Pasta with White Sauce

Ingredients:-

1. Cheese - 50 gms
2. Milk  - 200 ml
3. Corn Flour  - 2 tbsp
4. Butter - 50 gms
5. Pasta
6. Salt to taste
7. Olive Oil
8. Garlic
9. Onions 1
10. Peppers 1
11. Mushrooms
12. Pepper Powder

Preperation:-

1. Heat water with salt and 1/2 tbsp of oil. When it bubbles, add pasta to it.
2. Cook for 10-15 mins. Drain and run over cold water.
3. Heat Olive oil and add finely chopped garlic to it.
4. Add onions, peppers, Mushrooms. When saute keep them aside.
5. Heat butter in a pan. Add Corn flour and fry for 2 mins.
6. Add cheese and milk to this and cook with salt and pepper.
7. When this paste turns slightly thick add sauted veggies and pasta and cook for 2 mins.

Mirchi Bajji

Ingredients:-

1. Cumin Powder - 1/2 tbsp
2. Tamarind Pulp 2 tbsp
3. Sugar 1/4 tbsp or Jaggery
4. Salt to taste
5. Besan powder
6. Chillie Powder - 1/2 tbsp
7. Cooking Soda 1/4 tbsp
8. Oil
9. Banana Chillies - 6
10. Onions and Lemon for dressing

Preperation:-

1. For the stuffing mix cumin powder, salt, tamarind pulp and sugar and make a thick paste.
2. Cut banana chillies length wise and gently take off the seeds if any. Stuff these with the above paste.
3. Mix besan, chillie powder, salt and soda with water to make a think paste. You can add rice flour( 1 tbsp) to it as well.
4. Dip the stuffed chillies in this paste and fry them in boiling oil.
5. Dress them with sliced onions, lemon and cumin or pepper powder.

Jamie's Salad

I will name this recipe as Jamie's Salad, as I do not remember the recipe name. I watched this program "Jamies 15 mins" in TLC and guess why I love his program than other cooking shows( Nigellism, Exotic Everyday etc )? Cause you can cook awesome dishes just in 15 mins and he uses a lot of greens. Fresh, beautiful and delicious.

This salad that he prepared he used every possible greens and veggies that he could ever find plus smoked chicken and few exotic dressings. But I am limiting to these ingredients below:

1. Mayonnaise  4-5 tbsps
2. Fresh Sweet Corn - 1
3. Lettuce  - 200 gms
4. Carrots  - 250 gms
5. Cucumber - 2
6. Onions - 1
7. Pepper Powder - 2-3 tbps
8. Lemons (1)
9. Salt to taste
10. Yogurt  4-5 tbps
11. Pepper 1 red + 1 green

Dressing:-

1.  Add lemon juice to 4-5 tbsps of Mayonnaise. I llloooove American Garden Eggless
   
   Mayonnaise.
2. Add salt, pepper powder and yogurt to the above mix and your dressing is ready. If required you can add chilli flakes as well.

Preperation:-

1. Heat fresh corn on low flame for 5-7 mins. Take a knife and chop the sides, an easy to way to separate the corns.
2. Slice onions, peppers, lettuce, carrots, cucumber.
3. Mix all the above ingredients with the dressing.

Sear Fish Fry

I used to hate sea food. For the smell and for the fact that no matter with what you cook it does not catch the flavor. Well I was wrong till we visited this place "Grill Maximus" at HSR Layout, Bangalore. You get the best fish dishes here( Fish fingers, Fish and Chips, Grilled Fish). So we thought why not get used to eating fish food too. After all it is supposed to be a healthy food.

Yeah another reason why we were away from fish were those tiny small irritating bones that get caught in your throat. So we went to meat shop and asked for a fish that has no bones. And the guy suggested Sear Fish. Later we learnt that Sear Fish has the highest fat content :-(.

Anyways my first trial at cooking fish was a grand success. Here's the recipe, not a recipe really. I follow Nigella who cooks with all canned, and read-made stuff. So you get these fish fry masala in stores. Just Marinate with it and fry the fish over. Well, "documenting" the same,

Ingredients:-

1. Sear Fish - 500 gms
2. Fish Fry Masala
3. Lemon juice
4. Salt to taste
5. Oil to fry

Preperation:-

1. If you ask the meat shop guy to chop the fish for fry he will nicely slice it into thin pieces. With Sear fish you don't have to clean and no messy stuff at home at all.
2. Add 1 full lemon's juice, fish fry masala pack and marinate the fish for 1/2 hr.
3. You can add salt per your preference. 
4. Heat oil in a pan. I used Olive oil. And fry these pieces on medium heat.

