Non-Recipe

Sodappal Stories

Jan 20, 2015 · 17 Comments

How can this blogathon get completed without my sodappal(disaster) story? Before getting into my sodappals, I want to write a letter to myself by myself. So let me get that done first.

Dear Vidhya,

When you cook during festivals or for any get together, one dish will be a sodappal for sure which is ok. So don’t worry about it too much. All is well. (Arasiyal edulam sahajamappa.*)

Please while cooking don’t watch TV, especially your favorite shows. You tend to add ingredients either too much or forget completely. Poor hubby and kiddo.

Please uninstall the scribd and amazon kindle app from your phone. You multitask while reading and watching TV but when the kid does the same thing you say no. How can that be possible? Either let me him also multitask or you don’t do that.

Love
Vidhya

I know I need to read that letter a zillion times. Hopefully I learn this at least this year, especially the third point. Ok enough of the serious part, now comes the comedy part.

Sodappal 1:
It was bhogi morning. I was planning to do kuzhambu, Aval kheer and seppankizhangu (Arbi) curry. A simple menu and planned to pack the same for lunch. I think I will be only person to microwave arbi for 12 minutes. I don’t know why I did and what made to press 12 minutes in microwave. Arbi was overrrrrr cooked. It became mushy and goooyeee. What would I do now? First thought of dropping the idea of making the curry. But then I didn’t want to waste the arbi also. So I ended up adding lot of oil and frying it. ( I don’t usually use more than 2-3 tsps of oil.)

So here is what I got. Fried Arbi – To be honest, it was pretty good. (Magic of oil.. I don’t want to say how much I added ;-) ;-) )

Sodappal 2:

It was a weekday and one of our friend was coming over for dinner. I was planning to make poori and bhaji, that’s all. No fancy dinner and all. Kiddo was playing and I was watching TV (one my favorite show and I was into it) and cooking. That’s the mistake I did. Happily added 3 tbsps of besan for aloo bhaji and added it to the bhaji without even realizing it. Thank God, I tasted it. The bhaji became so thick, added lot of water and salt. It was tasting like raw besan soup. If I add something, something else was missing. I was thinking of fixing it again, but I didn’t want to take a chance as we invited the friend. Ended up making another dish and I had the bhaji twice just to punish myself and thrashed the rest :-( :-(

* famous dialogue from the tamil movie Suriyan which means these are very common in politics.

Non – Recipe / Acquired Taste

Jan 16, 2015 · 8 Comments

I have heard this term a zillion times after coming to US. Any new food or dish and if I don’t like it I hear friends saying, “you will get used to it”. But what is this acquired taste? Since Wikipedia has great definition I don’t want to define again and here it is.

To put in simple words, as said in Kumki movie by the astrologer to Thambi Ramaiyyah, “Aduve Pazhakirum”, that’s what is acquired taste. When given no options, do you have any choice?

The moment you step out of your house, you need to get acquainted to many things and one among them is food.

For me, the first thing I got used to was puzhungal arise (Boiled rice). At home we use only raw rice, but in my UG hostel it was puzhungal arisi. It took me some time to get adjusted but now I am all up for it.

After coming to US, I got used to many things and surprisingly started loving them.

Yes Yes List:

These are the foods that I got used to and I really enjoy them.

Salads: If someone would have told me during my UG that in next two years you will be having salads for lunch I wouldn’t have believed. My response would have been “ilai thazhai ellam naan saapidave maten” (I won’t ear raw greens). But I got used to the crunchiness of lettuce and now I can any salad with balsamic vinegar any time.

Cheese: Got introduced to many cheese varieties and acquainted to the taste. Now cheese is my snack especially the mini baby bels.

Olive Oil: Yes I can taste flavored EVOO just like that. If you give nice bread, I can keep on munching.

I can add many things to this list, but surprisingly I have many food items that I couldn’t get used to also.

No No List:

Black coffee: No way.. I need milk. Period. Till date I take milk for a week to my work to have coffee and tea. ;-)

Goat cheese: I cannot go near this cheese any time.

Green Tea: I drink daily, just for health purpose but not sure if I will ever get acquainted to its taste.

Sweets in the morning: Ok. I can write a post about this topic itself. Yeah, seriously I cannot have sweets in the morning. Be it cereal or oatmeal or anything I cannot have them in the morning. As usual blame it on Amma. Amma used to make proper tiffin in the morning like idly, dosa, upma, pongal and someday poori even. And in my UG hostel too, the breakfast was pretty decent. Even I don’t like it; I used to eat something at college canteen, which is separate from hostel canteen. I rely on BF very much. I don’t care about lunch and dinner. M can happily have cereal, donuts for breakfast and same with Vaandu too. I am too lazy to do prepare for myself so I got used to skipping BF and eating early lunch. I have my cereal in the evening time. Weird huh?? I do get hot BF when my amma or MIL is here. But one thing I realized was, I can have fruits in the morning. That’s when I started taking these breakfast smoothies.

I think let me stop here..

So what’s your take on acquired taste?

Non Recipe : Pongal

Jan 14, 2015 · 12 Comments

I know pongal is not today. As I have other recipe post for tomorrow, I am posting it today. Anyways its Bhogi so here I am..

Pongal at our household was always with fun and fight.

