One of my entries For Theme of the Week

Hi Buddies, as the theme for this week is - Orange white & green, here is something from my side to participate with . Just to give you Idea. I know all of you are much good with making Dosa, here is slight twist to it, to make it perfect for Our theme -Republic day... Tricolored Dosa. Its a simple dosa decorated on one side with shredded carrot and spring onions. Some more are about to come from my side, along with all your delicious entries of yours . :D Well, another thing I want to remind you all is theme of this week is not limited to cooking only, you can participate here with anything with any or all of these 3 colors. Anything I mean, like say fruits/flowers/clothes... anything which gos perfect with this theme(no description is required for such matter, as we do with recipe of the dish ). I think we all have many option with that , since all of you have already proved that you are a Great cook , here is something more you can display too from your side ,well that is truly optional and only if you wish then.

I am happy that some of you have already contributed your recipe and I except others to send it as soon as possible, as I will do the round up on Saturday here in India. Thursday &Friday is your day to send the entries and participate here with. I am gladly sharing the spirit of Our Republic day with all of you :) . Have fun creating colorful dishes and something else colorful too...

Theme of the Week- Orange ,White & Green

Theme of the week! Well, this week Friday falls on 26th Jan - Republic day of India. Being from the state of Gandhi bapu , I can never forget this day , and I truly want to celebrate this with all of you.

Read below for the theme of this week:

1. Cook anything with 3 colors of flag of India. (Orange , White and Green – you can cook dish finally resulting in any of these 3 colors / any single color / all of 3 , some variation in color of final dish is perfectly Ok . :)) For example visit to my steamed pulao having all 3 colors together...

2. Create anything having combination of 3 colors. i.e. you can just catch a picture of array of vegetables/birds/flowers having these 3 colors, or click anything else like say 3 scarves of these 3 colors, or anything you can imagine from your side.

I think this is a good chance for all of us to do something creatively. Just show up anything with our three basic colors Orange , White and Green. You can send any number of entry , like you can cook any number of dish, can show something else with 3 colors of Indian Flag, and show case anything else too. We will have many options really if we think about.
I, myself - is getting many ideas right now as I am writing about this just now. Your final day to send entries is Friday. After that I will do the round up for this week.

I am expecting something high for the first time from all of you buddies as I think we should value the Freedom we are gifted with and should have pride for the Matrubhumi we belongs to. Though we might be in different parts of this world, the fact remains unchanged that we all are Indians. Let us be together virtually this way and have something nice together.
My beloved Non-Indian friends are also welcome to be a part of this event and celebrate our spirit.
So, let all foodies start together, strech your mind a bit and come up with novel ideas , and let us all celebrate it together. Three cheers for India.

Will come back soon with my entries, reach me at pooja18@gmail.com , and enjoy the spirit with zeal and zest .

Sev Usal,Mix bean dry curry, Ghugharee and Pani Puri

Here I am , going to share some halthy and quick recipes with different beans ! Let me start with the one I like the most in these cold days! :)





Sev Usal is an official chaat dish at our home menu. Since I have not seen it anywhere else , I suppose that it is a kind of Gujarati chaat dish :D.
A quick, tasty and nice dish to serve in hot evenings. :)
Here is how I make it.

Ingredients For Sev Usal :
2 cups dry peas soaked over night,
1 potato peelied and cut into small cubes ,
2 tomatoes finely chopped,
2 onions finely chopped,
1 tsp garam masala,
¾ sp turmeric powder,
½ tsp red chilli powder,
1 tsp ginger –garlic paste,
1-2 tsp oil,
Salt to taste,
Pinch of asafetida
To serve :
Yougurt,
Coriander leaves, onion,
Tomato,
Tamarind chutney,
Sev,(made up of besan(Gram flour)).
Method:
Peel potato and cut it into small cubes. Pressure cook potato cubes and soaked peas together. The idea behind adding potato to it is to form thick gravy for this dish. Cook them until it is soft enough. And lightly mash it just like we do for Pau bhaji.

Chop onion and tomatoes and heat oil in a frying pan. Add ginger garlic paste and asafetida powder to it and next add onion. Let onion cook until they are golden brown. Then add tomato and let it cook until it turns into thick tomato gravy.
Now in add into this mashed peas and potatoes along with tamarind powder and 1 cup of water, let these all cook together until it forms a good mixture with thick gravy.(you can add water and cook it for few more minutes is it is too thick. )

Finally add red chilli powder, garam masala powder and salt to it. Cook for 1 minute and turn off the heat. Here our Usal is ready. This Usal also goes well with bread; we try it that way to for a change sometimes.

