Quinoa-Oats crusted pizza with guacamole- edamame hummus topped with simple veggies!

I am calling it as a leftover pizza. For the dough I used Savory Coconutty Quinoa  that I cooked a day before, the spread was minty guacamole-edamame hummus and the toppings are any veggies of your choice. I used tomatoes, onions and green peppers.

I added about 3/4th cup of oats to coconutty quinoa and just grinded the everything before spreading it for the base. Add more oats if you feel the batter is still on the loose side. Also I added some more spices like garlic, garam masala and some more salt to taste.

Here is how the whole thing looked. A little more browned than I expected

This recipe is totally inspired from my lovely friend's blog.....Richa.. she writes at VeganRicha. For the whole month of October, she is super busy in making different types of pizzas crusts and spreads and toppings. Check her blog out. It's awesome. Some of my favs are -

• Chipotle Mac and Cheese Pizza with Kamut Wheat Cashew Crust. vegan recipe
• Tempeh Tikka Masala on Glutenfree Oat Rice Focaccia style Crust Pizza. gluten-free vegan recipe
• Deconstructed Gobi Paratha (Cauliflower Crust) Pizza with Cucumber and Yogurt Raita. vegan glutenfree grainfree recipe

• Thanks Richa for sharing all the great pizza recipes! You always inspire me to cook more and more and more..:)

DS loved it so much that only half of the whole left for me and DH..:)

Oven Baked Plantain Chips

Ready for something crunchy this weekend? How about Oven Baked plantain chips!! Easiest to make won't take much time. Great healthy alternative snack for all those chips lovers out there! You control the spices and the oil content and enjoy completely as per your taste.

Here is how I  made my batch.

Ingredients-:

3 plantains
Coconut oil
Salt
Black pepper- freshly ground for an extra kick


And here is how to make them-:

• With the help of vegetable peeler peel the plantains from all sides.
• Slice them thinly with the help of slicer/ mandolin.( Before slicing dip the tip of plantain into coconut oil, remove and start slicing them, it helps prevent sticking while slicing.
• In a bowl, mix coconut oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper and the plantain slices. You can also add some chilly powder if you like, or may be paprika or anything else that you feel like adding .Coat well and keep aside. 
• Line the baking pan with aluminium foil and spray with some oil. 
• Start spreading the plantain slices in single layer on the baking pan.
• Slide the baking pan into a preheated 350F oven  for about 30-35 minutes.
• If you have a couple of baking sheets make sure to rotate them and also flip the banana slices halfway through.
• Bake them until golden and crunchy... and don't forget to savor every bite..:)

Banana Oat Cranberry Bars

This was my second attempt at making these cereal bars! And I promised myself that I will never buy them from the store ever again. The fun with any kind of homemade food is that you can completely alter it to your taste and this is exactly the reason that I keep attempting , sometimes getting better, sometimes not so much! I totally enjoy the whole process and the results is not what I look forward to anymore.

First time I made them for our Bay Area trip and this time was for the Vancouver weekend get-away!
They are easy to carry as a snack anytime you travel. They have a good shelf life. I think they should last for 2-3 days even in the bright sun. My kid loved it, and munched on it at least twice both the days of our trip..:)

Here is what you will need-:

• 1/4th cup Almond milk or soy milk
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1tbsp flax seed
• 1/4th cup coconut oil
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 2 medium ripe bananas
• 1/3 cup of cranberries/ pumpkin seeds etc.
• 2 tbsp of Chia seeds soaked overnight into 2 tbsp of almond milk/ soy milk
• 1.5 cups of regular oats
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
• 1/4th cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp salt

Method-:

• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• Combine sugar, flax seed, almond milk , coconut oil, vanilla extract and whisk together.Keep aside.
• Mash bananas with a fork and stir into wet mixture. Also add cranberries, pumpkin seeds, soaked Chia seeds.
• In other bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.(Oats, wheat flour, shredded coconut, flax seed, cinnamon powder, baking powder and salt)

My little helper- mixing the cranberries and eating half of them while mixing..:)

• Add the wet mixture to dry mixture and mix.
• Line a baking sheet with a parchment paper and spray lightly with a canola oil spray.
• Scoop out on to the pan and press firmly making it even.

Serious work is in progress, no jokes please...!

Before jumping into oven!

• Bake at 350F for 35- 40 minutes.

After popping out of the oven!

• Let it cool and slice into bars. It will make about 10 bars depending on how thick you spread the mixture. The first time I made them, they came out to be 10. This time I think I spread them a little thinner and they came out 12 with more crunch to them because of the thinness.

