Strawberry Sheera

I was walking down to pick up my daughter from daycare, it was drizzling and very cold. I was feeling like eating something warm and sweet. I remembered my Mom and than her banana sheera. Hmm, I thought that would be easy to make. I got home and started off immediately to make sheera, than a thought struck, how about trying strawberry instead of banana's and here is my experimental version.
While blogging this I tried to google this recipe and there were many others who have tried this already :).

What you need:
1 cup sooji (semolina)
2 tablespoon ghee (clarified butter)
1/4 cup Sugar
3 strawberry, cut into small pieces
2 pods of green cardamom, powdered
2 cloves

How it's Made:
Heat 2 teaspoon ghee in a pan add semolina and roast it until it turns golden brown and gives off a nice aroma. Set the roasted semolina aside. Heat about 1 1/2 cup of water and sugar together. Once the water starts to boil, Add  2 cut strawberry and cook for 1 min. Than slowly add the roasted semolina and stir continuously so that no lumps are formed. Add the ghee, cardamom and cloves powder. Stir it well until it thickens and leaves the edges of the pan.When almost done garnish with 1 cut strawberry. Serve hot or chilled.

Besan Gatte in Gravy

Well, the reason I made this was that my husband picked up kala chana besan from the Indian store instead of  regular besan. This besan didn't taste good when I made pakoras or laddoos. Was looking for ways to use the pack of besan I had. I came across this recipe on the internet( surf-india.com), and thought its worth a try. Had heard about this recipe but never had tried it or tasted it before. In Jharkahand and Bihar this is called kala-channa ghoomni. In Rajasthan, gatte ki sabzi in a yogurt based gravy. This recipe is based on the jharkand version but with some modifications. I did not use mustard paste that they suggest. Also I added yogurt in mine. The original recipe calls for the gatte to be cooked and added to the gravy. I thought it would add a nice flavor if I sauteed it a bit in oil before adding to the gravy.

What you need :

1 cup Besan (Gram flour)

2 medium size: Tomatoes(finely chopped)

2 medium size: Onion (finely chopped)

4-5: Green chillies (finely chopped)

1 tbsp: Ginger and garlic paste
1/4 tbsp: Turmeric powder
1/2 tbsp: Red chili powder
1/4 tbsp: Coriander powder
1/4 tbsp: Gram masala
Pinch of Asafoetida
1 tbsp: Cumin seed
1/2 tablespoon: Carom (Ajwain) seed
2 tablespoon yogurt (optional)
Oil
Salt to taste

How It's Made:

Mix well besan, 2 green chillies, carom, 1 teaspoon red chili powder, salt and 1 tbsp oil. Add water into besan to make dough. Pull the dough into 1 cm diameter round and 5-6 inches long rope.
Put it into boiling water and boil for 10 minutes.
Take out the water and cut the besan round into small pieces and keep aside. (Besan rounds are called 'gatte'.) Heat oil in a pan and saute the gatte until it gets a nice crisp outer layer. Remove and keep it aside.
Heat oil in the same pan add asafoetida, cumin seeds, 2 green chilies, stir-fry. Add ginger garlic paste followed by chopped onion, saute until the onions turn brown. Add chopped tomatoes and cook for few more minutes. To this add turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder, salt, garam masala and water. I also added yogurt at this stage since my gravy wasn't getting thick enough for my liking. Boil till the gravy is well cooked.
Put gatte into gravy and boil for 3 minutes (Heat until gravy is thick).
Serve hot with steamed rice or plain chapathi. 

Apple Pickle

While I was expecting my baby, my friends used to get me lot of pickles, though I never had an urge to eat that much pickles. But among all that I had those days, these apple pickles were one that I really liked. I have made this pickles so many times now. They are good replacement for raw mango pickles and one can finish off a bowl at a time. They go very well along with curd rice. This is an instant pickle and lasts for about an week if kept in the refrigerator ( if you let it remain for a week).

