Caramel Pear Upside Down Cake

Again, I got a whole bunch of pears from Costco, and they started to brown really quickly. Next time if I have to buy pears, I will not buy from there. 

I was in a dilemma as to how to finish them off. I didn’t want to make pear crisp again. I remembered about this pear upside cake that I had bookmarked sometime back. But it was with egg. So I searched for eggless recipe and found this. But this was not exactly a caramel based upside down cake. So I thought I’ll make the caramel part from the first link and make the eggless batter from the second link. 

This batter does not use butter and so is healthy in a way. The cake came out moist and tasty. 

How to make Caramel?

Ingredients

Sugar - 1 cup

Water - 1/4 cup

Method

Put sugar and water in a pot and heat it on medium flame. DO NOT STIR. Stir only initially until all the sugar dissolves. After that, STOP. Stirring can crystallize the sugar. After sometime, the solution starts to change color. Once it starts to change color, it changes rather quickly. So keep an eye. It can burn really quickly. To check the color I take a white bowl/plate and start putting droplets of syrup on it. Once it reaches a deep amber color, it is done. 

After it is done, you should act fast, as it can solidify very quickly.

Chole

There is really nothing I can write about Chole. It needs no introduction. Everybody makes it. Everybody likes it. 

Initially I used to make it with chole masala, but one of my cousins told me that garam masala works just fine. Since then I’ve been using only garam masala. Actually chole masala gives it some tartness, which I personally don’t like, so I prefer garam maslala.

This is one of my easy-to-make, delicious, can’t-go-wrong, feed-a-crowd type of dish. 

Rava Dosa

I am not very fond of Rave dose. But it is my husband’s favorite. So, I learnt to make this. My mom makes very good Rava dosa. So I took her recipe and tried to make it. It had its share of disastrous trials and errors. I remember initially we hardly got to eat whole dosas. It used to come out as a lump of cooked, sticky batter. But I am glad and proud to say that I have mastered the skill :) 

The key to making good rava dosa is the batter consistency. Then, the cooking time. 

Goli Baje

Goli Baje is another popular dish from South Canara. In Bangalore it is known as Mangalore bajji. This bajji is unlike any other bajji as it does not have any vegetable. It is made with just maida and some masala in it. This is a very easy recipe. Add some mashed bananas instead of masala, it becomes Mangalore Buns.

Pear Crisp

I am not a big fan of cinnamon in desserts... hence, I don't like most of the pies, crisps, pastries that are available here in US.. 

I had a bunch of pears which, thanks to my daughter’s intervention, was going bad super quickly. So, I thought of making this pear crisp - cinnamon less.

Instead of cinnamon I added cardamom powder, instead of maple syrup I added honey, I did not cut down on butter and added some extra sugar to make the ripe fruit even more sweet :) 

The result was this super rich, super tasty, super easy dessert. 

A bite of hot crisp, contrasting with the cold ice-cream, with oats and nuts providing just the right amount of crunch will take you to a different world, I tell you...

My friend Veena has a good mantra, “diet mane haalaaga!”... Chant and eat away...

Mente Soppina Bath/Methi leaves Bath

Growing up, lunch time at schools/colleges was so much fun. I remember the ones especially from college days where all us friends would sit together and have a nice chat while tasting food from everyone’s lunch boxes. We would open our lunch box and pass it around to friends to taste first, before eating it ourselves. I particularly remember this super delicious mente bath that my friend Roopa used to bring for lunch. I loved it so much that I'd gladly accept another helping and relish every bite of it.

Time flies... and I am glad and thankful that I am in touch with my college friends.

Roopa gave me this recipe. It is a pretty simple recipe if you have vangibath powder handy. Mente soppu(Methi leaves) gives this bath a very distinctive, bitter taste. Sweetness from jaggery compliments the bitterness from soppu. You can add batani(peas) or any other kaaLu, but I think avarekaaLu(Surti Lilva) goes well with this bath. 

Heerekayi Chatti/Ridge Gourd Dosa

This is a very popular dish from my native place - Kota. Given it is my all time favorite, this was one of the first few dishes I learnt to make. I haven’t come across a person who doesn’t like this or who hasn’t asked for the recipe after tasting this:) It tastes like heerekayi bajji. In fact in my native place, bajji is also made with a similar ground batter instead of besan based batter. 

