Check point

Last week, i have been cooking but not finding time to update blog.

I thought a checkpoint is needed to check how far am i from my target.

Deadline: Shoot yesterday(22 march)
Recipes: 28.

Recipes posted: 18
Recipes done, but not posted: 4

6 recipes less....so i am extending deadline to 27, to post all recipes and also finish 6 recipes.

Colorful Beetroot rice

Beetroot is least favorite vegetable in our house. Even if i make, i end up eating everything as other wont even be ready to taste.

I want to impress my family with something new with beetroot and i tried beetroot rice.

Ingredients:
1- beetroot
1 cup boiled rice
1/4 cup cashew nuts
2 green chillies
1 onion
1 tbs chana dal (optional)
curry leaves
oil
coriander leaves (optional)

Peel and grate beetroot.



Add 1 tbs oil to non stick pan, add chana dal and cashew nuts. Fry them until cashew nuts start to brown. Take care not to burn cashew nuts.

Add finely sliced green chillies, onion, curry leaves. Fry until onion becomes transparent.



Add grated beetroot and fry until beetroot cooks properly.


Add coriander leaves, salt and rice. Mix delicately so that rice remains separated and does not become paste.

This rice tastes heavenly.



Happy cooking :)

Super Quick potato fry

To be frank, i never did anything as fast and tasty as this recipe. My husband said he feels like eating potato fry. I was absolutely exhausted and my kid was pestering me to play with him.

Then i remembered reading this quick recipe on internet and gave it a try

Ingredients:
2 potatoes

oil,salt, chilli powder, coriander powder

peel and dice potatoes. fry potatoes will be crisp and will cook fast if potatoes pieces are little smaller in size. add oil,salt,chilli powder, coriander powder and any spice u use while making fry.

mix properly, throw them onto oven tray. Fry them for 15-20 minutes under 150C.
Check in between to see of fry is done. So simple!

I had my doubts about this recipe, but once seeing how easy and tasty it is, this became a regular.
Now i want to trying this recipe with all kinds of veggies and see how it comes.

Keep experimenting :)

Healthy palak soup

I am not a big fan of palak, but knowing its benefits, i cook it at-least once a week.

Here is a recipe i got from my mom-in-law which is so simple to make you need not struggle to include palak in your diet.

Ingredients:

palak (Spinach) - 1 bunch
tomato -1
onion - 1

oil, spices, salt pepper as required.

Clean and cut palak, add cut tomato and onion to it. Add a cup of water and boil until palak looks cooked. Takes about 5 minutes.



Now grind the boiled palak and add water as per the consistency you like for the soup.


Take a pan, add 1 tbsp of olive oil, add few spices like bay leaf, 2 cloves. Once you get spice aroma, add palak mix.

Add salt and pepper as per you taste and let the soup cook on low flame for about 5 minutes.


Serve it with some fresh cream.



My son liked it and made my day :)

woow rasmalai

My head said, "really...you want to try Rasmalia? it will definitely hard to make"
My heart said, "whats the fun without trying new things in life...even if we fail"

Rasmalai is famous Bengali desert.

Rasmalai needs two things, rabdi and has rasgulla.


Recipe Rabdi

Its very simple to make and itself can be served as desert with fruits.

Ingredients:
Milk - 1/2 kg
Sugar - 1/2 cup
cardamom powder - 1/8 tps



Take a shallow non stick pan, Add milk. Boil milk under low flame whisking it slowly with wooden ladle. It will take about 1/2 hr for milk to become thick. Add sugar and cardamom powder and boil milk until sugar melts completely.



You can use this in many deserts. Add it ti gulab jamoon, double ka meeta, kheer or fruits.



Recipe Rasmalai

I never thought making rasmalai is simple. It is definitely lengthy but simple to make.

Ingredients:
Milk - 1/2 liter
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Almonds - 4
lime/vinegar
ice cubes
water - 3 cups

Boil milk in a bowl. Curdle milk by adding either lime juice or vinegar to milk slowly and mixing it properly into milk. Once milk curdles, immediately switch off stove and add ice cubes.
This stops the further cooking of milk.



Strain the milk in a soft cloth and extract the cheese. Hang this cheese in the cloth for sometime so that all the water drains.



