Kandha pulusu (yams pulusu) Post3

Hello!

Today's recipe is kandha pulusu. Shopping at Randalls last week found these great yams and instantly my mind started cooking them! So here it is for all you variety food lovers.

Preparation time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 20 mins
Energy needed: 4 on a scale of 10

Let's get started!

Ingredients:

oil (3 table spoons)

mustard seeds (1 tea spoon)

Jeera (1 teaspoon)

Turmeric (1 teaspoon)

Ginger paste (1 teaspoon)

red chillies (3)
chillied (4-6)
Curry leaves (5)
Onion (1)
Yams (2)
Tamarind (size of a lemon)
water (enough amount)
Sugar (1 table spoon)
Salt (enough amount)
Chili powder (enough amount)
besan/ gram flour (2 table spoons)

Procedure:

• Prepare it:
• wash the yams thoroughly and slice them round
• chop the onions really fine 
• Make it:
• Heat a bowl and add some oil
• once the oil is hot, add mustard seeds, Jeera, turmeric, ginger paste, red chillies, diced green chillies, curry leaves
• As it looks well done, add onions and fry them till they turn golden brown
• Simmer the heat, add yam slices and cover it with a lid
• In the mean while, get the tamarind juice and also add water to the besan in a bowl such that it becomes a thin paste
• remove the lid after 5 minutes, take a spoon and cut a yam- if nicely cooked, the spoon slides smoothly into the yam.
• Once the yams are cooked, add this tamarind juice, water (to the amount of how much pulusu you would need)
• Cover it with a lid till it comes to a boil, then remove the lid and add salt, chili powder and the besan paste and simmer it for a few minutes.
• Now add the sugar and remove it from the heat
• Decorate it:
• Garnish it with fresh chopped coriander
• Serve it:
• Serve it with hot rice or chapathi and I am sure everyone eating this would love it!

Happy eating!

Divya.

Custard Melon Bowls (Post 2)

Hello!

It's summer time... Fruits look delicious in the markets but when we get them home no one is ready to eat! They stay there looking at us with dry and sad faces. So this week let's prepare a well known dessert in a different way- The yummy Custard Melon bowls. This is essentially a fruit custard made easy with a few extra fun touches. Great for a weekend snack with a benefit of being healthy and can be preserved for a week.

Preparation time: 10 mins

Cooking time: 30 mins

Energy needed: 5 on a scale of 10

Let's get started!

Fruits: Any fruit you can find! But for this time I used:

Ripe Mango (1) 

Kiwi (1) 

Strawberries (4)

Cherries (6) 

Banana (1) 

Clementines (1) 

Blue berries (10)

Green grapes (5)

Black grapes (5)

Small round Water melon (1)

You can even add star fruits, passion fruits.

Dry fruits:

Raisins (6)

Cashews (5- halved into two)

Other Ingredients:

Ghee/ unsalted butter (1 tsp)

Honey 

Milk (500ml)

Sugar (4tbsp)

Custard powder (3tbsp)

Cupcakes/ whipped cream

Procedure:

• Prepare it:

• Take a bowl and get the milk to luke warm state.

• Take a small bowl, add custard and mix with a little amount of lukewarm milk making sure there are no lumps.

• Add sugar to the same mixture and pour it in the remaining milk and boil it (whole milk is preferred).

• Make it:

• While it is boiling (on a low flame), slice mangoes into small cubes, kiwi into semi circles, remove seeds from cherries, slice strawberries into halves, banana into circles

• Here comes the fun part! Do not cut the water melon in the regular fashion. Carefully draw the knife around the edge of the watermelon and dice and remove the water melon cubes with a spoon such that you won't break the outer cover of the fruit.

• Once you are done, the melon cover should look like an empty bowl

• Check the milk and turn the flame off and cool it in the refrigerator till the hot custard becomes cool (20 minutes should be good)

• Keep the fruits aside, take a small pan, add ghee and as it melts add the dry fruits and let them turn golden. Turn off the flame and let them cool down.

• Remove the custard from the fridge, add all these fruits including melon cubes and dry fruits and mix well.

• Now take the melon bowls (as said in #5) and fill them with this custard (if you think this melon is big for one person, carefully cut the melon to make it a smaller bowl).

• Take the honey bottle and with honey add vertical and horizontal lines on the custard in the bowls

• Decorate it.

• Either take the whipped cream and give the custard your touch! draw a design or write your kid's name/ initial.

• Or take the cup cake and carefully adjust the fruits and place it on them so that it won't drown.

• Serve it! 

• Ask your kids/ loved one's to drink it from the bowl. Whoa! its fun, healthy, snack and no more dehydrated sad fruits in the refrigerators.

Happy eating

Divya.

SweetHearts! (Post 1)

Hello!

Let me start this blog with something sweet! Today I am going to introduce the simplest yet tasty summer treat that I call it, a sweet heart!

Preparation time: 20 mins

Cooking time: 2-3 hours

Energy needed: 4 on a scale of 10

Let's go!

Fruits: Plums (4) Mangoes (1) (Both very ripe and mango juice would even work)

Chocolate: Dairy milk or Hershey's (1bar)

Equipment needed: a juicer, popsicles and a freezer

Procedure: 

1. Take out the seed from the plums, taste them if they are sour
2. If sour, add enough sugar but don't let the sourness die
3. Peel and remove the pulp from mango 
4. Make juice from the plums and mango separately using juicer and set aside
5. Take the chocolate bar, make it two halves
6. Grate one half of chocolate and cut the other half into smaller pieces
7. Take the popsicle bowl and pour the plum juice to half of the container
8. Add some chocolate pieces into it.
9. Put them in the freezer for one hour without the stick (just the popsicle containers)
10. After an hour remove the containers and make sure they are frozen hard enough
11. Now add mango juice and chocolate pieces
12. Take the grated chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and heat if for a minute or two (do not add even one drop of water) and set aside
13. Take the popsicle sticks and coat them with melted chocolate generously
14. Place the stick in the container and place in the freezer again.
15. Take it out after an hour or two and taste the delicious 

"chocolate coated and infused plum-mango sweethearts"

Note: People who are not crazy about chocolates can substitute chocolate pieces with raisins

Chocolate coated Popsicle stick

 Sweetheart!

Happy eating

Divya.