Pictures and Memories - A "no cooking" Event Announcement

Well, let me start with event announcement first.
Its summer already and Iam sure many of you have planned your travel and some of you might have just returned from your trips during the long weekend.I love travelling in Summer, be it a simple picnic or a long tour for days I try to enjoy the most. Thanks to technology now every one of us carry a digital camera around and trying to capture the beautiful moments of our trip.In that coarse we always end up with loads of photograph which lays unnoticed after a week or two.
During summer I see some posts here and there about the summer trips and some clicks
Lets make it interesting and take it one step further through this event
Lets start sharing our memories through some pictures with our blog friends, so that others can also get to know about the spot/city/place you visited.

But an event is not an event without some rules. So lets get to the rules, shall we...

To make this event intersting I have two categories.
Category 1: Foodie shots
As a food blogger myself , whenever I travel, I like to take pictures of restaurants, street stalls, cafe's, fridge magnets, soveniers....etc., anything that is cute , related to food, and has a local flavour captures my attention and I start clicking them and Iam sure its the same with the rest of you.
So dig in your archives and find those cute pictures and post it in this category .

Few examples that I could think of...

• a local street stall sellinng waffle, hotdogs, burgers, Indian street food, Ice creams etc.,
• A a unique table setting in a restaurant
• Something interseting in a menu board that captures ur attention
• soveniers, fridge magnets related to food..
• a picnic lunch spread up on the park...

Any picture that has an association to the culinary side are welcome in this category.

For those of you who are planning to travel , keep this event in mind ,and bring us some nice foodie shots.

Category 2: " My favourite pictures" .
This can include pictures that are your favourites.It can be a landmark , scenic pictures or wildlife or anything that you like.

And now coming to the Rules.

1. Please write a post about your recent summer trip with pictures that goes into two categories as mentioned above.
2. You can post 1 or 2 pictures in the 1st category with a maximum of two pictures.(minimum 1)
3. you can post 3 to 5 pictures in the 2nd category with a maximum of 5 pictures.(minimum 3)
4. Please give atleast a two line descripton about each of the picture. You can share your memories and also the trip details
5. Please note that this not a photography event or competition, so dont worry about how the picture looks.This is just an event to share our memories.
6. The last date is Sep 30 2009. Iam planning it to be a quaterly event.
7. Send me an email with the folloing details: ( sumi (underscore)ammu(at)yahoo.com)

• your name
• your place of travel
• your blog url
• your post url
• and attach a picture from category 1.

8. Dont forget to link this event announcement page in your post.
9. I will post the round up by October first week
10. Non bloggers can also send in their entries through the email.I will post it in my blog as and when I get it.

With the rules being laid out for the event, let me post my entries to the event.


A Trip to Paris
Last weekend we packed our bags to Paris, although its a mere one hour train trip from Brussels , we were very excited about it.Especially my 22 month old toddler after watching endless episodes of "Thomas the tank engine" was very much obssessed with the train that at one point he refused to come out of the Station.

Paris...Its a very lovely city vibrant with colours and with streets filled with people.It was kind of nice to watch a hustle bustle city even at the late hours after a long time.We took the tour bus and enjoyed the trip around the city eventhough we had a tough time packing and unpacking the stroller everytime we get on and off the bus .Yes..Can you beleive it , we were not able to take the stroller in the bus.Thats the one thing I didnt like in this trip, the city was not at all stroller friendly, even the entry to the metro station..Oh.. I dont want to start about it.

But over all we had a nice time, walking around the city and thanks to mother nature the weather was too good.We absolutly loved the Lovre Museum, and the Eiffel tower at the night.
Try to visit the city if you get a chance.

And here are my entries to the event.

Category 1 : Foodie shots

These cute fridge magnets captured my attention the moment I landed in Paris which was in my purse a while later.





Category 2: My Favourite pictures:


Eiffel tower at night.

During the day time

The incredible 'Mono Lisa'

The Lovre Museum

A view of the open tour bus.

