The Great Outdoors & Parippu Vada (Lentil Cakes)

We finally did that thing that an average family aspires to do at least once. Yup, we went camping this weekend and spent an entire night in a tent nestled among tall redwoods! We went hiking, made s'mores, parippu vadas and tea and really just chilled.

Managed to watch a Malayalam movie on our fully charged laptop before retiring for the night! There was no cell phone access and even the mosquitoes decided to give us some space.

Boy was it fun.. Needless to say, the kids and H loved it. What was surprising was how much fun I had! I love the outdoors but not to the extent where I want to sleep in it. The buck stops at sleeptime. This camp site however had everything I could wish for. Full car access so we don't have to haul camping supplies along a long hike to the actual site. Bathrooms with
flushing toilets and hot showers not too far off and mild and relaxing hikes so my 8 year old won't tire so fast. Happy kids, happy mommy!

The weather last weekend was just perfect too. As the evening set we made s'mores in the warm comfort of the campfire.

We were also lucky to get a site that was hidden enough but close to the amenities. The stars just conspired to make me thoroughly enjoy this first trip. Let us hope it will continue. H and son had gone camping one time before with another father-son pair and that experience helped us to prepare for this one. As we are putting away the supplies I hope to do at least one more camping trip this year. When you are at camp and if you are not hiking or relaxing then you are probably engaged in cooking. We wanted to eat some parippu vadas for snacking and this is what led me to bring along ground parippu mix on the trip. It was worth the trouble of making patties and frying them when we dropped them into our mouths washed in with some freshly prepared tea!

So here is the scoop on the vadas. I know many of you are parippu vada experts. Since the first recipe I tried from spicyana came out well, I had always relied on it to reproduce the magic. She has combined it with a 'rasam' recipe for 'rasavadas'. I just follow the vada part of it. Thanks spicyana for this wonderful recipe with easy to follow steps.

In The Mix

lentils/parippu - 2 cups (i used toor dal. chana dal is also good)
ginger - 2tbsp (finely chopped)
onions - 1/2 cup finely chopped (spicyana's recipe asks for 1 cup)
green chilies - 1 tbsp chopped
curryleaves - 5 -10 leaf petals (i forgot to add it this time)
salt to taste

How To Do

Wash, drain and soak the parippu in water for 2-3 hours. Chop ginger, onions and green chilies finely. Now is the time to make that tea. Drain the parippu well and grind coarsley while adding salt to taste.
It is good to see a full sized parippu disc once in a while in the mix. Add the chopped mix to the ground parippu and keep covered for 10 minutes or so for flavors to blend. In our case it sat in the cooler for a few hours. All for the better!

Make flat round patties from the mix and set aside. Make sure the patties are not too thick in the middle even if the rounds are large. Light the stove and heat oil in a wide, flat bottomed pan. Add the patties one by one to the oil and fry on both sides till golden brown and crunchy if you like'em crisp. Drain on paper towels.

Sit down with tea cup in hand and finish it all off while still warm!

Slow Cooker Pot Roast!

The kids are getting antsy with Indian cooking. So long as it contains red fish curry, papadam and yogurt I don't hear many complaints. But the moment I veer off to a little more of the curried versions, the battle erupts. They do like it but not too much apparently. How can a cook take pleasure when her customers are not happy? I try not to listen too much as the wheel of life has to continue uninterrupted but do try some stuff that I feel is a good match. The recipe for pot roast was found on the package for a slow-cooker sauce. I was led to it by the mother of one of my daughter's friends when I asked her for culinary advice on easy dinners. It is easy enough and both kids and Dad loved it. I am thinking of branching out and finding an Indian sauce solution to the pot roast. Here is the recipe which comes on the package of  'savory pot roast sauce powder' found in grocery stores anywhere. You need a slow-cooker (crock-pot, 4 qrtz. or more) to enjoy the full convenience of it.

In The Mix

Crock-Pot Savory Pot Roast Seasoning Mix - 1 package
Shallots - 3 peeled and halved
Small red potatoes - 3 cups washed and drained - no cutting needed
baby carrots - 2 cups


How To Do

This is the best part! Since it can be done in 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low you have the choice of when to have it. I put it all together the morning and it was ready when I got back. There are many sites that gives out slow-cooker recipes. I prefer the ones that do not require any extra steps like searing or sautéing before adding to the slow-cooker.

