I loved "Tawa vegetables" in restaurants , and we had enough of that in Pune at a restaurant names"Atithya"( which literally mean the warm way to welcome guests). I loved the name ,service, cleanliness and food of that restaurant. Now ever since I moved out of NJ , I try those restaurant styled curries at home mainly. It is not easy to rush to nearest Indian restaurant now, as the nearest one is also not so near :)). But I must accept that it prompts me to try many innovative thing in my kitchen now. And over all my mind is working much on how to make such curries... and likely thoughts... to make it perfect with colors and tastes too. Here is something which I tried recently.
Tawa vegetable means vegetables cooked on flat styled pan (Tawa) adding some spices to it. They normally fry (shallow/deep ) each veggies and paneer.Then together cook it for a while adding all the spices and paneer cubes for a while. Tastes always too good, and who count the amount of fat you deposit when you eat out :)).
I rather choose to try another way to cook it with all the spice they might be using , and it was as I expected....When hubby came home I was editing the following pic and he asked what is this with his eyes wide open, I said this is what you gonna have in dinner tonight :).
Ingredients:
1 bell pepper Medium size(choose any variety you like)
6-7 tender Bhindi(okra),
1 medium sized Potato
1 medium sized carrot
1 cup Paneer cut into 2 inch length
2 tsp oil
2 tsp coriander-cumin powder
1/2 tsp Chaat masala
1/2 tsp Garam Masala
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
salt to taste
Method:
To avoid cooking this dish with plenty of use of Oil, I thought to give it a try little healthy way by roasting veggies first. I tried roasting Paneer before , but this is first time I choose to roast veggie before making its curry . And as I expected result was good too. Who would not like to cook healthy dishes :D ?
Peel carrot and potato. cut them like fries 2-3 inch in lengths. wash dry and cut the Okra in four pieces trimming from both ends. cut and bell pepper the same way removing stem and seeds.
Now heat a big flat non stick pan (Tawa) on stove and when it is little hot first add cut potatoes, roast it from both sides on medium heat and then remove. do the same for bell peppers a. and at last roast paneer cubes from 4 sides and 2 ends too. Keep all these roasted veggies aside.
Now in a same pan add 2 tsp oil and when hot add first chopped okra to it. As with all oil there will help to turn okra crispy without removing any stickiness. When done add chopped carrot into adding little turmeric and cook it till carrots are almost cooked. Next add bell peppers mix it well then add roasted potatoes to it . Mix all together well skillfully, taking care that it will not break the cooked veggies. Now sprinkle a little water to it and add salt, chaat masala and garam masala and coriander-cumin powder to it. spread it all evenly and mix in then add roasted paneer cubes and if its too dry sprinkle little bit of more water over that and cook it on low heat till water evaporates and spices start leaving its aroma . Turn off the heat and serve hot with Paratha and some pickle with Lassi on side ,make a perfect restaurant style food at home , that too not much oily :). 
This is my own entry to "VoW-JFI-Bell Peppers " :) . What do you cook with bell peppers ? Send it soon , for details see here or click on the logo in sidebar.
And here is my entry for Mango Manthram , a new event to display the artist inside you , started by dear Indira.
I hope you would like it Indira :).
Check out my other henna designs here , 1 ,2 ,3 ,4 :z .
And now here is my entry for Click beans and lentils this month :L . Rather for my entry I should call it clicking a single Bean :O..
I thought to tried clicking beans a little different way. I first grow Moth beans (matki or math) sprouts and placed them in ice try to freeze and here is my click . Do let me know how you like it :D.
Oops... before I forget to mention it again ...
Asha, Dhivya,Priya and Trupti are thinking that My blog is Yummy :~ . And passed on this nice award to me...
thank you buddies :) .
Almost all of you out there have received this from one ore more till date and I sincerely don't know if anyone out there is left still to mention a few whose blogs I really love visiting is
Trupti of The spice who loved me ,
Sandeepa of Bong Mom's cook book
Gattina of Kitchen Unplugged &
Viji of Vcuisine.
