Punjabi Kadi with Brown Channa

I first tasted this from an Punjabi Friend who was an amazing & fast cook. Traditionally pakoda's are made with besan and added to kadi. Being a mum, I wanted to try this with brown channa instead of Pakodas. Eventhough my Friend gave me her own recipe to follow, I found sharmi from Neivedyam's recipe pretty much close to her recipe. Here is the link(http://neivedyam.blogspot.com/2007/04/punjabi-kadi.html) for sharmi's Punjabi Kadi recipe,if you would like to try Pakoda's based Kadi.

Ingredients:
2-cup yogurt
1cup water
2 tbsps besan/ gram flour

1tsp chilli powder

1tsp turmeric powder

Salt as required

1tbsp dry methi leaves

1cup Brown channa dal(instead of pakoda's) soaked overnight and boiled

For Tadka:

2tbsp oil

½ tsp cumin seeds/jeera

½ tsp mustard seeds

½ tsp fenugreek/methi seeds

Pinch of Asafoetida

Dry chillies -3

Few curry leaves

Method:

1. In a heavy bottomed thick kadai,heat a tbsp of oil,add jeera,mustard, methi seeds,dry methi, haldi, red chilies and curry leaves

2. In another bowl mix yogurt, besan and chili powder with water to make it a consistency of thick buttermilk.

3. Add the above mixture to kadia, add salt and mix well

4. Allow to boil till 5 to 10 minutes or until kadi starts to bubble. Make sure you do not curdle youghurt by constantly mixing every few minutes.Finally add boiled brown channa(you can replace pakoda's here) and let it simmer for couple more minutes.

5. Serve hot with rice or with roti's.

Cabbage Pachhadi

This receipe is from a friend from Andhra. As all of us know, Andhra is famous for pachhadi's, I was thrilled to try this one out when she mentioned something different from cabbage against all time cabbage curry. Keeping this as basic formula for pachhadi, you can try with different variety of vegetables like carrot, capsicum, brinjal etc.,

½ cabbage- chop it roughly.
2 Red coloured green chillies(if you cant find red chilli you can use normal green chillies)
1tsp tamarind paste
2 garlic pods

tempering:
1tsp mustard
few curry leaves
1 tsp channa dhal
1tsp urad dhal
a pinch of hing
a pinch of turmeric powder(optional)

In a Pan, add 1tbsp oil, add chillies and garlic, fry for couple of minutes covering with lid( be careful chillies might split and pop). Add chopped cabbage and start frying on mild flame until cabbage loses its raw smell( 10 or 15 mins). Turn stove off and let this all cool.

Now grind the above cabbage along with tamarind paste and salt to a fine or coarse paste. Scoop into a fresh clean bowl and temper with the mustard, curryleaves etc.,

Very tasty with hot rice with a little bit ghee & And cucumber salad or as a spread on toasted bread as a quick snack, with some chopped tomatoes.

Healthy Snack - Cornflakes & Nuts Mixture

This receipe is a perfect healthy snack with our traditional mixture/chivda style. I first come to know this from Latha's Masala Magic for snacks. Here is the link http://masalamagic.blogspot.com/search/label/Snacks. I have followed the exact recipe from Latha's. Thank you once again Latha, for sharing this recipe. Here in Australia, we can find these multigrain cereal and puffed rice etc ., in woollies.

You need:

2 cups plain/original Corn Flakes

2 cups Rice original rice pops(from organic health food section)

2 cups Whoel Grain from kellogs

3 tsp Red Chilli Powder

1 tsp Turmeric Powder

Salt to taste

1 cup Peanuts

1 cup Cashews

1 cup Channa Dal (the one we use for coconut chutney & mixture etc)

1cup curry leaves

2 tbsp Oil

Method:In a pan, heat the oil. Add the Peanuts , channa dal and cashews and roast until golden brown. Dry out any excess oil, by spreading on a paper towel. In the same pan, fry curryleaves until crispy. Mix chillipowder, turmeric powder, cereal, salt, toasted nuts, curryleaves and mix well until the entire mixture gets coated and turns into a golden yellow colour in a large mixing bowl. Let it Cool and store in an air-tight jar. Goes well with hot cup of tea or coffee or as an after school snack with milk or juice for kids.

Tulip Flower Show & Dates Burfi

Here is couple of photos from our long weekend trip to Canberra Floriade Tulip Flower Show. Have you ever seen a Black Tulip(check in the second photo).

Check this sweet as well.....

A friend at work gave me this recipe( Sree this is your recipe and thank you), At that time, I did'nt think that this will be a hit at my home, but after preparing, within minutes all of them disappeared and I had to fight my own temptation to finish the rest before getting a picture done. So here it goes, a very very simple and fast sweet i have ever come across plus lot goodness.

1 cup seedless dates

Fist full of roasted and peeled ground nuts

Microwavable bowl.

Ghee 1 tsp

Spread a small plate with 1/2 tsp of ghee. Mix rest of 1/2 tsp ghee and dates in a microwavable bowl and heat on high for only one minute. while its still warm quickly mash the entire mixture with a fork or back of spoon until you get a mixture like ball. Spread this mixture in the above plate and spread flat. Arrange roasted Peanuts pressing on the mixture.

Cut into equal square or triangle pieces. Separate them and Store it in air tight container if they can last that long. Enjoy a quick and healthy snack in minutes.

