Quinoa Oat Adai version 2.0 and some humor :)

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Before moving on to the post I would like to share a couple of fun things with my readers. First one is a joke that my brother told me during one of our phone conversations. It was pretty good and I thought my readers might enjoy it too, so here it is.....

Doctor: This newest kind of hearing aid that I have fitted you with is very small and powerful. I hope you enjoy using it.
Patient : Thanks Dr, I am looking forward to using it. Will be back to see you in three weeks time for the follow up.

In three weeks time...
Doctor: So how have you liked using your hearing aid? Your family must be thrilled that you can hear everything clearly.
Patient: I haven't told them about the hearing aid yet. And I have already changed my will three times in these last three weeks.

LOL :) Funny huh? Now onto the other thing I mentioned. This one is a clip I came across of an artist who makes a beautiful spray painting in under a minute. It is fascinating to watch him create the painting. I have uploaded the clip here. If you like art you might want to take a look at the clip, it is incredibly interesting:)

Finally moving on to the adai  (savory south Indian crepe made with rice and lentils). This time I made a variation of this earlier attempt of quinoa adai, only this time I also added barley and oats along with quinoa and made some changes to the proportions of lentils and grains. Adai, I find is a very easy way to sneak in quinoa into our diet, the nutty taste of the quinoa fits right in along with the other lentils and most people cannot even make out that quinoa is used in the recipe. Not only that, but quinoa also adds a nice crispiness to the adai that we really like :) So if you are wondering what to do with that packet of quinoa lying in your pantry, you might want to give this adai a try :)




Click here for a printable view of this recipe

Ingredients and Method to make Quinoa oat adai
1/2 cup brown rice (can be substituted with white rice/chawal/ pachai arisi)
1/2 cup pearl barley (for a gluten free version substitute with brown rice)
1/2 cup steel cut oats
1/2 cup quinoa
1/3 cup whole black gram lentil (udad dhal)
1/3 cup split pigeon peas (tur dhal)
1/3 cup split mung bean lentil (mung dhal)

6 to 8 Indian or Thai green chilies (or to taste)
6 to 8 whole dry red chilies (or to taste)
salt to taste
pinch of asafoetida powder (hing/perungayam)
a little sesame oil to shallow fry the adai

Place the first seven ingredients in a large bowl. Fill with water, swirl with hand and drain. Fill the bowl with sufficient water and allow the grains/ lentils to soak for about three hours.

Drain the lentils/ grains and grind along with red and green chilies and a little fresh water to make a coarse batter. The batter should not be too runny or too thick, but slightly thickish. In case of doubt err on the side of a thicker batter, it can be corrected later to get the right consistency more easily.

Add salt to taste to the batter and a pinch of asafoetida powder and mix well.
Heat a flat pan/ tawa/ griddle. Pour a small quantity of the batter in the center and spread into a thin circle. Add a few drops of sesame oil around the circumference of the adai. When the lower side cooks to a golden brown, flip over and cook the other side until it has golden brown spots on it.
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Remove and serve hot with aviyal ( a curry made with a medley of vegetables) / jaggery/ spice powder / flax chutney powder/ honey or even just by itself
Refrigerate the balance of the batter and use within 3 to 4 days for freshest taste.
Yield will depend on the size and thickness of each adai.

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Dried Apricot Jam and some humor :-)

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Our town newsletter had this humorous "pearls of wisdom" in their just for fun section that was pretty funny. I am sharing some of the funniest ones from that article here for my readers....

If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip

Bills travel through the post at twice the speed of cheques

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

Funny huh? Anyway, moving on to the jam part of the post. For a while now I had this packet of dried apricot sitting in my pantry. Even though dried fruits rank high on my list of  guilt free snacks,dried apricots do not enjoy the same high ranking as other dried fruits with me. So this packet has been sitting in a corner of my pantry largely ignored. Every time the guilt of ignoring this item gets to me, I end up making something with it like this Apple apricot chutney or this Apricot pachadi (chutney).

