Eggless Jugu Cake/East African Eggless Peanut Biscotti

Love to experiment with various cuisines, if i have a chance to make a world culinary trip am ready to go immediately without any second thought. Yes am a foodie and am very proud to be. Since i dont have any chance either now or in nearby future i'll make myself happy by preparing dishes from various countries at home itself. My small kitchen is the only place in my home helps me a lot to dish out different dishes whenever i feel like experimenting with new cuisine. You may see already that i have tried many cuisines from all around the world and its been quite a routine for me to make different dishes out from my South Indian roots whenever time permits.Few of my culinary experiements have turned diasters especially when its from African cuisine. This cuisine is not that much familiar for me but East African dishes have an Indian touch and many foods cooked there have similarities with our Indian foods. The main reason behind this is because of Indian immigrants, East Africans eat chappathis, their chicken curry ressembles quite like our Indian chicken curry, they have their pakoras as much as like ours. Obviously whoelse will wait to give a try to this cuisine.

Eggless Swedish Tea Rings/Eggless Vetekrans

Baking became one of the most favourite passion sincever the yeast god behaved so friendly with me, its been a routine now am making breads at home. One cant describe the happiness when you bake your bread at home and the aroma of the freshly baked bread just with a word, you should bake to know this. Bread baking is an art am still a crawling baby when its comes to bread baking, actually am yet to experiment with the famous 'Sourdough starter' finally am planning to make them soon at home. Since sourdough need loads of patience now am ready to give a try at home. Trust me am so excited to start making my sourdough starter at home. Looking for an auspicious day to kick start the sourdough starter,lol.. Coming to today's post, this tea rings is called Vetekrans aka Swedish tea rings, this bread rings goes almost for the ingredients we goes for cinnamon rolls, but the filling goes for black raisins. One of the easiest bread rings even a novice baker can give a try to this incredibly flavored tea rings.

Betel Leaves Tomato Rasam/Vethalai Thakkali Rasam/Vetrillai Thakkali Rasam

I started cooking with betel leaves recently that too after my India trip, actually betel leaves have many medicinal values, they are good for easy digestion and one among the best remedy for cold. Obviously who will miss the chance to cook with this incredible leaves. You may wonder how i get this much fresh leaves, i asked my mom to carry some betel leaves from India and she got me some super fresh leaves. After cooking a couple of dishes, i have even freezed them, yes dont laugh here. Frozen leaves will be definitely handy if you plan to make a gravy or a rasam with them. After a fingerlicking Kuzhambu and a Comforting rasam, here comes an another culinary experiment i did with betel leaves.

Ragi Chappathi Rolls with Spicy Potato Masala/Potato Stuffed Fingermillet Chappathi Rolls

Ragi, this grain is very versatile and you can dish out many tremendous dishes with it, i have been using this grain as flour, vermicelli, semolina and as whole. Thank god i get this grain very much easily in Indian stores here in Paris, i can get ragi rava, flour and whole easily in Indian provisional stores. Still ragi vermicelli is not easily available here but i dont forget to carry them or ask my relatives to send a parcel from India. Obviously my pantry is now loaded with varieties of millets,you might have noticed that most of my recent posts are with millets, yes am cooking with them atleast thrice a week and i couldnt stop myself to create different dishes with these incredible grains,one of my recent addiction. Ragi chappathi is one among the rotis i make quite often for our dinner, if there is some leftover i'll pack them carefully and freeze it for further use. Last time when i made ragi chappathis, i freezed a couple of them to make rolls with paneer or potato masala for my kids snack as they love chappathis very much at anytime of the day.

Crispy Barley Dosa/Barley Dosai

Barley, this incredible grain is used rarely in our cooking especially in Indian cuisine, but trust me they are very versatile and you can many delicious dishes from breakfasts to sweets. Initially i was one among those who dont like to take risk when its comes to culinary adventures,but now i know i'll definitely end up with something interesting if i get into trials. Actually barley was one among the wholegrains i never want to take earlier in my menu, when i came to know the health benefits of this grain, slowly i started adding them in many dishes. Now i can dish out anything with this grain, its been a while am making barley dosas at home which tastes and looks exactly like our usual regular dosas, the picture itself speaks a lot. Yes none yes none at home will notice the addition of barley here, i used pearl barley in this dosais for a better result. If you get whole barley grains dont forget to get them, feed your family with healthy stuffs.

