Wanderberry Tales

Poha is a simple and quick breakfast dish which you can whip up in under 15 minutes. That is why it is one of the most favored breakfast recipe in my kitchen. I always considered Poha to be a South Indian dish since a room mate of mine from Shimoga, a place in Karnataka often made it for breakfast. This notion changed on a short trip to Indore for a recruitment event. We were served Poha in the hotel for breakfast, as a snack in the college between the interviews and we even saw people relishing Poha at Chappan - a popular food bazaar  during the evening.  The Poha, I tasted at Indore was sweeter than the version I had down south which is why I try to bring in a little sweetness to the version from my kitchen. It is a lesser known dish to the Keralites. My husband had never even heard of it, till I cooked it for him the first time. This dish is a miracle breakfast recipe as far as I am concerned and  a lot better than the normal bread - jam/peanut butter or...

Quite a few friends have requested for some vegetarian recipes to be posted in my blog else they say they would  " unlike" the page on facebook :) I have been trying to recollect the vegan recipe that I love the most and that is when Rava Uthappam clicked! A quick uthappam recipe that does not require the batter to stand over night. So here goes the history. This recipe dates to those days when I had just moved out of college into corporate life. A few of us classmates moved in together after college beginning to bask in the glory of the newly found financial independence. After a hectic day at work, we would gather in the kitchen to cook ourselves a decent dinner. All we had was three or four utensils, an over packed small refrigerator shared by nine maybe ten of us, a double burner stove(one burner which hardly worked) and our inadequate cooking skills. We were always on the lookout for simple and quick recipes. None of us had the time or the energy for elabo...

I had never heard of this dish until a year before, when I had it for the first time from a small Tibetan restaurant in Viveknagar, Bangalore and more recently heard of it on Roti, Rasta aur India's Ladakh leg of the show. My husband spoke highly of Thukpa. This is what he had to say - light yet a wholesome meal, wonderful for cold and fever.  I can't agree better.  It is definitely light but quite filling and what more -it is the best and delicious way to consume the healthy vegetables which you might normally loathe. For all the mothers, it may be a really good way to get your kids to eat some vegetables. My husband swears on the health benefits of the soup. Apparently, he used to have thukpa when he was down with cold and it gave him a lot of relief as the soup found its way down the throat through the food pipe clearing the throat. I have always brought packets of Knor or Maggie soup but never attempted to make one. That is when I thought about beginning my ...

It was during our honeymoon that we first tasted strawberry apple jam. A lovely breakfast on the houseboat in Dal lake, Srinagar with Tea, Poha, Bread toast and Strawberry Apple Jam.  The jam just tasted heavenly with small chunks of apple and strawberry in it. On inquiry, we were told that it was locally procured but we were not fortunate enough to get a bottle of the jam from any of the shops we went. Post that, I have tried making pineapple jam and mango jam but never strawberry apple jam. Recently, we celebrated one year of our trip to Kashmir reminiscing the trip and the enjoyable moments. That is when I recollected the refreshing jam we had in Srinagar giving a real feel of fresh strawberries and apples. Bread and jam with coffee has been an easy breakfast option for us ever since we were married. What can be more fresh than home made jam with chunks of fruits to go with bread! When you make at home, you can be sure of exactly what goes into the jam wi...

Jam roll always reminds me of the summer vacations while we were still at school -a long two month hiatus in Kerala along with my cousins. There was a routine established for the four of us and the most important of it all being the 5 pm wait on our balcony for my aunt to get back from work - for pouncing on the goodies in her bag. She never failed us.  Jam Roll was my favorite, it always intrigued me. Sometimes I would just bite into it hungrily and sometimes I took the time to unroll it lick away the delicious mixed fruit jam and then dig on the cake. The 'little me' never would have imagined that she would actually be making jam roll one day. The idea of trying out something like this popped up when we brought orange marmalade. I was tasting it for the very first time and it did not fascinate me much. I had a bottle full of it and did not absolutely want it to rot away. That is when my hubby told me why not try a Swiss roll? I was clueless how this was done. Ye...

Prawns always reminds me of my sister - Soumya  -  a hard core non veg food fan, who is convinced that prawns cannot be categorized as non vegetarian food. She says - look at the size of it - how can that be non vegetarian? That is what she grew up saying and doesn't care much about prawns to date. Although I love prawns, I have not tried many recipes with it. I was craving for prawns and that is when I remembered the curry my colleague used to often bring to office. Hailing from Trissur in Kerala, he often brought to office the traditional delicacies from the region.And yes, all of us have gobbled on it.I soon had the recipe in my hands, thanks to his wife who managed to write it down despite having a four month old baby and a lovely four year old to look after.   Sharing the Chemmeen curry recipe which my husband and his colleagues loved. Ingredients Prawns - 1/2 kg Coconut - 1 grated Raw Mango - 2 cut into long pieces Ginger - 2 tsp finely...

It all started for Christmas in 2012 when a colleague gave me a cake recipe. The very same day I purchased all the ingredients and made my very first cake. I did not have an oven and resorted to baking the cake in a cooker. ( you need to be careful, you don't use water and gasket and the cooker gets mighty hot). Since then, I have tried a lot of cakes in the cooker. It did turn out tasty but often a little too hard with the bottom and the edges burnt, I have also tried the traditional method of baking where the cake tray is inserted into a vessel with hot sand generally kept over the traditional chullah. The vessel is then covered with a lid with burning coal on top as well so that the cake gets evenly baked. I was too scared to handle that and it was my mother who was a master in that and me just a by stander. It was only post marriage in 2014 that I learnt to use an oven to bake cakes. I had no idea about the right temperature nor the timings .After a few burnt and also...