Wednesday

VoW-Bitter gourd awards goes to...

Cham for her Pavakai Kozhambu ( Bitter gourd curry ) .
And Dhivya for Bitter gourd with Eggs.


Enjoy the award girls... You deserve it :) .

In case if you missed - we already awarded Kalai for her best presented recipe with Bitter gourd. and these 2 awards are the winner among tie we had .

My wireless keyboard and mouse has stopped working suddenly and I am waiting for the another ordered set to arrive soon. Though my old USB mouse came to rescue me and that makes it possible for me to at least visit all your blogs :) .

This strange trouble has set me more free to surf on net as I have nothing else to do now he he he ... , just the problem is it's taking too long to type using On screen Keyboard ( for which I have click each single letter with mouse to type anything here :( ) . So not a long post now till new set arrives. Well, they told I will get it soon :) .

Thank you all for keeping in touch with this blog and leaving your comments , though I was not able to leave comments since last couple of week due to one or other reason . You cared to be here and left your lovely messages , I heartily thank you all for that.

Stay tuned for more and I will be Back with Announcement for "VoW-JFI " .
btw ,did you check what I cooked for "Jihva for Love " .


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Monday

Jihva for Love

I never stepped into kitchen at my Mom’s place for the purpose of cooking. Neither did my mom ever force me for that. Instead Mom always thought and told me that if I can learn these programming stuffs , become an engineer, and handle my job such easily then cooking will not be a hard thing for me any day to learn. She taught me that cooking is an art and I can learn to make any variety of dishes just by knowing some basic things and then cook it according to my taste and style.
Not only that, Dad is a foodie too and he keeps on sharing his experience with cooking many times. Even when I was not active in kitchen I was keen on those tips of dad. And I remember many times I observed Mom on how she cooks while chit chatting with her specially in the evening times when I normally get back from job after a long tired day .... Before that when I was studying in schools and college I think I never gave it a slightest attention on how these cooking things are done and which dish needs what ingredients... ahhh.... those carefree days... :D.
I remember sometimes when Mom was out of town for some reason, and if sisters are also not around then dad used to cook everything except roti and I used to make that only . A much pampered child I was. They did and still doing everything to make me feel more comfortable and secure.

I think both Mom and Dad together made me what I am with cooking today. Well, truly till date I never made a complete meal just by myself for them , but I want to tell them that – “ Your little Pooja has grown up now and is little bit known for her cooking among some good friends around and you are the reason of this credit given to me : ). I remember you every time I cook anything special , and I am always proud to say that just like all other things of life I learn t cooking also from both of you : ) . “While from Mom I learn how to cook healthy, with minimum possible use of oil, dad taught me which taste goes perfect with other taste of food. Little things in cooking makes big differences in the final taste of any dish.
Here is a tasty dish, which is my favorite - specially when having some unexpected guest and if I want to cook something really soon. For that purpose I used ready made Goya’s chickpeas. Otherwise I always prefer to soak it over night and then boil it along with a pinch of edible soda. This takes less than 1 hours to prepare meal for 4 people and it indeed is a very tasty dish.


Ingredients :
For chhole –
1 cup soaked chickpeas
1 cup finally chopped tomatoes
½ cup chopped onion
½ inch cinnamon stick cut in to tiny pieces
4-5 black pepper
Chhole masala ( I use Everest brand – and just love it too much for the flavor it gives to this dish ).
1-2 tsp oil.
½ tsp turmeric powder .
Salt to taste .
2 tsp lime juice.
Fresh Coriander leaves to garnish

For Bhature
1 cup of wheat flour
½ cup sour curd
Little oil to knead dough
Salt to taste
Oil to deep fry bhature.

Chhole Bhature - Recipe :
Boil the chickpeas adding a pinch of edible soda. Mean while knead dough for bhature. Take wheat flour(same which we use to make roti) add salt to it , mix well and add curd to it. Mix it well with dough and then add water enough to make a smooth dough for it . finally add little oil and knead it so that dough will not be sticky. Keep it aside , cover it fully with any vessel to a damp cloth for half an hour. Mean while take out boiled chick peas , mash ¼ of it roughly. Adding messed chickpeas will make little thick and nice gravy for chhole.

