PRACTICALLYPOSSIBLE

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

megkad — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:37:12 +0000

I hoped this year would be a white christmas and guess what it is actually is !! So exciting, so cool, here’s wishing all Happy Christmas and great holidays!

Shiny disco balls!!

megkad — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:31:14 +0000

Yes when you eat even one of these shiny disco balls you will need to do at least one hour of disco to get rid of the calories loaded into these shiny little ragi ladus. They are recommended for only hyper active kids or adults not for those who want to sit on their posterior all day LOL. They are packed with wholesome grains and pulses not to mention the copious amount of ghee that goes into making these. They are for the daring lot.

Here’s what you need:

1c Ragi Flour roasted

1c whole wheat flour roasted

1c mung dal flour roasted

0.5 c urad dal flour roasted

3c powdered sugar

2-3c ghee

Nuts raisins etc

Mix the roasted flours and add a cup of ghee till they are just about mixed. Microwave for 4 mins on medium remove mix again microwave for 4 mins then add the remaining ghee, microwave for 4 mins. Now add sugar, nuts raisins etc and adjust the sweetness. You will need to check if more ghee is needed if the mixture is still powdery and does not come together as a ball. Again microwave in 4 mins spurts and keep adding ghee till you can form a nice ball of ladu. In total they should take about 35-45 mins in the microwave. Store them after they harden or else they will stick to each other.

Tip: To make methi laddu for lactating mothers just follow the same recipe and add ¾ c of methi powder roasted in ghee. Also you can add some fried edible gum or “gond” “dink” to make them more nutritious.

Su(k)cess ……….. at last!!

megkad — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:36:57 +0000

There is always a time in school college life where a certain subject sucks so much that passing with flying colors is impossible and the only thing that can happen is the color in your cheeks drains out at the thought of writing a paper and passing this certain subject. How do you feel when at last you pass/clear the KT for this subject. Yess !! I feel just like that since this particular Diwali snack called Bhajani Chakali/murukku gave me the creeps everytime.

It really sucks to make it and making the correct “bhajani” ie a mixture of roasted flours of different kinds, kneading it at the right temperature, making the chakli and then frying it is a long pain in the a#** process. But since i love this so much i had to get it at least once right ………I am not sure if Ill make it again since we ate all the chakali up even before Diwali arrived. But I am happy that after so many years of disastrous results I finally managed to dole out a decent chakali. Mind you this is not the south indian udipi style chakli but a Maharashtrian one. Follow the recipe here and then here enjoy with a hot cup of tea………..heavenly!

HAPPY DIWALI!!

megkad — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:33:25 +0000

I am busy busy busy making faral(sweet and savoury dishes for Diwali) and getting geared up for laxmi pooja. Will post all recipes together. Have a great Diwali and eat well!

Multipurpose!

megkad — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:03:01 +0000

Almost everything I cook has to be multipurpose. I have a good habit of cooking extra and freezing. Most common are fried onions, onion tomato paste, coconut onion paste, all kind of pesto’s, heavy cream sauces you name it. This really helps always whether you are trying to save time like most people or just being lazy like me. Look at the basil/parsley pesto i made for the pizza.

Day 1: pizza

Day2: Chip dip

Day3: Spaghetti

Day4: bread sandwich spread

Now that is some multitasking

Making a fool………..of others not yourself

megkad — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:09:16 +0000

Fried patra/aluwadi

Someone has to really try this to believe. Of course you must be aware of this extremely tasty and crave worthy dish called “patra” or “aluwadi” in marathi ie a regional language in west of India. You need something called leaves of the Taro plant (Colocasia esculenta) as per wikipedia. Anyway I call them leaves for alu wadi. Sometime back i read about making alu wadi with chard leaves but dont remember where. I didnt know what chard was then at the Whole foods mkt I saw that there were two beautiful varieties one colorful rainbow chard and other green chard. I tried to play safe and use the green one. If you have already made these using the Taro leaves then chard will give you a hard time it was difficult to get the paste to stick them the leaves donot stick and I had a hard time tying the thread to keep the log together.

steamed log cut into wadis

Heres the recipe. You cant even guess that it is not alu leaves the wadi is made of nearly fooled DH.

