Tomato chutney

This chutney is so yummy you can eat a full cup all by itself. To appear lil more civilized (:P), eat it with chapati, dosa, idli, akki rotti.....

This particular recipe I picked from my mom and my aunt. My aunt (from Dharwad) is an awesome cook. She experiments so much and comes up with easy tips to make cooking a delight.

Ingredients:

• Tomato - 3
• chili - 2
• fried ground nut - 2 tsp
• coriander
• hing, jeera, turmeric, cumin seeds
• coconut grating

Steps:

• Prepare seasoning with cumin, jeera and hing. Add chilies and let them crackle.
• Now add cut tomatoes and let it cook till water content is gone.
• Let it cool a bit and transfer this to a mixer container.
• To it, add ground nuts, coriander, coconut grating and salt.
• Grind it to a paste and enjoy!!

Prepare this instead of the regular coconut chutney for dosa and idli and let me know if people at your home liked it :)

Bon appetite!

My version of baked vegetables

It was the day when I had had junk through out the day and so badly wanted my daily dose of veggies. I was so tired to prepare a full meal but was very hungry. This just came to my mind. May be I had read the recipe somewhere or seen someone cook on the telly. Once, the dish was done, it was gobbled up in 2 minutes flat. It turned out super yummy and without a guilt in the world, I had lots of it.

Ingredients (for 1 person):

• carrots - 2
• beans -  a handful
• potatoes - 2 small ones - cut it like potato wedges
• salt, pepper
• italian seasoning 
• chili flakes
• olive oil

Steps:

• Boil all the vegetables in water till they are partially done.
• In a shallow pan, add 1 tsp of olive oil and let it heat. Take out the potato slices from water and shallow fry it on the pan till they are done.

• Similarly, fry rest of the vegetables.
• Add salt, italian seasoning, chili flakes and pepper.

Do try it out when u feel the need to eat nothing but veggies. This can be prepared as a side dish too, for pasta or a burger.

Bon appetite!

Rice with pulses

Imagine you come home after a long day's work and there is absolutely nothing at home and you are so damn hungry you could eat a horse. This is the recipe that should come to your mind. It is super easy to prepare and takes just about 5 minutes of your time in front of the stove. And it tastes heavenly and packs in a lot of nutrition.

Ingredients (for 1 person)

• rice + green gram - 1 cup
• tamarind soaked in water for 5-10 minutes
• chili/sambar powder - 2 tsp
• for seasoning - jeera, cumin, hing, turmeric
• for garnishing - coconut grating, coriander

Steps:

• Cook rice and green gram in a cooker similar to how you cook rice.
• In a pan, prepare the seasoning and add tamarind paste to it.
• Add the sambar powder and salt to taste.
• Once the rice and pulses are cooked, add it to the pan and mix well.
• Add coconut grating and coriander as a final finish.

I had it with a tall glass of butter milk and ambode. It was yummyy...

Let me know if you try it and how it turned out.

Bon appetite!

Broken wheat with vegetables

This is my too-hungry-no-time-to-prepare-anything-else recipe. It is super easy to prepare, very tasty and awesomely healthy. Broken wheat can be used as a rice substitute. You don't get that heavy, very full feeling after eating this. You can prepare broken wheat without these vegetables and eat with curd and pickle. Yumm..

Ingredients (for 2 people):

Broken wheat - 1 cup
Vegetables like carrot, beans, capsicum
Chili - 2
Hing
Salt
Turmeric
For seasoning - jeera, cumin

Steps:

• Broken wheat is cooked exactly like rice. 1 measurement of broken wheat with 2 measurements of water. Add the cut vegetables too. Cook it in a cooker. 
• In a pan, prepare the seasoning by adding jeera, cumin, chili, hing and turmeric.
• If you are adding capsicum, shallow fry it here, instead of cooking it in the cooker.
• Add the cooked broken wheat and vegetables and add salt to taste.
• You can garnish with coriander and also add lemon, if you feel like. It gives an awesome taste.

