MEC-Gravies,Henna designing -4, and Blog List Updates...

Ingredients:

Parval - 250 gms ,
Cumin seeds, Jeera 1 tsp
Oil 1 tsp ,
1/2 tsp turmeric powder,
1 small tomato ,
pinch of asafoetida powder(hing),
minced garlic - 1/2 tsp .

Recipe :

Thoroughly wash parval and then cut them lengthwise.
Take 1 tsp oil in a Microwavable bowl, and cumin seeds to it, put it inside microwave for half minute. This way the cumin seeds will not pop up but as it is cooked it will give great flavor, take the bowl out add hing , and turmeric powder to it and mix it to oil, next add minced garlic and then parval to it. I small amount of garlic to veggies like Parval and Tindora (which are basically flavorless), to give it a good mild flavor and taste.

Next put bowl in microwave oven, turn it on , it takes almost 5-6 minutes to cook parval thoroughly, remove it fro microwave over and mix it nicely after every 2 mines, that will help to cook each portion of it perfectly.Consider it cooked when it is soft enough , that you can cut it easily into half using spoon.
While parval is almost cooked add tomato , cut into small cubes, and salt to it, mix it well and cook it for another 2 mins.

Garlic and tomato flavored Parval is ready to serve, just hot out of microwave oven :). Unlike other main course dishes I like it to make without using chili powder , this mild and easy to digest veggie tastes better this way , and perfect when served along with spicy sambhar ,rasam and rice.

This same dish I cook the normal way on stove, the only difference i find with this one is it takes much less oil to cook ,also for vegetables like this , it takes more time to cook on stove , also with microwave oven you don't need to worry about this getting burned from somewhere , just occasional stirring is fine with that, and it feels great when it take much less effort to cook the same dish, right?

If you are new to this nice vegetable "Parval", here are some tips for you.

Choose parval with green skin among others, it should be not too soft.
Choose little firm and medium in shape. The bigger one have more possibilities to have it seeds much hard than normal in such case you should avoid those seeds from it, as it doesn't cook well.
If you have chosen it as those shown in the first picture here, then you can cook it altogether without removing any seeds, it tastes good too.

Now here it goes straight to srivalli for her theme this month MEC-Gravies. I do ample of microwave cooking , and I really like it too. Had I known it earlier I might have been able to post many entries for this month, now at the last moment while already fixed with vacation plans, I thought better to post if not all of those I have then at least one :) . Thanks Srivalli for this event.

Henna designing -4

Here are some more Mahendi designs I did. If you are a henna design lover like me , you can check more of my own made designs by going to sidebar in left and find link to the past posts of my henna designing in drop down menu.

And hey you all buddies there, Be ready to see me more on blog now, well , of course after vacation :)) . Starting from New year this blog is going to rock again , something new is about to happen , so stay tuned to here, and keep leaving your views in comment.



(P.S. - As I see many of emerging bloggers around here now more often ,i have just updated my blog buddies list , just check it out and if you are a regular visitor of this blog , and not a part of list just send me you URL and mane in comment, i will be glad to update it with your name and link. )

Enjoy holidays, celebrate the new year with great spirit I hope new year
will bring you all success ,happiness and the strength to fulfill all your
dreams....

Kaju Katli

 
Kuchh mitha ho jaye ,

Although I don't like sweets much , I think to make some sweets, for this holiday seasons  :) .

This is my first experience with making Kaju katli (Kaju katri-as we say in Gujarati :) ) , and it was a superb success . Not only it came out nice , It is too quick and easy to make.
Here is my recipe of kaju katli .

Ingredients :
1 cup Kaju( cashew)
3/4 cup sugar(I used little less than this ),
1 tsp ghee,
1-2 tsp milk,
Vanilla/rose essence (optional),
Silver foil(chandi varkh)

Method:
Soak kaju in water for half an hour.
After 30 minutes drain the water and spread it on the paper towel.
In a mixture bowl take 3/4 cup of sugar and then cashew. Crush it to powder.
At this point if u find it is hard to crush it smoothly then add 1-2 tsp milk. Don't add water to it.
Grind it in mixture until u get powder like consistency.
Next heat 1 tsp ghee in kadhai or pan.
Put this mixture in it and stir continuously.
Stir until it get soft bubbles formed in it. It will take 7-8 minute approximately.

