Me and my World

If you have lived in Madras you have heard of Plum Cake in all the Kerala/Malayalee bakery shops. Its so tasty, available throughout the year.. and indescribably rich. It has tutty-fruity- mixed fruits cut into very very small cubes and either dried, or soaked in sugar syrup to retain its flavor. The advantage in Madras is that this tutty-fruity of mixed fruits is available in all seasons and in any grocery shop. In the U.S fruit cake is baked during Christmas, and the mixed fruits container is available fresh only during the Christmas season. In any other time, we just find one fruit per container. So taking this opportunity, I decided to bake a vegetarian eggless Fruit cake. There are 2 versions to this cake. 1. traditional method - were the fruits are soaked in brandy/sherry from a few hours to a few days before baking. 2. quick fix - no liquid soaking. I followed a recipe from a U.K vegan website but had to modify it quite a bit to get my desired fruit cake. Ingredients: ...

It's the winter break time and again I am here in Phoenix with my parents, brother, sister-in-law and my just eight month old niece! Yes.. seems like a family re-union, but I have been to Phoenix so many times this year that it feels home.. but it has always been my home in the U.S. I had a string of things I wanted to try when I came here, that included a bread. I don't have a cookie tray or a baking pan with me, and there was none of the family to taste my trials. This was a good opportunity. So to just please them, I brought a Dates cake when I came. But then again, the moment I mentioned baking a bread, my SIL and my brother enthusiastically accepted to help me. To that accord my SIL helped me pick the kind of bread she would like me to bake, and my brother helped with his KitchenAid! So here is the recipe from www.cookingbread.com that I modfified a little to accomodate for the ingredients that we had at home. Ingredients - 1 1/2 cups water 2 tablespoons oi...

My mother is a specialist is making storable, and ready to eat South Indian specialties. This is very good example of this. Back home Milagu Kozhambu is considered a simple but medicinal recipe. Amma usually makes the powder form of this Kozhambu, that would only need water and salt before eating. Here is the recipe. Ingredients for dry powder - * 1 1/2 Tbsp Milagu (whole Pepper) * Malli vedai (Coriander seeds) - 2 tbsp * Kadala Paruppu (channa dal) - 1 tbsp * Ullatam Paruppu (urad dal) - 1/2 tsp * Jeeragam (Cumin seeds) - 1 tsp * Mendayam (Fenugreek seeds)(methi seeds) - 1/2 tsp Preparation - * Dry roast all the ingredients * Powder the roasted ingredients into a smooth powder * store powder in an air tight container. When you are ready to make the Kozhambu follow this preparation - Ingredients - * Mustard seeds - 1Tsp * Tamarind paste - 2 tbsp * Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp * salt to taste * Perungayam powder(Asafoetida powder/ Hing) - a pinch * oil - 2 tsp ...

This cake is a recipe from my mother. She microwave bakes all her cakes, and this is one of her recipes. I used to bake this with her and now decided to try it in an oven. This cake has been loved by friends and family, and prepared quite a few times, my cousins and us helping my mother in the preparation. Ingredients: 3/4 Cup milk 18-20 dates, de-seeded and chopped to small pieces 1 Cup APF 1 Cup light brown sugar 1 Tsp baking soda 1/2 Cup oil Preparation: * Pre-heat oven at 350 F. Grease baking tray. * Add chopped dates to milk and microwave for 2 mins. This will soften the dates and it is easier to puree. Leave the microwaved dates to cool, and then puree in a blender, with the milk. * Mix flour, brown sugar and baking soda. To this mixture add oil. The final mixture should have a crumbling consistency. * Add the flour mixture, a Tbsp at a time to the dates puree. * Pour the mixture into the baking try. * Bake for 25-35 mins or until a toothpi...

My friend Karthik Babu seems to have captured the hearts of his roommates with his Kozhambu recipe. We were talking about it when we went to Noodles & Co for dinner. It had been a while since I cooked Kozhambu , but instead of the general paruppu Kozhambu, I wanted to cook Manathangali Kozhambu . Manathangali which is known as black nightshade in English, has antioxidant and anti inflammatory properties. It has lot of health benefits.The leaf of this plant when chewed helps to cure mouth ulcers. According to Wikipedia, traditionally this plant was used to cure tuberculosis. My grandmother used to grow this plant in our garden in Madras, India, and my mom did have her own for quite some time. But now Manathagali is available in the grocery stores (in the U.S too) in the dried and salted variety which can be stored in cool dry place for long years! There are 2 variations of this recipe, one which uses thoram paruppu ( Thuvar dal) and the other which doesn't. Here is ...

Finally One year of baking and blogging about it! To celebrate this milestone I decided to bake again!!! This might be my last banking session, since I will be holidaying with my parents and brothers family for the winter break. This time, 'am trying a new recipe from the scratch. By now you all know that I cook and bake with what's available in my kitchen on that day. So I changed some finer points to accommodate the ingredients availability and here is my new cake. Baking is such an awesome feeling. I can smell the lemon rind and cranberry when it bakes. This can be better called bread since the consistency of the final product is a little less softer than the cake and also the dough rises much mare than a cake normally would. But I bake everything in my cake pan and so call it all a cake. INGREDIENTS: 2 cups All Purpose Flour ( if you are looking to bake a bread, use self-raising flour and just 1/2 tsp of baking powder) 1/2 cup Sugar 2 Tbsp butter 1 tsp va...

