Schezwan Vegetable Fried Rice

Most of my rice varieties would relate to “There’s no shortcut for hard work”. But like there are always exceptions, this is one among the exceptions. I suppose this is the Indian version of Chinese food.
This would be very easy choice for packing quick, spicy and tasty lunch box.

Ingredients
Basmati Rice – 2 cups
Capsicum – 1 cut into thin long slices
Onion – 2 chopped
Carrot – 1 cut into thin long slices
Beans – ¼ cup cut into thin long slices

Cabbage - 1/4 cup shredded
Green Chillies – 3
Pepper powder – 1tsp
Ginger – 1 tablespoon
Garlic – 8-10 cloves
Soya Sauce- 1 tablespoon
Tomato Sauce /Ketchup – 3 tablespoon
Ghee – 2 tablespoon
Oil – 1 tablespoon
Salt – To taste

Red chilli flakes - for extra spice

Procedure
1. Soak the rice in water for 15 mins. Drain the water and keep aside.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon Ghee and fry the rice slightly.
3. Cook the rice till it becomes soft and fluffy. I have Hawkins Handi cooker and the rice cooks really well for Biryanis, fried rice etc. I add 2 ¼ cups of water for 2 cups of Basmati rice and keep it for 2 whistles.
4. Transfer the rice to a plate and allow it to cool.
5. Coarsely grind ginger garlic and green chillies.
6. Heat the remaining ghee and oil in a kadai and add the above paste. You may add the chillie flakes for extra spice.
7. After a few mins, add onions and when they turn brown, add pepper powder, capsicum, carrots, and beans and fry till it is cooked.
8. Mix Soya Sauce and Tomato sauce and add it to the vegetables.
9. Add salt and the cooked rice and mix well and remove from heat.
10. Serve hot with onion raita.

Eggless Banana Cake

We’ve bought an oven - OTG recently and I’ve been experimenting on various kinds of bakes and grills – cakes, pasta etc.
On one hand, I’m taking all efforts to reduce my weight a little bit and on the other hand, I’ve been lavishly treating myself with all the baking experiments.
Yesterday I thought that I should try to make some healthy bakes so that it doesn’t make my effort to lose weight worthless.
We had some over ripe bananas at home and I thought I could make eggless banana cake instead of throwing the over ripe bananas.
I shared the cake with my close neighbours and they really appreciated it. They were really surprised that an eggless cake was so soft. In most of the eggless recipes, we add condensed milk to compensate the eggs. They were really wonderstruck when I told them that I did not add condensed milk/ even plain milk in this recipe…
I don’t have the count of pieces that I’ve had!!! So, please try this out and be ready for compliments!!

Ingredients:

1 cup mashed ripe banana

2 cups Maida / Plain flour

½ to ¾ cup sugar½ cup melted butter

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

2 tsp Cardamom powder

1/2 tsp salt

Handful of raisins

½ cup shredded carrot (optional)

Procedure
1. Sieve Maida, baking powder and baking soda 2 times so that they get mixed well.
2. Add all the other ingredients other than butter and finally add the butter.
3. Mix it to a smooth paste. It wouldn’t be in flowing consistency.
4. Preheat the oven to 175 -180 degrees Celsius.
5. Grease the baking tray and dust a tsp of Maida and pour the batter.
6. Bake in the oven for 50 mins and then check if it has turned into dark brown colour. Keep it for 10 more mins for extra brown colour.
7. Enjoy the cardamom and banana combination with hot tea.

