Quick and Easy Diwali Snack Recipes | Simple and Easy to Make Snack Recipes for Deepavali

Chattambade (Spicy Chana Dal Vada)

It is almost that time of the year in India when winter begins. It is almost that time of the year when the dawn is lightly caressed by the frost. It is almost that time of the year when the golden rays of morning sun passes through the dew drops on the grass making them look like a precious diamonds sewn on the lush green carpets. It is almost that time of the year when the trees sway to the gentle morning breeze in the cool mist. It is almost that time of the year when the soft sun light appears from the distant hills and the birds tweet as they flutter through the dew laden sky! It is almost that time of the year when the summer’s blistering heat and the monsoon’s thundering rains give way to a season of crisp winter months. It is the golden season of Kartik, a season of cool air, chirping birds, dew drops laden fresh grass, the blossoming trees and the time when the entire Indian subcontinent adorns itself in the silky golden hued sunlight to greet the heavenly bodies into welcoming arms!

When the paths are dotted with the carpet of heavenly perfumed dainty paarijata flowers and the air is heavy with the aroma of sugary treats, it is that time of the year... It is the time of Deepavali or Diwali, a Hindu festival of lights!

With the festival of lights just a week away, our house gets busy with preparing for the Diwali. It’s that time of the year when clattering of pots and pans are heard for most part of the day and the evenings as we plan the menu for the festive food. So while planning for the Diwali party menu, I thought it may be useful for my dear blog readers to have a compilation of some simple, quick and easy snacks recipes for Deepavali. I hope you will find this post useful in deciding what to cook for your friends and family and make this Diwali a special one for your loved ones.While you are at it, don't forget to check the list of Simple and Easy Sweet Recipes for Diwali to sweeten your taste buds!

May the festival of lights be the harbinger of joy and prosperity. As the holy occasion of Diwali is here and the atmosphere is filled with the spirit of mirth and love, here's hoping this festival of beauty brings your way, bright sparkles of contentment, that stay with you through the days ahead. Wishing all my dear readers and friends, a very happy and prosperous Deepavali!

Warm Regards
Sia
http://monsoonspice.com

Paneer Stuffed Mirchi Bajji	Khara Kaddi (Spicy Sev)
Chattambade (Spicy Dal Fritter)	Kodubale
Gujje Podi (Tender Jackfruit Fritter)	Spicy Beetroot Cutlet
Stuffed Bread Pakoda	Aloo-Kala Chana Chaat
Mangalore Buns	Stuffed Capsicum/Pepper Pakoda
Ragda Patties	Microwave Roasted Masala Peanuts
Aloo Bonda	Restaurant Style Gobi 65
Methi Nu Muthia	Khara Buns (Spicy Stuffed Buns)

From Home (Udupi-Mangalorean)

• Aloo/Batate Bonda - Deep fried spicy mashed potato and mixed veg fritters coated with spicy gram flour batter 
• Chattambade or Masala Dal Vada - Spicy split chickpeas/Bengal gram or chana dal fritters
• Goli Baje (Mangalorean Speciality) - Deep fried fritters made using plain flour and buttermilk
• Jeegujje Podi/Pakoda - Deep fried spicy fritter made using thinly sliced breadfruit
• Khara Avalakki - Spicy flat/beaten rice
• Khara Kaddi (Spicy Sev) - Deep fried spicy chickpea or gram flour sticks flavoured with cumin, carom seeds and asafoetida
• Kodubale -  Deep fried rice and roasted gram savoury rings from Karnataka
• Mangalore Aloo Bonda - Fritters made using spicy mashed potato and coated with spicy gram flour batter and then deep fried
• Mangalore Buns - Sweet deep fried banana and whole wheat puffed bread/poori from Udupi-Mangalore
• Microwave Masala Kadle/Peanuts - Simple and quick recipe for crunchy and spicy gram flour coated roasted peanuts cooked in a microwave in less than 15 minutes
• Moong Dal Vada - Spicy fritters made using spicy green gram mixture
• Tukkudi - Deep fried savoury plain flour diamonds

Veg Hara Bhara Kabab Recipe | Simple Vegan Kebab Recipes

Learn how to make Hara Bhara Kabab ~ Mildly spiced Indian vegan spinach and potato kebabs flavoured with fresh herbs and aromatic spices

We made these Hara Bhara Kababs exactly a month ago when LD was recovering from another bout of viral infection. When I say we, it means my 6-year-old and I, mom and son team. Cooking with over enthusiastic kid means fun, but it also means mess! I kid you not. The kitchen will end up looking like a bomb sight with flour covered kitchen floor and counter tops, sauce smeared kitchen cabinets, and a child who is covered with every ingredient that went into that pot or pan of food you are making! Then why teach your kids to cook when it means more of a mess than its worth?! Absolutely. Well, there is not just one, but 101 reasons to introduce our kids to the joys of cooking.

