Foodlyrics is 1 year and 19 days to be precise. Yeah I know I just forgot about it and even didn’t mention it in my earlier post as it didn’t strike me at all. Can you believe it!!! :-0

Last year Pune was panic striken with the Swine Flu epidemic and we had a compulsory stay home week. I was so.. so.. bored. Nothing to do and no where to go. So I started making different dishes reserved for those weekends every day. . That’s when my husband suggested about starting a foodblog. This is how Foodlyrics was born. I started my blog with the free version of Foodlyrics on wordpress. Kudos to Wp for such a amazing venture. In December ’09, Foodlyrics was officially on the web. And here I am today with my 1 year and 19 days baby. Phew time flies by so quickly isn’t it? Thanks so much to all my friends who have helped in nurturing and bringing up Foodlyrics with lot of love and support.

Recently, I had less time for the blog and hence there have been less posts and replies as well from my side. I am so awed by the scraps, comments on Facebook and the emails I have received regarding my absence from all of you. It really means a lot to me and gives me a sense of responsibility to keep posting regularly.

So better late than never. I thought of celebrating the birthday of my blog with all my favorite dishes. May be bake a cake later this weekend. But for now here is one of my favorite chaat dishes, to which I can never say no to. Sev Puri!!!

Ingredients –

Left over chapattis – 2 -3
Onion (finely chopped) – ½ cup
Tomato (finely chopped) – ½  cup
Boiled potato (peeled & mashed) – 1 cup
Tamarind / Imli – ¼ cup
Dates / Khajur – ¼ cup
Mint leaves/ Pudina – 3 tablespoons
Coriander springs – 3 tablespoons
Green chili – 2
Salt – to taste
Thin Sev – ½ cup
Coriander leaves (chopped) – to garnish

Procedure –

• Using a cookie cutter or a small bowl with sharp edges cut the left over chapatti into 3 centimeter (maximum) diameter circle (puris).
• Roast these circles on a tava (skillet) or in an oven until they are crispy.
• Date and tamarind chutney - Deseed the dates and tamarind. Cook both together in a pressure cooker and once cooled grind it to make a fine paste.
• Mint coriander chutney - Grind the mint leaves, coriander leaves, salt and green chilies with some water to make a fine paste.
• In a big plate place all the roasted puris. On each puri place some mashed potato, chopped tomato and finely chopped onion.
• Now over this add little bit of each chutney.
• Finally sprinkle thin sev and garnish with chopped coriander.

Tips –

You could get the ready made puris from the market.
Increase or decrease the quantity of mint chutney and date and tamarind chutney according to the desired hotness and sweet and tangy taste respectively.
You may also deep fry the puris instead of roasting.

Aloo paratha is one the dishes I cant get enough of. Its one of the favorite dishes of everyone I know and I am sure you will agree too. No one can resist this. I am quite surprised that I did not post this yet. How could I ????????? Well, better late than never. So here it is. An awesome dish from great Punjabi cuisine. My favorite Aloo da paratha…..Sending this to Only Kid’s Delight by Pari of Foodelicious.

Aloo Paratha

Ingredients –

For the filling –

Boiled potatoes – 3 large
Ginger – ½ inch
Garlic – 3-4 cloves
Green chilies – 2
Coriander springs – ¼ cup
Turmeric – ¼ teaspoon
Salt – according to taste
Cooking oil – to smear

For the outer dough –
Wheat flour – 2 cups
Salt – ¼ teaspoon
Oil – 2-3 teaspoons
Water – ¾ cup

Procedure –

• Prepare the chapatti dough by mixing the dough ingredients. Keep aside.
• Grind the ginger, garlic, green chilies and coriander springs together.
• Peel the boiled potatoes and mash them. Mix the grounded ginger garlic paste. Add the salt, turmeric and mix well.
• Heat a tava on a medium heat.
• Divide the dough and the filling in equal parts.
• Roll out the dough ball in to small disk and fill in the filling ball into it and enclose the dough disc around it. See to it that all the filling is covered with the dough disc.
• Now gently flatten this stuffed ball with a rolling pin. Use dry flour when necessary. It should not be too thin.
• Place the rolled parathas on the hot tava and smear some oil along the sides of the paratha. Cook from both the sides until its golden brown in color.
• Serve with curds, pickle and with a blob of butter.