For Click

Sending this picture of the Rava Ladoos for CLICK - Stacks

Rava Urundai /Ladoos - Indian Cooking Challenge

Making these rava urundai's took me down the memory lane to the diwali days when we were kids.My mom used to make these every year during diwali, but the method used was totally different from this recipe.As Srivalli said its the other method by grinding the rava and sugar together. My mom grinds the rava in the mill few ays before diwali, and on the night before diwali she makes everything ready for us kids to make the balls.Its very difficult to make the balls with powder mixed with hot ghee.But we used to have fun while doing it.

After marriage I tried making rava urundai for a diwali get together and it turned out a disaster, more like 'kesari balls', you know what I mean :).

So making this sweet was really a challenge to me eventhough the recipe sounds so simple.

But it turned out great and I liked it.I omitted raisins and added some almond flakes along with less cashews. you may be wondering about the colour, but I dindt add any colours.

The semolina that I get in the local retail retail store over here is yellow in colour.

I made 12 medium sized urundai/ladoos out of this recipe

Recipe and method as given by Srivalli for ICC

Makes - 10 Laddoos of normal size

Rava / Semolina - 1 cup

Sugar - 1 cup

Ghee - 25 gms

Milk - 25 ml

Cardamom powder - a pinch

Cashew nuts - 10 whole nuts

Raisins - 10 nos

Grated fresh coconut - 25 gms

Method to prepare:

Heat 2 tsp of ghee in a kadai. Once the ghee is hot enough, simmer the flame and roast cashew nuts and raisins. Once the raisins balloon up, remove.

Then roast the grated coconut. Remove once done. Keep all these aside.Add the remaining ghee and roast the Rava till its well roasted and aroma starts coming out.

In a bowl, take all the roasted Rava, Nuts, Coconut and add the Cardamom powder.

Then add the sugar. Mix well.Then slowly add the warm milk into the bowl.

Check if you are able to gather as balls. When you find that milk added is enough to get you laddos, transfer it back to the kadai and cook in sim for 2 mins.

Mix well and then cover it and let it rest for 2 mins. Then immediately make balls or laddoos.

Notes:While roasting the Rava, make sure you have the flames in sim, else there is a chance of the rava getting over roasted.Its enough to add only the required amount of milk to get you form balls.

Depending on the rava and the sugar at times we may not use all the 25 gmsSince we add milk, its best to consume within 5 days of making them.

If you store them in fridge, you can have them for a week.The other version followed isThe rava after being roasted can be powdered using a blender. Add sugar to this and make a powder. Add a little ghee to this mixture and make small balls out of this.

Expecting more such recipes in the upcoming "Indian Cooking Challenge"

Tried and Tasted - Rajasthani Kadhi.

This months 'Tried and Tasted' is hosted at KitsChow and the blog she has selected is Meena's "Hooked on Heat". I have been following Meena's blog for a long and long time now .Its very hard to come out of her blog one you start browsing through her recipes.The amazing pictures and the simple recipe along with her long stories keep us hooked on. Hers was one of the blogs that inspired me start with my own and I came to know about the concept of food events through her event " From My Rasoi" .

That was my first participation in a food event .

Though I have tried many dishes from her blog, I made this 'Rajathani Kadhi' especially for this event for the second time.The recipe is very simple and yet very different from the traditional South Indian mor kuzhambhu and the North Indian Kadhi.

Changes I made :

I used 2 red chillies for tempering, and since I ran out of coriander seeds I used 1 tsp of coriander powder.

I hope you all try this out and enjoy.

Strawberry Cake and Muffins

It was raining strawberries at home last week. My toddler just started eating strawberries and he likes it a lot even if its soar.Just the fact that my son has started a liking towards these pinkish beauties made my husband go for loads of them.Yes, he brought home a whole bag of it.

The best part of it is that he didnt know that strawberries doesnt have a longer life even if its refrigerated. So two days later I started browsing for some recipes to use the left over fruit, and came across two wonderful recipes.

