CRAVINGS

SIMPLE PLEASURES- Vangyache Bharit / Baingan bharta /eggplant raita

2012-01-11T08:28:00.000-08:00

I am always ready for a hot serving of vangyache bharit with Jowar bhakri. This dish has different versions in different parts of India. This is a dish that I think does not need proper measuring. You can eyeball all the ingredients and no matter how much you put, it will always taste yummy. So add as much or as little per your taste.

You will need-:

Eggplant- big not the small once

Chilies

Ginger

Garlic

Onion

Tomato

Cilantro

Curry leaves

Lemon juice

salt to taste

Mustard seeds

pinch of hing (asafoetida)

Oil.

Here is how to make this yummy Bharit-:

Preheat the oven to 550 F or whatever the highest temperature your oven offers.If you have convection oven, then set it up on convection mode. That way you don't have to rotate the eggplant half way and it will be done in less time.
Line a baking tray with an aluminium foil and place the eggplant on it. Keep it for about 20- 25 minutes depending on your oven. Check if it's done by inserting a knife.
Next thing is you want to get rid of the skin. To get the skin off easily, just slide the hot eggplant into a brown lunch bag or any paper bag and fold it's opening. Let it cool and the skin will just peel right off with no extra efforts. Peel all the skin and cut it's stem end.
Mash the eggplant with your hands. See picture below.

Make a paste of ginger, green chilies and garlic. You can use mixer, or you can use mortar and pestle to make a paste. Keep aside.
Add oil into a pan. When it heats up, add Mustard seeds, pinch of asafoetida, curry leaves, turmeric and the ginger garlic chili paste that we kept aside. Saute for few minutes until raw smell of ginger garlic goes away.
Add diced onions , saute until they become translucent , add diced tomatoes and saute until they become soft. See picture.

Add the mashed eggplant and mix everything well. Season with salt as per taste. Put the lid on for about couple of minutes. Since the eggplant is already cooked, it doesn't need much time after this stage. Vangyache bharit/ baingan bharta / eggplant raita is ready. Sprinkle some chopped cilantro on top, squeeze some lemon juice as well and serve with Jowar bhakri / poli/ any Indian bread.

I am sending this entry to Walk Through Memory Lane Event hosted by Gayathri's cook spot.

Thanks Gayatri for hosting the event.

Enjoy!!

Inspirational Award and Happy blogger award..:)

2012-01-10T16:19:00.002-08:00

New year certainly started great for me already. My friend and a very good blogger Ashwini of Indulge- Ashcorner shared 2 awards with me and asked me to answer 8 questions about me. How nice of her to share the awards with me. I sincerely thank her for both the awards.

About answering the questions, I have never done something like this before. But it was fun..:))

1. What makes you laugh, smile or giggle?

Everything that my little one does and talks all day long and Jerry Seinfield..:)

2. What are your dreams for your future?

Oh...well.. I don't dream, I set goals. So my personal goal for this particular year is to get super fit and continue on the path of eating healthy. I have also set some professional as well as family goals, but I would prefer to keep them to me until they get done...:)

3. If you are going to a cruise, where would it be and why?

I would love a cruise to Bahamas. I would like to relax and unwind on the islands of Bahamas and would love to try Caribbean cuisine.

4. How would you spend your vacation and with whom?

At times, I want to spend my vacation with my family back in India. We have one planned very soon..:) At others I would prefer to spend with my hubby and my son. It doesn't have to be too long too. I enjoyed a lot going to Vancouver last summer for a couple of days...:) It's the quality not the quantity that matters when it comes to vacation.

5. If given a life, what life would you choose ? Your life now or your past?

Always I will choose my current life. I absolutely love my current life and I can't imagine switching it for anything else. I am at my absolute best so far, and it's only going to get better...:)

6. Is there something that you wished before when you were young but you didn't get it?

There were a few things, but not worth a mention here.

7. Have you been in a situation where you might have given up but you still choose to move on?

Last year was full of such situations where I could have easily given up, but I persisted and I am ripping the fruits of that hard-work...:)

I am a follower of Robin Sharma. and I truly believe his words- "Big lesson I've learned as an entrepreneur and as a human being: when we most feel like giving up is the moment we must keep persisting. "

8. Is there someone in your life who has been your source of strength and inspiration?

Someone who is very close to me is my source of inspiration- My husband.
My mother in law is my inspiration as well. I always look up to her for her management skills. She is the most honest person I have ever met in my life.
I should also not forget about my friend Sneha, whom I met back in California. We were together studying Human Resources. Whenever I talk to her, it always reminds me of my purpose in life. I think it's because we both were on a same boat, figuring out what we wanted to do in our lives. Discussing our goals and our passions, is always such a fun with her.
Last but not the least, my son V, is my hero. He teaches me how to be calm in stressful situations and he is the reason, that I have a lot of patience in me than ever before...:) Love him..:)

Also my sources of inspiration are Rujuta Diwekar and Robin Sharma- really my idols!

It's time to thank Ashwini for one more award "Happy blogger Award". Thanks again for her generosity.

Anyone of you, who wants me to pass this (Happy Blogger)award to you, just comment on this post and I will be more than happy to share this award to you..:)

Happy Blogging!

Enjoy!!

SIMPLE PLEASURES - Masalebhat (Spicy Rice)

2012-01-04T16:23:00.002-08:00

A very Happy New Year to everyone!
I am sure you all had a great new year's celebrations just like I had.

I always love the first post of the new year. It's such a fresh and encouraging feeling to get started with the new recipe that will last the years to come. Being said that, I am going to start a fresh series on Cravings for the very same reason. It will be called "SIMPLE PLEASURES". It will be a series of all the recipes, that are very close to my heart, that I grew up eating, that are simple and yet delicious in taste, that are made with ingredients that everyone have in their kitchens, that are going to last forever (at least in Maharastrian- families), that are authentic enough to be trusted.
If you are familiar with Indian, especially Maharashtrian cuisine, you might have heard about such recipes, might or might not have tried them as yet and If you are not familiar with such type of cuisine, well this might be the right time to get your hands dirty with these "SIMPLE PLEASURES". They will not disappoint you, give them a try!

I am going to start the series with the recipe called 'Masalebhat'. It's a traditional maharashtrian recipe, a very popular menu item of most of the weddings. It is essentially rice, that is nicely blended with different kind of spices and your choice of vegetables.

You are going to need-:

Basamati rice- I used extra long grain 1 cup
Tomato- diced 1 small
Onion- sliced 1 small
Green Peas - thawed about half a cup
Cauliflower- cut into florets
Mustard Seeds- 1 tsp
Peanuts- a handful/ as many as you like
Curry Leaves - 5-6
2 tsp Goda masala ( you can get in some of the Indian grocery stores, however I always have hard time finding it, so if you want to try and make your own, here is the recipe from another blog- http://bhaatukli.blogspot.com/2007/04/maharashtrian-kaala-masala.html )
1 green chilli
1 bay leaf
1 tsp red chilly powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
Pinch of Hing
Oil - 3 tsp
2 tsp ginger paste

Dry roast the following ingredients together , let them cool and then grind. The consistency should be coarse.
Coriander Seeds- 2 tsp
Cumin Seeds- 2 tsp
1 inch cinnamon stick
4 cloves

Wash and soak the rice for about 30 minutes.
Heat oil in a pan and add bay leaf, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, hing, curry leaves and sliced onion. Saute till the onions get nice golden color.
Add turmeric powder, ginger paste and cook for about a minute.
Now is the time to add the dry roast powder that is kept aside. Also add goda masala and red chilli powder. Mix well and cook for about 2-3 minutes.
Now add cauliflower, salt , add some water and cover for about 5 minutes. Add any other vegetables of your choice at this stage along with the cauliflower. You can add potatoes, carrots, green beans etc. Don't add the peas just as yet.
Add the soaked rice, and then add peanuts, water, tomatoes, and salt to taste. Cover the pan and cook on high for 5 minutes. Add twice the water of the rice, 2 cups in this case.
Reduce the heat to medium and cook for about 15 minutes.
After turning the stove off, let it rest for a minute or two.
Add the peas on top of the rice and give it a good mix.
Garnish shredded coconut and cilantro over Masalebhat.

There it is...an authentic masalebhat is ready.

Enjoy..:)

Mushroom Barley Soup

2011-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

Last day of 2011!! Last post of the year 2011. I am so excited to end this year with a warm comforting bowl of mushroom barley soup! This one is a perfect blend of vegetables and barley.

You will need-:

1 cup Pearled Barley
Olive oil.
White button Mushrooms- sliced
Celery- diced
Carrot - chopped into small cubes
Tomato- chopped into small cubes
Onion - chopped into small cubes
Garlic - minced
Low sodium Vegetable broth
1 bay leaf
1 cup water
Mint leaves for garnishing
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper

Here is how you will prepare it-:

Wash the pearled barley in water and drain. In a pan, bring 4 cups of water and 1 cup barley to boil on high. Cover, reduce heat to medium and simmer for about 30-35 minutes. Turn off the heat when the barley becomesoft.

Heat the olive oil in a pan. Add garlic and onions. Cook for about couple of minutes. Add carrots and celery. After about 5 minutes add mushrooms and then tomatoes. Cook until they are tender. Add vegetable broth. Also add 1 cup of water. You can add more broth and water to make the consistency you want your soup to be. Add the bay leaf. At this point you can also add any fresh or dried herbs like thyme, oregano if you like. Simmer for 10 more minutes before adding cooked barley. Mix well, and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add salt to taste, but remember that the broth you have added also has some salt. Also flavor with some freshly ground black pepper.

Garnish with a pair of mint leaves and serve hot.

Jeera Fried Rice With Peas

2011-12-26T18:09:00.000-08:00

Simple and very easy, rice dish. A quick dinner, if you serve it with any kind of dal - a perfect combination of protein and carbs.

Here is all you need-:
Oil - 2 tsp
Rice- 1 cup
Water - 1 and 1/2 cups
Peas 1/2 cup
Onion - Chopped
Cumin Seeds - 1 tbsp
Asafoetida - a pinch
Peppercorns - 2-3
Cloves - 2
Bay leaf- 1
Salt to taste.

Cook the rice with water. Add the salt and then cook rice. It's the right time to flavor the rice. Also add couple of peppercorns and a clove. You can pressure cook it or you can cook it in a pan with a lid on it.

Add oil into a pan. When oil gets hot, add Jeera (Cumin seeds). When they splutter, add asafoetida, cloves and peppercorns and bay leaf. Then add onion and saute for a couple of minutes. Then add thawed peas, mix well and add cooked rice, mix well. Cover for a minute. Add chopped cilantro.

This is my one more entry towards CWS Peas Event.

Thanks Priya for hosting.

Enjoy!!

Matar Kurma ( Green Peas Curry)

2011-12-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

A nice blend of tomato puree, green chillies, ginger garlic paste, caramelized onion, with aromatic spices like cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, sesame seeds and fennel seeds along with the great green peas with their bursting nutritional value, makes this Indian dish even more delicious. It can be enjoyed with Indian bread (Naan/roti) or with any kind of rice.

Whenever I want to make green peas curry, I go with the traditional Maharashtrian style preparation called Matarachi Usal. I love it. The grounded coconut makes it special. Although this time I was going through one of the recipe books, and that's when I decided to make this yummy matar kurma, which has a combination of tomato puree and peas.

The ingredients I used:

Desi Ghee/ clarified butter- 4 tbsp

Green Peas: about 1 Lbs

Tomatoes: 3

Green chillies- 3

Ginger: grated about 2 tsp

Garlic: Finely chopped/ or you can use the paste, I used 2 cloves

Onion: 1 medium sized white onion finely chopped, you can use any onion you have on hand.

Spices:

Cloves: 2-3

Cinnamon: 1 stick

Cardamom: 2-3

Sesame seeds- 1 tbsp. Toast the seeds and grind them to turn them in a powdered form and keep it aside.

Fennel Seeds: 1 tbsp

Coriander powder: 1 tbsp

Cumin powder: 1tbsp

Salt to taste,

Coriander/ cilantro chopped for garnishing.

Step 1:

Blanching the tomatoes:

I started with blanching the tomatoes for couple of minutes, and gave them a bath in icy cold water later. The process of blanching is explained here. After blanching I peeled the tomatoes off and made a puree in a blender.

Step 2:

Caramelizing Onions:

On a medium flame, I tossed finely chopped onion in about 1 tbsp of butter. The process of caramelizing onions is explained here.

Step3:

In a large pan add the remaining butter. In a moment, add the good old spices. Roast them for a minute or two. Add the caramelized onion and the green peas. Saute everything together for 3-4 minutes more. Then add the tomato puree and mix everything well.

Step 4:

Add water as much as you want. It's your choice, adding more water will make it great combination with rice, because it will have a thinner gravy, or just keep the water content low and it will turn in to a nice thick gravy, which will go very well with the Indian bread. Make sure that the everything should come to a boil before you switch off the flame.

Step 5:

Add salt as per your taste and serve it with chopped coriander/ cilantro.

You can garnish the kurma with a dash of cream as well.

I am sending this entry to announcing cooking with seeds - Peas event hosted by Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes.

I am also sending this to Sweet Heat challenge hosted by Food and Football and Baby.

Enjoy!!!

6 Layer Dip

2011-12-15T08:21:00.000-08:00

Last month, my little kiddo turned 2. We had a party at our home with a very few close friends. I wanted to keep it simple with less people and more fun..:) My dad was also here to celebrate.
So let's get straight to the menu! I made a 6 layer dip to go with organic corn chips, 2 types of chaats -bhel puri and ragada pattice. We also ordered vegetable biryani and a cake for everyone. To top it off I made a Kulfi and a vegan cake for V.
Kulfi and the 6 layer dip was a total hit. Vegan cake was a total failure. I am not so good when it comes to baking, somehow I don't get it. People say baking is easier than cooking, I find it other way round. I am used to eyeballing my ingredients so much, that it's hard for me to measure everything precisely and put it all together. Strange but true!

Okay, so here is what that 6 layer dip looked like-:

The recipe called for a 7 layer dip, when I searched through the Internet. I omitted the layer of shredded cheese and made it 6 layer, which turned out to be of a great taste. It was very simple to put together and looked very fancy.
Layer- 1
The first layer was organic re-fried beans mixed with a packet of taco seasoning.

Layer -2
Organic Sour cream

Layer-3
Organic Medium salsa

Layer-4
Guacamole

Layer-5
A dollop of sour cream

Layer-6
Sprinkled chopped spring onions over all the 5 layers.

Spread all the layers across the plate on top of each other, starting with layer one and there you have it. I would say , take out as much water as you can from salsa and then add the layer carefully to avoid the tomato sauce dripping over the layer of sour cream.
If you want to add the shredded cheese, you can add that layer in between layers of salsa and guacamole. I thought adding cheese might include too much of fat than the recipe can handle.
You can also add chopped cilantro to the sour cream , mix and then spread, which I think will enhance the flavor.

Give it a try this holidays, and have fun!

Sweet Murmura

2011-12-08T20:31:00.001-08:00

This recipe is one of the accidents.(which I can proudly call an experiment..:) I was actually trying to make Murmura ladoos, something went wrong and I wasn't able to roll out the ladoos. So I thought, let's just keep it that way and eat with a spoon as a snack ( as a sweet chivada!)

