Dahi Bhendi/ Bendakaya Perugu kura

Ingredients

 Dahi bhendi recipe

Okra/Bhendi/Bendakaya  - wash, clean, dry and cut in big chunks. Fry is oil and keep them aside

Oil for tadka

Jeera

Garam Masala - 1 spoon 

Turmeric 

Red chilli powder

Curd/Dahi/Perugu 

Tomatoes

Cashews - handful

Onion - finely chopped

Besan  - to get thickness (1 spoon or so)

Salt to taste

Method of preparation

- Take a kadai, and add couple of spoons of oil. Add the cut bhendi and fry them until they slightly changed color or until they leave the sticky feeling

- Beat curd and keep it aside.

- Grind the tomato's, Cashews together into a fine paste

- Take a pan/kadai and add one spoon or two spoons or oil to it. Add Jeera and finely chopped onion.

- Once the onion are fried add the tomato cashew paste to it and cook for couple of minutes until raw smell is gone. Add turmeric, red chilli powder, salt, garam masala to it and mix together

- Add Besan to the gravy and let it cook for a minute here. 

- Add the beaten curd now and cook uncovered for couple of minutes. The oil will start to ooze out once the gravy is ready. 

- At this point, add the fried bhendi to the gravy, cover and cook for a minute or two at max and take it off the flame. Your yummy curry is ready.

Black beans Rice

This is just an awesome food, made it minutes and should say instantly. This rice goes well as itself or with the veggie kabobs or any dry/wet curries. Thank you Deepali for sharing this recipe with me. This rice is loved by the kids of our community. So I hope you like it too:

Ingredients
Black beans - 1 tin (I used the tin ones, but you can use fresh too)
Cooked rice (I prefer Basmati rice for this)
Red Onions - 1 or 2 chopped length wise (depends on your love of onions
Salt to taste
Jeera - Cumin seeds - 1/2 tea spoon
Oil - 1 table spoon or less, according to your taste

Method of preparation
 This easy and fast rice recipe is as follows: Take a pan which can fit the quantity of rice. Now add oil to it. Add jeera and then red onions after the oil is hot. once the red onions are roasted nicely, add the cooked rice, salt. Now add the black beans and turn off the stove. Since black beans are already cooked, they do not need to be on stove for long time. mix up the rice and beans properly. Garnish with cilantro if desired and serve. Enjoy!!

Spinach Carrot Rice

I got this idea from my co-sister Gayatri. I loved it so much that I tried it in my own way and I make it almost whenever I can. This rice is healthy, yummy and fast to make. So here goes my recipe

Ingredients
Spinach - 1 bunch
Carrot - 2 peeled and grated
Red onions - 1 big Chopped finely
Biryani pulao masala - 1 spoon
Cinnamon Sticks - 2 no.s
Bay leaves - 3 no.s
Cooked rice - 2 cups
Oil - 2/3 spoons
Salt to taste
Method of preparation
Add oil to kadai and let it heat. Once it is hot, add cinnamon sticks and bay leaves. Add onions to it until they turn translucent. Since I used red onions, I added grated carrot and spinach also at the same time. Once everything is cooked (it would not take much time, probably 2 minutes), add salt and biryani masala. Mix it thoroughly. Now add the rice to it and serve hot. You can add the fried onions on top as serving suggestion.
Enjoy ....

Mixed vegetable raita

Mixed veggies here means, all I added was grated carrot, onion, tomatos and american cucumber. I believe may be I can experiment by adding the deep fried bhendi and boondi  to the raita just before I serve. hmm.... will take that experimentation part later on and here is the recipe I used.

Ingredients
Onions - chopped finely - 1 small or can use even less too
Tomato's - Chopped finely - 1 or more depending on your love to it.
Cucumber - Chopped finely (similar to onions)
2 carrots grated
Yogurt - needed to make raita
Salt - can add from 1/2 - 1 spoon depending on sourness/sweetness of yogurt
For tadka
Oil - 1-2 tablespoons
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tea spoon
Asafoetida/hing/Inguva - a pinch or more
urad dal - 1 tea spoon (can add more depending on your how crunchy you want)
Curry leaves - a handful (optional)
Crushed red chillies - 1-2 (lightly fry them either in a small amount of oil or without and crush them nicely in mortar with pestel or in blender if you do not have it). Add it carefully as it might increase the spiciness on how much you add.


