Glimpse of Spring and Easter !

A few clicks from my neighnorhood shops:

'Stop and Shop' store:

Marshmallow peeps (chicks) and Bunnies.

A painting idea !!!

Just love clicking these paper plates with Easter theme. 

Chocolate bunnies cheers us and gives a glimpse of spring.

Chocolate bunnies and peeps....looks like Easter is coming soon.

Marshmallow peeps and bunnies for Easter. I use these sweets to decorate the cakes I make.

My hubby dear knows exactly what I need . It seems like God's gift  for me. I smiled all through the day. 

Major Nailpolish companies would do a clearance sale before summer. So it is my lucky day :)

Vinyl Tablecloth from Stop n shop $3.99. , Agarbathi Incense sticks (frankincense and Myrrh)  from Walmart $ 1 each.

From Shoprite:

Colorful cauliflowers (Pink, orange, green and regular white cauliflower) in Shoprite.

Cranberry beans / butter beans

Everything looks fresh !

Crocus Vernus in my garden , budding out of the frozen grounds.

Mini Daffodiles too start smiling for spring.  The economical way to garden is to buy all these bulbs by the end of summer and planting them immediately. They will hibernate during winter and will come out during spring.

Orange / yellow and red Tulips from Walmart

Door decors for Easter

Easter decors.

Easter decors , Wall plaque $ 2

Easter decors

Painted this last week . Love elephants ! (ombre technique, tree of life and elephants).

Simple Indian salad for snack

A simple salad with cucumber, tomato, onion and some chickpeas. I have used a 'Kirby' variety of cucumber as I found it lesser expensive and of smaller size than a 'seedless English cucumber'. Roma tomato are more suitable for salads, as they won't give out much moisture. I have used 'sweet mini peppers' instead of bellpepper, as I had that only at hand. Some people won't add bell pepper and instead there would be finely chopped green chili (for those spice lovers). Foods like this are more filling and easy to prepare. If you have the habit of buying cans of chickpeas, then this will get more easier.

In India salads like this are served as snacks during summer. Before salads got popular in Tamilnadu, we used to make a dish called kosambari (moong dal salad), then came the version of including slices of cucumber in that plantain leaf dinner for a special meal.   I think with the emerging 'mall culture'  (which is a good thing for everyone, as people who are from even the remotest village of Tamilnadu could get to taste the multicultural cuisines) salads got popular everywhere in Tamilnadu.

Ingredients:
Cucumber - 1
Tomato - 1
Red onion - 1/2
bell pepper - 1(small) or  sweet mini pepper - 2
lemon - 1/2
boiled Chickpeas - 1 cup
boiled sweet corn - 1 cup
Pink salt - to taste (1/2 tsp)
red chili powder - a pinch
cumin powder - 1/4 tsp
chopped cilantro - handful (to garnish)

Method:
Chop the cucumber, tomato, peppers, onion into small cubes. A vidalia chopper would make this job more easy. Put them all together in a mixing bowl, along with everything mentioned above.
Mix well and serve immediately or after cooling it in fridge for an hour. Garnish with chopped cilantro before serving.

Serving suggestion:
Serve as snack or along with any meal as salad.
Serves 4 people.
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கோடை நேர சாலட்:
சாலட் என்பது மேற்கத்திய உணவு மட்டுமல்ல. நம் நாட்டிலும் கொசும்பரி என உண்ணப்படும் பச்சை காய்கறி கலவையே சாலட் எனப்படுகிறது.
சாலட்கள் என்பவை ஆரோக்கியமும் ,  குளிர்ச்சியும், தேவையான உப்பு சத்துக்களும் உடலுக்கு தரும் உணவாகும் .

தேவையான பொருட்கள் :
வெள்ளரி - 1, தக்காளி - 1, வெங்காயம் - 1 , குடைமிளகாய் - 1, வேக வைத்த கொண்டைக்கடலை - 1 கப், உதிர்த்த இனிப்பு கார்ன் - 1 கப், மல்லி தழை - சிறிது, எலுமிச்சை - 1/2 , இந்துப்பு (அல்லது வெள்ளை உப்பு) - 1/4 தேக்கரண்டி, சிவப்பு மிளகாய் தூள் - ஒரு சிட்டிகை, சிரக பொடி - 1 சிட்டிகை. 
செய்முறை:
வெள்ளரி, தக்காளி , வெங்காயம் , குடைமிளகாய் , இவற்றை பொடியாக வெட்டி , ஒரு அகலமான பாத்திரத்தில் போடவும். கொண்டைக்கடலை , சோளம், எலுமிச்சை சாறு  மற்றும் எல்லா பொடியும் சேர்த்து உப்பு போட்டு குலுக்கவும். உடனே பரிமாறலாம். பிரிட்ஜ் இல் 1 மணி நேரம் வைத்து குளிச்சியான சாலட் ஆக பரிமாறலாம். 
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Baked chicken (Indian version)

