3-in-1 patties

 This is a love triangle among cilantro leaves, paneer and soya chunks. For me cilantro is full of colour, paneer is yum and soya is nutritious. So the triangle story happened and in the end taking the flavours into consideration it was cilantro who won, but I won't say who the partner is.. that is for you to find out. Hope you like it.

Ingredients

• Cilantro leaves - 1 bunch
• Paneer - 75 gm
• Soya chunks - 75 gm
• Ginger - 1 inch piece chopped
• Green chilli - 4 big (adjust accordingly)
• Potato - 1 small
• Onion - 1 small chopped
• Oil for sauteing and shallow frying
• Salt to taste

Method

• Boil and cook the potatoes, crumble and keep aside
• Make a paste ginger and green chilli
• Heat oil in a pan
• Add ginger green chilli paste and onion. Saute until onions are pink. Keep aside.
• Chop the cilantro very finely. I ran it in a chopper. Keep aside.
• Boil 3 cups water. Add soya chunks to it and let it soak for 30 minutes.
• After 30 minutes, drain and gently press the chunks to remove all excess water from it.
• In a mixer grinder or food processor grind the chunks without adding water (like you do for beef in beef cutlets). Keep aside.
• Crumble the paneer pieces.
• Now all you have to do is put all the above in a bowl. Add the salt to taste and mix really well.
• Make into round patties and shallow fry.

This patti will surely brighten up your sandwich.
I can't find a better name for this.  Can anyone suggest. :)

Sending this to Cilantro and cumin hosted by julie and Gimme Green @ Chef Al Dente

hot & spicy treats @ Amy's food corner
and to saint-patrick-challenge @ very good recipes

Brown banana muffins

When I started trying this my husband made fun of me saying I was going to get baked unniappam. But believe me this did turn out well. Only thing to keep in mind is to let it cool well before having. Wheat flour banana muffins and that too eggless was a hit. I used jaggery instead of sugar. May be you can substitute it with sugar or brown sugar.

Ingredients

• Whole wheat flour- 2 cups
• Banana (small ones) - 3
• Jaggery - 1/2 cup
• Butter milk - 1/2 cup
• Oil - 1/2 cup
• Cinnamon powder -1 tsp
• Baking soda - 1 tsp
• Milk - 1/2 cup

Method

• Mix together buttermilk, cinnamon powder and baking soda
• In a deep vessel pour oil, add the above mix and blend well
• Melt jaggery in milk and add to above.(Earlier I had shredded jaggery, melted it in little water, allowed it to simmer for sometime and strained it. I had this very thick jaggery paste in my fridge)
• Mash the bananas well in a blender.
• Add wheat flour to the oil-buttermilk mix and follow by mashed banana. If the batter appears thick loosen it by adding little milk
• Preheat your oven. Pour this batter to muffin case and bake at 150 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Adjust your oven settings accordingly.

Let the muffins cool really well, otherwise it'll be sticky and won't come well off the muffin cases. It comes to its best flavours a day later. So if possible keep overnight. Otherwise also fine as it is tasty. My husband and son loved it. 


Sending this to bake fest (vardini's monthly event), Sending this to fruit fiesta at Ramya's recipe, sensible vegetarian , Healthy morsels 

Koorka (chinese potato) stir fry/Giveaway win

Today thought of sharing with you koorka mezhukkupiratti/stir fry. The translation I got for koorka in google was chinese potato, so I believe I can call it that way too. Actually it is big work when you've to peel koorka. I was lucky enough to find peeled frozen chinese potatoes in a supermarket freezer. This is again one of our favourite, so grabbed the packet at the first sight. Once you've the peeled ones, it is quite easy to make this tasty stir fry.

