Hema's Breakfast Thali

Hema's Breakfast Thali:

I am seriously inspired by my friends blog especially Vaishali's blog - Ribbons to Pastas and the way she takes time to arrange her food for photo and for her family. No doubt children will eat little more food by seeing the decoration.

Yesterday night we had chopped mangoes (3 fruits) but we couldn't eat more. So I had put into the refrigerator by thinking that I could make Mango MilkShake, today. Today morning the milk came late and I couldn't prepare it at home. So quickly packed 3/4 of the chopped mangoes and 3/4th of pomegranate fruit into my lunch box. 

In today's Swathi book they had given sample "Britannia Savory Oats", my father-in-law gave me that also. I told fine, let me enjoy a beautiful heavy but healthy breakfast thali today at office.

Once I came into office kept my laptop aside and ran into pantry. Took two serving bowls and in one I had put "Britannia Savory Oats" powder and a full cup of water and left in oven for 2 minutes. This Savory oats comprises of Oats, cashew nuts, salt, spices and herbs (cumin, mustard, ginger, green chilli, asafoetida, curry leaf, parsley), yeast extract, and anticaking agent.

Ingredients for Oats Puliyogare:

Britannia Savory Oats - 35g packet

Water - 1 cup

Milk - 1/2 cup (Optional)
Puliyogare Mix - 2 tbsp
 

Method:

• Pour Oats in a cup which is microwave safe and put hot water on top of it, mix it well
• Leave the mixture in microwave for 2 minutes
• Now add 1/2 cup milk and mix it well
• Put puliyogare mix and mix it well
• Decorate with peeled carrot slices and pomegranate seeds and keep it in breakfast thali

Second one in the thali was Mango Sekarni:

• Peel the skin off from mango and smash it to make a puree
• Sprinkle pomegranate seeds on it and mix it well
• Add sugar and 1/2 cup of milk
• Decorate with peeled carrot (as carrot is little sweet in taste it matches well). Keep it in breakfast thali.

Keep the other ingredients - Cocojel, Mazaa, Coffee.


 







Enjoy the breakfast feast.


Submitting this to:
Indian Thali Mela @ Cooking for all seasons hosted by Srivalli Jetti.

Mango Mania @ Pumpkin farm food hosted by Pradnya.

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ThenkaiDosa

ThenkaiDosa+Dosapowder

Thenkai Dosa:


Thenkai means coconut and dosa out of it. I was literally surprised to see this recipe in Shanthi's blog. 





First thing I remember about coconut is it is used to worship God in our Hindu culture. It's a must on festival days to make sweets or savories, to worship, in some of the houses it is used to take drishti/nazar lagna (evil eyesight).

Where is coconut found?

• Found across much of the tropic and subtropic area, the coconut is known for its great versatility as seen in the many domestic, commercial, and industrial uses of its different parts 

Coconut tree has got a tap root system means the roots is a straight line with root hairs on either of the side.

I remember a line of a poem in kannada "kelage upu niru kudive, mele sihi nira koduve" means i will drink salt water in the bottom, means what we pour for the roots is salt water but i give you sweet water which is coconut water.There are lot of uses from this tree.

What are the uses of coconut?

Coir:

Coconut Coir - used for pulling water

Copra:

Copra used for cooking

Dasara Celebration with copra

Coconut Oil used in soaps and cosmetics

Coconut Oil:

This parachute hair oil if you use it for your hair one hour before your head bath, the hair will be so smooth and soft. Thanks to Parachute.

Husks and Shells: The husk and shells can be used for fuel and are a source of charcoal. 

Olden Days Cooking Stove

In earlier days, when they used to boil water for bath using a place where they used to put these wooden logs, husks, shells, eucalyptus leaves etc. There husks/shells used to play a very good role. 

Coconut roots: The roots are used as a dye, a mouthwash, and a medicine for diarrhea and dysentery. A frayed piece of root can also be used as a toothbrush.

 

 

Coconut trunks: Trunks are used for building small bridges; they are preferred for their straightness, strength and salt resistance. In Kerala (India), coconut trunks are used for house construction.  

 

 

Coconut Timber: Timber comes from the trunk, and is increasingly being used as an ecologically sound substitute for endangered hardwoods. It has applications in furniture and specialized construction, as notably demonstrated in Manila's Coconut Palace.

 

Coconut milk: Coconut milk is obtained primarily by extracting juice by pressing the grated coconut's white kernel or by passing hot water or milk through grated coconut, which extracts the oil and aromatic compounds. This is used in making sweets. When it is refrigerated the cream comes to the top which gets separated from milk. The milk can be used to produce virgin coconut oil by controlled heating and removal of the oil fraction.

Processed Cocojal

Fresh Tender Coconut

Coconut water: Coconut water contains sugar, fiber, proteins, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, and provides an isotonic electrolyte balance. It is consumed as a refreshing drink throughout the humid tropics and is gaining popularity as an isotonic sports drink.

When somebody falls sick and is in hospital the first thing offered is fresh tender coconut which has more water or only water. In other tender coconut we will have fresh coconut also which is so tasty to eat.

The same is processed and then stored for days together which is called Cocojal.

Because of its "n" number of uses it is also called and worshiped as "Kalpavriksha" means a tree which can give whatever you ask.

For more information refer to the source: Coconut

Ingredients: 

 

Whole Urad Dhal - 2 cups (1 cup = 100 gms)

Coconut - 1/2 cup

Method:

Soak urad dhal overnight in the morning blend it nicely with water.

Retain some urad dhal in the end and mix it with coconut and blend it till its smooth to touch.

Add salt and baking soda to the batter and keep it for fermentation for one hour. Batter should be thin in consistency.

 

Heat a tawa and pour little oil on top of it and pour the batter

Spread it across by rotating the tawa so that the batter spreads

Leave it get roasted, put oil on the batter and once crispy turn it to the other side

Remove it from the stove and serve it with chutney powder and/or with groundnut chutney

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PuliAval

PuliAval:

Tamarind is a fruit which we get it from Tamarind tree. This tree is such a good friend of human beings because of its uses. To cook we can use its leaves, covered fruit when it was fresh, eat the fruit after peeling the skin. We can also eat the fruit when it is tender without removing the skin and also after peeling the skin by making them as lollipops by mixing them with salt and little chilli powder. But to get the fruit out of its cover lot of work needs to be done.

Kolar Grandma's 8 acre land

In summer holidays, that’s almost in Spring season we used to go to our grandma’s house in Kolar. We had a field which had one tamarind tree and other field had 3 tamarind trees. We had one more field which was of 8 acres agriculture land where we used to grow groundnuts, paddy, ragi, tomato according to the season. Then my mother and her sister brought up 4 acres land and planted mango plants in 1990. Definitely I guess by now the mango plants would have yielded good fruits and vegetables, no clue what happened to them after my marriage.

Well coming back to the topic of tamarind, tamarind used to be plucked and given to peel off the skin. We all used to sit beat the fruit with a stone or with hammer and peel out the fruit from it and take out the seeds from that. We used to play pallankuzhi/aali guli mane with the seeds. In Singapore it is called as congkak. Remove the hair like structure on the fruit and store it. Then my grandma used to pack all this fruit in different covers and send it to my house, our cousins houses, her brother house, as we all stayed in Bangalore. Instead of buying we used to get it from her and as there is a saying that tamarind is runa (credit), we used to pay her some money. Hmmm, gone are those days, today we have to pay money to get tamarind and we don’t get such a good quality one.

Game: Pallankuzhi/aali guli mane. This game is played by 2 players.

There will be 7 holes for each player and they will put 7 tamarind seeds into each hole and once it is over. From the 8th hole they will again take 7 seeds and put it into next 7 holes. Once they reach 8th hole and if it is empty they will put a hand into that and then take the 9th hole and its opposite hole seeds. One who has got more number of seeds is considered to be the winner. This is usually played in villages by two ladies after all their work for time-pass. Hope so I have not forgotten the rules.

aaligulimane

pallankuzhi

Tamarind Seeds: Grandma, used to tell these tamarind seeds are very poisonous and if anybody consumes it by powdering it they will die.









That's the story of tamarind, its tree, its fruit and the game and tamarind seeds.

I was browsing on Monday through “Dilse- Show me your breakfast round up“hosted by Divya in 2010 for some breakfast recipes. I found a variety of breakfast over there, and found quite a number of interesting recipes. Among them I used to always fail to  do PuliAval or huliavalakki or gojjuavalakki, its parched rice spiced with tamarind juice and other spices. Hence, I selected to do that for today’s breakfast. Finally, I found a recipe in Prathibha's blog.