for the paste

1c gram flour-besan

1tsp chilli powder

.5 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp ajwain- caraway seeds

salt to taste

sugar to taste

1 tbsp juice of tamarind + kokum or only tamarind will do

a big bunch of chard leaves

Mix everything adding very little water slowly just to make a sticky paste. Arrange the chard leaves such that you have two leaves overlapping each other, use the paste to stick them. now smear some paste on both the leaves and stick the next two leaves on them. do this till all leaves are used up. now roll the stack of leaves and make a log or at least try to make one . you need another person to tie the log all around with a twine. steam the log for 5 mins in the microwave turn and cook another 3 mins. you will have to check by inserting a toothpick it should come clean. cool, cut, fry, enjoy.

recipe source: mommy

Baap of all Pizzas

megkad — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:37:27 +0000

baap re baap

LOL I call this as only i know how many pounds of cheese has gone into making this one. No seriously i did use plenty plenty cheese for this one but not at all equal to the cheese mountain at the pizza shop. So i can safely call this healthy Also unlike all mozarella i prefer the 3 cheese blend it is more satisfying as i really donot like mozerella all that much. Sometimes i do use the famous St Louis provel cheese and then the pizza is heavenly just look at it. All i did id bought some ready made pizza base i prefer thin crust topped it with a zesty basil, parsley pesto and spinach, tomato, olives some chicken and look what i got! i was polished off in 20 mins and cheaper than pizzeria.

recipe:

ready made thin crust

cut veggies of your choice i use tomato, spinach, onions, olives

cooked meat i use chicken boneless

cheese shredded

dried spices parsley, oregano, basil

for the pesto:

parsley/basil 1 c packed

2-3 cloves garlic

.5 c walnut/almonds

1 c parmesan

.5 c olive oil

salt

blend all of this together except the oil. keep running the blender then add oil gradually until smooth you may add more oil or cheese. spread this pesto on the pizza base add veggies meat and top with cheese spices. bake at 450F for 6 mins or until cheese is brown.

recipe source: adapted from food network barefoot contessa

Dusshera and the good and the evil

megkad — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:18:14 +0000

DASARA POOJA

Since coming to the USA, I have become more aware about Indian festivals ie how to actually do something worthwhile. No I used to blindly celebrate them in India but come on, we had so many festivals right there every month celebrating the vast diversity which we proud our self on. I am very much aware that this is a festival to celebrate the triumph of good against evil. This is a late post as I am already looking forward for Diwali and my DS for Halloween. He told me its the same thing hmmm.

Srikhand, chapati, rice, red chori usal

We had a simple dinner though as it was a working day. I had ambitious plans for making srikhand puri but the puri got quickly substituted with chapati. Good enuff right? But we definetly enjoyed DS’s vidyarambh pooja and DH worshipped his Oracle books. So much devotion I could fall right at the feet ……….of these software books.

Shree Ganesh!

megkad — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:11:22 +0000

Only me can do this, yes, first I create a blog into blogger and try to move it to wordpress. All ok all done fine. But hey, Can I be more smart ? Yes “practically possible”, I go and delete the blogger pictures to make some space and then woosh all I have are recipes/posts with no pictures on them. Soo funny. On this funny note I start my first post right after I have celebrated my favourite festival “GANESH CHATURTHI”.

I really miss the celebrations in my native rainy Konkan. Loud bhajans, lotsa cooking, patole, modak, soojee, and whatever I can think of. I miss the muddy paths from where Ganpati would arrive and the women of the household hustle bustle with activity welcoming the Ganpati with aartis and getting ready for the tremendous cooking to feed us ravenous kids and elders alike. As everyone knows Modak are the gods favourite sweet and are a sweet dumpling made mostly of rice covering filled with jaggery and coconut. The name Modak I guess refers to the pear shape of the dumpling so they can be made from anything else so long as the shape remains same.

I started making modak along with my momy just to help but soon started liking the process a lot. I did chip in after marriage with my mom-in-law but the real deal was after I tried it all by myself, it was a different beast all together. I could never get them right. Not that I get them right now with so much practice, so for this chaturthi I tried a microwave kalakand recipe which I later moulded into modaks. Just cool the kalakand and shape them into modaks. To create the crevices all arount the pear shaped modak just press a knife into it. There you have beautiful modaks to be devoured by Ganpati himself ( or your family). However before I got the naivedya ready DS popped one into his mouth hmm anyway children are god so I guess Ganpati will be OK with this

I made the usual staples for naivedya, varan-bhat- toop (levtil-rice-clarified butter), batata bhaji (spiced boiled potato), chavli usal (black eyed peas preparation) and of course modak.

kalakand modak

Naivedya for home

Ganpati bappa morya, pudhchya varshi lavkar ya ( devotees praying for the vacation to come soon next year so that they get to meet their favourite god:)