Masala Peanuts

This is an easy and delicious instant snack - A perfect snack for loved one watching TV at home, spicy, crunchy and delicious.
This is my entry for Blog Hop Wednesday an event created by Radhika of Tickling Palates and this week I am paired with Jabeen of Jabeen's Corner, who has a lovely blog full of interesting recipes.
Although this was Microwave recipe, I decided the old fashioned way would work better for us, simply because I think besan needs to be be cooked completely if you do not want it to upset your tummy. And deep frying ensures that :)
Here is my recipe
1 cup of roasted peanuts (without chilka or outer skin)
1tbsp besan
1tbsp rice flour
1tbsp sambar powder/curry powder
salt to taste
curry leaves
a pinch of asafetida
2 -4 tbsp water to make batter
Oil to fry

Preparation
In a bowl mix the powders, salt, asafetida with the water to make it into a thick smooth paste
Now add the peanuts to this paste and mix in well
Heat oil and make in one or 2 small batches
Allow it to cool and break up any lumps

NOTE: in the hot oil, all some curry leaves and crisp them and add to the peanuts. Enjoy with a movie :)

Spring onion Subzi For Blog Hop Wednesday

This week I was paired with Pinks Recipe Diary She has some really wonderful recipes and the funny things is when Radhika of Tickling Palates had drawn up the schedule, I had been picking spring onions from my garden and had a ton of them sitting on the counter in my laundry room! So when I browsed through Pink's recipes, I was at once drawn to the recipe and was amazed at the coincidence :) This is a very simple, super straightforward dish and can be made in a matter of minutes, if you have peanuts & spring onions handy!

Here goes
You need the following ingredients

• 2 Bunches of Spring Onion
• 1 Tbsp oil
• 1 tsp Mustard Seeds
• 2 tbsp Moong Dal
• 2 tsp of Curry powder
• 2 Tbsp of Roasted Peanut Powder
• Salt To taste
• 1/4 Cup water

Preparation

Heat the spoon of oil 

splutter the mustard seeds

Add the moong dal; roast until golden

Add the green onions

Follow it up with the curry powder

Powder roasted peanuts and add and stir in

Add the salt to the water and pour in allowing the sabji to cook in all the ingredients

Enjoy with rice or chappatis ( I made Pongal with it along with green tomato chutney)

Stuffed Braided Bread for Blog Hop Wednesday

Spinach-Mozzarella stuffing

This week has been a scramble - Loved the blogging marathon I did for the past two weeks, esp because of the themes I'd chosen - Cooking with fruits; salad & soups the second week. But after posting just a recipe or 2 for weeks now, it was a challenge to get my butt in gear to blog everyday - I am SO hard pressed for time that I feel guilty that I am not blog hopping to see the wonderful things my colleagues have prepared -I keep thinking, today I will sit and do nothing but blog hop, but with a very active and demanding 3 yr old, i peek into my computer every half hour, FB usually to check comments or share a post! I am loving every minute of hanging out with my little girl and would regret seeing her all grown up soon enough and not having spent the quality time I spent with my older two children - So please excuse me if I am not coming around to your blogs as often as I used to - This weeks agenda - cupcakes & cookies for my daughter's drama club, Mad Hatter's Tea Party - taking my toddler to it, but have to work hard for it :) this evening is a concert for the same daughter - she is the busy one! My son pursues activities too but not everyday like my daughter does! So for the most part, it is my toddler and me in the house and she tells me every once in a while - Ma, shut off your computer
But today besides playing bingo with my little one, i was also baking from Sangee Vijay's blog, Spicy Treats for the wonderfully, synchronized and tabulated blog hop wednesday event initiated by Radhika of Tickling Palates. When I first commented on this Stuffed Braided bread on Sangee's blog, I thought to myself that I should make it - and this seemed the perfect opportunity to do it -

I followed her recipe to the last detail and it turned out beautifully- Thank you Sangee - you have a wonderful blog and many wonderful recipes :)

FIngredients 

1. 1.5 cups All Purpose flour  
2. 1 cup whole wheat flour
3. 1/2tsp Instant   yeast   
4. 2tbsp Olive Oil    
5. 1/2 tsp Salt  
6. 1/2 Warm Milk  +1tbsp for basting before baking
7. 1/2 cup +1-2 tbsp of water

Here are the few things that I need to note down for those making this
1. I made a spinach & Mozzarella Stuffing
2. I used 3/4 cup of water along with the half cup of warm milk for the proportions called for (this is a measurement that Sangee has omitted -I do often not mention things I think are understood by all
3. In my Oven, it took me about 25-27 minutes at 375 degrees -

Stuffing -Used frozen chopped spinach, cooked with some red chillies - added pine nuts and chopped up fresh mozzarella cubes. See pictures

Enjoy this bread with your family - A good dish on your TG table :)