Do you crave a chicken recipe loaded with vegetables like a one pot meal ? Then this is a treat for you !This is my version of baked chicken. I have cooked it in a cast iron skillet.
Foods cooked in cast iron skillets have a deep flavor color and more healthy too. I bought my Ozark trail cast iron skillet  from walmart some years back. I got it on a clearance sale for just $7 for that set of 3 skillets. Cast iron skillets comes very handy to prepare baked foods, omelet, crispy sandwiches and the list goes on.
In this recipe, I have made a curry infused Indian version of baked chicken along with some vegetables. This dish seems like a full meal for us for dinner as well as for the next day's lunch. So try this if you are looking for a healthy chicken recipe with an Indian touch and let me know how much you like it !

Marinated chicken getting fried a little.

Baking the chicken

Chopped vegetables.

After baking.

Place the chicken in a serveware.

After removing the chicken, saute  the vegetables.

Add sauces.

Cook it to tender crispy.

Pour over the baked chicken.

Baked chicken with vegetables and beetroot raitha

Leftovers can be used in making sandwich. 

Special appliances needed:
Heavy cast iron pan (preferably 10 - 12 inch dia).
Oven.
Tongs to flip the chicken

Ingredients:
Chicken thighs (skinless) - 3 lb
Extra virgin olive oil - 1/4 cup
To marinate:
Sea salt - 2 tsp (to taste)
turmeric powder - 1 tsp
fat free Indian yogurt - 1/2 cup
ginger garlic paste - (ginger 2 inch , garlic - 1 whole)
red chili powder - 1 tsp
coriander powder - 3 tsp
curry masala powder - 1 tsp
pepper , cumin powder - 1/2 tsp each
Method:
Remove the skin off the chicken pieces. Rinse in water for 2 to 3 times to remove any residue.
Do small slits over chicken pieces. Keep aside.
Grind peeled ginger and garlic together to a fine paste.
Mix everything said for marination together.
Apply over chicken and toss well. Let it sit for an hour or overnight inside fridge.
Preheat oven to 350 deg C.
Heat a heavy cast iron pan (12 inch size).
Spread the oil on the pan.
Place the marinated chicken and cook 5 mins each side.
Then keep the pan  inside the oven and bake for 30 mins. Flip and cook again for 20-30 mins or until crispy and reddish brown in color.
Take the pan out. Check for perfection in salt and cooking.
Place all the chicken pieces on a serveware. Close tightly to keep the chicken moist.
Now we start to prepare vegetable topping.

Vegetable topping: (vegetable salad).
Zucchini - 1
green bell pepper - 1 (small)
red onion - 1
Sweet mini pepper - 4 (optional)
cilantro - handful
lemon juice - 2 tbsp
hot mustard sauce - 2 tbsp
hot sauce - 1 tsp
EV olive oil - 1 tbsp
salt - very little
chili powder - 1/4 tsp
turmeric powder, pepper , cumin powder - 1/2 tsp

Method:
Heat the same cast iron pan with oil (without washing) over stove.
Add all the vegetables together and toss for few minutes.
Add the masala powders, salt, lemon juice, hot sauce, mustard sauce, toss well and switch off.
Pour this over baked chicken. Serve hot.

Serving suggestion:
Serve as main course meal with beetroot raitha or any raitha or salad and bread / roti.
Leftovers can be used to prepare sandwich.

Happy Valentine's day !

Happy Valentine's Day all !
This year I prepared Badusha (Balushahi) , an Indian sweet for my hubby dear as a Valentine's day gift. This is his most favorite sweet. Every time I ask him what he wishes as a special sweet and he says the same 'BADHUSHA' ....So I make it again and again ...LOL :)
This recipe takes only an hour from start to finish. I like this sweet ,as  it is easy to make. It was not my favorite sweet until marriage or until I started preparing it at home for Xavier. The badushas I ate in most of the sweet stalls tasted like a fried dough soaked in sugar. 
But if you make it at home you will change that opinion about this sweet. If we are making it at home, we will add real butter / ghee and it would be served fresh. I think that is the difference.
So these homemade badusha will make you fall in love with this sweet again!
Click to see my badusha recipe.

