Barley Khichdi

I rarely try out new recipes for breakfast. When i saw barley khichdi in a magazine, i found its so easy to make. the best time to try is this summer, isn't it? so went ahead and tried this great healthy breakfast. it came out Good, and what a nice way to have barley in khichdi form..i have tried it twice and loved it so much.

Veg Clear Soup Recipe

Prep Time: 05 mins 

Cooking Time: 15 mins  
Serves: 2
Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Recipe Type: Breakfast

Ingredients:


Barley - 100gms
Moong Dal / Pasi Paruppu - 2 tbsp
Turmeric powder a pinch
Water - 2 cup's (220 ml)
Onion - 1
Green Chilli - 2
Carrot - 1/2
Tomato - 1
Capsicum - 1/2
Corriander leaves to garnish
Oil - 1 tsp
Jeeragam - 1/2 tsp


Method:

I didn't soak barley, but you can also soak the barley overnight, drain it and try, just like sabudana(sago).

Heat Oil in a Pressure Cooker, add cumin, green chilly and saute them. Now add Sliced Onion and saute it along.

Add chopped Tomato to the onions and mix. also add finely chopped capsicum and carrot and saute well.

Now add Moong Dal, a pinch of turmeric powder, and the Barley to the Pressure cooker and mix well.
Add 2 cups of water and stir.  Add Salt to taste. Then Pressure Cook up to 4 or 5 whistles and remove from fire.

Serve warm, garnish with Coriander leaves.

I liked the capsicum, it added a good taste to the khichdi.

Notes:

* Just 100 gms of Barley is enough, if you are cooking for two.

* You can add your choice of vegetables.

* Barley wont be so soft on cooking, it will be like cooked brown rice, semi-hard in texture.

* Barley is best for pregnant ladies.

Nannari Syrup and Sarbath

Nannari is a Summer Special herb from Nature. It Cools down the body heat. There are Plenty of Good things about this herb. It Reduces Pitta dosha from Your body. To Sum up, its best to have during Summer, as it avoids de-hydration. Nannari Syrup is available at all stores, i remember seeing it on Nilgris dept.store. I could have bought one bottle, but the challenge for the food blogger is to try it out, isnt it. Hubby got some Nannari root from Naatu Marunthu Kadai. Googling helped me to land on Jayasree's Recipe. i also referred few other recipe and tried it out.

Recipe for Nannari Syrup:

Ingredients:

Nannari Root - 50 gms
Water - 2 cups + 1 cup
Jaggery / Vellam - 150 gms

Method:

Take a Stone Mortar and Pestle. Crush the roots with Pestle twice or thrice, the root will loosen up and you have to remove the inner part (white part) of the root.

After Removing, Take the roots in your mixie jar and grind them just for a second. its just to break the roots into small pieces.

Boil 2 cups of Water in a vessel, remove from flame and instantly add the grinded roots and close the vessel with its lid. Leave the Vessel un disturbed for 5 - 6 hours. dont open in between, as you may release the steam. Let the Roots infuse Water

After 6 hours, Strain the roots away. strain with a muslin cloth. Keep the water aside.

Add 1 cup of water to a Pan, Add Jaggery and melt the jaggery and filter it. now heat the filtered jaggery water. slowly add the root infused water to the jagger water and let it boil.

Boil for about 10 minutes in slow flame till they reach single string consistency. remove from flame and let the Nannari Syrup Cool Down.

Store the Nannari Syrup in a Sterlised Bottle and you can keep it in fridge and use it.

How to Use Nannari Syrup:

* You can make Nannari Sarbath
* You can mix the Syrup with Tender Coconut Water
* You can mix with Milk
* You can prepare Jigarthanda

Recipe for Nannari Sarbath

Ingredients:

Lemon - 1
Nannari Syrup - 3 tbsp's
Chilled Water - 1 Cup

Method:

Extract Juice from the Lemon and mix with Water and add Nannari Syrup to and Mix well. Serve chilled. its better to take this sarbath in empty stomach.

Notes:

* The Roots can be put in Clay Pot of Drinking Water.
* With this Root, kuzhambu can also be prepared.
* Nannari leaves can be used for making thuvaiyal.

Soure about Nannari - My Domestic Helper. I Tell you what, She is  Wikipedia for me and also the best Naturopathy doctor. to be noted, she never stepped school.

Power of Onions

Day - 6 Running on Recipe Marathon.

This post was on my draft for an year. Today iam pulling out from draft for you all. This is an Informative post.

First Iam sharing my Quick Onion Chutney...

Onion Chutney served with Hot Steamed idli's, is certainly a divine combi.

