pizza muffin

Ingredients:

Dry ingredients

Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Organic sugar - less than 1/4 cup
Baking powder - 1/2tbsp
Baking soda- 1/4tsp
Italian Basil - 1 tsp( i used the thai basil from my organic garden, dehydrated it in microwave and crushed them

salt- 1 tsp

cheese( i used mozarella) - 1/2 cup

Chilli flakes -1/2 tsp

Wet ingredients:

Yogurt - 3/4 cup

flax goop (instead of eggs) - 1 tablespoon flax meal with 3 tablespoons of water)

Oil( olive) --1/4 cup

Red and yellow pepper - 1/4 cup

pizza/pasta sauce - 1/4 cup

Mozarella cheese - grated 1/2 cup

Method

In a large bowl , mix the dry ingredients with hand ensuring the contents are well mixed

In another bowl, mix the flax goop, olive oil and yogurt till they blend well.

Stir wet mixture into the dry mixture till there are no lumps. Avoid stirring for long. Mix in the chopped bell peppers. the batter will be in doughy consistency

Spoon the batter into muffin cups till 2/3 full.

Top the batter with pizza sauce

                                  Sprinkle each cup with mozarella cheese, shove them into the oven( mine wason combi 2 for 20 minutes

And out comes the pizza muffins. ( my baking powder was beyond expiry date and so they don't seem puffed)

My fussy teens thoroughly enjoyed the muffins. Taste was awesome

The highlight of this was the thai basil leaves used in the preparation was grown at home.

Base recipe adapted from Kitchenkemist.com 

Vada pav

 Vada pav - the indian version of burger has many   kiosks now .  The vadas in the kiosks are fried under automated  fryer pans , stowed into the buns.  But for me,  their tastes  nowhere matches the chachaji's bandi where the vadas are handmade right in front of you.

Chachaji's bandi @ Sindhi colony is where i first discovered this famous street food of Mumbai. It was one of our weekend outings and when it was time to return back home we stopped at Sindhi colony. We found a  bandiwallah doing brisk business. Chachaji and his wife who is beautiful and neatly dressed, work like an automated machine catering to the various customers around the bandi.  While chachaji is busy chopping onions /making hot vadas or toasting  the buns, it is  aunty  who stows the vada into the  pav buns  slots which are  slathered with garlic chutney,  tops it with chopped onions and hands over to the customers. At any point there are nearly 20 customers around the bandi that they wind up their business by 8 or 8.30.

The vada pav's are delicious and filling . Just one will do but if i still feel  like eating one more then i opt for the Dabeli. The dabeli story i will tell later now i will share i how made the vada pav's at home.

Ingredients:

1 pav bun packet

 for Garlic chutney:

2-3 table spoons of chopped garlic

2-3 roasted dry red chillies or chilli powder  1 teaspoon

1/2 cup copra powder

salt to taste

Method:

Grind all the above ingredients to chutney consistency

For the vadas:

  Ingredients for filling: 

6 Potatoes

2 green chillies

salt to taste

coriander chopped -2 tablespoons

mustard for seasoning

haldi- a tsp

asafoetida - 1/2 tsp

Method:

Take a kadai and heat it. Add a tablespoon of oil,  when it heats oil, add mustard. let it crackle.

Then add chillies and asafoetida. follow it up with haldi and salt. 

next add the mashed potatoes and blend all the ingredients.

Finally add the coriander and allow the curry to cool.

When cool, take equal proportions and roll them into a lemon sized ball.

for batter

1 cup of besan 

a pinch of baking soda

salt to taste

a spoon of hot oil

water to mix

To make batter

Take a bowl. Add besan, baking soda and salt and mix well. To this add a spoon of hot oil. Mix them all with water to make a besan batter.

Method For vada

Now take the  lemon sized potato balls and dip them into the batter till they are coated well. Deep fry them in a kadai of  hot oil till they turn golden. The vadas are now ready.

Assembly of vada and pav.

Take a pav and make a slit big enough to slide the pav. Toast them on a tava with some butter without breaking them into two.

Smear the red chutney into the slot and stow in a vada

Garnish it with finely chopped onions.

                                       

Eggless water based Dates cake

Just as I had baked a eggless flax cake for my son's  15th birthday, i wanted to bake an unusual cake for my daughter's 18th birthday and like the flax cake, this non-fussy, fondant, cream and dairy free cake turned out moist and soft in texture and was gone in a trice. 

