Fresh Mild Salsa

We got a new comer in my kitchen. A new chopper. Shall post some pictures of it soon. Good thing about it is, we make the salsa in few seconds without striving hard. Here is the recipe of it.

Ingredients
Tomatos (preferably Roma tomatos) - 2-3 medium sized
Onion (preferably red onion) - 1/2 - 1 medium sized
Yellow Capsicum - small piece
Coriander - upto you. This gives nice fresh taste to the salsa
Jalepenos or green chilli - 1/2 - 1 very small one.(avoid it if possible).
Salt to taste (if needed).

Method of preparation
we added everything to the chopper and turned it so that the output is small pieces of everything. Have it with Tostitos or any corn style chips. Tastes good and wonderful.

Some Tips - 1

Jeera
Jeera is good for digestion. I am a fan of Jeera that is the reason. You can add it in most of the recipes except for sweets though :)

Mustard Seeds Powder
When you prepare mustard seeds powder, use it immediately otherwise the powder does not take much time to taste bitter. One of my friends suggested to store it along wiht salt, so that you dont get the bitter taste and no need to do it fresh everytime. Will try it and let you know....

More to come soon.....

Burrito or Tacos

One of our friends were making it so took a quick memory recap and made at home. Its fast to make it at home too, if you have all the ingredients. We dont like the rice in burrito or tacos so I did not add it in my recipe but it can be added if desired.

Ingredients
Tortillas
Black beans
Shredded Cheese (We bought the Mexican Shredded Cheese)
Red Onion - 1
Tomato - 1 and 1/2
Avacados - 2
Guacamole Mix
Salsa (can make fresh salsa at home or buy it from store)
Jalepenos (dipped in vinegar, from store)
Rice (Optional)
Sour Cream (Optional)




Guacamole Preparation
1. Chop 1/2 of the onion into very small pieces. Chop one Tomato into small pieces.

2. Peel the Avacados and cut into small pieces. Make sure you dont include the inside big nut.

3. Add the chopped onions, avacado pieces and guacamole mix into a bowl and try to mash them. If you have a pestel, I would recommend to use it. Your Guacamole is ready.



Note: Avacados are very sensitive to feel or see but when you try to crush it, its not that easy :) So I would recommend make it very small pieces so that your life becomes easy for crushing it.

Method of Preparation
1. Fry the Tortialla on a pan for a less than a minute.

2. Take the tortilla in hand and put a spoon of black beans, Guacamole, Jalepenos (1 or 2 depending upon your spice level required), Salsa, some onions and tomato's in the middle of the tortilla. Also add sour Cream, and at the end add the shredded cheese. Wrap it up and have a bite.....

Will post the Fresh Mild Salsa preparation soon.

Vada

I tried the normal vada this time. It came out very good. This is my husband's one of favourite. Easy to make and yummy to eat. Initially I was unable to make the round but by the time I reached end, I was fast and got the technique of how to make the shape of vada's. :)
The next things to try in my list are Masala Vada and Dahi Wada.

Ingredients
Urad Dal - Soaked overnight (or atleast 3 hours)
Baking Soda - a pinch
Salt to Taste
Oil - for frying

Method of Preparation
1. Grind the soaked urad dal with as much little water as possible. Add the salt and baking soda and keep aside.

2. Put Oil in kadai for deep frying and let me heat.

3. Take a platic cover or if you are good, you can make it on hand. I would suggest for first time/initial preparation use a plastic cover. Apply some oil on a side.

4. Take a small lump of the paste made in step 1. then put that on the plastic cover where you applied oil. Spread it with your hand so that it forms a round shape. Put a small hole in between, to make it totally of Vada shape.

5. Tilt the cover slowly and take the vada into your hand. Slowly put it in the heated oil. Careful not to touch the oil and should not drop it from long height too, as there is chance of spilling the oil.

6. Fry for a minute or two. Move the vadas to other side in between. When both sides turn golden red or brown, remove it. Your vada's are ready to serve.

