Kollu podi / horse gram podi

Horse gram can best be described as a reddish brown legume which is packed with a number of health benefits. It can help with a number of health problems as it is a grain which contains a good and rich amount of vitamins, proteins, and iron. In addition to weight loss, it helps in reduction of extra fat from the body. Horse gram is rich in B-complex vitamin and proteins. It helps in purifying menstruation and cures and prevents arthritis. The presence of a good amount of dietary fibre in the gram helps balance sugar glucose and blood pressure levels.

Horse gram seeds possess a rich content of polyphenols, flavonoids and proteins, the main anti-oxidants, which are mostly present in fruits. Therefore, a few of the main benefits which are associated with consuming horse gram are:

• Horse gram can be mixed with asafoetida, dry ginger and a pinch of ‘veed salt’ to help treat stomach pain to provide immediate relief.
• Incorporating horse gram in diet will help relieve pain from dry piles.
• For women, intake of horse gram helps in purifying during the menstrual cycle.
• Horse gram made into a semi-liquid solution will help reduce and prevent gas and flatulence.

Source : the healthsite.com

Horse gram is very easy and tasty like our any other legume. I have made kollu I podi which is used to mix in rice and eat along with coconut oil or ghee. Gun powder with horse gram is absolutely flavourful and tasteful. It's healthy too.

Ingredients :

• Toor dal - 1/4 cup
• Kollu - 1/2 cup
• Gram dal - 1/2 cup
• Pepper - 2 tsp
• Red chilly - 5-6
• Salt
• Asafoedit

Method:

• In a pan, dry roast each ingredient separately.

• Cool them and grind it little coarsely.
• Store in refrigeration if you are grinding a larger quantity.

Goes well with rice and coconut oil.

Cream of mushroom soup

Cream of mushroom soup is a simple type of soup where a basic roux is thinned using cream or milk and then mushroom or mushroom broth is added . It is famous in North America as condensed canned soup. This soup is used for making mushroom gravies. This soup is used as a base ingredient for making casseroles and comfort food.

The weekend I planned to make mushroom soup for my family. I wanted to try the cream of mushroom soup for a Long time. It was really flavourful and yummy. 

Ingredients:

Mushroom -4 chopped

Onion - 1/2 chopped

Butter or olive oil - 1 tsp

Garlic -2 cloves chopped

Full cream - 1/2 cup

Milk - 1/4 cup

Vegetable broth - 3/4 cup

Salt

Mixed herbs -2 tsp

Spring onion - 1 tsp

Method:

For the vegetable broth , in a pan, add a glass of water and add chopped carrots, cabbage, beans.

Allow it to boil until it becomes 3/4 th cup.

Heat a pan, add butter or olive oil. Add the chopped garlic, sauté until its fried.

Add the chopped onion, mushroom and spring onion. Sauté it till its fried well.add salt to it.

Add the vegetable broth to this and the full cream and milk. Add the required salt. Close and cook for 5 mins.

Open the lid and add the herbs, allow it to boil once.

Thick delicious soup is ready!

Devanagare benne dosa - Karnataka style

According to wiki, Benne Dosa or Benne Dose  is a type of dosa which traces its origin from the city of Davangere in Karnataka. The term "benne dosa" in English language simply corresponds to Butter Dosa. It is prepared by addition of generous amount of butter while preparing the normal dosa, and accompanied by coconut Chutney. It is similar to masala dosa or set dosa but smaller in size, made out of rice batter and much butter. It is served with liberal helpings of butter sprinkled on it. This makes the dish enticing in both flavour and aroma.

Some of the variants of the benne dosa:

• Benne khali dosa
• Benne open dosa
• Benne masala dosa 

Today, benne dosa is almost synonymous with the city of Davangere and has found its own well-deserved place in the menu cards of all well-known restaurants in Karnataka. It has also found its distinct place in the cuisine of the Indian diaspora abroad. There are also restaurants in Singapore and USA that serve this specialty dish of Davangere.

My Husband being a Bangalore guy wanted to have Karnataka style special recipes. So I make these dishes for him. He just loved it and enjoyed. So let me share the recipe of this benne dosa.

Ingredients:

• Aval - 1 cup
• Parboiled rice - 1 cup
• Idly rice - 1 cup
• Urad dal - 1/4 cup
• Fenugreek seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Salt
• Water

Method :

• Soak Aval . Soak idly rice and parboiled rice together.
• Soak Urad dal and fenugreek seeds separately.
• Grind Aval, do not add too much of water.Grind rice. 
• Grind Urad dal,add salt and mix it.
• Add water accordingly.
• Leave to ferment overnight.
• Heat a Tava , add the batter and make regular dosas. This particular dosas must be thin outside and little thick in the corner.
• Place the benne cube on TOP of the dosa while serving.

For the potato masala :

• Potato - 250 gms
• Onion - 2 finely chopped
• Green chilly - 2 finely chopped
• Ginger - 1" finely chopped
• Mustard seeds
• Curry leaves
• Coriander leaves
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Oil
• Water

Method:

• Boil potato and smash them well.
• Heat oil in pan, add mustard seeds .
• Add curry leaves, green chilly, ginger.
• Add chopped onions. Saute well.
• Add turmeric powder, salt.
• Add the smashed potatoes and little water.
• Keep it closed and cook well.
• Turn off when its mushy.
• Garnish with coriander leaves.

Coconut chutney for accompaniment

Ingredients:

• Coriander leaves - a bunch
• Coconut - 1/4 cup
• Roasted gram - 3-4 tsp
• Ginger - small piece
• Salt
• Green chilly - 2
• Lemon juice - 1 tsp

Method:

• Grind all the above ingredients using water. 
• For the last pulse add the lemon juice and pulse it.
• A perfect chutney is ready.
• You can also increase the chillies if you want it more spicy.

