THALI WITH FISH ...

Hello friends

Today the Thali which I share with you is a fusion and shows how diverse our culture and food habits are

The menu is…

Chole or chickpea curry which is a north Indian dish which is very commonly cooked all over India

Karela or bitter gourd stir fried with a little spicy masala powder

Surmai and prawn fry . Here fish is fried in a typical Gaon way by applying chilli, haldi, garlic paste got together with a little tamarind water.

you have to then shallow fry the fish.

Roti, I had also made Rice and dal which is not in the picture as I serve it when the Rotis are eaten. Like Rice is the second course in the main course..

MY DAILY MEALS

Hi 

Friends, 

It’s been a very long time since we have communicated with each other. I used to take a lot of pictures and make lots of dishes to share with you and it so happened that my regular camera with which I was comfortable with ,would not work as expected and that put me a little back my regular posting of recipes.

But it’s been a long time and I really miss blogging a lot and so I have decided that I will be sharing my daily meals which I click with my mobile.

I can also share recipes with you if request them in the comments section.

 I try my best to click pictures of my day to day meals regularly so that it’s of help to those who are confused as to what to cook for the day. I make a complete whole meal for lunch which includes vegetables and fish too.Off course you won’t find fish or chicken very often but I try to make something non-veg at least twice a week.

 My menu is always made taking into consideration the type of food I make i.e. I make a light vegetable if I make a spicy fish curry, or if I make plain non- spicy dal I will always make a nice spicy vegetable and fry something to go with it. So I hope that those of you who are looking out for combinations while cooking their meals will be benefited.

Off course I will be also adding some new recipes as and when I can , But I do not know how good the pictures will be , I will wait for all my friends to comment and let me know if you would like me to continue as I have planned.

Here is the Thali I would like to share with you…

This is a Thali which can be commonly seen in a Goan home. Probably only one veg and fish curry is done but I love my salads and so try to incorporate salads whenever possible.

The menu is

Mackerel fish curry with ginger

Bhendi or okra in coconut gravy..This is a very light and non-spicy curry with goes very well with this hot and sour fish curry

Carrot koshambir or salad.. Here I have finely chopped carrots and tempered it like a simple vegetable. My favorite I love its sweet and tangy taste

Cucumber

Roti or chapatti

Rice which is never in my picture as I serve it after the chapatti is eaten , But rice is always eaten for lunch with the fish curry or dal or curd .

Try this combination its really yum...

FOOD COMBINATIONS...

I always wanted to know  more about food combinations that work universally in India or in our homes.

We follow many religious festivals, some just festivals and sometimes our own family celebrations, but each one of us have certain food combinations which work well with each other and have been going on in the family for years..

Lets share with each other what are those combination which are awesome together and which we enjoy in our family.. 

In earlier days there were lots of fasting or traditional days that ladies followed and which comes with a set menu, which was relentlessly followed and continued through generations.

These traditional menus are fast dwindling and fading off..so to keep these alive lets discuss what each one follows and if not traditional do you have some food combinations that work in your home which you will like to share.

Here are a few which I follow.. This will hopefully increase once I read your comments.

1. VARAN-BHAT ,SHRIKHAND AND PHODI (potato fritters)

2.  PARATHA AND NICE HOT NESCAFE.

3. SABUDANA KHICHDI IS ALWAYS MADE ON GOOD DAYS FOR          BREAKFAST (not necessarily for a fasting day) WITH TEA.

4. SABUDANA WADA and GULAB JAMUN - special days (for my son) .

5. DAHI –WADA AND SOME CHAT ITEM -My birthday.

I was at our cousins place where I loved the combination of sabudana khichdi with ukadeche modak  going to have that once.

My sister in laws mom always has pulao with Puran poli for dinner (i.e Puran poli is always combined with pulao for a meal)

Some people enjoy Puran poli with katachi amti i.e dal made with the water leftover after cooking channa dal for the Puran poli.

Share your ideas with me and we can all follow a new tradition.

WATERMELON.....

I just love this fruit and I can consume even an whole fruit without any problem...

Last weekend we were at   DAHANU   a small beach town about 2 hours drive from Mumbai....

While driving back I saw these awesome fruits in piles along the road side and there was nothing that could stop me from having a bite..

I had posted about this earlier in 2011 .. But let me tell you that a Watermelon is a great dish when you have a nice spicy meal keep it at the table with a little salt and chaat masala sprinkled on it.. It refreshes you instantly.

Watermelon is one of the most refreshing, thirst quenching fruit available year round now even in India.

 

Watermelon consists of 92% water and 8% sugar.
Watermelons are an excellent source of several vitamins: vitamin A, which helps maintain eye health and is an antioxidant; vitamin C, which helps strengthen immunity, heal wounds, prevent cell damage, promote healthy teeth and gums; and vitamin B6, which helps brain function and helps convert protein to energy.
 

