Idli

Ingredients:
Rice – 1 cup
Urad dal – 1/3 cup
Methi seeds – 1 tbspn
Puffed rice – ¼ cup

Cooking Method:

• Wash and soak rice and urad dal separately. Add methi seeds urad dal. Soak them for 6 hours min.
• Grind them separately as well. Before 5 min of grinding add puffed rice to urad dal. Urad dal mixture should be grinded finely and rice should be like semolina structured ( not fine).
• Then mix them and keep overnight.
• The mixture turns bubbly. Then you can put in the idli maker and steam them for 10 mins. Serve hot

Things to be considered:

• Before making idlis make sure the batter has turned bubbly. If not add 1 or 2 pinch of cooking soda (bi-carbonate soda).
• Rice and urad dal should be soaked separately otherwise the idli will not be good.

Serving Suggestions:

Serve with Sambar and coconut chutney.

Okra/Ladiesfinger/Bendi curry

I learnt this recipe from my mom. I have tasted this okra curry many a times, which others had prepared. It was not at all good and i stopped eating this curry. Then my mom came up with new idea and prepared it like the below recipe. Now me and my husband and also my daughter love okra. My daughter eats only okra curry when i prepare, instead of eating it with chapati.

Ingredients:

Okra or ladies fingers - 250grms

Onion – 1 chopped

Tomato – 1 chopped

Geera or cumin seeds – 1 tspn

Oil – 3 tspn

Curry leaves

Garam masala – 1 tspn

Chilli powder – ½ tspn(as much as you like)

Turmeric powder -1/4 tspn

Salt to taste

Cooking Method:

• Wash dry and wipe the okra or ladies finger. The very important thing is that, you should wipe all water before chopping them.
• Heat 1 tspn oil in a kadai or frying pan. Add the chopped okra and fry till all the jelly bit has disappeared. If you don’t want to fry more, add some lemon juice to the frying okra, the jelly thing will soon disappear. Keep them aside for now.
• In another vessel heat the remaining oil and add cumin seeds and let them splutter. Add curry leaves.
• Then add onion and fry till golden brown. Then add tomato and salt. Mix well, cover it and cook for 3 or 4 min. By doing this the tomato will cook nicely and with the back of the spoon press them to make paste.
• Now add all the powders. That is chilli powder, turmeric powder, garam masala and mix well.
• Now add the fried okra. Mix well and cover and cook for 5 min. put a few drops of water if it sticks to the pan. Not more water.
• Garnish with coriander and take off the heat. You can garnish with grated coconut as well.

Serving Suggestions:

Serve with chapatti. Its great.

Things to be considered:

• Dry the okra completely after washing them. And also wipe them to ensure they are dry. By doing this the jelly thing which it lives will be less. I usually wash the okra before 2 hours of preparation and spread them on the newspaper or kitchen roll(tissue). By doing this, the okra will be quite dry. But still before cutting them wipe with clean cloth. 
• You can also grind the onion and tomato to get a different taste.

Dessert made from Banana- Baale hannu shikarni

Nobody likes to eat over ripened bananas. Especially when their skin turn black. My 2 and 1/2 year daughter says "mum no like it" when i give her that kind of slightly ripened banana. so the best idea to deal with thos kind of banana is make this recipe. My daughter eats this and says "mum Yummy". i love when she says so. Try and have fun, less effort quick and easy.

Ingredients:

Bananas -2

Milk -100 ml

Sugar -6 tspn

Cardamom powder- ¼ tspn

Cooking Method:

• Take milk in a vessel and warm it up.You can use microwave for this or just on stove.
• Dissolve sugar in it and add cardamom powder as well.
• Cut the bananas into small pieces or slice them into thin pieces.Actually smaller pieces are better.
• Add them to the milk.
• You can alwys taste the dish and alter the amount of sugar.

Serving Suggestion:

serve with puri or chapati. Or else can be just eaten as dessert.

Easy Pizzi Instant Bhel

Ingredients:
Puffed rice – 1 cup
Sev (these are vermicelli shaped and are made from gram flour) – 1 cup
Potato chips – 1 small packet
Doritos chips (optional) – ½ small packet
Onion – 1 small finely chopped
Tomato – 1 medium finely chopped
Peanuts or groundnuts – ¼ cup roasted (if u like them you can put more.)
Red chilli powder – as per your taste
Salt – as per you taste
Tomato sauce – ¼ cup

Cooking Method:

• Mix all the ingredients together in a mixing bowl.
• Taste it to know weather salt, chilli powder and tomato sauce is correct. Serve as a snack.

