Ramadan Day 7

The sweet version of french toast is a quick breakfast and the spicy one is a quick snack! My sweet version goes for WYF : Breakfast Event and my spicy version goes for the Ramadan event

Sweet French Toast

5 slices of white bread

2 large eggs

1/4 cup milk

1/4 tsp cardamom powder

2 tbsp sugar (add more or less as per your taste)

a pinch of sugar

oil for shallow frying

-Cut bread into half diagonally.

- Beat eggs, sugar, milk, cardamom powder and salt .

- Dip the bread into the egg mix and shallow fry.

Spicy French Toast

5 slices of white bread

2 large eggs

1 medium sizes onion

2-3 green chillies (Use less or more according to your taste)

salt to taste.

-Cut bread into half diagonally.

- Grind onions and green chillies to a fine paste without adding water

- Beat eggs and add the onion-chilli paste and salt to it and mix well.

- Dip the bread into the egg mix and shallow fry.

Ramadan Day 5

I’m smiling as i type this because i was nicked as ‘Bonda’ during my childhood days! I used to be angry when my cousins call me that but now when i think back i cant help laughing because i really was fat and round! the gol gol type LOL! and i loved potatoes and i still do.

Potato is the Raja (king)of all veggies. I havent come across someone who doesn’t like potatoes. Fry ir or bake it or steam it of add to your stew it tastes so good.

Here is my simple recipe for bonda:

For the potato mixture–

1/2 tsp mustard and cumin seeds

3-4 tbsps of oil

4 large potatoes boiled and mashed

1 tsp ginger garlic paste

3 green chillies finely chopped

salt to taste

a handful of corriander leaves chopped finely.

Heat oil in a kadai and add the mustard and cumin seeds and let it splutter. Add onions and fry till onions are light brown. Add ginger-garlic paste to it and fry for 2-3 mts. Add green chillies and salt and  mix well. Add the mashed potatoes mix well and then chopped corriander leaves at the end and set aside till it cools. Make lemon size balls after cooling.

For the batter–

1 cup plain flour

1 tsp ajwain

salt to taste

water to mix the batter

Mix everything to form a thick batter.

**The batter should not be watery otherwise i wont stick to the bondas. In my picture my batter was a bit of watery so it did not stick to the batter.

*** Variations of the batter

> 1/2 cup plain flour and rice flour (According to me this one is the best)

> 1 cup rice flour

> 1 cup besan flour

Dip the potato balls in the batter and deep fry.

My bondas go for the Ramadan Event hosted by Lubna

This is one of the very very famous dishes in kerala. and one of the most popular break fast item too. im blogging this for Srivalli’s Rice Mela she really gives a reason to cook and blog! You rock girl!!!

Puttu is made of parboiled rice flour. It is first washed and dried and then grinded to make flour. Well actually thats the procedure in kerala.. but since im in Singapore i go for the ready madeputtu flour which is much more easier!! LOL!

Brown channa curry or chicken curry or stews goes well with puttu. today morning i made brown channa curry to go with it.

For the puttu you’ll need

3 cups rice flour
1 cup water
1-2 cups of scraped coconut
salt to taste

Take the flour in a large bowl and add salt to it. Add the water slowly to it to make the puttudough. The puttu dough is very loose and should not be any lumps in it. If u find any lumps break it and keep on mixing it.

• If you are using roasted flour you might need more water. so add water accordingly.

Now boil water in the puttu kutti (puttu maker). u can see that there are 2 parts of the puttukutti. Boil water in the below one.

Mean while in the kutti (the upper part of the puttu maker) Add 1 tbsp of coconut. On top of that add 3 tbsp of flour. Again coconut and flour. repeat this till the kutti is full.

But be sure that the top and bottom of the puttu kutti should be filled with coconut layer. Now fix the kutti on top of the puttu maker. And boil it till the steam comes out from the top.

