Bendakaaya/Bhindi PEANUTS FRY (OKRA)

Okra also known as bendakaya(telugu), ladies finger, vendakaay (tamil) and Bhindi(north India) is a healthy, popular and frequently consumed vegetable by most of Indians. This recipe is simple, rich and a great delight for vegetarians. You can often find this dish in south Indian birthday parties/ceremonies, lunch buffets, pooja functions and wedding menus. Okra is considered good for memory power.
More info at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okra

Ingredients
Bhindi/okra - cleaned and cut in to pieces - 1/2 kg
Dry roasted peanuts - 1 cup
Dry roasted cashews - 1/4 cup (optional)
Dry coconut powder - 1 tspoon
Fried Onions - 3/4 cup
Oil - 5 tspoons
Salt - 1 tspoon
Turmeric - 1 tspoon
Coriander/dhaniya powder - 1 tspoon
Chilly powder - 1 tspoon
Seasoning
Udad dal - 1 tspoon
Mustard seeds - 1 tspoon
Curry leaves - 4 sprigs
Red chillies - 3
Garlic cloves - 4

Procedure

• At first, spread the washed okra/bindi/ladies finger vegetable on a dry tissue paper or a muslin cloth. Allow them to dry for atleast 30 mints, this helps to reduce the stickiness/sliminess. Once dried, cut each okra length wise horizontally in to 0.5 inch pieces. Each piece will look like a hexagon. Refer to above snap.
• Now take a non stick wide skillet/kadai/fry pan and add oil. Once oil gets heated, add all of the above mentioned seasoning stuff.
• Once mustard seeds splutters, add fresh cut okra, spread them evenly and stir once gently. Now add salt and turmeric.
• To retain texture of okra, do not stir until one side of okra is fried. Do not cover the pan.
• over the frypan with a lid and let okra pieces fry on a medium flame for about 8-10 mints. When bottom pieces start to turn sligtly brown, gently stir to flip over the pieces and let them fry for 10 more minutes. Do not cover the pan.
• Now to the fried okra pieces, add dry roasted nuts, chilly powder, coconut and coriander powder and stir them for couple of more minutes to let pieces get coated with spices.
• Switch off the stove, garnish with coriander and fried onions and serve with rice accompanied by dal/rasam/sour curries/sambar/lentils.

Egg Masala Gravy (Quick dish)

This egg masala gravy/kurma/curry recipe is quick, yummy and an excellent side dish for plan rice/biryani. This curry process and taste is similar to chicken curry recipe. This dish can be a great delight to eggitarians :). If you are a veggie and do not eat egg? you can replace eggs with aloo/potato. Egg lovers must try this recipe as the fresh ground spices like ginger garlic paste and coconut powder, cashews/ poppy seeds paste are sure to enhance your taste buds. I am sure you will hook to its taste.

Ingredients
Eggs (Boiled and shell pealed) - 6 (vary number and adjust spices accordingly)
Onions (dice in to small cubes) - 2 medium
Green chillies (vertically slit) - 4 (reduce for less spicy)
Salt - 1 Tspoon
Chilly powder - 1 Tspoon
Dhaniya/Coriander powder - 1 Tspoon
Garam Masala - 1/2 tspoon
Coriander leaves - 1/4 cup
Ginger garlic paste - 1 Tspoon
Dry coconut powder/fresh shredded coconut - 1 tspoon
Poppy seeds/cashews (make a paste) - 1 tspoon
Pepper powder - 1/2 tspoon
Milk/cream - 1/2 cup
Oil - 2 tspoons

Procedure

• First take the boiled and pealed eggs and with a folk spoon gently punch/make small slits/cuts all over the egg. Slits help to let gravy go in without effecting the eggs texture.
• Take a non stick wide skillet/sauce pan/kadai and add little oil and heat on a medium flame.
• Once oil gets heated, add onions, green chillies and saute them. Now add salt and turmeric and let them fry.
• When onions turn translucent and slightly brown, add ginger garlic paste and stir for a minute to let its raw smell go.
• Now add boiled eggs and gently stir. Sprinkle chilly powder, pepper powder and garam masala and stir gently to coat eggs with spices. Fry the mixture on a very low flame for about 3 minutes.
• Now add coriander leaves and 2 cups of water to the mixture and let the eggs cook in the gravy.
• When gravy starts boiling and oil starts to float a bit on top, add half a cup of milk, coconut powder and poppy seeds paste and stir mixture. Allow the eggs to cook in gravy for 5 more minutes.
• Switch off the stove, garnish the curry with coriander leaves and serve with hot rice.

