Veggie Quinoa

Tags

Quinoa, Quinoa Pulao, Veggie Quinoa

Quinoa has only recently become widely available and well known in many places, but it has quickly become popular with healthy eaters due to its great body benefits. Mostly treated as a grain (although it is actually a seed), quinoa can be used in the place of pasta, wheat or oats for an extremely nutritious meal. Quinoa, like most grains, is high in fibre, making it great for the digestive system, but perhaps its best attribute is that it is one of the few plant sources of high quality protein, containing all eight essential amino acids. On top of this, quinoa is a great source of nutrients including magnesium, manganese, iron, calcium, potassium and several B vitamins.

We also came across Quinoa recently, when we visited an Indian restaurant near our home. We found Quinoa puloa, we didn’t know what it is and when we asked the restaurant manager, he told us about its health benefits. Though we didn’t try it in the restaurant, I was curious about it and searched about it, So I tried it myself. Got a packet of Quinoa from the Ancient Harvest brand, here it goes…..

Ingredients:

Quinoa : 2 cups

Onion : 1/2 cup sliced

Carrot: 1/2 cup

French Beans : 1/2 cup

Corn : 1/2 cup

Green peas : 1/2 cup

Oil : 1 teaspoon

Cumin seeds : 1 teaspoon

Cinnamon Stick : 1 small

Cloves : 3

Star Anise : 1

Bay Leaf : 1

Salt : 1 tablespoon

Black Peppercorns : 1 tablespoon (powdered)

Method:

Wash the quinoa, and soak it in water for 30 mins.

Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Once it is hot, add the cinnamon stick, cloves, star anise, cumin seeds, once they crackle, add the bay leave. After a min, add the sliced onion, let it turn translucent. Next add all the veggies , let them get cooked. Next add Black peppercorn powder. Optionally you can add garam masala powder also. When the veggies are 70% cooked, add 4 cups of water (1:2 ratio of quinoa: water) and add salt.

Drain the water from quinoa and mix it with the veggies. Stir well and close the pan with lid. Cook it in slow mode for 30 mins. There would be an outer ring formed from the quinoa seed, which looks beautiful. You can garnish with cut cilantro leaves.

Enjoy this super food 🙂

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Zucchini Recipe with Spinach Pesto

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Spinach Pesto, Zucchini, Zucchini with Spinach Pesto

Zucchini is something new for me, I have never tried cooking it. Read about it that it lowers cholesterol, also aids in digestion, prevents constipation, maintains low blood sugar and curbs overeating. In India we get only cucumber, we eat cucumber raw or salad. So we thought lets try zucchini. Got a recipe from Kalyn’s kitchen, she had prepared it with spinach and basil pesto. Since I did not have basil at home, I used only spinach. It was quite simple. Here it goes…

Ingredients:

Zucchini : 2 medium sized

Olive Oil : 1 tablespoon

Black Pepper ground : 1 teaspoon

Salt : 1/2 tea spoon

Spinach Pesto : 2 table spoons

Method:

First I prepared the spinach pesto with spinach, walnut, Parmesan cheese, garlic 2 pods, olive oil in a blender as I dont have a food processor. I am sure there are lot of masters with pesto, I am new to pesto as well.

Next cut the Zucchini in to round pieces. Heat oil in a large pan, drop a piece of crushed garlic, let it fry for a min. This tempers the oil. Now remove the garlic. Place all the zucchini next to each other, so that it fills the whole pan, close the pan with lid. Let it get cooked for 2 mins. Open and try the side of the zucchini. Close the lid and let the other side get cooked. It would try a little brown color. Now add the spinach pesto and mix well with zucchini.

Next add salt and ground black pepper and mix well. Cook for 3 to 4 mins, and stop the heating. Serve hot. It tasted very good. I loved it. Give it a try 🙂

From Kalyn’s Kitchen : http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2007/07/sauteed-zucchini-recipe-with-spinach.html

( You can get more pictures in her website)

 

Coconut Rice

Tags

Coconut Rice, Indian rice variety, Thengai satham

Coconut Rice is a very easy and fast recipe. We used to have coconut tree at our home in my native place. Coconuts we get are smaller in size from that tree, but the they taste really sweet. After moving to the US, I did not use coconut at all. Finally I got the coconut , and I prepared coconut rice. Here is how I prepared it…

Ingrdients:

Basmathi Rice : 1 cup

Coconut : 3 to 4 table spoons grated

Green Chili : 2 slit (or can be substituted with black pepper corn powder 1 table spoon)

Oil : 1 table spoon

Cashew nuts : few

Salt : 1 teaspoon

To season:

mustard seed : 1/2 tea spoon

Urad dal : 1/2 tea spoon

Channa dal : 1 tea spoon

Curry leaves : few

Method:

Cook the basmathi rice with 1: 1.5 rice and water ratio. By this time have the coconut grated.

