KOZHUKATTAI!!!

Lord Ganesha’s Favourite dish and My Grandmother’s  Special

During every birthday of Lord Sri Ganesha, in India we prepare Kozhukattai and make it as an offering to him. It is supposed to be one of the very favourite dish of Lord Ganesh.  In Tamilnadu, it is called as Kozhukattai whereas in other parts of India it is known as Modhakam. Mostly, this is prepared mainly from rice and in some parts it is prepared from wheat or maida. In Kozhukattai , there is a sweet and a salt Kozhukattai. I love sweet Kozhukattai, Have you ever wondered how they make it? Last year, during Vinayaka Chaturthi I got a chance to see how they prepare it.  Basically Kozhukattai looks like the picture below.

                                                                                      

INGREDIENTS REQUIED:

·       Rice                -                 1 cup

·       Coconut          -                  one

·       Jaggery           -                  150g

·       Cardamom Powder     -        ½ tsp

METHOD OF PREPARATION:

·       Soak rice in 2cups of water and keep it aside for an hour.

·       After one hour, completely squeeze the water out from the bowl, powder it.

                        

·       Boil 1 and ½ cups of water.

·       Add 2tsp of gingerly oil.

·       Mix the powder in the boiling water and make a soft-smooth dough.

                               

 Keep it aside by closing in a wet cloth.

·       Meanwhile, grate the coconut.

·       Add Jaggery and the grated coconut into the frying pan.

·       Mix them till it turns golden brown and add a pinch of cardamom.

·       This is called “Puranam” for making Kozhukattai.                                                        

·       Now, Keep this “Puranam” aside and let it cool.

                         

           Coming to the dough part, make them into small balls as shown in the picture.

                Picture above shows the small balls of the dough.

·       Now, from each balls make a small cup like shapes.

·       After the “Puranam” has cooled down, according to the size of the cups (Dough) keep the “Puranam” inside the cup-dough and close it.

·       Here comes the final part of the preparation, keep these uncooked Kozhukattai’s inside the cooker and steam it for 10 minutes.

Ahaaa!I shall ask my Grandmother to make me some, RIGHT NOW!!! :D

You guys try this and do let me know the result. Feedbacks are most welcome and awaited...

HAPPY Kozhukattai-ying!!!

               

Sad Story of My Laptop!!

It’s been just two weeks since I got my very new laptop (Samsung RV410 Notebook) delivered. With so much of excitement I updated my status on August 23^rd saying “Laptop! :D - Samsung Notebook and its Black \m/”. Oh Mon dieu, looking at it one will surely get allured. Alas! it’s all in vain. I do not know whether it’s my bad luck, the very next day I had to give it to the Samsung Service Centre ( Sun infoTech) in Kodambakam , as there were some problem in booting. I was asked to collect it the next week, when asked for a reason they said there is some HARD-DISK problem! And things have to be changed in OS. I was astounded. What nonsense? A brand new laptop which was delivered yesterday and next day it has some internal problems?? Atrocious! Plus, the SAMSUNG customer service is PATHETIC… made to run here and there everyday (Travel charges, phone charges). On top of all they still don’t have a proper answer or a reason as to why it has happened- very clever at diverting the topic when asked about the reasons and for re-imbursements. One should learn from these people as “how to behave rude” too. 

               After hearing lots of awesome things about SAMSUNG, now I get a very poor impression on it. I’m sorry SAMSUNG there’s no other go, I’m sharing my experience I had with you,  to the world and it’s high time that this issue reaches the consumer’s court! Au Revoir J.

Drumstick Curry

Surprisingly,  today morning I was awake at 6 itself - and guess what?? I made the side dish today -DRUMSTICK CURRY :-D  . Perfect side dish for any rice and chappati's.

 ALL YOU NEED IS

• Drumsticks - 2 
• Tomatoes - 4
• Onions - 2 
• Cooking Oil 
• Turmeric Powder
• Chilli Powder
• Coriander Powder 
• Coriander Leaves- For the garnish 

HOW TO MAKE : 

• Cut the Drumsticks with a proper measurement of 1 inch each pieces
• Tomatoes and Onions , finely chopped
• Cook  the cut drumstick pieces  for 10 minutes in microwave.
• Meanwhile, in the kadai or the cooking bowl add oil and mustard , wait till the mustard starts spluttering , then add those finely chopped tomatoes and onions .
• Add cooked drumsticks with water and boil it . 
• Salt, turmeric powder, coriander powder are later added.
• For the garnish , add coriander leaves and serve .

Life in the Beach . . .

On July 10th , it was a perfect Sunday- evening , so we took advantage of this opportunity for taking pictures. We decided to go the Kottivakam beach (near ECR) . Since we took off late, we had less time to take pictures . In this blog post , I don't have much to write because our pictures says it all ;-) . We quickly came up with an idea - Life in the Beach- what all you can find in any Indian Beaches- especially in here in Chennai .Few beautiful things about Beaches in Chennai is that they are always filled with full of Happiness, fun place not only for kids but also for old people who gather there with their buddies and chat, many make it a routine to go for walking, best place to have hot  Bajji's and Pani-puri's and a place to attain inner peace too. So here it goes ..

