Idly Upma with leftover idlies

You have quite few leftover idlies on hand. You are wondering what to do with them. Here’s a simple upma made with leftover idlies. This upma is quite common as most people make it.

There are couple of other options you could do with idlies. Cut them into chunks and deep fry. Serve with sauce, chutney. They taste like vadas But for today’s recipe, we shall see how to make upma with leftover idlies.

DIY–Tissue Box as storage box

This is my first DIY attempt. I had come across this idea on Pinterest.

I have  a small dustbin near the sink to throw left over food from plate or the peels or waste from cutting veggies, cooking etc. I line this bin with the plastic covers I save from my trip to the veggie market. 

Banana Paniyaram

This paniyaram is a sweet paniyaram made with mashed bananas. If you are wondering what to do with over ripe bananas, then this is a perfect recipe.

If planning to make this for kids, you can use ghee. You could also make them as pancakes instead of paniyaram.



My DS started having this when he was 10 months old.

Veg Sweet Corn Soup

This is one soup which my DH and I love. We always end up ordering this soup at the restaurant most of the times. Here's how to prepare this simple and heart warming soup.

Oats Dosa

This is a non-instant version of oats dosa. Just add a cup of oats to your usual dosa batter while grinding. You are ready to make yummy oats dosa. :)

TIP - Removing stains from vessels

You don't have to muscle hard to remove burnt stains from your pots/pans. Just follow this tip and you are good to go :)

I have tried this to remove burnt marks from stainless steel utensils, remove the water marks from brass vessel. Works like a charm. You can also do the same to clean the inside of your pressure cooker.

Steel idly cooker free from really black burnt stains and now shining new

Brass vessel which had water stains and nickel like deposits now clean like new one

To the pot/pan add about 2tbsp citric acid crystals. Fill water for about 3 inches and boil for about 10 minutes. Drain the water and clean with your usual dishwashing liquid/soap. You'll see that the stains have vanished and the vessel is shining like new one :)

Courtesy: Sanjeev Kapoor Khazana

Wish all my readers a very happy and a prosperous new year. Also wish all of you had a great pongal/sankranti.

Sorry for not having any posts for few months. Had been busy with the little one. Since he has started crawling faster and trying to stand, most of my time goes off running behind him. Have become a watchdog now :) seeing if he has put anything into his mouth. Wonder how these tiny tots find even the minutest thing on the floor though we try to keep it spic and span.

I hope I will be more regular this year with posting recipes. Stay tuned for some good recipes this year.

Tomato Rice | Thakali Sadam

Tomato Rice is a simple yet very delicious dish. This can be made in less than 20 minutes including chopping the vegetables. Simple to make on days when you want quick dish and wouldn't want to strain yourself.

Potato Sandwich

We were getting bored with regular breakfast items like idlies, any dosa variety, poori or pongal. So we decided to go for potato sandwich. We were having it after a really long time. My DH is a person who does not like to experiment much with food. Hence generally at home, its the traditional items that get prepared. But somehow he agreed to go for sandwiches for breakfast. So I was happy :)

Spinach Rice | Baby Food

Here's one more simple baby food. These days I have only been preparing baby food while the regular cooking is being taken care by my cook. So don't be surprised if you see baby food recipes often. :-) But I am planning to post some regular cooking recipes sooner.

Dal-Carrot-Rice Cereal | Baby Food

This baby food includes dal and a vegetable to the rice cereal. It may be advised that you might want to start the baby with just dal water in the initial days and then progress to this combination.

Ajwain Rice Cereal | Baby Food

Pranav's Annaprasanah ( function to introduce semi-solids to LO) was held on 4th September 2011. My mom prepared the traditional pal payasam and my LO loved it. :)

After his annaprasanah, we started to slowly introduce him to semi-solids. The docs advised to introduce semi-solids only after he completed 6 months. But I started about a 10 days earlier. I decided to only give him homemade food instead of the commercially available food like cerelac, farex or nestum. Preparing food for him is a enjoyable task on its own :) And feeding him is even more fun :D

Idly Podi | My mother's recipe

Idly podi or Uppu podi as I call it, is my favorite of all the podis I can think of. I probably named it uppu podi coz this might have been the first of the podi varieties that I had tasted first in my childhood that had salt in it. :) So now everyone in my house calls it uppu podi. :)

Ragi Dosa

Ragi also known as Finger Millet or African Millet, is highly nutritious and is very easy to digest. The fact that this millet does not contain gluten makes it an wonderful alternative for people with diabetes. Ragi is rich in calcium, fiber, protein, iron and other minerals.

