Sprouted HuruLi Saaru And Usli Recipe | Sprouted Horse Gram Curry and Stir Fry

Learn how to make HuruLi Saaru and Usli ~ Horse gram sprouts cooked in spicy coconut gravy and garlic and Sprouted horse gram stir fry garnished with grated coconut

“Ajji, can I go out and play?” asked little girl pulling her grandma’s soft cotton saree pallu which was carefully tucked around her slim waist.

“Not today, my princess! It’s too hot outside and we don’t want the fever monster to return”, said grandma as she pressed her cool hand against little girl’s forehead to check her temperature.

“But I will play in the shade, Ajji”, said little voice laced with impatience as she longingly looked at her sister and cousins running around, screaming loudly as they chased one another in a large garden in front of ancestral home.

“I know, my darling! But who will help me with cooking then? Who will help me to open the dabba of bella (jaggery)?”, asked grandma smiling showing her trademark enchanting smile with twinkling eyes and red lips stained with the juice from ele-adike (betel leaf and supari).

“Bella?”, asked little girl with excitement oozing from her voice and eyes. “I will help you Ajji”, quickly came the reply.

“Don’t tell this to anyone, but you are my favourite grandchild”, whispered grandma who must have shared the same secret to every other 2 dozen grandchildren of hers! :)

The soft wrinkled hands lead the small chubby hands to the courtyard outside the kitchen door that connected to open kitchen at the end of the house. The family cook was grinding spices and coconut paste in a large stone grinder that made rhythmic music almost like a lullaby that would put the little girl to sleep as she lay down on her grandma’s lap on hot summer afternoons. But she was wide awake at that moment as the excitement of helping her grandma with cooking overpowered any other feeling! The grandma picked one of large brass container that was stacked neatly on the wooden shelf and placed it on the cool red-oxide floor. She then went and picked a large winnowing tray made of bamboo strands woven tightly onto a rattan frame and sat down on the floor stretching her legs in front. She looked up and smiled at the little girl and patted the space next to her suggesting lil girl to sit.

Belgaum Kunda Recipe | How to Make Belgavi Kunda

Learn how to make Belgaum Kunda or Belgavi Kunda ~ Sweet caramalised milk fudge from Belgaum, North Karanata

The festival of colours and love, Holi is just around the corner marking the arrival of spring and new beginning. This Hindu festival also signifies not only the end of winter, but for many it’s a day to meet friends and families, play and laugh, drench one another in rainbow colours, forget and forgive, and repair broken relationships. Holi is also celebrated as a thanksgiving in most part of North India for a good harvest. For me no festival is complete without some sweet dishes to not only sweeten our mouth, but also our life. I have this wonderful sweet dish called Belgaum Kunda or Belgavi Kunda from North Karnataka today which is made by reducing and curdling the milk and cooking with caramalised sugar syrup.

Belgaum, located in the state of Karnataka is a cultural city known for its rich multi-cultural heritage, architectural splendour, remnants of a rich and colourful historical background and for its natural beauty. A swathe of mesmerising emerald green landscapes with breath taking waterfalls and misty hills, Belgaum is a home for many religious monuments and architectural wonders oozing old world charm that is sure to satiate your spiritual and aesthetic loving soul. Just an hour’s drive from Dharward, my home for 4 years of engineering studies, this city of Belgaum had left its mark on my life with a sense of pure bliss. Although my limited student budget didn’t stretch very far, it didn’t stop my wanderlust soul from making several trips to this beautiful city that enticed me with its historical charm, rich culture and cuisine.

Harive Soppina Huli/Sambar Recipe | Vegan Red Amaranth Leaves/Keerai and Coconut Sambar Recipe

Learn how to make Vegan Harive Soppina Huli/Sambar or Keerai Sambar ~ Red Amaranth cooked in a spicy and sour lentil and coconut gravy tempered with fried garlic and curry leaves

I am going through a phase which intellectuals call as writer’s block when words seem to have abandoned them. Although I am far from calling myself a writer, I would like to use this fancy term to express this current period of word drought in my life. This one post in recent years got to be one of my shortest post with one of my most loved and cherished recipe. I have this wonderful Harive Soppina Huli or Red Amaranth (Keerai) and Coconut Sambar recipe which missed to make an appearance all these years! Try it and trust me, you will not regret it!