Teaching our kids to cook is one of the most basic life skills we can pass on and most importantly, it gives us the opportunity to teach them valuable lessons. I find him curiously touch, smell and taste the ingredients. This natural inquisitiveness of LD turns into total fascination and then surprise when he watches the dramatic transformation the food goes through in terms of colour, texture and size right before his eyes during cooking and baking. The once firm and hard potatoes turn soft and mushy, the delicate, easy to crack eggs become hard when boiled, the crystals of sugar and salt completely gets dissolved, the fruit is turned to juice and how it becomes one of his favourite treat ice lolly when kept in freezer overnight! If this is not magic, then I don’t know what else is?!

Indian Styled Spicy Vegan Sweet Potato, Oats and Chickpeas Burger Recipe | Simple Vegan Burger Recipe

Learn how to make Spicy Vegan Sweet Potato, Oats and Chickpeas Burger ~ Indian styled spicy vegan sweet potato, oats and chickpeas burger flavoured with Indian spices

It’s mid-morning here, in a middle of the week. I am at home, alone, surrounded by the pin drop silence broken by the ticking of the small clock on the table. Tick-tock, tick-tock… The scene today can’t be much different to the one exactly a week ago! Our home was anything but silent, with one energetic 5 year old raising the ruckus and me willingly joining him. He is back in school, after a week-long half term vacation and I miss him terribly. ~sigh~

The silence is unbearable… Making me want to scream! Instead, I decide to focus that energy into writing this post. I always write from my heart; memories of my childhood, stories of my life, my failures and frustrations, joy and success and even my ramblings and rants which may not make much sense to most of you! Writing brings me joy, calms my mind and mostly, helped me in building bonds with like-minded people, even with a complete stranger.

Aam Papad Recipe | Mango Fruit Leather Recipe

Learn ho to make Aam Papad ~ Mango Fruit Leather recipe two ways

Last few days have been absolutely crazy with festive school performances, school trips to the local church, volunteering, Christmas shopping, signing hundreds of cards, product and recipe testing in the kitchen and a mountain high load of never ending things! I am not exaggerating! If that was not enough to bring the whole house down, I have LD hanging upside down holding on to my apron strings moaning he is bored every 5 minutes. Bored 5 years old?! Like, seriously?!!! I can’t wait for the school to reopen in a fortnight! Just kidding. :)

We are off to meet our friends up north in Yorkshire for the Christmas and then travelling to London for the New Year. There will be a lot of partying, eating, cooking, shopping and activities planned for the week long fun filled holiday season. I have been busy sorting out the presents, packing our bags, going through the truck load of laundry, ironing never ending pile of cloths, dusting and cleaning every nook and cranny, answering to dozens of emails, running around the energetic 5 year old, and god knows what else! In between the entire hullabaloo, I decided to make some edible presents for friends! I tried to find the reason and completely failed to answer why I am doing this!!! Call me crazy, but the perfectionist and the ever lurking OCD in me makes me go an extra mile to make everything perfect for my loved ones.

Whole Wheat Tibetian Vegetable Momo Recipe | Step by Step Recipe for Veg Momos

Learn how to make Whole Wheat Tibetian Vegetable Momos ~ Steam cooked whole wheat dumpling stuffed with crispy vegetables, a delicacy from North East India

Who would have ever thought that the day will come where I will sit down to write this post?! A post about blog-anniversary! Believe it or not, Monsoon Spice just turned 9 years old. It’s been NINE YEARS since this blog was born on a lazy afternoon and I really find it difficult to digest the fact that I have stuck to blogging after all these years. With my two men army fighting nasty cold and fever, I almost missed the blog milestone. 9 years of blogging is a huge milestone for someone who strongly believes ‘change is the only constant in life’! It looks like my love and passion for food blogging has not dulled or died down even after all these years of food blogging and if anything else, my love affair with food writing, photography and blogging has grown stronger and deeper.

