My Recipes

Wheat Rava Idly - Godhuma Rava Idly

I came across this recipe while browsing on Facebook. My dad usually has a light dinner, and this came in handy one day when I had nothing left in the fridge. Here’s what I did.

This has recently become a favorite of my girls. We were watching some lunch box ideas on YouTube. I had my girls with me while I watched so they could suggest ideas for packing their lunch boxes. The deal is that they have to finish their lunches completely, without any leftovers.

Vegetable Stir Fry - Veggie filled Breakfast

Yes, this is what my husband eats on weekdays for breakfast. Initially, I found it hard to cut the vegetables and sauté them every morning while dealing with two middle-schoolers. It was a little overwhelming for me. But I felt bad not making it for him and giving him an unhealthy, carb-rich breakfast every day. So I started planning ahead, and I’ve gotten the hang of it now.

Tortilla Chips - Home made

This one of the easiest snack I have ever made. In less than 15 minutes this chips can be made. We bought the Tortilla Land Wheat uncooked tortillas from Costco. I used these tortillas to make these chips. Here is what i did.

Oatmeal - Breakfast in a bottle!

This is another healthy breakfast recipe I tried yesterday. I got the motivation from Pavithra’s Facebook pictures. Oatmeal is my almost everyday breakfast. I usually pack one-minute oats in a container, take it to work, cook it there, and eat it with six or seven almonds.

Nowadays, after seeing so many beautiful photos of mason jar breakfast ideas online, I really wanted to try making my own mason jar breakfast. While I was filling the jar, my girls got curious and wanted to make their own breakfast bowls, too. I used an empty honey bottle to make this dish. Here’s what I did.

Granola Bars

I got the motivation to make these bars from Pavithra. I bookmarked a couple of granola bar recipes from her blog and have wanted to try them for a long time. This weekend, I somehow managed to find the time to make them. They didn’t take long to prepare. Here’s what I did.

Vegetable Idly

This is a very easy breakfast recipe I made for my girls. If you have Idly batter ready, it will just take less than 10 minutes to prepare and 10 minutes to steam the idly. Here goes the recipe.

Pizza - Using Pizza Kit

This is just a review post. We bought this Molinaro's stone baked organic pizza kit from Costco. I thought of writing a simple review for the product. I have used Pillsbury pizza crust before and tried once. But this is the first time where I am using an already baked pizza crust.

Banana Almond Butter Muffin

My goal for this new year is to use much less sugar in whatever I bake. While browsing many sites, I learned that honey can be used as a substitute for sugar, along with naturally sweet fruits. I tried this muffin recipe this weekend, and it turned out nice and spongy. I took the basic banana–peanut butter recipe from allrecipes.com and adjusted the ingredients to make these muffins. Here’s the recipe.

Simple Sandwich

Happy New Year All!

This is my first post of the year, and it happens to be a simple, easy sandwich. I made it yesterday for my girls. It took less than 10 minutes to prepare and pack as an after-school snack. Here’s the recipe.

This is another goodie I baked during Thanksgiving break this year! I saw bananas going bad on the countertop and wanted to make something with them. This bread immediately came to mind.

Unfortunately, my girls hate walnuts and bananas. When I said I needed their help baking it, they gave me a big “no.” But I bribed them by saying we could add some white chocolate chips along with the nuts. That sounded like a good deal to them, so we started our prep work. 🙂

Again, I got the recipe from allrecipes.com and adjusted the ingredient quantities to fit our needs.

I baked these cookies last week during my kids’ Thanksgiving break. They turned out really, really good. I never thought I could bake buttery, jam-filled cookies like these. While browsing allrecipes.com, I came across this recipe and adjusted the measurements to make the quantity I needed. Here’s the recipe

Pasta with Veggies

I made this pasta for the Thanksgiving feast at school today. It turned out pretty good, and it was easy to make. I used rotini pasta from Safeway and cooked the whole box since there were more than 30 kids, and many parents brought food as well—so I figured one box would be enough. Here’s the recipe I followed.

When we were in Delhi, we had the chance to travel to many places in North India. During those trips, I came across different types of kachoris. Every time we stopped for breakfast or a snack, one of us would buy one and share it.

I never had the confidence to try making them at home. Last week, while preparing to make samosas, I got the idea to try kachoris. Below is the recipe I followed. I’m not sure whether it’s authentic, but my girls and the rest of the family liked it a lot.

I made this green apple pickle using super-sour green apples from my backyard. We were literally wasting those apples because none of us likes sour apples. I came across this recipe when a relative visited us and suggested making this pickle.

At first, I tried it with just two small apples since I wasn’t sure whether my family would like it, but surprisingly, they loved it. In fact, my girls even enjoyed taking it to school as a side dish with curd rice. Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:

Green Apple - 2
Salt to taste
Red chilli powder - 2-3 tsp (acc to taste)
Hing - few generous pinches
Sesame Oil - 2 tbsp
Mustard Seeds- 1 1/2 tsp
Fenugreek/Methi seeds - 1 1/2 tsp

Chop the apple into small pieces.
Sprinkle the required amount of salt, mix it well and keep it aside for an hour.
After an hour, heat the oil, crackle mustard seeds.
Add methi seeds and fry it until golden brown.
Mean time, add the required amount of chilli powder on top of the apple pieces along with few generous pinches of hing.
Pour the hot oil tempering on top of the chilli powder and mix every thing well.
Keep it aside for another half and hour and can be used after that.