It has the highest concentrations of lycopene of any fresh fruit or vegetable.
so that dayI purchased one whole for later use and ate a plate full of freshly cut fruit that you see above.

RUSTIC MEAL...

I had this for lunch yesterday .. It was a nice traditional rustic meal .
This type of meal is normally seen in village homes where Bhakri is made instead of roti...
The meal on the plate is...

CAULIFLOWER VEGETABLE
WHITE VATANA USAL OR CURRY
NACHNI BHAKRI 
UKADICHE MODAK (white dumpling made with rice flour and stuffed with a sweet mixture of coconut and jaggery)
This is a festival sweet which is done only on special occasions.

FESTIVE THALI...

This is the meal that was cooked on  Ganesha Janma i.e Birthdate of Lord Ganesha. We are ardent followers of Siddhivinayak and with my parents being here for a couple of days I though of making or cooking a complete vegeterian meal which is  normally made during the first day of Ganesh Chaturti.

Let me share with you what is the normal festive day menu at our home.

This meal comprises of ...

In the center : Mungachyo gathi or whole moong bean curry 

Moong beans which are sprouted for 24 hours and there covering removed..( I dont like to remove the cover as its unnecessary loss of fiber but thats how it is traditionally done and I do so for special occasions but when I do it on normal days I just retain the cover and hence have to soak for about 8 hours and keep for another couple of hours , after being washed and rinsed thoroughly. you can see tiny sprouts come up which is what we are looking for.)

cauliflower vegetable with potato sticks :

This is a simple vegetable made by tempering both cauliflower and potatoes with Mustard seeds, cumin seeds, hing, green chillies and curry leaves add salt, pinch of sugar and coriander leaves to garnish. In Goa it is garnished with finely grated coconut too.
Another option to this vegetable is french beans made in a similar fashion.

Grated carrot salad:

Grated carrot with tempering and garnished with coriander and freshly grated coconut.

Patolio :

Special sweet made with a covering of rice flour and stuffed with a mixture of freshly grated coconut, jaggery and cardamom.

Shrikhand :

Sweet made with hung curd to which sugar, saffron and cardamom powder is added.

Aloo wadi

rolls made with colocasia leaves and stuffed with spicy mixture of chickpea flour (this was store bought)

Puri

Deep fried wheat flour rotis..

Rice and yellow lentil dal are not in the picture .. The salad is sometimes made with curds .too.

DRUMSTICK CURRY.....

I love this curry in the dry or wet form..It is tasty in whatever form it is made..
Its my hubby's favorite and thats the reason I learnt to make it and now I love it too.. hehe..
Here is the recipe for you ...
Please tell me if you have any more recipes with drumsticks which you can share with all bloggers.. 

Ingredients:-

4 drumsticks cut into 2 inch long pieces

¾ cup grated coconut.

A small marble size ball of jaggery

Grind to paste :-

½ cup grated coconut.
turmeric powder – a pinch
chili powder – 1 tsp or according to taste
Salt to taste

Coriander seeds - 1 tsp

Whole Pepper-1/4 tsp

Whole Jeera-1/2 tsp

A little tamarind paste

small marble sized ball of Jaggery. 

Tempering :-

Oil

Mustard seeds

5-6 methi seeds

½ tsp Hing or asoefotida

Method:-

Cut drumsticks into finger's length pieces (2-1/2"). Remove some of the outer hard fibers of the sticks to expose the inner soft layer.

Boil the drumsticks in water with a little salt and turmeric until the drumstick is tender.

Grind together grated coconut, pepper, coriander seeds, salt, chili powder, turmeric powder, a little jaggery in a blender.

 Heat oil in a kadai mustard seeds, and let them splutter. Then add the hing and methi seeds stir (take care not to brown them or they turn bitter)add a little water to this baghar or tempering to prevent it from burning..

Boil the drumsticks in this water with a little salt and turmeric until the drumstick is tender.

Stir take care not to break the drumsticks as they are very tender at this stage.

To this add the ground paste and cook on a medium flame.

The consistency of the gravy entirely depends on your preference , it can be either thick and watery or dry (use less water while grinding).

 
 

Typical Daily food...

 

This is very typical plate that you will find whenever there is fish on the menu

On the plate there is

surmai or king fish fry

dal or ambat varan

matki usal

methi bhaji

DAILY MEAL SHARING....

When we blog we normally blog about a new dish prepared or something special that we do in our house....

But its not that everyday we make something special , most of the days its simple home cooked meal sometimes with a little twist and sometimes just a traditional meal which your mom makes or something that you are habituated in making...

Whenever someone invites me for lunch or dinner especially when its only me who is going I insist that they make dishes which are cooked at their home on daily basis and not something special . I feel the special dishes are always elaborate and good for parties and special occasions but the home food is what is healthy, tasty and has lots of simplicity and love in it and as its something that you cook regularly it comes out really really tasty.

