Coconut Peanut Sesame Chutney

Blogging Marathon#65: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes 

Dish: Coconut-Sesame Chutney from Priya

I'm always looking for different chutneys to serve with idli, dosa or upma. So when Priya did a whole month of Dosa-chutney recipes for the mega marathon, I knew I will have a lot of interesting chutneys and dosas bookmarked to try. 

I really wanted to try her jackfruit savory dosa and the breadfruit peel chutney, but haven't had a chance. Do check Priya's space from some amazing Indian and International dishes, her bakes are out of this world.

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Indian Style Beet Salad

Blogging Marathon# 65: Week 3/ Day 1
Theme: 1 Vegetable -- 3 Dishes
Dish: Indian Style Beet Salad

We are starting a new week of blogging marathon today and my theme for this week is to pick 1 vegetables and make 3 dishes. My favorite eggplant and the family favorite potato were fighting to get into the spotlight this week, but I wanted to give the less favored Beets a chance, so this way I can add new recipes to my repertoire.

I am not a big fan of beets but at the same time I don't completely dislike it. The whole family is against it -- the color doesn't attract them at all, I think it actually make them go the other way. Anyway my husband liked this beet salad that I made during the detox diet (I guess he was forced to like it after eating the same dishes 3 days straight), so that is one of the main reasons for picking Beets for the week.

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Murmure Chiwda

Blogging Marathon# 61: Week 4/ Day 1

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes from Fellow BM Bloggers

Dish: Murmure Chiwda from Varada's Kitchen

We are starting the final week of blogging marathon for this month today and my theme for the week is one of my favorite -- cooking from fellow blogging marathoners. As a group we are checking and commenting each others posts very frequently and I have a ton of recipes bookmarked from them.

I already have quite a few dishes made from the blogs, so this one's from my drafts. This Murmure chiwda is from Varada's Kitchen and I made it for Diwali (back in November). This is a easy, quick to make snack that can be whipped up in no time.

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Granola with Cinnamon and Nuts

I always stop my husband from buying granola or granola bars and promise him that I will make them at home for him. But never get around doing that and he keeps asking me for them. After procrastinating for as long as I can, I finally made him this Cinnamon-Nut Granola from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain baking cookbook.

This granola is a perfect balance of salt and sweet, crisp and crunch, fruit and nuts. Using butter to make the granola gives it a ton of flavor, especially in combination with cinnamon. But you can easily substitute vegetable oil or coconut oil for the butter. Varying the fruits and nuts in the granola is the fun part, so feel free to use whatever you have in your pantry.

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Chitrannam and Sihi Bella

Buffet on Table: Week 2 -- Indian States

Day 9: Karnataka -- Chitranna and Vella Avalaki

I have savory and sweet dishes from Karnataka today. It was my daughter's birthday few days back and I wanted to make something special for her. Lemon rice, tamarind rice are usually made for birthdays, festivals and special occasions. So I made Karnataka style Lemon rice and Sihi Bella.

I had this lemon rice aka Chitranna from Indira's blog bookmarked for a long time. Both my kids love peanuts along with potatoes, so this lemon rice with both their favorite ingredients was just perfect. I add enough of them so that they get at least one peanut and a piece of potato in each and every bite.

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Tomato Pulihora

Happy Ugadhi/ Gudi Padhwa to all of you who are celebrating the New Year.
Our Ugadhi is today, a day earlier than in India and I was planning for an elaborate festival with my sister's family, but unfortunately it started snowing and the weather dampened all my plans. So it was just our family and I made Ugadhi pachadi, pulihora and godhuma rawa-carrot kesari.
I think South Indians have a knack of making pulihoras or tangy, spicy rice with just about anything. I have tried adding veggies to it like these broccoli, gooseberry, cranberry and gongura. Today's pulihora is on similar lines but with tomato.

My mom gave me the idea for this tomato pulihora after she ate it at one of our relative's house. In this recipe rice is cooked in tomato infused water and then seasoned with the usual pulihora tempering with lots of peanuts, ginger and green chilies.

