Sweet Tooth

I really have a sweet tooth and find it very difficult to resist sweets. The worst is my post dinner sweet craving.

Now that I have been gaining lot of weight because of this, I have discovered a great post dinner desert, that is sweet and is not that guilt inducing.

- Yoghurt (I use full fat yoghurt, but I am contemplating gradually switching to a low fat/probiotic yoghurt)
- Pomegranate (I have trained my maid to peel it effectively - actually it is very easy to deseed them if you see the structure of it and cut the pomegranate around it's structure rather than the center.)


Mix the two. Basically yoghurt is 3-3.5 spoons on a cup full of pomegranate.

And eat and enjoy :).

Classic egg roll dhaba style

Something that is quick and easy and also hits the spot. My maid makes extra rotis and namkeen parathas (my husband likes it with tea) almost everyday and so many times by the next morning lots of extra rotis are left. Sometimes if rotis are not at home I get theplas from the adjacent store and that works too. If you are in US then ofcourse you have rotis from rotiland to help you out.

Nonetheless this is a classic recipe that I tried and worked. Yest night my mom came from a flight at 12 at night and was hungry. There were only rotis for food and i made these rolls and she got emotional on eating them as she didnt expect anything. You can try variations of sauces ofcourse.

My ingredient list:
1) 1 Roti
2) 1 Egg
3) Finely chopped onions
4) Coriander leaves, some chopped green chillies
5) Lemon or amchur powder (for tanginess- one of the two is must)
6) Peri Peri sauce (Here you can try variations like pudina chutney etc etc


Method:
1) Put some oil in tava and put your roti
2) Whisk the egg and once the roti is hot - pour the whisked egg on the roti- don't let it spill outside the roti. Let it cook, you can turn the roti and egg so that it is firm.
3) Take the result out on a plate with the egg portion facing upwards.
4) Apply a little bit of peri peri sauce on the roti (alternative apply chilli sauce or pudina or coriander chutney)
5) Add the finely chopped onions, some green chilles and lots of coriander leaves.
6) Put amchur powder (i have it as standby and whenever there is no lemon (which is quite often) I put this to add tanginess.
6) Roll the roti and serve.

Everyone eats atleast 2. So ration accordingly.

Is it possible to make pesto without cheese

Seems like yes and Richa Hingle's blog post : http://hobbyandmore.blogspot.com/2011/05/penne-with-basil-cashew-pesto-asparagus.html is my saviour.

She made pesto with basil, mint, green chillies, garlic, cashew. And she claims it is as yummy as the one made with cheese!

So try it on!

Paneer pakora with yoghurt - healthy alternative to deep fried variety

New dish new dish!

It's been raining the whole day and we were not being able to go out to do anything. And in the eve husband was getting really hungry so I decided to recall some recipe somewhere and made this.

Ingredient:
1) Yoghurt
2) Paneer
3) Besan (gram flour)
4) Lots of garlic - crushed
5) Coriander and green chillies and salt

1) Make sort of a batter with yoghurt, green chillies, coriander, crushed garlic. Add a little gram flour to it - helps in binding.
2) Cut paneer in small pieces and keep it in the batter for as long a time as you can to marinate (30 mins).
3) Have a non stick pan- brush it with oil and put the paneer cubes and let it be well done.

The resulting taste is garlicy and a little tangy because of yoghurt. And we finished it before i could take its snap :P.

Breakfast Today

So it has been a week since I have been working in the morning and saurabh is making breakfast for both of us. Today he was super tensed about his work and I was a little relaxed so I thought I could make something he likes.

It is a tough call because Saurabh hardly notices what he is eating when he is tensed. And for some reason, I was finding one ingredient missing in anything I was planning to make.

