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…

Tomato Rasam

  Even though I grew up in Bangalore, the home town of the famous restaurant MTR, I was never familiar with the MTR masalas, powders and spices then. The main reason being that my Mom is a wonderful cook and she made all the powders for sambhar, rasam, vaangi bhaat, pulliyogere etc from scratch at home. Fast forward some years when I got married and came to the United States, I found myself as a clueless cook shouldering the responsibility of cooking. I used to crave for comfort food like rasam, sambhar etc food that I grew up with and that…

Pan Pole/ Neer Dosa and Batata Song (Spicy Potato in Tamarind Curry)

When Sia announced the RCI event as Udupi Mangalore, I was delighted. Being a Konkani and with family associations to South Kanara I can relate to that cuisine and the style of cooking. I did not want to miss the opportunity to cook and contribute to the event.   After thinking of so many different options I finally decided to make our family favorite “Pan Pole” and “Batata Song”. Also when I saw this on Arch’s blog, the craving for this became even stronger. If you are hearing the words for the first time, it may appear strange, but in…