This is a healthy and crunchy snack, if your kid needs something different and you don't want to stuff his mouth with all the unhealthy snack that's out there. It's just jaggery, murmura , some water and a pinch of cardamom powder and that's it, you are done. Being a natural sweetener, jaggery has both nutritive and medicinal values. It is a product of sugarcane and a great source of iron and minerals. During summer the water with a small piece of jaggery helps to alleviate the bad effects of excess heat on the body.

So as I mentioned earlier, all you are going to need is Jaggery, water, cardamom powder and murmura.
Water- 1 cup
Jaggery - 1 cup powdered ( if you are going to use the pieces , try putting in about 4 - 2 inch pieces of jaggery.)
Murmura- 4 cups

Cardamom powder- a pinch or two

The measurement doesn't have to be perfect unless you want to actually roll out the mixture and make ladoos...:P

Heat the jaggery and the water in a heavy bottom pan. Let everything come to a nice boil and and continue heating the mixture and let all the jaggery melt. Keep stirring untill it becomes something like the consistency shown in the picture below. It takes about- 15- 20 minutes on a medium high heat to come to this consistency.

Add cardamom powder and mix in the murmura, while stirring constantly. Mix well to get all the murmura coated with the jaggery and water mixture. Keep the heat on for 2 more minutes and then turn it off.

If you have done everything well, you might actually be able to roll the ladoos from the mixture, otherwise just grab a spoon or hey...just a handful....:))

I am sending this recipe Spice your life and Cook's hideout.

Crunchy Makhana

2011-12-01T16:16:00.000-08:00

Let me take this opportunity to share with you my favorite crunchy and super simple snack known as Makhana. Also known as Phool Makhanas.You get this wonderful beauties at most of the Indian stores. They are basically lotus seeds. Makhanas are very healthy, rich in iron, calcium and protein. I came across this crunchy treat in a book called, "Women and Weight loss Tamasha"- by Rujuta Diwekar. I am a great fan of her work and follow her religiously. A separate post on the diet she suggests(which works wonders), my experiences with that is in my TO DO list and stay tuned for that..:)

Coming back to Makhanas. I find them better than popcorn, full of nutrients and super simple to make.

You will need-:

Phool Makhanas- as many as you want to make.
Desi ghee
Salt
freshly ground black pepper.

Heat desi ghee in kadai/pan , add makhanas to kadai, season them with salt and pepper. On low to medium flame, toss everything together until they gets crunchy.

This is how they will change the color after roasting.

Usually it takes me 6-7 minutes depending on the quantity. If they are not crunchy enough, let them stay in for couple more minutes. Turn off the gas and let them cool. Store them in an airtight container.

Oh..and did I mention?

They have anti-aging properties.

Don't forget to scoop out some for you on a great afternoon..:)

I am sending this recipe to Sweet Karam Kapi and to Rekha's Event.

Enjoy!!!

Flax-Seed Chutney

2011-12-01T13:27:00.001-08:00

What a great way to have your daily source of omega-3, if you include a spoonful of chutney in your dinner!
Flax-seeds - back in India we call these 'Javas'. It's mostly made in winter for it's heat properties. Flax-seeds are also great source of dietary fiber.
It is a dry chutney. This is the quickest chutney I have ever made. Here is all you need-:

Organic sprouted ground flax-seed
Garlic cloves
Red chilly powder
Salt to taste
A pinch of sugar.

Chop the garlic in to 2- 3 pieces, and toss everything together into a blender. Grind until powdered. You can enjoy this chutney with any Indian bread. Works very well with any kind of parathas.

You can certainly use the whole flax-seeds and roast them before grinding them in the mixer. But I think using ground flax-seeds gives a nice texture to the chutney and it also saves the time of roasting the seeds.

If you use ground seeds, the chutney hardly takes 2 minutes to get ready. I mean it. TWO minutes only! Try it yourself and let me know..:)

Green Tomato Chutney

2011-11-20T11:29:00.001-08:00

Simple and delicious chutney made from homemade green tomatoes tastes yummy! All you need is 6 simple ingredients to make this super delicious chutney.

Green tomatoes - finely chopped
Garlic - finely chopped
Cumin seeds - half tbsp
Onion - finely chopped.
Salt to taste.
Canola oil for tadka

Heat some oil in a pan. Add cumin seeds when the oil is hot. Once they start sizzling add chopped garlic and let them play around for a minute. Add onion and stir them until they are soft, add chopped green tomatoes. Cover and keep for about 10 minutes keep stirring in between. Once everything becomes soft, add salt as per taste. Add red chilly powder if you want to make it spicy or you can also add chopped green chilly.

Enjoy with hot Indian bread(Roti/ naan) or just use it as a spread over bread. Top it off with Cilantro. You can also use this as a stuffing in to vegetable like bell pepper.

I am sending this recipe to LGSS "Tomato" November 05 to December 05 event. Vatsala of Show and tell has announced this event on her blog. Thanks to both of them for hosting the event.

Modak- A steamed version.

2011-09-01T17:53:00.000-07:00

On the occasion of Ganapati, here is the re-post.

Modak for me is party in itself. These delicious mouth watering traditional Maharashtrian dessert with a drizzle ( and I mean a really spoonful of drizzle) of homemade ghee makes my day more special. Modak preparation is associated with Hindu god 'Ganesha'. Modak is believed to be his favorite food. The cover ( also called Ukad in marathi) is made up of rice flour and filled with coconut and jaggery, topped with hot ghee(sajuk tup) and a couple of strands of saffron is just additional touch.

Making modaks is a hard job. It takes years and years of experience for the perfection.
But there is always a room for improvement so nothing should stop you from trying.

Final product should look something like this-

Here is what you will need-:

For the covering-: (Ukad)

1 cup of rice flour

1 cup of water
A pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of oil.

For the stuffing-:

1 cup of shredded coconut.( Easily available in the frozen section of Indian store)
3/4 cup of Jaggery ( cut in pieces)
Cardamom powder- A pinch
Poppy seeds- 1 teaspoon

For garnish-:

Few strands of saffron
Ghee

This is how you prepare-:

The covering- Ukad

In a sauce pan, heat the water. Add salt, and oil while heating the water. Let the water bubble.

When water bubbles, add the rice flour. Keep mixing well while you add the flour.

Lumps will be formed as you keep stirring the flour and the water mixture. If the mixture gets dry, add a tablespoon of water.

While the mixture is hot take some part of the prepared mixture out, keep rest of the flour covered, so that it won't dry on you.

Using your hands, and some ghee , kneed the dough to a smooth texture.

For the stuffing-:

Mix coconut, jaggery in a sauce pan. Heat the mixture until the jaggery starts to melt. It usually takes about 10-15 minutes on a low flame.Add cardamom powder and poppy seeds.

Putting them together-:

Take a little quantity of the prepared dough in your hands, give that a round shape.

With your fingers, press the dough evenly from all the sides. Flatten the dough keeping it round.

Press the edges with your thumb and the index finger. Press it equidistantly.
Take a spoonful of mixture and stuff it inside the flatten dough you just made.

With the palm and the fingers, and maintaining it's round shape, pull the edges together towards the center.

Join the edges at the top.

For steaming-:

You can use any kind of steamer. I used a soft wet muslin cloth over the colander.

Then I put all the modak's in the colander.

and then placed the colander in to large pot filled with water at the bottom. I used the pan as a steamer.

You can also use idli stand or pressure cooker. Steam the modaks for about 15 minutes.

To prevent modaks from cracking, dip them in water for few seconds and then steam them.

When the modaks gets steamed properly, serve them hot with ghee (sajuk tup). Do not cut down on ghee as the ghee makes the modak more tastier. Garnish with a couple of strands of saffron on each modak.

Here is a picture of hot modak with the steam coming right out of it. I hope you enjoy the recipe as much I did while taking the clicks, and eating as well....:)

Palak Paneer (Cottage cheese in pureed spinach)

2011-08-30T15:26:00.001-07:00

I think Palak Paneer doesn't need a description! So I am going to jump into the ingredients and the recipe.

Ingredients-:

Oh yeah....we need some help from the spices..!!

Oil
Whole garam masala (Cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, bay leaf, black peppercorns- 2 each)
Cumin seeds - 1 tbsp
Garlic- minced -1 big clove
Onions- finely chopped- 1 medium
Ginger Garlic paste- 1 tbsp
Turmeric - a pinch
Tomatoes- 1 medium diced
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Kasuri methi - 1 tsp
green chili - 1 small
Palak (spinach) - A bunch
Paneer- cubed - as much as you like.
Salt

Recipe-:

Wash spinach leaves 3-4 times in water, drain all the water and add leaves to a hot pot of boiling water. To retain the nice green color of the spinach, boil the leaves only for 2-3 minutes, drain them and keep aside.Do not throw the water. You can use the water for the gravy.
Blend the boiled leaves into a blender and make them into nice puree. Keep aside.
Heat oil in a pan. Add whole garam masala . Saute for a minute.
Add cumin seeds and as they start spluttering, add chopped garlic.
After the raw smell of garlic goes away, add chopped onions, salt and saute them well until onion changes it's color. This takes about 4-5 minutes on a medium flame or sometimes even more. Be patient.
Add ginger garlic paste. Saute couple more minutes and add turmeric powder.
Add tomatoes, and saute until they become soft and oil starts to separate from them. Be patient..:)
Add cumin powder, chili powder and kasuri methi. Mix well.
Add green chili if you want a spicier version.
Add pureed spinach and mix, add salt as per taste. Bring the mixture to a boil, add water that you kept aside and make it to a consistency you like.
Add paneer cubes and let it come to a boil again. Turn off the stove.

Remember, this preparation takes time. It only tastes better, if you take time for every step and keep your patience.

Palak paneer goes along very well with Roti, rice, paratha, or bread.

Oh.. and did I mention?

Palak being rich in iron and paneer being rich in calcium, gives this dish a great nutritional boost.

In case, If you are wondering, that's the bay leaf. Don't eat that.... :)

I am sending this to Sweet Heat challenge hosted by Food and Football and Baby.

Enjoy!!!

Peanut- Garlic Chutney

2011-08-09T14:07:00.001-07:00

Peanut- Garlic Chutney
(Note- Those red chilies are just to add the brightness in the picture- don't eat them just like that..:)))

After I wrote Red chard (pale bhaji) post, I could not wait to try some kind of chutney. I made this nice blend of peanuts and garlic with shredded coconut ,red chillies, salt, sugar and a hint of tamarind. It is the best chutney I have ever made. Hope you like it too.

Here are the ingredients-:

Peanuts- 1/4 cup
Garlic cloves- 4 big
Dry coconut- shredded - 1/4 cup
1 red chili
Tamarind- add as per your taste, I added couple of small pieces of deseeded tamarind
Salt to taste
sugar to taste.

You can certainly change the quantity of red chili and garlic as much as you like. That will only make it spicier or milder depending on whether you increase or decrease the quantity. I wanted a medium version, so I only used 1 red chilly and 4 cloves of garlic.

Dry roast shredded coconut, peanuts, garlic cloves and red chili separately and then add them into a blender. Add salt, sugar and tamarind. Grind everything very well. Give it a stir in between and grind again. Grind the mixture to a consistency as seen in the picture above.

Store in an airtight container. Enjoy with paratha/ scallion pancakes, roti, bhakari, or rice. Or simply just layer the chutney along with Desi ghee( tup) on a slice of whole grain bread for the breakfast. Good mix of protein (Peanuts) ,good carbs (Whole grain bread) and good fat (Desi ghee) to kick off your day..:)

Have fun.:)

Goodies from Remlinger Farms, Seattle

2011-08-06T20:21:00.000-07:00

We Had a great day at Remlinger Farms today. It's a very happening place for the kids. I enjoyed our time in hay maze and hay jump and the marketplace which was full of fresh produce along with different spices and syrups, toys for kids and such.
I bought a bottle of plain queen olives and a packet of 17 bean soup mix. I am very excited about the 17 bean soup mix..:) Can't wait to try..:)

Here is a pic-:

17 bean soup mix and Plain Queen Olive

Red Chard (Palebhaji)

2011-08-03T20:39:00.002-07:00

Are these beautiful greens missing from your diet? The way to get them on your plate is easier than you think.

Here is what you will need-:

Red Chard chopped- A bunch.
Chopped Onions- 1 medium
Chopped tomato- 1 medium
Minced Garlic- 3 large cloves
Salt to taste
Turmeric powder
Red chili powder
Peanut oil/ canola oil
Cumin seeds
Mustard seeds

Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard and cumin seeds. Wait until they splutter. Add garlic, saute them until the raw smell of garlic goes away. Then add onions, saute them for 2-3 minutes and add turmeric powder .Add tomatoes. Saute tomatoes until soft. Time to add the red chard. mix well. Cover with lid, and let it cook for about 5- 7minutes or so. The leaves should start wilting down. Add red chili powder and salt to taste. Mix well and add a pinch of sugar, just to bring out all the good flavors. Cover and cook few more minutes if needed.
Ready to indulge..:)

Usually leafy vegetables do not take much time to cook, so watch out, make sure you don't overcook. Overcooking takes away all the nutrients that these colorful leaves have in them. So enjoy this homemade goodness of red chard with a bhakri/ chapati (poli) . You can also stuff the vegetable inside the bread and make a sandwich if you like.

Sauteed Red Chard with Jowar Bhakri

I usually use spinach in place of red chard. Using red chard is just a variation I came up with, and it turned out to be a great one...:)

Blogoversary!!

2011-06-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

My blog is 3 years old Today!!!! Yipeeeeee :)

Looking forward to the next year..:)

Baked sweet potato fries

2011-03-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

Delicious evening snack for my little one! Sweet potato, cut in to wedges and roasted in the oven to the perfection!

Here is my little bunny, all ready with the sweet potato.

Ingredients-:

Sweet Potato
Olive Oil
Salt

Skin the sweet potato and cut it in to wedges. Make the wedges thin if you want the fries to be crispy. Thick wedges does not get the crunch that is usually expected from the fries. I make them thick so that they are easier on the little teeth.

Line a baking pan with the aluminium foil and spread some Olive oil on the foil. They need a very little oil. Arrange the wedges on the foil and sprinkle salt. Toss them together.You can also season them with other spices as per your taste like, pepper, basil, oregano, cumin powder, garlic powder, red chili powder etc.

Preheat the oven to 375° F. Roast the wedges for about 25 minutes. Turn them over after 15 minutes.
Enjoy..:)

Soya starter

2011-01-18T16:04:00.001-08:00

Back to back recipe of Soya as a main ingredient! I just love it's versatility, and the meaty texture.
It's a great appetizer recipe, needless to say healthy. Throw in any veggies you have on hand. I am sure it will taste just as delicious. Read on for few simple ingredients with few simple steps.

Ingredients-:
Soya chunks- A handful
Green and red bell peppers- cut lengthwise
Onion- sliced
Green onion- white part
Green onion- couple of springs, green part only
Soy sauce- 2 tsp
Hot and sour sauce - 2 tsp
salt to taste.

