Carrot Cream Soup - The Best:)

Carrot Cream Soup:

Ingredients:

Carrots large 2 - diced
Whole milk 4 cups
All purpose flour 1/2 table spoon
Salt
Butter 1 cube
Pepper powder to taste.

Method:

Boil carrots in one cup of milk, and puree them. Set aside.

Melt butter, add salt and flour...stir-fry briefly and then add 3 cups of milk. Bring this to boil, further add the puree. Once it is bubbling hot, remove from heat.

Garnish with pepper, serve warm.

Broccoli Casserole - Flavors of Southern Cooking!

Broccoli-Green Beans Casserole:

Another important dish, that is close to heart. No one could turn this down, after a hard day's work. Speaking of work'...I mean real physical activity, okay. In this new age of information world...work is something that is confined to cushioned chairs, driving to destinations, or even making a phone call for scheduling an appointment!!! If you want to realize the pleasures of old time, now move it baby...mow your lawn, today (don't call Andy to do the chore), clean up the garage, burns 350 calories in 35 minutes...and now you deserve the treat, don't you?! Experience the real meal n tell me how you feel...isn't it comforting, worthy?

Ingredients: (Serves Four)

Rice 1 and 1/2 cups
Broccoli 1 head - florets
Green beans 100 grams - no trimming
Corn kernels 1 small cup
Button mushrooms 1 cup sliced
Milk 2 cups
Mushroom cream soup 1 can
Fried onions 1 cup to garnish
Butter few cubes
Grated cheese to garnish
Pepper powder to taste 1 teaspoon, per serving.

Method:

Melt butter in a crock pot, add rice enough salt. Further add water and milk, cover and cook.

Once the rice is half the way done, add cream soup, plus all the vegetables. Maybe be add a little more salt for the veggies.

Cover and cook till tender.

Now, finally add fried onion, cheese, pepper powder.

Serve steaming hot. Enjoy:)

Hot Cocoa Drink - Stiff Drink Of The Day!

Home Made Hot Chocolate Drink:

Ingredients:

Cocoa powder 1 spoon
Gourmet coffee 2 spoons
Brown sugar as per taste
Farm fresh milk 2 cups.

Method:

Make a strong decocotion with coffee powder, set aside.

Add sugar and cocoa powder together and mix well using warm water. Heat this contents for few minutes, followed by add warm milk plus fresh coffee...pull the drink to bring some foam.

Serve warm to energize your day.

Blueberry Smoothie / Blueberry Milk Shake

Blueberries Chocolate Milk Shake:

Ingredients:

Banana 1 large
Blueberries 1 cup
Cocoa powder 1 teaspoon
Oval-tine 2-4 teaspoons
Milk 2 cups.

Method:

Blend all the above mentioned ingredients together, serve chilled as a breakfast, perfect to kick start the day.

Carrot-Walnuts Fudge - Its Purely Decadent!

Gajjar-Akhrot Halwa:

Ingredients:

Carrots 1/4 kilo
Walnuts/Pecan 1 and 1/2 cups
Condensed milk 1/4 cup
Brown sugar 3/4 cup
Milk 1 cup
Cardamom powder 1 spoon
Ghee 1/4 cup.

Method:


Peel the carrot and chop them down.

Cook the carrots in milk till tender, puree the same.

Heat ghee in a deep, heavy bottomed vessel. Add sugar, condensed milk, cardamom and carrot paste. Keep stirring till the moisture is all sucked up.

Now add grated/pounded walnuts to it. Bring it to thick halwa consistency.

Grease a plate and spread the carrot halwa. Slice them into desired shapes.

Hope you all will enjoy this Carrot Fudge.

Kesari / Sooji ka Halwa - How Sweet Is That?

Zaffroni Sooji Ka Sheera:

Saffron Infused Semolina Halwa. Rawa Halwa. Rawa Kesari.

It isn't what I exactly planned it to be, blogging about nothing! I mean the usual stuff, I know sometimes (okay, okay kool...many a times) my recipes are not so blog worthy. Come on, how many people would actually ruin a simple dessert!! Are there really someone' who waits for my recipes to be published in order to cook a meal?! But, I still wanna work out so hard to re-create what Mommy fixed 'just like that' ! Love to record every single-simple everyday recipes!! However, I could never say that I perfected it though...that is a different story!!! Yet, it brings lots of happiness to imitate Mom's style of cooking:) Yeah, just the usual's, no fuzz menus:) I dunno, whenever am kind of home-sick' this sort of cooking therapy helps me to feel better! Well, so if you really care about my regular recipes, here you go...

