Mango Jam Recipe

My morning starts off with 2 pieces of wheat bread toast, spread with some fruit jam on it (usually strawberry) along with a cup of tea. I eat this at work, so it keeps me full for about 2 hours and manages to get me until lunch.   Late Sunday afternoon I realized that we were out of jam and we had already finished the grocery for that week. I did not feel like going to the grocery again and decided on the next best thing which was to prepare it myself! I did not have strawberries at home, but…

MethKoot / Menthe Hittu/ Spiced Lentil Powder

  The Spiced Lentil powder called as MethKoot/Methi Coot (Marathi/Konkani), Menthe Hittu (Kannada) is basically roasted Lentil, spiced with roasted cumin seeds, fenugreek, ginger, pepper etc and ground to fine powder. Methi or Menthe refers to Fenugreek seeds. Just by itself this is a spicy dry powder with no taste of its own, but once it is mixed with hot rice, dollop of ghee/oil and pinch of salt magic happens and the taste is simply divine.   Growing up, we always used to have this powder stacked up in a yellow green container.  For me and my brother it used to…

Sooji Kaa Halwa / Kesari Bhath/ Rava Kesari/ Sheera

Wishing you all a very happy Ganesha Chaturthi and hope you all had a blessed and a wonderful day. This festival is also known as Vinayaka Chaturthi or Vinayaka Chavithi and as Chavath) in Konkani.   Growing up in Bangalore this was a very important festival for us. Every year on this day of Chavath, all our relatives and family would gather at my Uncle’s place and celebrate the festival in a grand way. The festivities would go on for 3 or more days starting with Gowri Pooja, Ganesha Pooja and then finally the Ganesha Visarjan.  Gowri Pooja was the…