It’s fun because of the rangolis and of course food. ;-) I love to do rangoli so usually for pongal it will be big one in the front yard with colors and same in the backyard too. As we worship Lord Sun for pongal, we do the puja in the backyard. (Close to Tulsi plant.) We decorate the place with rangolis and keep the sugarcane, turmeric all that stuff.
Fight because of the pongal timing. They keep pongal paanai only during that particular muhurtham/nalla neram. If it comes before 10am well and good else we have wait till that time for lunch ;-) we can have breakfast and all but all those savories and stuff can be eaten only after neivedhyam. My appa wants me to be in the backyard during the entire puja, which means I can’t watch any special pongal programs in TV so fight again. (Silly me, but that’s how I was.)

But the moment we moved to Madras, I started missing those backyard pongal and in US literally nothing. No timings and all, just do the pongal before going to office, a quick neivedhyam and you are done with pongal festival. Thats what going to happen tomorrow. No sugarcane, no fresh coconut nothing. We always wish for what we don’t have right?

At least this year, in kiddo’s Tamil school they are celebrating pongal and they had competitions like drawing, singing, Tamil Elocution and couple more. I am glad they did so that I could explain him about the festival and its importance and all that stuff. I asked kiddo if he wanted to participate in any of these. I didn’t surprise me when he said yes to drawing but when he said yes to singing I was bit surprised. I know he learns music and all that. But doing it for a competition that too this particular Tamil song, I didn’t expect that. I am so happy because, I sang Bharathiyar song for my first competition and kiddo now sang Bharathiyar song too for his competition, but different songs though. Thanks to our music teacher who taught him song and perfected his tune and I hope he rendered the song without killing Tamil (He needs to improve his zh ). She made him sing at a different stage the same day. Also she taught the same song for me to play in veenai too. Glad that my first Tamil song in veenai was Mahakavi’s. (Errr I am a big fan of him.)

Here is his rendering and here is the picture that we taught him to draw for the competition. Only God knows what he did. We can see the pictures only on Jan 18th.

Wishing you all a very Happy Pongal.

Before letting you go, you can find my pongal recipes here. Both are easy versions. I do it in pressure cooker. :-)

https://www.vidhyashomecooking.com/2014/01/13/sakarai-pongal-sweet-pongal/
https://www.vidhyashomecooking.com/2012/06/04/ven-pongal/

Non Recipe : Food Tag

Jan 13, 2015 · 25 Comments

This tag is especially for you BM. When she was talking about tags, I thought of make one but of course food related one for the blogathon. I hope it’s not so difficult.

Rules are pretty simple:

Answer these 13 questions.
Happily pass it on to others

13 questions:

What is the first dish that you cooked?
What is the first dish that you cooked for your better half? (If you are not married, you can tell us what you are planning to cook for him/her)?
Which food were you reserved to try first but then liked later it since you acquired the taste?
What is your comfort food?
Which dish of yours you like the best?
Which dish of yours your family likes the best?
What is your favorite street food?
Tell us about any of your kitchen disaster story.
Any one or two food confessions ;-) ;-)
Apart from basic stuff, like milk, yogurt, veggies what you have in your fridge or in pantry? (Name any 3 items)
Any food related or cooking resolutions for this year?
In our custom when you goto Kasi, you need to give up one of your favorite veggie and fruit. So you cannot eat that veggie or fruit from then on. Which one you would you give up? (It should be your favorite one)
You need to prepare a 3 course meal for a party? What dishes will be there in your menu?

Here are my answers:

Rava upma. (Came so so..)
Rasam and Kovaikai (Tindora) curry. (I didn’t want to take a chance, so stayed in my comfort zone)
Green Tea
Vathal Kuzhambu
Rasam
Eriseri n Rasam
Kulfi.
I have a lot. The big one is while making rasagulla, I added to much of lemon juice and the rasagulla tasted like lemon gola.
I love cerelac. While mixing it for kid I used to have it too. :-) :-) Same with plain complan. ;-)
Cheese, Idly batter and pasta
Need to bake more and try some traditional Indian sweets.
Brinjal and Pineapple :-( :-( :-(
Bhelpuri, Kulcha, some paneer dish, Biriyani and Kurma and Fruit custard. (We need some fruit na.. being healthy ;-) ;-) )

Please feel free to pick up this tag and pass it on to others. If I have missed someone here, I am really sorry.

BM, Freaky Veggie, Ani, Maya, Tharani, VayadiPennu, GB, SS

NonRecipe: Vinegar for cleaning

Jan 8, 2015 · 12 Comments

Along with my regular bulk purchases in Costco, I buy Vinegar in bulk too. So I get two of the above.

Wait wait, I don’t use them for cooking but for cleaning. Apart from cooking, vinegar can be used as a cleaning agent and it’s a great cleaning agent. Nothing can be matched to vinegar when it comes to cleaning. :-) :-)I am very finicky about my vessels especially when it comes to kitchen and I want it to be clean. When you see my kitchen and my closet, you cannot believe that it is maintained by same person. I do clean my closets but not like my kitchen. ;-) ;-)

Here is how I use vinegar,

The water is very hard where we are currently residing. So the stainless steel vessels leave a residue around. Vinegar helps to remove that residue. Monthly once I soak all my vessels and cutleries and even glass vessels in diluted vinegar for 4 to 5 hrs and clean them. I will be all gone and it will be as good as new.
Difficult strains. After making theratti paal, cleaning that vessel will be really difficult. I just soak that vessel in non-diluted vinegar and then cleaning process becomes very easy.
Twice a month I clean my dishwasher (yeah I do that too) with vinegar. Just fill vinegar instead of detergent and run a normal cycle without vessels.
When we park cars outside especially close to curbs, due to sprinklers you get these tiny spots in the car windows. We wipe those spots clear with vinegar.
And of course floor cleaning also, but I haven’t used it that much.

