Vegetable Hakka Noodles (Indo-Chinese style)

An Indian Chinese style spicy and delicious vegetable hakka noodles. Boil the noodles as per the instructions on the package (I used Ching's hakka noodles). Wash in cold water and pour some oil over it so that the noodles won't get overcooked and stick to each other. Fry onions, garlic, ginger and vegetables and spice it up with soya sauce, chilli sauce, ketchup, chilli flakes, pepper and salt. Add the cooked noodles and mix well. Serve with any spicy or sweet or sour sauce of your choice.
Recipe Courtesy: Raaga's The Singing Chef

Vermicelli (Semiya) Upma

A South Indian breakfast which is very easy to prepare.Vermicelli is roasted and then cooked with fried onion, ginger, green chilli and vegetables. Adjust vermicelli : water ratio to 1:1.5-2 to avoid sogging of vermicelli. A dash of lemon juice will help to improve the texture of the upma. Topping with butter will give a nice flavor to the upma and will also keep the vermicelli from sticking together.
Recipe Courtesy: Kamala's Cook @ Ease

Vegetable Fried Rice (Indo-Chinese Style)

I enjoy Chinese food as much as I do Indian food. Indian Chinese cuisine is a popular candidate in Indian restaurants all over the world. This simple vegetable fried rice is very easy to prepare and it left a nice aroma in my kitchen that my son asked if I had brought food from restaurant.
Recipe Courtesy: Shoba's Anubhavati

Kootu Curry (Chickpeas, Raw Banana and Elephant Yam with Coconut)

Kootu curry is one of the dishes that is served during traditional Kerala sadya (feast). It is a mixture (kootu) of 'black' chickpeas, elephant yam (chena or suran) and raw banana (plantain) with ground coconut and spices. One special feature of this curry is the use of ground peppercorn (black pepper). I used black pepper for grinding with coconut as well as for tempering. Another feature of the curry is tempering with fried coconut towards the end.
Recipe courtesy: Adukala Vishesham

Vegetable Stew (in coconut milk)

This is a Kerala style mixed vegetable stew in a coconut milk gravy. This versatile stew which could be served with appam, idiyappam or chapathi.
Recipe courtesy: Sarah's Vazhayila

This is a very similar version of vegetable stew that my mom makes. Here turmeric is added and hence the color. Vegetables, along with onion, ginger and green chilli, are cooked first and garam masala (cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, star anise), coconut mik or whole milk are added towards the end. Finally, stew is tempered with mustard seeds, whole red pepper, Malabar leaves (Indian bay leaves) and curry leaves.

Theeyal - Medley of Vegetables in Fried Coconut Gravy

Theeyal is one of my favorite side dish with rice. This is my mom's version of theeyal with lots of vegetables in it, usually the kind of vegetables used in avial. The vegetables are first cooked and the fried coconut gravy with spices is added towards the end. Tamarind exract is usually used as the souring agent.
Recipe courtesy: Kerala Recipes. I didn't use beetroot as mentioned in the recipe.

Aviyal - Medley of Vegetables with Coconut

Aviyal is a traditional Kerala side dish, which is a very healthy and delicious medley of vegetables. It is very difficult to define a traditional recipe as each region in Kerala has its own take on it. The vegetables used for aviyal vary from region to region and the souring agent used could be raw mango or tamarind extract or curd. But there is one thing I'm sure about - whichever way you make aviyal, I just love it.

Recipe Courtesy: Bharathi's Spicy Chilly 

Potato Podimas (Aloo Podimas)

I was planning to make chappathi for dinner and needed a side dish to go with. It's been a while since I made potato podimas. Potato podimas is a South Indian dish. My mom used to make it with chappathi and puri. I found this recipe in the blog Shanthi Krishnakumar's cookbook which is very similar to my mom's recipe. The difference here is that I used onions along with ginger and stir-fried chopped vegetables (carrot, green beans and peas) before adding the mashed potato. The dish came out great. The leaves and the two acorns in the picture has nothing to do with the dish. My four-year-old brought it from outside as a 'surprise' for me while I was taking the photo. I think the word 'surprise' has a different meaning in his dictionary.