Brain and Bread with Ganesha ....

Paneer Bhurji / Scrambled Indian cottage cheese

2013-03-11T15:18:00.003-05:00

I made some paneer (Indian cottage cheese) at home from whole milk. After cutting out the cubes (with the intention to make matar paneer), I had some crumbled pieces left out from the edges. So I changed my plans, I froze the paneer cubes for later use and made Bhurji out of the crumbled paneer.

So here's the recipe. It's quick and easy to make and goes well with roti or you can use it to stuff parata or make sandwich out of it.

Here is what you would need:
1 1/2 cup - crumbled paneer
1 onion - finely chopped
2 green chillies- finely chopped (use according to your preference)
1 tomato - finely chopped
1 tspn- Ginger-garlic paste
1/4 cup green bell pepper- finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon - cumin seeds
1/2 tsp red chilli powder (use depending on the heat)
1/4 tspn turmeric powder
1/4 tsp - garam masala powder
4-5 tbsps milk
salt to taste
1 tbspn -oil
fresh cilantro leaves to garnish

How I made the bhurji :
Heat oil in a vessel, add cumin seeds, when they splutter add chopped onions, saute till onions turn transparent.
Add green chillies, bell pepper, ginger-garlic paste and fry for few minutes.
Then add turmeric powder, red chilli pwd, salt and mix. Add the chopped tomato and cook till all the ingredients are cooked well and the oil starts to separate. Add crumbled paneer and stir well to combine and cook for 2-3 minutes.
Add milk and gently mix the contents, make sure the paneer does not stick to the vessel. Once the milk evaporates, sprinkle garam masala powder and mix.
Garnish with fresh cilantro leaves ( I was out of cilantro so did not add) and serve hot with rotis.

Valentine Heart Cookies

2013-02-14T16:29:00.001-06:00

"Mom, I need to paint a red heart and make some heart cookies", for whom I asked. "For My daddy for Balentime's day....", and so we baked some cookies and it had to be black because daddy favourite color is Black.

Years just fly by, my little one is growing up so fast, she is so involved in baking and making neat little crafts. She made a pretty card for dad and cookies and proclaimed, "I made this for you dad, with a little help from mom." This year valentines day is all about her. She wore a pretty pink outfit and admired herself in the mirror.

We decided on simple chocolate cookies. These cookies are so easy to make and can be cut into any shape you like.

Recipe : Martha Stewart

What you need:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick), cut into pieces

1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar

1 large egg

How I made:
In a bowl, mix together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
In a double boiler, place chocolate, butter, and brown sugar, stir frequently until all the ingredients melt. If the sugar doesn't dissolve completely don't worry about it. Remove from heat, and stir until it gets smooth and shiny, let cool slightly.

Add egg to the cooled chocolate mixture (don't add when the chocolate is hot unless you plan on making scrambled chocolate egg ) and blend it well. Gradually stir in flour mixture. The dough will form a ball.

Divide dough in half and roll out each half by placing the dough in between two sheets of parchment paper to about 1/4-inch thickness. Transfer each half (still on the paper) to a baking sheet, freeze until firm. I left it overnight but you could get done in 20 minutes too.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take out one sheet of rolled out dough peel off th etop layer of parchment paper. Using a heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out the cookies, place on baking sheet 1/2 inch apart. Follow the same with remaining sheet. Bake for about 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool. Enjoy

Other recipes for valentines day:
Chocolate dipped strawberry
Chocolate cups with berries

Sweet Pongal

2013-01-15T14:15:00.003-06:00

Wishing everyone a very happy Pongal/ Makarasankranthi /Lohri.

I thought this would be a perfect time to pick up the thread from where I left last year. I have not been having enough motivation to do any thing, let alone blogging. But I do confess that I checked my blog almost everyday to see the updates. The last one year I cooked some new dishes, clicked some random pictures to post but it never made it to my blog.
So here I am back with a recipe for sweet pongal for a new beginning and hope to keep up my enthusiasm to post regularly.

This year I made Venpongal, chutney and Sweet pongal. Since it was a working day, I made it in the evening and offered prayers. Though the traditional way of making pongal is to boil milk and let it spill over and than add rice to it, I opted the quicker way of using a pressure cooker.

