Half Century!

This is my 50th post .Started blogging this year. Hoping to stay in blogosphere for many more years......

Gud Bye 2008!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vocally Controlled Mouse

Vocally controlled mouse development is going on in University of Washington. Though it is specially designed for disabled people, i strongly feel that it will change the way we use i/p devices today. For more clarity check out my earlier posts on Mouse's future and Speech Recognition software...........

http://techiecookiefreaky.blogspot.com/2008/12/logitechs-billionth-mouse.html

http://techiecookiefreaky.blogspot.com/2008/08/speech-recognition-sw.html

Thornton's Classic Collection

According to me the No:1 ranking for UK chocolates goes Thorntons.
Every flavour is delecious and unique in its own way.

Adobe's Linux Version of AIR

Adobe announced the availability of AIR 1.5 software for Linux operating systems which enables Web developers to use JavaScript,HTML, ActionScript and Flex framework to deliver applications. It supports Fedora 8,OpenSUSE 10.3 and Ubuntu 7.10

Merry Christmas!

Wishing u & all ur loved ones a joyful X-mas!

OFCOM - ISP List

List of UK Service Providers who signed for OFCOM can be found in the URL below

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/copbb/list/

Channa Masala (Punjabi Style)

Channa/ChickPeas has a high fiber content with rich source of Carbohydrates and Protein. Channa masala goes well with Batura/Poori/Chappathi/Dosa/Rice. Kabuli channa should be used for this recipe.There r many ways to make it but Punjabi style rocks!

Ingredients

Chick peas - 250 gms
Onion - 2 medium
Tomatoes - 3
Green Chillies - 4
Chopped fresh Coriander - 1/2 cup
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 2 tsps
Aum Chur(Dried mango) powder - 1 tsp
Pomegranate powder - 1 tsp
Jeera powder - 1tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 2 tsps
Cinnamon - 2 pieces
Bay leaf - 1
Cloves - 3
Ginger - 10 gms
Garlic - 6 cloves
Oil -1 tbsp
Salt - 2 tsps

Pre - Requisites

* Soak Channa dhal overnight and pressure cook it with 2 cups of water for 2o mins
* Grind ginger & garlic and make a paste out of it
* Finely Chop onion,tomatoes and green chillies

Cooking Method

Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a pan and add cumin seeds,once it splutters add bay leaf, cinnamon and cloves to it.Fry chopped onion till it turns golden brown,now add chopped green chillies,tomatoes and ginger garlic paste and fry for 15 mins in a low flame.Finally add all the other ingredients and channa dhal along with the water used for boiling the same and keep stirring for 15 mins.Channa masala is ready to serve!

Net Speedometer

Did u visualise Speedometer device which measures speed of a moving vehicle? I'm talking abt broadband speed rules coming into force in the UK.

For companies offering Broadband, OFCOM has defined a new speed code. Itz called 'Voluntary Code of Practice' & helps customers know their broadband speed. Major Service Providers in the UK already signed up for the Speed Code of Practice this month. Over the next 6 months Ofcom will monitor service providers and check their standards. Check if ur ISP has signed for this & enjoy the speed u deserve!!!!!!!!

BeetRoot Halwa

Ingredients:

Beetroot - 250 gms
Sugar - 400 gms
Milk - 1 pint
Cardamom - 6
Cashews - 10
Ghee - 1 tsp

Cooking Method:

Grate the beetroots and keep it aside.Use only fresh beetroots as it is easy for grating. Do not use cooked beetroots. Heat 1 tsp of Ghee in a Sauce Pan and fry the Cashews for a min. Add 1 pint of milk and boil it for 12 mins. Now add the grated beetroot and boil it in milk for 15 mins. Finally add sugar and keep stirring till u get the thick halwa consistency(this process takes about half an hr). Garnish with cardamom. Ghee is used in minimal amt to roast the cashews, weight watchers need not worry. Itz highly nutritious. The total cooking time for this recipe is an hr but the output is too gud.

My favourite combo is Beetroot halwa with Vanilla icecream (Weight watchers stay away)

Karthigai Deepam Celebration

Festival of Lights!

Wish u all a Happy Kaarthigai Deepam!

Though itz freezing cold in the UK, am in a celebration mood.Planning to draw rangoli and light diyas. Earthen lamps to be replaced by Candles this yr. Will share the celebration snaps soon.....

Shallots

Shallots has a very good medicinal value is used for treating common cold.

