Cooking Is Easy

Beef sandwich toast  with boiled potatoes is an easy kid friendly Kerala style sandwich toast, usually made for kids lunch box.  Amma used to make this for my two brothers and me to take to school, she will sometimes fill with left over beef cutlets .  I am sometimes lazy to roll up cutlets and so I fill the bread with cutlet mix and slather with good old butter and toast in my old gas toaster and the result is crunchy buttery toast....my kids love them. This cutlet mix is very versatile; I refrigerate it after adding boiled potatoes; and sometimes spread on Indian flatbread / roti and roll and heat it up with a dollop of butter or sometimes I make keema paratha with the cutlet mix minus the potatoes (with potato also its yum). Method: Pressure cook half kg beef with potatoes, vinegar, and salt for 15 to 20 min, evaporate if there is any water left on high flame. Allow it to cool and then mince it. For detailed  step by step tutorial ...

Oats idli recipe, oats dosa; is another easy way to include oats (oatmeal) in our daily diet. Oats idli is a healthy breakfast for the whole family; and very low calorie and filling. The best thing is you can use this same batter to make oats dosa. I replaced the raw rice with powdered oats and left it to ferment overnight and the result was pillow soft idlies. Putting all the ingredients in a blender and leaving it to ferment overnight makes everything so easy, just like ordinary blender idlies. I added some finely chopped green chilies, ginger and curry leaves to the idli batter and it tasted so good and so very soft. I also used the same batter to make dosa. Bachelors can make this so easily. And they were crispy and perfectly yum, but healthy! STEP BY STEP METHOD: Makes about: 10-12 idlies. Lightly roast oats in a pan, make sure you roast in low flame as we dont want the colour to get changed to brown. Then powder them finely. In to the blender, add...

Mutton biriyani recipe ; Malabar mutton biriyani is the most popular Muslim biriyani in Kerala. This mutton biriyani is made with instant biriyani masala . Living in Calicut has introduced me to Malabar food through friends, neighbors etc. I also got introduced to Ummi Abdulla's cookery book awhile ago through my daughter's friend, Amra's mother. Whenever I have a mood for Malabar cooking; I will ring up her and it is she who always helps me out, Malabar chicken samosa and cauliflower fries are examples. For this mutton biriyani, I followed her recipe and also referred Ummi Abdulla's cookery book "Malabar Pachakam". The main one thing which makes a Malabar biriyani stands out is the rice which is used; unlike in other biriyani where basmati rice is used, in Malaber biriyani its kaima rice which is used. Now the difference between Kozhikodan biriyani and Thalassery biriyani is mainly in the layering of the dum; Kozhikodans like to layer the me...

Easy milk peda with condensed milk is my go to Diwali sweet. Doodh peda can be made in about 5 minutes and I usually call in my kids for rolling it out. Try making these easy pedas for your family or as a gift for friends and relatives. My son is all in for Indian Sweets especially Coconut Ladoo and Payasam ; I made this yesterday evening for him. He also helped me in rolling the pedas; we made a few ones with chopped almonds (badams) in the center; like the ones above picture and the rest we made into small balls (bite sized ones). Step by Step Method: Yields: 70-75 small bite sized balls. These are the ingredients. If you have saffron; just add a few strands in a table spoon of warm milk. Add condensed milk and milk powder into an iron skillet or nonstick pan. Pour the saffron milk. Then mix it well; it will look a bit crumbly. Heat the pan and put the flame to low. Keep mixing it in low flame (its a bit tough)...arm strength is in qu...

Easy coconut ladoo with condensed milk and the the best part is it just takes 5 minutes to make these coconut ladoo s. This is my kind of making Diwali sweets , quick and easy with just 2-ingredients! Diwali is just around the corner and I wanted to make something quick and easy for my kids; so while going through amma's old recipe box, I came across this recipe cutout which amma has cut and sticked on a paper sometime in the 1970s; I was thrilled when I scrolled down the recipe and wanted to hug amma for saving this "vintage recipe from milkmaid". Step by Step Method: Yield: 30 balls. Add desiccated coconut powder into a nonstick pan or greased iron skillet. Add in one tin of condensed milk. Mix well. Heat the pan and put the flame to low (since I used skillet and heat retention is high; lowest flame worked fine for me) if you are using non stick pan, put the flame to medium. Mix nicely for 3-4 minutes. (careful that the underside d...