Ingredients

• Koorka (chinese potato) - 250 gm
• Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
• Chilli powder - 2 tsp
• Ginger - 1 inch piece
• Garlic - 4 cloves (I used the big ones, called chinese garlic)
• Oil for stir frying
• Dry red chilli - 4 broken
• Mustard seeds
• Salt to taste
• Water - 3/4 cup

Method

• Clean and dice the koorkas.
• Make a paste of ginger and garlic
• In a thick bottomed add the above ginger-garlic paste, chilli, turmeric powders, salt, water and koorka. Mix well. Cover and cook until it is well cooked. If required add more water.
• Heat oil in a pan
• When oil is hot, add mustard seeds and let it splutter.
• Now add broken dry red chillies and saute for a few seconds
•  Add the cooked koorka into the oil and stir fry well for 10-15 minutes on slow flame. Let it get a dark brown colour. (Don't burn)

Sending this to Serve it Stir fried by keerthi and denny

Yay I got a giveaway prize!!


A big thanks to Teena of teenzyummydelight for including me in the list of 3 winners. She has passed on Hilary Geenleaf's ebook on smoothies. It has a variety of fibre filled smoothie recipes. Hope to try some of them and post it sometime. Quite a healthy lot!

Carrot rice

Carrot rice is a very quick and healthy lunch box idea. It is spicy and can be taken along with raita of your choice. Kids will love this and those who hate carrots won't say no to this one. I usually make this when I'm in no mood to spend hours in kitchen. This colour always bring joy. :)

 Ingredients

• Basmati rice - 1 cup 
• Carrots - 2 medium 
• Grated coconut - 1/2 cup
• Cinnamon stick - 1 small piece
• Cloves - 3 nos
• Cardamom - 3 nos
• Dry red chilli - 4 broken
• Coriander powder - 1 tsp
• Jeera powder - 1/2 tsp
• Oil - 2 tsp (for sauteing)
• Salt to taste

Method

• Wash, drain and cook basmati rice*. Keep aside and allow to cool
• Grate the carrots
• Heat oil in a thick bottom vessel. Add cinnamon, cloves, cardamom  and broken red chillies. Saute for a few seconds.
• Add grated carrots and saute for 2 minutes
• Now add salt to taste (Remember you've cooked rice with salt), coriander and jeera powder. Saute. 
• Follow by grated coconut and saute again for 2 minutes. 
• Add the cooked rice and mix well. Switch off flame and serve.

*Cooking basmati rice

For 1 cup rice you require 1 and 3/4 cups water. In a thick bottomed or non stick vessel boil water, add salt and 1 tsp oil (so the rice won't stick together). Add rice, stir, cover and cook until all water dries off and rice is soft and ready. 

Sending this to lunch box ideas at chandrani's cuisine,Sending this to Rasi's event I'm star

Bread pudding

A simple dessert which can be made from the common things at home. And when it gets steamed it fills the home with flavours of vanilla. We love to have this warm pudding on cold days. It rained in bahrain yesterday night, something that happens rarely. The weather is quite cool, clear and good today. I was saying, this pudding happened at the right time to nibble on.

 Ingredients

• Buns - 4 small
• Milk - 1/2 cup
• Sugar - 2 tsp (increase if you require more)
• Egg - 1
• Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
• Raisins - 10 nos (optional)

Method

• Beat the egg. Add milk, sugar and vanilla essence  and blend well
• In a big vessel, crumble bun and add the above mix.
• Prepare a vessel by buttering it.  (I used aluminium foil vessel used to pack food)
• Sprinkle the raisins and pour the batter. Steam it for 15-20 minutes. 
• Serve warm.

Note

1. I used buns which was sweet, so reduced the amount of sugar. 
2. You can substitute vanilla essence with 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder too
3. The above recipe serves 3

Sending this to resh's daily cuppa event comfort food, Sending this to Rasi's event I'm star

Ulli Theeyal

Theeyal is one dish which reminds me of all weekends at home. Amma used to make a paste of coconut and freeze and used it when required. This dish gets it flavour and colour from frying the grated coconut in a pan without :). This is a one delicious kerala dish and I like to have it not only with rice, but also with idli, dosa ...

