இன்னிய தமிழ் புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்

Tamil New Year Greetings to all






Have fun. 

Happy New Year

Just return from a 10 days trip to India - our very first trip to India, covering Delhi, Jaipur, Agra and Varanasi...really eye opening and had a great time..will post pictures and our experience in the next few days.

For now wishing all my readers a happy new year may the coming year be fulfilling...

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012

Varsha Turns 17

Varsha is 17 today - OMG!!...how time flies so fast and today is also a special day....20.11.2011 (also it falls on a sunday just like on 20.11.1994). 

We wish you the best of everything with God's blessing...May you achieved all your dreams..

As usual I made her 2 cakes (and obviously a chocolate one being her favourite) one for school and one for her home celebration...will post you later the cakes.

Chocolate Chip Marble Bundt Cake

Chocolate Cake

Divali Day and the Food

Happy (belated) Divali to all my Hindu readers...

The celebration started with the day before, preparing the next days menu...Chicken Dalca, Mutton Perathal, Chicken Masala and Jeera Rice.  Eve of Divali lighted up tea candle lights instead the usual earthen lamp and oil. Needed the use up the tea candle lights (trying to figure up why I got them in the first place...)

The only food that I managed to take pictures was of Idli...Family photographer on school trip...The recipe for Idli is the same as Thosei...It is steamed  with a special mould and steamer, normally for a 15 mins depending on the size of your mould.  Remove the idli from the mould with a spoon and serve.

Dalca is combination of meat and lentils with some vegetables and curry powder with sambar powder.  Tradionally it is cooked with mutton, I changed it to chicken as my hubby and kids are less fond of mutton.   I added drumstick, the fruity part of Muringa Tree and eggplants

Chicken Dalca

What you need..

2 cups of toor dhal
2 tbs of ginger garlic paste
1 1/2 tsp of tumeric powder
2 eggplant - quarter
2 long drumstick - cut into bite size.
1 big tomato - quartered
1 bowl of chicken pieces - preferable the one with bones.
1 big onion - sliced finely
2 sprig of curry leaves
1 green chilly-slit lengthwise
2 tbs of chicken masala powder
1 tbs of sambar powder
*2 cardamon
*1 tsp cumin
*1 tsp fennel
*1 cinnamon
*3-4 cloves
*3-4 aniseed
*1 bay leave
chopped coriander and or mint

p/s : you can add potatoes, carrots, long beans if you wish.

How to do...

• Wash and pressure cooker the dhall with ginger garlic paste and tumeric powder and tomato.
• When the dhall is cooked add in green chilly,eggplants, chicken meat and drumstick and any other vegetables that you like.
• Once the vegetables are cooked, add curry powder and sambar powder and salt to taste
• In different wok/pan, heat oil and saute all marked * till aromatic, add in onions and curry leaves, bay leaves.  Fry till the onions are soft.
• Pour into the dhall, stir well  and let it boil for a few more minutes.  Remove from fire and add coarsely chopped  mint/coriander.
• Serve with rice, thosei, idli or chapatis/puris.

Divali @ Middle East, Doha...

Its the time of the year where Hindus all over the world celebrate Divali or Deepavali with lots of food, sweets, new clothes and etc.. Divali this year will be on Wednesday, October 26, 2011.  There is no public holiday or any feeling of the festival mood over here in Qatar, but am not to going to let this dampen our festival mood..

For me Divali is more of a time for family members to gather and enjoy the festivity.  I have always managed to celebrate with either side of family members except for the one year when me, hubby and kids celebrate Divali in Nanjing, China...It was still fun as we were together as a family.

This year however, Varsha will be away on a school trip to Cyprus for a week.  Looks like we will be celebrating without her. (Well looks like we have to get used to the idea of the kids may not be able to join us during celebrations or festivals as soon they will be leaving the home for further studies etc).

What is Divali without murukus...So as Mr Hubby was on shift off day, got him to help me with the making of murukus.  thanks Mr Hubby for spending your time making muruku  with me - you make our day. 

