Pongal O..ats Pongal

We are coming upon that wonderful time of year people when we will soon be shouting Pongal O Pongal -- Why not change that just a tad and shout Pongal Oats Pongal ;-) Tastes just as delicious as rice pongal, but is healthier for the heart!

I kept it really simple -- As I said, I am totally jet-lagged after a rather nightmarish journey from India back to the US. All our stomachs are a bit queasy and satvic is the only was to calm and settle the belly juices

Ingredients
1 cup quick oats
1 cup moong dal
1 teaspoon each of whole black pepper and cumin seeds (ground)
2 teaspoons of olive oil
2 teaspoons of butter
Curry leaves
A pinch of asafoetida

Preparation
Cook oats as you would normally
pressure cook the moong dal
In a pan add the oil and butter, the ground spices, the curry leaves and asafoetida
Add the cooked moong dal and the oats and allow them to cook together, adding required amount of salt
Add water to make thin it, if it is getting too thick

Serve HOT

Koshumbir Salad

I am back, y'all and I want to kick start my new year blogging with a 5 minute recipe, as tasty as it is easy! This recipe is the direct result of my wonderful stay at Pune at my sister's home! Koshumbir salad is extremely popular with her family and I loved it too...So I made it today - keeping it simple considering I am still jet lagging like crazy! It goes really well with pretty well anything, and is a super dee duper stand alone dish that can be made and had at a moment's notice!

Ingredients

3-4 full sized carrots grated with the smaller teeth
1/2 cup of cilantro finely chopped
1/2 cup of roasted peanuts, powdered
2 green chillies slit
1/2 teaspoon of olive oil
salt

Preparation

Add all the ingredients together except the chillies and oil
Heat the oil and put the chillies in it and fry for a minute
Then add to the salad and mix in well...

Serve with chappatis, as a side with rice and more-kozhambu, rasam or enjoy it as a salad.

 The finished product

 The grated carrots

 Cilantro finely chopped

Crushed peanuts added

1/1/11 Happy NEW YEAR

Dear friends and fellow bloggers

A wonderful new year to all with glad tidings and many more healthy and delicious recipes :)
Just back from an Idyllic trip to GOA - Have a huge bunch of recipes I cannot wait to come and try out when I get back home -

Where are your contributions to the event folks?? please start sending them - I cannot wait to see what you'll have come yo with.....

Love you gals and boys :-)

Tag and Tagging

Thank you Nithu for tagging me! I finally found some time to actually sit and answer some of the questions.

Who inspired you to cook?

As a mother of discerning children, wife of a foodie husband, daughter of the most incredible cook for a mother and a sound critic for a father, inspiration comes naturally J.

If someone were to ask you to bring dessert to a party, what would you bring? Store bought, or homemade, and if you were to make homemade, what would you make?

Depending on how intimately I know the person who’s throwing the party, and depending on the crowd expected at the party, I plan and make my desserts accordingly.

Do you time your breakfast, lunch & dinner or eat when you are hungry?

I usually start my day off with a homemade fruit juice and a cup of coffee and something a little light to energize myself. Lunch is a grab bag in that I make myself something really simple if and when I’m hungry. Dinner is the one meal that we definitely have.

Name three things you have to use in most recipes.

I use olive oil, herbs and spices.

 How important is eating meals together as a family to you?

All of us live very hectic lives, parents and children alike, and the one sit down meal that we have together is dinner, so that becomes the most important time spent together when we catch up with each others’ day. So the answer is: VERY important.

Do you have a New Year's resolution-and will you be sticking to it?

I have made resolutions in the past, been able to stick with it for a while, but many people have fallen off the wagon. So I think about a few things that I want to do in the new-year, but follow it loosely as not to feel pressured. In fact, this loose arrangement actually helps me keep my resolve better than a firm one.

 How will you celebrate your next birthday?

Cruising in a yacht in the Mediterranean Sea. Well, I don’t know, but just wishful thinking J.

What is your take on organic food, is it a big deal for you?

Honestly, growing up in India, I ate only organic foods, but now, it’s become a very expensive proposition. However, I am a huge fan of Dr. Oz and I tend to use certain organic products that he recommends are safer and better for health, and not obsess about being too rigid about using organic products.

Here are some ladies I’d like to tag:

Savitha Ramesh (Savitha’s Kitchen)

Saraswati (Sara’s Corner)

Torview Toronto

Dr. Sameena (My Culinary Creations)

Priya (Priya’s Nice n’ Easy Recipes)

Harini (Tamalapaku)

Rupali (Recipe Grab Bag)

Kurinji (Kurinji Kadambam)

Please keep the tag going, so we get to know our fellow bloggers better J.

PS: Please send in you recipes for my first event. The New Year’s around the corner! Merry Christmas Eve to all!

A Tag and an Award

In Dubai now after a gruelling flight and 7 hour delay and hear of being stranded in Amsterdam! Baby is very stressed out by the journey and is recovering from it slowly! Sitting in the middle of the night,unable to sleep and bumming internet off an unsecured connection, all my worries and stress obliterated by the fact that I have some aweseom commnets of my last 2 recipes and the fact that I have been tagged by  Nithu of Nithu's kitchen
http://www.nithubala.com/2010/12/im-tagged.html
and what's more got a super awesome award from Rupali of http://www.recipegrabblag.blogspot.com/ .

