from here n there

Daliya (cracked wheat) with Veges

2015-06-26T14:05:00.001-05:00

Very healthy and easy to make. Can replace rice in your diet.

Ingredients

One cup cracked wheat (I use Red Wheat Bulgur Red Mills brand)
Half cup peas
Half cup beans (I use french cut frozen)
Half cup diced carrot
Half cup corn (optional, I skip it most of the times)
Half cup finely chopped onion (optional)
2 green chilies finely chopped (optional)
4 cups water
2 tablespoons oil
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon dhaniya jeera (cumin coriander) powder

Heat oil in a pressure cooker, saute onion till translucent. Add cracked wheat and saute for two minutes, add all the veges, salt, cumin coriander powder, water and pressure cook for three whistles.
And it is ready to eat. We usually eat it with raita or daal (like daal chawal).

Kids' Poncho

2015-05-11T15:07:00.003-05:00

Made these ponchos for friends' daughters, both are 5 years old. Both are very easy and quick to make patterns and can be scaled up and down for different sizes. The first one can be worn in early winters while the second one is for nice weather. For both of these I used "Red heart with Love" yarn. Here are the links to the patterns
1) http://www.lemondedesucrette.com/2010/10/13/about-ponchos-and-pattern-d/
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1G_mn38ZoE

Whole wheat cookies

2015-03-12T21:50:00.002-05:00

Ingredients
(Add four tablespoons of Brewer's yeast to make these into lactation cookies)

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups plain uncooked oats, I used Red Mill's thick oats
4 tablespoons ground flax seed meal
4 tablespoons almond powder (optional)
2 eggs
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar, loosely packed
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature or melt it in microwave for 30-60 seconds
4 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit
Step 2: Beat butter, sugar and brown sugar in a large mixing bowl, I used electric hand mixer. Add eggs and mix, followed by flax seed powder, vanilla extract, salt, and baking soda.
Step 3: Mix in oats and wheat flour. Add chocolate chips (optional) and mix.
Step 4: Place parchment paper on a baking tray, scoop balls of dough (depending on the size of cookie you want) and place them on the baking tray. Flatten these balls a little with your hand.
Step 5: Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.
Step 6: Place cookies on a cooling rack and put it in a airtight jar once cooled.

Punjabi Kadi Pakoda

2015-01-11T14:18:00.001-06:00

Picture speaks more than words, I can eat this everyday :)

Following recipe will make 4-6 servings.

Ingredients

For kadi

1/2 cup besan
Lassi - 16 oz (I used small bottle of Gopi Lassi)
Water - 4-5 cups
1/3rd of a large onion thinly sliced for tadka
Paste of 4 cloves of garlic, 1/2 inch ginger and 2 green chilies
Salt to taste
1/2 tbs dhaniya jeera (cumin coriander) powder
1/2 tbs garam masala
1/2 tbsp of turmeric powder
Pinch of hing (optional)
Whole spices -

1/2 tbs jeera
1/2 tsp methi seeds
2-3 green cardamom
1 black cardamom
2-3 bay leaves
1 tsp whole black pepper (optional)

For pakoda

1/2 to 3/4 cup besan
2/3rd of a large onion sliced into thick slices
Salt to taste
1/2 tbsp of cumin coriander powder
Ginger garlic paste (1/2 inch ginder, 1-2 cloves of garlic)

Step 1: Chop 1/3rd of a large onion into thin slices as shown on left, and rest into thick slices (for pakoda). make a paste out of green chilies, garlic and ginger.

Step 2: Take 1/2 cup besan in a bowl, add half of the lassi and mix well to make a smooth batter. Leave it undisturbed for 5-10 minutes and then beat it again to dissolve any left out lumps. Add rest of the lassi and mix well

Step 3: Start tadka by putting oil in a pan (on medium-low flame), when oil is hot add whole spices and let it cook for a minute, add sliced onion and saute until it starts becoming translucent. Add ginger garlic and chili paste and cook for 5-6 minutes stirring occasionally. Add salt to taste, cumin coriander powder and garam masala and cook for another minute until masal is cooked.