So anyways I settled for the following:
1) Egg salad sandwich (I experimented by adding mint leaves to egg salad)
2) Chickoo milkshake (since I had got loads of chikoos yest)

And though he was tensed and immersed in his numerous phones with a IPL match rerun on mute and head immersed in a comp, I felt good when after eating the first bite of sandwich he shook his head. (As I write this I am imagining how was I standing in front of him like a voyeur so for all you know the pressure might have compelled him to nod his head)

So here are the recipes:
1) Egg Salad Sandwich
Ingredients:
a- 2-3 Boiled eggs
b- Mint leaves (beautiful accident)
c- Coriander leaves
d- Green chillies
e- Chilli flakes or optionally lal mirch powder
f- Salt to Taste
g- Green onions - little bit
h - Ceaser dressing or mayo (optional - but it does add that much required zing)
i- Lettuce (one can use cucumber etc - but since I had lettuce at home I used it)
j- Bread - toasted crisp.

1) Chop boiled eggs in small pieces. Add a-h in a bowl and mix properly with a spoon - dont make it a paste so best thing is add the boiled eggs afer you whisk everything else together.
2) Toast the bread, add washed and dried lettuce leaves (u dont want water dripping from your sandwich). You can add cucumber onions tomatoes also. But we didn't add. And then add the filling above on the bread.
3) Secret tip - if the bread is really hot and the filling really cold - some people like it more. But I didn't have the time to cool the filling.


----
Milkshake:
1) Peel and cut the chikoos. Remove seeds. So firmer the chickoos easier it is for you to peel.I get mine form Patel stores in front of my house - they are large and not rotten.
2) Blend chicku, some ice cubes and milk (not too much milk - u want the texture of chiku to be dominant here and not the taste of milk) and water. Tip :Always add less milk in the first run and the second milk after tasting the shake and in the second run so that you never regret.

Tip 2: I wanted to add banana too to it but I didn't wanna experiment that combo. Net research shows that it works.

So anyways the hot sandwich and the milkshake combo makes a nice filling happy breakfast.


Strawberry banana:
Priya introduced me to this. If you have strawberries - just blend them with bananas and icecubes. No need to add sugar. Healthy post workout or midmeal option.

Peas Srivastava style

Recipe from my mil.

Ingredients:
1) Fresh green peas - lots of it - ful mixie
2) Lots of ginger
3) Lots of 5-6 colves of garlic
4) Cloves, jeera, kaali mirch
5) Potatoes

Method:
1) Grind 1-3. Yes grind in a mixie as smooth paste.
2) In a pan add oil and add 1. Keep cooking on low flame. For a long time- the peas paste turns brown.
3) Then add some finelly chopped potatos and let it cook for a while.
4) Add a little water and let it cook. The final dish is little liquidy.
5) My m-in-law had a huge urad dal badi that she fired in oil and added to the dish. And we ate it - it along with the main dish felt like the baati of dal baati.

Tomato murabba types

Whenever we went to eat at Masala Bay, they would serve a sweet tomato chutney that I would love. But Saurabh would say his mom makes it better and I would (as usual and as a dutiful d-in-law)dismiss it as nostalgia.
But on this visit to Delhi I asked mom to make it and when I tasted it I absolutely fell in love with it.

Ingredients:
1) Tomato(large cuts)
2) Jaggery
3) Water
4) Sauf (fennel seeds)
5) Ghee

Method:
1) In a pan in add water, jaggery, large cuts of tomato and boil it for about 30 mins on simmer (yes - I swear my m-in-law boiled it for 1 hour or so but I think she boiled it really longer)
2) In 1-2 teaspoon of ghee - add sauf and then mix it with one.

The tomatoes becomes nice and juicy with this method. And I swear - calorie count notwithstanding - I absolutely couldn't help eat a cup full of it. Yummm!

Raita - yoghurt accompaniment to various indian dishes

Sanjeev Kapoor recipe:
1) Crushed garlic
2) Kaala namak
3) Very little Red chilli powder
4) Take thick yoghurt and mix 1-3. If you want to make it thin, add milk. You can strain using a muslin cloth to make it smooth.

My pune aunt's recipe:
1)Cut kheera in very small pieces
2) Coriander leaves
3) Roasted peanuts - good amount (crushed into small pieces- she coarsely powders it but i just break it into 1/6th size and i like it crunchy)
4) Some salt
5)A bit of sugar
6) Yoghurt

Mix well and relish.