Logitech's Billionth Mouse

Dr. Douglas C. Englebart invented the computer mouse on 9th Dec, 1968. Mouse has made a long journey for the past 40 years. With the rapid changes in the Electronics industry & never ending series of innovation, surviving for forty years without much changes in functionality is a gr8 achievement!

Though Logitech's Billionth Mouse stands as a proof for the customer base of the mouse, in reality the usage of mouse is coming down with wide use of laptops and other touch screen devices.

Open-source Office Software

Openoffice is an easy to use office software and a high quality alternative for Ms Office.I feel that more and more software like this should be made available for people to experiment and innovate .The features supported includes Writer which acts like a Word Processor,Calc with more spreadsheet functionality, Impress for preparing presentations, Draw which is a graphics editor and Math for Mathematical calculations.

http://www.openoffice.org

Chilli Chicken

Chilli Chicken is popularly known as 'Chicken 65' is South India. Why 65? The number 65 represents the age of the Chicken.There's a belief that the chicken tastes best when it becomes 65 days old.
Ingredients:
Skinless Chicken Breast Fillets - 4
Chilli Powder - 3 tsps
Corn Flour – 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Garlic - 4 cloves (Crushed)
Grated Ginger – 2 tsps
Curry Leaves – 2 strands(chopped)
Red Onion – 1/4 Finely Chopped (optional)
Yogurt – 2 tsps
Sunflower Oil – 100 ml
Lemon Juice – 2 tsps
Egg – 1
Salt - 11/2 tsp

Pre-Requisites:
· Mix the lemon juice and corn flour and make it like a smooth paste without lumps or clots.
· Separate the Egg white from the egg yolk and use only the egg white
· Cut the Chicken breast fillet into small chunks
· Mix all the ingredients including the corn flour paste, except the egg white and marinate it for 2 hours

Cooking Method: Heat the oil in a frying pan for about 10 minutes on a medium flame. While the oil is getting heated mix the egg white into the marinated chicken and mix it with a spatula. Once is the oil is heated up deep fry the marinated chicken until golden brown.

Pinky...... Pinky....... Pink Limo

Spotted a Pink Limousine.....My Camera winked itz eye at it ;-)

Wikipedia has some interesting info on limos, here's the link for u....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limousine

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!What a Luxurious car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chargepod

Chargepod is a six way charger. U can charge upto 6 gadgets @
a time. Itz portable & handy.We can avoid the mesh of wires while
charging our electronic gadgets. Gud for gadget freaks like me........

French Chocolates!!!!!

Visited a French market recently and bought so many varieties
of French Chocolates. I can say that they were the finest chocolates
i've ever tasted.

Can anyone resist after seeing this???????????

I'm Chocoholic......

I'm crazy abt chocolates and i can never stop eating one.Working
in the IT industry has itz own advantages and for me, it gave me
the opportunity to taste most of the Top brand Chocolates from
different parts of the globe. Recently i visited a Food Expo in the UK
where i got to taste a new variety called 'Chilli Chocolate' . I raised my
brows when the stall owner explained the taste of it but believe me, it was
absolutely delicious! While u start eating the chocolate it wud taste
normal and once u swallow it, u'll get a mild chilli taste on ur throat.

If any of u feel any chocolate variety is gud lemme know..........

Autumn in UK!

Mint-Tomato Rice

Ingredients:

Tomato - 1/2 kg
Rice - 2 cups
Onion(medium sized) - 3
Ginger - 10 gms
Garlic - 12 cloves
Mint leaves - 1 cup
Ghee - 4 tsps
Curry leaves - 2 strands
Coriander leaves(chopped) - 1/4 cup
Salt - 2 tsps
Green chillies - 6

Cooking Method:

Grind chillies, ginger, garlic, mint and coriander and make it
like a paste.Chop the onions and tomatoes.Pour 4 tsps of ghee in
a pan and fry the chopped onions till it turns golden brown, then
add the ground paste and fry for 5 mins, finally add the chopped
tomatoes and curry leaves into it and fry for 7 mins.
Add the rice into it and water should be added in a 1:2 ratio.
Now add salt and pressure cook it for 15 mins in a low flame.
Since we add more mint for this recipe, it tastes different than a
normal tomato rice and easily gets digested.

Facts abt Dates

Dates are very rich in Iron and daily consumption helps us to
avoid iron deficiencies and anemia. Itz very low in fat and is a
perfect snack if u plan to go on a diet.It also reduces risk of heart
diseases.It is soaked in sugar syrup for commercial purposes but
it tastes sweet naturally.

Quad-Core & More...........

