Cauliflower tots... a super snack to enjoy

Cauliflower tots are a super-yummy snack well worth the wait and effort. We make it for lunch as a side and as snacks as well. Either way these are loved till the last bite is done. I have baked it for a healthier version but you can always shape them as you want and finish it off by shallow frying. At ours we either bake them or make it on tawa with minimal oil

These tots are a little spicy... a bite into it and you will feel it a little crunchy on the outside. Inside you will have a soft and grainy textured bite which will melt with blasts of spice every time. A little makes a lot of it and that is the best .... you would just need a little cauliflower and you will end up making lots of these tiny guys. Well thats nice... you can eat a good fill :)

The recipe calls for very simple ingredients and am sure you will find everything in your kitchen pantry. Thats the best part ... isn't it???

Paneer bhurji and cashew gravy

This is a super simple and delicious recipe perfect for some interesting dinner time with friends and family. Quick to make and impressive to serve giving a complete feel of satisfaction while satiating your taste buds to the fullest is what this recipe is all about

Paneer and cashews are always a rich and inviting combination to please anyone. A few spices and little cream adds up to spike the taste to sinful heights

We love this recipe and hope you love it too

Sweet corn Street-food style... simple butter and salt

The simplest and most like snack .. and yes a no-fuss snack for kids. Every kid loves corn and if served in their way it more fun then they imagine. My kids love butter corn. They come across it almost everywhere these days... street shops, malls, super-markets and lot more. I dont encourage them having outside but at home we make sure we enjoy every little kernel and nothing less than that

Simple and easy to make makes it very welcoming in the kitchen. Kids love towards this snack and the benefits of having the right fiber and vitamins that it holds makes it a very good choice as an after-school snack

Tapioca chips

I love tapioca chips and so do my kids. Whenever tapioca is in season I buy them for sure. Love eating tazhicha kelangu / tapioca puttu. My mom makes it for breakfast or as an evening snack. I can keep eating it as long as my tummy can hold ;) 

But I always buy tapioca chips from outside... hot chips. They are perfectly done always and fresh too. We all love it. Last time when I bought some tapioca to make puttu my elder kiddo instead  wanted to have some chips so ended up making this

  

Whole Wheat Potato Samosa...

Samosas serve as a great snack or appetizer. Everyone loves samosas except for the fact that they are deep fried in oil. Now I know that there is no escape from that as I have always been madly in love with this snack. These are some special varieties which make me drool and I dont have a choice except to eat it. I dont know I can never say no to it ;)

This one is one such variety which we love. As I make it from whole wheat, atleast I stop feeling guilty by staying away from maida which is another bad addition to our diets. Stuffing is the same as you want to any other samosa. Fill in into whole wheat pockets and fry them. A perfect snack for cozy evenings is what it suggests

Roasted Cashews ... spiced with just salt and pepper

My kids love roasted cashews. We have all been a fan of the ones we get from Mangalore. When my dad was in mangalore it was so much fun to go there for every vacation. Everytime on the way back home  dad would buy these roasted cashews for us without fail. Not only this but also other dry fruits. There is this store in Mangalore called Phalguni Achal where we get really good dry fruits. We have been in love with them

Now after my dad shifted from Mangalore we dont get to eat roasted cashews with the same taste. My elder one was talking to me in the morning about this as how he misses mangalore, city centre, Pabbas and these roasted cashews. I thought I would buy some for him and got it from a nearby store. He ate but said it did not mark up to the taste. I understood that he like nice big beautifully shaped cashews that taste just wonderful without a scope of bitterness anywhere

I have batch of fresh nuts lying in the fridge. Dad made sure to stock it up for me that could last a year. I pulled out a pack and seasoned it a little. Niks loved it to the core. Both the kids enjoyed and then Niks put a few in a box and saved it for the next day too

Gongura Chutney

I love gongura chutney but never got to try it at home. I first had it at my friends place when I was in hyderabad. Its sour and spicy and tastes perfect with hot rice. This time I chanced upon some fresh gongura leaves right out of my kitchen garden. The leaves were so fresh and tempting that I had to give it a try making some chutney

Asked a friend for a quick recipe and she shared this. She said there are many ways that its made and she follows this simple one when making for her family.  Well... loved it and what much to say. Whenever I have fresh leaves from my garden this chutney is getting to be a must. Thanks to my garden :)

Corn spinach paratha

A continuation from the previous post ................................

A paratha that will win hearts of all our little friends .... oh yes alllll the kids. This recipe calls for corn and cheese which are simply classified as a hit among kids. I have to accept that this is not a recipe that I knew and I am sure it is not a new one out in the recipe world but for us it was a happy accident in our happy kitchen

"A lazy dinner time ...you look up at the clock and you realise its high time you get up and cook the meal...but still feel there is no mood to cook. The story doesnt end there ... I know mood doesnt help it but you still have to scratch your head and pointlessly look into the fridge longing to find something to the rescue for the moment". Does this sound anything familiar to you. Might be a no for you as you might not be as lazy as I am ;)  but Yes ...  for me this is usually a regular thing and one such "hunt for food" night, we landed up with this recipe. When trying to helplessly find something in the fridge, we found chapathi dough and a small container of corn-spinach filling leftover from morning after making a big batch of yummy sandwiches for breakfast

It was not my idea to make parathas for sure. I asked if I could make sandwiches again but lo there was no bread to the rescue. Next what... think think think ... my kids style and he suggested parathas with bright shiny eyes. Niks loves parathas. He can even enjoy it three times a day.  Finding it a good suggestion I thought "Why not give it a try". We made it and enjoyed it hot hot for dinner. You bet... it was such a hit that I have to jot it down to make sure it stays in my recipe book for a long while