Method of preparation
Mix all the raita ingredients. Make tadka by keeping a small bowl on stove and add oil to it. Add mustard seeds and after they splutter add the urad dal , asafoetida and curry leaves. Add the red chilie paste, tadka to the raita mixture and serve it chilled with any rice item like biryani, mint rice, or spinach rice. I would love to have it with roti or plain rice too. Its individual opinion or options... you can try out number of them.

Grape Tomato Besan Curry

I love cooking with Tomatos. If tomatos are not at home then it is hard for me to decide what to cook. Although I do not use them daily, but I just need there for my personal satisfaction. This tomato's I am talking about are Grape tomato's (smaller version of tomato's). I made this curry as an experiment to go with the plain rice and dal and it came out tasty. This recipe sounds like pitlai but tastes yummy and sour because of the tomatos. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients
Grape Tomatos - Chopped into half
Onions (I prefer red onions) - 2 chopped finely
Besan (senagapindi)
Red chilli powder
Salt to taste ( 1 and 1/2 spoon)
Oil - 2-3 spoons
Cumin seeds -  1/2 tea spoon
Chana dal - 1 spoon (can add more if you want crunchiness in between)

Method of preparation
Take a kadai and add oil to it. Once the oil is hot, add cumin seeds and chana dal. Now add onion pieces. Once onion pieces are nicely fried add tomatos to it. Do not mix more because it can crush the small tomatos. Gently mix in between until you feel the tomatos are cooked (this might take 2-3 minutes). Now add turmeric, red chilli powder, salt to taste. Mix all of them. Add besan slowly to it. because of the water in the tomatos this will immediately become like the curry shown below. But if you feel that the water in tomatos has evoparated, then add 2-3 spoons of water also. Add coriander leaves at the end and transfer it to the serving bowl. Serve hot with rice and dal or just rice or roti too.

Paneer Bhurji/ Crumbled Paneer

After an unsucessful attempt to get this, I attempted it this week and it was successful. It was too tempting that I made this for two days (first day - just small quantity along with regular menu and next day with roti's). When I made this the first time, it came out too dry and the paneer was almost coming out like dried coconut (flaky) kind of. So this time I added tomatos and a couple of spoons of water and that made all the difference and tasted good. I have added this to both the simple and special curries because it does not take much effort to cook it as a regular cooking to be part of simple cooking and even for special occasions it tastes good too. I want to try this recipe with grated potatos and see how it turns out. So wait and see for that trial of mine. I know most of you already know the recipe of paneer bhurji but here is how I did it:

Ingredients
Paneer - I bought store one and grated almost 3/4 of it
Onions - 1 or 2 chopped finely (depends on your liking on onions)
Tomatos - 1 big chopped finely
Red chilli powder - 1 table spoon
Garam Masala - 1 table spoon
Salt - 1 and 1/2 table spoon
Oil - 3 table spoons
Jeera (Cumin Seeds) - 1/2 tea spoon
Coriander leaves (kothimeeru, hara dhania) - small cup - Optional

Method of preparation
1) Take a kadai and add oil to it. Once the oil is heated add jeera and then add chopped onions to it.
2) After onions turns translucent or pink then add the tomatos and rest of ingredients except paneer and kothimeeru (Coriander leaves).
3) After the mixture is cooked well add a couple of table spoons of water to it, for not drying out paneer. This step is optional if you feel that paneer is good or if you want the curry to be dry.
4) Add the crumbled/grated paneer to it and coriander leaves too. Mix thoroughly and then turn off stove after couple of minutes.

As mentioned you can have this with rice or roti. 