Hyderabad Samiya Pulao (Vermicelli/Thin Spagethi)

This recipe is a great life saver when I am running short of time or also in the instances when I feel little tired but still want to cook a real fast and delicious food for our breakfast/dinner.

Ingredients (serves 4)
Dry roasted vermicelli/samiya - 2 cups
Onions - 2 medium sized (cut them in to small cubes)
Curry leaves - 4 sprigs
Green chillies - 3 (sliced thin)
Udad dal - 1 tspoon
Mustard seeds - 1 tspoon
Mint leaves - 3 sprigs
Beans - 1/4 cup (cut in to small pieces)
Cloves - 2
Ginger garlic paste - 1 tspoon
Bay leaves - 1
Potato - 1 (cut them in to medium pieces)
Shredded carrot - 1/4 cup
Green peas - 1/4 cup
Extra Garnishing (optional)
Roasted cashews
Coriander leaves
Fried onions
Lime juice - 2 drops

Procedure

• Dry roast the vermicelli/samiya on a very low flame until they turn slightly brown in colour. Do not burn them.
• Boil the vegetables like carrots, potato pieces, peas and beans on stove for about 10minutes and or in a microwave for about 5 minutes. Strain the water and keep them aside.
• Now take a wide non stick pan/kadai, add little oil to it and heat on a medium flame. When oil gets heated, add udad dal and mustard seeds.
• When mustard seeds splutters, add curry leaves, onions, mint leaves, green chillies, cloves, bay leaves, cashews and the boiled vegetables.
• Once onions turn translucent, add salt, ginger garlic paste and stir the mixture properly for 2 minutes.
• Now to the same mixture, add 4 cups of water (1:2 ratio, for 1 cup of roasted samiya add 2 cups of water) and bring water to boiling.
• Once water starts boiling, add dry roasted samiya slowly and stir parallely with other hand.
• Now add 2 tspoons of ghee and cover it with a lid and let it cook on a low flame for about 5 minutes. Check if samiya is cooked soft(refer to the above snap). You will sense a nice aroma!
• Switch off the stove and garnish pulao with fried onions, cashews and coriander leaves and squeeze little lime juice for more taste. Serve hot! and yummy hyderabadi samiya pulao with plain curd/raitha/any spicy pickle.

Idly Chilly Manchurian

This is a great appetizer one could ever make with leftover tiffin items like idlies. Back home, when idlies were left, my mother in law used to slightly fry them on tawa and eat them with spicy gun/nut powder. This idea offcourse (little customised to my taste) sparkled in my mind when I had left over ravva idlies the other day. The result was great and my husband actually thought it was aloo manchurian until he scrutinized to figure it out:)
Ingredients to serve 3Idlies (leftover/fresh) - 4
Green chillies - 5 (vary as per spice preference)
Salt - 1 tspoon
Onions - 1 big sliced thin
Shredded carrots - 1/4 cup (optional)
Ginger garlic paste - 1 tspoon
Chilly powder - 1 tspoonPepper powder - 1 tspoon
Curry leaves - 3 sprigs
Garlic - 4 pods sliced
Oil - 2 Tspoons
Tomato ketchup - 2 tspoons
Chilly sauce - 3 tspoons

Procedure

Cut the idlies in to small cubes and place them in a microwave safe bowl.

Sprinkle little water and time cook them for about 2 minutes. This would make idlies little soft and fresh.

Take a non stick frying pan, add little oil and heat on a low flame.

Once oil gets heated, add onions, green chillies, curry leaves, garlic slices. Saute them well until onions turn translucent.

When onions turn little transulucent, add ginger garlic paste and stir them well. Now add the steamed pieces of idly.

Stir the mixture to coat the idly pieces with all the spices. Allow the pieces to fry for about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle salt, chilly powder and pepper powder and stir the mixture properly.

Now add chilly sauce and tomato ketchup and toss them. Stir well to coat the pieces well. Switch off the stove and transfer them in to a serving plate and serve hot!!

Setting Comfortable Home in a new Place

Moving to a different place or country involves various tasks such as planning, shopping, packing, travelling/moving, unpacking and finally settling down. A safer and a smoother transition requires everything to be in sync. Not always things happen as planned and may often result in turmoil and trauma leading to messing up things.

