Aloo methi

I had bought a bunch of Methi leaves from the indian grocery store and was wondering what I could make different with it & when I saw some potatoes sitting in my vegetable basket, in a minute I decided to make Aloo methi....Methi has a lot of medicinal value as a lot of you know....it is especially great for diabetic people.
Ingredients:
Methi- 1 bunch
Potatoes- 2
Onion- 1
Tomato- 1
Ginger/garlic grated- 1 tbsp
Green chilly- 1
Turmeric powder- 1 tsp
Red chilly powder- 1 tbsp
Dhania jeera powder- 1 tbsp
Hing- a pinch
Salt
Cumin seeds- 1 tbsp

Method:
Pluck just the leaves of methi and leave the thicker stem behind. Wash the methi leaves about 3 times nicely and then chop them & keep it aside. Heat oil in a skillet, temper with cumin seeds and then add finely chopped onion, ginger/garlic, green chilly & saute them nicely......then add chopped tomatoes & saute until soft...now add the potatoes(skin peeled & diced to cubes)...sprinkle some water, cover & cook for 3-4 mins until potato is slightly cooked(don't overcook the potatoes). Now add the chopped methi leaves, Turmeric powder,Red chilly powder,
Dhania jeera powder, Hing- a pinch & Salt to taste.Mix nicely and sprinkle water if needed and cover & cook for another 4-5 mins until it gets cooked. Again, potato should be cooked well at this stage but not overcooked or mashed.
Serve Aloo methi with roti or rice.
Note:
To avoid the bitter taste of methi, I found a great tip from showmethecurry.com after chopping the leaves, sprinkle some salt, ,mix it well and keep it aside for 10 mins. Then before adding the methi squeeze out all the water from it and just add the leaves. This will take away all the bitterness from the methi.

Nei Appam

Happy Karthigai Deepam to you all!
Karthigai deepam is celebrated all over Tamilnadu on the full moon day of Krithika star in the Tamil month of Krithigai....Today is the day when Lord Shiva appeared in the form of a huge jyothi taking a mountain form at Tiruvanamalai...it is also the day when Goddess Parvathi united the six forms of Lord Muruga into one with six faces and hence is very auspicious for Lord Muruga.
The traditional neivediyam for this includes pori urundai, appam, paal payasam, etc.....For this karthigai Deepam, I decided to make Nei appam which I learnt from my MIL recently .....so here goes the recipe
Ingredients:
Raw rice - 1 cup soaked in water for about an hour and a half
Jaggery-3/4 cup
Banana- 1
cardamom powder-1 tsp
Baking soda- 1 tsp
coconut- 1 tsp
Ghee & oil for deep frying
Method:
Grind the soaked rice with very very little water to a thick batter.Then add the jaggery, banana & coconut and grind it to a smooth thick batter.
then mix in the cardamom powder, a tsp of ghee & baking soda. Since we are adding baking soda we need not wait for this batter to ferment. fill the holes in the paniyaram pan with oil + a drop of ghee in each.Now take a ladle full of batter and pour into the paniyaram pan.
Flip to the other side and cook till both sides are brown.

Yummy soft Nei appams are ready....


Note: I have used only 1-2 drops of ghee while deep frying and the rest is canola oil for health reasons...I can't bring myself to deep fry it all in ghee entirely..but it tasted equally good.

This is my submission for the EFM-Sweet event conducted by Srilekha.

Palak Dhal

I had some fresh organic spinach(Palak) in my fridge which was calling out to me.....I wanted to make some side dish using spinach which would go well with chapathi.....so I came up with my own simple recipe for Palak dhal using moong dhal and pearl onions (just for a change against the usual onions) and it turned out excellent......one thing I need to share here with the readers, my mom always used to make spinach for lunch and never for dinner...not sure why, but I have also heard from a lot of other people too that it is best to eat spinach during daytime or in other words avoid it at dinner time......
Ingredients:
Spinach- 1 bunch
Moong dhal- 1/2 cup
Pearl onions- 4 or 5 (cut each into half)
Tomato- 1 small
Ginger/Garlic (grated)- 1 tbsp
turmeric powder- 1 tsp
Chilly powder- 1 tsp
garam masala powder- 1 tsp
hing- a pinch
salt to taste
For tempering:
Cumin seeds- 1 tsp
Fenugreek seeds- 1 tsp
Red chilly- 1
Mustard seeds- 1 tsp
Hing- a pinch
Oil- 1 tbsp
ghee- 1/2 tsp

