Here is what I managed to get out my kitchen this week.

Weekly Menu 1

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sunday	Egg Noodles	Mutton soup, Pepper Rasam, Mutton Chukka	Dosai, Mutton Chukka
Monday	Cereals	Aloo Palak, Chappathi	Fried Rice, Chilli Mushroom
Tuesday	Cereals	Morru Kozhambu, Beet-root fry	Dosai, Karra chutney
Wednesday	Cereals	Chicken Kuzhambu	Dosai , Chicken kuzhambu
Thursday	Cereals	Brinjal Karra kozhambu , Cabbage Kootu	Spinach Aloo Paratha
Friday	Spinach Chappathi, Cabbage Kootu	Tomato Rice, Raitha	Eat Out
Saturday	Egg with honey s/w	Veg Briyani,Teriyaki Shrimp, Vazhaipoo vadai	Left overs

Weekly Menu -2

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sunday	Eat out	Eat Out(Skiing :) )	Left overs
Monday	Cereals	Red Spinach with Dhall, Potato curry	Fish fry with Rice
Tuesday	Croissants	Pulli Kuzhambu, Chow-chow fry	Eat out (Badminton)
Wednesday	Idli Chicken kuzhambu	Chicken kuzhambu, Egg poriyal	Idli with podi
Thursday	Croissants	Office party	Idli , vada curry
Friday
Saturday

Weekly Menu 3

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sunday	Egg S/w	Chicken kuzhambu	Dosai, Chutney
Monday	Cereals	Dhall Spinach,Yam fry	Dosai,Veg khurma
Tuesday	Cereals	Morru Kozhambu, Brinjal	Dosai
Wednesday	Cereals	Chicken Kuzhambu	Dosai , Chicken kuzhambu
Thursday	Cereals	Rasam, Mutton chukka
Friday	Spinach Chappathi, Cabbage Kootu	Kaara kuzhambu, chow -chow fry
Saturday

Shrimp Tempura

This is not actually a recipie. Just a quick dip and fry.

You need

Tiger Shrimp ,Tempura mix,Honey coconut flakes (Japanese version) (optional)

Salt ,Pepper,Tooth picks,Oil to fry

Flatten out the shrimps and insert tooth-picks to make them straight.

Sprinkle salt and pepper on it.

Mix tempura flour with cold water and bring it to batter consistency.

Heat oil in a wok.

Roll the shrimp on the tempura first and then the coconut flakes.

Dip it in oil and fry till the color turns brown.

Enjoy with tempura sauce or Sweet and sour chilli sauce.

Oatmeal with Cinnamon and Cranberry

Someone once told me breakfast is "A meal after fasting" and it should be sumptuous. Though I never have a heavy breakfast, I try at least not to skip. My recent favorite is this.

Oatmeal with Cinnamon and Cranberry

Appromixate cooking time - 7 min
You need
Oats - 3/4 cup
Milk - 1 /2 cup
Water -1/4 cup
Sugar - 1tbsp
Ground Cinnamon - a bit
Dried Cranberries - 4

Method
Heat the milk. When the milk starts boiling, add oats and then water. Reduce the flame to medium and cook for 4 minutes. I like the oats semi-solid (oeey-goeey). When it reaches desired consistency, switch off, transfer to a bowl and add sugar and sprinkle ground cinnamon. Add the dried cranberries. Serve warm. You would have never guessed oatmeal tastes this good.

After-thought - Nutritional value and others
Cinnamon - The spice mimics your body's insulin, which stimulates fat cells and allows excess sugar to move out of the blood. Try to get a teaspoon a day and loose weight :)
Oats - Can help to lower the blood cholesterol
Cranberries - I can't stress enough the goodness of cranberries - go Google or go Bing!!
Get creative and substitute with blueberries/strawberries. For people living in US, I get the Coache's Oats from Costco with steel cut texture. Like it more than Quaker's.