A life saver idea is to be prepared well ahead of time with minimal tools and tips. One such life saver tool is 'LIST'. It helps us to stay smart and plan perfect to avoid last minute tensions. List doesn't need any formatting or alignment, so just pick up a note/scribbling pad and start listing items. Think in all possible angles and start listing tasks or items related to one room at a time.

Example: Start with kitchen, write down all the related tasks and items required and leave some extra space below to update later. Keep updating the list as and when you recollect and think of any tasks/items. Once done with kitchen, move on to other rooms like bedroom, kids rooms, pooja room, patio/yards/balcony and living room.

Once listing is complete, validate the items listed, shortlist the items and sort by categories like items to be sent by transport, items carried by you personally, packing style, validation of the items to check if they meet a country's custom policies. Ex: As per few countries' customs policies, perishable food items like sweets, fruits or vegetables or sometimes even pickles are strictly not allowed and may be asked to discard at the airport. Consider pros and cons of every single task to minimize wastage and unnecessary tension.

Follow the smooth list life cycle below:

Listing items > Updating list on a timely basis > Review > Shortlist the required items> Sort per categories> Finalize the list > Validation > Implementation

Kitchen

• First list down all the essential things you need for a convenient cooking.
• Depending on the destination place, take a call on how to gather or arrange for the required items.
• Do a little research on net, check forums or check with your friends/relatives living in that area.
• If you are moving within a same country, then its more like a cake walk but, if you are moving to a new country, you got to check various options like availability of all essential food items in that location, utensils catering to our cooking and their price, quality, accessibility to the nearest stores.

Note:
This is a common suggestion from most of my friends and relatives who settle here. This list can vary as per our regional cooking and preferences. You may customize the list or shortlist few items as per your interest or luggage permitting weight convenience.

LIST

Utensils and Cutleries

Pressure cooker (small) - any metal except steel as it burns food at the bottom
IDLY Plates
Rolling Pin BELAN (to roll chapathis)
Rolling pin Base Chakla (optional)
Mixer grinder (Preethi high power 110 W is good)
Chopping board (Anjali) Small - knife attached to board....for comfortable chopping
Desi Spice rack (steel spices box)

Wet grinder (for frequent batters)
Spoons and forks - 1 dzn
Mortar pestel - to grind fresh spices/garlic - small - optional
Dosa Tawa - light weight - Nonstick
Steel Spatulas and scoops to serve rice/dal

Steel Plates - 4 - small
Steel bowls - 4 - small
Apple cutter
Peeler
Long Coconut scrapper
Food
Sambar/Rasam powders....home made
Masala powders
Achars/pickles
Tamarind pulp home made (optional)
Vadiyams - home made and the list on and on.......as per your convenience

Miscelaneous Items (for living room/kids room/bedroom/personal)

Portable Family Snaps
Photo albums
Personal phone number diary
Travel safe Wall decors

Indianised dresses for parties
Regional language wall calendar for festivals
Animation Regional kids movie CDs/DVDs (you may not find them all in abroad stores)
Regional cooking books
Regional music CDs for car/IPod
Gods' photos
Pooja items
Favorite Indian designer bed sheets (optional)
Designer fancy Hair clips, Bindi, hair bands, comfort combs etc.

Aratikaaya Vepudu (Plantain Fry)

I feel lucky as I got a chance to travel and explore various regions of India. I should thank my dad and his bank for giving us oppurtunity. When it comes to exploring traditional food, I enjoyed more in south India. Yummy dosas, pongal, idly, utappams, appam and stew, fish curries and list never ends. Especially in tamilnadu and kerala, the one item that best attracts everyone and motivates to munch them are the 'Hot Chips'. There are few indepedent and also a chain of stores selling fresh and hot chips made with either plantain or other potato varities as per our order.

Plantain, known as aratikaaya in telugu and Vaalakha in tamil is a very good fibrous vegetable. It is also referred to as 'potatoes in air' or 'cooking bananas' and are extremely popular in latin american countries, Africa and Asia. Plantain curry tastes great even if it is cooked with little oil.

