Mix Dryfruit Laddu

I am surprised at this post. I never liked dry fruits and people who know me will know what I mean. I guess Motherhood teaches you to do everything for your sweet little one. After having baby, I knew I need to have that extra strength to nourish him and to run behind him. So presenting  this full of energy and power packed food with a secret ingredient. It wont be secret anymore.. I am going to Open it!! Great source for Lactating Mothers , New moms and why leave behind the Old Moms!! Its for everybody. This is dedicated to all the Non- Stop Engine, Heart of Home!!

The secret ingredient is Gond also known as Gunder, Dink, Gum. Easily available in Indian Stores. Check out the pic below, if you haven't seen it. I am now in Love with this Dry fruit laddu. So Tasty , and so crunchy!!

Ingrediants

1 1/2 cup dates ( khajoor)
1/2 cup cashewnut( kaju)
1/2 cup almond
2 tbsp raisins
1/2 cup dry desicated coconut
2 tbsp gonder( dink)

Procedure

Dry roast almond and cashew and roughly chop them or lightly blend them to a coarse mixture. Do not make fine powder. 

Now in a tsp of ghee roast the gunder till its nice and crispy.These stone looking substances fluff up like popcorn, they turn brittle. Now crush them. They should be cooked well else they stick in the teeth.

                                                      This is raw gunder

See How they puff up on roasting.

Saute Raisins for few seconds.

Now roughly chop the dates.In a pan add little ghee and keep mashing the dates so that they don't stick to bottom.Keep mixing and mashing with spoon till it turns tender.It takes about 5-7 mins to turn tender.

Mix all the nuts and gunder, Give its a little crush together. If you wish you can crush it bit more. But I love the crunch.

Now mix the crushed nuts into it and Add the coconut and mix well and cook for another 5 mins. OFF the stove and let it cool for a min or 2.  Coconut is great for lactating mother.

Apply little ghee to hand and make small balls out of it.Do not wait till the mixtures cools.

Yummy delicious healthy ladoos are ready. It has nice soft and crunchy texture. Eat one each day as your power snack. I am sure you cant stop at one haha.
You can just eyeball the ingredients!!!


Do try it out and like my page if your are inspired.Thanks!
PS: All recipes are without Onion and Garlic


Happy Cooking! Inspire and Get Inspired :)

Creamy Spinach Pulav

Having born in the Family that belongs to coastal s of India, Rice has always been my staple food. But married to a Gujarati, Rice is not his first choice. However he loves to eat the fancy form of rice and he loves Spinach. So what better way to make a combination! So presenting Spinach pulav, a wholesome healthy iron rich food. I generally prepare my stuff from the readily available ingredients, So I make white sauce for this instead of cream cheese. You may even use that instead of making the sauce.

Ingrediants

a bunch of spinach
1/2 Tomato
1/2 Bell pepper
ginger
green chilli
About 1 cup of rice

red chilli powder

1/2 cup green peas
1 tbsp olive oil
ghee (clarified butter)

For white sauce

1 tbsp Wheat flour
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp milk

Procedure

Wash and soak rice for about 5-10 mins. Then add excess water, add a tsp of salt and 2 cloves and let it cook for about 8- 10 mins. The rice should be just about cooked. It should not be mushy. Once done , remove the excess water.

Now while the rice is cooking, wash the spinach and In bowl add spinach, tomato, bell pepper and ginger and let it cook in microwave for about 3 mins. You may cook/ steam it till the spinach is tender. 

Once done in a blenser add couple of green chilles and blend everything to a smooth paste.

In a pan take some oil, add wheat flour ( i prefer wheat to all purpose ) let it come to a boil and the add milk, mix well, so that no lumps are forms. Let the mixture come to a nice boil and its starts to thicken. 

Now mix this white sauce to the spinach puree and give it a nice blend so that it mixes well and if any lumps present are disolved.

Now in a pan add ghee,once hot add cumin, boiled peas , red chilli powder, dhanya( coriander powder) and saute for a min . 

You may add little garam masala if you want. Now add the puree into it and let it come to boil. The puree would be kind off watery.

 Once it comes to a nice boil. Add salt per taste, and add the drained rice to it. Mix well and let it cook for a about 2-3 min. 

You may add a handful for shredded cheese if you like.

Serve it warm! Definitely comfort food. This may look a long process but take not more than 20 mins.

Do try it out and like my page if your are inspired.Thanks!
PS: All recipes are without Onion and Garlic


Happy Cooking! Inspire and Get Inspired :)

Thai Curry Paste

I used to have Thai food at restaurants but dint make much at home. One thing that was hard to find at Thai places is vegetarian curries since they are pre-made in fish sauce/oil. Being a strict vegetarian I could rarely have them and many places served it. So I thought I should be making them at home and satisfy my cravings.   I had to find ways of utilizing my bunch of Basil which I grabed from a weekend Farmers Market. So I made this curry paste which I can use my Thai curry.

Adapted from showmethecurry.com

Ingrediants

10-12 Dried Red chilli

1 inch Galangal ( you may use ginger as substitute)

3-4 Red thai chili ( depending upon the spice tolerance)

Few strands Lemon grass

1 tsp Lemon peels

Handful of Cilantro leaves

Procedure

De-seed the red chilies and soak them in warm water.

Then blend together all the above items to form smooth paste. Watch this space for my Thai curry recipe.

Notes: I dint find galangal so I have used ginger.

Lemon peels are obtained by scraping the skin of lemon. Use green lime preferably.

