Mushroom With Peas

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Ingredients

3 cups of fresh mushrooms (chopped into bite size pieces)
1 cup green peas
1 tablespoon Oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
pinch of asafoetida
2 medium tomatoes
2 to 3 green chillies
1 " piece ginger
2 Tablespoons grated coconut
1 teaspoon garam masala
Salt to taste
Method

1) Blend tomatoes, green chillies, coconut and ginger into paste and keep aside.

2) Heat oil in a pan, add cumin seeds and once they crack add asafoetida and turmeric powder add tomato paste and cook until oil separates from the paste and then add salt, chopped mushrooms and peas

3) Cook for 10 mins by stirring in between and add garam masala at the end.

Serve hot with Roti/Chapati/Puri/White Rice

Spinach Dal (with Moong dal)

Ingredients:

* 1 cup moong dal
* 2 cup spinach chopped
* 1 teaspoon grated ginger
* 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
* 1/4 teaspoon garam masala
* 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice (adjust to your taste)
* salt to taste

For seasoning

* 2 tablespoon ghee or clarified butter
* 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
* Pinch of asafetida
* 4 whole red chilies

Method:

1. Pressure Cook Dal with Spinach, ginger, turmeric, salt and 4 cups of water (Add more water to your consistency)
2. Add Lemon juice or garam masala
3. For seasoning, heat oil or ghee, add cumin seeds and once they crack add asafoetida and whole red chillies and pour over Dal and mix well

This can be served with Rice or Roti

Spinach Rice

Ingredients

2 cups raw rice (cook in such a way that each grain is separate)
1 Big bunch of spinach leaves (chopped)

4 to 5 green chillies (adjust to your spice level)

1 large tomato chopped

1" piece ginger
1 Tablespoon Ghee(Clarified butter) or oil

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

pinch of asafoetida
whole spices (6 cloves, 1 " piece cinnamon stick -3, 6 cardamoms, 3 bay leaves)

Method

1) Heat 1/2 teaspoon oil in a pan add green chillies to it and fry for few seconds and then add chopped spinach and fry for 1 or 2 mins until the rawness disappears, take out of the flame and cool aside

2) Blend ginger, green chilli-spinach (need not be smooth paste) and keep aside.

3) Heat 1 tablespoon Ghee/oil, add whole spices, turmeric powder, asafoetida and fry for a minute and add the spinach paste and fry for 2 to 3 mins

4) Now add the tomatoes and fry for another 2 to 3 mins, add salt and mix this paste with rice.

Garnish with coriander leaves or cashew nuts and serve with Raita or plain Yogurt

Dhavanai Idly - Dosa

This Recipe adopted from here and came out great and healthy too since it has got Dhals equally. I also made the Dosa with the leftover Batter. Sorry for Poor picture quality.

Ingredients

Urad dal (Black gram) – ½ cup
Channa dal (Bengal gram)-½ cup
Toor dal(Red Gram) -½ cup
Raw rice -1½ cup
For tempering
Mustard seeds -1 tsp
Urad dal – 1 tsp
Curry leaves
Coconut ½ cup freshly grated
Ginger finely chopped.

Method
1) Total Dal quantity should be equal to Rice. Soak chana Dal&Toor Dal together and Urud Dal and Rice seperately for 2 hrs

2) Grind Chana Dal and toor Dal first, rice second and Urud Dal last and mix all of them with salt and ferment it overnight.

3) Heat oil in a pan splutter mustard seeds,urad dal,curry leaves, ginger and coconut . sauté it for few minutes and add to the batter. Grease any cup (I tried Glass and China) with Oil and fill with the batter and cook in steam until they are cooked (approximately 20 mins

I used Idly cooker and also pressure cooker without weight and both turned out good.

Take out the Idly with knife or spoon and serve hot with your favourite chutney/Sambar
Here is the Dosa I made with the left over batter

Pesarattu

Ingredients

1 cup pesalu (whole green moong dal)
1 Tablespoon rice
small ginger piece
2 green chillis
1 Tablespoon cumin seeds
salt to taste
oil
Method

1) Soak Dal and Rice overnight or atleast 8 hours and Grind to a smooth paste by adding, ginger, green chillies, cumin seeds and salt. Do not make it too thin but similar to Dosa or pancake batter.

2) Grease a flat pan with some oil, pour the batter and spread it to make round shape and cook both the side until it turns light brown

3) Serve hot with your favourite chutney


Variations

You can also add chopped onions fried in little oil until transparent to the batter before making pesarattu

Dal Makhani

Ingredients:

* 1/2 cup whole urad dal (black gram dal)
* 1/8 cup red Rajma (kidney beans)
* 1 teaspoon grated ginger
* 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
* 1/2 teaspoon mango powder (Amchoor)
* 1/4 teaspoon garam masala
* 1/4 cup cream
* salt to taste
* 1 Tablespoon Oil or Ghee
* 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
* Pinch of asafoetida
* 3 to 4 whole red chilies

Method
1) Soak Urad Dal and Rajma overnight and pressure cook in 4 cups of water by adding ginger, turmeric powder and salt until Dal and rajma are soft and tender

2) Mash the dal and rajma slightly and again cook in medium heat for about 5 mins, add cream, garam masala, amchoor powder and cook in low heat for another 10 mins.