 It was the peak of winter in 2005 when the days were really short and the sun disappeared for days. I was a new bride in unknown city, new country and different continent and had nothing worthwhile happening in my life. After spending long hours on phone, reading books and flipping the channels on idiot box, I was still left with many more hours of solitude and boredom! I began to spend more time in kitchen to relive the husband of mine from cooking the same meal every day. Slowly I began to cook one dish after another that I learnt from my mother through our hour long telephone conversations and expanded my recipe repertoire which was limited to half a dozen recipes. After many misadventures, small kitchen accidents and blunders, I decided to document my culinary journey for posterity to have some laugh at my expense! After couple of months I decided to take a plunge and give my personal diary an online presence for amateurs home cooks like me who struggled to differentiate pigeon peas from split chickpeas and cilantro from parsley. Well, who would have imagined that the blog born out of boredom and necessity would complete 9 enjoyable years! Not me!!! Never in zillion years! It has come a long way from being amateur cooking blog to much confident and passionate cooking blog of today!

Ela Ada Recipe | Steamed Sweet Rice Flour Cakes in Banana Leaves

Learn how to make Ela Ada ~ Sweet coconut-jaggery stuffed rice cakes/parcels steam cooked in banana leaves, a traditional delicacy from Kerala

Last few weeks have been really busy on home front which required my full attention. This was good enough reason for me to wean myself from spending hours on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google+. It was a good break, away from social networks and spending more time on what I do best, annoying my family! ;)

This year the weather god has been really generous, blessing us with beautiful long sunny days and cool breeze in between to keep our cheer high. So we decided to make the most of it. The days were spent with Lil Dumpling, mostly in garden, caring for the plants and painting under the shade of tree. We took a break by chasing butterflies, watching the ants gather food for the winter, twittering with birds, jumping on trampoline and having impromptu picnics.

Savory Multi Millet Pancakes with Garlic-Herb Cheese Spread Recipe | Guest Post by Sanjeeta of Lite Bite

Learn how to make Savory Multi Millet Pancakes with Garlic-Herb Cheese Spread Recipe from Sanjeeta of Lite Bite

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.
~ Joseph Addison

And there is someone who spreads her cheerful personality through her innovative recipes, interesting anecdotes, and beautiful photographs and she is our one woman wonder Sanjeeta of a stunning blog called Lite Bite. True to her blog name, Lite Bite is a treasure trove of healthy recipes and beautifully styled photographs that will leave you in awe! From simple home cooking to fusion cooking, Sanjeeta’s tremendous talent shines through her blog where she easily transforms the not so healthy food into light, delicious and flavourful affair. You can’t help but marvel at her unique recipes that will make you wonder why you didn’t think of cooking it before?! Lite Bites is full of innovative and delicious recipes that demonstrates eating healthy and balanced food doesn’t mean one needs to compromise on taste, flavour and comfort. I feel honoured and privileged to share my virtual kitchen with Sanjeeta today who is going to share another ‘lite bites’ from her amazing recipe repertoire with us. You can follow Sanjeeta on her Facebook page, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+.

Food blogging is the ultimate hobby I could indulge in for hours on end. A captivating hobby turned into a full-time passion now, which fills me with excitement and self-worth every single day. Food blogging gives me endless entertainment, raises curiosity, creates memories and helps connect with wonderful online friends to grow together.

For many people, food is just fuel for body and an everyday comfort to celebrate life. To a food blogger ‘food is a subject’ which they seek to understand and explore. They don’t just eat good food but are inspired by it and visualize many forms of art in it. They take food to a different altitude.

Vegan Spiced Beetroot Cutlets Recipe | Spicy Beetroot Patties

Learn how to make Vegan Spiced Beetroot Cutlets/Patties ~ Pan fried Indian styled spicy vegan beetroot patties with aromatic spices

“Motherhood is the hardest and toughest job” said one of my friends who had just become a mother for the first time few months back. We talked for over an hour about our respective kids and what they enjoy the most. I just smiled at that time and then we said our goodbyes on the phones promising to take some time to call one another in few weeks’ time. But what she said just stuck in my mind for a next few days.

Bhutta or Butta Recipe | Indian Styled Roasted Corn on the Cob

Learn how to make Bhutta or Butta ~ Indian styled roasted corn on the cob flavoured with lime, salt and chilli powder

It was the same spot he chose to park his push cart, the corner road that faced the school gate. His push cart was plain wooden one with its pale blue paint that once must have been a bright and happy shade of blue, now peeling at the edges and exposing the dark wood underneath. There was nothing fancy about his shop that earned his livelihood and there was no colourful board bearing his name or his humble shop’s name. It was a plain and boring looking little shop selling things that was far from being labelled boring things!

