Singua Curry

Basic singua curry recipe; easy to make. here are the required ingredients.
Singua            4 cnt
Onion            1 big
Tomato          1 small
Green chillies  5 thai
Red chillies     2 cnt
Moong dal      2 tsp
corriander powder  1/2 tsp
Turmeric       1/4 tsp
Sugar             1 tsp
Salt             as required
Cilantro       to flavor
Oil         to saute (could be 1/4 cup or less)

Method:
Soak the moon dal in water and set aside.
Wash and peel off the singua; Chop into small pieces.
Chop green chillies, onions, tomato, cilantro and keep it aside.
Take a pan with oil and let it heat up. Add the tempering ingredients :  urad dal, jeera, mustard seeds, red chillies.
Add chopped onions, let them turn transparent/tender. Then add chopped singua pieces, soaked moong dal and let them cook.
Add chopped tomato, corriander powder, sugar, salt, stir altogether and cook for atleast 5-7 mins with closed lid on medium flame.
Now, open the pan and let the excess water get evoporated. Add cilantro and serve the curry hot with rice or roti..

Mint (Pudina) Rice

Hi all, after a small gap, i'm back again. today, i would like to share pudina rice recipe;
Ingredients
Pudina(Mint)              3 bunches
Rice                           1 and 1/2 cup
Green Chillies             10 thai chillies
Oil                              required for saute
Cilantro                      1/2 bunch
Turmeric                    1/2 tsp
Salt                            as required
Red Chillies                3 cnt

Cashews                    1 tbsp
Optional :
Shredded coconut(frozen is fine)      3 tbsp
Corriander powder    1 tsp

Tempering Ingredients:
Urad dal : 2 tbsp; chana dal : 1 tbsp; Jeera : 1 tbsp; Mustard seeds : 1 tbsp

Procedure:
Method 1:
Cook the rice and keep it aside.
Thaw the frozen shredded coconut in room temperature for atleast 15 mins.
Take off the mint leaves from the stems and wash the leaves.
Chop the green chillies, cilantro;
Put the green chillies, thawed coconut, cilantro, mint leaves into the blender. Add salt and blend altogether into coarse paste and keep it aside.
Tempering:
Heat the required oil in a wide open pan.
Add Cashews, let them half roasted, Now add all the tempering ingredients and turmeric, At last add the Red Chillies.
Once the tempering is done, add the coarse mint paste (that is blended in the blender)
Let the paste saute for 5 mins along with the tempering ingredients.
Now add 1 tsp of corriander powder and stir altogether.
Add the cooked rice to the above mixture and stir well with spatula until the paste mixes well with cooked rice.

Method 2:
Do the tempering procedure and add the entire mixture to raw rice and cook it along with the rice.
(this taste will be a little bit different than Method1)

That's it, yummy pudina rice is ready to eat. You can add little drops of lemon juice before eating;

My first mehendi and nail paint; I tried the paint on my nails with wet nail polish. It would be even more colorful if you use 3 different colors. I have just used 1 color.

Vermicelli Utappam

       Sounds Interesting? I'l tell u the secret :  just add Rice flour for your leftover vermicelli Idli batter, add green chillies, ginger, corriander, 1/4 tsp of baking powder, salt;

Mix the above specified ingredients altogether and spread on the non-stick pan as thick dosa/crepe.

Let it cook on medium flame for atleast 10 mins, until the utappam is golden brown in color; flip to other side and let it toast on other side too;

Now, switch off the flame once it is done on both side, and cut it into small slices as pizza slices;

Thats it, ready to eat it hot with chutney of your kind; I like to eat it during snack time or just for munching :-)

Garelu

Raw Material
Urad Dal(whole)              2 cups
Oil                                  required for deep frying
Salt                                 as required

Preparation:
--> Wash urad dal and soak them for atleast 5 hours.
--> Grind them with very little amount of water. Be careful batter should be very thick; shouldn't be loose at all. Add salt during blending itself.
--> Pour oil (sufficient for deep frying) into a pan and let it heat up.
--> Now take a ziploc and rub it with water.
--> Take a small dumpling of the above prepared batter and press it on ziploc make it like patti.
--> Take out each patti carefully and put it in heated oil. Let them fry until golden brown, take out of oil and serve them hot with ginger chutney.

Methi Rice

Ingredients:
1 Big bunch of Methi leaves/fenugreek leaves (Clean and separate the leaves)
(you can also use kasuri methi instead of fresh methi)
1 Small cup of fresh green peas
2 Cups of Basmati rice (soak for 30min)
1 Big onion (thinly sliced)
4 Green chillis (thinly sliced)
1 tbsp of garlic-ginger paste (optional)
2 cloves
2 cinnamon pieces
1tspn Corriander Powder
2tbspn Oil
1tspn Tampering seeds
Salt as per taste

Methi Rice with Raitha

Method:
In a pan, heat oil on medium flame add Tempering ingredients(urad dal, jeera, mustard seeds, curry leaves).
Add sliced green chillies, onions and saute them till onions become translucent.
Add green peas and fry for 2 minutes.
Add fresh methi or kasuri methi and sauté for a minute.
Add rice, water and salt to the above mixture and Pressure Cook it for 3 whistles.
Serve hot with raitha and kurma.