Karuveppilai Podi/ Spicy Curry Leaves Powder

Curry leaves have a lot of medicinal properties. They help in easy digestion and regular intake also promotes hair growth.
In south India, we use a lot of curry leaves in our daily cooking. But, if you take a close look at all the plates after the meal, there will be at least 3-5 curry leaves in each plate, i.e. people waste the curry leaves.
Somehow I feel that Grandmothers always had an answer for these kinds of issues…and that’s why they used to make recipes like Karuveppilai podi/ Spicy Curry Leaves Powder so that everyone at home gets the benefit of curry leaves.
Ingredients

Curry Leaves - 3 large cups

Channa Dhal - 2 tablespoon

Urad Dhal - 3 tablespoon

Dhaniya / Corriander Seeds - 3 tablespoon

Red Chillies - 10

Pepper -1/4 tablespoon

Salt - to taste

Procedure

1. Dry roast curry leaves till they turn light brown.

2. Dry roast the other ingredients and grind this along with the curry leaves into a coarse powder.

3. Serve it with hot rice and ghee. You can also mix this Spicy Curry leaves powder with Til oil and serve it with Dosa or Idly.

Beetroot Chapathi / Roti

If I were to equate vegetables to visitors in our house, Beetroot used to be a very rare visitor and also not a preferred one. I’m sure this is the case in most houses. I remember the innovative ideas (other than eating beetroot!!) that I used to come up with to finish off the beetroot soon. I used to mix it with Henna and apply it on my hair so that it would give a beautiful reddish tint.
Now I have figured out some creative recipes with Beetroot and this vegetable has become quite a frequent visitor in our house. One such interesting recipe is Beetroot Chapathi and I learnt this from my friend, Bindu. This has also become a big hit with my son, Pranav and the days I send Beetroot Chapathi in his lunch box, I could bet that the lunchbox would return empty…
Please try this out and I’m sure you would also buy Beetroot regularly…! Beetroot has very high iron content and is very helpful in increasing the haemoglobin levels in our body. It purifies the blood and has anti-carcinogenic properties.
Keep watching my blog for other tasty beetroot recipes like Beetroot Rasam, pachadi etc.

Ingredients
Beetroot – 2
Wheat Flour – 1 ½ to 2 cups
Sugar – 5 tablespoons
Salt – to taste

Procedure
1. Grate the beetroot and cook it in the microwave for 4 mins.
2. Allow it to cool and grind it into a smooth paste adding very little water and sugar.
3. Mix it with the flour and prepare the dough. Keep it aside for 10 mins.
4. Roll as chapathis and toast it on a tava with ghee.
5. Serve the colourful and tasty Beetroot chapathi with Coconut chutney.

Variation
If you do not want the Beetroot chapathis to be too sweet, you could grind green chillies along with the beetroot and avoid sugar.

Iyengar Puliyodarai/ Tamarind Rice

Puliyodarai is a south Indian specialty. It is made in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The Karnataka style is called Pulliyogare and is slightly different in taste.
I have made the famous Iyengar style here (Tamil style). The sauce that is mixed with rice is called pulikachal. It’s usually made in large quantity and can be preserved upto 6 months. The sauce can also be used as a pickle with curd rice or as a chutney with Dosa / Idly.
Puliyodarai /Tamarind Rice is an easy choice for long distance travel as it does not get spoilt even after 2 - 3 days.
There is no doubt on its taste….Its liked by Lord Vishnu that it’s served as a prasadam in temples….!

Ingredients
Tamarind – size of 2 apples (squeeze the pulp)
Black Sesame seeds /Ellu – 1 cup
Coriander seeds / Dhaniya seeds – 1 cup
Channa Dhal – 1cup
Red Chillies – 35
Fenugreek / Methi seeds – ¼ cup
Salt – ¾ cup
Til Oil – 1 cup
Turmeric Powder – 2 tablespoons
For seasoning
Mustard – 3 tablespoon
Urad Dhal – 2 tablespoon
Red Chillies – 20
Asafoetida / Hing – 3 tablespoon
Curry Leaves – ½ cup
Ground nuts – 1 cup
Procedure for the sauce - pulikachal
1. Heat the kadai and add the Black Sesame seeds /Ellu and allow it to splutter. Keep it aside.
2. Add the Coriander seeds / Dhaniya seeds, Channa Dhal and Red Chillies (35 ) and roast till they become brown. Keep it aside.
3. Now add the Fenugreek / Methi seeds and fry till they become light brown.
4. All the above should be roasted without any oil. Grind them without water into a coarse powder. Keep it aside.
5. Heat oil in a kadai and add the red chillies (20) and once they turn dark brown, add the mustard, urad dhal, asafoetida. You may reduce the red chillies if you do not want it to be too spicy.
6. Add the thick tamarind pulp and allow it to boil for 15 mins till it becomes really thick.
7. At this stage, add salt, turmeric powder and the ground powder and stir well.
8. Fry ground nuts and curry leaves separately and add to the above mixture.
9. Allow the sauce to cool and store it in a clean, dry container.

