Microwave Easy Cooking - Plain Rice

Hello Friends,


I want to thank Srivalli for even starting an event like MEC and letting me host MEC - Rice, because all I used to use my microwave was to heat up stuff and period, nothing more.


If you haven't already send your entries, then hurry up and send as the event ends on 31st march 2011.

But, because of her, I have started to at least think about various other options. This is one recipe which a friend of mine taught me when I was living a married but single life in Pittsburgh and I was surprised when she made rice this way.


Microwave Easy Cooking - Plain Rice

Ingredients
Rice - 1 cup, I used Sona Masoori type
Water - 2 cups (Varies depending on which brand or variety of rice you are using, so change this accordingly)
Preparation

• Wash rice properly.
• Add water and rice in a microwave safe bowl, double the size of the quantity of rice you are adding. Remember water will boil and rice will puff up, so it needs all that extra space.
• Keep the lid on the bowl, but not tighly as it needs to let out the steam.
• Cook it on high for 15-20 minutes, depending on your rice variety and how well you want it to be done. For my microwave, about 17 min. is the time.
• Let the bowl cool down a little (about 3-5 min.) before handling it and slowly puff the rice with fork, if you want the grains intact.
• Wasn't that easy? :)

Serving
Serve it with any gravy or dry curry or dal or podi/oil or chutney or practically anything you eat rice with... lol


That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Pudina Roti - पुदीना रोटी (Minty Flat Bread)

Hello Friends,

I had planted 2 mint plants last year in my small garden while everyone else was at the verge of dying (fall). But, guess what, I couldn't have believed it, the mint survived and kept spreading . It is not a big tree, but it is somehow creeping on the ground and has grown a bit. 


I have been plucking it once in a while to flavor my food, but this time I decided to try something "pudina (mint)" special. Now, what better way then to make pudina roti or rice. Everyone in my house is a roti fan, so thought of going with that. Before this, I had never made or eaten minty flat bread. So, googled and found quite a few different recipes. I took all the tips from everywhere, and here is the version that I liked and went for and boy am I glad I did, as we all loved it :)

Pudina Roti - पुदीना रोटी (Minty Flat Bread)

Ingredients
Whole Wheat Flour - 2 cups
Pudina (Mint leaves) - 2 cups (Fully packed)
Onion - 1 cup, finely chopped
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
Green chili - 2, finely chopped or you can use red chili powder, whichever you prefer
Amchur (Mango Powder) - 1 tsp
Dhaniya (Coriander) Powder - 1 tsp
Jeera (Cumin) Powder - 1 tsp
Oil - 1 tbsp
Salt - as per taste
Preparation

• Take a wide non-stick pan and add oil to it.
• Add onion and fry till they are translucent.
• Add all other ingredients except flour and mix well and let them cook/fry for 2-3 min.
• Don't let pudina leaves wilt, we just want them nicely mixed and flavored with spices and oil.
• Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool down.
• Add the pudina mix in the flour and mix well, don't add any water right now.
• After flour is completely mixed with pudina leaves, add warm water little by little and make into a smooth dough, just like any other flat bread dough.
• Heat a griddle on medium heat.
• Pinch a lemon size ball from the pudina roti dough and roll it into a desired sized circle of usual flat bread thickness.
• Place the roti on the griddle and by brushing very little oil or ghee, cook on both sides till nice golden spots appear, which means they are ready to be eaten.

Serving
Serve warm with your favorite chutney/pickle (you see sweet lime pickle made by my SIL in the pic) or gravy curry and yogurt or any other way you like. My son loved it just as it is, with nothing to go by.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday Event - 29th March 2011 (Volume 34)

Hello friends,

This is the 34th volume of Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday Event. You can find recipes for all other volumes here. where we all with link the blog posts where we posted a recipe that we had Bookmarked from another blog or book or magazine or simply from a TV show written on a blank paper. It would be great to know when you bookmarked it (date), if you would like to share it, not mandatory.

Remember, you will have to post that recipe on Tuesday, 29th March 2011 and no archived or past recipes are allowed to be entered in this event. You can make that recipe any date or time, but it has be posted on Tuesday. Hope that is clear :)

Important Note: The recipe has to be from another source (blog, magazine, friend, noted from somewhere in your diary etc.) and importantly as this is a vegetarian blog, it has to be a vegetarian recipe, no kind of meat allowed. Eggs are allowed, but only in baking.

Please use the logo displayed below in your post and link it with this post or the original announcement post of this event.

Once you have posted your recipe on your blog, simply link it using "Mr. Linky" below. Linking will open only after 12 am on 29th March 2011 (India Time) and will stay open till end of the day (US Pacific Time).

Hoping to see lots of recipes as I know all of us have bookmarked recipe, blogger or non-blogger. If you are a non-blogger, please feel free to send me the recipe with pic and the source of your bookmark.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Masala Akki Roti from the mystery ingredient - "MAITRI" - a friendship chain

Hello Friends,

I am sure many of you have already read or heard about MAITRI. If not, please do follow the link and read all about it. We are waiting for more and more participation from all our US and Canada bloggers. Guys, it is not restricted to "Indian" origin bloggers, so would love to have participation from all over the place :)

In case of any query, please contact me at priya.mitharwal@gmail.com or Reshmi at reshrite@gmail.com.