As the name suggests, HuLi (pronounced as who-Lee) means sour in Kannada and this recipe of Harive Soppina Huli or Keerai Sambar is little different from the traditional Soppina Huli recipes in terms of cooking technique and also the ingredients used in fresh masala. Instead of cooking the dal separately, I tend to cook the lentils along with greens to save time. I also like my Huli on bit tangier and hence use both tomatoes and tamarind pulp in making this Huli. I like to add a piece of cinnamon and few cloves, which I believe elevates the flavour and aroma, when making fresh roasted spices that is ground to smooth paste along with freshly grated coconut and tamarind.

Veg and Coconut Ragi Rotti Recipe | Vegan and Gluten Free Finger Millet Flat Bread

Learn how to make Veg and Coconut Ragi Rotti ~ Vegan and gluten free coconut and veggie loaded finger millet flour flat bread

“Ghar ki murgi daal baraabar” is a Hindi idiom which I have come to appreciate over the time. The literal word by word translation is a chicken at home is no better than daal (everyday lentil soup) and it is used when someone undervalues the things which they own. It is quite similar to English quote ‘the grass is greener on other side’. Are you wondering why I am talking about chicken, lentil soup and grass today? Well, I have a very good reason to rant about… So stay with me if you have time to hear (more like read) my rants, or simply scroll down to the recipe of Veg and Coconut Ragi Rotti, a vegan, gluten-free finger millet flour flat bread loaded with vegetables and coconut.

In the last couple of years I have seen a rise in interest for the super foods. While quinoa, kale, green tea, cranberries were the super foods of the past, the cauliflower, chia seeds, coconut and beetroots are the trending super foods of the present. As much as I appreciate the health benefits they have, you will never find me publishing recipes after recipes of green, red, pink and rainbow coloured smoothie bowls, cauliflower rice, chia seed puddings etc here in my blog unless my family and I really love the dish! I am not a food snob, and I don’t follow any latest food trends. Being a food blogger and running in a circle of foodies, I am bound to come across many articles and recipes that celebrate the current food trends. I enjoy reading them, swooning over the beautiful food photographs, and sometimes, I try couple of recipes to see what the hoopla was all about. That’s where my fascination with the super foods ends as I just continue to cook and enjoy the food that I am most familiar with, like ancient grains that have been tried and cooked for centuries by our ancestors in India.

Mosaranna or Curd Rice Recipe | South Indian Tempered Yogurt Rice Recipe

Learn how to make Mosaranna or Mosaru Anna or Curd Rice ~ Popular South Indian rice mixed with creamy sweet yogurt, finely chopped vegetables and fruits tempered with green chillies, ginger and indian spices

~Long rant alert~

Let me warn you in the beginning. This is going to be one long rant. If you are here for the recipe, just skip it and scroll down to the recipe part.

Food blogging is 24/7 job, and mostly it is unpaid/low paid job. We food bloggers put hours and sometimes, days of work into creating every single blog post; recipe idea, back ground food/recipe research, recipe creation, recipe testing, re-testing 4-5 times, taking accurate measurement of the ingredients, jotting down tips/little useful notes, food styling, food photographing, editing the photographs, writing the blog post, crediting/mentioning the original source, editing and finally posting/publishing it. The work doesn’t end there! We also read patiently and reply to every single queries. Apart from labelled as food bloggers, most of us are the sole photographers, content creators, editors, cooks, cleaners, food stylists and also the dishwashers!

And there are some people who ‘research’ on Google and get ‘inspired’ by others write ups and recipes and simply ‘ctrl C + ctrl P’ not just the recipes, but also the stories/prologue to the recipe posts. I will not call them lazy. I will not even call them naïve. They are simply the plagiarists who ride high by stealing others content and passing them as their own and go another step by ‘copyright’ing the stolen content! What for? Fame? Money? Popularity? I don’t know! When my 6 year old knows what's right from wrong, I find it rather saddening to see a well-educated people who pretend to be ignorant and plays victim card, It clearly shows that education and ethics and values are two different things!