One thing about vinegar is its strong smell. I need to wear mask while cleaning the car for sure. I cannot handle the strong odour. But in spite of that I love vinegar. More than for cooking, I use vinegar for cleaning.

NonRecipe : Me, Vaandu and Thayir Saadam (yogurt rice)

Jan 6, 2015 · 10 Comments

I don’t eat curd/yogurt rice. I know being a Bram how can I be like this? How can a meal get completed without curd rice? Errrr I think I can survive. ;-) ;-)

Ok, like a typical iyer aathu ponnu (Bram girl), I was also eating curd rice regularly till 12th grade. I don’t like sour curd. So my amma make sure the curd is not sour and spoiled me giving curd rice according to my taste. (Blame it on Amma). In my UG hostel, the curd used to be so sour that I stopped eating curd rice. Instead I used to have butter milk. By the end of 4 yrs, I literally stopped eating curd rice. Amma tried to inculcate the habit again but it went in vain. This continued while working too and when I came to US my hubby tried getting me different brands/styles of yogurt but nothing worked. Honestly the yogurt here is like ice cream only. I can have them along with sugar but not with rice. My in-laws and hubby never forced any eating habits. Eat healthy and eat what you like is their motto. So I forgot the concept of curd rice itself.

Now coming to vaandu’s story, as I don’t eat curd rice, I didn’t give curd rice to this guy also. :-) :-) (What a great mom right?) But gave him lot of Gogurt (flavored yogurt tubes) and I made sure he got enough protein and probiotic, so hubby and in-laws didn’t bother about it either. Every time when I go to India, my mom and grandma used to scold me for not giving him curd rice. I just ignored telling the same that I give him flavored yogurt.

But recently this hero of mine stopped eating that also, so no yogurt in any form. I feel so bad and guilty. I should have at least tried giving him curd rice. I am not ready to force him to eat curd rice or flavored yogurts. So I am blaming it on myself and feeling guilty as usual. :-( :-( What all to worry about in parenting right?

Do you have any experience like this?

My first bloggers meet

Jan 2, 2015 · 10 Comments

My holiday season started with full masti. I met Vidya of Traditionally Modern Food and Malar of Malar’s kitchen. It was a last minute plan. Both their trips to Bay got finalized only two weeks before Christmas and from that point we started planning about this meet. It was pretty difficult to coordinate. I had guests visiting, Malar had some family get together and had to return back on Sunday and Vidya with sick kid and preplanned trips. Amidst of all these we successfully managed to squeeze in some time for us and we met. Hurrrrrayyyyy!!! :-) :-) :-)

The best part was when we met, we started talking to each other as if we knew for years. I know we were chatting and whatsapping for past 6 months but still… People who saw us chatting and laughing wouldn’t have believed if we told them that we are virtual friends and meeting for the first time. Malar came to my place and we drove together and met Vidya. It was total fun.

Being food bloggers we spoke about food and all the restaurants in south bay and of course about traffic and weather. ;-) (One was mentioning Bay is very cold and the other was telling its not cold at all. Me as usual like every others in Bay area was warning about the wind factor and the unpredictable weather.) We kept talking about food to such an extent that we forgot to order food for ourselves. Then for namesake we ordered some food and continued our chatting. I don’t know if there was any topic left out. We discussed about parenting, cinema, work, studies, Facebook, Pinterest, family, our natives and what not?

I need to agree it was a very short visit and one and half hours was not enough for three of us. But we were glad that at least we met and were able to spend some time together. We are no more virtual friends. :-) :-) :-)

Will see you all with a recipe post tomorrow. :-)

PS1: The New Year’s day was calm and quiet. Spent good quality time with the family and saw the telugu movie Manam. Cute movie and finally Samantha got some screen space to act and in that trio my vote is for Nagarujanaaa.. Sighhhhh!!!!! ;-)

PS2: Signed up for good reads challenge. But only 12 books :-) Lets see how it goes.

Happy New Year

Jan 1, 2015 · 10 Comments

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous New Year. A New Year and a new beginning. I am starting this year with two events, first one Blogathon and the second Blogging Marathon 3 day marathon for 4 weeks marathon. Let the fun/madness/craziness begin. As I have talked about 2014 here and here, I am starting with the resolutions :-)

So this is not going to be a recipe post but my New Year resolution post. I don’t know if I will be able to follow it or not but what’s wrong in writing them? (kaasa, panama, summa ezhuduvom).

I don’t have that many resolutions.

I want to improve my food photography. Seriously, it’s high time I do that.
To do half marathon. I did 10 miles walkathon this year but need to step up and do half marathon.
To be more patience and not to yell at my Vaandu.
To practice veena at least 3 days in a week and not do a Sunday practice only.
This resolution is in my list for past 20 years and I am very much sure it will be there in the coming years also. “Not to bite my nails”. I should keep telling this to myself zillion times.

