Monday 31 March 2014

Spicy Oven Roasted Cauliflower

Oven roasted vegetables have a wonderful flavour and they gives a fabulous aroma to anything they are cooked along with. Love oven roasted vegetables in soup and spiced oven roasted vegetables are our family favourite to enjoy with a sauce for our snacks or as side dish for our lunch. I prepared this super delicious,aromatic oven roasted cauliflower few days back for our lunch, with rice and a simple gravy this fantastic roasted cauliflower florets tastes crunchy and fabulous. Oven roasted cauliflower goes for simple preparation and the final result is just amazing.

My kids enjoyed this florets very much with curd rice, yes this spicy oven roasted cauliflower makes a prefect pair along with curd rice. Give a try to this spicy ones, am sure you wont forget to make them often in your kitchen, a guilt free side dish definitely.Sending to Sangee's Love2Bake and Bake Fest#29 event by Vardhini,hosted by me. You dont have black cardamom, dont worry just replace it with green ones.

Friday 28 March 2014

Sabudana Khaara Boondi/Javvarusi Boondi

While going through a cook book, i saw this quick and very easy boondi with sago pearls immeditely i want to give a try this easy breezy evening snacks. Apart from frying sago pearls, this crispy boondis are very quick to make and am sure you wont stop yourself munching these boondis. Paris weather is super nasty nowadays and the weather is not the same everyday,obviously everyone at home are bugging me to make some crispy fritters to enjoy for their snacks. I tried this fantastic boondis with nylon sago and this boondis came out simply prefect. If you are searching something quick and easy evening snacks, just make these super crispy boondi and enjoy it with your cup of coffee.This post goes  for the CC Challenge of the month.


Wednesday 26 March 2014

Mixed Vegetable Salad Trifle

Trifle is usually prepared for dessert with a layer fof cake, fruits, custard cream, but for a change i tried making a colourful, crunchy vegetable salad trifle for our dinner two days back. Serving salad as a trifle makes it more interesting and very appealing to kids. Instead of cake we usually go for making a dessert trifle, i have added few croutons aka seasoned bread pieces and i topped it with chopped vegetables like tomatoes,carrots,beetroots and thinly sliced olives.You can mix and match vegetables as you desire for making this quick trifle. To dress up this refreshing salad, i simply prepared a cheesy dressing with low fat cream cheese with pepper powder,olive oil, dry herbs and a pinch cumin powder.

This salad looks very elegant and easy to serve anyone, prefect for a party menu too, a wonderful way to tempt anyone to enjoy the goodness of fresh vegetables. Hope you guys will definitely love serving your salad this way, i seriously enjoyed mine.I served this colourful vegetable trifle with French bread baguette slices as a single serving. Today's post is for this blogging marathon and the theme of this week's blogging marathon is Soups and Salads with sides.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#38 . 



Tuesday 25 March 2014

Sakkaravalli Kizhangu Kaara Kari/Sweet Potato Spicy Fry

You may wonder why am posting quite often recipes with sweet potatoes, its  a peek season of sweet potato here, obviously am cooking with this incredible veggies quite often in my cooking. Today's recipe is a super simple fry, which my mom usually make with potatoes. This incredible spicy fry aka kaara kari goes awesome as side dish along with sambhar,rasam or else with curd rice. This kaara kari takes hardly very much less time to get ready, you can make this delicious fry just within few minutes if you have already cooked sweet potato chunks.

Today is the 4th tuesday of the month, i belong to a group of friends  who shares authentic dishes from Tamilnadu and the name of the event is Tamizhar Samayal Tuesday, please do check the announcement if you want to be a part of it.


Cauliflower and Black Olive Salad

Salad are seriously very easy to prepare, just throw into a bowl watever veggies or fruits you can find in your fridge and make a simple dressing, just drizzle the dressing and enjoy this healthy food. Salad are one of my favourite food which i never fail to make quite often whenever i feel bored to cook or i feel lazy to cook.Today's salad is one of the easiest salad i have prepared till now, just some cauliflower florets and chopped black olive slices makes this black and white salad. Today's post is for this blogging marathon and the theme of this week's blogging marathon is Soups and Salads with sides.

I had this salad for my lunch few days back with rusk type bread slices, the crunchiness of the partially cooked cauliflower and the fantastic chunky black olives makes a beautiful pair. Seriously i loved this easy peasy salad, you doesnt even need any specific dressing to spice up this salad. Just salt and pepper powder with some dried herbs and a tablespoon of olive oil is enough to spice up this crunchy salad.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#38 . 


Monday 24 March 2014

Carrot Sweet Potato Soup

A bowl of warm soup is quite enough for me when the weather outside is too chilled or nasty. Obviously i do varieties of soup, one of my recent favourite is this gorgeous looking bright and delicious carrot,sweet potato soup. Sweet potatoes are in peek season here and i couldnt stop myself to buy them from the nearby farmer's market. After making a couple of dishes with them i finally finished them by adding some sweet potato chunks in my usual carrot soup. This soup turned out silky,filling,satisfying,mildly sweet and definitely a healthy soup to enjoy with some sides for a dinner.

