Semiya Payasam

Yesterday was Onam the biggest  festival of Keralites.This is the dessert that I made to celebrate Onam. My Mom and Grandmother makes the best Payasams that I have ever had .Only thing that I don't like about their payasam is the long stirring and cooking time it takes to make it. So I thought for a while for a way to get nearly the same taste with little effort and came up with this.
Ingredients:
Semiya (Vermicelli) :3/4 cup
Milk: 4cups
Condensed milk:1
Ghee: 2 tbsp.
Cashew nuts: 1/4 cup.
Raisins: 1/4 cup.
Cardamom powder: 1 tsp.

Method:
Heat 1 tbsp. of ghee in a wide mouth, thick bottom pressure cooker. Add cashew-nuts and raisins. Fry them in the ghee till cahews turn a golden color and raisins turns to little balls, then remove them and keep aside. Add the remaining ghee and fry the vermicelli to a golden brown. Add  1 cup of milk along with 1 cup of water and pressure cook for 5 minutes. After the pressure subsides add remaining milk and condensed milk. Boil for some more time until the payasam is thickened. Remove from the stove and add the cardamom powder. Garnish with fried cashew nuts and raisins. Enjoy your 8 minute payasam.

Mushroom Fry Kerala style

Being vegetarians, mushrooms are something that I often substitute with in a meat or chicken recipe. This is one such recipe in which I have used mushrooms instead of the normal chicken, of course, with my own twists - and it turned out simply delicious. My husband wanted me to blog it immediately, before I forgot it!

Ingredients:
Button Mushrooms - 16 oz, sliced
Onion - 1 1/2 medium size, diced
Green chillies - 1
Ginger - 1'' piece
Garlic - 3 cloves
Cardomom - 3 nos, powdered
Cloves - 3 nos, powdered
Chilli powder - 1/4 tsp (or to your level of spiciness )
Coriander powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/8 tsp
Fennel powder - 1/2 tsp
Pepper powder - 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves - a few
Tomato - 1, diced

Method:
Saute 1 onion till it tuns translucent. Set it aside. Now saute the remaining 1/2 onion till it turns almost brown in color; then add the tomatoes and saute them till it turns almost dry. Now add the ginger and garlic(made to a paste) and saute for a minute more. To this, add all the other powders and the curry leaves till the smell turns to a well cooked one. Turn the heat to medium, and add the mushrooms and salt to taste. Saute for a couple of minutes till the mushrooms are done. Now add the onions kept aside and saute for another minute. Your delicious mushroom fry is ready.

Carrot cake with cakemix

Necessity is the mother of invention - how true! I wanted to bake a cake, but found that I had ran out of the all purpose flour. When I searched my pantry, I found out I had some cake mixes left, but I was in a mood for a carrot cake. I googled for some options of making a carrot cake with the ingredients that I had, and mixing and matching the many recipes out there, I made my own version of this carrot cake using a cake mix. The result was a soft and yummy cake.

Ingredients:

1-cake mix (yellow)1/2 cup-Veg Oil

1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2tsp.ground all spice
1/4tsp ground nut meg
2 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk or yogurt
1 1/4 cup shredded carrot
1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut
1/2 cup raisins
1/3 cup pecans or walnuts, toasted and chopped (optional)
Method:
Beat all the wet ingredients for a minute and then add the dry ingredients and whisk well till all the ingredients  are mixed well. Then transfer it to greased baking pan or muffin tins and bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes.

Bitter Gourd - Potato Fry

This is a variation of the recipe I got from a North Indian friend. My husband and me both like almost any of the preparations of bitter gourd (karella), and when I tried out this one, it was predictably a big hit with both of us. This goes well with rice and Moong dal curry (posted earlier).

Ingredients:
Bitter gourd - 4 nos, grate or make shavings of the skin and the fleshy part
Potato - 4 medium sliced
Onion -1 chopped
Green chilli -1
Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Cumin powder - 3/4 tsp
Asafoetida- 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Garlic - 8 cloves chopped
Curry leaves
Oil - 4 tbs

Method:
Heat oil in a flat bottom pan, add the onion, green chilli, chilli powder, asfotida, cumin powder and saute. Now add the potato to this and when the potato is done, add the bitter-gourd shavings and garlic to this. Stir fry till it is well-done, adding more oil as necessary.