Wednesday, February 13, 2008

My Valentine's Day Entries, with some cute hearts, click click click..... :D

About two weeks ago , while recalling some nice memories of India, suddenly hubby remembered something ,and that brought smile to his face …

He : You know , when we were kids , in summer vacation when we used to travel back from south India to our home, Nani used to pack a lot of food stuffs with us, and along with that without missing one kind of Khatta chawal .
Me : Khatta chawal ??? I never heard of it .
He: It’s a south Indian dish. I like it a lot.
Me: Is that something made up with Lemon…………
He : Yes, it is. It has also lots of peanuts in it , and some more things , I don’t remember it now .But that tastes I still remember….

(Ahhhhhh, here I am- I was thinking, it must be the more seen on blogworld lemon rice ,which usually south Indian bloggers make often ).

Me: I think it is called Lemon rice.
He : Yes, perhaps, and he spoke some name which was a Tamil word for that dish I think.

And then , that day we continued our talk of summer vacations and literally we lost ourselves in the childhood memories of traveling in summer days , visiting cousins and all that masti and everything, The card games we used to play , eating ice Gola in noon times, teasing each others , playing cricket and braking neighbor’s window glass n and then running away and finally for the simplest one from all players is supposed to caught by them to speak all the truth in from of neighbor’s family, and then elders all time ready to scold us ,and then rushing to mom and hide under her pallu, mom being unaware of such things sometimes protects us so well…. both os us spend those days in almost opposite part of India , still memories were so similar... I think childhood is all like that ,no matter in which part of world you spent it. We shared many memories and laughed a lot, also missed those days very much …

Above all these talks, one thing that clicked to my mind that day, is surprising hubby with his favorite dish going to be easier this year. With many blogs around I find a nice recipe for it, and finally made it the way Indira makes : ) . Easy to make and quick too , Surprising Deepak was really easy ;) .

On one evening time , last week , when he was back to home….

Me : I made something special for you , guess what ?
He : Dhokla ?
Me : nope….
He: Pizza ?
Me : not this time ,

( He kept on guessing his much loved dishes which I make sometimes as a surprise to him…. )

Me :(trying to giving him some hint for guessing…. ) why don’t you guess something you like, but I didn’t made before ?
He : (tired of guessing , and eager to see what the surprise is…) Why don’t you tell me then ?
And then I presented on Table the dish filled with lemon rice. Pointless to say he was more than happy to see it.

Did I tell you ever ? He is little more color conscious for the color of the dish . For him there is a perfect color impression of each dish. And for this dish he find the one I made similar to that was in his mind since his days a kid, so that was another reason for me to be happy and for him too : ) My first take for making this was a grand success and so was for him .

Thank you Indira for your perfect recipe, you really made our day . Thank you many other bloggers too ,who posted this on their blog , as I went through many blogs around and that helped me to made my mind about how the dish should be .

Having this dish for the first time in our menu , I was little skeptical about if it will appease our hunger fully or not. So I made this not so light soup to accompany this nice lemony dish.


I named it tomato –beans soup. Yet searching for some nice name , all suggestions are welcome :D.

Ingredients :

1 Cup sprouts, any sprout will taste good, I used Green gram sprouts .
1 cup tomato pulp,
1 tsp black pepper powder,
Salt to taste
Coriander leaves for flavor.

Recipe :

Mix in tomato pulp, with 1.5 cup of water and place it on stove , let it boil till it is little thick OR boil it until it reaches the consistency you like , add sprouts and salt in it cook for 2-3 mins, add black pepper powder and washed and chopped coriander leaves. Turn off the heat and serve it hot.

Quick and healthy soup is ready in minutes to serve.
(Note : if no tomato pulp is ready, boil 2-3 the tomatoes , then remove skin and crush it to fine paste .) this goes now to Lisa for her event No croƻtons required this month . Thank you Lisa for hosting lovely event.

Along with this ,Kuchh mitha ho jaye…. This was our dessert dish I gave tt a little twist making it with saffron flavored water and without using milk at all .

Here is the recipe for Kesar flavored Suji ka halwa (Kesari suji no shiro) .

Ingredients :
½ cup Semolina (suji ) ,
½ cup sugar ( I used little less ) ,
1 tsp cardamom powder
2 tsp ghee
Pinch of saffron treads soaked in 1.5 cup hot water for 1-2 hours.

Method:
Take a flat bottomed pan , heat ghee in it , add Semolina to it , parallely in a vessel heat the saffron flavored water without removing saffron from it.Roast semolina until it spread nice aroma of it and until it is little brown in color.

Now to this add sugar and mix well keep on stirring continuously
Add hot saffron water to it , keep on stirring continuously and stir it until it reach desired thickness for sheera.
Add cardamom powder to it and mix well, turn off the flame.

Serve it hot or cold.I love it when Hot.
To make this suitable to our theme of the week I made it in heart shapes . for that, let it cool and then use mold it in any desired shape. I used cookie cutter for heart shapes. You can cut it into diamond shapes and refrigerate any left over .

All the above goes to Theme of the week –Valentine’s day .

Along with this , these lovely hearts goes to Zorra’s Heart for your Valentine.

Unlike me hubby is a sweet lover , and loved this too. So finally this story of our third Valentine’s day together ended very well , just like a fairy tale :D,no more fights now, we already had enough ;) with many surprises hidden for him .

This two lovely hearts now reaching to Bee and Jai with lots of love for their Click -Flour this month. I hope this is suitable to the theme this month Bee ! :) .

25 comments:

FH said...

Haha!! What a great memory he has!! Glad you made it. We call it Chitranna in Kannada, a classic K'taka dish. Here is mine.

http://foodieshope.blogspot.com/2007/04/
moms-cooking.html

Happy V day, enjoy. Sweet looks great. You can send it to Zorra too!:))

Mishmash ! said...

