BREAKFAST ON 21ST JULY...

As mentioned earlier its my husbands birthday today,

I started off the day by making a simple onion upma. i put in some boiled sweet corn as a variation in my hubby's plate and for my son who does not like sweet corn much and loves something 'chatpatta' with his upma i garnished his upma with besan shev and potato wafers.

I will be posting the recipe of the upma a little later.

LUNCH ON 21st JULY....

Today is my husband’s birthday. My husband loves sea food and if a meal has fish cooked in good proportions he is happy.

So my menu revolved around fish that I had purchased from our local market yesterday.
Whenever I cook an elaborate fishy menu, I always go for my fish purchase one day before the actual cooking, so that I can plan the dishes and start early in the morning.
Now being a rainy season, fish is not available as it should be and you find that most of the fish being sold is frozen. I managed to get some fresh promfret, prawns and kingfish or surmai.

The menu was

Masoorche tonak or masala masoor with prawns
Cabbage salad you will find the recipe here
Surmai and promfret fried
Chapatti
Rice
And varan or yellow Tovar dal.
And some cool dahi.

LUNCH ON 21st JULY....

Today is my husband’s birthday. My husband loves sea food and if a meal has fish cooked in good proportions he is happy.

So my menu revolved around fish that I had purchased from our local market yesterday.
Whenever I cook an elaborate fishy menu, I always go for my fish purchase one day before the actual cooking, so that I can plan the dishes and start early in the morning.
Now being a rainy season, fish is not available as it should be and you find that most of the fish being sold is frozen. I managed to get some fresh promfret, prawns and kingfish or surmai.

The menu was

Masoorche tonak or masala masoor with prawns
Cabbage salad: The recipe you will find here.
Surmai and promfret fried
Chapatti
Rice
And varan or yellow Tovar dal.
And some cool dahi.

MY SPICE DABBA.........

You will find this spice dabba or box in almost all houses in Maharashtra .This is a way of keeping all the spices used everyday for your daily meals in one place.


The basis of an Maharashtrian meal is the tempering, bagar or the phodni as it is called in Marathi.

We start with oil, when heated we add the mustard seeds and the cumin seeds which we allow to splutter, you should add the hing or asoefotida at this stage, then goes in the green chilies, turmeric powder and the curry leaves. This phodni is the basis of almost all the vegetables in a Maharashtrain cuisine.

Hence our spice dabba contains all these items , mustard seeds, cumin seeds, coriander seeds (used for masalas) , red chili powder,haldi or turmeric powder , dhania jeera (coriander-cumin powder), I have an additional Garam masala powder (made at home by me) .





MUSTARD SEEDS(turmeric and chilli powder too)

CUMIN SEEDS ( Dhania powder seen too)

CORIANDER SEEDS

TURMERIC or HALDI POWDER and MIRCHI or CHILLI POWDER

MIX DAL DOSA.....

Dosa is something that one can eat at any meal of the day , It can be done in various ways and they always [almost] come out right.
I love to experiment with Dosas and always on a look out for some good recipe or i make my own recipe which is quite convenient
The above dosa is a mix dal dosa
The recipe will follow.

Thanks for your overwhelming response!!!!!
Yesterday I was writing this post late into the night and was so sleepy that I just could not continue to write the recipe and hence I left it to be completed today.
So all my dear friends here is the recipe for you

INGREDIENTS

2 cups yellow Moong dal
1 cup masoor dal
½ cup chana dal
1 cup sour curd
½ cup Rava /suji or semolina
Green chilies finely chopped
Coriander finely chopped
1 tsp cumin seed powder
Salt to taste
Oil for frying the dosas

METHOD

Mix all the dals and soak overnight.
Grind them to a fine paste in the morning or after 8 hours of soaking.
Add the remaining ingredients to the dosa mixture.
Let it rest for about 1 hour.
Heat a griddle or Tawa.
When hot, reduce the flame and smear with a little oil.
Pour a ladle full of dosa batter to form a thick pancake like circle.
These dosas are best eaten thick.
When brown on one side, flip
Let it go brown on the other side too. You can smear it with a little home made ghee for extra flavour.
Serve with a hot bowl of sambhar and green coconut chutney.

CABBAGE SALAD......

The greatest plus point that cabbage has is that it cooks very fast and if you dont have the time or want to do something quick and fast ' CABBAGE SALAD' is just for you.


I will write about the recipe directly,
roughly chopp 400gms cabbage into big cubes as shown in the picture.
chopp one or two green chillies as per requirement.
keep 1/2 cup grated coconut.
put all the above things in a hot pan
put a spoon full of water along the sides, so that it does not stick to the sides.
let it cook covered ,when it is 3/4 cooked add coconut and 1/2 spoon sugar and salt.
The vegetable should be a bit crunchy .
garnish with lots of coconut.

Thali with sambhar, rice and cabbage salad . great simple meal.