La Gourmet Chef

Soya Chilli Manchuria

2009-02-04T21:53:00.001-05:00

Yum, Yum, Yum ....oh this is so yummy...that is what my taste buds said when I ate this.

Usually for any Manchurian, you need to deep fry the item, but this one I shallow fried and the taste remained the same...that Manchurian taste you die for.

Very easy recipe, can be made in minutes...I don't have the exact measurements I used, since I made this long long time ago...so just use your own measurements. I will make this again sometime to add the ingredients with exact measurements.

Ingredients you need to make this are:

Soya nuggets
Maida
Cornflour
Chilli powder
Salt
Onions
Garlic
Green Chillies
Capsicum
Soy Sauce
Vinegar
Spring Onions
Coriander

Initially put soya nuggets in hot water and soak for a while. Remove and squeeze away water after they become soft. Add salt, chilli power, maida and cornflour to them and mix them until the mixture coats well to all the soya nuggets. But, don't add any water to it. Deep fry or shallow fry in oil and keep aside.

Now, heat the oil in a pan, add crushed garlic, chopped onions, chopped green chillies, chopped capsicum and stir fry for about 2-3 minutes. Add some water and bring it to a boil. Add soy sauce, vinegar, salt and chilli powder and mix well. In a separate bowl, mix corn flour with water and add it to the above sauce for thickening the sauce. Just before the sauce begins to thicken, add crunchy fried soya nuggets, chopped coriander and chopped spring onions.

Remove in a serving plate, garnish with chopped coriander and spring onions.

Enjoy...

Paneer Tikka Pizza

2009-02-03T22:31:00.005-05:00

Pizza is the most famous fast food known to Americans. Every Friday evening when I drive
back home, I find at least 20 delivery vans passing by. Now the times have changed due to
the recession/depression, people are cutting down on ordering food from outside and finding comfort on home cooked meals.

It is the same case with us, we are just trying to save our money in this bad economy and
this made me make Pizza from scratch. I did make Pizzas at home before but by buying
crust from outside. But, this time I made crust too at home. Couple of years back I tried
Tarla Dalal's crust recipe, but somehow that crust came out very hard after baking, so
this time I followed my friend Sharmi's recipe and the crust was as good as it can be.

Here is the link for making Pizza crust. Pizza Crust

And for the Paneer Tikka, just follow any Paneer Tikka recipe. On the crust, put a layer of Paneer Tikka masala and top it with Cheese. That is why my picture doesn't look so Paneery...as it is more cheezy. To avoid that put Cheese on the bottom and top it with Paneer masala.

The way I made Paneer Tikka Masala was..

I marinated paneer with yogurt, ginger garlic paste, chilli powder, cilantro chutney aka green chutney, salt and marinated for more than 4 hours. Later, I heated a pan with oil, added onions,
sliced into big pieces and stir fried for a minute. Then added tomatoes (boiled in microwave for 3-4 mins, removed the skin and mashed the tomatoes, my idea initially was to add make these into sauce, but I avoided that step and added directly to the curry. Along with Tomatoes, added some Pineapple pieces as Pizza without Pineapple is a no-no in our household. At the end added the marinated mixture, stir-fried for 3-4 mins on high. Removed and added on top of Pizza crust and baked for 15 mins.

The Cheese that I got from the store is a mixture of Mozzarella and Cheddar, called Pizza on Kraft brand.

Enjoy your Pizza..

Chatpata Salad ~ Moong and Veggie

2009-02-02T22:08:00.005-05:00

This crunchy & crispy salad was so so crunchy and chatpata. I might incorporate this into our daily meals.
I am not a big salad fan when it comes to mixing all kinds of veggies since I prefer eating them separately any time of the day. But, one salad I love the most is the one that is served in Thai restaurant near my house. Basically the dressing is what that lets you enjoy the salad and they use some kind of sweet cilantro dressing. We go there atleast once in a month and enjoy eating that salad.

I was badly looking for some Indian flavored kind of salads and just then I found some recipes on Hindu Site. There were four recipes all together made in restaurant style and since I had all the ingredients for this, I chose to make this first. I was so apprehensive about the taste but me and my family members enjoyed eating it..

Cabbage, carrot and moong dal salad

Printer Friendly: Moong and Veggie Salad

Ingredients

Cabbage, finely sliced: 1 cup grated
Red carrot, grated: 1 cup
Capsicum, finely sliced: 1/2 cup
Moong dal: 2 tbsp
Lime juice: 1 tbsp
Coriander, chopped: 1 tbsp
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Soak the moong dal in water for 2 hours. Immerse all the vegetables in ice cold water for sometime. This retains the crispness of the vegetables. Drain excess water. Mix the vegetables and the soaked moong dal. Add lime juice. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste. Mix well. Serve garnished with chopped coriander.

Recipe Source:
www.thehindu.com

Some Nuts- Some Chips ~ Banana Muffins

2009-02-01T11:59:00.006-05:00

Category: Muffins
Type: American

Recently in one of my posts, I mentioned that only few of my friends read my blog. For that I got various emails from many of friends trying to tell me that they visit my site often and encouraged me to set some time aside to post my recipes. It really lifted me and I am working towards it. Sorry folks for saying that and thanks for visiting my site.

Raining Banana Recipes at my blog today. What to do, I had so many ripe bananas and Ravi wouldn't eat them, I had to figure out something. Sunday is mostly dedicated to baking at my place and since I love Baking, I try to collect as many recipes as possible and set something aside for Sunday.

The main speciality of this post is the combination of Banana and Chocolate Chips in one of the muffins, I wanted to try something different from regular banana-walnut combination. Ravi was surprised at the combination and he asked me hundred times why I wanted to try that. You know Ravi sometimes can't digest some different combinations but he did say he liked the muffin. To me the muffin was moist and the chocolate chips were creamy inside, it was heavenly combination.

Chocolate also goes very well with Rasberry and especially White Chocolate. There is also an icecream from Haagen Daaz that says White Chocolate with Rasberry Truffles, I think you should definitely try that or come to my place as I keep one box of it in my Freezer all the time.

I had this recipe written somewhere from a long time and this is totally eggless which is something special to me, otherwise I rarely find any without eggs.

To the below quantites, I used only half for my baking.

You need..

Printer Friendly Recipe: Banana Muffins

4 ripe bananas (I used 2)
3/4 cup sugar (I used half)
1/3 cup butter (I used half)
1 tsp soda (I used 1/2 tsp)
1 tsp baking powder ( I used 1/2 tsp)
1/2 tsp salt (1/4 salt)
1 1/2 cups flour (I used 1 cup flour)

For Banana Walnut Muffins, half cup of crushed walnuts.
For Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, half cup of chocolate chips, I used Ghiradellis.

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 F.
Mash bananas, add sugar and melted butter and whisk with hand blender for a minute.
Mix all dry ingredients in another bowl and slowly add them to the above blended mixture. Mix with hand blender again.
Divide the dough into 2 parts. Add chocolate chips to one half and chopped walnuts to the other half and mix lightly.
Fill muffin cups, I used Pyrex bowls to make into two big ones.
For decoration, sprinkle walnuts and chocolate chips on the respective ones.
Bake for 20-30 mins or until the tooth pick inserted comes out clean.

Say Yes to Banana Milk Shake!!

2009-02-01T09:00:00.004-05:00

A life-saver when an unexpected guest arrives. This is the first basic milk-shake I learnt back in India when I was in 6th or 7th standard and have been making ever since. I know it is highly loaded with calories but in one way I save some calories by not adding any sugar to it. I make this usually when the banana goes very ripe and when Ravi hesitates to eat such ones.

To make this, put bananas in a blender with little milk and crumble them. Then add dry fruit masala, little ice cream, mostly we go with Vanilla but this time I added Kaju Draksh. (If you do not have any ice creams in hand, then add 1/2 cup of cream and if you do not have any dry fruit masala, add cardammom powder according to your taste). Add remaining milk and blend till the shake is uniform. Aerate it to get some bubbles and leave it for 2-3 minutes before serving.

I served this with Bhel Puri which is also a life-saver. And the recipe for Bhel Puri has been posted in my previous post.

Bhel Puri

2009-01-09T01:28:00.004-05:00

Bhel Puri is an all time snack at my place and sometimes becomes our dinner when we think of eating something light. I ate this first time in Calcutta when I was I think in my 4th standard. so, all my memories of Bhel Puri take me to that city whereas my Mumbai friends tell me that Bhel Puri is from Mumbai :-) For this wonderful snack, do you think place really matters?

My brother has been trying to make Bhel Puri for him and Ravi ever since I came to India and he didn't find any luck making a nice one. He has been trying to contact me at very odd hours and not getting any help, he really got frustrated. I thought I will go ahead and post the recipe without picture for this time.

Things you need are either bhel mix or murmura and sev and mix with the chutney recipe below.

To make chutney, you need..

green chutney
red chutney/sweet chutney
garlic chutney
onions, finely chopped
tomatoes, finely chopped
cucumber, finely chopped (optional)
potatoes, boiled and chopped
chaat masala
salt
chilli powder
lemon juice
sugar

mix all the chutney items well and combine either with Bhel Puri mix that we get in Indian stores and garnish with coriander. Serve Immediately.

or

mix with puffed rice and garnish with sev and coriander. Serve Immediately.

Happy New Year

2009-01-03T21:22:00.055-05:00

Wishing you a Happy and Joyous New Year to all my friends, family and dear readers.

2008 brought me many many happy memories and each one of those is special to me.

One good thing happened to me was the birth of my little Son Kinu, a little angel who made my days thereafter wonderfully joyous. More than me, he is Ravi's little buddy, they play together for endless hours and never get bored of each other. Looking at him makes me think of having more and more kids lol! He woke up as I type and he wants to write too...he is saying..
FV
FDDETETEE3 RJF6BHY, V GGFDF ER7EB vcc XS F ...

don't know what that means, I guess he is saying Happy New Year to you all too.

2008 was bad on blogging part, I have so many recipes in draft mode, all of them with wonderful pictures but with no content. I guess I need a second hand of help to put those together, I wish there was a copy of me somewhere whom I can call upon when needed :-) I do make recipes, try recipes but just lazy to put up any. Hoping to make those drafts into posts this new year and hoping I come out of my shell asap!

I even observed that there are many many new food bloggers around now and I feel that I have lost in touch with my old blogger buddies and even the traffic has slowed down to the site. And there are only 4 friends of mine who seriously visit this blog all the time and encourage me like day n night to blog whereas remaining 1000s of friends are not interested in cooking at all. And the blog is mostly used my brother, who again calls me hundred times for step by step preparation even after taking a printout :-)

Farewell 2008, Welcome 2009

Lazeez Lauki

2008-11-10T15:17:00.000-05:00

Name says it all for this dish. It was indeed Lazeez!!

I was wondering what other dishes we could make with Lauki, other than Lauki Dal or Lauki Kofta, but my mom mentioned about eating this at many places but she never got to make this one at home.

We followed Ayeesha Sireen's recipe but made changes at few places. We added only cashews and not the other nuts. Didn't add any meat or veggies but made Khoya from Happy Burp's recipe. In fact this recipe tasted well with the Khoya made from milk powder and not when used Khoya directly.

I think rest everything was done exactly as said. It is a 3 step easy process.

Hats Off to Obama

2008-11-05T10:16:00.000-05:00

His Charisma made him a President today.

It is indeed a historic moment for all of America. Very first African American to win the presidency. Isn't it amazing? Ravi and I were sititng infront of the TV the whole night to see the updates and could not be much happier than this.

I never paid attention to any political news before, but somehow was following this presidential campaign and when the D-day was coming near, I got more into it and I am very excited today.

Somehow somewhere change was needed and Obama is the change America is looking for. He surpassed all hurdles and crossed all racial barriers and got a name for himself. His name is now etched in history and he will be remembered forever. He has become the role model not just for African Americans but to all those others who think that they are low.

A great day in history!!

All the luck Obama!! for the new endeavor.

Carrot Balls

2008-08-06T13:54:00.002-04:00

Carrot Balls

Besan: Gram Flour

This one is a great dish to those who don't like to eat Carrots, esp kids. And an awesome appetizer for any day.
Printer-Friendly Recipe: Carrot Balls

Ingredients

2 Carrots, grated
1 Onion, chopped
1 tbsp Ginger Garlic paste
few Curry leaves, chopped
few coriander leaves, chopped
1 tsp red chilli powder
2 green chillies, chopped
a pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
oil for deep frying
Besan, as needed for binding

Method

1. Heat oil for deep frying.
2. Take a bowl add the rest of the ingredients except Besan and mix well.
3. Keep adding besan little at a time to form a stiff dough.
4. Make small balls out of the dough and deep fry.

Serve hot as is or with Ketchup.

Mango Delight Ice Cream

2008-07-14T13:43:00.002-04:00

Mom got a big basket of fresh Mangoes from the farmers market last saturday for just $3. I think they were around 11 or 12 in one basket. And these looked more like Rasalu type of Mangoes that we get in India and they were real sweet, not like the ones that we get in our Indian Stores.

This quickly reminded me of Mango Delight Ice Cream, the recipe that I noted down from a TV show recently. We made these creamy and heavenly ice creams in less than 10 mins and I just finished eating my second one.

This goes to the event Monthly Mingle 23-Mango Mania

Here is the Printer-Friendly Recipe: Mango Delight Ice Cream

Ingredients

2 fresh ripe Mangoes
50 g Cream

100 g Condensed Milk

half cup gelatin

1 cup milk

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cardammom powder

food color, optional

Method

Puree mangoes in a blender.
Add fresh cream, sugar, condensed milk, elaichi powder and mix.
Add some milk, gelatin, food color (this is because the mango color gets reduced with the addition of all the dairy items, I avoided it and still they looked good)
Whisk again in the blender and put it moulds or cups and freeze for 10 mins.

Pudina Pooris

2008-07-14T09:02:00.003-04:00

Indian Bread: Poori

Pudina: Mint

Jeera: Cumin

Pudina Pooris are definitely a treat once in a while. I fell in love with these when I ate them first couple of years back. The event Herb Mania-Mint made me think about these again and I made these especially to post for that event. And we all enjoyed eating them too! Pooris can be eaten without any chutney, but you can serve with Tomato Chutney if you have it ready.

Ingredients

2 cups Maida

1/2 cup Pudina

1 tsp Cumin seeds

2 Green Chilies

1 tbsp Lemon juice

1/2 tsp Sugar

Salt to taste

Oil for deep frying

Method

Grind mint leaves, cumin seeds, green chilies, lemon juice, sugar and salt together to make paste.
Add this paste to the flour, add required water and knead into a firm dough. And keep the dough aside for 30 mins.
Roll the dough to make Pooris and deep fry them in oil.