Atta Chakuli For Blogging Marathon and Blog Hop Wendesday

This was a tricky situation - I had bookmarked a couple of recipes from Mugda's blog Cooking Fundas, whom I am paired with for Blog Hop Wednesday started by Radhika and at the same time, I had this desire to do the Blogging Marathon with Valli and Co - What's poor me gonna do except conceive of a master plan to keep both my commitments with one post, so that I could stick to my theme of cooking with fruits for the blogging marathon - For this I really had to scour Mugda's blog to get a recipe with fruits and I found it in the least likely place in the dosa section - This is what I would called a mix between a karacha dosai (Rava dosais) and pancakes - The kids returned from school a few moments ago and had them hot and LOVED them so much, So thank you my dear Mugdha for adding a new& yummy recipe to our home :)

I had to modify a bit because I did not have aniseeds and I really forgot to add the coconut altho I was so excited about seeing it on the recipe - happens when one has a sick child and two older ones coming home hungry :(
I have to get back to dinner making so I better rush this one out :)

Ingredients
1/2 cup Rava (cream of wheat)
1/2 Whole wheat flour (chakki atta)
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp cumin
1 banana
A pinch of salt
Pam olive oil or butter spray
NO oil :)

Preparation

Before I get on with directions, let me clarify that a no oil preparation is only possible if you have a non-stick pan
1) Mash bananas to fine pulp
2) In a bowl, mix the cream of wheat, atta, cumin & sugar
3) Add the banana pulp and mix in well
4) Dilute by adding water to the consistency of a dosai or pancake
5) Heat pan and make 4-5 inch sized chakulis

Ready in 15 -20 minutes start to finish

Check out the other Bloggers in this Marathon

Check here for my friends doing the Blog Hop Wednesday --

Couscous Idlis for Blog Hop Wenesday

Add caption

This Blog Hop Wednesday, a wonderful event started by Radhika of Tickling Palates, is a wonderful way to interact with our fellow bloggers and browse their each others blogs in greater details and in a more systematic way – On one such quest, I had the greatest pleasure to go through Harini’s Blog – Tamalapaku – the name was unique and I googled it to find that it meant betel leaves – something many Indians have after a satisfying meal to help with digestion – and the recipes I saw in her blog always erred on healthy which is what my blog mantra is too and I loved the many uses of grains and lentils. I was not sure which one to go with, but I did settle on something that I’ve been cooking with more recently – couscous – you many recall the couscous salad that I posted not too long ago – so my pantry has a full supply of this – And to make our South India charmer Idlis with it was like the best of both worlds for me –as in cooking with couscous and using it for a traditional recipe.

Many Many thanks to you Harini for introducing me to these idlis, they were soft, spongy and incredibly tasty and will be a staple at our home now.  And this was the most pleasurable time because my newly turned 3yr old helped me with the whole process J

The original recipe is here - I doubled the quantities to serve my family of 5


Here is my version with a few slight changes

Ingredients - 

To make for a family of 4 or 6

1 cup of couscous

1cupof sooji

2 cups of yogurt +2 tbsp of buttermilk

Carrots & cilantro finely chopped/grated 1 cup

Dried Nuts Coarsely Chopped 3 Tbsp (I used peanuts, almonds and cashews)

1 green chili

Baking Soda 1.5 tsp

Salt as per taste

Turmeric 1/4 tsp

Olive Oil 1 tsp

Curry leaves, cumin and mustard seeds, urad dal with a pinch of asafetida for tempering

Preparation

Mix the sooji and the couscous in a wide mouthed dish

Add the baking soda and salt and mix into dry batter

Crush the nuts and add and mix in

Add the grated carrots raw (I did not cook it like the original recipe calls for)

Crush cilantro

Add about 1tsp of salt

Now add the yogurt and mix in well

Temper the mustard seeds, cumin, urad dal, chili and the asafetida and some roughly torn curry leaves

Add this to the batter and mix in well

Spray your idli plates with non-stick olive oil or other and steam idlis for 10-12 minutes – that’s all it took for me

Healthy, hearty and delicious idlis good to go J

For those of you who missed the blog anniversary giveaway post, it's not too late - please click here 

Kanda Bajjis (Onion Fritters)

This is the fourth post for Blog Hop Wednesday started by Radhika of Tickling Palates– This time, I was paired with Bhagyashri of Taste Buds – She has a number of interesting recipes, but since I was shortchanged for time, so I picked a simple one although it was a fried one :( -AI am sorry to break the healthy spree of recipes that I’ve been posting with this universal favorite fried weakness! The dish is Kanda Bajji (pakoras or fritters) and here is the recipe with a few personal tweaks.

