Colourful Carrot soup

My nephew is a fussy vegetable eater, but loves soups. Amma made colourful carrot soup which was instantly  attacked by my nephew. Here is a recipe adapted from Amma's basic recipe.

You will need 

2 Medium sized carrots

5 pepper corns

1/8 inch piece of ginger

¼ tsp cumin seeds

2 cups water

Salt to taste

Seasoning:

¼ tsp butter or oil (optional)

Cilantro chopped fine

Finely chopped red capsicum (optional)

Method 

Clean and chop carrots into big pieces and pressure cook without adding water into the carrots till cooked (3 whistles).

Let cool.

Dry roast pepper and cumin seeds.

Blend cooked carrot, roasted spices and ginger to a fine paste.

Take  2 cups of water in a vessel, add the carrot-spice puree, salt bring to a boil.

Saute finely chopped red capsicum and cilantro with ¼ tsp oil or butter and add it to the boiling mixture.

Serve hot.

Note:

Made the same soup richer and tastier by the addition of 1 marathi moggu when roasting pepper and cumin.
Also added about 1/2 cup first pressed coconut milk. I first boiled water with salt and then added the carrot puree, coconut milk, and finally the sauted capsicum and cilantro.

I kept aside a little bit of the carrot spice (minus the ginger, salt) puree, coconut milk mixture for my 11 month old son. He happily finished his 'new' spiced baby food!

Mango Sikarane

This is a recipe I learnt after I got married. Easy to make and used by many as accompaniment for Dosa/crepe.

You will need

Ripe mango

Jaggary(optional)

Method

Wash and peel mango. Squeeze out the pulp and discard seed. Add some water to the peel and squeeze to get some juice of mango. Add Jaggary to taste. Mix well and serve with Dosa or eat as it is.

Mango Rasayana/ Mango with sweetened coconut milk

Taste Mangoes with sweetened coconut milk once and you surely will fall in love with the dish. This is a heavy accompaniment so be ready for a drowsy after effect :-)

You will need

Ripe mango

Coconut

Cardamom pods

Black or white sesame seeds(unpolished) -1teaspoon

Jaggary.

 Follow the recipe for sweetened coconut milk or Kaai haalu from my earlier post.

Wash and peel ripe mango.chop fruit vertically and then horizontally.

Now carefully slice vertically to get tiny bits of mango.

To sweetened coconut milk, add finely chopped ripe mango. Adjust mango to your liking( add more mango for a thicker consistency, add less if you want it watery/runny).

Season with dry roasted sesame seeds.

Goes well with semige/vermicelli, chapatti, dosa, kadubu/idli.

\

Note: 

You may substitute mango with ripe banana.
Some substitute coconut milk with milk, but if mango is sour then it curdles milk.
Mango and Jack fruit are two fruits known to cause indigestion if eaten in excess. Their antidotes are respectively coconut and ginger. So I prefer to mix mango with sweetened coconut milk.
It is also said that mangoes are to be eaten after a meal and jack fruit before a meal. 
Sesame seeds are known to improve breast milk, so with sweetened coconut and mangoes helps lactation, but to be avoided during the first three months after delivery.

Kai haalu or Sweetened coconut milk

Follow instructions to extract coconut milk (my earlier post) with a slight modification.

When blending coconut  to extract milk, add 2 pods of cardamom.

Mix the first and second pressed coconut milk.

Sweeten with jaggery about  ½ -3/4 cup per 2.5 cups of coconut milk and stir well.

Consumed as is or serve with Idly, Dosa or homemade Semige/vermicelli.

Note:

This recipe helps increase breast milk.