A vegetarian food blog with unique and interesting recipes from all over the world mainly focused on South Indian Cuisine.
Thavala Vadai – A festive special fried food prepared with mixed lentils, rice and with coconut but without any onion or garlic. Honestly, we don’t need any occasion to make this recipe. Crispy on the outside and soft inside, this vadai an anytime perfect recipe. Today I am happy to share my mom’s Thavala vadai recipe. Read further to check the detailed recipe with stepwise pictures. Jump to Recipe
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I wish you all a happy and prosperous Diwali / Deepavali. Last but not the least, here comes my no garlic crispy and crunchy Karasev recipe flavored with peppercorns. Karasev is a famous snack from Tamil Nadu, and it pairs well with tea, coffee, and even rice too. Today I am going to share the no garlic version of the sevu and also how to press it traditionally with a perforated ladle.
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An authentic and a traditional Deepavali recipe – Okkarai prepared with channa dal, moong dal, jaggery, and ghee. It is like the sweet version of paruppu usili without any veggies. Read through the post and you will know why I call this as sweet paruppu usili. Check out the detailed stepwise okkarai recipe here.
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The next recipe that I am going to share in the Diwali recipe series is the delicious savory snack – Quinoa Murukku / Chakli. I prepared this murukku with quinoa flour and roasted gram flour. Enjoy this Diwali with the protein-rich quinoa murukku. Here comes the stepwise pictorial recipe of the quinoa murukku.
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Diwali Special Sweet Recipe – A delicious Bengali Sweet Sondesh or Sandesh prepared with Ricotta cheese in the microwave with the delicate flavors of rose syrup. For the people outside India, Diwali is just another working day. Not everyone has the luxury to take off. But at the same time, we don’t want to miss the celebrations, fun and of course food. If you are looking for a quick yet delicious sweet recipe, then you are at the right place. Check out this microwave ricotta cheese Sondesh recipe that can be prepared within 15 minutes, flat.
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For the alphabet “G,” I am going to share a baked recipe from India. It’s the festive special Gujiya. It’s the traditional gujiya prepared in the microwave and conventional oven. I made the inner filling with milk powder, nuts, and condensed milk. The condensed milk glaze adds shine to this baked gujiyas which in turn makes it more inviting and decadent and you won’t even feel that it’s baked.
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Kheer or Payasam is one of the quintessential recipes, in particular, on the festive days. And the South Indian Thali is incomplete without the kheer or payasam. When I was browsing through my payasam archives, I realized that I hadn’t posted the sago kheer or javvarisi payasam as we say in Tamil. Sago Kheer is my go to neivediyam recipes on most of my Thursday pooja. Sago is the tapioca pearl, and it is one of the widely used food ingredients during fasting days. With Holi festival coming up, I thought of posting it sooner than later. :-)
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I am wishing you all a very happy and a prosperous new year. Today I am going to share a sweet recipe prepared in my instant pot. It is the rice and walnut kheer or the Akhrot kheer. This is a super simple recipe with just 4 ingredients that can be whipped up pretty easily. It’s is rich and decadent kheer with the goodness of walnuts. Today I am sharing the instant pot method but please check the notes to see how it can be prepared on stove top too.
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Following my Diwali Mantra – “keep it simple”, I am sharing yet another traditional and yummylicious dessert recipe but with an interesting twist. Here comes the Instant Semi homemade Rasmalai or the Ricotta cheese rasamalai. This is a perfect recipe for parties and potlucks too as this can be prepared well ahead. :-) This recipe was in my mind for quiet sometime and few of my friends were asking me to share quick and easy dessert to prepare for potlucks. With Diwali coming up, isn’t the best time to share this recipe? So scroll down to read how to prepare rasmalai with ricotta cheese.
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One of the biggest festivals of India is right around the corner. Yes I m talking about Diwali the festival of lights. This time Diwali and Halloween are back to back which of course means tons of treats. There will some tricks too. Today I m going to present a popular and simple Diwali sweet called 7 cup cake or burfi. Interesting name huh? This recipe calls for only 4 ingredients, we use 7 measures of these ingredients and hence the name.
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I am wishing a Happy Navratri / Vijaya Dasami/ Durga Puja to all my friends. Today I am presenting a low calorie healthy kheer or Payasam or pudding. I can hear you asking, how can a kheer; a sweet recipe can be healthy and low calorie? What if it’s prepared with quinoa and without any sugar? Here comes my Quinoa Kheer prepared with Truvia® Nectar
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Balushahi / Badushahs / Bhadushah / Badushah / Badusha is a traditional and a popular Indian sweet recipe. It is pretty popular all over India. It is popularly known as Balushahi in North India whereas in South it is called as Badushah or Badusha. It is also called as the Indian Doughnut. It’s a soft and flaky sweet prepared with Maida or all-purpose flour and deep fried in clarified butter/oil and coated with sugar syrup.
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Omapodi or Ajwain Nylon Sev is a deep fried snack prepared with chick pea flour with the hint of ajwain or omam as we say in Tamil. It is one of the popular snacks and prepared mainly during Diwali and this nylon sev is also used for lot of chaat items. Here is the second recipe under the holiday dishes.
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Wishing you all folks – A very happy and prosperous Diwali / Deepavali / Dhanteras.
