Daliya (cracked wheat) with Veges

Very healthy and easy to make. Can replace rice in your diet.

Ingredients

• One cup cracked wheat (I use Red Wheat Bulgur Red Mills brand)
• Half cup peas
• Half cup beans (I use french cut frozen)
• Half cup diced carrot
• Half cup corn (optional, I skip it most of the times)
• Half cup finely chopped onion (optional)
• 2 green chilies finely chopped (optional)
• 4 cups water
• 2 tablespoons oil
• Salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon dhaniya jeera (cumin coriander) powder

Heat oil in a pressure cooker, saute onion till translucent. Add cracked wheat and saute for two minutes, add all the veges, salt, cumin coriander powder, water and pressure cook for three whistles.
And it is ready to eat. We usually eat it with raita or daal (like daal chawal).

Kids' Poncho

Made these ponchos for friends' daughters, both are 5 years old. Both are very easy and quick to make patterns and can be scaled up and down for different sizes. The first one can be worn in early winters while the second one is for nice weather. For both of these I used "Red heart with Love" yarn. Here are the links to the patterns
1)  http://www.lemondedesucrette.com/2010/10/13/about-ponchos-and-pattern-d/
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1G_mn38ZoE

Whole wheat cookies

Ingredients
(Add four tablespoons of Brewer's yeast to make these into lactation cookies)

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 cups plain uncooked oats, I used Red Mill's thick oats
• 4 tablespoons ground flax seed meal
• 4 tablespoons almond powder (optional)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar, loosely packed
• 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature or melt it in microwave for 30-60 seconds
• 4 tablespoons water
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit
Step 2: Beat butter, sugar and brown sugar in a large mixing bowl, I used electric hand mixer. Add eggs and mix, followed by flax seed powder, vanilla extract, salt, and baking soda.
Step 3: Mix in oats and wheat flour. Add chocolate chips (optional) and mix.
Step 4: Place parchment paper on a baking tray, scoop balls of dough (depending on the size of cookie you want) and place them on the baking tray. Flatten these balls a little with your hand.
Step 5: Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.
Step 6: Place cookies on a cooling rack and put it in a airtight jar once cooled.

Punjabi Kadi Pakoda

Picture speaks more than words, I can eat this everyday :)




Following recipe will make 4-6 servings.

Ingredients

For kadi

• 1/2 cup besan
• Lassi - 16 oz (I used small bottle of Gopi Lassi)
• Water - 4-5 cups
• 1/3rd of a large onion thinly sliced for tadka
• Paste of 4 cloves of garlic, 1/2 inch ginger and 2 green chilies
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 tbs dhaniya jeera (cumin coriander) powder
• 1/2 tbs garam masala
• 1/2 tbsp of turmeric powder
• Pinch of hing (optional)
• Whole spices - 
• 1/2 tbs jeera
• 1/2 tsp methi seeds
• 2-3 green cardamom
• 1 black cardamom
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp whole black pepper (optional)

For pakoda

• 1/2 to 3/4 cup besan
• 2/3rd of a large onion sliced into thick slices
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 tbsp of cumin coriander powder
• Ginger garlic paste (1/2 inch ginder, 1-2 cloves of garlic)

Step 1: Chop 1/3rd of a large onion into thin slices as shown on left, and rest into thick slices (for pakoda). make a paste out of green chilies, garlic and ginger.

Step 2: Take 1/2 cup besan in a bowl, add half of the lassi and mix well to make a smooth batter. Leave it undisturbed for 5-10 minutes and then beat it again to dissolve any left out lumps. Add rest of the lassi and mix well

Step 3: Start tadka by putting oil in a pan (on medium-low flame), when oil is hot add whole spices and let it cook for a minute, add sliced onion and saute until it starts becoming translucent. Add ginger garlic and chili paste and cook for 5-6 minutes stirring occasionally. Add salt to taste, cumin coriander powder and garam masala and cook for another minute until masal is cooked.