Puttu can also be eaten with bananas and sugar…

Now here goes the brown channa curry or kadala curry

1 medium sized onion thinly sliced
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 cups brown channa
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 medium sized tomato cut into small pieces
1 1/2 tbsp coriander pwdr
1/2 tbsp red chilli pwdr (if u want to make it more spicy u can add more.)
1/4 tbsp haldi pwdr
1 spring curry leaves
salt to taste
oil for sauting
4 cups of water

heat oil in a pressure cooker. Add mustard seeds to it. when they splutter add onions and curry leaves to it. When the onions are brownish add ginger garlic paste to it and saute for another 1 mt. After that add tomatoes to it. When the tomatoes are soft add the masalas to it. Once oilseparates form the mixture add the brown channa and water to it and presurre cook for 20-25mts.

And now its ready to serve with puttu!

This entry also goes to WYF:Breakfast Event

“Soup is a food that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables in stock or hot/boiling water, until the flavor is extracted, forming a broth”.  source Wikipedia

When im lazy to cook or eat something solid food soups come to the rescue! One of the soups which i make during dinner time is this one.

It is easy to prepare and and very healthy as it as chicken breast, carrots, celery, potatoes, spinach and a lot of spices to spice it up!

So for this soup you will need

200-300 grams of chicken breast

1 medium size potato

1/2 of a spinach bunch

1 small carrot

1 celery stalk

Cut everything in to small pieces and boil together for 2 hours. Blend it with a hand blender into a fine paste or as per you like. Garnish with black pepper, marjoram,basil,oregano,crushed red pepper and salt!

This soup is really filling and you can also change the choice of veggies, u can add corn, green peas, tomatoes, or any other veggie.

Everyday i think what should i make for dinner sometimes i repeat the same thing twice a week. To avoid that i have made a timetable for the whole month! So every monday is parata day kiddos sure love it! This time i decided to make mooli parata.

Lobia is one of my favorite among beans. today i was thinking to make Lobia parata but somehow i wasn’t in a mood.. And while browsing through some of my favorite blogs i found this recipe in Shaheens Malabar Spices. it turned out so yummy even my kids loved it!

thanks Shaheen for sharing such a wonderful recipe

I love methi.. be it the seeds or leaves or the dried ones (kasuri methi).. i love the flavour though no one else at home is a big fan of it!! In between when i got preggo with my #2 i couldnt even stand it!!!! And for some reason i didnt event buy them for the last 2 yrs!!!

When i went to Mustafa Centre last week i saw the fresh leaves and i thought itz high time i need to have them now! I forgot all the recipes i used to make with the methi leaves i tried to google but didnt get the ones i used to make. Then i stumbled upon this wonderful recipe of Aloo Methi from Chayya’s blog.

i made it exactly like that and it came out very good.. its easy to make and will go with rotis and rice as well. Thank god dry subzis are loved by all at our home!

Pal in malayalam means milk and vayakka means banana. Its not the normal banana you get all over the world LOL! Kerala has a special type of banana that u can cook and eat. And u can also make many dishes of it even when its raw, half ripe and ripe.

Im glad we get the same type of bananas in Singapore!!! with out it ramazan would not be the same

So this is recipe is the ripe bananas with sago and coconut!

2 ripe kerala bananas
1 cup sago or sabu daana
sugar to taste
salt 1/4 tsp
1 and half cup grated coconut
1/2 tsp fennel seeds or saunf
2-3 shallots

• Cut the bananas in to thin long pieces and boil in a vessel with sufficent water
• Boil the sabu daana with sufficent water seperatly.
• Mean while grind the coconut, fennel seeds and shallots into a thick fine paste.
• When the banana and the sago are cooked and soft combine it into one vessal and add the grinded paste to it and cook again.
• Mix well and serve hot!

In our place, kerala daal vadas are made of Toor daal. But since i met my dear friend sasikala who introduced me to the Tamil cuisine i have been making daal vadas with channa daal. And ofcourse its tastier than the ones i used to make!

For this you’ll need

1 cup channa daal soaked for 3-4 hrs
1 onion finely sliced
3-4 green chillies finely sliced
1 tbsp saunf or fennel seeds
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
salt to taste
oil for deep frying

• grind the daal into a fine paste with out adding water
• mix the rest of the ingredients to it
• make small patties and deep fry!