Christmas Fruit Cake

Fruit cake has been my husband's as well as my favorite cake. We had bought 3 packets from India this time. But it got over in no time and we were craving for more. It was then I decided to bake one, not being sure whether I would be able to bring the authentic taste out of the one I bake. The recipe using which I baked was too good. I got the recipe from Mishmash who has the recipe for this wonderful cake. The cake came out so well that I had already soaked two batches of tutti-frutti in rum!

Fruit in Custard

Recently made this simple dessert using the store bought Custard Powder. followed the instructions on the Custard Powder box, then chopped apples,bananas, orange, grapes and added the custard to the fruits. We had it warm after our dinner.

My cutie bird :)

When I was making Idiyappam, I had some rice paste left in the Idiyappam press towards the end which I didn't feel like discarding. I always used to love playing with chapatti dough as a child. My mom used to purposely leave a ball of dough for me whenever she made rotis. So this time I decided to revive those memories and made this cutie bird out of the rice dough. Tinted its beaks with some red food color and used mustard seeds for the eyes :)

Appam

I got the recipe for this from one of the blogs:

http://madteaparty.wordpress.com/2006/08/24/appams-with-avial/

Kozhukkatta

Here is the photo of the Kozhukkatta I made one of these days. The recipe can be found here

Vermicelly Upma

Ingredients:

Vermicelli (available in most Indian stores) : 1 cup
Vegetables- peas,carrot,corn, Onion chopped finely
For tampering: Curry leaves, Mustard seeds, Cumin seeds, Slit green Chilli
oil for tampering
Water for cooking the vermicelli (usually it is 2 cups for a cup of vermicelly. However if you are adding more vegetables, increase the water accordingly)
Salt as per taste

Method:

Saute the vermicelli in a tablespoon if oil on medium fire until all the vermicelly turns light brown. Take care not to burn them. In another vessel, add a tablespoon of oil and add the tamperings, then add the veggies and salt. Wait until veggies are cooked. Add water and a little bit more salt. Add vermicelly, lower the fire. Wait until vermicelly is fully cooked and all the water is absorbed. Vary the fire until all water is absorbed. Garnish with grated coconut. Best served hot.

Cabbage Polo (Cabbage dosa)

Easy to make and instant dosa, I love having it even just like that:)

Ingredients:

Cabbage (chopped finely): 6 leaves

Onion: 1 chopped finely (optional)

Dry Red Chilli : 10 nos

Rice flour (or raw rice soaked for 1hour): 1 cup

Thuvar dal soaked for 1 hour: 1/2 cup

Salt: to taste

Hing (asafoetida) : to taste

Grated coconut: 1 cup

Water to grind

Method:

Grind everything except Cabbage and Onion to a smooth batter. Add Cabbage and Onion to the batter and stir well. Heat a tawa with one tablespoon oil. Reduce flame when tawa is heated to medium. Pour a laddle full of batter and try spreading the batter to make the dosa as thin as possible (its tough to do that with the cabbage and onion in the batter. I am planning to add the cabbage and onion after I pour the batter on the tawa another time I make cabbage dosa). Increase the flame and cover the tawa for the dosa to cook. When the top part of the dosa and the sides are brown, flip the dosa carefully. Reduce the flame and let it cook for another 20 seconds before tranferring it to a plate. Best served hot.