Step 4: Add besan lassi mix and 4 cups of water to the tadka and turmeric powder, mix well and let it cook on medium-low flame stirring occasionally (do not cover it may boil over). Cook for 20 minutes and check the taste, if you can taste raw besan keep cooking and checking otherwise you are done with the kadi part :).

 Step 5: Mix all the ingredients for pakoda in a bowl, add a little water to make a thick mixture (besan should be all stuck to onion slices). Make pakodas, preferably small size. 

Step 6: Dump pakodas in kadi and heat it agian for 4-5 minutes and you have kadi ready to serve. Serve it hot with white or jeera rice.

Desi style tomato soup

Wonderful soup for winter season and great if you want to eat something light (sans butter and heavy cream).

This will serve 8-10 people

Ingredients:

• 3 pound tomatoes (I use roma tomatoes but other varieties will do equally good)
• 1 large white or red onion chopped into chunks
• 2 green chilies (add more if you want it more spicy) cut in halves
• 5-6 cloves of garlic cut in halves
• 1 tbsp dried oregano (even better if you can replace it with fresh)
• 1 tbsp dried basil
• 10-12 fresh basil leaves
• 1 tsp black pepper powder
• 1 tsp cumin coriander powder
• Salt to taste
• 1/3rd cup heavy cream
• 2 tbsp butter

Step 1: Wash the tomatoes, put them in a pot covered with water and heat it until you see tomato skin braking. Drain the water and let tomatoes cool down. One tomatoes cool down, peel off and discard the skin.

Peeled tomatoes

 Step 2: Heat oil in a large pot, saute garlic till lightly brown. Put in chopped onion and saute until translucent. Add green chilies dried basil, oregano, fresh basil, black pepper, salt, cumin coriander powder and saute for another 2 minutes.

Step 3: Add peeled tomatoes and 2 cups of water to sauteed onion and cook for 8-10 minutes. Let it cool a bit and puree using a food processor or hand blender. Add heavy cream and butter and bring the soup to a boil. You can adjust the consistency by adding more water.
Serve it hot with garlic bread or just like that.

I forgot to take a picture of the final product and it was all gone by the time I thought of it :).

Jalapeno potato puffs

There are so many variations of this appetizer one can make. You can replace the filling with anything and everything you like, make it sweet or savory.



Here is a savory spicy version. This will make 18 puffs adequate for 8-9 people.

Ingredients

• 9 Jalapenos
• 1 box of puff pastry (it will have 2 sheets and each sheet will make 9 puffs)
• 3-4 medium size potatoes (boiled)
• Half onion finely chopped
• 1/2 cup cream cheese (can be replaced with any other cheese you like for example 4 cheese mix or mozzarella etc.)
• Salt to taste
• 1 tbsp amchoor powder (can put more if you want)
• 1 tsp black pepper powder
• 1 tsp red chili powder (optional)

Step 1: Chop off Jalapeno stems, cut them in half and deseed using a sharp knife. Use gloves if you can while deseeding, and don't touch your eyes until you wash your hands thoroughly after doing this :).

Step 2: Mash boiled potatoes, add chopped onion, cream cheese, salt, pepper, red chili, amchoor powder, and any other spice (like garam masala) if you want.

Step 3: Stuff Jalapeno halves with above prepared mixture as shown in the pic below.

Step 4: Thaw puff pastry sheet (I take it out of the freezer and keep it in fridge overnight), spread it out and cut it into 9 squares. Put a piece of stuffed Jalapeno on a square and fold the puff pastry to completely cover the  Jalapeno.

Step 5: Preheat oven to 400F, place stuffed puff pastry on a foil covered baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes then broil for 3 minutes. Keep an eye on it while baking, to avoid burning.
Enjoy just like that or with a hot cup of tea.

No Bake Mango Pie

An excellent pie for any occasion, and especially for festive occasions like thanksgiving.
I would like to thank my friend Sani for introducing this pie to me.

Here are the ingredients.
One 10 inch pie crust (I used ready-made that requires no baking, alternatively you can make it at home using digestive biscuits, butter and brown sugar)
1 can of Mango pulp (30 oz)
1 pack of plain cream cheese (8 oz) (Keep it out of fridge for 1-2 hours before using)
1 tbsp of no flavor gelatin (you can find this in the Jello isle in your grocery store, you can use Agar Agar to replace gelatin too)
1/2 cup water

Process
Step 1: Bring water to boil and take it off the heat, mix in gelatin thoroughly and let it cool to room temperature.