What You need: (serves 4)
Raw Rice - 1 cup
Moong dal - 1/2 cup
Jaggery - 1 cup crushed
dry nuts( cashews, almonds) and raisins - 1/4 cup
Ghee- 3 table spoon ghee
Milk- 2 cups
Water- 2 cups + 1 cup

How I made :

In a pressure cooker, dry roast the moong dal till it changes color and gives out a nice aroma. Wash it along with rice and keep it aside.
In the same cooker heat 2 tablespoon ghee and fry the nuts and raisins. Once done remove and set it aside.
Into the remaining ghee in the cooker add the washed rice and dal, milk and 2 cups of water. Close and cook for 3 whistles. You can cook it over stove top the traditional way, Heat the milk and water once it starts to boil add rice and dal and cook until it gets mushy.
While the rice is cooking , in a seperate pan add jaggery and 1cup water and cook till it starts to boil. Lower the heat and the jaggery syrup cook till it thickens. To test for doneness, add a drop of the syrup into a bowl of cold water, if the jaggery syrup dissolves in water it needs to get thickened further if it stays intact than it is done. Let it cool a bit.
Once the rice and dal is cooked, add into the jaggery syrup and mix well. Cook it for few more minutes on low heat till the rice gets well blended with the syrup. Keep mixing frequently. Once cooked to desired consistency, add the nuts and raisins. Drizzle the remaining ghee on top and serve hot.

Tips:
- Use sona masuri or ponni raw rice. Other rice varieties will change the flavor of the dish.
- You can use brown sugar in place of jaggery.
- You can add cardamom for added flavor.
- You can reduce the amount of ghee if you need but remember, more ghee = better taste :).

VEN PONGAL

2012-01-16T13:16:00.000-06:00

Happy Pongal and Makara Sankranthi to everyone.

Image : source

This year we had a very simple celebration, made ven pongal and coconut chutney and offered payers.
We make pongal in two different style at home, venpongal, and the khara pongal. Ven pongal ( ven- means white in tamil), is served with sambar or chutney or both.
This year I am having major problems with my gadgets, first I lost my pics, now my SD card reader of my laptop broke, have to wait until I get a card reader. So can't upload any pictures. Just thought I would post the recipe so that I don't take any more long breaks......

What we need:
1 cup- Raw rice
1/4 cup moong dal
1 tspn black peppercorn
2 tspn cumin seeds
8-10 curry leaves
2 tablespoon ghee
salt to taste
6 cups of water

How I made it :
Heat a pressure cooker or a thick bottomed pan. Dry roast the moong dal. Wash the roasted moong dal along with the rice 3-4 times. In the same pan / pressure cooker, heat 1 tablespoon of ghee, when hot add peppercorns,cumin seeds, curry leaves and than add the washed rice and dal. Add water and salt to taste. Cook in pressure cooker for 2 whistles or in a open pan till the rice is well cooked. Rice should be mushy, it tastes better.

Once done add 1 tablespoon of ghee and mix well. Serve with chutney or sambar. It's ultimate comfort food.....

Cookies for Santa- a chewy chocolate chip cookie

2012-01-05T00:14:00.000-06:00

These days my little one always asks me to bake. She will take a bowl and a spoon and say, "Mummy put some stuff into this, I will help you mix mix mix..... ", does it really help??
I normally give her flour and baking powder to be mixed, but the end result, flour all over the place and of course on herself, but surprisingly every time she helps me mix, whatever I bake turns out to be extremely good. Magic of little hands.Three days before christmas she went on nagging me that we need to bake cookies for Santa. I was really tired and was looking forward to my vacation, finally I gave up to her request and decided to bake some simple chocolate chip cookies, following the recipe on the shortening container :). Sometimes they have the best recipe out there.

So we made a batch of cookies and she kept on peeking into the oven to see if they were done and constantly telling me, "I need to be careful right mummy, remember the oven is hot". When the oven beeped, she stood there, with an oven mitt for me to pull out the baking sheets, of course giving me a piece of advice, that I need to be careful or else I will get booboo.

My little baking assistant

The cookies came out and guess what, I tried to taste them and she goes ,"They are for Santa mummy, he come our home tonight". I stored the cookies in a container and left them on the table hoping that she would eat, but she would sincerely take a cookie out of it, put it in a bowl and give it to Santa to eat. Me and my hubby ate the cookie left for Santa in her absence and she assumed that Santa ate them all :). None of us were allowed to eat the cookie from the box in her presence. So we still have cookies left and everyday she has been giving Santa some cookies. Yesterday morning she found a small cookie box filled it up and left in front of Santa. Now Santa no more sits near the christmas tree, he is enjoying the comfort of our couch and the soft chewy chocolate cookies......

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies:
source- Crisco shortening container
Makes 36 cookies

What you need:
1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup shortening
2 Tbspn whole milk
1 Tbspn vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 3/4 All purpose flour
1 tspn salt
3/4 tspn baking soda
1 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

How I made it:
Preheat oven 375 F. Combine brown sugar, shortening, milk and vanilla in a large bowl and mix until well blended and creamy, add egg and beat it well into the mixture.
Combine flour, salt and baking soda and mix into the wet ingredients mixture until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Drop tablespoon full of cookie dough on an ungreased baking sheet about 3 inches apart.
Bake for 8 minutes to get nice soft chewy cookies. Cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet and than place cookies on cooling rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Seven Layer Bars

2012-01-02T23:58:00.003-06:00

Wish you all a very happy new year.