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Stuffed Karela/ Bittergourd Curry with Garlic (Kakarakaya Vellullikaram)

I am always looking for new ways of cooking bitter gourd, so when I saw this recipe on a Telugu cooking show I promptly noted it down. Then my sister asked me a recipe for stuffed karela and I gave her this recipe and they totally loved it. After hearing the feedback I decided to make it myself and she was right, this is a delicious stuffed karela recipe.

One thing I learnt from this recipe is we don't need baby bitter gourd to make stuffed curry. Just use regular sized ones and cut them into chunks. Remove the seeds from the middle and hollow out the centers, then stuff them with spicy ground masala.

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Thai Green Papaya Salad (Vegan Recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 48: Week 4/ Day 1

Theme: 1 Cuisine -- 3 Dishes

Dish: Thai Cuisine -- Thai Green Papaya Salad
My theme for this week's blogging marathon is pick 1 cuisine and cook 3 dishes. Valli gave us 4 countries to choose from and I went back and forth between Arabian and Thai cuisines, but finally ended up picking Thai. So for the next 3 days I will be posting 3 different courses of Thai dishes.

Today is a very famous Thai salad made with Green Papaya. My husband used to travel to Thailand quite frequently and he had nothing but praise for this Green Papaya salad. He tasted them at many street vendors and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. We were at a party in a Thai restaurant recently where they served Green Papaya salad, it looked amazing but had dried shrimp and fish sauce in it, so we couldn't taste it. But it definitely inspired me to make the salad right away at home.

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Sabudana Vada (Lower fat version)

Blogging Marathon# 48: Week 1/ Day 3

Theme: Nashta Time

Dish: Sabudana Vada

For the final day of this week's marathon, I made this delicious low fat sabudana vada. I bookmarked Varada's recipe the minute I saw it and was waiting to make them. Unfortunately I ran out of sabudana and didn't get a chance to buy it until last weekend and then I made it for our evening snack this week.

I rarely use sabudana in my cooking. Even though I love sabudana khichdi a lot, I don't make it that often. Couple of years ago a bought a packet of sabudana and when I soaked it tried to make khichdi, it turned into a big mass of goop. Not sure what went wrong but everything got sticky and lumpy. My MIL who was with us at the time, tried to resolve the situation by making vada out of the goop and I don't think that went down that well either.

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Quinoa khichdi with Peanuts (Sabudhana Khichdi Style)

Blogging Marathon# 48: Week 1/ Day 1

Theme: Nashta Time

Dish: Quinoa Palli Upma

We are starting a brand new edition of 'Blogging marathon' for this year today and my theme for this week is 'Nashta/ Tiffin Time'. Nashta is a hindi word that can mean breakfast or an evening snack. To me, it is a light meal taken either in the morning or in the evening to sustain you until lunch.

For the first day, I made quinoa upma with peanuts and potato. Recipe is adapted from Vegetable Platter. This dish is made almost like sabudana upma, but uses quinoa instead of sabudana/ sago/ tapioca pearls. Adding coarsely ground peanuts and boiled potato make it taste very much like the original sabudana khichdi.

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Sorakaya thokku pachadi (Bottlegourd peel Chutney)

I told you about the 3 ft sorakaya/ bottle gourd from my cousin's garden last week. The skin or the peel of that gourd was so tender I didn't feel like throwing it out. Also since I knew that it was grown without any harmful pesticides -- I wanted to make a chutney/ pachadi using it.

Peel of bottlegourd and ridgegourd (beerakaya) are often used to make chutneys. I usually throw the peel out because I'm not really sure what the vegetable went through before it came into my kitchen. But the peels are really healthy with good does of vitamins and also fiber. Finally with my cousin's organic bottle gourd I got to make this thokku pachadi (peel chutney). Had to ask my mom for the recipe, hence linking it to Valli's 'Cooking from Cookbook Challenge' event.