Spinach Corn Sandwich

Corn-Spinach sandwich has been a popular breakfast in our home since my little one joined school. When Nikhil, my elder one, started going to school we had a little changes in our breakfast styles and after Aadit joined in the group of snack-box carrying fellows in the house, things changed a little more. Over these years that my kids started going to school, breakfast style is the one that has changed a lot and got lot of new additions too

Sandwiches are a very preferred breakfast at our table. And this one will hit the top list of favorites. I make a big batch of filling so that the kids can enjoy it as an after-school snack as well. We all can never get enough of it

This recipe came into our kitchen menu when I was looking for ways to introduce spinach/any palak into my kids diet. They hated it .... yes they hated it to the core. I started with soups and parathas and then landed onto this sandwich recipe which was welcomed the most pleasing way. I thought I had posted it already but looks like I missed it earlier. Well... as said better late than never

Mango and Nungu/Palmyra fruit Kheer

Nungu and mango .... I have never thought of this combination and I wouldn't have tried it if it was introduced  to us like this this. This recipe is not my own trial but was made by my mom who saw it on tv last month. The simplicity of the recipe drew us in and she made it for us. Well it was super hit.

I have had a small fracture in my hand some time back which has kept me away from my kitchen dealings for a while now. My mom and mil are helping me in the kitchen. When mom was here to help she made this recipe 4-5 times. Now that is quite a proof of how much we have fallen in love with it

I am not a big fan of nungu. In fact I just dont like it and dont even bother to try eating despite its wonderful health benefits. Google it and you will end up with a big list of amazing benefits that this tiny fruit holds. The most important is that it is a very good body coolant - a must for us during the scorching summers. This recipe has changed my way of looking at this jelly-like fruit. Hats off to the tv show and hats off to my mom for making it for us. Feeling good that we are enjoying the goodness of this fruit in a way that has pleased our taste buds to its best 

Vadu maanga pickle

Vadu Maanga and thayir saatham....mmmm..... heavenly. Those who have tried it will understand what is it that I am talking about. Curd rice and vadu maanga pickle combination is a very very common tummy entertainer and cooler in Tamilnadu

I have always had plenty of good friends around me all the time who have gifted me jars of specially made pickle handed over with lots of love. My mom never made it so I did not know about this pickle till I went to college. There were plenty of friends in the hostel where I stayed and that is where I first got introduced to this. From then on I have been hooked to this pickle than any other

I tried this recipe last summer for the first time with my friend "my dear VM pickle supplier" when she was relocating. I knew that I had to learn the recipe and the best time to get the perfect recipe from her was then or never :) So last year we made a big jar of it but this year I tried only a little as it was first try on my own. It turned out good and tasted great. The only problem was that the jar got emptied very soon this time coz I made only little and also coz my lil kiddo loves it too. He was after my pickle all the time. Jotting down the recipe here so that I can pull it up again next year to restack my pickle jars

Cheese balls ... Cake zone special...

Made this a couple of months back and kids loved it. I think its a recipe worth noting down. We visited a local cake shop around 3-4 times within a fortnight during the summer vacation. This is not a regular habit of mine to take them out so frequently. Its not that I was in my regular lazy style but it was due to the "vacation flu" that had gotten in ;) Going to summer classes and having a lot of free time to kill had made us try all this :) 

During this time we got to munch on some cute cheese balls which tasted a little different from the ones I usually made. To find out the exact flavors I had to taste it more than once..  now that was a super excuse to eat more than one :) Guessed and felt the bite of a few extra ingredients and me and the kids decided to try making them at home for sure
Tried this recipe with our guesses or instinct as you could call it. The outcome was awesome and turned out perfect. Loved it ever since and also tried freezing ans frying them a couple of times. They also tasted perfect

Instant Mango Pickle ... Ver 2

Mangoes .... yumm they are in season again. Ripe ones, unripe ones all are heaped up in markets. Oh my gosh... they are in for breakfast, lunch, dinner and somewhere in mid for a snack/drink too. Love the way it can make entry in so many many and mannnnyyyyy ways. And yes every form of it is loved - be it drinks or cakes or kuflis or ice creams or chutneys or pickles or many such yums. Well...... mango does have a justified reason to be called "The King" of fruits

Mango pickle and curd rice are the perfect combi for a light lunch when the sun is scorching outside. Pleasing to the tummy and satisfying your taste buds is the perfect job that these pickles do. We love mango pickle. There are so many versions of it. We love the sun-dried, instant, pickled, cooked and all forms of mango pickle. This is the easiest of all and is loved by one and all. Usually this is served in marriages when mango is in season

I make this every summer many many times and its all gone before you think it should ;) I dont use too much chilli powder as my kids love this pickle and I dont like too much spice getting into their tummies, especially during the hot weather

Sweet potato chips

Sweet potato chips taste really good. Very quick and easy to make they serve as a perfect evening snack. I dont even add salt to the chips. They taste great as is and my kids love it a lot. Just a couple of sweet potatoes and evening snack is ready 

  

Paneer Bread Pizza... perfect finger food

Finger food is so perfect for kids. Less messy and more easy to handle. The best part is that it is more appealing to the kids. Above all this recipe here makes their taste and look  like pizza so the kids will have double-fun party-time when they get to eat this. Very quick to put together and perfect to enjoy as an evening snack .... this recipe always has been handy