Talking about clicks……

I had typed this last week but due to internet darkness at my place for last EIGHT days….couldn’t post then.. hence the delay ..

One Fine Day, am having a Pleasant Lunch with Office Gals – Bitching, chit –chatting, commenting and suddenly I was shocked!! We have this presentation going on in one of our Café corner with upcoming special Menu – there was this Menu popping out in the slides with their pictures and what do I see???? (!!!)

Yeah ... the Solkadi was presented by my – Personal Tadka’s  Solkadi snap !!

First I was stunned cos I have never given my blog personally to anyone – especially no one from Work! OR neither have I expected anyone from typical IT Company to follow read take a look at my Blog. So the shocked version of me complained to one of my work friend – (who is least interested in my blog) “How my own colleagues used my snap and never asked me”;

His reply was more shocking “Who is going to go through the blog to search a snap (!!) – they must have Googled”. My reaction to this unkind answer was “Hello People love my blog (Don’t they? Please say Yes (!!))”

But that’s true, I grant my colleagues cos when I searched for Solkadi; Google images did show my snap among some toppers. This also gave me weird satisfaction that my Solkadi must have looked most refreshing among all the other Toppers as that was flicked – So maaf kar diya ;)

Now Talking about snaps … How do you find these ???

 

Before

 

After

Which ones better LEFT or RIGHT ?? ;)

Check out the Details @ Deepa’s here;

Once again Thanks a ton Deepa for the wonderful opportunity as a guest blogger !!

Flour Finisher Dosa

Nupur’s BB#4 wouldn’t have been better timed!

From last couple of weeks - till this month end we are\will be cooking while pantry cleaning. Why?

Cos we are Moving from our Rental Home to a place which we could call OUR HOME <:-P yay !! Yeah... So if you missed me around then this is the reason... I’ve not been getting any time to blog hop :( … Too many formalities... mortgage documentation... packing and most importantly day dreaming 8-> ... this has been keeping me too busy nowadays! #:-S

So currently I had been finishing my pantry items… all of my lunches – dinners can go for BB# 4 as they are using everything that’s been lurking in my kitchen for last 15 months! Infact The Foodie has warned me – that my Waste-o-phobia might food poison us – as I’ve been using nearly everything which is near to its has crossed its expiry date. #-o

I’m ashamed .. sorry.. but it seemed fine.. hence used it :(:(:( cancelled the name as no branding involved…

Statutory Warning:: Do not try this until you have confidence about your immune system. X_X

These were the flour remnants; I had couple of such packs lying and had been planning to use them for one or the other recipe. I wanted to use these before moving and Preeti’s Rava Dosa recipe came to my rescue. Infact the buttermilk is also prepared from the curd which was more than couple of weeks old (as curd normally gets over within a couple of days…this was lying long enough for its breed) :P

I tried this recipe as it used up all my flour leftovers and also cos I had never tried Rava Dosa at home till now.

Snaps show that the Dosa doesn’t really look like the typical Rava Dosa but tasted PERFECT! I followed the recipe and also the video for the preparation – I guess practice will make this look better.

Thanks Preeti for the recipe and video which helps out amateurs like me. Thanks to you we had a healthy – filling and crispy breakfast :)

Palak Paneer

I had not planned to post any Paneer recipe with my homemade paneer, but when Priti mentioned that she is looking forward for one in her comment, I clicked last minute snaps of Palak Paneer – the most common Paneer and also Palak recipe.

 

Paneer was not a common dish @ my place, it was only bought when we had to prepare some royal recipe for our vegetarian guests, and Mom’s common recipe was Matar Paneer. So palak paneer or other favourite of mine Paneer Burji were something that became regular after I did some trials with these. As this was one of the initial experiments; I’ve tried varied versions, and ended up with following recipe as my favourite and most reliable one. 