That’s it. Not too much right. I hope I can do this. Let’s see. :-)

I really love this dialogue in VTV where Trisha tells the hero – I have promised my dad that I won’t meet you and our hero Simbu replies back telling that promises are meant to be broken. So resolutions can be broken too. I will be the only one to talk about breaking the resolutions while make it. ;-) ;-)

Wishing you all a Happy New Year again. :-)

Image Source: Freepik.com

2014 in review

Dec 30, 2014 · 2 Comments

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Looking back at 2014

Dec 24, 2014 · 7 Comments

One more week and we will be stepping into 2015. I don’t know where and how 2014 went. A year with lot of ups and downs but for my blog it has been a great year altogether. It took me 5 years to write 100 posts but it took only less than 6 months to write 93 posts. You can clearly see how this year has been for me. I wasn’t planning to do a retrospective but when I received the email about “Best of 2014 ” from my BM group, thought why not? Looking at the positives is always good. So here I am. As I don’t want to write as paragraphs, I am doing my year of blogging in bullets.

Obviously I was able to spend lot of time for my blog.
The major change that happened this year was moving my blog from blogger to WP and getting my own domain.
I am not able to say my top visited posts as I lost all my stats while moving from blogger to WP. I am not regretting about that. Moving to WP helped me a lot and expanded my blogging world and got lot of friends.
If I remember correctly, these were my top favorite posts – chow chow kootu, Quinoa green gram dosai and all breakfast smoothies.
Got personal emails and comments on my recipes. I am so glad that people are trying out my recipes.
Successfully participated in 3 blogging marathons. As it was 3 days in a row for 4 weeks, it wasn’t that difficult but it did help explore new foods and of course learnt a lot.
Apart from recipe post, I tried some non-recipe posts like product reviews, book talks and about gadgets I use.
The best of 2014 in my opinion is the release of my postpartum recipe eBook and it was possible only via IMC and their team. Tons of thanks to them.

I think I have done enough self-promotion.

My plans/resolutions for 2015, you can see them on Jan 1st. Hope you all had a terrific year and wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you all back in 2015. :-) :-)

Image Source : www.picjumbo.com

Book Review – My Mother’s Kitchen : a Novel with Recipes by Meera Klein

Dec 15, 2014 · 10 Comments

I have shared this book review link before. But here is the review again.

My Mother’s kitchen : a Novel with Recipes is an informative book and a great read. It is all about Meena’s childhood memories set in the background of God’s own country, Kerala. It’s the story about her family, her siblings, her nannies, her friends and her kin.

I just fell in love with the book reading these lines. “Over time the ache in heart for her parents was filled with the pungency of coriander seeds, the sweetness of cinnamon and the bite of fresh chili peppers.” I love my kitchen and cooking is like a therapy for me. I loved the way the main characters in the book take refuge in their kitchen.

The author brings out the beautiful culture and practices of Kerala with the help of the main characters in the novel – Sudha, Ayah, Devi and Kashi. Her descriptions about VishuKani, Onam, Pongal and Diwali are very fascinating. I really liked the Diwali part where they make clay lamps by themselves every year with the river clay. A perfect eco-friendly diwali.

Her book brings out the navarasas (nine moods) of Meena’s childhood life and along with that the six tastes of food too. I was raised in a small town under the lap of western ghats which is 62 miles from Kodaikanal. The book took me back to my childhood memories. I felt nostalgic when reading about drinking the fresh tender coconut juice, eating raw mangoes, fresh jackfruit smell, drinking water after eating gooseberry and the idli batter making process using the traditional aatukal. (An old stone mortar and with a pestle). This time I took a picture of this aatukal in my native. And here it is. I wish I can go to my native now.

What I liked about the book is

The beautiful description of typical rural Indian life.
The Hindu mythological stories retold in a very simple way.
Each and every chapter has both kitchen and day to day tips like applying oil in your hands before peeling jack fruit to avoid the stickiness or having hot water soak for cramps etc.
And of course her authentic recipes. They are for sure kids friendly with less spice but with great taste. I tried a couple of her recipes, lemon rice and tea stall style potatoes. And they were yummm and the pictures are here.

MK2 — Lemon Rice and Tea stall style potatoes

A delectable read about beautiful kerala, the culture, the authentic recipes and the stories behind each and every recipe.

Non – Recipe – Happy Thanksgiving

Nov 27, 2014 · 5 Comments

I cannot explain my thankfulness in one single post. I am thankful to zillion things that happens around me. This year has its own ups and downs. One thing that I realized this year was, people around me have more confidence in me than the confidence that I have in myself. Here are some of the things that I am thankful for, particularly this year.