What You need : 
2 large granny smith apple
3/4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds powder ( methi)
1 teaspoon mustard
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida ( hing)
1 teaspoon red chilly powder
1/4 cup oil
salt to taste


How it's Made:

Cut apples into small pieces. In a pan dry roast the fenugreek seeds and powder it. 

Heat oil in a pan, add mustard when it starts to splutter add asafoetida, fenugreek powder, chilly powder and salt. Mix well and add the apples pieces, mix and turn off the heat. Don't over cook the apples.

Cool and serve or store in dry airtight container in the refrigerator.

Simple Banana Icecream

It's been raining crazily here and I was feeling very gloomy. I turned on the TV and was flipping through the channels, when I came across this banana icecream being shown by Claire Robinson on Food network. The simplicity of this preparation caught my attention and I had to give it a try ASAP. All that it contains is banana and some peanut butter. But the experimentor in me never lets me do things straight. Here is the recipe with my little modifications. If you like bananas, you sure should give it a try.

What you need :
2 Bananas
2 table spoon creamy peanut butter
2 teaspoon honey
Few drops of vanilla essence
chocolate syrup

How it's Made :
Cut banana's into 1 inch pieces and freeze it (1-2 hrs). Once frozen blend the banana's in a blender. Keep scrapping the sides in between and bland until you gt a smooth texture. Add honey, peanut butter, vanilla essence, little chocolate syrup and blend it well. Scoop out into cups and drizzle som chocolate syrup over it and serve.

Right now as I am blogging about it, my mind is racing about the endless possibilties I can try out. What about some peaches, strawberries, apples, cookies or fudge along with bananas. Got to try...... You guys can try out and let me know the best possible combinations.

Tips:
-Use ripe but firm bananas
-If the frozen banana are very hard, thaw them a little bit, this way you won't have trouble blending.
-It's possible the icecream could turn out more like a custard because of the heat of the blender (mine gets heated very quickly), put it back in the freezer and scoop it out when set.

Stuffed Eggs

This is a recipe that my dad had learned as a bachelor, while he was working in Daman. He taught it to my mom and it's one of our favorite dish at home. We all love this and often pester mom to make it for us.The best combination for this is to have with rice flour roti. But eat it anyway its truly delicious. One caution, it's cooked with a lot of oil so not for those who are very conscious about using oil in their diet.

What you need :
5 Eggs
3 cups chopped onions
1 inch ginger
2 red chillies
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 tablespoon cut cilantro leaves
salt to taste
1/2 cup oil

How it's Made:
Hard boil the eggs, cool and remove the shell. With a sharp knife give a slit lenghtwise to the eggs in the form of a cross, cut its about 3/4 down, but make sure it doesn't go all the way through.

Dry roast the red chillie and coriander seeds. Grind these along with onions, ginger, turmeric and cilantro leaves to a fine paste. Don't add any water, the water content of the onion is sufficient. Add salt and 1/4 cup of oil to the ground paste and mix well. Fill in the cut eggs with the paste. In a pan heat the remaining oil and slowly place the stuffed eggs on by one. Add the remainder of the paste over the eggs. Keep tossing the eggs gently ( be gentle or the eggs will fall apart) after every 2 -3 minutes, cook until the raw smell of masala is gone and the masal agets a nice brown color.
Serve hot wth rice flour roti.
Caution: Don't add water at any stage in the recipe.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I had some bananas getting very ripe, so thought of making my usual banana bread. When I checked my ingredients I was out of butter so had to make something without butter, so my search for the recipe begin and I got the perfect recipe for which I had all the ingredients at allrecipes.com. These muffins turned out to be very soft and tasty. Though I have baked cakes before this is my first ever attempt at baking muffins. I am sure to try more variations soon....

 

What you need:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup mashed ripe bananas

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

How it's made:

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, combine the egg, oil, yogurt and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Add bananas and chocolate chips. Fill  paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan.