Methi Chaman

2008-07-11T15:44:00.001-04:00

I heard that these days in India, everyone is going crazy over this curry and are ordering this whenever they go to any restaurant. I got this recipe from my sister and this tasted excellent with chapatis. Do not attempt to eat this with Rice as it didn't go well with Rice.

Heating Methi in oil removes its sour taste and grated paneer will help. I didn't have enough time, so I just crushed paneer and added to the dish. This fills you up pretty quickly and keeps you out of hunger for long.

Ingredients

1 cup Methi, chopped

1/2 cup paneer, grated

1 onion, chopped

1/2 tsp ginger garlic paste

2 green chillies, chopped

2 tbsp watermelon seeds

1 tbsp coconut

1 tsp coriander powder

red chilli powder, little

2 tbsp oil

salt to taste

Method

Heat oil in a pan, and fry in this order.
First add green chillies, fry for a minute.
Next add onions and fry till brown.
Add ginger garlic paste and fry again for a minute.
Add methi and fry again (can add little water if needed).
Add paneer and fry till it becomes light brown.
Then add salt, red chilli powder, dhania powder and coconut powder. Mix everything well.
Make paste wtih watermelon seeds and add to the above mixture.
Add butter at the end and garnish with fresh cream.

Cottage Cheese Bajji

2008-07-10T20:21:00.001-04:00

Was craving for something nice to eat, opened the refrigerator door, stood infront of it for a long time hoping to find something nice in some corner, but nope. Since my mom is here, she empties it and keeps things clean and tidy. I found cottage cheese box that we got from the store the other day and thought of making these bajjis. This is the second time I made them and my mom loved these instantly. They are crispy from outside and soft from inside and taste sour.

To make these you need..

Cottage Cheese

Maida

Green Chillies

Coriander

Curry Leaves

Jeera

Onion

Salt

Take Cottage Cheese in a bowl. Add chopped green chillies, coriander, curry leaves, jeera, onion, salt and keep adding maida until the dough come together and forms like a bajji dough.

Take little dough at a time and form into disc shapes and deep fry in oil. Remove and serve hot with Coffee or Tea.

Blueberry Lassi

2008-07-09T23:06:00.004-04:00

Drink: Lassi: Blueberry Lassi

It was very very hot on one saturday afternoon and we were badly looking for some cool drink to quench our thirst. That's how I tried Blueberry Lassi and it turned out so good that it has now become our weekend drink. You should definitely try this.

Blueberries are fresh in town now and I just saw an event that says Eating With The Seasons. Hence, this post is on its way to the event...

Fresh Blueberries

Wholefat buttermilk

Sugar

Dry fruit masala

Crush Blueberries first in the blender.
Add buttermilk, sugar and dry fruit masala and blend for a 1 minute.

Serve with Ice.

Jonna Payasam

2008-07-09T13:34:00.005-04:00

Dessert: Jonna Payasam

(Jonna: Jowar/Sorghum/Millet)

We've heard of various Payasams, but this one was completely new to me. When I saw it on TV, I immediately jotted down the recipe. Though this recipe calls for Whole Jowar (soaking it for a day and grinding it coarsely), I made this with the Jowar flour I already had in the pantry. Coconut powder certainly made a huge difference to the overall taste and I would definitely recommend this to everyone.

Jonna has good amount of calcium and phosphorus and is said to be very good for bones and teeth. Especially good for the people suffering with Osteoporosis. And this has good amounts of fiber too and that helps in controlling sugar levels. Coconut has all the essential vitamins and minerals needed for the body. Maida could be replaced with Jonna in certain recipes.

Printer Friendly Recipe: Jonna Payasam

This should be cooked on a low-medium flame.

1 cup Jonna Flour
1 cup Milk
1 cup Water
1 tsp Cardammom powder
1/3 cup Coconut powder
2/3 cup Sugar
1/2 cup khoya
4 tbsp Ghee (add generously if you don't mind calories)
Saffron, optional

In a cooking pan, add ghee and roast the Jowar flour till you smell nice aroma.
Add cardammom powder to it and mix.
Add coconut powder and mix again.
Add warm milk and water and keep stirring, mixture tends to thicken a bit. Cook for 5 mins.
Add khoya and mix, then add sugar at the end. You will see mixture loosening up at this stage. Add Saffron.Cook for 2-3 mins.

Remove and serve. Garnish with ghee and coconut powder.

Note: This pudding becomes hard after cooling, so it is better to serve it hot.

Aratikaya Vada

2008-07-08T12:18:00.001-04:00

South Indian: Raw Banana Vada/Plantain Vada/Aratikaya Vada

Plaintains are rich in fiber and they can be a good addition to our daily diet. Cilantro added in this recipe is very good for our digestive system and it tends to remove bad cholesterol and increases good cholesterol. Turmeric removes bacteria from the digestive track. So, overall this is a healthy food and can be taken frequently.

Printer Friendly Version: Aratikaya Vada

2 plantains, grated

1/2 cup rice flour

1 cup besan flour

2 green chillies (more if like it hot)

1/2 bunch curry leaves

1/2 bunch coriander/cilantro

1/2 chana dal

red chilly powder to taste

a pinch of turmeric

oil for deep frying

salt to taste

Mix all the ingredients together and make them into disc shapes and deep fry them in oil.

Serve with ketchup or as it is.

Tip: Plantains tend to become dark after cutting, putting them in water after cutting will retain their color.

Aloo Manchuria

2008-07-04T15:02:00.006-04:00

Indo-Chinese: Aloo Manchuria (Aloo: Potato: Aloo Gadda)

Aloo/Potato Manchuria is my sister's favorite dish and she has been making this for quite sometime now and each time she tried she asked me to try and see how it tastes. I told my mom that we should make that and she immediately started cutting potatoes but let me tell you that she hates potatoes big time and she ate only one piece after making it. She says one piece once in a while is ok but not everyday. Btw, Ravi commented on this and said that he found Aloo Manchuria more tastier than any other Manchuria.

Sending this over to A.W.E.D Theme: Chinese

Anyways, coming to the Recipe, here it is..

Printer-Friendly Recipe: Aloo Manchuria

Potatoes-2 (cut into any shape you want)
1 cup each of Maida and Corn flour
1 onion
1 capcisum/green bell pepper
2 tbsp chilli garlic sauce
2 green chillies, chopped (and increase according to your taste)
1 tbsp chopped ginger
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp pepper
salt to taste
2 tbsp oil for shallow frying
oil for deep frying
ajinomoto, a pinch
half bunch cilantro
spring onions, optional for garnish

Add maida, corn flour, salt and pepper to the potatoes and mix well with very little water.

Deep fry potatoes in oil and keep aside.

Take a wide pan, pour 2 tbsp oil, add green chillies, ginger and garlic pieces and fry for a minute.

Increase heat and add onions and green peppers and fry them till until they turn light brown.

Add soy sauce, chilli garlic sauce, ajinomoto, pepper, salt and little water. Let that cook for a minute. Add cilantro and mix well.

Add fried potatoes and mix until the mixture coats well on all potatoes. Remove and garnish with cilantro or spring onions. Serve hot.

Rava Biscuits

2008-07-04T09:35:00.003-04:00

Its such a happy feeling to have Mom around with us, those never ending conversations about life in general, recipes, colony people, cousins etc..she is the first best friend for any girl, there is so much to learn, so much to accomplish, looking at her everyday around the kitchen makes me question over and over again, why am I not so like her, she takes care of every minute thing at home, from filling drinking bottles to even folding your bedsheets when you wake up.

For cooking, she is concerned of green leafy vegetables and if they are not fresh at one store, we make rounds to all the other stores around Raleigh but they are must on the table with any meal. She is just something that I want to have her around forever in my life. But, I know that it is just not possible.

While having coffee yesterday, we had this discussion on various biscuits/cookies that she makes at home and she mentioned to me about these Rava Biscuits and said we can make those in jiffy and the ingredients she mentioned in making those were all available in the kitchen, so I thought we should go ahead and make those immediately. We finally made these in less than 30 mins.

These biscuits were soft with the first batch and we made them crunchy in the next batch by leaving them in the oven for another 5 mins. I think these are also known as Nan Khatai as I recall seeing the ingredients but I have tried various versions of Nan Khatai and this is one of them.

This makes approximately 30 biscuits.

Printer-Friendly Recipe: Rava/Semolina Biscuits/Cookies

21/2 cups maida

3/4 cup rava

11 tbsp unsalted butter

2 tsp cardammom powder

4 drops vanilla extract

3 drops rose water (optional)

3/4 cup sugar (you can add more, as these were not so sweet)

milk if needed for kneading

Preheat oven to 375 F.
In a bowl, sift flour, add semolina to it and mix well.
In another bowl, beat together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add cardammom and vanilla extract, rose water to it and beat again.
Add the butter paste to the flour and knead for few mins. (add little milk if needed).
Roll the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Place them in the oven for 15 mins or more for crunchy biscuits.

Good News & Gum Laddu

2008-06-30T07:13:00.003-04:00

Dear All,

We are thrilled to announce the arrival of our baby Boy Kireeti, born on May 8th, 08.

And I have been eating these Gum Laddus (for Lactating Mothers) as suggested by my Indian doctor and she gave me the recipe which was exactly same as the one posted on "The Cooks Cottage" site. I made slight changes and avoided adding Pista and made a new addition of crushed fenugreek seeds.

Boondi Laddu

2008-04-17T15:01:00.006-04:00

Posted this recipe in my Sweets site, Mithai-Bhandar!.

Please click on the picture and it will take you there!

Print this recipe: Boondi Laddu

Thotakura Fry

2008-04-15T08:11:00.006-04:00

We took our Mom to the Indian Store and the very first thing she wanted to buy was Tomatoes, those round Beefsteak ones as she didn't like Roma and she thinks they don't go well with Indian Vegetables. And the next important thing in her list was leafy vegetables. We came across Amaranth leaves and she said she can make fry with that and we took it.

Now that Mom is here, she is making sure we are eating enough greens and she stressed so many times that we should eat greens atleast 4 times a week. We ate this curry as a side dish with Dal and for the night we tasted it with Chapatis and Pita Bread and it tasted great with any combination. I think I will continue making this as recipe as long this is available in the market.

Click here to print this recipe: Thotakura Fry (Amaranth Fry)

You need..

2 cups of Amaranth leaves, cut into small pieces
1 medium onion
2 small tomatoes
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
2 cloves of garlic, cut into big pieces
2 tsp red chilli powder
a pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
2 tbsp oil

Add oil to the pan and when it gets hot, add onions and garlic and fry them till light brown.
Add greens and cook them lightly.
Add tomatoes, red chilli powder, turmeric and salt and cook until done (about 5-6 minutes).

Serve either with Rice alone, or as a side dish with Dal or eat with Chapatis.

All is Well

2008-04-11T07:32:00.002-04:00

Dear Blog Friends,

All is well with me except that I have Gestational Diabetes now. Since then, I just stayed away from food and food related things. It was very tough for me initially in choosing food but I got the hang of it now. I know what to eat, how much to eat and how to eat. In a way, this has helped me a lot in choosing the right kind and healthy food. I lost about 7 pounds so far and haven't gained a pound since Feb. My doctor was little concerned and ordered me to eat little extra food.

Now, I have everything under control and certain recipes I eat, don' t need any exercise too. I will compose a detailed post and add some recipes, hopefully soon to help others around with Gestational Diabetes.

My mom is coming tomorrow to help me with the baby and all and so, I started looking into blog and added a new magazine layout which I was dying for from long. I made this new, so that I can start posting mom's recipes from now until Aug.

See you all soon, thanks for leaving valuable comments, I have read them all and will contact you all one by one.

Happy Ugadi

2008-04-07T13:06:00.001-04:00

Mango Cake-Eggless

2008-01-28T16:05:00.000-05:00

My brother told me not to post this on the site by looking at the color and look of this cake, but don't go by the looks, this infact was much tastier than it looks. I tried for eggless cakes and I found this Mango version. The original recipe asked for real Mangoes but I didn't have any, so I used Mango Pulp instead.

1 cup diced fresh mango/mango pulp
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup skim milk powder
1/2 cup yogurt
1/2 cup crushed pista
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Sift together the wheat flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl.Add crushed Pista.
Put mango, water, sugar, milk powder, yogurt, and oil in a blender. Blend until smooth.
Pour the mango puree into flour mixture and mix well.
Put the whole mixture in a baking pan and bake until done (about 20-30 mins).

Pour some mango pulp and add some dry fruits on the top for decoration.

Note: I felt that the cake was lesssweeter, so you can increase the quantity of sugar or put some extra mango pulp in the plate and eat.

Baked Masala Puri

2008-01-26T13:02:00.000-05:00

I had a craving this morning to eat Savali, a kind of masala puri that my mom makes using Maida and other ingredients. When she listed the ingredients that goes into making Savali, I didn't have some at home, but I didn't give up and made this Masala puri instead. And I was so determined not to deep fry anything today that I ended up baking this. It satisfied my craving and gave me some sense of satisfaction of eating healthy.

1 cup whole wheat flour
½ tsp coarsely powdered cumin seeds
½ tsp coarsely powdered peppercorn
¼ tsp turmeric powder (optional)
2 tsp oil
¼ tsp salt

First add salt to the flour and mix well.
Add the remaining ingredients and knead.
Make puris into small and thin shape and prick with a fork.
Bake in an oven at 350F for 12 mins or until done.

Serve with any dip of your choice. I served it with a simple everday style dip.

Onion-Tomato Dip

Cut onion and tomato into small pieces. Add little chilli powder, salt, chat masala, lemon juice and garnish with coriander.

Strawberry Milkshake

2008-01-03T14:32:00.000-05:00

It is one of the easiest recipes on my blog I guess.

Add Strawberries in blender and make pulp. To this add required amount of sugar, milk and little bit of cardammon. Add few scoops of Vanilla ice cream and serve cold.

Though I added 2 scoops of ice cream for 3 glasses of shake, it was very light on the stomach. We wanted more :-)

Strawberry Shrikhand

2008-01-03T12:01:00.000-05:00

I got a big bag of strawberries from farmer's market and didn't realise that they were turning bad. And then I decided to make whatever I can from Strawberries, like Shrikhand and a Shake. I still have some left, let's see what other things I can make from them. Was thinking of making Pancakes this morning but somehow didn't find much time as I had prepare something for lunch at the same time.

Recipe is exactly the same as the regular shrikhand except you will add strawberry pulp to yogurt. This is the first time I tasted Shrikhand with Strawberry and the taste was tangy.

