Black Pepper Rice (Milagu Sadham)

If you have lived in Chennai any amount of time and if you'd had the good fortune of living near Adayar (now they are everywhere) you just may have heard of and actually visited The Grand Sweets and Snacks. It is the go to place for wedding bhakshanams (mithai and savories). Or if you just wanted a wonderful afternoon snack. Everyday, TGS&S had a routine to serve a different kind of snack each day of the week and I want to say that it was on Saturday that they made Pepper rice which they served in a stitched leaf bowl or Dhonai as we call it. (Pls correct me if I got the day wrong). But this was the ultimate treat. The fragrant rice that oozed with unbelievably aromatic ghee, fresh curry leaves and cashews - just the right amount of spice and salt and the rice cooked soft to a mush - It always transported me to heaven. I have recreated this beauty in my kitchen so many times and yet I am shocked that I have not blogged it yet!. Just like I realize i have not blogged regular items like rasam and sambar - which is pretty pitiful -- like living in Agra and not visiting the Taj!
But never too late I say!
The easiest yet most satisfying mixed rice for a rice lover. I have replaced the ghee or at least part of it with sesame oil - just as tasty. Such a wonderful dish to take for a potluck, for a Sunday brunch or just about anytime the craving hits you, like it does me. EASIEST RECIPE

Ingredients

• 1 cup of basmati or other rice cooked with 2-1/2 -3 cups of water
• 2-3 tablespoons of fresh black pepper - ground fine
• 1 tbsp salt also ground with the pepper
• 1: 2 tablespoons ratio of ghee to sesame oil +1tbsp of butter
• Cashew, curry leaves
• pinch of asafetida

Method

1. Cook rice really soft to mush
2. Pepper and and salt ground fine
3. Get a wide bowl
4. hear ghee (butter ) once the water is gone it is clarified into ghee. Add the asafetida to this as you heat - Add the sesame oil to this and keep
5. Add 1/3 of the rice and 1 tbsp of the pepper mix topped with 1 tbsp of ghee oil mix 
6. With a fork mix the pepper into the rice
7. Once all the rice and the pepper are mixed, with a potato masher, mush the rice so it will absorb the pepper nicely
8. Heat the butter add the cashews and the curry leaves and roast until cashews are golden.
9. Pour over rice and mix in and let it rest for a few minutes.
10. Serve HOT

No Sides Required but you are free to have chips or appalam with it

Vegetables Au Gratin (Dieters Version)

We all love our cheese! Let's admit it, unless we have some major allergies to dairy, which often still does not apply to cheese. While being touted as a good source of protein cheese tends to be more of a fat source!  Not trying to go all preachy on you since I am as culpable as the next person in liking this darned thing!  But new year resolutions kicked in a month later for me and I am trying to be good about what goes into my mouth and into my stomach. I am adhering so far to the NO-Fry February,  with which also goes more veggies, less grains and all that jazz.

All the recipes that I call my own, is most often just put together! As I have often said, if you put of bunch of things you like together, chances are you will like the outcome of it just as well. And quoting myself again (coz I am so good like that) I also restate that recipes are mere guidelines always subject to personalization.

So here is my recipe
1 8x9x4 deep baking dish  
Makes about 8 generous portions
Ingredients

• About a dozen Baby carrots split length wise
• 1 medium cauliflower cut/snapped into daily big florets
• 1/2 box of baby spinach (about 3 cups)
• 2 zucchinis cut in cubes
• 1 can of Campbell's low sodium Mushroom soup
• 1can of Campbell's cream of celery 
• 1cup of shredded cheddar

Flavoring Guidelines

• 2 dry red peppers crushed
• 1tbsp of pesto powder
• Salt
• Fresh ground pepper

Method

1. Set oven to 350 deg F
2. Broil on high the veggies for about 10 minutes or until the tips of the veggies are turning brown
3. Remove from oven
4. In a deep baking dish
5. Spray the bottom with olive oil 
6. Add half the grilled veggies
7. From either can ladle out the soup in chunks around the pan over the veggies
8. Use half of the flavoring ingredients 
9. Now add the rest of the veggies I separated mine so it felt like different layers
10. And repeat process with second can of soup and flavoring
11. Now add the cheese
12. Bake for about 25-30 minutes
13. Serve with Bread 

Ginger Sesame Watercress Soup

The first legit snow day. Kids are home today and tomorrow has been declared a holiday already. Outside 10 inches of snow waits to be shoveled and my Canadian man has geared up to shovel, since the man who blows snow for us has just undergone a knee replacement surgery. And, it had to be the heaviest snow!  So my older daughter gears up too, to help. She is excited to be out as is the little one heavy snow makes good snow people . So booted and jacketed from top to toe, the three head out each on their personal pursuits. I am at home trying to get my valentine's project for my kiddos, esp the little one finished - this is a big deal in our house and for some reason the kids have always been into it, the girls especially. And I try to draw energy from their enthusiasm and end up making Nutella cookies with my daughter's help yesterday.

