FLOWERS IN GOA****

People staying in Goa are fortunate to have a garden or an extra space where they can grow plants , I saw these lovely flowers wherever I went and they were so pleasing to the eye .

I want to share some of the pictures i clicked of flowers grown at our relatives places (we went to more than 10 in 8 days)

Aren't they so pretty?

BACK FROM GOA****

BACK FROM A WEEK LONG VACATION TO GOA
I was in Goa the whole of last week and had a fabulous time there, lot of tasty and yummy food , time to relax and to catch up with relatives who we meet probably once a year.
I have taken lots and lots of  photographs to share with you and to show you  my native place  through my eyes....
The posts that will follow will have more of visual beauty and less of words , i hope you enjoy my efforts..

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...GOA THROUGH MY EYES...AND MY CAMERA LENS

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.

CURD NACHANI DOSA......

THIS IS THE MOST SIMPLE, DELICIOUS , HEALTHY AND INSTANT DOSA THAT ONE CAN MAKE . ITS GOOD FOR ANY SIZE OR SHAPE, AGE AND WEIGHT {HEhe....}

I am not joking its really fabulous , very easy to make I would love to have your feed back once you make it at home .

Ingredients and Method:

1 cup nachani or ragi atta or flour

1/2 cup curds diluted with a little water to make it dilute (you can use sour buttermilk too)

Curds used should not be very sweet they should have a hint of sourness to them.

1/2 cup rava or semolina

mix together and keep it for about 2 hours to ferment...

(here if you are in a hurry you can make the dosas instantly they will become a little harder than when you soak it for 2 hours).

Here's one tip if you feel lazy to make the chutney just add chopped onions,coriander leaves , jeera, and green chillies finely chopped or in a paste form to the batter  before you make the dosas...

so dosas are ready to be eaten , you can keep this batter in the fridge and eat when time permits (within 2 days)

EXAM TIME....

 My sons exams are still going on , only 2 most difficult papers yet to go with a big gap of 9 days between the papers.
Yesterday when i was passing by my sons study table i stopped in my tracks when i saw the colours that had formed on his Physics book.

I have taken the above picture because I was fascinated by the colours of the pens which were lying on my son’s physics text book...

I love colours and like to see how they brighten up a photo, the photo of a lone book with a single pen would have been very boring to look at but the pens ( I do not have any idea why they where lined on the book by my son , do I see some artistic quality in my son hummm...) change the mood and the picture so much...

Since i have started blogging i have changed my way of looking at things i love to see bright things around me i like to combine colours which suit each other and fall in the same spectrum 

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 .

EGG OMELETTE CURRY....

This was the simple last sunday lunch  , my son loves to have his egg curry with an omelette and not with boiled or any other form of egg .I make my egg curry in a typical goan masala style .

  INGREDIENTS

slice 2 onions finely

chopp two onions  fine

chop one tomato fine

1 cup fresh grated coconut.

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp  haldi powder

1/2 tsp garam masala powder or as per taste

a  little  i.e small ball of tamarind

METHOD

Take a kadai and fry the sliced onions till brown

put in the grated coconut and fry till they turn brown too...

Take another pan , put oil and fry the chopped onions till they become translucent , add the tomatoes and fry till they leave oil  at the sides. 

Add red chili powder,haldi powder and garam masala powder fry for sometime 

Grind the fried coconut and onion mix with the ball of tamarind..

add it to the above onion tomato mixture...

add a little to get a gravy like consistency 

At this stage you should add the boiled eggs or the egg omelette.

garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves.

serve hot with chapati or bread

In the above picture i have served it with multi grain bread. 

COOK BOOKS ...

 I have been reading a variety of books ..

My favarite being cook books and self help books...

Here are some of the cook books that i am reading right now...

I will be trying some new recipes , although i dont much enjoy cooking without oil as i feel that eating a little bit of oil makes it more tasty;.... but offcourse you should have control on the amount of oil that you use you cannot say that a dish will not be tasty if a certain amount of oil is not used , one should always keep a control over the quantity of oil used in a dish. I will be making the dishes but not with ZERO oil but a little oil...

 I  love rice dishes but  in our goan meal pulao is almost not there . People do make pulao but they are adopted from other cuisines . A Goan meal has lots of plain rice and fish curry so there are no short cuts.

Actually i love all types of rice preparations with vegetables, prawns and chicken and would love to eat it everyday, but my hubby being a staunch goan food lovers prefers the plain rice with goan gravies...

         VISUAL TOUR OF PANAJI MARKET

 

ROOT VEGETABLES

 

 

HOG PLUMS AND RAW BANANAS

 

COCONUTS

 

 OKRA AND CUCUMBER

 

 

BLACK AND WHITE AND CO LOURED PAINTINGS BY MARIO MIRANDA (a famous artist from Goa)

LIMBU SODA......

                       

 

 

LIMBU SODA is one major attraction for us when we visit temples in Goa , especially for my son.

Its usually summer when we visit so the temperatures are high and you need to have something to drink and there is nothing as refreshing as a cool cool glass of LIMBU SODA that's lemon juice with soda, lots of sugar and a pinch of salt.

Its the best re-hydrating drink that one can have , and here the soda that they serve are unique they are called as marble soda , you will find a marble on the top which is pushed inside the bottle every time you want to open the bottle. Unfortunately i could not get a picture of an unopened one so i got the photos of the bottles on display.

DRY FISH MARKET AT MADGAON GOA........

DRY FISH MARKET OF GOA
My family loves dry fish especially dry prawns . They are of immense use when you have this craving for eating fish and don't have the time to go out to the fish market .
you will always find dry fish piled up in my freezer for the rainy day , and this is where i buy it from ,
come with me and enjoy this tour of MADGAON DRY FISH MARKET....


DRY MAKERAL

DRY BOMBAY DUCK (bombay duck in goa)

TINY DRY PRAWNS CALLED AS GALMO IN GOA

DRY PRAWNS



PACKETS OF DRY FISH YUMMYYYY.......

I normally buy only prawns and mackeral from the market as that's all that is eaten at home but there is a large variety available which people really relish...

MY LONG AWAITED GOAN TRIP....

LONG DISTANCE VIEW OF THE MADGAON MARKET

I love Goa , and i am not saying this because i am a Goan but because its really a beautiful place , compared to Mumbai where i stay i feel its much more quite and peaceful. Off course Mumbai has its advantages which makes a person stay here and earn ones living...
I had not visited Goa for the last three years and that's a pretty long time.. I was looking forward to this trip which i took in the first week of November .
Let me take you to the spots that i love to visit and are a must visit for me every time i visit *whew*...
The main intention of my visit was the temples which i never miss and must always visit..
and the second place is the market may it be big or a small one , this time i visited two of the largest markets in Goa one in Madgaon and the other in Panaji ,
You will find the pictures of MAPUSA Friday market here.
and you will find the pictures of the temples here.
HERE IS THE VISUAL TOUR OF MADGAON MARKET WHICH I VISITED..

FRESH AND JUICY PINEAPPLES


OKRA AND LEMON


LEAFY VEGETABLES



HOME MADE VINEGAR AND COCONUT OIL BOTTLES


HOG-PLUMS

TIRPHAL-small flavouring fruit
You can read about it here in this blog


A VARIETY OF SWEET POTATO