Enjoy the award , you deserve this and many more...
On a serious note I think that there is no award sufficient to appreciate the effort anyone is putting to share their recipes with picture on their blogs out there to keep Indian cooking alive around the world. Kudos to you all buddies... Keep cooking and keep sharing :)
Note: I am off to vacation for 10 day so If you don't get my reply to your entries then don't worry , just keep sending your Vegetarian entries... and leave a note in comment session here. I will cross check it with your emails. Well you can expect my response to your entries from Monday 2nd June onwards then. Thank you all keep cooking and keep rocking :) .Enjoy your summer and have fun filled sunny day ahead...
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Tawa Vegetables, clicking Beans n lentils & Mango Manthram :D
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Capsicum Rice -A Guest Post
Our guest this month is Ujwal Prashanth Rao , who choose to share recipe of "Capsicum rice " to be a part of "VoW-JFI " this month . Here is the recipe in his own words.
Ingredients:
1 cup chopped mixed bell peppers (I used red, yellow and green)
1.5 cups of cooked Basmati rice (Ensure that rice grains are well separated and not over cooked)
1 tbsp Oil
1 big Onion chopped
3 Garlic pods chopped fine
0.5 tsp red chilli powder, Garam masala powder/Kitchen King (Increase/decrease as per taste)
2 tsp Lemon juice
Few Coriander leaves chopped fine
Salt as per taste
Procedure:
1. Heat oil in a large wok/kadai
2. Add chopped Garlic and fry until brown
3. Throw in finely sliced Onions
4. Add little Salt and fry until onion turns golden
5. Add chopped bell peppers and fry on high until the bell peppers are done but still crunchy. Takes around 5-7 min.
6. Reduce the flame add the masala powders and mix well
7. Add rice and salt and mix well
8. Adjust the spices and salt according to taste
9. Cook for sometime on medium flame
10. Finally add Lemon juice and garnish with chopped Coriander leaves
11. Serve hot with Raita of your choice.
Thank you Ujwal for sharing this with us :) . For any queries/appreciations you can write directly to him on ujwal.mallya@gmail.com or leave comments here .
Note: If you have some recipe to share/participate here with and don't have a food blog, you can send it to me directly on blogpooja@gmail.com and be a guest writer for this blog. Share your recipes and be a part of this nice virtual community :).
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Daal Bati
With so many food blog events going on , If you are making any dish at home I think it will suit to one or many of the ongoing events :) . Thats what exactly happened to me, while I was planning to make Daal bati.
The idea of making it started with movie" Jodha-Akbar" , it reminded me of how much we used to enjoy Daal bati dish in India at "Sanjha Chulha " restaurant ,which was famous for its Daal bati . Now here , no luck so far to have such delightful dish to enjoy ready made from some restaurant. So I thought to give it a try . And there was RCI-Rajasthan announced then , not only that , it perfectly suits to the idea behind this book makes me cook event of bhags :) .
This Daal Bati is one of some dishes which Maalika-E- Hindustand Jodha made for Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar in movie " Jodha-Akbar".
I googled for its recipe and recalled some tastes from memories,wnet through some blogs and added my style to make it and here it is. A most famous Rajasthani dish to enjoy that too homemade.
Here is my recipe to make it.
Ingredients:
For Dal :
3/4 cup Moong Dal (split green gram )
1/4 cup chana dal
1 tsp oil
1/2 mustard seeds ,
1 tsp cumin seeds,
a pinch of turmeric powder,
a pinch of asafoetida.
coriander leaves to garnish.
salt to taste.
For Baati :
2 cup whole wheat flour
salt to taste
3-4 tsp oil to knead the dough
1 tsp Ajwain(Beshop's seeds)
Method:
Wash moong dal and chana dal together and cook them adding water and a pinch of turmeric powder until it is mushy. Keep aside . Knead the dough of Baati. 
