Quinoa Cake Stix for Blog Hop

Hello Friends,


Another week of Blog Hop, love it, get to try different blogs and different recipes. Please check out what all this is about.


So, this week, I am paired with Jabeen of Jabeen's Corner, who has this amazing blog and I wanted to try something different, out of my comfort zone. So, I chose these Quinoa Cake Stix recipe, which she had made during MAITRI event.

As I was browsing, it immediately caught my eye and I wanted to try it out. I used her recipe all the way to Ts and Dots. So, please hop on her blog to check out the recipe. I have to tell you, I wasn't disappointed. I had these yummy, delicious, full of banana flavor, soft bread. No one would ever imagine that it had quinoa in it. Great texture, simply superb. Give it a try !!!

Please do check what other blog hoppers are cooking.

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

Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 60)

Hello friends,

This is the 60th 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, 27th September 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 to be posted on Tuesday. Hope that it is clear :)


OK, so here are the rules,

• You will have to prepare a recipe that you bookmarked previously from a blog, or any recipe source, it can even be from a book or magazine which you had cut, or taken notes from or folded the paper of, to remind you to make it sometime. In short, any kind of bookmarked recipe is allowed. No disrespect or offense to anyone, but recipes from some relatives will NOT BE allowed, as they don’t fall into the criteria of bookmarking.
• For every recipe you make, please post the recipe source (a link if it is a website or picture of the book/magazine, if it is from the print media) along with picture (s). You are NOT ALLOWED to copy/paste the recipe and just link it to the original blog or website. If you took it from a magazine, we will appreciate a scanned picture of the recipe mentioning the book name specifically than you copy pasting the recipe. We have seen quite a few of copyright issues in last few months in blog world, and this is keeping that in mind. If you tweaked the recipe in any way to suit your needs, please ONLY mention the tweaks.
• This is a pure vegetarian blog, so, I will only allow vegetarian bookmarked recipes here (eggs are allowed ONLY in baking).
• You can prepare the recipe anytime, just blog about it ONLY on a Tuesday :)
• No Archived entries please.
• Your dish can be from any course, no restrictions on that.
• You can link more than one bookmarked recipe (with picture).
• We will add a "Mr. Linky" to every Tuesday's post, so that you can link your post directly to my post and that way everyone can see those recipes right away and do not have to wait for my roundup. No need to send me an email with your posts.
• If you are a non-blogger, please feel free to send me an email @ priya.mitharwal@gmail.com with your recipe and a picture and of course the recipe source.
• Please link your posts which have tried bookmarked recipes with the following logo. This is mandatory.
• Once you have posted your recipe on your blog, simply link it using "Mr. Linky" below. Linking will open only after 12 am on 27th September 2011 (India Time) and will stay open till end of the day (US Pacific Time).

I would like to specially mention here that this beautiful logo was designed by dear Aipi. Thanks sweety for this wonderful creation :)


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

You can link your recipe either from my blog or Aipi’s blog.

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

Curried Couscous - A jiffy, perfect and healthy dinner

Hello Friends,


You know how sometimes you are so pressed for time, and you don't want to eat the same roti sabzi or rice/dal combo. This is a recipe that I just make for one of those days. Usually, after I come back from office and after picking 2 kids (one from day care and one from school day care), it is 6 pm and then I have to have the food ready by 6:30 pm (max on most of the days). Now you ask why that deadline. Firstly, because if I don't meet that deadline, my hubby and kids start eating junk to fill their tummy as we are all hungry and that doesn't go well with "finish your dinner by 7" agenda and to get at least 2 hours before going to la-la land by kids. Secondly, most of the days, my 1st grader has some activities that he needs to be at. Like, Monday is his Piano class, Tuesday is Kumon, Wednesday (thankfully nothing), Thursday is Ice Skating and Friday is Kumon again and then weekends don't exist at all. You got the picture. 


So, basically some of the weekdays, this curried couscous is a life saver. Takes about 15 min. to put together and a complete meal with some yogurt on the side. any leftovers are nice for left day lunch as well.


