Myriad Musings

I found the perfect cookie recipe at Annie's eats .  I used Nattuchakkarai or the south Indian organic brown sugar and repeated her recipe with very little changes here.  Result?  Perfection!  I dare say, even Annie might agree, nattuchakkarai takes her excellent recipe up a notch with its fudgy gooeyness.  Also it has some chunkier bits amidst the powdery stuff and the chunky stuff hangs on to its shape stubbornly through mixing, even with a hand mixer and baking, finally giving up the ghost when you bite into the cookie. Delicious.  And to top it all, I made it with chapathi flour (whole wheat) not maida. I used a combination of ghee (i had forgotten to switch off the gas when I was melting ghee for my son's breakfast and ended up browning it up a tad too much) and melted butter.  The butter ghee mix was truly at room temperature and I did not have any issues with the dough some of the other commentators had talked about. I felt the size of the do...

I buy healthy foods like I used to shop for accessories in my college days.  I just pick random ingredients with all good intentions  of making something deceptively rich and artery clogging, but actually healthy and frequently forget about it after the first disastrous attempt.  Kollu or Horsegram was one such victim; I made kollu thuvaiyal, my co-sister's recommendation, the first time and no one could tolerate the taste, least of all me.  Kollu rasam hardly needed more than a spoon of Kollu. The Kollu stayed forgotten in the recesses of my pantry. I love hot spicy milagaipodi with idli/dosa, sometimes even with rice, but the store bought variety don't quite pack a punch and have a strong hing taste.  I decided to make horsegram version which does pack a punch, an awakening (for the kollu) if you will, tasteless on the tongue to "Wow!  What was that?" It seems to be a day of side-dishes.  I have not given up making Gau lunch he finishes with joy,...