Method:
Pressure cook the moong dhal along with a pinch of turmeric & hing and keep it aside.
Temper the above mentioned items in hot oil (I also added very little (abt 1/2 tsp) ghee to give a nice flavor)....when the mustard seeds splutter, add the pearl onions & grated ginger garlic and saute till the onion turns golden brown....then add the tomatoes & saute till tomato becomes pulpy...now add the chopped spinach & saute till the spinach shrinks. Now add the mashed cooked moong dhal, turmeric powder, red chilly powder, salt, hing & garam masala powder. add some water so that it doesn't get too thick.Cook for 2-3 mins and serve hot with roti or rice.

Weekend Brunch 3

I was busy posting all other kinds of recipes that I almost forgot about the weekend brunches......So here I go with another weekend brunch recipe........Rice with Keerai (spinach) milagootal, maangai(raw mango) curry and vazhaikai(raw banana) curry. Keerai milagootal (also called poricha kootu in tamil) and mangai curry are famous dishes in Kerala which is also made in Tamilnadu under different names....Not sure why it is called milagootal(milagu means pepper) when the recipe doesn't really call for pepper in it........But driven by the name I do add 1/2 tsp of pepper bcos its anyways good for health.....my hubby loves keerai milagootal and I try to cook spinach every weekend......about vazhaikai (raw banana) even though it is has a lot of potassium, Vitamin B6, etc and is good for health, it takes time to digest and can sometimes lead to gastric issues.....so I would always recommend you use some ginger, hing or garlic(if u like it)......this definitely aids in digestion......and mango curry goes well even with plain curd rice, upma or chapathi and this can be stored in the refrigerator for upto a week like other home made pickles.
Keerai milagootal:
Spinach- 1 bunch
Tur dhal- 1/4 cup
moong dhal-1/2 cup
coconut- 2 tbsp
urad dhal- 1 tbsp
pepper- 1/2 tsp
red chilly- 3
Cumin seeds -1 tbsp
Rice flour- 1/2 tsp
turmeric powder- 1 tsp
Hing- a pinch
salt
oil
Method:
Pressure cook the dhal with little turmeric powder, hing and mash it nicely & keep it aside. Cook the chopped spinach with little water, salt & a pinch of turmeric powder. Once the spinach is cooked well, slightly mash it with the back of the laddle and then add the mashed dhal to it. In the meantime in a drop of oil slightly roast the urad dhal(until golden brown), red chilly & pepper and grind it with coconut, cumin seeds and 1/2 tsp of rice flour. Add this paste to the spinach + dhal and add water if it is too thick & let this cook nicely for 5 mins. Then in a tsp of oil splutter mustard seeds & hing and finally add it to the spinach and serve with rice with a tbsp of ghee.
Vazhaikai (raw banana) curry:
Ingredients:
Raw banana- 1 big
Onion- 1/2 of big onion
Tomato- 1/2
sambar powder- 1 tbsp
turmeric powder- 1 tsp
Red chilly powder- 1 /2tsp
salt
Hing- 1 tsp

For tempering:
Channa dhal - 1 tbsp
Urad dhal- 1 tbsp
Cumin seeds- 1 tsp
Mustard seeds- 1 tsp
Curry leaves
Ginger/garlic grated- 1 tbsp
Method:
Slice the raw banana into circle or semi-circle pieces and put it in a bowl filled with water.
Add all the tempering items one by one to hot oil, then add the chopped onions, tomatoes & saute till the onion gets cooked. Now add the sliced raw banana pieces.
Add salt, sambar powder,turmeric powder, red chilly powder & hing. Sprinkle some water to help the raw banana get cooked and close the lid of the pan. After 2-3 mins, open the lid and see if the banana pieces are cooked. Then saute them for another 2-3 mins and then serve hot with rice.