Curried Couscous

Ingredients
Couscous - 1.5 cups (this is usually enough for all of us - 2 adults and 2 kids)
Mixed Frozen Veggies - 1.5 cups (feel free to use fresh and add time to cook them as well)
Onion - 1 cup, sliced or finely chopped as you prefer
Tomato - 1 cup, sliced or finely chopped as you prefer
Ginger / Garlic - 1 tbsp each, mined or paste or shredded, as you prefer
Spices (feel free to add any mix of spice you like here)
Turmeric - 1 tsp
Red Chili Powder - 1.5 tsp (adjust per your need and feel free to use green chili instead, if you prefer that)
Cumin Powder - 1 tsp
Coriander Powder - 1 tsp
Salt - per your taste
Tempering
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Mustard Seeds - 1tsp
Oil - 1 tsp
Cilantro for garnishing (if you like)
Preparation

• Take a non-stick pan or any pot you make your curry in.
• Add all tempering ingredients and let the seeds splutter.
• Add onion, ginger and garlic and cook till onion is translucent (if you are using green chili, add it in this step).
• Add tomatoes and all spices and cook till tomatoes are kind of mushy.
• Add frozen veggies and cook till they are cooked (frozen kind cook fast, about 5 min., for fresh veggies, you will need more time depending on which veggies you are using).
• Add 2 cups of water, cover and let it come to boil (usually it is 1 to 1 ratio between couscous and water, but, here I add little extra due to veggies).
• Add couscous to boiling mixture, mix, cover nicely and switch off the heat and let it sit for 5 min.
• Fluff the couscous after 5 minutes and it is ready to be served. Wasn't that easy? :)

Serving
Serve it with a simple bowl of unflavored yogurt or your favorite raita.


This goes to Global Food Festival hosted by Kalyani.

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

Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 59)

Hello friends,

This is the 59th 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, 20th September 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 to be posted on Tuesday. Hope that it is clear :)


OK, so here are the rules,

• You will have to prepare a recipe that you bookmarked previously from a blog, or any recipe source, it can even be from a book or magazine which you had cut, or taken notes from or folded the paper of, to remind you to make it sometime. In short, any kind of bookmarked recipe is allowed. No disrespect or offense to anyone, but recipes from some relatives will NOT BE allowed, as they don’t fall into the criteria of bookmarking.
• For every recipe you make, please post the recipe source (a link if it is a website or picture of the book/magazine, if it is from the print media) along with picture (s). You are NOT ALLOWED to copy/paste the recipe and just link it to the original blog or website. If you took it from a magazine, we will appreciate a scanned picture of the recipe mentioning the book name specifically than you copy pasting the recipe. We have seen quite a few of copyright issues in last few months in blog world, and this is keeping that in mind. If you tweaked the recipe in any way to suit your needs, please ONLY mention the tweaks.
• This is a pure vegetarian blog, so, I will only allow vegetarian bookmarked recipes here (eggs are allowed ONLY in baking).
• You can prepare the recipe anytime, just blog about it ONLY on a Tuesday :)
• No Archived entries please.
• Your dish can be from any course, no restrictions on that.
• You can link more than one bookmarked recipe (with picture).
• We will add a "Mr. Linky" to every Tuesday's post, so that you can link your post directly to my post and that way everyone can see those recipes right away and do not have to wait for my roundup. No need to send me an email with your posts.
• If you are a non-blogger, please feel free to send me an email @ priya.mitharwal@gmail.com with your recipe and a picture and of course the recipe source.
• Please link your posts which have tried bookmarked recipes with the following logo. This is mandatory.
• Once you have posted your recipe on your blog, simply link it using "Mr. Linky" below. Linking will open only after 12 am on 20th September 2011 (India Time) and will stay open till end of the day (US Pacific Time).

I would like to specially mention here that this beautiful logo was designed by dear Aipi. Thanks sweety for this wonderful creation :)


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

You can link your recipe either from my blog or Aipi’s blog.