Aloo Palak with Broccoli

Ingredients:-

1. Potatoes   - 200 gms
2. Broccoli   - 200 gms
3. Palak        - 2  big bunch
4. Tomatoe   150 gms
5. Onions     1
6. Garlic  - 4-5 cloves
7. Chillie Powder - 2 tbps
8. Coriander Powder - 1 tbsp
9. Garam Masal  - 1/2 tbsp
10. Ginger Garlic Paste 1 tbsp
11. Salt to taste
12. Oil

Preparation:-

1. Slice Broccoli and potatoe and boil them with salt.
2. Once they are boiled, drain and run them over cold water. This keeps the green color of broccoli.
3. Heat water with salt. Take a big bowl add spinach leaves to it and pour the boiling hot water over them. Cover this bowl for 5 mins so that the leaves get cooked.
4. Drain the water. Grind this into paste with garlic cloves.
5. Heat pan, add oil.
6. Fry sliced onions and when brown, add ginger-garlic paste.
7. Add sliced tomatoes and cook till tomatoes soften.
8. Add poatoes, broccoli and spinach paste to this.
9. Add Chillie powder, coriander powder and salt if required and cook for 5 mins.
10. Add garama masala at the end and cook for 1-2 mins.
11. Serve with pulka :-)
    
    
    

Pumpkin Curry

Ingredients:-

1. Pumpkin - 500gms
2. Onions -1
3. Red Dry Chillie 2
4. Curry Leaves 6-8
5. Mustard Seeds 1/4tbsp
6. Turmeric - pinch
7. Chillie Powder 2 tbps
8. Coriander Powder 1 tbsp
9. Amchoor Powder 1/2 tbsp
10. Salt to taste
11. Oil

 

Preperation:-

1. Peel the hard skin off the pumpkin. Chop them into small cubes,
2. Heat Oil. Add mustard seeds to it. When they splutter, add dry chillie, curry leaves and slices onions.
3. When onions on translucent add pumpkin cubes. 
4. Add rest of the spices and boil by adding enough water for the pumpkin to cook.
5. When pumpkin is cooked add Amchoor powder and cook for 5 mins.

Pumpkin Halwa

Ingredients:-

1. Pumpkin - 750 gms
2. Sugar      - 400 gms
3. Ghee      - 100 gms
4. Cashews - 50 gms
5. Raisins  - 50 gms
6. Ilachi pods  - 5
7. Milk - 3 tbsps

Preperation:-

1. Grate pumpkin after peeling the skin off.
2. Heat ghee in a pan and roast cashews and raisins.
3. Add grated pumpkin and milk and cook till pumpkin gets soft.
4. When pumpkin is cooked add sugar and ilachi powder.
5. Serve cold.
   

Egg and Drumsticks Leaves

Ingredients:-

1. Drumsticks leaves - 200 gms
2. Eggs - 4
3. Onions 2
4. Dry red chillie - 2
5. Green chillie - 6
6. Curry leaves 4-6
7. Mustard Seeds
8. Garlic pods 4
9. Salt to taste
10. Oil

Preperation:-

1. Boil drumstick leaves in water with salt. When they are 3/4 cooked drain the water and keep aside.
2. Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds for seasoning.
3. Add finely chopped onions, curry leaves, green chillies, red chillies, garlic and fry them till onions are golden brown.
4. Add eggs and fry for 3 mins.
5. Add leaves to the same and fry till the mixture gets dry.
6. Can be served with rice or chapathi.

Oats Upma

Recipe from - http://www.vegetarianrecipes.net/oats-upma/

Mutter Paneer Masala Recipe

Ingredients

Mutter Paneer Masala

1. 2 cups of fresh green peas
2. 1 Cup Paneer 
3. 2 large sized tomatoes 
4. 1 tbl spoon of ginger garlic paste
5. 1 tbl spoon of cashew paste
6. 1 large sized onion
7. 4 green chillies
8. 4 tbl spoon of chilli powder
9. 1 tbl spoon of garam masala
10. salt to taste
11. 1/4 tbl spoon of turmeric powder
12. 1/2 cup of curds
13. oil as needed 
14. Chopped coriander leaves for garnishing

Preparation

1. Heat oil and fry paneer till they turn golden yellow color.

2. Make tomatoe puree by grinding them in a mixer.

3. Soak cashews in water for 15-20 mins and grind them to paste.

4. Chop onions and green chillies.

5. Heat the oil and fry green chillies and onions. Add turmeric powder, ginger-garlic paste and fry for few mins.

6. Add tomatoe puree, curds, cashew paste, garam masala, chilli powder and salt.

7. Add peas and paneer to this and let it saute till the peas are cooked.

8. Add coriander and serve hot.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

How much I hate it when things do not turn the way I expected them to? Seriously I need to take few things lite in my life. Reason for starting a blog post that is titled with one of my favorite cakes, on a negative note...my trail of baking this cake at home did not turn out well. It came out ok, after so many trails and experiments with Micro Wave.

