Meme, awards, awards & .................... awards

Thanks a lot to Smitha & Lakshmi for passing on these beautiful awards to me. Awards inspire & encourage people to keep going. I sincerely feel that they are like energy boosters :).

Now, let me share with you all, how & why I started blogging..

I was such a busy lady for atleast a decade.., 97 started my engineering (with full josh, dreaming big) & 2001 completed my engineering.

I could not even spend a month for myself, as I was lucky enough to get selected in campus recruitment & joined my first company.., then on started my career.., parallelly got married, had a kid, but never took a break from my career.

I felt all of a sudden, my life has become standstill, when I first became a full time home maker. It was 2 extremes in my life, but slowly started enjoying the "staying at home" phase of life. This is when I started blogging.., cooking was an all time passion for me, but never found so much enthusiasm before. I started blogging to utilize my time effectively & now, I am so much involved in blogging that I dont want to leave this anymore. I have 50+ recipes already, thanks a lot for all your support.

Time for MEME

7 Things I Say More Often
1. Noooooooooooooo ( for my son who keeps pulling things from here & there)
2. Adi... ( my son's name)
3. yenu ?? ( asking what?? in Kannada)
4. yen madodu helippa (asking my hubby what to cook??)
5. matte..(next)
6. ABCDEFG for my son.., ha ha ha
7. Good boy...(when my son listen to me)

7 things I did before
1. Enjoyed a lot with my entire family ( my brother, sis, father, mom, bro-in-laws, co-sis, MILs, FILs etc)
2. Enjoyed working with an excellent group in my previous company
3.Enjoyed eating out more tha
n 3-4 times a week
4. Completed my masters
5. Enjoyed my pregnancy & post delivery phases.
6. Went kilometers together to have favourite chats
7. Did lot of shopping & enjoyed buying whole lot of things (Shopping is fun yaar)

7things I do now:
1. Most of the time watching TV or browsing the net
2. Cook
3. Play with my son & try to teach him something new everyday
4. Keep applying for jobs without losing hope :(
5. Blogging
6. Laze around & keep dreaming about when to visit India.
7. Go for a walk with hubby + son every evenings.

7 things I want to do ( not sure whether I can write 7! let me see)
1. Start working again
2. Visit India ( missing it damn soo much)
3. Talk to dear ones for hours together...
4. Shop till I drop ( he.., he.., my hubby will be upset after reading this )
5. Publish the recipes ( I have taken soo many recipe snaps, not getting much time to publish)
6. Roam around in Singapore
7. Play a lot & teach new words to my son..

7 things that attract me about opposite sex
1. Honesty
2. Patience
3. Sense of humor
4. Decency
5. Love & Care
6. Trust
7. Helping nature + more....

7 Favorite Foods ( I can easily name more than 10 .., he he he)
1. my first & ever favorite.., nothing can beat this..., bisibelebath
2. curd rice (2nd love)
3. hot upma
4. dahi wada ( I love the one that is served in "Adigas" group of resturants, Bangalore.., slurp, slurp...)
5. shunti tambli
6. timare chutney (brahmi chutney)
7. gujje dose..
8. Kashi halwa/bood gumbala halwa
9. Dry jamoon + ..................................many many many.........................

Here are my awards
Lakshmi of Taste Of Mysore has given me the below awards..




Both, Smitha of Kannada Cuisine & Lakshmi of Taste Of Mysore have given me the below awards.

Nugge soppu chapathi (Drumstick leaves Bread)

As said in my previous posts, I had got a big bunch of nugge soppu & wanted to try all the recipes taught by my aunt. I tried 2 of the recipes shared by her.. nugge soppu tovve & nugge soppu rotti & it was super-duper hit at our home. My husband suggested me to prepare more dishes using this soppu. I was on cloud nine after those comments & started dreaming about the next recipe & the comments that I could receive from him!!! But, when I saw the remaining soppu, I was a bit disappointed as I had very few left with me. I could just manage with just one more dish :-p

Here you go:

Ingredients:
1 cup cleaned nugge soppu
2 cups wheat flour
1 pinch turmeric
1 pinch om kalu/ajwain
1 tsp chilli powder
1.5 tsp oil
salt according to taste.

Method:

• Add all the ingredients mentioned above in a bowl & mix it together.
• Add enough water & make a dough similar to the normal chapathi/roti
• Divide the dough into equal portion (around medium sized lemon)
• Roll each portion like normal chapathi/paratha & cook it on tawa.
• Cook on both the sides until brown spots appear on each side.
• Serve it hot with curd, pickle or subzi of your choice.

Below picture contains nugge soppu chapathi & a simple chayote sabzi( seemebadane palya)

Bhendi Saasime (Stir fried okra in mustard,coconut paste)

Very soothing side dish for people during summer. Saasime(some people call it saasive), hashi, methi tambli, are all said to have cooling effects on the body & helps one to fight summer temperatures. Hence, one of them will definitely feature in a 'hot day' menu in South Canara/Udupi.

As Singapore's climate is very similar to Mangalore/South Canara's weather, I prefer doing this atleast 2 times a week or sometimes more.

Here is one such saasime prepared using bendekayi/ladies finger.


6-8 thinly sliced bendekayi
1/2 tsp urad dal
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp jeera/cumin seeds
1 big pinch turmeric
1 big pinch tamarind powder/amchur powder
1/2 cup curd
3 tbsp grated coconut(fresh/frozen)
1 green chilli
salt according to taste
1 tsp oil

Method:

• Add the oil to a broad kadai, when oil is hot, add jeera & urad dal.
• When urad dal becomes golden brown, add bendekayi (sliced), amchur powder & fry it in oil until crisp. Remove from flame & allow it to cool.
  

