Til - Moongfali Chutney - तिल मूंगफली chutney (Sesame Peanut Chutney) for March Blog Hop

Hello Everyone,

I am trying to maintain the continuity. Here is a really late post for the March Blog Hop. Obviously due to this delay I have to apologize to Radhika, organizer of Blog Hops and Nisha, with whom I was paired in March.

Now that apologizes are made and hopefully accepted, here is the recipe I chose from Nisha's blog. I had too many choices, but this chutney caught my eye as I was looking for a new and easy chutney recipe for the idlis I was planning over that weekend.

Nisha, thanks dear, even my older one who is usually very picky with condiments, liked this chutney :)

Til - Moongfali Chutney - तिल मूंगफली chutney (Sesame Peanut Chutney)

Ingredients

Til (White Sesame Seeds) - 1/2 cup

Moongfali (Peanuts) - 1/3 cup

Coconut - 1/4 cup

Tamarind - size of a quarter (one rupee coin)

Dry Red Chilies - 3-4 (per your taste)

Garlic - 4-6 cloves (per your liking)

Salt - per your taste

Oil - 1 tbsp

Water - 1/2 cup (increase or decrease depending on how runny or thick you want your chutney)

For Tempering

Oil - 1 tsp

Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp

Preparation

• Dry Roast Sesame seeds, Peanuts and Coconut till they are golden brown (do not over roast).
• Take a non stick pan and add oil to it.
• Once oil is hot, add tamarind, dry red chilies and garlic.
• Fry till garlic is nicely roasted and golden brown.
• Add all the ingredients except for tempering (including water) in a mixer/blender and grind to a coarse to smooth paste (as you like, I preferred it not very smooth).
• Heat oil in a small pan and once it is hot, add mustard seeds and let them sizzle.
• Immediately add it to the chutney and serve.

Serving

I served it with idlis and even with my yogurt rice. So, feel free to serve in in anyway you like. I felt that this was a great spread for sandwiches and rolls as well, if you like that taste.

Do check out what other blog hoppers made for the month of March.

This also goes to MLLA # 47 event brainchild of Susan.

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

Guest Hosting My Legume Love Affair (MLLA) # 47

Hello Friends,

I feel so honored to be hosting another  My Legume Love Affair or what we in short call MLLA # 47 in my blog.

Firstly, I want to thank Susan for giving me this wonderful opportunity to host this edition of MLLA. I am truly honored to host my favorite event.

Being a vegetarian, I am sure many of you (who are also vegetarian) agree that this is our main source of protein. And, we love our legumes :)

Now, what is a Legume? Wikipedia says,

“A legume in botanical writing is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or a fruit of these specific plants. A legume fruit is a simple dry fruit that develops from a simple carpel and usually dehisces (opens along a seam) on two sides. Well-known legumes include alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, lentils, lupins, mesquite, carob, soy, and peanuts.”

Another small note, on the logo, which is as usual prepared by Susan herself. The beans you see in the logo are Anasazi beans, if you aren't familiar with them. They were first cultivated by the Native American Anasazi Tribe of the Southwest, and considered "heirloom" beans in the U.S. since they are very ancient in provenance and hard to find.

In our event, we allow you to post any recipe with any kind of legume or its derivatives as a main ingredient. For example, you can make a recipe with fresh Chickpeas, dried chickpeas, ground chickpeas or any form of chickpea. Remember one thing, that a spoonful or soupcon of a legume is not quite enough to qualify. It has to be the star ingredient or at least very obvious and dominant in the recipe . Hope that explains! If still in doubt, feel free to email me J

Now, here are some simple rules that one needs to follow to participate:

• All courses and cultures are welcome, but they have to strictly vegetarian. Eggs are allowed only if used in a baking process.
• Multiple recipes are permitted but limited to 10 per participant (although only one submission will be counted towards the random drawing/s). 
• Recipes submitted to other events are also permitted, but other events might have different rules.
• Recipes from archives can be accepted ONLY if updated and reposted as current. 
• Recipes from those who do not blog are accepted and make eligible the participants to win a prize. (These are very rare.)
• Location of participants is necessary so that we know who qualifies to win both or one of the prizes (See # 3 below). (Hurst cannot ship outside the U.S.) 
• Use of logo is optional.
• Please ensure your posts are linked to this announcement Susan's link.
• Emails should me sent to priya.mitharwal@gmail.com with the blogger's name, blog name, recipe name, link, picture and location of the blogger.

Now, the best part of all, the Prizes.