My mom makes wonderful chattis and this is her recipe.

You basically need to dip thinly sliced heerekayi(ridge gourd) in a spicy-tangy-sweet batter and place it on a dosa tava next to each other - somewhat like a beehive - and cook it on both sides. 

More the oil, better the taste :)

Mooli Paratha

This is one foolproof recipe that has given me good results every time I’ve made it. Even if your chapathi making skills are average, you’ll still be able to make this paratha. Actually that is true for any paratha. 

My cousin C gave me this recipe. 

The work is a little tedious, but you can always make the palya before hand and deal with just chapathi part while making it. 

This Mooli palya can be eaten as a side dish with chapathi too. 

Doodh Peda

Aah the Peda!!.... It brings back such not-so-sweet memories.... 

I was not even into 6 months of my marriage. Those days my husband was more than willing to try my cooking experiments. It used to give me a good boost to try out new recipes. 

My cousin C who taught me most of my cooking(kinda my cooking Guru), gave me this recipe. Even though I am not so keen on eating milk based sweets and barfis, I still wanted to try this one out and enhance my culinary skills to be able to make at least few variety of dishes whenever we had guests over.

I made it...... the whole mixture overcooked and became dark brown! It got stuck to the glassware like a big piece of concrete. I had to take a wooden spoon and pound on it to break it into pieces. 

But still it came out super tasty and chewy. It tasted like the base of kadlekayi chikki. So it was not all bad:) 

To clean it, I had to soak-scrub, soak-scrub, soak-scrub for many days. Well, my husband did most of the scrubbing. 

This time, my daughter N’s school required parents to bring food for a potluck party for a school function. I had signed up for dessert. Generally I prefer store bought stuff, but this time I wanted to take something homemade. So I searched my bookmarked folder for some easy recipes. I found this peda recipe(the picture in it is very inviting) which was more or less same as the one I had tried many years ago. 

This time it was different. I was confident. This recipe looked like a piece of cake! I knew what to watch out for. To be frank, I was little smug all the while making it, thinking this is nothing for an experienced cook like me!

So here is the recipe - 

"Gowdru" Pulao

Calling a dish something shouldn't change the taste of it, right? WRONG!

Whenever I make pulao, the aroma is so fragrant that one cannot wait to take a bite. But when you actually take a bite, it falls flat of its expectations.. A big “tuss”! 

One would keep guessing what it is? a pulao? just another rice bath? a green rice bath? I’ve even had a guest ask me what it is. 

It would have some weird sweet taste to it, which came from god knows which ingredient! May be carrot, may be sweet corn, may be coconut, may be cinnamon.. I have no idea!

Every time I saw a pulao recipe online, I would bookmark it to try for the next time. The next time I tried, I would follow that recipe religiously. But the result would be that same weird sweet taste.. I tried increasing garlic, decreasing cinnamon, increasing onion, decreasing carrot, increasing green chili, adding pepper, adding garam masala, skipping coconut, adding tomato, made it in cooker, made it on the stove top directly(well, you get the gist); but that weird taste stayed. 

This time I opened my bookmarked folder again and decided to try this Gowdru Pulav recipe. My husband started to worry that I am making Pulao again :); but being the persistent fighter I am, I ignored him!  

The recipe was of a basic pulao with nothing much different actually, except for the fact that there was egg in it. I skipped the egg, but the remaining recipe was the same I’ve tried many many times before. But it came out differently! Good different! But how? That is still a mystery! The only thing I did was skip carrot altogether, may be that was it. The taste is 1 step closer to the taste I want to achieve - yay!

So here is “gowdru” pulav recipe for you - 

Godi nucchhu/Broken Wheat Kichadi

I cannot believe it has been 1 year of non-blogging. It took a lot of effort to recover this account:)

It is Ganesha habba season again. I hope at least this time I can maintain this blog properly.

The first time I tasted anything made of godhi nucchu was when my aunt made this awesome kichadi during my recent visit to India. I didn’t ask her for the recipe then, because I was sure that I will not remember it. But I will definitely make it a point to ask her next time we meet and put it up here.

When I came across this recipe I immediately book marked it for my future use.

I pretty much followed the recipe as it is, except for adding some mint leaves.

This is one super healthy, super filling, wholesome dish. Even my toddler relished it.