Cabbage Kootu

This is one easy and tasty dish that I like to make. I guess this is the only south indian gravy dish that doesn't use either tomatoes or onions.
It is almost a sin to taste this good without any work on it :)

What goes in (measurements are approximate)
1 cup Chana Dhal
7 tbsp shredded coconut
3 green chillies
1/2 cabbage
1 tbsp cumin seeds
Corrainder leaves to garnish

Cabbage kootu on the stove

How to
Cut cabbage to small pieces.
Boil Chana dhall with atleast 3 cups of water on medium heat to almost 6 whistles.
Make sure the chana dhall is well cooked and mashed coarsely , not like a paste. There should be no gram shapes visible .
Meanwhile, cook the cabbage with little oil, keeping it covered on medium flame for 10-15 mins.
Grind coconut with green chillies and cumin seeds.
Once the cabbage is cooked add the chana dhall and the coconut paste.
Garnish with corriander leaves.

After-thought
Cabbage can be substituted with chow-chow (chayote squash) or any other squash.
This goes well with pulli kuzhambu/chappathis.
Left to me, all I need is a spoon and I will devour it to the last bit.

Spinach Aloo Paratha

My memories of good aloo parathas come from my TCS days, at a dhaba in Trivandrum.
Oh the melting butter.. comfortably suited on top of the hot parathas.
After nearly 3 years of cooking, I brought myself to try some aloo parathas. Just to give it a appealing color, I also added some spinach and here are the details of my trial.

What goes in
1 handful spinach - really thats all you need
1 cup wheat flour - Use a little less wheat flour than you would use for Chapathis.
2 small potatoes
Ginger garlic paste
2 green chillies
Salt to taste
1 tbsp Ghee
4-5 tbsp Oil for making the parathas

Spinach aloo paratha with melting butter

Skipping the aloo, just the spinach chappathi

How to
Wash the spinach and grind it to a paste
Add this to the wheat flour and make the dough like chappathi dough, by adding salt, ghee, water. Make sure to add less water, than you normaly would, because the spinach makes the dough wet.

Boil the potatoes allowing atleast 5 whistles.
Mash them well.

Heat oil in kadai. Add green chillies, potatoes and mix them together.Add salt. This paste should taste a little bit spicy.
Roll the wheat dough into chappathi shapes and place a ball of the potato mixture.
Wrap it tight anyway you want it, make a ball again and then roll it tight.
Now it is officially called a paratha, since it is stuffed. Dust with dry flour as and when needed.
Place the parathas on a hot tawa and apply some oil/ghee over it.
Flip over when you start seeing some dark spots.

Serve with salted butter on top. That is the best way to have it :) Enjoy.


After thoughts
This was my first time trying paratha and I made mistakes in every possible step. This is more of a self note to myself not to repeat these again.
1. Undercooked potatoes - Potatoes must be well cooked and mashable.
2. Prepared the dough first and then added spinach. This made the dough more wet than I wanted it to be. Had to add more flour to bring it to form.
3.Used more wheat four. Need to use less wheat flour than that is used for Chappathis.
4. Buy salted butter instead of plain butter :)

After-after Thought
My husband thinks I am crazy to put this is in my blog. But still, I am going to.While I was making the parathas, I kept creating the below lines in my mind

Butter,butter melt away
Make the parathas yummy
Hungry me wants to eat
Butter,butter melt away

If you haven't figured out by now, this rhymes with Rain rain go away.

Ginger Tea/Ginger chai

As much as a cup of hot coffee revives me in the morning, a hot cup of tea on a rainy day is all it takes for me to enjoy the drippy drops.
Tea in the rain is a sort of poetry thing, and here is a little poem to go with.

My copper kettle
whistles merrily
and signals that
it is time for tea.

The fine china cups
are filled with the brew.
There's lemon and sugar
and sweet cream, too.

But, best of all
there's friendship, between you and me.
As we lovingly share
our afternoon tea.
-~Marianna Arolin

Tea for 2 - What goes in
1 cup water
1 cup milk
2 tbsps of tea powder
2 cardamom pods
2 scraps of ginger
2 tbsp sugar

How to make some tea
Boil water.
On the first boil add the cardamom pods, scrape some ginger and add the tea powder.
Allow for one more boil.
Now add the milk and wait for one more boil.
Turn heat to low and simmer for a few minutes.
Filter the tea and add sugar according to taste.
Make sure to cool it down like a tea-master or chai-wala does :)
Photo credits : http://nimkarkedar.blogspot.com/2008/02/chai-wala.html

Chilli Mushroom

Fried Rice with Chilli Mushroom

I love anything fried , so much that gobi manchurian features on my menu at least once a week. Though it doesn't go with good health, I excuse myself with the thought that, I will reduce my consumption as I get older :) .