Chocolate dipped Strawberry

My hubby loves strawberry dipped in chocolates (dark chocolate in particular), that's the only way he would eat strawberry. So I often end up making this for him during the strawberry season. This are quick and easy to make and you can top the chocolate according to your taste. This time I started with the idea that I would decorate them with white chocolate swirls, only to find out that I didn't have any white chocolate left at home. So ended up with this. Looks so holiday like, may be it will be a nice idea as a holiday gift for this year :).

What you need :
Chocolate chips
Fresh strawberry
Tooth picks

for garnishing I used :
butterscotch chips
crushed cashews
white chocolate

How it's made :
Melt the chocolate chips in microwave or double boiler. Insert toothpicks into the strawberry and dip it in th melted chocolate. Swirl the strawberry as you pull it out of the chocolate to remove excess chocolate. garnish with toppings of your choice ( crushed nuts, white chocolate, sweetened coconut flakes etc). Stick it in styrofoam and let it dry.

Well now to my garnishing story, as I said earlier I didnt have white chocolate at home, so thought of using butternut chips for the design. But they didn't melt soon and I didn't have patience to wait for long. So I ended up picking the slightly melted chips and sticking them to the strawberry, I thought they looked pretty. I had one small white chocolate covered cookie, so I melted it and used the white chocolate from it and applied with a tooth pick, not very clean lines :(.
I also dipped some blueberries in the chocolate, I ate most of them by the time I put them in the basket, so only few were left.

Capsicum Rice

On of my friend's mom who is from andra, had got this really tasty capsicum rice to a lunch party. While we were leaving she packed some rice for us to take home. I devoured off every single grain in the box. I wanted to try it but didn't know the recipe and never got a chance to ask her. I tried to figure out the ingredients from the rice she had made and ended up with this version. I like making this with different colored capsicum, but this time I only had green ones at home. 

What you need :

3cups Cooked rice
2 cups capsicums cut lengthwise in thin strips
1 teaspoon mustard
1 teaspoon urad daal
2 tablespoon chana daal
Curry leaves – few
Oil – 2tsp
Salt to taste

Masala powder:
1 to 2 Red chillies  (depending on the heat)
1 teaspoon Coriander seeds
1 teaspoon Cumin seeds 
1 teaspoon Urad dal
1″Cinnamon stick
2 tablespoon dry grated coconut

How it's made:
Dry roast all the ingredients listed under the masala powder and grind to a course powder.
In a pan heat oil , add mustard seeds, urad and chana daal. Once they turn slightly brown add curry leaves and capsicum pieces. Cook for a few minutes till the capsicum loses it rawness but still crunchy.(Do not over cook the capsicum). To this add the ground powder, salt and mix well. Serve hot with  raita.

Coconut and Dry Fruits Poli

My Mom makes awesome coconut hobbatu / poli. They are so thin and remain soft for longer period. I never tried making poli so far, always thought it's best to leave it to the expert. Last month my sister went to visit my parents and mom made coconut poli with dates for her. My sister and dad kept mentioning how tasty they were, that made me crave for it. I kept thinking about it but didn't like the idea of making it. I thought it's not 'my cup of tea' to make it. But the urge to eat poli finally got over me and I decided to give it a try. Mine didn't turn out to be as good as my mom's but surely tasted delicious.

I made some changes to the recipe as per my own convenience and availability of ingredients. Here is my version.

How I made it :
For the dough:
2 cups Maida /All purpose flour
2 table spoon fine sooji / semolina
pinch of salt
1/4 cup oil ( I use canola oil)

Filling:
2 cups shredded dry coconut
8 pitted dates
2 tablespoon broken cashew nuts
10 almonds
1/4 cup brown sugar
5 pods of green cardamom
1 teaspoon poppy seeds

How I made it:
Dough- Mix the Maida, sooji and salt with sufficient water  to make a soft dough. Add the oil and knead the dough a little more. Let the dough soak in oil for about 4 hours in a cool place.