Ingredients:

Semolina 1 cup
Condensed milk 1/4 cup
Whole milk 3 cups
Sugar 3/4 cup
Ghee 1/4 cup
Saffron few strands
Cashew nuts 1 fistful
Raisins 1 fistful.


Method:

Heat ghee and add the nuts and raisins, once they turn fragrant, set aside.

In the same oil, add sugar and a cup of water, bring this to thick syrup. Further add milk and condensed milk. Bring this to boil.

Add powdered saffron and semolina, cover and cook. Add ghee if necessary. If the moisture is all sucked up, its done.

Serve warm or chilled as a dessert.

Macaroni Kheer / Macaroni Pudding / Macaroni Payasam

Macaroni Kheer:

You know, whenever I come up with this kind of weird recipe...'I am off the hook, dude'. So, it was a crazy noon, I had nothing to play with...and I discovered this abandoned box of macaroni shells lying in the pantry. Beyond those internationally acclaimed recipes...I had countless ideas of whipping them out!! Wish I had the same knowledge while writing an exam:( Anyhow...one such idea was dutifully implemented here:) Not that I am angry with my blog or friends or anything...just going crazy, hehe:) But I can assure you all one thing, that' my friends enjoyed it tremendously:):)

Ingredients:

Macaroni shells 1 cup
Farm fresh milk 1 liter
Cardamom 2 crushed
Saffron few strands
Sugar syrup to taste
Almonds sliced
Ghee 1/2 spoon.

Method:

Heat ghee, toast the nuts and set aside. Now also toast the macaroni briefly.

Boil milk and reduce it to half of its original volume. Add the shells, continue cooking over low-medium heat.

Add cardamon pods, nuts, sugar syrup and saffron. Once the shells are done to tender, its ready to remove from heat.

Serve chilled as a dessert. I have no objection if you prefer it warm:)

Restaurant Style Rawa Pongal / Sooji Pongal / Semolina Pongal

Restaurant Style Rawa Pongal:

Ingredients:

Rawa 1 cup
Mung dal 1/4 cup
Farm fresh milk 1 cup
Green chilies 1 or 2 finely chopped
Ginger 2" chopped
Curry leaves few
Peppercorns 2 spoons
Cumin seeds 2 spoons
Asafoetida 1 pinch
Salt to taste
Cashew nuts 15-20
Ghee 1/4 cup.

Method:

Soak lentils for about 40 minutes or 1 hour before cooking.

Add just enough salt and cook the lentils in a pressure cooker, till tender.

Heat ghee in a pan, add the nuts and fry till golden brown, set aside. Further add the spices mentioned above and wait till they turns aromatic, set aside as well.

Heat about 3 cups of mashed lentils, once it is bubbling hot...add the toasted rawa to it. Once it is almost done, add warm milk. If necessary, heat the content for few minutes.

Mix the fried spices and nuts to it, serve warm with chutney, sambar and vada. Enjoy.

Paal Paniyaram - Country Style Dessert

Pal Paniyaram:


Ingredients:

For Paniyaram:

Rice flour 1 cup
Grated jaggery 1/2 cup
Cardamom 3crushed
Grated coconut 4-7 spoons
Oil for frying/ghee.

For Pal:

Coconut 1 whole - grated and pureed
Farm fresh milk 1 liter
Cardamom 6-7 crushed
Sugar 1 cup.

Method:

In a wide vessel, heat milk, reduce it into half of its original volume.

Further add coconut puree, cardamom, sugar and continue boiling.

Meanwhile, make a thick batter out of all the ingredients mentioned at 'paniyaram', except oil.

Now heat oil in a pan and fry the spoonful of batter...maybe in low-medium heat, till the turn golden brown.

Now drop the same in the milk above. Remove from heat.

Serve warm, or at room temperature or chilled.