2 cups of non-yogurt
5 fresh strawberries
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp honey
1/2 cardammon powder
few crushed dry fruits for garnish

Hang yogurt in a muslin cloth for 3-4 hours or until the liquid drains out.
Make pulp from strawberries.
Whisk together yogurt, strawberries, sugar, honey and cardammon.
Garnish with crushed dry fruits.

Serve cold with puris.

Special News w Bandaru Laddu

2007-12-31T16:42:00.000-05:00

Wishing all my friends and readers, a Happy and Joyous New Year!!

Along with this, I have some special news to announce and that is ..

We are expecting a baby in May (our first one)!! And we are so thrilled to bring this news to you. We have sent number of cards to all our well wishers and friends about this on this New Year and seeing their responses made our day terrific.

On this occasion, I bring you a dessert, which most of us cherish. I think it should be called Besan Laddu instead of Bandaru Laddu, but I got this recipe from a TV channel, E-Tv and the chef named it as Bandaru Laddu. The procedure for Bandaru Laddu is elaborate and demands a lot of time and attention, but this can be done in less than 30 mins. So, this is not an authentic Bandaru Laddu recipe instead a twisted one. The taste was close to Bandaru Laddu though.

2 cups Besan/Gram Flour
3T ghee
1 cup sugar
1t cardammon powder
1/2 cup milk

Heat ghee and fry Besan until golden brown.
Add sugar, cardammon powder and mix.
Add 1/2 cup warm milk and mix.
The whole mixture leaves the sides of the pan and the whole mixture becomes a ball.
Mix for a minute or two and remove.
Make laddus and let them cool down.

To decorate, garnish with dry fruits of your choice.

Palak Kadhi

2007-12-30T12:42:00.000-05:00

A simple and nutritious kadhi loaded with iron, protein and calcium. Very easy to make.

Heat oil, add cumin, rai and few red and green chillies. After they splutter, add Palak/Spinach and cook until done. Add ginger garlic paste, turmeric and cook for a minute. On the side, mix Besan/Gram flour with Dahi/Yogurt with enough water. Add that Dahi, Besan mixture to Palak/Spinach and cook until the curry becomes thick. Add salt before removing and eat hot with rice.

Forgot to add, this was made by my brother when I was busy doing other things in the kitchen.

Beerakaya/Ridge Gourd Rice

2007-12-21T10:00:00.000-05:00

Since I love Ridge gourd, I keep trying different ways to make dishes with this wonderful vegetable and each time I make something different, my love for it increases more and more. This is so versatile and goes with anything or everything anytime. This dish too, surprisingly turned out very tasty but eat it when it is hot to enjoy the right taste. Add a bit of ghee for that extra taste, but beware of extra calories too!

1 ridge gourd, peeled and cut into small pieces

1 cup cooked rice

1 onion, cut length-wise

3 tbsp sesame seeds

3-4 dried red chillies

3 green chillies, cut into small pieces

few curry leaves

1/2 tsp turmeric

salt to taste

3 tbsp oil

few cashews

coriander leaves for garnishing

Fry sesame seeds and red chillies without adding any oil until golden brown. Cool them and grind to powder.
Heat oil in a pan, add onion, green chillies, curry leaves and fry until onions turn brown.
Add ridge gourd, salt, turmeric and cook on low flame until ridge gourd pieces turn soft.
Add rice and the sesame, red chilli grounded powder.
Garnish with coriander leaves and friend cashews.

Serve hot with plain yogurt or raita.

Alternately: Without adding rice, you can use the same thing as curry and eat with Chapatis.

Sabudana/Tapioca Pudding

2007-12-18T21:16:00.000-05:00

Yes, I have finally come back to Blogosphere, I was gone missing for long :-)

We had been to California all of last week (almost 10 days trip) and we had a terrific time with a bunch of friends. It was so exciting to see them all after almost 4 or 6 years. We were wondering how our old friends would be now after all these years but we picked up where we left and we felt that the gap was not much. We all had similar thoughts as before and similar mode of enjoyment. Overall, it was a great trip and such overwhelming response definitely needs to be celebrated with some sweet.

Also today happens to be our friend Sreedhar's birthday, so wishing him happiness and joy for the coming year ahead. Now that he is married and has a wife beside him, I am sure the celebration would bring him extra fun.

This Sago pudding I made is very easy to make. Soak some half cup Sabudana in water for half hour. Remove and leave them for 2-3 hours. Heat 2 cups milk in microwave, add 1/2 cup condensed milk, 1/2 cup evaporated milk,little ghee and little sugar (according to your taste buds) and heat again for 2 mins. Add Sago and keep heating in microwave (in intervals of 1 minute or 30 seconds) until the pudding thickens a bit. Fry dry fruits in ghee and add to the pudding. Enjoy it hot or cold.

Finally, a birthday card for Sreedhar!

Trying to come back...

2007-11-13T17:28:00.000-05:00

Hi Friends,

It's been so long that I was away from Blogging. In fact, I am checking my blog after almost 3 months. Never guessed that so much time has passed and I really missed you, all my blogger buddies and your recipes.

Many things happened in between, some good some bad, that took away a lot of time but I am trying to come back to the blogging world pretty soon. I hope you all have enjoyed the great festival season that just passed, Navrathri, Dassera, Diwali. We had a blast on Diwali with all the great decorations and food but all others were quiet.

And thank you so much Richa and Tee for the Rocking girl award you gave me. It truly made me happy.

Aamir Khan's Blog

2007-08-24T09:40:00.000-04:00

Do you know Aamir Khan has started blogging on movies? I was trying to post this from long but atlast doing it now. Enjoy!

http://aamirkhan.com

Proud to be an Indian - Happy Independance Day!

2007-08-15T09:19:00.000-04:00

My friend Sudhakar from Singapore has forwarded me these pictures. I thought I will share these with you.

PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN

JAI HIND

Aug. 15, 1947: Mountbatten swears Nehru in as Prime Minister of India

TRAIN TO PAKISTAN; India 1947. Trains packed with refugees - Hindus and Sikhs headed for India, and Muslims headed for Pakistan - were convenient targets for gangs of killers on both sides of the border. Inadequately protected 'Refugee Specials' were typically stopped, and the occupants butchered, several times in the course of the journey.

The dead - Punjab, 1947

1971: Indira Gandhi reviews the troops, in the context of military and diplomatic preparations for the Bangladesh War.

Ghandhiji Addressing people

Nehru and Gandhi at AICC meeting, July 1946

Mountbatten arrives at Delhi airport; received by Nehru and Liaquat Ali. March 25, 1947

1948: The news of Gandhi's assassination hits the streets. A stunned crowd gathers in Calcutta.

1948: Crowds in New Delhi wait for a glimpse of Gandhi's funeral procession.

A Library being divided at the time of partition. Heart trembles to see this sight and it is tough to imagine the state of the nation at the moment when people needed to hold hands.

This is our 60th Independence Day!
Freedom is not a Right but a Feeling!
Let's be proud to feel the Freedom!
Let's say loud we are INDIANS!!!
Let all of us get to-gather &
Let's Celebrate Our Freedom!

It is our duty to preserve this Freedom!
Carry this forward to the future!
We did, We do, We will do!!!

Set the celebration on Air, Share your Joy, You're Free to do it, Send this to every Indian, to say

Vande Mataram!

PS: Friends, I lost my Camera when we had gone to Virginia Tech's Alumni picnic. That is the reason for not posting any recipes, hopefully I will find it soon and start posting recipes again.

Phool Makhani Masala

2007-07-23T14:59:00.000-04:00

Many have asked me about Phool Makhana, and they are basically puffed lotus seeds. I will try to take a picture of Phool makhana and post to the site in a day or two. My roommate (Punjabi but from Hyd) used to make a variety of dishes using this. You can even make Kheer with these. It somehow stuck me at the last minute and I thought why not cook this for RCI-Punjab.

This preparation takes sometime but not like other masala curries.

You need..

2 cups of phool makhana

1 large onion, chopped

2 medium tomato, chopped

1 cup yogurt

1/4 cup poppy seeds/khus Khus, roasted

1/2 cup coconut

2 or 3 green chillies, sliced

2 tsp ginger garlic paste

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp garam masala

a pinch of turmeric

salt to taste

coriander leaves, chopped

oil for deep frying

3 tbsp oil for the gravy

Heat oil and deep fry Phool Makhana until light brown.

Heat 3 tsbp oil and fry onions until brown. Add ginger garlic paste, green chillies and fry for one more minute.

Add tomatoes, turmeric, red chilli powder and cook for 3-4 minutes.

In the mean while, blend poppy seeds and coconut for the gravy.

Add this gravy to the onion mixture and mix.

Lower the heat and add yogurt, garam masala and cook for 5-10 minutes. Or until you see oil floating on the sides and on the top.

Add phool makhana , salt and cook for 3-4 minuts. Garnish with cilantro at the end.

Serve with Pulao.

Corn and Palak Rice

2007-07-23T14:56:00.000-04:00

This is a simple dish that anyone can make. I never liked the bland taste of Palak except in Palak Paneer. And with this dish, the flavor of palak came out and the taste was awesome. Enjoy.

Fry onions in oil, add little shahjeera, mint, ginger garlic paste and green chillies. Add 2 cups of spinach and 1/2 cup of corn and fry for somemore time. Add 1 1/2 cup basmati rice and mix for a minute. Add 3 cups of water and cook until done.
You can even add bay leaves, cardammon and cloves to it while frying.

Evelyn's Favorite Pasta...tried at home

2007-07-20T15:48:00.000-04:00

EVELYN'S FAVORITE PASTA Penne Tossed with Broccoli, Oven-Dried Tomato, Roasted Eggplant, Peppers, Artichoke, Kalamata Olives, Basil, Garlic, Pine Nuts and Parmesan Cheese

We went to Cheesecake Factory for the first time, couple of weeks ago. We were actually giving farewell to a friend of ours who was leaving to India for good. We decided to go to Thai first but one of our friends mentioned that they use Fish oil in cooking. And being complete vegetarians, this was alarming. I called up all the Thai restaurants I ate in and around RTP and everyone said the same thing “yes, we use fish oil, but if you don’t want it, please let us know”. It was our fault that we should have asked but who knew they would use that…so, we cancelled our plan to Thai and went to Cheesecake Factory instead. We thought there will be less number of vegetarian dishes or none and went with the idea of eating a salad.

We ordered Eggplant Burger, Cheese Quesadilla and this pasta. We loved them all and thought of going there again but it never worked out . So I made this at home by bringing all the necessary ingredients. The only difference was that they added roasted brinjal and I didn’t. But, still the taste was close. I omitted Artichoke, Kalamata Olives, Basil and Parmesan Cheese and instead of pine nuts, I added walnuts.

You need…

2 cups of veggies-broccoli, oven-dried tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, eggplant, all chopped
1 cup of penne pasta
4 or 5 tbsp olive oil
About 5 or 6 walnuts
2 or 3 garlic cloves.
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
Salt to taste

Heat oil in a pan, add cloves and fry them till light brown. Add a little pepper to it while cloves are frying.
Add all the veggies and stir fry them.
In the mean while, cook penne pasta till al-dente.
Drain pasta and add to the veggies and mix.
Add Italian seasoning, walnuts and salt and mix everything for 1-2 minutes and remove.

Serve hot.

Palak & Cottage Cheese Burji

2007-07-19T13:39:00.000-04:00

Follow the same procedure as Cottage Cheese Burji but add Palak after adding onions.

Cottage Cheese Bhurji

2007-07-19T10:59:00.000-04:00

Cottage Cheese has good amount of protein, so I am using that at least once in a day these days. I guess you will see more recipes of this in the coming days.

Instead of Paneer for the bhurji, I added Cottage Cheese to see how that tastes, this tasted similar but a little sour as I have used 2% fat. Next time I will try it with full fat, may be it will taste little sweeter. But overall result, I liked it, I ate this in the restaurants, they add fresh lime juice to it once it is done and without adding that I got the sour taste naturally.

You need…

1 cup of cottage cheese
1 medium, onion, chopped
2 roma tomatoes, chopped into big chunks. *
2 green chillies, chopped
½ tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
2 tbsp oil.
½ tsp garam masala (optional)
A pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
coriander for garnishing

Heat oil in a pan, add onions and fry for 2 minutes. Do not brown them, just cook them till tender.
Add ginger-garlic paste and fry for a minute.
Add tomato chunks, green chillies, and cook them till done for 1 or 2 minutes.
Add turmeric, salt, chilli powder, garam masala and mix.
Reduce flame and add cottage cheese, garam masala and let it cook for 3-4 minutes.
Garnish with coriander.

Serve hot with chapattis.

* Do not use juicy tomatoes as the curry will become soggy and mushy and if you want the gravy, the milk from the cottage cheese is just enough for that.

Kottu Paratha

2007-07-18T18:31:00.000-04:00

Kottu Paratha comes from Trichi in Tamilnadu. We have a South Indian Restaurant, Tower India Restaurant at a walking distance from my place and they make such excellent South Indian food, basically that guy is from Madurai (Temple town) and he makes sure that we get authentic food. I went there millions of times and I still love going there. The best part about them is the food tastes completely home made, not much oily but very very tasty.

We ate Kottu Paratha at this place for the first time and kept eating every time we went there. My husband used to order this and I order Gunpowder Masala Dosa and their buffet is equally good with a variety of items.

I tried Kottu Paratha last year at home and it came out exactly the same way they make at the restaurant. Since then, I stopped ordering there and I make this at home whenever I make chapatis. I keep some 4-5 chapatis aside to make this next day for lunch.

You need...

4-5 medium sized chapatis, shredded
1 medium onion, chopped
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
1/2 medium beefsteak tomato, chopped
2 red chillies
2 green chillies, chopped
1 tsp jeera
1/2 tsp rai
1 tsp garam masala
cilantro for garnishing
salt to taste
a pinch of turmeric

Heat oil in cooking pan, add cumin and rai and wait until they splutter.
Add red chillies, green chilies, onion and fry until brown.
Add tomatoes and keep mixing until tomotoes are cooked.
Add turmeric, salt and garam masala.
Add shredded chapati and mix again for 2-3 minutes until the masala is all coated to chapati pieces.
Garnish with cilantro and serve hot with Raita.

I make variations whenever I make this recipe. I add some boiled Chana or Chole, sometimes I add Paneer and this time I added Govar/Gokarkaya/Cluster Beans. In case you plan to add beans, boil them and add them before adding tomatoes and fry them with onions for sometime.