Three hours and some later, I poke my head through the garage door to enquire about lunch and in unison they demand something warm and yummy.  I rifle through the fridge to see what I can rustle up at short notice. Like a scanner that beeps when it spots things, so to my eyes zoned in on the half used tofu, spring onions begging to be eaten before they go rotten, baby carrots and a big whopping piece of ginger. Pulling these out from the fridge I sprint downstairs to my other fridge to see what else catches my fancy and voila watercress.
I sprint back up, go to the pantry and get down some TJ vegetable stock. At this point I feel like I was on one of those cooking shows where they assign you one ingredient and you had to race to come up with some ideas around it.

I place my big pot on the stove, threw in some olive oil to sauté the veggies and then just like the last few clicks of a rubric's cube, things fell in place so naturally and believe you me, I have never heard my hubby rave so much about anything quite as much as he did about the soup. He also insisted I blog it right away so that I would archive the recipe for keeps.

RECIPE
For 6 hearty portions
Can be made in 10-15 minutes

Ingredients

• 1medium bunch of watercress (as sold in whole foods)
• 6-8 baby carrots slit in 4 
• Half pack of extra firm tofu  cubed (Trader Joe brand)
• 1carton of vegetable broth (Trader Joe brand)
• 4 stalks of spring onions finely chopped
• 2 inches long and as thick of a ginger piece chopped roughly
• 1tbsp of sesame seeds (white or brown)
• 1tsp of olive oil

For the flavoring

• 1 heaped tbs of peanut butter
• 1tbs stir fry Szechuan sauce
• 1 tbs Sriracha sauce
• 1 cup of water

Method

1. In a pot, add olive oil and the sesame seeds. 
2. When they start turning golden, add the veggies and stir in high heat for a minute before lowering to a simmer
3. In a blender, add the chopped ginger to half the carton of veggie stock and blend smooth
4. Add to the pot and allow the veggies to cook in the ginger broth. Add also the rest of the broth. 
5. In the same blender, add the water, and all the flavoring ingredients and blend until smooth.
6. Now add this to the boiling soup
7. Allow the whole soup to boil for 2-4 minutes before taking off the flame.
8. Serve hot

I guarantee you that this will be a super hit plus it is such a quick recipe.

I have another wonderful preparation to share with you next time - until then stay warm or cool as the case may be.

British Scones - Valentine's Tea Snack

When we were young, growing up in India and reading all those British novels, Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie or Anne Mather, there was always mention of afternoon tea with scones, and I remember salivating with Fatty, Larry, Pips, Bets and Daisy of the Five Find-Outers when one of their mother's whipped up scones and biscuits for tea. Always wondered about it - Then moving to the US, I encounter biscuits, a tradition of the South which I dislike I was hoping to like scones a  bit more. In 2005 we traveled to New Zealand and we had "scones" Found them too dense and super filling - like dense all purpose flour packed together with butter. One of the best vineyards they said, but still did not cut it for me. Until my friend decided to make these for tea on her birthday. They were full of layers, and truly delicious with the fresh cream and jam she served it with. They were still filling, but wonderfully so.  Which got me thinking…Hmm, I could try to make these. So I scoured the net for an "authentic" scone recipe and found the simplest one I could find and tried it the "propah" British way. This is a recipe I put together after reading through many and it allowed me the option of making them eggless.

What with my heart shaped cookie cutter, it was so appreciated by my girls and family.

What better treat for a great Valentine's Tea?

To make abut 10 Scones

Ingredients
1 cup of self-rising flour +2 tbsp
1/4 cup of cold butter (pinched)
2 Tbsp of castor sugar
A pinch of salt
3/4 cup of milk (divided)

Method
Pre-heat Oven to
Spray cookie sheet and keep ready
Mix flour, salt
(Keep butter refrigerated until ready to use like when making pie crust)
Pinch/cut the butter into the flour and mix just until gravelly like bread crumbs
Add the sugar
Follow up with water - use only enough to make a slightly wet and sticky batter
If you are going to, add your cranberries/blueberries or nuts at this point
Sprinkle the two tbsp of flour, one at a time, and roll the dough gently to get a soft yet non-sticky batter
Pat down with hands or roll lightly with rolling pin to about an 1-1/2 inch thick batter
Cut with cookie cutter and place on cookie sheet
Bake for about 10 minutes
Should be rise but soft and flaky!

Serve warm with butter/whipped cream/Jam and of course a steaming cuppa tea or chai

Enjoy and Happy Valentines Day to all of you. May you be loved always.