Best Hyderabadi Biryani

0) Slice onions and deep fry in oil till brown. Keep it aside
1) Basmati rice - boil till its half done.
2) Get raw papaya paste - add it to lamb pieces - and keep it in fridge for 8 hours.
3) To the marinated lamb pieces add green chillies, salt, haldi powder, red chilli powder, ginger paste, garlic paste, onions sliced and fried (dry and brown), rose petals, pudina(mint) leaves, dhaniya(coriander) add. curd. Mix well. Marinate for 30 mins.
4) On top of it add Rice add elaichi (cardomoms), cloves, kalli mirch, shaahee jeera, moti elaichi, daal chini (cinnamon stick), fried and dried brown onion, garam masala powder, kevda water, pudina(mint) leaves, saffron(mix a little in hot milk), ghee, rose petals, long cut ginger, rose water and kewra water.
5)Cover and cook for 40-45 mins in low flame. Seal it with wheat floor dough. You can put the vessel on a tava so that it doesn't get direct heat.

The Great Indian Greek salad

Low cost low fat. And I love it. I can eat it for most of my life.


Dressing
----------
Ajwain (also called carom seeds, substitute for oregano - it's stronger in taste)
Garlic (4-6 cloves) (optional)
mustard paste (optional)
2 spoons white vinegar / lemon juice
8 spoons olive oil
black pepper (optional)
Salt
(I also add flax seeds)

Mix well for a while.


Cut vegetables:
---------------
Lettuce
Cucumber
Onions
Olives (optional)
Paneer (marinated in vinegar for 2 hours - and then washed good substitute for fetacheese)
Tomatoes
capsicum (optional)

Optionals:
Bama also used to use chickpeas(boiled chole). Some of my friends used boiled chicken also. Choose anything if at all you want.

Easy to make Omlette Cheela

Something my husband loves.

Ingredients:
- Besan, salt, chili powder
- pudina chutney
- Omelette ingredients- egg, onion, green chillies


1) In a bowl add besan, red chilli powder, salt. Add water and mix well. (optional - you can add a pinch heeng also)
2) In a non stick pan - apply oil using tissue paper.
3) Pour the besan paste and spread using spathula so that it is very thin.
4) Add pudina chutney and evenly spread it over the cheela.
5) Once it looks a bit done, pour the omelette mixture (egg, green chillies onion) on it evenly across its whole diameter.
6) Pour oil for corners. Remove and serve with pudina chutney.

Eat :). Requires a bit of patience when the cheela cooks so the thinner the cheela the better it is for you. I wish there was substitute for pudina chutney - else almost everything else is super instant. I think I should try it with dhania chutney and mooli aka delhi style.

Moong Pakodas

Easy to make (though I am yet to try but saw it on food food channel in delhi)


Procedure:
- Wash and Soak Moong dal in garam water
-in kadhai add oil - caraway seeds (shaahi jeera), heeng, add soaked moong dal, red chilli powder, haldi powder, salty, saunf ka powder
- grind
- Add amchur powder, hara dhania to the mixture
- Add fresh bread crumb for binding
- Fry the pokodas in oil

Perfected palak dal

Palak dal and rice is my comfort food. It is also easy to make and I have been making it for years. Here is my perfected and simplistic recipe for palak dal.


1) Boil dal and palak with haldi in cooker. Add a clove of garlic. Cook the dal till one whistle. It should be perfectly boiled.
2) Finely chop 2 cloves of garlic, one green chilli and chop 1 whole tomato.
3) Take ghee/butter, add jeera, garlic and green chillies. Fry them till the garlic almost begins to burn.(The taste of garlic comes out better when it is turned brown) Add tomatoes and cook till the tomatoes melt.
4) Open the cooker, add the result of point 3 and keep the open cooker on the gas in simmer for sometime till the dal comes to a full boil (take a minute or 2).

Eat with rice :). Or eat as is if you are on diet.

Simple Jaggery coconut sweet dish

This is my fav sweet dish.

Ingredients:
1) rice half cup
2) fresh coconut - half shell
3) jaggery - size of your fist - assuming one has a normal sized fist - also amount of jaggery determines the sweetness of this recipe. (jaggery is not an english word? My spell check showing problem)
4) For garnish - your favorite dry fruits- cashew and raisins work wonderfully for south indian dishes, cardomom and ghee.