I am thankful to,

IMC team – When I wanted to share my thoughts about parenting, they gave me the platform and also gave me the opportunity to develop their android app. I am really thankful to the team for letting me do what I love…
IMC team again. My book on postpartum recipes got published in kindle. I never dreamt of releasing a book but that became a reality today because of IMC team.
My walking partners P, S and N. When I was cribbing to go to gym, they introduced me the outdoor walking, motivated and pushed me to walk at least 5 days. I am totally enjoying it. If I am able to do a half walkathon and lost XX lbs., it’s only because of them. They even made me hike @4:30AM in the morning.
My work and the company which helps me to balance my work and life.
All my friends. In foreign country, friends become your extended family. I am thankful that my BFFs who I knew for the past 12 years are here around with me.
Kavitha, my crochet instructor and friend. When I told her that I can’t do crochet, she motivated and taught me to do crochet and today I have completed 3 projects with crochet. I need to agree her words, it’s a complete stress buster.
“Band of Brothers” – the World War II mini-series. I have seen many war movies and other movies and ads where people don’t know where their next meal is going to come from and all that stuff. But nothing affected me like this series. My way of handling failure and problems got completely changed after watching this.
All my blogger friends and my readers. I really enjoyed all the tags and awards and learnt a lot from them too.
Downs and failures as they taught me valuable lessons.

I am able to do all the above only because of my family. I am thankful to

My kiddo who is ready to adjust to my schedule. I only have a set morning routine. Our evenings are different each and every day. I don’t follow a strict routine daily. I think that’s what makes me to look forward to each and every day.
My better half. He is there behind my success and failure. He is there to support and guide me.
My In-laws who understand my passion and support me throughout.

The post is not yet over. I have to thank two main persons.

My Parents – Who gave everything for me and without them I won’t be here sitting and writing this post.
Last but not the least, God for giving me all the above.

Happy Thanksgiving.. :-) :-)

Will be posting Vegetarian Thanks giving meal soon along with my blogging marathon. So stay tuned :-) :-)

Non-Recipe – Food conversations between me and vaandu

Nov 6, 2014 · 11 Comments

As a sincere sigamani(err local slang for sincere person, not sure about the exact english word), I have been posting only recipes. So for a change here is a non recipe post :-)

I am foodie and I love to cook and love talk about it too. That’s all. I am not a cooking expert; I do have lot of disasters in my kitchen. My hubby (he has no choice), MIL, FIL never complained about my food. In fact my FIL likes my cooking very much and he requests me to do some recipes again. Coming to Vaandu, his eating habits fluctuates a lot. He will be picky eater for some time and at times he will be really good. Even though he eats what I cook, he has some set standards for certain dishes. Like,

Incident 1

Vaandu: Amma, what’s for dinner?

Me: Semiya upma.

Vaandu: Ok, can you make it like how appa makes. (thinks a bit and tells)Err amma wait I will ask appa itself to make it.

Me: ????!!! (Nosecut) In a way I am happy, I don’t need to cook. So from that point on, whenever its upma and be it whatever upma, hubby will be the chef.He does the cleaning too. (So whats so special in his upma, he adds coconut, cashews, groundnuts but no onion. Man, I need to agree, it comes out really well. Will post the recipe soon)

Incident 2:

Me: Kanna, do you want egg?

Vaandu: Oh yeah, but make it like N mumma. (N mumma was his day care taker, Amma is me and mumma is N. Thats how he calls till date. I literally learnt it from her how to make sunnyside up)

Incident 3:

Me: I am going to keep oranges for your snack today.

Vaandu: Ok amma, but please peel it like how S athai(aunt) does. (This S athai is my BFF, who peels the orange skin without any fibre. I will never get her patience)

Incident 4:

Me: It’s your favorite dinner tonight, poori and chole.

Vaandu: yayyy.. but amma did you make the chole like P aunty? (This P aunty, is my BFF too, and knowing vaandu’s liking she gave me her homemade chole masala)

Incident 5:

Vaandu: What’s for dinner amma?

Me: Dosa and chutney?

Vaandu : Red (tomato/onion) chutney or white chutney (coconut)

Me: White

Vaandu: Can you make like how J avva (MIL) makes?

Incident 6:

Me: Let me make some sweet today.

Vaandu: Are you going to make that sweet that R avva (my mom) made?

Me: (pausing a moment) No, sorry I am not making anything. (Becoz my amma had made mysore pahu and I still haven’t got the guts to try it by myself)

Can you see his set standards?Even though I don’t get their recipes exactly, he still eats what I cook and tells “amma I love you”. But these talks happens everytime when I make these dishes. When I was about to give up, this incident happened in India this feb.

At my mom’s place:

My mom was feeding him rasam rice. (Grandma spoils him to the core) After couple of bites he is telling, amma can you please make “your” saaru (rasam). I like your saaru the best. I was like what??????I was in cloud nine, because of two reasons,

1) Finally my kiddo has set my recipe as a standard.

2) Second, the most important, he likes what I like too. (I love my rasam the best ;-) ;-) ). Why this is important, because the kiddo is exact Xerox copy of my husband. 99% ditto copy, not only in facial gestures but also in mannerisms, food habits and what not? He is liking what I like is something to be happy about (comes in that 1%) and here I am recording that.

Happy Diwali / Deepavali 2014

Oct 22, 2014 · 3 Comments

Wishing you all a very happy, safe and prosperous Diwali / Deepavali.

This is going to be Non-Recipe update post :-) First things first. Got a chance to review this great books My Mother’s Kitchen : a novel with recipes by Meera Klein for IMC. You can read the review here. An amazing book which took me to my childhood days. And they have a kindle copy give away too. Please do join the giveaway.