Vegan Spicy Tomato Chutney Recipe | Quick and Easy South Indian Tomato Chutney Recipe

Learn how to make Spicy Tomato Chutney ~ Vegan South Indian style tomato chutney with aromatic spices and garlic

I can’t believe how fast the days are zooming past. Was it just a week ago we celebrated LD’s 6th birthday?! Within a month’s time he will finish his year 1 and move to year 2 this fall! It is going to be painful and really difficult to say goodbye to the teachers and the teaching assistants who have helped him with the transition and made his first year in big school a memorable one.

With the summer holidays fast approaching, I’ve decided to make a little handmade and homemade gift for the most important people in LD’s school. This is our way of saying thank you. Among other, one thing I am going to include is a jar of Vegan Spicy Tomato Chutney. This is not just any tomato chutney; this is THE Tomato Chutney that has conquered my heart and taste buds!

Mango-Coconut Chitranna Recipe | Quick and Easy Mango-Coconut Rice Recipe

Learn how to make Mango-Coconut Chitranna - A spin to South Indian tangy yellow rice of coconut and raw mango flavoured with generous tempering of peanuts and aromatic spices

The meaning of ‘home’ is ever evolving. When I was a kid, home was a palatial bungalow where I was born and surrounded by dozens of aunts, uncles, cousins, my grandparents and parents. It was a place where I woke up to jingling of anklets and bangles, clattering pots and pans, aroma of rasams and sambars bubbling in a large copper pots, sound of sizzling tadka and gossiping women in the kitchen. Home was the warmth of being held closely to my uncles chests, tickling fingers of my aunties, skipping and running bare footed with my cousins, splashing waters in a crystal clear streams, sleeping peacefully on a cosy bed of my grandpa’s chest, morsels of food being fed by my grandma under the star lit skies, and being sandwiched between my parents before drifting off to sleep.

When I was 6 years old, my parents moved to their current home to be close to the best schools and dad’s clinic and it became our home where we drove each other absolutely crazy one moment and made one feel like million dollars the next. It was a place which nourished me and always made me feel safe, loved, and cherished. Home was a place that welcomed me with open heart and a plate of amma’s home cooked meals peppered with spice and love!

Bimbli Mosaru Gujju Recipe | Simple and Easy Bimbli Recipe

Learn how to make sweet and sour Bimbli Mosaru Gojju ~ Bimbli in sweet and spicy yogurt sauce

Year 2014 came and went by in the blink of an eye. A lot of things happened in 2014; many exciting things, many stressful events, and a whole new beginning. 2014 was the year where many life changing events happened in our lives. We uprooted our lives from a place that had become our home and moved to a place which we hope to make a home that we all love. It’s not been an easy year to say the least, but we never settled for anything less adventurous.

Bimbli or Bilimbi or Bimpuli

Happy New Year dear readers who still patiently wait to read my rants! With my blog posts becoming so sporadic, I am not surprised to see dwindling readership to this almost abandoned blog. With my life getting maddeningly busy with things that are out of my control, the blog has to take a back seat. As much as I want to replenish my recipe repertoire and breath some life into this blog, the lack of motivation and writer’s block, which seems to have made a comfortable permanent home in my so-called creative side of the brain, are enough reasons to almost abandon this much loved part of my life! On top of that, the never ending personal task list and unrealistic deadline I have set for personal commitments in real life is keeping me away from virtual world.

Kodubale Recipe | Step by Step Recipe for Kodubale

Learn how to make Kodubale ~ Deep fried rice and roasted gram savoury rings from Karnataka

As I stand here in my kitchen mixing the ingredients, beating the dough, stirring the kadai full thick rice paste to make Kadubu that is surely going to give me sore arms after mixing for hours, I can’t help but slowly walk down the memory lane... Ganesha Habba is one big festival of my childhood and life that spells magic and inundates me with nostalgia...

