A delight for eyes

I sat down to post some receipes, but somehow I was not in the mood today.
Its cloudy and raining heavly outside.All the beautiful blooming trees are shedding their flowers...so sad to watch it.. I remembered taking some pictures last week when the trees were in full bloom,So thought of posting those.Why can't there be one more month of spring!!!!

Captured a squirrel enjoying its stolen food hiding behind a tree.

This weekend we visited Holland , Michigan.It was a three hours drive from chicago, but the trip was worth it.Holland is a small town which proudly hosts 'Tulip Time' event every year...There are several tulip farms over there and we visited the largest one.Though the number of tulips and the way they were planted were not as great as they have boasted in their website, the various bright colours of tulips was a feast to our eyes. You know what, I was surprised to see some black tulips too!!! The pictures came out excellent.

Posting some of my favourite pictures for you all to enjoy.

Semiya/Vermicelli Uppuma

This is one of my all time favorite breakfast during schooldays.In those days I would see this uppuma as a savior from my regular breakfast - Idli & coconut chuney. But these days we crave for those Idli's and chutney's...thats totally a different story:)
Anyway this dish, like any other uppuma can be had for breakfast, evening snack, or dinner.
We can also make it interesting by adding all vegetables, spice it up a little bit and turn it into a kichadi. However I like to eat just the simple uppuma with teaspoon of sugar or some pickles to go with it. Unfortunately my husband hates semiya uppuma, the beauty is he loves all other kinds of uppuma even cracked wheat uppuma. So I generally choose to make this dish on the days when I have to make lunch or dinner for just myself.

Ingredients:
1 cup Semiya

1 green chilli
1 medium size onion, sliced thin
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp urad dhal
1 tsp channa dhal
few curry leaves

Method:
Add 1 tsp of oil in a pan and roast the vermicelli to light golden colour. Add 2 tsp of oil in a pan and add the mustard, uraddhal , channadhal and curry leaves. When the mustard pops add the Onions and green chillies and fry till translucent. Now add 1 1/2 cups (one and a half)of water, salt to taste, a pinch of turmeric and cover the pan with a lid. When the water comes to a boil add the roasted vermicelli and cook for few minutes till the water is absorbed.Garnish with few sprigs of cilantro.

Notes: You can also add a pinch of turmeric with the onions just for the colour.

Banana Nut Muffins - A weekend treat

Usually we bring back a bunch of Bananas from shopping, a habit carried over from back home I guess,but everytime we happened to throw some out.The taste of our Indian bananas are so great that we can eat atleast two or three per day but here we get bored of the taste as soon as we eat one.Ever since I learned the receipe for Banana bread, I immediatly start whisking up the butter,as soon as I see the bananas change colour.

I am not posting the receipe here as I have already blogged about the Banana bread earlier.
This time I substituted egg with a 11/4 cup of milk.