Step 2: Beat cream cheese and mango pulp together in a large bowl using an electric hand mixer until the mixture is smooth.

Step 3: Mix in cooled gelatin dissolved in water to the above filling using the hand mixer, pour this into pie crust and keep it in fridge to set for 3-4 hours.

And your dessert is all ready to serve!

No Bake Mango Cheesecake

What I like about this cheesecake is that I don't have to bake anything and it tastes super heavenly. I made this for a friend's birthday and you should have seen kids' reaction when she cut it, they were all ready with their spoons to dig-in :).

This recipe will serve around 15 people.

Ingredients
1 - Kesar Mango Pulp Can (its usually 30 oz can)
3 - 8 oz plain cream cheese, I used Philadelphia Original (keep it out of fridge for 1-2 hours before using)
2 and a half tbsp of unflavored gelatin (you can use Agar Agar to replace this if you don't eat gelatin, gelatin can be found in the Jello isle in your grocery store)
1 - 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk
4 tbs of butter melted in microwave
1/4th cup of brown sugar
8 - Honeymaid Grahams (You can also use digestive biscuits or Graham crackers to replace this)
1 Pack of mango flavored jello (I got this from Indian grocery store)
Water

Process

Step 1: Making the base
Take a 9 inch springform cake pan and grease its bottom with butter (if you don't grease then the base will stick to the pan).
Put Grahams in a zip-lock bag and crush them to somewhere between coarse to fine powder (you can use a rolling pin to do this). Put this powder in a bowl.
Add melted butter and brown sugar to it and mix thoroughly and put this mixture in the cake pan. Press with a ladle or glass to make an even crust. Put it in fridge to set for around 15-20 minutes and meanwhile you can prepare the filling.

Step 2: Cream-cheese layer
Boil 1 cup of water, take it of the stove and mix in 2 tbs of gelatin. Let this mixture cool down to room temperature.
In a large bowl  put in cream cheese, condensed milk, 2 cups (16 oz) of mango pulp and dissolved gelatin and mix everything together using an electric mixer until you get a smooth (no lumps) mixture.
Pour it over the crust you made earlier in the springform pan and again keep the cake pan in fridge to set.

Step 3: Jello
As you wait for the cheese layer to set, prepare jello from Mango flavored Jello pack following instructions on the packet and refrigerate.
Keep checking the cheese layer in cake pan to see if it has set by touching its top layer, once set it should stop sticking to your finger. I let it sit for around an hour before checking.

Step 4: Mango pulp layer
Once cheese layer is set prepare the top layer.
Take 1/2 cup of boiling water and mix in 1/2 tbs of gelatin, cool it to room temperature.
Mix in dissolved gelatin with remaining mango pulp and pour it over the cream cheese layer in your cake pan, again refrigerate. Leave it undisturbed for another 2-3 hours.

Step 5: Putting Jello on top
Cut Jello into cubes and spread it over the top of your cheesecake as you like and you are all ready to serve it. Before taking out the side ring, run a knife along the boundary for an easy removal (do it very slowly, you don't want to break the cake).

Mango Fruit Dessert

A very easy mix and serve dessert. Thank you to my lovely friend Anindita, who gave this recipe.

The following will serve 60-70 people, you can scale it up or down and it works great. You can also increase or decrease the amount of ingredients depending on your taste, this is a very forgiving recipe.

Ingredients:
Kesar Mango Pulp - 3 cans (30 oz each)
Sour cream - 24 oz
Plain Yogurt - 32 oz
Sweetened condensed milk - 2 cans (14 oz each)
Chopped Pineapple - 2 cans (20 oz each)
5 Small red apples - chopped to bite size pieces
5 Small green apples - chopped to bite size pieces
Raisins and nut for garnishing (optional)

Mix mango pulp, sour cream, yogurt and condensed milk in a large container (you can use electric hand mix to mix everything in, but the hand mixing is also easy). Once thoroughly mixed, mix in chopped fruits and decorate with raisins and nuts. Put it in fridge 3-4 hours before serving.