Step 4: Add besan lassi mix and 4 cups of water to the tadka and turmeric powder, mix well and let it cook on medium-low flame stirring occasionally (do not cover it may boil over). Cook for 20 minutes and check the taste, if you can taste raw besan keep cooking and checking otherwise you are done with the kadi part :).

Step 5: Mix all the ingredients for pakoda in a bowl, add a little water to make a thick mixture (besan should be all stuck to onion slices). Make pakodas, preferably small size.

Step 6: Dump pakodas in kadi and heat it agian for 4-5 minutes and you have kadi ready to serve. Serve it hot with white or jeera rice.

Desi style tomato soup

2015-01-01T14:48:00.000-06:00

Wonderful soup for winter season and great if you want to eat something light (sans butter and heavy cream).

This will serve 8-10 people

Ingredients:

3 pound tomatoes (I use roma tomatoes but other varieties will do equally good)
1 large white or red onion chopped into chunks
2 green chilies (add more if you want it more spicy) cut in halves
5-6 cloves of garlic cut in halves
1 tbsp dried oregano (even better if you can replace it with fresh)
1 tbsp dried basil
10-12 fresh basil leaves
1 tsp black pepper powder
1 tsp cumin coriander powder
Salt to taste
1/3rd cup heavy cream
2 tbsp butter

Step 1: Wash the tomatoes, put them in a pot covered with water and heat it until you see tomato skin braking. Drain the water and let tomatoes cool down. One tomatoes cool down, peel off and discard the skin.

Peeled tomatoes

Step 2: Heat oil in a large pot, saute garlic till lightly brown. Put in chopped onion and saute until translucent. Add green chilies dried basil, oregano, fresh basil, black pepper, salt, cumin coriander powder and saute for another 2 minutes.

Step 3: Add peeled tomatoes and 2 cups of water to sauteed onion and cook for 8-10 minutes. Let it cool a bit and puree using a food processor or hand blender. Add heavy cream and butter and bring the soup to a boil. You can adjust the consistency by adding more water.
Serve it hot with garlic bread or just like that.

I forgot to take a picture of the final product and it was all gone by the time I thought of it :).

Jalapeno potato puffs

2015-01-01T01:58:00.001-06:00

There are so many variations of this appetizer one can make. You can replace the filling with anything and everything you like, make it sweet or savory.

Here is a savory spicy version. This will make 18 puffs adequate for 8-9 people.

Ingredients

9 Jalapenos
1 box of puff pastry (it will have 2 sheets and each sheet will make 9 puffs)
3-4 medium size potatoes (boiled)
Half onion finely chopped
1/2 cup cream cheese (can be replaced with any other cheese you like for example 4 cheese mix or mozzarella etc.)
Salt to taste
1 tbsp amchoor powder (can put more if you want)
1 tsp black pepper powder
1 tsp red chili powder (optional)

Step 1: Chop off Jalapeno stems, cut them in half and deseed using a sharp knife. Use gloves if you can while deseeding, and don't touch your eyes until you wash your hands thoroughly after doing this :).

Step 2: Mash boiled potatoes, add chopped onion, cream cheese, salt, pepper, red chili, amchoor powder, and any other spice (like garam masala) if you want.

Step 3: Stuff Jalapeno halves with above prepared mixture as shown in the pic below.

Step 4: Thaw puff pastry sheet (I take it out of the freezer and keep it in fridge overnight), spread it out and cut it into 9 squares. Put a piece of stuffed Jalapeno on a square and fold the puff pastry to completely cover the Jalapeno.

Step 5: Preheat oven to 400F, place stuffed puff pastry on a foil covered baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes then broil for 3 minutes. Keep an eye on it while baking, to avoid burning.
Enjoy just like that or with a hot cup of tea.