I always feel that bloggers should come out and share with all of us the food that goes on their plate everyday and which is without any frills  " A SIMPLE PLATE OF HOME COOKED MEAL " so pure and heartwarming .

I am planning to share my day to day meals whenever possible as I cook three meals a day and they are all home-cooked and from scratch... please don't expect them to be beautifully laid out but they will be the way we eat everyday at home ...

I would love to hear from you if you agree to what I have written in this post and if you all would love to share my daily meal with me if not in person but virtually.

The above meal was made last week when my mother in law was here to spend a couple of days with us, normally when there is someone over for a meal I have more of fish in my plate , like you see on today's thali or plate I have two fish dishes one dry fish curry (its not dried fish but the gravy is less or dry ) or also called as fish sukha where I have used a small silver fish which we call as "verli" and I also have a fish curry made with surmai or king fish which is eaten with rice...

When I share my daily meal I will not write the recipes but will give them to you on demand.. so please ask for them if you want to try it out....

MENU FOR THE DAY.....

cabbage and green peas

verli sukha

surmai fish curry

rice

chapati

FOOD MADE FOR MY SISTER..

I made this on one of the days that my sister was here in India

There is much more that I cooked this was one of the simple menus for the day.. (she was with me for about a week) ..But being busy cooking and serving I did not take enough photos to share with you ..

But one of the days I did manage to take some photos and so here they are....

I love the colours on the dish they are so sunny and so good that you feel like just diving into the plate... or initially just looking at them...

 I made chicken do-pyaza or chicken with lots of onions and gravy which has a little cashew for thickness..

The tandoori chicken that you see in the picture is a restaurant takeaway...

A simple potato bhaji with onions and garlic..and a very very simple dal with the simplest of tempering

Rice(not in the picture ) and chapati...

This is a very quick meal which one can make in half hour .. I had to plan this meal as we had very little time to plan and eat and so I made the simplest things that i could bought something from out and made a yummy full meal in no time ( I love making such meals which combines your effort with a little outside help to create something that is tasty and yummy...}

KHAJE A FAMOUS GOAN SWEET*****

As everyone knows that Goa is known for its various Temples and there are a great no of them all beautiful and worth a visit... They have become tourists’ attraction in a course of time and at any time of the day you will witness buses full of tourists thronging these places of worship.
you can read about the temples and see pictures which I had posted in 2006 click here to see some of the famous temples in Goa which I regularly visit 

           ROAD LEADING TOWARD THE SHANTA-DURGA TEMPLE

 

VIEW OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE

The best part of these temples is that in spite of being so popular they have not become commercial and you can get time to stand in front of the idols and pray for as long as you want and not be pushed and jostled. They still retain their old world charm and you find the temples although well maintained retaining there old interiors and beauty which makes you feel like visiting them again and again , you can find the peace and quiet which is so difficult to find in a city..

     SHOP OUTSIDE NAGESHI TEMPLE SELLING KHAJE (that's what the board says)

Once in a year or probably once more there will be UTSAVS or celebrations, where there is lot  fun and religious ceremonies going on and the people from villages come here to spend some time in their  family’s place of worship…

You can find simple stalls being put up where they sell sweets, some trinkets are for sale, and some food items like kokum, Coconuts,Alsande (type of bean specially found in Goa ) , tamarind (dried) which are basic for Goan Saraswat cuisine…You can also find some stall selling traditional Goan ware…

 Here above you can see packets of khaje are being made and also you can see those orange ladoos which I find a bit hideous and did not try them out.(They are very good for taking pictures though don't they look great in these photos...

Here you will find the orange variety of khaje which just has food colour added to it , I normally purchase the one that you see in the picture below as thats the nature jaggery colour and no additional colour is added.

After all this talk I am coming to the point what this post is intended for KHAJE , this is  very famous sweet which is made Goa which you can find almost  at all  the stalls in these fairs  and they are my favorite I just love sweets that use Jaggery (read about it here)

I have never seen this sweet being made at home, nor have I actually seen it being made. I am giving you the ingredients which I am guessing by the taste. 

I feel that they are made with besan or chick pea flour which is kneaded with a little hot oil and salt then small sticks are made of it which are deep fried and when hot they are allowed to dip in hot jaggery solution which is heated before the dipping to make a thick jaggery solution by concentrating it to a one thread consistency and either ginger or cardamom powder is added to it..

This is sold once they are cold and solid they are never eaten hot...

I would love to know the exact recipe for this dish. If any of you friend blogger who are from Goa know the recipe please please write it to me so that I can share it with others

THANKS IN ADVANCE.

FOOD FOR THE DAY...

I spent a lovely weekend at Pune a place which is about 3 hours drive from the place I live (Mumbai).