This is how you do it-:

Boil the salted water and add the soy chunks. Let them play around for about 10-15 minutes. Drain, give them a squeeze and set aside.
Add some olive oil in to the pan, and add sliced onions and the white part of the green onions, saute them for a minute, then add the bell peppers. Saute for couple more minutes and add the soy chunks along with the sauces.
Season with salt and top them off with green onions.

Soy cutlets/ Soya patties

2011-01-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

Easy to make, yummy to taste, and loaded with proteins! Just right for kids, adults, great for pregnant women, especially vegetarians, who often worry about their protein intake during pregnancy.

Read on for the ingredients and the recipe.

Ingredients-:
Soya Granuals- Couple of handfuls
Cut and boiled vegetables- Carrots, peas, corn, green beans, onions.
Potato- boiled, peeled and mashed- 1 small
Ginger garlic paste- 2 tbsp
red chilly powder
cumin powder
coriander powder
garam masala - about 2 tsp
Salt to taste
Wheat flour- couple of tbsp for binding
Breadcrumbs- whole wheat
olive oil for shallow frying.

Recipe-:
Boil the granules in the salted water for 3-4 minutes. Drain the water and set the granuals aside.
Mix all veggies, mashed potato, ginger garlic paste, red chilly powder, cumin and coriander powder, salt as per taste in to the soya granules. Add the wheat flour just enough to bind everything together and make round shaped patties out of it.

Cover the patties with the breadcrumbs, and shallow fry them over the non-stick skillet on a medium heat, until they are golden brown in color.

Serve with your favorite chutney or just tomato ketchup / sauce.

Yumm.........:)

Blueberry Smoothie

2010-12-24T19:46:00.000-08:00

Holidays are in the air. Everyone is talking about cookies and cakes, pies and puddings, roasted turkey and roasted veggies!

Let me share with you my recent favorite dessert, which you might prefer this holiday, if you are on a weight loss spree like me.

Less ingredients, less calories, and super easy to make. It takes less than 10 minutes. It's a great choice to include in your breakfast.

All you need is-:

Frozen whole blueberries - 1/2 cup
1% milk/ soy milk - about 2 cups
Non-fat yogurt- 1/4 cup
honey - to taste

Mix all above in a grinder and beat to a smooth consistency. That's it. Pour in to the glasses and enjoy!!

oh.... and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Scallion / Spring onions/ green onion pancakes with guacamole dip

2010-12-15T10:45:00.006-08:00

I was being really lazy to post this one. This one was made sometime in September.

Scallions/ green onions/spring onions are not a common item in my grocery shopping. We went to the Pike Place Market, and found a big bunch of scallions just for a couple of bucks. Grabbed them immediately..:)

Scallion Pancakes

The recipe I followed- http://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2010/07/scallion-pancakes.html

I made some changes in the dough. First off, I used whole grain wheat flour instead of all purpose and I added some Indian spices in the dough to make it more tastier.

Using the wheat, I think affects the elasticity, all purpose might have made them taste better and why not!!

So here is what I used to make these tempting pancakes-:

whole grain wheat flour
cumin powder
chili powder
turmeric powder
Ajwain seeds
salt
canola oil
warm water to kneed the dough
and lots of chopped scallions.

Just eyeballed the ingredients.

Kneaded the dough with warm water and all the spices, with salt and some oil. Dividing them into small balls, rolled them, sprinkled the scallions and rolled them again to make nice round shapes. Shallow fried them over the stove top on a skillet. Served hot with homemade guacamole dip.

Here is the procedure with the step - by- step pictures. Hope it helps.

Guacamole dip

Avocados
Cumin Powder
Lemon
Salt
Cilantro spring

Cut the avocados in to cubes, add salt, cumin powder, chopped cilantro, and then squeeze some lemon juice on top. Mash the avocados and mix everything together.

I didn't add garlic and tomatoes, which traditional recipe usually asks for. I thought I will keep it simple. It still tasted great.
Make the wedges out of pancakes and use the guacamole as a dip or simply eat it like paratha with guacamole as a chutney. So try this great combination and leave a comment if you like it.

I am sending this entry to Only Greens Event hosted by Sara's Corner and Foodelicious. What a great event!

Rice with soy chunks

2010-12-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

One more healthy yet tasty post!!
No specifics, it's a very versatile rice preparation, which gives enormous opportunities to your creativity. I made just some additions to the the traditional jeera rice and came up with the name Rice with soy chunks.
Soy chunks being extremely nutritious and meaty in texture is a good substitute for someone who wants to shift to a vegetarian diet.

This is what you will need-:

Mushrooms

Diced ginger

Diced green bell pepper

Scallions

Soy Chunks

Oh... and Cumin seeds..and olive oil ...and rice....a picture of which is I think waste of space..:P

Heat some Olive oil in a pan and add cumin seeds. As they splutter, add ginger, saute for a minute and then add mushrooms. The washed rice goes next, saute for another couple minutes and add the water. The rice, water proportion is 1:2. Bring water to a boil and then lower down the heat to low, add the salt and let it simmer for about 10-12 minutes. Keep checking in between. Time to add the cooked soy chunks (cook the soy chunks by adding some water and salt and boiling the soy chunks for about 10 minutes, squeeze the excess water and drain the chunks) and the scallions. No need to cook the scallions. Turn the heat off as soon as you mix everything together.

This is the end result-:

Give it a try and let me know...:)

Kale and Chickpea (garbanzo beans) stew

2010-09-09T16:09:00.001-07:00

My palate recently found that one of delicious tasting greens is Kale. Kale has a tremendous nutritional value. I steam kale at least twice a week because it's a very easy preparation and it has great cholesterol lowering benefits. I am going to reserve steamed kale as one of my future posts. Let me move on with Kale and chickpea stew.

Stews are my all time favorite. This one in particular, has veggies, protein, fiber and carbs all in one pot. It takes less than 30 minutes to prepare, if you happened to have canned chickpeas on hand.

Makes 4 servings (and by 4, I mean really big servings.)

You are going to need :

3/4 bunch of kale
1 1/2 cups of chickpeas/garbanzo beans (soaked overnight, pressure cooked to 3 whistles next morning or a canned variety would work just fine)
EVOO- about 1 tbsp

Vegetables-

Add any veggies you want and in whatever quantities you like. I always make stews when I want to empty my refrigerator. I almost put everything in there. Saturdays are usually planned for stews, because it's a farmers market day. I clean my refrigerator in order to have room for some fresh produce.

So coming back to the stew.

Here is a sample of veggies that I added for this stew.

Tomatoes

Mushrooms

Celery

Onions

Green Bell peppers

Spring Onions

Potato

Carrots

garlic-4 to 5 cloves

Ginger - few chopped pieces

Seasoning

   Freshly ground black pepper,
   Italian seasoning,
   cumin powder,
   coriander powder,
   crushed red chilli flakes
   Salt to taste.

Juice of half of lemon and a lemon wedge for garnishing.

Add EVOO to a big pot, and stir in garlic and onions. Add mushroom and tomatoes and sauté them for a couple of minutes. After this point, add all the veggies one by one. The vegetable that takes longer time to cook will go in first, of course. Add dash of water in between, if you think the veggies are becoming too dry. Cook them for about 5 minutes and then add the chickpeas and then the chopped kale. Add seasonings as per your taste. At this point add black pepper, Italian seasoning, cumin powder, coriander powder, crushed red chilli flakes and last but not the least add some chopped ginger to the pot for some heat. Add salt to taste.

Add water to the desired consistency. Bring everything to a nice boil and let it simmer for 15- 20 minutes. The longer it sits the better it tastes. Add some lemon juice at the last minute to enhance the flavor. Since I am trying to cut down on grains, this is a perfect stew for me, because it doesn't really need any bread on side. The heartiness from the chickpeas makes the trick..:)

Serve it with a lemon wedge.
Enjoy..:)

Baked Mung (mugachi / Yellow Split lentil dumplings) Bhaji

2010-09-03T14:55:00.003-07:00

In Seattle, it rains half of the time of the year, and the remaining half is covered with clouds. Although I don't have any complaints, as I am the one who don't like the Calif weather at all.. Too much sunshine for me..:) I am better off with less sunlight and so this is perfect for me, except I definitely crave for a cup of hot tea and some bhajis to enjoy this kind of weather to the fullest.

It's been more than a couple of years that I gave up on the traditional Indian black tea for hot Green tea, simply for it's enormous benefits. I don't crave for black tea anymore. Speaking about bhajjis, as much as I want to have deep fried bhajis that tastes delicious, I feel guilty about eating them for next few days. In order to avoid this guilt forever, I came up with baked bhajis.

Traditionally, a hot black tea goes well with onion bhajis. I tried making Moong bhanjis, just because I was cravings for them. Mung daal in itself has so many wonderful benefits. Why not include mung daal in to your diet on a regular basis?

All you need is:-

Soaked Mung daal- 1 cup
Ginger- 1/2 inch
Garlic- 2 to 3 cloves
Green chillies- 1to 2 depending on how hot they are.
Cumin seeds- A pinch, just for flavor
Cilantro- chopped.
EVOO
Salt to taste

Soak the mung daal in water for about 4 hours. Drain all the water and grind the daal. Do not make it too smooth, leave it a little bite coarser. Make a past out of ginger, garlic, green chillies and cumin seeds in to a mortar and pestle( khalbatta in marathi). Mix the paste in to the mung daal batter. Add the chopped cilantro. Mix well. Grease a baking sheet with EVOO and spoon the batter on to the sheet. Toss some EVOO on top.

Bake the oven to 375F and bake these little buddies for about 20 minutes. Less or more time might be required as per your oven. Turn them once and bake for 5-10 minutes. They should be golden brown in color.

Just like these-:

Enjoy them with your favorite dipping sauce or just with a cup of tea (Green Tea??)

Oh... and I am sending this recipe to My Legume Love Affair 27, hosted by The Well Seasoned Cook. I love MLLA event and as always it is so much fun to enter in to.Thanks Susan for hosting.

Back with Sesame Tofu!!

2010-08-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

A big hello to everyone! Posting after almost 6 months. My apologies!!!

These days I have been trying to eat more healthy, nutritious food for the only reason to be more fit and healthy. My blog as a result, needs some changes in order to be in sync with my eating habits. Cravings is all about what I experiment with food. I have decided to make Cravings a health food blog. I strongly believe that healthy and nutritious food doesn't have to be boring. You can make it interesting by using your endless creative ideas.

I am going to start off with some sesame tofu which was Friday night's dinner.

It was a stir fry with vegetables and I served it over brown rice. So forget about the Chinese takeout/delivery which probably has more oil in it. Instead cook yourself a great sesame tofu. This way you can control the ingredients going in. Way more healthy and thoughtful than just ordering it over the phone.Gives you a great feeling of doing something good for you.

Ingredients I used-:

Firm tofu 8 oz- drained and pressed to remove excess water.
Low sodium Soy Sauce- 1tbsp
Olive oil- 1 tbsp
Garlic - 2 cloves
Ginger- about 1/2 inch
Vegetables - whatever veggies you have on hand, which suits stir fry.
Sesame seeds- about 1/2 tbsp

For the marinade-
Low sodium Soy sauce
Teriyaki sauce- just a dash
Black Pepper
Salt.
Red pepper flakes

Tofu is really like a sponge, you can be absolutely creative when it comes to marination. It will be delicious. I marinated it with some soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, black pepper, and some salt for about half an hour. The longer it sits the better it is absorbed.

I pan fried tofu with some olive oil in a non- stick pan. You can use wok if you happened to have one.
It took about 15 minutes on a medium flame to cook tofu completely and had that brown chewy texture outside and softer inside. Then I added chopped garlic in to the same pan. After a minute, I added the Soy sauce and the vegetables. Saute everything for 3-4 minutes. Do not overcook the veggies. It should have it's crunch. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds. Turn off the heat and serve it as a side dish with Brown rice or whole wheat pasta. You can also serve it with couscous or the great Quinoa.

It is delicious and healthy with the protein packed tofu and the goodness of all the vegetables in it. Soy sauce and teriyaki marinade gives the dish great taste, and the sesame seeds add a nutty taste. All in all, a good weeknight dinner in very less time....:)

Enjoy..:)

Brown Rice- WHFoods
Nutrition Facts

Tofu- Nutrion facts

Four entries to Pasta Party event

2010-02-19T17:23:00.001-08:00

Jo from Panch pakwan is hosting a Pasta Party. Few recipes I posted in the past are ready to dive in to the event. Re-posting the links here. Thanks Jo for hosting such a wonderful event with a wonderful logo!

Pasta with roasted vegetables
http://manaliscravings.blogspot.com/2009/12/baked-pasta-with-roasted-vegetables.html

Asparagus Pesto pasta
http://manaliscravings.blogspot.com/2009/08/asparagus-pesto-pasta-with-sundried.html

Sun dried tomato pasta
http://manaliscravings.blogspot.com/2008/12/hhdd-24-pesto-another-entry-for-round.html

Simple yet tasty pasta
http://manaliscravings.blogspot.com/2008/08/really-simple-pasta.html

Steamed Spinach Diamonds

2010-02-09T16:01:00.000-08:00

A quick healthy snack, a healthy version of traditional dhokla. Mixture of soaked rice, soaked urad dal, cooked rice and fenugreek seeds steamed to perfection. Add the spinach before steaming. Enjoy with tomato ketchup or mint chutney/ tamarind chutney.

1 cup of rice
4tbsp urad dal
1/4th cup cooked rice
1 tsp fenugreek seeds

Soak the rice and the urad dal for about 6-7 hours. Mix the fenugreek seeds in to the dal before soaking. After 7 hours, grind the mixture and let it ferment for about15-16 hours. Less or more time is required as per the weather. After the mixture gets fermented well, add the shredded spinach , salt to taste and pour the mixture in to the container and steam for about 15-20 minutes. You can also add jeera (cumin seeds) or ajwain before steaming the diamonds. Cut them in to diamond shapes and serve hot with any kind of chutney you like.

Baked Vegetable Spring Rolls

2010-02-01T16:06:00.000-08:00

Now a days, I want everything baked. I love spring rolls, can't eat them often as they are always fried when you order them in any restaurant. I decided to try the baked version instead and loved it. It isn't as crisp as a fried version, still it satisfies my Craving for it.

Roadmap-:
Shreded cabbage, carrots, green beans, spring onions, and rice noodles. Saute everything in a sauce pan with corn flour mixed in a water and a dab of soy sauce. Season it with a pinch of salt. Wrap the mixture in a egg roll, and roll to make spring rolls.

You will need:-

Thinly sliced cabbage
Thinly sliced carrots
Thinly sliced green beans
Thinly sliced green bell pepper (capsicum)
Spring onions- cut in pieces
Ginger thinly sliced
rice noodle- soaked in water, ready to go in.
Soy Sauce- 2-3 tbsp
Corn Flour mixed in water
Egg roll wraps ( you can also use spring roll wrappers)
Some olive oil
Canola oil

For dipping sauce-

Say sauce
tomato chilli sauce
vinegar

Stuffing-:

In a pan, heat some olive oil and add the ginger. Add thinly sliced veggies except spring onions to it and over the low to medium heat saute everything for a minute.

NOTE-The key here is not to cook the veggies completely it should have a nice crunch to it. Also keep in mind that, these rolls are going to cook in the oven even further. So keep them on the stove top for not more than 4-5 minutes.