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

Aloo Palak Tikki/Vada - आलू पालक टिक्की/वडा (Potato and Spinach Patties/Fritters)

Hello Friends,

My 1st grader asks me to make something interesting and yummy which he doesn't eat every day. And this is a demand, I get everyday after picking him from day care, which is while coming back from work, which is a 49 mile drive and after picking up my little one (almost 2) from his day care. Now, how can I make something interesting (which shouldn't be a roti based or rice based or soup) every single day. When I ask him to give me options he has in mind, guess what he has none and to top it off, he is very very picky and will decline almost all my dish names that I tell him. The only thing that almost always wins him is potato. 

But, trying to be a good mom, I try not to give a lot of that to him, firstly because I don't want to and secondly because then hubby and I also end up eating it, which is definitely good for someone who is badly in need of losing weight :(

Anyways, so one of these days, when he demanded, I thought of using aloo and then making it healthy too, so, add spinach to it and then just kept adding things. When I asked him if tikkis are fine, he was ecstatic and called me "best mother in the world". These days it is an honor as I don't get to hear that a lot from my 1st grader, who most of the time, calls me mean or a non-helper (for not helping him by declining to recite all answers to his homework without him trying it on his own, go figure!!!).

My little one (2 yr old) enjoyed the vadas more than tikki and my older one enjoyed tikkis more. I tell you, these 2 boys are always in 2 different directions. One is south and one is north in all their choices.

So, that is the story behind it. If you are bored enough now, enjoy the recipe and pics :)

Aloo Palak Tikki/Vada - आलू पालक टिक्की/वडा (Potato and Spinach Patties/Fritters)

Ingredients

Aloo (Potato) - 2 cups boiled & mashed (2 cups is what mashed potato should be)

Palak (Spinach) - 1-2 cups, finely chopped (increase or decrease based on your liking)

Ginger - Garlic - 1 tbsp, chopped, minced or paste

Green Chilies - 2, finely chopped (I used 2 tsp red chili powder)

Coriander Powder - 1 tsp

Cumin Powder - 1 tsp

Chat Masala - 2 tsp

Bread Crumbs - 1 cup (you can also used wet and squeezed bread pieces as well here)

Salt - per your liking

Oil for deep frying of vada and shallow frying of tikki

Preparation

• Mix everything into a dough form except for oil.
• Now, per your liking, shape them as tikki or vada.
• If you are making vada, heat enough oil to submerge them in a wok and then deep fry them few at a time till golden brown. Drain them on paper and serve (note that I am not dipping them in any batter here).
• If you are making tikki, heat the griddle and add a tsp of oil and shallow fry tikkis to the golden brown color.
• from the measurements I gave, I made 4 tikkis (of the size and shape in pic) and about 8 or so vadas.

Serving

Serve them with your favorite sauce or chutney or make it into a chat with some chhole and other condiments.

This is going to Dish It Out - Potato and Leafy Greens event that is guest hosted by me and started by Vardhini.

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

Jalebi for Indian Cooking Challenge - August

Hello Friends,


Nothing says "Celebration" like Jalebi, how many of you dream about eating it. OK, may be none of you. But, I do. When we plan India trip, I dream of this one place where we get really good Doodh Jalebi (meaning Jalebi with milk and cream). They serve it real warm and in those earthen pots. Now, to get that in US is difficult. We do get some decent jalebis, but nothing like homemade, right?


So, when Srivalli  announced Auagust's Indian Cooking Challenge, I was super excited and nervous both. Super excited as I love jalebi and nervous as I had never made them before in my life and I have heard horror stories about them going wrong.


I have to say that it wasn't as bad as I thought. Of course, I didn't get that professional shape and it doesn't look great, but believe me when I say that it tasted delicious and with warm milk, it reminded me of that old place :)


So, without further ado, here is the recipe. I have one more jalebi recipe bookmarked that I have to try, may be later !!!