Stuffed Bhindi

2007-07-17T11:17:00.000-04:00

Stuffed okra is one of my favorites and I would like to eat that along with plain dal especially on a rainy day. I got fresh Okra from the local farmer’s market for $4 a bucket and I am planning to make variety of recipes using the remaining ones.

You need…

20 okras
4 tbsp besan/gram flour
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp jeera powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
½ tsp amchur powder
salt to taste
a pinch of turmeric

Slit okras vertically and keep aside. *
Roast besan until the raw smell goes. This step is optional, you can make it without roasting too.
Mix all powders together and with ginger garlic paste.
Fill this powder carefully with spoon in the slits that you made for okra.
Shallow fry them in oil and remove when brown and cooked.

* You can even roast okras before filling it with powder for crispiness.

Interesting facts:

Okra leaves may be cooked in a similar manner as the greens of

beets or dandelions. The leaves are also eaten raw in salads. Okra seeds may be roasted and ground to form a non-caffeinated substitute for coffee.

Nutrition Info: Okra is a rich source of many nutrients, including fiber, vitamin B6 and folic acid.

The superior fiber found in okra helps to stabilize blood sugar as it curbs the rate at which sugar is absorbed from the intestinal tract.
Okra's mucilage not only binds cholesterol but bile acid carrying toxins dumped into it by the filtering liver. But it doesn't stop there...
Many alternative health practitioners believe all disease begins in the colon. The okra fiber, absorbing water and ensuring bulk in stools, helps prevent and improve constipation. Fiber in general is helpful for this but okra is one of the best, along with ground flax seed and psyllium. Unlike harsh wheat bran, which can irritate or injure the intestinal tract, okra's mucilage soothes, and okra facilitates elimination more comfortably by its slippery characteristic many people abhor. In other words, this incredibly valuable vegetable not only binds excess cholesterol and toxins (in bile acids) which cause numerous health problems if not evacuated, but then assures easy passage out of the body of same. Unlike some prescription and over-the-counter drugs for this, the veggie is completely non-toxic, non-habit forming (except for the many who greatly enjoy eating it), has no adverse side effects, is full of nutrients, and is economically within reach of most.
Further contributing to the health of the intestinal tract, okra fiber (as well as flax and psyllium) has no equal among fibers for feeding the good bacteria (probiotics).
To retain most of okra's nutrients and self-digesting enzymes, it should be cooked as little as possible, e.g. with low heat or lightly steamed. Some eat it raw. However, if one is going to fry it (and it is undeniably delicious prepared that way when rolled in cornmeal and salt), only extra virgin olive oil, or UNREFINED coconut butter is recommended (this is NOT the unhealthy partially hydrogenated product found in processed foods.) Organic ghee used by gourmet chefs, has the oil and flavor of butter without the solids, is also excellent for frying okra (does not burn like butter),

Nutrition Info :

http://www.physiology.wisc.edu/ravi/okra/

Interesting facts: wikipedia.org

Pesara Pappu

2007-07-17T10:40:00.000-04:00

This lentil/dal is also known with other names like split yellow moong dal and green gram dal (when whole). It has soft and subtle taste when lightly roasted and cooked. This dish is a great time saver and I make this mostly when I have less time in hand to make a good meal. This is cooked in minutes and is easily digestible unlike toor dal. This one is loaded with good amount of nutrients and a good source of protein.

You need..

1 cup of split yellow pesara pappu, lightly roasted *
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 tomato, chopped
1 tsp red chilli powder
3 green chillies
2 cups water
salt to taste
a pinch of turmeric
cilantro for garnishing

For seasoning:

1 or 2 tbsp oil
1 tsp jeera
½ tsp mustard/rai
2 or 3 red chillies crushed
or 3 garlic cloves whole (optional)
Few curry leaves

Add roasted dal, ginger garlic paste, a tsp of oil, turmeric, salt, green chillies, tomato, water and pressure cook everything until 1 or 2 whistles. Mash the dal with the back of the spoon if you want it soft or leave it if you want grainy.
For seasoning, heat a tbsp oil in a frying pan, add jeera, cumin, red chillies, garlic cloves, curry leaves and fry until they turn brown.
Add the seasoning to the dal and garnish with cilantro.

Serve with stuffed okra as a side dish, recipe coming next…
* Roast moong dal on a pan until light brown.

Info on Moong Dal:

Without skins

With their skins removed, mung beans are light yellow in color. They are made into mung bean paste by de-hulling, cooking, and pulverizing the beans to the consistency of a dry paste. The paste is sweetened and is similar in texture to red bean paste though the smell is slightly more bean-like. In several Asian countries, de-hulled mung beans and mung bean paste are made into ice creams or frozen ice pops and are very popular dessert items. In Taiwan, mung bean paste is a common filling for moon cakes.

Dehulled mung beans can also be used in a similar fashion as whole beans for the purpose of making sweet soups. Mung beans in some regional cuisines of India are stripped of their outer coats to make mung dal. In other regions of India such as Andhra Pradesh, a delicious vegetable preparation is made using fresh grated coconut, green chillies, mung and typical South Indian spices - asafoetida, turmeric, ginger, mustard seeds, urad lentil. Many Indians also eat mung beans the first thing in the morning as it provides high quality protein in a raw form that is rare in most Indian regional cuisines. They are widely consumed by Keralites along with kanji (rice gruel).

In India the mung beans are also consumed as a snack. The dried mung beans are soaked in water, then partly dried to a dry matter content of approx. 42% before and then deep-fried in hot oil. The frying time varies between 60 and 90 seconds. The fat content of this snack is around 20%. This snack is traditionally prepared at home and is now also available from industrial producers.

Source: Wikipedia

Fiesta Spaghetti

2007-07-12T19:14:00.000-04:00

Tasty, wholesome and an exciting recipe to make. Added some green chillies and red chilli powder for the Indian taste buds. I imagined it one way but it was way different when done. The kitchen was filled with such fantastic smell, Ravi kept asking me to switch on the fan when the fan was already switched on. Especialy when you combine onion, garlic and black pepper, the taste buds start dancing for some exotic food. But, I had to omit pepper tonight for the sake of adding green chillies. And green chillies in fact made complete justice to the dish. This is loved so very much at home that I guess I would be making this again and again.

I found the recipe on the back of the whole wheat spaghetti packet but I changed the recipe to suit our taste buds.

Try this and you will love it for sure.

You need...

2 bowls of spaghetti
1 cup frozen zucchni and squash (fresh can be done, I had some in the freezer)
1 small onion, chopped
1 large beefsteak tomato (the one that oozes out more juice)
1 cup yellow and red peppers, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp chilli powder
1 tsp italian seasoning or dried herbs
3 green chillies
parmesan cheese (optional)
salt to taste

Cook spaghetti according to the package directions.
Heat oil in a pan, saute onion, garlic and green chillies.
Add the veggies, zucchini, squash and peppers. Cook for 5 mins or until veggies are tender. Keep stirring in between to avoid burning.
Add tomatoes, chilli powder, salt and dried herbs. Cook for 2-3 mins stirring in between.
Add spaghetti and simmer uncovered for 5-10 mins.

Serve hot by sprinkling parmesan cheese on the top.

Tip: Sanjeev Kapoor says: add more salt while boiling pasta, otherwise no matter how much you add while cooking, pasta remains bland.

Masoor Dal Soup

2007-07-12T09:58:00.000-04:00

Weather has been very unusual at this time of the year. There were scattered thunderstorms in the evening and rain all the night for the last two days. But, it was very hot all afternoon. Then we both craved to eat something hot, and something filling. I thought of making some soup to go with the bread that has been lying in the refrigerator from long.

I tried with Masoor Dal/Red gram this time and improvised it to make it better. I also added Cottage Cheese to this recipe to get that creamy and milky taste.

You need…

2 cups Masoor dal/Red gram dal
1 medium onion, chopped into big chunks
1 big tomato
½ cup cottage cheese
1 tsp chilli powder
½ tsp cumin powder
1 tbsp coriander powder
½ tsp black pepper powder
2 tbsp shredded coconut or coconut milk
a pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
coriander for garnishing

Put tomato and onion in a bowl, add some water and microwave it for 3 mins. Check in between as tomato splits all over the microwave if kept for a long time.
Boil the dal with enough water till al-dente. Don’t make them too soft.
Remove outer skin from tomato and blend onion, tomato and half of cooked dal.
Add the blended mixture to the dal and continue boiling.
Add spices like bay leaf, cumin, coriander, pepper, red chilli powder, turmeric and salt. Also add coconut at this point.
Finally add cottage cheese and boil for 5 mins or until you get the thickness you desire.

Remove bay leaf and serve hot. I served with whole wheat garlic bread. I made garlic spread while the soup was boiling. I also added a piece of garlic to the soup for some garlicky taste.

To make Garlic Spread:

Take an oven safe bowl, put garlic pods with butter or olive oil. Add some Italian seasoning or all dried herbs and keep the bowl covered tightly in the toaster oven for 5-10 mins. Crush the garlic and mix. Apply to the bread before serving.

PS: this is my own version of soup and you can improvise it the way you want.

Veggie Murmure Stirfry

2007-07-10T19:53:00.000-04:00

All last week my food mainly consisted of carbs and fats with very less fruits and somedays with no fruits at all. I was badly in need of some nutritious vegetables and I came up with this one. Didn't want to add rice to it but added a cup of murmure (puffed rice) and this was quite crunchy and tasty. And a cup of orange juice with this bowl of vegetables made me full.

You need...

2 cups of frozen mixed vegetables (add as many veggies as you like)
1 cup murmure/puffed rice (put these in the colander, sprinkle some water and remove)
1/2 onion, chopped
1 roma tomato, chopped into big chunks
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp sugar (optional)
1 tsp of lemon juice
salt to taste
sev and cilantro for garnishing

Heat oil in a pan. Fry onions for a minute.
Add veggies and stir fry for 3-4 mins.
Add tomato chunks and stiry fry for another minute.
Add tumeric, chilli powder, garam masala and mix.
Add murmure, salt and sugar and cook everything for 2 mins. Add some lemon juice to it and remove.
Sprinkle both sev and cilantro and serve hot.

Kaju Capsicum

2007-07-05T18:46:00.000-04:00

These days my younger sister in India is cooking some special dishes everyday in the evening. And she in turn is sending me the recipes of those dishes that she tried. This is one of the her recipes that I tried and I must say it turned out excellent. It was like a feast for us on July 4th with both kaju capscicum and bagara annam.

You need...

3 capcicums/green peppers, cut into ribbon shapes
2 medium onions, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
1 cup kaju/cashews
1/2 tbsp cumin powder
1/2 tbsp coriander powder
1 tbsp cumin
2 cups yogurt, beaten
1/2 cup coconut
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
4 tbsp oil
a pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
cilantro for garnishing

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan and roast onions, tomatoes. Add ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute. Remove and blend 3/4th of this mixture along with half cup kaju/cashew.
Heat 2 tbsp oil in the same pan again and add cumin and fry for a minute.
Add capsicum and fry until it is cooked. Add the remaining 1/4th onion mixture. To reduce the time in cooking capcisum here, you can cook that in the microwave for 5 mins after chopping.
After capsicum is cooked, add the blended gravy, red chilli powder, turmeric, cumin and coriander powder, remaining half cup kaju/cashew and mix everything for a minute.
Add yogurt and cook for 10-15 mins under reduced flame. Keep mixing in between.
Add salt and cilantro at the end.

Serve hot with either Rice or Chapathi.

Imam Bayildi/Fainted

2007-06-27T17:17:00.000-04:00

This is my version of the dish (and not the authentic one). I have seen various different versions of preparing this dish and I picked up few points from each and made this. And I LOVED it so much that I ate that whole brinjal/eggplant piece at one go. Ravi couldn't eat so he took half for the lunch today. After eating this I felt that I should make this often, atleast twice a month.

The changes that I made to this dish are: I added all types of peppers (had in the refrigerator) and instead of only garlic, I added ginger-garlic paste (as I ran out of garlic pods) and then I added bread crumbs at the end and didn't put chilli flakes. Adding bread crumbs made a huge difference and made the dish much more delicious. And I didn't throw the core part, I made bhaingan bartha with it, but could not take pictures of that.

Here is the story why this name was given to this dish (copied from Asha at Foodie's hope)

TURKISH IMAM BAYILDI (The Imam Fainted!): "There are many stories about the origin of the name of this dish. One of them we heard while visiting Ankara, Turkey's capital. A long time ago a Turkish Imam (a muslim clergy man ), known for his love of good food, surprised his friends by announcing his engagement to the young daughter of a wealthy olive-oil merchant. The friends did not know about her ability to cook. But they presumed part of her dowry would include olive oil. They were right. For her father gave the groom twelve jars, each one large enough to hold a person, of the precious oil. After her marriage the bride proved to be an excellent cook and each day prepared a special dish for her epicurean husband. One of them, eggplant cooked in olive oil, became his favorite. And he ordered that his wife prepare it each night for dinner. This she did for twelve consecutive days. On the thirteenth, however, the dish was missing from the meal. Queried about its absence, the bride replied, "Dear husband, I do not have any more olive oil. You will have to purchase some more for me." The lmam was so shocked that he fainted. And since that day, according to the story, his favorite dish has been known as Imam Bayildi, The Imam Fainted!"

You need...

One large eggplant, cut into half and scoop out seeds from the center
1 large red onion, chopped
½ green, yellow and red peppers, chopped (optional-but tastes good when added)
1 or 2 roma tomatoes, chopped in rounds or into small pieces, I wanted to decorate it with tomatoes, so used round ones.
1-2 tbsp ginger garlic paste
½ cup breadcrumbs
1 tsp cumin
a pinch of cinnamon,
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
½ cup oil
cilantro, chopped for garnishing
1-1/2 cup water
salt to taste

Heat oil, add onions, peppers and stir fry for 2 mins.
Add ginger garlic paste and cook for another minute.
Add tomatoes and fry for another minute.
Add cumin, cinnamon and salt and remove.
To the same pan, add tbsp oil and bread crumbs with ½ tbsp ginger garlic paste and remove after a minute.
To arrange, fill the whole cooked mixture from step 4 into those two eggplant slices (by removing tomatoes-can be used for decoration on the top). Add bread crumb mixture on the top, arrange tomatoes and add cilantro all over.
Finally drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice.
Arrange these two pieces in oven proof dish. Add water from the sides and cover it tightly and bake at 375 for 30-40 mins.

Very healthy meal and next time I will try to reduce the oil a bit.