You can use any other fruit you like, for example grapes, pomegranate, banana, berries etc.

I don't have a picture of the dessert as of now, will post one soon.

Easiest Cholle recipe

Easiest cholle recipe I ever made, it goes very well with poori or bhatura. There in no time consuming Tadka sauteing onion, tomatoes etc. Someone told me that this is also called Pindi Chana or Chikkad Cholle!

Here are the ingredients:
4 cups Chickpeas soaked overnight (I tried to use canned chickpeas once and it didn't turn out as good as the original recipe)
1 large yellow onion finely chopped
2-3 medium size tomatoes pureed in grinder (always use fresh tomatoes, it will make a difference:)
2-3 green chilies
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 tea bag
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon chole masala
1 teaspoon regular garam masala
2 tbsp amchoor powder
Crushed anardana (dried pomegranate seeds) 1 tbsp
Chat masala (optional and to taste)
4 tbsp oil
1 teaspoon whole jeera (cumin seeds)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
2 tej patta (bay leaves)
2-3 whole red chilies (optional)

Recipe:

Note: The quantity of all spices can be adjusted to your taste, if you like it mild reduce their amounts accordingly.
Put soaked chickpeas in a pressure cooker and put enough water to cover them and another two cups. Add salt to taste and a teabag. Pressure cook, I usually do it on medium flame and let it whistle 5-6 times.
Open the cooker to check if they are cooked, you should be able to mash them between your fingers easily. To these cooked chickpeas add chopped onion, tomatoes, green chilies, cilantro, garam masala, chana masala, crushed anardana and amchoor powder. Don't mix it in yet, heat oil in a small pan add jeera, mustard seeds, bay leaves, red chilies and heat it until mustard seeds pop. Then dump it over the heap of onion, tomatoes and masala in the cooker. Put cooker back on flames and mix everything in. Crush some chickpeas with a ladle and keep it on flame until you see a nice consistency cholle. Taste it and add chat masala accordingly.

In the pic below you will see that mine has a little gravy in it, you can decrease the amount of water if you want to make it a little dry.

Khatti Meethi Chutney in 5 min

I got this recipe from one of my Gujrati friends (thanks Mitali), its super easy yet very tasty sweet and sour chutney. Preparation time is approximately 5 minutes :)

Here are the ingredients
1 cup apple butter (you can find this in jam/peanut butter isle in any grocery store, just to clarify its not apple sauce but apple butter) 
Juice of 1 large lemon
1/2 teaspoon of chat masala
1/2 teaspoon of red chili flakes or red chili powder
Black salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon of roasted cumin powder
Water 1/2 to 1/3rd of cup depending on what consistency you want

The amount of all the above ingredients can be varied according to your taste, so if would like it to be more chatpata add more chat masala. I sometime put in tamarind juice instead of chat masala if I have it. 

Put apple butter in a bowl and mix in all other ingredients and you chutney is ready! It goes very well with any kind of snack.

Garlic bread

This is one dough which can be used in multiple ways, I use it to make garlic bread, tawa naan, bhature, pizza base and buns!

Here are the ingredients for dough (this will make 8-10 naans or buns , 12-16 bhature depending upon their size and is enough to make a medium to large pizza depending upon thickness of the crust)

2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup of milk (I use full fat)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil

To activate yeast you would need
1/5 cup of lukewarm water (warm it in microwave for 5-8 sec)
1 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar

For garlic bread I use "Johnny's Garlic Spread and Seasoning", got this from Costco. And you would also need 2-3 tbsp butter after baking.

Activate yeast by mixing sugar and dry yeast in lukewarm water and keep it aside for about 5 minutes. You will see the solution becomes frothy indicating that your yeast is working.

Put together all the other ingredients in a kneading bowl along with activated yeast and knead it until you get a soft dough. Add more water as required. To make garlic bread I put in 1 tbsp of garlic spread powder while kneading the dough.

