Keerai Kuzhambu / Spinach lentil gravy

It’s been quite a while since I blogged. There is nothing interesting happening in my kitchen and I suddenly feel, have I lost the tempo?!??!! Oh no……definitely not. These are one of those few boring/for-no-reason-irritating days, that you do not care to venture. But I’m trying to get out of that cocoon soon. So, here I come up with my favorite, simple and tasty keerai kuzhambu. My mom used to make this with “thandu keerai or pulicha keerai” and its hard to replicate!! Still, I try my version with whatever I got.

1 cup chopped spinach (I just used the “Indian” spinach that we get here)
2 teaspoon sambar powder
1/2 cup cooked and well mashed toor dal (Use a pinch of turmeric while pressure cooking)
1 small tomato, chopped
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon oil
1/2 teaspoon of urad dal, mustard seeds
Dash of hing
Soak about a small walnut sized tamarind, squeeze the pulp

Method:
1. Add oil to the pan and when hot add mustard seeds. When they crack add urad dal and hing. Then add the chopped tomatoes and just fry quickly.
2. Add tamarind pulp, 1 cup water, chopped spinach, salt, sambar powder and cook on medium flame until spinach and tomato are completely cooked.
3. Then add dal, check for salt seasoning, little more water if its too thick and bring it to a nice boil for about 5 mins.
4. Serve hot with rice or roti and dollop of ghee. It’s such a simple dish but yet very healthy and tasty.

Roasted vegetables and Pasta

It’s been almost 2 weeks since I experimented in my kitchen, and so no updates to my blog!!! I had some unexpected guests at home and time just flew past! I was tired of eating rice, sambar and rasam everyday! I needed a break…terribly Found out that my pantry was loaded with veggies…………I saw a food show where the chef was roasting his vegetables in the oven! Ok! Roasted veggies and pasta for lunch

1/2 cup each of mixed veggie (I used cauliflower florets, chopped yellow and red bell pepper, zucchini, onion. You could also use squash, mushroom, carrots, broccoli…..depends what you have and what you want to eat! )
1 medium-sized tomato (De seeded and chopped)
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoon lemon zest
2 teaspoon black pepper powder
Pinch of salt
1 garlic pod, finely chopped
2 cup of any pasta of your choice (Like penne, farfalle, bow-tie)
3 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Method:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 425 deg F. Place all the vegetables in a sheet pan, drizzle about 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt, 1 tablespoon lemon zest, 1 teaspoon black pepper. Mix to coat well. Broil for about 30 minutes. First 20 minutes, covered with a foil sheet, turning in between once. Last 10 minutes, broil un covered. Once roasted well, cover the foil sheet until required.
2. Boil pasta with salt. Retain about 1/4 cup water and drain the rest.
3. Add rest of the oil to the pan. When hot, add garlic, lemon zest, black pepper and infuse well with the oil.
4. Add chopped tomatoes and saute for a minute on high. Then add the roasted vegetables and saute. Check for salt and pepper.
5. Add the pasta, 1/4 cup pasta water, lemon juice and stir well. Cook for a minute. Add cheese and serve hot! Enjoy your delicious crunchy pasta!

Dried fruit shake

I used to like the dried fruit shake at Saravana bhavan. But never bothered to try it out at home. But today I had enough dates, raisins, cashews and outcome was a nice refreshing milkshake. I also used some frozen blue berries. So you could add any of your dried berries, apricots or just any dried fruit of your choice.

4-5 De-seeded dates
4 cashews
4 almonds / badam
1/3 cup of raisins
1/3 cup of berries
1 teaspoon sugar
2 cup milk
1 scoop vanilla ice cream

Method:
1. Soak all the fruit in water for about 1 hour until they are tender. Remove the skin from almonds.
2. Just remove excess water (do not squeeze) and run the dried fruits in a blender to a fine paste. No-coarse blending!
3. Then add sugar, milk, vanilla ice cream and pulse until smooth and creamy! Chill until served.