Making murukus used to be an elaborate preparation.  I remember my parents busy at least a month before Divali itself.  The whole idea of getting the ingredients like rice, urad dhall, ajwain, sesame  seeds, wash thoroughly, lay out on newspapers at the balcony of our flat house where we used to live.  I remember seeing my mum changing the papers everynow and then ensuring that the ingredients are dried thoroughly.    Then, it will be my dad's turn to take them over to the grinders to have them grinded to powder form, after which the whole process starts, with mum and dad taking an afternoon of a weekend just a week or so before Divali to make murukus, achi murukus and ommupadi (fine murukus mixed with dhals and nuts).

When we were kids, we were never allowed to be in the kitchen when my parents are making murukus - why their fear that we might get ourselves burnt.  The only thing we are allowed to do was making sure they are cooled and packing them in big cream cracker tins.  Those were the days.  (Emm when making the murukus I went on memory lane with my kids and Mr Husband).

Now it is simple - go over any grocery store - pick your choice of the many distributors who sells all sorts of readymade indian palagarams (tidbits).  My mother sent me via a friend 2 packets of Lingams readymade muruku powder. Just add roasted ajwain(omum) and sesame seeds, water and mix into nice dough enough to press them out of muruku press...voila you have murukus..

Now Varsha will have some murukus to take with her to Cyprus...atleast she will have the Divali mood with her....

Enjoy the pictures - Happy Deepavali (p/s -  I have Varsha requesting me to make achi muruku a sweet tidbits made out of rice powder, sugar, coconut milk and Mr Hubby said that he is willing to help out again....Might as well I take this opportunity - we will see)

Mr Hubby in action....

muruku waiting to be fried

muruku and sizzling oil.....

And murukus ready to be eaten

இனிய தமிழ் புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள் - Happy Tamil New Year

இனிய தமிழ் புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்
April 14, 2011

Happy 16th Birthday Varsha.....

I have been missing from the scene for sometime....loads of work and plenty to upload.....

My lovely princess turned 16 last.....Happy birthday darling....May God bless you with the best of everything....Love Amma and Appa and also Kirenraj.........

For her birthday she decided to bake own cake and obviously a chocolate one too....She baked one of the same which did for her gathering at home with her friends....It turned out superb.....only she had a go on it without the topping............. Since she likes MnM's very much, I decided to decorate the car with it...so the colorful cake....

The first one she did was rather dark in color although moist and so today we decided to alter here and there.  Lets look at the recipes..............

Recipe courtesy of http://www.resipi.net/  This is one of those recipes that are simple and direct and plus you do not need a cake mixer...Ideal for beginners...

MOIST CHOCOLATE CAKE

Ingredients
2 eggs
1 cup of cooking oil ( I used corn oil)
1 cup of castor sugar
1 cup of brown sugar

Ingredient (A)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cup of fresh chocolate milk
1/2 cup of water mixed with 2tsb of nescafe

Ingredient (B)
2tsb sodium bicarbonate
1tsb baking powder
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
2 cups of self raising flour

Topping
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
1/2 cup of condensed milk
1 tbs of oil

Method

1. Preheat oven at 170C
2. Grease the sides of the bottom and sides of the pan or lined it.
3. Sieve ingredients (B), set aside.
4. Mix all of ingredients (A) and set aside.
5. Whisk egg till it is fluffy.
6. Add sugar and whisk further.
7. Gradually add oil and whisk.
8. Add the dry ingredients (B) little by little alternating with the wet ingredients (A). Mix well
9. Bake for 1 hour or till done.
10. For the topping - add all the ingredients in a non stick pan, cook over slow fire till it looks glossy and ok.  Glaze over the cooled cake.

For the second cake, I omitted the brown sugar and use instead 2 cups of fine sugar, omited the choclate milk and nescafe - used 2 cups of fresh milk.