With Christmas round the corner, I am spending more time in the kitchen baking cookies and cakes and preparing traditional sweets. I made Gulabi Puvvulu, popularly known as Rose Cookies on Sunday and today it was Coconut Burfi.

Coconut usage in our kitchen is pretty moderate inspite of growing 8 coconut trees in our garden. A large percentage of tender coconuts are devoured by us for coconut water, few mature ones find place in our kitchen, few sent to relatives and friends (especially during Dasara and Karthika Masam) while the remaining are sun dried to extract coconut oil.

My foray into rasam making wasn’t very impressive during the many trial and error sessions of my early kitchen days. I would try numerous versions to replicate a flavor that I tasted at my Tamilian friend’s home or at a restaurant in Coimbatore or elsewhere during my travels to Tamil Nadu. Each home has its [...]

I cannot say enough good things about today’s sambar recipe. It has never let me down and its my favorite ever since I chanced upon Hemantji’s sambar podi. The key to a good aromatic sambar is ‘sambar powder’ and the vegetables that go into its making. There are numerous versions of sambar but this one is note worthy due to the magical sambar powder.

I have been clipping recipes from magazines and newspapers since god knows when. A friend says I’m an ‘obsessive recipe collector’. I’d say, I’m consistent in my collection of recipes. Are some of you like me? Enjoy collecting recipes?

Mysore Rasam At least 4 days a week, our lunch is a typical South Indian meal. And an integral part of every such meal is ‘chaaru’, the Andhra version of Tamil Nadu’s ‘rasam’. The other day I made Mysore Rasam, a tamarind based Indian soup and served it along with bitter gourd stir fry and [...]

Lakshmi of Veggie Cuisine who runs the wonderful RCI – Regional Cuisines of India food event is our guest poster today. RCI is a food blog event that celebrates the rich and diverse regional cuisines of India. Visit the regional cuisine round ups which are treasure houses of recipes from different part of the country [...]

Tomatoes are abundantly available. Bought few kilos to prepare home made tomato sauce. I decided on tomato rice for lunch and prepared a flavorful rice dish that exudes the essence of tomatoes. A recipe I learnt from a Tamilian friend calls for roasted peanuts, a touch of asafoetida and a few roasted and coarsely powdered [...]

Festivals reflect the cultural diversity of India, a land of many religions. Festivity denotes – new clothes, rangoli/muggulu, mango leaves thoranam, smell of camphor and incense sticks, family get togethers, fun, laughter and most importantly home cooks diligently prepare traditional sweets, savories and elaborate festive meals. Semiya Payasam ~ Rava Laddu Today being Dasara, it [...]

Vangi Bhath Brinjal is a prized possession in my kitchen. I know a few of you will wince on reading that. I love brinjal cooked in any form! This vibrant purple beauty has always been my favorite since childhood. Yesterday there was a bit of chill in the air with no sunlight, pretty dull kind [...]