I have been not enough motivated these days to post anything in my blog and secondly lost all my pictures saved on my laptop with no backups, which was enough to demotivate me further. Finally I made up my mind and decided click some pics of the stuff I baked during my christmas vacation and post them. Better late than never.

I hope every one and wonderful start this year and made some good resolutions that you will hopefully not break. I made a resolution to be active in blogging to keep my mind diverted for sometime from my daily routine and try out new things.......will I be able to keep up with it????, only time will tell.

Coming back to my recipe for today, I tasted seven layer bars for the first time almost 3 years back at a super bowl party hosted at my hubby boss's house. I enjoyed it and immediately came home and searched for recipes, but never made it. Than again when I started blogging, I decided I need to try this out, got ingredients and than used it for something else. Finally, I decided to bake these lovely bars for christmas.

Its so simple, I wonder why I didn't bake them till now...... I got the recipe from here but made changes in some ingredients and the method, to suit my taste. I tried to keep it seven layers though and didn't add any extra layer.

What you need:

1.5 cups of graham crackers (tightly packed)
1 stick of unsalted butter
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch flavored chips
1 cup chopped Nuts ( I used cashews, almonds, raisins)
1.5 cup dry coconuts flakes
1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk

How I made it:
Set oven temperature to 350 degree F, meanwhile in a 13 x 9 inch baking tray put butter and leave it the oven. In another tray leave the nuts to get slightly roasted (may be 3-5 minutes ) until they turn a golden brown.
Once the butter gets completely melted in the tray add the graham cracker crumbs. Mix with the butter until well blended and than pat it on the bottom of the tray to form a uniform layer. Than layer with chocolate chips, followed by butterscotch chips, nuts and 3/4 cup of shredded coconut. Pour the sweetened condensed milk over this. using a fork gently press down. Add the remainder of the shredded coconut on top. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the coconut turn lightly brown. Cool and than cut into desired shape. I got 28 pieces.

Tips:
-I made crumbs using graham cracker that the the crumbs are nice and fresh. gently crush the crackers by hand and put them in a ziplock bag and using a rolling pin (or the condensed milk can as I did) crush the crackers to get crumbs.
-Roasting the nuts prior to baking gives a nice flavor and crunch to the bars
-You can use a parchment paper to line the tray for easy lifting of the entire bars
-Wait till it cools a bit to cut the bars.

Rice and Coconut payasa/Pudding-Happy Diwali

2011-10-26T16:53:00.001-05:00

Happy Diwali to every one

I hope you all are having a great time I really miss all the fun we had during diwali back in India. Had made big plans this year to make diwali sweets but unfortunately couldn't make anything. I thought, the least I could do to keep up my spirits was to post a sweet dish on my blog. I made this sweet dish during navrathri but never posted it. So here it goes for diwali.

This is one of the traditional dishes my mom makes often. I like this kheer (payasa in kannada) more than the semiya kheer, so mom often made this on my request. I thought it's too much work and never dared to make it. I was surprised that it was so simple to make. Mom makes it with rice, coconut and poppy seeds. I wanted to add some twist so I ground up some dry nuts instead of frying them and using for garnish.

This has poppy seeds in it so it aids you get better sleep, that's the reason I like it more :).

What you need:

1/4 cup White raw rice (you can use any variety)

1/2 cup grated coconut fresh / frozen

2 table spoon brown sugar/ sugar/ jaggery

1 teaspoon poppy seeds

1 tablespoon ghee

5 almonds

5 whole cashewnuts

20 raisins

3 cardamom pods

How I made it:

Soak rice, almonds and cashews for 30 min in warm water. Once well soaked grind it coursely along with coconut. Crush the poppy seeds seperately with little water. In a thick bottomed pot, add the ground rice and coconut mixture along with 1.5 cups of water. Add sugar and cook until it thickens and the raw taste is gone. Keep stirring it often or else it tends to thicken at the bottom. Add powdered cardamom. Garnish with raisins fried in ghee. You can make the thicknesss according to your liking.
Serve warm with ghee over it or serve it chilled.
I like to make it thick and eat it chilled.......just love all the flavors of poppy seed, coconut and cardamom, reminds me of home and mom ... :(

Tips:
You can use milk to get the right consistency.
You can also add brown and polson custard powder to it to get a different flavor

Ganesha story and my little one's version

2011-09-30T15:03:00.000-05:00

This happened last night. I thought it was so hilarious wanted to share with everyone.

