Kerala Egg curry/ Mutta curry

There is a part inside me  wishing for a joint family life, living in a big  house full of people having lots of fun. Might  sound crazy right ? But thats what I feel now especially since my parents are here with me now. Work is divided between everyone which  makes life easier. It has been weeks since I did the laundary, folded my clothes  or  given lil A a shower. Mum does everything for me. Luckily the job I hates the most is not so boring for Mum and vice versa !!

Making lil A speak his mother tongue was one of the biggest challenge for us. Both me and S being less patient  gave up the effort after trying for while but surprisingly few weeks with grandparents did the all trick. I feel so happy and thrilled to see him speak his mother tongue. I really wish he won't switch back to English once they leave to India in few days time. The mere thought of my parents leaving is giving me an insecure feeling, but after all that's life !

Coming back to todays post, its egg curry/ mutta curry my favourite curry to go along with idiyappam. I usually enjoy eggs in all forms, be it boiled, scrambled , poached, omlette , fried or even half boiled. Yes I am  a total  egg fan. If not for the fat in yolks I could have enjoyed eggs everyday :) So do I need to say how much I love this egg curry !

Ingredients

Onion - 3 medium( thinly sliced lenghtwise )
Tomato - 2 small
Ginger (minced )- 1 tbs
Garlic (minced ) - 1 tbs
Green chillies -2 (slit lenghtwise )
Fennel seeds (perum jeerakam ) - 1 tsp
Redchilly powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 2 tsp
Chicken masala - 1 tsp
Salt
Sugar - 1/2 tsp( optional)
Boiled eggs - 3 ( cut into half )
oil
Water - 1/4 cup
Coconut milk - 3/4  cup
Curry leaves - few sprigs


Method

• In a saucepan add oil .When the oil is hot add fennel seeds and fry for a minute.
• Add sliced onions and a pinch of salt and saute until onions are light brown in colour and soft (takes about 15- 30 minutes )
• Add minced  ginger, garlic, green chillies, few curry leaves and fry for a minute.
• Add redchilly powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, chicken masala and stir for a minute. 
• Add chopped tomatoes and stir until tomatoes are cooked and mashed.
• Add water , check salt and let it cook covered for 5 minutes.
• Finally add coconut milk, rest of the curry leaves and  boiled egg. When it is about to boil turn off the flame.

Enjoy the egg curry with Idiyappam / chapathy /  wheat dosa /  appam or even bread :)

Idiyappam/ Nool puttu

Eating cooked breakfast even 3 days a week  was a luxury for us here, but these days since  my parents are here we  get to eat cooked breakfast 7 days a week, and we r totally enjoying all that luxury. Like everytime this time also my mum prepared everything possible for us to bring here which included all homemade spice powders, rice flour, Puttu flour etc etc.. And to make a good idiyappam/ nool puttu you  need a good quality rice flour and what can be better than the rice flour my mum milled for me from rice mill with home grown rice. Oh yes it is  a 5 star rice flour as it involves all the  effort my mum takes in growing our own rice in  paddy fields ,so do I need to say about the outcome ?? It was melt in mouth and super soft idiyappams, the best idiyappams ever.

Every year after our vacation we will be eating such nice stuffs for a while and when it finishes we switch to the readymade flours and I should say that transition is a nightmare, I can't even compare how the taste vary, but soon our taste buds adjust to the readymade flour and we start to enjoy that as well but still I got to say the nothing can beat that homemade taste :) So if you want to make a your own rice flour and have a good rice mill nearby go ahead and soak some rice, drain it and send it to the mill to make the finest powder and roast it well and a first quality flour is ready for u. I dont reccomend using mixie for making  rice flour at home as they dont do a good job and the taste wont be good as the one milled in rice mill, but if you dont have other option go ahead and make  it in mixie or buy readymade flour and make some idiyappam and enjoy !

