Cooking Is Easy

Cinnamon flavored chocolate chip pound cake is a dense and wonderful cake to have with a slice of coffee; what better way to enjoy Kerala Monsoons! Pound cakes are traditionally made with a pound of each of four ingredients; flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. It is generally baked in a loaf pan or a bundt pan. The cake texture is firm and dense; (if you are looking for a moist cake then this is not for you). Once you start making the cake; you will notice that there is no liquid other than the butter or eggs and hence the batter will be very thick and dense. In cakes other than pound cakes; we add in a bit of liquid in the form of fresh juice, curd, milk, buttermilk, or even plain water....which also results the cake to be moist, light, and airy. Do check out orange cake , chocolate poke cake , and yogurt cake .  I like my pound cake to be plain without any topping; so I increased the sugar and since cinnamon and chocolate can be married off; I add a bit of fresh cinnamon

Chena Mezhukkupuratti  is a traditional Kerala side dish. Chena or Elephant Foot Yam is lightly roasted in coconut oil and Kashmiri red chilli powder, a very simple and easy vegan dish. Mezhukkupuratti in Malayalam means slow roasting vegetables in oil, most vegetables can be cooked/roasted in this way. Chena or Elephant Food Yam is available all through out the year here and is added to sambar, avial , and curries like errusseri etc. During the monsoons, I like chena mezhukkupuratti with rice and though it is a very common side dish; thought I will share it for the novice cook. The yam, which I got was very tender and it cooked fast; though sometimes they might take some time to cook and even absorb more water.  I like to cube them, but feel free to slice according to your choice. Since, I used Kashmiri chilli powder, it has that vibrant red color and less spice; if you are using ordinary red chilli powder, reduce by half. The taste and flavor comes from using coconut oi

Baby Corn Masala is a restaurant style  creamy and lightly spiced curry. A very easy curry which you can make in about 20 minutes. My sister in law, Dainey lives in Vizag; Andhra Pradesh and when my mother in law visited them sometime back, she tasted this curry at a friends place and at my request got me a vague idea of the curry. After making it three or four times, I perfected the recipe and thought I must share with you as I fell in love with this rich and creamy curry. This curry is so easy to make that you will never order a baby corn masala from a restaurant. Here, baby corn is the star, to get that authentic taste it was advised not to add matar or paneer to the curry, though I am thinking of adding paneer when I make next time. This is a subtle curry and not much masala is added and not at all spicy and so very easy to make....bachelors are you listening?? Onion and tomatoes are sauted and chilly and turmeric powder is added and lastly baby corn is simmered in crea

Ceylon Spinach Pulao is an easy and healthy pulao packed with all the goodness of Spinach. A power packed lunch for kids and adults alike. Let me introduce you to Celon Spinach aka Philippine Spinach (Talinum fruticosum) aka Kerala's own Sambar Cheera. These leafy vegetable grows in most backyards of Kerala, rich in Vitamin A and C, calcium, iron, and dietary fiber (wow!) A friend of mine has this nutritious and power packed organic spinach in her backyard and gave some to me just before the monsoons started here in Kerala. Whenever I get them, I put them in a Ziploc bag and use them in curries, sambar, omelettes etc.  Nidhi, my daughter loves pulao so much and while making vegetable pulao, I thought why not add this to the pulao the way I made spinach pulav .....the recipe is same as my easy vegetable pulao. And I was right, my kids loved it so much; and I was glad that I could give them this nutritious and power packed meal, if you have this in your backyard; you

Happy Sunday To all. Masala dosa has become a part of my Sunday breakfast; I frankly do not remember how and when it started, but Sunday morning Masala Dosa is the King....though sometimes I prefer Indian Coffee House Masala Dosa . Lets leave food out for the rest of my chat (hopefully). "What do you do?" is the question I face everyday when I am out of my home. The first (or last) question a person who meets me asks; it could be by another parent whom I met at my kids school, or the person I started talking at the hospital reception, or the milkman, or the postman, or a neighbor..... I mean the list is endless.....in short people I come across ask me this question in the first 5 to 7 minutes of meeting! Have you experienced this at least once?? If you are a stay-at-home-mom, then it might irk you to the core like it does to me. But if you are a working woman; then hey! you will smile and tell them exactly your job, position and how you manage home and office.

Onion Tomato Uthappam is a popular easy and healthy South Indian Breakfast; most popular in vegetarian restaurants across South India. I like to make onion uthappam with left over idli batter; especially on Lazy Sundays. Uthappams are slightly thicker and topped with vegetables of your choice, like onion uthappam where only sliced onion and green chilies are topped, vegetable uthappams with an assorted mixed vegetables are chopped and topped.  Sometimes, I like to mix the vegetables in the batter and make dosa; though Homey and kids prefer this restaurant style uthappam. During my teens, I had spent many holidays at my moms sisters place at Ernakulam and used to visit Bimbis restaurant many times with cousins and my brothers. The one thing I loved so much was the uthappam at Bimbis; their uthappam was so filling and as a teen I used to devour on them. It was topped with cabbage, grated carrots along with sprouts, onions, and tomatoes....I do not know whether it is still av

Kappa Puttu is Kerala's own traditional Puttu. Puttu is a traditional Kerala breakfast and is healthy as rice flour is steamed to cook. Kappa puttu is an easy and quick puttu recipe . Kappa or Tapioca is made into soft puttu and can be had as a breakfast. These traditional dishes are healthy and filling and should be included into our diets as it is steamed, gluten free and vegan. I have noticed some recipes on the internet where raw kappa or tapioca is grated and the water is squeezed out and mixed with rice flour to make kappa puttu. I personally do not have the patience to grate raw kappa (tapioca), you know how hard that job could be....grating raw hard stubborn kappa!! No way! Traditionally, to make kappa puttu; kappa is sliced and then added to boiling water and then strained and sun dried....these sun dried kappa is then powdered and stored to make kappa puttu....well, this method is also hard job for me...so I always rule out these two methods mainly because grindin