Chilli soya

Both of us like soya chunks a lot. I generally put them in biriyani or pulav. But this one is what my friend makes. She actually minces the soy chunks and makes like a soy kheema. But K does not like them that way. He wants to see whole/partial soy to believe its just soy nuggets and nothing non-palatable!

1 cup dry soy chunks (Boil them in water with salt for about 20 minutes. Drain, squeeze excess water, chop them into bite size pieces)
1 medium-sized tomato
1/2 onion
1″ ginger finely chopped
1 green chilli slit into quarters (Do not chop them finely)
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon garam masala powder
Salt to taste
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon cumin
3/4 cup water
2 tablespoon curd

Method:
1. Add oil to the pan, when hot add cumin seeds and when they crack add green chilli, ginger and onion, saute for 2 minutes on medium heat.
2. Then add tomato, pinch of salt and saute until tomato is soft.
3. Add chilli powder, curd and cook on medium flame for a minute.
4. Check for salt, add the soy chunks, water and cook covered on medium flame until soy has absorbed all the water.
5. Remove the green chilli before serving. It tastes good with rice or roti.

Godumai rava upma

My grand mother used to have a lot of godumai rava instead of rice, as she was a diabetic patient. And I used to wonder how one can give up rice?! Until I started making upma packed with vegetables. And then came my husband, who pairs them with mung bean sundal! Woww…. This is a such a power packed nutritional breakfast / lunch combo.

2 cups samba godumai rava
1 carrot peeled and grated
1 small potato, cut into very small cubes
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 onion finely chopped
1 teaspoon urad dal
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 spring curry leaves
Dash of hing
2 – green chilli chopped
1″ ginger finely chopped
Salt to taste
2 cups water
2 tablespoon oil

Method:
1. Dry roast rava until a nice aroma comes out. Keep aside in a plate.
2. Add oil to the pan, when hot temper with urad dal, mustard seeds, dash of hing, curry leaves and fry until they crack.
3. Add ginger and chilli and fry for a minute. Then add the onions and saute for a minute or 2 until translucent. Keep adding each vegetable one by one and saute them along.
4. Add salt, 2 cups of water and bring it to a boil for a minute. Then simmer until all vegetable cook.
5. Add the roasted rava, mix well and cook close on a low-medium flame for 10 minutes. Stir in between so that bottom does not burn. Server with pickle or chutney.

Zucchini Zunka

Last week at the farmer’s market I picked couple of green and yellow zucchini’s not sure of what to do with them. My sister in law used to tell me she makes nice kootu with green zucchini and so picked them. For the yellow one’s, i found a nice and easy maharashtrian Zunka recipe. And little did I know that they tastes really good with chapathi. When K asked for a second serving, I knew its a keeper recipe! They are more or less similar to our parangikkai, but do not have that sweetness in them. So if you like, you can add a pinch of sugar or jaggery while making this curry.

1 small yellow zucchini, peeled and cubed (Make them into medium cubes, as they cook they will shrink)
1/2 onion finely chopped
2 garlic pods finely chopped
1 teaspoon each of mustard seeds, urad dal, cumin seeds, red pepper flakes, dried coconut
1 spring curry leaves
Pinch of hing
2 tablespoon groundnut (Toast them in a dry pan, powder them to coarse)
3 whole dried red chilli
2 tablespoon oil
Salt to taste
2 tablespoon besan

Method:
1. Add oil to the pan, and when hot add the mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves, cumin seeds, hing and allow them to crack.
2. Then add the garlic and saute for a minute. Then add the onions and saute until they turn translucent.
3. Then add the red pepper flakes, red chilli and saute for a minute.
4. Then add the zucchini, salt and cook covered on medium flame until zucchini cooks well. When it is done 3/4th, sprinkle coconut, besan and ground nut.
5. Saute and cook covered for another 5 minutes. Switch off the flame and cook open for few minutes until water has evaporated completely. Serve hot with rice or roti.

