Cheesy Peas Dosa

This is very healthy and instant dosa that can be made within 5 minutes. Also its highly nutritious dosa that can be given to kids. Kids will love this as it looks very colorful. My daughter loved the color and the dosa even. You can serve this with any chutney or just as it is for kids. Coconut chutney and tomato chutney will be very good dip for this dosa. 

Ingredients:

Rice flour - 1 cup
Besan/Gram flour - 1/2 cup
Carrot - 2 (grated - about 1 cup)
Cheese - 1/2 cup (shredded)
Salt - to taste
Oil - for drizzling

For grinding:
Frozen Green Peas - 1/2 cup
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Green chilli - 3 or 4

Note:
You can use dry peas even. But you need to soak it overnite or atleast 6 hrs and then cook the peas and then grind it to paste.

Method:

1) First put all the ingredients in a blender and make a fine paste of it.

2) Transfer the ground paste to a bowl, also add rice flour and besan.

3)Add required salt and mix well. Add necessary water and get to dosa batter consistency.

4)Then heat a tawa. Take one laddle of batter and spread like a dosa. Sprinkle some grated carrot on the dosa. Also add some shredded cheese to the dosa. Drizzle some oil over it. Cook it in low flame until the dosa gets well cooked. Do not flip the dosa, as the  added cheese will turn like burnt one. (this is one method)

5) Second method is pour the dosa batter, add grated carrot alone. Let it cook by flipping on either side. (This mini dosa for my daughter)

6) Remove the dosa from the tawa and add the grated cheese while its hot.

Instant, healthy and cheesy peas dosa is ready in minutes. Serve it immediately with tomato chutney or coconut chutney.

Cranberry Lemonade

This is an instant drink. Recently I bought a big can of cranberry juice. After two or three days I got bored and thought to make something different of it. Then I thought to try a lemonade with this juice. I loved this fusion drink a lot more than the original cranberry juice.

Ingredients:

Cranberry juice - 1 glass
Lemon juice - 3 tbsp/1 lemon
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Sugar - 2 tbsp

Method:

Just mix all ingredients together and your cranberry lemonade is ready.

Very refreshing juice for these hot days is ready in minutes.

Onion Samosa

These onion samosas are my all time favorite snack. Also favorite for many of my school friends. We used to get these hot samosas in our school canteen and its tastes heavenly. Few days back while I was chatting with my school friends, we were recollecting our old memories, and it was my friends who suggested to try these samosas. Thanks to them, I tried it and the end result was too good.

It was very crispy and the onions inside were very crunchy. With very few ingredients, we can make this samosa for a tea time snack. Also they used to sell these in any road side tea shops. It's a favorite snack for many. Kids will love these as they are deep fried and also they are very crispy and crunchy.

Ingredients:

For making wrap:
Maida/All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
Wheat flour - 1/2 cup
Salt - to taste
Oil - 1 tbsp

For stuffing:
Onion - 1 (chopped lenghtwise)
Flattened rice/Poha/Aval - 1/4 cup
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Cilantro/Corriander leaves - 1/2 bunch (finely chopped)
Salt - to taste

Maida - 2 tbsp
Water - 3 tbsp
Oil - for deep frying

Method:

1) In a bowl, put all the ingredients for making wrap and mix well.

2) Knead the flour by adding water little by little. Make a thick dough of it. Cover it and keep aside for about 20 to 30 minutes.

3) Now prepare the filling. In a bowl, place all ingredints. Just give a gentle mix and keep it aside for 15 minutes. (While adding salt to onion, it leaves water and thats why we are adding poha in this)

4) Now make a medium ball size dough and spread it by applying some flour. Make it thin, so that you can get crispy samosas.

5) Now trim the sides and make square like shape.

6) Then cut across and get rectangles. If you make very big size chapathis, you can get about 3 rectangles even.

7) Now place 1 tbsp of the stuffing in one corner, leaving some space in the corners. Please bare my clicks :(

8) Take that corner nearby and place it one the other side as in the picture.

9) Meanwhile mix maida in water and keep aside. Now use that maida paste to stick the corners of the sides. Then again fold to the other end and stick all corners.