Method:
1) Soak rice in water for 30 mins to 1 hour.
2)Hope you are lucky with your jaggery and it is soft so you can cut it in small pieces and boil it in water. I was very unlucky the first time as the jaggery was harder than diamond - so i just boiled the whole thing in water to soften it and then cut it in smaller pieces. Sometimes the vessel tends to burn then one can put the vessel (with jaggery and water) inside another vessel with water and then boil till things are soft. Actually it is not that tough to boil jaggery. So don't get intimidated by this step.
3) Cut the coconut into small pieces.
4) In a mixie grind rice and coconut and some water together till it is a coarse paste.
5) To the ground paste add some water and boil. The rice cooks pretty fast (unless you didn't soak it well enough). You can add cardomom too at this stage. I am always wary of too much cardomom in sweet dishes.
6) Hope by this time - the jaggery has melted. So add the jaggery and add water to determine the desired consistency and sweetness.
7) In a pan heat ghee - fry the cashews. I finely chop or crush them as it is nice to get a piece of cashew in your bite. Some folks fry raisins also but i hate fried raisins so i just add raisins directly. Add the fried dry fruits to the dish
8) Very very important step- cool - this dish tastes better the second day. I am not seriously not kidding.

Enjoy :)!

Methi dishes

I love Aloo methi made any which way. But sometimes people don't like methi because of its excessive bitter taste.

But to any methi that is made - one can add dry mango powder at the end and it gives a nice tangy taste.

Coconut stew

I had eaten Appam and coconut stew at MCA and became a big fan of it. I thought of trying it at home but was too lazy to cut vegetables.
But the grocery store in front of my house started stocking precut vegetables. Boon for lazy souls like me! So I thought I could give coconut stew a try and it came out really well.

Ingredients
1) Either the precut veggie pack that contains - carrots benas and cauliflower.
OR
1a) Take carrots- dice it in small pieces
1b) Take beans - cut it in small pieces - this could be painful - i always hate cutting beans
1c) Take cauliflower - cut in small pieces - or one can use potatoes but cauliflower does add certain dimension
2) Green Peas
3) Coconut milk
4) Laung or cloves 5-6
5) Cinnamon stick 1-2

P.S: One of my tamilian friend's mom told me that the goal of such dishes is to have 5 different colored veggies so feel free for any combination one desires.

Method is super simple:
1) Boil all veggies with salt and cloves and cinnamon stick.
2) Once they are boiled - in another pan add a cup full of coconut milk and dilute it with water. Put the veggies and boil eveything together for some more time.

One might want to add a few cloves in step 2 to get the right taste.

Secret ingredient to black eyed peas and egg curry

One can make black eyed peas and egg curry the traditional way (boil, make onion-tomato - ginger garlic curry) etc and it is fairly nice.
But.
But if one adds even a teaspoon of coconut milk (available in india under the brand Homemade for 26 bucks now!) then the dish just becomes really really tasty.

Easiest Baigan ka bharta

Easiest because you need not even cut the onions!
But there is a secret ingredient - sarson ka tel (mustard oil).

I was always reluctant to cook baigan ka bhurta - what will all the mess it creates on the gas stove. None the less - priya showed me a recipe and I have become a fan.

Ingredients:
1) Large eggplant/brinjal/baigan 1
2) Tomatoes 1-2
3) Green chillies 2-3
4) Sarson ka tel -one teaspoon
5) Garlic - 4-5 cloves
6) Coriander (optional)

1) Roast the egg plant on the gas stove. Alternatively you can do it on microwave too. Just poke it enough
2) Let it cool
3) De-skin it
4) Mash it- if it is getting painful -run it in a mixie but for a split sec - you don't want baigan chutney (though someone told me that makes a good mexican dish)
5) Then cut tomatoes - add to it. Finely chop green chillies and garlic - add to it.
6) Add 1-2 teaspoon of mustard oil. No need to add salt. Just mix it.

It is a cold and makes a good side-dish/ salad.

P.S: My mother's version is hot version where she cooks everything together in gas and adds onion too. One can try that as well.