Procedure for Puliyodarai
1. Cook 2 cups raw rice separately in a pressure cooker and transfer it to a tray/ large plate so that it is not sticky.
2. Mix around 4 tablespoons of pulikachal, 2 spoons of til oil, fried cashews.

3. Serve with papad and raita.

Paanagam - A Healthy drink

Paanagam is a healthy drink which we can have during all seasons especially during summer.

Its one of the drinks that you can prepare with some basic ingredients at home and you don't even need a mixie/ blender. But, make sure that you prepare atleast 2-3 extra glasses as no one would stop with one glass!!

Ingredients:

Jaggery - 3 cups

Cardamom Powder - 1 tsp

Dry Ginger powder - 3 tsp

Honey - 1 tablespoon

Lime - 2 (squeeze the juice)

Water - 9 cups

Procedure

1. Mix all the ingredients other than honey and filter it.

2. Add honey and serve chilled.

Menthiya Moru Kuzhambu / Simple curd curry

We have the habit of planning the menu for the next day in advance so that no time wasted during the busy morning hours!!! One day my mother- in- law suggested that we could make "MMK" for the next day and I was wondering what "MMK" was ..... I then learnt that it was Menthiya Moru Kuzhambu. Its a simple curd curry which does not involve any grinding of spices but tastes really good!

Ingredients:
Buttermilk – 3 cups
Tomatoes – 5 medium sized
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Urad Dhal – 1 tsp
Toor Dhal – 1 tsp
Channa Dhal – 1 tsp
Fenugreek/ Methi - 2 tsp
Green chillies – 3
Red chillies – 2
Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – a few
Asafoetida – 1 tsp
Sesame Oil – 2 tablespoon
Salt – to taste

Procedure
1. Heat oil in a kadai and add channa dhal, mustard seeds, urad dhal, toor dhal, methi seeds, curry leaves, chillies and Asafoetida.
2. Add the chopped tomatoes and fry till they become tender.
3. Add turmeric, salt and buttermilk and simmer for 3- 5 mins and remove from the stove. Do not put on high flame after adding buttermilk as it will curdle.
4. Serve hot with rice, papad and some dry vegetable subji.

Chakkara Pongal

I remember my childhood days when my mom used to give us Chakkara Pongal as prasadam after her Friday puja. We used to wait patiently for her to finish the puja so that we could taste the ghee flowing chakkara pongal...

My mother in law also makes it very well and she makes it as a dessert for large family gatherings.

Ingredients:
Rice – 1 cup
Yellow Moong Dhal – ¼ cup
Jaggery – 2 ½ cups
Water – 3 ½ cups
Milk – 1 cup
Cashew nuts – a few
Raisins – a few

Ghee - 4 tablespoons
Saffron – a few strands (optional)

Procedure:
Mix the rice and the dhal and pressure cook them with the water and milk till the rice is really soft.
Fry the cashews in 1 teaspoon ghee and keep it aside.
Add the cooked rice and dhal to the kadai along with the powdered Jaggery. Keep stirring continuously.
Soak the saffron in 1 tablespoon of hot milk.
Add 3 - 4 tablespoons of ghee, fried cashews and saffron and mix well.
Remove from the kadai and serve hot.

My kitchen is on the way