Ingredients

Besan 1 cup

2tbsp rice flour

1 big red onion

½tsp turmeric

3-4 Green chilies

Salt

A pinch of asafetida

Curry leaves

Grated ginger 1tbsp

Cilantro

Oil for frying

Preparation

Dry mix all ingredients except the onions and mix

In a wide pan, heat 1 tsp of oil and gently fry the onion without browning them too much – just to get rid of the raw taste

Add to the bowl and knead

I do not use any water in my mix - The water from the onion and the oil use to lightly fry is is plenty to knead this -
It should basically be some batter holding the onion strips together!

Heat the oil to fry and drop small quantities of batter to make the fritters

 Serve as is or with ketchup

Pesarattu Dosais/ Green Grams crepes

This week in Blog Hop Wednesday, I was teamed up with Vidya of Curry Leaves. What struck me the most about Vidya’s blog is the fantastic photography of her food -  While I enjoyed browsing her healthy and vegetarian foods, I was almost instantly drawn towards this dosai because I have made them in the past and it has not gone over well with my son – You know how the one person who does NOT like something sometimes determines what is made in the house and what’s not? Well it has always been the case in my home until recently when I decided not to pander to the taste of the one person who does not like it but the taste of the 4 other who do J

Tough luck Sonny!  - but his tastes have been changing (for the better) because he now loves upma which he used to love for the first 5 yrs of his life then started detesting – I am happy to say we are the love upma stage again- yay – And I am hoping that he will love this dosai he once denounced.

I used a few additional ingredients that I thought would make this even more delicious like coconut

Ingredients

Whole and halves green gram (green mung) 2 cups

Green and red chilies per taste

1 inch thick piece of ginger

Curry leaves

¼ cup of coconut

Preparation

Soak over night and grind

Saute batter with mustard seeds & asafetida, using 1 tsp of sesame oil

In a nonstick pan spread thin 1 ladle of batter

Roast on the one side and flip over after a minute or two remove from flame and serve with chutney of your choice

We had it with coconut Chutney

Recipe below

Ingredients

1 cup of grated coconut

3-4 green chilies

¼ inch piece of ginger

½ cup of roasted grams

Preparation

Grind all the above ingredients

Salt

Sauté with mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves and  a pinch asafetida in 1 tsp of ghee

Yen-jai

Blog Hop Wednesday is a brain child of Radhika of Tickling Palates 
Sending this to Shilpa's Life is Green Event 

Forget-Me-Not Sambusik Cookies

A Platter of Sweet Love :)

This is my second post in the Blog Hop Wednesday organized by Radhika of Tickling Palates – And this time I was very, very, fortunate in being partnered with Sweatha or Experiments, Emotions & Experience with Food – I must confess that this I love this event since it allows me to go into a blog and check it out in much greater detail that I have done when I just hop over to leave a comment – The versatility of Sweatha and her truly delicious recipes bowled me over – There were too many recipes for which I saying  - hey I want to try that and that and that one too --- I am certainly going to do that if not for the event, but for other occasions – Her blog is totally awesome and if you have not already checked it out, please do so…

That is a bell NOT a tulip!

Of all the wonderful recipes she had it was hard to choose which one to make, but I finally decided on her FORGET ME NOT SAMBUSIK COOKIES – I made these close to my hubby’s birthday and since I knew we would not be here during the actual date, made it a little in advance! We took some creative liberties in how we presented them for the occasion! check out the pictures below

Happy birthday to a most wonderfully, caring and loving husband and dad! WE LOVE YOU!

The Bell represents MANI in Tamil

The Moon is because that was/is his nickname

The two hearts are his and mine (corny but true)

The hearts around represent our kids and that he is surrounded by our love

The palm tree and the moon together represent our (hopefully) beautiful vacation at Bermuda (it was a wonderful vacation)

The dinosaur was for fun J

A little blurry :(

Blog Hop Wednesday

Onion Bhakri

Add caption

When Radhika of Tickling Palates came up with the Idea of Blog Hop Wednesdays, she tickled not only my palate but also my fancy to be a part of it. For those who read my posts, you will know that I have mentioned on more than one occasion that the best tribute to our blogs is when someone actually makes one of your recipes and has loved it. The idea behind blog hop Wednesdays is precisely that. And Radhika went all out and made an awesome chart for the participants, pairing them up with different partners for seven weeks to be continued for as long as we want to be a part of it – I want to thank Radhika for making my intent to try out recipes in an unbiased way possible. And my first partner in this is Raksha, of Raksha’s kitchen. She shares on her blog Goan recipes, quite varied and different from my style of cooking which is at once cool and interesting J

Add caption

I browsed through Raksha’s blog and found quite a few recipes that I would like to try out, but zeroed in on Tasty Onion Bhakri for this event. I recall Raksha had sent this to my FFNFF event a while ago and I had loved it, and here was my chance to make it. The result was it is an interesting mix between Rava dosa and adais. For full recipe click here

Add caption

Add caption