Once the rice is cooked, let it cool for few mins. Now heat the oil in a heavy bottomed large pan. Add mustard seeds, urad dal, channa dal, let it splutter. Add the curry leaves.  Add the cashew nuts. Now add the green chilies, after a minute, add the grated coconut. Mix well and cook for 2 mins, don’t leave it more than 2 to 3 mins. Add the cooked rice, salt and mix well. In 2 to 3 mins coconut rice is ready 🙂 A simple and fast recipe.

Kale with Coconut milk recipe

Tags

Coconut milk, Kale, Kale with coconut milk

My hubby loves spinach and kale, he likes all those which are green. I get these every week at the grocery. So at least once in a week either spinach or kale dishes is mandatory at my home…There are many varieties of spinach in India. My grandma used to prepare them with coconut milk. Here is my try with kale and coconut milk.

Ingredients:

Kale : a bunch

Fresh Coconut : grated ( 3 table spoons) or coconut milk : 100 ml

Green chili : 1 or Pepper corn crushed : 1/2 teaspoon

Onion : 1/4 chopped

Salt : a pinch

To season:

Cumin seeds : 1/2 table spoon

Urad dal : 1/2 table spoon (optional)

Oil : 1 teaspoon

Method:

First clean the Kale and chop it finely keep it aside.

Now if you are using the fresh grated coconut, grind it in a mixer with little water. Have 100 ml of warm to hot water aside. To get the coconut milk add this warm/hot water in the ground coconut and mix well. Pour this in a filter and get the milk separately. Using hot water gives better coconut milk.

Now heat the oil in a pan. Once it is little hot, add cumin seeds and urad dal. These are optional. After they splutter, add the onions and green chili( if using), let it turn translucent. Now add the chopped kale. Saute it for 3 mins.Kale would shrink. Keep stirring. If you are using pepper corns instead of green chili add the pepper corns now. After 2 mins, add salt, pinch of salt would be enough. Let it get cooked for 3 mins now.

When its almost done, add the coconut milk. Let it cook for 2 mins in coconut milk. Don’t leave it more than 3 mins. Now the side dish is ready to be served 🙂

Dried Ginger, Corriander tea/ sukku malli kaapi

Tags

cold cough remedy, Corriander tea, Dried Ginger, home made sukku malli kaapi powder recipe, Home made tea, how to make sukku malli kaapi powder, sukku malli kaapi

Do you have a sore throat, cold or flu? A perfect home made medicine is sukku malli kaapi. This is ideally made with karuppatti( Palm candy) since I did not have stock I have used jaggery.

Spring season is on and pollen allergy as well. First time I am experiencing the pollen allergy. As in India, we never had this allergy. I had a very bad sore throat, my hubby suggested me to prepare this suku malli kaapi( Tamil version of dried ginger, corriander seeds). It helps a lot during the cold, cough, sore throat. After having this yes I had some relief from the sore throat. It doesn’t have any caffeine. Also this helps in digestion.

Ingredients:

To Grind

Dry Ginger -1/2 inch length or Dry Ginger powder – 1 and a half table spoon

Corriander seeds – 1 1/2 table spoon

Cumin seeds – 1 table spoon

Black Pepper corns – 1 table spoon

To prepare tea:

Water – 200 to 250 ml

Palm jaggery/candy – 1 tablespoon ( I used Palm Jaggery)

Above ground mix – 1 tablespoon

Method:

• If you are using dry ginger, grind it to a smooth powder. I used the Ginger powder which we get in grocery.
• Next dry roast the coriander seeds, cumin seeds, black peppercorns for 3 mins.
• And mix with the ginger powder and grind it to a fine powder mixture.
• Now your tea powder is ready.
• Next boil water and add the palm jaggery/sugar. I used palm Jaggery as it is very healthy.
• Now once it is in the boiling stage, add the tea powder and reduce the heat to Medium – low.
• Let it boil for 5 to 6 mins.
• Then have it hot.
• It really help when you have cold and flu.

