I followed the crust recipe as given but by pizza dough did not double in size even after an hour. Right then I knew something was wrong. I still went ahead with the preparation and the overall taste was good. I baked the pizza this afternoon for lunch and we loved the pizza. The recipe called for making two 10” crusts but I made one rectangular pizza. Store bought pizza crust would also work here.

Pizza Crust Recipe: Giada deLaurentiis Pizza without Tomato Sauce
Total Time: 1 ¾ hours
Preparation Time: 1 ½ hours
Baking Time: 15 minutes
Serves: 2

Ingredients:

• Pizza Crust recipe here
• 1 ½ tbsp. Coriander Chutney (store bought)
• 35 – 40 Pepperoni Slices
• 3 medium White Mushrooms sliced
• ¾ cup shredded Italian Cheese (as required. We do not like too much cheese and I used a little sparingly )
• 1 Jalapeno Pepper sliced
• 6 tsp. Olive Oil

Preparation:

• I followed the pizza crust recipe as given. Instead of two pizza crusts, I made one rectangular pizza. I sprinkled little beat of sooji instead of cornmeal on a baking sheet.
• Pre-heat the oven to 450F.
• Roll out the dough into a rectangle and transfer it to the baking sheet.
• Sprinkle 4 tsp. of oil on the pizza base and spread the coriander chutney.
• Arrange pepperoni slices and mushroom slices on the on the pizza base. Sprinkle the cheese and arrange jalapeno slices.
• Drizzle on tsp. oil and place the baking sheet on the middle rack. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes until crust is crisp, brown on the bottom and the cheese melts. I baked for 15 minutes and I thought I might have brunt the pizza. I was wrong the pizza was pretty good.
• Remove the pizza from the oven, cut it into small pieces and serve hot.
• I used pepperoni, mushrooms and jalapeno peppers toppings but can use any topping one wishes. That is the advantage of a homemade pizza, isn’t it?

Kashmiri Eggplant

Quick and easy ratatouille

Vankaya Fry with Koora Podi

Kathrikai Poriyal ~ Simple Brinjal Fry

Brinjal Chutney ~ Vankaya Pachadi

Thai Eggplants or Green Brinjals with Cilantro Green Chilies

Ratatouille with Poached Egg

This day in 2009 Strawberry Pistachio Pudding and
This day in 2011 Butternut Squash Soup
Recipes I posted this month in 2009, in 2010 in 2011 & in 2012

Total Time: 25 – 20 minutes
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 – 20 minutes
Serves: 3 – 4

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ tbsp. Oil
• 400 grams or 15 small round Green Brinjals ~ Thai Eggplants (can use round purple brinjals or long brinjals)
• Kothimeera Mirchi Masala ~ Cilantro Chili Paste:
  • ½ – ¾ cup packed chopped Cilantro ~ Kothimeera
  • 8 Green Chilies (adjust to taste)
  • ½ medium sized Onion chopped or ½ cup chopped Onion
  • ½ medium sized Tomato chopped or ½ cup chopped Tomato
  • ½“– ¾” Ginger or 1 tbsp. chopped Ginger
  • 3 – 4 Cloves Garlic or 1 tbsp. chopped Garlic
  • 1 tsp. Cumin Seeds ~ Jeera
  • 1 tbsp. dry roasted Sesame Seeds (opt)
  • 1 tsp. Salt (adjust to taste)
  • Turmeric Powder

Preparation:

• Grind together all the ingredients listed under paste and keep aside.
• Wash the eggplant and cut the stack. It is not required to remove the stack but the stacks of the eggplants were dry and I did not feel like keeping them. Make a plus slit vertically on the eggplant.
• Slightly rub a little cilantro chili paste in the slit, as if one would to stuff it. You will require less than a table spoon of the paste for all the eggplants. This step can be skipped but I do this step to slightly season the eggplant.
• Heat oil in a skillet and add the eggplants. Roast the eggplants for a minute or two in the oil until they turn light brown. Reduce the heat to medium, cover and cook for 3-5 minutes, stirring it in between until semi-cooked.
• Remove the cover, add the cilantro chili paste to the pan and mix well. Cover and continue to cook for another 5 minutes until the eggplants are soft and cooked. Don’t forget to stir it in between.
• Remove the cover and cook for few more minutes until the paste or the masala and the eggplants are well cooked.
• Transfer to a serving bowl and serve with steaming rice.

Note:

• I recently bought a Calphalon unison nonstick pan. This pan heats up very fast. When cooking please use the cooking time as a guide line and please do not go by the cooking time. Use discretion on how long to cook.

Variation:

• Normally onion and tomato is not added in this curry. We like more masala or curry hence I add tomato, onion and sesame seeds for more masala.
• I made a slit to the eggplants but they can cut into 2 or 4 long pieces. In that case, cooking time will be less. Also, cooking time varies on the size of the eggplant.

