Memories & Pottukadalai Thuvayal

My brother visited us over the last two weeks and we had a fun, relaxing time with him....  He is 8 years younger than me so our childhood memories have less instances of us playing together and more of me bullying / teasing him... :)  Anyway we spent an evening talking about these memories and the fun we had with the two cousins who lived with us (while they were in college).... One memory was that of playing games, having sleepovers at our home with kids in our neighborhood when my dad was away on business trips.... since my mom would do minimal cooking and join us in the fun. Another thing that we associated with my father's business trips was to eat some of the dishes we loved, but my dad was not a fan of - such as semia upma, simple kanji & pottukadalai thovayal etc. My mom would make them only when my dad was away on trips so much so that my brother once asked, very longingly, as to when my dad would leave on his next business trip so he could have some kanji and semia upma :)

The next morning I called up my mom to find out how she made the thovayal and we had a very tasty lunch of kanji and thovayal - comfort food indeed and simplicity at its best.  During his stay I also made some ulundhu kali with a mix that my mom sent me.... and we shaped them into little round balls and made small indentations on the top and filled them with nallennai (gingelly oil) just like my grandmother used to. This kali is supposed to strengthen one's lower back.

Here's the super simple but very tasty pottukadalai (Roasted gram/dalia) thuvayal.

POTTUKADALAI (Roasted Gram/ Dalia) THUVAYAL

Ingredients:

Pottukadalai (roasted gram/Dalia) - half cup
Grated Coconut - 2 tbsp
Red Chillies - 3 or 4 (or to taste, this shd be spicy to counterbalance the bland kanji)
Salt - to taste
Water - as required to get correct consistency

 Method:

1) Grind together the pottukadalai, red chillies and grated coconut with some salt in a mixie. When coarsely powdered, add a bit of water and grind to a fairly thick paste.... add water as required to get thick thovayal consistency. Mix in with  Kanji (Pressure cook rice with lots of water 1:4 ratio, to which some cumin seeds, salt and ground pepper is added) - it shoud be slightly watery. If it's too thick (which happens after some time)  add some hot water to get the right consistency. We had the kanji with the thuvayal and some leftover puli kuzhambu

Here's a picture of the ulundhu kali that we enjoyed.

Last but not least, here's a picture of his birthday (Aug 18th) cake - a layered pineapple cream cake that I baked using this recipe....

Detailed post to follow soon. It was so moist and perfect and everybody loved it... esp. the birthday boy....

Other dishes I made during his visit were (you will quickly see how I came to gain quite a few pounds in these 2 weeks):

Poondu vatha kuzhambu 
Egg Biryani

Mocha kottai kuzhambu

Paati's Rasam

Egg curry

Aapam & Stew

Greek Pizza & Pesto Pizza
Mango Kulfis