Ragi aids in bone development, reduces high glucose levels in blood, aids in weight loss, lowers blood cholesterol and has many more health benefits. Its good to include ragi in some form or other atleast once or twice in a week if not on daily basis. A word of caution for people suffering from kidney stone. High intake of Ragi is not advised for such people.

Ragi is called Kelvaragu in Tamil, Ragi in Telugu and Kannada, and Mangal in Hindi.

Besan Ladoo | Microwave Cooking

For Varalakshmi Pooja this year, I was at my mom's place. Mom and I decided to go for simple sweet dishes for prasadam that do not consume a lot of time yet are delicious. So we made almost 3 ladoo varieties. Can you believe that??? :) We made rava ladoo, besan ladoo and oats ladoo the previous day of the pooja.

Vinayaka Chavithi | Ganesh Chaturthi Celebrations at home

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi to all my friends. Hope all of you had a great time during this festival.

We had a great time at home. With DS around at home, it was pretty hectic this time. The pooja at home went on very well. I started the day with a ganesh special kolam (courtesy:www.ikolam.com).

Cooking was taken care by our cook. Since the cooking part was taken care I could breathe a little easy. I looked after the pooja preparations and also the LO's needs. Had to get him ready for the pooja too.

my DS sitting for pooja

Everything was set and we started the pooja around 11 in the morning and finished it in about an hour. Coming to the recipes for the occasion, our cook made kudumulu, undarallu, purnam, plain dal, bhindi fry, payasam, medu vada. I made panakam, panchamrutam and vada pappu.

We also have a Ganesh Pooja in the apartment. The previous night after bringing home the idol and all pooja items, I had to decorate the mandap for the common Ganesh Pooja in the apartment. We have the celebrations on in the apartment for 11 days. On September 11th, we are having the 'Nimajan' in the evening. Daily evening we have the pooja. Each day people from each floor get to sit and perform pooja. Thereafter we have the prasadam distribution and play few games till 10 or 10.30 in the night. On the last day, there is annadanam and lots of games and more interestingly there is the auction of the ladoo. :)
Update: This year we won the Ganesh ladoo in the lucky draw. :-)

Will post the recipes for the kudumulu and undarallu soon, Till then, have fun and a great time.

Erra Karam - my version

Erra Karam or Ulli Karam is spicy onion chutney which is usually served with Dosas in Andhra Pradesh. Its one of those unbeatable or lethal combinations to say the least. :) Erra Karam dosa is my husband's most favorite breakfast. Ulli Karam is smeared on the inner side of dosa and is served hot.The chutney might sound hot but is actually not that hot. This chutney makes good condiment for idly, kuzhi paniyaram/ gunta pongadalu.

Home Remedies

In this section, you'll find simple home remedies with the things easily available at our homes.
If you google, I'm sure you would find more. But my motive is to give you the remedies which I have tried and found to be working wonderfully.

Food can cause few illness and has extreme power to cure illness when right food is taken in the right amount. There are several simple home remedies for various illness with just the things that are available in our kitchen shelves.


Common Cold

Veg Paneer Cigar Rolls

Imagine this...its a rainy day and you are sitting in the balcony with a pipping hot cigar!!! No no no...I'm not talking about the smoking one. I'm talking of a edible, very tasty and yummy snack. :) If you are a paneer lover you sure would fall in love with this snack. It gets its name since the rolls look pretty much like cigars. No prizes for guessing that ;-)

Kala Channa Curry

Kala Channa (black chickpea) belongs to the chickpea family; has a thick dark brown coating. Hence the peas take a little longer cooking time when compared to the regular kabuli channa (garbanzo beans/ white chickpeas). The kala channa is usually used for making sundal or for distributing as prasadams for vrats.