Chineese Veg SpringRolls

Veg springrolls are a delicious snack and all time favourite among many kids. My method of preparing these springrolls may not be traditional. I will have a pack of springroll sheets in my freezer all year. Whenever there is leftover potaot sabji, which I usually prepare for dosa or chaptahi or sometimes I have used pavbhaji too as filling for springrolls. This one particularly made out of pavbhaji. I am still not ready to try this on my guests, but they all disappear within minutes after preparing, between my kids with tomato sauce or soy sauce.

Murukku

A delicious south indian snack, goes well with afternoon tea, as well as after school snack. Famous and a regular snack in many tamilians family. This one particularly, I am still following the same recipe my Amma told me. But honestly, never tasted like my Amma's. Amma you are the best ever!
Ingredients:
2 cups fine rice flour
1tbsp fine roasted urad dal flour
1tsp chillipowder
1tsp salt
1tsp hing
1tbsp melted ghee or butter
1tsp cumin seeds
Water
Method:
In a big basin or vessel mix all the above items. Add little water at a time and slowly make a dough which is thick and stuffy consistancy. Make small balls with hand and stuff this mixture into Murukku Mold(you can buy in many indian shops) and directly squeeze into hot oil. Deep fry slowly on simmer flame until the Murukku turns into golden brown. Remove from the oil and leave Murukku on a paper towel until the towel absorbs most of oil. That's it, Murukku Ready, We can keep this fresh in an air tight container for nearly a month, if your family can resist that long. Check another beautiful and best recipe of Murukku from Asha's here
http://foodieshope.blogspot.com/search?q=murukku.

Vegetarian Noodle Box with Tofu

Asian Vegetarian Noodle box is one of my favourite lunch, I would like to order whenever I think of take out for lunch. After trying out few times, I want to introduce this to my family and see how they going to like it. Even though I started as an experiment this turned out to be one of our family favourite. This is one recipe which takes very less cooking time but lot of time for preparation. For this recipe I have used the following vegetables. But depends on what you have in the fridge sometimes you can omit or add one or two vegetables.

I used the following vegies today..

1 carrot diced
1 capsicum diced

2 or 3 buches bokchoy- roughly cut

Fried Tofu cubes - 1 pack

bean sprouts - 1 cup

sprouted alphalpha- 1/2 cup

Spring onions - 1 cup

Tomato sauce or chilli sauce, soy sauce(as per taste)

1tsp honey
Sesame seeds - 1 tbsp(roasted will give nice aroma)

1sp garlic crushed

Boiled instant rice or Hokien noodles - 500gms.

Method: Wash all vegetables and bokchoy. To a smoking hot wok add bit of peanut oil, and immediately add garlic and all other vegetables except sauces, honey and sesame seeds.

Stirfry for couple of minutes and then add tofu, sauces & honey. Stirfry for couple more minutes on high flame, now add noodles and keep stirring for few more minutes. Finally add roasted sesame seeds and sccop into a bowl or plate. Serve hot with favourite drink or sometimes mango or plain lassi goes very well with this dish, and complete meal for whole family.

Pumpkin and Moongdaal subji

This dish is pretty simple and you can mix and match with many other vegetable like potato carrot, beans etc.,

We need..
1 cup moongdall soaked overnight and boiled for 10 mintues

2 cups pumpkin or any other choice of your vegetables finely cut into small pieces.

For tempering

1tsp mustard

1tsp cumin

1tsp red chillies

1tsp oil

few curry leaves

1tsp urad daal

1 tsp channa daal

To prepare...

In a vessel add oil and start frying from mustard to channadaal by adding one by one. Add pumpin and let it simmer for few minutes stirring occasionally until pumpkin pieces are half tender. Add soaked and boiled moong, cover and let it simmer for few more minutes. After 5 minutes remove lid, add salt and cover it and leave for 3 minutes on simmer. Turn off after 3 minutes. This subji can be used as a side dish for rice or with roti's. One of my work mate tried this dish with potato, it turned out great and tasted wonderful. Thank you "S" for trying and sharing.

Simple Chapathi and Daal with Salad

There is quite number of dishes that goes well with chapathi. When it comes to Daal and chapathi the simplicity of this dish gives as much satisfaction as with other dishes.



I am sure there is no need for me to write a recipe for this one, but i do want to mention that the when it comes to daal recipes, there is no other place than Sailu's JFI Event roundup http://www.sailusfood.com/2006/07/10/round-up-of-jihva-for-ingredients-dal/, where you can find more than 45 recipes using daal. This event which ofcourse is brain child of http://nandyala.org/mahanandi/. Have fun!!!

Beetroot Pulav

This dish has been in my mind for a while, which I wanted to try after tasting it in one of the picnic parties I attended. The recipe is just similar to ghee rice recipe except instead of onions we use beetroot here.
We need....
1 cup finely grated beetroot
3 green chillies+ 3 pods garlic+a big piece of ginger- grind to a fine paste
Spices - cloves, bay leaves, cardamom - according to your taste.
1 sp ghee
3 cups rice - washed and drained- Basmati Rice tastes divine.

Method:
In a nonstick pan add ghee when its melted add all the spices. Saute few seconds, add chilli and garlic paste. Few minutes later add grated beetroot. Keep mixing it for couple more minutes until the raw smell goes. Add rice and mix well. Transfer this mixture to rice cooker add 3 cups of water and cook it. Goes well with onion raita or cucumber raita with some papadams.
This is my entry to JFI-Rice hosted by Sharmi of Neivedyam.

Here is a plate for you....Enjoy!!