Looking for vegan, great tasting protein powder with no additives or artificial sweeteners? Then read on. Here is my honest review of Naked organic powdered peanut butter. Organic Naked PB has just 1 ingredient - slow roasted peanuts. It is low in calories and fat, and is great to add to smoothies, pancakes etc. Check...

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I know the title is a little misleading, how can a dish be a pappu (dal) and a kura (curry). I wonder too!! My intention was to make a dry curry with moong dal, but ended up adding a little too much water as I wanted to make the curry in 30 minutes, but ended up with a very mushy dal. To add insult to injury none of the pictures I took came out good. But it tasted awesome. Well, in the spirit of blogging marathon, I’m going to post the recipe and the picture, but I’m going to redeem...

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Kakarakaya/ Karela/ Bitter gourd is one vegetable that I really enjoy cooking and eating too. I usually microwave the chopped gourd with lemon size tamarind, pinch of turmeric and some water until almost tender, about 5 minutes. Drain completely, rinse and completely squeeze out the liquid. This takes care of the bitterness, to be honest, I enjoy a little bitterness in the karela and don't worry to much about taking it out. I have been thinking of using peanuts in the gravy and wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but the curry turned out pretty good and...

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Blogging Marathon# 37: Week 3/ Day 1 Theme: Street Food from Around the World Dish: Kimchi Fried Rice from Korea My theme for this week's Blogging marathon got me very very excited. It is Street Food from around the world. Learning about the different dishes that are served as street food from various countries was very interesting and there are so many dishes that I wanted to make at home. But since we are posting for only 3 days, I had to narrow down my search to 3 dishes. Hopefully I can make the rest of my bookmarked dishes some...

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Today's Carrot dish for BM# 23 is a healthy curry that incorporates veggie and lentils, one of my favorite combination. Being a vegetarian, protein intake is something that I'm watchful about and when a dish incorporates a healthy veggie and a protein, I'm super happy. Paruppu usili or Patoli (in telugu) is a dry-ish curry that can be made with different vegetable like green beans, cabbage, cluster beans etc. When I saw PJ post her carrot paruppu usili, it looked awesome and I decided to try it today. My mom made this dish and here's how she made it: Lets...

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Blogging Marathon# 32: Letter Q Theme: A-Z Dishes from Andhra Pradesh Dish: Q for Qabooli Biryani (Hyderabadi Chana dal Biryani) Letter Q stands for Qubani (apricots). Qubani ka Meetha is a very famous Hyderabadi dessert that is made with dried apricots that are soaked and then cooked with sugar and drizzled with cream. I wanted to make it, but couldn't find good quality apricots. So I made Qabooli instead. Qabooli is biryani made with spicy chana dal (split pea lentil) and layered with basmati rice. I used black chana/ chickpeas instead and it turned out quite tasty. This is a...

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My second recipe is for this month’s JFI, being hosted by Sig of Live to Eat. I’m revisiting one of my husband’s favorite, Besan Chikki for JFI-Tamarind. My MIL made it on demand and it was just awesome. I can never make it the same way she does even with the recipe on hand. Here’s the recipe.

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Sri Lankan kale mallung is a quick, easy, and a flavorful side dish. Recipe needs just a few simple ingredients to make. Fresh coconut adds a nice texture and flavor to the dish. This is a delicious dry curry to serve with any Sri Lankan or South Indian meal. I love it with rice, dal...

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Sri Lankan eggplant pickle aka wambatu moju is a spicy, tangy and delicious recipe. It is easy to make with just a few ingredients. Sautéed brinjal or eggplant is cooked with onions, garlic and tomatoes to make this scrumptious dish. This is a great side dish to serve with rice and Sri Lankan dhal mallum....

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Sri Lankan Dhal Mallum is a simple everyday lentil dish that is hearty, comforting and delicious. Red lentils are seasoned with cooked onions and grated coconut in this recipe. This is an easy side dish to make. I use the instant pot to cook the lentils to make it even more easier. Dhal curry is a...

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Soothing soup with Carrot & Green Beans. This is part of the 3-Day Clean Eating detox program.

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Detox Salad recipe with Beets, Arugula and Avocado. This is part of 3 day Clean eating detox diet. It can be prepared ahead of time and stored in the fridge.

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Detox Smoothie recipe with Strawberries, grapefruit and ginger -- this is part of 3 Day Plant based Detox Diet. This is a antioxidant packed smoothie and is a great start to any day.

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Pav Bhaji is a popular Street food in Mumbai. here's the recipe to make it right at home.

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Blogging Marathon# 34: Week 1/ Day 2 Theme: Cooking with Capsicum/ Peppers Dish: Green Pepper/ Capsicum Avakaya Day 2 of BM# 34 and today I have a spicy hot Andhra pickle made ith green bell peppers. I'm just learning that every vegetable can be used to make avakaya. I asked my mom what to make for this week's 'Cooking with Bell Peppers/ Capsicum' theme and she said let's make 'Avakaya'. I wasn't sure how it was going to taste, but went ahead with her proposal. It was sure spicy and tasted just like hmmmm.. avakaya should taste like but with...

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We start the 4th and last week of Blogging marathon for this month today. My theme for this week is "Calcium Rich Foods". Here's some information to know about Calcium intake. Calcium is the most vital mineral for strong bones. It is also essential for blood clotting, muscle contraction, and nerve function. If we don't take in enough calcium, our body uses the calcium reserves in our bones to supply the muscles, heart and nerves. So it's important that we take the required daily dosage of calcium -- milk and other dairy provide over 50% of dietary calcium, it is...

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Vegan Mofo Day 21: Weekend whizzed by very fast as usual, nothing much was accomplished, though there are too many tasks on the list. Didn't touch the stove until Sunday evening due to laziness, little bit of shopping and party at friends place. So finally when I started to cook, I had half a bag of baby spinach, half a bunch of bok-choy and a 3 huge bunches of scallions. So all of them went into this easy, tasty stir fry. I fried some home made vadiyalu/ wada (fritters, for lack of good English translation). My mom makes sure that...

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Burmese samosa soup is a popular street food in Burma. It is a hearty and delicious dish that is quite easy to make at home. There are 2 main components in this samusa soup - samosa and dal. The spicy lentil soup aka dal is quick to make. I use the Instant pot but you...

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Bonus Dish for Week 3: Theme: A-Z Vegetarian Dishes from Andhra Pradesh Dish: M for Mamikidikaya Pappu (Raw Mango Dal) This pappu for my first pick for the Letter 'M', but it fell off the regular A-Z Vegetarian dishes from A.P. truck because of various reasons. One reason was that I made 'Nuvvulu-Mamidikaya pachadi' for N and I didn't want the same ingredient (mango) to be used in the dishes that I was posting on consecutive days. So for M I posted Menthikura pappu.

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Wish you all a very Happy Deepavali. Pulihora (tamarind/lemon/mango rice) and garelu (vada) are the most frequently made festival food in our household. I think it’s the same case in most of the South Indian families. My attempts in making garelu have not been very successful. First attempt failed because of too much water in the batter and I ended up making punukulu (after adding almost a cup of rice flour). Next time, I made sure that I don’t add too much water, but for some strange reason, my garelu were really hard. When I was almost on the verge...

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