Chocolate Cake (Eggless)

Here is a simple recipe for eggless Chocolate cake. This recipe is also from my cousin Hema. Thanks to her.

Ingredients
1 & 1/2 cups pressed all purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
3 table spoons unsweet hershey's cocoa powder
3/4 table spoon baking powder
3/4 table spoon baking soda
1/2 table spoon salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable or any oil
1 table spoon distilled white vinegar or u can use lemon juice
1 table spoon vanilla extract

Method of Preparation
1. preheat the oven at 350F

2. Grease the 8 inch pan with butter and dust it with flour and keep it ready .

3. Sift flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda,2 tablespoons cocoa powder together and keep aside.

4. Make room in the middle and add water, oil, lemonjuice and vanilla extract.

5. Beat very well until smooth and no lumps. Now pour this into the pan and bake it for 30-35mins.

6.Remove it from oven and let it cool fully .


Your chocolate cake is ready..... isn't that easy ??

Tomato Chutney - MIL recipe

This recipe was taught by my mother-in-law. This pickle/chutney stays for a longer time than the usual ones(which is generally 2-3 days).

Ingredients
Ripe Tomato's
Chilli Powder
Salt
Tamarind
Turmeric
Oil

Method of Preparation
1. Chop the tomato's (can be even bigger size too).

2. Add a Oil in a vessel. After the Oil is heated, add the tomato's to it.


3. Add Salt and Turmeric to it, and mix it. Add Tamarind also to it.




4. After the Tomato's are cooked, (you will know this, when the oil slowly starts showing up above the tomato's) spread the Red Chilli Powder on it. Mix it thoroughly so that the chilli powder mixes with the above mixture.



5. Let the mixture cool down and store it in a dry clean bottle.



Note:
If you want to retain taste and color through out the usage of long lasting pickles, put it in refrigrator.

Coming back again....

Hi all,

Its been really long time I posted something on the blog. We recently bought a home, and then India trip and good news of my pregnancy....

Lot of things were happenning around. So I am hoping to get back to post something on this blog again.. Good luck to me :)

Curry Powder or Kura Podi

Kura Podi or Curry Powder is another one that I liked it from Andhra people. Easy to make and ready to use to add nice taste to a simple curry. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
Chana Dal
Urad Dal
Red Chillies
Some Coriander seeds
Some Cumin Seeds
Very little Oil


Method of Preparation
Add very little oil to the kadai and let it heat. Add all the ingredients and let it fry for two minutes max.


Let it cool and grind the above. Your Curry powder is ready.

Add this curry powder to a simple vegetable curry to make it more tastier. I generally add it to Capsicum, Okra, Tindora, Bottle gourd curries. But this can be added to lot more.. so experiment yourself.

Note: I am not sure about the ratios but this is what I used.
ChanaDal - 2 cups
Urad Dal - 1 and 1/2 cup
Red Chillies - (you can add it according to your spice level.)I added around more than 1 cup of them.
Coriander Seeds - handful
Cumin Seeds - handful
Oil - 1 tablespoon

Vegetable Rice

When I went to kitchen in the morning, I saw rice remaining from yesterday. Then I remembered one of my favourite recipe which is called Annam Poni. Annam = Rice, Poni = Popu or talimpu or Tadka. I mix some vegetabes to make it tasty, healthy and good. Here is the recipe:


Ingredients
Rice - 1 1/2 cup (can use fresh rice also)
Oil - 2 table spoons
Mustard Seeds - 1/2 table spoon
Jeera - 1 table spoon
Green Chillies - depends on your spice level (I generally use 3-4 if not spicy)
Chana Dal - 1 table spoon
Urad Dal - 1 table spoon
Lemon Juice 2 table spoon
Turmeric - a pinch
Salt to Taste


Optional: (the quantities below depends on how do you want output to be :). If you like more vegetables then add more vegetables quantity than rice else just add very few.)
Garlic
Spring Onions
Onions
Cauliflower
Tomato
Brinjal(eggplant)
Coriander
Curry Leaves
Garbanzo beans
Green peas

Method of Preparation
1. Seperate the rice, by smashing it with the hand.

2. Heat Oil in kadai. Do the tadka (add mustard seeds, Jeera, Chana Dal, Urad Dal).

3. Add green chillies, Onions. Add vegetables and let it cook. Add turmeric.



4. Add salt sufficiantly for rice too. Add lemon juice also.

5. Add rice to the above and heat for 2 minutes. Your vegetable rice is ready.

Sambar Powder

Ingredients:

Chana Dal
Black Pepper
Methi Seeds
Red Chilli
Cumin Seeds

Method of Preparation:
Fry them in little oil. After cool down grind in Mixie. Sambar Powder is Ready.

Ratio of the ingredients I used
Chana Dal - 1/2 Cup
Black Pepper - appr. 6-8 Seeds
Methi Seeds - 1/4 tea spoon
Red Chilli - 5-8 (depends on your spice level)
Cumin Seeds - 1 table spoon
Oil - 1/2 Tea Spoon