Tips –

You may also add ½ cup finely chopped onion in the filling batter.

As a child, food was something I never gave importance to. I ate so that I can live. But growing old teaches us a lot of things, doesn’t it? Now on any given day I have given a major part of my time to plan for what to cook. Now I live to eat (a little exaggerated, but true!)

Like every Indian family, my culinary skills are purely inherited from my mom and grandmom. After marriage, I have learnt a good deal of cooking from my MIL too. So to me, my mom, MIL and my grandmom are the greatest cooks in this world.

Today I have all the reasons to be excited, because this is my first guest post. I have been in Blog hibernation for sometime now due to health reasons. But I do hope I’ll be back to blogging soon, so this guest post might as well be the ice-breaker.

Coming to the recipe, being a Guest post, I knew that the recipe can’t be intimidatingly complex, at the time it should be something special. So this was the only recipe that came to my mind. This is one of my mom’s signature recipes with little changes that only enhance the taste and flavor. Over to our recipe!

Vegetable Kurma (For Rotis)

What we need:

2 cups of Mixed vegetables
(I normally use Cubed Potatoes, Peas, Diced Carrot, Cauliflower florets, Cut Beans. Don’t mind if one ore two of these are missing, you can increase the portion of other veggies)

1 cup of a special vegetable
(This vegetable can be Lauki (Bottle Gourd/Dhoodi/Sorakai) or Chayote (Chow chow) or Squash or Pumpkin) and it acts as the flavor enhancer. So please don’t omit this one. I read this tip in a blog, but can’t remember where

Onion – 1, medium sized, sliced
Green chillies – 2 to 3, slit vertically
Garlic – 2 to 3 pods, slivered
Salt - to taste
Turmeric powder – a pinch (Optional)
Water – as needed
Oil – 3 tbsp
Curry leaves – a few
Coriander, chopped – a tbsp

To Grind:

Coconut (fresh/frozen) – 3 tbsp
Roasted gram/Dhalia – 2 tbsp
Cinnamom – 1 small piece
Cloves – 2 to 3
Cumin (Jeera) – 1 tbsp

How to do:

1. Make a smooth paste of the ingredients under ‘To Grind’ with little water.
2. Heat oil in a kadai, and add the sliced onions, garlic and green chillies. Add salt, (turmeric powder, if you are using) and fry.
3. When the onions start to turn pink, add all the vegetables along with a cup of water. Cover with a lid and let them cook on medium-high for 10 to 15 minutes or until done.
Alternatively, you can also cook them in a microwave before hand and add.
4. Once the vegetables are tender, add the ground coconut paste and give a good mix.
5. Let the gravy come to a boil, check the seasoning and remove from flame.

Garnish with curry leaves and coriander and Serve with Rotis.

Tomorrow is Wednesday and our guest blogger is Rohini. We all lovingly call her Ro.

Ro and I share some common interests. Needless to say cooking, but in addition to it, German language and photography. Oh how could I forget, we both are Saggiatarians. (We both have birthdays and anniversary in December yeay..)

A software engineer turned into a real great home maker. She is a big foodie who doesn’t care about her weight and lovesss to eat a lot. ( I wish I could say that about the weight..:P) She is an excellent mehendi artist. Love her beautiful creations. Be it food or mehendi designs.

Ro is going to share an amazingly tasty and a finger licking recipe tomorrow. So do no forget to drop in.

Please welcome our today’s guest blogger “Chitra” from abcdsofcooking.blogspot.com

For her introduction go here

As promised please go here to see her first Supper club get together

Alright Chitra take it away….

I often daydream about having my own food cart and thinking about what I would serve in it. This recipe is definitely it. It has been a favorite of mine for many years. I like to revisit it often because there are so many variations to it, depending on what I have on hand. The staple ingredients though are tofu, whole wheat pita, hummus, yogurt. It basically consists of making the tofu and one or two vegetables (I really have liked green pepper and onion in the past) into a North Indian curry. Then I make a hummus sauce with yogurt and some kind of Indian pickle (mango and tomato are my favs) or chutney (mint and coriander are good ones). If I feel like it too sometimes I will chop tomato or cucumber small and throw it in too.