Filling- Dry roast separately the nuts and the poppy seeds. Peel and crush the cardamom. Grind the nuts along with coconut and cardamom. In a thick bottomed pan add 1 cup water and brown sugar and boil till the sugar completely dissolves. Add the ground powder and keep stirring until it starts to separate off the pan. It should form a thick dough like consistency, if you overdo it will be hard as a rock and if removed early it will still be runny.Mix the poppy seeds into this mixture and let it cool.

To make the poli- Take a small ball of the dough. Pat it flat with your finger tips to make small circle of about 4 inches on Plastic sheet / parchment paper ( I normally use the packets that we get daals from Indian store for this). Take a smaller size ball of the filling and keep in the center of the flattened dough and cover the filling completely. Since the dough is elastic it will stretch easily. Place inbetween two sheets of plastic/ parchment paper and roll it with the help of a rolling pin as thin as you can. Take care not to pop out the filling too much out of the dough.
Heat a flat pan. Transfer the rolled poli onto the skillet and peel off the plastic quickly. Cook until brown spots appear on both the sides. Serve warm with ghee.

These poli's remain fresh and soft for atleast a week.

Vegetable Stuffed Rice Fritters

I was back from work early and hungry. Checked my refrigerator out and had some rice leftover and very little subzi from previous day. Pulled it out and remembered this recipe that I had come across in Sanjeev Kapoor's website few months back.  So quickly made this, to curb my hunger till dinner was cooked. I modified it according to the ingredients I had on hand.

What I used:

1 cup cooked rice

Cauliflower, potatoes and peas subzi

2 tablespoon Onions finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon Pepper powder

1/2 teaspoon jeera powder

cilantro leaves finely chopped

Bread crumbs

salt to taste

Oil to fry

How I made it :

Mash the rice in a bowl and add onions, pepper and jeera powder, cilantro and salt and mix well.  Wet you palms with water. Take a portion of the rice dough and flatten in your palm, place the vegetable in the center and roll back the rice dough over the vegetables, shape it and roll it in bread crumbs. Deep fry in oil and serve hot with tomato ketchup.

If the rice is less add some mashed bread to it to increase the quantity.

chocolate cups with berries

Why eat chocolate off a bowl, when you can eat a chocolate bowl !!!.

Who doesn't love chocolates, each one loves it for different reasons and yes, chocolate is scientifically proven to be beneficial for health. Science!!, lets keep it out of our delightful chocolate cups and check how it's made. This is my trial version of the cups, not so perfect as I expected.

What You need:
semi sweet chocolate bar / chips
mixed berries ( raspberries, blue berries, strawberries)
whipped cream
cup cake liners


How it's made:
Line cupcake tray with cupcake liner. Melt chocolate in microwave. Using a pastry brush coat the inside of the cupcake liner with chocolate. Refrigerate the tray for 10 min, apply another layer of chocolate and let it set in the refrigerator for 10  min or until use.
For serving the chocolate cups, keep the cups outside for few minutes to thaw, this makes removing the liner easy. Fill in the mixed berries, top it with whip cream and serve.

Chocolaty Note :
- You can use any container of your liking to make the mold for chocolate cups (small cups, shot glasses, cookie molds etc).
- you can use any chocolate or combination of white n dark to give a artistic look
- Make in large quantities and store in the refrigerator ahead of time for a nice quick dessert or for  large parties.
- you can go creative with your fillings from ice-creams, cold custard. peanut butter or fruits. After all its a cup, what you want to eat in it depends on you.

Potato Fry -1

I love potatoes in any form except for mashed potatoes.( I may change my mind when I eat a good mashed potato dish). I often make potato fry at home. Its easy and quick. we make a lot of variety at home and all that differs majorly is the way we cut and and the seasoning. I will try to post all variations whenever I make it. For this version, the potatoes are cut in about 1/2 inch cubes. I used kolumbu powder which is a Tamilnadu version of spice mix generally used for most of the gravies. I got this from my mom-inlaw, you can alternatively use chilly and daniya powder.