Ingredients (serves 3)

Rice flour - 11/2 cups

Boiling water -2 1/4 cup or as required 

Oil - 1 tbs

Salt

Method

• Roast the rice flour for few minutes.
• Boil the water and add salt and oil.
• Add roasted rice flour to the boiling water and mix well with a wooden spoon.

• Mix until you get a smooth dough like the picture below.

• Fill the idiyappam maker with smooth dough and rotate the handle and fill the idiyappam on to each holes of idly maker filled with a  little grated coconut.

• Steam the idiyppams for 7-8 minutes.
• Enjoy with some egg curry (recipe will follow soon )

Cupcakes to say thank you

Time surely flies quickly. It seems only yesterday lil A started nursery and before I knew he finished his nursery and is all set to start School next month in a new School in a brand new environment. I am so thrilled about the whole  thought of him going to  school wearing a  uniform and packed lunch. When he finished his nursery last month I wanted to thank his nursery teachers in my own way and I couldn't think of anything else other than some personalised  cupcakes. Lil  A was also happy to make cupcakes for teachers and since  It was 2 days before my vacation  I was under lot of stress while making this but somehow I managed to pull it out at the  last minute. The teachers were so happy and touched by the gift which made all my effort worthwhile. It was an emotional day for me too, I  was  sad to see him say good bye to his teachers and friends but after all it was for a new beginning :) Anyway the cupcakes I made  was chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream which  always wins hearts and this was no different  :)

Some Vacation Pictures and Giveaway winner !

A big hello to all...I am back after a months break. As many of u know I was on Vacation in India and getting back to routine after a break is not that easy especially as I am having an extended  holiday in London  as my parents also came along with us for a visit. I am busy taking them around  for sight seeing and cooking for them. 

Whenever I post my recipe pictures in Fcebook or my blog, my Dad always used to ask when am I going to cook for them as I never kind of cooked my specialities in India. I need  my kitchen and my ingredients to cook on my own comfort so when I am elsewhere I usually assist but doesnt do much cooking :) So I am keeping my promise these days by cooking for them which gives me immense pleasure. 

I will be back with a recipe soon but till then here are some vacation pictures for u all :) This time the Monsoon in kerala was the heaviest in 13 yrears and it was raining thorughout during our holidays neverthless we enjoyed each and every moment of our trip.

Also just wanted to let u know that I  picked  the giveway winner before I left to India and its none other than Rafeeda of Big sweet tooth , congrats Rafee :)

Avacado / Guacamole Sandwich

Summer is almost on full swing here which for me is quite hectic and  I hardly get time for elaborate cooking, so to make my life easier I started waking up early ( thanks for the early sunrise ) and finish of my days cooking in the morning so I can spend more time in playgrounds and park  in the evening without worrying about cooking dinner, but there are some days when I dont cook in the morning and S comes back home home from work with a very hungry tummy, so just to keep his hunger on bay until I finish my cooking I make some healthy quick snacks for him  which gives me ample time to do the rest of my cooking :) Like most of you know Guacamole is a famous Mexican dip made from Avacado which is perfect with some Tortilla chips, but I like to have  Guacamole as a filling for sandwich which tastes delicious and even my lil one loves this to the core and  he likes to eat  this as his dinner  :)

Ingredients( makes 6 traingle sandwiches )

For Guacamole

Avacado - 2 

Red onion - 1 small ( finely chopped )

Tomato - 1/2 ( finely chopped )

Lemon juice - 1 tbs

Salt

Pepper

Coriander leaves - (finely chopped )

For sandwich

Bread - 6 slices

Butter ( optional)

Method

• Cut the Avacado into two, remove the stone and scoop out the flesh to a bowl.
• Mash the avacado with a spoon and add chopped onions, chopped tomatoes, lemon juice, salt, pepper, coriander leaves and mix. Your Guacamole dip is ready.
• Spread butter(if using ) on your bread ( I like to toast my bread ) and spread the guacamole evenly on one side of the bread. Place the second slice on top and cut it into half ( triangles)  with a sharp knife.
• Serve immediately.