This week am running the famous blogging marathon for three days, the theme of this week's blogging marathon is Soups or Salads with sides. I served this delicious soup with Fusion Quesadillas for our lunch few days back. Both this soup and quesadillas were very much filling and everyone at home enjoyed these both dishes thoroughly.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#38 . 


Saturday 22 March 2014

Ragi Masala Dosa/Fingermillet Masala Dosa

I always go on searching for a different dish when its comes to nutritious millets in our daily, after cooking with pearl millet i landed towards the another nutritious millet aka grain called Fingermillet. I crossed this masala dosa recipe in a magazine, immediately i took a paper cut and this paper cut was sitting sadly along with my other paper cuts since a long. During my stay in India, i have send few parcels with many grains to cook later here in Paris. Obviously one among the grains i have send is this, fantastic protein rich nutritious fingermillets. This dosa goes for fingermillet wholegrains but not the fingermillet flour, and the batter goes for fermentation. I strictly advise not to use the already prepared fingermillet flour for making this dosas.

This dosa is an instant version, needless to say that this dosa batter need to be prepared a day before in case if you are planning this healthy crispy dosas either for your breakfast or for your dinner.This dosa came out extremely crispy and i went for a simple potato masala for stuffing this crispy dosas. This potato masala stuffed dosa turned out dinner simply delicious. With a simple side dish, am sure you will definitely have a satisfying meal.This post goes  for the CC Challenge of the month.



Friday 21 March 2014

Thalicha Kambu Idli/Tempered Pearlmillet Idli

Pearlmillet / Bajra is one of the nutritious and the oldest millet used by our ancestors, its highly rich in fiber content which makes it more healthier. This millet is used as a regular meal in some regions of India. Its really very much advised to include this fibre rich millets quite often in our regular diet.Eating often pearlmillet provides us plenty of fibre,iron,magnesium,copper,zinc, vitamine E and B Complex, thiamine, riboflavin and niacin. Its a gluten free grain, which can be easily included in a diet of a person who have allergy towards gluten.This grain is also highly effective and recommended for people who suffers from constipation and stomach ulcers.Obviously this grain is very much good for diabetics to keep their glucose levels normal.

Dunno how to add this incredible grain is your diet, just make our South Indian dishes like idlies,dosas and pongal with it. I do quite often idlies or dosas, but for a change i went for a tempered pearlmillet idli which sounds almost like Kanchipuram Idlies. This tempered spices gives a wonderful flavour to this idli and we had a satisfying dinner with nutritious rich idlies.Sending to my own event Healthy Diet-Cooking with Wholegrains guest hosted by Nupur.

Monday 17 March 2014

Eggless Custard Powder & Chocolate Chips Cookies - Holi Special

Sometimes we doesnt need to search for a long to fill our kid's snack box, just a simple homemade cookies is enough to make them happy. I have made couple of easy breezy cookies which are quite addictive and my kids will go crazy if they saw them. One among those cookies is this eggless, but not butter free custard powder and chocolate chips cookies. These cuties are dangerously addictive and they are kid's friendly snacks to enjoy without any guilt just with a glass of milk for anyone's evening snacks.With simple and easy ingredients, these cookies gets ready very easily and trust me they will get vanished very much quickly too.

If they are properly conserved they stay prefect for a week, but i bet that none can stop just with one, yes we couldnt stop yourself munching these cuties. Am sending these buttery cookies to Sangee's Love2Bake   and  Bake Fest#29 event by Vardhini,hosted by me.These cookies are going to be a part of Holi special, yes we a group of friends decided few days back to celebrate virtually Holi by posting anything as holi special since i opted for yellow colour, am joining my friends to celebrate Holi in our own way that means virtually.


Saturday 15 March 2014

Murungakkai Kootu Saaru/Drumstick Kootu Saaru - Kongu Nadu Special

After chettinad cuisine,one of my favourite cuisine is Kongunadu cuisine, i always want to explore this cuisine.I love arusi paruppu saadham very much from Kongunadu Cuisine, whenever i feel like having a simple one pot meal, i'll go immediately for their popular arusi paruppu saadham. This fingerlicking kootu saaru is from a supplement named 30 varieties of Kongu Nadu Samayal, i have cooked already a fantastic dish from this supplement. You check the another gravy here. While going through this supplement, the name of this dish attracted me immediately, actually we make kootu with cooked dal but this gravy is completely different and goes for a combination of tamarind and roasted dal based masala paste. Sounds interesting na, after cooking this gravy, when i tasted with rice this kootu tastes between kuzhambu aka tamarind based gravy and dal.

Without any spice powder, this gravy is definitely something interesting to try and taste with rice or idlies.Shallots are used in this kootu saaru in both grinding part and for tempering, slightly crushed shallots used in tempering this dish gives a wonderful flavor to this tangy kootu saaru. If you want to make something different from the usual kootu curries, just go through this dish and try once, am sure you will definitely love this gravy.This post goes  for the CC Challenge of the month.