Once done you need to rest the dough, keep it covered in a warm place for about 1 hour. You will see that it almost doubles in size in one hour, now bring it to a working surface and punch out all the air in the dough. Then spread in an oval or rectangular shape (I kept thickness at 1/4th of an inch), cut it into 1/2 inch strips and place it in a greased baking tray. You can put aluminium foil on the tray and grease it with oil.

Now cover this tray with a cloth and put it in a warm place for 20 min. After 20 minutes preheat your oven at 420F and bake the bread for 15-20 minutes (time can vary depending upon the oven).
It will be ready when the crust turns golden brown.

Put softened butter in a bowl and mix in 1 tbsp of garlic spread. Brush this mixture on the bread immediately after you take it out of the oven. And your bread is ready to serve. If it gets cold, just cover it with foil and put it in oven at 350F for 2-3 minutes.

You can use the same dough and make naan on tawa and brush it with same butter and garlic powder mixture to make garlic naan!!

Potato Cutlet

I made this so many times and it never goes wrong. If you are serving these at a party, freeze the left-overs and you can have a plate of tikki with chole later sometime :). Here is the recipe:
Will make 12-15 cutlets

• 5 Medium size potatoes boiled and pealed
• 5 Slices of white bread (sprinkle some water on these, just to dampen them a little)
• 1/2 Medium red onion finely chopped
• 2 Green chilies finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon roasted cumin powder
• 1-2 tablespoon dried mango powder (Amchur powder)
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper powder
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• And oil for frying

Mix in all the cutlet ingredients, except bread crumbs and knead all together to make a nice soft dough. Make small circular patties, coat them nicely in bread crumbs and deep fry till golden brown.

Dahi Bhalle (fried lentil dumplings in yogurt)

Dahi Bhalle is one of the most famous snacks in Northern India, served cold it makes an excellent starter. There are some tricks to it, and once you know it you can never get them wrong :)

Here is what you would need (it would make approximately 50 bhallas)

Oil for deep frying 

For dahi bhalla

• 1 cup split urad dal without skin washed, soaked overnight with 8-10 methi seeds and grind this to a fine paste adding very little water 
• 2″ piece of ginger and 2-3 green chilies ground to paste
• Salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

For yogurt

• 3 cups thick fresh yogurt
• 1 cups water
• 2 tbsps roasted cumin  powder
• 1-2 tbsps ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon of dahi bhalla masala

For garnish

• Mint coriander chutney
• Tamarind chutney

Mix all the dahi bhalla ingredients in a bowl and deep fry small dumplings (a little smaller than the size of a ping-pong ball) of this paste until golden brown. Check the first batch to see if dumplings are cooked from inside, fry them little longer if not so. As soon as you take them out from oil, put them in cold water in a large bowl. You will notice that bhallas (dumplings) in water start to lighten in color after 10-15 minutes. Keep these in water for another 15-20 minutes, and meanwhile mix in ingredients of yogurt. Squeeze out water from bhallas gently and place them in a flat tray adjacent to one another and pour the yogurt mixture over them evenly. Refrigerate 2-3 hours before serving. For serving put 3-4 bhallas in a bowl and garnish with mint and tamarind chutnies and serve.

Mint and mango chutney

As one of my friends would say "I can make a meal out of chutnies made by you", so here I am with my first chutney recipe.
This can be served with any kind of snack (pakoda, dahi bhalla, chat papdi etc. etc.) or you can eat it just by itself like my friend.
Here is what you would need

• One small bunch of mint leaves washed and drained (take off the thick stems)
• One cup chopped green mango
• One cup chopped cilantro (coriander)
• 1/2 lemon juice
• 2 green chilies 
• 1 teaspoon black pepper powder
• 1/2 tablespoon roasted jeera (cumin) powder
• 1/4th inch of ginger
• 1-2 cloves of garlic (optional)
• Salt to taste, you can replace half of the regular salt with black salt

Grind everything together in a mixer adding water gradually to bring it to the consistency you like and its ready to serve.

This recipe is for the green one in the picture, recipe for other two coming soon.