Day by day I have started to feel the importance of our age old food habits and their medicinal benefits. We have totally forgotten about our grandmom's home remedies and we are heading to the Hospital everytime ending up having a big hole in our pockets!! Someday I would want to make a collection of these age old Indian Ayurveda and Vedic remedies to common ailments and even modern diseases. The ancient scripts which mention these remedies are not less than 1000 years old...!!!! They are the real jackpot we should aim for!!

So How many of us have heard about Navadhaniyam (Tamil word) or the Nine Cereals (Nava means Nine and Dhanya means grains)? It is mentioned in the ancient vedas, and is still used in India for all auspicious rituals. But we do not know the real importance of these cereals, it was supposed to be used as our staple food for leading a healthy life.

We are either having more rice or wheat in India now... South indians started having a lot of Wheat thinking it is better than having carbohydrates in Rice. But that's not true!! Wheat has gluten (Glue-like property) which is hard to digest. Another point Wheat will never suit South Indians... Having lots of wheat will create heat inside the body, which is only required to those who live in extremely cold places. And we have also started having a lot of Maida/flour nowadays in the form of Pizza, Paratha, Bread, etc. We have totally forgotten about the other healthy options!!

What are the Nine Differet Grains or Cereals?
Pigeon Peas (Toor dal/Thuvarai)
Wheat
Horse Gram (Kollu)
Green Gram (Moong Dal)
Paddy/Rice
White Beans (White rajma/Avarai kai)
Black Sesame (Til/Ellu)
Chickpeas (Channa/Konda kadalai)
Black gram (Urad dal/ Ulundu)

Auspicious Significance of the Nine Grains:
Each of these grains represents one of the nine planets, and hence they are used in performing Hindu rituals like Grahapravesham or House Warming Pooja, Navaratri Pooja, etc.

Suriyan (Sun) – Wheat
Chandiran (Moon) -  Paddy/Rice 
Chevvai (Mars) - Tuvarai (Toor)
Bhudhan (Mercury) - Greengram (Moong)
Guru (Jupitor) - Chickpeas (Channa) 
Sukiran (Venus) - White Beans (White Rajma or Motchai or Avarai seeds) 
Sani(Saturn) -  Black Sesame (Til)
Rahu – Black gram (Ulundu or Urad) 
Kethu – Horse gram (Kollu)

Recently I ve been addicted to Foodie programs on Fox traveller. After watching a lot of street food shows, I wanted to try something different at home. I decided to add lot of veggies to my meal and make it tasty too.
I made my own veg fajitas recipe and it turned out super tasty!! :)

After my post on trying different tiffin items for breakfast/ dinner everyday rather than the boring dos/idli/ upma, I badly wanted to make Veg momos at home. I have tasted chicken momos on the streets and both of us love them to the core. We can easily have more than a plate of momos. So decided to try veg momos at home this Sunday. Thanks to Raks kitchen, for inspiring me to try momos :)

It's quite easy to make and doesn't take much of time. You can also prepare the momos ahead of time and steam them whenever required, to give your guests a surprise treat.

Peanut masala is a famous snack in the south... but I have never attempted to make it at home. My hubby loves peanuts and chats a lot, so I thought I could make this peanut masala for him for an evening snack.
I had stock of raw groundnuts at home, the unroasted and unpeeled ones. If you don't have them, you can buy the readymade spicy roasted groundnuts (peeled or unpeeled).

You would have heard about the famous cheese chilli toast... especially at the Mumbai roadsides shops. I was introduced to these by my mom first, she makes them at home. They make a great breakfast for the weekend or even a good evening snack option. Its cheesy, crunchy and juicy in the mouth. Yummm. . I cant wait to share the recipe with you.

We love to have Pavbhaji at any chat corner or north indian restaurant. It is always served with lots of butter, chopped onions for extra crunchiness and lemon wedges. My husband loves it to the core, so I thought let me try making it at home this time. My mom has made it a few times and turned out good, so I took her recipe as the base. Here we go...

Ingredients:
Potato - 2
Carrot - 2
Green Peas - 1/2 cup
Cauliflower florets - 1/2 cup (optional)
Green Capsicum - 1 small
Tomato chopped - 2
Onions finely chopped - 2
Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Pavbhaji masala - 1 1/2 tsp
Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric - 1 pinch
Jeera - 1/2 tsp
Oil - 2 tbsp
Butter - 2 tbsp
Pav - 8
Salt
Chopped Coriander leaves to garnish
Lemon wedges on the side

My Hubby likes anything and everything in the Indo-Chinese cuisine... fried rice, koithio, chowmien, manchurian, chilly garlic, kimchi and wat not. I can imagine the amount of vinegar, soya sauce and ajinomoto going into our tiny stomach :( So its always better to make the same at home, where you know what goes into the dish and our stomach ;)

Eating out nowadays has become a nightmare with so much of risk... unclean environment, polluted water, adulterated and cheap ingredients, substitutes, unhealthy oil and what not!! So let's replicate the indo-chinese dishes at home. I have tried the manchurian varieties a long back, they involve a lot of time!! Now I'm trying the Chilli Paneer Recipe with less oil.. NO DEEP FRYING!!