It’s festival time! Sankranti, our most auspicious harvest festival is just around the corner – time for indulgence, good food, new clothes and lot of fanfare. Preparation for Sankranti, begins weeks in advance at my grandmother’s (ammamma) home and is always centered around fun and traditional festive foods. Sankranti evokes memories of the warmth and [...]

When the ingredient for JFI- January (Coconut) was announced, I knew which recipe I was going to blog. One of the most treasured fruits of the Gods is the coconut so revered to us, Hindus, symbolizing divine consciousness and forms an integral part of Hindu religious ceremonies, from birth to death. The humble, tender loving, [...]

I have been experiencing some serious server issues with regard to my blog these past few days. Much to my relief, it has been resolved and the site is up and running. I thank my visitors and blog friends for the concerned enquiries and patience. Today I’m blogging a very simple, wholesome, healthy tiffin recipe [...]

Another one of our family favorite chicken curry that I regularly prepare is a pepper chicken curry which is a simple, straight forward recipe with all the basic ingredients that go into making a normal chicken curry and yet tastes quite different from the routine simple chicken curry flavor. This recipe calls for freshly ground [...]

I’m not normally a fan of French beans, but I invariably pick up these beans because they look so green and fresh that I just cant walk away before buying atleast a quarter kilo of them. Recently, I tasted a curry made with these beans at one of my friends place and decided to make [...]

It takes quite some will to supress one’s appetite to indulge in a rich Indian sweet, be it a melt-in-the-mouth gulab jamun or bread halwa. But who can resist them? Over the past week we have been indulging ourselves with a lot of desserts – badam kheer, biscuit cake and bread halwa to name a [...]

To us South Indians, our everyday traditional food is incomplete with a podi (spice pwd) and its an an essential food item on the dining table, be it for breakfast or lunch. When one is hard pressed for time and you need fix a quick lunch, all you need to prepare is some steamed rice, [...]

A chutney I often prepare is tomato chutney, a South Indian style chutney, I learnt from a Tamilian friend’s mother, Revati Aunty who usually prepares it with idlis, dosas and ven pongal (South Indian style lentil-rice preparation). Its easy to prepare with very less cooking time. Today I prepared it as an accompaniment with dosas [...]

There are certain recipes which always remain our favorites and we can never be tired of cooking them over and over again. One such favorite recipe that I cook often and is enjoyed by my family and friends is the Spicy Chicken Masala Curry. Its better than any restaurant recipe. This chicken curry recipe is [...]

A unique culinary delight of South Indian cuisines is the Podi, a dry spice-mix (powder), where a combination of spices, lentils, herbs or leaves are roasted in oil and ground to make a crumbly powder. These spice mixes or podis are eaten as an accompaniment to South Indian tiffins or breakfast dishes such as dosas, [...]