Recipe source: From Asha of Foodie'sHope

Internet Humor

2007-06-27T09:13:00.001-04:00

Veg Pyramid

2007-06-26T14:29:00.000-04:00

I am so bored today and I have nothing to write about, thought I will post this Veg Pyramid that I found somewhere on the net couple of months back. I was seriously looking out for one that would tell me what Vegetarians are supposed to eat to get the right amount and right kind of food everday. I found this very useful and infact felt happy that we cover all these types in a day.

I always heard from some of my friends that Indian food is not healthy, I don't know why I never agree with them. As I was talking to my friend Deepa (she is a great cook! and she is planning to start a food blog too) about this, she mentioned to me that we cover all types of food. We get carbs from Rice or Chapathi and iron from greens like Spinach, Amaranth, Gongura etc..and we get fiber from veggies plus proteins from various Dals. Then, how can we say that our Indian food is not healthy?. The only thing that we could avoid is putting more oil in the curries and instead of eating fried rice everyday, we can eat steamed rice. I feel that making little changes in food habits goes a long way.

Broccoli Fettuccini Alfredo

2007-06-19T19:32:00.000-04:00

Since we were in no mood to cook all these days, I made foods that are easy to make and those that take less than 10-15 mins to cook. We survived mostly on sandwiches and all but I am back to cooking in the kitchen now. This is one of those dishes that I made but didn’t find that restaurant taste unless we put more Alfredo sauce which was too much fat and too many calories.

All you need to do this are fettuccini noodles- boiled in salt water, chopped broccoli (frozen) and ready-made Ragu’s Alfredo Sauce.

Heat oil in a skillet, add fresh/dry garlic, black pepper and cook for 30 sec. Add chopped broccoli and cook until broccoli is soft and tender. Add fettuccini and mix everything for 30 sec. Finally add Alfredo Sauce and keep mixing. Remove after 2 or 3mins and serve hot.

Thanks

2007-06-18T09:20:00.000-04:00

My heartfelt thanks for all for checking on me while I was away mourning.
It is still difficult for me to come back but I am trying hard to come back to normal life.

To my Dad....

2007-06-17T17:04:00.000-04:00

and to all the fathers who visit my blog....

I wish you a Happy Father's Day!

A sweet dish for Father on Father's day!

I made beetroot halwa (didn't plan it before) but made it instantly and I made both Gulab Jamun and Jalebi from Priya's instant mixes. They turned out to be quite good.

Layered Beetroot Halwa with Vanilla Icecream, Jalebi and Gulab Jamun! (too many calories for one day).

My Buddy Ravi Kiran (Sun Ray as he called himself)....

2007-06-04T12:28:00.000-04:00

passed away on May 27th at around 5.30 pm. He got drowned in the Okracoke Island waters and the Doctors mentioned that he died on the spot. We found his body on the shore on Mon at around 5.30 pm. I don't know why he liked this Island so much out of all in the Outerbanks, I don't know if he liked the sea or the sea liked him....

I mentioned his name twice in the blogs-when I blogged two protein dishes for him. He was a person with optimistic view on life and enjoyed his life to the fullest. He was even planning his wedding in December. This was heart breaking news to me and to my all other friends. He is still on his way to India and hopefully reach in a couple of hours for the final ceremory.

He was the person behind my wedding (he made my husband's parents agree to the wedding) and I was getting ready to go to India for his wedding. He always lifted everyone when they were down, he is kind of a perfect friend anybody would like to have. He is a kind of a person who brings the best in you. And now he is gone......

I plan to take off for another week from blogging and I know he will not like it if I stop writing. There is no such friend like him in this world and I hope his soul rests in peace.

http://ravi-anumagalla.memory-of.com/

Simple Soya Wonder

2007-05-24T18:33:00.001-04:00

A very very simple dish that I thought of cooking since morning. There is nothing in the refrigerator except for tomatoes and little cilantro. No curry leaves, no green chillies, didn't know what to cook and no ginger garlic paste that I cherish the most. Then I remembered my mom's curry that she fixes in 10 min when she has to cook in a hurry without any vegetables, Onion and Tomato curry and I just added soya chunks to it. I have to go to Indian store tonight as they bring fresh ones today to stock up my fridge.

Cooking time is less than 10 mins and that makes it a wonder!

You'll need....

1 medium onion, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
10-15 soya chunks (wash them in water and cook in microwave for a minute)
1/4 tbsp turmeric
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1/4 tbsp garam masala
salt to taste
1 cup water
cilantro for garnishing

Heat oil in a pan and add onions. Just fry them lightly, very light brown.
Add tomato and cook for 2 or 3 minutes.
Add boiled soya chunks, turmeric, chilly powder, salt and mix.
Add water and simmer for 5 mins.

Garnish with coriander and serve hot with hot rice.

Bagara Annam

2007-05-24T15:10:00.000-04:00

The name itself says that this dish is from Hyderabad. You see I call myself a typical Hyderabadi because I still carry that typical language where we speak 3 different languages in one sentence etc...my friends in engineering used to just laugh at some of my words. Mostly Telugu and Urdu are mixed and formed into sentences. This one is called Bagara Annam, where Bagara as you know is seasoning in Urdu and then Annam is cooked rice in Telugu.

This is a common dish in Hyderabad for most festivals and get-togethers and even weddings. I guess this comes from Nizam zamana. You know they ruled Hyderabad for very long period and that's how those Biryanis, Mirchi Ka Salan form Hyderabad specialities.

To make this you'll need...

1 cup rice (basmati/sona masoori)
2 cups water1 cup fresh mint, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tbsp freshly made ginger-garlic paste
4 tbsp ghee or more
2 tbsp shah jeera (small jeera compared to cumin)
3 green chillies, optional
few dry fruits kaju, almonds, optional
1 or 2 dry bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick
salt to taste

Wash rice and keep it aside.
Heat the cooking pan and add ghee.
Add onions, shah jeera and cook until onions turn brown. You can add green chillies at this stage and keep mixing the whole thing for a minute.
Add freshly made ginger garlic paste and keep mixing for half minute. Don't let that
stick to the pan.
Add mint and dry fruits and keep mixing for a minute. (Now you'll smell beautiful aroma in your whole kitchen). Add bay leaves and mix for just half a minute.
Add washed rice and mix the whole thing again (lot of mixing you see) and cook for a minute or so.
Add water and salt to the dish and cover it until cooked. You can even cook in a rice cooker, put the whole bagara in the rice cooker and add water and cook until done.

Things that make difference to this rice are fresh ginger garlic paste and fresh mint and ghee. At home when my mom cooks this, the aroma goes almost upto 2 or 3 houses in the neighborhood and my cousin's daughter comes running to see what's cooking in the kitchen. Goes well with the Capsicum Masala I posted below.

Try it out and see the difference.

Capsicum Masala Curry

2007-05-24T14:56:00.000-04:00

Just the way we make Stuffed Brinjal, we make this in the same style except we add yogurt to this dish...This goes very well with Bagara Rice or any Pulao or Vegetable Biryani. But, I always liked this with those small capsicums found in India because they are so thin and have fresh taste in them. I don't like the ones found here, but something is better than nothing.

My friend Nandy came back from India and we asked him to come over for dinner. He said he wanted to come by 6.30 pm and I had just 45 mins to make these two dishes. so I quickly made these two dishes for our dinner. My friend like Capsicum Masala very much and kept on praising.

You'll need...

3 capsicums/shimla mirch/green bell peppers, chop each one vertically into 4 or 5 pieces
1 large onion, chopped
1 small tomato, chopped
4 tbsp oil or more
1/2 cup each mint and coriander, chopped
1 cup yogurt, beaten
salt to taste
1/4 tbsp turmeric
water

For Masala:
1/2 cup coconut
1/4 cup each of Sesame Seeds, poppy seeds, coriander seeds
1 tbsp jeera

Heat oil and fry peppers until light brown. Remove and keep them aside.
Fry onions until brown in the same oil and add tomatoes and fry them for 2 mins. Next add green chillies, turmeric and mix.
Roast the masala items and blend them with salt and water. Add the masala paste to the above onion mixture and add desired amount of water to get the consistency you want. (Remember if gets thick after cooling down). Keep mixing as it tends to stick to the bottom.
Add mint, coriander, yogurt (beat well with little water) and add to the curry and cook for about 10 mins.
Add capcisums and salt and cook for another 5 minutes.

Remove and serve hot.

It tastes better the next day, so if you are expecting guests next day, you can make it one day before and store in the refrigerator and reheat it just before serving.

Gujarathi Style Baked Cabbage

2007-05-23T15:51:00.000-04:00

After Baking

I was searching for some recipes to make with Cabbage on the net and I found this recipe. I am really not a cabbage lover and in fact I have never eaten cabbage my first 20 years in India. After coming to US, I and my close friend Divya tried fried cabbage curry and we didn’t eat but served to others. Everybody praised on how good the curry was. This made us try that and we took very little in the plate along with others. We liked it instantly and we also cooked at our respective places in India during our X-mas vacation. Our family members were really surprised. And lot of such veggies that I never tried before in India made me try in the US. And I still hate Radish; I just can’t get myself to eat that.

I got this recipe from International Vegetarian Union. I am really surprised to find that this was started in 1908 and India is also in the list. Read more on the site for more info…

You can view the recipe here, I didn’t make any changes to it and the dish tasted almost like Pakoda. I took some for my colleagues and they liked it too. I took some Hot and Sweet Maggi Sauce on the side and we liked it both ways.

Before Baking

Birayaka Menthem (Turai and Methi)

2007-05-23T15:10:00.000-04:00

This is one of my favorite all time comfort foods. I love to eat this anytime of the day and on any day. I used to ask my mom to make this when I got sick in my childhood. I felt that eating this would make me energetic again. Somehow, I like all the curries made with Birakaya. I don’t know if this curry is an Andhra recipe but it is Hyderabadi for sure.

This tastes delicious when cooked with fresh ridge gourd. And it goes very well with both chapathis and rice. I ate this two times in a day already. For breakfast I ate with chapathi and for lunch with rice. You see how much I love this, but I regret that it was not made by my Mom, and that would have been much tastier. I grow Methi at home 2 or 3 days before I plan to cook this curry. Fresh methi makes a huge difference (we cook with small methi and not the big one-I never tried with the big one).

To make this you’ll need…

1 medium birakaya/ turai/ ridge gourd, skin removed and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
1 cup water
½ cup methi
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
¼ tbsp turmeric
¼ tbsp garam masala
3 tbsp oil
Salt to taste

Heat oil in a cooking pan and add onions and cook until they turn brown.
Add birakaya and cook for 2 mins.
Add tomato and methi, mix everything and cover the dish.
Cook until the birakaya is cooked well. Keep mixing in between.
Add turmeric, red chilli powder, ginger garlic paste and cook for a minute.
Add water and cover it. Simmer it for 5 mins.
Add salt at the end and remove.

Serve hot either with chapatis or hot rice.

Mudda Pappu

2007-05-21T16:27:00.000-04:00

I guess I don't need to give any introduction to this dish since it is so common in all Andhra households. It has a special place in everyday meals. I guess this is the only dish you will not be bored of eating everyday with every meal.

Eating this with ghee and accompanied by pickle (esp Avakaya! (Thanks my friends, for letting me know. God! how did I forget to write this) makes it a heavenly food on earth. And this is the first food toddlers are made to eat until they can take the spicy taste. Of course, pickle is not given to them. It tastes excellent with Rasam too.

Sending this over to Latha at Masala Magic for RCI even-Andhra Cuisine.

-Andhra Cuisine

You'll need...

1 cup Toor Dal
a pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
1tbsp oil

Wash dal and add turmeric, salt and oil.
Pressure cook upto 4 whistles.

Remove, add ghee to hot rice or dal and serve Mudda Pappu with Pickle

Squash Raita

2007-05-20T19:22:00.001-04:00

This is my friend Sunitha's favorite recipe. Don't know where she is now (feel so sad, we are out of touch even in this email and internet world) , was my punjabi neighbor while I was doing my MS and she taught me many punjabi dishes. She was working in our school at that time and used to call us whenever she made any special dishes. I hope we find each other through blogs. Anyways, this is very very easy to make and less time consuming and thanks to my hubby for chopping Squash for me with the mandoline.

You'll need...

2 cups yogurt
1 squash, chopped
coriander, chopped
1 green chilly, chopped (optional)
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp jeera powder
salt to taste

Beat yogurt well and add salt.
Add squash, coriander, chilly, sugar and jeera powder.

Serve with any Pulao or just with anything.

Dahiwale Noodles

2007-05-20T19:11:00.000-04:00

I laughed when my brother said “White Noodles” as soon as he saw this dish. Few years back when I was in Engineering College, my friends came over to my place and my mom was out. So I had to make something for them, and I made fried Noodles but the dish was so salty that I didn’t want to throw it and waste so much, instead I added Perugu Pachadi that was in the refrigerator and that fixed our problem. Since then, we like this very much and make it often.

Noodle lovers , I guess you should try this.

You’ll need…

½ packet Haka Noodles, boiled
1 cup yogurt
1 cucumber, chopped into fine pieces
2 green chillies
cilantro for garnishing, chopped
½ inch ginger, chopped to very fine pieces
Salt to taste
2tbsp oil

for seasoning:
½ spoon each of jeera, rai, urad and chana dal
5 or 6 black pepper corns
Few cashew nuts

Beat yogurt well and make it to a semi-solid consistency.
Add salt, chopped cucumber, cilantro, green chilly, ginger and keep aside for 5 mins. You can even fry ginger and chilly along with the seasoning for extra flavor, but I like to keep it natural.
Add oil to the pan and fry the seasoning items for a minute, add noodles to it and fry for a minute(optional) or you can directly add noodles and the seasoning directly to yogurt.

This is too simple and too easy to make. It is just like Yogurt rice, instead of rice, we add noodles. It is very good for the summer.

Corn and Paneer Curry

2007-05-17T22:04:00.000-04:00

While driving back home, I thought I will make Corn and Shimla Mirch curry. And I started the process by blending onion, green chillies etc and when the time came to cut veggies, I saw that I ran out of Shimla Mirch, the other day I made Shimla Mirch for the RCI event (recipe is coming soon), so I had to use Paneer. And the cooking time was reduced too as we don’t have cook Paneer for long. This curry was tasty with both chapathis and rice. We finished all at one go.

You’ll need…

1 cup paneer
1 cup corn
1 medium sized onion, chopped
½ cup yogurt
2 big green chillies
½ inch ginger
2 garlic pods
2 tbsp oil
a pinch of turmeric,
salt to taste
few coriander leaves
1 tbsp coriander powder
½ tbsp each of cumin and garam masala powder

Blend onion, green chillies, ginger and garlic (you can use ginger garlic paste too).
Heat oil in a pan and add corn and fry for 2 mins.
Add the blended mixture and cook until the curry leaves the sides of the pan.
Add turmeric, coriander powder, jeera powder, garam masala and mix.
Reduce the flame, add yogurt and cook for 5 mins.
Add paneer and coriander and cook for another 2 mins.