Enjoy the hot benne dosas!

French toast roll ups

Once upon a time, my mom used to make this French toast ,when I used to mouth waterin its smell. One of the tastiest recipe in bread I would say. Love to eat it often as I like sweets. Soft and sweet version of bread who wouldn't like.i hope there are lot of French toast lovers here. This recipe is a twist of the French toast. It's just not French toast. These roll ups can be made with lot of variations. By adding strawberries inside. I have made by adding Nutella inside. Chocolate French toast roll ups, yum isn't it?

Recipe :

Ingredients :

Bread - 6

Milk - 1/2cup

Egg - 1

Sugar - needed

Nutella - 6 spoons

Oil

Method :

In a bowl add milk, egg and sugar and whisk everything together.

Take the bread slices one by one. With the rolling pin, press the bread slices once.

I did not cut the sides. If you do not like or to maintain softness crop it off.

Take the Nutella in spoon and apply on the bread. Roll the bread sand it would stick on its own.  

Dip the rolled breads in the egg milk mixture.

Heat a Tawa, place the roll ups and cook on all sides. If necessary add oil on the sides.

Yummy , tasty French toast roll ups ready for your breakie .

Dorayaki / Dora cakes

Dorayaki is a type of Japanese confection, а red-bean pancake which consists of two small pancake-like patties made from castella wrapped around a filling of sweet Azuki red bean paste.

The original Dorayaki consisted of only one layer. Its current shape was invented in 1914 by Usagiya in the Ueno district of Tokyo.

In Japanese, dora means "gong", and because of the similarity of the shapes, this is probably the origin of the name of the sweet. Legend has it that the first Dorayaki were made when a samurai named Benkei forgot his gong (dora) upon leaving a farmer’s home where he was hiding and the farmer subsequently used the gong to fry the pancakes, thus the name Dorayaki, Says Wiki .

Doraemon characters fav food is dorayaki pancakes and so it is depicted as his favorite food (in the English dub. Doraemon is addicted to dorayaki and falls for any trap involving them. Since 2000, the company Bunmeido has been selling a limited version of dorayaki called Doraemon Dorayaki every year around March and September.

 Coming to the recipe. It's very simple and yummy. In the original recipe red bean paste is used as the stuffing. But I am using Nutella as the stuffing. Who doesn't want that? My kid just loved this version.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 1 cup

Eggs -2

Sugar -1 cup

Milk - 3/4 th - 1 cup

Baking powder -1/2 tap

Salt - pinch

Nutella - required scoops

Method :

In a vessel, add the above mentioned ingredients except Nutella.

Whisk the wet ingredients together no then add the dry ingredients.

Keep it aside for 30 hour.

Heat a Tawa, add a ladle of batter to the Tawa. Add oil or butter if needed. I added oil.

It will be cooked in minutes. Flip over to the other side.

Make the small pancakes and keep it separately.

Now take a scoop of Nutella and place it on a pancake. Take another pancake and place on top of it and cover.

Nicely press the edges to stick together.

Yummy juicy chocolate flavoured pancakes or Dora cakes are ready to be grabbed.

Thinai Adai / foxtail millet Adai

Adai is a healthy tiffin made out of mixed pulses. We can make Adai in all the combinations we want. There is no specific recipe for this particular dish. We can keep changing every time we grind or mix it. We can make it with or without rice, we can change the pulses. We can also add veggies on Adai. I love to murungakeerai to the Adai. It's healthy as well as tasty to eat with anything. Today made Adai using Thinai. It was very crispy and tasty. Do try this out.

Ingredients:

• Gram Dal - 1/2 cup
• Toor dal - 1/2 cup
• Moong dal - 1/2 cup
• Thinai / foxtail millet - 1 cup
• Salt
• Red Chilly 3-4
• Coconut Oil
• Curry leaves
• Asafoedita

Method:

• Wash and soak gram dal, toor dal , moong dal separately. 
• Wash and soak Thinai separately.
• Grind all the ingredients in the mixer grinder separately and keep the batter outside to ferment. Grind it coarsely.
• Heat tava and Put Adai using Coconut oil. I have added drumstick leaves on top of Adai. It enhances the taste of Adai.

• Flip the adais on both the sides and make it crispy.   

• Crispy crunchy Adai ready to be served with tomato garlic thokku.

Blueberry pancakes

First time bought blueberries, don't know what to make. There are a couple of good recipes that can be made with blueberries. First thing that comes to my mind is pancakes. I have had so many times in the shops or streets. Waffles, pancakes, etc. I tried it myself and it was really tasty. Slightly sour blueberries. Y next attempt would be a blueberry cake. Let me come out with a easy recipe for you guys. It's a perfect breakfast or even a evening snack.

Ingredients for the pancake :

All purpose flour - 1 cup

Eggs -2

Sugar -1 cup

Milk - 3/4 th - 1 cup

Baking powder -1/2 tap

Salt - pinch

Blueberries washed 

Method :

In a vessel, add the above mentioned ingredients except blueberries.

Whisk the wet ingredients together no then add the dry ingredients.

Keep it aside for 30 hour.

Heat a Tawa, add a ladle of batter to the Tawa. Add oil or butter if needed. I added oil.

Sprinkle or throw the blueberries on top of it.

It will be cooked in minutes. Flip over to the other side.

Now the blueberries will be cooked and the juice can be tasted better.

Sprinkle some honey or maple syrup and serve hot!