I loved both the above chutneys with apricots but chutneys can only use up so much apricots and the packet in my pantry seemed like it would never get completely used up. Determined to use it up entirely, last week I decided to try and make jam with these apricots. This is the first time I attempted to make jam with dried fruits, so I was a little wary of its outcome. The jam was a success and one of my first thoughts was "now why didn't I think of this earlier :-) " Anyway I am glad I did,  I got to use up the entire packet of apricots in a way that we both completely enjoyed and the success of this idea has already begun to give me ideas for new types of jams that I hope to try in the future :-)



Here is another view of the jam.....


Click here for a printable view of this recipe

Ingredients and Method to make Dried apricot jam
3 heaped cups of dried apricots
2 cups water
2 3/4 cups of sugar
4 tbsp lemon juice

Soak dried apricots in 2 cups of hot water for 30 minutes. Puree in batches until smooth or a little chunky.

Place puree in a heavy bottomed pan, add sugar and place on heat. Let this mixture simmer for a few minutes.

Add lemon juice and continue to simmer, stirring frequently until it begins to thicken. Do keep a lid handy as sometimes this mixture splatters a little. You know when the jam is ready, if you lift the spatula and allow the jam to pour and it flows together and not in little drops
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Alternatively, pour a few drops on a plate, if it spreads easily, then the jam is not ready. When you pour a few drops and it stays firm without moving, and has a jam like consistency, the jam is ready.

Remove from heat, cool slightly and pour into glass bottles. This quantity yielded me 2  16 oz bottles of jam

Notes
For this quantity I did not sterilize my bottle, since I was making a very small batch. In case you plan to make lot of jam, then it is suggested to sterilize your glass jar before you fill it with jam, click here to know how to sterilize your glass jars

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Pasta with Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sauce and some humor.

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Recently, I received an email with pictures of a lot of billboards and road signs. Not ordinary road signs, but ones that are unintentionally funny, some of them, downright hilarious. I posted a couple of them here. Notice the second one......that particular sign had me in splits. I think I am never going to look at lime juice in the same way ever again :-)



Moving on,  I rarely make pasta sauce from scratch, but when I came across this idea I  was instantly intrigued. I tweaked the recipe a fair bit, customizing it to our taste. The end result was a sauce that tasted pretty awesome.I used to think that making pasta sauce would be a very time consuming job, but it really turned out to be quite simple and quick.



Baking the peppers does not require much supervision, and after removing it from the oven, the only other step is to puree all the ingredients.This sauce tastes delicious over just plain pasta too, but if you want to add more veggies to the pasta you can try this with mushrooms or green bell pepper or any other vegetable of choice. It tastes pretty good in all combinations :)



Click here for a printable view of this recipe

Ingredients and Method to make Mushroom pasta with red bell pepper sauce

For the pasta
1 large onion sliced lengthwise
8 oz (approx 266 gms) of button mushrooms sliced thin (can be substituted with 1 large or 2 med green bell peppers (capsicum/kodamolagai) deseeded and cut into thin long strips.
3 cups of dry whole grain or multi grain pasta (of any variety. I have used penne/ elbow pasta for this recipe most often ) ( I use barilla) cooked as per manufacturers instructions.
red bell pepper sauce as required (recipe below)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp minced garlic (or to taste)
1 tsp crushed red pepper (or to taste)
salt to taste

For the sauce (see notes)
2 Large Red Bell peppers cut into thin strips
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 dry red pepper/ dry red chili
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp salt

Pre heat oven to 450 deg F

Place red bell pepper strips on a foil lined cookie sheet or flat tray and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until small brownish/blackish spots begin to appear on the bell peppers. Turn once in between. It may take a little more or less time depending on the thickness of the bell peppers.

