Lime n' Mint

The months of heavy rains have stopped and  now Manipal is looking warm and pleasant, the mornings are bright and warm and we are finally able to see the Sun shine. Totally in my town Navaratri begins with pleasant weather. Happy Navaratri to all. My today's recipe is Moong Dal Vada, which I offered as a Prasadam to my Goddess.  Inspired by Manjula's Kitchen

Bateta nu Shaak - Gujarati Spicy Potato Fry State of Gujarat is Western part of  India.  Gujarati cuisine had its own special unique taste from all over India. .Today's my recipe Bateta nu Saak - Potato Stir  Fry is a delicacy from Gujarat. This recipe  I learn from my Gujarati neighbour. I  reminisce fondly those days....Just within a week after my marriage I had to move from South India to Northern region, almost 2000 km away to a different state.Those days I didn't know ABCs of cooking. Luckily for me, my husband got ourselves placed in the  Campus quarters of the company where he was working and, I used to go and spend my time with my wonderful neighbour friends, and get adjusted to the new locale, people and culture. Those were the times when I was introduced to North Indian dishes,Gujarati dishes. This recipe is very simple and delicious and this yummy curry  goes well with Indian breads or  Plain Rice.

Sri Krishna Jayanthi / Janmashtami Greetings to all. Though for a majority of India, its a month late, some parts of India, that goes by solar calendar,  is celebrating Sri Krishna Janmashtami on 8th September 2012.  In Manipal, the city where I am living currently is also celebrating this festival in a grand manner this week along with its twin city, the Temple Town,  Udupi. Udupi is known world over for the  Temple of Lord Krishna. As the entire region  is busy along with Udupi  for the celebrations of  birth day of Lord Krishna on the 8th/9th September, I visited  the temple, on the eve of the festival. As usual hundreds of flower vendors and fruit vendors descended and spread themselves across all main streets of the city busily selling them to the devotees and families for their festival preparations.  All families are busy decorating their homes, while devotees thronging the Temple are working through the night decorating it with flo...

Normally  South Indian homes prefer Tamarind based curries, chutnies, Rasam,Samabr in their meal. Today's my recipe also tamarind based curry most popular in my native state Andhra Pradesh.   Telugu name - Aratikata Pulusu bellam kura. Sweet and Tangy Plantain curry Ingredients: Plantain               1 big Water                  2  cups approximately Tamarind             small lemon size  Jaggery               2 table spoons grated jaggery) Vegetable oil       2 table spoons  Bengal gram        1 tea spoon Black gram          1 tea spoon Cumin seeds        1 tea spoon Fenugreek seeds 1/2 tea spoon Mustard seeds    1 tea spoon    Asafoteda           1/4 tea spoo...

  Phirni Ramadan or Ramzan is afestival for Muslims it is Eid-ul-Fitr, popularly known as the "Festival of Breaking of the Fast", occurs as soon as the new moon is sighted at the end of the month of fasting, namely Ramadan also known as Ramzan. This festival celebrates the end of Ramzan, the Muslim month of fasting. It is an occasion of feasting and rejoicing. On the occasion of this festival today"s my post is Lovely and delicious Popular Desert Phirni. Ingredients for Phirni: Basmathi rice                     3 spoons (clean and wash with tap water)(soak for 1hour) Sweet Condensed milk       2 cups Milk                                   3 cups  milk(here I used 2% fat milk,usually full cream milk used in Phirni) Green cardamom                2 or 3 Pound it in mo...

Malabar Spinach   is popular leafy vegetable in India.  It has an unique flavour instead of normally grown  Spinach.  Malabar Spinach is a climber and non climber plant. It is grown in every where.  Recently I saw non creeper variety of Malabar Spinach  in my brother's tiny kitchen garden. From there I picked  some plants   and  planted in my house. It has grown very nicely.  This is the result of those freshly picked , very simple and tasty and healthy Dal. Usually this Dal  is served with Rice and topping with a spoon of Ghee(clarified butter)

Recently we visited a Himalayan Hill Station, popularly called Kullu Manali located in Himachal Pradesh,  India. Its a long journey for us being located in the southern most corner of the country. As such,  I shall limit my travelogue for our trip between Delhi and Manali in this post. We started our journey by a coach on a monday evening around 6 pm and knowing that the we will alight from the bus the next morning around 8 am, we have mentally prepared for an arduous 14 hours bus ride. Though its a modern ISUZU Coach and the half the journey from mid-night is through ghats and spiral climb into the hills, its a surprise that we did not get either the travel sickness or the altitude sickness throughout the journey. While we inched away our selves from the mega metropolis of Delhi we realised that we will be passing through some historic towns such as Karnal and one of the most beautiful cities of our country, Chandigarh, we were unmindful of all of those places pa...