Ingredients:
Whole wheat pita
Tofu/Cabbage Curry
3 1/2 tablespoons veg/canola oil
3/4 block of extra firm tofu small cubes
1/2 cabbage head chopped (I used 1/4 b/c mine was literally larger than my head)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
pinch of asofoetida (hing)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 teaspoons coriander powder
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/3 teaspoon chili powder
salt to your liking
cilantro
lemon juice – optional
Hummus sauce
2 tablespoons hummus (Sabre brand I like the best)
1/2 tablespoon yogurt (I heart Fage!)
few drops of sauce from mango pickle
(this is where you can experiment with putting in chutney or other pickle sauces if you like it spicy)
warm water is optional if you want to thin it out a bit

Method:
In a non stick pan, put in 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of oil under a low/med flame and throw in small cubes of tofu. Once, the tofu gets cooking, I like to lower the heat a bit. I like to cook the tofu until it is fried on the outside. Every few minutes go back to the pan and just turn the tofu over so that it gets evenly cooked. This may take about 15-20 minutes. Once cooked to your liking, turn off the heat.

In another frying pan, put in 2 tablespoons of oil under a medium flame. When hot, put in the cumin seeds and a pinch of the asofoetida (hing). Shake the pan a bit so the two mingle. When the cumin seed starts to brown a bit, put in all of the spices. Mix them up a bit so that they start to become fragrant but not burn. Then throw in the cabbage and mix very well. Cover the cabbage and cook for about 5 minutes. At this point, throw in the tofu and salt to your liking and mix well and cover again for another 5 minutes until cabbage is tender.

Add chopped cilantro and optional, you can add some lemon juice as well.

For the hummus sauce, combine hummus and yogurt and mix well. Then add in your pickle sauce or chutney, whichever you prefer. I added in some mango pickle sauce even though I had a sore throat but I just love it. You can add some warm water if you want a thinner sauce or more yogurt if you want it to be more sour. If I have sauce leftover, I just put it on the side for extra dipping.

I heat the pita in the oven until the outside is a bit hardened but not too crispy. Cut the pita in half.

For assembly, with a spoon, take the hummus sauce and put it all over the inside of the pita half. (Be careful not to burn yourself as the inside of the pita is full of trapped steam). Fill the pita with the curry and then you can put a little sauce on top. If you decide to put in some tomato and cucumber, I usually like to layer a little bit of curry, sauce, veggies and sauce on top.

I usually have a lot of leftovers so you can eat it again the next day and put it together really fast as if you are making street food for real!

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Wow that was a cool recipe. I am sure very one has gone through the supper link as well. If not go here

Thanks Chitra for taking out time and doing this guest post.

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If you wish to have yourself featured as a guest blogger send me an email. It can contain anything you wish to put in and share with all of us (not necessarily cooking related) your experiences in life, funny moments, etc. You can have a look at the earlier guest posts to have an idea.

Please email me your entries at – deepa[dot]godbole[at]gmail[dot]com (please replace the symbols where necessary)

Pass this message to everyone who wants to be a part of this. I am sure there must be lot of people who would love to share loads from the cooking world and about them, with all of us. Only then we can have this Guest blog series go on and extend it’s duration.

We are back on one of my favorite days . Here we get to know our tomorrow’s guest blogger. So, without wasting anymore time…tomorrow’s guest blogger is “Chitra”

Chitra’s says her blog captures her culinary point of view as an Indian girl born and brought up in the US. You will find traditional recipes, some are re-invented (exactly as she says), which shows her interest in various kinds of cuisines such as Mexican, Thai, Japanese, Middle Eastern, etc. There are also others that we can find which she has gathered from her travels across various places such as Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Japan, Argentina, etc. (what’s left ). She has always loved cooking and is now her passion and obsession. Her mom is her teaher in cooking and enjoys a lot of cooking vegetarian North Indian food as her father is form Allahabad, India and South Indian food from her mom.

She lives in Brooklyn and  is more involved in community food organizations. She belongs to CSA ( community supported agriculture ) where she receive fruits and veggies straight from the farm, (woah ! way to go).  She is also a volunteer for Slow Food, an organization that believes in traditional, slow cooking methods for preparing foods and am involved with edible school gardens and a community garden in my neighborhood. (Too good girl).