Serve hot. Instead of yogurt, if you add cream, it would be rich. Just for health reasons, I avoided it.

Wheat Dosa

2007-05-16T22:57:00.000-04:00

I didn't feel like cooking anything today but wanted to eat something homemade instead of taking out food from outside. So, I made this simple Wheat Dosa and ate it with Sambhar and Garlic Chutney. Usually Ravi eats very less amount of food but today he wanted more and more. This turned out quite good and the dal combination was even better.

You need...

1.5 cups wheat flour,
1 medium onion, chopped into very small pieces
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
2 green chillies
a pinch of turmeric
1/2 tbsp oil for the dough, and some oil for frying
few curry leaves, coriander leaves, chopped
salt to taste

Add water to the flour and make it into a semi-solid consistency, just like the dosa batter.
Add rest of the ingredients and 1/2 tbsp oil and keep aside for 5-10 mins.
Heat the dosa pan, rub little oil and put a laddle of wheat dough and spread it just like dosa/pancake. Put oil on the sides if it is sticking to the pan. Cook on both sides until light brown.

Remove and serve hot with either chutney, sambhar or maggi sauce or eat as it is.

You can make them either thick or thin. I tried both ways and thin ones were yummy. You can make them either soft or crispier and crisp ones were good. To make crisp ones, leave them on the pan for some more time.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

2007-05-16T09:06:00.001-04:00

Sapota/Chikoo Milkshake

2007-05-14T16:50:00.000-04:00

I always loved this fruit in my school days. Vendors used to sell these in the colony and my mom used to buy these for us. She used to buy the ripe ones thinking that they would be sweet. But, I have eaten only small sized ones in Hyderabad and now I see large ones in the US and I heard that these are mostly imported from Mexico.

I made this drink with frozen Sapotas, bought from the Indian store last week.

It was very heavy on the stomach even though I made the drink with fat free milk, we even thought of skipping our dinner. I guess this is best served for the brunches on a busy day.

You need…

2 cups frozen Chikoo
2 cups fat free milk
1 tbsp dry fruit masala
2 tbsp cream (optional)
2 tbsp ricotta cheese (optional)
4 tbsp sugar (add more if you like)

Put them all in a blender, blend and serve cold.

If you are not conscious of fatty stuff, then serve it with whipped cream.

Facts about Sapota/Chikoo

A rich source of digestible sugar, the chikoo is rich in protein, fibre and minerals like phosphorus, calcium and iron. Some like this fruit as it is fleshy while others savour it for its sweetness. The chikoo tree begins bearing fruit within three years of planting. One of the main reasons for its popularity with the gardeners is that there is no danger of pilferage of the fruit as it is ripened in the basket and not on the tree, where it remains hard, astringent and rich in latex (the milk that oozes out when it is scratched).

Not many people know that the latex extracted from the chikoo stem forms the base material for the chewing gum.

A boy selling Sapotas in India.

Picture source: Wikipedia

Content source: TribuneIndia

Celebrating You MOM!

2007-05-13T10:32:00.000-04:00

For all that you are....
For all that you mean....
For all that you have done....
to bless and inspire the lives of others,

You are wished a day filled with all the good things!

Happy Mother's Day!

Source: Hallmark

Chilled Cantaloupe Soup

2007-05-12T13:20:00.000-04:00

I was so doubtful about this recipe when I started preparing it. It was in my to-do list from long and I picked it up thinking how would this taste? Soup with a fruit?

But, the result was literally great. I couldn't imagine before as to why the mint is listed in this recipe but that made the overall difference to me. This was so so refreshing that I would want to go back to this on every hot weather day.

Friends, I promise I would make this for our upcoming camping trip. I know you would relish this too.

You need...

1 cantaloupe

1/2 tbsp cinnamon

2 tbsp lime juice

2 cups orange juice

few fresh mint sprigs

Deseed the cantaloupe, cut into pieces and put it in a blender.
Add cinnamon, lime juice and orange juice and blend all together.
Chill it in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
Serve with mint sprigs.

You can crush ming sprigs just before eating, as that is the one that gives a refreshing feeling. I had kept cantaloupe in the refrigerator after buying, so I didn't have to chill it for long. I kept the soup in the freezer for 10 mins and then ate it. This is a must try for summer.

Poha and Maggi

2007-05-10T17:12:00.000-04:00

I basically wanted to try Trupti’s Corn Poha, I added Corn to the Poha but followed my own recipe after that. The sweet corn and potato combination was delicious and different. I got an idea to make Chudwa with corn in a similar way. Will try and post the recipe soon.

I knew my brother wouldn’t like to eat Poha, so I made Maggi for him in the same way as Poha but atleast he tasted Poha and appreciated it.

You need…

2 cups of Poha
1 onion, chopped
1 potato, boiled and chopped
1 cup corn
2 or 3 green chillies, chopped
few curry leaves
coriander for garnishing
a pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
lemon juice
sugar, optional

For seasoning:

2 tbsp oil
½ tbsp each of Jeera, Rai, Urad and Chana dal,

Heat oil in a pan. Add the seasoning items and fry them until brown.
Add onions, green chillies, curry leaves and cook until onions turn light brown.
Add corn, potato, ginger garlic paste, salt and cook for 4 minutes.
Put poha in colander and wash under running water. Keep aside for a minute and then add it to the dish. Mix it well.
Add sugar if you like, I skipped this part.

Add lemon juice and garnish with coriander and serve hot.

For Maggi:

Take some cooked mixture from Step 4 add it to the boiled Maggi Noodles along with the Maggi masala.. Garnish with coriander and serve hot.

Palak Soup

2007-05-09T07:49:00.003-04:00

I never made Palak Soup before and many of my friends suggested that I make one and enjoy the taste of it. I searched for a while on the net and since there were too many recipes, I had hard time picking up the best one that suited to my taste buds. I got this one from Bawarchi and we felt as if we were eating curry in the beginning, it tasted very close to Palak Paneer and there was some left for the next day. And just like any other soup, this was good the second day. I modified the recipe a bit according to my taste. I guess the best part of this soup was adding corn. As the palak tastes bland, corn gave us that extra spicy taste since I roasted it in ginger garlic paste; this made a huge difference to the entire dish.

You need…

2 cups of palak
1 onion, medium, chopped into 4 big pieces
2 tomatoes
1 cup sweet corn, I used Frozen
2 or 3 green chillies
2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic pod
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 tbsp red chilli powder
Salt to taste

Boil chopped green chillies, onions and whole tomatoes until tender. Remove the skin of the tomatoes.
On the side, boil palak until tender.
Heat oil in a pan; add crushed garlic (I think you guys know the aroma that comes with the combination of EVOO and Garlic).
Add corn and cook for 3 minutes. Add ginger garlic paste and cook for another 2 minutes.
Blend palak, green chillies, onions, tomatoes and pour in the corn mixture.
Add red chilli powder and salt and bring to a boil.
Add milk at the end and cook for 5 mins.

Serve hot with any kind of bread. We had it with freshly made garlic bread.

Kala Chana Sprouts Fry

2007-05-04T17:30:00.000-04:00

Sorry to all my readers for posting this recipe so late after posting the picture.

This is a simple and a healthy dish for a breakfast or for an evening snack. I make sure that we eat sprouts atleast two times in a week, we alternate between moong and chana sprouts and make it in a different style each time so that we don't get bored eating the same thing again and again.

You need...

2 cups of kala chana sprouts
1/2 tbsp each of jeera, rai, urad dal and chana dal
2 or 3 dried chillies, cut into pieces
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
a pinch of turmeric
a pinch of red chilli powder
few curry leaves, cut into small pieces
salt to taste
1 tbsp oil

Heat oil and add the seasoning items jeera, rai, urad and chana dal and fry until brown.
Add dried red chillies and fry for half a minute.
Add sprouts and cook them for 5 minutes (keep mixing in between)
Add salt, chilli powder, turmeric, ginger garlic paste and curry leaves and mix them all together.
Cook for another 5 minutes or until the sprouts are cooked well.

Serve hot as it is or with onions.

Ragi Pudding

2007-05-03T20:47:00.000-04:00

I make this quite often now, atleast twice a week. We are incorporating Ragi into our daily food schedule. We are either eating Ragi Dosa or Ragi Pudding daily for dinner after reading a lot of good stuff about Ragi. I even asked Mom to make this for Dad sometimes. My mom talked about Ragi Ambali (that I never heard before), she also gave me the recipe and I will try that soon.

I made this in Microwave though Microwave is not recommended for cooking because of the loss of nutrients due to the radiation.

You need...

3 cups Milk
1 cup Ragi
3 spoons of Jaggery
1/2 spoon dry fruit masala

Heat milk in the microwave for 2 or 3 minutes.
Mix Ragi with little milk to form a paste.
Add that paste to the milk and cook in microwave in 30 sec increments. Remove after 30 sec and mix. Ragi tends to become hard but mix that well and cook again. Cook until the kind of thickness you want. I get my kind of thickness (like pudding) in just 2 or 3 increments. Add dry fruit masala and serve hot.

It is healthy and tasty too. It tastes something like Bambino sweet.

To make Dry Fruit Masala you need..
one tablespoon each of cashews, almonds, pista and one or two cardammoms (Ravi doesn't like the taste of cardammom, he says it dominates, so I put little) and blend all together. Keep the masala for future use. I put this masala in all the desserts.

Coriander Rice

2007-05-02T12:32:00.000-04:00

I ran out of tomatoes and I thought of making some recipe that can go without tomatoes. I though about Coriander Rice immediately and since I bought fresh coriander leaves from the store just y’day, I thought coriander would give out a nice flavor to the rice.

You need…

1 bunch of coriander
1 medium onion, chopped
2 green chillies or according to your spice levels
½ tbsp dry mint powder or few fresh mint leaves
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
salt to taste
lemon optional
1 cup cooked rice (with salt)

For seasoning:

1 tbsp jeera
¼ tbsp each of rai/mustard, chana dal, urad dal
2 or 3 red chillies
a pinch of hing

Heat oil in a pan, add seasoning stuff and sauté it for a minute on a low heat.
Add onions and fry them till they turn brown.
Make a paste of coriander and green chillies with little salt and add it to the above mixture.
Also add mint, ginger garlic paste to the above mixture and cook till the raw smells goes. (You can add only ginger if you don’t like garlic).
Add some roasted cashew nuts at the end.
Mix with cooked rice and add little lemon if you like.

Serve it as it is or with yogurt.

Achari Aloo Methi

2007-05-01T10:07:00.000-04:00

This is for my entry to Jhiva-Greens. I congratulate Indira of Mahanandi for one year anniversary of Jhiva. Though I could not participate in all the last year’s events, I am still happy for making it here.

I am submitting Achari Aloo Methi for this entry as I found fresh Methi at the Indian store; I guess the good thing about spring is that we get to eat fresh veggies and fruits and also the farmer’s markets glow with the newly born veggies/fruits. The prices are also reduced so much that you want to buy them all.

You know that you are cooking Methi with the aroma it spreads out in the whole house and I had to switch on the kitchen fan at the highest level. It smelled so awesome that I was ready to go for the second round of dinner. I then posted the picture online and writing the recipe now. My brother Naveen asked me if it can stay until Friday as he usually visits me on weekends, it seems like he likes aloo methi. I told him that I would make a fresh curry again on the weekend.

It is a simple curry; I just followed the Achari Noodles recipe. I had some baby potatoes left from the Dum Aloo curry I made recently, and I used them all for this curry.

You need…

Fresh Methi/Fenugreek leaves (about a cup)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 potato, cut and boiled
1 cup yogurt
½ tbsp amchur powder
1 tbsp jeera
¼ tbsp rai, fenugreek seeds
1 green chilly
1 tbsp red chilly powder
A pinch of turmeric
Salt to taste

Heat oil in a pan and fry jeera, rai, fenugreek seeds until they splutter.
Add onions and green chilly and stir fry until brown.
Add boiled potatoes and fry them for a minute.
Add Methi fry until the raw taste is gone and the nice aroma of methi leaves come.
Add chilly powder, turmeric, amchur powder and fry them for a minute.
Reduce flame and let the curry cool down a bit and finally add yogurt and mix for a minute. Add salt at the end and remove.

Serve hot with Rice.

Badusha

2007-04-29T13:44:00.000-04:00

If you want real authentic recipe with correct quantities, please refer to the recipe here

I made Badusha many many times and each time it turned out different, I don’t know why. May be the quality of maida or yogurt made them different. I learnt little from each experiment and I used that experience today while making this Badusha. Seriously speaking, I have not measured oil and yogurt in this recipe. And the Badusha has turned out really well. Ravi and Naveen loved those instantly and we finished all at one go.

What I did was, I took 2 cups of maida, added little salt to it, a spoon of baking powder and 1/6th cup of rice flour and mixed them thoroughly (usually people sieve the whole thing together). I kept on adding oil instead of ghee (as I ran out of ghee) until the mixture became like breadcrumbs. Then I kept adding yogurt until the mixture looked like layers and made that into a ball. Do not put water. These are the ground rules for making badusha. Oil/ghee and yogurt form an important part of the recipe. Then covered it with a wet cloth for half an hour. Made small balls out of the dough and pressed in the center. Made thin sugar syrup on the side. Deep fried the balls and soaked in sugar syrup for 15 mins. Took them out and left them aside for an hour.

You can store them for more than a month in a refrigerator. Heat those for 10 sec before eating.

Achari Noodles

2007-04-26T21:45:00.000-04:00

My friend's mom (in Hyderabad) used to make this often whenever we went to her place for combined studies. I tried contacting her to get the Recipe and tried many times to get this kind of taste. Finally I found the recipe today and made this with a lot of enthusiasm. The food got ready in 15 mins; I was surprised at how fast this was done. I cooked noodles and the seasoning separately and that saved a lot of time.

I think this is the first recipe I made without any curry leaves, coriander or mint; otherwise I always used to think that there is nothing delicious without those going into the cooking.

Try this recipe and see for yourself how tasty this is. I thought of adding a bit of pickle oil to bring that Achari taste but amchur brought that taste and combined with yogurt, this kind of become like sour noodles. I liked it a lot but Ravi kind of said that I make better things than this. But I enjoyed every bit of it. In just half hour, the cooking was done and food was finished too. Next time, I will try this with organic whole wheat noodles.

You need....

