Black Channa Salad/Chaat

                                                         I have eaten salads with Kabuli channa,black eyed peas and sprouts in many restaurants and at home rarely but not the black channa.It is healthier than the white channa.It has a lot of health benefits and very nutricious and filling salad.It is oil free,sugar free,fat free and protein rich and fibre rich.
I have started making more and more protein rich foods now a days one such inclusion is the bean salads or you can call it Black channa chaat!!!!

Corn Chaat/Salad

                                                       Corn is one of our favourite snack.I got introduced to butter corn when i used to live in Singapore they used to apply butter on the whole boiled corn and the aroma of corn used to spread throught the supermarket.Later we found butter corn,masala corn and even mexican flavoured corn selling every nook and corner of chennai and sure in most of the cities.
I love the butter corn and i feel it is a healthy snack inspite of a little butter in it.I love all the corn subzis and pulaos and the chinese dishes with corn kernels and the babycorn.
                                                        Coming to this simple corn salad or chaat it is a tasty and easy chaat to make.Even without the chutneys it tastes very good and gives the satisfaction of eating a chaat.I am trying out all these kinds of simple easy and healthy evening snack and this is the perfect one for those who love corn.My daughter really loves this one.....

Cucumber Salad/Pinchu Vellarikkai salad

                                                               Summer has started and you can see a lot of recipes for summers like juices,Neer more and salads to keep your body cool!I see a lot of these pinchu velllarikkai(pinchu means tender) sold everywhere.My mother used to make a simple salad out of this cucumber with salt and pepper.It is so tasty that it can be substituted for any south indian curries to go with sambar.

Sprouts Salad

                                                     I like to include sprouts in a lot of dishes because it is"very healthy".This salad is a simple one and it becomes part of our menu at least few times a week.

carrot and mango salad

I can call this "Carrot and Mango" salad a traditional one in Tamil homes.It goes way back to my grandmother's era and may be bfore that.It can easily substitute for a soth Indian subzi or a "Curry"

as we call it.It is very common in summer time because of the availability of Raw Mangoes and of course it is too hot to cook in the kitchen.It is a very easy and colourful one as you can see in the picture.My grand mom used to call it as "Uppu Pesaral"(uppu means "salt" and pesaral is "Toss").

Ingredients

• OneRaw Mango(kili mooku variety)
• One to two Carrots
• Two to three Green Chillies
• Salt to taste
• 1/4tsp of Asafoetida
• One tsp of Oil
• One tsp of Mustard Seeds

Method
1.Cut carrot and mangoes into small blocks(like in the picture)
2.Put in a large bowl and mix it with salt,asafoetida and green chilli.
3.Temper it with mustard seeds in oil and mix well.serve after half an hour.

Suggestions

• Use long mangoes(kili mooku) for better taste.

Mango salad/mangai uppu pesaral

I went to my friend priya's place over the weekend and she gave me some home grown mangoes from her tree,so i made some salad out of that.It is really easy and it is good accompaniment for "Thayir sadam".

Ingredients

Mango	1
Salt	11/2tsp
Green chili	1-2
oil	1tsp
Mustard seeds	1tsp
Asafoetida	A pinch

Method
1.Cut the mango into small pieces.put it in a large bowl.add salt
2.Heat oil in a pan add mustard seeds and a pinch of asafoetida.
3.Pour it over the mango pieces.mix well and serve as a salad.

Notes

• we can add some mango ginger,carrots and ginger to this.
• It goes very well with curd rice.

Kosumalli/Rama Navami Recipes

Today being "Rama Navami"i made yellow Dal Kosumalli.It is very simple to make and there is no heating required.You just soak Yellow Dal(payatham paruppu)for an hour and season with mustard seeds and garnish with carrot,lime juice etc.

Carrot salad

South Indian way of making salads is very simple.This carrot salad is also a very simple one.We call it "carrot uppu pesaral".It is an accompaniment with any kind of south Indian menu like sambhar,rasam,vethakozhmbu,rice etc.Raw carrots is so good for health.If you are not in the mood to cook any accompaniment this salad would come in handy.The tangy taste of lemon and the spice of the green chillies makes it tasty.My kids love this salad and my mother used to make it so often for them.