I tried baking using MW twice before. It either became too hard like a biscuit or it was not cooked inside. I googled and then found that baking with MW is not easy and many women had posted same problem. But someday I am going to nail this. I am still trying to analyze what went wrong. Was baking powder less? I added more butter? Or is the MW to be blamed? I will blame the MW cause I could bake excellent cake( of course last time sugar was less) without MW, using Mom's oven and it came out well. Soft, fluffy and tasty( I like it with less sugar).

Anyways am posting this recipe as there is absolutely no problem with the recipe though. It's almost same as the recipe that  I posted for Banana Cake. Here's the recipe.

For the topping

1. Tinned pineapple slices
2. 1/4 cup of sugar ( I used white sugar, but brown sugar is recommended)
3. Butter (as needed, I used 6 tbl spoons of butter )

For the Cake Batter

1. All purpose flour ( maida) - 2 cups
2. 3 eggs
3. 3/4 cup of sugar ( You can make it 1 cup or 1.25 if you like the cake to be too sweet)
4. 3/4 cup of butter
5. 1 tbl spoon of baking soda

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

6. 1 tbl spoon of baking powder
7. 1 tbl spoon of lemon juice
8. 2-3 tbl spoon of milk

Preperation

1. Mix all the ingredients for the batter in  a mixer. You could add essence or color to this if you wish.
2. For the topping mix butter and sugar and heat it on medium flame till it starts bubbling.
3. Grease the baking bowl( for MW you NEED to use baking bowls eg. Borosil) and pour the sugar syrup.
4. Place the pineapple slices.
5. Pour the batter into the bowl.
6. I used Auto Cook Menu A-12( Onida Convection MW ). Or you could bake it using Bake/ Keep Warm settings at 150 C for 30-40 mins. You can stop the MW anytime and see if the cake is baked.
7. Turn the baked cake upside down, add cherrys as shown in the image.

Stuffed Aloo-Methi Paratha

Ingredients:

Aloo-Methi Stuffing

For Parathas
Wheat flour
Oil
 
For the stuffing
Boiled potatoes                             - 3
Fenugreek (Methi) leaves                - 1 set
Green Chillies, finely chopped           - 2
Chopped Onion                              - 1
Chilly powder                                - 1/4  teaspoon
Coriander leaves , finely choppes     - 1/2 set
Turmeric powder                           - 1/4 teaspoon
Salt to taste

Preparation
1. Prepare the paratha dough and keep it aside for 20-30 mins.
2. Heat 2 teaspoons of oil. Add green chillies and onion. Add a pinch of salt and turmeric powder to this and let it fry for 5 mins.
3. Add methi leaves chilli powder and let ti saute for 2 mins.
4. Mash the boiled potatoes, add the above mixture to this. You can add garama masala powder ( 1/2 teaspoon) if you wish. Add coriander leaves and salt per your taste.

Stuffed Aloo-Methi Paratha

5. Make lemon sized balls with the dough.
6. Roll these balls to a small sized chapathi. Make sure that the edges are thinner than the center. Place a small ball of the stuffing in the center. Bring the edges to the center to cover the stuffing.
7. Roll this to make a paratha.
8. Heat a pan and fry the paratha with oil at medium heat.

My Recipe for Banana Cake

My whimsies continue...

I used to hate bananas. Until recently. Reason, my late night meetings which used to end at 12:30 in the midnight or 1 in the morning. After my meetings I used to feel damn hungry. Banana was the only food available at that time for me. So I thought of Banana cake. This has been my favorite since a long time. Since my Oracle days. The best banana cake I have ever eaten is from ICRISAT, Hyderabad.

Though I planned to cook Banana cake over the weekend, I could not wait till the weekend. Well, Friday evening, it IS a weekend. So here's my recipe for Banana cake.


Ingredients:

1. 2 Cups of All-purpose flour ( Maida)
2. 3/4 or 1 Cup of Sugar ( I don't like it if it is too sweet. Otherwise you can use 1 cup of Sugar )
3. 3/4 cup of Butter/ Ghee
4. 2 Egss
5. 2 ripe Bananas
6. 2 tbsp milk
7. 2 tbsp lemon juice
8.1 tbsp Baking Powder
9. 1 tbsp Baking Soda
10. Cinnamon or Ilaichi Powder for taste

Preparation:

 Mix ghee/ butter with Sugar. Add eggs to this and mix thoroughly. You can use a mixer for this purpose. Add milk, lemon juice to this. Add mashed bananas. Add baking powder, baking soda, and flour and stir well.