For a real way of making and serving Sev usal , first take usal in a snack dish(or in a bowl), garnish it with some chopped onion, tomato and coriander leaves, sprinkle some tamarind chutney on it. And finally add a spoon full of yogurt to it and sprinkle all over Sev . And hey, Don’t forget to add your love to it. :), Serve Hot and you will see your happiness reflecting in the eyes of the person in front of you happy :) .


Mix beans Dry curry :

As I thought when announcing this week to celebrate with beans, I was sure that some of you will come up with beans with tasty gravy in it, this is the way we all love beans to eat. And also I must agree that it is the way we all love to have beans in our meals. :)

Here is one more way of making its curry , just the variation is - it is dry. Just some beans sprouted together and a quick dish is here to made up with . Also healthy and prepared with less oil than for normal curry .

Ingredients:
2 cups sprouted beans( you can choose any or combination all you like ) ,
1 small tomatoes chopped,
1 small onion chopped,
3-4 garlic cloves, cut length or width wise,
1/2 tsp turmeric powder,
1 tsp red chilli powder,
Salt to taste,
1 tsp Lemon juice.
1 tsp cumin seeds,
1 tsp mustard seeds,
1 tsp oil.

Method:
Cut tomato and onion finely and keep it aside.
Take 1 tsp oil in a cooker, and add mustard seeds to it, when it starts spluttering, add cumin seeds to it. Next add garlic pieces. And immediately add onion and tomato. The pure of adding onion and tomato is just to bring little sweet and sour taste to this curry. Now add sprouted beans of your choice to it . Next add turmeric powder, red chilli powder , and salt to it. Add little water, just about ¼ cup to this and close the lid. Let it cook on low flame for about 3-4 minute, I normally cook it for one whistle.
This way beans will slightly increase in their size and will tastes good too.
Serve it hot with roti .
A quick and healthy meal for busy days is ready for you. :D.

Ghugharee:

Here is another Gujarati snack with black eyed beans(also called Moth beans, Matki in Marathi language and math in Gujarati).

This dish is attached with my memory such that even today the aroma of this dish drives my mind to my childhood days. When I was just 8-9 years, we all cousins get together at our native place “Morbi”, in our summer vacation. Normally we spend the entire vacation together and enjoyed a lot all the time, I have only 2 cousins younger than me all others are older than me 1 year older to even 9 years older. We all together were really having blast that time. Totally we all were 10-12 little bastards together were really creating chaos for all. May it be playing cricket and cracking some ones window :P or just playing cards together. Such energy and enthusiasm we had, starting from the morning till we sleep, we even never be at one place. Just having fun all the day was our motto :D, without knowing hunger ,skin burning sunlight or anything else. Our respected Grandpa was there at that time who was much caring about all of us. He always kept our wellness in his mind- like we all should eat ontime and do not run in skin burning sun lights outside etc etc…
In the after noon around 4 p.m when we just sit for a while Grandpa realize that we must all be hungry and at that time my beloved auntie was making this dish for all of us. Real Quick and tasty too. I know now why she prepared this, as she knew that we all must be very hungry and need some solid snack to eat. I remember all of us were finishing it in no time and were rushing to our game back :)) . That time we were not mature enough to remember to express our gratitude to auntie or Grandpa, now I realize it. So nice of them to do all these without expecting a word, their greatness and our childishness. May be some time today only I will call her and will thank her for being such nice to us.
Those were the golden days, never going to return to me, all of us are now settled somewhere busy with our own life and responsibilities. Grandpa passed away two year ago and I just have his wisdom and kindness to cherish now.

Well, here is a the real quick dish of “Ghugharee” .
Ingredients:
2 cup math(matki) soaked over night. ( here I used it sprouted) ,
2 tsp garlic minced with red chilli powder,
Salt to taste.
1 ½ tsp oil.
Method:
Get soaked Math ready . Here I used Sprouted one.
Heat oil in a pan , add garlic-red chilli powder paste to it when oil is little hot, take care that it should not get burnt . Immediately add soaked Math and mix it well cook for a while and turn off heat.
Serve hot as it is or just for a change with plain yogurt. A quick healthy snack for kids is ready .


Last but not the least- is favorite of all of us, as far as I remember. :D
Pani Puri : )

As I have posted this one earlier too, just check the process here. It requires to have Phudina(mint leaves), make the Mint water using the simple process here, and get boiled potatoes and sprouted Moong(Green gram) ready . Normally what is being used is soaked and then boiled black chick peas ,I find sprouted Moong little more healthy and tastier thats why normally I use it instead chick peas. Check it out here and enjoy it this weekend with family and friends. :) .