Lower the flame and add rose essence mix it well immediately and turn of the heat.
Immediately spread it on a greased flat bottom thali/plate.
Spread it evenly all over the plate, to make it perfect and even- use small flat bottomed vessel.
Let it cool completely and then apply silver foil on it with care.
When it is at room temperature cut it into diamond shapes.

Store it in air tight container and keep it refrigerated . Will stay fresh and good in taste for upto one month or more.

Note :

• Do not try giving it shape or cutting it while it is warm , let it cool completely that will make sharp edges of it. I made little mistake ant cut it whe ni t was warm , and later realised the mistake.
• Tates best after keeping it for 1 day in fridge ,so if u are planning this to serve some guest, prepare one/two days earlier.

Mysore Masala Dosa, Vada Pau and Cook books & awards.....

Searching or rather say researching for Karnataka recipes has taken a lot time of mine, and I was totally confused about what to make for RCI-Karnataka. Finally got the answer from my own mind - Mysore Masala Dosa, and searched for the recipe for it, and gladly found it :) . Now the different confusion started , there were so many different ways shown to make the one I choose :(,
Lastly I ended up with one and ended up making it the following way , I hope this will be fine enought to participate in RCI- Karnataka Asha :) Here is my recipe for Mysore Masala Dosa.

Ingredients :

parboiled rice -1/2 cup

long grained rice -1/2 cup
Black gram (urad dhal) - 1/4cup
Toor daal - 2 tbs
Semolina (rava) -3tbs
Dry fenugreek seeds- 1/2 tsp
Salt - to taste

for Red/garlic chutney

Garlic 3-4 cloves
Onion 1 small (cut into big chunks)
Red chilli Powder 1tsp
Salt to taste.

for Coconut Chutney

fresh coconut 1/2 cup
hot Green chilles 2-3
1-2 tsp Daliya(roasted chickpeas)
salt to taste
For Tadka:
1 tsp mustard seeds
4-5 curry leaves,
1/2 tsp asdoetida(hing)

for Masala

2 Potatoes
1 finely sliced Onion
2-3 flakes of Garlic
Ginger - a small piece
4-5 Green chillies
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1-2 tsp Olive Oil
Cumin seeds
5-6 Curry leaves
Salt - to taste

Recipe :

Soak all the ingredients except semolina for 4 hours and grind well with some water until it from a fine paste.add semolina and salt to the better and mix well. Keep it for fermentation.

For Preparing Red chutney, brinf all the ingredients for red chutney in a mixure to a fine paste if needed
add little ater to it.
For preparing coconut chutney , grind coconut, daliya and green chillies together . In a pan heat some oil, when hot add mustard seeds, curry leaves and asfoetida to it.cook for a minute and coconut chutney is ready

for preparing masala,
Boil potatoes, peel the skin and slice into small pieces. Grind garlic, ginger and green chillies together and chop onion finely.

Heat some oil in a pan and fry cumin seeds and curry leaves. Saute the onions. When it is done, add turmeric powder to it. Nect add the prepared paste and then potatoes, salt to taste . Finally add the garam masala and mix well.

Next to prepare dosa ,
Heat a falt pan and spread the batter into thin round. Pour oil to these in a round manner. when it turns brown and crispy , spread the red chutney on half of the dosa, and masala on the other half , fold it and serve it hot with coconut chutney , we has it with coconut chutney and Podi(MTR brand), and it tasted like heaven.

Thank you Asha, for choosing Karnataka for RCI, it introduced us a good variation to our very beloved Masala dosa, I bet now Mysore Masala dosa is also going to be a part of our regular menu just as masala dosa :) . Also this bring us the sweet momoreis of our days in Pune, when we used to eat dosa a lot at a place near to our house, which was very famous for dosa, idli and uttapam. On ........... I just miss that India too much.... :(( .....