Thank you Nithu and Rupali - You have made me forget the nightmarish journey to Dubai - once here it has been pure fun with family and sigthseeing - the Burj Khaleefa et al.....Off to India tonight!

Picking up some good recipes along the way and will blog when i get back home ...In the mean time, please keep checking in ...

Love ya!
Priya

Macaroni Verde

We all know about the torrid love affair between Mac& Cheese- I am the 'evil' fairy (paradoxical because evil and good are in the eye of the beholder) who has a scheme to break them up!What's more, it is my intention to bring Mac to her senses and make her a match made in heaven for the handsome and charming Signor Verde, a multi faceted, multi-talented bloke - mwahahaha or muahahahahaha (my evil laugh)

As a part of my event, I am putting out another favorite fast food that children and adults alike, like to indulge in.You know that this Mac&Cheese comes loaded with fatty, often processed cheese - We want to modify this and make it a dish, as interesting, but HEAPS healthier - Seriously, did you know that a bowl of mac and cheese at Panera is about 900 calories!! A BIG bowl of this is roughly 300-350 calories! Point to be noted.
We are leaving tomorrow on our big trip to India (please send up a prayer for good weather for me) and I had a few veggies in my fridge that I wanted to cook- hate buying as throwing as much as the next person - Now that my head is literally buzzing with ideas, I decided this will be a good one for my event and probably a couple of other events happening now.
Prep time - 30 minutes
Bake time - 25 -30 minutes

In Words
Ingredients
2 Zucchini Squashes, sliced round
1/2 head of broccoli cut into florets
1 green pepper (capsicum)
1 pack of Elbow Macaroni
3 dry red chillies (optional)
3 cloves of garlic

For the sauce
1/2 cup of milk
1/2cup of butter milk
NOTE If you have milk allergies, this step can be dispensed with altogether.
1 tbs of all purpose flour
1 sprig of fresh rosemary

Preparation of Sauce
Whip the above and keep

Preparation of Veggies
In about 2 tsps of olive oil, crush dry red pepper (cayenne) and curshed garlic
All to brown a bit.
Add the veggies, salt and let it cook until half tender
Add the sauce and stir in -
It will thicken
Shut off the stove and cool

In the meantime,
Bring a pot of water to boil, adding 1 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of olive oil.
Add the elbows and allow them to cook (takes about 10 minutes)
Once cooked, run through some cold water and allow it to drain.

In the meantime,
Put the veggie in a blender and make you final sauce

Oven ready:
Grease the pan you plan to bake in and start layering, starting with the elbows, then sauce, then elbows..you get the idea :)

In Pictures

 Veggies cut and ready to go

 In the pan with garlic and chillies

 whisk the sauce

 add to the veggies

 cook and drain mac in colander

 keep pan ready to go

 layer with mac first and top with sauce

decorate with tomatoes

Cook for about 30 minutes at 350 and serve HOT HOT HOT

Tip: You may decorate with diced tomatoes and bake, to infuse a little tangy flavor.
Secret tip: add a tbs of pine nuts to the sauce and grind for a nutty taste...option I exercised

Last Word - Infuse with a whole lot of love too.

Last Minute Lemon Rice

It's Tuesday night and my husband informs me about a potluck at his office -- ideas? quick ones? Out pops Lemon Rice - Truthfully, I am not a big fan of it, or wasn't until recently - People often think just yellow-rice= lemon rice - NOT. Although everyone makes it and thinks of it as a cinchy dish, it can be a really tricky one - too Dodh if not zesty, too turmericky, and blah bland - I've tasted them all - Let me tell you for some reason, lemon rice never quite made the cut in my home, growing up - On moonlit nights, we'd have kalanda saadhams and we hankered eagerly for Sambar Saadham, Pulikachal saadham or puliyodarai, thenga saadham or thayir saadham - in other words rice with sambar, tamarind, coconut or yogurt....
However, since moving to North America, this seems to be a big favorite of the Indians here, just like Satyanarayana poojai, which was never too popular in India, but is the poojai here...But over the years, we have adapted to all of it.

Lemon rice, my way.
Ingredients

To serve 8 people

2 cups of basmati rice cooked on stove top or in a rice cooker
The juice of 2 medium-sized lemons
2 carrots, peeled and grated
4-5 green chillies
Salt to taste
Thadka with
1 tsp of Turnemric
1 tsp of Urad Dal
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds
A pinch of Hing (asafoetida)
Green Curry leaves
oil 2 tbs
Garnish - Cilantro and nuts

Preparation
Get the oil fired up
Pop the thadka, cumin, hing, curry leaves, urad dal and chillies and turmeric.
Add the rice and mix in well
Then filter the lemon juice of any seeds and pour 4 tsp of lemon juice
Mix in and transfer into a serving dish
Then take the grated carrots and turn it in the same pan that you thadkad for a couple of minutes to semi-cook it - NO oil reqd.
Mix into the rice
Garnizh with fresh chopped cilantro and nuts of your choice

Can be served at room temp .
Tip: Do NOT heat up

Last Word - Stir a goodly amount of love into the lime juice before adding it to the rice :) Enjoy.