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Peanut & Vegetable Rice

Blogging Marathon# 45: Week 3/ Day 1
Theme: Kid's Delight -- Nuts & Legumes for Kid's Lunchbox
Dish: Kashmiri Tikka Masala

We are starting our 3rd week of Blogging marathon today and my theme for this week is 'Nuts & Legumes for Kid's Lunchboxes' for Kid's Delight event being hosted this month by Valli. Valli wants all of us to rake our brians and come up with dishes made with nuts and legumes that are kid friendly and can be packed in their lunchboxes.
I think I speak for most of the moms out there that it is a real challenge to pack lunches for the kids, but the biggest challenge is to have the kids eat them. It gets even tougher when you have picky kids. My son is picky and he has a lot of self imposed restrictions on his own diet (like I don't carrots, I don't like cabbage and on and on and.....) So I find it really hard to find dishes that he would eat in school when packed for lunch.

Both the kids love peanuts and I add them to most of the rice dishes I make. They like snacking on roasted peanuts, so I keep unsalted roasted peanuts stocked in the pantry all the time. This is one of the dishes I make for them often -- it has both ground peanuts in the spice powder and whole peanuts in the rice.

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Gojju Avalakki/ Huli Avalakki/ Tangy Poha

Blogging Marathon# 40: Week 3/ Day 2
Theme: Unused BM# 39 posts
Dish: Gojju Avalakki

I was very confident that I had this week covered and wasn't even worried about it until a few days ago. I thought I had lot of posts in the drafts but I didn't realize that I used most of them up for CCChallenge (this and this in particular). So I looked through the papers where I jotted down my list of states and dishes to make for BM# 39.

My husband studied in Davangere, Karnataka and he always mentions the different dishes that Kannadigas make with poha and murmure. I wanted to try a different poha dish from Karnataka, but thought that would be too simple and also I had planned made Indori Poha for Madhya Pradesh, finally ended up making Pathir Pheni for Karnataka. 

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Malaysian Apam Balik (Crispy Malaysian Pancakes) -- Eggless Recipe

Blogging Marathon# 38: Week 3/ Day 2
Theme: One Dish, Different Countries
Dish: Malaysia -- Apam Balik

Day 2 of BM# 38 and today I've Malaysian sweet pancakes for you. Apam Balik is a crispy thin pancake that is usually filled with sweetened peanuts. These are usually sold at specialist roadside stalls throughout Malaysia.
Watch this video to see how expertly the guy makes apam balik. I especially like the technique he uses to take them off the pan.

Traditionally these pancakes are made in brass molds since brass distributes heat evenly and the metal itself is thick and heavy, so food does not scald that easily. This post has clear pictures of the brass molds used to make Apam Balik. I don't own brass pans and have no plans of buying them, so I used a nonstick pan to do the job. After looking all those gorgeous looking pancakes, mine didn't turn out as golden and crispy in the pictures, but they tasted great.

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Cranberry Pulihora

Blogging Marathon# 36: Week 4/ Day 1
Theme: Online Bookmarked Recipes
Dish: Cranberry Pulihora

For the final week of blogging marathon, I chose to do 'Online Bookmarked Recipes'. I thought this will be a great way to try and make some of the dishes from my ever-growing bookmarked recipes. It was quite a task to decide on the 3 dishes for this week. Finally based on the ingredients in the fridge and pantry I made 3 delicious dishes.
First up is this colorful Cranberry Pulihora that I bookmarked from Usha's blog. Using cranberries to give the required tartness/ sourness to pulihora sounded absolutely delicious and I wanted to try it right away.

Usha boiled the cranberries to make a gojju/ paste, but mentioned that they can be sauteed as well. Being the lazy bum that I am, I took the easy way and cooked the cranberries along with the other tempering and the cranberries cooked to perfection in just about 5~7 minutes. So this is a dish that can be made in less than 30 minutes and does not need any prior preparations.

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Stuffed Baby Eggplants Curry with Peanuts

My love for eggplants is well known in my family and even among my blogging buddies (I'm sure at least 2 of them must be nodding their heads and thinking -- eggplant recipe, AGAIN.. come on Pavani :-) But I can't miss an opportunity to buy them and eat them.
Last weekend I found cute little baby eggplants at the Indian grocery, they were the perfect size to make stuffed eggplants. I bought a few, of course. 

