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Tulsi Ginger Lemongrass Tea

Tea is a very common hot beverage in India which is made using milk, sugar, water and dried tea leaves. Many people feel relaxed and fresh after drinking this beverage. It is also one of the commonly served beverage to guests along with salty snacks. There are varieties for tea available like green tea, herbal team, lemon tea and so on. This tea recipe is a simple recipe with added benefits of Tulsi leaves, Ginger and Lemongrass. Tulsi leave is an Indian herb also known as Indian Holy basil and it’s plant is worshiped in India. All the three ingredients are anti-bacterial and have lots of health benefits. This tea also helps when one has cough, cold and throat pains in winter and helps in fighting infections.  

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Maddur Vada

Maddur Vada is a very popular spicy, crispy and mouthwatering snack. The name is based on a place called Maddur in Karnataka which is situated between Bangalore and Mysore. It was one of our favorite snacks while travelling by train between Bangalore and Mysore. Basically, Maddur vada has mainly three ingredients rice flour, fine rava and all purpose flour. The dough is flavored with onion, ginger, curry leaves, hing (asafoetida) and  green chili. The beauty of this vada is that it’s crust is very crispy however it is soft inside.  Generally, the Vada has round shape, however I tried some experiment with shape and it really looked very nice. I used cookie cutter to give it star and heart shape. You can always customize it’s size of the Vada and spiciness based on your choice. Maddur vada tastes great when served with coconut chutney along with a cup of tea or coffee. I am thankful to my friend Savitha Matad who taught this recipe to me. We had this Vada at her place after long time and it brought back the old memories and I thought of adding it to my recipe blog. Hope you all would enjoy this recipe!

Baked Bhakarwadi

Bhakarwadi is a tea time snacks item which is traditionally a spicy Maharashtrian snacks prepared using hot spices and deep fried in oil. In this recipe instead of deep frying, I have baked it in oven however both of them tastes similar. The fillings for the Bhakarwadi can be customized to your taste. Generally it has sweet and sour taste and nice aroma of spices. The outer crust is made either from all purpose flour or a mixture of  besan and regular wheat flour. If you don’t like the baked one, you can just deep fry instead of baking. Bhakarwadi can be store in a air-tight container for weeks and goes well with cup of tea.

Red Rice Cucumber Roll

Red rice cucumber roll is inspired by Masterchef TV program. I was intrigued by the recipe and wanted to try it myself. I changed the original recipe a bit by making it a different rice mix, and it came out really well. It tasted awesome and presented am entirely new taste to your taste buds. Rolling the cucumber slices is a little tricky part may require some practice.