• Make a fine paste of grated coconut, green chilli, turmeric & mustard seeds.
• Add this paste, curd & salt to the cooled bendekayi. Bhendi saasime is ready to be served. It is a great side dish for rice & also for roti.
  

Note: For bhendi to be crispier, add the paste, curd & salt just before serving.

Sorekayi Chapathi(Bottle gourd Indian Bread)

My family prefers non-rice items over rice items any day. Both my hubby and my son can have these - the rotis, the chapathis, the pooris - all 3 times of the day..sometimes, even 4 :). So, I had to learn different types of paranthas, chapathis to introduce variety into our, otherwise monotonous, chapathi menu. One such is sorekayi paratha/chapathi and here is the recipe for this:

Ingredients:
1 cup grated sorekayi /doodhi/lauki/bottle gourd
2 cups atta/wheat flour/godi hittu
1 pinch of turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp oil
1 tsp chopped coriander leaves/cliantro

Method:

• Mix all the ingredients mentioned above (Dont add water as the doodhi leaves out a lot of water when grated) & form a dough similar to the normal roti/chapathi.
• Divide the dough into 8-10 portion.
• Roll out each portion similar to a normal roti.
• Cook the chapathi on each side until brown spots appear by smearing little oil on each side.
• Serve this hot with curd, pickle, raitha or chutney.

One of my friend calls it Thepla. She was telling, there would be some minor changes in the ingredients for this thepla. I would get the ingredients from her & publish soon :))

Heerekayi Bajji (Ridgegourd snack)

When we were in India, preparing bajji/pakora used to be a rare event, may be during festivals or on some very special occasion, the reason being easy availability of them everywhere. But, after leaving India, it has become very hard to get these tasty bajjis/pakoras. The road side shops are no where to be seen here. Our tastebuds crave to eat all these, irrespective of the country in which you are residing. So, the only option to fullfil our wishes is to cook them, all by ourselves.

On one such Friday evening, it was heerkayi bajji, at our place.

Ingredients:
Besan 1 cup
Rice Flour 1 tbsp
Chilli Powder 1.5 tsp
Salt According to taste
Ridgegourd 0.5 (Peeled and thinly Sliced)
Oil For deep frying

Method:

• Mix all the ingredients except ridgegourd (heere kayi) and make a thin paste, out of it (The batter should be similar to thick milk shake)
  
• Now, dip the heere kayi slices one-by-one and deep fry them in oil
• Heerekayi bajji is ready to serve
  

Nugge Soppu Rotti (Indian bread with drumstick leaves)

Akki rotti (rice flour Indian bread) needs no introduction for Kannadigas (people who belong to Karnataka). I feel, there are more versions of akki rotti than the number of districts in Karnataka!!

My granny keeps reminding me of my childhood days & keeps saying that you used to love eating akki rotti when you were toddler. We were scared to give you because you didnot have much teeth, but you enjoyed eating :))

Now.., my mom can proudly say the same thing to my son. My son started eating akki rotti when we were giving him mashed rice. He used to love akki rotti, cant blame him, it is in his genes ;)

Here is the akki rotti filled with nutrients:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups rice flour
• 1 cup nugge soppu/drumstick leaves
• 1/2 cup grated coconut
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 tsp jeera
• 1 handful of cooked rice/leftover rice (optional, this makes the rotti soft)
• salt according to taste

Method:

• Wash the drumstick leaves & add all the ingredients listed above to a large bowl.
• Add enough water & make a dough out of it. (The dough should be softer than the normal chapathi atta).
  
• Take a greased paper/banana leaf or directly pat it on a tawa & cook on both sides.
• Akki rotti s ready to be served. Serve it with ghee/butter, chutneypudi or chutney.

Below picture shows the detailed procedure for making akki rottis.

Nugge soppu tovve (Drumstick leaves Dal)

Nugge soppu is not so popular veggie in our family. So, I never bought this, but.., I was very much fascinated about the medicinal values of this leaves. Though, my granny didnot serve me dishes prepared using this during my post pregnancy, she always used to say that it is very good for lactating mothers.

Now that.., I got so much information from her, I thought of sharing this information with you all.
Uses of nugge soppu:

1. It helps in weight gain & overcoming anemia (rich in iron).
2. Pregnant ladies & feeding mothers are advised to consume nugge soppu. It helps in increasing the breast milk for feeding mothers ( because it is rich in calcium).
3. Rich in Vitamin C & thus helps in fighting against cold & cough.
   
4. It contains more potassium than banana.

For more information, refer this ( it also gives the different names of this leaves, in different Indian/Asian languages).

When I called up my aunt, I got to know very easy & mouthwatering nugge soppu recipes from her. So, ladies & gentlemen.., it would be nugge soppu recipes for few days in my blog :))

Ingredients for tovve:



1 cup hesaru bele (moong dal, split green gram dal)
3 cups nugge soppu
1 onion chopped
1 tomato chopped
1/2 tsp grated ginger
3 green chillis (slit)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/ tsp jeera/cumin seeds
3-4curry leaves
salt according to taste
1 tbsp oil

Method:

• Soak the moong dal in warm water for 1 hour.
• Wash the nugge soppu & keep it aside.
• In a broad kadai, add oil. When oil is hot, add mustard & cumin seeds. When they splutter, add onion & saute till it turns golden brown.
• Add green chillies, curry leaves & tomato & saute till tomatoes become soft.
• To this add, nugge soppu & cook for 2mins (till leaves become soft).
• Add hesaru bele, salt & water & cook till dal is cooked completely (Can pressure cook for 1 whistle).
• Add lemon juice & serve it with rice/roti.