Last year I didn’t do a round up post but then just shared what I did on the diwali day. The title was Happy Diwali / Deepavali 2014 and I would like carry on the same for 2015. So here I am. Just sent the newsletter yesterday and thought why not do a round up post this year. We have to put our lights and diyas. Hopefully today evening. The diwali traditions are different in each and every household. According to me festivals = fun + food + family + friends. In US, friends are our extended family and I am getting ready for potlucks. But before that I would like to wish you all happy diwali and here is a round up post for all sweets and savories. (Click the image to get the recipes)
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I saw my blogger friends from the Blogging Marathon group trying bread jamun instead of the regular gulab jamun. No matter what Gulab Jamuns will there for all diwalis in our house hold. I followed the same tradition here in US too. But this time I wanted to try something different. Thought of making bread jamun and wanted to make it healthy. So I went with wheat bread and while mixing it I thinking how about baking instead of frying? I was super excited and baked and made this gulab jamuns.
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In the attempt of preparing healthy snacks I baked shankarpaara and then here is the raagi murukku. I didn’t bake it though. You can find the regular baked muruku recipe here but this one I went with regular frying. I am not sure about the calories in regular murukku and ragi murukku but I am sure the addition of ragi flour and roasted channa dal flour will add some additional vitamins and minerals for sure. Ragi which is popularly known as finger millet, red millet is cultivated in Southern India and it’s pretty popular in Karnataka especially the Ragi mudde (ragi balls). It is rich in iron and calcium. For preparing the murukku you need the presser (except for kai murukku) or as we say Naazhi in Tamil. You can use any shapes.
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Ribbon pakoda is one of my favorite snacks. Errr I think I should say I love all the savory crunchy snacks. Anyways here is my third tea time snack and a Diwali savory recipe – Ribbon pakoda. It is savory item deep fried in oil using the murukku presser with thin ribbon mold or achu. This is the presser that I used. As I posted a baked savory on tuesday, I going with the fried one now. Its the festive season and I can’t keep skipping the task of frying.
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Be it any festival, a festival is not complete without food especially the sweets and savories. All these foods are loaded with calories but during festivals we can’t resist them also. Portion control, a well balanced diet and exercise are very important and during these festivals we need to keep repeating this mantra again and again.
All the Diwali savory snacks are perfect Diwali tea time snacks also. These are perfect after a long tiring day with a cup of tea. Here is my attempt to make one the savory snack a bit healthy by baking and reducing the oil that it takes for frying. According to Wikipedia “Shankarpali/ shankarpaale / shakarpara are a snack popular in Maharashtra, India. It is traditionally enjoyed as a treat on the Diwali holiday”
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It’s already November. Time just flies huh? So Diwali is right around the corner and we have already started to attend Diwali parties and this year I thought let me focus on sweets and savories for Diwali. Last year I spent all my time in preparing the Diwali Legiyam at home and I went easy with sweets and snacks. But preparing homemade Diwali legiyam was a huge project and finding all ingredient here in USA was yet another big task.
We usually prepare Onion Sambhar, Potato curry and kheer on the day before Diwali. On Diwali day which is usually Amavasya we don’t add onion. So all the onion based dishes will be on the day before. Amma prepares crispy vellai appam on the Diwali day morning. We have the legiyam and this appam for breakfast and lunch will be a typical no onion no garlic meal with sambhar, rasam, dry curry and kootu with Diwali snacks and savories.
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I always love quick and easy recipes, of course not compromising the taste though. So does everyone right? That’s the big motivation behind the Prep Once and Serve Twice series that I did for IMC. I always think, if a recipe/dish can be used in multiple ways. Again the credit goes to my mom for this kind of thought process. I need to post couple of her trademark recipes. Stay tuned for those but today’s recipe is going to be Prep once Serve Twice concept recipe or two in one recipe. By this time you might have guessed what it is from the recipe name – Adai batter Vadai.
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Welcome to the 21st day of baking mania.
Mysore pak or pahu or pagu, however it is spelled is one of the favorite sweet of kiddo. He can eat this as a meal itself. Last time during our India trip, he kept on munching the grand sweets mysore pak. I have already posted the traditional way of doing this recipe. As it was kiddos favorite I was looking for an easy recipe. When I found this microwave recipe I was elated and this became an every now and then dessert. I can just do it for kiddo alone and I make it as thins mainly because to portion control the sweet intake during nights. I don’t want to overdose with sweet in the evening or night. I took the base recipe from here and for both traditional and this one I used brown sugar / cane sugar.
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Murukku is one of the popular savory snacks from Tamil Nadu which is must in the festivals like Diwali, Gokulashtami. There are zillion varieties of murukku and today here is my favorite coconut milk murukku and the highlight is that this murukku is not fried but it is baked.
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Welcome to the 12th day of baking mania and wishing you all a very Happy Tamil New Year :-)
My 100th post was Theratti Paal. Its one of my favorite sweet. The start from scratch process takes a loooong time. So I wanted to try this microwave one. This is a simple dish which can be done within 30 minutes. Paal khoa is very famous in Srivilliputhur. Its not only famous for that but also for the Andal Temple and its tower is the official government symbol of State of Tamil Nadu. As today is Tamil New Year, I wanted to post something sweet and here it is :-) My favorite sweet. I have tried similar version with almond flour too and you can find the recipe here. The measurement differs for almond flour and milk powder and also for this recipe I used ghee instead of butter. Its perfect for potlucks.
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Deepavali Legiyam or Deepavali Marundu (Medicine in Tamil) is a traditional and a special recipe prepared during Deepavali mainly to aid in digestion of the rich festive sweets and savories. You can consume this any time of the year irrespective of festivals as this legiyam is the remedy for digestion problems. Starting your day with one teaspoon of this marundhu keeps you healthy. I love this marundu it tickles the tastebuds too. :-)
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