Red velvet cake with creamcheese icing

   November month is full of birthdays & anniversaries.  So, with lots to plan - I settled for this Red velvet cake with Cream cheese icing for his birthday.  Red velvet cake is known for its velvety texture is paired here with the tangy cream cheese frosting.

Kothukkari kuruma/minced meat kuruma

   Minced meat/kothukkari curry goes great with idiyappam/dosa/rice.  Here I have added precooked minced meat along with masala, this is an tempting dish for NV-lovers.

 

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves 2

Ingredients required:

To temper

•  1 tbspn of oil
• 1 Bayleaf, crushed
• 1 star anise
• 1-inch cinnamon piece
• 1 Black cardamom
• 1 clove
• 1 Marathi mogga
• 1 tsp sombu/fennel seeds

IMMUNE YOU - IMMUNE INDIA

As the word goes, 'immune' or 'disease-resistance' starts as an baby/foetus in your mother's womb.  At third month, mother's so called antibodies (they are our body-generated guards, who fight disease causing germs) pass to baby through umbilical cord.  And, after birth, this immunity is enhanced artificially by providing a series of vaccines, say for five-ten years.  What happens after that?  It depends entirely upon the food you take, nutrients you nourish through them, the place you live in, degree of pollution at your city, also to your (with zero to infinite levels of infected) friends at school.

So, how can one break through all barriers and save our children- tomorrow's prosperous Indians to survive??  How can one build more and more immunity powers in order to render the healthiness despite of several hostile environmental factors?  Let us discuss...

Idiyappam - Step by step tutorial from store bought riceflour

   Idiyappam, is commonly found dish in South (Tamilnadu, Kerala, coastal parts of Karnataka) India.  The rice flour paste (or wheat flour/ragi flour) is pressed to noodles, steam-cooked and had.  While sweet ones, are done by dusting  with sugar and coconut flakes, savoury-lovers are free to have them with a dip of any spicy curry.  You can opt for Kadalai curry, Meen kolambu, Chettinadu kozhi kolambu.  Also am having minced meat curry on my draft and will post them soon :D

This dish is highly made by preparing rice flour at home, that is why I presume the name goes, Idi-'appam (Idi meaning 'to crush' in tamil.  'appam' meaning pancake) Here selected rice is soaked, drained and is dried.  They are then crushed to yield very fine rice flour and the process continues.  What happens here is that, I have made them with store-bought riceflour.  Store bought ones may not be suitable if used directly.  The trick is to roast them till they get an fine texture.  Later they are sieved to yield uniform sized and textured rice flour.  Thanks all goes to my, Keralite neighbor who shared this with me :D  Thank you aunty :)

Spaghetti with meat sauce

  Spaghetti is thin, long pasta from Italy.  Here, I used dried form of spaghetti packet, made of wheat durum semolina.  Spaghetti is topped usually with tomato sauce, with herbs like basil and oregano.  Here, I used meat sauce and the result was awesome.  The basic sauce, I used was Maggi's instant pasta sauce.  If you want an home-made one, click here

 

Since, this was my first Italian association, I followed each steps carefully.  These spaghetti were a bit denser than our instant noodles.  I cooked them till they were completely done and it went good with sauce.  They were heavy on stomach. One bite topped with sauce was completely heavenly.  I added both meat and vegetables here, vegetarians can replace the same amount of meat with additional mushrooms.