WHAT DO I MAKE...

Krishna Janmashtami marks the beginning of the Hindu festival season, next to follow is Ganesh Chaturthi or Vinayaka/Pillayar Chaturthi. The grand celebrations in every household and street corner include decorating Ganesha idols made out of clay and/or other materials. But the festival is not complete without Lord Ganesha's favorite food - kozhakkattai (Tamil), modak (Hindi and Marathi) and for a description in English, these are mini white dumplings filled with a sweet or savory filling. I have assisted my mom in making these dumplings before and this time I decided to give it a try myself! Here are some pictures from this morning :) sweet and savory kozhakkattai nei appam Wishing everyone a Happy Pillayar Chaturthi :)

If you grew up in Chennai, you have definitely enjoyed a butter biscuit or nei (ghee) biscuit! These are little white macaroon like cookies. I tried one not too long ago at Archana's, her butter biscuits made me nostalgic and I have been wanting to make them myself ever since. I came across a very simple recipe on ramyacooks, this one uses oil instead of butter. Butter Biscuits by Ramya @ ramyacooks Ingredients: All-purpose flour - 1 cup Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp Salt - 1 pinch Confectioner's sugar - 3/4 cup Canola Oil - 3/8 cup (1/2 of a 3/4 cup) I followed Ramya's recipe exactly, the proportions above are 1/2 of her quantity. Preheat the oven at 350 F and have a cookie sheet greased and ready. Mix flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl, add the sugar and mix and slowly pour the oil and combine to make a very loose dough. You will see that the dough is crumbly and lumpy, that's how it should be! Make small balls that look like coconut macaroons with a sligh...

I took Tania's suggestion and signed up and "claimed" What Do I Make (WDIM) on Technorati! If you would like to sign up and claim your blog/site on Technorati,  follow the steps mentioned HERE . Our claim code is ZUADXU7U9HUJ, we are now part of their Blog Directory :)

Niti and I talked about my Citrus Fizz  this morning; she mentioned how it is a big hit in her friends circle and I have to agree - if I had to name one recipe that I have made the most number of times, this drink wins hands down! It is a good combination of flavors and I have managed to make a lot of twists and variations to this recipe. This drink was inspired by a cocktail that one of our friends served at my grad school farewell party - thanks Noor ! All that said, I have been wanting to experiment on some new flavors! A few new drinks that I have made in the recent past are watermelon-limeade and pom-cran-soda  (will post the recipes soon!). But in the meantime, check out these interesting mocktails I came across on some other blogs, definitely trying these very soon! Here are a couple from Tania's blog  - love the Italian Soda, the first on my to-do list; great pictures, Tania! Italian Soda Pic Source: TurtleCraftyGirl Melonade Pic Source:...

I am baking these cupcakes again to use up some over-ripe bananas, I go back to Madhuram's Vegan Chocolate Banana Cake, only this time I decide to up the fat. I followed her recipe to the T and substituted oil with butter (just like how it's written in her Notes). Adding butter does make a difference, the cake was softer compared to when you use oil. This is a great recipe for moist, dark brown, vegan cupcakes :) HERE  is my earlier post on this banana cake. Vegan Chocolate Banana Cake by Madhuram @ Eggless Cooking Vegan cakes, according to me, taste better with a sweet topping. You could increase the sugar content in the cake itself but I think topping works better and also, a topping gives you the chance to introduce another flavor (honey, pomegranate for e.g.). I had a little bit of a challenge with the topping. I didn't have the right ingredients for icing or buttercream or ganache ...sigh!! and I wanted a topping with honey (just like that!) There had to be s...

Today's sweet dish for Krishna Jayanthi aka Janmashtami, this recipe was adapted from Shanthi's blog , I refer to this blog for some of my traditional South Indian cooking. A lot of her recipes, tips and methods of cooking are very much like mom's, I should probably push mom to start writing a food blog :) Ingredients: Whole cashews - 13-15 Hot water - 1/2 cup Coconut - 2 tbsp (if you are using frozen, bring it to room temperature) Sugar - 1/4 cup (or add 1/6 cup and add the remaining according to taste) Hot whole milk - 1 cup Cardamom powder - from about 8 pods Saffron - 2 pinches (take some of the hot milk in a small bowl and soak the saffron in it and set aside) As always I decided to make 1/2 the quantity! Soak the cashews in hot water for about 1 hour. Save this water! In a blender, make a paste of cashews and coconut with a little bit of water (enough to make a thick paste). Add the remaining water and mix. Heat a small non-stick pot on low heat and add ...

Krishna Jayanthi is a special festival in Tamil Nadu. It is one festival during which every household probably makes the entire gamut of snacks and sweets. I promptly took mom's advice and tried my hand at just a few of these.  Here are a few clicks from a maiden attempt at making Thenkuzhal. Thenkuzhal is a deep-fried savory dish, it's a thicker version of sev and uses rice flour and urad flour with a combination of unsalted butter, jeera and salt.  A lot of South Indian snacks are tricky customers, it is as tricky and fussy as baking (or even worse sometimes), the only thing that can help is patience, practice and some good luck could come handy too :) I followed mom's recipe (I hope to post the recipe sometime soon, still trying to translate some words into English!!) and succeeded, crispy and  perfect! A few other snacks I tried turned out to be disastrous flops and obviously didn't qualify for the blog :)

Pics source: Lemonadeday.org I didn't know there was something called a Lemonade Day :) This reminds me of the Chinet ad where people toast to "national left handers day" at the stroke of 12, the message being that you don't really need a strong reason to use Chinet partyware. But then, Lemonade Day has an important and useful motive behind. It's a citywide event that encourages kids to set up lemonade stands thus introducing them to entrepreneurship. Visit www.lemonadeday.org for more details. Pic by Antois Achilleos for Real Simple Here are a few lemonade recipes shared by Melinda Page and Elizabeth Wells through Real Simple. Enjoy! Classic Lemonade Ginger Zinger Tropical Lemonade Farmers' Lemonade Lemon-Mint Cooler

This one's for my co-blogger! Niti and I review our blog, the old posts and pictures once in a while, this helps us pick out typos, errors and in general improve the overall look and substance of our blog. There are some recipes that don't have a picture or some have a bad picture or we just want to twist a recipe with a different ingredient or even a different method of cooking/baking, the list goes on and on! When we do make changes, we try and re-publish those old posts. During one such "nit(i)picking" session, Niti pointed out a very dull and boring picture on my " Eggless Cake with Dates " post. We both agreed that the cake had to be baked again just so we could have a better picture :) In my (lame) defense, I posted that recipe way back in my "point and shoot days".  My husband and I had decided to eat out tonight so I found time to bake this cake today. This cake is one of my favorites, it's very very easy to make and as for the ta...