Food Adventures - X : Beans Parupu Usili and Mor kozhambu

My thirst to make something 'different' landed me on tamil food blogs. Considering my hubby dear is a tamilian soul trapped in a telugu body, I thought it was great idea. After about 98% of cooking, I found out he doesn't like beans parupu usili but loves mor kozhambu. But when the dinner was served, he loved it!! yaay!
My excitement was put to rest when I learnt I didn't make an out-and-out tamil dish, its also an andhra dish with a different name : beans patoli and majjigapulusu! so much for innovation!

Food Adventures - IX : Samosa

What time is it?...It's tea time!! What better than using the left over potato stuffing and maida dough from my previous food adventures!! So using good old tricks learnt way back in school (one use of SUPW), I made this so-so samosas for tea.

Food Adventures - VIII : Stuffed Capsicum

This time it was another old favourite's chance to be cooked: Stuffed Capsicum. Many variations to this filling dish, but I made it my favourite way - stuffed with potatos and a whole list of veggies. I add veggies to any and everything; one trick I've learnt over time to make Kaushik eat all his veggies.

Food Adventures - VII : Kajjikaya and Gutti Vankaya Koora

Another reason to celebrate and a really important one: Kaushik's paper accepted in PRL!! yaaay!! We celebrate the night with another set of favourites : Kajjikaya and Gutti Vankaya Koora.
Thanks to all those various food blogs (too many to mention) which helped me make these dishes.

Food Adventures - VI : Akki Roti

This time I wanted to make something 'different' and instantly 'akki-roti' came to my mind. One quick call to Nethra, my good kannadiga friend and once roommate and I was ready with the recipe and tips for akki-roti. I made allam-pachadi to go with it.


Experience: Don't get creative like me and make the pachadi with green chillies, it gets HOT!

Food Adventures - V : Gulab Jamun

V-day is nothing more than a 'commercial' holiday. But this doesn't stop us from celebrating love. We did it with Kaushik's favourite: Gulab Jamun. To accompany the sweet, I made peas pulav and rajma masala. Again, thanks to vahchef for his tips!



We watched this 'logically-amazing' telugu movie, Chirunavvutho; a must-watch. We liked the logics-filled dialogues so much that one of them found its place on my fridge-board.

Food Adventures - IV : Aloo Kofta

Husband's first paper published and it's time to celebrate!! yaaay!! What better than a nice dinner. No, we are not going out. We are going to make aloo-kofta. This time too the food-blogosphere helped, but did mislead me - resulting in too much besan in mu koftas, nevertheless, hubby dear loved them! I just took out some extra digenes after the dinner.

Food Adventures - III : Chivda

This snack is another long lost favourite. In fact, the snacking habit by itself WAS long lost. It was time for yet another evening coffee and my mind paused at the big poha packet we bought out of 'atukula-pulihora' craving. Thanks to the food-blogosphere, we had nice chivda to accompany our coffee.


This time however, the husband couldn't come home, so we 'to-go' this chivda with coffee in hubby's favourite san-antonio flask.

Food Adventures - I : Mysore Pak

It all started in Summer of 2006, with my then-roommate, Shilpa promising this wonderful sweet for a special Sunday (which never happened). The thought revived memories of the mysore paks perfectly made by dear most amamma. After a long phone conversation, I gathered the tips and directions from amamma, but could never find the time for it. Now that I was 'jobless', literally, this was the first I thought of making. After a wonderful visual explanation from vahchef, I set out to make this all-time favourite.

Ingredients:
1 cup Besan
1/2 cup Sugar
2 cups Ghee
1/4 cup water
Method:
Add a tsp of hot ghee to the besan and sieve it. Take sugar in a thick-bottomed sauce pan and add water just enough to cover the sugar. Keep stirring till the sugar dissolves and attaines a soft-ball or thread consistency. You can check the consistency by dropping a drop of the sugar syrup in a bowl of cold water or by using your fingers OR (thanks to madhu atta for the idea) use a kitchen thermometer to check the syrup temperature, it should be 250F. I got caught up in checking this and my sugar syrup became fit for Chakkara Achchulu (Sugar Figurines). Following madhu atta's tip this time, I added water again and started over. When the consistency is right, add the besan and keep stirring. Now add the hot ghee one ladle at a time. (For first-timers like me, the amount of ghee might give a slight heart-ache, but we'll get used to it) When you see the color change, pour the mixture onto a greased plate/bowl and let it cool. When firm, cut into desired pieces.

Food Adventures - Intro

This is a series on my 'jobless in college station' food adventures. An attempt to chronicle the cooking spree to vent out frustration on the current economy. But, bright side of life is my hubby dear gets to eat fresh cooked (most-of-the-time) food for every meal. So get ready for a feast fit for a hungry soul.
P.S: Please feel free to grab a hajmola or two! (We had an entire bottle with 120 tablets!)


Kaushik-the taster,unaware of the storm cooking in the kitchen.