Road that leads to.....

I want to travel long way between the mountains and with lovely sunshine behind…I don’t know what exactly I want to write today. To start with, I chose the title as “Road that leads to….” May be to fulfill your dreams!!!

We all would have had dreams while we were growing, like what we are going to be in life. The road can be the one that we all would have taken at one point of time to be where we are right now. And for some of us, the road still we want to travel.

Well for me I am talking about the road that I want travel to fulfill my dreams that I have been dreaming throughout my childhood. I want to work towards building and fulfilling my dream. All that I dreamt was being good at art and become famous!!! How simple was it for me to say this when I was kid. I guess taking that one step to strive towards your dream is easy, where as pursuing it needs lot of dedication. It’s been almost 2 yrs since I perceived myself into art. And I still have to go long way, I haven’t achieved one percent of what I was dreaming. I am going to put all my effort to travel on the road that I have chosen in life.

This is one such effort to get closer to my dream…

While I chose my title I just put it on Google and I found this amazing song the “Road that I must travel…” , which inspired me to write my today’s blog.

Eggplant and Potato Curry

As kid I never liked eggplant. Even though mom used to make some of the spiciest eggplant dishes, I never used to fancy eggplant. As I grew up I started liking eggplant, mostly I can say when I started cooking and experimenting with eggplants; and trust me eggplant is one vegetable that has variety of delicious recipes.

One such recipe taught by my MIL is with eggplant and potatoes. For this particular curry using long green eggplants, which can be found in Indian stores makes it tastier. But the day I made it, I couldn’t find the long eggplants. So managed to make it with round eggplant and it turned out to be pretty decent :)

Eggplants get cooked pretty fast, so make sure you don’t over cook them. This is one of V’s favorite curries. And it goes well with rice flour roti, chapathi or best with Idli’s. I do this often, as it is easy and quick.

Here you go with the recipe:

Ingredients:

4 Long green eggplants cute into cubes

2 potatoes cut into cubes

2 tomatoes cut into cubes

1 onion thinly sliced

2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic

3 red chilies

8 curry leaves

1 cup cilantro

1 cup freshly grated coconut

1/4 teaspoon of tamarind extract

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3-4 teaspoons of sambar powder

1/4 teaspoon of mustard

2 teaspoons of fried gram

3 teaspoons of oil

-Grind coconut, cilantro, and fried gram and make it fine paste.

-Cook potatoes separately. (don’t over cook)

-Heat a pan with oil, add mustard; once they splutter add red chilies, garlic, and curry leaves and onion. Roast until turn golden brown.

-Add eggplant, cooked potatoes, sambar powder, tamarind and sugar.

-Add the paste to it and little water and mix well.

-When it starts boiling, add tomato and salt at the end.

Serve it with hot roti’s or chapathi’s

Indianized Vegetable Pasta

I love pasta!!! Every time I taste pasta in restaurants, like most of us, I do add more salt n pepper and try to make it taste better because usually pasta here is very bland. But the sauce and the cheese they use add a different flavor to it.

I wanted to make pasta with an extra spice in it. Basically Indianized Pasta!!! My key ingredients to make this pasta Indianized are lots of chillies, garlic, ginger and coriander seeds. Most important tip while cooking pasta is cook pasta separately in boiling water with salt and oil in it. Add more oil and mix it well; otherwise pasta will be sticking to each other and it will be a big mess, which I had experienced, while I was cooking pasta for the first time. ;)

Ingredients:

1 cup thinly sliced carrots

1 cup thinly sliced beans

1 cup thinly sliced tomatoes

1 cup thinly sliced potatoes

1 cup thinly sliced cabbage

1 cup thinly sliced onions

1 cup long sprouts

1 cup thinly sliced bell pepper (Optional)

1 cup peas

3 to 4 green chilies

3 teaspoons of olive oil

2 teaspoons of thinly sliced garlic

2 teaspoons of grated ginger

1/2 teaspoon of crushed coriander seeds

1 cup of Ragu Chunky Pasta Sauce (I used tomato, garlic and onion flavor)

1 teaspoons of salt

1/2 packet of pasta

-Cook pasta separately in boiling water for 10 minutes, add little salt and one spoon of olive oil while it is cooking.

-Drain the water completely, then add more olive oil and mix it well, so that pasta doesn’t stick to each other.