Recipe source-: http://ohsheglows.com/2010/12/24/healthy-banana-cranberry-oat-bars/

SIMPLE PLEASURES-Mung Dal Dhokla

 

Ingredients-:

Soaked mung daal - 1cup
Green chilly
Garlic crushed
Ginger crushed
Salt to taste
Turmeric- a pinch
Canola oil- 2 tbsp
Baking soda- 1 tsp
Water- 2 tbsp

For Garnishing-:
Chopped Cilantro(Coriander)
Shredded coconut

For tadka-:
Mustard Seeds- 1 tbsp
Curry leaves- 5-6
A pinch of asafoetida

Procedure-:

• Soak the yellow mung daal in water for 4-6 hours. Grind the soaked daal to a rough consistency. Don't make it too smooth.
• Also grind the garlic and chily in a grinder with some salt and keep it aside.
• Put the steamer on the medium flame.
• Mix the grounded mung daal with grounded garlic chilly mixture and add 2 tbsp of water and salt to taste.
• Also add 2 tbsp of canola oil.
• Add the baking soda just before you put the mixture in the steamer.
• Mix everything well and pour the mixture in to a pan that you can safely put in the steamer.
• On a medium- high heat keep the steamer for about 15 minutes.
• The dhokla will be ready in 15- 20 minutes. It's done if inserted knife comes out clean.

I am sending this recipe to Cooking concepts- Vegan Diet - Only plant based hosted by Srav's Culinary Concepts.

                                                      

Baked Mung (mugachi / Yellow Split lentil dumplings) Bhaji

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.

Steamed Spinach Diamonds

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.

Homemade veggie pizza!!!

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. 1 cup of whole wheat flour
2. 1 cup of all purpose flour
3. 1 package of Active dry yeast (I used FLEISCHMANN'S)
4. 1 teaspoon salt
5. 1/2 teaspoon sugar
6. 1 cup of very warm water
7. 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!!

Quick dinner!!

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........:)

Black and White Cookies

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...:)

Roasted potatoes and onions with rosemary

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

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

Blueberry Yogurt Muffins

This one is my entry to the Sweet and Simple Bakes Monthly Baking Event, hosted by Rosie and Maria. 

Thank you Rosie and Maria for hosting this wonderful holiday season baking event for beginner bakers like me...:)

                                                                 

I am not a baker. In fact it was just 2/3 months back, when I started to think about baking. The credit goes to my co-worker Ivy from little Ivy cakes. She inspired me to start baking, and not just baking but also for this blog. HOW???? Check out her blog and you will know.
She has some really delicious recipes, that you will feel you should try.

Baking is not a part of regular Indian cooking. Baking takes place on a really large volumes for making cakes, pastries or different kinds of breads and biscuits in the bakeries in India. During last 10-15 years or so people started buying small ovens for making cakes at home.

So here is my second attempt of baking.
First time I baked was the oatmeal bran muffins, by using the recipe that was on the Quaker oatmeal bran packet. They turned out well. One thing I loved about baking is you have to be precise with the quantity of ingredients you are putting in and you are good. There is no room for eyeballing things. This was really hard for me to begin with. I am very comfortable eyeballing stuff. My mother always cooked the same way. I guess that's true for most of the Indian cook. But again you are good eyeballing when you are making food for a few people.

So this one is the inspired recipe from Bunny's warm oven. Which is inspired from Stonyfield farm. As I am a newbie to baking, I could not make much changes in to the recipe.

Here is what you will need-:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 eggs
1 1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 stick of butter, melted
1 tablespoon lemon zest, grated( I used lime zest)
1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen

I used fresh blueberries. I love Costco for the fruits. I love fruits in a large quantity. They are never too much for me. I am a regular Costco shopper for apples, oranges, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. I love them all and they never go waste on me.
So this time I decided to use my blueberries and make these muffins.

Blueberries are high in fiber and low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium. It's all good right?
Not just that, blueberries are full of antioxidants which prevent cancer causing cell damage and limit age related diseases. So there are reasons why one should eat as much blueberries as they can.

So you should start with mixing the dry ingredient -the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in one bowl.
In other bowl combine the eggs, melted butter, yogurt,sugar, cinnamon, lime zest. Mix them nicely. Now mix dry ingredients in to this mixture and just mix until blended. Do not over mix it.
Now add the blueberries in to it and just mix it once.


Preheat the oven to 375ºF . Spoon the batter in to each muffin cups, filling each cup about two thirds full. It will be done in 15 minutes. They should be brown on top. You can check by inserting a fork or a knife in the middle of the muffin, If it comes out clean, your muffins are ready.
Allow them to cool , and then remove and serve warm.


My muffins turned out great. The only thing was the sugar. Some more sugar would have been fun.

Coming up: An entry to an event - Herb mania