Once it is done, remove bell peppers from the oven and cool to room temperature. Puree the bell peppers along with dry red pepper, parsley, salt to taste and the yogurt to a smooth paste. Add a few tsps of water if required and blend again. Keep this sauce aside. (I did not need any water for this sauce)

Prepare pasta as per manufacturers directions. Drain and place the pasta in a large bowl and keep aside 

Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Add garlic and stir until the garlic has browned a little. Add onions and saute till transparent. Add mushrooms (or bell pepper if using that) and stir until  cooked and soft yet firm.
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Add crushed red pepper, salt to taste and the pureed sauce and mix well. Allow the sauce to heat for a few minutes. Add this sauce on top of the pasta, mix well and serve immediately or place pasta on individual plates, and pour sauce as required over it and serve.

serves approximately 2 to 3

Notes:
If you like the flavor of roasted garlic and want a stronger garlic taste, you can place a clove or two of garlic along with the red bell pepper in the oven to roast a little and then puree along with the red bell pepper.

If you do not want any additional vegetables, this sauce can be served over plain pasta too. I've had it with sauce and a sprinkling of parsley and crushed red pepper, tastes good that way too :) 

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Indian Style Tomato Soup (Tomato Shorba) and some humor :)

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Before moving on to the post, here is a little bit of humor I came across recently.....

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A young businessman had just started his own firm. He'd rented a beautiful office and had it furnished with antiques. Sitting there, he saw a man come into the outer office. Wishing to appear busy, the businessman picked up the phone and started to pretend he had a big deal working. He threw huge figures around and made giant commitments. Finally, he hung up and asked the visitor, "Can I help you?" The man said, "Sure. I've come to install the phone!"
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Moving on, shorba is a type of soup made in Indian cuisine, specifically north Indian cuisine. It is a light soup usually with some seasonings. With the blistering heat we are facing these days,  light, quick to make and nourishing have become my keywords and almost all the items on my menu these days, reflect these traits.  This soup definitely fits the criteria on all of these counts and to top it all, this is one of the few soups that does not require a long list of ingredients, making it incredibly easy to assemble. All it needs are some good quality tomatoes along with a few seasonings. If you like tomato soup, this Indian variation may be something you might enjoy quite a bit....


Click here for a printable view of this recipe

Ingredients and Method to make Indian style tomato soup
12 to 14 small tomatoes quartered (yielded approximately 2 1/2 cups of tomato)
salt to taste
1 tsp jaggery (can be substituted with 1 tsp sugar)
1 tsp chick pea flour/ gram flour (besan)

seasoning
1 tsp oil/ or clarified butter (ghee) (use oil for a vegan version)
3/4 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
1 Thai or Indian variety of green chili cut very fine (or to taste)

Cook the tomatoes along with some water until soft. Cool to room temperature, puree it and strain it through a sieve. Keep aside.

In a small bowl mix chick pea flour and a few teaspoons of water thoroughly, making sure there are no lumps. Add this chickpea flour + water mixture to the strained pureed tomatoes and mix well.
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Add salt to taste, jaggery or sugar, water as required to achieve desired consistency and allow the puree to come to a boil on a low to medium low heat.

In a small pan, heat oil. Add cumin seeds and when it sizzles add green chilies. When the green chilies start to change color, add the entire oil+ seasoning mixture to the soup. Allow it to simmer for a few more seconds.

Serve hot as a first course for an Indian themed dinner/lunch.

Serves approximately 2 to 3

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Cabbage in coconut gravy curry aka cabbage kootu and some humor...

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Here is something that's been sitting in one of my emails and I wanted to share it with my readers. Hope you enjoy it........

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A college student needed a small two-hour course to
fill his schedule and the only one available was
wildlife Zoology.

After one week, a test was held.

The professor passed out a sheet of paper divided into
four squares. In each square was a carefully drawn
picture of a bird's legs. No bodies, no feet, just
legs.
The test asked each student to identify the birds from
their legs.

The student sat and stared at the test getting angrier
every minute.
Finally, he stomped up to the front of the classroom
and threw the test on the teacher's desk. "This is the
worst test I have ever given."

The teacher looked up and said: "Young man, you have
flunked the test.What's your name?" 

The student pulled up his pant-legs showing his legs and said: "You tell me"

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Funny huh ?...... Anyway without taking up more of your time, I will get straight to the recipe. Cabbage in coconut gravy curry is the best way I can think of to describe cabbage kootu.Kootu is a form of gravy curry made in southern India usually flavored with coconut, cumin and some chilies.  