Mysore Pak Recipe | How to Make Mysore Pak | Diwali Sweet Recipe

Learn how to make Mysore Pak or Mysore Paak/Gram Flour Fudge ~ Traditional sweet of Bengal gram/chickpea flour, ghee and sugar flavoured with cardamom powder from Karnataka, a South Indian state  

Once upon a time, many many years ago, there was royal cook named Kakasura Madappa. He was an expert in creating magic with sugar and ghee. Bored with making same kind of sweets and pudding with exquisite and expensive ingredients, one day he decided to experiment with very common and inexpensive ingredient which all aam junta (common man of India) could easily afford. The main ingredient of this sweet which Madappa was experimenting was type casted as ‘to be used in making savoury dishes only’ in the cooking world. Madappa ignored the looks of unapprovals and the little murmurs of snide remarks from fellow cooks and continued his experiment in cooking something remarkable. Little did Madappa and his contemporaries knew that his simple concoction of gram flour, sugar and ghee was about to create a history in the world of sweet confections!

Pressure Cooked Stuffed Baby Brinjal/Eggplant/Aubergine Recipe | Baby Eggplants Stuffed with Onion and Peanut Paste

 Pressure Cooked Baby Brinjal/Eggplant/Aubergine

Time! A four lettered word! But if you start looking for the deep meaning, all the time in your life will not be enough… This simple four lettered word is the most precious thing in everyone’s life! But it has become all the more valuable when I new joyous chapter of motherhood touched my life! Time has always been precious and now it has become a treasured part of my life!

Soute Kayi and Alasande Majjige Huli Recipe | How to Make Majjige Huli

Soute Kayi and Alasande Majjige Huli ~ Served with Rosematta Rice

Lil dumpling’s second birthday came and went… at lightning speed! We were planning to skip the birthday party and spend the whole day doing what LD like to do the best, that is running around in the open space chasing butterflies, bum bees (bumble bees;) and playing for hours on slides and in swings! But in the end we decided to have a very cosy birthday party, just like last year, with few special friends.

Cauliflower Kurma Recipe | How to Make Simple Vegetable Kurma

Learn how to make Cauliflower Kurma

As soon as the early sunrays caressed the chubby cheeks of little girl with pigtails she opened her eyes slowly, rubbing it fast to kick the slumber still clinging to it in a hope of catching few more minutes of sleep… It was Sunday, a special day filled with promise of long hours of play time, favourite food and undivided attention of parents… Happily she climbed down from her bed and burst into the kitchen where her mother was cooking. She watched with fascination as her mother selected few spices from glass jars, a cinnamon, few green cardamoms and cloves grown in their farm along with other spices. The small cast iron pan was taken out from the top shelf and then her mother started roasting the spices… Within couple of minutes the whole house was filled with a heady aroma of spices. 

Simple & Quick Stuffed Baby Eggplants/Brinjal/Aubergine Recipe | Baby Eggplants in Peanut and Coconut Gravy

Learn how to make Stuffed Baby Eggplants/Brinjal/Aubergine ~
Quick and simple recipe for stuffed eggplant/brinjal/aubergine cooked in mildly spiced coconut and peanut gravy

It was one of those rare days of reflection where I sat in my favourite corner of our home, my small yet cosy reading room, on low divan dressed with a beautiful and colourful handmade throw and plump cushions in bright royal shades of red and maroons, gifted by my hubby’s brother and sister-in-law. On one side is the low side table I found in my neighbours skip, the items piled for discarding, now holding a small lamp, a family portrait, small vase of my favourite flowers daisies, and couple of books I love… Opposite wall has a tall book shelf housing my book collection, some important files and my most favourite treasures, art and crafts by Lil Dumpling. My amateur but colourful watercolours are displayed proudly on two walls which compliment and complete the room. None of the things match one another, but surprisingly when put together they somehow seems to work and complement each other…

Mango Ginger (Ambe Halad/Ambe Haldi/Manganari) & Coconut Chutney | How to Make Simple Coconut Chutney