Gibassier - A French Anise & Orange Flavored Loaf

Gibassier is a French loaf which makes an excellent bread for breakfast, this bread is prepared with candied orange, orange blossom water and aniseed which is later topped with plain or vanilla sugar. Gibassier is baked during christmas season when orange is found abundantly, some old French stories says that earlier during xmas,orange is given as a gift from Santa to poor childrens. When you check for Xmas special French bakes most of the breads or cakes have this citrus fruit in it. Gibassier is also named as large cookie from Lourmarin as they looks like oval shaped leaves.Gibassier sounds as much as like Italian Panettone, and its believed that it must apparently be torn apart with the hands when served to bring good luck in the New year.

Ragi Vegetable Uthappam/Finger Millet Vegetable Oothappam/Vegetable Ragi Uthappam

Usually uthappam is prepared with lightly sour dosa/idli batter, this thick spongy dosa makes an excellent breakfast, tiffin or simply for a dinner.Actually my kids love uthappams made from Idly batter prepared with rice-urad dal mixture,since am becoming a health nut i seriously want to give a try to some healthy versions of uthappams.Uthappams,this spongy dosas always goes for simple onion or onion-tomato topping, but trust me even a mixed vegetable mixture makes an excellent toppings too. Ragi replaces very well the rice here,since i dont want to go for parboiled or raw rice i used brown rice. Trust me whole fingermillets aka ragi gives an incredible nutritional value to this beautiful dish. May be the colour of this uthappams will intrigue many, but one should give a try to this nutritious dosa atleast once a while.

Pizza Soleil/ Sun Shaped Mushroom & Chicken Sausage Pizza

Sun shaped pizza, you might have crossed this beautifully stuffed sun shaped pizzas if you would have searched for a different shape pizza's collection easily available in this virtual world. Recently i baked this gorgeous looking pizza at home as am a member of a French Baking Group Defi Boulange, created  by Nadia and Manue.Its a group where Manue and Nadia shares their beautiful bakes every month and the members of this group should bake their version of the month's challenged bake with their own ingredients. This month's challenge is this Pizza Soleil, soleil means Sun in French as this pizza looks like a Sun, the name suits absolutely prefect na. Since my kids are in vacation, we had loads of fun making this pizza at home and the measurements given for making the dough for this pizza is quite enough to feed largely 4-5peoples. Make it for a lunch or dinner and enjoy with a salad, am sure you will definitely have a satisfying meal.

Pearl Millet Vermicelli Kheer/Kambu Semiya Payasam/Kambu Semiya Paal Payasam

An Indian festival is not complete without a kheer, every household have their own way of making payasam aka kheer. You can see varieties of kheers in this virtual world, from Sago to vermicelli, with varieties of wholegrains, this delectable sweet is prepared with many interesting ingredients. I cant imagine my festive meal without this milk based semi liquid constitency sweet. My daughter love vermicelli kheer very much, she can have it anytime, if i make kheer with vermicelli, i usually go for a huge quantity of kheer. If i starts cleaning my pooja room, she will immediately ask me whether am going to make kheer for our lunch, for her if its a religious festival then there will be definitely kheer for the lunch.For this week of blogging marathon, i picked festival foods as theme. After a delicious Mango coconut burfi for Raksha Bandhan and a health Ragi paal kozhukattai for Ganesh chathurthi,today am sharing an another healthy kheer for Krishna Jayanthi celebration.