Ingredients:

Raw Onions - 2

Dry Red Chilli - 3

Oil - 1 tsp

Method:

Saute the chopped onions and red chilli's in a pan with one tsp of oil for half a minute. let it cool and grind it into a paste by adding 3 tbsp's of water and salt to taste.

if you wish you can season it with mustard, split urad dal and curry leaves.

Serve with Idli's and Dosa's.

Power of Onions:

1. Just crush a peeled small piece of onion, and inhale the smell of its juice, to get rid off your headache's.

2. Onion's are Just Packed with anti-biotic properties. it is proven that, it can help in curing cancer and TB.

3. Onion's work good for heart, as it helps in reducing hyper-tension and cholesterol, thus prevents Blood Pressure also Heart-Attack.

4. Onion's are also said to have anti-septic properties.

6. Onion's can help you to get rid off gastric problem's. (vayuthollai in tamil)

I want to share about this miraculous soup. it just helped to clear my nasal congestion, in minutes. Onion's are best to help you out, when you are affected by cold/flu.

This Onion Soup could prove, you can try it out and tell me..

Onion Soup for removal of Nasal Congestion

Ingredients:

10-12 Small Onions

1-Big Onion

1 Cup- Water

1tsp-corn flour(optional)

Salt(optional)

Method:

Just peel the outer skin of the small onions and big onions. Big One's can be chopped into four quarter's. In a cup of water, boil these onion's for 5-7 minutes. or you can microwave it for 4 minutes. You can have this with onion's if you like or you can filter the water alone into a glass. you can add salt to taste.

If you want this soup to be little thick, have the cornflour with some water and make it into a thick paste. add this paste to the onion water and let it boil for 2 minutes. if you wish, Garnish the soup with spring onion's.

On having this soup, within minutes, you can sense that you nasal congestion is cleared.

*****************************************************************************

Sauteed Onion's and Garlic for Reducing body heat and Gastric Problem's

A Recipe, that can make your body cool or to say in other words, it reduces your body heat.

Ingredients:

8 cloves of Garlic

10 Small Onion's

Method:

Fry the Garlic and Small Onion's in a tsp of ghee.

Add salt and saute them well.

Mix the sauteed one's with hot rice.

This will certainly help you out in reducing your body heat and gastric problems.

Finally let me tell you a Fact.

Small Onion's have more Protein, Mineral's, Carbohydrate's, Energy, Phosphorus and Iron than Big Onion's.

So Eat Onion's, it will Fight for You.


Check the Highlights of Recipe Marathan

• Day 1,
• Day 2 ,
• Day 3,
• Day 4 &
• Day 5.

Vazhathandu Juice and Pavakaai Juice

After Sweet Treat's of Yesterday, iam sharing bitter and tasteless juices with you. These two juices are good to our body.

Vazhathandu / Banana Stem contains lot of water content in it and it helps in washing out stones from our kidney. Its Good to cook this Banana stem once a week, especially if you are living in a hot place, where your body gets dehydrated soon. I usually cook two dishes with Banana stem / Vazhathandu. its Kootu and Sambhar.

How to Prepare Vazhathandu / Banana Stem Juice ?

1. Get a banana stem, as shown in the pic. with a knife, slit the outer skin. remove the outer skin fully, so that your stem looks fresh now.

2. Chop them into slices.

3. Place them in big Jar of your mixie. add 2 cups of water and run the mixie. Blend it well.

4. Now Filter the juice.

Drink the juice fresh. its better to drink the juice in the morning on empty stomach. if a glass of banana stem juice is consumed daily, its believed that kidney stones passes through urine.

How to Prepare Pavakaai / Bitter Gourd Juice?

Chop 2 Bitter gourd's to round slices.

Boil them in 2 cup's of water for about 10 minute's. (You can also Microwave for 8 minutes).

Filter the water alone and cool it. ( use the bitter gourd to make some curry/ poriyal)

Add little salt to the juice and consume.

Iam a big fan of Bharathy and her Spicy Chilly Blog. I love all her vegetable preparations and love to try them immediately, after seeing on her blog. they usually turn very good. My hubby gives me one star extra, when i cook from her blog..

Here i leave you all with two curry / poriyal's, that i tried from Bharathy's blog.

Baby Potato Curry:

Small Bitter Gourd fry:

Thank You Bharathy, for sharing and teaching cooking.