1. The Complete Book of Pasta - Cook's Illustrated. This prize is offered by Susan without influence at her expense, and she will also absorb worldwide shipping charges.  F.T.C. Notice: Susan does not receive any compensation from Amazon. 
2. Hurst Bean Box - A case of six bags of the winner's choice of Hurst Bean products, suitable for every diet, sponsored by Hurst Bean. (Due to shipping restrictions, this prize can only be awarded if the winner is a U.S. resident.) F.T.C. Notice: In May 2010, Susan, at her request, received two Hurst Bean complimentary products which are not available for purchase in her local markets. Susan does not generally accept free products from Hurst Bean nor is she financially compensated by them.
3. Drawing Structure - If the winner is a U.S. resident, she/he will be the recipient of both Prizes 1 and 2 above.  In the event that an international winner is drawn, a second drawing will be conducted from the U.S. pool of entrants to ensure that the Hurst Prize is awarded every month.  In these instances, the international winner will receive the book, and the U.S. winner will receive the Hurst Prize. 

OK, so what are you waiting for. Whip up some yummilicious recipes and start sending your entries soon :)


Note: The round-up will be posted either last week of June or first week of July as I will be travelling in the month of June. I apologize in advance for the delay.

That is all for now. Take care till next post.

Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday (Volume 83)

Hello friends,

I apologize for not posting this event for almost 2 months. I would like to request my blogger friends to participate again. Thanks for your continuous support all. I really appreciate it.

This is the 83rd 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,  1st May 2012 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. 
• 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. Please write it in your own words and don't forget to 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 1st May 2012 (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.

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

Celebrating 2 years of my blog and Chhena Poda (Indian Cheese Cake) for ICC March 2012

Hello All,


Wow, what a long break I had from the blog. I am not sure how to start explaining my MIA status. Of course I was busy, which was one reason, but I guess the other reason was what I have heard some bloggers call "Bloggers' Block" or something like that. Basically, there was no enthu to post anything. It was as if life had something missing. I missed my blog big time. I hope and will do my best to be regular now. It also means that I have not really been cooking anything special or worth blogging about. 


See, the whole point of this blog was to share unseen and unknown or even famously known Rajasthani and some other recipes that people can learn from and enjoy. But, as that was the missing piece, there was nothing to blog about. We were literally eating usual same old dal/roti or roti sabzi all these days. Seriously, no kidding. My son would tell me every evening, again rice, again roti, why can't you do something different. And, I didn't have answer. Anyways, enough of my vent.


So, here I am with a very new and superb recipe called "Chhena Poda" or Indian Cheese Cake. This is a recipe from blog Anyone Can Cook. Very authentic Orissa Recipe. Orissa is south-eastern state of India. Please check her blog to find more mouth watering Oriya recipes. This was fortunately chosen as ICC recipe for this month. I am super duper late in posting it, and I have already apologized to Valli about it.


Now, that it is really late, but you know how they say "better late than never". My this small blog has also completed 2 years as of Feb 17th 2012. So, I would also like to thank my blog readers and fellow bloggers for all the encouragement and feedback that my blog and I have received in these 2 years. Thank you everyone, without you I couldn't be where I am today and you give me the strength to keep going :)


Without further boring you, here is the recipe which I loved and is our own variety of cheese cake that I am sure if you haven't already made and enjoyed, you will surely do so.


Chhena Poda (Indian Cheese Cake)

Ingredients

Full Fat or Low Fat Milk - 6 cups (this produced 1.5 cups Chenna/Khoya - Milk freshly curdled)
Lemon Juice - 2-3 tbsps
Suji ( Fine Semolina) – 1/4 cup
Fine Sugar - 3/4 cup (increase per your preference, I found this enough)
Cardamom powder - 1 teaspoon
Raisins - 1/4 cup
Cashew nuts - 2 tbsp Broken pieces (optional)
Ghee (Clarified Butter) - 1 tbsp

Preparation

• Boil milk in a heavy bottomed pan and let it come to boil.
• As soon as it starts boiling, add the lemon juice and simmer the milk for 5 min.
• You will immediately see that milk starts curdling. Mix it once and switch off the gas.
• After it cools down for about 3-4 min, strain it in a muslin cloth or fine mesh, to remove all whey. (This whey can be used to make soups or mix dough etc, so, don't just let it drain, but instead save it).
• Meanwhile, pre-heat your oven to 360 degree F.
• Nicely wring the muslin cloth to get rid of all the moisture from Chhena.
• Mix all the other ingredients well into this chhena and mash it well with your hands.
• To get nice caramelized effect, take the pan you will be using to make this cake, spread some ghee (clarified butter) in the bottom and on the sides.
• Sprinkle some sugar at the bottom and hold it right above the gas for a min. or so, to slightly melt it.
• Add the mashed chhena mixture, level it and bake it for about 1.5 hours or till a tooth pick comes out nice and clean.
• After it cools down a bit, turn it upside down and serve right away or chill and serve.
• The ingredients given above makes a big enough cake for 4 slices, so great for a family of 4.

Serving
We enjoyed it as dessert after our meal. It tasted great both warm and cold.


That's all for now. Keep visiting and encouraging me like this.