Submitting all four recipes here to
VKN of Mydhaba. for his cook book -You can cook .

Will post vegetable /theme for the next week within a day or two . Stay tuned and Enjoy yourself.

Entries for the Theme of the Week -Dried beans :)

Firt entry fot this week is from Trupti . She has sent me her delicious way of making Toor Dhokli. Such a neat idea. Just look at the pic above and you will rush for the recipe search here.
Here is her way to make this etirely new and healthy dish. In Trupti's own words...

Tuver-Dhokli:
1.5 cup Dried Tuver beans - soaked overnight, then cooked in the pressure cooker till soft (make sure to add some salt to it)
For the Dhokli:
1 cup wheat flour, 2 tbsp besan flour, turmeric, chili powder, Salt, a little bit of oil to bind, warm water.
3-4 cloves of Garlic- chopped, lemon juice, turmeric, chili powder and sugar to taste, jeera seeds and oil for the tempering.
Method:Make a stiff dough by adding all the ingredients to the flour. Make sure it isn't too soft. Set aside.After the tuver beans have been cooked thoroughly, heat some oil in a pan and add jeera seeds and the garlic. Add the cooked tuver to it along with the water that it was cooked in. Add some more water according to the kind of gravy you want, this shouldn't be too thick to begin with. Bring to a boil.Roll out the dough into a big circle and cut out small diamonds or squares. Drop these dhoklis one by one in the pan with the beans. Make sure to keep stirring to avoid the dhoklis from sticking to one another. Add the seasonings, taking care not to add too much salt. Cook until the dhoklis are soft...but not too soft. Serve hot with rice and yogurt or on its own. This is a delicious way to include some protein and fiber to your diet. Enjoy.


Thank you Trupti for your nice and totally new recipe:) I love it.
Trupti is also going to start "Little chefs in the Kitchen" theme, stay tuned to her blog for more details.:)

Another one is from Suma of Veggie Platter. She is sharing here her way of prepating Pinto bean Masala. Indeed a nice way to preapre it and good idea too ! Thanks Suma for your timely efforts and participating :) .




Asha is here with her Two delicious entries.
First is Spicy Chana and the other one is Sixteen bean Masala .

I am honoured to get two woderful entries with beans from you Asha :)

Maheshwari of Beyond the Usual is sharing here her way of preapring Black-chana theeyal. Now we have 2 nice recipes with Black chick peas to enjoy with :) .

A very warm welcome to this Blog Maheshwari, and Thank you vey much for participating here . :)

Some Updates I have ,as some of buddies have sent their entries just now, and here they are :)

Pavani Of Cook'e hideout is sharing with us a healthy and quick dish -Soybeans Salad. Nice entry with beans Pavani. Seems like all our blog buddies have now many option to grow healthy with :D. Thanks you Pavani for your efforts to make it and paticipating here with :)

Another One is from Mysoorean Vani, who is sharing here a Konkani curry - Thinglaware (pronounced as 'thing-La-wah-ray') . Chech out her way of preparing this here . u Vani for sharing this with us. :)

One more nice entry we have is from Manjula Of Dalitoy, she has preapred Moroccan Lentil Soup ,to enjoy the beans with :) Nice entry with beans Manjula, thanks for sharing this with all of us , and a very warm welcome to this event :)

Finally we have soups, salads, main courses, and some snacks too , to enjoy beans with . Have fu nand grow healthy :)

Updated on 22nd Jan .

Our beloved Supriya has sent em her delicious entry with sprouted Moong Dal curry.
Just have loot at her curry and you would wish to have it now :D.
Thank you Supriya for sharing this with all of us and participating here with . :)

My henna designing -part 3 and Photography :D

I have been not blogging this week , and know what? I have gathered so many things to share with all of you about this week only:) . Oh God, when this girl is going to stop ? If you are thinking so , then the answer is -Never . I really can't be quiet :)) .
Since I know that many of my blog buddies love henna designing , here is some treat for their eyes and for all of you tooo....

Just made this designs 3 days ago, grabed sister's hand and started designing. have fun with these. :D.
You know something ? When you love to do something you will get time for that ! doent matter how busy you are are what else is goin on in the life around :) . So never say that you don't have time for soing something. Just the fact is you haven't yet put that 'something' in your priority of using your time. :) . No no , I am not that much wise to learn this wisdom , My Mom told me everytime I used to say I dont have time for this and that. :P .


And here is the final result of my hard working :D.

Can't get the answer- what is most beautiful , my designing or sister's hand? if you get the answer to share it with me :) . I remember something like- Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder :) .

