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.