Bobbatlu

This is my one of the most favourite sweets. Very Yummy and mouth watering during preparation itself. Enjoy the process and its deliciousness. Here are the sweet ingredients :
Chana Dal           1 cup
Jaggery               1 cup
Maida                 3/4 cup
Oil                      1/4 cup
Cardomom powder   1/2 tsp
Sooji                  1/2 tsp
Rice flour            1/2 tsp

Yummy Procedure :
1. Outer Layer Preparation :
--> First mix Maida, Sooji, Rice flour with small amount of water and make it as hard dough.
--> Now, add Oil to that dough and kneed it well. Let the dough retain for atleast 30 mins or more.
--> This will be your Maida dough.

2. Inner Layer Preparation:
--> Chop the jaggery as thinner slices and set it aside.
--> Take chana dal into a vessel; Pour 1 cup water and let chana dal cook until it gets mashed easily.
--> Drain away all the excess water and let it cool down.
--> Blend chana dal in regular mixer and make it into fine powder.
--> Take a pan and put chopped jaggery and switch on the stove with low flame.
--> Now pour the grinded powder into the pan and sprinkle little amount of water to make the powder little bit wet.
--> Stir in the powdered chana and jaggery until the jaggery gets dissolved and mix well with the powder.
--> Add the cardomom powder and let the mixture cool down completely.
--> Now, make the mixture into lime-size dumplings and set them aside.
--> These will be your chana dumplings.

Boiled and Drained Chana dal : Ready to grind

3. Making Bobbatlu:
--> Now take a big ziploc or a polythene cover and rub it with oil. (just to make sure, the bobbattu doesn't stick to the cover/ziploc).
(a) Take a small dumpling(should be half the size of chana dumpling) from the maida dough and spread it with fingers until it becomes like our palm size.
(b) Now, place a chana dumpling (from step 2) on the middle of spreaded maida dough.
(c) Stretch maida dough a little bit and simultaneously Wrap the chana dumpling with maida dough
(d) Press the wrapped dumpling and make it like thin patti.
(e) Slowly take out the patti and put it on regular tava and toast it both sides as you do with regular rotis/chapathis. You can add oil/ghee/butter while flipping over the bobbattu on tava.

Repeat steps (a) to (e) until all your dough and dumplings are finished. Thats it yummy yummy bobbatlu are ready to eat. (You can add ghee before eating. it is fat by itself; so i don't prefer this last step :-) )

Vermicelli Idli

Ingredients
Vermicelli         1/2 cup
Sooji                1/2 cup
Cashews           few
Baking powder  1 tsp
Yogurt/Buttermilk    atleast half carton
Salt                   as required

Procedure:
--> Roast Sooji in a dry pan with med-hi flame. Let it become half roast and then add vermicelli.
--> Let the vermicelli get roasted;
--> Once vermicelli is half done, add cashews and let them roast altogether until golden brown.

--> Remember to stir on continuously, otherwise, sooji and vermicelli gets burnt soon.
--> Once the entire mixture is roast and ready, let it cool down completely. (i usually do this roasting part the night before making idli)
--> Now add baking powder and yogurt/buttermilk until the consitency of the batter is good to pour as idli.

Batter for Vermicelli Idli

--> Pour the batter into idli plates and steam idli in pressure cooker for 10 minutes and switch off the flame;
--> Open the lid after 15 minutes and serve it hot with split dalia chutney and ginger-tamarind chutney.
Here is the link for  Chutneys
Enjoy different chutneys acc., to ur taste.

Festival Mood

Today is Vinayaka Chathurthi; this time i kept pallavelli; usually i keep umbrella. this time, i was able to finish pooja with less effort as my husband helped me a lot; he made the arrangements necessary for palavelli.

Sabudana Kichidi

Ingredients

Sabudana           1 cup (8 oz)

Potatoes             2 small

Onions               1 medium

Green Chillies     5 thai or acc to your spice

Tempering Ingredients  Urad dal, jeera(cumin seeds), mustard seeds, curry leaves

Oil                     5 tbsp

Cashews            few

Salt                    to taste

Kasoor Methi(optional)    few

Turmeric       pinch

Cilantro      

Procedure
1) Wash sabudana and Soak it overnight.
Soaking instructions :
--> Pour sabudana into a bowl and pour water "just until the sabudana gets dipped".  Do not add too much water as it becomes soggy.
--> Let them soak it for atleast 3 hours. Usually i keep it overnight so that next morning i can make it as breakfast.
--> Once they get soaked, they should be like dry, not sticking to each other; Separate lumps with hands if any.