You Need:

• Fresh Spinach Leaves: about 2C
• Cottage Cheese: about ¼ kg or the one that might give you about 15 number of an inch pieces
• Ghee\Oil: for shallow frying and tempering
• Cloves: 2
• Cardamom: 1
• Black Pepper corns: 4-5
• Cumin Seeds: 1tsp
• Onion: 1Large – grinded to past
• Tomato: 1 medium - pureed
• Ginger + Garlic + Green Chillies Paste: 3 tbsp
• Turmeric powder: ½ tsp
• Red Chilli powder: 1 tsp
• Sugar: about 1 tsp
• Salt to taste

You Do:

1. Wash Spinach Leaves under whole lot of water couple of times blanch them with little water salt and sugar for five minutes or so. When done – let them cool off.
2. Once cooled – grind to smooth paste.
3. In flat pan heat ghee, temper with cumin seeds and shallow fry the Paneer pieces, till they are light brown from both sides.
4. Heat Kadai , add ghee – temper with cloves + black pepper + Cardamom , follow with ginger + garlic + chilli paste.
5. Add Onion paste to it – sauté to caramelize them. Follow with tomato paste.
6. Add red chilli + turmeric and after frying for couple of minutes add the spinach paste. Add salt if you need more. (normally palak has its own salty taste so take care while adding salt)
7. Sauté till oil separates – add paneer pieces. Cook covered for couple of minutes.

Done. Serve with hot Rotis or Jeera Rice.

I love its dark green colour with mix of white cheese in between; we had this as our lunch Tiffin.

The Finish Off Sandwich

Most Saturday Mornings you will see Me and The Foodie assembling varied types of Sandwiches as our Brunch. The only stuffs go in for these sandwiches are – Fresh Bread + all the half vegetable remains from the week. Among these potatoes and boiled egg are the common ingredients and others are the left over or long time to be used up vegetables.

We had this boiled beetroot lying from the raita last week and so we prepared this Red stuffing Sandwich with Beetroot as its main component.  You can change this main vegetable in accordance to your choice or the one you have. We have replaced this with Green Peas , Cabbage and Carrot till now , do tell me what else do you find suitable to go with this stuffing?? /:)

 

Mix up Vegetable Toast Sandwich

You Need:

• Bread slices of your choice: about 6
• Butter – to apply as spread
• Mayonnaise – to apply as spread
• Cheese Slices or Grated Cheese
• Potatoes: One large or two medium – boiled, peeled and mashed
• Beetroot: One – boiled, peeled and mashed\grated
• Onion: 1 – finely chopped
• Egg: 1-2 boiled and mashed
• Green Chillies: 2-3 finely minced
• Chaat Masala: 2-3 tbsp
• Pepper: 1-2 tbsp
• Salt to taste

You Do:

1. It cannot get any simpler, Mix everything in BLUE.
2. Apply butter and mayo on the bread slices then the stuff the stuffing.
3. If you are using grated cheese then mix with the stuffing else use half a cheese slice for one sandwich.
4. Toast\grill the sandwich as you like it.

We had this with spicy ketchup – loved this Quite filling Brunch!

 

Kitchen Property Stove Bread Toaster

I have this inherited Stove Toaster – yeah Moms mom had given it to her and me convincingly dhopofied stole from my Mom. :ar! I love this stove toaster better than the current electric one we have at Mom’s place – may be cos we can manually decide how crunchy or brown we want the slices to be – else the electric one directly tells up to change the slices in accordance with its time and heat.

This is my favourite sandwich maker till now!

So what’s up with the Toaster you all use??

Homemade Cottage Cheese

Homemade adj. means Made or prepared in the home OR Made by oneself OR Crudely or simply made.

Long long time back this word might not have existed as mostly everything was homemade :P But today we do say – this cake is homemade or homemade ginger-garlic paste. Even I thought of trying my hand on something homemade – Paneer.

Till the time you try something at home you have no idea how simple it is! And it does give soothing satisfaction that you prepared something that you normally spend an hefty amount on.

 

Homemade Paneer – Cottage Cheese

You Need:

• Milk: 2 litres
• Lemon juice \Vinegar: about 10 tbsp (I used both)

You Do:

1. Boil Milk in a huge base yok, stir in between so that milk doesn’t stick to the base.
2. As the milk starts to boil add Lemon juice slowly while stirring.
3. This separates the curd from the whey (the remain milk is called so .. learnt from wiki)
4. Drain out the whey with help of clean muslin cloth, press out the excess water. (This drained whey can be used for kneading wheat flour\rice\noodles – I added to prepare noodles)
5. Keep this drained curd with the cloth under a heavy stone for about one hour.
6. Then refrigerated this paneer immediately.

We normally have this extra couple of litres of milk on weekly basis. Most of the time we indulge in extra curd\buttermilk or some sweet dish like basundi\rabdi. But after today’s trial I feel I can use up this for Paneer, which later can be used up for some special delicacy :)

How do you use up your extra milk ??

HIS Department - Fritters

Typical Indian Marriage talks – Groom side people asking the; To Be Bride – “Do you know cooking honey?” OR “What all do you know in cooking?”