-Cook all the veggies in microwave for 5 minutes and keep it aside (Don’t over cook)

-Heat a pan and add oil. Add garlic, ginger, green chilies and crushed coriander seeds. Add tomatoes and onions. Roast it until you get nice aroma for 2 minutes.

-Now add all the veggies and fry them for 5- 6 minutes.

-Add cooked pasta, Ragu pasta sauce, and salt and mix it well with the veggies.

Serve it hot with potato chips.

Yogurt n Squash Curry

I am just praying for summer to get over, as I hate this unbearable heat. But at the same time I should be thankful to summer as I am discovering some dishes, which cools, down our body. Like my cucumber soup the other day and today my yogurt n squash curry, which is popularly, know as “Majjige Huli” in south India.

Somehow my kitchen was way far from this very tasty vegetable for a long time. Recently I was delighted by the taste of Majjige Huli made out of squash that I had it in India. My MIL is an awesome cook and one day she made this for lunch. Every time we go to India, she will ask what do we like to have for breakfast, lunch or dinner. She enjoys cooking and her only aim is to make us eat all three times with tastiest food. Oh god when we go to India we just cannot resist ourselves as food is so tasty. So on a Sunday after having yummy breakfast, my MIL walks up to me and says today for lunch I will make majjige huli, which is simple and healthy for summer. I thought I would have it very little, but I was so wrong I served rice couple of times and enjoyed majjige huli. The minute I finished lunch, I grabbed a paper and pen to write down the recipe. My MIL was very sweet to share the recipe and she wondered if I get squash (pumpkin) in US!!

Well you get fresh squash almost all the time of the year here in US. People here celebrate Halloween with different varieties of squash. New entry for my kitchen this year is squash. Today I made this Majjige Huli, which I named it, Yogurt n Squash curry. It came out very well and thanks to my MIL.

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon mustard

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 cup shredded coconut

1/2 pound squash (green pumpkin)

2 teaspoons of salt

500 grams of plain yogurt

10 to 12 curry leaves

4 to 5 green chilies

2 red chilies

Pinch of asafetida

2 teaspoons of oil

-Grind coconut, mustard, green chilies, and curry leaves into smooth paste by adding little water.

-Cook the squash cut into big cubes in pressure cooker with little salt. (Just one whistle, don’t over cook squash)

-Heat a pan and add oil, once the oil is hot add asafetida, mustard, red chilies, curry leaves.

-Once they splutter add the paste and cook until it leaves out the raw smell (As you would have put all the ingredients raw).

-Add cooked cubes of squash and mix well with the paste.

- Leave it for a while until it gets cool down.

-Now mix the thick yogurt and additional salt if required in a bowl and then add it to the pan.

- Mix yogurt slowly with squash such that squash doesn’t break.

(You can add yogurt depending on what thickness you would want the curry)

Serve it cold with rice or even hot chapathi’s.

Chilly Mushroom

August month is almost getting over; this year has been going really fast. I feel the year just began yesterday; In January we celebrated New Year in San José with our BFF, in February I left to India with a mission, in March I celebrated my success with all my new friends, Last day of April getting back home, my second trip to DC in may, 15th of June, the day I started to write my blog, End of July which was joy of my life on getting my new car!!!

I cooked mushrooms for the first time. Chilly mushroom was a mix of too many recipes picked up from the net and but at the end created my own with some additional ingredients. I used more of garlic that added very nice aroma and gave delicious flavor to the mushrooms. You can actually use any type of mushroom for this dish. I used Portobello mushrooms, as those are my favorite.

Well most important is mushroom contains good amount of Vitamin D and it really tastes good. I like this, as it will go well as an appetizer especially with wine. The key point is you shouldn’t add water when you cook mushrooms and drain out water completely when you wash them.

I made this Chilly Mushroom on a Sunday to celebrate the arrival of my new car :). It came out really spicy and yummy. Me, V and KJ enjoyed Chilly Mushroom in the patio with a glass of wine and candlelight.

Ingredients:

1 pack of Mushrooms

3 to 4 green chilly’s

2 teaspoons of finely chopped garlic

1 teaspoon of grated ginger

1 onion finely chopped

1 green bell pepper cut into cubes

2 teaspoons of tomato sauce (I used hot and spicy Indian tomato sauce)

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of crushed pepper

1-½ teaspoons of Olive oil

-Heat the pan and add olive oil, then add garlic, ginger and green chilly’s.

- Once you get the aroma of garlic being roasted, add onions and sauté it until onion gets golden brown.