Remember,In Meme of 3 things I wrote photography as one of the things I love to do. May be I am very immature photographer yet :)), but I love to do that. "Practice makes a man perfect". (another slogan from Mom, oh so many wise things I learnt from her, and still learning :) ) , so I keep on practicing with that :P .

2 days ago I saw this , and immediately grabed my cam to capture this.

There were 2 rockets in the sky actually. And the view of sky is so clear that I just fell in love with this scene. Then at the middle the white fuel sign of the one rocket disappeared, I don't know why, it was still fying....just see the pic below to believe that.

And finally there was sign of only one in the sky .

I believe those who loves Photography would like it :)

Entries for MBP.

Here are my entries for Coffee's MBP event. For which she choose theme of this month as "Around the World"

Corn fritters :

I adopt this recipe from Asha . Just substituted flour with corn flour, and chilli flackes in place of fresh red chilli:). Here is original recipe of Asha for corn fritters. :) Thank you Asha for this nice recipe :)

Another entry for Rooma is Vegetable Fajitas. and thanks for that goes to Priya.
I come to know about this colorful dish from Priya of sugar&spices. Just made it the original way . check out her original way of making it here. :)

Have fun rounding up Coffee! :)

Call to help for a noble cause and Vegetable of the Next Week .

When I joined my first job, I took an apartment on rent and was sharing it with another Colleague of mine, who finally turn into a good friend of mine. There was a huge temple next to our apartment, sharing a common wall with apartment. Since it was a famous Hanuman Temple there it always was more or less crowded ,and as it happens in India also there were some beggars around there. In the evening everyday they distribute food to hungry and needy people around . I knew this matter as my colleague- Anita told me this once.

Normally I got back to home around 7 p.m.. One day when I got back to home earlier than my normal schedule,I came to see the line of people there waiting for food to be served. Just watching them made me feel uneasiness. There were poor, thin and all aged people around there, waiting with hunger in their eyes. I saw this and couldn't eat my meal properly that day. What made me feel more uncomfortable is half of them were children, some were of 2-3 years age , didn't have even enough cloths to cover their bodies and protect themselves , some were little older than them. Some innocent faces ,starving to live on this earth. They might not be even aware of any other fact of life other than starving or serviving. I was lot disturbed, and thought what I could do for them .

Since serving anything directly to them was not possible, I inquired to Trust of people there in the temple, there was some fund we can donate them , which was being used for welfare of those poor people. Along with that myself and Anita, started distributing some biscuits and other readymade foods to children around there to just make them happy and see a smile on their faces. Sometimes I just bought some balloons and gave them to play with. The happiness in their eyes were worth catching in a picture. Unfortunately I didn't Had camera that time with me.

I continued doing so until I was there almost for a year or so. After that I got another job in another city, left that job. With new responsibility in new job and all other things to cop up with , I almost forgot the those incidents and got busy with my life, just as all of us are right now, some where with some responsibilities to perform, some duties to look after and everything else.

It is not always possible for us to go to such people and offer them some help, also it is hard to define some time priority for them to do any noble work. But it is for sure that if we feel like doing anything for such people we can do so. God never gives a Dream without giving the strength of fulfilling it. VKN of MYDhaba, has started the mission to do something to feed 1000 hungry children everyday named "Feed A Hungry Child". For which He planned to publish a book with some traditional recipes . He invited all of us to contribute for the book named "You can Cook ". I know all of you there are good with cooking , what we have to do is just to make some good traditional recipes and contribute to him for this noble cause. Just recall what our Mom/Grandma used to cook and make some of it and contribute them . I have never found a way easier than this to participate in any noble cause. What you have to do is just send as many recipes as you can . Target for that is 365 recipes, what he get up to date is around 100 , I request you to support for a noble cause and contribute as many recipes as you can . Provided they should be some traditional recipes, . Be there as a part of noble cause and somewhere in this world will be happy someday by your contribution. The final date to contribute is 31st Jan 2007. I hope it will be helpful to people, who are not yet aware of this Feed A hungry Child Campaign , to contribute something there.

Now something about an ongoing event here:) , after thinking a lot and changing my mind from one option to another one for choosing the Vegetable of the Next week, I am finally choosing Dried beans as Vegetable of the Next week. Since there is not one choice with it , I think all of us have many options to cook with different beans and participate here with . Showing you the pic here to remind you of many of forgotten dried beans... :)) . As there are more than one choice we have to cook with this week, we rather can call it Theme of the Week .
You can cook anything with these beans since there is a wide range and different dishes available with either soaked or sprouted beans,I think all of you would like this, and it would not be a problem for any of us residing in any part of the world, to get the beans, right?
I am going to change some plan of posting here, so for this week I will be posting all different dishes from myside on friday and also will do round up for all your entries on the same day.
Put your thinking cap on and email me your recipes at blogpooja@gmail.com .