I add some split chick pea lentils to this curry so that I can combine some protein along with the vegetable, making it more complete.This simple flavorful curry is quick to make and is versatile enough to work well with just plain steamed rice, or with steamed rice and rasam/sambar or even with some plain or flavored rotis (Indian flat bread)





Here is another view of this curry



Click here for a printable view of this recipe

Ingredients and Method to make cabbage kootu
1/2 cup split chick pea lentil (chana dhal) rinsed and drained
3/4 head of cabbage cut fine
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste

Grind together
6 tbsp grated coconut (either fresh or frozen) (if frozen thaw to room temperature)
3/4 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp dried curry leaves (optional) (or replace with a fresh leaves from one stalk)
4 dry red chilies (or to taste)

Seasoning
2 tsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp split black gram lentil (udad dhal)
1/8 tsp asafoetida powder (hing/perungayam)

Place lentils in a large heavy bottomed pan and add sufficient water, enough to submerge it and turmeric powder and allow it to cook until it is almost fully cooked yet firm. Skim off the froth that forms on top of the lentils .

Add cabbage, salt to taste and more water if required and allow the cabbage to cook until soft.


In the meanwhile grind together coconut, cumin seeds, red chilies and curry leaves if using along with a little water into a smooth paste.

When cabbage is also cooked, add this ground coconut mixture to it and allow the curry to simmer for a few minutes until the flavors blend together.
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In a small pan, heat oil, add mustard seeds and split black gram lentil to it, when the mustard seeds begin to splutter and the split black gram lentil begins to turn pinkish/reddish, add asafoetida powder to it and stir once or twice, then quickly pour this entire seasoning on the curry.

Mix well and serve hot along with plain steamed rice and rasam/ sambar or with roti's (Indian flat bread)

Serves approximately 2 to 3

This kootu is off to the Green Gourmet Event being hosted by Preeti @ Write Food

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Rice cooker Peas Pulao and some humor :-)

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Here is a little bit of humor that I came across recently that I thought my readers would enjoy....

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Scared Sleeping

Shakey went to a psychiatrist. "Doc," he said, "I've got trouble. Every time I get into bed, I think there's somebody under it. I get under the bed, I think there's somebody on top of it. Top, under, top, under. "you gotta help me, I'm going crazy!"

"Just put yourself in my hands for two years," said the shrink. "Come to me three times a week, and I'll cure your fears."

"How much do you charge?"

"A hundred dollars per visit."

"I'll sleep on it," said Shakey.

Six months later the doctor met Shakey on the street. "Why didn't you ever

come to see me again?" asked the psychiatrist.

"For a hundred buck's a visit? A bartender cured me for ten dollars."

"Is that so! How?"

"He told me to cut the legs off the bed!"

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Funny huh ? I sure enjoyed it.....

Moving on, I am sure there are literally hundreds of variation of peas pulao, since each person has their own way of making this dish. This is my take on peas pulao. I used white basmati rice, a rare indulgence for us since I cook with brown basmati all the time. I find my rice cooker inordinately useful when making any type of pulao because it keeps each grain of cooked rice whole and separate and has the additional benefit of being able to keep the pulao hot/ warm until we are ready to have it. The icing on the cake, figuratively speaking, is that it requires very little attention, just mix in the ingredients, press the start button and you are good to go....

Click here for a printable view of this recipe

Ingredients and method to make peas puloa in the rice cooker

1 medium sized onion cut fine
3 cups basmati white rice
3 1/2 cups water (soak basmati rice in water for 30 minutes prior to proceeding with the recipe)
3 cups green peas fresh or frozen

3 tbsp oil (or more if you like more)
1 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
3 Thai or Indian green chilies slit lengthwise (or to taste)

4 small bay leaves
2 whole green cardamoms
2 tsp Kitchen king masala (or any other curry powder) (see notes)
salt to taste

Place basmati rice is a bowl, fill with water, swirl with hand a couple of times and then drain water. Add 3 1/2 cups of water and allow basmati rice to soak for about 30 minutes or so

In a small pan, heat oil, add cumin seeds to it, when cumin seeds begin to splutter add green chilies. Stir a couple of times.