Add the soy sauce and the cornflour mixed in water to the veggies. mix everything well. Season it with some salt and black pepper. Keep in mind that the soy sauce also contains salt.
Add the spring onions that we kept aside.
Take the mixture off the heat.

Putting everything together-:

Before we start putting everything together, preheat the oven to 375 F.
Place one of the egg roll wrapper on a plate.
Take a spoonful of stuffing and place it in the middle of the wrapper.

Fold the lower corner, as shown in the picture.

Fold the wrapper from both the sides, refer to the picture.

Apply a dab of water on both the sides so that the edges will stick nicely preventing the stuffing from coming out.
Roll the spring roll from bottom to top. Put required pressure to seal the deal....:)
Brush both the sides of the spring rolls with some canola oil. Prepare the rest of the spring rolls the same way.
Spray the baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray and place all the spring rolls on it.

Bake them for about 15 minutes and then turn them once. Bake for another 10 and they should be done.

They will be golden brown on outside due to the canola oil and the vegetables should have nice crunch inside.

For the dipping sauce-: I love mint chutney as dipping, but you can also mix some soy sauce tomato chilli sauce and very little vinegar as a dipping sauce. Just eyeball everything as per your taste.

Enjoy-:

Semolina(Rava) coconut ladoo/laddu

2010-01-13T16:01:00.002-08:00

Ladoo is an Indian sweet. Ladoos are usually made up of gram flour or semolina (rava), wheat flakes or many different flours. It's usually made for the weddings or special occasions. Also made for Diwali, an special Indian festival.
I am not a big fan of sweets. Although I love ladoos made up of combination of semolina and fresh shredded coconut. As my mom is here, I was able to take some really good clicks while she was preparing the ladoos.

According to me ladoo preparation is an art. You can master the skill over the period of time. BTW That's my next 5 years goal....:)

Roadmap
Let me just roadmap the recipe. Roast the rava(semolina) and add shredded coconut to it. Prepare the sugar syrup and add the roasted mixture of coconut and semolina to the sugar syrup. Let it rest for a while, and then shape them round.

Here is what this ladoo needs-:

Semolina- 4 cups
Grated fresh/frozen coconut- 1 cup
Ghee/clarified butter- 4-5 tbsp
Cardamom powder- a pinch
Saffron- few strands
Raisins- one for each ladoo
Almonds-Cut in to small pieces.

For sugar syrup-:

Water- 1 and half cups
Sugar- 3 cups

This is how you prepare the tasty ladoos-:

In a sauce pan, heat the ghee on a low to medium heat. Roast the semolina for about 15 minutes. Add the grated fresh/ frozen coconut. Continue roasting for 5 more minutes.

The prepared mixture of roasted semolina and coconut, topped with raisins and almonds.

In a separate pan, mix the water and the sugar and prepare the simple sugar syrup. When the water bubbles, keep the heat on for about 5-7 minutes. In marathi, we call it an Ektari paak. Add cardamom powder and the saffron strands to the sugar syrup.
Add the mixture to the prepared sugar syrup.
Let it rest for 10 minutes. Mix it well.
Make sure not to keep until the mixture gets too dry. The right consistency is, it should not be too dry not too liquid like.

A Special Touch Tip:

If you feel the mixture gets dry, add 2 tbsp of milk to the mixture and mix again.

Take some mixture in to your hands.

With your hands, roll the mixture and make round shapes. Keep rolling and pressing with your hands as the pictures below.

Make them to the size you wish. I like to make medium sized ladoos. Use a raisin and some almond pieces per ladoo.

ENJOY!!!

Baked pasta with roasted vegetables

2009-12-31T12:57:00.000-08:00

I love Italian food. What I absolutely love about this pasta is it's delicious roasted flavor combined with marinara and combination of 2 cheeses!! The combination makes wonder. You just have to try it out to believe.

I used Penne and all the vegetables I had including onion, red pepper, zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms.

Cook the pasta less than al dente- I cooked it for 6 minutes, because it's going to finish it's cooking later in to the oven. Salt the water in which you are cooking the pasta.

Chop all the veggies and spread them on a baking pan which is lined with an aluminium foil. Season the veggies with salt and pepper and some olive oil. Mix well and arrange in a single layer.

Set the oven to 400F and roast the veggies for about 15 minutes.

In a bowl mix the cooked pasta, all the roasted veggies and marinara sauce. Fold in the cheeses. I used smoked mozzarella for it's smoky flavor and Parmesan for the beautiful crust.

Spread the mixture in a baking pan and bake for about 25 minutes or until the cheese melts and forms a nice golden crust on top.

Asparagus Soup- A slow cooker/crock-pot wonder

2009-12-29T11:27:00.002-08:00

This is the first time I used slow cooker for making this healthful soup. And now that I have used it once I am kind of addicted to use it over and over. Slow cooker is such a convenient invention, that it gives you ease of preparing your food while you are away the whole day/ sleeping the whole night. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Preparing the soup is such a simple task, all you have to do is gather the ingredients.

chop them.

and throw them in to the slow cooker, with vegetable stock/vegetable broth. I used vegetable stock. Also add salt and pepper to taste. Keep in mind that the vegetable stock also contains salt.

Set the cooker to low for about 7-9 hours, or high for about 5-6 hours. I set it on high for 5 hours, just until the potatoes are tender.

Let the mixture cool for an hour and then use the blender/mixer to blend it in to a soup like consistency.

Return the mixture to the slow cooker add the milk or half an half. Using milk or half and half is totally optional. As per my experience, using it is a wise decision, as it will make the soup creamy and thick. Set on a low for about 45 minutes, and then set the cooker on warm until you are ready to eat.

Ladle the soup in to a bowl. I garnished the soup with a dollop of cream cheese, shaved red pepper and asparagus spears that I kept aside.

Enjoy!!!

Coming up: Baked pasta with roasted vegetables

Tasty Triangles and Savory Ribbons!!

2009-12-22T12:53:00.012-08:00

Only one dough makes these two tasty snacks!! It's a great time saver for parties. You will be able to do more in less time. The dough is made up of all purpose flour, Ajwain seeds, salt, which makes savory ribbons,and the same dough with a few more ingredients added makes tasty triangles. Both the items are good for a picnic, you can just make them beforehand and just store them in the airtight container and you are ready to go....:)

Savory Ribbons:-

Ingredients you are going to need-:

All purpose flour- 1 cup
Cumin seeds- 1 tbsp
ajwain seeds- 1 tsp
Salt - to taste
water- to kneed the dough
oil- 2 tbsp(heated)
oil- for frying.

Preparation:-

Mix the flour, salt, ajwain seeds, cumin seeds, and heated oil together.

With your hands, mix the dough so that the oil gets into the dough very well.
Add the water as much needed to kneed the dough.
Make the dough t0 the medium consistency.

With the rolling pin, roll the dough to make it into a thin round.
With the help of the round cutter, cut the round, in to strips. Cut them so that they will be 2-3 inches long.

Cut them again into half if needed.

Deep fry them in the oil.

Tasty Triangles:-

As I mentioned above one dough makes both snacks. Only ingredient we are going to add while making these triangles is the cornflour mixed with 1 tsp of oil/ clarified butter/ ghee.

Preparation-:

Follow all the steps in the ribbons recipe up to rolling the dough and making it round.
After you make a round shape, spread the cornflour mixed with 1 tsp of butter/ oil.

Fold the round in to a half and again in to a half, so as to make a triangle.Apply cornflour at every fold.

Press the triangle slightly with the rolling pin, so that all the layers get close to each other.

Heat the oil and let the triangles swim in to the hot tub!

Try to separate the layers while they are swimming in the hot tub.

Nice layers will be formed, and you will see the color changing that's when you know that they are ready for you.

Let them swim for a while.

And they are ready!

These yummy snacks are great themselves or they taste even better with the mint chutney/ tamarind chutney!!

Coming up: Asparagus Soup-A slow cooker wonder!!

Crispy Rice Fingers

2009-12-15T13:20:00.005-08:00

Fried snack is always fun!! These crispy rice fingers are absolutely delicious, crunchy snack , goes very well with Indian chai..:) Kids love this finger food. It's a great snack item for the party, especially because it doesn't have to be hot while serving. You can prepare it a day or even a week before the party, and store it in an airtight container and you are ready to go...:)

Here is what you will need-:

Rice flour- 1 cup

Ajwain seeds - 1 tbsp
Milk - as much as you need to kneed the dough.
Salt- as per your taste.
Oil- Heated oil, 1 tbsp.
Oil- For frying.

This is how you prepare it-:

Mix the flour ,ajwain seeds, salt together. Mix it well.

Add 1 tbsp of heated oil into the mixture.

Add the milk as much as you need to kneed the dough. Make sure that the dough is neither too tight nor too soft. It should be of medium consistency.

Rest the dough for half an hour before you give them a shape.
Take a little portion of the dough in to your hands and roll the dough to make them like the shape of your fingers.

Deep fry them in the oil.

And the rice fingers are ready!!

You can change the shape and make them round or shape them like a drop of water. (refer to the picture below).

Courtesy: Wikipedia.

When you shape them like the picture above, it's called kadboli. Kadboli is a savory snack prepared in Maharashtra, India. Traditionally kadboli's are made up of a flour mixture of chana, urad dal,rice,moong and cumin seeds.

Enjoy!!

Coming up: Tasty triangles and savory ribbons!!!

Suralichi Wadi (Khandavi)

2009-10-27T16:54:00.002-07:00

In Maharashtra it is known as Suralichi wadi, In Gujrat it is known as Khandavi. It is one of my favourite snacking items. Just like any other Indian recipe, this one needs special efforts. After you are done making these delicious rolls, the clean up is a big task. But these yummy snack will make all the efforts worth. That's my promise!! Give it a try....:)

I wasn't very comfortable trying this recipe on my own, because it does require some skills. And now that my mom is here, I tried this one for the potluck we had last Friday in my community. As expected it was a big hit.

You will need:-

1 cup besan/gram flour

1 tbsp Maida/all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

a pinch of turmeric

Small green chilly crushed

1 clove of garlic crushed

3/4 cup buttermilk (sour)

2 cups water

For tadka-:

2-3 tbsp oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp Cumin seeds

1 tsp Asafoetida

prepare this tadka and keep it ready beforehand.

For garnishing-:

Shredded coconut

Finely chopped Coriander/ cilantro

This is how you do it:-

Mix besan, maida, salt, turmeric crushed chilly and garlic.
Mix water, sour buttermilk and all the mixture in the step 1. Mix everything well so that no lumps are formed.
After everything gets mixed up well, place the mixture in a saute pan on the heat. Keep the heat low.
Keep mixing everything continuously while it is on the heat. Continuous mixing is the key here.
Keep mixing until it starts to come together as shown in the picture.
Cover it with the lid with very low heat for about a minute. Mix again and repeat 2-3 times.
Now its time to spread the dough. Keep the baking pans/steel plates ready. Spray them with non-stick cooking spray.
Keeping the pan on the stove top, take a little part of dough and spread it on to the baking pan with your hands. Try to spread it evenly, and in thin layers.
Similarly spread the rest of the dough on to the baking pans and steel plates while the dough is hot. Once the dough gets cold, you won't be able to spread the dough. It's critical to spread when it's hot.
Once you coat every plate with the dough it's time to make vertical lines on the spreaded dough, so that you can roll the wadi's.
Sprinkle the cilantro and the shredded coconut on to the plates before you start rolling the wadi's.
Slowly start to roll the wadi's from one end. Cut it in middle if necessary to keep all wadi's of one size.
Arrange them all nicely and top them off with extra cilantro and coconut. Finish it off with tadka that you made and kept ready beforehand.

Khajur Barfi (Date Rolls)

2009-09-10T13:41:00.002-07:00

Nowadays, I get hungry all the time. I have to admit that I need something to munch on almost 24 hours a day. Just because, I am allowed to eat anything I want, I should not allow myself to indulge in unhealthy food. That's why I am always on a lookout for a healthy snack that I can prepare beforehand and then just save it for later.

Khajur Barfi is one of them. I am not a huge fan of khajur, so adding khajur to my daily diet wasn't really an easy task for me until I hit this recipe. This is really fun to make, with very less efforts and a big satisfaction of doing something good to yourself.

Khajur, as you all know, known as dates and has tons of nutritional value to it. Take a look at this and let me know if you can read the whole chart in one sitting. voooooooooffffff!!! I gave up!!

Benefits of this great fruit.

Photo Courtesy: http://theloft-sasha.blogspot.com/

In this recipe, I am not going to add any sugar, or milk or any fat. Dates themselves are very sweet in taste and that's what makes this recipe even healthier.

There are really only 3 ingredients in this barfi-:

Khajur-(Dates)- pitted chopped roughly-2 cups

Desi Ghee-(clarified butter)- about 3 tbsp

cashews and almonds- chopped/sliced

Procedure is very simple.

Heat the ghee in the pan, and add the chopped pitted dates to it.

over low to medium flame, keep stirring constantly.
Keep stirring until the dates are soften.
Take a baking sheet, or a flat tray or a cutting board on which you can spread the dates.
Spread the dates mixture and press it down.
Sprinkle the chopped/ sliced almonds and cashews when the date mixture is hot.
Press them down, so that they can stick to the dates. You can use a spatula or just any glass bowl to press them down.

Wait until it cools down to handle, and then cut and make them in to rolls or any shape you like.
You can store these lovely bite size rolls for about 15-20 days.

Asparagus Pesto Pasta with Sundried Tomatoes

2009-08-03T07:18:00.002-07:00

This one was surely my pantry clean-off. I had a bunch of pencil asparagus in my refrigerator that I wanted to use in something other than making asparagus soup. I decided to go with pesto. Great thing I love about the pesto is, you really just toss a few basic ingredients in to the food processor and just grind them while adding olive oil in to it. It's simple and gives a lot of flavour and richness to your pasta.

The basic ingredients for making any pesto are:-

Any herbs/ greens like basil, parsley,spinach, coriander/ cilantro
Any kind of nuts like almonds, pistachios, walnuts, pine nuts
Olive oil, cant make pesto without olive oil
Garlic cloves- for the beautiful aroma
Cheese- most of the times I use Parmesan just because pesto holds it better than any other cheese.
Salt and pepper

I said it was my pantry clean off, so I used-:

Asparagus - which was sitting in my refrigerator. A bunch of that.
Walnuts- a handful of that.
Sun dried tomatoes- I always have them on my hand, just because I like them. 4-5 numbers.
Olive oil
Garlic cloves- I can't imagine pasta without garlic...:) 2-3 big cloves
Parmesan cheese- A half of a handful in pesto and rest of the half to top the pasta when it gets ready.
Lumachine pasta - which is a salad pasta. I toss it in soups/ salads usually. This was the only one left in my pantry.

Salt and pepper

I reserved a cup of a starchy water while I was cooking the pasta and added that to the pesto just to make the pesto a little bit thinner. This makes the pasta to get coated evenly when you mix it with pesto. You can certainly use vegetable stock/ chicken stock or just old plain water. Stock just gives it a little more taste.