Jalebi - जलेबी (Deep Fried Indian Dessert Soaked in Simple Sugar Syrup)

Ingredients

For the Jalebi batter

All purpose flour / Maida - 100 gm

Curds / Yoghurt - 1 cup 

Lime juice - 1 tsp 

Cornstarch - 30 gm 

Hot oil - 1 tbsp 

a large pinch of saffron color

pinch of salt
For the Sugar Syrup

Sugar - 1 cup 

Water - ½ cup 

Lime juice - 1 tsp
Oil for deep frying

Preparation

• Mix everything listed under batter till smooth.
• Keep it on the counter overnight for fermentation. Make sure that your jalebi batter is not too thin and can be pressed into spiral shape without disintegrating in water. It should be that of thick cake batter consistency or thinner than cookie dough consistency.
• Next day, heat oil for deep frying.
• While oil is heating, take sugar, lime juice and water in a separate pot and let it come to boil.
• Let it boil till it forms a one-thread consistency syrup (to check one-thread consistency, take a drop of syrup between your thumbs and index finger and slowly pull your fingers apart and it should form a thread).
• At this point, switch off the heat, but keep the syrup warm when dunking fried jalebis in it.
• Prepare jalebi batter for frying by pouring it into  a zip log bag and then making a very small hole at the end of the ziplock to dispense the batter. Take care in making a small hole, as we don't want really thick spirals.
• Once oil is hot (it has to be really hot to make them crispy), slowly dispense batter into the hot oil in spiral motion forming concentric circles of about 2-4 inches in diameter.
• Don't worry, if you don't get a perfect shape as after dunking them in syrup, everything will taste great, lol
• Once they are deep fried, gets a nice golden color (make sure they are not fried too much), dip them directly in the suryp. Keep them in syrup only for about 20-30 seconds and remove them.
• Continue making all jalebis till batter is done. Take care to make only as many jalebis in the hot oil as many the pot can hold as they expand or fluff a bit after frying and if they are crowded, they won't be cooked well. In a regular pot, you can fry upto 5 jalebis of my size at one time.
• From the measurements I gave, I made about 25 jalebis of 2.5 inch diameter.

Serving

Serve it just as it is, but warm is the best way to go. Or serve it the way we like, dipped in milk and topped with malai (cream).

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

Spicy Focaccia Bread for Blog Hop

Hi Friends,


Today is the 4th week of Blog Hop Wednesdays, an effort started by Radhika. It encourages us to blog hop and try our fellow blogger's recipes. Please check out what all this is about.


This week, I am paired with Charishma of Cherie's Stolen Recipes, who has this amazing blog with variety of recipes. You will find recipes from every course and every like of yours. Love it. Please check out her blog and follow if you are not already doing so.


I wanted to try something that I hadn't tried yet. And, now that I am this pattern of trying to bake, my eye caught the recipe of my favorite savory bread on earth, which is Spicy Focaccia Bread. It is my absolute favorite. Every time I go out for hot panini or sandwich, this is the bread I request it on. I simply love the texture and how nice it is in my mouth. If you have never tried it, you don't know what you are missing when it comes to savory breads. 

I have used her recipe as it is with the exception of adding cilantro (because I forgot, dumb me) and chilies on top as my kids and hubby do not like it very spicy. My husband, who is usually a big critic, loved it and wanted to try another slice even though he is watching his diet. It took me just 5 minutes of prep works, 1 hour of bread rising (remember like Charishma says, it doesn't rise a lot like other yeast breads)  and thereafter 40 minutes of baking @ 375 degree F. Thanks Charisma for this wonderful recipe :)

Please do check what other blog hoppers are cooking.

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

Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 58)

Hello friends,

This is the 58th 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, 13th September 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 to be posted on Tuesday. Hope that it is clear :)


