VIRUNDHOMBAL

A healthy diabetic friendly kichadi recipe made with wheat rava. You can start your breakfast with a cup of this healthy kichadi as it includes carrot, green peas and beans which blend together beautifully with wheat rava. A handful of fresh green peas gives a slightly sweet taste for the kichadi.  There are two main varieties of wheat rava - medium coarse and fine coarse. Fine coarse wheat rava is my favourite for kichadi and upma dishes. Medium coarse wheat rava is perfect for sweet pongal and payasam. Both types require more time to cook when compared to regular white rava. Fine coarse wheat rava doesn't need to be roasted for this kichadi. To cook 1 cup fine coarse wheat rava you will need 3 cups of water. After preparing the kichadi you should let it stand for 15 minutes, covered and undisturbed for a perfect fluffy texture. And once you find how to cook wheat rava perfectly, you will be making it regularly for your breakfast.  Check out my other tiffin recipes here Idli ...

Pearl millet is a perfect tiffin for relaxed weekends at home. It is a better way to introduce millet-based dishes for your kids for weekend breakfast.  I like the mild flavour in the pearl millet especially in the dosas. You can smell the mild flavour while cooking the dosas. Pearl millet is called kambu in Tamil and bajra in Hindi is a gluten free whole grain. Due to its numerous health benefits, we have to include in our diet monthly twice or thrice. Kambu flour is mostly used for making instant dosas, and roti. This is a fermented dosa batter recipe and I have used whole pearl millets, rice, black urid dal and fenugreek. I soak the pearl millets along with the rice for 4 hours. Soaking the pearl millets for a longer time helps to blend them better and have perfect soft fluffy texture. You can replace black urid dal with white urid dal. This pearl millet dosa is similar to our mulu ulundhu dosa. This dosa tastes good with small onions chutney, onion garlic onion chutney and ellu...

Idli upma are quite popular in Tirunelveli and I like them very much, especially with a cup of filter coffee. As much as I like to experiment with new dishes, I also like to create a new dish with the leftovers. But this is our grandma's idli upma recipe with leftover idlies. This idli upma is straight forward. We first crumble the leftover idlies with little gingely  oil. During any occasions, if you have a lot of store bought leftover idlies or if your idlies are hard my grandma recommends dipping the idlies in water for a second and then we have to crumble the idlies to get the soft texture. We always Iike to add chopped small onions for idli upma and it's super delicious to taste the crispy curry leaf and the chunky onions in the upma. But if you can't get small onions, use regular onions. To spice up the upma we use both red chilli and green chilli.  Check out my other tiffin recipes here Idli Black urid dal Dosa Aapam - Aapam without yeast  Ragi flour Upma Arisi Upm...

Mint leaves coconut chutney - a simple chutney made with mint leaves, coconut, garlic cloves, green chillies, urid dal and tamarind. This mint leaves chutney is a regular dish in hotels for tiffin varieties. Though I make this regularly for rava dosa and dosa, the colour of the chutney will change a little bit. Recently when I spoke to Chef Revathi Shanmugam mam through a phone call, I asked her how to prepare hotel style mint leaves chutney.  She clearly explained the recipe and clarified my few doubts. Today I tried this chutney, and it turned out well and tasted similar to the hotel style mint leaves chutney. Now I am confident to post this popular mint leaves coconut chutney.  Let's see some few tips for this chutney For this chutney you can add 2 to 3 cloves of garlic or a small piece of ginger.  Always use fresh mint leaves. Wash the mint leaves well and drain the water completely. Do not overcook or saute the mint leaves for a long time.It will reduce the colour an...

Today we are going to see an interesting and healthy juice recipe with just two ingredients. Few years ago, I learnt this recipe from my yoga instructor. During our yoga class, she recommends everyone to replace the tiffin with this juice for breakfast. It gives more energy to practice exercises, and it also strengthens the immune system. You can replace curry leaves with mint leaves or coriander leaves. After drinking the juice, eat five soaked badam. Coconut milk curry leaves juice Recipe Details  Prep time: 5 minutes Serves: 1 Category: juice Ingredients 1 cup grated coconut (tightly packed) 20 curry leaves   Directions Take a big mixer jar and add the grated coconut and curry leaves. Add 1/4 cup of water and grind it nicely. Squeeze the ground coconut and strain the milk using a strainer or white cloth. Add the squeezed coconut, curry leaves mixture and grind it nicely with required water. Once again squeeze it well and take the milk. Mix them well and serve it immediately...

Raw Papaya Kichadi - quick and healthy side dish for idli and dosa with raw papaya. We use raw papaya in kootu, poriyal or sometimes we add in sambar.  Last year when I visited my hometown Ilanji, I got many fresh raw papayas from our backyard. Few months ago, I have posted semi ripe papaya stir fry in virundhombal. I recently heard about this kichadi from my Kamatchi Athai. She frequently prepares many kichadi dishes with different vegetables for idli and dosa. Different versions of kichadi recipes are there with slight variations. Some people like to add dal while some people won't prefer dals for kichadi. I have added a tbsp of moong dal which gives a slight thickness to the kichadi.  The main ingredients in this kichadi are raw papaya, green chillies, small onions and tamarind. I haven't used coconut in this kichadi, but you can add ground coconut paste in the final stage. Ensure the papayas are cooked until soft, so that it will be easy mash or grind. This raw papaya kich...

This Carrot halwa is a classic dessert from North India made with Delhi red carrots, milk, sugar, nuts and ghee. This recipe will give you the perfect, rich and melt in your mouth carrot halwa. It is a healthy dessert when compared to other halwa dishes. As carrots are naturally sweet, we are adding very less sugar and ghee and no kova. The cooking methods are also easy. The only tough part is grating the carrots evenly without any solid pieces and stirring constantly for 1 to 1.5 hours. In this recipe, I have used Delhi carrots which are slightly pink in colour. You can also use orange Ooty carrots which are widely available in our markets. Try to use fresh, bright and juicy carrots.  I always prefer to use full cream milk for carrot halwa as it adds richness and creaminess to the halwa. For flavours I have added cardamom and you can also use a few saffron strands. For parties you can serve this halwa with a scoop of Vanilla ice cream and chopped pistachio nuts on the top. It tast...