Badusha I made for my hubby dear

😍😍😍😍😍

Lunch in Bridgewater mall pizzeria.

Photo courtesy: thanks to the author

Instant pot electric pressure cooker recipes - Venn Pongal

Instant Pot Ultra (electric pressure cooker) is a new addition to my kitchen.  Hubby lovingly bought this for me during 'Thanksgiving'. I love it very much. It is very cute and 'smart'.
As a typical South Indian, I have been used to my whistles of  my 'prestige pressure cookers'.  I think most of us would have the same kind of childhood memories, with us all getting up by the whistles of our mom's pressure cooker or a milk cooker. But this electric pressure cooker won't make any such noises (even while we release the pressure manually). It has so many options like 'rice, beans, soup etc' . The best thing about this cooker is , one need not know much about 'cooking timings'. For example, in ordinary cooker one has to memorize 'how many whistles or how much minutes' to cook a dal or rice. . Here one need not know the pressure cooking timing for cooking anything, as everything is 'preset' or 'in its memory'. We can alter it temporarily if needed too.  Soon I will give a honest review and comparison of this electric cooker with ordinary pressure cooker. You are invited to join me in exploring many Indian recipes with Instant pot.

Ven pongal I made in the Instant pot electric pressure cooker.

To maximize the Kohl's cash offer....we stacked up a pyrex container set too :)

My 6 qt Instant pot ultra , 10 in 1, Programmable pressure cooker

Rice and dal

I set the time to 14 mins as this is a mixture of rice and moong dal.

We can latch the lid like this also.

Ven pongal with vadai and sambar.

Ingredients : (for 2 people)
Raw Rice (pacha arisi or briyani rice) - 3/4 cup
Moong dal (green gram dhal) - 1/4 cup  tbsp 
Ginger-1 inch piece (chopped)
salt - 1 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
Pepper corns -1 tsp
curry leaves - 1 sprig.
Asafoetida / hing -a pinch
clarified Butter/Ghee/ butter- 1 tbsp
Water- 3 cups (water = 2 times the number of cup of rice + 1 cup)
milk - 1/2 cup  
Cashews- 5 numbers.

Methods :
Rinse the rice and dal together. Add salt and water .
Keep it in a Instant pot pressure cooker. Plug in. The panel will start glowing. 
Select the rice option by rotating the control knob. Press it once to lock the setting.
Again rotate the knob to alter the time if needed. I set it to 14 minutes. But 10 minutes would be enough.
Set to high pressure. Press start.
It will go on preheating for few minutes. Then the pressure will start building and we can see it in the control panel.
The float valve will rise once it reached a whistling stage. But there won't be any whistle sound.
After the cooking is finished it will automatically switch off the pressure cooking and will begin to release pressure naturally. It may take 15 minutes to get the pressure released naturally. But we can manually release the pressure by carefully pressing the release valve.
After releasing the pressure open the lid and proceed with 'tadka' or tempering and garnish the pongal.

After cooking the rice and dhal tenderly, mash them mildly.(not like a paste, but gently.)
Heat a frying pan. Add the ghee.
Add Cumin , Ginger ,cashews, hing and whole pepper.
Immediately after the cashews turn golden in color, add them to pongal .
Serve hot.

Serving suggestions:
Serve hot with coconut cutney, Idly-sambar, ulunthu(black gram) vadai.
Serves 2 people.
It can be served as both breakfast or dinner.

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Here is a beautiful scene I clicked in my neighborhood Asian grocery store during Chinese New Year February 5 th 2019. Happy Chinese New year dear all !

Happy Chinese New Year : decorations in a nearby Asian grocery store.

Red banana (செவ்வாழைப்பழம் ) I bought from Asian store. mmm...tastes just like Indian red banana. 

Pongal Groceries !