Upma

Well this is a famous south Indian snack/tiffin whatever you can call it. Easy, fast, yummy and lots of compliments have been received by this simple recipe. This can be altered to your desire by adding vegetables, or without or add ginger or without or add cashews. Whatever way you like. It will transform itself accordingly. Yesterday I made it with sooji and the real simple upma. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients
Sooji - 1 and 1/2 cup
Water - (boiled when adding to the mix) - 5 cups - Can add more to get the desired consistency - thick or thin way
Salt - 1 and 1/2 tea soon
Oil - 3 table spoons
mustard seeds - 1/2 tea spoon
Asafoetida - 1/2 tea spoon
chana dal - 2 tea spoons
Ginger paste - 1 tea spoon
Green chillies - finely chopped (add it according to your taste, I added 3 non-spicy ones).
Red Chillies - optional
Onions (optional ) - 1/2 chopped finely
Curry leaves - a few
Lemon juice - 3 table spoons (can add more if desired)

Method of Preparation
1) Put the water to boil on another stove while we start the process of upma.
2) On another one take a pan/kadai and add oil to it. Once it is hot add mustard seeds and let it splutter.
3) Now add Chana dal, asafoetida, curry leaves and few cashews (optional).

4) Once the above mixture is fried, add onions to it and let it turn translucent. Then add the sooji to it and fry it until nice aroma comes out or until sooji is slightly turning pink.

5) Now add boiled water from another stove slowly and keep mixing so that the sooji does not form lumps.
6) Add salt either to the boiling water or you can add now and mix it thoroughly.
7) After you turn off the stove you can add the lemon juice to it.

This recipe goes well by all alone or with any kind of chutney you like or with pesarattu also. Enjoy !!!

Fried Rice with small difference

For this month Lalitha puja potluck I did this recipe. Looks like it came out good. So wanted to share what I did.

Ingredients
Onions
Potatos
Green beans
Green peas
Carrots
Rice
Biryani-pulav masala
Salt to taste
Cashews
Cardamoms - 2-3 in no.
Cloves - 4-5 in no.
Bay leaves - couple
Cinnamon sticks - couple
Oil
Water
For color:
1 or 2 spoons of milk
pinch of cooking color (yellow of orange)


Pre-preparation
Partly deep fry all the veggies except peas. Vegetables should be partly fried (meaning partly cooked) after frying in the oil. Alternatively, you can just brush the oil over veggies and heat them in oven until they are half cooked.


Cook rice with the consistency of water you do to make it seperate. For example if you are using basmati rice the ratio of rice and water should not exceed 1:1and1/2. It can be 1:1 depending on which cooker you use. I added one spoon of cooking oil, Salt, and green peas to it. Cover it and cook it until the rice is totally done. After the rice is done or when it is almost done, add milk which has the color dissolved lightly. Cover it for another minute or so. This gives the hotel touch of color to some part of served rice.

Method of preparation
Take a kadai and add oil to it. Add cumin seeds, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, cloves and cardamom to it. Add onions and cashews to it and fry until onions are translucent. Now add all the veggies. Add salt and biryani-pulav masala to it. Remember that you added salt already to the rice so make sure you are not adding much salt here. Add cooked rice from step 2 of pre-preparation to it and mix it lightly. Make sure you are not breaking the rice or over stirring. Serve it by garnishing with fried cashews, onions and coriander as you desire.

