Sorekayi/Lauki/BottleGourd Peel Chutney/Sambanda

Modern day Tortoise and Hare Story

One fine morning, Ms.Tortoise was driving back home after dropping her baby tortoise to school. The traffic was crazy. But Ms. Tortoise was very relaxed. She was looking forward to the peaceful morning, and the freshly brewed coffee she was planning on having after going home. 

Then there comes this rabbit “dude”, who evidently was late to his office. You see, usually in the mornings the speed of the car is directly proportional to how late you are to your office. He started tailgating Ms.Tortoise wanting her to move out of his way.  

But the very experienced Ms.Tortoise, who clearly was driving at what she thought was an optimal speed for the road - not too slow that she disturbs the traffic, not too fast that she becomes what she calls “the cop food” (aka getting a ticket), didn’t want to give way. She believed in not changing lanes so frequently. She knew hurriedness will get you nowhere. Changing lanes like how you’d play in a video game is not for the real world. Sticking to the same lane yields the same result minus the stress you’d encounter otherwise.... she knew! 

But ‘The Dude’ was definitely not ready to follow her. So off he goes to the next lane, cuts back in Ms.Tortoise’s lane almost missing her car and zips through the lanes vanishing into the horizon before her eyes, much to the lovely lady’s dismay. She started doubting herself, wondering whether her old thinking would indeed give her any results these days. Before she could finish her thought, long ahead of her she saw the Dude’s car waiting at the signal. 

As she approached the signal, her 'left turn' signal turned green before his.

Ms Tortoise smiled... it was a sweet smile of victory... :)

Coming to the recipe..

This chutney is called “sambanda”(literal meaning - relation) in Kota region. What “sambanda” this name has with this chutney nobody knows :D

This chutney is made out of pulp and the skin of Sorekayi which you'd generally throw away otherwise. And boy! does it taste good.

This chutney goes very well with the rice. It can be made with ridge gourd skin too. This is my amma’s recipe. 

Easy Coconut Laddoos

Okay.. again a long, unintended break! 

I wanted to try some “bookmarked” sweets for the upcoming festival season. But never got to them. Hence the delay. But then, couple of weeks back, while helping a friend make some sweets, I remembered I hadn’t put this super-easy, super-awesome sweet that I used to make and devour regularly long time ago. 

This would make a really quick sweet if you have all the ingredients on hand. Also it is great for potlucks!

Just 2 ingredients - coconut and condensed milk - mixed together, whats not to like?! 

They can make your heart melt, as they are melting in your mouth. Try it and float in dessert heaven!

My cousin Chethana gave me this recipe when I was still a newbie to cooking world :) It made me look like a pro!

Easy Chakkuli

Ganesha Habba season again! Happy anniversary, blog!! wow, 2 years of blogging!! never thought I would stick this long :)

I thought of making and posting some sweet recipe, but then I saw this easy chakkuli recipe somebody posted for Krishnashtami and wanted to give it a try... desperately!!

My mom makes proper chakkulis, roasting the ingredients and getting them ground properly from a mill and all.. but I neither have the means nor the inclination of doing that anytime.. I am happy sticking to easy shortcuts :).. this is one such easy(compared to traditional) and tasty recipe.. 

I was keeping my fingers crossed, worrying what if it fails, but thankfully they turned out great - crunchy and very tasty.. Thank you Ganesha!!! 

Poha Laddoo/Avalakki Laddoo

Laddoo in 10 mins! 

Enjoy your Krinshashtami with this yummy-licious, super duper easy ladoos.. 

what more can I say, the recipe speaks for itself... 

Happy Krishnashtami!

Mango Ice Cream - Version 2

It’s summer!.. it’s mango season!.. and here is one more version of my favorite Mango Ice cream, only much much much easier... 

Mix everything and freeze - as simple as that! 

Taste wise, I still prefer my mom’s recipe.. but  texture wise this one’s definitely creamier... and it’s tasty too, just that you can only do so much about the preservative smell of the canned mango pulp.. if you don't want it, use fresh mango pulp

Here is the recipe - 

Avalakki Pakoda/Poha Pakoda

I refrain from making bajjis/pakodas at home, because so far I’ve only had 20% success rate! Either they end up too oily, or too thick, or too hard, or very elastic.. 

But the times they’ve come out good, they’ve come out really good. How? - raam jaane!

When I came across this pakoda recipe, it looked fairly easy and kind of gave me a sense that - what could possibly ever go wrong with such an easy recipe? So I tried.

But I was wrong.. it did go wrong :) 

It so happened that the pakoda split open inside the oil.. and when one opened, all others opened up one after another in series!!! but luckily it was not happening with every batch.. so I ended up putting only 4-6 for frying, when I could’ve put like 10-12, being very careful not to accidentally break it open while turning it in the oil. 

The taste was good! especially with green chutney! yum! yum! The poha in it gave it a nice crunch. Actually it tasted more like crunchy aloo tikki... 

Later that day my cousin, Shilpa, gave me a very useful tip, which has given me lots of hope to try it for next time. I’ll definitely try it and update here.. I’ve mentioned the tip below.

Do give it a try.. if not pakodas, they’ll make very tasty patties for burgers.

Eggless Chocolate Cake

Summer Vacations are here!!! *a meek yay*

I love my daughter and all, but let me be honest - entertaining a kid at home is no child's play!!! I am at the end of my tether. She treats me like her play date.. and I get bored after a long play of 1 min! what to dooo?!! 

Thankfully, her summer school is starting soon! Both mother, daughter are eagerly waiting for it :)

To keep her busy, I’ve been cooking with her in the kitchen.. 

Result = Madam wants to cook something special every day! 

I am a big fan of Archana’s kitchen.. She has some very detailed videos of her recipes. I’ve never tried her recipes before, but plan to do so in the future. 

Anyways, I was watching one of her videos on Eggless Chocolate Cake, when my daughter saw it and wanted to make it(now that she thinks cooking is easy!). The recipe uses flax meal as egg replacement. I have been wanting to try flax meal as an egg replacement for a long time now, but was too skeptical to experiment. But in this video there was a pretty good explanation, which made me confident.

Since I had flax meal on hand, we started getting ready to bake.

Only after we started, I realized that all the measurements were in grams!! I am only used to measurements in cups. I looked for a converter online, but the results seemed bizarre. 

Now those who have experienced it know, what it is to back out of a promise from a little kid! So not wanting to face that, I kind of assumed the measurements and went ahead with the cake, keeping my fingers crossed. Thankfully, the cake turned out moist and good. It was little low on sweet, which suited my taste. My daughter didn’t seem to like it so much initially, but liked them more the next day. 

Here’s the recipe -