Green Moong with Dill leaves

Tried and tasted by Nivedita

Hi All,

Now a days I have made it compulsory to have green leafy vegetables for our dinner. And morning breakfast is replaced with Chapati and any veg. preparation or grains or pulses. 

And this Green Moong and Dill leaves serves both!! 

My kids do not like this leaves in any other form. So this is the best way to feed them. We make Thalipeeth, dosa, Paddh using these leaves. Mom makes yummy "Dill and Chana vada". I love the smell of Dill leaves. This is a common preparation in North Karnataka.

It has many health benefits too. It is benefited in Digestion, Dysentery and Diarrhea, bad breath, swelling, Menstrual disorders. Read more here for details. It is very useful article on this herb.

Coming to the recipe,

Dill leaves - 1 bunch, cleaned, washed  properly and chopped finely

Green moong - 1cup, soaked for  2 hours

Garlic - 1/2 bulb if it is small, cleaned and crushed

Green Chilly - 1 or 2 as per your taste, chopped

Oil - 1 tsp

Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp

Salt to taste

Transfer every thing in to a cooker vessel or directly in to a small cooker. Give 3 whistles. When cold, mash it to mix properly. It is ready to serve with chapati or jowar rotti. I like to have it with curd rice or rice and milk!!!

Another way...

If you like, you can give tadka ,

Do not put the garlic in the cooker. 

for tempering :

Oil - 1 tsp

Crushed garlic 

Mustard Seeds - 1/2 tsp

Heat oil in a kadai, add mustard seeds and garlic. Add it to  the cooked moong and Dill. Mix it properly.

Keep Smiling,

Egg Kurma

Tried and tasted by Nivedita

Hi All,

This one is a very easy and quick gravy which goes well with rice, chapati, any kind of bread or Indian bread.

I learnt this one from my aunt when I was in 9th standard. Whenever I made this, somehow I forgot to click the photo, so it is delayed in posting.

Last night I made it and was perfect for my cold!!

Eggs - 4

Oil - 1 tbsp

Onion - 1 small, peeled and sliced 

Salt to taste

Red Chilly powder - 1 tbsp 

Coriander powder - 1 tsp

Turmeric powder - a pinch

Lime juice - 1 tsp

Fresh Coriander - to garnish

For Masala

Oil - 1 tsp

Onion - big, chopped

Garlic - 3 to 4 cloves

Ginger - 1/2 "

Fresh coconut - 2 tbsp

Clove -2

Cardamom - 1

Cinnamon - 1/2"

Tamarind - 1 tsp 

OR

Tomato - 1 big

Roast all the ingredients and grind into fine paste.

Heat oil in a shallow and wide kadai. When hot, add sliced onion and fry it till brown. Now add ready paste. Fry for a minute. Now add Salt, Red chilly powder, Coriander powder and  Turmeric powder. Fry till you get nice aroma. Add 2 cups of water and bring it to boil.

Take first egg and break carefully into a bowl taking care keeping the egg yolk intact. Slowly transfer it into the boiling gravy. Repeat with other three eggs. You can break the egg directly into the vessel but only because if the egg is spoiled, you have to throw the ready gravy into the dustbin.

The eggs should be covered. If you feel the water is less, add some more water.Do not try to mix it with spoon. Otherwise the eggs will break into pieces. Cover and cook it for two minutes. Remove the lid and turn the eggs. Adjust the seasoning. Again cover it and cook for few more minutes.

Add lime juice. Mix it carefully. Garnish with Fresh coriander. 

Serves for two!! If you share it!!

Keep Smiling,

Microwave Chocolate Cake and the saga continues!!!

Tried and tasted by Nivedita 

Hi All,

One more cake from my Microwave. It has become a passion for me to try more cake recipes. And I can not wait till my new oven arrives. Now a days when ever I am in front of the computer I browse for Microwave cakes. And then I got this recipe from Jaishree  of  Ruchi  which she posted on June 9th. She also got the recipe from  here. But in this site, she has used Cake flour. And I think Cake flour is self raising flour. Being not sure about that, I decided to add baking powder. Some of the comments in the site also mentioned about the baking powder. So I came out with my recipe, and the out come was just delicious. If I had whipped cream and icing sugar with me, I would have made this into black forest cake!!! It was that tasty, fluffy and spongy!! Jaishree made egg less cake but I decided to go with the original recipe and used egg.

Thanks Jaishree for this wonderful recipe.

Lets go to the recipe,

Ingredients :

All Purpose flour or Maida - 4 tbsp

Sugar - 4 tbsp

Unsweetened Cocoa powder - 2 tbsp

Egg - 1

Milk - 3 tbsp

Oil - 3 tbsp (any edible oil is fine, I used the normal sunflower oil.)

