Cauliflower roti pacchadi

Cauliflower is one of my fave vegetables. I love cauliflower in any form - simple curry, khurma, in pulav or biryani, manchuria etc. A few weeks ago my mom made roti pacchadi with cauliflower stalks that were left over after making curry. Today I attempted the same under her expert supervision :)

Here are the ingredients:
Cauliflower stalks
Red chilli
Peanuts
Urad dal (minapa pappu)
Chana dal (shenaga pappu)
Dhaniya seeds
Jeera
Mustard seeds
Tamarind (soaked in water)
Salt
Turmeric

Take one tea spoon of oil in a pan, add urad, chana dal & peanuts (don't add much oil in this step). As they become golden brown add dhaniya, jeera, mustard seeds. At the end add red chili. Cool this mixture and then grind to fine powder. Add salt and turmeric powder in this step. This will be painful if you add a lot of oil to fry! Learnt from personal experience :)

Shallow fry stalks till they are semi cooked. Doesn't have to get completely cooked. Fry until raw smell goes away and set aside. To the ground powder, add stalks and soaked tamarind. Don't grind too much, pacchadi tastes better when it's a lil chunky.

Add tadka to this for extra flavor. Take a few teaspoons of oil in a pan and add Urad dal, chana dal, jeera, mustard seeds and add curry leaves at the end. Tadka add a lil more oil to the pacchadi and gives it extra flavor.

Variations: Adding garlic in the first step will give a different flavor. This pacchadi can also be made with other vegetables like beerakaya (or it's skin), sorakaya (or it's skin), vankaya, etc.

Half Saree (Langa voni)

Half saree, aka Langa Voni (in Telugu), is a traditional south Indian outfit typically worn by teenage girls. It's called a 'half' saree cuz it's, well, just half a saree :) It's synonymous with a Lehenga Choli or Chaniya Choli from north India.

Young girls would wear half-sarees and gradually as they grow, transition to wearing sarees. I remember wearing my first half-saree when I was 12 years old. It was such a big deal for me, getting a 'semi-grown-up' feeling for the first time.

The trend sorta faded away, taken over by really grand n expensive salwars, but they are back with a bang! They're not just for young girls anymore. This fashion trend has boomed so overwhelmingly that they're almost as popular as sarees. And it's not just exclusive to south India anymore, girls n women all over the country are wearing them. And wearing them with style!

I'm gonna use this post to showcase a few trends that I like and also show off my collection ;)

I designed this one by myself, yep!!! I do that too, sometimes! I had a beautiful orange blouse with intricate zari work that came with a white saree. I wore the saree a couple of times and was done with it. So I wanted to re-use the blouse and this was a great way to do it. I got a contrast cream net langa (skirt) and cream satin lining. For the border I chose orange raw silk fabric and added gold thread border on it to make it stand out. I decided to keep the voni simple, georgette fabric with matching gold thread border that is on the langa. And this is the end result. Simple, two-tone langa voni.

Here is another one, store bought, but modified per my choice. It was my cousin's wedding and I bought this one for his reception. I just LOOOVEEE yellow, anything in yellow!! It did not take me long to decide I wanted to buy it. I really like the contrasting colors - Yellow langa and a bright pink blouse. The voni that came with it was a georgette pink one so I decided to swap it with blue net. More colors, more contrast, much better....was my mantra for this one :) My husband thinks it's a lil flashy, but, em well, that doesn't stop me from wearing it and enjoying all the attention I get. LOL.

Here's a super cool one. Trendy to the core with basic black n white colors. The blouse is what stands out, gorgeous print....star of the outfit. The boat neck blouse accentuates the print even more. And keeping everything else simple was a good choice.


Floral prints are in!! Here's a few with different variations.

I'll keep adding on to this post as I find more interesting ones. Stay tuned!

Back again....hope I'm here to stay this time!

Wow! It's been close to 4 years since I blogged! I've been MIA for way too long 😄
Why did this happen? Well, I have lotsa excuses!! Crazy work schedule, house hunting, settling into a new house, parents n in laws visiting, hyper active social life, health issues n lots more!!! I'm back now, with hopes of resuming my lost blogging art! Quite a few interesting things going on in my life that I could share. Will see how long I keep this up 😜

Sweet!!!

Sweet!!! I came to my blog looking for a recipe I posted!!!! That's really Sweet!!! :)


U see....such random little things give me lots of joy sometime. Weird huh!!!

Chicken Dum Biryani

Ingredients:
Raw chicken - 2 pounds
Yogurt
lime juice
basmati rice - 2 cups

ginger garlic paste
whole spices for marination - cloves, bay leaves, shajeera, elaichi, whole pepper corn
Spices for marination - Red chilli powder, salt, pepper powder, cumin powder, garam masala, turmeric powder, jeera powder 
Fresh corriander & mint leaves
Onions
Food color

Method of preparation:
1. Marinate chicken with oil, yogurt, lime juice, ginger garlic paste, all the ground and whole spices. Leave this marinade overnight in the refrigerator . Use a lot of yogurt and oil, this is the base for the biryani.
2. Soak basmati rice in water for half an hour. Half-boil rice in about 4 cups of water with a few whole spices, salt and oil. Make sure rice is not too over boiled, each rice grain should be a little hard. Drain out all the water.
3. Fry onions, mint and coriander leaves in a lot of oil. 
4. Take a tray and line it with oil. Arrange chicken in the bottom layer, then a layer of oil/mint leaves, layer rice and again oil/mint leaves.
5. Dissolve food color in a lil milk. pour it randomly over the layers of rice and chicken.
6. Seal the tray with aluminum foil, make sure the tray is air tight. Place in the oven at 450 F for 20 minutes and then turn the heat down to 350 F and let it cook for another hour.

That's it!!

Another nostalgic day

Here's Another day in my life filled with nostalgia. A major Hindu festival today - Dassera....miss all the fun, food n family....
Dassera is somehow different from the other festivals. Everything about this festival seems exxagerated - food, drinking, merriment all around....it just has a different feel! I spent almost every single dassera of my life in my uncle's house, in a town called Nalgonda. We would go stay with them for like 10 days during this time of year, dassera was just an excuse :). My uncle bought me new clothes every year for the longest time I've known. Bathkamma is another festival that I always used to look forward to....esp dressin up, I mean really dressing up!!! Was an 'all female' festival....another part!Dress up, go to the temple, tons of gossip!!! Yayy!!!

And my bathkamma today....hmmm....where do I even start? It was just I, me, myself n my hubby catching some pics...

Life changed soooo much! I miss all the great times I had back home. I probably did not appreciate all this back then, I probay did not understand the value of spending quality time with family....but now I do. I miss not just my parents but my uncles, aunts, cousins, neices, nephews.....all of them. Calling n talking gives me just a lil solace but nothing like being there.

When will I get my old days back?will I ever??? Am I hoping for a miracle to happen...????

Happy Dassera.........

Some serious Android programming??!!!

Yep! I hope so.....even created a new blog to track my ideas, my experiences and my failures (hope i dont have too many of those!!!)

Here's my Android blog, will try to do a better job of maintaining it, i hope!! :)
http://enjoyingmyandroidwork.blogspot.com/