Maangai(mango) curry:
Raw mango- 1
Red chilly powder- 2 tbsp( add to taste)
Salt- to taste
Asafoetida (Hing)- 2 tsp
Mustard seeds- 1 tbsp
Oil- 2tbsp Method:
Chop the mango into small teeth like pieces and put it in a bowl along with required chilly powder and salt. In the meantime, temper the mustard seeds in hot oil, when the mustard seeds splutter add the hing also to the hot oil to get a nice aroma and pour this over the mango pieces in the bowl and mix nicely. give it 20-30 mins and then serve with rice. According to me, hing is a must in this recipe and is what gives the pickle a nice flavor.

Wacky Banana Cake

Many thanks to Nandita of Saffrontrail for this wonderful recipe.click here to view her recipe...
I have followed the recipe exactly the same way...the only difference is I avoided the nuts...Also, instead of banana you could use apples or any other fruit and add nuts based on your choice......what I luv the most abt this recipe is, it is not only very very simple to make but also quite healthy since it has no eggs, no butter and has mostly whole wheat flour........I made this cake at the perfect time when three of my friend's little girls are celebrating their 1st birthday this month....ok so this simple healthy cake is for the three little angels Nadhi (Dec 5th), Anvita(Dec 6th) & Shakthi (Dec 10th).....Happy Happy B'day little ones.....I'm going to make a note of the recipe here for my future reference......
Ingredients:
1.Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
2. All purpose flour- 1/2 cup
3. Sugar- 3/4 cup (Powder this in mixie)
4. baking soda- 1 tsp
5. Salt- 1/2 tsp
6. Cinnamon powder- 1 tsp

7. White vinegar- 1 tbsp
8. Vanilla extract- 1 tsp
9. Canola oil- 5 tbsp
10. Cold water (not iced)- 1 cup


11. Banana or apple- sliced- 1
12. nuts- optional
Method:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and take ingredients 1 to 6 in a flour sifter and sift it into a 8x8 square baking pan ( After using this though, I thought it might be better to use a loaf pan to get more thickness/depth of the cake). Pour ingredients 7 to 10 and mix well without any lumps. Now add ingredients 11 & 12 and shake the pan to level off and sprinkle some cinnamon powder. Now bake in the oven for 30 mins or till done (when the top of the cake turns golden brown & a fork comes out clean). Cut into square pieces and serve warm.

White Kurma

White Kurma with idiyappam is my all time favorite tiffin item that I usually order whenever I go to Saravana bhavan and Balaji bhavan in chennai......the specialty of this is the slight sweet taste of the coconut & cashews used......it can be had with idiyappam, chappathi, appam or even rice......so here goes the recipe for White Kurma....
Ingredients:
Onion- chopped- 1 big
Tomato- chopped- 1/2 tomato
vegetables- 2 cups-(cauliflower, peas, potato,carrot, beans)
chilly powder-1/2 tsp
Dhania powder- 1 tbsp
Green chilly- 3 or 4
coconut- 3 tbsp
cashewnuts- 4
Poppy seeds- 1 tbsp
coconut milk- 1 /2 cup
Ginger garlic paste- 1 tbsp
salt to taste

For tempering:
oil
Fennel seeds/ Saunf- 1 tbsp
Curry leaves- few
cinnamon stick- 1 piece

Method:
Add the saunf & cinnamon to hot oil and when nice aroma comes, add the curry leaves followed by chopped onions, green chilly and ginger/garlic paste. Saute' this nicely. then add chopped half a tomato(do not add more tomato in order to get the white color for the kurma). Then add the chopped vegetables, salt to taste, dhania powder & a pinch of chilly powder. cover and cook for 3-5 mins. In the meantime, make a paste of coconut, poppy seeds and cashwenuts & add to the cooked veggies. Cook this for about 2 mins. Then in the end add half a cup coconut milk and turn off the stove in a min. Garnish with cilantro leaves.
Yummy white kurma is ready!!!