Wash and drain the meat and add to the slow cooker. Mix the packaged powder with 1 cup of water and add to the pot. Add the potatoes, shallots and carrots. Close the lid, turn on to the desired heat and go have fun. Come back to a dinner ready house! I have finally found what I need. Slow cooker, here I come! I think a masala sauce mix would work just as well for Indian palettes. Will let you know once I find a good solution but it shouldn't be rocket science.

Happy New Year!

Nope,  I am not lost in time. This is the first post of this lazy year and I reserve the right to wish you all a Happy New Year! Hope it is going well so far. Also wanted to make a note on the 5th blog anniversary which came and went unnoticed on Jan 16th, 2013.

So.... the trip to India went well and we are back in the rat race as if that was a dream. Great to see my Mom after so long. She is her cheerful busy self which is a relief at this age. This December was not all that in terms of weather in Kerala. Sweat was pouring down the entire body anytime we had to be outside. Coming back to sunny California was another jolt. We were welcomed by one of the coldest weird weather fronts in recent history. Now I understand what it means to go 'from the frying pan into the burning fire'. Only in our case it was, 'from the steaming pot into the freezing chamber'. So I decided to chill (pun intended) and hibernate. But every gopher has to come up for air one day. Er.. The kids and I saw some gophers doing just that on the library grounds on a recent trip. So here I am but having no pictures I cannot yet post anything.

I just replaced my laptop with a new one and the pictures I had on the old one are yet to be uploaded here. I am almost done with the taxes though. What else? I finally learned to make a decent 'chicken noodle soup' that the kids deemed passable. The recipe came from the lunch lady at the kids's school. Her recipe is very easy to make and the ingredients readily available in the Grocery store. I have yet to snap a picture but the very memory of the warm, filling soup on a cold winter night is making me want to prepare another batch soon. It is time to start the veggie garden but I find myself hesitant to step out of the house. It is not as cold now but the mental block is still there. Maybe I'll grow some herbs on the window sill as I'd been promising myself. I'll soon be back with some pictures. 

Howdy Folks?

Ah..the long weekend was refreshing... I could use one of these every month. One can always wish. Eh? Roasted the bird and all the accompaniments. I am a little wary of snapping pictures when company is present since that could be seen as the telltale sign of a food blog:-) It is similar to feeling squirmy when I see a cop car on the road even if I am a law abiding and safe driver. Almost always! So no pictures at all but the turkey was the tastiest yet. Kids helped splendidly with potato peeling and cleaning the sink all in anticipation of the Thanksgiving dinner and I felt gratified. For why would I be doing all this if not for them? My son was quite content with the leftovers for the next two days! A cue to stop with the curries and start with the roasting? Don't know. We are going to India after a gap of 5 years. Looking forward to see the leap year changes happening in the old homeland. Main aim is to see the aging parents. Mom, HMom and Hdad are all excited and so are we. Going to India is never a vacation because of all the running around between two families. I am just afraid of saying "I need a vacation" on the first day back at work. The look on my boss's face: priceless:-) OK guys so I just came up to say hello and hope all of you are doing well and to wish you all wonderful holidays. i.e if I don't come up again until the New Year.

Muringa Ila/Drumstick Leaves Thoran

H's birthday was coming up sometime back and I was looking to do something that can deliver the most happiness quotient with the least effort. Who but HMom to the rescue! While chatting on the phone one day she mentioned how H had always loved muringa ila and was happy to recite her recipe to me. I typed it down on my iPhone notepad - quite handy eh? no need for papers or pencils anymore... - and saved it for d-day. The leaves were available at the not so local Kerala grocery store and I hid'em all the way on the bottom shelf of the fridge. All for naught! Guess who had to pull out everything on that shelf the day before his birthday and spoil the surprise? Yup, H did it. But it was still sort of a surprise when I made the actual thoran 'cos it came out almost as good as he remembers it and we had never made it here before. So it fulfilled my requirements for a sweet and simple thing to do. I also consulted Mrs. KMM's book to fill in some gaps in my notes.

In The Mix
toor dal - 1/4 cup
muringa leaves - from two bunches (cleaned and separated)

for curry mix

fresh grated cocunut - 1 cup (gently crush this if you don't want to grind it all)

jeerakam/cumin seeds crushed - 1/2 tsp
garlic - 1 pod
turmeric - 1/4 tsp
chili powder - 1/4 tsp (this is for color)

for seasoning
olive oil - 2 tsp
mustard - 1 tsp or less
shallots - 1 or 2 sliced and diced big
curry leaves - a sprig or two
dry red chilies - 2 or 3 torn in halves

Salt to taste - My discovery is that, veggie taste is enhanced if we don't add any salt at all. For non-veg controlled amounts of salt may be good than no salt at all.