No Bake Mango Pie

2014-11-18T16:57:00.002-06:00

An excellent pie for any occasion, and especially for festive occasions like thanksgiving.
I would like to thank my friend Sani for introducing this pie to me.

Here are the ingredients.
One 10 inch pie crust (I used ready-made that requires no baking, alternatively you can make it at home using digestive biscuits, butter and brown sugar)
1 can of Mango pulp (30 oz)
1 pack of plain cream cheese (8 oz) (Keep it out of fridge for 1-2 hours before using)
1 tbsp of no flavor gelatin (you can find this in the Jello isle in your grocery store, you can use Agar Agar to replace gelatin too)
1/2 cup water

Process
Step 1: Bring water to boil and take it off the heat, mix in gelatin thoroughly and let it cool to room temperature.

Step 2: Beat cream cheese and mango pulp together in a large bowl using an electric hand mixer until the mixture is smooth.

Step 3: Mix in cooled gelatin dissolved in water to the above filling using the hand mixer, pour this into pie crust and keep it in fridge to set for 3-4 hours.

And your dessert is all ready to serve!

No Bake Mango Cheesecake

2014-11-17T11:44:00.000-06:00

What I like about this cheesecake is that I don't have to bake anything and it tastes super heavenly. I made this for a friend's birthday and you should have seen kids' reaction when she cut it, they were all ready with their spoons to dig-in :).

This recipe will serve around 15 people.

Ingredients
1 - Kesar Mango Pulp Can (its usually 30 oz can)
3 - 8 oz plain cream cheese, I used Philadelphia Original (keep it out of fridge for 1-2 hours before using)
2 and a half tbsp of unflavored gelatin (you can use Agar Agar to replace this if you don't eat gelatin, gelatin can be found in the Jello isle in your grocery store)
1 - 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk
4 tbs of butter melted in microwave
1/4th cup of brown sugar
8 - Honeymaid Grahams (You can also use digestive biscuits or Graham crackers to replace this)
1 Pack of mango flavored jello (I got this from Indian grocery store)
Water

Process

Step 1: Making the base
Take a 9 inch springform cake pan and grease its bottom with butter (if you don't grease then the base will stick to the pan).
Put Grahams in a zip-lock bag and crush them to somewhere between coarse to fine powder (you can use a rolling pin to do this). Put this powder in a bowl.
Add melted butter and brown sugar to it and mix thoroughly and put this mixture in the cake pan. Press with a ladle or glass to make an even crust. Put it in fridge to set for around 15-20 minutes and meanwhile you can prepare the filling.

Step 2: Cream-cheese layer
Boil 1 cup of water, take it of the stove and mix in 2 tbs of gelatin. Let this mixture cool down to room temperature.
In a large bowl put in cream cheese, condensed milk, 2 cups (16 oz) of mango pulp and dissolved gelatin and mix everything together using an electric mixer until you get a smooth (no lumps) mixture.
Pour it over the crust you made earlier in the springform pan and again keep the cake pan in fridge to set.

Step 3: Jello
As you wait for the cheese layer to set, prepare jello from Mango flavored Jello pack following instructions on the packet and refrigerate.
Keep checking the cheese layer in cake pan to see if it has set by touching its top layer, once set it should stop sticking to your finger. I let it sit for around an hour before checking.

Step 4: Mango pulp layer
Once cheese layer is set prepare the top layer.
Take 1/2 cup of boiling water and mix in 1/2 tbs of gelatin, cool it to room temperature.
Mix in dissolved gelatin with remaining mango pulp and pour it over the cream cheese layer in your cake pan, again refrigerate. Leave it undisturbed for another 2-3 hours.

Step 5: Putting Jello on top
Cut Jello into cubes and spread it over the top of your cheesecake as you like and you are all ready to serve it. Before taking out the side ring, run a knife along the boundary for an easy removal (do it very slowly, you don't want to break the cake).