Its Ganesh chaturti now , its a Hindu festival , for details you can read here.

I have my aunt staying in Pune whose new House I havent visited and so we felt that this was the best time for us  to visit her and also enjoy the festivities of that place.

This food thali was what I cooked the day before I left for Pune, I wanted it to be simple as I did not have much time as lots of things had to be done and things had to be packed.

Mumbai being a big metro city everything that we need to cook a certain type of meal is always available which is not so in Pune. So my aunt had her list of things that she would like to get and so I had a lot of shopping to be done and so...this above meal

white vatana tonak or wet curry vegetable 

varan or toovar dal

chapati, rice , curds etc....

I will make a separate post for the recipes as and when I get the time...

THALI

I have managed to click a lot of my day to day food thalis over the last couple of weeks and I would love to share them with you.

When I read blogs I always like to know more about what people have on their plates for their regular meals , For me regular everyday meals are not something that are rich in taste or something that are good to look at (although both the things are necessary  to make our plate a bit appetizing), But its the love with which a homemaker makes a complete meal for her family taking into account the nutritional value of the food is what is of utmost importance.

I am a homemaker and I cook 3 fresh meals everyday at home, and I know the efforts I put into planning the daily meal so as to balance the nutrition in each meal.So that there are the necessary components in every meal ( I know that its not always possible to have absolutely great and healthy meal when you plan a menu. as things which have a lot of oil are a bit tastier than the ones which are bland) . So I make such a dish probably once a fortnight or sometimes even a month , if I can slyly stretch it that much  shhhhh......

The above thali which you see is made for lunch , I have a wholesome thali for lunch for dinner I plan something that is filling but not in the thali form it can be something like dosa, paratha, or sandwiches. I am planning to share at least 4 thalis of that week with you ( I would not mind clicking pictures everyday but it so happens that many a times something is left for the last minute touch-up and enters my hubby from his work, to eat his hot afternoon meal, which he does not much appreciate waiting for , so in the rush bushhh of getting everything hot on his plate before he lands at the table after his quick wash I forget to get the camera out and click the photos and sometimes it so happens that i do click the photos but they are not appealing enough for you to look at sooo...

But I promise to be more regular BUT BUT... I WANT ALL THOSE READING THE POST TO PROMISE ME ONE THING .... PLEASE DO COMMENT , I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW YOUR REACTION... AND TO KNOW THAT YOU HAVE READ MY POST .. ONLY WHEN I GET PROMISES OF COMMENTING WILL I POST (just joking... but please do comment folks..) 

SORRY!!!!

I did not even mention the items on this thali .

Roasted corn salad (my favorite)

Beetroot pachadi 

Tomato sar

gourd bhaji or vegetable with onions and tomato

rice and chapati.

LOOKING AT THE PHOTOS I SEE THAT THE THALI IS QUITE COLORFUL DO YOU ALL AGREE????

THALI****

I love sharing my daily food photos with you , i think my regular readers know this well , you will see my other food  plates or thali as we call it , if you read my other food blog too.
It would be great if my  fellow bloggers would share what goes on their plate  too it would be fabulous a peek into  one's  home  without actually being there, wonderful!!!! 
The menu of the day was
bottle gourd and chana dal vegetable
french beans dry vegetable
papad with freshly grated coconut which was then crushed together
ambat varan or tuvar dal with lemon 
chapati and rice...not in the picture
If any of my friends who read this blog want to know a recipe please write to me on the comment section and i will put it up for you...

  
 This is a pure vegetarian thali.

FULL THALI....

It so happens that sometimes I just get into the mood of cooking and then recipes just go on popping in my mind and makes me do more than what is required .
My sons exams are going on , and hence I have lots of time to do nothing but cooking as any other activity which has some sound in it disturbs by darling son (hmmm...) what should a mom do? She cannot watch TV, cannot listen to songs, and cannot talk too much on the telephone. Our house is quite small and any of the above activities are sure to disturb a person during his crucial study hours. So the next best thing I could do was to cook, cook and cook and make my son and me happy or at least remain sane and not get bothered about the things I cannot do…
So here is the food thali which I made on one of the weekdays when my son had a gap between 2 papers where he could sit and relish this great vegetarian fare…

BUTTERMILK KADHI WITH COCONUT 

FRIED PAPAD KISMUR 

BEET RAITA

There is an art in planning an Indian meal , we should know some dishes which are quick to whip up tasty and good to look at too on a thali , one should try to have many colours on a thali and try not to make two dishes with the same colour so that it looks appealing and appetizing. 

 

 STIR-FRIED POTATO VEGETABLE (french fry style cuts)

Planning a thali is an art which you get to know with experience so go on practicing and making great food , combine one difficult and special dish with 2 simple and quick dishes you can always put up a good spread and make yourself and your guests happy .