Place the cheese along with the strained cloth on a kitchen towel and rub it for 2 minutes.
This will allow in removing any excess water and also making the cheese into smooth dough




Make small disks from the smooth cheese dough.



Add 1/2 cup sugar to 3cups of water and boil it. Once the sugar melts, take about 1/2 cup water into a shallow bowl and keep it aside.



Add the cheese disks to the boiling sugar water. Make sugar water is boiling and is on high flame, otherwise cheese balls will break. Cook the cheese disks for 5 minutes. They will bloat to double their size.



Take them out of boiling sugar water and add them to shallow vessel which has sugar water taken before. Let them cool.

Once cooled, take them out, press slightly and add them to rabdi.

Rasamalai is ready. Sprinkle coarsely ground almond powder to it.



My family finished them so quickly, i regretted making recipe with 1/2 liter.Next time i should make with 3 liters of milk.

karnataka special: akki roti

I am cooking but not getting time to update the blog, getting delayed mostly with uploading pics.

When i shifted to Bangalore, i was introduced to many wonderful dishes and akki roti is one of them.
This recipe is from one of my office friends.

Akki roti will be great with onion chutney and i got this amazing chutney recipe from my mother in law.

Lets start

Recipe Akki roti

Ingredients:

rice flour - 4 cups
fresh coconut
green chillies -2
onion -1
salt
water



Coarsely grind some fresh coconut,green chillies and onion. I usually dont measure these, you can roughly take it as 1 tbsp of each when ground.

Take flour in a big bowl, add little salt. Now add the ground paste. Mix properly.



Boil water and add little by little to the flour mix while mixing it. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.



Now take a clingfoil/plastic wrap, place it on table and apply oil to it. Take little dough (golf ball size), place it on cling foil and spread the dough with your hand until you get thin roti like in the picture.


Apply oil to your figures so that dough does not stick to your hand. If its your first time, its better you take little dough and make small roti's.

Heat the akki roti on both sides properly on a non stick tawa/pan.

You can have them just like that.

Onion Chutney:

Akki roti tastes even more delicious with onion chutney.

Ingredients:
Onions -3
Garlic pods -2
red chillies -10
cumin - 1/2 tbs
tamarind extract - 1 tbs
salt - 1/2 tsp
oil
mustard - 1/2 tsp
curry leaves - 5


Heat oil in non stick pan, add 1 tsp oil. Add cumin seeds and red chillies.
fry them for a minute and keep aside to cool.



Soak little tamarind and extract Juice. You can also use a store bought tamarind extract.
Now coarsely grind onion,garlic pods, red chillies, tamarind extract.

Add little salt to this onion paste. Add a tbs of oil to the same pan and add mustard seeds and curry leave. add onion mix to the pan. Fry for 2-3 minutes and onion chutney is ready.


You can eat this chutney with any kind of roti, idly, dosa and also rice.

Enjoy :)

Hot n Spicy Chicken Tandoori

One of the favorite and famous Indian dishes is chicken tandoori. I tried so many varieties of chicken, but never dared to attempt this thinking that it would be very complex to make.

I usually refer to vahchef Sanjay Thumma for Indian recipes. When i saw his video for this recipe, i felt foolish that i did not try it before.

Lets start...

Ingredients:
Chicken - 500 gms (leg are thigh pieces are ideal)
yogurt - 5 tbs
ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp
lime - 1
pepper powder - 1/4 tsp
coriander powder - 1 tsp
red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp
cumin powder - 1 tsp
turmeric - 1/4 tsp
salt
oil - 2 tbsp

The ingredients might seems a lot, but once you have them the process of making is very simple. Adjust the spices according to your taste. You must be really careful of how much chilli powder and salt you are using.

Make 2-3 deep long slits on each so that all the spices go into chicken and flavor it perfectly.

Take 1/4 tsp chilli powder and 1/4 tsp salt into small cup. squeeze half lime into it and mix it to make a paste.

Apply this paste to chicken. First apply it into the deep cuts you made and then remaining paste to entire chicken pieces.


Now add curd to a big bowl. Add remaining chilli powder, pepper powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, garam masala powder, turmeric and salt. Squeeze half lime into it and mix properly to make a thick paste.