First add salt and oil to flour mix it well , and then by adding little amount of water at a time . Knead dough , take care that it should not be soft as we make for chapati or paratha. The dough for the baati is not a very smooth dough, even while shaping into balls the surface will not be extremely smooth. The cracks that form while shaping the dough are characteristic of traditional baati.
I made baatis even more small so that it can easily cook till middle. Traditionally it is little bigger , as they cook it in Tandoor or real wood fire of chulha specially made to cook baatis.
Cover with a damp cloth till they are ready to go into the oven, so as to prevent the outer surface from drying. Preheat oven on 350 F . I placed baati directly on oven rack . Turn it around when little brown on one side. Cook it until it is lightly golden brown in color. it normally takes 15-20 minutes at 380 F.
For making Daal for dal bati. Take 1 tsp oil in pan . When hot add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and asafoetida to it. Add boiled Moong and chana dals to it adding 2 cups of water. Add salt to it and cook it till it reach to desired consistency . I like it little thick , so cooked for some more time.
When done garnish with fresh chopped and washed coriander leaves. Serve with fresh made Baati .
To eat this - break baatis into pieces , pour little ghee on it it will give you a nice flavor and baatis will turn little soft. some like to add little shredded jaggery on it (which is a optional step ) and then daal. mixit well and eat till your soul gets satisfied with the this nice aromatic dish :D.
I never thought that making "Dal Baati" can be this easier at home. When you avoid the amount of Ghee they use, it makes a very healthy dish too :).
A friend is visiting us with her little angle , which tempts me to spend more time with them. Due to which My blog was little ignored for last 2-3 days. I hope to make my next post with some really nice treat for your eyes soon . Till then take care and have fun time enjoying good weather if its not already raining there ;) he he he :P .
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Lets celebrate completion of 2 brilliant year of JFI together....
To celebrate the completion of dazzling 2 years of this food event, JFI and VoW is coming together this spring to invite you to cook colorful dishes with ”Bell Peppers “ .
(Bell pepper image courtesy - http://www.producepedia.com)
Bell Peppers/Sweet peppers/Capsicum/ Shimla Mirch/Tondali Mirch – call it by any name it is always a good option to cook a healthy dish . And who don’t love the colors they have ? So put your thinking cap on and send in something nice soon .... :) .
Here are the rules.
Rules :
- Cook any Vegetarian dish having “Bell Pepper “as main ingredient.. You can send as many entries as you wish. subject line should be - “Bell pepper -type of the dish” . i.e if you make starter dish using Bell peppers the subject line will be “ Bell peppers -starter “.
- Send your entries before 1st June 2008 to blogpooja@gmail.com , Along withclearly mentioning - Your name,Your blog name,Name of the dish you made, URL of your entry . Along with picture of the dish you cook - if possible resized in 300 pixel width.
- Feel free to use logo displayed here in your post.
- If you don't have a blog - send me recipe along with picture. I will post it here as a guest post by your name and will include it in round up with your name.
If you don’t get my reply or comment within 2 days of sending your entry, Leave a comment as reminder .
Non-bloggers : you are always a huge part of the success of this food blogging ,now feel free to be a part of it . You can reach to me with any questions/ queries at blogpooja@gmail.com .I will reply you at my earliest possible way.
Enjoy the weekend & keep rocking with your cooking :) .
Thursday, May 01, 2008
VoW-Bitter gourd awards goes to...
Enjoy the award girls... You deserve it :) .
In case if you missed - we already awarded Kalai for her best presented recipe with Bitter gourd. and these 2 awards are the winner among tie we had .
My wireless keyboard and mouse has stopped working suddenly and I am waiting for the another ordered set to arrive soon. Though my old USB mouse came to rescue me and that makes it possible for me to at least visit all your blogs :) .
This strange trouble has set me more free to surf on net as I have nothing else to do now he he he ... , just the problem is it's taking too long to type using On screen Keyboard ( for which I have click each single letter with mouse to type anything here :( ) . So not a long post now till new set arrives. Well, they told I will get it soon :) .