Vankaya/Eggplant Masala Curry

In general, whenever we order the vankaya curry from hotel or bagara baigan I see it lightly in brown color (ofcourse because of the sesame seeds paste and tamarind I believe) and taste was not that great. But on our cousin's housewarming day(which was almost an year ago) I ate this very delicious and nice looking vankaya masala. On last thursday I want to replicate it at home, because I was longing to have that taste once more. And happily I was able to replicate it. I could not take any pictures but will post pictures when I repeat the recipe again.
Ingredients
Eggplants - 14 - 15 in no. chopped in 4 parts with ends keeping in tact.
Oil - 5-6 table spoons
Onions - 2
Tomatos - 3
Ginger and garlic paste 2 table spoons (I grinded both in traditional mortar and pestle)
Garam masala - 1.5 table spoons
Red chilli powder - 3 table spoons
Salt - 3 table spoons
Cumin seeds - 1/2 table spoon
Asafoetida - 2 pinches (use generously)
Tamarind paste - 2 table spoons ( I used the ready made paste here)
Peanut powder - 5 table spoons (to make thick gravy, you can add more or less depending on how the gravy should be for you)
Method of preparation
1. Fry chopped onions in 1/2 spoon of oil and then grind it to paste.
2. Boil tomatos in water and then grind it and mix it with the onion paste.
3. Add red chilli powder, salt, garam masala to the onion tomato mixture and keep aside.
4. Take a pressure cooker or kadai and add oil to it.
5. After oil is heated, add cumin seeds(Jeera), asafoetida.
6. Drop the chopped eggplants into the kadai. Fry them for two minutes.
7. Now add onion, tomato paste, peanut powder, tamarind paste.
8. Transfer every to a pressure cooker and cook till one whistle. Transfer it to serving bowl after the cooker is done and garnish with coriander and cashews if you look.

Note:
If you do not have pressure cooker, you can cook in the same kadai but let the eggplant cook half first and then close the lid and mix everything. Cook in the kadai until eggplant is thoroughly cooked , while mixing it in between.

Bean Dip

Its nice to go out to lunch and dinners sometimes. I tend to learn lot of new items whenever I got out. One of them is this Bean dip. We tasted it today at our relatives home as appetizer. It was served along with Tostitos chips. I can guarantee, if we add little less salsa then it is perfect as a healthy snack for children when they are home from after school. Meaning this can be part of afternoon snack. Hope you all will also like it.

Ingredients

Pink bean tin

Hot Salsa

onions

cilantro

Cheese

Jalepenos

Method of preparation

1. Empty the can of beans. Wash and drain the beans in colander. Do the same with Jalepenos.

2. Blend the beans with salsa to paste in a grinder/blender.

3. Add it in a serving bowl which is microwave safe and heat the mixture for 2-3 minutes in microwave so that it is kind of cooked up.

4. Now spread cheese, onions, cilantro, Jalepenos and put it in microwave for another 2-3 minutes or until cheese is little melted.

5.Now you are ready to serve your bean dip with any chips. Best combination for this is Tostitos type chips (or corn chips).

Curry puffs

Easiest recipe for curry puffs. I made this yesterday for my husband as Father's day special. Ofcourse I dont make it from scratch but I use puff pastry sheets, which makes my life very easy to make these tasty puffs.

Ingredients
Pepperridge farm puff pastry sheets
very little maida or roti flour
for stuffing:
potato chopped
carrot chopped
beans chopped
batani (peas)
Garam masala - 1/2 table spoon
chat masala - 1/2 table spoon
Red chilli powder - depends on taste
Salt to taste
Jeera
Oil
Lime/lemon juice - 1 table spoon (optional)

Method of Preparation
Remove the puff pastry sheets from freezer and keep it outside for defrosting it. You can even use microwave for doing it, but I like to do it naturally rather than using microwave as it sometimes overheats it.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

1. Start by making the stuffing ready first. Take a kadai, add oil to it and let it heat.

2. Add jeera to it. Now add all the vegetables with pinch of turmeric to it.

3. Add red chilli powder, mix it and let it cook for few minutes covered on medium flame.

4. Now add garam masala, chat masala and salt to taste and mix it. once the vegetables are cooked switch off the stove. Do not overcook the curry.




5. Now the stuffing is ready lets make the puffs ready. there will be two big sheets in each puff pastry and we can make 9 puffs for each sheet. Cut the sheet into 9 by using a pizza cutter or knife.

6. Now sprinkle little maida or roti flour and make them a little bigger to stuff the curry properly using belan. Do not press harder or make the sheet thin, as it would reduce the puffiness by overpressing it.

7. Add curry to middle of the sheet and press all the sides with little water.

8. Arrange all the curry puffs in oven safe tray. Arrange them with little gap in between puffs so they have enough roof to get puffed up.