I celebrated my diwali today. But this year its going to be 4 day diwali for me. Tomorrow couple of my friends have invited for Lakshmi pooja and friday and saturday we have diwali parties. So food and sweets are going to be there till saturday. I wish I could take off tomorrow but I can’t :-(

So what I prepared? Went with easy ones this time. Tried my kaara bhoondi and badam leda. But added a list twist to it. Just added food colors and tried making diya shapes. Here is what I did,

Separated the peda mix in the ratio of 3/4 and 1/4.
Added brown food color to the 3/4 ratio and orange color to 1/4 ratio.

Make the base with brown mix and the light with the orange mix and stick them together.
Badam peda mix is very easy to handle, so you can make any shape peda.

Our decorations :-) Can you see our scare crows thats for halloween :-)

So hows your diwali going on??

Tag time – 2 Pregnancy Tag

Oct 13, 2014 · 2 Comments

One more tag time. My friend BM tagged me for this pregnancy experience post. I have already shared about my labour experience in my postpartum page but still here are more details.

1. Was the pregnancy planned?

Yes

2. Was I married at the time?

Yes. :-) :-)

3. Reactions?

Mixed feelings. Happiness/surprise/overwhelmed.

4. Abortion an option?

No.

5. My age then?

Twenty Four

6. How did I find out?

Pregnancy Kit at home

7. Who did I tell first?

Of course my hubby

8. Due dates?

Only one. Feb 5th. But the kiddo was born one week before.

9. Morning sickness?

Tell me about it. I had migraine issues and had worst first trimester. Throw ups, head ache, hormonal imbalance.. sabba

10. What/who irritated me?

Garam Masala

11. And the child is..

A baby boy nick named “Vaandu”

12. Did I wish its a boy?

Nope. But I had intution that it’s going to be a boy. (Don’t ask me why)

13. How many pounds did I gain?

35lbs

14. Baby shower?

Yes both traditional and non-traditional

15. Complications?

Nothing big. Had preeclampsia symptoms but things went ok.

16. Where did I give birth?

Hospital.

17. How many hours in labour?

My amniotic sac broke. So 18 hrs of labour.

18. Who watched me give birth?

All the duty nurses and my hubby. I was the only patient that day.

19. Natural or c-sec?

Natural

20. Pain medication taken?

Yes, took epidural towards the end.

21. Weight of the babies?

3.75 kgs.

22. What did we name him?

In-laws named him after our kuladeivam and thats his jadakam name. We named him after Lord Rama and thats his official name. His jadakam name is more unique than his official name ;-)

23. How old is he?

5.5 yrs

24. What was my reaction after seeing them first time?

Happy and relief after the long labour.

25. Did you cry?

And BM has tagged every one I knew. So I am tagging only two of the blogger now. And as mentioned by BM, accepting this tag is purely optional.

Vasantha ka of my sweet nothings

Freaky Veggie

Tag time over.. getting back to food now :-)

Tag Time 1 – Bakers Dozen Books Bucket List Challenge

Oct 13, 2014 · 16 Comments

I am tagged by Vasantha ka of “My sweet nothings”. An interesting bucket challenge not the ice bucket one :-) And my other few blogger are in a reading spree. They are not able to find time to post even so I thought this would be the perfect time to take this challenge and tag them back again :-) :-)

All you have to do is

List your 12 favorite books and
7 wonders about yourself and your reading.
Tag other 8 bloggers. Interesting na??

So here is my list

Ponniyin Selvan by Kalki
Parthiban Kanavu by Kalki
Sivakamiyin Sabadam by Kalki
Nandipurathu Nayagi by Vikraman
Rudra Veenai by Indira Soundirajan
Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
Sons of Fortune by Jeffery Archer
The Millennium Series (the girl with dragon tattoo, the girl who play with the fire and the girl who kicked the hornet’s nest) by Stieg Larson
The Story of our food by KT Achaya
My Mothers Kitchen : a novel with recipes by Meera Klein
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed (Currently reading loving it so far)

7 wonders (???) about my reading:

When my nose is buried in a book, it’s hard for me to come out of it. (No wonder right)
When HP7 book got released, we got 2 books. One for me and one for my hubby. Both of us were sitting and reading as if we were going to write an exam the next day. It was like a race. And hubby won in that race. We both completed the book in one night.
I read tamil books comparatively faster than english books.
I love the post reading discussion especially with my hubby. The most discussed topics are the “Age of Aragorn and his elvish background from Lord of the Rings” and “Who actually killed Aditha Karikalan in PS?”.
I have convinced 5 people to read PS and one among them is my hubby.
My current interest is food related books especially the books bringing out our ancient culture.
Next in my reading list is SriRangathu Devadaigal by Sujatha.

Now tagging others.. I am tagging

Maya

Tharani and

R’s Mom

Freaky Veggie

Keep Reading and Keep Enjoying!!!

Award Time – 2

Sep 17, 2014 · 2 Comments

Aishwarya, from kitchen moments nominated me for this award. Thanks a lot yaar. Really enjoying this blogging and the WP family of friends and learning a lot too. Thanks all for your support.

My Nominees for Dragons Loyalty Award:

Man this is the tuf part.. Seriously all the bloggers who I follow inspire me :-) As most of the bloggers I know already have this award, here are my 5 nominees but this doesn’t mean that others didn’t inspire me. Nominating is always difficult

Sonal from simplyvegetarian777

Radhika from myTrystWithBaking

Nimmi from adorable life

Chitra from drchdietfood

Deepika from tastefortonge

Rules for Participating –

Display the award on your blog. Done
Show your gratitude and link back to the person who nominates you with the award. Done
Nominate any 4 of your favorite deserving “bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere”. Done
Link the nominees in your post and let them know they have been awarded. (Will be doing)
Write 10 interesting things about yourself.