Entire plantain plant can be used. Plantains are cooked and used to make various curries, fries, gravies, chips, snacks and much more. Their leaves are used as a great substitute for plates. Traditionally on a festival day, people eat festival varieties served on a fresh washed plantain leaf. Plantain flowers can be used in salads. Plantain cut branches and stems are used to decorate wedding halls, pooja mandir or space where gods' pooja is performed on days of festivals/vrathams/special occasions.

Yummy Festival Meal!!!!!!!
Courtesy: Wikipedia
This plantain fry is very easy to prepare and tastes great!

Ingredients
Plantain - 2 medium

Onion - 1

Red chillies - 5

Salt - 1 Tspoon

Chilly powder - 1 Tspoon

Turmeric - 1 Tspoon

Curry Leaves - 4 (chop them small)

Urad dal - 1 Tspoon

Cumin seeds - 1 Tspoon

Mustard seeds - 1 Tspoon

Dry Coconut powder - 1.5 / 1 1/2 Tspoon

Pepper powder - 2 Tspoons

Oil - 3 Tspoons

Garlic - chopped - 4 pods

Coriander/Dhaniya Powder - 2 Tspoons

Procedure

• Peel the plantain slightly to retain its fibre. Wash the peeled plantain and cut them in to medium sized pieces.
• Take a shallow and wide non stick frying pan, add oil and heat it on a low flame.
• Once oil gets heated, add mustard seeds and urad dal. When mustard seeds crackle, add cumin seeds, onions, red chillies, garlic and curry leaves, salt, turmeric and fry until onions turn slightly translucent.
• Now to the mixture, add cut plantain pieces and stir them. Allow the plantain pieces to fry on a low flame for about 7 minutes.
• Stir the mixture to avoid sticking to the bottom. Sprinkle little water and allow the half cooked plantain pieces to fry for another 5 minutes. When plantain pieces start turning slightly brown, add coconut powder, chilly powder, coriander powder and pepper powder and stir again for a minute and switch off the stove.
• Hot, yummy and slightly crispy dry plantain fry (aratikaaya kobbari kaara vepudu) is ready!! serve with rice accompanied by dal/sambar/any lentil.

Carrot Kalakand Low Fat (Microwave cooking)

Fresh carrots are the best vegetable source of vitamin A and a great delight to eyes. Best way to eat carrot is to consume in its raw form. It is observed scientifically that taking 200 ml of carrot juice a day not only relieves our cold and virus but also helps to build our natural resistance to gems and infections. Since, not all of us relish carrot in raw form, there are alternative ways to consume them like carrot pulao (carrot with rice), carrot soup, carrot and vegetable stew, carrot juice. For the dessert lovers, list is never ending.....carrot halwa, carrot kheer (to post recipe soon), carrot cake and carrot kalakand.

Mom's Health Tip: Include carrot as much as you can in your daily food items. You can use like a filling stuff or to garnish tiffins like dosa, upma, idly and bread sandwitches.

Best thing about carrot kalakand recipe is the way its cooked in a microwave, time saving, very healthy and consumes less ghee too.

Tip: For easy cooking use grated carrot.
Ingredients

Shredded carrot - 1 1/2 cups

Condensed milk - 2 1/2 cups

Ghee/butter stick - amount equivalent to 1 stick

Elaichi/Cardamom powder - 1/2 Tspoon

Saffron strands - 3 (optional)

Dry roasted nuts for Garnishing

Almond thin slices

Cashews

Procedure:

• Quickly wash the shredded carrot and strain them. Now chop them small and place them in a wide microwave safe bowl.
• Sprinkle little water and cook them for about 5 minutes.
• Now take butter/ghee in a bowl and slightly heat in a microwave until warm for about 40 seconds. You can substitute ghee with full fat ricotta cheese for more taste.
• Add warm butter/ghee, condensed milk to the bowl with shredded carrot and stir the mixture properly for about 1 minute.
• Cook them again in microwave for about 10-12 minutes. Stir after 5 minutes to make sure the mixture doesn't spill. Keep an eye for the cooking mixture, when condensed milk turns slightly brown and sticks to the surface of the bowl, switch off the microwave. At this point, mixture must become thick and slightly crunchy.
  Note: For kalakand its good to have crunchy texture so, make sure you wont make it too soft.
• Now add cardamom powder, saffron strands and stir well. When the mixture cools down, make small balls or spread it on a plate and cut them in to desired shapes.
• Garnish them on top with dry roasted nuts and extra ghee (optional) and serve!!!.