It’s an amazing thing to know that recently she started a Ssupper club, she says it’s basically a restaurant in a home, with her friend Sabra to bring people together and enjoy a home-cooked meal. (Awesome idea). The menu was a blend of Indian and Mexican cuisine and we have plans to expand the event to include music, art and comedy.

Wow it’s amazing to read so much about you. So people am sure you all are excited to come back tomorrow to enjoy a very tasty recipe she is going to share with us. I will definitely be posting a link to her Supper club get-together. Make sure you come back everyone !!!

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If you wish to have yourself featured as a guest blogger send me an email. It can contain anything you wish to put in and share with all of us (not necessarily cooking related) your experiences in life, funny moments, etc. You can have a look at the earlier guest posts to have an idea.

Please email me your entries at – deepa[dot]godbole[at]gmail[dot]com (please replace the symbols where necessary)

Pass this message to everyone who wants to be a part of this. I am sure there must be lot of people who would love to share loads from the cooking world and about them, with all of us.

I am sure many of us know this recipe. Most of the times we discard recipes, thinking, these are soooo simple, everybody knows about it. But sometimes simple recipes come to the rescue when one has unexpected guests or some instant cravings for some dishes. This one falls in that category. Easy to make recipe with simple ingredients.

So here it is. This recipe, I guess, is passed on to me by my mother, my aunts and I suppose same goes with many of us. Try it out.

Ingredients –

Desiccated coconut – 4 ½  cups
Condensed milk – 400 ml
Cardamom powder – 2 –3 teaspoons

Procedure -

• In a pan mix the condensed milk and desiccated coconut.
• On medium flame, stirring continuously, cook the mixture till it starts drying from the sides of the pan.
• Cool it down, sprinkle the cardamom powder and shape them in to pedas or laddoo shape.
• Roll or Sprinkle some coconut over the pedas or laddoos.

Tips –

Always add cardamom powder after the mixture is cooled down. This keeps the aroma of the cardamom imtact.

Todays guest blogger is Kanchan from Personal Tadka. (Personally i like the name Kitchen Gossip. Had voted for that too..)

For her introduction check here.

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When Deepa mentioned about Guest Post couple of months ago, I jumped with joy with “WOW I can do a guest post; Life is Great!!” (Yeah such petty small things about my blog give me pride). So Special Thanks to Deepa for this lovely opportunity.It took me two months to decide what can qualify for a guest post.

I and Deepa belong to same culinary culture – Maharastrian cuisine, so wanted to post something different yet reliable – can’t dare experimenting for my first guest post. So other Indian cuisine that I’ve been familiar for more than a year –is Marwadi cuisine. Me and The Foodie belong to this nuclear family structure, so my one and only trustworthy source of inspiration for Marwadi recipes is The Foodie himself (!!!) and yeah obviously I can’t allow him to steal the thunder for my First Guest Post  (I’m cruel that way )

So I preferred backing on this wonderful book by Sanjeev Kapoor on Marwadi cooking. Whoever has eaten even a single dish know the basic fact of Marwadis – no food is completed without whole lot of Oil or Ghee – I went for the Oil and this Deep Fried Recipe – . It’s supposed to be starter-appetizer but it’s more than filling in itself.

Mirchi Bhajiya

You Need:

• Large Chillies\ Long Pepper:  around 6
• Potatoes: 2 large- Boiled and Mashed
• Gram Flour: 1 cup
• Baking Powder: pinch
• Asafoetida: pinch
• Red Chilli Powder: 1 tsp
• Salt to tase
• Oil: Deep Frying + 1 tbsp
• Mustard Seeds: ½ tsp
• Garlic: 4-5 cloves
• Turmeric Pwder: ½ tsp

You Do:

1. Mix the stuffs in Blue with about 1 cup of water to make a smooth batter. Set aside for ten minutes.
2. Filling- Heat 1tsp of Oil – add mustard seeds follow with garlic. Let them splutter till fragrant.
3. Add turmeric powder + mashed potatoes + salt – Mix well. Remove from heat and let it cool.
4. Divide into 6 equal parts and stuff each chilli with a portion of filling.
5. Heat oil in Kadai for frying. Dip the chillies in the batter and deep fry till golden and crisp.

Serve Hot!!

Happy Cooking and Posting about it !!