Asparagus has tons of benefits to your health. Here are few links:-

Nutritional facts about asparagus

Everything about asparagus

Here is how I made my asparagus pesto:-

I cut the asparagus in an inch or 2 inch pieces and added them in the boiling water for about3-4 minutes.
Just when they were tender enough to grind, I would say half cooked, I turned off the heat drained them and kept aside.
I toasted the walnuts in a pan for about 2/3 minutes, just so that they develop the flavour
Then I added asparagus, walnuts, garlic cloves, Parmesan cheese( shredded/grated), salt and pepper.
Just to give it a little citrus kick I added juice of half of a lemon and lemon zest.
Grind them together while streaming in olive oil.

In a large pot with enough water, cook the lumachine pasta to Al-Dente. Reserve the starchy liquid to mix with pasta later and drain of the remaining.

Mix the starchy liquid with the pesto and toss it over the pasta, mix well so that pasta is coated well with the pesto.

I reserved my sun dried tomatoes to go in last, because I like them in a bite size pieces and not get mashed in the pesto. So chop them and add to the pasta with the remaining handful of Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy with a nice piece of rustic bread or just on it's own.

Eggplant Crispies

2009-07-07T06:05:00.003-07:00

An eggplant is something I don't include in my diet on a regular basis. When I was growing up my mom used to make these eggplant crispies and I used to love it. That was her trick to include an eggplant in our diet.

Some facts about an eggplant:

Picture Courtesy: www.vegparadise.com

In India, eggplant is called brinjal.
Eggplant does not have much of vitamins but it does have nutritional value to it. Eggplant is low in calories and sodium and does provide lots of minerals.
Eggplant also contains phytochemical monoterpene that helps in preventing growth of cancer cell.
The skin of an eggplant is high in dietary fibre which is ideal for weight loss.

Check these out if you want to be friends with eggplant..:)

Coming back to eggplant crispies-:

It's a very simple dish, and you will be surprised how tasty it would turn out. They would have a nice crunch on outside with a bite to the the eggplant inside.

Here is what you will need:

Eggplant slices about 1/4inch of thickness- 7-8 slices

Canola oil- 2-3 tablespoon for shallow frying

Dry Ingredients:-

1/2 cup Chick pea flour

1/4 cup Rice flour

Cumin powder- about 1 teaspoon

Turmeric Powder- 1 pinch

Amchur powder - 1 pinch

Chilly powder to taste

salt to taste

Before you start on the mixing all the dry ingredients, place the eggplant slices in to salted water for about 5-7 minutes.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Heat the griddle on a stove top on a medium flame.
Give a little shake to the the eggplant slices to get rid of excess water and then give them a bath in the mixture.

Coat them from both the sides with the mixture and shake off any of the excess.
Spray some oil on the hot griddle, and place the eggplant on the griddle keeping the heat medium/ medium to high. The eggplant should cook slowly, giving a little brown color on both sides.

Flip on to other side in about 2 minutes.

Add more oil if you want them to be more crispy.
Remove from the griddle and serve.

These eggplant crispies are so good that you can serve them by themselves!

Have Fun!!!

Homemade veggie pizza!!!

2009-06-29T12:00:00.002-07:00

I decided to celebrate my first blogoversary with a homemade veggie pizza. I wanted to keep it simple and I am glad it turned out to be that way.

I was little worried about it. Initially I was thinking of buying a fresh pizza dough from my favourite pizzeria. In the mean time,I searched few recipes online, browsed through some videos and finally decided to make a homemade dough, just to make the whole experience more adventurous......:P

Pizza as we all know a great party food, kids love it too. Ultimate finger food to munch on. So let's not spend more time in discussions, let's just hop on to the recipe along with some step-by-step pictures.

Here is the list of ingredients I used:

1 cup of whole wheat flour
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 package of Active dry yeast (I used FLEISCHMANN'S)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 cup of very warm water
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil ( I used extra virgin olive oil)

Here is how you make the dough:

Take 1/4 of warm water in a bowl and add the yeast in to it. Stir the yeast well until dissolved.

Heads up: The temperature of the water is the key here. Too much hot water will kill the yeast and less than warm temperature will not yield any effect. The perfect temperature is 120° F to 130° F.

Add the remaining 3/4 cup of water in the same bowl with the salt, olive oil and wheat as well as all purpose flour. Mix well. Use your hands to mix and knead the dough.

Add some more flour if you want to make a soft dough.

After making a soft dough keep it in the bowl and cover it with a wet towel.

Keep it covered in a warn place. I kept the bowl over the stove top, that's the place where I usually keep my yogurt to set. Keep it for 60 minutes.
Check after 60 minutes, the dough should have doubled in size.

Punch the dough down , knead it for 3-4 minutes more, coat the dough with some Olive oil and keep it covered again for 30 minutes.

Your dough should be ready in an hour and a half.

Easy right? Not very tough.

Now it's time to prepare the toppings for the pizza. You can really go crazy with the toppings. I love my pizza with all kinds of veggies in the world. One more reason I like homemade pizza is because I can through any veggies I like and I have on hand. When you go out to eat pizza or order a takeout, there are very limited choice of veggies available.

I made this with the following veggies:

Broccoli
Tomatoes
Onions
Asparagus
Green bell pepper
Red bell pepper
Lots of zucchini.....I love it on pizza.

Last but not the least....CHEESE........mozerella. Parmesan will work fine too. I find mozzarella better because it melts well on the pizza.

Time to put everything together:

Set the oven to 475° F.

On a pizza pan sprinkle some cornmeal/ flour . Place the dough on the pan and using your hands just spread the dough over the pan.

Those who love thin crust, make two parts of the dough and take one to spread across. Thick crust lovers can use all the dough.
After spreading the dough, apply the pizza sauce all over the base. I used ready made pizza sauce, you can also make it at home. There are plenty of recipes available online for that.

Next comes the veggies. Spread over all of them on the pizza.

Top the veggies with mozzarella cheese.

Brush the edges of the base with extra virgin olive oil. This will give nice crunchy browned edges after the pizza is done.

Slide the pizza in the preheated oven for about 35 minutes. Make sure that your base is cooked completely.

Pizza will be ready in about 35-to 40 minutes depending on the oven. You will know when the cheese starts to bubble and pizza will have a nice brown color just like this...

Something that I would do different next time-: When I checked my pizza after 35 minutes, I felt that my base wasn't cooked well, so I had to keep it for another 10 minutes or so. It turned out well, but I think it will be better if I prebake the crust next time, just for 5 minutes or so, that will make the pizza bake evenly.

What do you think? I would love to hear your experiences...:)

ohh and don't forget to grab a slice....

Enjoy!!

An entry to No croutons required.

2009-06-19T05:20:00.008-07:00

Hello everyone, here is a small request to all of you out there. If you like my Spinach Soup recipe, then please vote for my recipe at Tinned Tomatoes. The winner will receive a plaque to display on their blog.

I would love to win my first plaque, so if you like my recipe and it's presentation and if you feel it's worth winning the plaque, then please visit Tinned Tomatoes and vote for my recipe. The last day to vote is coming Sunday.

I would appreciate your effort.

Thank you.

After completion of one year of blogging here comes my first entry to the next year's. Well this was posted last year, but the theme of the event is matching to my post, so I am sending the entry to one of my favourites " NO CROUTONS REQUIRED"!!!

This is a monthly food blogging event. This time it is hosted my Lisa's Kitchen. They are looking for a soup or a salad that feature leaves.

I decided to send my spinach soup recipe.

So here you go:

Heat some unsalted butter in the pan, add chopped onions fry for a minute
Add 1 chopped potato to it.
Add half a cup of vegetable stock and and half a cup of 2% reduced fat milk( I used 2 % , you can certainly use whatever you have on hand.) Bring it to a boil. Allow to cook for about 10 minutes on a lowered heat.
Add cut spinach leaves, keeping aside few leaves to add later when you blend the mixture.
Add 2 cups of stock to it. Bring it to boil. Allow to simmer for 10 more minutes with a lid on it.
Allow the mixture to cool down, before you blend that in a mixture.
When you blend the mixture, make sure you add remaining spinach leaves. This will give your soup nice green color.
Return the mixture to the pan heated with little more butter. Heat the mixture, add some salt, sometimes I add crushed cumin seeds that gives nice fresh taste to the soup. But you can skip that. Do not allow the soup to boil. Serve in a nice plate garnished with spinach leaves and some Parmesan shaves or any grated cheese you like.

This is a perfect soup for cold winter weather. Spinach has tons of nutrients, it's a very good source of iron as well. So make a bowl for you and savour the warmth in the cold winter or on a gloomy rainy day.

Enjoy......:)

Blogoversary...yayyyy..:)

2009-06-18T07:55:00.007-07:00

Hurrayyyyyy!!!! Today is the day to celebrate my first blogoversary....:) I wrote my first post on this blog on June 18Th 2008. I was always a total foodie, and with this blog I got my own place to share my experiments with all kinds of food.

In this year I have written 42 posts. I have participated in 8 blog events altogether.

The things I could have done better:

I could have taken some photography classes/tutorials to improve the quality of photos in my blog. Although I did some experiments and I guess I improved over the year.
There is always a room for background materials or should I say presentation materials like plates, decorating stuff.
More and more blog events - There is no end to this. I love blog events and sending entries to them is a a sheer pleasure. I should have participated more.
Some photoshop training might have helped me to play with the images more.

The Things I would like to do in next year:

I would like to be more regular with my posts coming year.
I want to host my own event here on my own blog.
I also want to participate in foodbuzz more actively.
I want to include healthy recipes.
I want my blog to look good.
I should be adding more external links to my blog to make it more resourceful.

The whole year has been an amazing journey. I can't find words to express my feelings towards the blogging community. It means so much to me. I really thank from bottom of my heart to all the bloggers, readers, my friends, my parents, and all those known and unknowns out there who supported me throughout the year.

So what's for the celebration???

Celebration can't be without food. Right? I will be starting this year with a post of a homemade veggie pizza!!!

If you are a first time visitor to my blog, please leave your comments, I would like to know who you are and if you are a regular commenter, thank you very much and I hope you keep coming back. You can grab some cake and enjoy!!!!

Photo by flickr user: serahsonline

Crunchy garbanzo beans!!!

2009-06-12T08:55:00.016-07:00

Some time back I posted toasty edemame. Since then I wanted to try garbanzo beans the same way. When I googled for the same, I found a whole lot of results for my search.

I decided to go by my own instead.

This post is an entry to one of my favorite blog events My legume love affair .

This time the event my legume love affair-twelfth helping is hosted by Annarasa. Here is the lovely badge created by Susan for MLLA-12th helping. This is the second time I am participating in the event.

Making this simple yet crunchy snack is very easy. There is hardly any recipe to follow. All you need to take care about is the temperature of the oven and how long you keep the beans inside the oven.

I started with soaking garbanzo beans in water overnight.

The next morning I pressure cooked the beans with 3 whistles. Added a little bit of oil while cooking the beans to prevent the vent from becoming clogged.

Alternatively these beans can be cooked in a pan, with beans and water as 1:3. When the water comes to bubble, lower the heat and simmer partially covered for half an hour.

You can take a look at the detailed precedure here.

After cooking the beans, I drained them over the colander and dried them with the paper towel.

In a bowl I added following spices for seasoning.

Salt
Chili powder
Cumin powder
Olive oil.

I used everything above as per taste.

In a bowl, toss all the above spices with the garbanzo beans. Mix well and spread them on the baking sheet covered with aluminium foil in a single layer.

You can use any mixture of spices like curry powder, garlic salt, pepper powder, chili flakes, or any dried herbs you like. Adding the salt and olive oil while baking with freshly squeezed lemon juice and a pinch of chaat masala, will do wonders.

If you have used any other combination of spices for the same recipe, I would love to hear from you. Please leave your creative inputs as comments in this post.

Preheat the oven to 425F. In about 25 minutes, crunchy toasty garbanzo beans will be ready for snacking. Just give them a toss after 15 minutes in oven. If you want them to be really crunchy keep them in for a longer time, and if you wish you like them to be chewy, keep them for 20-25 minutes. You can always taste and decide.

This is a very healthy snack for anytime in a day. Store them in a air-tight container. Garbanzo beans are the good source of fibre, Iron. For the nutritional information please visit www.whfoods.com

Enjoy these little babies with a wedge of lemon!!

Thanks people for all the concerns!!!

2009-06-10T14:00:00.003-07:00

It's been more than a month and a half since I have posted anything on my blog. It was a tough time for me to stay away from this part of the my world. Now I am back and I will promise to myself that I will keep my blog updated again.

During this time, many of you e-mailed me, left comments on the entries asking whether I am doing ok, and why not posting anything for such a long. Thank you very much to all the readers and all the concerns you all had for me.

I really thank all of you from bottom of my heart, your concerns made me come back sooner than I probably would have.

Thanks once again.

Coconut Delights!!

2009-04-04T14:33:00.002-07:00

Some times I just love coconut!! As a child I was not in to sweets at all. All I could think of was something spicy and savory. I think coming to US changed my taste a little bit.

Thinking of sweets, coconut burfi/vadi or khobryachi vadi as we say in Marathi is a very popular Indian dessert. These are small square shaped or diamond shaped, which just melts in your mouth if done to the perfection.

Here is what you will need-:

1 cup of frozen thawed coconut.

3/4 cup of Sugar.

1/4 cup of Milk, whole/2% you can also use cream if you want.

cardamom powder 1 pinch,

Step 1:-

Grind the coconut in to the blender along with the sugar , don't make it like a paste. Just blend it once or twice.

Step2:-

Heat a pan, add the paste to the pan , on low heat add the mixture and mix it well. The mixture will be kind of liquid like consistency at this time.

keep on a low to medium flame and keep stirring constantly.

Step 3:-

After 3-4 minutes add milk to the mixture.

Heads up:- Keep stirring constantly. Do not stop.

Step 4:-

Add a pinch of cardamom powder.

The mixture will start getting thicker and thicker. When it reaches to a consistency where a spoon you are working with could stand in the mixture on it's own, (See the picture below) you can switch off the heat.

Before you start the first step, Keep ready a pan coated with butter/ ghee. The pan should be something like a baking pan which will give the area for the mixture to spread evenly and about 1/2 inch in thickness.

Immediately after you take the mixture off the heat, spread it on the coated pan. Try to spread it evenly and press the mixture so that it will be packed tightly, and there will be no gaps.

Allow to cool for about 20 minutes, cover it and keep it in the refrigerator for about an hour. Remove from the refrigerator and cut in to the squares/ diamonds as per your choice.

Sweet corn soup!!

2009-02-23T07:50:00.002-08:00

A really healthy and delicious version of corn soup.

This is my mothers recipe, very simple to make.

All you will need is-:

Frozen Corn kernels-( thawed )
Vegetable stock/ you can use just plain water. I have used water this time.
Milk 1/4 cup - any milk is fine, half and half/2%/or whole.
Pepper powder 1/2 tbsp or you can just eyeball it...add less or more as per your taste.
Green onion chopped.
Salt to taste.

Sometimes I add some vegetables in my soup, like green beans, carrots, green onions. each of the vegetable has it's unique flavour. I love them all. This time I am going to add green onion.

Step 1:

Drop thawed corn kernels in to the grinder and make a paste out of it.