Ingredients

• Shallots - 1 cup cleaned
• Oil - 1 tsp
• Grated coconut - 1/2 of a coconut
• Chilli powder - 1 tsp
• Fenugreek powder - 1 pinch
• Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
• Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
• Green chilli - 4 slit
• Tamarind juice (vaalan puli vellam) - 1/4 cup 
• Salt to taste
• Water - 1 cup or as required

Method

• Heat a thick bottomed pan and fry the grated coconut until evenly dark brown. Stir continuously as this will avoid burning.
• Once evenly brown, switch of the flame and add turmeric, chilli and coriander powders. Mix well
• Grind the above adding little water into a very smooth paste and keep aside.
• Heat a pan. Add oil and saute shallots until transparent.
• Now in the thick bottomed vessel combine the smooth paste, sauted shallots, sliced chilli, tamarind jucie and 1/2 cup water. Put on slow flame. Cover and cook
• When the gravy becomes semi-thick switch off the flame.
• You can temper with mustard  seeds, sliced shallots and dry red chilli (I avoided this part)

Serve with rice!

Sending this to the kerala kitchen hosted by Prathibha @ cookezee
and Only South Indian

Soya Cutlets

Soya chunks are quite easy to work and provide us a canvas to work out our desirable taste. They don't have a taste of their own and so gets the taste of what is added to it. It is highly nutritious and has meaty texture. I thought of rolling it to soya cutlets which is quite easy to make as it gets ready in a wink. As it is lent time this small wonder does a lot of help in the kitchen.

Ingredients

• Soya chunks - 75 gms
• Potato - 1 large
• Onion - 2 medium chopped
• Ginger - 1 small piece chopped
• Garlic - 1 clove chopped (we usually get the big ones here)\
• Green chilli - 2 chopped
• Pepper powder - 1 tsp (or may be 2 if you like it more)
• Garam masala - 1 tsp
• Maida - 2 tsp
• Bread crumbs for rolling
• Oil for frying and sauteing
• Salt to taste

Method

• Boil 3 cups water. Add soya chunks to it and let it soak for 30 minutes. 
• After 30 minutes, drain and gently press the chunks to remove all excess water from it. 
• In a mixer grinder or food processor grind the chunks without adding water (like you do for beef in beef cutlets). Keep aside
• Cook the potato in a pressure cooker. Keep aside
• Heat 1 tsp oil. 
• Add the chopped onion, ginger, garlic and green chilli. Saute until the onions are light brown. 
• Now add the ground soya chunks along with garam masala, pepper powder and salt.
• Saute for 5-7 minutes in low flame until all the flavours gets locked up in the soya.
• Mash the potato and add it to the above. Check salt and add if required.
• Saute for 1-2 minutes and switch off.
• Make balls of it and shape into your desired cutlets
• Make a very very thin batter of maida (Note). Dip these cutlets in it and roll in bread crumbs. You can keep these in air tight bags in refrigerator and deep fry as desired. 
• Serve warm with tomato ketchup. Enjoy!

Note: I used maida during rolling part to avoid egg. You can use beaten egg whites also instead of maida batter.

Sending this to evening snack event,. let's cook speedy snacks, lunch box ideas at chandrani's cuisine delights, bon vivants @ sumee's culinary, tea time @ charu's i'm foodie, healthy morsels

Green Potato

I had 3 bunches of coriander leaves in my vegetable tray and it was starting to look sad. So thought of charming them by making a chutney and this green dish. I've kept the most beautiful ones to go in the sambhar. This dish came simply out of blue. My son likes the taste of cilantro and potato, so why not combine. It goes well with chappathi too. So I had 2 birds in one shot.. .. My husband's lunch box and son's taste .. :).. happy for the day

Ingredients

• Coriander leaves - 1 bunch
• Potato - 2 medium
• Ginger - 1 tsp chopped
• Garlic - 1 tsp chopped
• Green chilli - 2
• Salt to taste
• Oil to saute

Method

• Cube the potatoes and pressure cook it adding salt. Just one whistle is enough. Don't let it get overcooked and crumble.
• Grind together the coriander leaves, ginger, garlic and green chilli 
• Heat oil in a thick bottomed pan and add the above paste. Add salt (remember you've already added salt to potato, so only a little is required here). Saute.
• Add the cooked potato and stir fry. If you want it too dry, leave it on slow flame for sometime.