1/2 packet of haka noodles
1/2 onion
1 cup sour yogurt (sweet should work fine)
1 tbsp rice flour
a pinch of turmeric
1 tbsp Jeera/Cumin
1/4 Rai/Mustard
1/2 tbsp fenugreek seeds
1/2 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 tbsp amchur powder
salt as per taste
1/2 tbsp black salt (optional)
2 tbsp oil
water for boiling noodles

Heat water in a pan and cook noodles (follow the cooking instructions on the packet).
On the side, heat oil in a pan. Add jeera, rai, fenugreek seeds and fry for a minute.
Add onions and fry until they become brown.
Add ginger-garlic paste, turmeric, chilli powder, amchur powder, black salt (recipe calls for this, but I didn't have it in my kitchen) and fry all of them for one minute.
Add rice flour, mix well. Lower the flame, add yogurt (whisk it well) and cook for 2 minutes.
Finally add noodles and mix well with the yogurt mixture. Remove after a minute and serve hot.

source:tajrecipe

Appam

2007-04-25T20:17:00.000-04:00

This recipe is the outcome of a failure. Initially I started making this with the idea of making Chekkalu (I know Andhra guys would laugh at this). I read somewhere sometime back the instructions to make this but I never tried this before and out of blue I felt the urge to eat this right away. I tried the ready made ones from the Indian store but didn’t like any brand so I started making mine.

I made the dough and started frying them but they were coming out soft (Initially I made small circles) and I knew then and there that the recipe failed. After frying a batch, Ravi was disappointed too and asked me do you really want to eat such deep friend stuff? This was taking so much oil and we had to use many paper towels to remove oil from them. I switched off the stove, thinking of keeping the dough in the refrigerator and make Akki Rotis the next day.

I asked Ravi to taste one and he immediately said: oh! this is Appam. It seems like his mom used to make this often in summer holidays. And I asked him if I should continue making them, he said yeah, but make them big and round and thick. I went back to the kitchen, heated the oil again and made appams with the remaining dough. He said we can use various gourds to that and fry them. I thought I will try that next time. But, as I said this needs lot of oil and people with cholesterol problems should better avoid that.

I put a stock pot on the stove, added 6 cups of water, about 4 tbsps of jeera, half cup of chana dal (soaked for half hour), turmeric, and salt and boiled it. Added 2 cups of rice flour and mixed (the end result would be a big ball of rice flour). Used ziploc or wax paper to make shapes, applied oil to palms (because the dough gets sticky) and deep fried in oil. And this frying takes a lot of time and you need to have lot of patience with this.

Besan Toast

2007-04-23T18:58:00.000-04:00

These days I am making things out of the leftover stuff lying in the fridge, I am in the process of clearing the fridge and concentrating on many veggies and other stuff. In this case, it is bread, there is a big packet of it unused yet. We don't normally feel like eating bread but I got about 2 packets thinking of making bread roll but I made many with just one packet. Looks like I am wasting a lot of money on food...

Anyways, this is a simple food for the weekend brunches if you are in the middle of weekend chores. Add anything you like to the besan and make a toast of your choice.

I added salt, pepper, chilly powder, turmeric, ginger-garlic paste, fresh chopped coriander to the besan and added some warm water to mix it. Don't make it too thick as it takes sometime to cook and will not cook well. Make the batter into a semisolid consistency and leave aside for 15-20 mins.

Heat a pan, smear some oil on the pan. Dip the bread and shallow fry in little bit of oil. Actually I didn't use oil at all and it was good that way too. I don't know how nutritious this is, it can be if we make the toast with either whole grain or wheat bread. But besan is all protein and I guess that's enough for one meal. Serve it with sauce (something hot) and some juice or milk. I served pista and saffron milk with this meal. It was full and we were not hungry until late night.

Our Saturday's brunch

Kool Kabuli

2007-04-20T13:09:00.000-04:00

One more recipe for my buddy Ray. I hear only protein! from men these days, my hubby keeps asking me to make at least one complete protein dish for a day and I think I am running out of ideas though there are some that I haven’t made recently like Pesarattu, Rajma soup, Adai dosa…

I read something in a health magazine recently that Indian vegetarians eat more protein than the required amount, we kind of laughed at it thinking do we? I know that we make sure to have at least one portion of dal every day and I don’t think it has so much protein necessary for the body… anyways!

While I made Chole for Ravi’s potluck this morning, I took out a bowl of boiled Kabuli Chana for this dish. This one is very healthy, loaded with protein and full of nutrients. You can call it Chana poriyal also as it follows the lines of poriyal recipe.

You need…

a bowl of boiled kabuli chana /chick peas (boiled in salt and turmeric)
½ tbsp each of jeera, rai, chana dal, urad dal
3 green chillies, chopped
½ inch ginger, chopped
½ tbsp coconut powder
1 tbsp oil
few curry leaves
coriander for garnishing

Heat oil in a pan.
Do bagara (tadka, we call it bagara in hyderabadi lang) by adding jeera, rai, chana dal, urad dal into the hot oil. Fry them for half a minute.
Add green chillies, fresh ginger and curry leaves and fry until you get a nice aroma of all the mixed spices. (I love this part in cooking, this combination is so aromatic and flavorful and I don’t think I will be able to describe that taste well in my words, it is indescribable).
Add boiled kabuli chana and coconut powder and leave it for a minute.
Remove and garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve it hot or cold, it tastes great and don’t forget a cup of orange juice to go with it.

My breakfast this morning!

4:3:2:1 Lunch Box!

2007-04-20T09:32:00.000-04:00

This is my entry to "Show your lunch box" event. I looked at the deadline just last night and I started preparing this for the lunch early in the morning. I had to get up early for one more reason as I had to cook lunch for the potluck at Ravi's work place. I cooked Chole and made some peas and carrots Pulav as an accompaniment for Chole.

My lunch box got ready in no time since most of them are taken directly from the refrigerator, washed and arranged in a box. The only effort I put in was for Dhokla, put the batter in pressure cooker for 12 mins on high and cut them into different shapes, hearts and flowers with cookie cutter and made diamonds with a sharp knife. And in parallel, I put baby potatoes, peas and carrots for roasting in a toaster oven. By the time I finished making Chole, my roasted veggies and Dokhla got ready and here you see my awesome lunch.

Used the 4:3:2:1 ratio of Japanese Bento method with Dhokla, roasted Veggies (baby potatoes, green peas and carrots), Fruits (strawberry and grapes), and I replaced Dessert with dried fruits Walnuts and Cranberries. We eat few walnuts and cranberries everyday as walnuts are supposed to increase the good cholesterol and decrease the bad one and cranberries for their anti-oxidant properties.

There is no recipe to provide for Dokhla as that is made with Swad Instant mix (recipe is on the box) and I will make another post for Roasted Potatoes very soon...

VT Students: May they rest in peace

2007-04-18T13:25:00.000-04:00

My heart goes out to those who died in the brutal killings. My friends at this university are still working on their PhDs and were locked down in their labs and were hungry.

My husband did his Master's in this university and it is such a calm and peaceful university town that nobdy would have guessed this happening. It is heavy on the heart to read or watch news on CNN on this issue.

Quick Mixed Veggie Rice

2007-04-17T14:40:00.000-04:00

What do you do when you are lazy and don’t feel like cooking?
Those days when you are tired from work and don’t feel like eating out and you want to eat something healthy?

I picked up a packet of Mixed Vegetables and started making this quick dish with left over rice. Good that we get pre-packaged veggies here in this country and no hassle of cutting veggies when you don’t feel like.

Sprinkle some water on the rice and heat in the microwave. This way the grains will be separated.

You need…

2 cups of mixed vegetables (add potato, green peppers or cauliflower)
1 onion, medium, chopped
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
2 tbsp chilli powder
2 tbsp oil

1/2 tbsp garam masala
few green chillies (optional)
shahjeera (optional)
a pinch of turmeric
few springs of pudina/mint
coriander for garnishing
Salt to taste

Heat oil in a cooking pan.

Add chopped onion, shahjeera and try them until brown.

Add green chilies, ginger garlic paste, pudina and try them until the raw smell goes.

Add mixed vegetables and stir fry them for 5 mins.

Add turmeric, red chilli powder, garam masala and mix all together for a minute.

Finally add rice and mix the whole thing well until the masala coats the rice.

Garnish with coriander and lemon wedges and serve hot with yogurt.

Ready to eat in less than 20 mins.

School Days

2007-04-16T21:02:00.000-04:00

This was forwarded to me by my friend Ravi A recently and it really reminded me of my school days.

Most of you might have seen this already but I just couldn't help laughing on the expansion and on an infinite answer.

Moong Sprouts Bhel

2007-04-15T13:54:00.000-04:00

I guess I will dedicate this to my friend Ravi A(Sunray-as he is called), who has been asking me to make some protein dishes. This one provides good amount of protein and you can eat this either for breakfast or dinner with a glass of orange juice.

Sprouts have been described as power foods and a boon to mankind from ancient days. Sprouts bear the largest relative amount of nutrients per unit of intake of any food known to man. They have enough first - quality proteins to be classified as "complete". More importantly, sprouts are totally chemical-free, leave no waste, are delicious when raw and are super low in calories.

You need...

2 cups of moong/green gram sprouts
1 cup murmura (optional)
1/2 onion, chopped
2 green chillies, optional
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp jeera
1 tbsp green chutney
1 tbsp saunf (fennel seeds)
a pinch of ginger powder
1/2 tbsp chat masala
1/2 cup yogurt, sweetend
red chutney, as needed

Heat oil in a pan.

Add jeera, saunf to the oil and let them splutter.

Add chopped onions and cook them until light brown.

Add green chillies, moong sprouts and cook them for a minute or two. If you cook more, they will become hard to eat.

Soak murmura in water for a minute and add them to the above mixture.

Add green chutney, ginger, chat masala and salt and cook everything together for a minute. Remove from heat.

To serve, you can either eat them as it is or you can make behl this way by arranging the cooked moong in a plate, add red chutney and sweetned yogurt (add sugar to yogurt). Garnish with both coriander and sev.

Sprouts are the best "living food". In fact, they are so alive that they are still growing when you eat them.

Our Sunday's breakfast

Source: http://www.healthandyoga.com/html/food/sprout.html

Ragi Dosa

2007-04-04T22:11:00.000-04:00

One of the easiest recipes (even my bachelor friends can make it..they have been requesting me to post some simple dishes, one of my close friends requested me to post only protein dishes and a lot of them are asking me to post my Hyderbadi specialities, I am coming there guys...but slowly!)

There is so much information about this Ragi or Millet Flour on web and it was surprising that I didn't know much about it until recently (Thanks to the blog community who introduced me to this).

I made this for our dinner tonight and the result was pleasing. It didn't taste like what I had expected but it was OK. It was different actually. You guys should try and let me know whether you liked it or not. I made putnalu/chana dalia chutney to go with this and the combination was very right.

But make the batter's consistency little thinner than dosas as it tends to break. But, I somehow managed by putting more water and making it light. Good thing about it is: there is no fat involved, I didn't put any oil on the sides at all but I tried on just one and the taste was the same.

I used the recipe from MyDhaba but modified it to our taste.I used frozen coconut as I didn't have fresh one at home.

You need...

2 cups Ragi flour
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup cocunut
few coriander leaves, chopped
5 green chillies, chopped
1 tbsp sugar
salt to taste
oil or ghee (optional)
water to mix.

Mix all of them and make batter a little thinner consistency than dosa's and keep aside for 15 mins.

Heat tava or pan, rub some oil on the pan for the first time. Add a spoonful of batter and spread round like a cake.

Once cooked, takes about 45 sec-1 min, turn it and cook on the other side also. Repeat the same for others...

I served this with putnala chutney but you can try coconut or mint chutney.

Ragi Dosa

Putnala Chutney

2007-04-04T22:00:00.000-04:00

My mom makes this chutney whenever she makes Idlis and this goes really well with Dosas too. You can actually try different variations with his and modify according to your taste, add more ginger, less putnalu...make it in anyway, it tastes great.

But, remember not to put the chutney into the hot seasoning pan. Let the seasoning cool down and mix all of them together, otherwise I have observed the coconut gets sticky and brings out the oil from it.

You need...

For grinding:
1 cup of putnalu
1/2 cup cocunut
1/2 inch ginger
1/2 tbsp sugar
3 green chillies, or according to your spice levels
few coriander leaves, choppedsalt to taste

For seasoning:
1/2 tbsp each jeera, rye, urad dal, chana dal
1 or 2 curry leaves
1/2 red chilli
1 or 2 tbsp oil

Grind all together until smooth.
Heat oil in a pan add all the seasoning items and saute for
a minute. Remove from the stove and let it cool.
Mix it with step 1.
Enjoy this chutney with Idlis and Dosas.

Putnala Chutney

Tutti Fruiti Lassi

2007-04-03T20:32:00.000-04:00

It was one of the most sunny and muggy days for this season today, surprisingly. It is just the beginning of April and it is only spring but the temperature went upto 98 degrees.

We all went for an afternoon walk (we have a nice trail around our office location, it is more than 4 miles but we walked only 3 miles) and we were dead tired by the time we came back to work. We didn't feel like going back to work after going through all this humid and unpleasant climate.

Then, I took off from work early and started driving towards home. The inside of the car was so hot and the heat was so direct on my face, it was a scorching heat, almost felt like it was
going to burn my hands.

I wanted to come home and drink something very cold to cool my body off. I could not wait to get home and take a cold water bath. Then I made this Tutti Fruiti lassi. It is basically a plain lassi but I added a Tutti Fruiti ice cream ball to eat at the end. That quenched my thirst for something cold and nice. I then relaxed for a while indoors before fixing dinner.

You need...

2 cups yogurt
1/2 cup waterl
little crushed ice
pista, 3 or 4 (optional
1 spoon cream (optional)
little cardammom powder
little salt
4 spoons of sugar
Tutti Fruiti Ice Cream (you will find this in Indian Stores)

Blend all except the Ice Cream.

Just before serving, put the Ice Cream ball in the Lassi and serve cold.

Birakaya Pappu

2007-04-03T16:29:00.000-04:00

This is one kind of dal/pappu that Andhra guys die for. And the taste and the process of making this differs from region to region. This is the kind of recipe that my mom makes and I made this on the weekend.

When I got sick in my childhood, I used to think of eating this curry to get back that depleted energy. I love this so much in any way. We make dal(we use either tool dal, or moong dal), stuffed birakaya, or cook with methi or milk and make some snacks during summer.

I usually cook a lot of toor dal together and use little everyday to make a variety of dals for the next two or three days.

I made this recipe with toor dal this time. Eat this by adding little ghee and you would realise how heavenly the taste is.

