Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Carrot-Kiwi Juice


Fresh juice are my favorites. Everyday morning me and my hubby have one glass of fresh juice before anything else. This is a variant of usual fruit and vegetable juice we decided to make

Ingredients:
Carrot 4
Kiwi Peeled 5
Celery 1 stalk
Sugar 1tsp

Gives about 4 medium sized glass of juice. The slight tangyness of kiwi and sweetness of carrot adds amazing taste to the juice.

Here's to exceptional fresh juice!! :D

Guacamole Papdi chat

I had given up on potato sometime ago, which made it very difficult for me to have any chats. My hubby came up with amazing and yummy variation of papdi chat for me.

Ingredients:

Cilantro chutney/pesto
Mint and garlic chutney
Sweet Dates chutney
Guacamole
Onion cut to pieces
Papdi
Tomatoes cut to pieces
Sev

Yummy Papdi chat ready!!

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The Kale Saga

Recently my husband has gone Kale crazy. He loves anything with Kale. So when his appetite didn't seem to be satisfied with normal Kale koottu (kale & dal) kind of things, I turned to modifying existing recipes to appease his kale hunger. The result is Kale soup, Kale adai and Kale thepla.

I didn' t take any pic of the kale soup but did take loads of the adai and thepla. 

Kale Soup:

Ingredient:
Kale 3 cups (cut)
Carrot 2 
Mushroom 4
Yellow Onion 1/2
Brussels Sprouts 7-8
Olive Oil 1tsp
Moong Dal 1tsp
Black Pepper
Salt

Procedure:

Warm oil in deep bottomed vessel and saute onion & mushroom until onion is translucent. Then add carrot & Brussels sprouts and saute for 15 secs. Then add kale and moong dal and saute until the water in kale starts leaving. Then pressure cook everything for 20 minutes (or until u hear 2-3whistles). 

Now open the cooker and add and pepper and salt to taste and bring it to a boil.

Serve Hot

PS:
After adding salt and pepper, u can also blend it to get the smooth soup texture (I and my hubby like to eat it as veggies) and then bring to boil and serve.

Kale Adai:


Ingredients:
Channa Dal - 1/2 cup
Rice - 1/2cup
Toor dal - 1/4 cup
Urad Dal - a handful or less
red chillies - 3
Ginger - 1 inch
Salt to taste
Kale - 1 bundle (3 cups in case of chopped)

Optional:
Onion - 1/4 finely chopped
Curry leaves
Asafoetida - a pinch
Coconut - 4ts


Prep:
Soak all the dals and rice overnight (though 4-5 hours should be enough)

Procedure:
Grind the soaked ingredients together in to a coarse batter along with ginger, red chilies and salt. If you wish to grind the Kale added along with other ingredients, else cut kale in to tiny pieces (very tiny) and add it to the batter.

If u r going to add onion to the batter, then grind kale with other ingredients while making the batter.

Now heat a griddle, add 3-4 drops of oil in the griddle. When the griddle is hot, pour a laddle of  the batter and spread it. Make a hole in the middle and pour a drop of oil in the hole (so that the adai comes crispy). Turn the adai after 1minute and wait until both sides are golden brown.

Serve hot.

(Kale adai tastes best with avial etc).

Kale Thepla:

Preparation time:30 mins
Servings: 3

Recipe:
Wheat flour 3 cups

Kale 2 cups (cut)
Yellow Onion 1/2
Green Chili 2 (thai)
Ginger 1/2inch
Garlic 2cloves

Turmeric powder 1/2tsp
Some cumin (Jeera) seeds, asafoetida, salt to taste

Warm oil in deep bottomed pan. And add some cumin seeds and let it splutter. Add green chili, shredded ginger & garlic and turmeric and let it cook until a nice aroma rises (takes about 10secs). Now add onion to the mixture and saute until the onion turns translucent. Add the cut kale and saute for 1min or until the water starts to leave. Remove from heat


Take wheat flour and add a pinch of asafoetida and salt (to taste),Now add the above mixture to wheat flour and mix very well. Just sprinkle water to the flour as and when required and knead the flour until you a nice smooth dough like shown in the picture. (Keep tasting for salt and chilli, if needed add more chilli)

 Now make small balls of dough and then flatten them to the size of a pancake (Tip: touch up with little amount of wheat flour to make the flattening easier).



Heat a flat bottomed pancake pan (girdle) and add a drop or two of oil to it and wait until the pan heats up. Now bake the flattened dough, by turning sides every 10 secs until thepla is cooked.

Serve hot with some butter and raitha!! :D

Rava Idli


Friday, April 5, 2013

Brown Rice dosa & Idli

This is very simple and healthy recipe. Substituting raw rice with 2 cups of brown rice & 1.5 cups of idli rice and 1 cup of urad dal soaked for 4-5 hours along with fenugreek seeds and grinded: coarsely for idli and smoothly for dosa (Salt added to taste). Let the batter stand overnight to ferment. Batter ready to make idli and dosa

Brown rice Dosa

Brown rice idli

Rava Kesari