A Eventful Foodie Week!

Eventful week it was !!! 

Three happy happenings to share with you all!

First one being featured in this week's Kungumam Thozhi Magazine additional recipe booklet. I have contributed 30 summer special juice recipes for their additional booklet this month! 

Second is that my Mango Halwa recipe has been featured in BTW magazine may 20th issue circulated in Mumbai, Ahmadabad and Pune  

You can read it online here - http://btw.co.in/ebook/may2013/index.html

Third, I contested with the top 16 contestants from all districts of Tamilnadu in the Vijay Tv Asal suvai cookery contest and moved forward to top 12 clearing the mystery box challenge  

Have to break forward more challenges and rounds to win the final title!! Hoping to do well!

Papaya Fruit Magic

Summer is the time for Shakes and Juices. It can be best enjoyed and would be the most wanted :)

In the summer special series my next juice is Papya fruit magic :) The drink is truly magical with three fruits involved and a hint of mint as well !! 

Ingredients:

Papaya(chopped) - 1 cup

Mint leaves - 10

Banana(chopped) - 1/2 cup

Pomegranate - 1/2 cup

Sugar

Method:

Grind papaya, mint leaves, pomegranate and banana in the blender and grind into smooth paste. Now add adequate water and sugar and pulse again.

Filter with a sieve and add ice cubes. 

Serve chill with few mint leaves topping. 

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here. 

Participation in Asal Suvai Cookery Contest - Vijay TV

This was the advertisement that came on The Hindu daily three weeks back. 

A friend of mine called up and insisted on me participating in this contest and she gave me all the courage and backed me up to go for it. Ofcourse my mom again pushed me to send my entry :)

They had asked us to send a recipe of a Sambar and a traditional recipe of Tamilnadu for the qualification round. 

I sent my favorite Capsicum potato sambar and Kanchipuram Idly recipe to Vijay TV office with not much of an expectations but then I got a call very next day that said I got selected for the second round directly and I had to make those recipes that I sent for the direct judges to taste! All excited and happy!

So did I and things then moved on in the right direction :) Got all three green signals from the judges in the preliminary round and went forward for the on spot cooking round with 20 top participants.  

With a pressure time of 1 hour and limited ingredients, I cooked up a sweet - wheat banana appam and a savory - wheat beetroot mint rings. Adding to my happiness, I won the on spot cooking challenge too along with 3 others and have qualified for the all TamilNadu Finals which is going to happen this saturday :)

Hoping to do my best and see whats in store for me :)

The contest was telecasted on Sunday the 19th of may at 7PM in Vijay tv. 

Those who would be interested in watching the episode, the link is here - http://www.rajtamil.com/2013/05/asal-suvai-19-05-2013-vijay-tv-show/

Happy Mother's Day - Mango Shrikhand

Mothers are full of Love and Laughter, 

Filling our hearts forever after. 

Mothers deserve this day of their own,

To be the queen of our heart and of her home!

Love you AMMA. You are the best thing that can ever happen to me. Blessed to be your daughter and would love to be yours in all births of mine!

A simple sweet dish with two favorite ingredients of mine, the mango and the curd. :)

Ingredients:

Curd - 3 cups or Hung curd - 2 cups

Mango puree - 1/2 cup

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Chopped mango pieces - 1/2 cup

Saffron - few strands

Milk - 1 tblsp

Method:

Take a muslin cloth (thin cloth) and line it on a sieve. Pour the curd on it and tie the cloth tightly. Hang it over a sink for few hours for the water to drain. 

After a couple of hours, keep the cloth with hung curd in the fridge for a night. 

Remove the hung curd next morning and collect it in a mixing bowl. Puree the mango with the sugar. 

Fold in the mango puree slowly into the hung curd. Do not over mix, the curd would become watery. 

Soak the saffron in a tblsp of milk for 5 mins and add it to the curd mixture and mix slowly. 

Finally add the finely chopped mangoes and give a short whip. 

Serve chilled :)

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here. 

Summer Special Series - Bottle Gourd Spicy Juice

As I said before I have been trying different various of juices this summer and felt the necessity of avoiding sugar and making spicy juices for a change too. Why should juices be sweet always and why should we makes juices just with fruits? Why not vegetables?

This bottle gourd juice is sure a delicious one and remember to keep the vegetable name a secret when you serve this to your family. Let them guess it and have some fun :)

You can also make the same combo of juice with cucumber too. Get creative this summer!

Checkout my spicy tomato juice here - Tomato Punch. 

Ingredients:

Bottle gourd - 250 gm  or a small one

Mint leaves - 10

Salt  to taste

Jeera powder - 1 tsp

black pepper powder - 2 tsp

Method:

Peel bottle gourd and wash and cut a small piece and taste it. Beware sometimes bottle gourd are bitter. If so then just discard it, do not make this juice. 

Clean the mint leaves and wash them. 

Grind bottle gourd and mint leaves together. Add enough water to make juice. 

Add salt, jeera powder and pepper powder and serve chill. 

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here.