Once the mix is ready, apply butter to the pan and spread this mix in the pan evenly. Bake this using oven. It takes 45 mins for the cake to bake. So simple isn't it?

My Recipe for Mixed Vegetable Soup

Whimsical Me! I wanted to prepare two things today. One Banana Cake. Two a hot simmering yummy soup. I realized I do not have all the ingredients to prepare Banana cake. So I settled for Soup. Bangalore climate this afternoon suited perfectly for a hot cup of soup.

Anyways my recipe for Home Made Mixed Vegetable Soup.

Ingredients:

1. Potatoes (2)
2. Tomato (1)
3. Beans (6)
4. Onion (1)
5. Coriander leaves ( for garnishing )
6. Carrot (1)
7. Sweet Corn ( As you desire )
8. Cauliflower or Cabbage Leaves ( As you desire )
9. Ginger-Garlic paste ( 1 tbsp)
10. Garam Masala ( 1/2 tbsp )
11. Pepper Powder ( 1/4 tbsp )
12. Salt to Taste
13. Olive oil ( 2 tbsp )

Preparation:

1. Cut Potatoes, beans, carrot and tomato into two sets. One to boil which can be 1 inch pieces. Rest of them finely chopped.
2. Boil the big pieces with enough water. I used pressure cooker.
3. Peel off tomato skin. Grind all these boiled vegetables. Due to potato this gives a thick paste which we are going to use as stock for the soup.
4. Cut onions. Whichever shape or size you desire. Long, thin pieces or 1 cm square shaped small pieces.
5. Heat Olive oil. Saute the chopped onions in this oil.
6. Add ginger-garlic paste and let it fry till its raw smell is gone.
7. Add rest of the finely chopped vegetables and let them fry for few mins
8. Now add the grounded paste to this and 4 cups of water to this.
9. Add salt, garam masala.
10. For those who like it to be spicy add Pepper powder.
11. Let it boil for 5-10 mins till the vegetables are cooked enough.
12. Finally add coriander leaves and the soup is ready :-)

A Treat to Oneself

Feb 27th - Mar 1st. Long weekend? To me its been a short weekend. What has been making my days shorter day by day? What’s been keeping me busy, occupied? Two things. One, my pet Leo. Two, cooking. Of course apart from the job that I have which pays!

LEO: I can go on and on about this funny little puppy, Leo. There has never been a day when I did not smile or laugh cause of him. He commands all the attention from me, claims all the love for him, and in return he gives me a LIFE worth living.

 I need no alarm to wake me up, he wakes me up with his whining for his mornings nature call. I have no fear sleeping alone, cause I know that this angel of mine is watching over me. When am driving back home, I know that a LIFE is waiting for me to be back home :-). I know that the moment I step into my home, he would greet me with such a passion and love that my days miffs are gone in a whiff. JUST LIKE THAT!

So apart from office work my second job is to take care of this monster. This employer pays me with lots of love, happiness, and a fun-filled life. I spend most of my time cleaning up the mess that he created whole day being at home, feeding him, playing with him. Finally, when he gets tired, I get to my third job, where am both the employer and the employee.

COOKING: There is a place in your sweet little home, which few discover quite early, which few lethargic people like me avoid. But a place where everyone some or the other day has to step in. Am sure everyone would have a story to tell about their travails of this place. Well, am talking about that refuge in your own house called KITCHEN. For few this place is such a comfort, a place you elude to from the stressful or a boring mundane day.

It took quite a long for me to explore this place. Better late than never. Living in a city alone, one or the other day you are bound to find it. And am glad I did.

I have heard people talk, write and experiment cooking, and how much they enjoy doing that. I was not able to relate to them. But now I do. Though I have not done any experiments yet, I enjoy cooking. There were days when I complained cooking for oneself, saying its such a boring task to cook for oneself. But this long weekend I decided to please myself in every possible way that I could. I bought fresh flowers, I my favorite chocolates, ice creams and I treated myself with a nice home cooked food.

This is when I realized different colors of vegetable and how yummy they look, how they turn into a different color when cooked or fried. How a combination of different spices adds to the taste. Mouth watering flavors...and seasoning your food adds to your own aesthetic sense. Cutting vegetables is such a nice stress buster ;-).

Well with this my new job of being a chef at my home restaurant I find 24 hours in a day not sufficient to juggle between a job that pays, a dog that is 3 months old and a life that runs at the speed of time :-p.