Ragi Paal Kozhukattai/Fingermillet Paal Kozhukattai - Version 2

Paal Kozhukattai, this is one among my favourite and now its my daughter's favourite, obviously i'll make this delectable dish often as they are very easy to prepare at home. I have already tried couple of versions with this healthy sweet dish. Paal kozhukattai can be prepared either with milk,coconut milk with sugar or else with jaggery syrup and coconut milk..This time i went for sugar and milk, this healthy ragi paal kozhukattais turned out super delicious.Instead of rolling the dough as small balls, i prepared them with murukku press. When the ragi dough pressed directly to the sweetened milk, gets cooks prefectly and makes this super delicious ragi paal kozhukattais.Sending to Pari's Only - Gluten Free Cooking.

Mango Coconut Burfi

If you are celebrating a festival, the first thing comes to your mind might be family get together and sweets definitely. This week's blogging marathon is going to be a special theme, sounds interesting rite. Ok let me confess that this week's blogging marathon was one among the favourite themes i have done so far. Yes its festival theme, Srivalli suggested to make festive foods for Raksha Bandhan, Ganesh Chathurthi and finally for Krishna Jayanthi, apart from Raksha Bandhan which i never celebrated at home Ganesh chathurthi and Krishna Jayanthi both are very close to my heart. Honestly i came to know about Raksha Bandhan only after my schooling that too through a movie, see how rare we go to movies.Raksha Bandhan is a festival to celebrates the love and duty between sister and a brother. This festival is an ancient festival and has many myths and historic legend linked to it.

Manapparai Murukku/Tamil Nadu Special Manapparai Murukku

Manapparai Murukku, its one of the popular deep fried snacks which is quite famous for its unique taste in Tamil Nadu. Murukku is a quite famous snacks you can find anywhere in South India especially in Tamil Nadu. But this Manapparai murukku is the best among the varieties of murukkus available anywhere. Murukku business is a cottage affair in Manaparai,like Tirunelveli halwa, Kancheepuram idli these murukkus are well known for its nativity. Actually this murukku was sold to the train passengers through refreshment stall at the Manapparai railway station earlier in 20th century. This murukku is prepared simply with rice flour, flavoured with sesame seeds, ajwain seeds, cumin seeds and asafoetida powder which gives a wonderful flavor to this deep fried snacks. The speciality of this murukkus is, they are deep fried twice to get a golden colour thus you can differentiate easily with the other murukkus from the original Manapparai murukku.

Eggless Semolina & Coconut Basbousa/Arabian Basbousa/Arabic Coconut Semolina Cake

We are having a long weekend here, obviously i dont want to sit in front of my lappy today. But i couldnt stop myself to write a post today as i want to share my happiness with you all.Yes my article about my hometown and about Pondicherrian foods was published in today's Hindu. Few days back, Annie the journalist of The Hindu send me a mail asking whether i can write an article about my hometown, i dunno how she noticed me and my Pondicherry roots, watelse i need i told immediately yes and she send me couple of questions. Without any delay i replied her and today morning, i was surprised to know when few of my Fb friends from Chennai left private messages appreciating about the article. Then only i checked my inbox, Annie was kind enough to send me the link of the article. I was overwhelmed to see the article and the way Annie has written about me. I have to say a special thanks to her, feel so blessed, obviously she made my day. To celebrate this beautiful mention in a leading Indian newspaper, am posting a sweet today which i prepared few days back. This Arabic eggless semolina and coconut cake aka Coconut basbousa was in my to do list since ages, finally i prepared them at home. 

Vegan Red Capsicum & Moongdal Soup

Soup is an excellent meal for dieting people, a bowl of warm soup is definitely very filling and satisfying while the weather is down outside.Soups and salads have their important place in our daily menu,yes i couldnt stop myself saying this phrase again and again. I do often soups for our dinner.My today's soup goes under the list low-carb meals, yes this soup goes for one of the low carb vegetable Red capsicum and its completely potato free, cream free. I replaced the potato and cream with yellow moongdal in this soup, usually i'll add potatoes to make my soups thick but trust me moongdal works wonder for making this delicious soup. Obviously this soup is completely vegan and definitely a satisfying meal for people dieting under low-carb diet .

