Aug 31, 2009

Eggless Apple Muffin

Well I got this recipe from Trupti's blog. I almost followed the same recipe except cinnamon powder and apple sauce. My husband doesn't like cinnamon and I didn't have apple sauce. So I had to skip those two. Other than that, I followed the same. Here is the recipe...

Ingredients:-

  1. All Purpose flour - 2 cups
  2. Sugar - 1/2 cup
  3. Baking powder - 2 1/2 tsp
  4. Apples - 1 (if it is big or two if it is medium/small)
  5. Vegetable oil - 1/2 cup (I used canola oil)
  6. Sour cream - 1/2 cup ( I used fat free sour cream)
  7. Raisins - 2 tbsp
  8. Salt - 1/2 tsp


Preheat over to 400 degrees. Line the muffin pan with liners. Mix the dry ingredients well. Grate the apple into thin strips or chop it finely. In a small bowl, whisk sour cream and vegetable oil well and keep it aside. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients, raisins, grated apples and the wet ingredients well. Fill the muffin cups 3/4th and bake it for 230 to 23 mts until golden brown or till a tooth pick comes out clean from it. I let my twins to fill the muffin cups. Thats why my muffins are in different shapes...

Aug 26, 2009

Award & a Tag

Shama has tagged me for these questions.. Thanks Shama. Lets see how it goes..............

Rules :

1) Link the person who tagged you .
2) Post the rules on your blog.

3) Share the ABC'S of you.
4) Tag 4 people at the end of the post by linking their blogs.
5) Let the 4 tagged people know that they have been tagged by you.
6) Do not tag the same person repeatedly but try to tag different people,so that there is a big netwotk of bloggers doing the tag.

Questions :

1) A - Available/Single ? ???????? absolutely not.....
2) B - Best Friend ? -- Kalyani
3) C - Cake or Pie ? Cake
4) D - Drink of choice ? Coffee or Mango Juice .
5) E - Essential item you use every day ? Car keys .
6) F - Favourite color ? .Orange
7) G - Gummy Bears or Worms ? gummy
8) H - Hometown ? Chennai
9) I - Indulgence ? Making Fashion Jewelry,
10 ) J - January or February ? January
11) K - Kids and their names ? Twin Girls - Meenakshi &.Neelakshi
12) L - Life is incomplete without ? CHILDERN .
13) M - Marriage date ? November 24, 2002
14) N - Number of siblings? None
15) O - Oranges or Apples ? Oranges
16) P -- Phobias / Fears ? Bugs, dogs.
17) Q - Quote for today ? Take Life as it comes
18) R - Reason to smile ? My family. If you have a happy family, then you will definitely smile everyday....
19) S - Season ? spring .
20) T - Tag 4 people ? Sripriya, Jaishree, Sireesha, Priti
21) U - Unknown fact about me ? Its unknown to me too. .
22) V - Vegetable you don't like ? Snakegourd .
23) W - Worst habit ? will skip breakfast everyday... .
24 ) X - X-rays you've had ? yes for my Visa Interview .
25) Y - Your favourite food ? anything made out of mango .
26 ) Z - Zodiac sign ? CANCER .

Again, Shama passed me this wonderful award. Thanks Shama, it means a lot to me....

The rules are:

Put the logo on your blog or post.
Nominate at least 7 blogs
Let them know that they have received this Scrumptious award by commenting on their blog.
Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from.

Well according to the rule, I have to nominate atleast 7 blogs. Well I think all those bloggers out there are doing a great job. So I would like to pass this award to all my buddy bloggers.

Aug 23, 2009

Vinayaka Chathurthi celebrations...

First of all "Happy Vinayaka chathurthi" to all my friends here. Well this year its special for me because I got some help from my twins in making Kozhakattais. They tried making those cups. Even though it didn't work out well for them, I am happy they took part in this process of making Neivedhyam and helped me arranging pooja items. This year I made Vella kozhakattai and two kinds of Uppu kozhakattai and ammani kozhakattai. In my mom's place we make uppu kozhakattai using only Urad dhall. But in my in-laws place, we make uppu kozhakattai with all the three lentils i.e., urad dhall, channa dhall and toor dhall. I wanted to make both of them and I did it. Since I have already posted the recipe for vella kozhakattai and uppu kozhakattai, I am just posting the recipe for only Ulundhu kozhakattai which we make in our mom's place, here along with my pooja pictures.


Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients:-
  1. Urad dhall - 1 cup
  2. Green Chillies - 3 (acc to taste)
  3. Oil - 1 tsp
  4. Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
  5. Urad dhall - 1/2 tsp
  6. Red chillies - 1
  7. Curry leaves - few
  8. Asafoetida powder - a pinch
  9. Salt to taste
For Dough:-
  1. Rice - 1 cup
  2. Sesame Oil - 1 tsp
  3. Salt to taste
Most of us use rice flour for making the dough. But the traditional way of making this dough is to use rice. Soak rice for an hour. Grind it into a fine paste and add water to bring it to watery consistency (like dosa batter). Add salt and sesame oil. Take a pan, pour this batter and stir it continuously to make sure no lumps are formed. When the water is fully absorbed, it will come like a shiny ball. Turn off the stove, take it out of the heat and cover it with a lid. This is the flour coating we use for making kozhakattai cups.

Soak urad dhall for two to three hours along with green chillies to it. Then grind it after two hours, coarsely and steam cook it adding salt to it. When its cooked, scramble it and keep it aside. Now take a small pan, pre heat oil, splutter mustard seeds, fry urad dhall, red chillies, asafoetida powder and curry leaves to golden brown and add the scrambled urad dhall to it. Stir it for couple of minutes. Sprinkle water, if it is too dry. Turn off the stove and make it small balls when it is warm. Now when you are ready to make kozhakattai, make small cups out of the dough, fill it with urad dhall balls and cover it according to the required shape. Stem cook it for 15 to 28 mts or till its fully cooked.

