Kalan

This is a kerala recipe that my mother in law sent me. I tried it out the other day and it came out pretty ok.

Ingredients:

1. 1 large raw banana or 2 small raw bananas
2. 1/2 shredded coconut ( can get the frozen shredded coconut which would be around 1 cup coconut)
3. Yam or cucumber (optional) apparently kalan can be made only with raw banana or cucumber or yam or a mixture of these 3
4. 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
5. Salt to taste
6. 1/2 tsp chilli powder
7. 2 green chillies
8. 1/4 tsp jeera
9. 2 cups sour curd.
10. 1 tsp oil
11. 4 curry leaves
12. 1/2 tsp mustard seeds

Method:

1. Cut the banana, yam and cucumber into small 1 inch square pieces. Boil these in 1 cup water along with the salt, turmeric powder and red chilli powder until soft. In the pressure cooker it requires 1 to 2 whistles.
2. Grind the coconut along with 2 green chillies and jeera
3. Make a puree of the curd
4. Add the curd to the boiled vegetables and boil until the mixture thickens (reduces to at least 3/4 the earlier level)
5. Add the ground coconut mixture and heat for 2 minutes.
6. Heat oil, add mustard seeds and curry leaves and let the mustard seeds splutter. Add this to the vegetable mixture.

Serve hot with rice

Coconut Chutney

This is a recipe my mother in law sent me recently.

Ingredients

1/2 coconut shredded
1/2 cup curd (not sour else use a few spoons of curd and add water)
1/4 tsp red chilli powder
salt to taste
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
4-5 curry leaves
1 tsp oil

Method:

1. Grind the coconut along with curd, red chilli powder and salt
2. Heat oil up and add mustard seeds and curry leaves. Let the mustard seeds splutter.
3. Add this to the ground coconut mixture. Mix and serve.

Seviyan

I decided to make seviyan for Nishanth's birthday and heres how i made it.

Ingredients
--------------
7 tbsp sugar
1/2 gallon milk
3 handfuls of vermicelli
2 tbsp ghee
2 tsp chopped cashews
raisins

1/4 tsp cardamom powder or 2 green cardamoms crushed
Method:
1. Heat ghee up and fry the vermicelli to golden brown
2. Add cashews up and fry them
3. Add milk and boil until the mixture thickens up
4. Add sugar (add more if required according to taste)
5. Let the milk thicken to desired consistency.
6. Sprinkle cardamom powder and add raisins
7. Can be served hot or cold as desired

Pakistani style vegetable biryani

I tried this out for Nishanth's birthday and it came out good.

http://www.angelfire.com/country/fauziaspakistan/vegetablebiryani.html

There were some things that i didnt follow such as not remove the pressure cooker after 2 whistles and the rice turned a little soft and make sure you remove the pressure cooker after 2 whistles! Also, if using cauliflower use big florets otherwise they will disappear in the biryani! It tastes good though!

Tangierine Cafe, Epcot, Orlando, FL

We had lunch at this place. I ordered a chicken shawarma plate - the quantities were small (although more than sufficient) and the shawarma was not cooked well. I ordered a pina coloda (the non alcoholic version) for the frozen fruit drink and it was pretty good.

Not a place i would go to again

The Lunching Pad, Magic Kingdom, Orlando

We stopped here for snack/burgers on new years eve and it was pretty ok. I had chicken nuggets and nishanth had a burger. Not too good but going by the rest of the food we had in disney world parks, much better

Tomorrowland Terrace Noodle Station , Magic Kingdom, Orlando

We had food at this place when we were in Magic Kingdom and it was horrible. I had the noodles and what i got was noodles floating in water. I didnt like the food at all. Nishanth said his burger was so-so. There wasnt a lot of options either.

Chili's, Orlando, FL

We decided to have brunch over here before heading over to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. The food was good pretty much like all the other chili's that i had been too. However, they didn't have the meals under 5$ as they do in Dallas so i ended up wasting half my food.

The service was quite slow but the hostess was good.

They are located at:
7021 International Drive, Orlando, FL
(407) 352-7618‎

Taj Indian Restaurant, Orlando, FL

We happened to have dinner at this place and it was horrible. We ordered for biryani. The food was attrocious for the price we paid. Its definitely a place to avoid! They hardly had any customers and probably tourists like us who come in unaware.

Taj Indian Restaurant
6524 Carrier Drive, Orlando, FL

Richter at Universal Studio, Orlando

We had lunch here and it was horrible. The burger was not cooked well and neither was the chicken sandwich done well. I would say, avoid this place if possible. There seem to be much nicer places to eat at Universal Islands of Adventure.

Their website:
http://allears.net/uni/menu/men_rb.htm

Parippu Vada

This takes me back to Christ College days when my classmates used to get parippu vada and i just loved it. After all these years, i tried to make it at home.

Initially, i tried out the recipe at this website:
http://kailaskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/08/uppittuparuppu-vadai-godhambu-pradhaman.html and found it too dull for my taste

I looked up further recipes and the recipe at this website is pretty good.
http://simplyspicy.blogspot.com/2006/12/parippu-vada-channa-dal-vada.html

The difference was the addition of the ginger and the onions. I also had Nishanth sample the two different versions and he agreed the second one was better.

Vegetable Kurma

This is a real easy recipe i got from my friend Sunitha as part of my quest of getting non-dal based recipes:

Ingredients
2 1 cm long cinnamon sticks
4 cloves
2 tsp oil
2 cups vegetables (cauliflowers cut into small florets, potatoes, french beans into small pieces and peas)
1/2 can tinned coconut milk (can substitute for fresh coconut milk)
1 onion chopped fine
2 tomatoes chopped fine
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1-2 green chillies slit

Method

1. Heat the oil , add cloves and cinnamon stick and fry
2. Add the onions and fry until golden brown
3. Add the ginger garlic paste and green chillies and fry for a minute
4. Add tomatoes and fry until it becomes a paste
5. Add turmeric poweder and green chilli powder and fry for 30 seconds
6. Add the vegetables and stir. Add water (around 3 glasses) and cook until the vegetables are done
7. Add the coconut milk and let it boil for a couple of minutes. Garnish with corriander leaves