This can be made better by adding ginger to the seasoning and adding coconut grating at the end.

This can be eaten all by itself or prepare some kind of raita to go along with. 

Let me know how it turned out for you.

Bon appetite!

Health drink - 1

Petu (my hubby), had a bad throat today and he wanted to feel better. I thought of this drink, which I had prepared last week and he had loved it. It also has great effect on sore throats. It's very easy to prepare and you can enjoy it on a cold day too ! This is the replacement for hot coffee/tea on a rainy day :P

Ingredients (for 2 glasses):

• coriander - 5-6 sprigs
• mint - 2-3 sprigs
• ginger
• jeera
• turmeric - 1 tsp
• salt and pepper - to taste

Boil all the above, except salt and pepper, in water. Boil it for 5-8 mins and take it off heat. Now add salt and pepper. Done!!

Note: Never add pepper to boiling water. Same goes while preparing soups too. Take them off heat and then add pepper. Else, it gives a bitter taste.

Let me know how it was. 

Bon appetite.

xoxo.

Hot Cocoa

Yesterday, visited this quaint little store on the Church Street - Brown Tree. They sell some pretty good gourmet stuff. I picked up cinnamon powder and cocoa powder (the in house brand). Now, you know where I am heading with this !

Ingredients (for 2 cups):

• milk - 2 cups
• cocoa powder - 1/2 tsp
• cinnamon powder - a pinch
• sugar - to taste
• nutella - if you want the hazelnut taste - 1 spoon

Add all ingredients, except milk, and 2 tsp of water to a mixer and blend it. Boil milk and add this mixture. Stir it and enjoy madi :)

A variation is to add the mixture to cold milk and voila, there is cold cocoa :) Hadn't thought of this, had you :P

I went a lil overboard with the cocoa and cinnamon powder. You can add less in the beginning and add more if required.

It was heavenly. Too good. Try it and let me know how it came out.

Bon appetite

xoxo

All in 1 salad.

I love preparing salads. And I love eating them for any meal of the day. I see, I think, I experiment and it comes out great :) Aint I a humble girl :D

Here's my all time fav salad. I dont know what its called. I want to name it as 'All in 1 salad'.

Ingredients:

• Iceberg lettuce
• Carrot
• Zucchini or english cucumber
• Apple (green apple tastes better)
• Pomogranate
• nuts - almond, walnut

For the seasoning:

• Olive oil
• italian seasoning
• salt
• lemon juice or sweet lime juice
• pepper (optional)

Steps:

Mix everything in a bowl. That's it. Really. And wait, dig in :)

You can add baby tomatoes, capsicum and radish for a different taste.

Let me know if you tried it out.

Bon appetite.

xoxo

Pasta time baby!!

I have started loving pasta so much, over the last few months, that, I cannot go without having it at least once a week. I love the pastas in Eurasia and Truffles. I go to Eurasia when I want the whole deal, interiors, service and the ambiance of an awesome meal. I go to Truffles when my tummy wants the awesome, tastiest pasta/spaghetti. Love both the places.

So, I thought of trying my hand at pasta. Let me tell you something, its much better when you prepare at home :) I like the arrabiatta sauce and my hubby like the white sauce.

PS: This is my variation of pasta. Professionals out there, pls dont curse my recipe !

Ingredients:
   For white sauce:
   Amul cream

   For red sauce, I bought the ready-made arabiatta sauce. I will prepare this sauce too, sometime in the future.

    Other ingredients:

• onion
• capsicum
• tomato
• carrot
• zucchini
• garlic cloves - 2-3
• cheese
• italian seasoning

For garlic bread:

• Brown bread
• butter
• garlic cloves

Steps:

Saute all the vegetables and garlic in olive oil for a few minutes. Meanwhile, keep the pasta for boiling. Add a pinch of salt to the pasta when you are boiling it. 