Thanks Deepa !! Loved jotting this, looking forward for the post

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Thanks so much Kanchan for this very very tasty snack, perfect to go for this weather. Sorry for the delay again.

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If you wish to have yourself featured as a guest blogger send me an email. It can contain anything you wish to put in and share with all of us (not necessarily cooking related) your experiences in life, funny moments, etc. You can have a look at the earlier guest posts to have an idea.

Please email me your entries at – deepa[dot]godbole[at]gmail[dot]com (please replace the symbols where necessary)

New posts are welcome. Pass on the word to everyone who wants to be a part of this guest blog series.

Before I introduce tomorrow’s blogger my sincere apologies for taking a break from this. I had assured you that Guest blogging will not get affected but unfortunately I had hardly any time in the later days to keep the guest blog on. But now I am back with a bang. My apologies to our tomorrow’s guest blogger Kanchan as well for delaying her guest blog and the ones later to her’s.

Alright here we go,

Kanchan, she is a pakka Mumbaitie (me too!!) and a IT professional. Photography has been her first loved hobby. After her wedding she shifted to Pune and a new hobby was born – trying out various recipes and her favorite taste bud was her husband. Soon she started noting all the recipes down and her blog was born. She is going to share an awesome dish from the Marwadi cuisine (yummm!!)  perfect timming to sit and savour during the rains. So be sure you come back tomorrow and have a wonderful time reading and then cooking the recipe she will share with us.

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If you wish to have yourself featured as a guest blogger send me an email. It can contain anything you wish to put in and share with all of us (not necessarily cooking related) your experiences in life, funny moments, etc. You can have a look at the earlier guest posts to have an idea.

Please email me your entries at – deepa[dot]godbole[at]gmail[dot]com (please replace the symbols where necessary)

New posts are welcome. Pass on the word to everyone who wants to be a part of this guest blog series.

There are certain reasons why am I smiling from ear to ear. .  Some of the most important reasons would be that

I am back (wooooooohoooo)

My results came out amazing

And the fantastic war that we won against thieves

Also, now that I am back it cannot go without a recipe post

Yes, people I am back. I took a great big break of around 2 months. I am so happy to be back. I am very thankful to every one of my blogger friends for the support that I had received since I have not been around. I hope that love and comments continue. I did try my best to keep the Guest blogger on, but due to time constraints and exams over my head I missed some posts. I will make sure that I make up for this and I shall start guest posts right from the coming Tuesday. Extremely sorry for missing this.

Now, to a super news – my resultsssssssssssssssssss. I still get goose bumps when it comes to exam dates and results. Such was my condition last week. I was really tensed for the results of my German level which were recently announced.

What, oh I missed to mention the result (height of shamelessness hhihiihiihi)

I stood First in my classs, whoooooooohooooooo. It’s such an awesome feeling that I can’t express. I felt as a kid would feel, looking at the results and felt like flying high up above. I am waiting for the next term to start.

Now, the third and the amazing thing. Some days back Madhuri from Cook- Curry Nook sent me a message regarding a certain (I don’t want to give any promotions to them hence not mentioning their website or other links) FB group had copied a photograph of mine from the post Bread Upma. Madhuri has done an amazing job fighting with them all the way for couple of days. Ignoring her health due to which she could not sit at the computer for a long time she kept fighting with them. Finally, happiness and rewards. Their facebook page and their identities are banned and we won.

For some amazing feedback and fight, support on this please visit the following link on Madhuri’s facebook page.

I request all of you to use the following logo on your website and join the cause against theft, plagiarism.

The following award is for our dear blogger Madhuri for her amazing awareness and her fight for the cause. Cheers Madhuri, use the following logo on your website for a job well done. If you know anyone who has done such a thing for this cause, or you have yourself, please send me some information and details so I can create a badge for you with your name and post it across with you great deed

Also I want to pass this message across that you watermark all your work, put copyright information on your website. Some steps can be taken to avoid theft for sure.

Now to celebrate this I made cookies. Adapted the recipe from Rachel Allen. Dipped some in dark chocolate sauce. So enjoy guys and stay alert!!

Now the badge of honour and a badge to join the cause. Please display this on your blog to show the world that we appreciate originality and can’t tolerate thieving.

Madhuri this is for you..Thanks so much!!