When it comes to memories of Pune the first thing comes to my mind is the famous "Vada Pau" we used to eat at "Joshi vadewale" . Here no such vada pau I ever tasted, so thougth to give it a try at home, and it turn out quite better than what is available in the food places here.
Here it goes as my entry to Hima for her event WYF-Snacks ,
when it comes to snack times, what can be better than hot and tangy vada pau :P ?

Ingredients:

4-5 medium sized boiled potatoes,
1 cup gram flour (besan),
pinch of soda-bi-carb.
oil for frying,
salt,
pav ( A kind of bun), In India it is known as Pav)

For Masala
2 inch piece ginger,
4-5 flakes garlic,
4-5 (or more) green chilies,
1/2 cup coriander leaves (chopped),

For tempering
1 tea spoon turmeric powder,
curry leaves,
1 teaspoon mustard seeds,
2 teaspoon oil

For green chutney
1 large bunch of fresh green coriander leaves,
4-5 greenchillies,
8-10 raw peanuts ,
2-3 garlic flakes
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp sugar
Salt to taste

Prepare green chutney usind coriander, the process for this is shown here .

For tamarind chutney
1/4 cup tamarind pulp,
1/4 cup jaggery - shredded,
Salt to taste

Recipe:
take tamarind pulp in a small bowl and
add the jaggery and salt to it, with little water simmer for a while until all the mixture is smooth. sour and sweet chutney is ready.

First grind ginger, garlic and green chilies together into a paste.
Next Peel and smash potatoes with a potato masher. Do not smash completely. Let some small chunks remain.

Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds,when they splutter, add turmeric powder and curry leaves. Add ginger, garlic and green chili paste, coriander leaves, and salt to it and turn of the heat , mix it well with potatoes , also add chpped coriander to it.

Make small balls of mashed potato mixture.
In a bowl, add some salt,a pinch of edible soda, turmeric powder and chili powder to the gram flour. Add water gradually and keep mixing with a spoon till there is no lumps.take care so that the batter should not be too watery or too thick.
Heat some oil in a pan. Now dip each potato ball in the batter, letting the excess batter drip off and slowly add to the peroperly heated oil. fry it till it is golden brown in color . repeat the same for all vadas. Remove on a paper towel and drain.

Spread green chutney on one side and tamarind chutney on the other side of pav(bun) and place the vada in between, enjoy when hot with red garlic chutney or anything you like , i eat as it is, tastes yummy :P. A good option to entertain myself while missing indian snack food :) , i made 7-8 of it and stored it in fridge and we enjoyed it heating in microwave and having the same tasty vada pav for another 2-3 days. The time to spend on that is worth each bite of it :D.

Thank you Hima, for hosting such a nice event , it was great participating with my entry in it. :)

Now here is one more entry for ongoing event by Nags- Show me your cook books.

While I was in India sometimes I used to see cooking shows, with that too Tarla Dalal was my favorite.
Well, I had 2 cook books too which hubby gifted me ,and they were really good , Due to some weight restrcitions i couldnt bring it here with me ,as they were much bulky :( . below are the 2 books I have with me now.

I love when food is made to componsate nutrient needs of our body , and when I was in India have purchased 2 books. I have already expreimented some juices (beet treat) from the book, and that microwave cook book is yet to be experimented :D.

I find the theme of the event quite intresting , Nags. Looking fwd to see the round up soon !

Very Energetic and simply superb Girl Supriya (of Monsoonspice.com) has passed me Rocking Girl Blooger Award, I am so Pleasantly surprized Supriya ! It feels like getting some award for being a winner in a race ,about which you didn't expect anything. First when you told me about that , i think its a kind of gimmick , then i go to the other link to whom you passed o nthis awrd and realised that its not a prank ! Thank you dear : ) its great to receive this from you :) .