Thank you all for keeping in touch with this blog and leaving your comments , though I was not able to leave comments since last couple of week due to one or other reason . You cared to be here and left your lovely messages , I heartily thank you all for that.
Stay tuned for more and I will be Back with Announcement for "VoW-JFI " .
btw ,did you check what I cooked for "Jihva for Love " .
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Jihva for Love
I never stepped into kitchen at my Mom’s place for the purpose of cooking. Neither did my mom ever force me for that. Instead Mom always thought and told me that if I can learn these programming stuffs , become an engineer, and handle my job such easily then cooking will not be a hard thing for me any day to learn. She taught me that cooking is an art and I can learn to make any variety of dishes just by knowing some basic things and then cook it according to my taste and style.
Not only that, Dad is a foodie too and he keeps on sharing his experience with cooking many times. Even when I was not active in kitchen I was keen on those tips of dad. And I remember many times I observed Mom on how she cooks while chit chatting with her specially in the evening times when I normally get back from job after a long tired day .... Before that when I was studying in schools and college I think I never gave it a slightest attention on how these cooking things are done and which dish needs what ingredients... ahhh.... those carefree days... :D.
I remember sometimes when Mom was out of town for some reason, and if sisters are also not around then dad used to cook everything except roti and I used to make that only . A much pampered child I was. They did and still doing everything to make me feel more comfortable and secure.
I think both Mom and Dad together made me what I am with cooking today. Well, truly till date I never made a complete meal just by myself for them , but I want to tell them that – “ Your little Pooja has grown up now and is little bit known for her cooking among some good friends around and you are the reason of this credit given to me : ). I remember you every time I cook anything special , and I am always proud to say that just like all other things of life I learn t cooking also from both of you : ) . “While from Mom I learn how to cook healthy, with minimum possible use of oil, dad taught me which taste goes perfect with other taste of food. Little things in cooking makes big differences in the final taste of any dish.
Here is a tasty dish, which is my favorite - specially when having some unexpected guest and if I want to cook something really soon. For that purpose I used ready made Goya’s chickpeas. Otherwise I always prefer to soak it over night and then boil it along with a pinch of edible soda. This takes less than 1 hours to prepare meal for 4 people and it indeed is a very tasty dish.
Ingredients :
For chhole –
1 cup soaked chickpeas
1 cup finally chopped tomatoes
½ cup chopped onion
½ inch cinnamon stick cut in to tiny pieces
4-5 black pepper
Chhole masala ( I use Everest brand – and just love it too much for the flavor it gives to this dish ).
1-2 tsp oil.
½ tsp turmeric powder .
Salt to taste .
2 tsp lime juice.
Fresh Coriander leaves to garnish
For Bhature –
1 cup of wheat flour
½ cup sour curd
Little oil to knead dough
Salt to taste
Oil to deep fry bhature.
Chhole Bhature - Recipe :
Boil the chickpeas adding a pinch of edible soda. Mean while knead dough for bhature. Take wheat flour(same which we use to make roti) add salt to it , mix well and add curd to it. Mix it well with dough and then add water enough to make a smooth dough for it . finally add little oil and knead it so that dough will not be sticky. Keep it aside , cover it fully with any vessel to a damp cloth for half an hour. Mean while take out boiled chick peas , mash ¼ of it roughly. Adding messed chickpeas will make little thick and nice gravy for chhole.
In a kadai or Pan heat 1-2 tsp oil, when hot add cinnamon stick and black pepper to it ,when it leaves a nice aroma add chopped onion to it , cook it till golden brown and the and chopped tomatoes to it. Cook it on medium heat till it turns to nice gravy like consistency . Add turmeric powder , chhole masala and salt to it , next add boiled and messed chickpeas to it and mix well together .If there is not enough liquid for gravy , add little water to it .( If tomatoes are not much juicy this might happen.) Let it cook on slow heat for 3-4 minutes stirring occasionally . Finally when extra water evaporates turn off the heat add lime juice to it .