The first one was Aparna's Strawberry muffin.

The recipe was so simple I immediatly baked them. As she mentioned in her post I added some sugar to the berries before mixing as mine was very sour.But the muffin tasted really good with no trace of the sourness.

The next one was a Strawberry spring cake from Asha's Foodie's hope.

This recipe was already book marked by me when she posted it last month, waiting for some neglected strawberries, and so baked that wonderful soft cake the next day.

Over all the recipes were so good and welcomed by all , that I baked them twice.

Iam posting the recipes here for keepsake:

Strawberry Muffins:

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar*

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup chopped (not too fine) Strawberries

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup oil

1 egg (or flax seed substitute**)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Put the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl and whisk lightly to mix well.

Add the strawberries to the flour mixture and mix to ensure they are well coated with flour.

In another bowl, lightly beat the egg/ flax seed substitute, vanilla extract, milk and oil together. Add this to the strawberry-flour mixture and gently mix together, in a folding motion, about 4 or 5 times. Do not over stir, or the texture of your muffins will suffer.

The batter will be lumpy and slightly floury.

Grease the muffin tins/ cups and divide the batter equally between them, so that each one is about 2/3rds full.

Bake at 180C for about 25 minutes till the muffins are done and lightly golden brown on top.

Cool for 10 minutes, unmould them and cool completely on a rack. This recipe makes 8 muffins.

Note : I used whole wheat flour completly for this recipe, and somehow my batter become a little thin , but my muffins came out just fine.

Strawberry cake

:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup ( 1 stick) softened butter,

2 eggs,

1 cup regular white sugar,

1 tsp vanilla essence,

1 3/4 cups plain flour,

1/8 tsp salt,

2 tsp baking powder,

2/3 cup fresh red ripened Strawberries pureed.

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F/190C.

Spray cake pan with no-stick oil or butter well and keep aside.

In a mixer bowl, beat the sugar and butter first until fluffy.

Add in the eggs,mix. Then add in the vanilla.

Sift flour and baking powder, add to the creamed butter mixture and mix again gently on low speed until everything comes together.

Now, stir in the strawberry puree, beat until batter is well mixed and evenly pink.

Pour into the prepared pan, tap on the kitchen counter to top get the bubbles out.

Bake for about 35 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven or until golden and skewer comes out clean form the center.

Take it out of the oven, let it sit for 5mins. Invert gently on the cooling rack.

When cool, sprinkle powdered sugar on top to serve or you can use Vanilla icing.

I served it with whipped cream.It was delicious.

Hence ended my starwberry saga for this season and No more for this year ! :)

Sending these Muffins and Cake to 'The Strawberry Feast' hosted by Happy Cook at 'My Kitchen Treasures'

Baked Salmon Cubes

I try to make salmon atleast once a week.Usually I whip up a quick curry to go with rice, but this weekend I wanted to have something very spicy for my brinjal and mango sambhar.Since my DH gives a big no to Fish fry, I baked the marinated fish pieces coated with tblsp of olive oil in the Oven .The taste was amazing and I did not miss my Pan fried fish at all. This is a must try recipe for those who love fish.

Ingredients:
2 Salmon Fillets cubbed.
1 tsp chilli power

2 garlic cloves chopped finely
1 tblsp Olive oil
1 tblsp lemon juice
1 tsp fennel seeds/powder (optional)

salt as required
Method:
Mix all the above ingredients and marinate for an hour(atleast a minium of 15 mins)
Preheat the oven at 250C

Place the Fish cubes in a tray lined with slightly greased foil.
Bake for 10 mins, and then turn the pieces and bake for another 10 mins .After this turn the fish pieces again, set the oven in the broiler mode and broil for 5-8 mins or until the colour turns to red.Depending on the oven the timings may vary. Just keep an eye on it so that the fish doesnt get burnt.
Make sure that its not broiled for a longer time as the fish will become dry and rubbery.