I think many of the blog buddies have already received this award , here are the buddies i am pssing this award to

Trupti - the spice who loved me
Usha -samayal ulagam
Gattina- Kitchen Unplugged
Vani -Mysoorean


Krystna of Evolving your Spirit -Mind-Body has passed me the "Power Schmoozed Award".

The 'Power of Schmooze Award' is The Award for bloggers who “effortlessly weave their way in and out of the blogosphere, leaving friendly trails and smiles, happily making new friends along the way. They don’t limit their visits to only the rich and successful, but spend some time to say hello to new blogs as well. They are the ones who engage others in meaningful conversations, refusing to let it end at a mere hello - all the while fostering a sense of closeness and friendship".

Thank you Krystyna for passing this award to me, I adore your posts very much and to get anything from you is itself like an awards for me.

I am passin this award to
Viji - Vcuisine
Seema- Recipe Junction
Vini - A whirl of Aroma
Kajal - Kajal dreams
Swapna -Tastes from My kitchen
If any of you have already receive this award kindly consider it as the affirmation to that award, enjoy and keep passing this wave of joy and hapiness to others.

aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh............. much of writing for a single day !!!!!
Just i dont wantd to miss some of the great ongoing events... and make it just on the final day of it !

oh from final it reminds me... that yesterday was the final match for 20-20 Cricket Vup 2007 ,
And Finally we won!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Congratulations to all my Indian buddies for victory of India in World 20-20 Cricket Cup 2007 :), it was a great match ,and we won it !!! Congratulations India, and Keep going on,We are proud of you :D.

See you all in the next post , till then enjoy and Stay tuned....... :))

Matar Paneer ( green peas with Roasted cottage cheese)

Presenting here my verison(= jhatpat , quick ot make ,easy to cook :)) ) of "Matar Paneer" . I have always been a great fan of this dish , and i used to make it from the ready to cook masala when i was in India , just as i made it here . This is first time I made it from scratch at home,and to my surprise it turned out to be exactly as I expected it to be. Not only taste but the color of home made also matches perfectly with the one made using readymade masala for Matar Paneer

Ingredients:
1 medium sized tomato, roughly chopped
2 medium sized onion, peeled and chopped
1 inch cube of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1 cups shelled fresh or defrosted frozen peas
250 gms Paneer (Cottage cheese)
1/2 tsp Red chilli powder
1 tbsp. coriander seeds
2-3 Green chillies
1/4 tsp turmeric Powder,
½ tsp asofoetida ( Hing) ,
1/2 tsp of garam Masala,
Salt to taste
1-2 tbl olive oil

Method:

Peel Onions and ginger. Put the chopped Onion, Tomato, Coriander seeds, Green chillies and ginger into a blender or food processor along with 1/3 cup water and blend until you have a smooth paste. Leave paste in the blender container.

Place Paneer cubes on hot tawa(flat pan ) and roast it from all the sides carefully until brown. ( this is my slight variation from frying Paneer, which makes this dish even less oily and more healthy )

Heat oil in a Pan, when little hot add hing to it and then put in the contents of the blender it carefully. Stirring constantly, for about 5-6 minutes, or until paste turns a golden color. Add the turmeric powder and stir til it mix well with the material, cook this until it turn thick gravy like and add grean peas to it . Add red chilli powder, garam masala & salt, mix well .

Then add roasted paneer cubes and mix it well with gravy , on low flame , cover it and let it cook for 3-4 minutes or until peas are cooked, stirring occasionally . Delicious matar paneer is ready to serve.

As i havent been much on blogs these days , i am not aware of the events going on , will soon take a peek on all your blog and see if i can participate in any of the events soon.

As Asha asked, my exprience of migrating to here from India , is something for which I think ,I can write a big book , though somtimes I feel not much
difference at all, funny me , ha ha ha !!!
soon(!) , i will collect it to present something nicely here about that , atleast i believe that experience is worth sharing here with all my blog buddies.. :)
so stay tuned and i will be back with some recipes too .... ! :D

Happy Independence day...

