Wanderberry Tales

A new recipe on the blog to celebrate Diwali - Pineapple Kesari. May joy, love and prosperity illuminate your lives and homes. Wishing you all a Happy Diwali! Ingredients Pineapple - 1 cup roughly chopped Rava/Semolina - 1.5 cup Sugar - 3/4 cup Ghee - 1/2 cup  Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp Saffron strands - 3 or 4 Water - 3 cups Raisins - 2 tbsp Cashew nuts - 2 tbsp Method Heat about 2 tbsp of ghee in a pan and fry the cashew nuts until color begins to change. Drain on kitchen towel In the same ghee fry the raisins until they puff up. Drain and set aside. Add another tablespoon of ghee and fry the pineapple. Keep it covered and let it cook for about 5 minutes. Remove the pineapples and add 2 more tables spoon of ghee and add the semolina. Cook the semolina until roasted and fragrant. Meanwhile heat water in a saucepan along with saffron strands. Add the semolina to the boiling water and keep mixing to avoid lump formation. Once it is mixed well, ...

Festive season along with the breezy winter has made its presence felt. Although good food needs no season or reason, it is simply an excuse to make some deep fried sugary  tea time snacks. It's strange how memories that have long been pushed to some remote corner of the brain comes popping back on occasions with no particular trigger. That is how diamond cuts made its way into my list.A long time ago (as all stories begin) my mamma lovingly rolled out these dough and the sheer desire to use the spoon that had a wheel on its end to make the diamond shapes got me onto the kitchen slab beside her! I did enquire after the well being of the spoon last time I was home:) I have used wheat flour, you could easily replace it with Whole Purpose Flour and also use some powdered sugar in the dough itself. Off we go to the recipe. Ingredients For the dough- Wheat Flour - 2 cups Ghee - 5 tbsp + 1 tbsp Water - 1 cup warm Salt to taste For coating -  Sugar - 50 gm...

I am a proud Indian. I do not live in India now but that does not make me any lesser an Indian. It hurts me to see Indians fighting in the name of religion, state, caste and anything you can possibly think of. How better a country we would be once we start appreciating the uniqueness of the country. Where else can you find a country so diverse - just imagine the number of dance forms even within a state! The state of Kerala for example boasts of Mohiniyattam, Kathakalli, Ottam thullal, oppana, Thiruvathira, Marghamkali and many more to go. If this is the story of one state in India, summing up that of all states together will have dance forms that is beyond math I can do now! The festivals , the religions, languages, food, culture also follow the same swing. India is a country that defines the spirit of UNITY IN DIVERSITY! Let that not go waste due to the selfish intents of a handful who stand to gain. I am proud I belong to a country like this and our heritage is something that need...

Festivities seem to gain more vigour and valour when you are away from your home country. Onam is one such festival and you can find onam celebrations happening till it is time for Christmas celebrations. Every weekend for the next two months in the UAE you are sure to find atleast one person in the traditional Kerala kasavu mundu/saree heading for Onam celebration somewhere. Pookalam ( floral designs), Thiruvathira (traditional dance form),vadam vali (tug of war), sadya (the grand meal) all form a part of this rich festival. This year is no less and I am counting on 3 sadyas this year. Just like Cake is to Christmas, Payasam is to Onam! Make a sadya or not -payasam is inevitable. This year I wanted to try some milk based payasam other than the semiya payasam. That is when my cousin suggested pineapple. I googled up a few recipes but wasn't quite convinced to try it out myself. Pineapple Rava Kesaribath is one of my favorite food - that is when it struck me to incorpor...

Glass jar full of colorful sweets, cookies and biscuits are common in local grocery stores in India. Rava/Semolina laddu was a popular sweet that adorned one of these glass jar during my childhood days. I remember making this dish  several times at home with my mom and very often instead of rolling it up into balls we just leveled into a steel plate and cut it out as barfi. I always had a penchant for these laddus. It was recently that Famidha from My Life in Yanbu expressed her love for semolina and desire to even create a semolina recipes only blog! That is when I got all pumped up to make this laddu again. It is easy with minimal ingredients and done in under 15 minutes.  So if you have guests popping in at short notice this is a recipe for you , after all semolina is an ingredient readily available in our household. Ingredients Roasted Rava/Semolina - 1 cup Dessicated coconut -  1/2 cup Sweet condensed milk - 1/2 cup Warm milk - 3 tbsp Ghe...

