Thursday, December 6, 2012

Menu planning, recipes tried and wine making


FROM CHAOS TO ORDER
In an attempt to organise the chaos that is my life I chanced upon the Flylady. This fine website takes you step by step through your house and life, setting things in order. What's for dinner is a major trauma to many home-makers.

Inspired by Flylady's Saving Dinner, I found myself a good menu planner and hope to eventually make meal preparation hassle free fun. 

WHAT'S COOKING, GOODLOOKING?
Some of the tasty things I've cooked this week are taken off the Internet:

1. Amla rice 

It's sour like lemon rice and I would think of adding finely chopped cabbage along with the grated Amla for a more complete one dish meal

2. Amla rasam 

I morphed it to my convenience, grinding the chopped amla, a bit of onion and garlic in a mixie with some water and boiling this water with a finely chopped onion. I added rasam powder in the final boil.

3. Aval vadas 

This is an excellent use as such recipe and provides a fancy snack or breakfast food with some good chutney

4. Ragi dosas 
One can also add a bit of ragi flour to left over dosa batter to have healthier dosas.

A TOAST TO THE WORLD WIDE WEB!
I've been making wine at home since the late Eighties. My first wine was probably a Rose Wine: a beautiful beverage but a recipe which I have been unable to repeat as rose petals are expensive. :( I did once find the recipe on line but cannot locate it now :(

I then discovered more wine recipes in a cookery book by Thangam Philips I bought in Guruvayur and which I cannot locate on line now-it had recipes for beetroot, pineapple and amla wine, if I recall right.

A further treasure trove in those days was a gem of a book written by a Manglorean father for his about-to-be-wed daughter: it contained everything from recipes to poultry farming! I used many of its wine recipes but, alas, in those days I mainly used plastic jars and I do think that affects the taste.

I've resumed my wine making of late (the last couple of years) with great success. My range has increased and so has my fascination with wine making.

Here are some of the recipes I use:
Beetroot 
This is quick and most delightful!

Pineapple skin 
With some good dried ginger, it's heavenly!

Pineapple 

Amla I add yeast!

Pumpkin 

Fruit 

Banana 

Golden Wine 

Guava 

Ginger

Orange 

Come mango season, I shall try making Mango Wine.

My challenge now is to find wine yeast and, in the meantime, I might try culturing the yeast from a good bottle of bought wine-but I need to figure out a more easily available culture medium than agar.


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