Step 2:

Heat a pan, add the paste to the heated pan, NO OIL/GHEE NEEDED.

Keep stirring the paste continuously.

Note: If you want to add the vegetables, cut them nice and thin add them at this point so that they will cook throughout the end. I actually like a little crunch to my vegetables in my soup, The crunch acts as croutons for me, but if you like to eat cooked veggies, you should cut them in big chunks and cook them first in boiling water and then add them at a later stage.

Step 3:

Now add the water to the paste, and let it be on a medium to high flame.

Step 4:

Add Salt and freshly ground black pepper and add green onion.

Serve with soy sauce, green chili sauce, as per your taste.

Enjoy!!!

Potato Curry

2009-02-15T05:50:00.002-08:00

I like variation in the preparation of everyday vegetable. At times, I like to eat a dry preparation with chapati/poli, this is especially on weekdays, for lunch or a vegetable prepared with a gravy with all different Indian spices at others. I like to eat gravy on weekends when I am relaxed at home, gives me a feeling of comfort food.

One of such recipe is potato curry. Easy to prepare, not much of a hassle.

Here is what you will need- :

Boiled ,peeled potatoes- 2

Yogurt- 4 tbsp.

All purpose flour- 2 tsp.

A pinch of asafoetida

Cumin seeds- 1 tsp.

Coriander powder- 1 tbsp.

Turmeric powder- 1/2 tsp.

Paprika- 1/2 tsp

Chopped ginger- 1/2 tsp.

Green chillies -2 chopped

Canola Oil- 2 tbsp.

Bay leaf- 1

Chopped Cilantro- a handful.

Salt to taste

Chop the potatoes in to cubes. Keep aside.

In a bowl, mix yogurt, turmeric, paprika,coriander powder, chopped ginger and green chillies chopped. Mix everything together. Keep aside.

Over the stove, on a medium heat, add canola oil, in a minute, when the oil is hot add cumin seeds, let them splutter.Add asafoetida, then add all purpose flour. Wait until the flour slightly changes the color. It will take about 1 minute. After it changes the color, add the yogurt paste you kept aside.

Keep stirring medium heat until the mixture starts to leave oil. Add some water after about 4-5 minutes.

Heads up: Keep stirring after you add yogurt mixture. Since you are heating up yogurt, if you stop stirring it might curdle on you.

Keep stirring after adding water for about 2-3 minutes. now it's time to add potatoes. Heat for 2 more minutes. Add water and change the consistency of the gravy if you want.Now add cilantro. The last thing you want to add is salt. Keep the lid on it, and cook for 2-3 minutes. Potatoes are already boiled so it won't take much time.

Get ready to eat with rice or with chapati/roti. It goes really well with bread as well.

My apologies for not been able to provide you step by step shots for this recipe. So here is the only one I got.

Courtesy: Potato curry with yogurt gravy by Manjula.

I hope you will like this one...:)

A sample to try from FoodBuzz!!

2009-02-11T18:56:00.000-08:00

I was happy to receive my mail last week. Since we moved in to our new place,this was the first time I was checking my mail box. I was expecting a parcel from foodbuzz. I waited for almost a week, and then there it was!!! Yeeeeyeeeeeeeeee!!!!

A sample of 5 Quaker True Delights from foodbuzz. I was so thrilled to see those little snack bars!!

I am a huge fan of snack bars. They are perfect for munching, perfect to eat anywhere- in the office, at home, anywhere, and everywhere, I would just grab and go!! Perfect for travelling as well!!

They were of 3 kinds:

Toasted Coconut Banana Macadamia Nut

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond

Honey Roasted Cashew Mixed Berry.

I liked all three. Perfect granola bars made up with whole grains. It had a right amount of chewiness and a slight crunch, that makes you crave for more....:)

Thank you foodbuzz, for giving us, the chance to taste these wonderful products before they hit the market.

Chicken malai kabobs

2009-02-04T14:02:00.001-08:00

Courtesy: Vah chef

I love kabobs. it's a finger food, they are just delicious. I have tried preparing many different versions, and to my knowledge, this is the best so far...!!

So here is what you will need-:

1lbs Chicken breasts (boneless, skinless)

1 tbsp cream cheese/sour cream

2 tbsp cream

1 tsp ginger garlic paste

1 tbsp corn flour

1 green chili

1 pinch of cardamom powder

3 tbsp mozzarella cheese

1/2 tsp meat tenderizer

1 tbsp canola oil/olive oil

1 pinch pepper powder

salt to taste.

Chopped cilantro (Coriander)

I marinated this chicken a couple of times.

First marinade-:

Cut the chicken cubes in to 2 inches cubes. Set aside. In a bowl add black pepper powder, meat tenderizer, cardamom powder. Now before adding the ginger garlic paste, squeeze out all the liquid from it and then add it to the bowl. Mix in the chicken pieces. Mix everything really good. When you mix everything well, add some salt and mix again. Marinate the chicken pieces very well.

Keep this chicken marinated for 30 minutes in to the refrigerator.

After it gets marinated for 30 minutes, now it's time to marinate this chicken pieces with the second marinade.

Second marinade:-

In a bowl, take some grated mozzarella cheese, add sour cream or cream cheese and then the cream. Add salt as per taste.

Make a paste out of chopped green chillies and chopped coriander and add it to the bowl.

Mix everything well. Add corn flour to it. Keep mixing and add the chicken pieces that we kept in the refrigerator 30 minutes back. Make sure that it gets marinated very well.

Add oil when the chicken gets marinated well and then mix well again. Keep in the refrigerator for one more hour.

After an hour arrange the chicken pieces on the skewers so that there will be 3 pieces on one skewer or may be two in some cases, if the pieces are large.

Preheat your oven to 500°/550° F whichever is higher in your oven. Slide in the kabobs once the oven is preheated for about 20 minutes on a broil mode.

Pull them out of the oven after 20 minutes then turn them and again let them cook in the oven for another 15 minutes. You can switch off the broil mode this time if you want. I like my kabobs to have a nice smoky taste and smell to it.

Take out the kabobs from the skewers and squeeze some fresh lemon juice on top of it. Serve as per your taste.

Toasty Edamame!!!

2009-01-23T23:48:00.001-08:00

Snacking is my favourite past time. I am always looking for something to munch on-- Pita chips with any kind of hummus, tostitos with salsa or simply a bag of potato chips or corn chips.......ummmmmm yummmmmmmm!!!!

Well who doesn't like all this options, packed and ready just waiting for you in the grocery store!!

If not for the health reasons, I would have never went out of the box and considered the little shelled edamame to be a part of my snacking ritual....:)

For those who don't know what the edamame and it's benefits are, ...well here they are...:)

Edamame-

It's basically known as a Soybean. One of the part that attracts me more is it's low sodium, fibre rich food. Besides having high protein content edamame also help:

Reduce risk of breast cancer in premenopausal women
Decrease the risk of osteoporosis.
Promote prostate health
Protect cells with their antioxidant properties.

WOW!!! who knew?? right??

It's interesting how much we underestimate (or simply forget?) about these wonderful products when we cross the aisle and stop to grab a pack of Ice cream instead.....,.........,...

Anyways...So Soybean or edamame for that matter is a legume and so this entry goes to an event My Legume Love Affair Seventh Helping hosted by Srivalli.

and here is the link to Susan's event page.

Just when I was browsing through the blogs, I came across the recipe of roasted chickpeas. I wanted to try the same, that's when I remembered I have half a bag of cute little edamame in my freezer that I bought a week or two back to toss with my salad. My colleague in my previous company used to add this healthy kids in to her salad, and that's the reason I wanted to try those. Although I must admit I didn't really liked the raw and kind of bitter taste of edamame in to my salad.

With a due respect to it's nutritional value, I then decided to turn them in to a snack, just by roasting them in the oven with the spices of my choice.

Only 3 ingredients (excluding edamame) makes this a yummy fulfilling snack and a great substitute for unhealthy, guilty inducing potato chips.

I used Half a bag of frozen edamame;
Salt to taste;
Chili powder to taste.
1 tbsp Olive Oil

Wash the edamame under running cold water, and it will have the same effect as the defrostation. Take away the moisture from the edamame by spreading them on a paper towel.

In a bowl, mix edamame, salt, chili powder and the olive oil. Mix them well.

Line the cookie sheet with an aluminium foil and spread the edamame's on the sheet.

Preheat the oven to 375° F. Let the edamame's roast for 20 minutes.

It will have a crunch on cooling. Use it as an afternoon snack or simply toss with your salad as a great substitute for croutons.

Enjoy....:)

New year's feast- Biryani......:)

2009-01-13T13:29:00.000-08:00

My first post for the year 2009.

A very happy new year to all the readers and bloggers out there!!!

Let me start my first recipe for the year 2009 by sharing my all time favourite, yummy....Biryani!!!

I always need a reason to prepare biryani, just because it's a really time consuming preparation. I guess it's better to invite a few friends over and enjoy with them. I invited few of our friends over,( G and A, and V and K) and shared a nice lunch with them. I made Vegetable Biryani, Potato and spinach parathas, raita and blueberry smoothie as a dessert.

This was my second attempt...and pretty much successful!!

Here is what you will need....The list is really long...don't quit...:)) It's worth all the pain, so stick around....:)

2 cups of basmati rice
Canola oil- 2 tablespoons
Whole garam masala
Shahi Jeera (Caraway seeds)
Ginger garlic paste
vegetables (Cauliflower, carrots, Potatoes) Cut in to big chunks.
Mint leaves
Coriander leaves
Green chillies, chopped in to big pieces
Store bought biryani masala- whole packet.( saves your efforts....big time...:) )
Yogurt- 1 cup or more if you feel.
Cashews, almonds/nuts (of your choice)
Paneer- store bought, cubed
Half red onion - sliced
A pinch of saffron soaked in water.

Follow the steps, and keep your stomach empty to give your recipe a justice!!!

Before you go further, take a pinch of saffron and mix in some water, mix well and keep aside. We will be using this later in layering.

Step 1:

Frying the onion and the cashews, almonds/nuts (of your choice) and the paneer cubes

This will give the royal touch to the biryani.

Slice half red onion thinly, take 1 tbs of canola oil in to a pan. while the oil is hot add the sliced onion and fry until they are slightly shy to brown. Keep aside and cool. They will have a nice crunch on cooling.

Add cashews to the pan and shallow fry them as well. Remove when they turn brown. Keep aside to cool.

Also shallow fry the paneer cubes and keep aside.

Note: I keep saying that you shallow fry them, that's just to cut down calories. If you want, you can go ahead and deep fry them. After all it's a royal new year's special.

Step 2:

Soaking the rice-:

Soak 2 cups of rice in water for half an hour.

Step 3:

Prepare your veggies-:

Add 2 tablespoons of canola oil in a pan. Add whole garam masala (includes 2 sticks of cinnamon, 3-4 cardamoms, 2/3 cloves, 2-3 black pepper whole, a bay leaf) Saute for a minute and add shahi jeera. Wait until that splutters. Add ginger garlic paste (made up of 2 big /4 small garlic cloves and an inch of ginger)

Step 4:

Finish your veggies-:

Add cut vegetables. Saute the vegetables until they get nice brown coating on them. Add a little salt while sauteing them. Our goal at this step is to cook the vegetables until they are about 70% done.

Add mint leaves and coriander leaves.

Do not chop the leaves finely, just give them a rough chop before adding.

Then add chopped green chillies. Add biryani masala at this point.

Make sure that you mix all the vegetables with all the masala, and coat the vegetables completely.

Step-5:

Coat your veggies-:

Add half a cup of yogurt to the coated vegetables. Add paneer cubes and mix everything well, to coat all the vegetables and paneer with yogurt and vegetables.

Heads up- In step 4 and step 5, your vegetables should be 70% done. You can check on them by inserting a knife in to a piece of vegetable. You should feel some tension while inserting the knife, it should not be the straight and easy cut.

Step 6:

Cook the rice-:

Bring a pot of water to boil and add the soaked rice to it. The goal is to cook the rice up to 70%.

If you soak the rice for half an hour, it will be cooked to 70% in about 7-8 minutes. If you soak it for an hour, it just takes 3-4 minutes. Add some salt black pepper whole, a cinnamon stick and a bay leaf in the boiling water for flavour. Drain the rice.

Note: when you boil the rice in to the water, make sure to add enough salt, as this will be the only way add any flavour to your rice.

Now that your rice and your vegetables are 70% done. Here comes the fun part of layering.

Step 6-:

Layering.

Layer 1:

Divide the vegetables in to half. In an oven proof pot, spread the vegetables. Add remaining of the yogurt to the the vegetables, and mix well. Add the cashews/nuts.

Layer 2:

Spread half of the rice on top of the first layer of vegetables. Now here is the time to use the saffron water that you kept aside. Sprinkle 1/2 tbs of that water on to the layer of rice. This will give your rice a nice saffron color and aroma.

Layer 3:

Spread all the remaining vegetables on top of rice layer. Spread the fried onion on the top of vegetables.

Layer 4:

Spread the remaining rice on to the top.

Sprinkle the fried onions and the fried nuts on top.

Sprinkle some mint and coriander leaves on top.( I forgot to do that..but you should not....:P).

Last but not the least sprinkle the remaining saffron color.

oooooofffffffffffffff....and we are done!!!

Cover your pot twice with aluminium foil and put a lid on to it. And now it's time to go in to the oven.

Preheat the oven to 375° F. Let it be in the oven for about 40 minutes.

Get ready to taste your efforts, I am sure it will be worth it.

Courtesy :: Vah chef

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GridojtCXDE

Stuffed peppers

2008-12-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

A red and a yellow pepper stuffed with egg noodles, top it off with some breadcrumbs for crunch and nicely shredded Parmesan cheese. Bake it off and your mouth will water....:)

A perfect comfort food for a perfect winter...:)

Let me start by mentioning that stuffed peppers as the name suggests is pretty versatile dish. You can pretty much stuff anything inside the peppers. You can stuff them with orzo, rice or may be a nice stuffing of boiled potatoes with a mixture of Indian spices. Variations are literally endless.

A perfect dish to use your left brain....:)

So here's what I used-:

1 Cup of wide egg noodles
1 shallot
1 red and 1 yellow bell pepper
2 teaspoon of Italian seasoning
2 tablespoon of tomato paste ( Used store bought, you can also use tomato puree)
Parmesan Cheese
Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
Salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon canola oil

Step1:

Prepare the egg noodle- As per the instructions on the packet.

Drain the noodles and keep it aside

Heads up:- Make sure your noodle are really shy to al-dente, because they are going to finish their cooking in oven later.

Reserve the water before draining off the noodles. It's a nice starchy water which you can use later while making the sauce.

Step2:

Cut the top off of the peppers.

and also the bottoms, just so that the peppers will stand straight.

Step3:

Heat canola oil in a pan , add finely chopped shallots , Italian seasoning, followed by tomato paste.

Add some salt to taste and some freshly ground black pepper. Add some reserved starchy water from the step 1. Saute everything for a minute or so and then add the egg noodles you prepared in step 1. Turn off the heat, coat the noodles well with the sauce. Add some more starchy water if you feel to mix everything together.

Step4-

Take one bell pepper, place it firmly inside a loaf pan of any baking pan which has some height. (You need to pour some water or some stock around the peppers when you bake them in the oven. That is why you need height to the pan.)