Ammini Kozhukattai or Undrallu Guggillu Recipe | Ganesha Chaturthi Recipe

Learn how to make Ammini Kozhukattai or Undrallu Guggillu ~ Gluten free and vegan steam cooked savoury rice ball dumplings tossed in aromatic tempering

|| Mushikavaahana modaka hastha,

Chaamara karna vilambitha sutra,

Vaamana rupa maheshwara putra,

Vighna vinaayaka paada namasthe ||

Sprouted Moong Bean Salad Recipe | Simple Indian Salad Recipe

Learn how to make Sprouted Moong Bean Salad ~ Indian styled sprouted moong bean salads with assorted vegetables and chilli-lime dressing

As far as I know, there is no concept of salads in Indian cooking. Thinly sliced pieces of cucumber, tomatoes and onion rings with lemon or lime wedge is mostly the kind of salads served with main meals. Sometimes few whole or chopped green chillies accompany these vegetables as we Indians really like real spice kick in our meals!

Aloo-Kala Chana Chaat Recipe | Warm Potato and Black Chickpeas Salad

Learn how to make Aloo-Kala Chana Chaat ~ Warm black chickpeas and potato salad with spiced tamarind dressing

It was a cold winter Sunday morning when a teenager was woken from her sleep with a gentle touch of her mother’s hand caressing her hair.

“Open your eyes love. It’s time you learn to make a decent cup of tea!’” said her mother.

“5 more minutes Amma”, the sleepy voice begged.

But her mother knew that these 5 minutes will drag on and it will be 15 minutes or 30 minutes or 1 hour before her daughter finally opened her eyes!

“Oh no! You don’t get 5 minutes!” mother said while literally dragging her first born into the kitchen to prepare 2 cups of Indian Masala tea.

Spicy Corn Chaat/Salad Recipe | How to Make Healthy Sweet Corn Chaat

Learn how to make Spicy Corn Chaat or Spicy Corn Salad ~ Quick and simple healthy snack of sweet corn in a lime and chaat masala dressing and topped with spicy gram flour noodles

After what feels like a long time, a very long time, I am back at work desk today. I have not recovered completely but the sorry chapter of coughing my lungs out seems to be over which only means I will not be spreading the nasty infection around. Having left on my own for the last two days bored to me to death and just when I was about to explode into tiny pieces, DH decided it will be best thing to step outside and meet some ‘real’ people in person than the imaginary ones I was talking to for the last couple of days.

Microwave Masala Peanuts/Masale Kadle Recipe | How to Make Masala Peanuts in a Microwave

Learn how to make Microwave Masala Peanuts/Masale Kadle ~Simple and quick recipe for crunchy and spicy gram flour coated roasted peanuts cooked in a microwave in less than 15 minutes

Love to me is something that is very different from the stories told in romantic movies and the types of ‘happily ever afters’ in fairy tales and mills and boon novels. Love is not a dozen of red roses, a box of Belgian chocolates or heart shaped balloons. Love is not a gift of expensive bottles of perfumes or an exquisite diamond ring. Love to me is not romantic candle light dinners or a holiday in a romantic city! The very definition of ‘Love’ has changed over the years and now it means a whole new world of things to me…

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Learn how to make Ragda Patties ~ Potato patties served in a spicy peas gravy and topped with assortment of chutneys and garnished with crispy sev, chopped onions, tomato and coriander leaves; a famous and much loved street food of Indian sub-continent

Where do I begin to tell you my love story…? Love story that is sweeter than any greatest love stories of Shakespeare’s tragic Romeo and Juliet, Punjabi folk tale of Heer-Ranjha or Kalidaasa’s Dushyanth-Shakntala! Love story that is spicier than all of masala movies that Hindi Cinema keeps churning every year! Love story which is juicier than thousands of Mills and Boons with millionaires or billionaire dark, tall and handsome business/shipping tycoons who sweep beautiful woman off their feet! Love story that will not be documented in romantic novels to be read by millions of romantic souls late into nights or whispered in hushed voice!

Peanut Chikki/Laddu Recipe | How to Make Peanut Brittle

Learn how to make Peanut Chikki or Peanut Laddu or Peanut Brittle ~ Sweet vegan treats of roasted peanuts and jaggery

It was a good 2012 for Monsoon Spice. Unlike the year before, I was regular at posting the recipes that left a deep impression on our taste buds and it was a wonderful experience sharing them with you all… 49 posts in 12 months!!! The number sounds really good to my ears as I was balancing full time job, home, travelling (both business and family trips), family, friends and one really hyperactive toddler. Having my own space in the form of food blog not only gives me the freedom to express myself, but also challenges my creativity. Monsoon Spice has proved once again that if you love something and are really passionate about it, you will somehow find time for it! :) Everyone needs a space/place of their own where they can let their creativity go wild and speak for themselves! And my creative outlet is here, at Monsoon Spice. :)