Tender Coconut Curry

Ingredients:

Tender coconut pieces - 1 cup

Onion - 3 (medium- chopped)

Tomato - 3 (medium- chopped)

Cashewnuts - 2 tablespoons

Red chilli powder -1 tsp

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Garam masala - 1/4 tsp

Salt (as required)

Coriander leaves

Oil

Preparation:

Soak the cashews in hot water for 30 minutes.

Grind them into paste.

Heat the oil in kadai.

Add the onions and fry till it changes into light brown color.

Add the tomatoes and fry till it becomes mushy.

Add the chilli powder, turmeric powder, garam masala, salt and mix well.

Add the cashew paste and saute for a minute.

Now add the coconut pieces and mix.

Add 1 cup of water and mix.

When the gravy starts to boil, add the coriander leaves and remove.

Serves as a good side dish for pulaos and rotis.

Recipe Source: Recipe Book

This is sent off to Viki's "Side Dish for Chapathi" event.

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Omelette Roll and Pesto

Omelette roll:
Source of omelette roll is from 101 CookBooks. To begin with, omelette may be stuffed with any kind of cheese, mixed salad greens and pesto. You may add any kind of favourite stuffings. Instead of mixed greens here, I added crumbled cottage cheese and basil pesto. The eggs should be beaten so well and poured onto a medium hot tawa or crepe pan. For pesto, I picked Rekha's Kitchen's "Mint and Pistachio Pesto". I tweaked mint with basil and followed all the other ingredients. The above picture is from one omeltte.

Ingredients:
Egg - 1
Basil pesto - 1 dollop
Salt (as required)
Crumbled Cottage cheese (as required)

Method:
Beat the egg with the fork evenly.
Add the salt and beat again.
Now pour the egg on a very-medium hot crepe pan and rotate.
Cook on both sides.
Remove and place it on a plate.
Now spread the pesto on surface of the omelette. (for spreading, you can add water in pesto) Now add the cottage cheese and salt (if required).
Now roll the egg and cut diaganolly.
Continue this process with other eggs.
Serve for breakfast and enjoy!

Basil pesto:

Basil - 2 cups
Pistachio - 1/4 cup (chopped)
Garlic - 3 cloves (crushed)
Olive oil - 1 tablespoon
Salt (as required)
Peppercorns - 1/4 teaspoon
Lemon juice - from 1 lemon

Method:
Toast the pistachios for a few minutes in medium heat.
Cool it.
Now add the pistachios, basil, garlic and peppercorn and grind well.
Then add the salt and oil and grind.
Finally add the lemon juice and grind.
Have it with bread, pasta, etc.

This is sent off to Divya's "Show me your omelette" event.

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Betel Leaves and Garlic Rice

This is a 3rd century(!) Kongunadu delicacy. Recipe from Chef Jacob Sahaya Kumar from expressbuzz.com. According to him, this dish is originally prepared without onions and garlic. Instead of pearl onions, I used red onions and for dry ginger powder, I used fresh ginger.

Ingredients:

Basmati Rice (boiled) - 3 cups

Betel leaves - 3 leaves (chopped)

Garlic - 6 extremely thin slices

Onion - 1 (sliced)

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Asafoetida - a pinch

Pepper powder - 1/4 tsp

Chilli powder - 3/4 tsp

Ginger pieces - 1/2 tsp

Coconut milk - 1 cup

Sesame oil

Salt to taste

Ghee - 1/2 tsp

Ingredients for dry roasting and powder:

Bengal gram dal -2 tsp

Sesame seeds - 2 tsp

Method:

Heat the oil and add the garlic.

Fry till it changes into golden color.

Add the onions and fry till the color changes.

Now add the betel leaf pieces, asafoetida, turmeric powder, chilli powder, sesame powder, bengal gram powder, ginger and saute.

Then add the coconut milk and let it thicken.

Add the salt, boiled rice, ghee and mix.

Finally add the pepper powder.

Serve with raita.

This is sent off to RCI-Kongunadu cuisine hosted by Priya of Priya's Easy 'n' Tasty Recipes and originally started by Lakshmi of Veggie Cuisine.

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Vegetable Soup

This soup contains a lot of mixed vegetables. I grabbed whatever vegetable was there in the refrigerator-Carrot, beans, green peas, yellow pumpkin and red capsicum. Adding capsicums in this soup give a sweet taste. It's a very easy and a simple soup to make. I didn't fry or roast any veggies. I just directly boiled them.



Ingredients:
Yellow pumpkin - 1/3 cup
Green peas - 1/4 cup
Carrot - 2 (medium-sliced)
Beans - 5 to 7 (cut into pieces)
Red capsicum - 1/2 (diced)
Corn flour - 1 tbsp
Butter - 1 tsp
Salt (as per taste)
Pepper powder - 1/4 tsp (coarsely crushed)

Method:
Boil all the veggies in a vessel and cover it with a lid.
When it is half-boiled, add the salt.
When the veggies are boiled, cool it.
Blend them in a blender.
Again boil them.
Meanwhile mix cornflour in little water without any lumps.
Add it to the soup and stir.
Then add butter and stir.
Now remove from the heat and add the pepper powder.

This is sent off to Sireesha's "Soup 'n' juice" event.

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Walnut Halwa

Ingredients:
Walnut - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Ghee - 5 tsp
Complan - 2 tsp
Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp
Cashews - 10 (roasted)

Method:
Lightly toast the walnuts, cool and powder them.
Now add little water to the walnut powder to form a thick batter.
In a non-stick pan, add 2 tsps of ghee and add this batter.
Start to fry the batter till it becomes thick (medium flame).
At this stage, add the sugar and mix well.
Stir continuously till it becomes thick.
Now add the complan and mix well.
Add the remaining ghee, cardamom powder, cashews and stir.
When the halwa leaves the side of the pan, remove and place it on a well greased plate or vessel.
Cool and enjoy the halwa!
Recipe Source: Recipe Book

Note: I didn't add too much ghee in this sweet.

This is sent off to Saraswati Iyer's "Sweet & Savouries" event. Click on the link for details.

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Mosambi Juice

Mosambi is also known as 'Sathukudi' in Tamil. This fruit contain a lot of Vitamin C and Iron

Ingredients:
Mosambi - 5 (medium)
Mint leaves - 5 to 6 leaves
Cumin powder - 2 pinches
Pepper powder - 2 pinches
Black salt - 1/4 tsp
Water - 1/2 cup
Sugar as per taste (optional)

Method:
Squeeze the juice from mosambi in hand juicer or electric juicer.
Cut the mint leaves or crush them.
Add the mint leaves, black salt, cumin powder, pepper powder & water in the juice.
Mix well and drink.

This is sent off to Sireesha's 'Soup n Juice' event. Click on the link for details.

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