You need...

1 birakaya (peeled and chopped)
1 Tomato (chopped)
few red chillies
few curry leaves
1 tbsp each of jeera, mustard
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
2 cups cooked toor dal
a pinch of turmeric
1/2 tbsp red chilli powder
2 tbsp oil
salt to taste

Heat the oil in a pan and fry jeera, mustard until you hear the popping sound. Add red chillies and curry leaves and cook for a minute.
Add birayaka and cook until soft.
Add tomatoes and ginger garlic paste and cook for about 5 minutes.
Add turmeric, red chilli powder and salt and mix them all.
Add the cooked toor dal and stir for a minute. Reduce heat and cook for another 3 mins.

Serve hot with rice and ghee, it tastes great.

Happy Birthday Naveen!!

2007-04-02T09:58:00.000-04:00

Your Birthday

is a celebration of
the special bond we share,
sending you my sweet wishes to say...

Hope your day is as wonderful
as you are!

Happy Birthday

Easy Tomato Rice

2007-04-01T19:52:00.000-04:00

Finally! I am sending my first entry to JFI (an online food blogging event started by Indira of Mahanandi). This month, it is hosted by RP of My workshop.

This time the topic is Tomatoes. We need to submit any recipe made with tomatoes as the main ingredient and send the recipe along with pictures to RP, she in turn posts all the recipes sent to her on her blog.

I wanted to make Masala Tomato Curry for this event but due to my hectic schedule all last week and also the weekend, I didn't have enough time to make that curry. So, I chose to make Easy Tomato Rice instead and sending over the entry in the last minute. I hope my recipe will be entered into this event.

I bought a big box of Tomatoes from the farmer's market last week and I am using those to make this dish.

You need...

2 tomatoes (cut into small pieces)
1 onion2 cups cooked rice (preferably basmati rice)
2 green chillies, cut into small pieces
2 dried red chillies
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
1 bay leaf
3 cardammoms powdered
3 cloves
2 Tbsp cashews, optional
2 Tbsp oil
1 tbsp shah jeera (optional)
a pinch of cinnamon
few mint leaves, chopped
few curry leaves
few coriander leaves, chopped
salt to taste

Add oil in the pan and heat it. Add onions and shah jeera and fry until the onions turn brown.
Add ginger garlic paste, green chillies, dried red chillies, mint leaves, curry leaves and mix.
Add bay leaf, cinnamom, cardammom powder, cloves, cashews, and mix again and cook all of them for 2 mins.
Add tomatoes and keep mixing until the tomatoes are cooked.
Add a pinch of turmeric and salt.
Finally add rice and mix them all together.
Garnish with coriander and serve hot with Raita.

Tikki Pav

2007-03-25T19:13:00.000-04:00

I got this pav from Harris Teeter's fresh bakery thinking of making Pav Bhaji. But, things changed and we wanted to eat Vada Pav instead but we didn't want to deep fry anything. We are attending so many parties these days and eating all oily and unhealthy stuff, we thought let's make Aloo Tikkis and use them as vadas, that is how this new recipe, a cross between a sandwich and vada pav was born.

And actually Ravi made this dish (I should have taken pictures of the tikkis he made, he is a perfectionist, I showed him how small the pav was and he made the correct size that would go with the pav and he made exactly 24 for the 24 pavs I had), I only shallow fried them in little bit of oil and arranged the tikkis in pavs.

We made this from organic russet potatoes from whole foods and some green peas.

To make this you need...

3 pototoes

1 cup green peas

1 tbsp red chilli powder

1 tbsp garam masala

1/2 tbsp amchoor powder

1/2 bunch coriander

1/2 tbsp ginger garlic paste

a pinch of turmeric

half juice of lemon

salt to taste

oil for shallow fry

pav bread

Boil pototoes and peas separately, remove skin from potato and mash both potatoes and peas.
Add powders like red chilli(you can add green chillies if you like), turmeric, garam masala, amchoor and salt.
Add shredded cilantro, lemon juice, and ginger garlic paste and mix everything together.
Make small patties of the mixture and keep aside.
Heat a pan, put a tbsp of oil and smear evenly on pan.
Depending on the size of the pan, cook all tikkis together or some at a time until the tikkis are brown on both sides and remove.
To arrange, cut pav into half, put some butter to the sides (we avoided this step) and toast. Smear green chutney and garlic chutney on one side and put the patties on the bottom side, top it with the other side of the bun and press a bit.
Do the same for the remaining buns. I made 24 small tikki pav's with this mixture.

Serve with onions and some ketchup or sauce. This was very close to Vada Pav recipe but a healthy one without a lot of oil.

Our Sunday's brunch

Corn Soup

2007-03-21T20:49:00.000-04:00

Looks like a Corn Night for us tonight. We ate fruits and drank chocolate milk and thought that that's the end of our dinner, but my hubby wanted something to eat, something spicy. I went to the refrigerator and checked what is in there and found a bag of corn. My corn soup was due from long, it is a super hit among our friends and a lot of them asked me to post this from long, finally I am doing it today.

So, I made both Corn Soup and Corn Roast and added some extra calories to our diet. This corn soup is so heavenly and so easy to make that you would keep going back to make this atleast twice a week after tasting this. Now the winter season is coming to an end in Raleigh and saw some spring flowers blooming on my way back home. Those white flowers without leaves on the trees look fantastic. Along with the winter season, the soup season comes to an end in my kitchen.

This recipe is an ayurvedic one, I found this on some site, couldn't recall where! about 2 years ago. This has all the basic ingredients(ginger, cumin, pepper) that ayurveda suggests for proper digestion of food and it is recommend by doctors for lowering cholesterol problems. And since we get frozen corn so easily in food stores, this definitely adds to the less preparation time.

To make this you need...

2 cups frozen corn
1 inch ginger piece
few cilantro leaves
water to boil
1 tbsp ghee
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1/2 tbsp black pepper powder
salt to taste

Boil corn until tender (usually frozen corn takes less time).
On the side, put ginger and cilantro leaves in the blender and blend by adding little water. Add the boiled corn to the blender (after cooling). Leave some corn kernels aside to add later.
Heat ghee ( you can even add EVOO, it tasted better last time) addcumin seeds, let them splutter. Add the blended mixture, add some water (depending on how thick you want, I leave it thick, I like it that way).
Add fresh ground pepper and some salt and the remaining corn kernels and let it boil for a couple of minutes.
Remove and serve with either bread or just plain.

I served with some hot puffs tonight.
Sent some to my local friends, I hope they enjoyed the soup and puffs along with their dinner.

Corn Roast

2007-03-21T20:47:00.000-04:00

This is one of the easiest things that anyone can make on this earth. And the taste that you get out of this sweet corn keeps lingering in your mouth and makes you go back for another serving.

But, if you make this without the sweet corn the taste differs a lot and I am used to that kind of taste from India. This was also great as you would get almost all the tastes, sweet from corn, spicy from ginger garlic paste and hot from chillis.

You need....

corn
salt
chilli powder
ginger garlic paste
green chilli (optional)
oil

Heat oil, add corn and green chillies and roast them until brown.
Add ginger garlic paste and about 2 mins. (GGP makes a difference in this dish)
Add chilli powder and salt and cook for another minute.
Remove and serve hot.

Chana Dal Payasam

2007-03-20T10:57:00.000-04:00

It's a quick way of making this payasam. I heard people making this payasam but never made one. My mom makes Polelu (Puran Poli) on Ugadi with Pachadi and some kind of dal with the dal and jaggery/bellam (gur). I never thought I would make this when I started cooking, but somehow ended up making this dish

You need...

1 cup chana dal
1 cup water
1 cup milk
1 tsbp ghee
dry fruits
3 cubes Jaggery/bellam
1 spoon cardammon powder

Cook chana dal in pressure cooker. Mash half of it.
Make jaggery syrup in the pan by adding a cup of water to jaggery. Let it come to a boil
Heat 1 cup milk in a microwave and add it to the syrup.
Add chana dal and cardammon powder.
Heat a small pan, add ghee, fry dry fruits (cashews, almonds, raisins) and add it to the payasam.

Serve hot or cold, it tasted good both ways. You can try adding dried cocunut pieces along with other dry fruits. For the picture, check my previous post

Happy Ugadi

2007-03-20T07:44:00.000-04:00

After all the confusion and controversies on when to celebrate Ugadi because of Solar Eclipse, we have decided to celebrate the festival today. Our SV temple pandits also recommended the same.

Ravi and I wish our family, friends and visitors of this site a very Happy Ugadi & Gudipadwa!

My mandir at home

I got up at 5.30 am today and made some tamarind pulihora, chana dal payasam and Ugadi pachadi.

Chana Dal Payasam, Pulihora, Ugadi Pachadi

Palak Rava Cheela

2007-03-15T22:55:00.000-04:00

I went home early and wanted to make something nice for the dinner. I have searched various blogs, the cookbooks at home and stood near the refrigerator looking at the vegetables for long but I didn’t feel like eating any of them. And we both were not in a mood to eat heavy food because of the heavy lunch we had, rice and drumsticks sambhar.

I was looking to make food that is something light and easy on stomach. And I had one more issue on mind that whatever I make I should be able to take that for next day’s lunch instead of cooking two different items. And I am working on 8 am shift these days, so it is not possible to cook in the morning. After an hour of thinking, browsing, struggling on what to cook, I ended up making this pakal rava cheela. I decided to make rava cheela in the beginning but added spinach to it at the end. These days I am adding spinach in almost all the dishes, even in chole and aloo mutter.

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Ingredients
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1 cup rava
1 cup palak/spinach
4 Tbsp besan
1 small onion
2 green chillies
½ inch ginger
1 Tbsp yogurt
1tbsp ajwayan (oregano seeds)
Few springs of coriander
Curry leaves (optional)
Salt to taste
Water (about a cup)

Chop palak, onion, green chillies, ginger, coriander, curry leaves and keep aside.
Add besan and salt to rava and mix all together.
Add yogurt and water to step2 to make a smooth batter.
Add chopped veggies from step 1 to the batter. Add ajwayan.
Heat a pan and season it with a little oil (just like you do for Dosas).
Put some batter on the pan and spread in the shape of a circle. Spray oil on the sides for crispiness (you can avoid this if you are conscious about fat).
Cook on both sides until light brown.
Remove and serve with ketchup or coconut chutney.

The outcome was better than expected; the taste of palak was completely different with this dish. You can even puree palak before adding to the batter for uniform taste.

Black and Red Art Piece

2007-03-14T18:31:00.000-04:00

I made this one with Black and Red velvet paper. I searched for this kind of paper everywhere, online, stores like Michaels, A.C Moore, Ben Franklin crafts but nobody even knew about this paper. Back in India, I used to make a lot of designs for walls and greeting cards for friends with this paper. This paper is so versatile that you can make anything out of it. But, unfortunately it is not available in the US. I had to ask my mom to bring all colors avaialable in India for me when she came to visit me. The one I have at home in India is a similar one but the colors I used were yellow and maroon and I added two peacocks on the two sides. I made a simple one for me.

You can make this too in just 2 or 3 hours. All you need is a black and red velvet paper. Cut Red velvet into mini circles, gel them as you wish and put a jewel in the center. I bought these jewels from Michaels, these are called acrylic jewels.

Mouth-Watering Muthiyas

2007-03-13T19:36:00.000-04:00

These muthiyas are so tasty (writing as I eat) and so extra rich. I never thought these would be so good. I saw this post on Trupti’s site and was trying to make this from that day but never found time. This dish got ready in no time. I made this with Whole Wheat Flour and thought that this might turn bad but it did not.

I would have asked you to refer to Trupti’s site for the recipe, but I have added few more items, so I am presenting that here.

Ingredients

1.5 cup whole wheat flour
4 tbsp besan
1 tbsp rava
1 cup spinach leaves
½ cup methi leaves
1 cup corn
2 big chopped green chillies
½ inch chopped fresh ginger
1 tbsp oil from pickle
Yogurt to bind the dough
Handful of cilantro leaves
Salt, sugar, turmeric as per your taste

For seasoning

2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp mustard seeds
2 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp asatofoetida
1 tbsp sugar
Few drops of lime juice
Cilantro leaves for garnishing

Mix wheat flour, besan, rava, spinach leaves, methi leaves, corn, green chillies, ginger, pickled oil, salt, sugar and slowly add yogurt. Don’t add too much yogurt, you need it just to bind everything together and make the mixture into small balls.
Steam the balls until they are well cooked. You can check if they are cooked by inserting the knife, the knife should come out clean. Cut them into pieces after they cool down.
Put cooking pan on the stove, add oil and let it heat for a minute
Add mustard seeds, let them splutter, and add sesame seeds, asatofoetida. Add cut muthiyas to the seasoning and stir fry them until light brown.
Add sugar and lime juice (fresh juice is preferable) and garnish with cilantro.

Serve with sweet yogurt or ketchup.

Weekend News & Ragi Malt

2007-03-11T20:04:00.000-04:00

Watched many movies this weekend. Illayaraja fans (my friends) made a big deal about this movie and made us all go to watch Anumaspadam, but it was not upto the mark.

I never got a chance to watch Bend it like Beckham before and I viewed that this weekend, it inspired me so much and I told Ravi that we should not stop playing sports. Not just sports but any dream you have, I guess you should try hard to fullfill that.

I made Ragi Malt followed the recipe of Indira at Mahanandi and the drink was nutritious. My husband asked me to buy Ragi Flour from the Indian Store and I didn't know what I would be doing with that, when I searched on the google for some Ragi recipes, I found this recipe and it was not only tasty, but it has some good nutritional value too. Heard that this is good in both Calcium and Iron. I am planning to make some Ragi Dosas with the leftover flour.

Ragi malt recipe from Indira is here!

Mango Lassi

2007-03-10T19:02:00.000-05:00

I took my brother to an Indian restaurant lately and he took Mango Lassi as his drink. He liked that so much that he kept asking me to make one at home. On his request, I made this with readymade mango pulp. I got this can from the store and I don’t remember the name of it, I already threw the can. I wish I had fresh mangoes in the kitchen; it would have made a big difference in the taste.

I envy those who are in India and who get to eat Raasalu in the summer. I love that variety of Mango so much. I just could not wait to get them home in those days. My mom used to buy them and soak them in water until evening and we used to eat them soon after the dinner. Ah! Who can forget those summer days with those mangoes around?
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Ingredients
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½ cup of mango pulp
1 cup of yogurt (or buttermilk)
½ cup water
Sugar (as per your taste)
½ tbsp cardamom powder
2 tbsp cream

Blend all together and serve cold. Add some ice before serving.