9. Bake the puffs for 20 minutes or till you see they are done by observing the color of the puffs turning slightly golden brown.





Remove the puffs from baking and serve hot with any ketchup or chutney.

Palakura pappu/Palak Dal

Ingredients
Toor Dal (or any dal you like)
Palakura (Palak)
Green chillies
Red chillies
Onion (Optional)
Garlic (Optional)
Tomato (Optional)
Tamarind paste (1-2 spoons, depending on how sour you like)
Coriander powder (Dhania powder)
Salt to taste



Method of Preparation
1. Cook Toor dal or any dal you like.

2. Take a vessel, Add 2-3 tea spoons of oil to it (just enough to fry onions). Add mustard seeds, and let them splutter. Add Jeera, green chillies, red chillies and garlic to it. let garlic fry a little bit (it changes color, but dont burn it by frying it until it gets black).

3. Add Asafoetida a pinch to above. Now add onions and after they are fried a little add Tomato and tamarind paste to it.

4. Add Salt, turmeric, palak to above. mix it. After two minutes add cooked dal and mix it.


5. Heat it for another 2-3 minutes and then remove it. Your dal is ready. You can garnish with Coriander on top. For nice smell and taste you can also add curry leaves while doing tadka.




Our Dinner plate last night: Palakura pappu (Palak Dal), Capsicum curry with Besan, Black pepper soup (Miriyala Charu) and Rice.




Palak Dal is ready to be served now. you can garnish with coriander leaves and serve with Roti or Rice.

Note:
1. For those who have stones in Kidneys or who have been treated before for stones in kidneys, avoid the combination of Spinach and tomato. While making this dal do not add tomatos.

2. For those who do not eat garlic can avoid using garlic in the above recipe.

3. Either you can add tamarind directly while doing tadka or you can use the tamarind juice 1 spoon instead.

Kakarakaya with Onion Besan base

Ingredients
Kakarakaya (Bitter melon) - Scraped little bit and Chopped into big chunks
Onions
Besan
Oil for deep fry as well as for tadka
Jeera (Cumin seeds)
Tamarind paste
Red chilli powder
Salt to taste

Method of preparation
1. Take a vessel for deep/shallow fry. Add oil to it. Let it heat and then fry bitter melon's until they turn their color to golden brown. Take them out on a plate with paper towel so that extra oil is absorbed.

2. Fry onions with a spoon of oil and grind them to a paste. To this paste add besan salt, red chilli powder and a little tamarind paste. Mix them all to make it a nice thick paste.

3. Add a teaspoon or two of oil and after it is heated, add Jeera to it. Now add the onion besan paste to it. Add enough water/Tamarind paste. Adjust salt and chilli levels according to your taste.

4. Add bitter melon to above. Cover and cook them until you feel that bitter melon has got taste of the paste. (should take appr. from 2- 10 minutes of time, depending on your stove and taste).

5. Garnish with coriander and mix it. Serve hot wit rice.

Ullipaya/ Onion Jhulka

Onion lovers will love this recipe. As it is fast to make and tasty to eat. This is dru curry and can be accompanied with any liquid item along with rice or with roti.

Ingredients
Onions
Chick-pea flour (Senagapindi, Besan)
Red Chilli powder
Green chillies (optional)
Salt to taste

For tadka:
Oil
Mustard seeds
Cumin seeds

Method of preparation
1. Do tadka by taking a kadai or pan and adding oil to it. Add mustard seeds after oil is heated and let them splutter. After they are done, then add cumin seeds. Add green chillies (optional).