Things to be considered:

You can alter the quantity of  tomato sauce. If you don’t like the tangy flavour of tomato sauce, add sugar ½ tspn sugar to neutralize.
Eat it as soon as possible otherwise the puffed rice will be wet and does not taste good.

Tomato and Cheese Open Tart

Ingredients:
Puff Pastry sheet- 1
Tomato- 1 sliced
Tomato sauce- 1 tbspn
Cheese

Cooking Method:

• Cut the Puff Pastry sheet into the shapes of your choice.
• Keep it on the greased baking tray.
• Spread tomato sauce onto the sheet on the baking tray.
• Now spread the cheese and tomato slices.
• Keep the tray in the pre-heated oven for 10-15 min at 200 deg cel.

Perfect Eggless Cake

I Always wanted to make eggless cake. Found hundreds of recipes and tried them too and i was disappionted many many times. But wanted to make a perfect eggless cake as we dont eat eggs. Here is the perfect one. You cannot go wrong with this recipe. I prepared this cake for my daughter and husband. They loved it and finished it all the same day. My daughter came to me the next day and asked weather i can prepare another cake for her.

Ingredients:

Maida - 1 and 1/2 cups
Thick Curd - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Baking powder - 1 1/4 tsp
Cooking oil - 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence - 1 1/2 tsp

Preparation Method:

• Sieve maida keep aside.
• Put sugar and curd in a mixing bowl and mix until sugar dissolves completely. Add baking powder, baking soda to the creamed mixture and mix well.
• Leave aside for 15 mins and you can see the bubbles appearing. Now add vanilla essence,cooking oil and mix well.
• Next slowly add maida in portions at a time and blend with wet ingredients. Beat well with a whipper until creamy and thick.
• Preheat oven to 200 deg C for 10mins.Meanwhile greese the baking tray and pour the mixture into it.
• Bake in preheated oven at 200 degree C for 10 mins, then reduce temperature to 180 deg C and bake it for 25-30 mins.
• Then enjoy the perfect eggless cake.

Icing and decoration:
Icing can be done in two ways
1. Icing sugar + water
2. Icing sugar + butter.

1. Icing sugar + water:
Take 4 tbspn of Icing sugar and add some water(about 3 tspn). Mix well till you get the right consistency. then spread on the cake. Mix 1-2 drops of food colour in the remaining icing and make decorations.

2. Icing sugar + Butter:
Take 4 tbspn of Icing sugar and add some butter(about 3 tspn at room temp. you can add some water as well). Mix well till you get the right consistency. then spread on the cake. Mix 1-2 drops of food colour in the remaining icing and make decorations.

Sending this to BAKE FEST from Zesty Palette.

Rava Holige

this is the easiest puran poli ever. because it does not require any expertise in this field. My mom told me this recipe on phone and with her instructions i prepared it and the result was awsome. anybody and everybody can prepare it. yuuuuummmmmmmyyy!!!!!!

Ingredients:
For filling:
Rava or semolina(fine or extra-course)- 1 cup
jaggery- ½  cup
cardamom powder- 1/2 tspn
water- 2 cups for fine semolina and 3 cups for extra-course semolina.

For dough:
plain flour- 1/2 cup
wheat flour(wholemeal or chapati flour)-1/2 cup
salt
oil
***Alternatively you can prepare dough with only wheat flour. (That is above ingredients for dough without plain flour.)

Cooking Method:

• In a mixing bowl, add plain flour,wheat flour, salt.
• Heat 3-4 tbspn of oil and add to the mixing bowl.Mix it well with water and make into a smooth dough.dont make it too though.let it be very smooth.
• keep it aside for 1/2 an hour.
• Put the water in a vessel and bring it to boil. Add jaggery and cook until jaggery melts.
• Filter the mixture. Keep it to boil again.
• Add semolina and mix well and cook till it attains the consistency as shown in 1^st image.
• Now grease your hands with oil. Take small amount of dough. Make it flat.
• Take  double size filling and fill it into the dough so that the dough covers the whole filling. As shown in picture 2.
• Apply oil and roll it on a flat surface by applying oil.
• shallow fry on the pan both sides.

Serving Suggestions:

Serve hot with ghee and popadum Or sugar syrup.

Things to consider:

1. Dont let the dough very though. Make it very smooth. this is because if its very though the filling will not spread evenly.
2. Dont  roast the semolina or else it will not cook in the jaggery and water mixture. If the semolina smells then just warm it a little.