Me and my World

Out of eggs and butter, but wanted to bake. I have this amazing, tested, egg-less brownie recipe that uses butter. Generally I would substitute butter with yogurt or vegetable oil, but today I tried something different. Coconut Oil. Coconut Oil has been hailed for its nutritional benefits. And we have lot of coconut oil based recipes in our household. Amazing flavor. Here is the recipe - Ingredients: All-purpose Flour - 2 cups Sugar - 2 cups (I used brown sugar. Molasses in the brown sugar intensifies the goodness of the chocolate) Cocoa Powder (unsweetened) - 1/2 cup Baking powder - 1 Tsp Salt - 1 Tsp Water (lukewarm) - 1 Cup Coconut Oil (melted) - 1 Cup (can use vegetable oil, or butter milk 1:1) Vanila extract - 1 Tsp You will find the process very easy. *Set and pre-heat oven to 350F. *Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. *Mix each wet ingredient to the dry ingredient, one at a time. *Layer aluminium foil in a 9x13 baking pan. *Pour the mixture in the p...

I am staying with my brother, sister-in-law and their three year old daughter who is crazy about chocolate. To indulge her sweet tooth, I made chocolate fudge. It's a simple recipe from Hershey's that I changed a little bit. I reduced the sugar a little since my niece will be eating. She watched me make this recipe and was very excited asking when she could eat it. She absolutely loved it, saying yummy a few times! :) Ingredients: Unsweetened cocoa powder - 2/3 cups (I used Hershey's dark cocoa powder, unsweetened) Sugar - 2 1/2 cups Milk - 1 1/2 cup ( I used whole milk) Salt - 1/8 tsp Butter - 4 tbsp ( room temperature) Vanilla essence - 1 tsp *Mix cocoa powder, sugar, milk, and salt in a large saucepan. Make sure saucepan is big, since the mixture has to boil and reduce. *Bring the mixture to a boil on medium heat, stirring continuously. Mixture tends to precipitate if it is not stirred continuously. *When the mixture starts to boil all over, not just t...

There was this one week a few months back when I wanted to eat only Asian food. With my fridge door open and looking at what I had in hand, decided on Thai green curry. It's simple to make and requires nothing special. So here is my simplistic version of the green curry. For an Indian, my taste buds are happy with mild to medium heat, so my thai curry is somewhere about there. Ingredients: Zuccini - dices, about 2 cups Bamboo shoots - dices, about 1/2 cup * Coconut milk - 1/2 can ( store bought thai coconut milk), about 200 ml * You can use any vegetable you want as long as they don't disappear when completely cooked. I didn't have any tofu, but if you do, you can add about 1/2 cup for this recipe. For Green curry paste: Green Chillies - 1 (I used Serrano peppers) Curry leaves - 1 sprigs, about 10 leaves; use about 3-5 for garnishing Coriander leaves - 1/2 bunch, with stems Ginger - peeled, diced, about 1" Garlic - 1-2 cloves Sugar/ Brown sugar ...

Hope everyone is having a good weekend. I have been away from blogging my recipes for such a long time, so decided to start again in the new year with a fresh combination of south and north of India. Yellow pumpkin (mattan) by it self is sweet when cooked. My mother adds just a tinge of red chillies for the light spiciness and some lentils for the protein. Generally in south yellow pumpkin curry is a side dish for sambhar or rasam. On the contrary, in the north yellow pumpkins are cooked with a lot of spice and served as side dish for puri or kachori. I am using butter nut squash, here is a simple recipe: Ingredients: 2 tablespoons chopped coriander (cilantro) 4 cups of sliced squash 1 cup split bengal gram (chana dal, kadala paruppu) 3 tablespoon oil 1/8 teaspoon asafetida (perungayam, hing) 1 teaspoon cumin seed (jeeragam, jeera) 1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds (vendayam, methi seeds) 1 tablespoon coriander powder (malli podi) 1/2 teaspoon turmeric (manjal podi) 1/4 ...

Pachadi is basically a side-dish to go with molagootal . Appa, my father would also mix pachadi with rice as a main dish. Pachadi is either made in tamarind water or without. Manga pachadi doesn't have tamarind in it, while senai (yam), vendakai (okra, ladys' finger) and mathan (yellow pumpkin) are cooked in tamarind. Here is the recipe. Ingredients: Senai (yam) - 50 gms, diced 1" Puli (tamarind) - 1 lemon sized ball or 1 tsp paste Manjal podi (turmeric powder) - 1/2 tsp Salt- to taste Coconut - 1/2 cup shredded Kadugu (mustard seeds) - 1/2 tsp Pachai milagai (green chillies) - 1 Karuvepillai (curry leaves) - 2-3 leaves Oil - 1/2 tsp Soak tamarind in a cup of warm water for 15 mins. Squeeze the tamarind so all the juice go into the water, this is tamarind extract. Add about 1 1/2 cups of water to this extract (or to tamarind paste) and bring it to boil. When tamarind boils, add diced yam, turmeric and salt. Let yam cook in tamarind water. Gr...

Molagootal as you can see is my favorite Kerala Iyer food. I had shared recipes for Yelavan Molagootal and Keerai Molagootal . Now its time for Senai Vazhakkai Molagootal. Mezhukku Varatti and Senai Vazhakkai Molagootal are two recipes in which I relish Vazhakkai (Raw Banana). To the recipe now. Ingredients: Senai (Yam) - 250gm, skinned diced to 1" Vazhakkai (Raw Banana) - 1, skinned diced to 1" Coconut - 1 cup, shredded Thoram paruppu (toor dal) - 1 cup, cooked Red chillies, whole - 1 Ullundu (urad dal) - 1 tsp Kadugu (mustard seeds) - 1 tsp Jeeragam (jeera) - 1 tsp Manjal podi (turmeric) - 1 tsp Curry leaves - 4 leaves Salt - to taste Oil - 1 tsp In a pressure cooked, cook in two layers. On the bottom, add yam and raw banana with turmeric. Add just enough water to cover the vegetables. On top, add enough water to cook toor dal. Now put the pressure cooker on the stove and cook for three whistles or until dal is cooked. In a small pan, heat ...