Enjoy as a dessert:)

Paal Kozhukattai / Doodh ka Modak - Traditional Tamil Pudding

Paal Kozhukattai:

I have heard about this particular sweet, a million times(both through movies and friends)...but never got a chance to see it or to taste it!!! My mommy is a kind of person...who is very content with her own style of cooking,he he...I mean, she never showed even slightest curiosity to try anything traditional or authentic(I dunno why)!!! Well...after watching Tamil movies, I kept bugging my mother for the dish, but she never yielded to my plea.

Anyway...now that I can cook, started figuring out 'how to make this Paal Kozhukattai'. Hmmmm, to admit the truth, I couldn't succeed for the first two times:( Wanna know...what was the mistakes? I steamed the modak and dropped the same in the milk...ooops, it was so hard like rock:( Secondly, I forgot to steam the flour before kneading, so it ended up like a mess:( However, practice make a man perfect:) Now, what I like about it? Its so easy to fix:)

Ingredients:

Good quality coconut - fresh 1 (very important)
Farm fresh milk 1 liter
Fresh mill ground rice flour 2 cups
Cardamoms 7 crushed
Sugar 1 cup
Salt 1/4 spoon
Ghee few spoons to smear.

Method:
Now you know that first three ingredients ought to be very fresh and in good quality, right. Well...I happen to make them in India, so it was bit easy to procure:)

First' steam the raw rice flour for at least 20 minutes or so.

Sprinkle warm water to it, and pinch of salt. Knead the same with greased hands. Make uniform small modaks / kozhukattai out of it. Set aside.

Make a thick puree out of coconut, set aside.

Boil milk with sugar and cardamom...bring this down to half of its original volume. Further add coconut milk to it, continue boiling.

Now add the modak to this milk and reduce the flame/heat. Allow this to get cooked completely. Well, by now...milk would have also reduced and look thick. Remove from heat.

Chill the same, serve as a dessert. Perfect after a South Indian Meal.

Sabudana Kheer / Sago Pudding / Jowarisi Payasam

Sabudana Kheer:

Hai hai hai hi...girls, friends and my beloved blogger buddies...how are you all doing today? Sorry for this delayed update.

Oh boy...I can't believe that I abandoned my laptop for such a long time!!! All the sudden, my hardware crashed:( Gosh...its like a nightmare to lose all the hard work at one go. Damn, I never had a backup for all the stuff! I was so scared to even tamper some of my primitive documents. Had a hard time retrieving few of my special files, somehow! Anyway...what to do, will figure it out on the go! So, simply...rough month of the year:( Ahem, stupid me:(

On top of it, I have been travelling like a maniac this year. Each time I hit home...I bounce back to new place with pile of things to sort out - totally clueless!!!

Well, besides all this hiccups with work and stuff...few things never change. Oh yeah...I still spin my spatula. Yes...even at the remote country side hotel suite! At least I get to prepare my own salad:)Since I forgot all about Diwali on the run...let me begin with something sweet and belated Diwali wishes to everyone:) Seems like I missed Bakrid too...belated Id wishes too:)

Ingredients:

Sago small - 1 cup
Whole milk 1 litre
Cardamom pods 6 crushed
Sugar 1 cup
Cashew nuts 1 fistful
Raisins 1 tablespoon
Ghee few spoons.

Method:

Soak the sago pearls in cold water, overnight.

Drain the water next day and set the sago aside.

Fry the nuts and raisin in ghee and st aside too.

Heat milk with sugar together. Once it comes to boiling point, add the sago and reduce the flame/heat. Now let this get cooked and also milk should reduce to half of its original volume.

Add cardamom or saffron for fragrance. Chill the same and garnsih with fried nuts and raisins.

Serve as a dessert.

Green Beans Casserole - Southern Style

Green Beans Casserole:

Ingredients

Beans 1 bunch
Milk 1 cup
Salt
Pepper
Fried onions
Mushrooms sliced
Mushroom soup 1 cup.

Method:

Wash and clean the beans, do not trim their ends.

Now bake them briefly with pinch of salt and a cup of milk.

Add mushroom cream soup to the same and top[ them with sliced mushrooms, sprinkle the fried onions too. Now bake them for atleast 20 minutes over 350 F. Once the moisture is all dried up and beans comes out out well-cooked, its done.

Enjoy:)