2. Now add onions and let them turn golden brown.

3. Add Red chilli powder and Salt at this point and mix it.

4. Lastly add chick pea flour as needed until the wetness of the onions is gone and mix.

5. Garnish with coriander and serve.

Quick utappam

All credit goes to a MAA TV show called "Maa Voori Vanta". I saw that yesterday afternoon and tried it at home. It came out good. I should say it can be used as quick snack or as breafast. Try it whenever you have time. So here goes the recipe:

Ingredients
Maida (All purpose flour) - 2 table spoons
Senagapindi (Chick pea flour) - 2 table spoons
Biyyampindi (Rice flour) - 2 table spoons
Onions - Chopped - 1/2 cup
Tomatos - Chopped - 1/2 cup
Green Chillies - 3-4 depending on your taste, chopped
Coriander - 2 table spoons
Ginger - 1/2 table spoon (Optional)
Jeera (cumin seeds) - 1/2 tea spoon (I added Jeera powder instead)
Salt to taste
Oil
For topping use karivepaku podi or any podi of your choice.

Method of preparation:
1. Take chopped tomato, onions, green chillies, coriander, ginger(optional), Jeera or Jeera powder, Maida, Senagapindi, biyyampindi, salt. Mix all above with hand.

2. Add little water and make sure it is not watery. It should be a not too loose and not too think consistency. (little think than dosa batter). Adjust salt and others according to your taste.

3. Take a tawa and let it heat. Spread small amount of oil on tawa. Now add a laddle or two of the batter mixed above and spread it like utappam (not too thick and not too thin like dosa).

4. Add very little oil on top and let it heat. once the edges are done (or changes color), then turn the utappam onto other side and spread a little oil on the edges of the utappam.

5. After both sides of the utappam is done, add Karivepaku podi or any spicy/soft podi of your choice on it and serve with chutney.

Try with and let me know how it turns out.

Note:
1. Although in Show they mentioned only two table spoons I added little more of the powders to make the batter kind. You may adjust all the quantities depending on your like.

2. I would also recommend adding grated carrot to make it little healthy dish. :).

Tamarind chaaru or pachi chaaru

This is one of the simple and easy to make dish. This item goes good with any dal & rice, or with papukaya(with any curry).



Ingredients
Tamarind - Lemon size
Onions - chopped into small pieces
Green chillies - chopped into small pieces
Cilantro (Coriander)
Salt to taste

Tadka:
Oil
Mustard Seeds
sesame seeds
Curry leaves (Optional)
Asafoetida (Optional)

Method of preparation
1. Soak tamarind for 1/2 hour or you can microwave for 1 minute and remove the pulp. Add enough water. Remember it might become too soar if you make it thick. So add enough water.

2. Add chopped onions, green chillies and salt to the above.

3. Now take a small vessel/bowl for tadka. Add oil and let it heat. Now add mustard seeds and let it splutter. add sesame seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida. switch off and add the tadka to the chaaru made on step 2.

Your chaaru is ready.

Terminology:
Tadka - Popu, talimpu, ponee(Telugu)
Coriander - Kothimeeru (Telugu)
Curry leaves - Karivepaaku (Telugu)
Tamarind - Chinthapandu (Telugu)

Pav Bhaji

This is a very famous, healthy and lovely item of India. I love this item and do it quite often at home. Ofcourse, the mazaa of eating it on the chat place is totally different experiance. Now-a-days they also do serve this as an appetizer at marriages. So here goes the recipe I use.

Ingredients
Pav/Bread - Toasted in butter or Ghee
Onions
Oil
Tomatos
Pav Bhaji Masala (I love everest masala, but if not available then I use Badshah)
Salt to taste
Red Chilli Powder

Vegetables I used:
Cabbage (Very less)
Cauliflower
Potato
Peas
Carrot
Green Beans (if possible)

Things to add from top or garnish
Tamarind chutney
Curd
Onions Chopped (very small)
Lime/Lime Juice
Kothimeeru (Coriander)

Method of preparation
1. Heat all the vegetables in a pressure cooker/ or any other way you like by adding water.

2. Strain the water and keep vegetables aside. (you can save some water for later use in the pav bhaji. The water from which is from this is very healthy, since it has all the healthy content like proteins and vitamins.)



3. Put a bowl or kadai on stove top and add a little oil to it.

4. Add Onions and after they turn golden brown add tomato's to it.


5. Add the Pav bhaji masala, Salt and red chilli powder according to your taste. (Add extra even for the vegetables that you are going to mix). Spices can be adjusted to your taste at any point from here, until you switch off the stove.