Mango Fruit Dessert

2014-11-02T06:43:00.001-06:00

A very easy mix and serve dessert. Thank you to my lovely friend Anindita, who gave this recipe.

The following will serve 60-70 people, you can scale it up or down and it works great. You can also increase or decrease the amount of ingredients depending on your taste, this is a very forgiving recipe.

Ingredients:
Kesar Mango Pulp - 3 cans (30 oz each)
Sour cream - 24 oz
Plain Yogurt - 32 oz
Sweetened condensed milk - 2 cans (14 oz each)
Chopped Pineapple - 2 cans (20 oz each)
5 Small red apples - chopped to bite size pieces
5 Small green apples - chopped to bite size pieces
Raisins and nut for garnishing (optional)

Mix mango pulp, sour cream, yogurt and condensed milk in a large container (you can use electric hand mix to mix everything in, but the hand mixing is also easy). Once thoroughly mixed, mix in chopped fruits and decorate with raisins and nuts. Put it in fridge 3-4 hours before serving.

You can use any other fruit you like, for example grapes, pomegranate, banana, berries etc.

I don't have a picture of the dessert as of now, will post one soon.

Easiest Cholle recipe

2014-07-26T10:18:00.003-05:00

Easiest cholle recipe I ever made, it goes very well with poori or bhatura. There in no time consuming Tadka sauteing onion, tomatoes etc. Someone told me that this is also called Pindi Chana or Chikkad Cholle!

Here are the ingredients:
4 cups Chickpeas soaked overnight (I tried to use canned chickpeas once and it didn't turn out as good as the original recipe)
1 large yellow onion finely chopped
2-3 medium size tomatoes pureed in grinder (always use fresh tomatoes, it will make a difference:)
2-3 green chilies
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 tea bag
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon chole masala
1 teaspoon regular garam masala
2 tbsp amchoor powder
Crushed anardana (dried pomegranate seeds) 1 tbsp
Chat masala (optional and to taste)
4 tbsp oil
1 teaspoon whole jeera (cumin seeds)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
2 tej patta (bay leaves)
2-3 whole red chilies (optional)

Recipe:

Note: The quantity of all spices can be adjusted to your taste, if you like it mild reduce their amounts accordingly.
Put soaked chickpeas in a pressure cooker and put enough water to cover them and another two cups. Add salt to taste and a teabag. Pressure cook, I usually do it on medium flame and let it whistle 5-6 times.
Open the cooker to check if they are cooked, you should be able to mash them between your fingers easily. To these cooked chickpeas add chopped onion, tomatoes, green chilies, cilantro, garam masala, chana masala, crushed anardana and amchoor powder. Don't mix it in yet, heat oil in a small pan add jeera, mustard seeds, bay leaves, red chilies and heat it until mustard seeds pop. Then dump it over the heap of onion, tomatoes and masala in the cooker. Put cooker back on flames and mix everything in. Crush some chickpeas with a ladle and keep it on flame until you see a nice consistency cholle. Taste it and add chat masala accordingly.

In the pic below you will see that mine has a little gravy in it, you can decrease the amount of water if you want to make it a little dry.

Khatti Meethi Chutney in 5 min

2014-07-17T15:59:00.001-05:00

I got this recipe from one of my Gujrati friends (thanks Mitali), its super easy yet very tasty sweet and sour chutney. Preparation time is approximately 5 minutes :)

Here are the ingredients
1 cup apple butter (you can find this in jam/peanut butter isle in any grocery store, just to clarify its not apple sauce but apple butter)
Juice of 1 large lemon
1/2 teaspoon of chat masala
1/2 teaspoon of red chili flakes or red chili powder
Black salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon of roasted cumin powder
Water 1/2 to 1/3rd of cup depending on what consistency you want

The amount of all the above ingredients can be varied according to your taste, so if would like it to be more chatpata add more chat masala. I sometime put in tamarind juice instead of chat masala if I have it.