Friday 14 March 2014

Nigerian Puff Puff/Nigerian Kpof Kpof

Nigerian puff puff or kpof kpof are small puffy sweet doughnuts prepared simply with flour,nutmeg powder,sugar,yeast and with salt. These doughnuts goes for simple ingredients you can find easily in your pantry.When deep fried, these puffy doughnuts are very much addictive, just you cant stop with one. This post is the last post of this week's blogging marathon, and the theme of this week is One dish Three Countries. I chosed doughnuts and i have shared already two different doughnuts from Belgium and Italy.

Puff puff are evening snacks, many similar versions of this puff puff exist around the world. You can also prepare Puff Puff using eggs but mine is completely egg free, you can just sprinkle sugar over them before eating or just roll them in sugar. Even you can roll them with cinnamon sugar or vanilla sugar. Its all your choice, last but not least you can even make a fusion dessert with puff puff served along with fruit coulis or simply with chocolate sauce. Just eat this puffy snacks as you desire. However we loved this doughnuts while they were warm with chocolate sauce.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#38.



Tuesday 11 March 2014

Zeppole - Italian Doughnuts

If you have gone through my previous post, you might have noticed that am posting doughnuts during three days as am running blogging marathon with One Dish Three Countries as theme, and the dish i chosed is doughnuts. After Belgian croustillons, now we are landing towards Italy, Zeppole the Italian sweet doughnuts are quite popular in Italy. These sweet doughnuts are made with both ricotta and mascarpone cheese. Do you know that Zeppole can also be a savoury and it is also a fried bread dough goes for anchovy fish and sometimes for mashed potatoes.

However today my post is completely a sweet doughnuts. Zeppoles are light,puffy doughnuts,you can eat them simply just like that if they are rolled in cinnamon-sugar, but however zeppoles can also been eaten with custard or pastry cream. I went for an easy serving, i rolled mine with cinnamon-icing sugar mixture and we enjoyed having this puffy doughnuts for our snacks.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#38.


Monday 10 March 2014

Belgian Croustillons/Belgian Doughnuts

Belgian croustillons are spongy doughnuts which is usually sold during exhibitons in Belgium, its somewat like a street food. Belgian peoples goes to exhibition just to buy and have this doughnuts. You may wonder why am talking about Belgian doughnuts today, this week am running blogging marathon with an interesting theme.One dish Three countries is the theme for this week and i will be posting three different doughnuts from three countries, so you might have noticed that i chosed doughnuts as my dish for this theme.

When i chosed doughnuts as my dish for this week's theme, i was searching something different from Europe and thus i found that Belgian croustillons may suit prefectly for theme.I called my friend from Belgium and asked about this dish, she was kind enough to help me to get this recipe from her grandma.Croustillons i have prepared is not the authentic one,Yes the authentic croustillons goes for Belgian beer and it is fried in pork fat (saindoux)or beef fat.But i opted for a no beer croustillons and i fried them in cooking oil. These croustillons are seriously very addictive and one can eat a huge bowl without any hesitation within few minutes.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#38


Saturday 8 March 2014

Tomato Masala Kurma

Actually my mom makes delicious tomato kurma with fresh juicy tomatoes along with coconut,poppyseeds and fennel seeds masala paste. But while going through a supplement, i was surprised to see a new version of masala kurma immediately i want to give a try to this gravy. Seriously this dish came out simply incredible and the masala paste this recipe goes for is something different from the usual one.Have you ever tried a masala paste with peanuts for making a tomato kurma. But this gravy goes for it, trust me adding peanuts to the masala paste makes the difference from the usual one.

This kurma tastes absolutely fabulous as gravy with rice or as side dish with dosas,idlies.This masala kurma is definitely something from watever we would have already tasted.I'll advice to use juicy tomatoes for making this kurma.This post goes  for the CC Challenge of the month.


Saturday 1 March 2014

Manga,Murungakaai,Paalakottai Kuzhambu/Raw Mango,Drumstick,Jackfruit Seeds Dal Gravy - A Kongu Nadu Special

Did i told you, i came back home with a bunch of Tamil magazine supplements i collected during my three months stay in India. I love going through those supplements and try to recreate many different dishes from those supplements. Today recipe is also from Aval Vikatan supplement called 30 Kongu Nadu Dishes, while going through this supplement i got hooked immediately to this dish. This dish is called kuzhambu but trust me this dish doesnt goes for the famous ingredient tamarind we usually use for making kuzhambu. Its a dal based kuzhambu,sounds interesting na.

This kuzhambu is completely a different one with mild spices which doesnt hurt even a toddler's tummy.This dish is just spiced with a grounded paste of coconut and green chillies and the mild sourness from the raw mango. Obviously you need a spicy side dish to enjoy along with this delicious kuzhambu. If you want a very mild ,spiceless,different kuzhambu, i'll definitely suggest this dish to you.This post goes  for the CC Challenge of the month.