Mango Ginger (Halad/Ambe Haldi/Manganari) & Coconut Chutney

I miss home! Home as in India that sits on top of small hill surrounded by greenery! The open space and the fresh air, the swing on large balcony and the little seating area in front of house, the rustle of Amma’s freshly starched cotton saree and the jingle of gold bangles in her hand, the sound of turning the news paper and the clicking of grandfather’s clock from my Appa’s study, the aroma of fresh blooms of jasmines and roses from my Amma’s little garden and the noise of leaves swaying to soft breeze, and the heady aroma of freshly brewed filter coffee and the roasted spices from Amma’s kitchen! Oh, I miss them all and more…

Tondekayi Palya (Tindla Palya) Recipe ~ A Pictorial

Tondekayi Palya/Tindla Palya/Stir Fried Ivy Gourds ~ It starts from here

I have been feeling extremely homesick today and was leafing through the photos I took when I visited home in December. I found few food related photos and thought you, my dear reader friends, might find them interesting. So here is the pictorial of one of my favourite recipes, Tondekayi Palya or Tindla Palya or Tindora Subji, which is a simple stir fry of Ivy Gourds, cooked using few basic spices and then generously garnished with fresh grated coconut. I randomly clicked few photos while our family cook prepared them at my in-law’s farm house. This delicious Tondekayi Palya or simple Tindora/Ivy Gourd Stir Fry was cooked by our family cook using very old and traditional fire wood cooking technique. The smoke coming from wood adds smoky flavour to this simple stir fry. I will not be posting the recipe as it has already been posted some 3½ plus years back. So if you are interested to cooking this simple Tondekayi Palya or Tindla Palya, please click here for the recipe.

Sprouted Moong and Coconut Akki Rotti | Vegan and Gluten Free Sprouted Moong Beans Flat Bread

Sprouted Moong and Coconut Akki Rotti ~ Vegan & Gluten free

Motherhood! It’s a simple word. But you can never understand its real meaning of this very simple word until you become a mother. This one simple word has so much depth to it. It has some emotions that you never experienced and the love that you never felt. It has joy that makes your head spin with giddiness and fun that will take the definition of fun to new levels. The spectrum of emotions you go through with in a couple of minutes is something you will never experience until you parent a child. Well, it is true in my case!

Aloo/Batate Bonda Recipe | Step by Step Recipe for Aloo Bonda

Deep fried crisp, delicious and addictive treats ~ Aloo/Batate Bonda

Winter!

Winter… Cold, bitter, biting, chilling and freezing!

Winter… Thick layer of frost on the window panes, but on roads and pavements is a real pain!

Winter… A flurry of snow, here and there and other times a thick blanket of silver dust every where.

Winter… Naked trees standing tall stripped from their glossy green hair!

Cabbage Akki Rotti Recipe | Gluten Free Spicy Cabbage Flat Bread Recipe

Cabbage Akki Rotti Recipe | Gluten Free Spicy Cabbage Flat Bread

I think I need another vacation to recover from previous one! Well, it almost sums up my recent trip to India-aah!

Food-dozing-food-chasing the toddle-food-trying to stop Lil Dumpling from running wild naked-food-meeting dozens of aunts and uncles-food-travelling with one super active toddler-food-temple visits-food-catching few blinks while Lil Dumpling runs riot without a stitch of thread on his back-food-trying to avoid cousin jealousy when one kid snatches toys from other-food-catching up with all the latest gossips in family and friend circle-food-taking few photos in between Lil Dumpling’s short day naps-food-food-food-and more food! Well, this almost sums up my India trip!!!

Taro & White Bean Curry – A Guest Post by Chinmayie @ Love Food Eat

Taro and White Bean Curry

I have known her for more than two decades; we grew up on a same street and studied at same school. But we both lost touch when we moved to different cities for higher education. It was only last year when I met her again in my home town when she came to visit me and Lil Dumpling with her ma and gorgeous daughter and then we kept in touch through social network. Few month’s later she mailed me about starting her food blog and since day one, I have become a fan of her beautiful clicks, and what she cooks! It is my greatest pleasure to introduce beautiful Chinmayie of Love Food Eat, a food blog which is unique and simply stunning! Her blog may be just six months old but it is already studded with priceless recipes and beautiful narration. After one look at her blog and I am sure you’ll not want to miss reading her posts. So why not follow her on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook!