Jeera Rasam - BM#13 - Week 2 - Day 1

Jeera Rasam - BM#13 - Week 2 - Day 1:

I am herewith again in Blogging Marathon 13 for the second week. I have selected my theme as "7 days of delicious rasam".

Rasam is considered as a south Indian meal, which can be had along with rice or can be consumed as a soup. It’s very good for digestion. In my house, without Rasam my hubby or my son will not have their dinner.

I was going thro’ Wikipedia, Shanthi’sthaligai blog and iyercooks blog. I found this intereting Jeera Rasam. By the name, I thought it should be just adding cumin seeds powder along with rasam powder to make normal rasam. But there was a change in that, and it’s very instant one. Dhal Rasam is made out of cooked rasam and it can be thick or thin. Tomato Rasam is made out of tomato puree and it would be thick. Tamarind Rasam would be thin in consistency. As I never heard of it, thought it would be like tamarind rasam. I went through the post and found it was very interesting and handy also.

Ingredients:

• Tomato – 1
• Tamarind Water (medium consistency) – 5 tsp
• Cumin Seeds – 2 tsp
• Toor Dhal – half of our fist
• Crystal Salt – 1 tbsp
• Rasam Powder – 2 tbsp
• Turmeric Powder – ¼ tsp
• Jaggery – a small piece
• Water – as required

 



 

For seasoning:

• Mustard Seeds – 1 tsp
• Cumin Seeds – 1 tsp
• Curry leaves – few
• Coriander leaves – few

Method:

• Keep all the ingredients ready so that you wouldn’t miss out anything
• Chop the tomato into small pieces

 

• Roast cumin seeds and toor dhal till they turn in color and keep it aside

• Heat oil in a kadai and add tomato pieces to that once the oil becomes hot. Beware of the sizzling sound

• Squeeze the tamarind and pour the water into tomato and leave it to boil

• Coarsely grind cumin seeds and toor dhal 

•  Add it into tomato-tamarind mixture

• Add water as required and leave it to boil till the raw smell of tamarind goes off
• Add rasam powder, turmeric, asafoetida (hing), jaggery and salt allow it to boil so that all these gets mixes well

• Heat oil in a different kadai and once hot add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves and put it on the rasam leave it for one more minute by adding coriander leaves along with it.

• Yummy rasam is ready.

 

My rasam was of medium consistency, if needed you can add water as per your requirement. I was happy because all tasted the rasam and told it was good, and the photos came out of little better quality.

Kindly check out what other Blogging Marathoners are up with in BM# 13

Submitting this to my event - Murari - Anniversary - Giveaway - 2012

Dedicating a song "Pyarge agabitite" , new kannada urdu mix song from film Govindaya Namaha to my blog readers. 

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4th Year Birthday - Banana Halwa

4th Year Birthday:

Happy Birthday "Hema's Adugemane". Hurray, you are turning 4 today. 

Flashback: My first post was on Childhood which I wrote on 23rd Feb 2009. My second post was on Advantages by studying in one school and how we can have our friends from childhood. The next 3 posts were on any forwarded mail which I got and I was inspired by them. From the 6th post I started posting recipes from my son's KinderGarten English Text book which had good recipes on left and on right there was lessons and poems. Once the recipes in the book got over I did not understand what to post, so I started by writing recipes on this blog. Thus this blog became a "food blog".

Once I posted Shraddanjali to my beloved hero/actor, Dr.Vishnuvardhan the traffic started towards my blog. I took a break from Aug'2010 to Aug'2011 and was back in Sep'2011 when the page hits were just 7k+. My heart was literally broken due to less traffic.

I started posting in my blog and pasting the link in "n" number of pages in facebook. In Dec' 2011 I had an event for Christmas and posted its roundup in Jan' 2012. In Jan' 2012 I participated in Blogging Marathon conducted by Srivalli Jetti in her blog Spice up your life, this gave a new life to my blog and today the hits have reached 15k+ and increased the readers to 89. Thanks to all of you.

 

 

 

On this birthday, hence I am presenting you with Banana Halwa. This Halwa was published in "Swathi", a weekly magazine and my beloved hubby told me to try recipes which were there in that book.

Ingredients:

Banana (riped ones) - 2

Ghee - 2 tbsp

Sugar - 4 tsp

Cardamom Powder - 1 tsp

Method:

Chop the bananas into small pieces and blend it in a blender/food processor/mixer.

Heat ghee in a kadai and add grounded banana into the ghee

Add sugar and cardamom powder and mix well

When the ghee leaves the edges of the kadai, and grounded banana would have taken brownish color remove it from the stove and pour it on a greased plate

My favourite song in dedication to you all, on this birthday.

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Potato Chips - BM#13 - Day 7

Potato Chips - BM#13 - Day 7:

Hey great to see that I was able to post for 7 days a variety of chips. As I told you, today I will be posting a vegetable chips, I am herewith potato chips. Potato Chips which is very common, yes but I tweaked a little. Hema, is it same with pepper and salt along with butter. Wow, re you are great readers, you guessed it absolutely right. And again it is microwave oven recipe, right, sweetie? Hey my readers are absolutely great they know how I make chips now. Thanks to all of you for making me successful.

Surprising thing of my post on chips were I was not aware that there were no pineapple pieces chips,  black grapes chips and tomato chips. It was my innovative, I did not think also that I can come up with something new. 

Potato is a vegetable which is rich in starch. Elders say not to have too much because it might cause gastric problem. But seriously due to its taste I tend to eat more. So my granny told one thing, mix potato with pepper powder so that it would avoid gastric problem. So in today's chips I have added the same and presenting it here as well it was a send off to my friend, Poornima who is moving to other project to other building, which is about 1.5 kms away from our building. I had a nice time with her since Nov' 11 till date. She was the one who was the first one to tell on my face, that she liked or disliked my recipes. She said potato chips were great.

Unfortunately I started preparing it only by 5pm and power was shut down for few minutes because of which my potato turned to be only 80% crispy. I am skipping the ingredients as you would have read it by this time in my first paragraph.

How I made it?

• I brought a big potato from home. Washed it and removed the skin by using my finger nails. Thanks to my nails which I could use as a peeler in office.
• Chop the potato into thin slices.
• Keep it in oven for 6 minutes
• Remove it and grease each slice with butter, pepper powder and salt
• Leave it for another 4 minutes. (I was short by 2 minutes here as my office cab started).
• Munch it as a healthy snack.

Don't miss wonderful recipes cooked by other Blogging Marathoners in BM# 13.

If you have missed  my other recipes of chips its here.

Day 1 - Paneer Chips

Biscuit: Day 2 - Marie Biscuit Coffee Chips

Chocolate: Day 3 - Chocolate Chips

Fruits:

Day 4 - Pineapple Pieces Chips

Day 5 - Black Grapes Chips

Vegetable:

Day 6 - Tomato Chips

Day 7 - Potato Chips

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Tomato Chips - BM#13 - Day 6

Tomato Chips - BM#13 - Day 6

 

Dear All,

A heartily welcome to all my blog readers, with your support my blog is growing and growing. Thanks for all your valuable comments/suggestions.

Today is Day 6th in Blogging Marathon 13 and as you all know I have selected the theme "Seven Days of Chips". Chips is a very good friend of you when you want to pass time by seeing TV and munching something crispy or semi-crispy.  

As I am at office I opted to make chips using microwave oven method but without knowing how to work with it.

I have already posted 2 chips on fruits, so for the next two days you can see chips from vegetables. 

It's my own style of making things and as they taste good to me, I am posting it here, my cooking journal or my diary.

Medicinal Property of this fruit is: Tomato consumption has been associated with decreased risk of breast cancer, head and neck cancers and might be strongly protective against neurodegenerative diseases.Tomatoes and tomato sauces and puree are said to help lower urinary tract symptoms (BPH) and may have anticancer properties. Tomato consumption might be beneficial for reducing cardiovascular risk associated with type 2 diabetes. (Source: From wikipedia on tomato)

 

 

Ingredients:

Tomato - 1 riped one

Butter - 2 tsp

Pepper Powder - 3 tsp

Salt to taste

Method:

Cut the tomato into pieces and remove the water contents completely

Keep it in a oven for 3 minutes (in between I check them because even if a small fire comes out a fire alarm will ring and we all should run out of office)

Mix the tomato with butter, pepper powder and salt

 

Put the mixture back in the oven for another 3 minutes till the tomatoes turn to be crispy

 

Munch them while writing this post

Worth watching out what other Blogging Marathoners are up with in BM# 13

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Black grapes chips - BM#13 - Day 5

Black grapes chips - BM#13 - Day 5:

Black grape is a variety of grape and its widely used in making wine.

Black grapes contain three kinds of polyphenols, namely, flavanoid, phenolic acid, and resveratrol. Flavanoids are responsible for the dark hue of grapes. The darker the variety, the more the concentration of flavanoids you would find. This may be why black grapes are used more often for health reasons as compared to other varieties.  (Source: http://www.diethealthclub.com/health-food/black-grapes-health-benefits.html)

Knowing the uses of these black grapes I experimented making chips out of them today. I have given list of benefits after the preparation of chips.

Ingredients:

• Black Grapes - 3 nos
• Pepper Powder - 1 tsp

Equipment:

• Microwave
• Microwave Bowl

Method:

• Chop the black grapes using your hand and remove the seed within it
• Put in a microwave bowl for 4 minutes inside the oven
• Grapes would have become crispy by that time
• Sprinkle Pepper powder on them and munch it

 

Worth watching out what other Blogging Marathoners are up with in BM# 13

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Pineapple Pieces Chips - BM#13 - Day 4

Pineapple Pieces Chips - BM#13 - Day 4:

Pineapple is a fruit which is yellow in color. It is also called as ananas in native language.

Raw pineapple is an excellent source of manganese (45% DV in a 100 g serving) and vitamin C (80% DV per 100 g).


Mainly from its stem, pineapple contains a proteolytic enzyme, bromelain, which breaks down protein. If having sufficient bromelain content, raw pineapple juice can thus be used as a marinade and tenderizer for meat. Pineapple enzymes can interfere with the preparation of some foods, such as jelly or other gelatin-based desserts, but would be destroyed during cooking and the canning process. The quantity of bromelain in the fruit is probably not significant, being mostly in the inedible stalk.

Furthermore, an ingested enzyme like bromelain is unlikely to survive intact the proteolytic processes of digestion.

Any chips made out of fruit would turn out to be sweeter but to give a sweet cum hot style just add pepper to it and enjoy. I would like to stick to my words might be it is at work place or personally. Nowadays due to comments from my readers I am glad to try out one or the other recipe and munch it.

Ingredients:

Pineapple: 2 pieces
Pepper Powder: 1 tsp

Equipment:

Microwave

Microwave bowl
Camera to click the snap

Method:


Chop the pineapple big pieces into smaller ones
Put it in a microwave bowl and allow it to get semi-crispy for 4 minutes
Sprinkle the pepper powder and munch it

As one of my blog reader, Vaishali says it wouldn't  be more crispy.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 13

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Chocolate Chips - BM #13 - Day 3

Chocolate Chips - BM #13 - Day 3:

You all would have known by now, that I am part of Blogging Marathon - 13 and I have selected "Seven Days of Chips" for this week. Here is my 3rd day chips called chocolate chips.

I was waiting to find and try out chocolate chips. While I asked my Google brother to find out he gave me a beautiful link at heavenlyhomemakers.

Chocolate Chips are small chunks of chocolate, which actually would be in round or flat bottomed teardrop shape. They are mainly used in cookies, pancakes, cakes, cream,  muffins and various types of pastry.

There are many flavors namely - semi-sweet chocolate, bittersweet chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, butterscotch chips, mint chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, and white and dark swirled chocolate chips. Out of them semi-sweet chocolate is the original one. Nestle and The Hershey company are among the top producers of chocolate chips. (Source: Wikipedia)

My assumption is, the kid's favorite breakfast - Chocos from Kellogg's resembles more or less like chocolate chips.

Now back to the recipe, it takes only 3 ingredients to make chips + 1 ingredient. Ha ha, 3 + 1 why couldn't I write 4 directly, this might be the readers question. The style of making it did not allow me to mention 4 directly. Read the below method of making it, I enjoyed it. Before going to the method let me tell you, here is one more technique how to melt butter as butter and not as ghee. :). Wait, don't scratch your head, when i read the post i did the same thing, but after doing it i have become good at it.

3 Ingredients to make choco chips:

Butter - 4 tbsp (i used amul butter)

Cocoa - 2 tbsp

Icing Sugar - 3 tbsp (reduce the quantity to make semi-sweet)

1 important Ingredient in making chips but we will not use it inside the chips. This was the excited part for me.

Water - 2 cups

Story: I wanted a glass jar to make this chips, I was searching in my kitchen on Saturday morning to get it, but no luck. Then I remembered about our dinner ware glass, ultimately I could use it. More than the family member who else will know what is available in the house, but as I use them less it did not flash immediately to me. I doesn't wanted to hide it as you readers, are my mentors.

Method:

Heat 2 cups of water in a bowl and wait till it boils

When the water starts boiling simmer the stove completely and place a glass jar/tumbler into the water

Add butter to it, and add cocoa powder and icing sugar star stirring continuously

Keep the butter paper on your tray ready, once the butter melts completely pour it onto the butter paper and spread it across

After sometime, leave it in your deep freezer for 4 to 5 hours it would completely dried

Now cut it into pieces and store it in air tight container.

Fact: Do you agree with me now, why i wrote 3 + 1 ingredient. Water was very important to melt butter but I never used it to make chips.

Chips photo:

Momma, I brought these chips from home to take photograph and realized only in the afternoon they had turned to be semi-solid again. So I have left them in refrigerator in office.  

Its worth glancing at what my other Blogging Marathoners are doing in BM# 13

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