Now, the theatrics of the mystery ingredient I received. I receive an email from Reshmi saying if I received my ingredient as she got a delivery confirmation. I rushed to mail box, (see, here I am not good at checking my mailbox every day, so the reminder from her) and guess what, there was a packet waiting for me. Unfortunately, I did not take pic of the packet itself, but, none-the-less, I surely took the pics of contents which is what matters more :)

Check out the beautiful drawings she made and her super cute smiley spatula that she sent me. I love it. Actually, my 18 month old loved it more than I did, lol :)

It took me a while to identify the ingredient, as I never went for obvious, based on the color, I firsr said, Ragi and what not, but finally, after few hints from Reshmi, I got it to be "Red Rice Flour".

Now, the recipe. I had never cooked with red rice flour before and even in general with rice flour. Plus, I wanted to try something that I had not done before, something new. Of course, where do I check but my bookmarked list and saw this bookmarked waiting for me to be made. 

I made the very famous Karnataka special, Akki Roti from my blogger friend Prathibha's blog. I have made it slightly my way, but do check her recipe for her twist of adding grated veggies :)

Red Rice Akki Roti (Rice Flour Flat Bread)

Ingredients

Red Rice Flour - 2 cups

Onions - 1 cup, finely chopped

Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp

Red Chili Powder - 1/2 tsp

Coriander Powder - 1/2 tsp

Cumin Powder - 1/2 tsp

Kasoori Methi - 1 tsp, crushed

Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp

Salt - as per taste

Warm water - to mix the dough

Preparation

• Mix all dry ingredients first.
• Add warm water little by little and make into a smooth dough. It won't be as smooth as regular wheat flour dough, but it will form into a nice ball.
• Grease a thick magazine cover (you know those shiny ones, which can withstand heat and are not as thin as paper). You can use thick plastic as well, but there is always a chance to burn it when placing it on griddle.
• Pinch an orange sized ball from the dough and place it on the plastic sheet and spread it into a roti shape with your hands. Grease your fingers as well. It will be easy to do the job.
• Heat the griddle (not too hot) and slowly invert the paper with roti and slowly separate the roti from the paper.
• Add little oil and cook on both sides till you start seeing brown spots.
• Make all the dough in this way. I could make 4 big rotis from these ingredients listed above.

Serving

Serve them warm with a dollop of butter and my green chili pickle and gongura chutney.

For a running roundup of MAITRI, please keep checking the MAITRI Page.

That's all for now. Take care till next post.

Roundup of Celebrate Sweets - Warm Desserts

Hello Friends,


Sorry guys, I know everyone has been waiting for this roundup, but it took a while for me. Got a little busy. 


First of all, I would like to thank Nivedita for letting me host this version of the Celebrate Sweets - Warm Desserts event. I loved every bit of it and enjoyed all the entries, all 50 of them :)


Now, it is time for you to enjoy them all, every single one is worth trying and devouring it. So, what are you waiting for, let's get started !!! If I have left your entry by mistake, please leave a comment and send me an email.

Gayathri Kumar from Gayathri's Cook Spot sent  Eggless Grapes sponge with spiced apple syrup

Reva from Kaarasaaram sent Chocolate Risotto, Mango and Passion Fruit Sweet Sticky Rice, Aval Squash Payasam

Chitra from Chitranna sent Egg less Chocolate Cake

Ramya from Hot from my oven sent Eggless Bread Pudding, Sticky Toffee Pudding

Denny from Oh Taste n See sent Chocolate Sponge Pudding

Priya from Akshayapaatram sent Ash Gourd/White pumpkin Halwa

Priya (Yallapantula) Mitharwal from Mharo Rajasthan's Recipes sent  Eggless Chocolate and Bread Pudding, Caramelized Banana in Coconut Milk,  Microwave Bread Halwa, Pear and Chocolate Crumble, Molten Lava Cake, Thai Sticky Rice with Mango, Shahi Tukda, Double Ka Meetha,  Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Gulab Jamun

Kamakshi Prasanna from Kamu's Kaivannam sent Creamy Crunchy Bread

Najla Koya from Foodie Corner sent Bread and butter pudding, Apple Crumble

Heather from girlchef sent  Dark Hot Chocolate w/ Bourbon Whipped Cream & Homemade Chocolate Marshmallows

Shobha from Food Mazaa sent Gulab Jamuns

Nivedita from Nivedita's Kitchen sent Fresh Coconut and Jaggery Kheer(ಕೊಬ್ಬರಿ ಗಿಣ್ಣ),  Oats and Rawa payasam(sheer Khurma style), Malpua

Shylaja from South Indian Home sent Ashoka Halwa

Mj from turmericnspice sent Apple Crunble Tart

Sravani from Srav's Culinary Concepts sent Pala Talikalu

Hima from SnackORama sent Mamidipandu rava kesari/Mango sheera

Suma Gandlur from VeggiePlatter sent Kalkandu Sadam, Carrot - Almond Halwa

Sukanya from saffronstreaks sent doodhi halwa, yellow pumkin halwa

Reshmi from The Rasoi sent Deep Fried Nutella

Harini-Jaya from Tamalapaku sent Sago Carrot Almond Kheer

Savitha from Savitha's Kitchen sent Mini Jilebi

Priya from Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes sent Apple & Raisins Clafoutis, Quinoa Kesari,  Rose Syrup,Sago & Oats Kheer

Aipi from USMasala sent Chocohotpots, Malpua, Jalebi- Rabdi, Cherry Crumble

Richa Priyanka from Ambrosia sent Apple and breadcrumbs layer cake

Cooking Foodie from 365 Days of Eating sent Gajar Ka Halwa / Gajrela

Vidya from Vegetarian Recipes from India and Around the World sent Walnut brownie

Chitra and Dibs from Chitra Amma's Kitchen sent Aval Payasam

Akheela from toreviewtoronto sent Carrot halwa

That's all for now, take care till next post.