Lemon ,Lemon ,Lemon

Instant and easy method of making lemon pickle... will be yummy with curd rice....(yogurt rice)

Ingredients for making Instant Lemon Pickle:

• Lemon - 4
• Red Chili Powder - 2 Teaspoon
• Asafoetida - a pinch
• Mustard - 1 Teaspoon
• Salt- 2 Teaspoon
• Cooking oil - 2 Tablespoon
• Fenugreek Seeds - 1 Teaspoon

Method for making Instant Lemon Pickle:

Step 1: Wash and wipe dry the lemons nicely. Cut it in to small pieces (tit bits).

Step 2: Heat a skillet with oil, Add the mustard seeds, when they stop popping , add the cut lemons, stir nicely.

Step 3: Add chill powder, salt, fenugreek seeds, Asafoetida and mix nicely.

Step 4: Keep stirring for 5 minutes and then remove from heat. Let it cool and then remove them to a airtight container.

This pickle stays fresh for at least a month if refrigerated .

Will be awesome with curd rice.

Blogging Friends Forever Award

Vidhya of My Reciepes passed me this award....Thanks Vidhya

The following rules apply to this award:

1. Only 5 people are allowed to receive this award

2. 4 of them followers of your blog.

3. One has to be new to your blog and live in another part of the world.

4. You must link back to who ever gave you the award.

Passing this award to :

Jujubs

Ramya

Rekhas

Shreya

and Sujatha from Madurai,India.(my newest reader)

Homemade Ghee

Ghee or Clarified Butter is used in most of the Indian dishes.. especially the home made ghee's fragrance adds to the richness of any dish. Few years before i used to buy store brought ghee ....but now have learnt to make ghee from butter .. so now a days... make homemade ghee...( i make it at home... just for the fragrance of it)


I used 2 pkt of Kirkland brand Unsalted Sweet Cream Butter from Costco (16 OZ ) each












Method for making Clarified ghee from Butter:

Step 1: Heat a large Pot/Pan, add the butter, melt it in medium heat.Stirring occasionally..

Step 2: When the melted butter boils a scum will be formed (creamish white) in color,continue the heating process...The scum will start to settle to the bottom of the pan or pot and the ghee will begin to clear.

Step 3: The scum will turn out to nice golden brown and fragrance of fresh ghee will come. The ghee is ready. Remove it from heat, let it cool. Once it cools strain and separate the ghee from scum and store the ghee in an airtight clean container.

The Ghee will last fresh for over 6 months with out any problem. We can also refrigerate it.

Notes: Making Ghee is very easy and simple..But takes lot of time. Do not fasten the process by increasing the heat, the ghee needs to be slow cooked...

The whole procedure took me about 45 minutes.

What next... Oh, yes the Tag...Veda murthy of Iyengar's kitchen tagged me from Kai Kriye art blog.

The rules are:

"At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 or 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read my blog".Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answers."-

1.What was I doing ten years ago?

Studying in Chennai,India.

2. Five things on Today's "To do" list

To do laundry
Post at least one new post in my food blog and answer the tag
Clean up my vegetable garden
Help my son ( 2 yr old) to gift wrap few presents... for the weekends birthday party
To download the photos from my camera or card reader
3.I am addicted to :
browsing the Internet
playing with my two sons( 2 yr old) and (3 months old )
and now a days blogging......
4.Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Will do lot of Travel...with my family..visit places.(world tour).. enjoy all the best things in life... do some charity....will give best education to my kids... and save some for my future and my family future....



5. Places i have lived:
Madhya Pradesh - India
Tamil Nadu - India
and now in California - U.S.A

I pass on this tag to Cham, Usha, Priti, Rekha,Shreya and Trupti

Weekend Lunch

This is our weekend lunch.

Rice with Lentils with clarified butter,Pappad,Avakai Manga, Avial, Vendaikai Pulli Pachadi and Yogurt. ..Yum Yum....

After a long time we had lunch in banana leaves....South Indian Foods are normally served in Banana Leaves.Back at home in India we used have lunch in banana leaves for most of the occasions, marriage cerimonies, festivals....This used to be our Paper Plate(hee hee).

I personally feel that food served in banana leaves adds an extra taste and flavour to the food.

Egg Substitutes

From childhood itself i wanted to bake a cake myself, but had to skip most of the recipes, as all of them had usage of eggs in it. Me and my family being vegetarians we don't use eggs in our day to day cooking. I was doing lot of Google searching for the egg substitutes..... now have come to conclusion with few of the substitute which we carry normaly in our pantry.... used in a correct ratio will give an end result of the same as eggs in the recipe.

Few Egg Substitutes:

1. Ener-G Egg Re placer(pls follow the directions in the pkt) available in most of the supermarkets.
2. 2 Tablespoon Corn Starch = 1 Egg
3. 2 Tablespoon Arrowroot Flour = 1 Egg
4. 2 Tablespoon Potato Starch = 1 Egg
5. 1 heaped Spoon Soy Powder + 2 Tablespoon Water = 1 Egg
6. 1 Banana = 1 Egg ( for making Cakes,Muffins etc.,)

Hope these substitutes would help you all too...