P.S.- With all your best wishes and concerns I am here fresh and fine to be with you all .Since you all suggest me so , I have altered some plans of posting here, just to get some more time to spend with myself :), but some day I will again be back with daily postings here. :D . Thank you all for your concerns. Have a good day!

Salsa Verde with Mexican cutlets

Sharing here with You a Mexican dish - Mexican cutlets with Salsa Verde .




Ingredients :

For the cutlets
2 cup boiled and mashed potatoes
1 tsp corn flour
½ tsp pepper powder for the potatoes
1 cup kidney beans ,soaked, boiled and mashed.
¼ tsp pepper powder for the kidney beans
Chili sauce
Oil for frying
Few spring onion leaves, chopped, to garnish

For the Salsa Verde
2 medium sized green tomatoes(or tomatillos)
2 jalapeños,
2 tsp chopped coriander leaves/cilantro leaves,
1 small capsicum
1 tsp lime juice,
Pinch of vinegar,
1 tsp sugar(optional),
Salt to taste.

Recipe:

For the Salsa Verde:
Cut tomatillos/ tomatoes in to half and bake it for 5-7 mins until its skin gets lightly blacken.
Blend all the ingredients together in a mixer.
Then put on the stove to warm. Stir often till the mixture turns thick like a sauce. Remove from the stove and cool to room temperature.


For the Cutlets:

Mix together mashed potatoes, corn flour, salt and pepper. Divide into 10 equal portions.Using hands flatten each portion into 2 inch diameter circles . (Like thick puris.).
Mix together the mashed kidney beans, salt, pepper and chili sauce .Divide into 5 equal portions. Flatten them into 1 ¾ inch diameter circles.
Sandwich a kidney bean puri between 2 potato puries. Seal the edges and shallow fry in oil. Make the other cutlets the similar way.
Arrange all the cutlets in a plate sprinkle chopped spring onion and apply Salsa Verde. Serve when cutlets are hot.



(One variation to this is to sprinkle cheese over cutlets and before serving cover the cutlets with a lid and warm them for 10 minutes till he cheese melts. )
Little down with my cold , I could not get the time to post one dish with tomato yesterday . I think I need little break now ,otherwise next time I will be surfing your blogs from Hospital:)) . Well, tomorrow I will post vegetable for the next week and I might change some planning to post here , like from daily to alternate day or something else. Gotta do so many things here at the same time, Since I love to be with you all around here, I don't plan to skip this event yet. So stay tuned to this blog and Have a Happy Weekend, Happy Sankranti and Happy Pongal to all of you there ! :) .

Enteries For Vegetable of the Week- Tomato !

on the last day with tomato also I am not alone to publish my post here, we have two more buddies with us to share their recipes with tomato :) .
First is from Sandeepa from Bong Mom's cook book. She is sharing here here recipe of making Tomato Khajur canberry Chutney. this is a bengalu kind of chutney she made up with a twist of adding cnaberry to it. Really a tasty entry with tomatoes. Thank you Sandeepa for sharing this with us. :)

Second is Lakshmik from veggie cuisine, sharing here er own recipe of making baby Potato-cherry tomato with green peas gravy. Lovely picture of recipe and indeed a nice way of making this dish .Thanks Lakshmik for your timely preparation and efforts to publish this.

Tomato Paratha

Nice recipe of tomato Paratha - a healthy brunch dish to share here with you all today.




Ingredients:

3-4 big ripe tomatoes,
green chillies 3 crushed,
1/4 tsp methi(fenugreek) seeds powder ,
1/4 tsp mustard seeds powder ,
1 tsp red chilli powder,
sugar powdered ( optional),
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste
Oil for frying.

Method :

Take a tawa add 1 tbls of oil , Add to it the cut tomatoes with turmeric and salt cook in a med.flame until it is well cooked . Add to it the crushed green chillie and red chillie powder and the methi-mustard powder with a pinch of sugar. Cook for couple of minutes more until the gravy becomes a thick jam consistency & the water is absorbed. Cool completely. Take the tomato paste in a bowl add to it 3/4 cup wheat flour and 1tbls of maida mix well without adding water. Only add water if required into a thick dough. Add salt if required.roll out as even size parathas. Heat tawa and cook it on both the sides until crisp just as shown in the process of Paratha. Serve hot with any raita.

I served it along with a quick side dish made up of carrot and green chillie.