Wishing all our friends and bloggers here a very Happy Independence Day... !

With a tight salute for all the heroes who fought for our freedom . Let's try keeping them alive in our memories and pass it on to next generations so that they can value the price of freedom for our nation- Matrubhumi.

I have something very musical to share with you all... ,was so pleased when i found this, feels like making my soul relaxed in the eternal voice of soothing music and music master playing in their own masti. i think it is the right time to share this will you all music lovers... :)
Many Thanks to all our Sangeet Ustad and A R Rehman for composing them together in a great way.



By any chance if you forgot the real meaning of this great poem by Rabindranath Tagore ( Nobel prize winner for Literature) here it is .

well, I will be back on blog this week with my recipes, so till then stay tuned and enjoy :) .

My entry to Spring Fling 2007.

Before I forget miss the last date to publish this, I think now is the time for this post :)


Hubby dear reminded me of Trupti's event and told me that he will make something before we left Pune( Perhaps he too loved our kitchen there and wanted to have some memories to carry along with :D ). Though it was not the first time when he entered kitchen, but yes, it was the first time when he entered Kitchen to be a part of Blogging event :).


Thought by himself what he is going to make and then did the preparations for Trupti's Event- Spring Fling :) , thinking for sometime finally he decided on making Dhokla for us. I just told him once about the event of Trupti, and he remembered it so well :) . He made some variations himself and took a trial before he allowed me to take these snaps. It was the second round of preparing Dhokla for him :D.


The variation is that he prepared it using idli stand, I remember , once while making idli , I told him the same way dhokla can be made, just the shape of it will be just like idlis :D , if we gonna use the same stand then ,and he remembered it perfectly , thus while he decided to make dhokla he choose this way :) .


Hence i think the name for this should be JhatPat Dhokla :D .
well, he has not used instant flour mix to prepare it , just the way it is cooked in idli steamer is really fast , it was a peaceful evening, i don't have to enter kitchen even, actually was busy packign all the stuffs there and wonderful Dhokla was ready for me, what else one want from life ? :)).

let us have quick look at how he prepared it .


Ingredients :

3/4 cup of rice +1/4 cup of chana dal (bengal gram ) - grind into semi coarse powder ( I normally keep it ready with me , so i can make dhokla anytime I feel like making it, this time it helped hubby :) )
3/4 cup of sour yogurt
Salt to taste
2 tsp garlic red chilli & garlic paste



½ tsp of soda bi-carbonate (baking soda)
1 tbsp of red chilli powder
seasame seeds and coriander leaves to garnish


Method:


Take dhokla flour in a large bowl, Put the powder in a bowl. Add yoghurt and little of warm water into the bowl. Mix thoroughly so that no lumps are formed and the batter is of pouring consistency not too thin, keep it thick, as in picture.
Llet it ferment for eight to ten hours- in hot days it takes lessto ferment, so keep it on look while u put it to ferment , if there is proper sunlight available , its recommended to put it in the sunlight that will greatly help it to ferment very well and quickly too , I used to do it as there is ample of sunlight always available in India, watching me alwasy to ferment dhokla flour this way , hubby too placed it in sunlighted area and kept a watch on it :D.


while making, prepare a paste of Red chilli and garlic. Once fermented, mix this paste with the batter, add pinch of baking soda to it and salt to taste. Hubby dear ,Greased the idli stand well and then pured the batter in it.and i was completely flattered to see him doing so, coz I thought he might forget this step , but he didn't :) . he filled it properly with batter and

next he boiled water in the idli steamer, and placed the stand in it, covered it and kept it in the steamer to steam for 5 to 7 minutes.
finally while it is done i asked him to check it with a knife. If the knife comes out clean, it is cooked, and he did it .
Serve hot with green chutney or anything you like( I once in a while like it with sweet yougurt chutney... the sour taste of dhokla goes well with sweet and sour chutney . will share it s recipe some other time here :D .)