I had these packet of mushrooms sitting in the fridge for more than a week. All I know to make with mushrooms is one soggy mushroom kuzhambu and that didn't appeal to me much today evening.
So I went off to google, and made up the below recipe, by combining a couple of blog posts.

Move over healthy foods.. Make way for the all fried and spicy Chilli Mushroom.

Mushrooms - how much ever you got
Oil - for deep frying

For the Mushroom Batter
All purpose flour/Maida - 3 tbsp
Corn Flour - 2 tbsp
Baking powder (optional)- 1 tbsp
Pepper powder - 1/2 tbsp
Ajinomoto (optional)- pinch
Salt - as required
Add water and bring it to dosai consistency.

For the Gravy
Onions - 1/2 of a big one - diced to cubes
Capsicum - 1
Green Chillies - 10
Ginger , Garlic - Per taste
Corriander - a few stems
Soy Sauce- 2 tbsp
Ajinomoto - a pinch
Chilli powder - 1 tbsp
Tomato ketchup - 1 tbsp


How To
Clean mushrooms and cut to desired size. I love it meaty, so I use fairly big sizes.
Boil a few quarts of water and add cleaned mushrooms to it, allowing it stay on heat for 5 mins. Make sure to take them out before they loose the crispness.
Mix the boiled mushrooms with the batter given above and deep fry in oil. Pat dry in paper napkins.

Grind corriander, ginger and garlic.
Fry green chillies, Onions, capsicum in 2 tbsp oil. Then add the paste of ginger garlic and corriander.
Once browned, add chilli powder, salt, soy sauce, ajinomoto and finally the tomato ketchup.
When they start to mix well, add the fried mushrooms and cook on medium for 2 minutes.
Garnish with corriander and server hot.

Idli podi, Idli molaga podi

I consider Idli with podi to be the south-indian version of comfort food. If you have the idly batter and podi ready, it is exactly a work of 10 mins.

Idli podi constituents
1/2 cup Urud Dhall
1/2 cup Chana Dhall
Pinch of salt & pinch of asafo deita
15-20 red chillies
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1/2 tbsp Oil
1 tbsp shredded coconut
Curry leaves -1tbsp - Optional

Fry all the ingredients in 1/2 tbsp oil. The mixture should essentially be dry.
Grind it and add more chillies/salt according to taste.

Aatu Kaal Soup, Lamb Shank Soup

I was down with the flu and remembered my childhood days when dad used to get hot and spicy aatu kaal soup from the market. Ah.. Dad is in Neyveli, no where nearby and I haven't had good mutton soup in any of the US resturants :( . My friend Uma came to my rescue and gave me her recipe. And oh..boy..was it good.. It tasted so wonderful and soothing to the throat in this cold Albuquerque weather. I kept drinking it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Delectable Mutton Soup...Drink Away

Need
Lamb Shanks - 2 big pieces
Onion - 1 small or half big
Tomato - 1 small
Ginger,Garlic - According to taste
Cumin powder,Ground Pepper, Turmeric Powder,Chilli powder - According to taste
Corriander to garnish
Oil- 1 tbsp - Optional
How to
The hardest part is to clean the lamb shanks and cut it to desired size.
Cut the onions and tomatoes to the smallest size possible.
Cut and grind the ginger garlic to paste
Then it is all in the mix, In a pressure cooker,mix the lamb shanks, turmeric powder(1/2 tbsp), chilli powder(1/2 tbsp), salt, Onions, tomatoes, oil. Turn on the heat and allow the cooker to shout about 10 whistles.
Once the cooking is done, add cumin powder and fresh ground pepper.
Garnish with corriander leaves and serve steamy hot.

Boondhi Laddu - Diwali Special

Making laddu has always been out of my league. I somehow always considered that to be a mamooth task. This Diwali I had so much time to kill and finally sat down to make these lovely golden sweet balls. Googled the recipe and adjusted it according to my tastes. Those round little morsels were so tasty that they got over in the next few mins I made them. Had to make another batch for diwali prasadam.
Thanks to this video. Following this video to the word, should give a good output.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pFJKN0C9wU.

My laddus ,the measures and food thermometer

Want a bite??