In a kadai or Pan heat 1-2 tsp oil, when hot add cinnamon stick and black pepper to it ,when it leaves a nice aroma add chopped onion to it , cook it till golden brown and the and chopped tomatoes to it. Cook it on medium heat till it turns to nice gravy like consistency . Add turmeric powder , chhole masala and salt to it , next add boiled and messed chickpeas to it and mix well together .If there is not enough liquid for gravy , add little water to it .( If tomatoes are not much juicy this might happen.) Let it cook on slow heat for 3-4 minutes stirring occasionally . Finally when extra water evaporates turn off the heat add lime juice to it .

For bhature, make small lemon sized balls of the bhature dough and roll it into big round puri of around 4-5 inch diameter. Heat oil in a Deep bottomed pan and deep fry bhature on medium heat till golden on both sides.
Adding curd to knead the dough for bhature makes soft and fluffy bhature which is little different in taste than normal puris – perfect bhature should be like that.

Serve hot with some sliced onion and lime on side.
Takes less time than any regular meal and makes a wonderful dish to enjoy .

Mom and Dad - I hope this is something that will make you feel proud about me for yet another reason :).

As all of you might be knowing by now this goes straight to lovely Jigyasa and Pratibha as my entry for "Jhiva for Love " - what a lovely title is this :) .

P.S.:
Next Jihva for Ingredients is going to be hosted on My Creative Ideas and I feel proud to say that I have an opportunity of combine VoW with JFI for the month of May . I will announce theme for "VoW-JFI" on 3rd May .
By tomorrow evening I hope to present the awards to the winners for "VoW-Bitter Gourd " for the two categories for which we had a Tie.
If you haven't voted yet , cast your vote in the poll widget on top of the side bar in left side here.


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Thursday

The award for VoW-bitter gourd ....

Oh.... there you are.... ready to shower your wishes on winners and almost hand together for round of applause. Wait , we have some confusions …………

With 2 categories we have “TIE” and to choose one from those you can vote in the poll widget on the side bar.

And well, you can start cheering up for The Best Presented Recipe Award.
This goes to Kalai for Bitter gourd Tamarind Masala. I can hear cheerful sounds and clapping now :D

Enjoy the award Kalai.

We will present awards to winners of other 2 category as soon as we finish with poll. Vote them now.

Check out my entries for "click-Au naturel" and "MBP-One pot wonder" here.


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Friday

VoW-Bitter gourd Round up and Voting starts from now....

Bitter gourd – you love it or you hate it. There is no other options for that. Yeah people like me could be exception who is slowly trying to consume it knowing the enormous benefits it has. Not only to control sugar level , it is very helpful to cure Cancer, Constipation and piles, blood-disorders, respiratory disorders, alcoholism, cholera and Numerous infections.

We have a saying in Gujarati – “Kadva Kaarela na Goon na hoy kadva” meaning Karela tastes bitter but it has many is having many qualities in it. I know back in India sometime mothers used to give Juice of it to child for fever. We never realize those values when we were in India , I am glad that I came to USA that made me aware of what a rich legacy of everything we had. Anything of today’s technology seems dull compared to deep knowledge of those things our people had. May it be counting the distance between starts, or deciding time by the length of shadow. We had people knew these things thousands of years ago even. I know some people who even today guess time by the position of sun on their head while working in farm in day time.

Ayurveda- is another thing which I started exploring very much after I came here. Even up to that extend that I feel like going back to India and do detailed study on that:D.

Well, coming to round up of Bitter gourd recipes , we have 60 great entries to enjoy bitter gourd now. With these entries this - liking and hating things -is also visible. As some choose to skip it this month while some choose to send more than 1 entries for the same. We have 10+ bloggers with more than 1 dish from them including --- Asha – 2, Srivalli - 5 , Mythreyee - 3 , Jayashree - 2 , Kajal – 6 , Meera - 3 ,Sandhya - 2 ,Kalai - 2 , Rina-2 and Trupti-2, Jan- 2. I must say they are all wonderful in cooking bitter gourd in wide range - from pickle to Pulao… :) . Thank you all for sending in your delicious recipes to cook bitter gourd with. It surely is a good chance for people like me to start eating it more and more to try each dish with.