Check Who are all running with me for Nupur's Recipe Marathan

• Anna Parabrahma: Anjali
• Food for Survival: Unpredictable
• Daily Musings: Indosungod
• Soup and Dessert: Radhika
• Cook's Hideout: Pavani
• The Singing Chef: Raaga
• Susvaad: Ramya
• Blink and Miss : blinkandmiss
• Malabar Spices: Mallugirl
• Soulful Creations: Abbhirami
• Pieces of paper, squiggly lines: Lavanya
• My Foodcourt: Madhuli
• Seven Spice: Sonia
• Food, Travel, Books and More: Vinaya
• Konkani Foodie: Ashwini
• Ruchikacooks: Ruchikacook
• A Homemaker's Diary: Sayantani
• Le Chaim: Mathangi
• Kitchen Gossip: Kanchan
• Out Of The Garden: Linda
• The World according to Rujuta: Rujuta
• Kiss the cook: Manasi
• Asankhana: notyet100
• Cooking with Koki: Koki
• Siri's Corner: Siri
• Eats, Eats & Eats: Sheetal Kiran
• Ruchii: Madhu
• Jugalbandi: Jai & Bee

Easy Paruppu Rasam / Rasam Sadham

When it Rain's, I prefer to have hot rasam with steaming hot rice. It can be prepared fast, and there is no way of getting complaints on it from my hubby when served with appalam. Whenever i had fever, my mom comes with a bowl of this hot rasam sadham and feed's me with her hands. soon after getting 5 mouthfull of mom's rasam rice, i could feel refreshed. whats more you need than your mom's hand fed rasam sadham when you are ill. Yesterday it was my turn, to feed my little son, who got fever. i could see, how he turned active and fresh after having this rasam sadham with ghee. Mom's Rasam Sadham are always special to everyone. Isn't it?

Ingredients:

1. Tuvar Dal - 3 tbsp's

2. Tomato - 1

3. Ghee / Clarified Butter - 1 tsp

4. Cumin - 2 tsp's

5. Asafoetida powder - 1/4 tsp

6. Rasam Powder - 2tbsp's

7. Water - 1 and half cup's

8. Chopped Corriander Leaves - 2 tbsp's

9. Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp


Method:

1.Pressure Cook the Tuvaram Paruppu / Toor / Tuvar Dal with 1/2 cup of water and a pinch of turmeric powder with a small drop of ghee. for about 4 whistle's or till the dal is cooked well.

2.Heat a pan, add a tsp of ghee, add cumin seeds and asafoetida powder. wait till the cumin seeds are roasted.

3.Now add the chopped tomato and saute them along cumin in ghee.

4.Add the Pressure Cooked Toor Dal and one and half cup's of water and stir well.

5.Add Turmeric Powder, Rasam Powder and salt.

6. Add Chopped Corriander Leaves and Let the rasam get heated. do not let it to boil.

Serve Paruppu Rasam Hot over Rice with a tsp of ghee. Make Pappad's and serve it along.

Sundakaai Kara Kuzhambhu

Sundakaai, was not at all my favourite. one day my Keerakara amma made me buy a pack of sundakka. When i tried it in dal, i liked it, it is not as bitter as it is in vathal/dry salted form. Then i tried this karakuzhambhu, we liked it and now iam buying a pack of sundakka, once a month. It improves digestion. Now-a-day's, i take much care to add digestive aid's to the food we cook. The following are some of the digestive friendly, that can be added to our cooking, Ginger-Garlic, corriander seed's, Cumin Seed's, Saunf, corriander leaves, Mint leaves and curry leave's.

Coming to Sundakka, It is called as Turkey Berry in English. Its vastly used in Tamil cuisine and Thaai Cuisine. Check more about it in Wiki.

Again Iam repeating..Green Sundakka don't taste bitter. it just gives a subtle taste.

I prepared the kara kuzhambhu, as i prepare Vatha Kuzhambhu, but with less oil.

Ingredients:

Sundakkai - 20 (remove its stem & cut into half or just crush each, with spice grinder stone mortor.)
Garlic - 7 pod's
Shallots/small onions - 1/2 cup(min 10 in no.)
Tomato-1
Dhania powder/Corriander Powder - 1 tbsp
Turmeric powder-1/4 tsp
Sambhar Powder - 1 tbsp
Tamarind- a small lime sized ball
Oil-1 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dal or Bengal gram dal- 1/2 tsp
Methi seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves-10

Method:

* Remove the stem and Wash the sundakka's and Crush each sundakka or cut them into half and keep aside.

* Soak the Tamarind in half a cup of luke warm water for 5 minute's. Squeeze the tamarind and get ready with your tamarind water. Add a pinch of turmeric powder, 1 tbsp Corriander powder, 1 tbsp Sambhar Powder and little salt to the tamarind water and mix well. keep it aside.

* Get ready with your shallot's and Garlic.