As I was leafing through Chandra Padmanabhan's 'Dakshin', I found this easy stuffed eggplant recipe called 'Sagalay'. This peanut stuffing was a variation to a more elaborate recipe that was actually featured in the book. I already have a stuffed eggplant recipe with peanut and spices. I was in no mood to saute and grind a ton of spices for the stuffing and this 4 ingredient stuffing caught my eye right away.

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Mirchi Baingan Salan (Hyderabadi Chili-Eggplant Curry in Sesame Peanut gravy)

Bonus Recipe for Week 3
Theme: A-Z Dishes from Andhra Pradesh
Dish: M for Mirchi Baingan ka Salan

I made this very famous Hyderabadi Mirchi ka Salan to go with Qabooli. This is my 2nd bonus recipe for this week. This dish is similar to the Mixed vegetable salan I have already posted, but the spices used are slightly different. I tasted this at a restaurant long time back and wanted to recreate at home. I used eggplant and mirchi (chilies) in this recipe, but you can use just mirchi too. Recipe is from Zaiqa.net.

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Gongura Pulihora (Tangy & Spicy Sorrel Leaf Rice)

Blogging Marathon# 32: Letter G
Theme: A-Z Vegetarian Dishes from Andhra Pradesh
Dish: G for Gongura Pulihora/ Tangy & Spicy Sorrel Leaf Rice

Letter G stands for veggies like Goruchikkudukaya (cluster beans) and the very famous Andhra Gongura. G also stands for ingredients like Godhuma Pindi/ Rava (wheat rava/ flour) and for dishes like Gavvalu, Gaarelu etc.

But today it is gongura which is going to be the main ingredient and instead of making a pickle, I'm going to make a rice dish. The trend I heard in A.P is now to make pulaos & biryanis with gongura. Every ingredient everywhere is getting a global makeover and so our humble gongura is also following suite :-)

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Bagara Baingan (Hyderabadi Baby Eggplants in Peanut-Coconut Gravy)

Blogging Marathon# 32: Letter B

Theme: A-Z Vegetarian Dishes from Andhra Pradesh
Dish: B for Bagara Baingan (Baghare Baingan)

Letter B stands for veggies like Beerakaya (ridgegourd), Bendakaya (lady's finger/ okra) and one of my favorite greens Bachalikura. B is also for Bellam or jaggery, a unrefined sweetener that is used widely in both savory and sweet dishes in A.P. 

With so many B's to choose from, I ended up choosing a dish that is very close to my heart (and tummy) and the city I'm from, Hyderabad. Hyderabadi cuisine is very famous for its Biryanis and other rich and delicious Mughal & Nizam influenced dishes. So being an eggplant lover, I couldn't think of anything else other than Bagara Baingan for the letter B. 

This dish used to be a part of almost all of the wedding menus and other functions. But there seems to be a change of trend these days and my beloved bagara baingan is hardly ever made. Which means it is time to make it right at home. I already posted my mom's recipe here. Today's recipe is adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer.

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Baked Masala Peanuts

Blogging Marathon# 30: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: Tea Kadai Menu
Dish: Baked Masala Peanuts/ Ver Kadalai

Day 2 of BM# 30 under the the theme 'Tea Kadai' menu , I made Baked masala peanuts from Valli's list. I wanted to make either ellu urundai (sesame balls) or por urundai (murmure balls), but after making 2 desserts for last week's theme, I wanted to something savory. But I wasn't sure what Ver Kadalai or Pattani Kadalai meant. 'Google' only returned kurma or curry recipes and I bothered Sandhya to get some clarification.

Sandhya was very extremely helpful and she emailed me back saying that they are actually roasted peas and peanuts. So I went ahead and baked some masala peanuts. I remember seeing them on Jugalbandi's site quite sometime back and followed their recipe to make mine. Our own Valli also made these a while back :-)

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