For bhature, make small lemon sized balls of the bhature dough and roll it into big round puri of around 4-5 inch diameter. Heat oil in a Deep bottomed pan and deep fry bhature on medium heat till golden on both sides.
Adding curd to knead the dough for bhature makes soft and fluffy bhature which is little different in taste than normal puris – perfect bhature should be like that.
Serve hot with some sliced onion and lime on side.
Takes less time than any regular meal and makes a wonderful dish to enjoy .
Mom and Dad - I hope this is something that will make you feel proud about me for yet another reason :).
As all of you might be knowing by now this goes straight to lovely Jigyasa and Pratibha as my entry for "Jhiva for Love " - what a lovely title is this :) .
P.S.:
Next Jihva for Ingredients is going to be hosted on My Creative Ideas and I feel proud to say that I have an opportunity of combine VoW with JFI for the month of May . I will announce theme for "VoW-JFI" on 3rd May .
By tomorrow evening I hope to present the awards to the winners for "VoW-Bitter Gourd " for the two categories for which we had a Tie.
If you haven't voted yet , cast your vote in the poll widget on top of the side bar in left side here.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The award for VoW-bitter gourd ....
Oh.... there you are.... ready to shower your wishes on winners and almost hand together for round of applause. Wait , we have some confusions …………
With 2 categories we have “TIE” and to choose one from those you can vote in the poll widget on the side bar.
And well, you can start cheering up for The Best Presented Recipe Award.
This goes to Kalai for Bitter gourd Tamarind Masala. I can hear cheerful sounds and clapping now :D
Enjoy the award Kalai.
We will present awards to winners of other 2 category as soon as we finish with poll. Vote them now.
Check out my entries for "click-Au naturel" and "MBP-One pot wonder" here.
Friday, April 18, 2008
VoW-Bitter gourd Round up and Voting starts from now....
Bitter gourd – you love it or you hate it. There is no other options for that. Yeah people like me could be exception who is slowly trying to consume it knowing the enormous benefits it has. Not only to control sugar level , it is very helpful to cure Cancer, Constipation and piles, blood-disorders, respiratory disorders, alcoholism, cholera and Numerous infections.
We have a saying in Gujarati – “Kadva Kaarela na Goon na hoy kadva” meaning Karela tastes bitter but it has many is having many qualities in it. I know back in India sometime mothers used to give Juice of it to child for fever. We never realize those values when we were in India , I am glad that I came to USA that made me aware of what a rich legacy of everything we had. Anything of today’s technology seems dull compared to deep knowledge of those things our people had. May it be counting the distance between starts, or deciding time by the length of shadow. We had people knew these things thousands of years ago even. I know some people who even today guess time by the position of sun on their head while working in farm in day time.
Ayurveda- is another thing which I started exploring very much after I came here. Even up to that extend that I feel like going back to India and do detailed study on that:D.
Well, coming to round up of Bitter gourd recipes , we have 60 great entries to enjoy bitter gourd now. With these entries this - liking and hating things -is also visible. As some choose to skip it this month while some choose to send more than 1 entries for the same. We have 10+ bloggers with more than 1 dish from them including --- Asha – 2, Srivalli - 5 , Mythreyee - 3 , Jayashree - 2 , Kajal – 6 , Meera - 3 ,Sandhya - 2 ,Kalai - 2 , Rina-2 and Trupti-2, Jan- 2. I must say they are all wonderful in cooking bitter gourd in wide range - from pickle to Pulao… :) . Thank you all for sending in your delicious recipes to cook bitter gourd with. It surely is a good chance for people like me to start eating it more and more to try each dish with.