My little one who is 2 yrs 4 month old was insisting I tell her a story. I told her some than she asked me for Ganesha story. She is a big Ganesha fan. The first one to strike my mind was the birth of Ganesha, but than I decided it's not appropriate for her age. So decided to keep it simple and started with this story ;

Me - Ganesha visited everyone's house and ate lot of mommom (food in my little ones language). What did Ganesha eat for Mommom ?
Baby - crackers, rice, dal, Paathi( chapathi), noodles, apple juice and chicken.

Me- Ganesha doesn't eat chicken
Baby - why ?
Me- he doesn't like it

Me- Than ganesha sat on his rat and was riding back home
Baby- No mummy, Ganesha ride big Bike ( she is obsessed with motor bikes these days).
Me- Ok lets make ganesha ride a bike. He was riding and than fell down and got a booboo.
Baby- Oh Noooo, what to do now?. Ganesha cry , mummy mummy. We give magic rub to Ganesha.

Me - ok, than ganesha saw a snake on the road and took it and tied around his belly.
Baby- oh that's scary, I don't like it.

Isn't Ganesha cool, Image : source

Now, I am wondering should I even dare to tell all the mythological stories that we grew up listening too. I was wondering what else she will come with if I tell her ganesha was initially beheaded and than got a elephant head, will she ask if she can have a caillou head or Barney head :).

Thyme flavored Pan roasted potatoes

2011-09-29T15:50:00.002-05:00

I was at my friend's place and happened to smell freshly grown thyme in the yard. It reminded me so much of ajwain. I was so tempted that I picked some to try in my cooking. Of course the first vegetable that immediately striked my mind was potatoes. Hmm, I had never tried fresh thyme before . I had some baby red potatoes that I had bought from the farmers market and decided to combine the two. I kept the seasoning simple to enhance the thyme flavor. It turned out to be good, and I liked the mild lemony flavor of the thyme in the potatoes.

What you need:

20-25 red baby potatoes

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon red chilly powder

¼ teaspoon garlic powder (optional)

1-2 twigs of fresh Thyme

salt to taste

1 tablespoon canola oil

I love the red potatoes, not only for their taste but the red color looks so appealing

How I made it:

Clean and cut the potatoes in half. I microwaved them for 2 minutes. This released the starch out, I did this for 2 reasons, it cooks faster and the starch released gives it a nice crisp on the cut side.

In a pan heat the oil, add the cumin and fennel seeds, wait till they pop add the potatoes and few thyme leaves and roast for a while. When the potatoes are half done add salt, red chilly powder, garlic powder and mix well. Roast for some more time till the potatoes turn nice n crisp. Finally crush the remaining fresh thyme leaves a bit by hand and add to the potato fry. Serve hot as side dish.

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

2011-09-02T15:07:00.000-05:00

Wishing you all a very Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

Water melon rind gojju

2011-08-01T00:13:00.000-05:00

My little one loves watermelon and every week I buy a huge one, so that it lasts for a week. This time the one I bought had a thick rind, So decided to make some use of it. I know they normally use in sambar but I had never tasted it, so wasn't sure of the taste. I used few pieces in sambar and couldn't tell the difference between lauki and the rind. So I used the rest to make gravy with coconut or Gojju as we call in kannada.

What we need:

2 cups cubed Water melon rind
1 large onion
1/2 cup coconut
1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
2 cloves
1/2 inch cinnamon
Few strands of cilantro leaves
1 teaspoon coriander powder
2 teaspoon red chilly powder
2 tablespoon tomato puree
1/2 teaspoon mustard
1 table spoon oil

How it's made:
Peel the green portion out of the rind, cut the white portion into small cubes. Grind onions, coconut, cilantro leaves, clove n cinnamon into a fine paste. Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds, when it splutters, add the ground masala, ginger garlic paste, tomato puree and cook for a while. Add chilly and coriander powder, salt and the cubed water melon rind and cook till done.
The fastest way to cook this is in pressure cooker, put every thing together and cook for one whistle.
Serve with roti or white rice. It tasted like bottle gourd/ lauki to me, I am surely going to try more recipes with this now.

Andhra Chicken Fry

2011-07-31T15:53:00.000-05:00

We had been to an Indian restaurant 2 years ago with my inlaws and had ordered this andra chicken fry as a starter. We really liked the flavors and the spiciness of it and wanted to try. Was wondering what spices to use, I thought of asking my brother inlaw who is a great lover of chicken and from andra. He gave me this recipe and wow it really turned out to be spicy and delicious, much better than the one we tried out in the restaurant.

What You need :

1 lb Chicken with bones - cut into bite size pieces.
1 large onion finely chopped
1 tablespoon Ginger garlic paste
Dry Masala : 3 Cloves , 1/2 inch cinnamon sticks, 2 teaspoon black pepper, 1-2 dry chillies, turmeric powder and 1/4 cup dry coconut.