Recipe posted this day in 2009 Oatmeal & Chocolate Chip Cookies and in 2010 Cabbage Pachadi
Recipes I posted this month in 2009, in 2010 in 2011 & in 2012
Event Entries: This goes to Priya’s Veggie/Fruit a Month hosted by me and the theme is Brinjal.

Total Time: 20 – 30 minutes
Preparation Time: 5 – 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Serves: 3 – 5

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. Oil
• 8- 10 Green Chilies
• 3-5 Curry Leaves
• ½ tsp. Mustard Seeds
• ½ tsp. Cumin Seeds
• ¼ tsp. Fenugreek Seeds
• 1 tsp. Coriander Seeds
• 2-4 Garlic Cloves
• ¾ – 1 tsp. Salt
• Turmeric Powder
• 370 grams or 3 large long purple Brinjals
• 1 tbsp. Tamarind Paste (homemade)
• Cilantro chopped
• 2 tbsp. Sesame Seeds Powder (seeds dry roasted and then ground to powder)

Preparation:

• Wash and cut brinjal into semi circles. Put them in a bowl of salted water until ready to use.
• Grind mustard seeds, cumin, fenugreek seeds & coriander seeds to fine powder. I used by hand blender to grind the chutney and spices do not grind well with the hand blender. Hence I powdered the seeds. If using a regular blender, this step can be skipped.
• Take oil in a frying pan or a skillet and heat the oil.
• Once the oil is hot, add green chilies & curry leaves. Sauté until chilies are change color. If using whole spices, first add the seeds and when they splutter, then add the green chilies & curry leaves.
• Add spice powder (if using, otherwise add whole spices before adding green chilies in the above step) garlic cloves and sauté for few minutes.
• Add turmeric powder, salt and mix well.
• Remove the brinjal pieces from water and add to pan. Sauté brinjal pieces for couple minutes until brinjal changes color.
• Cover the pan and cook on medium high heat for 2-4 minutes or until the brinjal pieces are soft. Remove the cover and continue to sauté the brinjal for another 5 minutes until soft, mushy & finely roasted.
• Add tamarind paste and mix well.
• Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool completely.
• Transfer the brinjal mixture to a bowl, add sesame powder, chopped cilantro, and little water and blend it to a fine paste using a hand blender or transfer to blender jar and grind the mixture to a paste.
• Adjust salt and tamarind according to taste and serve with hot rice.

Variation:

• I used green chilies but can use ½ dry red chilies and ½ green chilies. Red chilies will give a reddish color to the chutney and the taste varies as well.
• I ground the chutney to a fine paste but it can also be ground to coarse paste too.
• Chopped onions can be added to ground chutney before serving.

Recipe posted this day in 2010 – Rasam ~ Chaaru
Recipes I posted this month in 2009, in 2010 in 2011 & in 2012
Event Entries: This goes to Priya’s Veggie/Fruit a Month hosted by me and the theme is Brinjal.

Here are the rules for this event:

1. Star ingredient or veggie this month is Brinjal ~ Eggplant ~ Aubergine.
2. Cook any recipe using brinjal ~ eggplant ~ aubergine as the main vegetable.
3. Can use any kind of eggplant; round, long, purple, green or any other shape or color it comes in.
4. Recipe can be of any course; appetizer, main course, side dish, dessert or a beverage.
5. The dish has to be a vegetarian dish.  Eggs are allowed though.
6. Prepare a dish that satisfies the above rules and post it on your blog and link it to this event using the linky tool below.  If one is a non-blogger, email me your recipe with a picture of the dish.  I will include it in the round up.
7. Use of the logo in the post is not mandatory but would appreciate it as it helps spread a word about the event.
8. The recipe has to be new, meaning it has to be a new post and no archived posts please. All the entries submitted to this event must be posted between Mar 1st – Mar 31st, 2013.  Old posts will not be accepted.
9. Please mention and link your post to this announcement to spread the word about the event and also to Priya’s event announcement page.
10. There is no limit on number of recipes that can be linked to this event.
11. If you have any doubts or need clarifications, please email at events@myspicykitchen.net or leave a comment here. I will get back to you. I am currently in India visiting family and will be back on 14th March. Until then, if I do not get back to you promptly, please pardon me.
12. Last day to send in your entries is March 31, 11:59pm
13. I will put up the round up in the first week of April.

Happy cooking eggplants or brinjals this month, whatever it is known as in your part of the world!

Please Note: Please link posts that are published on your blog during this month, March 1 – March 31, 2013. Archived posts will not be accepted.

I bake the tart yesterday and it was cloudy all day. These was the best I could in terms of the photos.