For desktops & laptops, first came the single-core
processor, then the dual-core and now Quad-core. Core is used
for handling data strings, in other words itz used for executing
tasks on a thread. A Thread is a stream of instructions related
to a task in any program.With many cores, multitasking becomes
easier which helps improving the efficiency of the processor.The
first thing is OS should adapt more than a core in a chip but most
of the OS today supports upto 64 cores making the job easier.
Only few applications like DVD compression ,Mp3 compression
and 3D games r benefitted by Quad-core processors today.In
my opinion the future of computing lies in multi-core processing.

Laddu o/p

Here's the successful o/p of Laddu by following
my mom's recipe i posted earlier.
It was really really Yummy..............

Triple Delight for Diwali!

Laddu & Ribbon Pakoda

In my last post i've shared the images of these made by
my mom, the recipes are here....

Laddu

Ingredients:

Gram flour - 1 kg
Oil - 1 lr
Ghee - 1 cup
Sugar - 1.5 kgs
Cardamom - 15 gms
Cashewnuts - 100 gms
Raisins - 50 gms

Method of Cooking:

For laddu we need to make bhoondhi and sugar syrup
separately first.

Bhoondhi Preparation:

Mix 1 kg of gram flour in 1.3 lrs of water in a large bowl.
Heat the oil in a pan,hold the large flat spoon with holes on one hand
and pour the gram flour mix on the other hand in the oil.Fry it and
keep it aside.

Sugar Syrup Preparation:

Add 1.5 kgs of sugar with 1.5 litres of water in a bowl and
heat it with medium heat.Add 2 tsps of ghee. Keep stirring for
15 mins.

Now heat remaining ghee in a pan, add cashews & raisins
into it and fry for a min.In the sugar syrup add the bhoondis,fried
dry fruits and cardamom.Make it like small balls when it is hot and
allow it to cool for an hr. Laddu is ready!
Ribbon Pakoda

Ingredients:

Gram flour - 1/2 kg
Sesame seeds - 2 tsps
Rice flour - 1 kg
Butter - 100 gms
Red chillies - 50 gms
Garlic cloves - 10
salt - 2 tsps
oil - 1 lr

Method of Cooking:

Making the dough is the toughest part in this recipe.
Mix 1 kg of rice flour with 1/2 kg of gram flour by adding 2.5 cups
of water and add all the other remaining ingredients listed above.
Knead it for about 10 mins and make the dough.Once it is ready
heat oil in a pan and make the pakoda with the dough in the desired
shape

My mum is gr8!

My mom is a gr8 cook!Though i couldn't go to India and eat the
yummy sweets made by her,i'm having a virtual treat thru these
pictures. She made 10 different varieties for this Diwali.These 2 r the
favourites of me and my friends.On popular demand i got the recipes
and will be posting soon........

A rare picture of Burghley Palace!

Broccoli Poriyal

Thought of making our traditional poriyal with Broccoli.Came out really well!

Ingredients:
Broccoli - 500 gms
Garlic - 2 cloves
Onion - 1 medium sized
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Garam masala powder - 1 tsp
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp oil- 1 tsp

Method of Cooking:

In a pre-heated pan add 1 tsp of oil and do the
seasoning with mustard.Chop the onion and garlic,
add these in the pan and fry till golden brown.Add
1 cup of water and add all the remaining ingredients
and boil for 10 mins.

Paal Kozhukattai

Ingredients:

Rice Flour - 1 cup
Semi-Skimmed Milk - 1 pint
Sugar - 1 cup
Ghee - 1 tsp
Salt - 1 pinch

Cooking Method:

Boil 1/2 cup of water with a pinch of salt, add it to the
rice flour and mix it with hand to a dough consistency.Roll
it with hand and make small balls with different shapes.Boil
1 pint of milk(preferably Semi-skimmed) and add 1 cup of
sugar into it with 1 tsp of ghee and keep stirring for 10 mins.
Now add the rice balls and boil it for 15 mins(Do not stir).

Blu-Ray Player

Already i've posted enough info abt Blu-Ray. 

Purple Cauliflower

Purple Cauliflower is very common in Britain.Itz a very gud
antioxidant.I'm thinking of making a colourful salad with it.
Will post the recipe after the trial.....

Chettinad Mutton Masala

Today is the eve of Puratasi month which is dedicated to Lord Balaji .
We will not be making non-veg till the end of this tamil month.
Thought of making a special dish in mutton.Chettinad Mutton
Masala is the traditional South Indian Style of cooking lamb.