Then add onions and saute until onions are transparent. Add green peas and stir a few times

Quickly add whole green cardamoms, kitchen king masala, bay leaves and stir a few times.Remove from heat and keep aside.

In the rice cooker container, add the soaked basmati rice along with the water it was soaked in, then add the onions+ peas+ spices to it and mix well.

Add salt to taste, mix well and then close the container and set the rice cooker to the white rice setting, if you have that or just push the button to start cooking.

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When it is ready, mix well and keep warm until ready to be served.

Serve hot with curry of choice or dhal of choice along with some raita and papad/ chips

Serves approximately 6.

Notes
You can use garam masala instead of Kitchen king masala, If you plan to substitute with garam masala use half the quantity of kitchen king masala suggested since garam masala tends to be a bit more spicier.

You can even use curry powder in place of Kitchen king masala if you so choose...

This recipe can be easily halved if you want to make less.

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Spinach Lentil Curry ~ Palak ka saalan and some humor

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My cousin R sent me an email that contained this humorous piece in it.I completely enjoyed it and thought my readers may like it too !

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A woman writes to the IT Technical support Guy

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and I noticed a distinct slowdown in the overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as
Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NEWS 5.0, MONEY 3.0 and CRICKET 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,

____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ __

Reply

DEAR Madam,

First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme. Html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.
If that application works as designed, Husband1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5..

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Silence 2.5 or Beer 6.1.
Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly.
You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance.
We recommend: Cooking 3.0 and Good Looks 7.7.

Good Luck Madam!
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Cool huh, I sure enjoyed a good laugh when I read this piece. Let me know what you all think about it :-)

Moving on, Mughlai cuisine rarely finds a place in my kitchen because all that cream and butter does not quite fit in with my regular cooking. That said, on a spur I picked up Nita Mehta's Mughlai Vegetarian cooking when I visited India last time, hoping I may get around to trying something from that book. Yes, I know,  mostly it was just wishful thinking :-)

Anyway one of the recipes that appealed to me from that cookbook was this simple spinach curry called palak ka saalan. This recipe below is my adaptation of the recipe I found in the book. The curry turned out to be simple,tasty and quick to make. Try this if you like spinach and are looking for something simple to go with Roti ( Indian flat bread) or even plain rice.



Click here for a printable view of this recipe

Ingredients and Method to make Palak ka saalan
1/2 cup Split chick pea lentil ( Chana dhal/ kadalai parappu) soaked in water for 30 minutes
1 large onion cut fine (pyaaz/ vengayam)
2 medium tomatoes cut fine (tamatar/ thakkali)
4 cups spinach leaves cut fine(palak/ keerai)
1/2 tsp minced ginger (adrak/ inji)
2 green chilies slit lengthwise and cut fine (or to taste) (hara mirch/ pachai molagai)
1 tbsp oil
3/4 tsp coriander powder ( dhania)
1/2 tsp red chili powder (or to taste) (optional) (lal mirch)
1/2 tsp garam masala (My recipe for garam masala can be found here ) (can be substituted with any other curry powder)
salt to taste (namak/ uppu)
1/2 cup water

Soak chana dhal in water for about 30 minutes.

Cook the chana dhal either in the pressure cooker or on stove top or microwave until soft. Refer to this post for steps to cook lentils in different ways. Keep cooked lentils aside

Heat oil in a large heavy bottomed pan, add onions and saute until onions are transparent.

Add ginger and green chillies and stir a few times. Add tomatoes and stir until tomatoes cook and become soft and mushy.

Add coriander powder, red chili powder, garam masala and stir a few times.

Add finely cut spinach, salt to taste, water and let spinach cook for a few minutes.

When spinach is cooked, mash half the lentils and add to the spinach. And add the balance of lentils without mashing. Mix well and heat for a few minutes for the flavors to blend.

Serve hot with Roti of choice or Plain rice

Serves approximately 2 to 3

Notes

You can mash all the lentils and add to spinach too, I just mash half to give it a little texture.

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