After you place the peppers in the loaf pan, stuff them with the stuffing we made in step 3.

Make sure to stuff every bell pepper up to the top.

Sprinkle some breadcrumbs on the top. This will make nice brown top and will add a crunch on bite.

Toss in some ( actually a lot..) sharply shredded Parmesan cheese which will melt while in the oven.

Step5:

Pour some water around the peppers. You can also use some chicken stock or vegetable stock if you want. That will enhance the flavor when the peppers bake.

Cover the loaf pan with aluminium foil.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Place the pan in the middle rack. Bake it off for 40 minutes.

Check after 40, keep for few more minutes, if you fell the peppers aren't cooked yet. In that case 10 more minutes should do the trick.

Other way to cook the peppers-:

Instead of keeping them directly in to the oven, you can also cook the peppers after you cut the bottoms and tops off for about 10 minutes, and then stuff the filling and bake it off for 20-25 minutes.

Be very sure not to cook the egg noodles completely, just cook them for about 5-6 minutes in water, and allow to cook them later in the oven. It Will make the noodles too soggy if you cook them completely beforehand.

Enjoy stuffed peppers with some rice or some nice grilled fish...:)

A sweet treat for holidays!!

2008-12-17T10:36:00.000-08:00

Rawa (Sooji/semolina) Cake

One of the reasons to eat cake..............:D

Sometimes I make recipes sound so conveniently healthy that I don't feel guilty about eating them....:)

Interesting isn't it? A cake without egg, without maida (All purpose floor) I won't say without butter..well.... it is without butter, but with cream...so eventually, cream balances out butter, and give us a reason to feel guilty about....:(

Well..........this is a holiday season of the year everywhere and it's okay to go crazy once in a while.

So here it goes-:

A cake for holidays.....!!

Here is what you will need-:

1 cup rawa (fine)- you can get in any Indian store, it's called sooji or semolina..if you prefer. Its essentially made up of wheat.
1 Cup wheat flour
1 cup of cream
1 cup of yogurt
1 cup of granulated sugar
2 cups of milk I used 2%
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Almonds, walnuts, raisins for crunchiness

This is how you do it-:

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

Mix all the dry ingredients first. Then add the wet once. Make sure that everything gets mixed up well with no lumps formed.

Slice the almonds, chop the remaining nuts and add in to the tub.

Spray your cake pan with non-stick cooking spray or you can also rub some butter inside the pan. Pour the batter nicely.

Slide the pan in to the preheated oven and bake for about 50 minutes. The baking time may vary due to difference in the ovens. Check after 45 and decide. If you feel , keep baking for 10 minutes more or so.

Insert the knife and make sure it comes out clean, if not that means, it needs more baking.

bake to perfection and enjoy your holidays...!!!

Happy holidays...everyone...!!!

HHDD #24 Pesto- another entry for a round up!

2008-12-12T14:38:00.000-08:00

This one is specially made for HHDD round up. Here is the link to the host and the facilitator.

Thank you for hosting this round up.

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto

I love to send my entries to these round ups. This one was simple to make. Pesto- is an Italian sauce, commonly used on a pasta. I love a basic basil pesto. For this round up, I will be trying something different.

I love making pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and olives. Simple yet hearty dish, with red wine, and some crusty french bread is a perfect weekend lunch for me and my hubby.

I decided to go with the same ingredients, except olives (I didn't have those in my pantry this time and I didn't have time to go buy them as the clock was ticking for the deadline).

I like the flavour of basil, so I decided to add the basil as well.

It just took me 10 minutes to make this pesto. (or should I say less then 10!!)

I used-:

Sun-dried tomatoes (out of the jar and their oil)

Fresh Basil Leaves

Garlic Cloves, salt and pepper

Blend everything together . Blend until the tomatoes are finely chopped. Transfer it to a bowl.

If you want to use it as a spread you can add some olive oil while blending. Otherwise, whatever oil sun-dried tomatoes have in the jar is enough.

As I said,You can use it as a spread over the bread, or toss in some cooked pasta and make it more delicious.

I love to use this pesto as a dip with some corn chips or tostitos or with the pita chips.

Enjoy.....:)

I am a foodbuzz featured publisher now!!!!!!!!

2008-12-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

Yooohooooooooooooooo..........:))))))))))

Today is the day to celebrate for the perfect reason. I started blogging June 18th of this year. My blog will be six months old on 18th of this month. I will be posting my 30th post as we speak.

I started this blog to document my trial and errors and learn from them later, also to share my experiences with the world, and most importantly to learn something which I didn't know before, from the bloggers all over the world.

This blogging creates a platform, which creates learning opportunities for foodie like me.

One of such platforms is foodbuzz. I am sooooooooooo very excited, to know that I am one of the featured publishers of the foodbuzz now.

I already have updated layout of my blog. Lots and lots of fun yet to happen, a lot more experiments yet to fail and a lot more wonders yet to happen from those failures.

Can't wait.......:))

Thank you foodbuzz for giving me this opportunity to be a featured publisher.

Quick dinner!!

2008-12-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

I am always looking for something quick especially when it comes to weekday dinners. Many of the times I just cook once a day , mostly mornings and sometimes I make chapatis, some kind of vegetable (Sabji), and dal for lunch and then just make additional chapatis for the dinner or just some rice and dalfry for the dinner instead.

Whenever I am out off all the options I mentioned above I just want my supper to be tasty, healthy, and a non-Indian item.

Last Wednesday evening was one of those non-Indian supper evening. I try to keep the list of the ingredients as less as possible on such nights, and this is for 2 reasons-

First- to keep the calories under count and ...

second- sometimes less ingredients make more wonders and such wonders create some really great recipes, keeping it's simplicity alive....:)

This time I had wide noodles in my pantry and some soup cans as usual.

I decided to make egg noodles casserole with a can of cream of celery soup...:)

I Preheated the oven to 400°F.

Here is what I used-:

Wide egg noodles- half a pound

cream of celery soup- 1 can ( I used 98% less fat- of Campbell's- healthy request)

Milk- I used 2%, 1 cup

Spring onion chopped- 1/2 stalks

Breadcrumbs- I used Italian style

Butter few chunks

Start with boiling water in a pot, toss in the egg noodles when the water starts bubbling. Cook egg noodles for about 4-5 minutes.

Heads up-: Cook them a little bit shy to al -dente, as they are going to finish their cooking process in the oven later. Do not overcook at this point of time.

Once the noodles are ready, rest of the things are very simple. Take a casserole dish/bowl. Mix 1 can of cream of celery and 1 cup of milk. Add the boiled noodles in to that mix well. Add chopped spring onion. ( You can completely skip spring onions, I just wanted to add some color to the dish and also I thought celery and onion goes well with each other.)

Mix everything together. Add a few chunks of butter on top, and sprinkle some breadcrumbs as well.

Bake it off in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes. Nice bubbles will be formed on the top and the top should look crusty and crispy....:)

Get ready to eat your weeknight supper in just 30 minutes........:)

My entry to Indian Adventure round up!!

2008-12-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

I was sending something for a round up after a gap of almost 2 and half months. I was surely excited. Joelen of Joelen's Culinary Adventure hosted this roundup and I had more than dozen of recipes to send her on this topic. I choose masala okra, that I posted on my blog recently.

You can take a look at the round up here.

If in case, you want to take a look at my blog post, it's here.

Thank you Joelen, for considering my entry for the round up. I learned a lot from other entries too.

Instant Rava Dhokla

2008-11-30T09:57:00.000-08:00

This one I wanted to make for a really long time. Loooooooooooong back I have had rava dhokla made by my mother's friend back in India.That was like 4-5 years back. I liked it very much then, and decided to make on my own, but somehow it took me 5 years to make one.

I still can't believe I waited soooooooooooo looooooooong for such a simple and healthy dish. It was just a matter of 30 minutes, with just 3 main ingredients. It was that simple.....:)Dhokla is one of the favourite item when it comes to Indian snacking, especially Maharashtrian, and Gujrathi. I am not a huge fan of traditional dhokla which is made up of gram flour/ basan/chickpea flour. This one is a nice little twist making it milder and much more appreciable. Made up of rava (Sooji), which is a healthier option to gram flour, with very little oil, and steamed to perfection.

It starts with 3 basic ingredients-:

1/2 cup of fine rava (sooji)
1/4 cup of yogurt
1/2 cup of water

With other secondary ingredients like:-

1/2 teaspoon oil
1 teaspoon eno (or you can use soda)
salt as per taste
pinch of chilly powder
pinch of black pepper powder.

For garnishing:-

Coriander chopped (Cilantro)
Tadka ( heat Some oil in a pan, add mustard seeds, when they splutter, add a pinch of turmeric powder and a pinch of asafoetida, add kadipatta if you want)

Mix basic ingredients in a bowl, keep it aside for about 15 minutes.

Grease an 1/2 inch steel pan and keep ready to pour the mixture in to it. Boil water in a steamer or a deep pan.

After 15 minutes, add oil, eno and salt in to the mixture of basic ingredients. stir well. Pour the mixture in to the greased pan and sprinkle chilly powder and black pepper powder on to the

batter.

Keep the pan in to the steamer/ the deep pot. Cover the pot with the lid. If you are using deep pot and don't have a tight lid, just take a small towel cover the pot with it and then cover with

the lid. Keep it on a medium for about 15 minutes. After 15 minutes take the lid off and insert the fork or a knife in to the pan and check if it comes out without sticking anything to it, then that's an indication of a perfect dhokla. If not, keep it for another 2-3 minutes and it should be done. But as per my experience it should be done in 15 minutes.

Take out the pan and let it cool for about 1/2 an hour. Garnish with tadka, and chopped coriander. After that you can take out of the pan and cut in to squares. Enjoy with chutney, or just as it is.

I still can't believe I took 5 long years to make such a simple dish. I am sure I will be the one making this again and again at least for next 50 years....:)

Dumplings in the hot tub!!

2008-11-28T08:45:00.000-08:00

Winter is here in California!! Although it never snows in California, (at least around my area) it's chilly enough to enjoy a hot tub of tomato soup with couple of dumplings....:))

Today is the thanksgiving night, everybody must be enjoying with their families and friends. I decided to enjoy a nice hearty bowl of soup with my hubby. I wanted to make it a little fancy. That's when an idea of dumplings came to my mind. I used Nasoya's round wheat wraps I bought from pavilions last week.

Also I had a can of Campbell's tomato soup. I was lazy enough to use canned soup to make my dinner in just 20 minutes. I love Campbell's, especially their healthy request series with less sodium and less fat....:)) and good part of it is you don't have to sacrifice the test...:)) I love it...:)

I guess no need to write the recipe for soup here, so here goes the dumplings....

For filling:-

You can throw anything in to the wrap as long as the filling doesn't become soggy or watery. The wrap should hold the mixture after boiling or frying.

Here is the filling I made today-:

1 scallion chopped

5-6 baby carrots shredded

pinto beans (I used canned) slightly mashed with spoon.

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp hot sauce

salt to taste.

You can boil, the veggies before placing the filling in to the wrap, if you want. I used, baby carrots, canned beans which are not very raw. I like kind of a crunch to my dumplings. But if you feel, you can certainly go ahead and boil those in a water for a couple of minutes, drain the water and then add them.

Toss all the ingredients together in a bowl. Add a spoonful of filling in the middle of the wrap. Brush the ends with a drop of water so that, they will stick to each other. Fold the sides by keeping the filling in the center of the wrap. Make sure that the ends get sealed nicely. To give them a nice shape, you can pinch the ends with your fingers.

Boil the dumplings in the water for about 5 minutes or until they float in the water. Other option is you can fry those. I haven't tried that yet.

Here is how they look after they come out-:

Let the dumplings float in the hot tub . Garnish them with chopped scallions, and shredded Parmesan.

Enjoy your dinner on a chilly night in winter.

Some pictures of Indian treats!!

2008-11-23T19:15:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to write recipes of all the goodies I enjoyed back home. Making these tasty treats is not a beginners job....:) SO obviously I wasn't the one who made those. I would definitely like to take credit for those but I won't especially because I know that it requires a lot of efforts.

For now..just enjoy some pictures of the healthy????? well................treats..!!!

The background of the picture are kadboli ( made up of flour of different grounded pulses, deep fried )

In the left frame are Shankapali (made from the mixture of Maida , milk, sugar and ghee)

In the right frame are Karanjis (The cover is a mixture of maida, ghee, milk and water and the filling is fresh coconut, sugar, dry fruit powder, khoya/mawa, cardmom powder, and saffron.)

The karanjis are fried in ghee.

I am back.......:))

2008-11-17T16:26:00.000-08:00

It's been over a week, since I am back from India.
Lots of stories to tell,...and lots and lots of indian faral( Sweets and savory snacks Indians make specially for Diwali holidays) recipes to share ....I am very excited.

I am just being lazy after having loads of fun in India. But I will be back to my routine of blogging as soon as I can.

So stay TUNED.......................

My new blog..:)

2008-10-02T15:21:00.000-07:00

I am almost addicted to blogging. Seems like this blog is not enough for me, I am on to another one. My new blog is just the world around me scribbled through my everyday thoughts.

Here it is- It's called Manaliscribbles.

Corn Patties

2008-09-28T15:14:00.000-07:00

There are two reasons for this post.

I wanted a breakfast item, which I can partially prepare a day before. Ever since we are on a healthy mode, me and my husband A usually have cereals for our breakfast,. But I love to start a day with a healthy yet yummy snack which does not distract me from loosing weight as well as help me break my everyday cereal ritual.
There is an event due today called Sunday snack on the Taste of India and I wanted to participate.

So let me talk a little bit about this event-:

This event is hosted by Hima of SnackORama. The theme for this month's Sunday snack is Bake it.
So here it goes-: Corn Patties

All goes in one bowl-

1 cup Yellow corn kernels ( I used fresh kernels, you can also use frozen)
1 boiled smashed potato.
1/2 inch ginger grated (about 1 tsp)
2 cloves of grated garlic
1 chopped green chili.
1 tsp chaat masala ( you can find one in any Indian grocery store)
Half a lemon/ lime juice
1/2 tsp turmeric
1tsp of cumin seeds
half a palmful of coriander finely chopped
olive oil. about 2 tsp
salt to taste
One last thing is breadcrumbs or a good substitute for breadcrumbs is sooji (rava).

I prefer breadcrumbs over rava, simply because I always want a nice brown crust from outside, and breadcrumbs does that just perfect. Wait until you see my pictures...:)

Toss all ingredients above in one bowl except breadcrumbs, and oil. Mix everything together.

I was using fresh corn, so it was very soft and sweet naturally, but if you use frozen, thaw them and microwave them for about 5-6 minutes. When you are using fresh, if you feel that the corns need to be more soft , cook them a little bit.

Make small round balls of the mixture, and press them a bit to give them patties shape.
Spread the breadcrumbs on a plate. I used Italian style breadcrumbs. I love them because they are already seasoned with parsley, garlic powder, onion powder, different spices, and my favorite Pecorino Romano cheese....:) But you can use anything of your choice. I also happened to like Japanese style breadcrumbs called panko.

