Happy Deepavali 2007!!!

Hello my dear bloggers friends and visitors,

Wish you all a very Happy, Prosperous and Safe Diwali.

Hope you all have a great time bursting crakers, eating sweets and enjoying your favorite TV programs. See you all soon with the goodies I prepared for Diwali. Bye.
(image from flickr.com)

My Kitchen Disaster

Asha had tagged me for "Nightmare in the Kitchen" meme. This was originally started by Lakshmi of "The Yum Blog". It all started when she baked her "Warm Walnut Brownie Pudding". You can check the links at the end of the post to read all the stories.

Any cook will have their moment of nightmare in the kitchen at some point of time. Ofcourse, nobody is perfect and we all learn from our mistakes. If I start to write about mine this one post wouldn't be enough. So, I'm going to write about what my hubby did recently.

The day was Oct 23rd 2007. Everything went well until 6pm evening. Suddenly the power went off for 10 mins. One of my greatest fears is DARKNESS. Really, I'm not kidding. After sometime the power came. In a few mins, I heard talking sounds and walked in that direction to find what it was. The sound was coming from my bedroom upstairs. When I walked up the stairs I noticed that the TV was ON(It was Off before the power went out).

I was shocked to see my dark bedroom glowing like a haunted house. So, I ran outside my house along with my son and asked my hubby to drive fast and come home. Also, I locked the house and drove to the nearby gas station and waited for 'B' to come. Atlast he came and took us home. First he went into the house and made sure everything was ok and then we went in.After this scary evening 'B' offered to cook some tandoori chicken for me as I was still not ok. So I cooked some food for my son alone and went to feed him. After some time, when it was time to take out the chicken from the oven...the nightmare started.

'B' dabbed some butter on the top of the chicken and put it under the broiler moving the rack from the center to the top-most level.Within minutes, we saw smoke. When we opened the oven we saw that the chicken and the marinade drippings had caught fire. I screamed and did not know what to do. 'B' took out the tray and ran to the deck. I asked him to throw it down. But he put off the fire somehow and he even managed to save the chicken ( a few bits got stuck to the foil paper though). Finally he dressed it up beautifully and presented to me as though nothing had happened. Here are some pics of the end product.

Look at the picture closely. This was taken before eating the chicken. But half was already gone as it got stuck to the foil and turned black..

Here are the links to some of the nightmares that have been blogged so far. Prepare to have an aching stomach after reading their posts.
Lakshmi's
Asha's
Sirisha's
Siri's

Also,I would like to tag....Sia, Sharmi and Rak's. Hope you all have fun dears.

Garden Omelette & Indian Omelette

Here I am as usual posting my entry at the last minute for the Omelette event hosted by Kanchana of "Married to a Desi" , an event originally launched by Nandita of "Saffron Trail". Thanks for hosting Kanchana:-)

Garden Omelette:
My contribution to this event is a Garden Omelette and a simple Indian style Omelette. Unfortunately, I could not take good pictures as both the dishes were done in the last minute.
My hubby waiting impatiently for his food and my son pulling my dress to get hold of the camera... Oh, I had a tough time. Anyway, we enjoyed both and here is the recipe for you to try.

Ingredients:
Eggs- 2
milk- 1 tbsp
capsicum- 1/4 (sliced into thin strips)
mushrooms- 4 (sliced)
spinach- 1/4 cup
Kraft three cheese blend- 3 tbsp
salt- as reqd
red chilli flakes-optional
butter- 2 tsp

Procedure:
Heat pan with a tsp of oil and saute capsicum and mushrooms for 2 mins. Then add spinach and saute for a min. Remove this from pan and set aside.Beat eggs with milk. Mix salt and red chilli flakes. Melt some butter on the pan and pour the eggs. When 3/4 th done, add the sauteed veggies and cheese. Carefully close it and cook it on low flame for another 3-4 mins. I served mine with some toasted bread and jelly.

Indian Style Omellete:

Although there are so many nice varieties of omelletes available, this one is so simple and it's made atleast once in our home. It tastes so good with sambar rice or rasam rice. Most of the people must be doing this already. Still, here is mine for you to have a look.

Ingredients:
Eggs- 2
milk- 1 tbsp
onion- 1/4 (finely chopped)
green chillies- 2 (finely chopped)
corriander leaves- 1 tbsp(chopped)
curry leaves- 4 (torn into bits)
turmeric- a little less than 1/4 tsp
salt- as reqd
pepper- as reqd

Procedure:
Beat eggs with milk and turmeric until frothy. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Heat oil or butter in a dosa pan and pour the egg mixture on it. Spread the onions evenly on the omelette. Cook until the egg sets. Turn on the other side and cook for another 2 mins on low flame. Serve hot with rice and rasam.

Fresh Peach and Caramel Puff Pastry Pies

When Mansi announced the 'Peaches' event I did not have any recipe in my hand. The only way I've eaten a peach before is just as a fruit itself. When I googled I found many recipes. But I wanted something really simple as I was experimenting with this fruit. My searched continued and continued until the deadline and finally I found something in the last minute. The original recipe can be found here . I tweaked it a bit to suit my palatte. I did not follow the measurements given in the original recipe as I wanted to make just two pies to see how it turns out. So, without further adu let's go to the recipe.