Days are passing by too fast!  Well, that is an understatement YEARS are passing by - I remember last Diwali was just a few months ago and one fine day I wake up to realise that the next one is here already! I refrain generally from commenting on religious sentiments however today I recounted an instance couple of years ago which made me think. It was the last day of work before the Diwali holidays and in one of the calls to a non - Hindu colleague I wished him Happy Diwali. (In India, you wish everyone greetings of every festival. We are country of many religions, cultures and traditions yet there is a unity in the way of our festivities.) His next comment took me aback - do you celebrate Diwali - are you not a Christian?  I only expected a Happy Diwali in return and now I am supposed to respond to his question! I kept it simple - I told him I am an Indian. It did not stop there - he went on to explain why as a Christian I should not celebrate Diwali! I could take n...

Time is flying by quite fast. Feels like it was yesterday that we celebrated the last Onam. Onam brings with it a lot of cheer and freshness. The pookalam and the traditional attire is a delight to the eye  and the soul satisfying sadya for your palettes. Both of us are bought up outside Kerala and are not used to varied flavors of payasam or pradhaman. The safe bet has always been the semiya payasam, ari payasam, paripu payasam and palada pradhaman. And this year, it was time to try out something we hadn't tried earlier. While sticking onto the traditional recipe, we have incorporated ari/rice as well ghee fried nenthra pazham chunks as well into the nenthra pazham ari pradhaman that we tried out. Wishing you all a blessed Onam season. Meanwhile here is our recipe. Ingredients (Serves - 6) Nenthra Pazham/Kerala banana - 3 medium Jaggery - 100gm Coconut Milk - thick extract - 1 cup Coconut Milk - medium extract - 2 cups Water - 1 cup Cardamom powder - 1...

I am not much of a sweet tooth, neither is Soumya, my sister. Despite this, one sweet dish that both of us would love to snack on is Boli or Holige as it is called in Karnataka. Boli and a splash of warm milk is just beyond yum.  My sister often comments on my good memory, be it with the dates or my ability to connect different incidents and the day it happened. My memory with food is not bad either. That gives me the right to comment on my Boli memories as well. Boli is a snack that my father often buys from local bakery and I loved taking it to Bangalore during my college days. More recently on our visit to India, my sister introduced this to Shibin as well. He loved it too which inspired me to try out this snack.   Boli is made of All Purpose Flour/Maida. To make it more healthier, I tried out the with wheat flour. Not much of a difference in recipe, just replace maida with wheat flour. There it is the recipe - Ingredients Wheat Flour/ All purpose Flou...

That was a pretty huge break from blogging. After a wonderful trip to Cyprus - (details on a travellogue soon) and also a bout of sickness, I am back in the kitchen. Now that Diwali is right around the corner, why not a sweet dish? Diwali is probably a festival that brings together the entire country. From lighting the lamps to bursting the crackers, everyone irrespective of age and religion join in. The energy can be felt in every lane in India and the hustle bustle in every household. The earliest memories of Diwali for me is the kids in our colony gathering for Diwali celebration at a neighbors house. We joyously lined the walls with candles and lit them, took part in the pooja, burst crackers and finally gobbled down really sumptuous food. This was a day, we the kids of Vidyanagar colony looked forward to. Crackers were not my favorite but I loved lighting the lamps and loved going on a drive to see the beautifully lit houses. This is my first Diwali away from India and discus...

When it is Payasam, it is kadala parippu payasam that I enjoy the most. Not just me, my sister as well. When everyone devours it hot, we love freezing it and having spoonfuls directly from the fridge:) Our dear akka, back home never misses an opportunity to make her special payasam. She ensures that she makes a huge quantity of it when my sister and I are back home. Only once do we eat it hot and the rest is frozen payasam. If it is payasam at home, our mom is sure to find a lot of used tablespoons lying around in her kitchen from our occasional sneaks into the kitchen for the payasam. Uhh!! Getting a little too nostalgic, am I! So here is your recipe - Ingredients Kadala parippu/ Bengal gram dal - 50 gm Raw Rice - 50 gm soaked in water Jaggery - 250 gm Sago seeds/chowwary/ Sabudana - 50 gm Coconut - 2 cups (take the milk) + 2 tbsp Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp Ghee Soak the rice in water for half an hour and wet grind it along with 2 tbsp of coconut. Fry the s...