Mixed Vegetable Poha

Poha is one of favourite breakfasts. And I make it quite often, not just for breakfast, but for dinner as well. And I add as many vegetables as I possibly can while making it. Potatoes were a standard in the one Amma made. My Mami added peas to it. I add whatever I can lay my hands on. I love eating colourful stuff and the addition of a variety of vegetables results in a rainbow like dish and I kind of love it. Many months ago, I was looking at one of Nandita’s videos and I saw her add soya granules to her poha. Then Rajitha came up with soy as the ingredient for this month’s WBB. I thought about the various ways in which I could sneak in soya in a breakfast dish. I thought about a banana shake with soy milk. I thought about soya beans in gravy to go along with toast. But I remembered that I had a packet of Soy Day granules. So in that went into my poha on a chilly morning. I made a very heavy breakfast so that I could do with something light for lunch.

1 cup Beaten Rice (Poha)
1/3 cup Soy granules
1 Carrot, cut finely
3 Spring Onions, chopped
2 tbsp Corn
2 tbsp Peas
1 tsp Oil
¼ tsp Cumin Seeds
¼ tsp Mustard Seeds
¼ tsp Asafoetida
7-8 Curry Leaves
¼ tsp Turmeric Powder
1 tsp Chilli Powder
1 Green Chilli, slit
Salt to taste

Wash the beaten rice and drain it. Add the salt, chilli powder and turmeric powder and keep aside.

Soak the soy granules in water (or prepare them as per the instructions on the pack. I use Soy Day as the effort involved from my side is minimal. It soaks in ordinary water.)

Heat the oil in a kadhai and add the mustard, cumin and the asafoetida. When the mustard splutters, add the green chilli and the spring onion whites. Add the curry leaves and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the carrots, peas and corn. Add some salt and then cover and cook for a few minutes. Add the beaten rice and soy granules. Garnish with the spring onion greens. Enjoy this as soon as it is made.

Off this goes to Rajitha in celebration of Soy this month.

Light Fruit Cake to celebrate

Not many can have a father

Who’s half as great as you.

Others might try, but they fall shy

You’re a top-notch father, it’s true.
So that’s why on your birthday,

I want to make sure you know,

I admire your sincerely and love you dearly,

And those feelings continue to grow.

I came across this wonderful poem on a site called http://www.poemsource.com/ and this poem was penned by Karl and Joanna Fuchs. And I could relate to the emotion. I am in Chennai to celebrate, among other things, Appa's birthday. I owe this man a great deal. He has always stood behind me in everything I've wanted to do. Pushed me to excel in just about everything I did. And as far as helping me hone my culinary skills, while he always maintained that he can "boil water without burning it", he has been a willing guinea pig. The man who ate semia upma and told his then 13 year old daughter it was delicious. Much later I realized that I'd used twice the amount of water I should have. A lot of my initial cooking happened when Amma was out of town and that meant that H and Appa were left to my "raj". While on the face of it, he may have thought I don't really care about his likes and dislikes, one word of appreciation from him can put me on cloud nine for a long long time. And so, while I didn't exactly learn any cooking from him, he taught me a lot.

I baked a cake late last night ans brought it with me this morning. The first thing we did after entering the house was to have him blow off the candle and cut the cake.

1 cup Raisins

1 cup Apricots

1 cup Figs

1/2 cup Sultanas

1/4 cup Currants

1/4 cup Dates

1/4 cup Candied Peel

1/4 cup Glace Cherries

1 cup White Wine

1 cup Dark Rum

3 cups Flour

1 cup Oil

2 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

1 tsp Cinnamon Powder

1/2 tsp Nutmeg Powder

1/4 tsp Clove Powder

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup Sugar

Soak the dry fruits for at least 2 days in the white wine and rum along with the spice powders.

Heat the oven to 350 F (180 C). Prepare two 8" cake tins.

Sift the dry ingredients. Add the oil and sugar and beat well. Add the beaten eggs with the essence and then fold in the flour mixture. Stir in the fruits along with the liquid and then divide the batter into the cake tins. Bake for 45 minutes.

As India celebrates her Republic Day, we celebrate the other occasion that makes the 26th of January ever so special. Happy Birthday Appa!

Incidentally, this is my 200th post. I can't believe I've reached a double century. It is thanks to all of you.