 Life seems undisturbed to these fishermen over there - No time for other things!

(  We stopped this boy , made him pose for this picture. So sweet of him :D ) Cotton candies , Balloons and Ice creams attract kids the most!

 BALLOON SHOOTING :- One of the fun entertaining stuff  to all ages.

This boy seems to aim higher !!

 "Mullagai Bajji :D" at it's best. You can find this very Hot and Spicy Bajji's only in beaches,especially in Marina and Elliot's beach - Heaven!

 PANI-PURI - Cheapest Pani puri stalls can be found only here. In a plate you get nearly eight pieces with potato stuffing and sweet or spicy water inside each puri's -wow! They surely taste great!

If you go to a beach never forget to have Fun Orange stick, I don not know why but it surely does gives you a nice feeling while leaving :) . All I can say Chennai is really bestowed to get such beautiful beaches and we the chennaites are very lucky too :).

Carrot and Coriander Soup Recipe

Summer holidays and it's a Sunday too- I was really very bored. I had no company at home . I opened my fridge and I noticed that nothing was interesting over there except I had two vegetables left - Carrot and Coriander. "What an Ideaaaaa siiirrrjjjii!!" time for some experiment !!


ALL YOU NEED IS : 

• 450g carrots 
• 1 large onion 
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 1tsp ground coriander
• 2 loves garlic 
• fresh coriander (chopped)  

HOW TO MAKE IT :   

1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan.
2. Add the diced onion and crushed garlic.
3. Fry off for about a minute.
4. Add the chopped carrots and fry for about 5 minutes.
5. Add the ground coriander stir in well.
6. Simmer for about 30minutes or until the carrot is soft.
7. Put in blend and blend until smooth.
8. Add fresh coriander on top it .

My love for pets :)

CHICKOO

 My family is one kind, where they don't accept having pets at home. In my childhood days, myself and my dad use to plead my mother for a dog, but obviously our answer was a NO- I can't say that, THAT  was the time I started loving pets!It all began looking at my Aunt , the way she use to adore each and every pet animals , that special love and care was seen through her eyes and I started adoring them too. She treats them just like one of her children. Indeed, even her two daughters (My cousins) take care of them and play with them so very well. So here goes the list : Firstly, my aunt had adopted a Cross-breed dog from Blue-Cross as a part of some organization held long time back- we named him Bingo. It was black and white in color. Unfortunately after its first vaccine it expired due to some viral infection already caused. ( Oops! Missed a photograph of it. Sorry!) . After Bingo left we realized that a white cat always visits behind our house - we named it Snow Bell, must say it did stay with was for nearly six months with us. Later on we were shocked to notice that Snow Bell was pregnant!Frankly speaking, previously I had more soft-corner for cats, it got lost after I started learning about their character - cats are cunning, guile. Once their job is done , they just leave you and go, you cannot have them as your protector or say you can never trust them! Like Snow bell just did to us after she gave birth to three kittens.

SNOW BELL

Her recently born kittens -chingu, mangu and rangu.

At present we have a dog (Mixed-breed-white in color)  named "Chickoo" ( Picture RHS of first para)- a female origin. Sad story is that it's first owner was least bothered to take proper care of it , so it chickoo was tied on a string , it's legs bleeding. My sister went forward and asked that owner's permission - and now chickoo is under our care. It was just a month when we first brought it, we took it to the veterinary doctor and now it's perfectly fine. Almost three months , very active, time just flies away when you are with her , only thing is she bites you - though it's not a harmful one , still it may hurt. Chickoo is enjoying her life with us - four meals a day,two new bowls (one for meals and the other one for drinking milk) , many new toys , and many new people to play with :). Chickoo just loves play around with people so much, so much that it never gets tired at all.  Initially people at her house found it very wrong and uncomfortable having a pet , as days passed they started caring so much. happy to say that chickoo is part of our family now.

          This is how my interests on pets started budding. I've decided that in near future I must and I will do something for these pets :). 

Baked Banana Recipe

Thanks to my mother this time who made me try this very simple recipe. Well, it did turn out good...why don't you also try it ??

ALL YOU NEED IS  :

You need 1 banana
5 pieces of cinnamon

IF YOU WANT :


You can have this with fresh cream / whipped cream.

Sugar or chocolate sauce on top of Banana- makes it much more tastier




HOW  TO MAKE AND BAKE IT :

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Cut large Banana into 4 quarters.
• Place pieces on baking pan or cookie sheet 
• Sprinkle with cinnamon.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until how and bubblly.

Many more recipe's coming !!!
Bon Appetite!