Add chicken pieces to this mix and apply the paste to chicken. Make sure you apply the paste to the slits you made on chicken. Once the paste is uniformly applied to chicken pieces, add oil and make sure all pieces are coated with oil.


Preheat oven to 200 C. Place chicken pieces over an over tray and apply remaining paste over them. it will take around 20 minutes for chicken to cook properly in oven.



Enjoy yummy n spicy chicken tandoori.

Dinner: Pizza from sravani's kitchen

This is a long post. I made pizza before but not from scratch. So here is a complete home made pizza recipe, just for you guys.

This post has 3 recipes: Pizza tomato sauce, Pizza dough, Pizza.

It might seems a big task, but trust be it is all worth. You can omit first two recipes and buy them from store and it becomes even more simple.

Pizza sauce:

This recipe is from one of my favorite cooks,Jamie Oliver, with slight modifications and Indian touch.

Ingredients:
Tomatoes - 5
Garlic pods -2
Curry leaves (Original recipe has basil but i could not get it)
Olive oil

It is so simple and i was amazed with the result.

Take a non stick pan, add 2 tbsp olive oil. Once oil heats, add thinly sliced garlic. Once garlic starts to turn brown, add cut tomatoes and 4-5 curry leaves. Until tomatoes starts to boil, try to mash tomatoes as much as possible using back of wooden spoon . Add salt and pepper as per your taste. Let tomatoes boil for a min and then strain them in a sieve . Make sure all the juices get down by pressing down the mix in sieve.



Now boil the extracted tomato sauce until right consistency.

India touch: I added pinch of Garam-masala powder and a pinch of coriander powder. My heart craved for spices and i had to give in.


You can use this sauce for pizza, pasta or toast.

Pizza Dough:

This is very similar to bread dough.

Ingredients:
Plain flour - 4 cups
Warm water - 2 cups
Olive oil
Salt
dry yeast

Activate yeast as per instructions on the packet. Mix all dry ingredients.
Make a well in the flour, add yeast mix, water and 2 tbsp olive oil. Gently mix the flour.

Knead the dough for 10 minutes . Place it a bowl, coat the dough with olive oil and cover it with a kitchen towel.



Let it rest for an hour an half, until the flour doubles its volume.

Knead the dough again and pizza dough is ready. You can wrap it in clingfilm and store it in fridge and use whenever you are making pizza/bread.

Now you can roll the dough into pizza base.


Pizza:

Ingredients:
Pizza sauce
Pizza base
Toppings- (anything you like)
olive oil
cheese


You can use home made pizza sauce and dough or buy them from home as per your convenience.

I like to use fried onions in pizza toppings. It is very simple to make. Fry thinly sliced onion in 1 tbsp of olive oil stirring continuously until onion start to brown.


Other than that I used green olives,capsicum, mushroom, green chillies, onion, tomato, potato as toppings.


Spread the pizza sauce over the pizza base. Grate some cheese over it. Add toppings of your wish. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Drizzle some olive oil and grate some more cheese.

Toss it in preheat oven for about 20 minutes at 200 C.

Yummy pizza is ready :)


I customized my husband's pizza without olives and more tomatoes and cheese. Mine is with olive and no tomatoes.

Non recipe: romantic water melon juice

Well this is not much of a recipe, but today i saw fresh watermelons heap on road side and i knew my heart wont satisfy until i have water melon

I never had patience to make juice from watermelon, i usually eat it just like that. My mom used to make this juice a lot and as soon as we are back from school, we used to have it.

Once we got so many watermelons in our garden back home that our fridge was full of melons and juice.

So, this is my first attempt and i am very very confident that it will be very tasty.

Ingredients:
Water melon - 1
lemon - 1/2
Sugar - 1tbsp (optional, can substitute with honey also)



De-seed the watermelon and cut into small pieces. This is slightly laborious job, but hey no pain, no gain. You can get seedless watermelon then you don't have to do this also.

Put them in juicer/mixer, squeeze half lemon.

You can add sugar as per your taste. My husband usually likes juice slightly sweet and little sweet will make this juice even more romantic.



Grind, drain the juice. Keep it in fridge until you serve it.



Serve it with a small piece of lemon.



This juice tastes very refreshing and the color is romantic.

sip...sip...