 

What you need:

3 Potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes.

2 teaspoon Jeera ( cumin)

1 teaspoon saunf (fennel seeds)

1 teaspoon- Kolumbu powder

salt to taste

1 tablespoon oil

How its made:

Heat oil in a  pan. Add the cumin and fennel seeds. Once it splutters, add the cubed potatoes and fry it. When the potatoes are slightly cooked, add salt and the kolumbu powder. Mix it with the potatoes, sprinkle little water, cover and cook till done.

Simple isn't it ?

Strawberry Parfait

This sunday the weather was unusually warm for spring. But the warm weather tempted me to work in our garden. After 2 hours of work I was tired and hungry. Ready to eat something, but wasn't in mood for my regular breakfast. Wanted something cool, so made this yummy strawberry parfait. Its simple, delicious and best of all nutritious.

 

 

What You need:

Fresh Strawberries - cut to desired size

Yougurt/ icecream of you choice

cereals / granola 

honey

Whipped cream for topping

How it's made:

Slice strawberries and place them in a bowl. Stir in a bit of honey, making the strawberry filling as sweet as you like and set it aside.
Place a spoonful of strawberry mixture into the bottom of a tall glass. On top of that layer with cereals or granola.  Add a big spoonful of your favorite yogurt or if preferred, a scoop of vanilla ice cream,. Add more strawberries, cereals and more ice cream or yogurt, continuing the layers until you fill the glass. Add a dollop of whip cream to the top of the strawberry parfait, garnish with strawberry and enjoy.

Baklava

We were invited for New year's party last year at an elderly couples house. After a nice karnatakan food we were offered dessert. Our stomach was so full with the delicious homemade food I didn't feel like eating desserts. They packed it for us. Uncle, told me he had got it baked from a Greek baker who specializes in Greek baking. Next day we tried it out and instantly fell in love with it. I had to try it out and the best part was that my husband who is not found of sweets liked it. I had no clue what this dessert was except that it was from Greek baker. I browsed the internet and figured it out that it was called Baklava. I tried it the very next day and it was an instant hit with my hubby and friends. We have baked it several times for parties, to take to India and just to eat at home.  It's one of those delicious desserts I love baking often. 
It's nutty delicious, yummyyyyy..........you can't stop at one. 

What you need:

1 (16 ounce) package phyllo dough (I used half of it)
1 pound chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoon sugar

sauce:
3/4 cup water
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup honey

How it's Made:
Sauce : Make sauce earlier and cool it . I normally put it in the refrigerator once it gets cooled.
Boil sugar and water until sugar is melted. Add vanilla and honey. Simmer for about 20 minutes. Until its thick and viscous.
Chop nuts and toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Apply butter to the bottoms and sides of a 9x13 inch baking pan.
Assembly : Start it with lots of patience. The phyllo dough sheets are very thin , you need to be very gentle and patient while handling them. Unroll phyllo dough. Cover phyllo with a dampened cloth to keep from drying out as you work. Place one sheet of dough in baking pan, spread it gently and apply butter with a pastry brush. Repeat until you have 8 sheets layered,while applying butter at every single layer. Sprinkle 2 - 3 tablespoons of nut mixture on top. Top with two sheets of dough, apply butter, sprinkle nuts, than two sheets of phyllo dough, repeat again, layering as you go. The top layer should be about 6 - 8 sheets thick.



The sheet is thin and very fragile

  
Using a sharp knife cut into square shapes all the way to the bottom of the pan. You can than cut it diagonally to get triangle shaped pieces. Bake for about 40-50 minutes until the top crust is golden and crisp. 

Remove baklava from oven and immediately spoon sauce over it. Let it cool. Leave it uncovered as it gets soggy if it is wrapped up.
Store in cool place. It tastes better the next day as the layers will absorb the sauce better.

Dry chicken with coconut (Kori sukka)

I was bored cooking my usual chicken dishes and was looking to try something new. I came across this recipe on Indobase website. It said it was karnatakan dish. Quickly noted it down and tried it. Later I was wondering in which part of karnataka do they call this kori sukka and than searched for the origin of this recipe. It's a Manglorean based recipe and chicken in Tulu is Kori. Anyway I liked it and would surely try it out again.