6. Add the cooked vegetables to above and mash them with masher.


7. After the ingredients are mixed up well, adjust the spices.


Toasting the bread:





Serve in a plate with a little curd and tamarind chutney on it. Also spread little lime juice and onions and garnish with coriander before serving. Serve with Pav that is toasted with butter or ghee.



Have it when it is hot. It tastes superb.... almost equal to tela taste

Poha Upma

Well well well... This is my favourite Indian Tiffin, made jhatpat, when hungry. Although the pics following indicate a little wet poha upma, but it is generally har dana seperate, meaning in telugu we call it as viriviriga. Now lets see the procedure.

One thing to note, if you like it to come close or like in the format of the photos, then add a little water extra(sprinkle more water) otherwise just sprinkle water so that the poha gets a little damp thats all.

I am very fond of vegetables in any item (I feel that would be more healthy than eating just upma), but most of the vegetables are optional except onions. So try it and let me know how it comes !!!

Ingredients
Poha ( Think is preferable since it does not get damp easily, if using thin then put very little water)
Onion
Green Chillies
Peanuts (optional)
Cashews (optional)
Cauliflower florets
Beans
Carrot
Tomato
Salt to taste
Fresh Coriander
Oil

Method of preparation
1. Take a kadai/pan and add oil to it. Let it heat and add mustard seeds,after they splutter add Jeera.

2. Add onion, green chillies to the above and let it turn golden brown. Add turmeric.

3. Add all the vegetables and let them cook. Add salt to taste, for poha also. Add peanuts and cashews if you want to add them.



4. Now take poha and sprinkle water on it. Water should make the poha a little wet but it should not loose its phool phool nature. Add the poha and mix well.

5. Garnish with coriander at the end. Poha upma is ready to serve.




Enjoy Poha upma with any pickle, preferably Tomato or Lime pickle and with Yogurt.

Gobi Manchurian

Ingredients
All purpose floor(Maida)
Corn Floor
Cauliflower(Gobi)
Onions
Ginger Garlic and Green Chilli Paste
Tomato Ketchup
Soy Sauce
Capsicum - chopped lengthwise(optional)
Garlic Slices (Optional)

Method of preparation
1. Make the cauliflower into small florets. put the florets in water and Microwave it, until they are half cooked.

2. Mix the all purpose floor, corn floor(very less quantity), Ginger Garlic and chilli paste and Salt in a bowl
(Note: More quantity of the corn floor makes it much crispy).

3. Make the above mixture a batter by adding water.

4.Heat Oil in a deep pan. Dip the Cauliflower in the above batter and deep fry until they are golden brown.



5. Take another vessel/pan. Put a small quantity of oil and let it heat.

6. Add the onions(long cut slices), capcicum(long cut slices),Garlic (long cut) and Chilli(long cut) and fry it for some time.



7. Add Soyasause and Tomato Ketchup to the above. Mix it well.




8. Add the Florets to the above, and toss. Garnish it with the Spring onions.

Tasty Gobi Manchurian is ready. Serve hot as appetizer along with your favourite red or green sause.

Quick Salad (onions and tomato)

This is a fast and easy salad my mom taught me, when I was in bachelors. I used to make this and eat with rice. Make sure you have some mouthwash/refreshner after having this. Just kidding.. its good to have it.

Ingredients
Onions
Tomato
Coriander(Optional)
Salt to taste

For Tadka/Popu:
Oil
Mustard Seeds
Jeera (Cumin Seeds)
Urad dal

Method of Preparation
1. Chop onions, coriander and tomatos into very small pieces.
2. Do tadka by adding oil in a small bowl. after oil is heated, add mustard seeds, let them splutter. Add Cumin seeds and urad dal. Let the dal turn a little golden colour.
3. Add onions and tomatos with tadka. Add salt to taste.
4. Mix Coriander to the above mixture.

Salad is ready. This Salad goes nicely with rice.

Note: Shall post some pics soon. Now-a-days all my pics are of my son. Soon will share some pics on cooking :)