"color conscious"..thats the prob at our place too.....he will be referring to some food he had from a road side eatery and i would be trying to get that color which i have never even seen....funny isnt it? :)

those two lil hearts look very cute :)

Kalai said...

Very cute, Pooja! I wish my husband had your husband's memory! *laugh* Lemon rice looks great. :)

USHA said...

Hi Pooja,

Wow!!thats was really a live post....Even myhubby's favourite rice this....so keep making it often...as your hubby..we too are very concious about the colour of recipe(In Tamil its called "ellumizhai=lemon sadham=rice)right!!!).

Cute heart dear...Advance V-day wishes...

Mythreyee said...

That's a cool post. I am from tamil nadu. Which part of south India you lived?

The hearts look very nice and the lemon rice too. great entry by the host.

Meera said...

Really creative! Loved the hearts, lemon rice and soup too. Wonderful entries. Happy Valentines day.

Linda said...

Hi Pooja, been awhile since I caught up here on your blog. I love this post! Every bit of it is special :) Your lemony rice, the sprouts-tomato soup, and the lovely heart-shaped halwa -- so beautiful! Also loved your moong sprouts dosa from the post before -- moong is a fav. of mine, too. Happy Valentine's Day to you and your hubby :)

Rachel said...

Nice read....All three dishes look perfect...tell me about them being choosy about the colour....

Sagari said...

yummy foodddd

Sig said...

Happy V-day Pooja! And you think all the fights are over in 3 years :D hehe dream on girl...

Bhawana said...

Hi Pooja,

tussi great ho..... you makes so many new things that I am force to make them automatically :). one more coincedence I also made lemon rice with the same Indira's manner... :)).. was thinking of posting but now will do later :).

And many thanks to you for encouraging me always...

Love-Bhawana

Swati said...

Hi Pooja
Just stopped by here and got so addicted to read the whole post...very cute read!! and loved the saffron on the suji halwa...really very creative!!
Do stop by my site sometime...

Swati

Sia said...

thats such a cute story pooja:) so D is colour conscious yeah? sometimes its so easy to impress guys;) who ever said, the way to man's heart is through his stomach, must have been a woman;)
happy V-day darling:)

Finla said...

Nice read. Isn't great that you could make something which he enjoyed in his childhood.
Love the soup.

Namratha said...

Hmm nice story Pooja, the hearts are perfect and cute indeed :)

A very Happy V-day to you!!

AnuZi said...

Pooja,
How cute!! It was a wonderful idea to make something for you hubby that he has fond memories off....there is nothing more romantic than putting some sweet thoughts and love into a dish :o) Happy V day dear Pooja & D!!

zorra said...

Thank you for your participation and happy Valentine!

Swaroopa said...

looks gr8! thanx 4 sharing...

AJ said...

Great post Pooja! I make lemon rice every so often - it really adds to a meal. The Halwa looks super. I love the heart shape.

Apu:)

Uma said...

Lovely hearts! Happy Valentine's Day, Pooja! thanks.

AnuSriram said...

Soup looks colourful... Valentine's sweet looks awesome...

Deep Thought said...

Nice way to suprise your hubby....those hearts are real cute

Pooja said...

Asha,
I saw yours too , then Indira's step by step pics attracted me to follow it , being a novice I choose that :) . you know your recipes have always made me drooling over that :)) . \

Mishamsh,
Same problem at your place too ??? good that i got you , now we can share our trobles together :D.
Thanks for complimenting those hearts , it was really a hard time giving those soft hearts that shape and on over that to make saffron heart on that :)) .

Kalai,
Thank you Kalai, Oh my husband dont forget a single thing i hid life like this , jsut sometimes he forgets to take lunch ontime though :D.

Usha,
It may sound funny to you , but i never try to remember tmail words like this, initially i tried but no luck , so i jsut gave up :)) . May be he spoke that word that time . A very happy Valentine's Day to you too.

Mythreyee,
u hubby basically belong to south India thought born and bought up in Maharashtra. I am pure Gujarati dear. dotn yo uknow this by my recipes ? oh... perhaps i make much fustion of recipes thats why...

Meera,
thanks a lot dear. Same to you dear.

Linda,
Glad to meet another Mung lover :)). lemon ricve is very tasty and easy to amke too , try it soemtime.

Rachel ,
Thank you dear for appreciating my work, it feels good specially when i made this for the first time , comments like this are backbone of this blog :)

Pooja said...

Sagari ,
Thanks buddy :) .

Sig,
what ??? :s Are we going to have fights still !!! :O.
Well, now i think atleast we are little librel in fighting too ;)

Bhawana,
I am glad t ohear that :) ,and I am not so great yet dear, i jsut cook what comes to my mind , and something that suits to a healthy diet.

Keep blogging and stay in touch .

Swati,
I find each single blog like that :)) .
Thanks for appreciating that little heart made up of saffron , it was really a tough time managing tha shape from saffron;) .

Sia ,
I agree with all your stmts. Girls are even more brainy too, to make such stmts :)., Happy Vday to you and K too .

Happy cook ,
Yeah it was great Indeed . thanks .

Namratha,
Same to you dear.Thank a lot.

Anuzi,
Yes ,yo u are correct . it was a nice time that day .

ZOrra ,
Just left comment on round up too , thanks a lot.

Swaroopa & Annarasa,
thanks buddy .

Pooja said...

Uma ,Anu & Nimma ,
thank you , you really boost my creativity with lovely words , hearts took much of my time , specially to make a little heart on it with saffron :D, I am touched to hear your appreciative words . thanks a lot :) .

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