Put apple butter in a bowl and mix in all other ingredients and you chutney is ready! It goes very well with any kind of snack.

Garlic bread

2014-07-05T16:46:00.000-05:00

This is one dough which can be used in multiple ways, I use it to make garlic bread, tawa naan, bhature, pizza base and buns!

Here are the ingredients for dough (this will make 8-10 naans or buns , 12-16 bhature depending upon their size and is enough to make a medium to large pizza depending upon thickness of the crust)

2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup of milk (I use full fat)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil

To activate yeast you would need
1/5 cup of lukewarm water (warm it in microwave for 5-8 sec)
1 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar

For garlic bread I use "Johnny's Garlic Spread and Seasoning", got this from Costco. And you would also need 2-3 tbsp butter after baking.

Activate yeast by mixing sugar and dry yeast in lukewarm water and keep it aside for about 5 minutes. You will see the solution becomes frothy indicating that your yeast is working.

Put together all the other ingredients in a kneading bowl along with activated yeast and knead it until you get a soft dough. Add more water as required. To make garlic bread I put in 1 tbsp of garlic spread powder while kneading the dough.

Once done you need to rest the dough, keep it covered in a warm place for about 1 hour. You will see that it almost doubles in size in one hour, now bring it to a working surface and punch out all the air in the dough. Then spread in an oval or rectangular shape (I kept thickness at 1/4th of an inch), cut it into 1/2 inch strips and place it in a greased baking tray. You can put aluminium foil on the tray and grease it with oil.

Now cover this tray with a cloth and put it in a warm place for 20 min. After 20 minutes preheat your oven at 420F and bake the bread for 15-20 minutes (time can vary depending upon the oven).
It will be ready when the crust turns golden brown.

Put softened butter in a bowl and mix in 1 tbsp of garlic spread. Brush this mixture on the bread immediately after you take it out of the oven. And your bread is ready to serve. If it gets cold, just cover it with foil and put it in oven at 350F for 2-3 minutes.

You can use the same dough and make naan on tawa and brush it with same butter and garlic powder mixture to make garlic naan!!

Potato Cutlet

2014-04-01T22:38:00.002-05:00

I made this so many times and it never goes wrong. If you are serving these at a party, freeze the left-overs and you can have a plate of tikki with chole later sometime :). Here is the recipe:
Will make 12-15 cutlets

5 Medium size potatoes boiled and pealed
5 Slices of white bread (sprinkle some water on these, just to dampen them a little)
1/2 Medium red onion finely chopped
2 Green chilies finely chopped
1 tablespoon roasted cumin powder
1-2 tablespoon dried mango powder (Amchur powder)
2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon ground black pepper powder
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 cup bread crumbs
And oil for frying

Mix in all the cutlet ingredients, except bread crumbs and knead all together to make a nice soft dough. Make small circular patties, coat them nicely in bread crumbs and deep fry till golden brown.

Dahi Bhalle (fried lentil dumplings in yogurt)

2014-03-24T15:32:00.002-05:00

Dahi Bhalle is one of the most famous snacks in Northern India, served cold it makes an excellent starter. There are some tricks to it, and once you know it you can never get them wrong :)

Here is what you would need (it would make approximately 50 bhallas)

Oil for deep frying

For dahi bhalla

1 cup split urad dal without skin washed, soaked overnight with 8-10 methi seeds and grind this to a fine paste adding very little water
2″ piece of ginger and 2-3 green chilies ground to paste
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon baking powder

For yogurt

3 cups thick fresh yogurt
1 cups water
2 tbsps roasted cumin powder
1-2 tbsps ground black pepper
1 tablespoon of dahi bhalla masala