It was a great experience to know that my hubby can do so well without any help of mine in kitchen that too with a pure gujarati dish. He made slight variation to this dish by adding a pinch of turmeric powder to it.



Thank you Trupti for this Event- "Spring Fling 2007-with Family and Friends in the Kitchen." , it was really fun participating in it .


Hubby is far away right now, and this too is a good memory of our staying of pune. Trupti, you added this to our one of the golden memories :), hugs to you.



Thank you Deepak, you make this post possible, I know it was much busy for you and me in our last days of staying at Pune , still you did it and added even more smiles to my life :D.

just a littel different angle and the whole picture is different- compare it with the picture in the starting of this post , needless to say this final pictures of Dhokla is taken by Deepak himself :) .

Answer to the guessing game :

there is actully total 13 (10 bird + 3 squrrels ) in the picture , check the picture below , the one rounded with yellow color is the mostly missed birds in the guessing I think :) . check out for it in a large view by clicking on it .

check out some of the famous recipe from this blog :

Tomato Paratha(Indian flat bread flavore with tomato)

Cumin Paratha( Indian flat bread with cumin seeds)

Aloo Paratha(stuffed potato Paratha) with Spicy tomato chutney

Yam and Tomato Salad

Methi (fenugreek)Triangels- a healthy snack








Okra with Green Mango and lentils






Boondi Raita

Not only recipes , check my henna designing too ! :) ....

Part-1

Some more

More henna designing , some more yet to come soon....

So stay tuned to here and happy blogging ! :D

Have fun, keep enjoying whatever comes your way and spend the days such that they will be a good memory for you to cherish :D.

Some pleasant momories of my trip to Junagadh

Junagadh- is a historical place, though I have been to there as a child, I remember it as quite an interesting place im ny memories.This time running with shortage of time even, we thought to visit Junagadh , before hubby fly to USA, and a great experience it was. More on Jungadh see here and here.

This pleasant view we got to see while entering the Jungle , Tree of "Kesudo"(Butea monosperma L.) , was ready to welcome us :D, showering its flower on earth to make the perfect red carpet welcome :) .

Near the stream in the Jungle- they told us to do not move out of car near stream, coz it has the most probability to have lions around there ,visiting to drink water. Still we dared to move out :D.

Inside Jungle - Moglee and Radha....:)) .I loved watching "Jungle book" series as a kid... no still i love to watch it :D, and so does hubby :) . sharing our pics for the first time here on blog .

this is "Shilalekh" at the foot of Girnar entrance. King Ashoka is famous with this. it is an edict of Emperor Ashok inscribed on a rock dating from the 3rd century BC. The edicts impart moral instructions on dharma, harmony, tolerance, and peace. i have got its translations in to english captured in pics with me, if intrested in readin/knowing it, tel me , may be i will send that to intrested people. its too much to post around here.
The fact behind "Shilalekh- documents written on rock". click to view it in larger size.

Mount Girnar- they says viewing from side it creates a shape of face of a man. its as whole body , rest of the body is inside earth ...

now Next are some "Jadibuti"- aryuvedic medicines(aushadhi) , from the the Jungle of Junagadh. we got very few of them , as we visited here in fall, raining season is the right time to get most of them in jungle. (it was agood chace to try my hand on photography too :D. )

Maalan

Chanothi and above this pic is tree of chanothi

something used for detnal problems...

Shemdo

At place called -Ooperkot. behind ours is mount girnar , visible clear and so peaceful...

See , how I am going with photography..... :) .

Its too hard to capture bird in camera, as far as it concerns to peacock its almost impossible as i see that they are very sensitive to other voices and soon hide themsleves in some safe area, if we pass from near by... still i got to click some pic of it.
this lovely pair of parrot, i cant resist capturing in my cam ,and sharing here with you all. aren't they lovely?

Now , a Guessing game... see the pic below carefully, and guess how many creatures / birds are there in pic. look carfully, even I missed some of them in first look. :)) . put sharpen your mind& vision and keep guessing.... (click on image to view it in larger size).