10) Spread all the dough and keep the stuffing and fold it. Keep it aside.

11) Now heat oil in a fan for deep frying the samosas. Once the oil is hot, drop 2 or 3 samosas for frying. Do not make it too clumpsy.

12) Fry till its turns brown in color. It takes about 3 minutes to get well cooked. Remove from the oil and place in paper towel.

Crispy, crunchy and yummy samosas are ready to taste.

Pineapple Cucumber Salad

While I was left with 1/2 the pineapple, which I brought 2 days back and a cucumber few days back, I thought to try this salad for this hot summer. In my childhood days, I remember tasting these spicy and sweet pineapples slices in the street side. These used to make slices and sprinkle some spicy powder. It tastes awesome and I am a great fan of it. Many of us might have tasted slitted cucumber with spicy powder sprinkled on it. I thought of making this, which I had tasted as two different snack. Just we need cut the cucumber and pineapple and then its done. Add salt when you are going to have it, else it will become watery. Kids who refuse to have fruits and vegetables will love this different combo, when served as salad.

Ingredients:

Pineapple - 2 cups (cut to small pieces)
Cucumber - 1 (cut to small pieces)
Cilantro/Corriander leaves - few sprigs (chopped)
Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - to taste

Method:

1) Place all the ingredients in a bowl.

2) Give a gentle toss and serve it immediately.

Sweet and spicy salad is ready in minutes.

Masala Vegetable Dal

Dal, one of the very common ingredients used in Indian cooking. This masala vegetable dal is simple to make, but very different from the usual dal we make. Any vegetables of your choice can be used. This can be had with hot white rice, with a teaspoon of ghee in it and just mix this masala. It tastes very delicious. You can have with chapathis or rotis even. Having dal daily in usual way, this will be very different and tastes even more delicious. Adding vegetables to the dal makes it even more healthier.

Ingredients:

Dal - 1/2 cup (cooked)
Mixed Vegetables (Carrot, Beans, Peas, Potato) - 1 cup
Onion - 1 (finely chopped)
Tomato - 1 (chopped)
Green Chillies - 2 or 3 (slitted)
Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Dhania/Corriander powder - 2 tsp
Cumin - 1/2 tsp
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Salt - to taste
Ghee - 2 tbsp

Note:
a) Cook any dal of your choice like toor dal, moong dal or masoor dal and keep it aside.
b) Cut any vegetables to equal size.

Method:

1) Heat a pan and add ghee. Also add mustard seeds and let it start to splutter. Then add the cumin seeds and  chopped onion.

2) Saute the onions until it becomes translucent. Now add ginger garlic paste.

3) Now add the tomato and green chillies.

4) Saute it for about 2 minutes and add the dry powders (turmeric powder, chilli powder and corriander powder)

5) Mix it well and add the cut vegetables.

6) Saute the vegetables and add about 2 cups of water and necessary salt.

7) Let it cook until the vegetables become tender.

8) Now add the cooked dal.

9) Leave it to boil for about 2 to 3 minutes and become thick.

Spicy and delicious masala vegetable dal is ready to taste.

Mambalam Kuzhambu (Mango Curry)

Mangoes are favorite fruit for all. Especially my daughter love them a lot. As these are seasonal fruit, you can grab them as much as in this season. India is one of the largest producer of mangoes and they taste just delicious. The mango smell even tempts us to have it. Here I found mangoes, which were from Mexico. But they were not as tasty and flavorful as I had had in India.

Anyhow mangoes are mangoes, as they attract everyone and we love to have it being from any part of the world. I tried this mango curry and it came out really delicious and flavorful one. You can get the sweet, sour and spicy taste from this curry. Mangoes give the sweet taste and tamarind gives the tangy taste. Use ripe mangoes so that you can get the sweet taste.

Ingredients:

Ripe Mango - 1 (cut to small pieces)
Red chillies - 3 or 4
Sesame seeds (Ellu) - 2 tsp
Tamarind - lemon size (extract about 2 cups of tamarind juice)
Jaggery (Vellam) - small piece
Chilli powder - 2 tsp
Hing/Asafoetida - 1/2 tsp
Mustard - 1 tsp
Urad dal - 2 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Salt - to taste
Oil - 2 tbsp

Method:

1) Heat a pan. Dry roast red chillies and sesame seeds.

