PESARATTU-UPMA.....

...and might I add--->Easy to make!!!

Boy! I am just filled with bliss in my stomach after having pesarattu-upma with ginger chutney.Mmmmmmmmmmmm!!! This is the courtesy of my friend,Sirisha, who just makes these deliciously yummy dishes.My hearty thanks to Sirisha.

Well today I was planning kichidi and tomato chutney for lunch when all of a sudden I was inspired to do pesarratu upma for lunch.Generally,I hear pesarrattus and dosas are all breakfast categories but personally for me,I feel there should be no such set time to make these kind of absolutely tantalising food.My friend came to the rescue immedietly and we set about making pesarattus for lunch.Here I am giving the ingredients on a large scale(feeding 4 people minimum).My little 5 yr old ate the pesarattus with of course maple syrup.haha.
P.S:My photos do not give justice to the taste of the dish...I apologise if the pics are badly presented.

This is the batter:


This is the onion jeera mixture:


This is the pesarattu on the tava:


This is the finished yummy product:




Ingredients:
2 and half cups split pesar pappu(moong dal).Soak it for two hours(approx).Soaking in hot water hastens the process and reduces time.
1tbsp chopped ginger
2 green chillies
salt to taste.
2 finely chopped onions.
Jeera seeds

1.Grind the soaked dal along with green chillies and ginger.Grind to a fine paste.Add a little water and mix it well to loosen it a little bit.
2.Mix onions and jeera seeds nicely with hand and keep aside.
3.Spread one curry spoonful batter on the heated tava and spread it like dosa.After few seconds, sprinkle the onion jeera mixture over it.Let it stay for a few minutes.
4.Before turning the pesarrattu over, add a few drops of oil around it and then turn it.Let it cook for a while and then transfer it to the plate.

Serve with a little upma and/or ginger pickle.It definetly tasted great and I ate to my hearts content..hahaha.I never heard pesarattus or dosas being eaten along with upma but as per my friend, when I wrapped my pesarrattu peice with small amount of upma, it definetly soothed my chilly-seeking senses., and with ginger chutney its absolute heaven for the tongue.
My friend,Sapna,just inspired me to give me a new tag to this dish--NO HURRY,NO WORRY.

Spring cleaning and Green and Red Tomato Chutney

Its been a few days of spring cleaning for me. I wait for this ritual after the winter lock-up that we go through for 4-5 months. Basically for spring cleaning, I clean the house room by room, from ceiling to floor and everything in between like windows, doors, vents etc. One such day I made an easy-on-me lunch with this green and red tomato chutney, dal and rice. This chutney can be eaten with rice or chapatis.

Ingredients

2 large green tomatoes chopped
2 large red tomotoes chopped
2 Tsp oil
1 Tsp mustard seeds
1/2 Tsp bengal gram
1/2 Tsp urad dal
1/4 Tsp methi seeds
Red chillies (to taste)
Few curry leaves
Pinch of asofeatida (hing)
Salt (to taste)

Procedure

Heat oil in a pan and add the mustard, urad dal, bengal gram, methi dana and red chillies. After the mustard sputters and the dals redden, add curry leaves and hing. Empty this seasoning mixture into a bowl and put a little oil in the same pan. Add the tomatoes and cook till they become mushy. Cool the cooked tomatoes and grind them. Water is not needed while grinding as the tomatoes will already be mushy. After the tomatoes are ground add the seasoning mixture and grind till they are coarsely ground. Add the salt and at this point you may want to taste to see if the chutney is tangy enough for you. The tanginess would depend on the tomatoes. If you want the chutney to have more tang add a small piece of tamarind grind it one last time. You can also use tamarind paste and add it to the tomato mixture while grinding.

This chutney can be made with all red or all green tomatoes. This is my contribution to Mahanadi Indira's JFI for Tomato hosted by RP of My Workshop.

Happy Ugadi and Cashew-Walnut Kathli

We celebrated the Telugu New Year, Ugadi with a sweet treat called Cashew-Walnut Kathli. This is not the traditional sweet for Ugadi but I wanted to make something without much oil or ghee. Though the Kathli has fat due to the cashews and walnuts, this fat is the good for the body. The secret being portion control. One piece of the Kathli per day is healthy.