Grind to coarse powder.

1 big Tomato boiled, peeled and Pureed.

How it's made:

Heat oil in a pan and add the onions. Fry till onions turn golden brown in color. Add chicken, fry for a few minutes and add salt to taste. Close the lid and cook til the chicken is almost done. Open the lid and let the water evaporate. Add ginger-garlic paste, cook for a while and than add tomato puree and fry for some more time. Now add the dry masala and fry for 4-5 minutes till you get a nice aroma.

serve as starter or as a side dish.

Note: use the red chilly depending on your taste and the heat of the chilly, My BIL suggested I use 10-12 chilly, I used just 2 red chilly and it was still hot.

I sometimes use crushed canned tomatoes instead of tomato puree.

Healthy carr-lett juice

2011-07-16T12:33:00.000-05:00

The heat and humidity is just soaring and its been really hard on my health. To top that haven't been getting enough sleep. However, I need to keep myself up and have enough strength to run behind my little one. I have been gulping down juice every few hours on weekend. Wanted to try something new and healthy. I had this iceberg lettuce in the fridge which needed to be used, I am not the one who likes salad, so I used it along with some carrots and made this nutritious refreshing juice.

How I Made :

Took Half iceberg lettuce and 1 big carrot along with some water and blended it. Strained it and added some honey and a pinch of salt, added some ice cubes and enjoyed the drink. May be next time I will add some mint to make it more refreshing. By the way iceberg lettuce is known to have mild opiate like effect which aids sleep, which I was in badly need of.

What happened to the strained pulp, it went into my dal.

Nutty Croissants

2011-06-30T23:50:00.000-05:00

What do you do when you have to visit a friend and have no energy to make something to take and don't think you could stop by a store to pick up something. You come up with a quick and easy recipe, sometimes necessity forces you to make something new that you have never tried before. That's exactly what happened to me last week, I was wondering what I would do, I found a package of croissant in my refrigerator which was meant to be for my breakfast and my neurons were immediately spiking with an idea, so here is what I did.

What you need :
1 pack-croissant dough
2 table spoon butter
for filling:
1 tablespoon bread crumbs
4 walnuts
5 cashew nuts
4 almonds
20 raisins
dash of cinnamon powder
1 tablespoon sugar

How its made:
Make a course powder of all the filling ingredients, add 1 table spoon of melted butter, mix well and set it aside. Open up the croissant pack, take each individual triangle spread the filling and roll the croissant. Do this with the rest, normally these packs make 8 croissants. Set in a tray, brush melted butter on top sprinkle some crystal sugar and place a silvered almond and bake in a preheated oven at 375 F for 11-13 minutes or as per the package instructions.

Serve warm or cool it. If you have to serve later just warm it up lightly in microwave. There you go, a nutty delight to enjoy in few minutes. Its slightly crispy on the outside, soft and than hits the nutty flavors and sweetness......

Stuffed Brinjal

2011-06-26T15:03:00.000-05:00

Brinjals or eggplant are not something that I really like, but once in a while I do cook brinjals, that too if I am able to get some fresh ones in Indian store. This recipe of stuffed brinjal is from my mom and I just love this combination of peanuts and onions in the masala with the tanginess of tamarind. I guess she learned this recipe from her friends from Dharwad. Normally they don't make this variety of stuffed brinjal in the Mysore region.
Anyway, wherever its origin is, it is a nice combo to have with akki (rice) roti or jowar roti.

What you need:
4 small sized brinjals/ eggplant
1/4 cup peanuts
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1/4 cup grated coconut
1/2 cup finely chopped red onions
1 teaspoon red chilly powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 teaspoon tamarind paste
2 tablespoon copped cilantro leaves
salt to taste
1/4 cup oil

How its made :
Dry roast the peanuts and sesame seeds seperately and grind it into course powder. To this powder add chilly powder, turmeric powder, salt, onions, cilantro and finally the tamarind paste, mix well and set aside.
Wash the brinjals, pat it dry, cut of the stem part and make a slit in the form of plus such that the brinjals are divided into four parts but still held at the bottom. Fill the stuffing in between the slits and set aside. Heat oil in a pan,add the stuffed brinjals and the remaining stuffing masala and let it cook in the oil. Keep flipping the brinjals often or else it will burn on one side. If required drizzle some oil over it while cooking, this will help the masala inside the brinjal cook well. When almost done sprinkle some water, close the lid and lower the heat. The brinjals will get cooked in the steam generated. Serve hot with rice/ jowar roti. or as a side dish with rice and dal.

