Tomato Chutney, Thakkali Chutney

          How many times have I made this tomato chutney, but it never got a chance to be posted here. I have mentioned it so many times, this is the favorite chutney at home, ask my daughter any day, she would say, idlis and tomato chutney is the best combination. Every time I made it, I would think, okay, the next time I would click pictures and post it and finally last week I did it. It's an easy and delicious chutney to go with idlis, dosas and adais..

Pusinikkai Thayir Pachadi, Ash Gourd, White Pumpkin Raitha

          Pusinikkai/ Ash Gourd/ White Pumpkin, most of the times I have made only kootu ( cooked with dal ) with this vegetable, or sometimes I have used it in sambar. Though I have heard of this thayir pachadi, I have never made it till now. It's a very easy recipe, very tasty and flavorful, we can have it as a side to some mixed rice or even mix it with rice ( like mor kuzhambu ) and have, a refreshing and healthy dish for the hot summer..

Radhaballabhi, Dal Stuffed Puris, Khachoris

          Radhaballabhi, the name sounds like somebody's name, well, at least for me, but then only a couple of weeks back, I saw this on a TV show, and then as I had already mentioned in my post on Aloor Dum, I made it the very next day. And now, not only me, but everybody at home knows about this popular Bengali breakfast and also like it very much. For those who are not familiar with it, it's basically pooris ( deep fried Indian bread ), stuffed with a urad dal ( husked black gram ) filling, we can also call them as Kachoris too, except they are shaped more like pooris. They are mostly served with a potato dish like Aloor Dum. The pooris are so flavorful from the asafoetida, cumin seeds and fennel seeds in the stuffing and are also very filling and tasty with the Aloor dum, perfect breakfast or evening snack..

Eggless Conchas, Mexican Sweet Bread

          This month, for the Eggless Baking Challenge, Gayathri had chosen these lovely Conchas, Mexican Sweet Bread ( Pan Dulce ) Or Rolls. The name ' Conchas ' is because of the appearance, they look like sea shells, it's basically bread rolls, covered with sweet, buttery dough on the top, which is marked with lines, to make it look like shells. The sweet coating can be plain sugary dough or chocolate, can be colorful, using food colors or as in the recipe, using natural dried fruits which gives a nice color, flavor and taste to it. The original recipe uses about 5 eggs and gives you 16 conchas, I have halved the quantity and made 8 conchas and I have used just curd/ yogurt as the egg replacer. I have used cocoa powder on 4 of the shells and dried cranberries on the other 4, we liked the cranberry topped conchas more than the chocolate ones, the reason being, the dried cranberries has some sugar in it, which made the sweet topping a little more sweeter and not too dry. Next time, when I use cocoa powder, I am going to add another teaspoon of sugar, which would make the dough easy to spread and also make it more tastier and also I am going to try with the other dried fruits like blueberries, raspberries or even with dried pineappple, mangoes too..