Ingredients:

Maida - 1 cup
sugar - 1/2 cup
cinnamon powder - 1 tsp
Dates - chopped finely - 1/2 cup
water - 1 cup
any vegetable oil - 1/4 cup
baking soda - 1 tsp
salt - a pinch
Honey - 1 tbsp

Method:

Add baking soda to maida and sieve it twice and keep aside
In a pan, add the measured sugar, salt and mix well.
Follow it up with chopped dates and cinnamon powder
To the above mixture, add vegetable oil and water.
Blend them together and place the mixture on stove and boil it.
when it starts bubbling around the sides, lower the flame and simmer it for 15-20 minutes.
Switch off and wait till the mixture cools. i left it to cool overnight.

When the mixture  cooled, I added the sieved flour little by little and mixed well. One can use a hand blender, but I did it with my hand and wooden spatula. This should take some time to blend well. Ensure you have no lumps.

I then transferred it to my glass baking tray and baked it for 20 minutes. (mine is a bajaj oven with no temp control)

I inserted a skewer into my baking tray to ensure it was done. 

                                 The fist few steps of the cake are over the stove top

The blended maida and water oil sugar date mixture in the baking tray

                                                                       The baked cake

Toppled bottoms up and decorated only with a few rainbow sprinkles.

                       

Some tips: For a more healthier version substitute maida with wheat. You can even substitute sugar with palm sugar. Substitute dates with any dry fruit or nut of your choice.

Masala dosa

Yummm! My salivary glands overwork the moment the name of Masala dosa is mentioned. It is one of my favorite food, although a breakfast item, I can eat it for lunch, dinner or during any time of the day. Such is my love for Masala dosa especially the ones you get in a few hotels /darshinis and sagars of Bangalore. But at home, my dad also makes some of the yummiest masala dosas. Yes, you read it right, my dad is a super cook and my children and all my parents neighbours too love when my dad makes it. Of course, it is my mom who does the hard work of soaking and grinding batter, boiling and peeling potatoes, onions and other ground work for making masala dosa. She ably assists my dad.

During my younger days, we generally ate it at Kamat, gandhi bazaar, vidyarthi bhavan, new krishna bhavan, malleswaram or at the sajjan rao circle bandi hotel. Infact, the sajjan rao circle bandi's kemp chutney would be so awesome that many a times, I and my uncle would sprint to get the chutney when the dinner plates were laid. There are so many memories related to this dish and I have tasted it at many places but the tastes of only a few places linger like that of the above mentioned hotels and later at Janta hotel, Vijayanagar, MTR, Jayanagar 4th block Ganesh darshan etc. Even today, my family  especially my sis, my kids, my niece and myself order Masala dosa anytime we enter a hotel, we don't wait for the bearer/waiter to rattle out the choices.

But the taste of home is unbeatable. Luckily for me, all my paternal uncles and aunts are also good cooks, so they too dish out some best masala dosas. My children simply love the masala dosas which are coated with kemp chutney and topped with dollop of butter.


Now for the recipe:

Kemp chutney:

Red chillies: 6 no's

garlic : 3 cloves

grated coconut t: 2 tablespoons

or 

fried grams : 2 tablespoons

tamarind : a small marble size

( grated coconut or fried grams is to give body to the chutney, my aunt prepared omitting these two)

Grind the above ingredients by adding salt to taste. The red chutney is ready.( i have  added  copra powder)

Alu masala curry

Ingredients

Boiled potatoes  - 6 no's

chopped onions from 2 no's

green chilly - 1 no

red chilli powder -  1 teaspoon

salt  --------------- 1 teaspoon

haldi    1/2 teaspoon

oil for tadka - 1 table spoon

mustard - 1/2 teaspoon

coriander for garnishing

Method:

Peel the potatoes, mash them and keep aside.

Take a wok, add the oil and heat it. When heated, add mustard seeds to splutter.

Fry the chillies and then add onions in the oil till transluscent.

Now add the mashed potatoes, haldi, red chilli powder and turn them in the wok till the masala and alu get mixed well. 

Cook them on slow heat for 2 minutes.

Garnish with chopped coriander 

For Dosa batter:

1/2 cup urad dal soaked for 1 hour to 3 hour

2 cup parboiled rice soaked for 6 hours

Grind them in a grinder, add salt and let it ferment overnight

The ingredients ready for making masala dosa: batter, alu curry, kemp chutney and a mix of ghee and gingelly oil

Method for making dosa:

Take a iron griddle or non-stick tava

Pour the batter on the heated tava in circular pattern till the dosa shape is formed

Keep the flame high, drizzle  a teaspoon of gingelly oil or ghee around it.

After some time, spread the red chutney on the surface of the dosa and let it cook for a few seconds.

Now place the alu curry on it and fold the dosa.

When folded and served with a dollop of butter, we in our family don't need accompaniment like coconut chutney or sambar. Just the  dosa, kemp chutney and alu suffice for us.

what marks the regular masala dosa from Mysore masala dosa is the kemp chutney.