Some people grind the masala into a fine paste for stuffing. For a less oil version you can start off with 1 tablespoon of oil, add brinjals and later add water and steam it. I personally like with more oil. The peanut masala tends to get crispier with frying in oil and goes well with the mushy brinjals.

Wawa Melon aka Water Melon Granita

2011-06-22T14:07:00.003-05:00

Let's kick start the summer with some refreshing water melon granita. Remember your childhood days licking ice ka gola, this is just a similar version of it. I am sure kids would love it and the elders too. Its so refreshing and easy to make, All you do is blend, freeze, rake and eat .......it's fun and you need few basic ingredients.

Wondering about the new name for a common water melon, well that's my little one's version and I got used to calling it by that name now. Water in her baby language is 'wawa'.

This is my entry to serve it- chilled, hosted by Oh Taste n See.

What you Need:
3 cups seedless watermelon cubes
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoon sugar ( add according to the sweetness of the water melon)

How its Made:
Blend all the ingredients in a blender. Pour into a shallow freezer safe bowl and freeze for about 30 minutes, uncovered. Using a fork rake the crystals that are formed and refreeze for another 30 minutes. Rake the crystals again and freeze overnight or for 3- 4 hours. I left it in the freezer overnight and next day just used a fork to mix it and got beautiful crystals. For serving, use pre-chilled glasses, layer water melon balls and top it with watermelon granita, or just go the natural way use watermelon rind as bowls. The darker the color of the watermelon the prettier your granita would look. The water melon I used was pale red which makes the crystals look whiter, but it was very sweet.

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T15:35:00.000-05:00

A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again. ~Enid Bagnold

Happy father's day to all dad's.

Saunf Chicken Fry

2011-06-16T00:16:00.001-05:00

This is yet another quick chicken fry recipe, I just made up with whatever ingredients I felt like adding. I had some boneless chicken pieces and wanted to make something pretty quick by the time my dal would be done. (you need to multitask when you have little one nagging you to play with her). So here is my jhatpat saunf chicken fry.

What You need:
250 gms - boneless chicken breast
1 tablespoon saunf( fennel seeds)
1 small dried red chilly
1 tablespoon dessicated coconut
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder/ or 1 garlic clove
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon lemon juice
few curry leaves
salt to taste
1 tablespoon oil

How its made:
Clean and cut the chicken into small bite size cubes. Dry roast saunf, chilly, curry leaves and coconut. Cool and grind to a course powder. Mix the powder, lemon juice, turmeric powder and salt with the chicken and let it marinate for 10 minutes (Longer you marinate it will taste better, but I wanted to get done quickly). Heat oil in a shallow frying pan, add the marinated chicken and cook till done. Serve with rice and dal.

Rice Appam

2011-06-09T23:36:00.002-05:00

This is a simple dosa variety. It doesn't contain urad dal like the traditional dosa. Instead of it, cooked rice is used. What I really like about it is, its crispy on one side and very soft on the other, so you get two different texture.

What You need:
2 cups long grain rice
1/2 cup cooked white rice
1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
salt
Ghee/butter

How it's made:

Soak the raw rice, cooked rice and fenugreek seeds in water for 3-4 hours. Grind to fine batter, Add salt and let it ferment overnight. In winter fermentation is a problem and it may take longer.

Once well fermented heat a skillet or dosa pan, spread the batter like a traditional dosa. Cover it and let it cook on medium heat for few minutes, until the top layer is cooked and the bottom layer gets a nice golden color. Don't turn and cook again. This has to be cooked on one side only. Spread ghee or butter and serve hot.

Potato in Green Masala

2011-06-09T23:04:00.015-05:00

My mom makes different variety of gojju (thick gravy). This recipe of potato gojju in green masala is one of them. I love this specially with dosa. Since I typically don't like eating dosa or idli with just chutni, mom always made some sort of gojju for me. As I have mentioned before most of my mom's recipe needs grinding. So lets get started with ingredients needed for grinding.

What you need:

for grinding:

1/4 cup- coconut (either dry or fresh)

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 green chillies

2-3 pods of garlic

1/2 inch ginger

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

2 cloves

1/4 inch cinnamon

3-4 stalks of Cilantro

Rest of the ingredients needed:

4 medium sized Potatoes

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

2 teaspoon oil

salt to taste

How it's made:

Grind all the spices mentioned in the list above with some water to make a smooth paste. Fresh coconut gives more gravy consistency, while using dry coconut makes the masala thick and may end up adhering more on the potatoes. Either way it tastes good.

In a pan heat oil, add mustard, once it splutters, add the potatoes and the ground paste, salt, water as needed and cook till done.

The gravy is very spicy , adjust the amount of black pepper and green chillies to your taste. Serve with dosa. It tastes best with rice appam and you can have it with bread too. I just love the rich green color of the dish and it made with potatoes, what better reason you need.