Ingredients:
Puff pastry sheet - 1
peach- 1 (finely chopped)
slivered almonds- 1 tsp
caramel sauce- 2 tsp
Mixture of egg white and whole milk- 3 tsp each
granulated sugar- for dusting

Procedure:
Thaw the pastry sheet as per the package directions. Unfold it on a lightly floured surface and level it using a rolling pin. Using a cookie cutter or a cup make 4 circles on the pastry sheet. Cut them out. Save the remaining sheet for later use.

Line a plate with parchment paper and keep a circle of dough on it. Top with with some peaches and nuts. Then add 1 tsp caramel sauce. Cover it with another circle of dough. Seal the edges with some water and crimp it with a fork. Refrigerate it for 20 to 30 mins. Don't worry if the caramel has oozed out a little in this stage. Remove from the plate and apply egg wash on top. Then make an "x" mark on the top. Sprinkle with some granulated sugar.Now heat oven to 400 deg and bake the pies for 15 to 20 mins. Warm pies are ready to be served with ice-cream. I did not have any ice-cream, so we enjoyed this warm dessert as it is with some powdered sugar and a drizzle of caramel on top.

Note: People who know me, must also know how scared I am to bake. But this one was pretty easy and yummy that even my hubby enjoyed it. You should try it too and you'll see what I mean. Still not convinced. How about another look?

I've been tagged by Asha, Laavanya and Raks for the Fantastic Four Meme. So, here it is guys.

4 places I've lived:
Coimbatore (granny's home)
salem (parents home)
pondicherry(hubby's home)
U.S.A(my home)

4 Jobs:
Irresponsible daughter to my parents
freak out with my little sister
careless wife
Impatient mom

4 places I've holidayed:
Singapore- our honeymoon trip
Delhi- my college tour
Niagara trip with my friends Anu and vijay
yercaud trip with my family

4 favorite foods:
Anything high in fat and sweet always attracts me. I'm a terrible chocoholic. Like the cookie monster in the sesame street I'd gobble up all the chocolates how ever much I try to resist.
Chocolates (milk chocolate and white chocolate)
Eggs fully cooked but in any form
Basandhi, chaat items especially cutlet

4 places I'd rather be:
Alone in my home
Any place with my sister
My grandma's home
A wonderland full of ice creams and chocolates

Thanks for tagging me guys. Really enjoyed doing it. Now it's my turn to tag. Yay....So, here I go. You're it.

Priar's
Indosungod
Richa
Cynthia
Bye bye and have a nice day!!!

Pongal

Pongal is a very important festival for the south Indians. You can learn all about pongal here. Actually, I made this in eleventh hour for the RCI event: Festival foods hosted by Viji who is the owner of a great blog Vcuisine.

I have posted 2 types of pongal here. Sakkarai pongal and ven pongal.
My sakkarai pongal does not have that deep color as I used the light colored jaggery . Usually, I get the dark brown jaggery but I couldn't find it in the store this time.

















Sakkarai Pongal:

Ingredients:
Raw rice- 1/2 cupsplit
moong dal- 1/4 cup
water- 2 cups
milk- 1/2 cup
jaggery- 3/4th cup
elachi- 2 (crushed)
cashews- 4 (broken)
raisins- 7 or 8
coconut scrapings- 1 tbsp
ghee- 1 tbsp

Procedure:
Wash rice and dal together. Add water,milk and pressure cook for 1 whistle. Meanwhile, melt jaggery with little water and allow to cool. When the pressure is off, open cooker and mash the pongal. Add jaggery syrup to pongal according to your taste level. Heat ghee in a pan and fry elachi, cashews, raisins and coconut scrapings. Fry them and add to pongal. Steaming hot sweet pongal is ready.

















Ven Pongal:

Ingredients:
Raw rice- 1 cup
split moong dal- 1/2 cup
water- 3 1/2
milk- 1 cup
salt - as reqd
cashews- 5 (broken)
jeera seeds- 1 tsp
peppercorns- 1 tsp
ginger- 2 " (crushed a little)
curry leaves- few

Procedure:
Wash rice and dal together and pressure cook it for 1 whistle with milk, salt and water. When the pressure goes off, mash the pongal. Heat ghee in a pan and fry cashews, jeera-pepper mixture, ginger and curry leaves. Add this to pongal and mix well. Serve it with sambar and coconut chutney.See you gals. Have a great weekend!!!

Masala Paal

Today is the last day for the saffron event and I wanted to be a part of it. Until yesterday night I had no clue of what to do. Then, when I was talking to my parents in India they told me that they were in Saravana Bhavan restaurant drinking masala paal after dinner. Yeah...I found an entry for the event. I asked my mom for the recipe and went to the kitchen to prepare it right away.This masala paal is just not milk and saffron. It has to be prepared in a certain way and drunk while it's still hot(temperature that you can tolerate). It's believed to induce sleep. So, my dear friends go ahead and have some masala paal tonight and let me know if the sleep thing is true.