Black forest cake, a guest post for Priya

Do u all remember a beautiful pinwheel cookie which appeared on my blog sometime back, it  was a guest post by  my dear blogger friend Priya who blogs at Cook Like Priya. When I requested  her to do a guest post here she gave me the very best so when she asked me the same I had to think a lot to come up with something special, so it took a long time and finally I came up with this  Black forest cake.

Priya and I share a special friendship and I was really lucky to meet her in person when she came for Bloggers buzz in London. Ever since we have been catching up every now and then through phone calls and mails and the real bummer was when she has moved back to India. I really wish she still lived here. She is a talented blogger and she has lots of  South Indian specials in her blog as well as some classic bakes. I myself has tried her Raw mango rice and we all loved it. So if are looking for some typical South Indian food, do check out her blog.

Talking about Black forest cake, I have tried black forest cake quite a few times and expect one time, all the  other time cake came out soo well and it was a real treat. So if you are planning to make this I would advice you to be a bit careful with folding because if you over do the folding you might end up with a bread like cake due to the formation of Gluten, especially while making a genoise sponge ( the one I made for this recipe ), so always be careful not to overfold and  if you get it right I assure you that it will be an amazing cake and one of the best black forest cake you can make. I am telling you this because I have tried few other black forest recipes and have even posted 2 different recipes for black forest cake  in my blog which you can find here and here but those two were not as delicious as this one. Head over to her blog for the recipe and for our chit chat session :)

Strawberry Jam and some pictures of Strawberry picking !

Every summer we look forward to one thing in particular which is strawberry picking at our nearby farm. We have been doing it for the past 3 years and its a great fun thing to do with family. Acres of farm with fresh strawberries, rasberries, blackberries, gooseberies, and fresh vegetables like carrot, spinach, cauilflower, broccoli and many more things. Every year when I go there I go crazy seeing all fresh fruit and vegetables and I pick and pick and pick and come back home with a truck load of fruits and veggies. Only when I get back  home I think  " how on earth am I going to store them "  ! We somehow try and eat most of the fruits without storing them in fridge but  storing vegetables in my small fridge has been a challenge and  I end up leaving  few veggies at room tempertaure  for 2-3 days till I find room for them  in the fridge. 

This year has been no different  and I ended up picking a lot, but I have to say it was not as bad as last year. See, I am getting better ! But still I picked nearly 3.5  kilos of strawberry and while picking it, I  must have ate 1/4  kilo from the farm.They say we have to pay for it first before eating  but resisting the red coloured fruits while picking is almost impossible and when I looked around almost everyone who was picking was gobbling the Strawberries ! Coming to the point, making jam has been in my" to do"  list since a long time and strawberry jam is my favourite so this time I knew atleast half a kilo strawberry is going to used in jam making which by the way I did make  the same day. Jam tasted delicious almost like my favourite brand of jam. Making a jam from something you picked and enjoying it a slice of toasted bread is a priceless feeling. If this can  give such a good feeling, I  wonder how it would be if I made jam from starwberries which  I planted :)

Broccoli farm

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Ingredients

Strawberries - 700 gm

Sugar - 500 gm

Lime juice - from one lemon

Method 

•  Wash the strawberries and pat it dry.
• Place the stawberries in a heavy bottomed pan and mash them lightly  with a spoon or fork,leaving few big pieces.
• Add sugar, limejuice and mix.
• Place the pan on a medium high heat  till the sugar dissolves, cook the strawberries for 10-15 minutes stirring continously.When its almost the setting point take a cold plate(keep it in freezer for 5 minutes) and add a little of jam to the cold plate and place it back to freezer for 1-2 minutes. Take it out and when you draw a line it should leave a trail.

• Allow it cool down to room temperature and store the jam in a sterilised bottle.