Vegetable Stew

I have never learnt to make any Mallu (Keralite) food. Maybe it was because I had easy access to it whenever I wanted. The only things I think I attempted to make were the Kadala Curry and Egg Curry after inspiration from Sig. There's a lot of stuff that I make that is so similar to Keralite food. My everyday upkari becomes a thoran in Kerala. I could pass off my proper Iyengar avial as a Keralite dish. But to me these foods are not typical of the only state in southern India that I am not connected to directly. (Being someone from Karnataka and Tamilnadu, I'm married to someone from Andhra Pradesh!) These are foods that I have grown up eating and can hence only think of them as Konkani or Tamil, however similar they may be.

 

Stew is quite another story. I can't remember where I first had it. But I remember licking my lips as I placed in my mouth the last piece of appam soaked with the remnants of the stew in my bowl. And I remember that taste as so distinctly Keralite. I have made this quite often and I used to take it to my uncle after my aunt passed away. It was the last dish I took to him on my way to work. I made this yesterday for the first time since then.

1 cup Coconut Milk

1 tsp Oil

1 cup Mixed Vegetables (Potatoes, Carrots, Beans, Cauliflower and Peas), boiled

1/2 cup Onions, sliced

7-8 Curry Leaves

8-10 Pepper Corns

1 Cardamom Pod (optional)

1" stick Cinnamon

3 Cloves

2 Green Chillies, slit

Salt to taste

Heat the oil and add the curry leaves and onions. Add the cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns (and cardamom, if using) and the green chillies. Fry these for a few minutes. Add the boiled vegetables and the coconut milk along with a little water. Add the salt and mix well. Crush some of the potatoes to thicken the stew. Allow it to thicken and then take off the flame.

I love stew with appams, but figured that it tastes great with rice too. Off this goes to Jyothsna of Curry Bazaar for this month's RCI - Kerala.

Fruit Cookies

One of the books that I picked up recently was The Cookie Book. It has over 300 recipes. I tried a few muffin recipes from this book, but wanted really to make cookies. I think what put me off was the 6 letter word I found in almost each recipe: butter! I finally decided to bring the butter out from the deep freeze and put it to use. I'd promised my team some baked goodies to celebrate a mini milestone. So, I thought, why not??

These chewy cookies are a real treat and considering how many cookies I got (roughly 50), I felt the 1/2 cup butter was understandable. When I see 1/2 cup, I feel like the entire 1/2 cup is going into one cookie and I think that's what puts me off. I modifed the recipe that I found in the basics section of the book. I remembered Anita asking me to try cookies with half and half (flour and wheat)

1/2 cup Unsalted Butter, softened

3/4 cup Whole Wheat Flour or Atta

3/4 cup Flour

1/2 cup Sugar

1 Egg, beaten

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

1 cup Candied Fruit Bits (Papaya, Pineapple, Mango, Apricots)

Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C).

Beat the sugar and the butter until fluffy and add the essence and the egg and mix well. Fold in the flours and gently stir the fruits in.

Grease a cookie sheet and drop spoonfuls of the dough on to the sheet. Leave ample space in between each cookie.

Bake for 10 - 12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack and then store in an air tight container.

Off this goes to Nags of For the Cook in Me who is hosting this month’s A Fruit A Month event. I even bought a raw papaya to make something savoury, but the baker in me took over.

Piyava Baje (Onion Fritters)

Every once in a while, I make something that is deep fried. As an afternoon snack on a weekend. As an accompaniment to a meal when I don't feel like making a vegetable. But the times are few and far between. So, when we do have something like this, it is truly a treat.

This is something I grew up with. The occasional Sunday lunch was accompanied by stuff like this. I made this many months ago as part of lunch as I was too lazy to make a side dish. I have been meaning to post it since and I discovered it in my drafts just today. In time for the Jihva For Ingredients: Onion being hosted by Radhika of Radhi's kitchen.

1 cup Onions, sliced
1 tsp Green Chilli paste
1 tsp Ginger paste
1/2 cup Gram flour (Besan)
1 tsp Chilli Powder
1/4 tsp Asafoetida
1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder
Salt to taste
Oil for frying



Heat the oil in a kadhai.

In a vessel, mix all the other ingredients together without adding any water. Drop spoonfuls of this mixture into the hot oil and fry till reddish brown.

Drain on absorbent paper and serve with tomato ketchup or with some rice and dal.

In addition to sending this to the JFI event, I am also sending this to Mansi for her game night party event.