Happy Pongal to all  !  This is the festival of all Tamilians.
As per some of my fans' request I am publishing this post 'grocery list for Pongal'.
Each and every family would have their own version to celebrate Pongal, but I have consolidated some important groceries to keep in mind for this day, so that we can check if we have them handy.
In my house , Pongal is mostly the convenient 'pressure cooker pongal' and we do it in a simple way with whatever veggies I buy (though almost all Indian groceries can be bought in NJ, so it is up to an individual choice only).  In my list I have not given measurements for certain items, as they are bought in bulk in most stores. But in my recipe link , one can find the cup measurements for those items.
Hope my list is handy enough !

Pongal Grocery list: (for 4 people + little extra for sharing)
Decorations :
Flowers, Pongal Poo (a bunch of Tamil native flowers)
Bunch of turmeric plant 2,
Sugarcane - as per need
palmyra sprout / tuber (panam kilangu) -few.
banana - a bunch
plantain leaf - a bunch
Rangoli powders

Sweet sarkarai Pongal: (simple version , rich version)
Raw rice - 1/2 kg
moong dhal - 100 gm
jaggery - 3/4 kg
ghee - 200 gm
cashew , raisin  - 50 gm as per need
cardamom - 5 pods
milk - 1/2 liter

Ven pongal:
Raw rice - 1/4 kg,
moong dal - 50 gm
pepper -
cumin -
ghee -
cashew - 10
milk - little

Aviyal :
Some shops in Tamilnadu sells this mixed aviyal vegetables in a heap for Rs 50, Rs 100.
Others can buy like the below list.
Raw green banana - 2 , brinjal - 4, drumstick -1 , white pumpkin - 100 gm, yellow pumpkin - 100 gm, carrot - 1, beans - 10 , broad beans - 10, string beans - 10, yam - 100 gm, potato - 1, arbi - 2, small green mango - 50 gm, shallot onion - 10, coconut - 1/2 , green chili - few, coconut oil - little
cumin, pepper , channa dal - little,

Pongal Puli curry:
Tamarind , coconut , sambar powder, red chili powder, coriander powder, cumin , turmeric powder, shallot onion, tomato - 2 , karunai kilangu - 100 gm, senai kilangu - 100 gm. potato - 1, siru kilangu-5

Simple dal:
Toor dal - 150 gm,  green chili - 4, shallot - 3, garlic -1 , hing -  few , garnishing items like mustard, urid dal, chili.

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In Tamil :
பொங்கல் மளிகை லிஸ்ட் (for 4 people + some extra quantity to share) :
பூ , பொங்கல் பூ,   மஞ்சள் குலை , கரும்பு, பனங்கிழங்கு வேகவைத்தது , வாழைப்பழம், வாழை இலை , ரங்கோலி பொடி

சர்க்கரை பொங்கல் :
Sarkarai Pongal
Rich sarkarai pongal
பச்சரிசி , பாசிபருப்பு , வெல்லம் , நெய் , முந்திரி பருப்பு , உலர் திராட்சை , ஏலக்காய் , பால் , கண்டென்ஸ்ட் மில்க்  (தேவைக்கு)

வெண்பொங்கல் :
பச்சரிசி , பாசிப்பருப்பு , மிளகு , சீரகம், நெய், முந்திரி , பால்

பொங்கல் அவியல் :
வாழைக்காய் 2 , கத்தரிக்காய் 4, முருங்கைக்காய் 1, வெண்பூசணி 100 கி , மஞ்சள் பூசணி 100 கி , கேரட் 1, பீன்ஸ் 10, அவரைக்காய் 10 , கொத்தவரங்காய்  - 10, சேனைக்கிழங்கு 100 கி , உருளை கிழங்கு 1, சேப்பங்கிழங்கு 2,  சிறிய மாங்காய் -  1,  நாட்டு வெங்காயம்  10, தேங்காய் , மிளகாய், சீரகம், மிளகு, தேங்காய் எண்ணை, கடலை பருப்பு

பொங்கல் புளி கறி :
புளி , தேங்காய், சாம்பார் பொடி , மிளகாய் தூள் , மல்லி தூள் , சின்ன வெங்காயம், தக்காளி , சேனை கிழங்கு 100 கி  ,  கருணைக்கிழங்கு 1 , உருளைக்கிழங்கு 1 , சிறு கிழங்கு -  5

கெட்டி பருப்பு கூட்டு :
துவரம் பருப்பு - 150 gm, பச்சை மிளகாய் 4 , நாட்டு வெங்காயம் - 3, பூண்டு 1 , பெருங்காய தூள் சிறிது , உப்பு ,
தாளிக்க - கடுகு , உளுந்து

Happy New Year,