Cucumber Tomato Omelette/Grated Cucumber Tomato Omelette

Do you know eggs are excellent foods while dieting that too if you are under low-carb diet. They are not only low in cost they are also low carb source of proteins and other nutrients. Eggs have lots of vitamins eventhough they are well known for their cholesterol, however its seems that this high cholesterol food raises our good cholesterol rather than the bad one.Eggs are versatile and they can be served for any meal, they gets cook quickly so they are prefect for a fast and easy meals. Today's recipe goes for a simple dish with eggs with cucumber and tomatoes, which suits prefectly for a dieting people especially for the low-carb dieting. Eggs and chicken meat are adviced to take in case if you are under low-carb diet.

Green Gazpacho/Gazpacho Verde

Gazpacho is a Spanish soup made with raw vegetables and served cold, usually prepared with tomato,this soup belongs to the Spanish region of Andalusia. Gazpacho verde is prepared simply with green apples, green capsicum,cucumber, mint, avocado and sometimes with spinach. My version went to green apples, cucumber, mint which makes a prefect marriage together. This green gazpacho can be enjoyed thoroughly while the weather is too hot, a prefect to enjoy during summer. Actually this raw vegetable soup goes under Low carb/No carb recipes. Whoever want to take low carb diets, can enjoy thoroughly this Spanish soup.Usually bread slices are used for making this soup, which helps to thicken the soup, but my today's green gazpacho goes green apple, low fat milk,green capsicum, cucumber, mint, obviously a low carb dish.

Hidden Heart Mocha Cake/Pink Hidden Hearts in Mocha Cake

June last week was bit busy for me, we celebrated few birthdays and today am posting the cake i baked for my daughter's birthday, since she dont like fondant and buttercream frosting i dont want to make a large cake covered either by fondant or a simple chocolate frosted by buttercream. I want something special as this year she reached a milestone of her life. I was searching something different from the usual simple cake and finally i opted for this Hidden heart mocha cake. Actually when i went for googling for this cake, this cake takes the first place among the cakes baked as Valentine's day special, but for me anyday is valentine's day and my kids are more than anything, thus i went for making this amazing hidden heart cake for my daughter's birthday. Initially i planned a simple vanilla cake with chocolate hearts but my daughter is very girly and she loves pink colour very much, obviously i went for a pink strawberry cake for making those hidden hearts along with a simple mocha cake. This rose hidden heart mocha cake came out simply prefect.

Ajwain Layered Paratha & Aloo Soya Curry

Its wonderful to do virtual parties for co bloggers eventhough we never crossed personally in our real life. However the bond between some of the food bloggers are very much closer than the real life friends and family. One among the virtual family which is very close to my heart is Blogging marathon family. We, the members of this virtual family blogs together every month since years. One of this family member is waiting for her bundle of joy, obviously we want to celebrate this happy moment virtually  so we cooked dishes from her blog and post it in our space today as a virtual baby shower.She is none other than Sapana Behl of Cooking With Sapana, we are very happy for you Sapana, take care of you and we are waiting eagerly for the day.

Eggless Barnyard Millet Pancakes

I have been experimenting with different millets since ever i came know about their health benefits, one of my recent trial with barnyard millet aka kuthiravali is this eggless fluffy pancakes. Yes you read it rite, i prepared an eggless pancakes with barnyard millet along with almond meal and wheat flour for our breakfast. My lil one loves pancakes to the core, he can have pancakes anytime of the day. I prepared barnyard millet flour myself at home to make this pancakes, barnyard millet flour mixed with whole wheat flour and almond meal makes this incredible, fluffy and super filling protein rich pancakes.Its not hard to make barnyard millet flour at home, just dry roast the millet and grind it as fine powder, sieve it and conserve it in an air tightened box. This is how i prepared this barnyard millet flour. You can follow the same way to make varieties of millet flours.