Sending this to Julie's event Cilantro and Cumin @ Erivum puliyum and St Patrick's challenge at very good recipes

Atta carrot cake/Award time(again)

I usually make carrot cake at home. This time tried it with wheat flour and garam masala. Usually it is cinnamon powder that goes in it. But then for a change tried this and came out well. It is better to sieve wheat flour before mixing as that makes the cake more soft. This can be named as a "Guilt free cake" too ..

Ingredients

1. Wheat flour (Atta) - 1 cup sieved
2. Baking powder - 1tsp
3. Vegetable oil (I used sunflower) - 3/4 cup
4. Egg - 2
5. Sugar - 3/4 to 1 cup (as per your taste bud) - powdered
6. Garam masala powder - 1 tsp
7. Carrot grated - 1 and 1/2 cup
8. Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

 Method

1. Sieve wheat flour and baking powder and keep aside
2.  Mix together oil, egg and let them blend well
3.  To this add sugar and mix well until you get a smooth batter
4.  Add garam masala powder, vanilla essence and blend again.
5. You don't need a cake mixer. Just a wooden spoon will do the work for the carrot cake.
6.  Now slowly mix in the wheat flour and baking pwdr. Sometimes you'll feel the batter is thick.
7. Add the grated carrots and combine. The batter becomes loose again and ready to go in the oven.
8. Butter your baking dish and prepare it before pouring in the batter

Preheat your oven for 10 minutes. For baking this, my oven worked at 150 degrees for 30 minutes in middle rack. 

Sending this to Rasi's event I'm star

Award time

Celebration time again. Maha of mahaslovelyhome and farah of my cookbook passed on Leibster award to me. Thanks again Maha and thank you so much Farah for sharing this with me.

Liebster means dearest in german and as with any award there is a bit of ceremony involved.

If you accept the award

• Copy and paste the award on your blog. Link back to the blogger who gave you the award
• Pick your five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers who deserve to be noticed and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they've received the award
• Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs.

Now it is my turn to give this award to five food bloggers. I would like to pass on this award to


tastebuddelight
aromatic cooking
good food ends with good talks
roshan's cucina
From my heart

Enjoy and share your award .. :)

My first award

I'm so excited and thrilled to let you all know that maha of mahaslovelyhome shared these awards with me.

Thanks dear maha for remembering and sharing these to me.

The rules for accepting this award are:

1. Add the awards to your blog.
2. Thank the blogger who nominated you in a post with a link back to their blog.
3. Share 7 completely random pieces of information about yourself.
4. Include this set of rules.
5. Forward this award to your fellow bloggers and inform them with a comment on each of their blogs.

Now as per the rules of the award, I'm giving this to following fellow bloggers

Christy @ mykitchenflavours

lavanya @ tickleyour tastebuds

vandana @ fineflavours

farah @ mycookbook

Pratibha @ cookezee

shilpakiran @ cookwithfun

About me

1. I'm a taurian
2. I've curly hair
3. I love sweets
4. I like simple recipes and is quite lazy to try the long ones
5. I love my little space here
6. I usually bake carrot cake at home
7. I love to do fabric painting

Carrot Kiwi Juice

Two days back I read kiwi is a heart loving fruit, so suddenly fell in love with it and bought 4. But then juice was tangy, loved it but not always. It was my husband's idea to add carrot and apple. He was right, it tasted very nice. I'm a bad photographer and can convince you all only with this snap :(. It is always a tom and jerry show here when I've to take snaps. My little one runs around me to dip his finger in the glass or plate I put up for the snap. So have to take it as quick as I can. :)

Ingredients

• Carrot - 1 medium .
• Kiwi - 1 
• Apple - 1/2 of 1
• Sugar- 2 tsp
• Chilled water - 1 cup

Method

• Chop carrot, kiwi, apple and blend in a blender adding chilled water and sugar.
• Serves 2

Sending this to Kalyani's holi fest Sangeetha's Summer Splash @ Kalyani's Kitchen chronicles
fruit fiesta at Ramya's recipe, spicy treats, Anyone can cook @ taste of pearl city,  Summer spirits hosted by anusha praveen, Just 4 fun at shoba's, best of my kitchen