Since this is an instant pickle, we can use the mustard seeds and methi seed as tempering. If we are planning to make it in large quantity, it is better to dry roast mustard and methi seeds and grind it and use that ground powder. It will definitely taste better. Above said quantity will last for two days with a family of five :)

Pineapple Muffins - No Guilt Snack

I call this a no-guilt snack. Why? Because I used a few ingredients that are really good for your health, so you don’t have to feel bad about eating something sweet.

First, I used whole wheat atta instead of all-purpose flour (APF). I used extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) instead of butter, low-fat yogurt instead of full-fat sour cream, egg whites instead of two whole eggs, and xylitol instead of sugar. You can read about the goodness of this sweetener here.

My husband recently read a book and came across xylitol as a sugar substitute. He told me it’s a lot better than cane sugar and brown sugar, which I usually use for baking. So I thought I’d try something with xylitol, which I bought from the Sprouts store.

I looked through several blogs for recipes and finally found one in my kitchen recipe collection. I adapted it from a book called 1001 Cupcakes, Cookies & Other Tempting Treats, which I bought from Barnes & Noble. Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:-

Ashirwadh whole wheat flour - 2 cups
Olive Oil - 6 tbsp
Low fat yogurt - 3/4 cup
Pineapple - 1 1/2 cups (finely chopped) - I used fresh pineapple
Pineapple Juice - 2 tbsp (grind few pieces with a tbsp warm water. Filter and take the juice)
Baking powder - 1 tbsp
Salt - 1 pinch
Sugar/Xylitol - 1/2 cup
Egg - 2 ( I used egg whites - follow the instruction in the box for 2 eggs)

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease a muffin pan and set it aside (I used a mini muffin pan).

In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar, and mix well. In another wide, deep bowl, add the egg whites and beat them lightly. Add the olive oil, yogurt, and pineapple juice, and mix well.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the egg mixture. Mix gently. Add the chopped pineapple pieces and fold them in. Scoop the batter into the muffin pan.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until the muffins are well-risen, golden brown, and firm to the touch. Let them cool for 5 minutes, then serve warm.

I asked my girls to eat a mini muffin with their breakfast today, and they were so happy that I gave them muffins for breakfast.

Notes:

Original recipe called for:

2 cups APF
2 large eggs
6 tbsp butter
1/2 cup sugar
Pineapple juice from the can.
3/4 cup full fat sour cream.

Plantain podimas - Thanjavur style

This is another one of my favorite recipes. At my mom’s place, I’ve never seen her make podimas with plantain (vazhakkai). But at my in-laws’ place, they make this plantain podimas. The main ingredients are as follows:
Ingredients:-

Plantain(vaazhakkai) - 2
Oil - 2 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urid dal - 1/2 tsp
Fresh coconut - 1 tbsp
Green chillies - 2
ginger - a small piece
Lemon juice - 1 tbsp
Salt to taste
Curry leaves - 10 nos
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Asafoetida powder -

There are two ways to cook vazhakkai. One method is to remove the skin, cut it into small cubes, and pressure-cook it with salt and turmeric powder for up to 2 whistles (do not mash the cubes). The other method is to cut the vazhakkai into two pieces (after trimming the ends) and pressure-cook it with salt for up to 2 whistles. After removing it from the pressure cooker, peel the skin (it will be easier) and mash it. You can choose either method.

Now, take a wide pan and heat the oil. Add the mustard seeds. When they splutter, add the urad dal, green chilies, curry leaves, asafoetida powder, ginger, and turmeric powder (if you chose the second method of cooking). Fry until golden brown. Add the vazhakkai cubes or mashed vazhakkai and mix everything thoroughly.

Turn off the stove and let it cool. After 10 minutes, add the lemon juice and mix well. Sprinkle fresh coconut on top. Vazhakkai podimas is ready to serve. This should be a wonderful side dish for vatha kuzhambu or any kind of kuzhambu.

Eggless Dates & Nuts Cake

I made this cake after reading the post from Sony's Kitchen. I almost followed the same recipe except I used dark brown sugar instead of granulated white sugar. When we melt the sugar in milk/oil, it will ooze out little bit more water than the regular white sugar. So I had to add more flour to this cake than the original recipe.

I made these crackers today for evening snack. As usual got the recipe from Priya's blog. I almost followed the same recipe except included Ashirwadh atta along with APF. Here goes my version of spicy crackers.

I just love this Dal Makhani. Gravy with so nutritious lentils. When we were in Delhi, we had a chance to live in Intercontinental Hotel for more than a month. They have a restaurant inside called Singh Sahib and they make this dal makhani and Dahi wali Bindi so nicely that we literally fell in love with this dish. Even though I like this dish, I have never tried it personally at home. This time I wanted to try this at home and finally I had a chance last week to try this dish and luckily it came out good...
Here goes the recipe.