2) Roast it until sesame seeds starts to splutter. Let it cool and make fine powder of it.

3) Now heat a pan, add about 1 cup of water and add the cut mangoes. Also add a pinch of salt and let it boil.

4) Once it boils, add a small piece of jaggery, tamarind juice and the fine powder. Also add the salt and chilli powder to it.

5) Let it cook and become thick.

6) Now do the seasoning. Heat a pan and add oil. Add mustard seeds and once it starts to splutter, add the urad dal and curry leaves. Add the seasoning to the curry.

Sweet, spicy and sour mango curry is ready. Just mouthwatering recipe is all set to taste.

Snack with Ghee Leftover

This recipe I learnt from my neighbor, while I was in Bangalore. Once I make ghee, I used to throw the leftover. But my neightbor told me this method and also this is very good for kids, as it has high fat content. First time I made this, everybody loved this snack, including my daughter. It tastes really awesome. The more you make ghee, the more the leftover will be. I got only few tablespoon with the store bought butter, but while I make butter at home and ghee (Homemade ghee) from that, we even get more leftover. It will be a very crispy granules. As I told, this is very very good for health, especially for kids. It seems to look like bread crumbs or like coffee granules.

Ingredients:

Ghee leftover - about 3 tbsp
Ragi/Finger millet flour - 1/4 cup
Jaggery (Vellam) - 3 tbsp

Note:

I used the leftover from about 3 sticks of butter. So I used ragi flour and jaggery as mentioned. But you can increase or decrease them according to the ghee leftover you get.

Method:

1) Do this in the same pan you made ghee. Now heat that pan with the leftover in it and add ragi flour and jaggery.

2) Stir it for about 3 minutes, until you get rid of the raw smell. You will get into roasted rava/sooji consistency or like bread crumbs. At this stage you can switch off the flame. Also you can see the difference, as everything settled on the vessel will be clean.

3) Ghee leftover snack is ready. I got only few tablespoons with the leftover. (as much as in the bowl)

Very healthy and rich in fat snack is ready. So don't ever waste this leftover.

Homemade Ghee/Clarified Butter

Nothing will be as flavorful as homemade ghee/clarified butter. Previously while I was in Bangalore, I used to get milk from the milk society, as I resided very near. The milk will be very thick and used to make ghee from scratch. For once in 15 days I used to make butter and ghee.Also the homemade butter will be very flavorful and creamy.But here doing as such is little bit difficult, as we use only canned milk. Even after coming here, I used to make ghee at home, from store bought butter :( We can just melt butter and make ghee. But by adding drumstick leaves/curry leaves to it gives very good flavor. If you can't find it, you can add curry leaves also. I used only curry leaves as I can't find it here. Also there is no necessity to refrigerate the ghee and it can be good for about years even. Just use dry spoon and dry container to store it. Don't waste the leftover and you can make a snack (Snack with ghee leftover) with it.

Ingredients:

Unsalted butter - your wish (I used about 3 sticks)
Salt - a pinch (optional)
Curry leaves or drumstick leaves - few

Method:

1) Heat a pan and add the butter sticks.

2) Let it melt and you will get soap like foam. (see the below picture)

3) Let it be in flame for about 2 minutes and then you get thin water like consistency. (as in the picture)

4) Then within 2 minutes again you get foam like consistency. Also you can get the sendiments from butter turns to light brown color.

5) Switch off the flame immediately at this stage and add salt and curry leaves/drumstick leaves. We are adding only a pinch of salt, so it won't get any salty taste. You can even use this ghee to make sweets, as you can't find that salt taste added to it. Adding rock salt is even better option. Salt is usually added to settle down the particles and also to give texture for the ghee.

6) Let it cool and transfer the ghee to a clean dry container by filtering it. Also don't waste the leftover after filtering it. A simple and very healthy snack, can be made with it. (Snack with ghee leftover) I will post that soon in my next post.

Homemade, flavorful and healthy ghee is ready. Also try my Snack with ghee leftover, which is a very healthy for kids.