Filter Coffee

If you ever had a sleep over at a South Indian or Tam Bram (Short form for Tamil Brahmin) in the 1990s or earlier, most likely you woke up to the voice of M.S.Subbalakshmi chanting the Subrabatham accompanied by cup of good filter coffee. Each household would have a favorite "go to" brand of coffee, their blend of chicory and peppery.
 

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Spinach or Keera Masiyal

This plain looking dish is easy to make and is a whole meal in itself. Lentils, spinach and some ghee for fat to make it a comfort food. I eat this like stew on cold winter days with clarified butter substituted for oil. All this recipe asks for is a teeny-tiny bit of ghee and a little goes a long way by means of satiety and taste.

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Idli Upma

When life gives you lemons you make lemonade and when idlis go wrong or when made in excess, you make idli upma. Left over idlis are a must for this recipes. I have never made it with fresh ones though. The recipe is very similar to Poha or aval Upma. I leave the left over idlis in the refrigerator and the following day they are ready for the upma.

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Pasta Bake - White Sauce

My son's favorite food is pasta. we make red sauce, white sauce, no sauce, spaghetti, bow ties, and my son considers all of the above as a variety of foods. It's sent in lunch boxes at least once a week. The preferred kind for lunch box is cooked pasta sauteed in oilve oil with carmalized onions, colored peppers and Italian seasoning. Yep, my son is a foodie, so I call sauteed onions as carmalized. That's our make believe world where I am the chef and he gets his gourmet lunches and dinners.

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Aval or Poha Upma

Ingredients
1 Cup Aval or Poha ... preferably the thick kind.
1 Onion chopped
1 Green Chilli slit in half
A few Curry leaves
1/4 tsp Mustard seeds
1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder 
1/4 cup milk (optional)
1 tsp Oil

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Adai

As a stay at home mom, my mom always had tiffin ready for us to eat as soon as we came back home from school. Tiffin can be described as a snack that is not as heavy as a meal. As always there are always exceptions like the Adai which is considered a pretty heavy meal. Lunch at school was at noon and by 5 in the evening I was ready to eat anything edible I could lay my eyes on. Last thing I wanted to hear was we were having Adai for the evening. Apparently adai  is one of those recipes I hated as kid and gradually acquired the taste to appreciate the texture of the partially grind-ed lentils along with onions or sometimes the slight bitter taste of drumstick leaves added when available in the local Indian stores.

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Mango Pickle

I know it sounds strange but I do not like pickles, the hot and spicy Indian kind. The cut mango pickle is the only exception. My friend and I would go their terrace and pluck raw mangoes from their neighbor's mature tree. A few we would bite into as we chatted under the shade of the tree on hot Summer afternoons in Chennai and a save off a few for her mom to make this pickle. The last time I went to India, the trees were no longer there, but her mom remembered my favorite pickle and made it for me. Now that I think about it, all my friend's mothers made this pickle when they invited me over including my sister-in-law's parents. Does that tell you anything about how crazy I must be for this recipe?

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Pasta Sauce

I have been wanting to document some of our favorite family recipes. Finally a snow day, which is nothing short of a miracle in Texas, drove me to write up the recipes. The pictures were in my draft folder for a long long time now waiting to be published. This recipe is adapted from Jamie Oliver. Until I read his book, The Food Revolution, I did not realize the pasta sauce is a real easy recipe to make and such a healthier option over feeding kids with the bottled sauce with unknown ingredients and preservatives.

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Rava Dosa

I must have been close to 10 or 12 years old, when I promised to myself that I would never ever make anything my kids did not like. Little did I realize that with kids, constant exposure encouraged them to gradually develop and enhance their palettes. It's true with getting kids to eat vegetables. The more they are exposed, better are their chances of developing a liking to it. I am sure you guessed it, rava dosa was never a favorite of mine. I also realized, it was because of the overly rubbery texture of maida or all purpose flour and the taste of chopped ginger.

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Idlis & Dosas

Many cultures have ceased to make dishes that involve fermentation. Not that I fear Idli will soon become one but with many opting to buy idli batter rather than making it at home makes this dish a highly likely candidate. The weather in USofA does make it a tad bit more harder for new cooks to master this recipe. Unfortunately, there are no short cuts, practice is what makes the mastery of this recipe perfect. Like most South Indians you will find me paranoid about perfecting the technique to result in soft idlis comparable to how a handful of jasmine flowers feels like. The reference to jasmine flowers is as old as idli itself and is a yard stick used to measure how well a cook performs.

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Tomato Chutney

I am not a big appliances addict. However, every once in a while I go crazy about an appliance, even if the allure is short lived. The hand held blender is my latest go to appliance in lieu of the Indian Blender aka the Mixie. There is a time and day for blanching, peeling de-seed the tomatoes. Weekdays are just not molded for an elaborate prep.

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Srirangam - Trichy

My parents are in town and my whole house is turned upside down. No meat in the house, breakfast at 8, lunch at noon, snack time and rotis for dinner sharp at 7 just like clockwork. Did I forget no more dirty dishes in the sink and my kitchen floors are speckless. I had a day off from work, a few Mondays ago and all they wanted to do was visit the temple and eat South Indian food.

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