Mom made this on some festivals days too as this doesn't contain onions and she wouldn't use garlic. (she follows a strict no garlic or onions cooking on all festival days).

Shrimp Biryani

2011-06-05T00:02:00.002-05:00

I normally make Biryani on Sunday's these days. Me and my little one like biryani unlike my hubby. But he has no choice now, if I make he has to eat, as we females dominate in the house these days :). I normally make fish or chicken biryani, but last week wanted to try out shrimp. So here is a my version of shrimp biryani. I normally make biryani with store bought biryani masala (makes it easier) but sometimes when I have time and patience like to try with whole spices.

What You need:
20 large sized raw shrimp
1 tablespoon ginger- garlic paste
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoon red chilly powder
1/2 teaspoon garam masala powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1 large onion - finely sliced
2 green chillies- slit lengthwise
4 cloves
1 inch cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 star anise
1 cardamom pod
2 bay leaf
cilantro leaves
1/4 cup coconut milk
saffron strands ( optional)
3 cups of basmati rice
2 tablespoon oil
salt to taste

How it's Made:

Clean and devein the shrimps. Marinate it for atleast 30 minutes with ginger-garlic paste, lemon juice, chilly powder, turmeric, chilly powder and garam masala.

In a pan heat oil and fry the sliced onions until they turn brown. Add bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, cardamon, black pepper, star anise and fry till you get a nice aroma ( about 2 minutes). Add the marinated shrimp and mix well and cook for few minutes. Add coconut milk and water if required and cook until the shrimps are done and you get a thick gravy.

Wash and cook basmati rice with salt and one bay leaf, until almost done.

To assemble the biryani I used a loaf tray. (You can layer in any pan and cook on stovetop). Put a layer of rice and than a layer of the shrimp masala, sprinkle some chopped cilantro and put another layer of rice. Cover it with foil and place it in oven preheated to 350 degrees F for 10-15 minutes. Once done, remove from oven and invert the pan onto a serving tray. I baked it for two reasons, One wanted to try a nice presentation, and secondly my oven was already turned on for baking something else, so used it. Normally I just layer it in a pan and cook for 10 minutes on the stove.

I soaked few strands of saffron in warm milk (about 1 tablespoon) and just poured it over the rice. Garnish and serve hot.

While I was trying to get a better background to take the picture, my little one tried to taste the biryani and she scooped out chunks out of it, I tried to manage to put it back together (every thing in the back is gone) and take the picture below. She thinks its fun to play with food while I try to take pictures, and than she poses with a big smile for the shot :).

Quick Pear Tart

2011-06-04T00:58:00.001-05:00

It was saturday afternoon and my little missy was taking a nap. I was bored and didn't want to watch TV or read. So I thought of baking something. I prefer baking while she is not around as she loves to peep into the oven every time I open it. I had some pear wanted to try to make something out of it. I had seen Ina Garten on her show, 'Barefoot Contessa'. demonstrate french apple tart , a few weeks back. I basically adapted this recipe from her, but made changes to my convenience. She made her own pastry, but i didn't have so much time in hand. By the way I wasn't intending to blog about this recipe after the incident I had baking this :), but than I thought its worth sharing some mishaps at time. Read the entire blog to know............

What You need:
Half Puff pastry sheet
1 Pear
2 tablespoon Apricot spread
2 tablespoon Apple juice
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon cold butter cubed

How it's made:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cut the pear into half length wise and core. You can peel the pear, but I left the peel on. Cut into thin slices(about 1/4inch).Thaw and cut the pastry sheet to desired size. I used half of pastry sheet. Line a cookie tray with baking parchment paper. Place the pastry sheet over it. make some some slits in between with as sharp knife to avoid the pastry sheet from puffing up. Place the cut pear slices overlapping each other on the pastry sheet, You can place it straight like I did or diagonally for a better look. Sprinkle it with sugar and cold butter cubes. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the edges turn brown.

Meanwhile heat the apricot spread in a saucepan along with apple juice until it forms a nice smooth mixture. Take the baked pastry sheet out of the oven and apply the apricot spread onto the top of the pear and pastry with a pastry brush.

Cut into pieces and serve the tart warm or cool.

It tastes good and I shared a slice of it with my friend, who liked it too. How couldn't it taste good with butter n sugar baked with pear.

Blunders I made - I used wax paper instead of parchment to line the baking sheet, and guess what would have happened, It started smoking and all the smoke alarms went off in the house. It took 30 minutes to silence the alarm with neighbor's help, since I wasn't tall enough to reach the ceiling (even with a ladder ) to silence it. So please any out there who loves experimenting like me never ever use wax paper for baking. Lesson well learned............