What you need :

chicken pieces with bones preferably (about 800 grams) 

1  large onion finely chopped

8  curry leaves
2  tablespoons ghee / butter / oil
salt to taste  

Masala 1:

2  tablespoon(s) coriander seeds
½  teaspoon fennel seeds

½  teaspoon turmeric powder
1  teaspoon black peppercorns

1  teaspoon cumin and 

1  teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1  tablespoon poppy seeds

5  whole dry red chillies (use according to your taste)

1  tablespoon tamarind paste 

Masala 2 :

1 cup coconut grated ( I used dry shredded coconut)
5-6  garlic flakes

1  teaspoon cumin

How it's made :
Heat little ghee in  a pan and roast all ingredients listed in masala 1 and grind along with tamarind paste and keep it aside.
Coarsely grind the grated coconut, garlic and cumin seeds (for just a round or two) without adding any water at all. Its needs to be as dry as possible.

Mix the chicken with the Masala 1 paste. Cover and cook (without adding water) on low level in a heavy-bottomed pan till the chicken is almost cooked. Add the second masala paste and salt to taste. Cover and cook on low level for about 3  minutes or till the chicken is fully cooked.
Heat the ghee / butter in a pan, add in the curry leaves and fry for a few seconds. Add the finely chopped onions and fry till brown. pour this garnish over the chicken.
Server hot with roti or as a side dish.

Pineapple Gojju

I had heard a lot about pineapple gojju. It was on the top on the menu list for weddings in Bangalore for quite sometime. I always wanted to try it and everytime I mentioned it Sri would say, no it will be sweet. This time when he was not around I decided to try out this recipe. Its a south karnatakan recipe and the same can be done with mango too.

What you need:

1 small pineapple, peeled and cut into small pieces
1 tsp. tamarind paste
1 tbsp. jaggery
1 long spring curry leaves
2 tbsp. oil
1/2 tsp. mustard seeds
1/2 tsp. turmeric powder
Salt to taste


For the Masala:
1/2 cup grated, coconut
4-6 red chillies depending on the heat of the chillies
1 tbsp. coriander seeds
1 tbsp. chana daal ( split bengal gram)
1 tsp.  urad daal (split black gram)
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1/2 tsp. fenugreek seeds
1 tsp. sesame seeds
1/2 tsp. asafoetida
1 tsp. oil



How to make :

Heat the oil in a pan, fry all masala ingredients (except the coconut) until lightly browned.
Grind it with coconut and little water to a fine paste.
Heat the oil in a sauce pan, add mustard seeds, when it pops add pineapple, turmeric,
curry leaves and fry for 5-8 minutes. Add salt, tamarind juice, jaggery, ground paste.
bring it to boil. cook on low heat until the gojju thickens.
Serve with ghee along with chapatis/dose/rice.

I personally liked it with whole wheat bread rather than rice.

kluski pasta with indian sauce

My little one loves pasta. So I try to make pasta often at home these days. I am not a big fan of oregano or cheese so I end up making pasta with Indian spices. Indo - italian version. We have a new grocery store downtown and they sale variety of home made pasta. I found this Kluski  pasta and wanted to try it. Its a dense egg and wheat noodle.

 

 

What you need:

Kluski pasta or any other pasta of your choice

crushed Tomato paste- 2 cups

onions - 1 finely chopped

garlic- 4 cloves finely chopped

carrots- finely chopped

black pepper powder- 1/2 teaspoon

garam masala- 1 teaspoon

red chilly powder- 1 teaspoon

olive oil- 1 table spoon

salt to taste

How to make :

In a big pot of boiling water add pasta and cook according to the packet instructions. In a pan heat oil, add onions, garlic and saute till onions turn transparent. Add the carrots or any vegetable / meat of your choice and saute. Add the tomato paste, garam masala, chilly powder, salt and cook till it turns to sauce consistency. You can add water that the pasta is cooked in, if needed while cooking. the starch in the water give a nice consistency to the sauce. Add the cooked pasta into the sauce and stir it up, sprinkle some freshly ground pepper. you can garnish with cheese or some fresh cilantro. 

