WHAT DO I MAKE...

Mysore Pak - a regular feature in South Indian weddings and definitely in the Deepavali menu - a brick like sweet and a tricky recipe which if you mess up, you could easily end up with your own personal weapon! Now, when I say brick-like, I mean the look and even the consistency of the traditional mysore pak. But all that changed when the famous Sri Krishna Sweets aka SKS came along! I know a lot of people, including me, who never liked this sweet until SKS came out with their ghee mysore pak. A super soft, delicious, melt-in-your-mouth treat full of ghee, so much ghee that after a few nibbles you start to feel guilty. I would never dare to try the traditional recipe and I don't think I want to make the SKS version either but I found the perfect recipe on Sharmis Passions recently. She doesn't use too much ghee so I would assume it isn't loaded with as many calories and it is very easy to make, you gotta try this! I am sure her pictures will make you wanna try this recipe f...

As I planned my list, I couldn't help but think of all the combined cooking and potluck with my buddies in Miami the last few years. Well, this year was a different kind of combined cooking, Maha and I synced up through the phone to prepare our spread. While she braved about 10+ items, I kept my menu short and simple with mixture, ribbon pakora & ghee mysore pak.  Mixture I followed Anusha's recipe for the mixture .   I made a few changes, I skipped the boondi, I also threw in some halved cashews and I used Planters roasted and lightly salted peanuts. You will also notice (in the pictures) that some of my cornflakes is fried. Well, I started frying them and realized they drink too much oil so I skipped the idea. Ribbon Pakora I twisted Anusha's recipe from last year's spread a little bit. Ingredients: Besan (kadalai maavu) - 1 cup Rice flour (arisi maavu) - 2 cups Salt - 2 tsp Chili powder - 1 tsp Heeng (perungayam) - 1/4 tsp Unsalted butter - 1...

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 :)

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 :)

This deepavali we decided to try our hand at making snacks from scratch, all by ourselves, instead of buying. It was one helluva adventure - 1.5 days of cooking, correcting, brainstorming, cooking again, yapping, tasting and cleaning ... great fun ... our little attempt at creating a deepavali atmosphere away from "home"!!! I must say,we exceeded our own expectations, all the dishes looked and tasted great. Thanks for the pictures Anusha.  the spread :)    BOONDI LADDU   KAJU KATLI and RAVA CAKE RIBBON PAKODA  MIXTURE   

  Post # 1 As most of you might know, the first deepavali after your wedding is considered extra special. Anusha, Archana and myself planned an elaborate deepavali potluck - south indian meals, vadai, payasam, all served on a banana leaf ... the works!!! But the hosts and the other guests surprised me and my husband by honoring our first deepavali - we were seated down, served to in the typical South Indian style and of course showered with gifts in the end - blessed to have friends like these!! :) Here's the spread from the traditional-south-indian lunch!