Cucumber carrot yogurt dip/chutney

I wanted to take a nice picture but with the camera I have the following is the only picture which was looking good. This item can be accompanied with biryani/fried rice or with normal rice or roti. Tastes good, healthy and natural (mostly). This is my way of doing this chutney, I will mention about the authentic way also after I collect the correct details soon.

Ingredients
cucumber - 1
Carrots - 2
Yogurt - 2 cups
Dahivada raita powder - 1 spoon
Oil - 2 spoons
mustard seeds - 1/2tea spoon
urad dal - depends on the crunchiness you want (may be 1-2 spoons)
Coriander - depends on your taste - 2-3 spoons (optional)
curry leaves - Optional
Green chillies - Optional (chopped very small probably one or two)
asafoetida - a pinch

Method of preparation
1) Peel the skin off of cucumber and grate it to your desired size. Now squeeze out the additional water out of it and take it in a serving bowl.
2) Now add grated carrot and yogurt to it. Mix them well.
3) Add salt if desired or you can add lemon juice and spinach as an alternative to it.
4) Put tadka in a small bowl. Add oil, after heated add mustard seeds. After mustard seeds starts splutter, add green chillies, asafoetida, urad dal, small portion of curry leaves.
5) once urad dal is turning light brown or crunchy turn off heat and add the tadka to the yogurt mixture. Add coriander also to it mix it and serve chilled if needed.


Note: If you feel yogurt mixture is thick or if yogurt is little sour  then add milk to it. This will make the thick to thin paste and also compensate the sourness of yogurt with its sweet taste. 

Beauty Tip: After you squeeze juice out of cucumber grated. Apply it to your face and leave it on for few minutes and wash away with warm water. This will make your skin look and feel smooth. Frequent apply will result in much better results.

Tamarind Pulihora/Chintapandu Pulihora

This is one of the traditional item which I am a little lazy to do as it consumes a little time. Since it is my husband's favourite, I decided to do it on his birthday and give him a surprise. So here goes the recipe.

Ingredients
Tamarind
Peanuts
Oil
Green chillies
Red chillies
Urad dal
Chana dal
Asafoetida
Mustard seeds
Cooked Rice
Turmeric
Salt

Method of prepartion
1. Cook the rice beforehand and spread it in a flat vessel
2. Soak tamarind for 1/2 hour or heat up in microwave and leave it for few minutes. Then squeeze out the juice of it very hard and then start boil it in vessel with little water. At this point you can also add some peanuts to the tamarind juice while bringing it to boil. Boil it till it looses the raw smell of it.

3. Prepare tadka by adding oil to a small kadai. Then add mustard seeds and let them splutter. Now add asafoetida chana dal (depending on how crunchy you want), urad dal (very less), peanuts, green chillies , red chillies. At end add turmeric and salt to this.

4. Once they are done then spread it on the rice along with the tamarind juice prepared (after boiling). Now mix it either with hand or with rice spoon. Mix it thoroughly so that all the ingredients get mixed up with the rice properly.

Your tamarind pulihora is ready to serve.

Optional: You can also add curry leaves to tadka which will also taste nice.
Tip: This pulihora tastes better after preparation and leaving it aside for few hours. As the sourness of tamarind slowly gets soaked into and mixed up with rice slowly as time passes. We used to enjoy the actual taste of rice in the evening or as snack in the afternoon (when prepared in morning).

Happy Ugadi

Happy Ugadi to all the visitors.
May this new year bring lots of happiness, prosperity and good health in all our lives.

उगादी की शुभ कामनाएं
ಹ್ಯಾಪಿ ಯುಗಾದಿ
ഹാപ്പി ഉഗാദി
ஹாப்பி உகாதி
అందరికి ఉగాది శుభాకాంక్షలు. ఈ నూతన సంవత్సరం అందరికి సంతోషం, ఆరోగ్యం, వృద్ధిని తేవాలని ఆశిస్తున్నాను.

Chikkudukaya/Broad beans Cabbage Curry

This is another recipe to the simple curries. Healthy, easy and fast to make it. Now-a-days I am trying to follow Manthena Satyanarayana raju's diet. I cannot say I can follow it totally but slowly trying to reduce the usage of Oil and salt in daily consumption and finding alternatives for it. so lets see how it goes.

Note: will post pictures soon.

Ingredients
Chikkudukaya (Broad beans, tuvar)
Cabbage - 1/2
Tomato - 2 no. - optional
Oil - 3 table spoons
turmeric - 1/2 tea spoon
red chillies/green chillies/ red chilli powder - add them according to your taste buds. I added 2 hot red chillies and 4 green chillies.
Salt - 1 - 1 1/2 table spoon
Jeera - 1/2 tea spoon
chana dal - 1 table spoon (or may add more if you like crunchiness in between)

Method of preparation
Just like any other simple recipe, do the tadka by adding oil in kadai.
After it becomes heat, add jeera and then add chana dal. If you are planning on adding green/red/both chillies then add it now. fry for a minute and add Chikkudukaya and Cabbage chopped ones to it. once the vegetables are little cooked, add tomatos and salt to it. Garnish with coriander and cilantro to get nice flavor, smell and healthy. Enjoy your curry with rice or roti.

Sorakaya/doodhi Cauliflower

Ingredients

Sorakaya - 1/2 - 1 no. long (peeled and chopped)

Cauliflower - 1/2 - 1 no. (seperated into small florets)

Tomato - 2 no.

Onion - one small

Carrot - 1 small - optional ( I grated it but you can choose your own style)

Red chilli powder/Red chillies - according to your taste

turmeric - 1/2 tea spoon

Oil - 3-4 table spoons

Jeera/Cumin seeds - 1 tea spoon

Salt - 1 - 2 table spoons

Method of preparation

1. Take a kadai and put it on stove (switched on obviously :) ).

2. Add oil to it. Once oil is heated add jeera to it and onions if desired.

3. Once onions become little translucent, add sorakaya(doodhi), cauliflower and carrots. Remember not to turn excessly as cauliflowers may become mushy very easily.

4. Add turmeric and red chilli powder. and turn once.

5. Once the vegetables are almost cooked, add salt and tomatos and heat it for another 2-4 minutes.

6. Garnish with coriander and curry leaves and serve it with rice or roti.

Vacation

Hi all

I went to a small vacation to India. You can imagine how busy the life will be when on vacation to India along with two infants. But the trip went well. Major trips we went in India were Vijayawada, Basara and Thirupathi. We had our son's second birthday party celebrated grandly at Hotel Peppermint (Lakdi Ka Pool) in Hyderabad.

While we are still in jetlag, I posted some pics from India in my other blog - shireesha.blogspot.com. Will be back with lot more recipes soon. My cousin (Soni) generously has given me some quick healthy and tasty recipes. I am going to post them intermittently along with my other recipes, until then Namaskar for now.