M ‘n’ M Shake

Interesting! What’s this M ‘n’ M shake?!?! Definitely not the candy M ‘n’ M though!! So…what’s this?!?! It’s a Melon / Mango milkshake!! Yummy creamy satisfying milk shake!

2 cups honey dew melon cubed
1/2 cup mango ice cream (or mango pulp, with some chopped almonds / pista / cashews)
2 teaspoon sugar (If your melons are really sweet omit sugar)
1/2 cup milk

Method:
1. Put everything into a blender and pulse them until creamy and smooth. Done!

Lemon Sevai

When we were kids, making sevai at home was like an event. It was such a time consuming process. Mom and grandmother had to soak rice, dry them, grind them, make maavu, and finally make idiyappam using the idiyappam naazhi, which was huge. Especially making it for a household of 7 was definitely not an easy task. Still we all used to enjoy the show, and help them in squeezing the idiyappam finally. The outcome, lemon sevai, coconut sevai and sweet sevai. As ever, I’m always impressed by the sweet sevai! So when we made our idiyappam+sevai in less than 45 mins I was thrilled.

2-3 cups of shredded idiyappam
2 green chilli
1 teaspoon each of mustard seeds and urad dal
2 teaspoon oil
Salt to taste
1 spring curry leaves
Pinch of turmeric and hing
Juice of a small lemon (more or less as per individual taste)

Method:
1. Add oil to the pan and when hot add mustard seeds, urad dal, green chilli and fry until mustard splutter and dal turn brown.
2. Add a dash of hing, turmeric, curry leaves and mix well.
3. Start adding the sevai and coat well with the mixture. Add salt.
4. When it is warm, squeeze lemon juice and mix well. Serve hot as plain or with chutney.

Idiyappam

Success! Success! When my mom sent my murukku naazhi last week through a friend, my first thought was to make idiyappam but not murukku! Yesterday, had actually made kanji dosai batter and some sambar. Still don’t know what crept into my dear’s mind, he suddenly wanted to have idiyappam. So we found a simple, quick idiyappam recipe and perfect! We had a wonderful lemon sevai for my dear, and idiyappam with egg curry for self for dinner. And believe me, everything was done in just an hour! so quick!

1 cup rice flour
1.5 cups water and a little more if required
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon coconut oil

Method:
1. Boil the water with salt and oil. Measure flour and take a wide mouth vessel. Start adding the water and mix it well with a spatula. It will start coming together as a nice dough, but not too watery. If its too dry, keep sprinkling some water, and when its warm knead with your hands to form a smooth dough.
2. Fill murukku naazhi, and use the omapodi achu to make idiyappam. Grease an idli plate and make small idiyappams.
3. Steam in the cooker for 15 minutes. Quick and easy idiyappam is ready to be served!!

Spicy Cabbage curry

This is one of my quick eats with roti. When I was dieting (long long ago so long ago! ) my mom used to pack this for lunch with rice or roti. It does not need any coconut or even oil. Probably just a teaspoon or so would do. I got a nice small cabbage at the farmer’s market, fresh enough for this!!

1.5 cups medium chopped cabbage (I like them into thin small strips)
1/2 medium tomato chopped
1/2 onion chopped
1/2 tablespoon sambar powder
1/2 tablespoon red chilli powder
dash of hing, 1 teaspoon each of mustard seeds and urad dal
1 teaspoon oil
Salt to taste

Method:
1. Add the chopped cabbage with little salt to a pan and just cook them by sprinkling some water in between until they turn translucent, but still crisp.
2. Transfer to a plate and to the same pan add some oil and when hot temper with mustard seeds, urad dal and hing.
3. Add chopped onions and saute until translucent on high heat. Add the chopped onions and keep stirring until they become kinda mushy.
4. Add salt, sambar powder, red chilli powder, cabbage and add about 1/4 cup water, cook covered on medium flame until all veggies cook well. Serve with roti or rice.