Baking Powder - 1 pinch

Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp

To make syrrup

Sugar - 2 tsp

Warm Water or Milk - 1 tbsp

Sieve APF, Cocoa powder and baking powder in a bowl. Mix egg, milk, oil, Essence and sugar in a bowl. Mix well with egg beater or with a fork.  Add the sieved flour and mix well till everything gets mixed and you will get one flow batter. It takes 2 to 3 minutes. If you use hand mixer, you need one minute. But I used egg beater.

Grease a mug or any Microwave safe bowl and dust it with APF. Pour the batter into it. You can use the normal big coffee mug. I did not had big one so I used the bowl which came free with Cornflakes! 

But again make sure, that the batter should fill only 3/4 th of your bowl, neither less nor more!!!

Bake it exactly for 2 minutes.

Here it is :

    

                          My camera plays with me!! So the cake looks different in photos!! 

The Cake is ready to eat with hot cup of coffee or tea!!! It tastes great with both. One of my favorite snack!!

Now to give it more taste :

Keep it to cool for half an hour or till it is cold.

Slice the cake in the middle.

Dissolve the sugar in  warm water or milk and make the syrup ready.

On one side slowly spread this syrup with a spoon to make the cake moist and soft. Take care not to put more otherwise cake will break into pieces and the syrup will start flowing out.

Then take chocolate syrup  and spread it the same way you did with sugar syrup. If you do not have syrup and have chocolate brick, melt it in a double boiler or microwave and use it. 

Keep the other side on it and close the cake. Keep it in the fridge for sometime. Take it out and cut into slices before serving. 

Again you can use some ice cream, or more chocolate syrup or caramel or Fresh cream or anything you wish to have!!!
And again, actually I thought our maid broke all my coffee mugs! But I got two mugs in my cupboard. My daughter was asking me to make the cake again and this time she wanted coffee cake. I thought of trying the coffee cake in the mug. Same ingredients except the cocoa powder. I used to 1 1/2 teaspoon Coffee powder and 1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder. 
This too came out toooo good. Enjoy the photos :

  

  

Keep Smiling,

Microwave Egg Less Coffee Cake and the sequel .....

Tried and tasted by Nivedita 

Hi All,

After I learnt baking the cake, I was wondering when will I start the baking as still I need to buy a oven that bakes the cake, bread and other stuff. 

Then I got this recipe from Divya, to bake the cake in Microwave.First, I did not believe that, one can bake the cake in Microwave!!! I could not wait to try this one!! and here it came the cake out of my Microwave.

It is a COFFEE CAKE! and I enjoyed the taste of coffee in each byte.

Here is the link : Coffee cake from Divya of  Dil Se..  Thank you Divya for such a wonderful recipe.

And the recipe in my blog :: First time, I followed exactly the way she has told with only adding more milk.

But Next time I tried adding 1 tsp coffee powder and one tsp cocoa powder and changed the way of mixing it and the baking time. Check out my version.

All Purpose flour or Maida - 1/2 cup

Sugar - 1/4 cup 

(But when I made it second time, I felt I should put some more sugar, as the cake was not so sweet)

So I added 1 tsp more sugar 

Baking powder - 1 pinch

Coffee powder - 2 tsp

(I used Nescafe)

(or, coffee powder - 1 tsp and Cocoa powder - 1tsp)

Salt - 1 pinch

Milk - 7 tbsp

(Divya has used 5 tbsp)

Oil - 1 tsp

Sieve all the dry flour in a bowl.  Add sugar  into it. Add all other ingredients and mix well until it blends well and sugar dissolves fully. You can use egg beater or hand mixer. With egg beater it takes more time.

Grease the Microwave safe bowl and dust it with maida. 

Pour the mix from the middle of the bowl to get even spread. 

YOU CAN USE ANY SIZE, ONLY MAKE SURE THAT THE MIX SHOULD BE 3/4TH OF THE BOWL.

Microwave at full power for 2 minutes. It depends on your Microwave power. Just observe the cake after one minute. If you feel its come up, open and check it with fork or a needle. Or even you can check it with pressing very gently on the cake. If you palm comes out clean and you feel the cake gets its shape back when you remove the hand, then it is done. 

Enjoy the cake with your choice of  decoration or filling!!!

Wait for my next cake recipe!!

Here is the photo of my next cake.....

I hope you all will wait to grab a piece of cake from this photo!!! 

 

Sending this to the event announcing-tried-and-tasted-event

by versatilekitchen.blogspot.com which is the brain child of  Zlamushka.

