ummm..!

3 scopes of breyers vanilla , 3 strawberries, half pear , half ripe banana with sprinkled golden resins all floating atop thick mango juice.....

Friday Dinner - Pitla and Chapati

Chapati, Pitla, curds and sliced tomatoes sprinkled with salt and pepper

Another of my recipe blogs,

Pitla or Jhunka is one of those side dishes cooked either when there is no vegetable at home or one is too lazy to cook an elaborate sabzi. It goes well with both hot rice and chapatis.

Main ingredients : 4 table spoons of besan (gram dal powdered) and 1/2 finely chopped onion.

1. Heat 1 tsp oil add asafoetida and some mustard seeds wait till the seeds splutter.
2. Add cumin seeds and chopped onion, some salt and turmeric.
3. Once the onion gives itself to the heat and turns tender add some chili powder or green cut chili both work.
4. Add 1/2 cup water and let it boil.
5. Now is the tricky part, add besan to this boiling water spoon by spoon and keep stirring. The idea is not let it form lumps, if need be add more water.
6. Let it boil a little longer to get nice uniform consistency( you want all the besan nicely cooked to avoid any uncomfortable consequences the following morning :) )
7. Salt status check, add accordingly. Squeeze some fresh lemon on top and garnish with coriander.

Add ghee while serving and serve it hot.


After food and a glass of nice cold water, it is time to chew some beetle nut(I know not all would approve of this....:) ) and wander about my small patio.... that completes the experience.

Lazy dinner.

On a lazy Saturday evening, when hungry and no mood to cook but eat good food.
Hot chapatis, spicy mixed veg pickle, banana chips and raita to cool down all the spice.

aam... aam... nahi khas hai

aamras with warm ghee and hot chapatis... !

When Hunger Strikes

Upma served with coconut chutney (Italian style)

Below is a competing dish, my sister cooked the same day ( of course copying mine ;) )

( halli ooru baleyele uppittu )

Jab thi mein chotti sochthi,
Kyun kehete Khane ko Khazana
Ab samj aya khushise pakakar
Haste Hasate Khane se mile kushiyon ka Khazana.

(these lines are by her, and no copying there)

Truly international cuisine

Necessity is the mother of invention

Necessity : good food on a work day
Problem : No good vegetarian eateries near by, predominantly Asian food around ( Thai, Chinese etc) except for a soup and sandwich place.

Solution: A truly international cuisine
Soup from sandwich place ( the other day it was Italian minestrone soup ) - European
Rice from a Thai place - Asian
A bag of lays chips - guess that's American

I imagined it to be rice with sambar ( Indian ) and that was my lunch !

Swapna sundari....

" Swapna sundari " do not get fooled by the title.... it is food in this context. Off late I have been dreaming of food, great food...!
Dream sequence
Starring: Sautekai(cucumber) sambar and my friends (Rohit and Pradeep). Well I was wondering how come Harish(part of our local boys gang) was missing, the location for this dream was Seattle and currently Harish is visiting India :) .
It is this beautiful day where we friends sit together to enjoy a sumptuous meal, and what do
we have yes Sautekai sambar with hot rice served on a plantain leaf and a spoon full of ghee. Sambar was so enticing that next day I had to treat myself with this tasty sambar.
You see (from right)Pradeep, Sandeep and Rohit.... Harish is missing ....haan.. ya he is in India right.....! (naa he took this pic...and was taken about 6 years ago)

Wait my blog doesn't end here let me tell you how I cooked my sambar the next day....

What you need:
1. Cucumber (Zucchini) 1
2. Grated coconut. 10 gms
3. Tamarind. say 10 gms
4. Jaggery. 10 gms
5. Standard tadka stuff : oil, mustard and cumin seeds.
6. toor dal. 50 gms
7. Any standard sambar powder
8. Chili powder

• Wash toor dal and cook it in a pressure cooker.
• Cut Cucumber into small rectangular pieces.
• Heat oil, put mustard seeds, wait until they make chat...chat sound
• Now add cumin seeds, curry leaves and cucumber pieces.
• Add salt to taste and some turmeric powder.
• fry it till cucumber pieces are cooked
• Now add your sambar masala, chilli powder (to your taste) let this thing cook for a while so that the masala gets into those cucumber pieces.
• Ahh by now dal should be nice and cooked, add dal to this mixture.
• opps did I tell you that you should have soaked tamarind in water right in the beginning, if not its ok do it now.
• Cut jaggery into small pieces.
• Now put the extract you get out of soaked tamarind and the cut jaggery in your hot cooking sambar.
• Now if you have some grated coconut add it ....
• Let it cook.. boil...! for some time.... and your sambar is ready...!

serve it with white rice and ghee.....