Source: Wall Street Journal
Total Time: 40 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 – 15 minutes
Baking Time: 25 minutes
Serves: 2-3

Ingredients:

• 1 Puff Pastry Sheet (I used Pepperidge Farm & a packet comes with 2 sheets)
• 1 tbsp. Olive Oil
• ½ large Onion sliced or 1 ½ cups sliced Onion
• 2-3 springs Thyme
• 1/8 tsp. Salt (adjust to taste)
• ¾ tbsp. Dijon Mustard
• ¾ tbsp. Heavy Cream
• ¼ Sun Dried Tomato roughly chopped
• ½ Gruyere Cheese grated (I used ¼ cup Gruyere & ¼ cup Paneer)

Preparation:

• Follow the thawing instructions on the puff sheet box.
• Pre-heat the oven to 400 F.
• Place pastry sheet on a baking sheet and prick it a fork, leaving a ½ inch border untouched.
• Bake the pastry sheet for 10 minutes until it is lightly brown and let it cool on a cooling rack.
• While the pastry sheet is baking, heat oil in a pan or skillet and sauté sliced onion & thyme with pinch of salt on medium heat. Sauté the onions until golden brown and season it with remaining salt. The recipe said it would take 15 minutes but mine was done in 7-10 minutes.
• In a bowl, mix to together heavy cream and mustard.
• Once the pastry sheet is cool, put the pastry sheet back on the baking tray and spread mustard cream sauce on the baked pastry sheet leaving a ½” border untouched.
• First sprinkle half the cheese on the sheet. (I did half & half, and used gruyere cheese for half the sheet and paneer for the other half of the sheet. So, sprinkle 1/8 of gruyere on half sheet and 1/8 of the paneer on the other half of the sheet.)
• Spread sautéed onion on the cheese, followed by sundried tomatoes. Sprinkle remaining cheese on the top. (1/8 cup gruyere on one half of the sheet and paneer on the other half.)
• Put the tray back in the oven and bake the tart for 15 minutes or until cheese melts and browns in spots.

My braided rolls did not turn out well. I rolled out the dough too thin and the rolls were not big and turned more like mini braided rolls. My pull apart rolls tasted good and under baked them. The top of the rolls were flaky and moist but the lower part of the rolls was a little under baked. I should have baked them for additional 2-5 minutes.

Recipe Source: From here
Ingredients:

• 2 cups warm water (110-115 degrees)
• 2/3 cup Nonfat instant Dry Milk
• 2 tbsp. or 2 envelops of ¼ oz. each Active Dry Yeast
• ¼ cup Sugar
• 2 tsp. Salt
• 1/3 cup Shortening (Can use butter or margarine and I used butter)
• 1 Egg
• 5 – 5 ½ cups All Purpose Flour (I used additional ¼ flour, that is 5 ¾ cups although you might not need it)

Preparation:

• Bring water to warm temperature. I put it in microwave for 1 ½ minutes.
• In a big bowl, take warm water and instant milk powder. Whisk together until milk powder dissolves in water.
• I used a hand held electic mixer to mix the dough. I used fold setting to mix all the ingredients and then increase the speed to mix for when the recipe called for increasing the speed to medium.
• Add yeast and give it a good stir. Add sugar, salt, butter or shortening, egg and mix well.
• Add 2 cups of flour and mix well until all the ingredients are well in cooperated. Then increase the speed and mix for another couple of minutes.
• Add another 2 cups of flour and repeat the above step again. By now the dough will get stiffer and it will become difficult to mix the dough with the mixer. I used my hands to mix the dough.
• Add remaining 1 ½ cups of flour little by little until the dough becomes soft and not sticky, and not stiff either. You may not need all flour called in the recipe, however I ended up adding addition flour to make the dough soft.
• Pour 1 tbsp. oil in the bowl and roll the dough in it, cover with a saran wrap and keep it aside to rise in a warm place. I put my bowl of dough in the oven and in 1 ½ hours it double in size.
  

  

• Sprinkle some flour on a cutting board or a counter top and roll out the dough as required. Shape the dough in desired rolls, place it on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and let it sit for another 45 minutes – 1 ½ hours to let the rolls rise again for the second time. I let my rolls rise for 45 minutes before popping it in the oven.
• While the rolls are rising, pre-heat the oven to 375 F.
• Bake the rolls in a pre-heated oven for 15 – 20 minutes until rolls are light brown in color. I baked my rolls for 16 minutes.
• Remove from oven and brush the rolls with butter when the rolls are still hot.

Shape the Rolls:I followed this video to shape clover rolls, rose shaped rolls and braided rolls.
I followed this video to shape lion house rolls and this video for kaiser rolls or rosette rolls.