During my marriage it was a bit different when one of my In Law side aunts mentioned “Don’t worry about cooking dear – He cooks very well - and for what he doesn’t know you can order or hire a BAI”. At that time I didn’t find this topic of much importance but when we started cooking together I felt left out; He Seriously did cook better much better than me, not that I complain infact I find this very handy :P

To be frank he cooks what he loves – so anything fried is his department. Honestly till do date I haven’t fried anything as I really can’t stand the oily heat, but that’s Okay we have our Handy Man – The Foodie :P so one of the weekends when he prepared Dudhi Koftas – He fried the fritters while I prepared a zatpat gravy for it – I don’t believe this is an authentic Kofta curry but something you can make together in quick ten minutes ;)

I clicked the snaps then which now can go to Priti’s HIS Cooking event. 

You Need:

Koftas – Dudhi Fritters:

• Bottle gourd: 1 medium – peeled and grated
• Green chilies: 2 finely chopped
• Coriander + cumin Powder: 2 tsp
• Red chili powder: 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder: 1 tsp
• Gram flour: about 3-4 tbsp
• Rice flour – Rava: 1-2 tbsp (optional – The Foodie used this for some crispyness)
• Coriander Leaves: Fistful – finely chopped
• Dry Mango Powder to taste
• Asafetida: pinch
• Soda Bicarbonate: pinch
• Salt to taste
• Oil to Deep Fry

For Kofta Curry:

• Onion: 1 medium – grinded to paste
• Tomato: 2 small – grinded to puree
• Ginger + Garlic + Green chillies paste: 2tbsp
• Red chili powder: 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder: 1 tsp
• Garam Maslaa to taste
• Cumin Seeds: 1 tsp
• Oil to temper
• Salt to taste

You Do:

Koftas – Dudhi Fritters:

1. Mix everything under the Fritter section – to make a thick rough paste enough to make fritters. The consistency should be right – can add a bit of water if you find this dry or gram flour if you find this watery. Adjust the salt accordingly. 
2. Heat oil in a Kadai – Deep fry the fritters to light brown on medium flame.

For Kofta Curry:

1. Heat Oil in Kadai – add Cumin Seeds, follow by Ginger + Garlic + Green chillies paste.
2. Saute Onion paste to caramelize it. Add tomato puree and salt and sauter for couple of minutes.
3. Follow with Red Chilli powder and turmeric powder.
4. Cover and cook till tomato loses its raw smell.
5. Just couple of minutes before switching of the flame; add garam masala. Done with the quick normal onion tomato gravy.

I do not like adding the pakodas in gravy for long time, so I prefer having it or serving this gravy as a sause to the fritters – this keeps the crispy nature intact and gives a soft feel to it too.

We had it with Phulkas, and few pakodas with Sause – total fried weekend :D

Phobia leads to Seeds Chutney

Wiki explains Phobia as -- A phobia (from the Greek: φόβος, phóbos, meaning "fear" or "morbid fear") are groups of anxiety disorders characterized by intense and persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, animals, or people.

So I conclude I have Food-Waste-Phobia (only if that was the word) /:) yeah, I fear to waste food anything that is edible. I get cranky and act weird if I had to forcibly squander anything but I do prefer using them in one way or other.

Remember my Shiralachya Salichi chutney - Ridge gourd edges Chutney, yes there are many such dips we can prepare with remains of our main vegetable. One of such is this – Padvalchya beeanchi chutney – Chutney with Snake gourd Seeds. Frankly these give a very different taste to our regular green chutneys.

 

Snake Gourd Seeds Chutney

You Need:

• Snake Gourd seeds: about 15
• Green Chillies: 2-3 (increase for the spiciness)
• Sesame Seeds: 2-3 tbsp – to temper
• Tamarind pulp: about 1 tsp
• Jaggery pulp: about 1 tsp
• Mint Leaves: about 5 (optional)
• Oil for tempering
• Salt to taste

You DO:

1. Temper the “to temper” seeds in oil (take care while tempering sesame seeds- they tend to fly off – cover immediately)then follow other ingredients one by one except the pulp.
2. Roast them till they turn light brown.
3. When done, let it stand for some time to cool – add the pulp.
4. Grind the mix in a mixer - add water in accordance with the consistency required.

Done! Enjoy as chutney or spread on breads.

This Snake Gourd Seed chutney goes to Preeti’s Green Gourmet Event.