For garnish

Mint coriander chutney
Tamarind chutney

Mix all the dahi bhalla ingredients in a bowl and deep fry small dumplings (a little smaller than the size of a ping-pong ball) of this paste until golden brown. Check the first batch to see if dumplings are cooked from inside, fry them little longer if not so. As soon as you take them out from oil, put them in cold water in a large bowl. You will notice that bhallas (dumplings) in water start to lighten in color after 10-15 minutes. Keep these in water for another 15-20 minutes, and meanwhile mix in ingredients of yogurt. Squeeze out water from bhallas gently and place them in a flat tray adjacent to one another and pour the yogurt mixture over them evenly. Refrigerate 2-3 hours before serving. For serving put 3-4 bhallas in a bowl and garnish with mint and tamarind chutnies and serve.

Mint and mango chutney

2014-03-16T21:33:00.001-05:00

As one of my friends would say "I can make a meal out of chutnies made by you", so here I am with my first chutney recipe.
This can be served with any kind of snack (pakoda, dahi bhalla, chat papdi etc. etc.) or you can eat it just by itself like my friend.
Here is what you would need

One small bunch of mint leaves washed and drained (take off the thick stems)
One cup chopped green mango
One cup chopped cilantro (coriander)
1/2 lemon juice
2 green chilies
1 teaspoon black pepper powder
1/2 tablespoon roasted jeera (cumin) powder
1/4th inch of ginger
1-2 cloves of garlic (optional)
Salt to taste, you can replace half of the regular salt with black salt

Grind everything together in a mixer adding water gradually to bring it to the consistency you like and its ready to serve.

This recipe is for the green one in the picture, recipe for other two coming soon.

Quick Cheesy Bread

2014-03-14T22:00:00.001-05:00

If you like garlic bread, jalapeno bread or cheese bread, I bet you will love this. Not from scratch but as good as it can get.

Here is what you will need

12 oz tube of refrigerated buttermilk biscuits

1 cup shredded cheese (I used pizza mix)

3/4th cup finely chopped onions

1/4th cup chopped basil (or 1 tbs dried basil would also work fine)

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 tbs chopped green chilies or chopped pickled jalapeno (optional)

Preheat oven at 375F.

Open the biscuit can and pull biscuits apart, chop each into four parts. Mix rest of the ingredients in a bowl.
Take a 13X9 inch baking pan and line it with aluminum foil, place the cut biscuits in it leaving little space between them. Sprinkle on the cheese mixture and tuck it in-between the biscuits. Bake it in oven for 15-17 minutes until the top is golden brown. Serve it hot with soup or just by itself as an appetizer.
There are a lot of variations possible here, you can try cilantro, parsley, Parmesan cheese, Cheddar cheese, green onions etc. If you can think of an interesting twist on this, I am all ears!

Tandoori Cauliflower

2014-03-08T13:24:00.002-06:00

Today was a day of experiments, and this one worked very well! Its marinated whole cauliflower baked with marinated onions and potatoes.

Here is what this recipe calls for

One whole cauliflower (cut its stem and remove the leaves so that it can sit on a tray, wash it and drain the excess water)
Half of a large white onion (sliced)
Four small red potatoes (sliced, you can leave the skin on if you like)

Marinade ingredients

3/4th cup of yogurt
2 tablespoon of tomato ketchup
Tandoori masala or any Garam masala
1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder (optional)
1 tablespoon of oil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes (optional)

Mix together all the marinade ingredients in bowl, and put it generously all over the cauliflower. In rest of the marinade put in sliced onion and potatoes. Leave everything to marinate for 2 hours and then bake it at 400F for 35 minutes. It can be served just by itself as a meal or with Roti or Naan.

Paneer (Indian Cottage Cheese) Puffs

2014-02-19T15:40:00.000-06:00

These stuffed puffs can be eaten as a snack or full meal, it is quite filling. For this you would need 1 puff pastry sheet and following ingredients for filling

300 grams paneer

½ cup chopped onion

1 tablespoon chopped green chilies

½ teaspoon jeera powder

½ teaspoon black pepper powder

1/4^th cup chopped cilantro

Mix in all the ingredients required for filling in a bowl. If your store bought paneer is hard and not easy to mash then here is something that would be helpful. Put paneer in a bowl of water, paneer should be completely under water, microwave it for 2-3 minutes. This will loosen the paneer and easy to work with.