3) For tempering, heat ghee or oil, splutter cumin seeds, add asafoetida and red chillies and mix with the Dal.

Garnish with grated ginger and Serve hot with Roti/Chapathis/Puris

Bisibela bath with Broken Wheat

Friday, January 23, 2009

This is a healthy and tasty dish and tastes as good as the one which we make with rice and also good for health to consume wheat more than rice especially for diabetic people. I made this last night and liked it very much and brought the same for today’s lunch too. Easy alternative for chapattis at nights. It is always a healthy idea not to eat rice at nights so we can make dishes with broken wheat or pasta as alternatives instead of spending lot of time for making rotis/chapathis.

Ingredients

1 cup broken wheat
1/2 cup Red gram dal (Tur dal)
Vegetables - Beans, Peas and Carrot - chopped
Tamarind- a small lemon size
1 teaspoon Mustard seeds
1 teaspoon Urud Dal (Black gram dal)
Curry leaves (optional)
1/2 teaspoon Turmeric powder
pinch of asafoetida
Salt to taste
1 tbsp Oil

1 1/2 Tablespoon Bisibela bath mix powder

Or make Bisibela bath mix (paste) with the below ingredients

1 teaspoon Bengalgram dal
1 teaspoon Urud Dal (Blackgram dal)
1/2 teaspoon Coriander seeds
2 whole Red chillis
small piece of Cinnamon
2 Cloves
2 Cardamom
3 teaspoons grated Coconut

Method

1) Clean Dal and pressure cook with broken wheat in 3 to 4 cups of water. It is a good practice to soak Dal for 15 mins to 30mins in water before cooking so that Dal cooks soon and soft.

2) Extract the juice from tamarind and keep aside. Heat tamarind with water in microwave for a min and extract juice immediately instead of waiting for tamarind to soak in water

3) Heat Oil, splutter mustard seeds, add urud dal and once it turns brown add curry leaves, turmeric powder and asafetida and fry for few secs

4) Add chopped veggies fry for couple of mins and then add Bisibela bath mix (readymade or homemade paste) and 1 cup of water and cook until vegetables are cooked. Now add tamarind juice, cooked wheat/Dal, salt. Mix and cook in medium-low heat for another 5 mins.

Garnish with coriander leaves and ghee and serve hot.

Vegetable Sandwich

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Vegetable sandwich for today's lunch. Very quick and easy to make. I like the sandwich maker i bought recently which really makes a crispy sandwiches without using any oil. If you are going to eat fresh then you can use spicy coriander chutney as a spread or if you want to pack for a lunch then you can avoid this to maintain the crispy texture.

I am sure even without using the sandwich maker this tastes good as it is.

I used sliced cucumber, black olives, sliced yellow bell peppers and sliced beetroot to fill in the sandwich. Also used coriander chutney as a spread last night for eating fresh and did not use the same to bring for lunch. Also white bread tastes great for this sandwich but you can use wheat bread which is more healthy. I used white :-)
Ingredients to make 2 sandwiches

Your choice of chopped vegetables
4 bread slices
coriander chutney
chat masala
salt and pepper

Method

Spread coriander chutney to 2 slices and arrange veggies on the other 2 slices by spreading salt, pepper and chat masala. sandwich the slices and eat as it is or use sandwich maker until they turn brown and crispy

Chickpeas Soup

Chickpeas soup is another tasty and healthy soup i made last night

Ingredients

1/2 cup chickpeas(soaked overnight and pressure cooked)
1 green chilli
small piece of ginger (1 teaspoon grated)
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
salt and pepper to taste

Method

1) Heat oil and throw in cumin powder and rest of the ingredients, fry for a min.

2) Cool and grind to a paste with some water. Strain the liquid to the same pan with a strainer and add more water if required and bring to boil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

server hot with croutons of your choice

Notes

Make sure the green chilli is very small and do not add more than one. We can add pepper to adjust the taste but if chilli is more we cannot do anything except throwing the soup. Even without chilli it will taste good. So think about your spice level and decide whether to add chilli or not

Tomato Rice

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Here is the Tomato rice which i made for today's lunch.

Ingredients

2 cups raw rice (cook with less water in such a way each grain is separate)

4 large tomatoes
1 Tablespoon grated ginger or 1 " piece of ginger
4 to 5 green chillies (adjust to taste)
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 Tablespoon oil
whole spices (4 cloves, 1" piece cinnamon sticks -3, 4 cardamoms, 3 bay leaves)
salt to taste

Method

1) Blend tomatoes, ginger and green chilli into paste

2) Heat oil, fry whole spice for few seconds and add the ground paste and fry until oil separates from the paste. It takes around 5 to 6 mins and the quantity reduces to half.

3) add coriander powder, salt and mix with the rice.

server hot with Raita

Variations

1) You can add chilli powder if required
2) You can fry crushed garlic & chopped onions before adding the paste after frying whole spices.
3) You can add curry leaves too along with the whole spices