Omelet Gravy

2011-05-20T23:51:00.000-05:00

My little one was a bit fussy about food, so I made an omelet for her, since it is one of her favorite things to eat. But she didn't seem to want to eat that too. So I was left with a large omelet. For some reason, even though I like eggs I don't prefer plain omelet or just hard boiled eggs. I had to still make dinner and was wondering what to do, when I remembered the omelet gravy one of my kashmiri friend made in the hostel. Yes, in hostel. Though legally we were not allowed to cook, all of us had a little electric stove that we used to make maggi or tea. She used to make this omelet gravy the days she didn't like eating the hostel food.

The omelet I made for my little one was just with pepper and jeera powder and salt. So It was pretty bland which I thought was ideal to make the gravy. Before blogging about this recipe here, I did a search and found that this dish is called omelet er dalna. they use lot of different spices. But the recipe that I made is still the hostel version may be with few extra added ingredient. Omelet gravy is also made in Srilanka with coconut milk. The recipe here is for two. You can increase the quantity as per your need.

What you need :
For Omelet:
1 extra large egg
black pepper powder
Jeera powder
Salt

For the Gravy:
1 medium onion - finely chopped
3 tablespoon of crushed tomato
1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste
1 teaspoon Red chilly powder
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
salt to taste
1 tablespoon Oil

How it's made :

Omelet- Break an egg and beat it until fluffy and mix in all the rest of the ingredients. Heat a skillet and make a thick omelet. You can make the omelet with any other added ingredients as per your taste. Cut the omelet, may be about 1 x 2 inch slices and keep it aside.

Gravy- Heat the oil, add the onions and fry till they turn a little brown, add the tomato, ginger-garlic paste and cook till well blended. Add water, garam masala, chilly powder, salt (just for the gravy- remember your egg has salt in it) and cook for few minutes till you get a gravy consistency. Keep it little watery as the omelet will absorb a lot of gravy. Add the cut omelete slices and cook for few more minutes. Serve hot with white rice.

One may ask why make omelet, than gravy out of it, can't you just break an egg and put into the gravy. Sure you can, but this tastes completely different and since it absorbs the masala you won't get the egg smell too. If you like eggs give it a try.

Quick Pepper Chicken

2011-05-19T10:51:00.000-05:00

My hubby loves chicken and he needs often. So we both try cooking different variations, though he still prefers his chettinad style. This is one quick modified version. If you have the chicken cut and ready to go you can make this in no time. (we normally get whole chicken, cut and freeze in small packets for one time serving). I normally start heating the pan while cutting onions, and while chicken is cooking, grind the spices ( I use coffee/spice grinder), so it gets done really quick in about 10 minutes.

What you need :
About 2 cups Chicken - boneless cut into small pieces
2 teaspoon Ginger-garlic paste
1/2 teaspoon Turmeric powder
Salt - to taste

To Powder:-
1 1/2 tablespoon Whole black pepper corns
2 tablespoon Cumin seeds
2 Cloves
1/2 " piece Cinnamon

For tempering:-
2 tablespoon Oil
Few Curry leaves
1 medium Onion - (cut into thin slices)

How it's made :
Heat oil in a pan and add the curry leaves and onions fry well, once done add the ginger garlic paste, turmeric powder and fry. Add the chicken pieces and fry until the chicken turns white and almost cooked. ( I cut into tiny small pieces so that it cooks quicker). Add the powdered spices, salt and fry for a 2-3 minutes until the chicken is well coated with the masala. Turn off the heat and serve as a side dish with rice and dal.

Corn Poha Mixture

2011-05-18T23:18:00.002-05:00

My mom makes this spicy corn poha mixture often at home for evening snacks. Talking of snacks, back in Goa, we had a big Milton brand box where mom stored all snacks, both store bought and homemade .We would just devour out everything so quickly and she had to make different snacks very often to replenish the box and keep us satisfied :). The most snack consumer in our house was dad, he would wake up in the middle of night munch on snacks and sit to read newspaper. (yes, he had to read everything from headlines to obituary section never missed a single line). I make these often these days since my little one likes to eat it.

What you need :

2 cups -Corn Poha

1 cup thick poha

1/4 cup groundnuts

1/4 cup chana dalia

few curry leaves

2 teaspoon - red chilly powder ( as per your tolerance level)

salt to taste

Oil to fry ( I use canola oil)

How it's Made :

Heat oil in a deep pan (kadai), and deep fry all the first 5 ingredients seperately in medium heat and put in on a paper towel to drain off the oil. when you add corn poha to fry, put very little in oil as they swell up and occupy the entire pan. When still hot sprinkle the chilly powder,salt and mix all the ingredients gently. You can also fry some dry coconut pieces for added taste, I didn't use it this time since I didn't have any at home. Cool it to room temperature and store in an airtight container.