 How To Do
 Boil just enough water in a large pan and cook the toor dal. Once cooked through, add muringa leaves, cover  and cook for 5 minutes. The result should not be watery. Combine all the items in the curry mix together. Add this to the pan and stir well together. Add enough salt to taste. Now close and steam for 3-4 minutes on high.

Heat oil in a small pan, break mustard, saute the shallots, curry leaves and dry red chilies for the seasoning.
Add to the cooked mix and combine. Serve over hot rice with buttermilk curry or yogurt. Drool!

Healthy, nutritious, easy and pleasing! What is there not to like?

BTW, see below for a corn/tomato picture Our veggie garden is slowly winding down to rest in winter. I am trying to setup some herbs in the kitchen. Just moved to a new company so life's a little hectic and I hope to make it to India this year somehow to see my Mom and everyone else.

Chettinad Chicken from Kaipunyam

Kaipunyam is a well organized, to-the-point cooking blog with incredible food pictures and a good sprinkle of love. Something about this blog begs you to go back there all the time. It is a single point stop  for any Kerala recipes you might be thinking of. I had bought some chicken this week and wanted to try something different. Went to kaipunyam and with close to 40 recipes just for chicken it was easy to pick one right away! The recipe there is mostly as shown in the post. I made it with small changes for convenience and quantity and less salt and chili as we do now and it turned out well. Thanks 'kaipunyam' for the recipe and the easy to follow format!

In The Mix

chicken - 1 lbs

fennel seeds (perum jeerakam) - 1 tsp ( i am not a fan of this..)

turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

shallots - 6 to 8 sliced (add more if u like it, i do!)

dry red chili - 10 to 15 split into halves

coriander(cilantro) leaves - few sprigs

curry leaves - few sprigs

tomatoes - 4-5 diced

water

oil - 1/2 tbsp

salt to taste

How To Do

Cut chicken into pieces, wash, drain and marinate with salt and turmeric.

I always do this part overnight but this time could only do about an hour and it still tuned out good!

Heat oil in a pan and saute fennel seeds, dry red chilies and curry leaves. Add shallots to

it and saute till golden brown. Add tomatoes, stir and cook for a while. Now add the chicken, salt and enough water to keep things moving around. Saute the chicken for a few minutes, cover and cook. Remove from fire and add chopped cilantro before serving. I think plenty of curry leaves, dry red chili and shallots are the secrets of this recipe. Very tasty results with a small effort!

 

Garden Sambhar

I bet you hadn't seen this one coming.  Yup almost all ingredients came from our garden (hence forth to be referred as the G). Except maybe the sambhar powder and drumsticks. Er.. maybe the dry red chilies for seasoning, potatoes and toor dal also didn't come from there... What are you, the food inspector? If I say it is from the G, then it is ! On the fun side, half the okra, all beans, onions and green chilies came from the G. Isn't that still good? We thought we could feel the freshness throughout. The onions were the best. Yes, they didn't reach their full potential because we were too lazy to separate the plant clusters. But the resulting size was perfect to replace the pearl onions I normally use for sambhar. Some friends donated squash and zuchini from their garden which also went into the sambhar. I have to say no other curry represents G as well as a sambhar. We did make bean and lettuce leaf thoran earlier which was pretty good. Them beans grow a plenty when paired with the corns. Native Americans knew what they were doing...

Before the veggies went into the curries we made some patterns with the onions, chilies etc and the donated squash. Didn't use the bell pepper in sambhar. Enjoy!

H and my girl did the arrangement below. Neat. Eh?

The beans have been harvested more than once.

Lettuce leaves show no sign of giving up and keeps on growing despite constant harvesting.

Tomatoes galore are coming up and will be ready soon.

Chilies and beans After harvest:

Corn is a longer than anticipated wait but is the most lush in the patch.

Until now I didn't know that corn has a male branch that shows up first.

The female branch shoots up later under it, to be pollinated from the top by the wind!!

And I thought the corn like flowers on the male branch was the actual corn because in the beginning it looked a lot like a corn. See what I mean?

Have no idea what the carrots are doing down there but we go on in the belief that they too are doing what they need to do:-) Okra is the one disappointment. Not thriving as we'd hoped but there are a few coming up to keep us happy.

That's it today for news from lan's garden. See you next time.