Keep Smiling, 

Capsicum Masala(ಡೊಣ್ಣ ಮೆಣಸಿನ ಕಾಯಿ ಪಲ್ಯೆ )

Tried and tasted by Nivedita

Hi All,

I have a starting problem!!! I take more than half an hour before I start typing here. Once I start, it goes without break. I know I am not a very good writer and my vocabulary ends only with kitchen or cooking words!! Still I take a lot of time to finish writing one post!! 

Here is one more recipe from North Karnataka. Capsicum or bell peppers or chili pepper call it by any name. It is an universal vegetable and is used in many preparations all over the world. I like the colors of bell peppers, green, yellow, red, purple.. and the shapes : long, short, fat, thin, tiny, big....The big one are not very tasty like the small varieties.

But I like the variety we get in our places. We call these as "Donna Menasinakai" These capsicum are very small in size and have wonderful curved surface. And very very spicy. If you are used to eat spicy food then you will enjoy it. 

The recipe I am giving is an usual way prepared in North Karnataka. It is easy and fast to make. 

Small capsicum - 8 to 10, wash and cut into small or medium cubes.

Oil - 1 tbsp to fry the capsicum 

Onion - 1 big, washed, peeled and cubed

Tamarind paste - 1 tsp

Salt to taste

Jaggery - 2 tsp

Turmeric - pinch

Oil - 1 tsp

Jeera or cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp

Curry leaves - few

Gurellu (Niger seeds) powder - 1 tsp(recipe here), No problem if you do not have. Use dry coconut powder. The taste will definitely differ but that also tastes good.

Fresh Coriander - 1 tbsp, chopped

Water - 1/2 cup

Fry the capsicum cubes in a oil till they change the color. Be careful to keep the kids far as the smell is very strong. It makes you cough.

Add oil in a kadai. When hot, add jeera, curry leaves and onion. Fry till the onion turns brown. Now add salt, jaggery, tamarind paste, gurellu powder and Turmeric powder. Mix well and add the fried capsicum cubes.  Mix well again. Add water. Cover and cook for 3 to 5 minutes. Adjust the seasoning. Garnish with Fresh coriander.

It goes well with Jowar rotti or chapati. 

Again reminding, it is very spicy to eat.

Keep Smiling,

Paneer Nuggets

Tried and tasted by Nivedita

Hi All,

After my both the daughters are feeling better, I am also relaxed. As per doctor's advice, I did not give the milk to them, and all the milk was lying like that only in the fridge. I was thinking what to do with so much milk. Then I remembered the show I watched last week.

I really envy those food show anchors, who get chance to try all the food under the sun!!!! With that jealousy,  I never miss any shows whenever I get time!! NDTV Good Times has lot of good programs on food around the world. And last week I watched the show run by Aditya Bal. In that show his mother made these Paneer nuggets!!!

Thats what came in my mind to make these nuggets with home made Paneer. But I did not take the photos of making Paneer. May be later when I make paneer again, I will take the pics and post the recipe. I took photo only after I prepared it. Here it is :

The chef  in the show, had taken the ready paneer cubes and marinated it with SALT, RED CHILLY POWDER, GARAM MASALA,  and I think he added  LEMON also. And he had kept it in the fridge for an hour or so. BUT,  check my version below.

I put the paneer in a rectangular box and kept in the fridge for an hour. After an hour, I removed it, cut into the pieces. In that one hour, I prepared BREAD CRUMBS at home with fresh bread.

For bread crumbs:

Fresh white bread - 4 to 6 pieces

(white bread or wheat bread or you can mix both)

Cut the bread into pieces. Keep it in microwave for 2 minutes to dry the bread. Keep it to cool. Put in a food processor or grinder to make it into a coarse or fine powder according to the requirement. Some recipes require coarse powder. I made it fine powder.

You can store it in airtight jar and can be stored in the fridge for a week. 

Ingredients :

For Paneer Cubes:

Paneer - 200 gm

Salt to taste

Red chilly powder - 1 tsp

Ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp

Garam Masala Powder - 1/2 tsp

Lime Juice - 1 tsp

Here is the twist in my version : Mix all the ingredients nicely. Transfer in to a square box. Keep in the fridge for an hour or two. Remove it and cut into cubes or desired shapes. Here it looks like :

                                           

Now the ingredients used for the coating,

Bread crumbs - 1/2 or 1 cup

Salt a pinch

Red chilly powder - 1 tsp

Coriander powder - 1/4 tsp

Mix  bread crumbs, salt, red chilly powder  and coriander powder. Spread it in a plate.

Maida or All purpose flour - 1/2 cup. Spread it in a separate plate.