OK, so here are the rules,

• You will have to prepare a recipe that you bookmarked previously from a blog, or any recipe source, it can even be from a book or magazine which you had cut, or taken notes from or folded the paper of, to remind you to make it sometime. In short, any kind of bookmarked recipe is allowed. No disrespect or offense to anyone, but recipes from some relatives will NOT BE allowed, as they don’t fall into the criteria of bookmarking.
• For every recipe you make, please post the recipe source (a link if it is a website or picture of the book/magazine, if it is from the print media) along with picture (s). You are NOT ALLOWED to copy/paste the recipe and just link it to the original blog or website. If you took it from a magazine, we will appreciate a scanned picture of the recipe mentioning the book name specifically than you copy pasting the recipe. We have seen quite a few of copyright issues in last few months in blog world, and this is keeping that in mind. If you tweaked the recipe in any way to suit your needs, please ONLY mention the tweaks.
• This is a pure vegetarian blog, so, I will only allow vegetarian bookmarked recipes here (eggs are allowed ONLY in baking).
• You can prepare the recipe anytime, just blog about it ONLY on a Tuesday :)
• No Archived entries please.
• Your dish can be from any course, no restrictions on that.
• You can link more than one bookmarked recipe (with picture).
• We will add a "Mr. Linky" to every Tuesday's post, so that you can link your post directly to my post and that way everyone can see those recipes right away and do not have to wait for my roundup. No need to send me an email with your posts.
• If you are a non-blogger, please feel free to send me an email @ priya.mitharwal@gmail.com with your recipe and a picture and of course the recipe source.
• Please link your posts which have tried bookmarked recipes with the following logo. This is mandatory.
• Once you have posted your recipe on your blog, simply link it using "Mr. Linky" below. Linking will open only after 12 am on 13th September 2011 (India Time) and will stay open till end of the day (US Pacific Time).

I would like to specially mention here that this beautiful logo was designed by dear Aipi. Thanks sweety for this wonderful creation :)


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

You can link your recipe either from my blog or Aipi’s blog.

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

Nutella Fudge Brownies from Abby Dodge

Hello Friends,


Today, I am here with the easiest brownie recipe ever. I mean just 4 ingredients, now how can you beat that, right? And, guess what it has Nutella in it. Now, I have to tell you that till about 3 years, I had no clue what Nutella as and once I got introduced, being a chocoholic that I am, it got hooked on to it right away.


This Nutella Fudge Brownie recipe is from a wonderful baker Abby Dodge. She has some amazing blog and if you have never visited her, please do so and you will be more than happy that you did. Now, as a rule of the event, I am submitted to, I am not going to re-write the recipe, so please follow her link and check out the great and mouth watering recipe. Here are some pictures to tempt you :)

This goes to Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 57)event hosted by Aipi and me.



This goes to Global Food Festival hosted by Kalyani.

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

Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 57)

Hello friends,

This is the 57th 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, 6th September 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 to be posted on Tuesday. Hope that it is clear :)


OK, so here are the rules,

• You will have to prepare a recipe that you bookmarked previously from a blog, or any recipe source, it can even be from a book or magazine which you had cut, or taken notes from or folded the paper of, to remind you to make it sometime. In short, any kind of bookmarked recipe is allowed. No disrespect or offense to anyone, but recipes from some relatives will NOT BE allowed, as they don’t fall into the criteria of bookmarking.
• For every recipe you make, please post the recipe source (a link if it is a website or picture of the book/magazine, if it is from the print media) along with picture (s). You are NOT ALLOWED to copy/paste the recipe and just link it to the original blog or website. If you took it from a magazine, we will appreciate a scanned picture of the recipe mentioning the book name specifically than you copy pasting the recipe. We have seen quite a few of copyright issues in last few months in blog world, and this is keeping that in mind. If you tweaked the recipe in any way to suit your needs, please ONLY mention the tweaks.
• This is a pure vegetarian blog, so, I will only allow vegetarian bookmarked recipes here (eggs are allowed ONLY in baking).
• You can prepare the recipe anytime, just blog about it ONLY on a Tuesday :)
• No Archived entries please.
• Your dish can be from any course, no restrictions on that.
• You can link more than one bookmarked recipe (with picture).
• We will add a "Mr. Linky" to every Tuesday's post, so that you can link your post directly to my post and that way everyone can see those recipes right away and do not have to wait for my roundup. No need to send me an email with your posts.
• If you are a non-blogger, please feel free to send me an email @ priya.mitharwal@gmail.com with your recipe and a picture and of course the recipe source.
• Please link your posts which have tried bookmarked recipes with the following logo. This is mandatory.
• Once you have posted your recipe on your blog, simply link it using "Mr. Linky" below. Linking will open only after 12 am on 6th September 2011 (India Time) and will stay open till end of the day (US Pacific Time).

I would like to specially mention here that this beautiful logo was designed by dear Aipi. Thanks sweety for this wonderful creation :)


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

You can link your recipe either from my blog or Aipi’s blog.

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