Serve them with Peanut/Coconut Chutney and with Sambar.

Note: Shall post some pictures soon.

Happy Diwali

Wishing all a Very Happy and Prosperous Diwali....



Today I gave Niwali (Mangala Harathi) to my brothers. Wanted to share that special tradition with everyone. This might be famous in other places also, but we Manthani people do it for sure in the following way.

The day before or the same day of Diwali(depending on the moon sign day), Sisters show Mangala Harathi (aarthi) to their brothers. The tradition starts early morning, before taking shower. Sisters apply coconut oil on the head of the brother for 3 times. Then comes the nazar utaro section, where the girl will take two laddoo type things (made from either besan or wheat flour with pinch of turmeric added), and turns them in one direction around the whole family. Same thing is done again with different set of laddoo type in the reverse direction. Finally they show aarthi to brothers and then to rest of the family.

Brother's give gifts to their sisters on two occasions for sure. One is Rakhi and other is Niwali, which I mentioned above. After the above thing is done, then we enjoy the special snacks prepared by mom. Peni, Madugulu (also called Jantikalu in andhra side), Chakkilaalu with Ghee and Tamarind Pickle. But the taste that we have on the food after niwali is total different from normal times.

Then the Diwali season comes, which everybody know that we all will have blasts.... new clothes, Special food, Crackers, Fire works .... Earthware Diya's.

Lot of unforgettable memories. As soon as the evening happens we wait to lite the earth ware diya's and decorate it around the home. Before the dinner have lot of fun with fireworks. and then finally the day ends with Laxmi Puja before having dinner. It is considered auspicious to do Laxmi puja on Diwali.

The following is a mangal aarthi which I am copying from another site, thoda modified so that we can sing it like OM JAI JAGADEESH HARE song:

Link: http://festivals.iloveindia.com/diwali/maa-lakshmi-aarti.html
GODDESS LAKSHMI AARTI

Jai lakshmi maataa, maiyaa jai lakshmi maataa
tumko nishadin dhyaavta, hara vishnu vidhaataa
brahmaani, rudraani, kamlaa, tu hi hai jaga maataa
Om Jai lakshmi maataa

surya chandramaa dhyaavata, naarada rishi gaataa
durgaa rupa nirantara, sukha sampati daataa
Om Jai lakshmi maataa

jo koi tumko dhyaavata, riddhi siddhi dhan paataa
tu hi hai paatala basanti, tu hi shubha daataa
Om Jai lakshmi maataa

karma prabhaava prakaashaka, jaganidhi ke traataa
jis ghar mein tum rahati, sada sadguna aataa
Om Jai lakshmi maataa

kara sake koii kara le, mann nahin ghabaraataa
tuma bina yagya na hove, vastra na koii paataa
Om Jai lakshmi maataa

khaana paana ka vaibhava, sab tumse hi aataa
shubha guna mandira sundara, kshirodadhi jaataa
ratana chaturdasha tuma hi, koii nahin paataa
Jai lakshmi maataa, maiyaa jai lakshmi maataa

aartii lakshmii ji ki, jo koii nar gaataa
ura aananda umanga ati, paap utar jaataa
Om Jai lakshmi maataa

Hope you all will also have blast on Diwali.....

My Items on Diwali:

Sweets we got from outside:


Cucumber Raita


Peel the cucumber and grate it. Squeeze the juice out of it. Add salt, green chillies, Dahivada raita powder(my fav), and ofcourse curd to it. Mix it well. Add tadka with oil, 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds, curry leaves and 1 tea spoon urad dal on top.
Traditionally, we dont add the Dahivada raita powder, we use 1/2 teaspoon of mustard seeds powder. Try it..


Vegetable baath recipe from Asha's blog


Our Dinner:
Cucumber Raita, Mango and Amaranth leaves Lentil, Spicy Potato Curry, Vegetable Baath with white rice.