Egg - 1, break and beat the egg in a bowl.
If not using egg, 
Maida to coat the cubes

Oil to fry

Here it is :                       

                                             

Here is the clumsy work begins,

TAKE ONE PANEER  CUBE,

FIRST ROLL IT WITH MAIDA. 

WASH IT WITH EGG MIX. (DIP THE PIECE FULLY IN  EGG ) 

OR

Make a thin paste of maida and water. Dip the cubes in it instead of egg. 

(thanks Madhuri for reminding me!!!)

THEN PUT IT IN A BREAD CRUMBS PLATE AND ROLL IT TO COVER THE PIECE PROPERLY.

REPEAT WITH OTHER PANEER CUBES. 

Here it looks like,

                                         

Heat oil in a kadai. Once it is very hot, lower the flame and fry the paneer cubes in batches till golden brown.

PANEER NUGGETS ARE READY TO SERVE WITH HOT TEA OR AS A STARTER.

HEY, DOES IT LOOK LIKE MORE WORK???? NO!!! MY POST IS LONGER. 

IT IS VERY EASY AND FAST TO MAKE. TRY IT!!

Keep Smiling,

Microwave Mango Halwa (Food Remake)

Tried and tasted by Nivedita

Hi All,

All of you know that I have a sweet tooth (sets of sweet teeth!!! ). And Mango is my favorite fruit(who does not like mango??????   ). 
When I was going through Srivalli's   Mango Mela ...   I got this recipe from Priya of Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes, I could not wait to make it. Immediately I tried it!!! (Thanks Valli for holding such wonderful events that one can access to many blogs with variety of food from one place)

And!!! I got it right!! It tasted divine!! It tasted like Mango flavored  Sohan Halwa (which we get in Market or sweet shops). I finished it within half a day, (gave little to mom, and my kids do not like sweet). 

Click Mango Halwa for the recipe.I am also giving the details.

Mango pulp - 1 cup (Sweet mango is better)

Sugar - 1/2 cup

Ghee - 1 tbsp to 2 tbsp

Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp 

Finely chopped almonds - 1 tbsp

Transfer the Mango pulp and sugar in a microwave safe bowl. Keep it on HIGH for 10 minutes, keep stirring in between. Add ghee and cook in microwave for another 2 minutes. Now add half of chopped almonds, cardamom powder and cook for one more minute.

Spread remaining chopped almonds in a bowl. Add the halwa in that bowl, press it nicely, and turn upside down on a serving plate.

The Halwa is ready to eat!!
THIS CAN BE PREPARED ON THE GAS STOVE ALSO.COOK IT IN A THICK BOTTOMED PAN. COOKING IT THE SAME WAY WE DID IN MICROWAVE, BUT KEEP ON STIRRING ALL THE TIME AS IT MAY GET BURNT. IT GIVES THE SAME TASTE.

Thanks Priya for so wonderful recipe.

Keep Smiling,

Lemon rice (ಚಿತ್ರಾನ್ನ )

Tried and tasted by Nivedita

Hi All,

I was in tension and worried as my daughter was not well. Still she is on medicine for a week and doctor told to give her only soft food. I am confused about the menu as doctor has advised her only the soft food.

However, this recipe is not connected with her illness and diet food. But last week, it is prepared for her lunch box.

                                  

Here is the recipe,

Cooked rice - 200 gm, Prepare the rice at least half an hour before and let it be cold before adding to the masala.

(Left over rice also tastes good, but I  make fresh rice as it has to be packed for lunch)

Oil - 1 tbsp

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Curry leaves - few

Urad dal - 1 tbsp

Peanut - 1 tbsp(Optional, tastes good), I did not add it as my daughter does not like peanuts

Red dry chilly - 2, break into pieces

Lime juice - 2 tbsp or more depends on the lime

Salt to taste

Turmeric powder - a pinch

Sugar - 2 tsp

Fresh Coconut grated - 1 tbsp(optional)

(I did not use it as I was short of time)

Fresh coriander - 1 tbsp

Heat oil in a kadai. Put mustard seeds and let the seeds splutter. Add Urad dal and fry for 10 seconds or till they change the color to light brown. Do not delay to add curry leaves otherwise dal will get burnt. Be quick to add Coconut(if adding) with Red dry chilly. Fry for half a minute and off the heat. Now add Salt, Turmeric powder and lime juice. Mix it and add cooked rice. Add sugar and fresh coriander. Mix well. Keep it on heat again and cook for a minute on low flame. 

Lemon rice is ready to eat with pickle and papad. 

It is very good to pack and take while travelling but to be consumed before 4 to 6 hours of preparation as it will get spoiled soon.

Keep Smiling,