Vegetarian Recipe Blog
I am thrilled to kick start the New Year with one of my favorite recipes, Bonda Soup. It is a famous appetizer served in Sagar/Darshini restaurants in Bangalore. If you are unfamiliar with this recipe, then loosely put Bonda a round deep fried snack is …
Wishing you all a happy and a blessed New Year. Hope the New Year is filled with joy, love and laughter!
You know how kids like celebrating their birthdays, getting presents, cutting cake, blowing candles etc? OK, so our 4 year old is no different. He enjoys celebrating his birthday; and the part that he likes the best is singing Happy Birthday to him, followed by blowing off the candles. The joy on his face at the end of it all is priceless. We are sure he would not mind repeating the process every single day and still enjoy the same. In fact, we have heard him say “Happy Birthday” and blow candles even in his sleep.
As a result of this innocent fascination we celebrate his mock birthday every now and then. Any opportunity we get, we buy a small cake, sing and let him blow the candles. So for this Christmas, we planned on doing his mock birthday and make it a special day for him. The morning started off with a gift from Santa, a toy helicopter just like he had wished for. As a bonus Santa in spite of being busy and stuff called up his dad and told how proud he was of the ‘big boy’. 🙂
In the evening I baked this simple Eggless cake and he helped me with the mixing etc. I used store brought icing and then he topped it off with some sprinklers. He chose 10 candles, put it on the cake and had fun time blowing it, all this after we sang “Happy Birthday” to him (of courseJ) OK, so the gift and the blowing ritual made his day. He went around telling anybody and everybody about the gift and the fact that Santa is very proud of him.
After a glorious week, with the temperature in the 70s (F), here in our neck of the woods, the weather finally caved in and made way for some pretty snow. Until yesterday we walked around the stores with just a sweater, talking how unusual it …
This post has been in my drafts for ever. For one reason or the other I never got around posting it. And now that the New Year is just around the corner, I thought this was an opportunity to clear out the old ones and …
Maddur vade is a popular deep fried snack from the state of Karnataka. This snack originated in the town of Maddur which is situated in between the cities of Bangalore and Mysore. It is not uncommon to find them being sold in bus stations, train stations etc, restaurants (of course) with people flocking to eat those crispy yummy things.
The old traditional restaurants, Darshinis (vegetarian fast food restaurants) in Bangalore serve this as a breakfast/snack item along with Coconut chutney and they are one of the hot sellers. Come to think of it, what could ever be unlikeable about its taste? Crispy on the outside, flaky and flavorful inside, the sweetness of fried onions complemented by the spicy taste of green chilies, aromatic flavor of curry leaves makes this totally delicious and addictive.
Growing up in Bangalore, many a times, my dad used to bring Maddur Vadas home from the Darshinis on his way back from work. The timing could not have been better, we would be starving after school/play etc and we would hungrily gobble them up. They are so filling that dinner would be totally skipped that night. But on the rare occasion when we would patiently wait and have it during dinner along with yogurt rice/daal the wait would be totally worth it. It was a nini feast. My mother would never hear any complaints about food that day and everything on the plate would be wiped clean without a whimper!
Note: The Maddur Vadas are usually thicker than the ones here. It had been a while since I made these. After I was done I realized that I got carried away by the process of Baked Nipattu and made the maddur vada patty bit thin. Never the less they turned out crispy.
I made this curry on a whim last evening. I used whatever ingredients I had on hand that needed attention, threw them together and made this yummy tasting curry. In my defense, most usually I plan our dinner in advance as I can be prepared …