Tuvar and Turai Curry

I bought this turai(Beerakaya, Ridge Gourd) fresh from indian store. But problem was the curry becomes very less unless combined with something else, or if you have large quantity. This was one of recipes tried in the potluck. I liked the taste and wish to share it with everybody.

Ingredients
Turai - 1 long
Tuvar - 1-2 cups (I used one packet of frozen)
Mustard seeds - 1 table spoon
Cumin seeds - 1 table spoon
Chilli Powder - according to taste
Oil
Salt to Taste

Method of Preparation

1. Clean, Peel the skin and chop the turai. For tuvar you can either chop it or make small pieces by hand(if fresh).

2. Take a kadai, add mustard seeds. let them splutter and then cumin seeds.

3. Add Turai and tuvar cleaned to the kadai. Add chilli powder and Salt also.

4. Cover and cook for 10 minutes or until both the vegetables are cooked. The curry is ready.

You can serve this curry with either hot rice or roti.

Terms
Tuvar - Goru chikkudu kaya (Telugu)
Turai - Beerakaya (Telugu), Ridge Gourd

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

Rasam Powder

Hi all, My MIL made this at home. I liked it, as I have lot of Dhania at home which was not used so much at all. So decided to make this at home.

Ingredients
Coriander Seeds - (Dhania)
Toor Dal
Black Pepper - (Miriyalu)
Cumin Seeds - Little(Jeera, Jeelakarra)
Red Chillies - (Lal Mirchi, Endu Mirchi)

Method of Preparation
Slightly fry the all of the above and grind it.

Isn't that easy and ready to make. I am going to post some pics soon. Till then Enjoy.

Ratio of the Ingredients
Please make up the quantity you want to make and then use the following ratios to add the ingredients

Corainder Seeds - 1/2 cup
Toor Dal - 1/5 - 1/4 cup
Black Pepper - 10-15 seeds (depends upon your spice level, but would recommend using less)
Cumin Seeds - 2 Table Spoons
Red Chillies - 5(depends upon your spice level)

Terminology
Coriander Seeds - Dhania(Hindi), Dhaniyalu (Telugu)
Toor Dal - Kandi pappu(Telugu)
Black Pepper - Miriyalu (Telugu)
Cumin Seeds - Jeera(Hindi), Jeelakarra (Telugu)
Red Chillies - Lal Mirchi(Hindi), Endu Mirchi (Telugu)

Onion Pakodi/Pakora

WISHING YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR....


Onion Pakora is my potluck item for the New Year Party. Simple to make and some tips to make it real good. Add a little bit of soda when making for a slightly big number of people.



Ingredients

Onions - Chopped lengthwise
chickpea floor- (Besan, Senagapindi(Telugu))
Curry Leaves- (Kadipatta, Karivepaku(Telugu)
Green Chillies - (depending upon your spice taste)
Red Chilli Powder
Salt to Taste
Soda - (optional, a pinch of it)


Method of Preparation
1. Chop the onions and add salt to it. Keep aside for 10-15 minutes.

2. Then make the onions seperate by mixing it with hand. (Since we added salt at the first step, the onions will have some water in it).

3. Now add the green chillies, Curry Leaves, red chilli powder. Mix it. Also add besan to it by spreading the floor. (Do not mix more besan). If required add very little water.

4.In the meanwhile take a kadai/pan and pour oil in it. Let the oil become heat.

5. After the oil is hot, then start adding the mixture prepared at step 3 slowly. Spread it in the oil so that the mixture is as thin as possible. This gives crispy as well as good taste to it.

6. The mixture will turn a little brown, then remove it from the oil and put it on a paper towel.
7. Arrange it in a plate or tray and serve hot.




Tips
Before serving, spread amchur powder/chat powder on the top pakoras. You can also spread (arrange) the deep fried green chillies and peanuts on top.

Time to cook: Depends on Quantity and varies from 10-15 minutes to 1 hour for large quantities.