VIRUNDHOMBAL

Bottle Gourd (Suraikkai) is a wonderful vegetable for kootu. Like the chayote (chow chow) kootu, this bottle gourd kootu also includes moong dal and coconut paste.

Tomato Semiya Upma - an easy 20 minute tiffin dish that gives you a tasty upma with just a handful of ingredients. To give a beautiful colour to this upma, I have added both the chopped tomatoes and the ground tomatoes.

Paal Payasam - delicious creamy dessert with just 3 ingredients in your kitchen. Made with cow's milk, raw rice and sugar. When it comes to payasam dishes, we add ghee and cashew nuts. But for this payasam, no need to add these because it tastes so yummy without any ghee and cashew nuts. If you want to add cashewnuts, add few broken cashews fried in little ghee in the final stage. Do not add more ghee as we add for jaggery payasams. 

Mushroom Butter Masala - restaurant style masala with mushrooms in a creamy gravy. A delicious gravy that can be served for various dishes like rotis, parathas, jeera rice and nann. This mushroom butter masala has widely become popular in many restaurants and prepared in different methods.  

Onion aval upma - easy evening tiffin recipe within 15 minutes. Avals are a staple ingredient in my home and I frequently prepare many dishes like upma, payasam, pongal, puttu with aval.

White Pumpkin (Ash Gourd) Aviyal - quick and easy aviyal for your lunch. Made with fresh ash gourd, coconut green chilly masala, curd and coconut oil. My grandmother taught me this aviyal and it is one of the best side dishes with ash gourd. Ash gourd is a healthy vegetable and try to include these vegetable in your regular diet during the summer. Because of their high water content, ash gourds have a very low calorie.

Mushroom pepper fry - deliciously easy mushroom dish made with onions, ginger garlic paste, curry leaves, button mushrooms and seasoned with coarsely ground pepper and fennel. I learnt this recipe from one of my neighbors and it was delicious. You can also pair it with some rice varieties like fried rice or jeera rice. You can also have this as a quick appetizer too.