s notes: June 2006

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Potato Podimas

Potato I believe is one vegetable liked by all. Here is a recipe that is a favourite of mine and is easy to prepare

POTATO PODIMAS

Ingredients
Potatoes – 3 boiled & mashed
Green chillies - 4-5 Chopped
Channa Dal – ½ tsp
Urad dal – ½ tsp
Red Chillies – 2
Mustard Seeds – ½ tsp
Curry Leaves
Grated coconut - 3 tbsp
lime juice - 2 tsp (optional)
oil - 1tbsp
Salt to taste

Method

• Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds and allow them to splutter.

• Now add the seasoning ingredients – Channa Dal, Urad Dal and Red Chillies

• When they turn brown, add the chopped green chillies and curry leaves and fry for a minute

• Add mashed potatoes, salt and cook for 5 minutes under low flame

• Add coconut and lime juice just when ready to serve

posted by vasuja at 12:55 PM 0 comments

Shocking Yet Interesting

I recently watched an interesting rather shocking (for me) episode on the Ophrah Winfrey show. The show had a couple of identical twins as guests. What was interesting was one of the identical twins had changed their sex !!! Imagine changing your sex. Would one dare to do that .. I can never ever imagine this.. Why would one want to do that ? Both the guests were identical twins and both were women. And one of them had changed to a "Man". They talked about how important it was for them to be a "Man" and the need for them to change their sex. I have actually heard of this, but it was interesting to actually watch somebody live. I believe the male changing to a female is more predominant than the female changing to male. The condition is called "transsexual" It means that someone is born physically male or female but they feel like the other gender mentally. And this is different from being a "Tranvestite" which is more common where they want to dress as the opposite gender. I was totally taken aback by watching one of the guests on the show. The guest was born a female (identical twin). Was a lesbian before the guest got a sex change done to a male, now dates women and has gay friends and is attracted to men as well as women.. Oh my God, all this is too much for me to digest coming from a traditional South Indian background but I guess they do happen. Why cant people live the way they are born and make the best of it.

posted by vasuja at 8:52 AM 2 comments

Monday, June 19, 2006

Visit to the Pittsburgh Venkateswara temple

Visiting the temple has always given me a great sense of satisfaction. I felt contended when we visited the Pittsburgh temple yesterday. I believe that the temple is the first Hindu temple in the United States. The vaadhyam, the mantras and the sculptures in the Pittsburgh Venkateswara temple brought me back my mylapore memories. Having lived close to the mylapore temples, I got lucky enjoying the traditional essence of temples, carnatic music and of course good food.

It was such a feast watching little girls in pattu pavadai and I did spot people in veshti and pattu podavai.Not to mention food - we had good sambhar sadam and puliyodarai.

We bought a book on Hindu culture by Swami. Tejomayananda the spiritual head of the Chinmaya mission worldwide and is a disciple of Swami Chinmayananda. I ought to read this book. I am often asked by my American friends to talk about our Indian culture. Srini and I felt we could share this book with them. I borrowed a book “Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies” by Abbeja A Dubois from Prakash, Srini’s friend. I am yet to read it inspite of Prakash’s high recommendation . Srini has started asking me a lot of questions on religion, God etc… and this is inspiring me to read these books.



posted by vasuja at 10:05 PM 22 comments

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Way to win a man's heart

It is often said the way to win a man’s heart is through his stomach. Mine is with new recipes. Srini (my hubby) loves it when I surprise him every time with a new dish at the dinner table. And who wouldn’t want to please her man !!!!