Here it is

I love music. Love these apps saavn/Raga/Pandora now startmusiq and Gaana. One or the other will running in the background ALWAYS.
I listen to all south Indian language songs and Hindi and also carnatic.
If I am not listening music, I will be in soundcloud listening to RJ Balaji (Big FM) and ROFLing max
I am big fan of both the Thalas (Ajith & MSD)
I am a winter/rainy person. Love the holiday spirit here in US. The smell of pine cones, cinnamon-apple spice yumm. Equally enjoy the margazhi season in India
I love pedicures. (No nail for manicure so lets ignore it)
I am very very good at stressing my hubby for nothing.
I love history.
My favorite color is Yellow, especially the mustard yellow. I have heard enough yellow yellow dirty fellow ;-) But still yellow is my favorite.
And today I am leaving my sweet twenties behind and stepping into tangy thirties. (nahhh its gonna be sweet too) Yeah I am thirty today.

Thanks for the award again Aishwarya :-)

Dahi Bonda (vada) – Sodappal story and the fix

Sep 3, 2014 · 9 Comments

Here we are with my sodappal dish.

Ok, first of all I am not a morning person. Even during board exams, I was never up before 5:30AM. But in order to cook the prasadams, finish the pooja and pack the lunch before 8:00 AM, I need to wake up by 4:00 AM, which is a tedious task for me.

Usually for Varalakshmi Vratham, I take off, so my sodappals will be comparitively less. In our custom we also do Gowri pooja, the day before Vinayaka chaturthi. So there will be a sodappal for sure on one of these days. This is what I planned to do on Vinayaka Chaturthi morning,

Kozhukattai
Payasam (Kheer)
paruppu Vadai

As I had already made pulikaichal, I thought that would be perfect for lunch. Thought of doing other items sambhar and rasam in the evening. (We invited one of friends to come over and it was potluck)

By Vinayaka’s grace, kozhukattai and payasam came out good (happily took my own time), but my vada became bonda. :-(

Basically I messed up with my vadai measurement (1/4 cups and 1/3 cups are very much alike) and also added more water while grinding. So first I thought of adding rice flour and extra salt. I was little scared to do that. I didn’t want to play with salt. I cannot do any fixer-upper with excess salt. So went ahead with the same flour and started to fry and realized, I am not even getting the vada shapes. So made bondas and thought of doing something in the evening or forget the fact the I made vada. Also I couldn’t taste the vada in the morning.

Came back early from office and tasted the vada. It tasted good but it was hard.. (aiyoooo rama). I didn’t feel like wasting it and thought of doing rasa vada. Just soak it in rasam, that’s it. But enaku risk edukaradu ellam rusk sapidara madiri nala ;-) (Taking risk is as easy as eating rusk for me) thought of trying dahi bonda. As I had lot of time and kiddo was also busy playing outside, went ahead with the plan :-) And this is what I did,

Ingredients:

Green Chutney
Sweet & Sour Chutney
Curd/Yogurt – 1.5 cups (beaten) (as required)
Cumin/ Jeera powder – 1 tsp
Chopped cilantro – 2 tbsps
Hot water – 2 cups

Steps:

Add the hot water to the bondas(vadas) and let it sit for up to 30-40 mts.
Meanwhile beat the curd and add cumin powder and mix well.
After 30-40 mts of soaking time, add this curd to the bondas(vadas) and mix well.
Add the chutneys on top and garnish it with cilantro and thats it.
Before serving, add more chutneys.

I was little reluctant to serve, but told my friends what happened and what I did. But to my surprise, the dahi paruppu bonda turned out pretty good. sabba.. risk eduthadu waste ahala.. (my risk didn’t go in vain) and most importantly it didn’t get wasted :-)

Award Time

Aug 5, 2014 · 10 Comments

Whowhooooo. My first blog award. Thanks a bunch to Tharani for passing inspiring blogger (???) award. Thanks for your kind words Tharani. (Wiping my tears).

Here are the rules:

Thank and link to the amazing person who nominated you.
Say seven facts about yourself.
List the rules and display the award.
Proudly display the award logo on your blog and follow the blogger who nominated you.
Nominate 15 other amazing blogs and let them know that they have been nominated.

Tharani you are an inspiring blogger. Your tamil tweets are very cute and your quilling work is amazing. I am already following you virtually. Err do you want me to be your Paparazzi?

Here some facts about me.. :-)

I have spent 22 years in Periyakulam, but never been to Munnar which is just 3 hours from Periyakulam. Also I have never travelled much in India. Been to Bangalore, Mysore, couple of places in Kerala and Tirupathi. That’s it, never went beyond that.
I am a barefoot car driver. I have this phobia that if I wear sandals or shoes, I would never be able to feel the accelerator or break.
Of all the dishes that I cook, I love my rasam the best. I am a big fan of my own rasam. ( ;-) ;-) )
I love (am crazy about would be apt) earrings. I don’t care about any other jewelry. My love towards earrings drove me to learn how to make them and yes I make my own simple hanging type earrings.
I am a savory person. I won’t get tempted by chocolates or cookies or any sweets. But give me a lays packet or any savory snacks, swishhhhhh… it will be all gone in few seconds. (Where, into my tummy)
I bite my nails including the cuticles. (Trying to stop that habit for my kiddo. I am using nail strengthener and all…lets see)
And I play veena and I am learning also.