Soaked sabudana should look like this individual balls. shouldn't stick together

2) Chop the green chillies, Onions, Potatoes and keep them aside.
3) Now, take oil into a pan (wide opened pan is preferable, as it makes cooking sabudana easy to stir more space to move around.) and let it heat up.
4) Add Cashews let them half roast then add tempering ingredients and green chillies. Add few leaves of Kasoor Methi.
5) Now, add potatoes, salt, stir altogether; close the lid and let it cook on Medium flame for 5-7 mins or until the potato pieces becomes tender.
6) Now add chopped onion pieces close the lid again and let it cook until the onions become tender/transparent. You can add corriander powder/peanut powder for taste.
7) Open the lid, add soaked sabudana, stir altogether once; This time do not close the lid. Let the sabudana cook with open pan.
8) Let sabudana cook for 7-10 mins on medium high flame and open pan. Stir occassionally or else, sabudana gets sticked to the pan.
9) Cooked sabudana becomes tender and transparent(while raw sabudana looks pure white in color). that is the right time to switch off the flame.
(If you are not sure about right consistency of cooking, you can taste a little bit, it should be like little bit gummy instead of startchy.)
10) Now, your sabudana kichidi is ready; Switch off the flame and add chopped cilantro;

serve it hot with Tamarind-Ginger chutney for elders;
serve it warm for kids. Kids will like it as the texture would be little bit gummy. (may be they will be in the illusion that they are eating spicy yummy special gummy bears :-) )

Poha Vada

Sounds Interesting? Ingredients would be even quite simple;

Ingredients

Poha 3/4 cup

Cooked Rice 1 cup
Corn Flour   2 tsp
Rice Flour   1/3 cup
Oil    as required for deep fry (i prefer Canola oil as it is very lite and good for health compared to other oils)

Green chillies 3

Onion 1
Salt    1 and half tsp or as required

Mint leaves few

Ginger small piece

Cilantro few

Procedure
1) Chop green chillies, onions, ginger, mint and cilatro into small pieces.

2) Clean poha. Mix cleaned poha with rice and blend it altogether into paste (you can make it either to smooth paste or a little bit granulated as we do for Urad vada. I prefer little bit granulated)
3) Pour some water while blending. (do not add too much water, as the batter becomes very loose and absorbs more oil). You should get the batter as thick as possible.
4) Mix  all the chopped onions, ginger, mint, cilantro, corn flour, rice flour and make it into thick batter.

5) Now take small dumplings from the batter and spread them on a small ziploc. rub the ziploc with wet hand so that the batter doesn't stick to ziploc.

6) Take oil as sufficient for deep fry and let it heat up
7) Now place the above spreaded rings into the heated up oil slowly. You can do without holes in the middle; I put holes bcoz, the batter in the middle also cooks perfectly with holes.
8) Let them fry for atleast 7 mins on medium flame.
--> if you cook on medium to medium hight flame, then vada becomes crispy and makes the taste even better;

9) Let them cook until they become golden brown; then take them and serve them hot with chutney of your favourite.

 that's it, delicious and hot poha vada ready to eat;

Strawberry Smoothie

Ingredients
Strawberries        10
Vanilla Icecream  4 tbsp (or 2 scoops)
Sugar                   2 tbsp
Milk                    3/4 cup

Procedure is very simple and mouth watering even during preparation :)
--> Chop strawberries into halves.
--> Add Strawberries, plain vanilla icecream, sugar, milk into juicer.
--> Blend altogether until it becomes soft smoothie.
--> thats it, yummy and cool strawberry smoothie is ready;

Easy to Make, Happy to take :-)   Enjoy...

Lemon Rice

Ingredients
Rice     2 cups
Green Chillies   6 thai
Limes           4 big  (i prefer green big limes than yellow big lemons)
Peanuts           few
Turmeric       1/4 tsp
Red Chillies   2
Oil                5 tbsp
Tempering         Chana dal, Urad dal, cumin seeds, mustard seeds
Curry leaves      few
Corriander        1/4 bunch
Salt                  1 and quarter tsp (or as required)

Procedure
--> Wash raw rice; pour 2 cups of water; mix turmeric.
--> Squeeze the limes into a small bowl and add salt and stir it together until salt dissolves in lime juice;
--> Stir altogether and cook rice until it gets cooked.  I use rice cooker bcoz, cooked rice becomes fluffy.
--> Now, take a pan with oil and let it heat up.
--> Add peanuts; let them roast until half done and add the tempering ingredients.
--> Add green chillies, curry leaves, red chillies, and corriander leaves.
--> Switch off the stove and mix the ingredients with cooked rice and stir together with spatula;
--> Let the rice and the tempering ingredients cool down completely.(if we add lime juice when the rice mixture is hot, then, it becomes bitter taste; so i prefer rice to cool down completely).
--> Now add the squeezed lime juice to the entire mixture of rice and stir it thoroughly.