Ingredients:

Mutton Pieces - 1/2 kg
Castor oil - 1 tsp
Sunflower/Olive oil - 1 cup
Red Chillies - 6
Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp
Coriander Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Ginger - 1 piece
Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup
Cinnamon - 1 inch piece
Shallots - 200 gms
Cloves(grambu) - 3
Garlic cloves - 6
Fenugreek - 1/4 tsp
Curry Leaves - 2 bunches
Turmeric Powder - 2 tsps
Salt - 2 tsps

Method of Cooking:

Wash the mutton with little tumeric powder and 2 pinches of salt
and keep it aside.In a dry pan roast the red chillies,coriander seeds
and cumin seeds and grind to afine powder without adding oil .

Preferably pressure cooker should be used for cooking this dish
to get a better taste.In a cooker heat 1 cup of sunflower oil and add
the mutton and the ground fine powdered mix into it. Add 1 tsp of
castor oil bcoz it makes the mutton tender.Add 1 cup of water cook
in medium till 3 whistles in the pressure cooker and keep it aside to
cool down.

Chop the shallots.In a pan add i tsp oil and fry the shallots. Grind
all the remaining ingredients, make it a paste and add it to the pan
and mix it.Finally add this mix to the mutton in pressure cooker,
add 2 more cups of water,2tspsof salt and 1 tsp of turmeric powder
and cook in medium heat till 3 whistles in pressure cooker.This
serves for 2 and for serving 4 double all the ingredients.

Browser frm Google!

Bored of existing browsers like IE,Firefox etc... Gud news is that Google
has come up with a new browser, Google Chrome.Itz Beta version is already
released . Check out the URL below for more info.

http://www.google.com/chrome

Gchrome is an open source browser with lot of gud features like easy
bookmarking, developer tools support, easy downloader etc.........
Though Google claims that Gchrome's gonna add value to the users, we can't
really judge the capabilities of it now, since itz still in infancy stage.

Happy Ganesh Chathurthi!

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi!

Fine Food market

Some interesting snaps on a local Food Produce Expo!
Felt gr8 to see an Indian stall there(Mr Huda's).

Is Cuil Cool?

Most of us are so used to googling when we look up something on the net.
Just check out this new search engine.......

http://www.cuil.com

Cuil gives u the exact result of what is typed on the text box.

Mushroom Pepper Fry

Mushroom has a good nutritional value and is recommended as one of 5 a day.
Mushroom pepper fry can be made as a dry curry or with gravy .This one is a
gravy type which can be used with tiffin /rice .Very spicy stuff but u can make
it mild by reducing the amount of pepper u use.

Ingredients:

Mushroom - 250 gm
Peppercorns - 2 tsp
Red chillies - 2
Garlic cloves - 2
Red onion - 1
Cumin seeds(Jeera) - 1 tsp
Grated Cococunt - 1/4 cup
Oil - 3 tsp
Curry leaves and salt

Cooking Method:

Finely chop the onion and slice each mushroom into 3/4 pieces.
Grind the coconut, jeera, peppercorns,cumin seeds,garlic cloves, red
chillies and make a paste out of it by adding a some water.
Heat the pan and add 3 tsps of oil. Saute the onion and add the
ground paste into it.Boil it for 15 mins.Finally add salt and curry leaves
and boil for a minute.

200 gm Magic - Pacemaker !

Wanna be a cool DJ...............

The Pacemaker will help u to be one.The 200gm Pacemaker is a gadget for DJ's with extraordinary featutres like 120 HDD, plays back music upto 18 hrs and much more by supporting most of the music file formats.

Hoo...la...la...la....!!!!!!!!!

Speech Recognition Software

Thought of writing about speech recognition while i was exploring a windows utility @ home . Though Speech recognition software emerged long back it still didn't reach as many end-users
as expected .First lemme explain what a speech recognition software is, it's generally used for converting voice to text or vice-versa.Like how computers have reduced a lot of paper work
for all of us it helps to reduce the amount of data that we key-in on a daily basis.The software
has to be trained with the voice of the person who uses it.The flip side is it can't recognize the
voice of the person who trained if it sounds very different. I still remember a friend of mine
trained the kit and when she was having a severe cold it failed to recognize her voice.

Coleslaw Salad

Salads are supposed to be very good for health. Coleslaw salad is my all time favourite! This is my version of coleslaw which is very easy to prepare and tasty to eat.

Ingredients:

Carrot - 2 (medium) Cabbage - 200 gms

Red Onion - 1(small) Vinegar - 1 tsp(optional)

Mayonnaise - 4 tsp Lemon juice - 1tsp(optional)

Preparation:

Grate the carrots and cabbage .Finely chop the red onion.Whisk the other ingredients

and add the shredded vegetables to it.Mix it thouroughly. Refrigerate it for an hour.Done!