Green Salad

We switched to having salads for lunch in the new year. But we didn't stick to it for more than a week. The reason being the variety of vegetables in the market. I love cauliflower and spinach. I absolutely love methi. Once this season passes, I'll be left to deal with piles of gourds and lady's finger and brinjal. We're eating healthy, but it's not all just salad. Here's one that I'd made a few days ago.

I got fresh green chana in the market and decided to make this salad. I followed a process similar to the Middle Eastern Salad.

1 cup Green Chana (Harbhara/Chhollia)

2 Carrots, sliced
1 bunch Spring Onions, chopped
1 Cucumber, cut in quarters
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper
3 tbsp Lime Juice

1 tsp Yellow Mustard

1 tsp Maple Syrup
1 Red Capsicum, sliced

1 stalk Celery, chopped

Mix all the vegetables with the chickpeas in a large salad bowl. Add the salt and pepper. Mix the maple syrup and mustard along with the lime juice and pour over the salad. Toss gently. Enjoy it right away or chill it for about 30 minutes.

I'm going to look forward to having more salads in summer when spending time in the kitchen won't exactly be something to get excited about.

Strawberry Muffins

Ever since I saw Sharmi's post on Strawberry Muffins, I wanted to make my own. I had to wait for the lovely berries to be in season before I could try them out. So, I tried variations. I found great success with almond raisin muffins and the black currant raisin muffins both of which were variations of Sharmi's Strawberry Muffins.

Now, strawberries are in season. And we have been buying them regularly. I made these with the first batch that we brought home this year. I found a recipe for raspberry muffins in one of the books that I acquired last month. This was a low fat recipe. I was quite thrilled. It also wasn't very sweet. It fit perfectly in with our plans and I substituted half of the flour with atta and was very happy with the result. I suppose these muffins would go very well with some butter and jam, but I didn't have time to experiment. We sampled only two of these and the rest went as a housewarming gift to a friend. I also used half the batter to bake a cake to take to the party.

This is a very simple recipe.

1 cup Strawberries, chopped

1 1/4 cup Flour

1 1/4 cup Atta or Whole Wheat Flour

1 tbsp Baking Powder

1/2 cup Sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp Oil

1 cup Buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 200 C (400 F). Prepare the muffin pan by greasing or placing muffin cases.

Sift the dry ingredients together. Mix the buttermilk and oil and add the egg. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until it all comes together. Add the strawberries and spoon the mixture into the muffin pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

One of my nieces turns 18 today and she is probably the only one I actually watched growing up. Kind of right in front of me. When she was about 3 or 4 years old, she saw me putting on some lipstick and asked me to put some on for her too. I told her she was too young. She, almost never seeing that there was an age difference between the two of us, asked me how I got to do it when she didn't. I told her, "When you turn 18, you can too." These muffins go out to her as she turns into a young woman. I also sent her some top of the line L'Oreal stuff and she is excited like no other kid I've seen. Happy Birthday Kalyani. My friend, Muly, also celebrates her birthday today and will be extremely happy to have a couple of these. Happy Birthday Amulya!

This recipe is supposed to make 12 muffins, but I almost always get around 18 with most recipes. I think it has to do with the size of my muffin cups. So, I made 9 muffins and converted the remaining batter into a cake. I topped the cake with some left over fruits and nuts from my New Year Cake and when it was baked, I melted about 2 teaspoons of jam and poured it over the cake as a glaze. The cake continues to be low fat as the batter is the same. But it is loaded with dry fruits and nuts. And the jam glaze gave it additional flavour. It wasn't exactly a pretty, decorated cake. Everyone knows how brilliant I am when it comes to decorating cakes. So, we won't go down that path now. This cake goes to the wonderful woman who also celebrates her birthday today. The one who tells us what to eat, what not to eat and also tells us why. The one who never fails to impress upon us the importance of eating right. Starting from our first big meal of the day: breakfast. As I got to know her a few months back, it turned out we had loads in common. Eventually, I figured I knew her husband's family for almost as long as I've been alive and the two families go back 3 generations. We had a two hour chat session that freaked us out. We got on the phone soon after to continue our journey of discovery. A month before that day, I didn't know this girl. And suddenly, we were chatting like long lost friends. We have still not met each other, but I would count her as one of my very good friends. It is thanks to her that I started this blog. I am so glad to have found this friend. It is through her that I have met all of you. Nandita: Here's wishing you a very happy birthday!