Ingredients:
Whole Milk- 2 cups
Rock sugar- 1 1/2 tbsp (can reduce or add more as per taste. But the actual dish should not have too much sugar. Just enough to sweeten the milk. Still, I prefer mine sweet)
saffron- 1 generous pinch (I mean it generous)
badam- 5 or badam powder- 1/2 tbsp saarai paruppu- l/2 tsp (I do not know the english name for it. This is a dry fruit too)
cardamom- 1
clove-1
pistachio slices- for garnish(I used this as I did not have saarai paruppu)

Procedure:
If you are using fresh badam, soak it in hot boiling water for atleast 3 hrs and grind it to a smooth paste. Boil the milk with cardamom and clove until it reduces to half the quantity. Then add rock sugar and dissolve it completely. I used the small white rock sugar here. Now add ground badam or badam powder and saffron. Stir it well until it gets the nice yellow color. Finally add saarai paruppu roasted in (few drops of ghee). I did not have it so I used pista slices here.

Switch off gas.To cool it a bit, tranfer the milk between two vessels and make it frothy. I don't know how to explain this part. We call it "aatharathu" in tamil. Finally serve it with some cardamom powder on top.Enjoy guys and have a nice sleep. Sweet dreams.zzzz....

Aayutha Pooja Celebrations

This is a very popular festival celebrated in India. You can learn about this pooja here. This pooja is celebrated a little different in the North and South India. I do not know much about the North. But this is how we celebrate it in our house.

On the day of aayutha pooja we wash & clean everything from home to vehicles. Dress up all the doors, appliances and vehicles with sacred ash (viboothi), turmeric and kukumam. Then each person in the house keeps their work related thing in front of God.

When I was little , my sister and me would keep our books(now I keep my cookbooks), dad & mom their stethescopes (both are doctors) and my grandparents would keep their property documents. Then we would offer our neivedyam and will be off in a flash to watch the special programs on TV.

The next day is Saraswathi pooja. This used to be my favorite pooja during my childhood days as we needn't study on that day b'coz all the books will be in front of god.After that, it's vijayadasami. On this day, we take our books from the pooja and start studying.

Parents teach the little kiddos to write "aana aavana" on a thaambalam filled with rice. The pooja ends on this day. This is how we celebrate it in our home. Usually for any festival we can do vadai, payasam and sundal. On aayutha pooja usually they give a mixture of puffed rice, jaggery, peanuts and pottu kadalai. I didn't do it as I couldn't get puffed rice.

Here is my contribution for RCI: festival foods hosted by our dear Viji who is the proud owner of a great blog Vcuisine . I thought I won't make it this time. But I managed to participate in it atlast. Thanks Vijika for hosting this event.

The menu I prepared this time:
Channa Dal Vada, Pasi paruppu payasam, chick pea sundal, Black channa sundal, Rice with toor dal and ghee, Sambar, vatha kuzhambu, rasam, appalam, mango pachidi, curd and pickle.


I couldn't get everything in the pic. So, I've taken only a few here.
Also, I have already blogged the recipe for vadais here .
So, I'll go to the pasi parrupu payasam(split moong dal payasam).

Pasi Parrupu Payasam:

Ingredients:
Spit moong dal - 1 cup
raw rice- 1 tsp
jaggery - 2 cups(I like mine very sweet. You can reduce the quantity if you want)
water- 1/2 cup
cardamom- 3
cashews- 6(broken)
raisins- 1 tbsp
coconut- grated- 1 tbsp
milk- 1/2 cup


Procedure:
Dry roast dal and rice together until the color starts to change. Then, cook dal and rice in pressure cooker with 2 cups water for 3 whistles. The dal should be fully cooked. Mash it slightly. Meanwhile, melt jaggery with water. You need not boil it. Just melt it and allow it to cool. Filter all the impurities and add this to mashed dal. You can add more or less according to your taste. Then put crushed cardamom and milk. Boil for 5 mins. Finally, fry cashews, raisins and coconut in 1 tbsp ghee and add it to the payasam. Mix well and serve it hot or cold. I prefer mine hot. But chiiled one is great too.

Sundals:

Ingredients:
Black channa/ white channa- 1 cup
onion- 1/4 (chopped fine)
coconut- 1 tbsp (grated)
hing- 1/2 tsp (optional)
curry leaves- few
red chillies- 2 (broken)
mustard seeds- 1/4 tsp
urad dal- 1 tsp
channa dal- 1 tsp

Procedure:
Pressure cook channa with 2 cups water and required salt for 3 whistles. (cook according to your cooker. The count for whistles differs from one cooker to the other). Drain all the water and set channa aside. Heat oil in kadai and fry mustard seeds, urad and channa dal. Then fry onion, red chillies and curry leaves. Now add cooked channa and mix well. Finally add coconut and hing and roast for 5 mins.

I come to an end with this. I'm sorry guys for missing some of your post in the last three days and also not responding to your precious comments. Will go thru them soon. I was a little busy with my son. Some of my sweet friends had enquired about kavin as he was sick. Thank you so much dears. He is doing a lot better now. Had a tough weekend though!See you guys soon. Have a nice day.