I made vinegar optional bcoz I don't prefer to add preservatives but it gives a little longer life for

the salad.

U can either snack on it or use it with other food !

Alton Towers

Frog's snapshot of the audience!

Just clicked this snap in Alton towers.

Funny.....isn't it?

Mixed Vegetable kurma

Mixed vegetable kurma is a good combo with Idli/Dosa/Chappathi/Bread

Ingredients:
Capsicum - 1
Potato - 1 Carrot - 2
Coconut - 1/2 cup (grated)
Garlic - 2 cloves
Green Chillies - 3/4
Tomato - 1 Onion - 1
salt - 1/2 tsp
oil - 2 tsps
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp

Curry leaves and coriander as required

Method of Cooking:

Chop the vegetables , onion , tomato , chilli and garlic . Grate the coconut and grind it by adding 1/4 cup of water.If fresh coconut is not available dry dessicated coconut can be used. Heat oil in a pan ,add 2 tsps of oil and do the seasoning with mustard.Now add the onion and garlic and fry it till it turns slightly brown.Add the green chillies and tomato and fry it for few seconds and finally add the chopped vegetables and boil it with 2 cups of water. Once the vegetables are half-cooked, add the ground coconut, salt and curry leaves and boil it for 10 mins. Garnish it with coriander and Kurma ready to serve!

Ulunthu Vadai

Ulunthu Vadai / Urad dhal Vada is made during festivals.

Ingredients :

Urad dhal(Ulunthu) - 1 cup
Green chillies - 5
Ginger - 1 piece
Curry leaf - 1/4 cup
Coriander Leaf - 1/4 cup
Pepper corns - 1 tsp
salt - 1 tsp
Onion - 1
Oil - 1 cup

Method :

Soak urad dhal for 3 - 4 hrs and grind it with green chillies.Finely chop onion,coriander,ginger and curry leaf and add to the paste.Add pepper and salt and mix it thoroughly.Make the mix like a small ball and pat it a little to bring it into shape.Heat oil in a pan and fry it.Serve it with coconut chutney!

Karuveppillai(Curry Leaf) Kuzhambu

Curry Leaf is a very good herb used in south Indian cooking.It is high in calcium and has healing properties.Generally people use it as one of the ingredient for it's flavour but i make gravy out of it what we call Kuzhambu. There are several ways of making it but this the simplest one.

Ingredients:

Fresh Curry leaves - 1 cup/1 bunch
Urad dhal(Ullundhu) - 2 tsp
Mustard - 1 tsp
Tamarind extract - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Gingelly oil - 3 tsp

Cooking Method:

Wash the curry leaves thoroughly.In a dry pan fry the urad dhal for 2 mins till it turns light
brown. Grind the curry leaves with urad dhal by adding a little water and make a paste out of it.
Heat the pan and add 3 tsps of gingelly oil into it , once the oil is hot do the seasoning by adding mustard seeds. Then add the curry leaf paste, tamarind extract, turmeric powder and salt.
Boil it for 10 to 15 mins.serve it with Idli/dosa or rice.

Buzz on Blu-Ray

Blu-Ray disc is a high storage capacity Disc. BD is the common abbreviation used to designate Blu-ray Disc.It's generally used for storing huge data like high-definition video/audio. In practice, 12 cm BD disc comes in 25 GB single-layer (SL) and 50 GB dual-layer (DL) capacities.In future the
capacity of the disc could be extended up to 100/200 GB.I'm sure BD is gonna be the next generation's choice for watching movies!

Break.....Fast

I Wonder how on earth people live without breakfast. Observed many of my friends skipping breakfast.In reality breakfast is the food which provides energy for the whole day.There's a proverb saying 'Eat like a King in the morning and Begger in the night' but most of us do it the other way round.The literal meaning of breakfast is 'Breaking the fast from previous night'. Just assume this way, you go for work at eight in the morning and no food is available for you till five in the evening.Won't you faint? That's what exactly happens if you skip breakfast.Energy levels are very low in the morning and needs a boost up!

Coming up next....List of breakfast recipes....

Global warming?

Wii

Wii ....I'm addicted to playing it for a while. Its a healthy way of playing games .For sure you'll
lose some calories if u play it. It reminds for a break if you play longer.Wii Fit is cool way of workout!

The flip side is that my elbow pains if  i play for a long time .

Welcome!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to Techie....Cookie......Freaky!!!!!!!!!
My thoughts on Technology and  Cooking