So I am going to nominate these bloggers.

Shruthi Rao, the first blogger whom I started to follow. Her stories are amazing and very inspiring, especially Kanchenjunga and Interlude.

Shaifali Gupta. I know to read and write hindi but I don’t have enough knowledge to appreciate the depth of her hindi poems (I wish I could) but her English ones are really great.

Two more food bloggers who inspire me with their microwave cooking, baking and fusion.

Vidya Sreenivasan who blogs at http://traditionallymodernfood.wordpress.com.

Malar Muthu who blogs at http://malarmuthu.wordpress.com

Thanks for reading and enjoy!!!

Tea Condiments

Jul 13, 2014 · 10 Comments

The South-West monsoon starts around June- July in most of the parts of India which will be soon followed by the North-East. Having a cup of tea and enjoying the rain is an awesome feeling.

Tea is one of the popular beverages in India and also in the whole world. According to wikipedia, Tea was first introduced into India by the British, in an attempt to break the Chinese monopoly on tea. Tea was planted initially in Assam then in Darjeeling and then it spread across. Now we have our own traditional tea and India is one among the largest tea producers.

Ok, now coming back to the post. :-) oh boy, How many condiments we can add to tea to make it delicious? I am a coffee person, I know it doesn’t come as a surprise right? :-) :-) But these amazing condiments are trying to make me as a tea person. I started drinking tea, during my undergrad days. In the evenings, we used to get only tea in our hostel. So thats how I started drinking tea. My hostel tea is plain tea with no condiments.

Amma usually adds tulsi and ginger to tea and sometimes cardamom. I was under the impression that we only add ginger and cardamom to tea for a long time.

When I came to US, one of our friend added Saanf/big jeera in the tea along with elaichi and ginger. I was so surprised when they added saanf but the tea tasted delicious.

Then my other friend P added lemon grass in tea. Again I was totally surprised. She only added lemon grass, but the tea was heavenly :-)

And last week when we went to our friends place, she added mint leaves and cardamom in tea. I realized the tea was different and tasted really good. I know it for sure its not lemon grass and when she told its mint leaves, I was surprised again.

Tulsi, Mint leaves, Saanf, Ginger, Cardamom, Lemon grass and I am sure this list is going to continue.

So what condiments do you add in your tea?

Sodappal Stories – Rasagulla

Jul 10, 2014 · 6 Comments

Its been long time since I posted my kitchen disasters. (You can fine my previous one here) It doesn’t mean that all my kitchen experiments were successful. :-) My enthusiasm was at its peak during february and march, which means I had a whole bunch of sodappals too. Here comes my Rasagulla sodappal. And this happened in India.

I have made rasagullas before, but for making paneer I have always used rice vinegar. Also I wash the paneer before tying it in the cloth so that paneer doesn’t smell like vinegar. I haven’t tried lemon at all. So this time in India, at my chithi’s house, I volunteered to make rasagulla. No vinegar and I had to go with lemon. I didn’t wash the paneer this time thinking that, lemon is not as strong as vinegar. Also I think, I added too much of lemon juice. You know what, the whole rasagulla tasted like lemon-gullas. I tried adding more sugar, huh no use !!! :-( :-( I didn’t know what to do with the rasagullas. Ended up wasting them.

Why should this happen in India that too when I cooking for my relatives? I was so embarrassed, but what to do?? Sodappal is a sodappal. I haven’t tried rasagulla after that. Should try it again sometime.

*Sodappal – disaster

Sodappal Stories (Excess salt)

Apr 15, 2014 · 2 Comments

Fy Fy Fy Sodapify.. One of my recent favorites from the movie PandiNaadu. Catchy tune. While listening to that song, I was thinking about my sodappals (Tamil word, meaning disaster) in my kitchen. (The song has got nothing to do with cooking, but I got hooked to that word). So why not post them?? Fun huh???

I didn’t learn cooking just like that. And I didn’t get the dishes right at the very first time. Cooking is an art, which has no end in learning. Sky is your limit. You can experiment and play with foods. With lot of trail and errors, and experiments here I am. So I thought sharing my sodappals here and some remedies for some of them.

My very first sodappals of mine were with the salt measure. In India, I was using sea salt (Kal uppu). And Amma was there most of the time and she was helping me with salt measurement. I was not using any spoons and measuring cups. Just based on the quantity, I was measuring salt with hands. Then when I came to US, it was Iodized salt. The measures were completely different. I had to use spoons. Without the 1 tbsp measure, I cannot do anything. I became so much dependent on the measuring spoons.

While adding salt, go with lesser measure. Its easy to add more if required, but if you add too much, it completely ruins the dish. On days of festivals, we cannot taste the dish. I always add less salt and after neivediyam (prayer offering), I taste the food before serving and add salt if needed. If by mistake you add more salt, the quick remedy is to add chopped potato and boil the dish again. (Disclaimer: This works well for gravy dishes). Potato absorbs the excess salt. So make sure you always have potatoes in your fridge.

More sodappals to come..

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