Spinach Daal

We love eating daal, so we have daal in some form everyday. With life getting so busy, I end up cooking daal in large quantities in pressure cooker on sundays and leave it the refrigerator and every day make something different with daal. This is one quick version of it. You can make this with methi leaves and with any other kind of lentils you like.

What you need :
Spinach - 2 cup (fresh or frozen )
Toor daal ( split pigeon peas)- 2 cup steamed.
mustard seeds- 1 tea spoon
cumin seeds- 1 teaspoon
asaefoetida- a pinch
curry leaves- 5-6 leaves
onions- 1/2 cup finely chopped
garlic- 3 cloves finely chopped
tamarind paste- 1 teaspoon
Sambar powder- 1 teaspoon
salt to taste
butter or oil- 2 teaspoon



How to make:
Heat oil or butter in  a pot. I like butter since it gives a nice aroma to the dish. Add mustard, cumin seeds and let it splutter. Add asaefoetida, curry leaves , garlic and onions and saute till the onions are done. add spinach and fry till the raw fragrance is gone. Add tamarind paste, sambar powder, salt and a  cup of water and cook the spinach for 3-5 minutes. Add the boiled daal,  cover the pot cook it for another 5 minutes.
Serve hot with steamed rice or roti.

You an use  red chilly powder and coriander seeds powder instead of sambar powder. You can add tomatoes if you like instead of tamarind paste.

Braided puff pastry dessert

Happy Holi!!!
Got an invitation for dinner to one of my Indian friends here.
Thought of making Baklava but did not have sufficient time to do with Adwi around me. I had just 2 hours let before I would go there didn't know what to make. I was flipping through Better Homes and Garden magazine and trying to get Adwi to nap. Saw this braided dessert recipe with puff pastry, looked pretty.Thought I should try it out, since it was holi wanted to make something with Indian touch, so here is my version of it. Let your imagination wild and try whatever filling you like.

What you need :Frozen Puff Pastry sheet - 1
butter- 1 tablespoon

For the filling:
butter scotch chips- 2 Table spoon
raisins- 2 Table spoon
walnut - 2 table spoon finely chopped
almond-2 table spoon finely chopped
dates - 5 finely chopped
cinnamon powder- 1 teaspoon
cardamom- 2 pods, finely powdered
sugar- 2 teaspoon

How its made:
Line a large baking tray with parchment paper. Unfold a puff pastry sheet and place in the tray. Mix all the ingredients in the filling list  and place the filling in the centre portion. Using a sharp knife, make 3- inch long cuts at 1 inch intervals right upto the filling in pastry on each side of the filling.starting at one end alternately fold opposite strips of dough at an angle over the filling, overlapping ends  of strips in the middle. Press down gently on strips to seal. Cover with a plastic wrap and keep it aside for 20 min. Discard the wrap, brush a little melted butter over the braid and sprinkle sugar and cinnamom powder mixture over it.

Preheat oven 375 F, bake the braid for 30 min or until tops and bottoms are golden brown. Cool braid and cut into slices and serve.

Peanut chutney powder

I love dry chutney powders. They were a great saver at times when you live in hostels and have to eat there. I particularly like this groundnut chutney powder and I make and stock it at all the times.

You can eat it with ghee along with rice, roti, chapthi or just like that :).

What you need :

Peanuts- 2 cups

Red chillies -2 or depending on the spice level

Garlic- 3 cloves

curry leaves- 6-8 leaves

salt to taste

How its Made:

Dry roast groundnuts on a hot skillet. Rub them to remove the peel off. roast the rest of the ingredients except salt. Cool and grind to a course powder. Store in a airtight box.