Marble cake.. perfect for holiday season

Hope you'll had a wonderful Christmas :) holiday cheer is still in the air...people visiting their near n dear ones..cooking together, enjoying meals together, shopping together and what not!! enjoy your holidays.....
an easy breezy cake to enjoy with your evening cup of tea when you catch up with your kith n kin....

You'll need:
All purpose flour: 2 cups
Butter: 1/2 cup (1 stick) softened
Sugar: 1 cup
Baking powder: 2 tsp
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Eggs: 2
Milk: 1 cup
Vanilla extract: 1 tsp
Cocoa powder: 2 tbsp

How to make it:


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 by 5 pan and set aside.
Swift together all purpose flour, baking powder and salt.
In a bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating well until everything is well mixed together.
Mix in vanilla essence.
Add the flour mixture in batches, alternating with the milk.
Set aside 1/3 of the batter. Pour the remaining batter into the cake pan.
Mix cocoa powder into the reserved batter, until well blended.
Pour spoonfuls of the cocoa batter over the white batter. Using a knife, swirl the cocoa batter into the white batter to give the marble effect.
Bake for 30 to 35 min, until an inserted wooden pick comes out  clean.
Transfer pan to a rack and let it cool for 10 min.

Enjoy your piece of cake. This is how i get mine in my fav coffee shop :)

Thattai- a savory snack

I love salty spicy snacks...I can munch on them endlessly...my mom always scolds me for eating chips right off the packet....but that is the fun part..not eating by portion :)

sounds lame?? i know..i still do that....even these days when I go home even before having my morning cup of coffee, I attack the chips canisters which will be definitely there in my mom's kitchen shelves....mostly with jack fruit chips or some other seasonal chips....of course home made :)

coming back to this savory snack, Thattai, I have eaten this many times, but have never made them at home...

thanks to our neighbor who gave  us some this diwali along with some yummy sweets :)

had bookmarked the recipe since then, but only got a chance to make them recently...

effort wise, I would say it is a bit tedious, bcoz each n every single piece has to shaped separately...a little bit more time consuming than the usual snacks, but can definitely be made once in a while..

Here's the recipe:

You'll need:


Rice flour: 2 cups
Urad dal flour: 1/4 cup **
Red chili pwdr: 1 tsp
Salt: 1 tsp
Ghee: 1 tbsp
Water: 1/2 + 1/8 cup (or enough to make the dough)
Chana dal: 3 tbsp (soaked in water for 1 hr)
Sesame seed: 2 tsp
Asafetida: 1/4 tsp

** To make urad dal flour at home, dry roast ural dal till it turns golden brown. Let it cool and grind into a fine powder.

How to make:


Drain the soaked chana dal.
Mix rice flour, urad dal flour, salt, chana dal, sesame seed, chili pwdr and butter. Knead this into a dough by adding water little by little at a time. Cover and set aside for a few min.
After a while, take small balls of dough (half a lemon sized) and press them into small paapad size.
Place the dough on a cling film and press by hand to form small flat circles. Poke these using a fork to prevent from puffing while frying in the oil.

Heat enough oil in a pan for deep frying. When the oil becomes piping hot add the thattai one at a time, frying each side for about 1 1/2 min , until they turn golden brown. Drain and let it cool.
Store in an air tight container.

How to fold a fitted sheet!!

hey, this post might sound silly to most of you...but a few like me would be happy to know how to fold a fitted sheet...
this happens every time I do the laundry, i struggle to fold the fitted sheet neatly and next time I take it out I get a completely creased sheet....
are you with me on this one....see the easy steps to fold one...
Martha Stewart is there to help....

http://www.marthastewart.com/269141/how-to-fold-a-fitted-sheet

a piece of cake, rite?

you'll have a good one :)

My li'l one turned one!!

A few weeks ago, my li'l one turned one :) One whole year of motherhood days for me(mostly happy moments and occasional low ones too)....we threw a small party for a few friends of ours...so was busy putting together some party decorations, somethings with a personal touch, like a birthday banner with  every month's photos of my li'l one's first year...and few other silly stuffs to make the party hall look colorful...

i guess I get this from my mother...to add a personal touch to anything and everything you do...and my dear hubby,the last man in the world to appreciate it.....okay, so you get where I am going with this, rite?
Anyway, the birthday party was great...we had fun...even my li'l one enjoyed it to the fullest ,except for the occasional screams when a balloons burst...she can't stand sudden loud noises...like a whistle from the cooker, or the vacuum cleaner or even the hair dryer....strange, huh?

