Guest Post - 23 : Today's Guest - Umm Mymoonah

Today we have Umm from "Taste of Pearl City". She lives in Germany. She loves cooking, photography and blogging. Now, let us hear from her...

Nithu's Kitchen : Tell us about you Umm.

Umm : I grew up in tuticorin and did my schooling in SPIC Nagar Higher Secondary School. I did my UG(EEE) in Bharath Institute Of Science And Technology in Chennai. My husband is from Trichy, after getting married I went to UK and lived there for 5 years and my two daughters were born there. We moved to Germany 5 months back.

Nithu's Kitchen : What are your interests?

Umm : I'm not a kind of person who concentrate on one particular thing, I like to involve in various things, after doing something for a while I get bored and change my concentration to something else. As I grew up my interests kept changing, when I was a kid my first and foremost interests was playing outside like every normal kids, as I grew up as a teenager I got interest in drawing pictures, reading about lots and lots of beauty tips, not only reading I also try them out, of course every teenage girls loves to look beautiful:-) Then if I have done something productive is making soft toys which i learned from my cousin and made a few soft toys and handbags. At the moment my present most important interest is blogging, cooking, photograph. I'm also interested in decorating houses. Then i also went for a short term course about story writing.

Nithu's Kitchen : Umm, can you share us the pictures of the soft toys you made?

Umm : unfortunately I don't have the sample of those toys.

Nithu's Kitchen : That is very interesting to hear about your story writing course. Have you posted any story in your blog?

Umm : No, I haven't. I'm planning to start a separate blog for that. It's about kids Islamic stories, since we are aiming for kids under 7, the main part of the story would be illustration, so I'm still trying to do something about that. Couldn't share any story at the moment.

Nithu's Kitchen : Which part of blog you would like to improve?

Umm : If I have to say which part of my blog I need to improve, probably I would say the whole blog. I want to do many major changes, so many things are still under construction, still working on that.

Nithu's Kitchen : What inspired you to start a blog?

Umm : Not in particular, before I started to blog I used to see so many different food blogs. I din't have any idea of having my own blog, with husband's encouragement I started it but just left it without blogging for more than 11/2 years. Then it was during last ramadhan when I saw Arabic Bites and I made different breads. So I have to say for my second initiative Arabic Bites was the inspiration and now after moving to Germany, I have been blogging continuously for the past 6 months.

Nithu's Kitchen : What type of cuisine does your blog focus?

Umm : Although my husband enjoys different cuisines, my flavours are always inclined towards Indian flavours. So I like to try different cuisines from all over the world with a touch of Indian flavours.

Nithu's Kitchen : Among the dishes you have prepared so far, which one is your kids favourite dish.

Umm : I have two daughters, my first one is 3 years old now, she is a very fuzzy eater so whatever with chicken or lamb she enjoys it. Other than that she likes the cookies, cakes and ice creams which i make. My second one is 11/2 year old, she likes anything which is sweet :-)

Nithu's Kitchen : Do you have any unforgettable incident related to cooking.

Umm : There are so many, if I have to say I'll never forget, once I left the hob on and went for shopping and came after 2 hours, not just with hob on, I also left the pan on it. When I returned all the okra was burnt, by god's grace just before getting fire I came and switched it off, it was smoke all over my kitchen and house which I'll never forget.

Nithu's Kitchen : What was the very first dish you cooked after your wedding?

Umm : The first dish which i cooked after wedding is vegetable briyani and mango jam but my husband wasn't there to taste, lucky he escaped to UK:-)

Nithu's Kitchen : How did your in-laws react after tasting the dish;-)

Umm : Although it din't taste excellent, it was ok. My in-laws were still happy about my cooking and they appreciated my efforts.

Nithu's Kitchen : What do you have today to share?

Umm : Mung Sprouts appam

Nithu's Kitchen : Why did you select this?

Umm : The reason why is selected this appam is,it is our favourite breakfast. Appam with coconut milk is one of my favourite dish, this one is a bit different since i added sprouts also. This is one of the dish which reminds me back home, those sweet days:-)

Raw rice- 4 cups

Coconut- 1 1/2 cups grated

Cooked left over rice- 11/2 cups

Mung Sprouts- 1 cup

Bicarbonate of soda- 1/2 tsp

Salt as required

1. Soak the raw rice in water for 4 hours.

2. Grind the rice along with coconut, cooked rice and sprouts in a blender or grinder. When the mixture is smooth, transfer it to large box, mix with salt and leave it to ferment for 1 whole night.

3. Just before making the appams add bicarbonate of soda and mix well. The batter should be consistency of a dosa batter.

4. I made these appams in a special pan used for appams, but if you don't have this you can also make it in normal pancake pans. To make the appam, take a laddle full of batter and pour it in the pan, swirl it around and close it with the lid.

5. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes in medium heat or until the appam is completely cooked in the middle.

6. Serve the appam with sweet coconut milk or any curry of your choice.