spinach - Leftover special Side dish.

Well friends, I made this side dish last week using the left over Tomato godhsu and cooked plain spinach. I made spinach kootu with the frozen spinach. I just used half the box of spinach and kept the other half. I used it for this dish along with the tomato godhsu I made for breakfast. Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients:-

1. Boxed spinach - 1/4 box (thawed & cooked)
2. Tomato Godhsu - 1/4 cup
3. Salt to taste (only for spinach)
4. Shredded coconut - 2 tsp

Pre heat a pan, add the spinach with 1/4 cup of water, add required amount of salt (only for spinach) and let it boil for couple of minutes. Now add the left over godhsu and let it mix with spinach and boil for 5 more minutes. Sprinkle the coconut on top of it and serve it. Add water according to the required consistency. If its too watery, just mix a teaspoon of rice flour in water and add it to the sabji and let it boil for couple of more minutes which help to thicken the sabji. The taste was really good and my kids really like this way of making spinach (lol...)

Chakka Pradhaman/Jackfruit Payasam/Jackfruit Kheer

Jackfruit is my all time favorite fruit. I can eat a whole bowl of ripe jackfruit at any time:). During the vishu season, in my mom's place, we used to buy two big whole jack fruit for vishu kani and after vishu kani day, my patti used to make chakka varatti(jackfruit Halwa) in a large dabba and store it. I like to eat it as Chakka varatti too. She makes chakka pradhaman with chakka varatti which always be a hit for my Patti. I saw jackfruit last weekend near our Indian grocery store. Immediately I bought it. Took out the seeds from it and used half of the fruit as side dish for curd rice(!) and I wanted to make this chakka pradhaman with the remaining. Main motivation for making this was Jaishree's post. I was so tempted after seeing her payasam. Lol...I saved it for today cos its my husband's birthday. I didn't make chakka varatti first. I just used the jackfruit direcly for making payasam/pradhaman. I got the recipe from my grandma. This is the traditional chakka payasam she makes everytime. Here goes the recipe...

Ingredient:-

1. Jackfruit Pieces - 20
2. Jaggery -according to the available quanity of Jackfruit paste
3. ghee - 2 tbsp
4. Coconut pieces - few
5. Cashew - few
6. Coconut milk/regular full fat milk - 1/4 cup (can also increase the quantity)

Jackfruit Paste:- First pressure cook the jackfruit pieces upto one whislte. Let it cool and grind it into a fine paste. If you are going to make the payasam immediately, then measure how much paste you have and take jaggery according to the ratio of 1:1 (equal amount). I made this paste on tuesday and I refrigerated this paste in an air tight container. I used it today.


When you are ready with the paste, just take equal amount of jaggery and keep it aside. Take a heavy bottomed pan, put the paste first and add 1/4 cup water to it and let it melt first. Once the paste becomes watery, add the jaggery to it and mix it well and let it boil under low flame for another 7 mts. You can see bubbles coming out. Now its time to add coconut milk or regualr milk and mix it with the ingredients and let it boil for another couple of mts. You can smell the jackfruit, jaggery and coconut. Its means payasam is ready. Now take a small pan, pre heat ghee, fry coconut pieces and cashews to golden brown and pour it on top of paysam and mix it well. Don't forget to keep on stirring the payasam otherwise jaggery will stick in to your pan.

I used regular full fat milk instead of coconut milk. Also we can add more ghee in between too. I didn't add that much ghee. I just used 2 tbsp (which is too much for my hubby dear). We can also use a lot of coconut pieces which i reduced because of my husband.

For Chakka Varatti recipe, please visit here...

Pizza...

Well friends this is not a pizza made from scratch. All of a sudden, my girls wanted to bake cake. I had nothing in my pantry. They started crying immediately. I went to the local grocery store and bought the pillsbury pizza dough and I asked them to spread the dough in a cookie sheet, spread the sauce, arrange the toppings, and asked them to add the cheese too. Of course I helped them put it in the oven. The final result was really amazing and the crust was very soft and it was really delicious.Lol.. my girls were very happy and they had couple of pieces too.. Here I am just sharing the toppings and the quantity of cheese I used...

Ingredients:-

1. Pillburry Pizza Dough - 1 roll (store Bought)
2. Cheeze - 3/4 cup ( I used the shredded mexican blend)
3. Pineapple - 1/4 cup
4. Black Olives - 1/4 cup
5. Pasta Sauce - 3 tbsp
   

Pre heat Oven for 450 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with oil. Roll the pizza dough, spread the pasta sauce, arrange the toppings accordingly, spread the cheese, bake it in the oven for 13 mts or till the edges become brown. Enjoy.. Since I didn't want to discourage my girls to try. I am really happy that my girls tried something and it came out really well.

Happy Mothers Day

I got this message as a forwarded email today. Instead of putting a greeting card, I thought, this message would suit better... Here goes the message

Why mother is so special:


When I came home in the rain,

Brother asked why don't you take an umbrella.

Sister advised, Why didn't you wait till rain stopped.

Father angrily warned, only after getting cold, you will realize.

But Mother, while drying my hair, said, stupid rain! Couldn't it wait, till my child come home?

That's MOM....


HAPPY MOTHERS DAY FRIENDS!!!!

Also check out this..http://tamilvaazhga.blogspot.com/2009/05/blog-post.html

Raita with some seasoning

Well we all make raita with onion or with cucumber. We commonly call it Thayir pachadi. I make cucmber thayir pachadi very often during this summer season. We had a chance to eat cucumber thayir pachadi with a little twist, couple of months back. We had a trip to Eshwari Akka's house and she made this pachadi that time. It was really tasty and i wanted to try this today as a side dish for bisibelebath.

Ingredients:-

1. cucumber - 1/2 (or 1 according to the required quantiy)
2. Onion - 1/2 (chop it finely) (optional)
3. Yogurt - 1 cup (according to the req. quantity)
4. salt to taste
5. Rosemary - 1/2 (i used fresh rosemary leaves)
6. Basil - 1 leaf

Shred the cucumber, chop the onion. Take 1/4th quantity of cucumber, add rosemary, basil leaf in a mixie and grind it finely. You will get a light green color paste. Now add it to the chopped onion, add the yogurt and required amount of salt. Mix it well. Serve it with any variety rice. It will definitely be refreshing. Usually people used to season the thayir pachadi which i won't do it. If you want, you can season it with mustard seeds.