Roll out your thawed pastry sheet and cut it into nine equal squares and divide the filling into nine equal parts as well. Take a piece of pastry sheet, put the filling on it and fold it to make a ball. Heat the oven to 400F and bake puffs for 15 minutes and then broil for two minutes. Keep an eye on the puff they burn very easily.

Serve them hot with sauce and tea :).

You can always adjust the spices in the filling according to your taste.

Broiled Grapefruit

2014-02-15T23:50:00.000-06:00

Grapefruit, one of the healthiest fruits, can be eaten as breakfast or snack if you like. Here is a yummy twist you can put on this juicy fruit. This will serve 2-4 depending depending on portion size. I made it for two people.

What you need is
Two grapefruits
Two tablespoons of brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon powder

Cut grapefruit in half and remove the seeds if any, using a small sharp knife cut all the way around the grapefruit between the pulp and rind and then cut diagonally along the sections. This cutting would make it easy to eat, make sure you don't cut the rind otherwise you will lose all the juices. Mix sugar, vanilla and cinnamon powder in a bowl and sprinkle it evenly in grapefruit halves. Then place them on a baking tray (on foil) in oven to broil (500F) for 10 minutes or until the top is slightly brown as shown in the picture. Serve it hot!

Broccoli basil soup

2014-02-13T00:32:00.000-06:00

I made it for the first time today and was a little apprehensive as I was not sure how broccoli would taste in soup. But it turned out great, I gave a bowl of this soup to one of my neighbors and she loved it :).
This will make 4-5 serving of soup (serving being one regular size bowl)
Ingredients

2 tbsp cooking oil
2-3 cloves of Garlic
2-3 green chilies coarsely chopped
1/4th of a large onion chopped
10-12 basil leaves
One medium size potato (I used yellow potato)
5-6 cups of broccoli flowerets
Salt to taste
1/2 tbsp cumin powder
1 /2 tsp black pepper powder
1/4th cup of mascarpone cheese (can be replaced by heavy cream or 1/2 cup of full fat milk)
Water

Heat oil in a pot, add garlic cloves, green chilies and onion and saute till onion is translucent. Then add basil leaves, broccoli, potato, salt, cumin and black pepper powder and stir in everything. After two minute add enough water to cover the contents in the pot, close the lid and let it simmer for 20 minutes (you can also pressure cook it, two whistles). After 20 minutes check if broccoli is cooked, you should be able to mash it with the ladle. Switch off the heat and let the soup cool down a bit, then use an immersion blender to puree the mixture until smooth (you can add more water if the soup is too thick for you). Mix in mascarpone cheese and serve it with any kind of bread (jalapeno cheddar bread in the picture).

You can replace broccoli with tomato (4) and baby carrots (2 cups). And keeping rest of the ingredients and recipe same, you get tomato-carrot soup.

Crochet Hats

2014-02-09T13:33:00.001-06:00

This is the easiest thing to do and very quick too, I have made several of these and gifted to friends and relatives.
If you want to make one, here is a very helpful YouTube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cq9ivY-FAw

Baby hat

Winter muffler (scarf)

The multi-color hat is made from multi-color yarn

Crochet bulky yarn Poncho

2014-02-07T09:52:00.003-06:00

This is a very simple poncho to crochet. It is a 60"X18" rectangle joined on edges at two places for neck and arm hole.
I used a size N crochet and Bernat Baby Blanket Yarn ( 20 ounces). If you want the pattern I can direct to the website I got it from.