Ingredients:

Tamarind – a lemon sized ball

Chilli Powder – 3 tsp (as spicy as it is required)

Salt – 2 tsp

Jaggery – gooseberry sized ball (better if its powdered)

Turmeric – ½ tsp

Parched Rice – 250 gms

For seasoning:

Onions – 2

Green chillies – 5 to 6 nos (again as spicy as required)

Salt – 2 tbsp

Curry leaves

Mustard Seeds – 1 tbsp

Cilantro

Oil – 2 tbsp

Groundnut Seeds – a little (roasted)

Cashewnut – a little

Method:

Soak the tamarind in luke warm water for sometime

Extract the pulp and use the skin in washing copper or brass vessels

In the pulp add salt, jaggery, turmeric, chilli powder and keep it aside

Soak the parched rice for some time and wash it for 3 times in the same manner, so that maximum husk and dust will come out

Pour the tamarind mixture on the parched rice and mix well. Watch out so that the water should be just enough to soak parched rice and should not be more. Keep it aside for 1 hour.

Did you guess what? I missed out to add jaggery and then mixed it with hot water and poured it on the washed parched rice. -:)

Seasoning:

Chop onions, green chillies, cilantro and keep them aside

Heat Oil in a kadai and when it is hot roast cashewnuts and keep them aside

Again add little more oil and when it is hot add mustard seeds, when it splutters, add curry leaves and allow it to fry

Put salt, green chillies, onions and fry the onions till they are translucent

Add groundnut seeds to the mixture and mix them well

Add parched rice to it and mix well allow it to cook for sometime

Garnish with cashewnuts and coriander leaves

Comments: My friend tasted it and said it is less spicy.
For the first time, my hubby told, you should have made some more. The taste was good. 

Thanks for Prathibha for her recipe and my little son, who helped me by sleeping while I was preparing and cooking this.

Appreciate your glance at Star of this month page and January recap page. I highly value your healthy comment or healthy criticism.

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Dark Chocolate Milk Shake

Dark Chocolate Milk Shake:

I planned to prepare puriundai (might be my next recipe) but ended up preparing dark chocolate milk shake in office. :(.

Great thing I did yesterday is, I informed my hubby somehow stating that I like my blog which motivates me to cook/make/bake new things and asked him to cooperate my work. Reason is, my little son has become a nightmare for me, he doesn't sleep nor he lets anybody sleep (including my older son). As my mom-in-law would have cooked something in the afternoon and very rarely I  get a chance to cook something, great thing I do is cook rice in the evening which will hardly take 5 minutes. I need to put this guy to sleep and then prepare whatever I would have planned.

In the early morning, once I got up, my little son also got up and as it was just dosa chutney had to be done. Good my mom-in-law did a new chutney and the recipe will be out shortly.

In the office today I was supposed to have some training and instead of keeping my blog readers wait i just thought a dark chocolate milk shake can also serve as a sweet as we had sugar to it. Please pass your valuable comments if it can be considered under sweet or not.

This is going to be my 3rd day in Blogging Marathon under 2nd week event. As you are aware my group is "Kid's Delight - Something Sweets" for this week.

Ingredients:

B&W Photo

• Dark Chocolate - 4 pieces (one chocolate will have 8 pieces)
• Butter - 1 tsp
• Milk - 1 cup
• Sugar - 1
• Fruits of your taste (just to make you have a good breakfast)

Method:

• Melt butter in microwave
• Add dark chocolate to them and melt them in oven
• Add milk, sugar and heat it for a  moment so that chocolate mixes well with milk
• Take a bowl for fruits add your desired fruits. I have added musk melon and pineapple.
• Click a pic and have the milk shake with fruits. :)
• Post it after tasting the milk shake.

Submitting this to:Blogging Marathon @ Spice your Life by Srivalli

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 12

This also makes an entry to

Kid's Delight - Something Sweet at Edible Entertainment by Kavitha Iyengar and this series were started by Srivalli in her blog.

Bake Fest @ Pumpkinfarmfood by Pradnya started @ Zesty Palette by Vardhini.

New "U" event hosted by Vardhini.

MEC series by Kalyani started by Srivalli on Cooking4allseasons. 









Breakfast Club Jan'12 series hosted Aimée @ Food, Je t'Aimée which was started by Helen
 

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