okay, coming back to the cake, i guess that was the highlight of the party...we had been to a few b'day parties before, even one last weekend, and have always enjoyed a slice of the yummy b'day cake....and the hunt began for the cake...went to the bakeries in the usual places where we had seen the b'day cakes..but all had the regular white or chocolate cake with the theme you say...(for our li'l one we wanted a sesame street cake)...but we were pretty sure the b'day cakes we had eaten before were not mere white or choc cakes...they were much tastier than those...anyways, long story short, a few days before the party a friend of us (who had thrown a b'day recently) suggested to get the tres leches cake.....bhoom...what in the world is that? oh, my!! but luckily he also said where to find it....okay, that helps :)
 I consoled myself feeling, I am not the only one in the whole wide world who didn't know about Tres Leches cake..even the pioneer woman didn't have a much idea about it ..

here is more about it from the very talented pioneer woman
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/09/tres-leches-cake/

So, now you ask me why such poor pictures, even though we have a Nikon D-SLR with some XYZ lenses and all....aaaha...don't make go there...plz don't...

you'll have a good one :)

Tangy mango curry....yummmm......mouth watering :)

When i hear of manga curry( thats what  we call mango in kerala), i get the tangy taste in my tounge....mangoes are kerala's speciality..especially in the summer..we eat mangoes pretty much in its all stages...right from baby mangoes...we make kanni manga pickle(baby mango pickle)...raw mango, eat just like that with salt and red chili pwdr sprinkled on them....so many varieties of pickles made of mango...preserve mangoes in salt water to devour later in the year(yes, i am talking about the very 'uppu manga', squished together with sliced shallots,green chilis and a drizzle of cococnut oil, oh..its divine....yeah,the possibilities are endless..
So do give this a try...a tangy curry to go with white rice...

You'll need:

Raw Mango: 1 no (pitted, peeled and cut into small cubes
Onion: 1 no(nicely chopped)
Green chili:3-4 no(nicely chopped)
Ginger:a small piece(nicely chopped)
Coconut milk: from half a coconut (I use the Maggie coconut milk powder..easy breezy)
Chili powder: 1tsp
Turmeric powder: 1/2 tsp
salt:as per taste

For garnish:

mustard seed: 1/2 tsp
dried whole red chilli:2-3 nos
curry leaves: a few sprigs

How to make:


Mix the mango pieces with sliced onion,green chilis, ginger,turmeric and chili powder.Cook the above in half a cup of water and enough salt. When it starts boiling, reduce the flame to medium and add the coconut milk. Cook for some more time till everything gets blended well.
For garnish, splutter mustard seeds in a few tsps of oil, add whole red chili and curry leaves.
Yep...its ready :)

chunky tomato salsa

Don't you love fresh tomato salsa with your tortilla scoops...scoop full of spicy tangy flavor..yummmm, i love it...get a nice book, slouch on your couch with a bag of chips n a bowl of salsa, oh,my! what more you can ask for :)

We at home love spicy food...So though, most of the time we are contented with the "hot" store bought salsa to go with our chips, when time permits, we do enjoy the home made version of it, which is ever more spicier n fresh...always satisfying our taste palates :)

Very easy to put together, needing no special ingredient other than the regular ones you have in your veggie cripser.

You'll need:


Tomatoes: 3 nos (medium sized, finely diced)
Onion: 1 (medium sized, finely chopped)
Jalapeno chili pepper: 2-3 (ribs and seeds removed, nicely chopped) **
juice of one lime
Cliantro: 1/2 cup( nicely chopped)
Salt: as per required
Ground Cumin : a pinch (optional)

** You can spice it up or down by varying the no of chilies used.

How to make:


In a bowl mix together chopped tomato,onion and pepper.Add the lime juice, salt, chopped cilantro and  ground cumin.
Let sit  for an hour for the flavors to combine before you enjoy it with your chips :)

P.S: My hubby's make it more yummier tip- warm up the tortilla chips sprinkled with some cheese on it for a couple of min in the oven and then devour them with the salsa...hmmmm...i guess we are born to eat ;)

Fried Idli

Ever wondered what to do with the previous day's idli...here is an easy snack you can make out of it.
For those who don't know what idli is, here is something about Idli.
Its one of the common breakfast for us, south Indians. Very yummy n  healthy breakfast.
In our home, everyone loves idli, so we hardly have left overs..I make these fried idlis, if at all we are left with some..

You'll need:

Idli: 5-6 nos (each cut into 4 pieces)
Chili powder: 1tsp
Turmeriic powder: 1/4 tsp
Salt: a pinch
Oil: enough for shallow frying
Curry leaves: 2 sprigs

How to make: 
Mix chili pwdr, turmeric pwdr and salt with 2 tsps of water to make a thick paste. Marinate idli pieces with the spice paste and set aside for 15-20 min.
Heat enoguh oil for deep fry in a deep nonstick pan, and fry the idli pieces for 4-5 min or till its golden brown and crispy. In the left over oil, fry the curry leaves for the garnish.
Serve it hot with spicy ketchup or mint chutney...a quick evening snack :)