Going Pro!

Woohoo! I have made something that I don't think has been made even by Amma!
Try and take a guess.



Badam katri !!

I made this for a friend who just graduated and will be leaving here soon. It is so simple to make and I enjoyed making it so much. Just sugar, water, badam(almonds) and heat. It is unbelievable! I wish I could have made it into diamonds, the way it is usually made. But I didn't have a large plate into which I could pat the thing. Also, I think my proportions were a bit off.
I am not very sure it tasted like the real thing, because I tasted it while it was hot and while I was a bit hungry, so it may not really count. Well, basically I am just gushing. From days of eating instant noodles and bread endlessly, I don't even know how I got here!
Yay again!!

New look blog!

Stuffed capsicum - stuffing made of beans, tomato and cheese blocks. Eaten with homemade bread croutons.

Enjoy the new background of this blog made by the resident artist of Riot of Colours.

Food Looking

Rice fried with vegetables (carrot, cabbage, spring onions) and a curry made of potato, onion, tomato, chili and mint leaves.
Talk about good looking food! Any time I am tired of cooking for just myself and wondering why it is that I love having so much variety, I just have to look at these pictures and tell myself, it is worth all the trouble to be able to enjoy food and cooking in this way!

Another wild experiment

Chopped onions, ground mixture of coconut, mint leaves, coriander seeds, and tomatoes. Cooked with rice.
Left over stuff time again!

Fast eat

Lentils and capsicum with fresh coriander. Eaten with pita bread.

Stuff

Rice, more kozhambu with cucumber and capsicum-tomato fry.

Vadai vadai!

Lunch:



Peas fried rice, broccoli-tomato-onion curry.

Dinner:


Peas vadai! Soaked peas ground into a coarse paste with a chili and coriander leaves. Mixed with corn flour and chopped onions and shallow fried in oil!
Wowie! It tasted great!

The philosophical solo cook

Pita bread is a kind of Mediterranean bread that is made such that a pocket is created inside it. It is used as a container for falafel and salads, a popular street food all around the world.
Ready made pita bread - to be bought and baked and eaten. Filled with a salad of lightly fried carrots, cabbage, bean sprouts and spring onions - also available cut and ready to fry. The solo cook must try to experiment with new kinds of food even if it is with ready to cook dishes. It keeps the spirit of the whole ceremony of cooking food alive. What ceremony? You would only understand if you have been through the process of making something for over an hour or two only to devour it in a few fleeting minutes. It is the spirit that matters. It doesn't even matter how the food tastes. Yes, that's what I said!
Holding the bread in my hand and squeezing it gently was the only way I could get the filling in the picture. So there it is! Fun to eat!

Home Spicy Home

Memory of taste is a very strong one. You not only remember a particular taste, your memory also associates it to the times when you tasted something for the first time or repeatedly.
This dish tasted a lot like what was a regular at home.
Coconut, mint leaves, coriander leaves, cloves and chilies ground to a paste. Fried with chopped beans, potatoes and capsicum. Cooked with rice and salt. Eaten with lemon in chopped onions.
Not exactly a "chili spicy" thing, it was a great mix of spice.

Sorry for the weird looking picture

Actually, it was an attempt to show you the crisp parts of our rava upma.

Simple, no frills - rava (sooji/fine semolina) with onions, less than a teaspoon of oil and a red chili. Sometimes I don't care to put up pictures of very plain looking food that I have, when I am not experimenting. This plain food is very very important and just because I don't put up pictures, it doesn't mean these meals are not good. Long live simple food!

Mixture of Flours

"Rava dosa" and tomato-onion-groundnut-chili chutney. Rava dosa made of some rapidly aging instant dosa mix, sooji and corn flour.
Wasn't really like rava dosa, but did taste good! And except for one of them, the dosas split up in tiny pieces.

Zucchini Vattal

As promised, I made some zucchini vattal without drying in the (barely existent) sun.
Slice the vegetable into thin slices and fry till slightly brown with a generous sprinkling of pepper. Add some chopped tomato, sprinkle some thyme and then a minute or two later add some grated cheese. Continue to heat this till all the cheese melts. Sprinkle salt after serving.

Question. Why do so many names of people and foods from Italy end with i ?

Soft at last

Finally some soft chapatis, rather than hard and brittle. With tomato curry - made of tomatoes, onions, garlic, chili powder and a little jaggery.