-Add mushroom cut into cubes and sauté it until mushroom leaves out the water.

-Add bell pepper at the end when you see mushrooms are cooked well, so that bell pepper will be crispy and tastes good.

-Add salt, pepper and tomato sauce and mix it well.

Serve it hot as appetizer with wine or any other choice of drink.

Dessert Time!!!

Well, it’s been a while since I blogged as I was little sick and lazy.  Today I am feeling good, so thought about sharing one of my favorite dessert recipe with you all. There is a story behind me learning this dessert. I learnt this recipe from a very wonderful friend of mine.

She was expert in making this dessert and we all used to enjoy it whenever she got it for us at work. She taught me how to make this dessert with a perfection that makes mouth watering even today. I think I had the best time of my life with her at work either in our cubical or drinking tea in the pantry. We had our share of long walks after lunch at work. We rode bikes together, got stuck in traffic jams, discovered new roads, we even got drenched in the rain. In the evening we used to relish the melting Idly vada, or sometimes Bhel puri at our favorite food joints coming back from work. We enjoyed sharing pizza, fries, corn and a softy. We had a ball shopping together. We had our fun days for almost 3 years and things changed. Now I only wish wherever she is, may GOD give her all the happiness in life and some day if she happens to read this blog, she will know that even today I remember her deep in my heart. And her friendship meant a lot to me.

After meeting V, I got to know that this is one of his favorite desserts. So I was glad that I knew how to make it and thanks to you my dear friend :)

So this dessert is for all the sweet people whom I have met in my life and for all those friends who are with me in all my good and bad times in life.

This is made of highly nutritious Carrot roasted in ghee, melted in sugar, cooked in milk and garnished with all dry fruits… which I call it, CARROT HALWA :)

Ingredients:

2 cups of grated carrot

1 cup milk

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon cardamom powder

1 cup mixed dry fruit: cashew, raisin, and almond

2 teaspoons ghee

-Heat the pan, add carrot and roast it until you get the aroma of cooked carrot.
-Add few drops of ghee and roast it well.
-Add sugar and stir it well, so that it mixes well with carrot.
(You can add more sugar if required)
-Add milk and keep stirring for 6 to 8 mins with a low flame.
-Heat another pan separately, add ghee and roast the dry fruits.
-Add the dry fruits into the carrot mixture and mix well.
 

Serve it hot as dessert with Ice cream.

Cucumber Soup

Hot, hot!! Sizzling summer is here in Raleigh this year. The first thing comes to our mind is fun time with all the outdoor activities. After being held ourselves with indoor activities for months, now it’s the time to come out and bask in the warm sunshine :)

There are tons of activities that we can enjoy through out the summer. Swimming in beaches, rivers, and pools. Something adventures like hiking, cycling, ski diving. And also we can relax by fishing, boating and excursion. For all those who are fitness freak can enjoy morning jog or walk.

Hmmm what else? How can we miss blooming and colorful flowers everywhere! The last but not the least eating or drinking something that keeps you cool all the time…. Ice creams, cold drinks, juices and fruits.

We had a great vacation for long weekend. My brother was here from India and we did lot of cool stuff like ski diving, boating, hiking, travelling. New York was fun trip. Even though it felt like we were in a cauldron as soon as we got outside the hotel, we still went round in the baking sun and enjoyed New York City. The best part that took over the morning heat was the nightlife at Times Square. It was just awesome!!

One thing I love in summer is that I can wear my cool flip-flops and walk around without a shoe bite ;) The only worse part of summer that I hate the most is tanned skin and sweaty bodies.

I also found one simple, cool, soothing and healthy recipe, which suited perfectly for this summer. Yes you all guessed it right. Cucumber Soup….mmmmmm yummy.

This soup is again from one of my favorite restaurant in DC and this time waiter was kind enough to share the recipe with me. I was delighted and tried it as soon as I got back home.

As per the menu Soup is known as “ Ashe Mast Va Khiar”

Ingredients:

4 finely chopped Persian cucumbers (mini cucumbers)

1/4 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1 cup Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon yellow raisin

1 clove garlic

1 red spring onion slice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon chopped cucumber to garnish

Few Breadcrumbs

-Blend cucumbers, garlic, vinegar, and onion slice in a food processor or blender.

-Add yogurt and salt and blend till smooth.

Serve it cold by garnishing yellow raisin, chopped cucumber and breadcrumbs.