When all your patties are ready, place them on a baking sheet, which is sprayed with non- stick cooking spray. Toss a little bit of olive oil on the top of the patties. Just enough to give them a golden brown crust.
Turn on your oven on 350° and slide your baking sheet inside for about 12-15 minutes on one side, then turn the patties and 10 more minutes on the other side.
You should get a nice crust on both sides, if you feel you can keep them inside for a couple more minutes, but make sure you check on them.

You can also, shallow fry them in the pan/ tava. But this oven version is a figure friendly option to cut down oil to just 2 tsp. And olive oil is always better for you right? An oil which has a good cholesterol which keeps your heart in good condition. And guess what you don't have to sacrifice the taste. It gives me a satisfaction of doing good karma to my body....:) feels great.

This is how they look when they come out.

Scrumptious ..........Isn't it? I just love them. Try them out, I am sure you won't miss the fried version.

ohh.. and they are great with mint chutney, or a ketchup.

Just like that!!! Yummoooo!!!!

Masala okra

2008-09-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

This is my entry to Indian/ Jewish Cuisine adventure event.Hosted by Joelen's Culinary Adventure.

One of the most common fresh vegetable you can find in India....Okra....(Bhindi)
It's hard to find fresh okra all around the year here in US. Masala okra is one of my favorites school lunches. I used to like it because of it's perfect consistency. It has a consistency of something between a dry and a curry version. That way it really holds itself for a longer time. Great with chapati/naan as well as rice. I prepare okra in 2/3 ways. Here is how I make the okra with masala. I will hold other 2 types for later.

You have two options for Okra, you can use frozen or the fresh variety. I used frozen here. I believe frozen versions are partially cooked, so you don't have to cook them more that 7-10 minutes, makes your life a little bit simple.

Look for this type of cut okra as shown in the picture.

Make sure that you don't thaw the frozen okra, just use as it is from the packet for the better taste.

Prepare the masala for Okra -:

2 tsp. coriander powder (Cilantro seeds are called as coriander)
2 tsp cumin powder
2 tsp. turmeric powder
1 tsp. ground fennel seeds.
1 tsp. dried mango powder( amachur) I used chat masala here...just the ingredient I like to use in almost everything.
1/2 tsp chili powder, you can also you paprika
salt to taste

Toss all the ingredients together.

Next thing you want to do is be ready with following ingredients:-

1 shallot
1/2 medium size tomato
1/2 tsp. Cumin seeds
1/2 inch of freshly chopped ginger
1 green chili chopped
1/2 tsp. Asafetida (hing)
2 tsp oil

Coat the pan with the oil on a medium flame, add cumin seeds. Add asafetida when cumin seeds splutter. 1 shallot chopped goes next in to the pan. After 2-3 minutes add tomatoes to it and wait until you get a consistency like pulp. Now it's time to add frozen okra to the pan. After a minute or so the masala mixture joins the hot tub...:)

Make sure you coat all the okra with masala. Add little bit of salt if needed. Keep it on the medium flame for about 4-5 minutes. Turn off the flame when you feel the okra is cooked completely.

Add freshly chopped cilantro at the end. It's a good finishing touch for the yummy masala okra.....!!

I am in to Crocheting!!!!!

2008-09-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

This post has been moved to my new blog manaliscibbles. As this is a food blog, I wanted it to be that way, so I have started a new blog, which has more generic approach. I will be posting everything other than food on manaliscribbles.

As far as this blog is concerned, I hope foodies like me would appreciate the change.

Grilled Salmon- My Way

2008-09-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I am posting something which is non-vegetarian on my blog. I am not a pure vegetarian. I do enjoy few meat options like fish or white meat for it's nutritional value.
I love salmon. Of course for it's taste, especially grilled than baked or poached.
According to American Heart Association, we should eat at least 2 fish servings per week. Now that's a nice excuse for a fish lover like me....:)
I used to try different healthy fish recipes at home. I prefer cooking fish at home. That way I can control the quality of ingredients. It's been a while since I cooked fish at home, that's the reason I was craving for fish this weekend.

I started with the salmon fish fillet from my local grocery store. I made my own marinade which I think came out really good. I served grilled salmon with steamed fresh green beans and mashed potatoes. I love to make marinade and love the taste when it gets all soaked up in to the fish.

All the ingredients I am mentioning here are enough for 1 salmon fillet.
You can adjust the ingredients as per the quantity.

For the marinade-:

2 Tbsp of cumin powder.- I made a fresh cumin from cumin seeds. I like to make it fresh because I love the fresh aroma.
2 Tbsp of Grilled seasoning- It's from the grill time. I love it. It has a nice blend of vegetables like garlic, onion, red bell peppers and little kick of Parmesan and Romano cheese, and different spices like red chili flakes, fennel seeds. It's a perfect combination for grilling.
2 Tbsp of Thick yogurt- Greek style yogurt will be perfect. It has a nice thickness to it.
3 tbsp of Soy sauce- To add a little kick to it, and also acts as a thinning agent on to your marinade.
A bunch of freshly, coarsely chopped cilantro. I would say the more the better.

You don't need to add the salt. The seasoning and the soy sauce contains enough of that. Just add freshly ground black pepper and there it is, your quick marinade is ready for you.

Just to show you how the marinade looks on the Salmon

All you have to do now is marinade the salmon fillet from all the sides. The easy way to do this is take your good old zip lock bag. Pour your marinade in to the bag along with the fish. Lock the bag, and rotate the bag so that fish gets coated from all the sides. Open the bag, remove air if any. Seal it again tightly. Make sure that all the air is out and keep the bag in the refrigerator for about an hour. And now, It's grilling time.

Heat your grilling pan. I used my indoor grilling pan.

Spray it with non-stick cooking spray. Put the fish in to the pan with the skin side up. (This is very important, even if you remove skin, you should put the fish skin side up first.) Ohh..I removed the skin of the fish before marinating.
Leave it there for about 4-5 minutes on the first side. It will change the color of the fish from bottom.
Turn the fish and cook it for 2-3 more minutes on the other side. It's very important that you do not overcook the fish. It looses the nutritious value as well as the flavor.

Along with the Salmon, I served mashed potatoes. I just boiled the potato in the microwave and mashed them with the bottom of a small bowl. I added shredded Parmesan cheese while the potatoes were hot, a little bit of salt and I like to add some red chili powder in my potatoes, just for taste. This is a quick recipe of mashed potatoes which I like to prepare any busy night of the week.

For the green beans, I simply steamed the beans with the water on the stove top. I like to add the salt in the water, this way the beans retain there green color.

My entry to herb mania- Round up

2008-09-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

I made my first entry last month in one of the events - Herb mania- Basil.
Dee of Ammalu's Kitchen has posted the round up recently here. You can view all the pictures of the participant's recipes here. I really like the experience and I am looking forward to next one...:)

Black and White Cookies

2008-09-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

This was my first attempt to make cookies. I was a little nervous. I am not really a sweets person. I like spicy food over sweet pleasures. probably that's the reason I have never tried homemade cookies. My hubby although love cookies, any sweet for that matter. So I decided to make the cookies for him. I admit that my first attempt of making cookies was not completely successful. The lesson I learned is you have to have all the proper measuring equipments when it comes to baking.
As I have mentioned in one of my blogs before, that I don't really measure when I am cooking. but Baking was a whole lot of different experience.

This is what you will need:-

1/3 cup of cream
7 ounces of dark chocolate, chopped in to small pieces
3/4 cup of sugar
1 package of sugar cookie dough (18 Ounce)

Place a pan over medium heat. Add the cream and warm until boiling, for about 3 minutes.
turn off the heat and add the chocolate. Stir for 1-2 minutes, until chocolate melts.
Place the chocolate mixture in to a small bowl.
Cool the chocolate until firm enough to roll in to balls.
To cool the chocolate quickly, place the chocolate mixture in to refrigerator for about an hour.

Once the chocolate is firm, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread the sugar on a dish. Roll the chocolate into teaspoon-sized balls and set aside.

Roll a walnut-sized ball of cookie dough into a thin log about 3 inches long about height of your little finger.

Place a chocolate ball on a work surface and wrap a cookie dough log around the
chocolate ball and press to adhere. It should look like a cookie version of the planet Saturn.
Roll the cookie in the sugar to coat.
Place the cookie on a large baking sheet and continue forming
the remaining cookies and rolling them in sugar. Once all the cookie balls are on the baking sheets, use the bottom of a drinking glass to flatten the cookies to about 1/4 inch thick.

Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool, then serve.

I didn't have an exact measurement of a cup. So my chocolate, cream mixture came out little thinner than I expected. The test was great, but because the mixture wasn't perfect it got spread all over the cookies in the oven. Everything other than that was fun.

I need to buy a nice cup measurement so that my cookies will be better next time...:)

Spinach Soup

2008-08-22T18:43:00.000-07:00

I wanted to serve something in a cute little white bowl that I recently bought. The first thing came to my mind was a colorful spinach soup which is full of nutritional value as well as rich flavor. Every time I make this soup I use different recipe, the reason is I don't remember the recipe I used last time. It's funny, because I make this soup all the time, at least once a month or so...:)

So this time I am documenting it down so that I won't forget it. Although I kind of like the newness of this recipe every time. So I guess I might document it today in my blog, but I don't think I would be using it next time.

Whatever, here is how I made my favorite soup-:

Heat some unsalted butter in the pan, add chopped onions fry for a minute and add 1 chopped potato to it, add half a cup of vegetable stock and and half a cup of 2% reduced fat milk( I used 2 % , you can certainly use whatever you have on hand.) Bring it to a boil. Allow to cook for about 10 minutes on a lowered heat.
Add cut spinach leaves, keeping aside few leaves to add later when you blend the mixture.
Add 2 cups of stock to it. Bring it to boil. Allow to simmer for 10 more minutes with a lid on it.
Allow the mixture to cool down, before you blend that in a mixture.
When you blend the mixture, make sure you add remaining spinach leaves. This will give your soup nice green color.
Return the mixture to the pan heated with little more butter. Heat the mixture, add some salt, sometimes I add crushed cumin seeds that gives nice fresh taste to the soup. But you can skip that. Do not allow the soup to boil. Serve in a nice plate garnished with spinach leaves and some Parmesan shaves or any grated cheese.
Enjoy......:)

Coming Up: Black and White Cookies

Roasted potatoes and onions with rosemary

2008-08-16T11:08:00.000-07:00

Ever since I worked with basil, I am in the mood of using herb in to one more dish. This time it's rosemary and this time it's not for any event. I saw this really simple yet tempting dish on food network. Ohh.... I love food network. I love Rachael ray's 30 minutes meals. I think it's a very smart idea to show people that cooking is not really very complicated if you pay little attention to it, just like you do at your job. I loooooooove Giada's Everyday Italian. She shows some fancy looking but not so complicated dishes. It just makes me inspire to cook more and more and more!!
Food network is full of food choices. But I try to stick to the healthy yet tasty dishes, just like the one that I am going to share with you all.

So it's oven roasted onions and potatoes with lots and lots of rosemary.

This is a dish you can make with only 6 simple ingredients that you can find in your regular grocery store any time of the year.

6-7 baby red potatoes(Scrubbed and halved ), you can use white if you want, but red potatoes and white onions add a nice color to the dish. So I used red.
1 8 oz. packet of cippolini onions( peeled) - these are cute little white onions.
1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
dried rosemary- around 2 teaspoons
black pepper
salt

It's alright to use dried rosemary here because we are going to roast it in the oven for about 30-40 minutes.

For peeling the onions a simple trick is heat some water and put onions in to it for about 2-3 minutes, on a medium to high heat. Drain the water and it will be more easier for you to peel the onions.

Now toss all the ingredients( peeled onions, halved potatoes, olive oil, rosemary, salt and freshly ground black pepper) together. Mix it with your hands. Spread on a baking sheet.

here are those tiny little guys ready to go in to the hot tub.....:)

Heat the oven to 400°F. Keep it in for about 30-35 minutes. Turn them once after 15 minutes to make them crispier on both the sides. Your nose will know when they are done.

Enjoy........:)

Coming Up: Spinach Soup

Vegetable puffs with basil- An entry to Herb Mania

2008-08-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

Alright I really loved this idea. Herb mania- Any vegetarian dish you are allowed to prepare using specific herb, this time it was basil. I was sooooooo excited to read about this event here. I love herbs. There are so many different types of herbs available around, with culinary as well as medicinal values attached to them. One of my favorites is basil.

So little bit about why I decided to go with this one. I wanted to work with puff pastries for a really long time. This recipe came to my mind when I was going through one of stack of cookbooks I have. I thought this might be the right time to use the recipe from the book and add couple of ingredients to make it more tastier.

So I started with picking up the fresh basil first, of course what would I do without that. I bought puff pastry and paneer. Yes this was the one of the ingredients I decided to add.

here is what I used:-

Onion chopped
Garlic chopped- 1 clove
carrot- Just half- medium sized
A small potato
A palm full of peas
1/2 a cup of vegetable stock.
a really good amount of fresh basil leaves.
And one egg lightly beaten.

I started with a some oil in a pan, added garlic and onions. I added some salt after onions, to bring out sweetness from the onions. This way onions gets evenly cooked. Then I added carrot and potato. After adding vegetable stock in the pan I lowered down the heat and simmered it for 10 minutes, until the stock got entirely absorbed by the vegetables cooking them completely. Add little more salt as per taste, and some red pepper flakes. And the lastly I added the peas and the paneer and basil leaves. I crumbled the leaves with my hands and added in to it. Kept it on the stove for a minute more and that's it. This was my mixture to stuff in to the puffs. One thing to remember here is basil is the last thing you want to add, because it will loose the flavor if you add them early in the preparation.

Now it was the time to deal with puff pastries. As I said this was my first time to use them. I was a little nervous. But they were more perfect than I expected. I wanted to make rounds out of it and then fill in the mixture and fold them in to a half circle. But I ended up by making square and folding them in half. It was more easy to handle. I bordered the cut sheet with water, added a spoonful of mixture in it. After folding it, sealed the edges. Brushed the beaten egg on the both sides of the puff.

And then I spread the oil in the baking pan and layered the puffs on it. Heated up the oven on 415o F. Left those puffs for about 20 minutes. And the result was great.
Beautiful golden puffs with aromatic basil in them. They were just perfect.

To make them more perfect I made a gourmet sauce, which was even more delicious.
Try it and you will love it.

Ingredients for sauce-

2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
some onion chopped
1/4th cup of wine (I used red here)
1/2 cup of vegetable stock
2 tbsp tomato paste
dried basil
dried oregano

I started with heating some olive oil in a pan, added some onion and tomatoes. After a minute added wine and vegetable stock. I boiled the mixture and simmered it for 15 minutes and allowed to cool. Then I made a puree out of it and returned it to the pan. Then I added the tomato paste and dried oregano and the dried basil. A little bit of salt and it's ready. The sweetness of tomato and the sourness of wine was great together.
You can serve the sauce hot or cold.

The combination was way too perfect. My idea of adding basil in to the puffs was worth it. A little hint of basil at the very end of every bite. Neither too much nor too less.
So try these once. They are really fun.
Lets grab a plate and enjoy while they are hot.

This is how they look from inside:-

Coming Up: Rosted onions and potatoes with rosemary