* A tip to have a brown base- a table spoon of maida to the batter gives a brown dosa like in hotels. but i have avoided.

Strawberry trifle pudding

Trifle pudding a dessert generally made with sponge cake and custard. Instead here, i substituted with sweet bread and marie biscuit. Instead of the regular sugar, i added palm sugar(organic) , layered it with sliced strawberry and when chilled and served makes for a perfect summer noon time dessert.

Ingredients:

Bread - 4 slices

marie biscuit - 1 packet

custard powder - 2 table spoon

milk - 1/2 litre of which 2 table spoons can be set aside

sugar - according to taste ( minimum - 3/4 cup)

strawberry - 15- 20.

Preparation:

Slice the strawberries and keep aside.

For custard: heat milk, dissolve sugar  and keep aside. Take two table spoons of warm milk and mix in the custard to make a paste. Dissolve the custard paste in the hot milk and bring it to a boil. Keep stirring.

Method:

In a flat dish ( like a baking dish) ,Place the bread slices, place a few strawberry slices, pour a layer of custard.

 Again place a layer of bread slices, place marie biscuits over the slices, pour the remaining custard

                                                   Top it with remaining slices of strawberry

                                     When the custard cools, place the dish in the fridge.

                                                Slice them and serve.

The soaked in marie biscuit along with the soaked bread leaves a soft sweet taste on your tongue along with the sweet sour strawberry bite.


* You can substitute sweet bread with ordinary bread also,

 Below is the picture of  palm sugar crystals ( organic)

           

Masala Pori (spicy puffed rice)

Masala pori or masala mandakki is a low cal tea time snack or anytime snack. 

Ingredients:

Puffed rice - 5 cups

Red chillies - 2-4 no

mustard - 1 teaspoon

haldi  - 1/2 teaspoon

red chili powder - 1 teaspoon(optional, only if you want it more spicier)

garlic cloves - 4-5 no's chopped/crushed

peanuts ---- 1/2 cup

fried grams ----1/2 cup

curry leaf sprigs --- 2-3

salt to taste

oil for seasoning

Method:

1.Take a heavy bottomed pan, add two teaspoons of oil and fry ground nuts. Remove from the pan and keep aside( alternatively you can dry roast on microwave also)

2. Dry roast fried gms also

3, In the same pan, add 2 teaspoons of oil and when heated, put in the mustard seeds, when they splutter, add the crushed garlic till the raw smell evaporates.

4.Lower the flame and add haldi, red chilli powder and curry leaves. Now add, the puffed rice and roast on low flame till the masala coats the puffed rice.  Toss in the roasted peanuts and fried grams. Mix them well.

When cooled, store it in an airtight container. Has a shelf life of 15 days when stored properly.  

You can even add saunf if you wish, it is optional. I have crushed it in a mortar so that the flavour of the spices is enhanced

Roast the crushed spices in two spoons of oil along with haldi, red chilli powder( only if you want it more spicier,else the chillies are enough)

Toss in the puffed rice and mix well till the masal coats the puffed rice

Optional: Makhanas can be roasted lightly and added  along with the puffed rice to add more taste.

Vazhaipoo poriccha kootu (banana heart stew)

This is a thick gravy cooked with dal(lentils), spices and banana flower/heart.

Ingredients:

• 1 whole big banana flower, de-pistilled and chopped. Soak the chopped flowers in a bowl of water to which a ladle of buttermilk is added, else it gets oxidised.
• moong dal --- ½ cup
• 1 tea spoon of rice flour to thicken the gravy.

Ingredients to grind

• Urad dal --- 2 table spoon
• Dry red chilli --- 5 no’s
• Cumin seeds ---- 1 tea spoon
• Grated coconut ---- ½ cup
• Black pepper corns – 1 spoon( if you desire it spicier)

For seasoning:
Mustard – 1 tea spoon
Urad dal – 1 teaspoon
1 sprig of curry leaf.

Method for chopping the flower:

Remove the flowers from the base of the purple bracts. hold them with one hand and press the tip of the petals with another hand. The tips open up showing the thick filament with thick head. Remove the filament from the flower. Chop them on the chopping board into small sizes and put them in a bowl of water to which butter milk is added.

                             


After washing them well, boil them with salt and turmeric. Keep this aside. To this add the boiled moong dal.

For the masala:

• Roast urad dal, red chilli cumin seeds and pepper corn in a teaspoon of oil. When cool grind them with coconut and add this to the cooked flowers and boil them.
• While the gravy has boiled well, add a spoonful of rice flour mixture to thicken the gravy.Allow it to boil for some more time.

For Garnishing:
In a small wok, add a teaspoon of oil and splutter mustard, urad dal and curry leaf.
Add this garnishing to the kootu(stew).