Semolina upma/Broken Wheat Rava Upma

Tags

Indian breakfast, Rava upma, Semolina, semolina upma

Broken wheat is called wheat rava in India. Semolina is very much used in all south Indian breakfast. My grandma tells me that I prepare this dish very well, getting credit from her is not an easy deal 🙂 ……This is also one of the easiest breakfast. It cooks very fast. When ever I dont have time to prepare and in a hurry , I will prepare the plain upma. Also there are many variations in this preparation. Here I give the recipe with veggies…

Ingredients:

Semolina/Broken Wheat rava : 2 cups

Red Onion: 1/2 thinly sliced

Green chili : 1 cut in to pieces

Ginger : small piece

Carrot : 1/2 sliced

Green Peas : fist full

French Beans: few cut into pieces

Oil : 2 table spoons

Salt : 1 teaspoon

To season:

Mustard seeds : 1/2 teaspoon

Urad dal : 1/2 teaspoon

Channa dal : 1/2 teaspoon

Cumin seeds : 1/2 teaspoon

curry leaves : few

Method:

First dry roast the 2 cups of semolina/rava in a pan for 3 mins. You will get the flavor of the semolina. Do it in a medium flame, do not roast it to black color. Set it aside.

Next in a heavy bottomed pan add oil and then add the items in to season. If you dont want this part, skip it just heat oil. Add the onions and let it turn translucent. Add ginger and green chili.  Next add all the vegetables. You can use the mixed veggie which we get as frozen also. let it get cooked for 5 minutes.

Now add 4 cups of water (1:2 of rava: water ratio) let the water boil. Add salt. Then put the semolina/rava. stir nicely, so that lumps doesnt form. At one stage all the water content would have got absorbed. Heat should be in medium while cooking semolina. Keep stirring ,so that it doesnt get stuck to the bottom of the vessel. let it cook for 5 mins. Now serve it hot 🙂

Tangy Macaroni and Cheese

Tags

Macaroni, Tangy Macaroni and Cheese

In India, we do not eat much of cheese. Usually it would be butter/oil which is added in our cooking. I had never tried cheese in any of my food. Here in the US, I could see a lot of cheese being used. Every where I could see macaroni and cheese boxes in any grocery shops.Its quite new for me 🙂 I had always wanted to eat macaroni and cheese, but my hubby is a little diet conscious and would not let me prepare it 🙂 , somehow I managed to prepare it.  Searched a lot of recipes in the internet, so many ways of doing this. I got a little panic of which recipe to prepare. Then I decided let me just give a try of what ever comes in mind and yeah end result was very good. here it goes….

Ingredients:

Uncooked Macaroni : 2 cups ( any shape)

cheese : 2 table spoons shredded (any variety of cheese)

Tomato : 1 large

Red Onion: 1/2 of a large

Green Chili : 1

Grounded Black pepper : 1 table spoon

Garlic : 2 pods

Ginger : 1cm length

Olive oil : 1 table spoon

Salt : 2 teaspoons

Method:

Boil 4 cups of water ( 1:2 ration of macaroni and cheese) and add uncooked macaroni. Let it boil. Add 1 tea spoon salt with this.You can cook in medium high heat. Do not add oil with this.

Grind tomato, onion, chili, garlic, ginger, pepper and make it to a fine paste. Add 1 tea spoon salt to this. You can adjust the pepper according to your taste ( if you dont want it very spicy reduce the amount of pepper)

Heat olive oil in a griddle and add the paste and let it cook well. Same time the macaroni would have got cooked, drain the water and have the macaroni ready. Now tomato would have got cooked well and the paste would have got little thicker. Add the boiled macaroni to this. Stir for few mins. Let the macaroni absorb it. When its almost done , now add the cheese and mix well. A fine mixture would form now. After few mins of cooking, stop and serve hot 🙂

Tomato, Onion Chutney

This is the simplest chutney which is a great side dish for Idli/ Dosa. It can be had even with bread.Have you ever tried bread and sauce 🙂 , its too good. Same way this chutney can be eaten with bread as well. I always loved this chutney. There are many ways of preparing it. I am giving the simplest one. This can be made in 15 mins.

Ingrdients:

To grind

Tomato : 2

Red Onion : 1/2 sliced

Red Chili peppers – 4

Salt : 1/2 teaspoon

To season

Mustard seeds: 1/2 teaspoon

Urad dal : 1/2 teaspoon

Oil : 1 table spoon

Curry Leaves : few

Method: Grind all the ingredients. Make it to a fine paste. In a griddle heat the oil. Add mustard seeds, urad dal. Let it splutter. Once urad dal changes color, add curry leaves, in few seconds add the paste and let it heat for 5 mins until the tomato gets cooked. You can serve it hot with Idli/ Dosa.

If you don’t want to season it, you can just pour the paste in a nonstick pan with little oil heated. It should get thick. Stir constantly. It would splutter. You can close it and cook. Once it gets thick, you can spread it in bread and eat.

Its a simple and quick recipe.