Bitter Gourd as Starter dish

Kakarakaya Pakoda by srivalli
Spicy Karela Nuts by srivalli
Kakarakaya vepudu by srivalli
Bitter gourd fritters by srivalli
Garlicky Lemony Bitter Gourd Crisps by Jai&Bee
Healthy Bitter gourd Fritters by Trupti
Bitter Gourd fries by Dhvya K
Pavakka Pakora by Mythreyee
Sorisa batta kalara bhajja by Shibani

Bitter gourd as Side dish



Bitter Gourd Crisps by Pravs
Kakara kaya Gojju ~ Bitter Gourd Medium Sauté by srivalli
Bitter gourd Stir fry by Divya
Baked bitter gourd Chips by Sia
Parikkai thayir pachadi by Jayasree
Bitter gourd Pickle by Ranjeetha
Kakarakaya Podi by Deepika
Kakarakaya Karam by Vijaya
Pavakka(bitter gourd)Pickle by Mythreyee
karela crispy lemony fry by Priyanka
Bitter Gourd Fry by Rama

Bitter Gourd as Main course (Gravy/Curry)



Karela Masala by Asha
Karela Stir fry by Asha
Baked Gutti Kakarakaya (Baked Stuffed Bittergourd)by Hima
Baby bitter gourd fry by Jayashree
Bitter Gourd curry by Cham
Pavakkai Kozhambu by Vineela
Dheeve Ummen by Nanditha
Bitter gourd Pitlai by Jayashree
Bitter Gourd Baskets in Thick Gravy by Lavi
Simple Karela (Bitter Gourd) Stir-Fry by Jan
Hagalkai gashi by Archy
Bitter gourd gojju by Rupa
Bitter gourd curry by Uma
Bitter gourd with Lentils by Kajal
Bitter gourd with Tomato-Onion Gravy by Kajal
Bitter gourd with Mango(Keri-Karela) by Kajal
Stuffed Bitter gourd by Kajal
Stuffed Bitter gourd with onions by Kajal
Bitter gourd- onion Curry by Kajal
Karela Masala by Jan
Uchche Posto Jhuri -- Bitter Gourd fried with Poppy seed paste by Sandeepa
Karela Ju bhajji by Medhaa
Bitter Gourd fry with Besan by Sandhya
Spicy Bitter Gourd curry by Sandhya
Karela Kanda nu shaak by Meera
Karela Dhokli nu shaak by Meera
Bharela karela curry by MS
Tetor Dal by Me
Kaaju Karela(cashew &bitter gourd) curry by Me
Bitter Gourd curry by Bhawana
Bitter gourd Rasam By Sushma
Shukto by Bhagyashri
Bitter gourd fry by Kalai
Bittergourd tamarind masala by Kalai
Bitter gourd stir fry by Reena
Tamatar karela by Reena

Bitter Gourd as Dinner dish/One dish Meal with Bitter Gourd


Bitter gourd with eggs By Dhivya
Bitter Gourd peels Thepla by Meera
Bitter Gourd-Ragi Utappa by Trupti
Karela Pulao by Mythreyee

Do check it carefully and at the end of that don’t forget to vote for three categories as you did here.

Categories are
Most authentic recipe
, Best presented( by picture shown here) and Most creative recipe.

Please mention your votes in separate comment along with the category name( please note that my entries are excluded from this ). Those comments will be moderated for 1 week .The voting time is from today to 23rd April mid night. It's a good idea to value someone’s effort , so take little time and drop in your vote for your choice of entry .

Keep voting, keep rocking and keep cooking , And if you have some more time, help me with my click-confusion.

Note: As many of you might be knowing by now that Tastes of India is having little trouble showing up feeds of the posts (my last post , appeared just now :(( . ) .Wouldn't it be better to get feeds delivered in your email for that? Just put in your email address in the top of the sidebar to get email updates of My Creative Ideas.Also the same is available on An attempt to spread love by cooking.

So stay tuned and keep rocking gals... hugs to you all.


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Wednesday

Click-Confusions : ( !!!


Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

all natural Oops .. its .... Au netural :( .... NO ..... ahhh........ Au Naturel (from where do they choose name like this :D ).
When Jai and Bee announced it on Jugalbandi for this month I had this in my mind immediately . Can you help me decide which one to send it for Click-Au Naturel this month .

If you wonder - what are these pictures ? Here is the answer .

Please suggest your views, may be that will help me to qualify for the first 25 entries to be voted at least ha ha ha ....
Check out round up of "VoW-Bitter Gourd " here. Don't forget to vote.

I appreciate you patience and love for this blog :) .
Hugs to all of you . Have a good day :) .


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Monday

Kaaju-Karela Crispy

Ingredients :

3-4 medium sized bitter gourd
½ cup cashew chopped lengthwise
2 medium sized red onion sliced lengthwise
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
½ tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
2 tsp oil
Pinch of asafoetida
Salt to taste

Method :

Peels the rough part of bitter gourd skin and cut it from middle. Remove seeds and chop it length wise as shown In picture above. Soak it in salty water for half an hour to lessen its bitterness. If you like the bitterness skip this step. Initially when I didn’t loved bitter gourd I used to cook it after soaking for a while, although I skip that now. And still love the taste of final curry the same way.

Peel and chop onions. Mince 3-4 garlic cloves and cut the cashews lengthwise. Keep it all aside .

In a pan heat the oil when hot add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and asafetida to it. Immediately add onions, cook it till half cooked, don’t cook it till fully cooked otherwise that will taste bitter till bitter gourd is cooked. Add chopped bitter gourd and turmeric powder to it and mix well. Cook it till bitter gourd turn crispy , finally add minced garlic and chopped cashew to it along with chili powder and salt to it .Mix all together cook it for 2 more mins. Remove from heat.

Serve hot with roti . Tastes best with ripe mango . Although onion is one the of main ingredients of this shaak , I don't know why do they ignored it in naming it. Kaaju Kaarela(cashew with bitter gourd) - that's how they call it. In Gujarat its our one of the most favorite Shaak to enjoy with mangoes in summer season . We normally eat it till the first rain fall .

As a child we use to sing these Gujarati rhyme to welcome the first rainfall.

“Aav re varsad, dhebariyo parsaad, , Uni uni rotli ne Karela nu shaak “ .

(Meaning : Let the rain spread it showers again and again to enjoy the hot chapatis (Roti) with Bitter gourd curry).

This is a simple yet rich dish. My dad’s favorite and for any of our family function this is a must have curry for all of us. A family favorite dish it is .

Here is another way I cut bitter gourd to make the same curry. I normally keep on changing the way I cut vegetables for the same curry, which sometimes is a very good change while cooking it. Change in cooking is all I love about cooking.

Checkout my another entry for VoW-bitter gourd here , which is going to be a part of RCI-Bengal too :) .

You can send you entries with bitter gourd till 15th April midnight. Please follow the rules while sending your entry. That helps a lot to manage it all and round up.

I am already surprised to see many different ways to cook bitter gourd with , and I still don't want to miss anything nice which you can cook with bitter gourd. So don't miss this chance to show up your creativity & sending soon . If time permits I will be back with one more recipe with bitter gourd. Stay tuned and keep rocking with your recipes. Have a Good day ahead :) .



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Thursday

Arusuvai -Mystery revealed.....

Taaaa daaaa………

Mystery revealed ….

Na na … not this soon ….

Let me say first that just like me many of you guessed the same. And needless to say that you were wrong :O . Just like I was . Thank you all , you make me feel better that I am not the only person weak in this guessing games :D.

Here are the answers for Secret Ingredients . They are Dabeli Masala , Takamaria seeds(Sabja seeds) and Meera’s Homemade Indian tea masala.

Now somehow for me it happened to be the first time with all these ingredients… and I never tried or even saw any of these before . But the red masala seemed very much like pau bhaji masala to me. And I guessed all these as Paubhaji masala , Kalonji and Dry ginger powder . As I tried smelling it many times(each time a little nearer that earlier :D ) , I got my nose red and lost my sense of smelling for a day almost following sneezing every half an hour(well, you have all rights to think this as my excuse for guessing it wrong :D ). Well that proved the masala is really something very good and strong. I wrote to Meera with my guessing : ( and to reveal this mystery soon , as I didn’t wanted it to be my nightmare :O (In that case it surely might be the same for hubby too , as I don’t let anyone around me sleep when I am sleepless :D ) . Meera responded quickly and I felt relived. Aaahhhh…. Then only I could enjoy the joy of getting these many nice goodies from her.