I thought this sweet must be loaded with ghee until I came across the recipe on Saffron Hut. I used walnuts in the original recipe as these are my favourite nuts and followed the exact recipe, instructions given on the Kaju/Cashew Kathli post of Saffron Hut. I used equal quantities of both cashews and walnuts. And the result is too good. And this sweet is a breeze to make. So if you like walnuts, you may want to use them when you make this sweet next time.

DRIED APRICOT DELIGHT(KHUBANI KA MEETA)

Khubani ka meeta is a very famous, expensive, easy to make and nutritious dessert in south India.It is considered to be a lavish wedding feast if khubani ka meeta was one among the many dishes.
That being said, the nutritious side of dried apricots is that they are highly rich in Iron,dietary fiber and Calcium.I had a very interesting season with khubani ka meeta during my pregnancy.My mother,in her frantic efforts to pep up my iron levels in my pregnancy, prepared this everyday for me.I cant help but put a smile on my face.This dessert is just sensual,cant get enough of it.

Ingredients

1 packet of dried apricots(with seeds). (For first time trials, begin with a small packet of dried apricots available in most Indian grocery stores
2-3 tbsp of sugar (optional.
Ice cream or a little custard for garnishing.

Procedure

Soak the dried apricots (they should contain their seed in it) in water overnight. In the morning put the apricots with water in the pressure cooker and cook for 2-3 whistles.

After cooling down, the apricots become very soft.Strain the water and keep aside.Just crush the softened apricots with hand to a smooth pulp while removing the seeds.(Keep aside the seeds, do not throw them away.) Then add the water and mix into the pulp.
Remove the nuts from the seeds and add them into the pulp.

Add the sugar if needed otherwise sugarless dessert is the best. While serving, put some 3-4 tablespoons in a dish and top it off with a scoop of ice cream in the center.

Believe me it is a bowl-licking dish. Yum yum.

Italian Pepper, Indian Style

I discovered these flourescent green Italian Peppers when I was a student in India. I didnt know their name then. My friend and I ate these peppers and Spring Onions as salad every evening with our dreary mess dinner.

The area we lived was rampant with malaria in those days. It was so bad that every month atleast one of our classmates had to be admitted to a nearby nursing home. Well atleast the nursing home benefitted due to the mosquitoes. Anyways, we sincerely believed that these peppers along with spring onions was our body's best defense against those mosquitoes. Weird, isnt it? Actually our logic was like this- the mess food never had any nutritive value and adding greens to our diet everyday would go towards building our body's immunity. Not a bad logic I think. Well, alteast we ate our vegetables. The peppers and onions salad really grew on us and it was definately the brightest and most colorful part of our meals. And we christened these peppers 'Salad Mirch'. We followed this regimen religiously every evening for 2 years. And both of us had just one bout of malaria in those 2 years. Pretty good actually compared to our friends who had several relapses.

I was delighted to find these peppers in the grocery stores in America. This time I was sure of its name- Italian or Cubanelle Peppers. Not only I eat it raw as a salad accompaniment to my meal but I also prepare this easy delicious curry. So here is the recipe.

Ingredients

3 good-sized Italian Peppers
1 heaping Tblsp of gram flour (besan)
1 heaping Tblsp of dry roasted coarsely ground peanuts
1 Tsp oil

1/2 Tsp mustard seeds

1/2 Tsp urad dal
Red chilly powder
1/4 Tsp Turmeric powder
Salt

Few Cilantro leaves

Procedure

Before I proceed, I have to emphasize the need to use non-stick pan to prepare this dish. I tried making it in a normal (not non-stick) pan and the result was a mushy mess with way too much oil.

For the peanut powder, dry roast a cup of peanuts until its browned on the skin. Use caution here as peanuts burn very easily. Cool and grind them into a coarse powder. Use whatever is necessary for this dish and reserve the rest for later.

Take the oil in the non-stick pan, sputter the mustard and redden the urad dal. Then add gram flour, peanut powder, turmeric powder and red chilly powder to it. In a few minutes this mixture will perfume your kitchen with its nutty roasted aroma. It takes only about 1-2 minutes. To this add the chopped peppers and salt to taste. Stir and close the pan with a lid. Every once a while stir and check if the peppers are cooked. Once cooked, open the lid and let the curry roast itself for a few minutes on medium flame/heat. The flour and nut powder will turn a beautiful brown color to coat the peppers. Take the pan off the heat and sprinkle chopped cilantro. This dish can be served with both rice and chapatis.