Avocado Roti (Avocado Indian Flat-bread)

2014-02-02T10:55:00.000-06:00

This is a very soft and healthy roti and at the same time delicious and goes very well with curry or sabji. Here are the ingredients, measurements are approximate and would vary depending on the size of avocado.

Two ripe avocados, de-seeded and mashed (it should look like a paste)
2 finely chopped green chilies
Salt to taste
Jeera powder half tsp
2 cups of whole wheat flour (another half cup to adjust the consistency of the dough)

Put mashed avocado, salt, jeera powder, green chilies and two cups of flour in a large bowl and knead to form a soft and non sticky dough. Add more flour in case it is sticky or too loose. And remember "NO WATER", if you add water and keep this dough in refrigerator it will be very sticky next day and you will have to add more flour and knead it again.

And then make rotis as you would usually do. You can also modify this recipe by adding other ingredients like cilantro or ajwain or flax seed powder etc.

Chocolate cake

2014-01-25T11:31:00.001-06:00

This cake I made for one of my friend's surprise birthday party. This was not a planned recipe, I just experimented with the ingredients at home and to my surprise it came out very moist and a hit among the kids as well as adults. So before I forget what I did, I decided to pen it down!
Here are are ingredients

For Cake

One box of white cake mix
3 whole eggs
1 and 1/4th cup of water
1/3 cup of canola oil
1/4th cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4th cup of sweet cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of coffee extract
1/2 tablespoon of instant coffee

For Icing

1 teaspoon of coffee extract
2 cups heavy of whipping cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/4th cup of sweet cocoa powder
Icing sugar according to the level of sweetness you want

For Decoration

Chocolate melts
1 tbsp of sweet cocoa powder

Mix all the cake ingredients together and beat it with an electric mixer until the batter is smooth. Pour it equally into three 9-inch baking pans and bake for 20 minutes at 325°F. Take these out of the oven and keep them on a cooling rack for 1-2 hours.

For icing put all the ingredients into a bowl and using an electric mixer (set on medium-high speed) beat it until the mixture is stiff and frosting consistency.
To assemble the cake: Place one cake layer on a serving plate, spread one fourth of the frosting on this layer. Put the next layer of the cake and top it with frosting again, put the final cake layer on and cover the whole cake with rest of the frosting. I try to smooth it out as much as possible.

For decoration
Sprinkle the sweet cocoa powder on the cake using a sieve and placed chocolate melts on the circumference.

And leave it in fridge overnight to set.

Freezing food

2014-01-15T19:59:00.002-06:00

Frozen green chilies

This is something that I learned and started doing over the past year. I used to buy cilantro from grocery store and it would go bad in 4-5 days if not used. Same thing with green chilies, they would start to turn black. Now what I do is wash cilantro and leave it on a drying towel for 2-3 hours, then chop it finely, put it in a zip-lock bag and freeze it. It is very convenient to use if you are using it in tadka or for making chutni, I don't think you would want to use this for garnishing. Just two things to keep in mind: don't overfill the zip-lock bag and flat it out before you freeze so that when you want to use it you can break a piece by hand, same idea goes for things listed below.
If you have some fresh veggies in your fridge or garden that you think you can not use right away, this is something that can work.
Following are few things that I frozen:

Whole green chilies
Cilantro
Chopped methi leaves
Basil (I had a lot of fresh basil growing in my backyard in summer which I froze and still using it in soups and pasta dishes)
Peeled garlic cloves
Chopped roccoli stems (these are leftover stems are you cut the florets, I saute florets as a side dish and freeze stems and after I have enough of these I make a dish out of these)
Mint ( again from my vege garden)
Paneer (I cut it and freeze in it individual serving size bags, when required I take it out, put it in a bowl full of water and microwave for 3-4 minutes)
Chopped green onion
Chopped tomatoes
Chopped potatoes

Chopped broccoli stem

Chopped bell peppers

And don't forget to put a date on the bag, so that you know how long it has been sitting in your freezer if not regularly used.