You can store this paste is refrigerator for about 2 weeks.                                                                                                                                                                              

Do try it out and like my page if your are inspired.Thanks!
PS: All recipes are without Onion and Garlic

Happy Cooking! Inspire and Get Inspired :)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Bhindi Masalewali

Okra - Bhindi has always been my all time favorite veggie. I love cooking Okra in thousand different ways. This recipe comes from my Mother-In-Law's kitchen. When she was here last year, she made this amazing variety of Bhindi which I had never tried before. My husband is not at all a Okra love, if ever I needed to make bhindi, I had to add lot of potatoes so that he could eat them and leave the bhindi to me or I ended by cutting tons of bhindi to make the crispy version, which is the only one he would eat. But this recipe came as savior, as he liked it. Since then, I always buy Okra when I go grocery shopping. So here is the recipe of magic!

Ingrediants

Bhindi ( Okra)
1/2 Sliced Tomato
1/2 Sliced Bell Pepper
3 Tbsp Besan
2 tbsp Crushed peanut powder
2 tbsp dry coconut ( fresh cococut shredded works as well)
1 tsp sesame seeds
2 tbsp Coriander powder (dhanya powder)
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp amchur( mango powder) - optional
Salt 
About 3 tbsp oil

Procedure

Wash and pat dry Okra on a tissue or kitchen towel and cut it into slices lengthwise. I have used about 2 cups of  stilted Okra.

In a pan add about 2 tbsp of oil, once hot add the Okra, tomatoes and bell pepper and let it cook for about 10 min on medium flame till tomatoes turn tender.

In another bowl add all the above ingredients and remaining 1 tbsp of oil and mix well to form a crumbly mixture. 

You need to add good amount of coriander powder thats the key for this recipe. Also the mixture should be on little salty side since its gonna mix Okra latter. But do not add too much.
Now add this mixture to the okra and mix well. Cover it and let it cook on slow flame for about 15 mins atleast. Serve it with your choice of roti or fulka.

Do try it out and like my page if your are inspired.Thanks!
PS: All recipes are without Onion and Garlic


Happy Cooking! Inspire and Get Inspired :)

Palak Paneer

Spinach is one of the most nutrient food. Palak is hindi name for spinach. It is a pureed form of spinach, very easy to make, eat and digest. Loved by kids and adults equally. This is my way of creating this yummy gravy. Panner is the cottage cheese added to this spinach gravy.  Alternatively you make add cubed potatoes as well. Just fry them before adding.

Ingrediants

1 Bunch Spinach
1 Tomato chopped
1 tsp cumin-coriander powder
1 tsp red chili powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
Oil

Procedure

Take a pot of boiling water and blanch the spinach in it with a pinch of salt till its tender. Alternatively you can also microwave it for about 4 mins. 

Once cooled, blend it to form a smooth puree. Take a wok, add little oil, once it hot add the tomatoes and saute it for few min , till tender. Add the dry ingrediants and give it a good stir. Then add the spinach puree , mix it well and let it cook on medium flame for abut 5-10 mins. Then add cubed panner- cottage cheese to it and serve it warm with Roti or naan.

Do try it out and like my page if your are inspired.Thanks!

PS: All recipes are without Onion and Garlic

Happy Cooking! Inspire and Get Inspired :)

Veg Manchurian

Indo-Chinese a fusion between of Chinese food to match the Indian taste buds. Sweet , sour tangy ..supremely addictive. There is so much of room to experiment here. Here I have experimented with the manchurian balls adding multiple veggies, you can make them just using cabbage as well which  I do quite often. Garlic and spring onion form a major component in this cuisinue but it taste equally taste even in its absence. I substitute with using lots of ginger and celery. I bet you if you miss them!!

Ingrediants

For manchurian balls

2 cups of fined chopped assorted veggies
I used : cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, bell pepper, 1 green chilli, ginger
Salt to taste
1 tsp cornflour
2-3 tbsp All purpose flour

For gravy

Roughly chopped red , green bell pepper
1 tsp chopped ginger
2 tbsp chopped celery
1 slitter green chilli
1 tbsp tomato sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp chili sauce
1 tsp Cornflour
1 tsp brown sugar ( optional)
1 cup water( depending upon the consistency)

Procedure

Finely chop the veggies you want to put in the balls. I used the ingrediants as mentioned above. I generally use fine hand shredder but today I used my electric mini chopper. To this add other ingredients mention under manchurian balls and make a dough just that the are binding well to make balls. 

In another wok take oil for deep frying. I have used my Appe pan to shallow fry, this pan give a deep fry texture to the item with just abt a tsp of oil. I am in Love with this pan of mine. Ok back to the recipe :)

Make the balls and lightly dust it with cornflour and immediately fry them, else they tend to leave water and will become difficult to handle. Fry them on medium flame till golden brown. Take them on a tissue to soak excess oil.

For making gravy:

Take a wok , add little oil, just enough to saute the veggies. Once oil is hot, add ginger and celery, let it cook for a min then add bell pepper and again let it cook for another couple of minutes.
In a small bowl add all the sauces and sugar and give it a good stir. Now add this sauce mix to the wok and let it cook for a min. 

                 

Now in bowl take cornflour and add water and mix well, add this liquid to the wok and let it cook for sometime. 

Do not make it to to dry else when the balls go in it will soak up all and will turn to be extremely dry. Once cooked add the Manchurian balls in it and give it a good stir. Serve immediately with your choice of rice or noodle.

Do try it out and like my page if your are inspired.Thanks!



PS: All recipes are without Onion and Garlic


Happy Cooking! Inspire and Get Inspired :)