The long Thanksgiving break really gave me the time to stir up something, and I felt the urge to bake, again. Woke up in the morning with a good plan of cooking my Ragi porridge and some rice. I had left over Rasam and Carrot kai from yesterday. Today being a Sunday and the break week, didn't want to cook something new and elaborate. But just a look at my new pack of dried cranberries gave me the urge to bake something. I started out with a plain vanilla cake with cranberries in them, but then it all turned out to be something new, something I new tried before. It's the Vanilla Chocolate Swirl cake. This is how it all happened. While I was mixing the dry ingredients, the thought of Zebra cake stayed with me. I have seen a few blogs use toothpick and other things to make these Zebras and I wanted to try it too. But I didn't have any dark chocolate. So I used Nesquick chocolate mix (25% less sugar kind) generously. The cake turned out soft and spongy. I had some for my ...

Deepavali represents victory of good over bad! Hope you all had a good Deepavali with friends and family!! 'Deepavali' this is how we call it down south. All festivals take me back to my childhood days. We will we woken up at 4am on Deepavali. After that very early morning bath and new dress, comes the bursting of crackers before we eat breakfast. For the sake of tradition and belief, we would all burn a kambithiri . Kambithiri is the long thin stick kind-of fireworks that you hold in your hand. Anycase, we would hurry up to breakfast after bursting the required firecrackers. My grandfather would insist in eating his breakfast before the sunrise, and that would be before 6:30am. So what was for breakfast? Dosai and ukkarai . Just to think, amma and mami would toil in the kitchen from early dawn making these dosai for about 20 people. And believe me, we never ate a few dosai , and especially since it comes with Ukkarai , we would goble-up 5-6 dosai in no time! There is ofcou...

I passed my Prelim exam and oral...It was an experience I will never repeat. Writing exams for one whole month and then waiting for a oral that was never getting scheduled and then 3 months after my exam.. was a torture! But I passed. The 2 days after my orals I spent with my friends, cooking and eating, and playing... The whole past week has been kind of busy with work and class, and come Monday the schedule will continue to be busy with exams for my TA class.. So this weekend, no just today, I decided to let go.. and how? with my friend Alka, who visited me all the way from Clearlake.. We had long talks, celebrated our togetherness with dinner and lunch.. watched a movie..funny movie.. shopped.. and said our goodbyes and finally she decided to come back soon! What a peaceful day... Now to celebrate the last weeks, I decided to bake... Eggless Banana cake...this is an original recipe, with ingredients that I have at home. It's still baking and must be done by the time I finis...

I have been so busy the past weeks with my prelim paper feedback and then trying to set-up a oral date that I had forgotten to bake! So today when I came early from college, decided to bake. How do I bake? with just what I got in my kitchen! Yes, I used what I had in my kitchen and baked this cake. All I had was some APF, sugar, oil, milk, yogurt and cranberries. Blueberries and cranberries are my favourite berries.. So here is the recipe: Ingredients:- 2 cups all purpose flour 1 cup sugar 1/3 cup oil 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 cup beaten curd 1 cup sour cream, you can also use 3/4 cup milk and 1/3 cup lemon juice instead of sour cream (See Notes) 2 tsp vanilla extract 1 cup cranberries Procedure:- Preheat the oven to 375F. Grease and flour a pound cake tin. Sieve flour, baking powder and baking soda keep it aside. In a bowl beat sugar and oil for 2 mins until well blended. Add in vanilla extract , again beat for a min. Beat in flour mixture along ...

This is not my first visit to Phoenix, but my first to see 5 month old niece. It amazes every single time to see these tiny tots and their intelligence of this human world when they are just a few months old! Being the eldest child in the family, I grew up with brothers, sisters and cousins, a total of 8 younger to me; the youngest of them at age of 16yrs now. Yet it an amazement! I spent 6 whole days with my new niece, doing nothing else, but waiting for her to wake-up in the morning, seeing her toothless smile, her so soft sleepy face, her shrill cries, how she enjoys her bath time.... Now its' time to leave.. 'am going to miss her.. but will be back very soon!

I was cooking Sakkarai Pongal for my friend's belated birthday treat and decided to write my recipe here on my blog. I remember amma cooking this in vangalapanai, and then later in a normal patharam. During Pongal amma will string/ tie a few manjal (turmeric) root and leaf around the narrow neck of the vengalapanai and we would all shout 'pongalo pongal' when the water and milk comes to boil on top (this was till we were probably 10-12 years). I prefer payasam to sakkarai pongal, but all my family loves sakkarai pongal and vadai. Here is the recipe - Rice : 1 cup split yellow green gram dal: ½ cup Jaggery: 2 cups Milk: 1 cup Ghee : 4 tbsp or more Cashew nuts : a few Cardamom powder: 1 tsp Combine milk with 3 cups of water and heat, so they mix well together. Add rice, dal and milk mixture in a cooker and cook it completely (soft dal) done. Meantime, melt jaggery in 1 cup of water. Strain for impurities. You can use a tea filter for straining. Mash the cooked ...