Aug 18, 2009

Kara Poli

This is another dish which I tasted in India during my trip. I have heard my MIL talking about this kara poli from Sri Krishna Sweets, very often. she made this for me once and it was really spicy and yummy. But I forgot to take pictures of that kara poli. I made this one here last week. After having those horrible food in flight, I wanted to eat something super spicy. We thought of going out to some restaurant and have something. But one of my twin fell sick, so we could not go out. So I tried this at home and it was not that super like my MIL, but it was not that bad either:)

Ingredients:-
  1. Maida/All Purpose Flour - 1 cup
  2. Orange/yellow food color - a pinch
  3. Sesame oil - 2 tbsp (or required amount)
  4. Salt to taste.
For filling:-
  1. Potato - 1
  2. Onion - 1 or 2 (acc to size) (chop it)
  3. Peas - 2 tbsp ( I used frozen peas)
  4. Tomato - 1 (optional) (chop it)
  5. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
  6. Red chillies powder - 1 1/2 tsp (acc to taste)
  7. Garam masala Powder - 3/4 tsp (acc to taste)
  8. Salt to taste
  9. Oil - 1 tsp
  10. Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
  11. urad dhall - 1/2 tsp
When you are planning to make this poli for evening tiffin, just make the maida dough afternoon and keep it aside for couple of hours. Mix maida with required amount of salt and food color and make it as a chapathi dough. Add the sesame oil to the dough and keep it aside. Now cook the potato and mash it. In a pan, add a tsp of oil, splutter mustard seeds and urad dhall and fry it till it becomes golden brown. Now add chopped onion to it and saute till it becomes transparent. Now add peas to it and saute for another few minutes. Now add the mashed potato to it. Add required amount of turmeric powder, chilly powder, garam masala powder and salt to it and mix everything well. Now sprinkle required amount of water to the ingredients and cook it for another 3 to 5 minutes till everything mixes well. Turn off the stove when all the water is absorbed. Keep it aside and let it cool.
When you are ready to make poli, make small balls out of the maida dough and spread it with your hand. Now keep required amount of potato stuffing and cover it.
Spread it evenly with your hand to get a thin circle shaped poli.
Now heat the tawa and cook the poli on both sides adding a teaspoon of ghee on both sides. Serve it hot.
I have never tasted kara poli from Shri Krishna sweets. So I am not sure this is how they do it or they have some other ingredients in theirs....

Aug 15, 2009

Vaazhapoo Thogayal

This recipe is something I came across after reading Mangayar Malar magazine. This is something new to me and I have not tried this thogayal before. I make paruppu usli, curry and adai using vaazhapoo but never tried thogayal. So I wanted to try this thogayal this time and it came out pretty well. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:-
  1. Vaazhapoo florets - a handfull
  2. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
  3. Urad dhall - 2 tbsp
  4. Red chillies - 4 ( acc to taste)
  5. Salt to taste
  6. Coconut - 1 tsp (acc to taste)
  7. Tamarind - a tiny ball sized or 1 tbsp paste
  8. Oil - 1 tsp
Remove kallan from vaazhapoo. Then, pre heat oil in a pan, splutter mustard seeds, add urad dhall and red chillies and fry it till it becomes golden brown. Do not over fry or burn urad dhall. Keep it aside. In the same pan, fry coconut to golden brown and keep it aside. Now fry the vaazhapoo florets for few mts and let everything cool for few minutes. Now add required amount of salt to the above ingredients along with tamarind and grind it into a fine paste. This goes really well with hot white rice with a teaspoon of sesame oil and also with chapathi, idly and dosa.

Aug 10, 2009

Bisibelebath 2 - Leftover special

Well this is something my MIL made last week using the left over Pongal she made for breakfast. She finished all the cooking work in the morning along with the breakfast work and we went out for shopping. She forgot to keep rice and when we returned after all those shopping trips, we both were really tired and we all were hungry and the kids became cranky. Since she had made eggplant sambar and godhsu as side dish for pongal, she said she will make quick bisibelebath with leftover pongal. I was not sure how it will come out but she was very confident and she started making arrangements for making the dish. I am just gonna give the quantity of pongal, godhsu and sambar she used to make this. Hope this will help...

Ingredients:-
  1. Pongal - 3 cups (leftover finished pongal)
  2. Godhsu - 1/4 cup (leftover)
  3. Sambar - 1/2 cup (finished samabr)
  4. Garam masala - 3/4 teaspoon
  5. Salt to taste (if necessary)
For Seasoning:-
  1. Oil - 1 tbsp
  2. Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
  3. Red chillies - 2
  4. Cashewnuts - few
  5. curry leaves - to garnish.
Heat a pan, put the godhsu (tomato & onion godhsu), add required amount of water and let it boil for another couple of minutes. Now add sambar, garam masala powder and salt (if necessary) and let everything mix and boil for few minutes. Now add the leftover pongal to the mixture and mix everything well and let it cook for another 5 to 7 minutes. Add water according to the required consistency. Turn off the stove and keep it aside. Now seasoning for this rice is purely optional because, we would have seasoned pongal, godhsu and also sambar. In order to add some more taste, we can season this with cashews. Fry cashew nuts to golden brown and pour it on top of the rice and garnish it with curry leaves. Frankly speaking friends, the taste of this bisibelebath was much better than the original one we do. It was really good along with the cumin and pepper taste.