Once, the vgetables are done, take out half of it into another pan. To one pan, add the arabiatta sauce and to the other, cream. Add italian seasoning and grated cheese. Add salt to taste. 

 When the pasta is done, add the required quantity to both the pans.

Garlic bread is very simple to prepare. In a bowl, take 3 spoons of butter, add italian seasoning and grated butter. Spread this mixture over the bread and toast it on a pan.

Voila!! Pasta is served. 

Do let me know if you have tried a variation of pasta and how it was.

Bon appetite.
xoxo.

Cafe review - Matteo

Yesterday I caught up with my friends from college at Matteo. It had been looong. Felt so good to sit and chat about basically everything under the sun :) You need a dose of girlie talk every now and then to keep you going. Girls listening ??

Anyway, before I digress too out of the way, back to the topic here. Matteo is my fav cafe, after Kalmane of course. Remember I am a die hard South Indian :P I love the hot cocoa with whipped cream. Everywhere else they make it taste like Bournvita. But here, naa.. Its the real deal. Don't care if I have not worked out the entire week, I have to have the hot cocoa there. My hubby loves the white chocolate mocha, which he describes as heaven in a cup. He loves to exaggerate, I am sure. Cappuccino, Chocolate Espresso are normal, nothing extraordinary. Also, I have heard that the masala omelette is way better than any other place. And, the salads are not that great. It was one big plate of lettuce with some mayo. Can do much better than that. French fries are like any other place's.

Next on my list to try are the cold coffees. Somehow, I cannot get myself to order one of those. But you can catch me staring and drooling at the next table's big glass of Shekeratos. I imagine in my head and it tastes good.

The interiors are good and the service is excellent. Music mainly caters to the teenagers. Can be better with the selection of songs they play.

Evening time during weekdays are the best to visit. Not many people and you can end up lazing around the comfortable sofas for hours together. During weekends, it gets really crowded and with the blaring music, you cannot hear your own thoughts.

Do let me know how your visit was.

xoxo.

Masala Chapati

Let me start off with something easy. Everyone prepares this. Good for health and I have to, have to eat it regularly. Chapati.

I am sure everyone knows how to prepare chapati. Lets add a lil masala to it and make some.

Ingredients:

• Wheat flour
• Jeera
• Chili powder
• Turmeric
• Salt to taste
• Hing (Asafoetida)
• Coriander

Along with these, I prefer some vegetables. One can add grated carrot, any green leaves, raddish, beetroot, tomato. One trick when adding these, except carrot, is to add these vegetables to seasoning, let it cool and then mix with the batter.

Steps:

1. Here, I have chosen carrot. Hence, I am directly adding it to the mixture.
2. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl with water, to a consistency that is easy to roll the chapatis.
3. Cook it on a pan with 1 spoon of oil.

Side dish:

• Curd with jeera powder.
• Tomato chutney.
• Any vegetable raita.
• Ghee.

I love cooking these and having for all 3 meals of the day :) Try it out and let me know how good it was !

Bon appetite. xoxo.

Added on 11/6/13 - Rammi, here's a picture of the chapati.

First one!

Bon appetite :)

I am yet another cooking enthusiast flooding the internet with my experiments. I am none of those fancy chefs, nor do I know many cuisines. I am a simple South Indian girl who loves South Indian food a lot. I mainly prepare the authentic Bangalore/Mysore stuff and try new things which dont fit into any of the existing cuisines. 

My inspiration for cooking is my mum, like most others out there. She doesnt hesitate to experiment. She adds all the veggies she can lay her hand on. And trust me, there will be loads of veggies. Also, she cooks with so much of passion, it is a joy to watch her in the kitchen. 

I also like watching cooking shows on TLC. To tell you the truth, havent tried a single one of the recipes :D But its a delight to watch the cooks on that channel. 

 

All you, whoever is reading, feel free to leave comments. About anything. They are welcome. Do let me know if you have tried something similar to the dishes that I blog about or if I can improve on any of the things or simply if you want to say 'looks awesome' :D

xoxo