Here is my Spiced up Indian tea As arusuvai Part –I , I really don’t know how many parts it will take to try different recipes to make with this lovely spices , but I am sure you will enjoy it :) .

Recipe:

To make 1 cup Indian Chai Take half cup of water in a tea pan ( tea pan is a - special copper bottomed steel pan with cervical handle to make tea specially or you don’t have any other little deep steel vessel ) . When its little hot add suger upto your taste and one spoon of Indian tea ( I use brooke bond red label chai . It normally don’t get much dark color but tastes too good. ) . let the water boil till it gets the nice color of tea and then add half cup ( or your desired quantity of ) of milk to it. Let it boil and when it start boiling slow down the heat add 1/8 tsp of Chai Masala ( and enjoy the fragrance :p ) and after a while turn of the heat , strain tea into a mug and enjoy hot :) . It’s a boon in winter mornings, specially on weekends, take this hot tea in mug , relax a bit and enjoy it with cookies reading newspaper and forget the worries of life and allow yourself to lost in its divine taste :) .

Meera sent me everything ,
spicy masala for cooking ,
something for summer drink
and chai masala for winter mornings :).Thank you dear Meera :)

I have little different idea to use Dabeli masala with, for that still I got to get something from store to try it with . By the time I get that I thought to post this Spiced Indian Chai (Masalawali Bharatiy Chai ) with Meera’s home made tea masala. I am not a regular tea taker, but you surely made me one Meera.

Also if you have any idea to use Takamaria seeds to let me know the recipe to use it , As I have it in fairly good amount and all I know is only how to use it in falooda . Poor me :( . I think hubby gonna have summer earlier this year otherwise: D .

I am extending this Arusuvai friendship chain by passing on some "Secret Ingredietns " to
Vani of Mysoorean and Indira Of Mahanandi .
Vani is a very active young mommy , and she already posted about this .
As the parcel to Indira is on her way still , be ready to check more on Mahanandi in coming days :) .

(P.S. – One of our close relative is visiting India right now, and Mom was asking me if I want some homemade tea masala . As I told Mom that one of my blog friend have sent this, she was happily surprised to hear this . Now when asking for other things she asks me playfully that “ if any of your blog friends has not sent XYZ , do you want it from India ??? “ )


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Wednesday

Arusuvai has arrived - Thank you Meera :) .

Meera - A very enthusiastic and highly managed cook of Enjoy Indian food choose me to extend her Arusuvai friendship chain .

The Arusuvai friendship chain is brianchild of
Latha and Lakshmi of the Yum blog. This is the friendship chain where you send your surprise ingredient to two or more of your blogger buddies. The friends use the surprise ingredient in their cooking and blog about it. This chain was quite popular in India. and now Latha of Masala Magic started the chain in USA. Thanks to all for this wonderful concept. Thank you Latha & Latha and lakshmi for your wonderful thought :)

Meera sent me 3 secret ingredients and if know me you must be knowing how am I in guessing game :D .
Well not only "Secret Ingredients" she send along with that a lovely card , a big bar of dark chocolate(which I managed to finish withing half hour of arrival ;) ). Even the Green placemate you see in this picture is also her gift for me.
So many things :p .... I was happy as a little child who received many gifts on her birthday :z .


When I got it I smelled that red powder as many times until I started sneezing with the strong flavor of that. And after that too , I was not correct in guessing it :x. Well I didn't expected that too , coz now I have learnt to accept my guessing power limitations :O .

Any guesses you have for what this can be (click on image to see larger view) ? I know the first one is what real challenge is , other 2 are little simpler compared to that. Doesn't matter even if you guess only one of them correct , you are still better than me coz I guessed all of them incorrect :O .

So ladies keep on guessing and I will be back soon with these spices - with some ongoing event's cooking and some bitter gourds too :) .Have a good day ahead, see you all soon.


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