* Now Heat a Thick Bottomed Vessel or kadaai, add oil, when it's heated, add mustard and let it pop. now add methi seed's, curry leave's, garlic and shallot's/small onion's. saute them well. add the finely chopped tomato and saute it along.

* Add the sundakkai and saute it for half a minute. Now add the Tamarind water and mix well. Lower the flame and close the kadaai with a lid, and let it sit on low flame for about 10 minutes, till the sundakka gets cooked.

Serve it hot Rice.

You can prepare this dish, for a person, who have recovered from fever. its really good to improve the taste bud's. and also improves digestion.

Sundakka Vathal / Dry Turkey Berry:

If you want a home-made medicine to improve your digestion, then here it is.

1. Heat two tbsp of oil in a pan.

2. Put some 10-15 sundakka vathal and fry them for a minute.

3. Crush the fried sundakka and put it in a bowl of rice and have a tsp of ghee and mix well with the rice. consume it to improve your digestion. Repeat this for a Week on every meal.

Check my sundakka dal here. its the basic dal recipe. remove the stem of sundakka and crush the sundakka and cook it in a cup pf water for about 5 minute's and then add to the dal. Moong dal is preferred. it tasted so good too..

Have a Great Week end!!

Learnt Lesson's on Kidney Stone's

Iam Hitting 100 post's with this one. Just wanted to make this post a most satisfying one for me and also a usefull one for my reader's and friends.

Learnt Lesson's - Kidney Stones

I was Shocked when i heared that i have traces of stone like formations in my kidney, exactly a year back. When i analysed what could be the reason, i justified its presence just because of my simple mistakes..

I dont want to give you all a thesis report on kidney stones...there are many..Check here and here for a complete go through regarding it. But i want to give some caution bell's and some remedy tips.

Regarding the Caution Bell's:

1. Are You Pregnant?---Drink adequate water
2. Are You Breast Feeding?---Drink adequate water
3. Are You not Physically active?---Have a small walk for 15-30 minutes a day
4. Are You Drinking More Milk?---Dont Drink more(above 4 glasses) of milk a day
5. Are You Getting de-hydrated by Sweating a lot without any physical movements?---Drink more water and seek doctor advise
6. Are You eating too many of tomatoes with seeds in it? In india..we say it as nattu thakkali, which has too many seeds in it.---Remove the seeds before cooking them.
7. Are you taking more protein rich food?---see to that you dont take too much of protein other than your diet needs.

Adequate Water quantity is 3 litres per day. or 8-12 glasses of water.

What all to take care if kidney stones got formed?

1. Take care not to drink more milk
2. Drink atleast 8-10 glasses of water
3. Dont take nuts, chocolates, Tomatoes(you can de-seed them and consume)
4. Dont Take Bitter Gourd
5. Dont Take Drumstick Leaves
6. Try Drinking Tender Coocnut water
7. Try Taking Greens like Sirukkerai and mulai keerai

Remedy Suggestion:

First seek medical advise, and finish a treatment course. if still you feel the pain follow the below steps..

1-day remedy:

Drink 2 glasses of tender coconut water in the morning on your empty stomach. and later after meals take an anti-biotic tablet.

(or)

Start taking plantain stem and banana flower atleast 4 days a week.plantain stem can be prepared as juice and it can be had in the empty stomach.

have a medical consultation for sure to identify what type of stone have formed and regarding the size of the stone. my remedy tips work only when the stone is of small size.

Click Vazhathandu kootu for Recipe.

Click Vazhapoo Usili for Recipe.

Plantain stem(Vazhathandu) Kootu with Butter Milk

Plantain stem kootu with butter milk:

Required Items:

• Vazhathandu/plantain stem-1(of 25 cm height)
• Chana dal-1/4 cup..soaked for 30 minutes in warm water.
  
• Green chilli-1(slitted)
• Dry Red chilli-2
• Curry leaves-8
• Mustard-1/2 spoon
• Butter milk-1 cup or Curd -6 spoons
• Turmeric powder-a pinch

Method:

Remove the outer skin of the plantain stem and cut into small sized cube's.

Add 3 spoons of curd to half a glass of water, stir well, add salt to it and soak the plantain stem in the butter milk solution for 15 minutes in a bowl.

Now add the drained chana dal, turmeric powder and a slitted green chilli to the plantain stem and pressure cook it.(4 whistles will do).

Now season it with mustard and curry leaves. add the remaining curd and salt. mix well and serve it with hot Rice.

along with bitter gourd chips....
Plantain stem/vazhathandu is very good for health as it dissloves kidney stones, it should be cooked once a month atleast.

Soon i will post the recipe for banana flower/vazha poo usili.