Chili Cilantro Garlic Pull Apart Rolls: For pull apart rolls, I mixed minced 2 cloves of garlic, 2 green chilies and few cilantro leaves and mixed it with some butter & salt to prepare the spread. Roll about 1/8 th of the dough into 1/4 – 1/2″ thickness. Spread the garlic cilantro chili spread on the dough and roll it from one end to the other. Cut the roll into 4 equal parts and put it in a loaf pan. Repeat the same with some more dough and place it in a loaf pan and let it sit for 20 – 30 minutes until the dough rises. Bake in a preheated oven for 20 – 25 minutes. I baked mine for 17-18 minutes and I felt inner part of the roll was not fully baked.

Here are the entries I received for the event.

Mustard recipes from my blog:

Carrot Cauliflower Pachadi

Dondakaya Perugu Pachadi ~ Ivy Gourd in Mustard Yogurt Dressing

Tilapia Steamed in Mustard Yogurt Sauce

Lime Juice Pickle

Mustard seeds are small round seeds, yellow & black in color and pungent in taste.  Black mustard is used extensively in Indian cooking.  Yellow & black mustard seeds are used world-wide in various cuisines.  Mustard seeds are powdered and used as a condiment, rub, vinaigrette, pickles and more.

Here is the Event Rules:

1. Bloggers and Non-Bloggers are welcome to send in any number of recipes, archived ones need to be re-posted and linked to this announcement page and Anu’s event announcement page.
2. Use of LOGO is mandatory, which will help to spread the word.
3. Please use the linky tool below to send in your entries for the event.
4. Non-bloggers can send in the recipes to events(at)myspicykitchen(dot)net.
5. Event starts on Oct 5th and ends on Nov 5th.
6. Please send as many recipes as you want to.
7. Both veg & non-veg recipes are welcome for this event.

This event is an ongoing event for the future months and anyone interested to guest host can drop Anu an email at anu (dot) healthykitchen (at) gmail (dot) com. She will remind you a week before the event and also send you the “Event Logo” for the particular month and “Event Announcement Page/Document” too. You just need to copy and post the document as a Guest Event Post.

Checkout the roundup here.

Total Time: 30 minutes
Preparing Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Serves: 2-4

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. peeled & deveined Shrimp (I bought frozen deveined & tail on shrimp 40/50 count)
• 4 tbsp. Oil
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 2 Cardamoms
• 1 Clove
• ½ tsp. Shah Jeera / Caraway Seeds
• 1 large Onion chopped or 1 ¼ cup chopped Onion
• 1 – 1 ½ tbsp. Ginger Garlic Paste
• 4-5 Curry Leaves torn into 2 (My leaves were big)
• ¼ tsp. Fenugreek Powder (opt.)
• 1 tbsp. Coriander Powder
• 2- 3 tsp. Chili Powder (adjust to taste)
• 1 tsp. Salt (adjust to taste)
• ½ tsp. Turmeric Powder
• ½ tsp. (approx.) Garam Masala or 2 Cardamoms + 1 Clove + 1/8” Cinnamon ground to powder
• 1 large Vine Ripe Tomato chopped or ¾ cup chopped Tomato

Preparation:

• Clean the shrimp; peal, devein and remove the tail from the shrimp. Wash the shrimp, squeeze to remove as much water as possible and keep aside.
• Heat oil in a pan; add bay leaves, cardamom, cloves caraway seeds and let them roast for few seconds.
• Add onions, curry leaves and sauté onion until translucent and light golden brown.
• Add ginger garlic paste sauté until the raw smell is gone.
• Add coriander powder, chili powder, salt, turmeric garam masala and sauté for few seconds.
• Add tomatoes, cover and cook until tomatoes are soft and mushy. Cook until oil starts to separate from the curry
• Add shrimp and mix well until the spices coat the shrimp. Cover and cook for 2 minutes or until shrimp curl up. Remove the cover and continue to cook the shrimp on medium – medium high flame until all the juices & liquid in the pan evaporate and the curry is cooked.
• Garnish with cilantro and serve hot with roti or rice.

Suggestions/Variations:

• For a green chili flavor add some jalapeno peppers or medium to long green chilies (the ones used for mirchi bajjis) to shrimp after after cooking the shrimp for few minutes with cover on. If adding green chilies or jalapeno peppers, adjust chili powder accordingly.
• Tomatoes can be substitutes with some yogurt. If using yogurt, reduce the flame to low, add yogurt instead of tomatoes and mix immediately. Increase the flame and cook until oil separates from the masala / mixture and shrimp.
• Cooking time varies depending on the size of the shrimp.

Recipes I posted this month in 2008, in 2009, in 2010 & in 2011
Event Entries: This goes to my own event Seafood Feast.