I have never been a great fan of Brinjal or the Eggplant until I started cooking. One I wasn’t aware at the number of recipes you could come up with it. Gosh ! It’s really awesome and I now know what I have missed all these years. I have always been so finicky with food and hardly ate veggies during my childhood years. Being a pampered spoilt brat my mom let me off and was too pleased if I did eat a meal, forget the veggies…

Today , Eggplant is now a must-buy in my shopping list. Srini loves all the variations that I prepare with them. The Methi Baingan that I prepared day before yesterday was a big hit at dinner and Srini loved it so much.. I am sure you will love it too..I served it along with Cabbage Parathas .You could with rice or chappatis…

Methi Baingan
Ingredients:
Brinjal – small 6 in no
Tomatoes – 2
Fenugreek leaves (Methi) – one bunch
Green Chilles – 3 (adjust according to your spice levels)
½ tsp Tumeric powder
mustard seeds and cumin seeds – 1 tsp for seasoning
salt to taste
oil to fry

Method

• Slit the brinjals lengthwise and finely chop the tomatoes and methi leaves and green chillies

• Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard and cumin seeds

• When they begin to splutter, add tumeric powder

• Now add the finely chopped green chillies and tomatoes and saute for 2-3 mins

• When done add the fenugreek leaves and cook for a 3 minutes.

• To this add the cut brinjals and add salt to taste.

• Simmer and cook for 10- 15 minutes until the brinjals are cooked.

• Server hot with rice or chapattis

Let me know how it turns out in your kitchen

posted by vasuja at 3:33 AM 2 comments

Monday, June 12, 2006

The First Attempt

I have been reading blogs the last few days. I understand the mantra today is to blog. Everybody blogs.. My husband blogs, his friends blog, his friend’s friend blog. I got so inspired by this blog thing and thought let me give it a try. I then did a quick search on wikipedia to find what a blog is.

The results of my search
"A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a website usually consisting of articles, though they can focus on photographs, videos or audio, in a reverse chronological order. Like other media, blogs often focus on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; however, some function as online diaries instead. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic.
The first blogs were known as "online diaries", and started in 1994. The term "weblog" itself was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997."

I then decided to blog. I was waiting for the right day or moment rather to begin as I wanted something good to start with. I love cooking and the food blogs I had been reading I should say have been my source of inspiration .Food bloggers I am going to join your club.

I finally found the right moment to begin. I caught up with a school-mate of mine after 8 years. We were real good buddies at school, after school we changed streams and moved to different colleges and our jobs took us apart. I landed in the states end of last year. I caught up with an old friend of mine here. We were talking of old times and she mentioned this school mate of ours living here and I gave her a big time surprise one day.

She is in DC this week for a conference and decided to visit us. I would say, it was really great to meet an old time friend. She surprised me with her figure. She looks really smart now and I wonder how she managed to shed all her weight. I got to learn how to stay slim and look smart from her. She was in to this dietician thing long back and talks calories and only calories… My hubby kicked off with her too and believe it or not the three of us talked and talked about food, food and only food for almost an hour and a half and we would have go on and on as I interrupted and said “Lets have food” I didn’t realize until now that there was so much to talk about food.

Anyway, as she was visiting us the first time, I prepared carrot kheer the recipe I decided to post. I also prepared bisi bela bath, Aloo fry, Capsicum Rice, Chappatis and dal.

Here is the Carrot Recipe.. I forgot to take a picture. I believe that’s the norm in all the food blogs, I shall the next time

You will need

Carrots- 2
Milk – 1 litre
Sugar – ½ cup
Cardomom powder – ¼ tsp
Raisins, Almonds and Pistachois – as required
Ghee – 1tsp

Method

Peel and Grate the carrots. Put the grated carrots in boiling water cover them with a lid and keep aside for 5 mins. Drain and pour cold water over them. Boil milk in a large pan. Reduce the flame and simmer it stirring continuously for 15 mins. Add sugar and boil.
Now squeeze the water out of the carrots and add the carrots to the milk. Simmer for about 3-4 minutes. Heat a tsp of ghee. Add rasins, pistachios and almonds and roast them in ghee. And add the garnish to the carrot kheer. Serve in a bowl. This can be served hot or cold as desired.

This is a very easy to prepare and does not take much time. Hope you enjoy it.... More to come....

posted by vasuja at 11:13 PM 1 comments