This is my contribution to the "I of Indian Vegetables" event hosted by Nupur of One Hot Stove. I happened to chance upon Nupur's blog when I was searching for caramel custard recipes on google. Before that I never knew the existence of food blogs. So I owe a great deal to One Hot Stove for showing me the world of food blogs. Thanks Nupur.

Salt Adai- Savoury Rice Cakes

This is a recipe adapted from the famous cookbook ' Cook & See' Part 1(English version of 'Samaithu Paar') by S. Meenakshi Ammal. I have modified the original recipe to suit my dietary habits. The ingredients used are the same as specified in the book.

Ingredients

2 cups Rice flour

1/2 cup Black-eyes peas

5 cups of water

1 tsp Coconut gratings

2 tsp oil

2 tsp ginger peeled and finely cubed

2 green chillies cut into bits

1 tsp mustard

1 tsp urad dal

hing

handful of curry leaves

salt

Procedure

Dry roast the black-eyed peas till it exudes the smell of the beans. The beans dont need to get browned. Add about 1/4 cup of water to the roasted beans and cook them till done. I cooked them in the pressure cooker (one whistle). Take care that they dont become mushy.

Dry roast the rice flour till you can draw fine line with it. This is to ensure there is no moisture in the flour. The flour at this stage feels dry. Take some flour between your thumb and index finger and try to trace a line while spilling the flour from between your fingers, as if drawing rangoli (kolam in Tamil). When the flour is well-roasted you can draw a fine line pattern. The photograph below shows this.

Add the oil into a pan. Once hot, sputter the mustard and redden the urad dal. Then add the green chillies, ginger, curry leaves and hing. When the ginger softens (test with the spoon you will be using to stir the pan), add 4.5 to 5 cups of water and let it come to a boil. Then add enough salt to the water (water should taste salty) and stir in the roasted rice flour. Add more water to incorporate all the flour. Stirring the mixture is important to prevent lumps. Then add the cooked black-eyed peas and coconut gratings and keep stirring. You cannot walk away from this pan, you have to keep stirring. The mixture would turn into a single mass around the spoon within a few minutes. Let the mixture cool to handle. Then form round disks (cakes) about 1/2 inch thick, make a hole in the centre with your finger and steam it for about 10 minutes. I steamed them in an idli steamer. To check whether the cakes have steamed well, insert a clean spoon into a cake and it has out come out clean.


These cakes are usually served with home-made butter. But I would not load up on all that fat. I think they would go well with any chutney, pickle or sambar. As for me, I would like mine plain.

Tip: Use non-stick pan for roasting and preparation of the dish to ensure uniform distribution of heat while roasting and usage of less oil (fat).

This is our entry to the Monthly Cooking TIPology event hosted by Sushma of Recipe Source.

Source: Cook & See Part 1 (Samaithu Paar) by S. Meenakshi Ammal
Reference: Patti (my grandmother) - Dad's mother

Low-fat Carrot Halwa

I have fond memories of Gajar Halwa which my mom used to make when I was a kid. Gajar is not the regular carrot we get to see these days. Gajar is reddish in color compared to carrots and ofcourse much more sweeter. I havent seen Gajar available here in the US.

Anyway, I now have to be content with using carrot for making this halwa. And it tastes pretty good too. Now for the recipe.

Ingredients

5 medium sized carrots

1/4 cup low-fat (1% milk fat) organic milk

3/4 cup sugar (adjust quantity to taste)

10 strands of saffron

1/2 tsp ghee (clarified butter)

Cashews

Raisins

Procedure

Wash, peel and grate the carrots. Add milk to the carrots and let it simmer. The carrots will leave lot of water. This simmering process takes a little time, maybe 45 minutes till all the moisture is absorbed by the carrots. Then add the sugar and adjust the quantity to the sweetness you want. Keep stirring the halwa till it starts leaving the sides of the pan. In the end add the saffron strands. In another pan heat the ghee and brown the cashews and plump up the raisins. Add this to the halwa. The halwa tastes extremely good for a low-fat recipe and the saffron adds a subtle aromatic taste in the background.

Source: Self

References: My Mom