Little Millet & Black Urad Dal Dosa/Samai Dosa

South Indian breakfast goes for many varieties of healthy and super filling dishes, one among those famous breakfast dish is softy Idlies. Idly batter is definitely very handy, after fermentation the first day you can make soft idlies, after two or three days you can make super crispy dosas and once the batter is bit sour you can make spongy,thick uthappams. Obviously i'll make idly batter once a week and i'll try to keep adding millets in my usual idly batter whenever i feel like feeding my family with millets. One of my recent trail is this little millet and black urad dal batter.Since the batter turned bit dull in colour, i dont want to prepare idly with it and went for making this super crispy dosas.Sending this crispy dosas to MLLA 73 hosted by Radhika, event by Susan and Lisa.

Kodomillet Bagala Bhath/Kodomillet Curd Rice/Varagu Thayir Sadham

Millets like Varagu/Kodomillet,Ragi/Fingermillet,Kambu/Pearl millet, Samai/Littlemillet, Thinai/Foxtailmillet,Kuthiravali/Barnyard millet are often cooked at my Gradma's place when i was young. My grandma make Kamba koozhu aka pearlmillet porridge and Ragi Koozh/Fingermillet porridge every week to feed her labours. Obviously i have been pampered with millets from my earlier ages. She makes South Indian savouries like murukku, thattai with millets and sweets like millet balls quite often to feed us whenever we go to her place. Actually i have been introduced to variety of these incredibles grains only at my Grandma's space, back home mom makes food only with fingermillet and pearlmillet either as adai or simli a delicious sweet balls prepared with ragi millet, apart from that she never cooked anything with millet. When i came to know the health benefits of these grains, i searched for them here in Paris. Only Foxtail millet is available in Orangic stores and they arent expensive. Thank god i went to India last year, do i need say how many kgs of millets i bought there, yea i came back home with varieties of millets and i cook with them quite often.

Kadhi Gole/Maharashtrian Channadal Balls in Kadhi

Kadhi is one of the famous North Indian yogurt based gravy and its almost like our South Indian Mor Kuzhambu  eventhough Kadhi goes for easy breezy preparation. I love making yogurt or curd based gravies often at home whenever i feel lazy to cook. That too Kadhi goes for quick preparation and they will take hardly less than half an hour to get ready, no chopping no sauting no frying just mix the gram flour to the curd, add water, spices, bring it to boil and temper it, see how easy is this. This Kadhi gole is different from the usual one, actually ground spiced channa dal shaped as small balls are dropped directly to the cooking Kadhi and later tempered with turmeric powder, chilly powder, coriander powder and with usual spices like mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves and chopped green chillies. Sounds very tempting na, yes we loved this delicious and definitely a fingerlicking kadhi gole with rice for our Lunch. Obviously you can see some ressembles like our paruppu urundai mor kuzhambu eventhough the spices are almost the same. Trust me this Kadhi gole is a very easy gravy which gets ready very quickly apart from the soaking time of the channa dal.

Tofu Pad Thai Noodles/Vegan Pad Thai

Thai cuisine is my most favourite cuisine after Indian cuisine. I can eat Thai foods everyday without any fuss especially their Pad Thai Noodles, but dont laugh i took almost 5 years to post this recipe today in my space eventhough PadThai noodles is often prepared in my kitchen. Dunno why sometimes i dont take pictures to write about, this happen often with me and trust me i have to write about a couple of basic and most often cooked recipes in my kitchen. Dishes like Bhatura, Pindi channa,Poori, Appam also join my list to be posted. Dunno when am gonna write,God only knows.Coming to Thai cuisine, its easily available for me as am in living in Paris China town, just in front of my appartment i have Vietnamienne,chinese and Thai restaurants. Whenever we crave for their food, just we go and get our foods from those restaurants, however i love to replicate their dishes at home as their products are available easily for me. Rice is the staple food in Thailand, their favourite curry paste are well known around the world. Thai desserts prepared with fresh fruits or coconut milk is quite popular too. Since am a ardent fan of Thai dishes, i always want to visit Thailand atleast once in my life to taste the original Thai dishes.