My Kitchen Buddies

There are two very useful gadgets that I love having in my kitchen.

One is the yoghurt maker.

I must tell you that its a gift from heaven.When I landed in China it was in the middle of a harsh winter.The alien land made me miss home.What I missed equally was my favorite foodstuff-Yoghurt.I tried to make curds at home using the standard Indian method of adding starter to luke warm milk and setting it aside for a few hours-Failed.. Next I tried to put it in the oven-Failed, yet again..Then I thought I will leave the milk with the starter outside for a day or so..Terribly failed cos the milk turned rancid but no signs of curdling even after leaving it out for 2 days.

I was miserable.I was used to having curds with everything.Breakfast was curd rice for many years.If there was no chutney or no time to prepare a side dish,I would happily opt for curd.It was curd that was my comfort food.But,how I missed it now..

I looked in the food stores,the malls and everywhere I went, to check if I could get curd.Yes I did but it was flavoured or sweetened yoghurt.That didn’t fit my palette.

Then one day out of the blue,Hubby dear came home with this wonderful yoghurt-maker and I was in heaven.

Here is a recipe for a colourful curd rice[Curd made using the yoghurt-maker]

The other gadget I love to having in my kitchen is my cute little mixie.When we went to the mall the very first day after landing here is to look for a blender.My eyes fell on this cute little thing and the girl at the counter showed us a demo.Wow!!It can be used to pound the hardest food stuff,wet grind,extract juice..What more will I ask.She even did the craziest thing.She left turned it on and immersed it into a bucketful of water.And the blender didn’t stop!!Ok,i confess,I fell in love with it.It was just right for the two of us.Two little jars[Grind and store] and a bigger one with the juicer.No switches to operate,just fix the jars and twist to turn it on/off.How convenient.Got it home and have been using for 2 years.

Just 2 days back when I was grinding dosa batter,it stopped in the middle of the grinding process,exactly the same time I was planning to write about this cutie.I was heart broken.I was using this as a juicer,grind batter,puree veggies/dhal/fruits for my lil angel and not to forget the chutneys’.I just left it alone and waited for hubby dear to come home so that we can see if it can be repaired or get a new one.After an hour or so I just went to the kitchen and switched it on and wonders,it worked!That’s when i realised that it had ‘over-worked’ and maybe the motor had heated up and switched off on its own!!Now that my buddy is back here is a something I prepared using it.

My favorite tomato onion chutney prepared using my fav kitchen gadget.

These two recipes will go into EC’s event-What’s your favorite kitchen gadget