach.
Add chopped coriander leaves for garnish.
Serve hot with roti, chapathi or with hot steaming rice, along with a drop of ghee or two, with a side of papad or vadiyalu.
Enjoy!!!

Read More