Bitter Gourd as Starter dish
 | Bitter gourd with eggs By Dhivya |
 | Bitter Gourd peels Thepla by Meera |
 | Bitter Gourd-Ragi Utappa by Trupti |
 | Karela Pulao by Mythreyee |
Do check it carefully and at the end of that don’t forget to vote for three categories as you did here.
Categories are
Most authentic recipe , Best presented( by picture shown here) and Most creative recipe.
Please mention your votes in separate comment along with the category name( please note that my entries are excluded from this ). Those comments will be moderated for 1 week .The voting time is from today to 23rd April mid night. It's a good idea to value someone’s effort , so take little time and drop in your vote for your choice of entry .
Keep voting, keep rocking and keep cooking , And if you have some more time, help me with my click-confusion.
Note: As many of you might be knowing by now that Tastes of India is having little trouble showing up feeds of the posts (my last post , appeared just now :(( . ) .Wouldn't it be better to get feeds delivered in your email for that? Just put in your email address in the top of the sidebar to get email updates of My Creative Ideas.Also the same is available on An attempt to spread love by cooking.
So stay tuned and keep rocking gals... hugs to you all.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Click-Confusions : ( !!!
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3When Jai and Bee announced it on Jugalbandi for this month I had this in my mind immediately . Can you help me decide which one to send it for Click-Au Naturel this month .
If you wonder - what are these pictures ? Here is the answer .
Please suggest your views, may be that will help me to qualify for the first 25 entries to be voted at least ha ha ha ....
Check out round up of "VoW-Bitter Gourd " here. Don't forget to vote.
I appreciate you patience and love for this blog :) .
Hugs to all of you . Have a good day :) .
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Kaaju-Karela Crispy
3-4 medium sized bitter gourd
½ cup cashew chopped lengthwise
2 medium sized red onion sliced lengthwise
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
½ tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
2 tsp oil
Pinch of asafoetida
Salt to taste
Peels the rough part of bitter gourd skin and cut it from middle. Remove seeds and chop it length wise as shown In picture above. Soak it in salty water for half an hour to lessen its bitterness. If you like the bitterness skip this step. Initially when I didn’t loved bitter gourd I used to cook it after soaking for a while, although I skip that now. And still love the taste of final curry the same way.
Peel and chop onions. Mince 3-4 garlic cloves and cut the cashews lengthwise. Keep it all aside .
In a pan heat the oil when hot add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and asafetida to it. Immediately add onions, cook it till half cooked, don’t cook it till fully cooked otherwise that will taste bitter till bitter gourd is cooked. Add chopped bitter gourd and turmeric powder to it and mix well. Cook it till bitter gourd turn crispy , finally add minced garlic and chopped cashew to it along with chili powder and salt to it .Mix all together cook it for 2 more mins. Remove from heat.
Serve hot with roti . Tastes best with ripe mango . Although onion is one the of main ingredients of this shaak , I don't know why do they ignored it in naming it. Kaaju Kaarela(cashew with bitter gourd) - that's how they call it. In Gujarat its our one of the most favorite Shaak to enjoy with mangoes in summer season . We normally eat it till the first rain fall .
As a child we use to sing these Gujarati rhyme to welcome the first rainfall.
This is a simple yet rich dish. My dad’s favorite and for any of our family function this is a must have curry for all of us. A family favorite dish it is .
Here is another way I cut bitter gourd to make the same curry. I normally keep on changing the way I cut vegetables for the same curry, which sometimes is a very good change while cooking it. Change in cooking is all I love about cooking.
Checkout my another entry for VoW-bitter gourd here , which is going to be a part of RCI-Bengal too :) .
You can send you entries with bitter gourd till 15th April midnight. Please follow the rules while sending your entry. That helps a lot to manage it all and round up.
I am already surprised to see many different ways to cook bitter gourd with , and I still don't want to miss anything nice which you can cook with bitter gourd. So don't miss this chance to show up your creativity & sending soon . If time permits I will be back with one more recipe with bitter gourd. Stay tuned and keep rocking with your recipes. Have a Good day ahead :) .
