By the end of day when I sit down to write the posts for my recipes I find my self dozing off in front of the computer. Rather than have recipes with a bunch of mistakes in them I am going to write summaries of posts I intend to write.
Mushroom and Spinach Omelet
An easy way for me to incorporates some veggies in the diet. When I make this for the kids or for breakfast, I skip out the onions. It’s always well done in the Indian style. Anything less than well done gives Aditya an allergic reaction to the eggs.
Fried Tandoori Catfish
Every time I go shopping and we pass the meat counter, Aditya begs me for fish. This is one of his favorite dishes. I pan fry the fish. The yellow tinge is due to turmeric. I always add turmeric to the marinade. Besides its color, turmeric is supposed to anti- microbial properties. This is a good bonus to inhibit microbial growth in raw meats, while they are marinating.
Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins
Loaded with blueberries and low in sugar these were a delicious treat. I tried making them as healthy as possible, The recipe had called for whole milk and butter. I used 1% fat milk and I can’t believe It’s not butter instead. I had made some chocolate muffins too. Those were good too, but not as good as these. The berries added a natural sweetness and moisture to the muffins. I will have to modify the chocolate muffin recipe to add more moisture to them.
Tandoori Shrimp
Shrimp is another of Aditya’s favorites. I actually baked these in the toaster over. They were marinated in a ginger, garlic and jalapeno pepper paste.
This photograph was taken with my Canon DSLR as compared to my previous ones in this post which were taken with my Sony Powershot , point and shoot camera. And I did not digitally enhance this image.
Tandoori Chicken
Chicken drumsticks cooked almost anyway are a favorite with the kids. These were marinated the same way as the shrimp and baked in the toaster oven.
Homemade Whole Wheat English Muffins
I love English Muffins, but don’t like how sweet the whole wheat ones available in the market usually are. For these I used the recipe for regular muffins and substituted all-purpose flour with my home milled wheat flour. These were great and the kids loved them too.
Chicken Kalmi Kebab Curry
This is my take on the Kalmi Kebab recipe. My Mom has a recipe for it which had soy sauce added to the marinade, as far as I remember. I like a good gravy too. This dish does not have a lot, and needs to be cooked until most of the liquid has evaporated. I marinated the chicken with ginger-garlic paste, yoghurt, lemon juice and soy sauce. The gravy was created with two medium onions chopped fine. The onions add a sweetness which goes well with the dish. I also added a lot of jalapeno peppers. I have stopped using the Thai chilies I usually use as the kids cannot handle the heat. The jalapeno’s give heat, but also adds a lot of flavor which I like.
Who doesn’t love Ice Cream? Hmmm!! Well I like it but don’t love it. My kids on the other hand love it. Ujwala is always begging to go to the ice cream shop.
” I want to go to the ice cream shop. Pleeeeease!!”
I felt pretty bad saying no to her almost every day. So I finally pulled out my ice cream maker and made a small batch. Both the kids loved it, but surprisingly she hasn’t begged me for more since then.
I am assuming she doesn’t feel the need to beg for it everyday as she knows mom can make it. Oh well !!! who knows what goes on inside the head of a two year old.
I have a Cuisine Art Ice Cream maker. The bowl needs to be put in the freezer for at-least 24 hours, before I can use it. The ingredients in the recipe itself are pretty simple.
Ingredients
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup evaporated milk
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
Method
- Assemble your ice cram maker as per the instructions.
- Add all ingredients to the bowl and run machine for about 25 minutes.
- Put the ice cream in a freezer safe bowl and put in the freezer for at least 2 hours.
- Serve.
Quinoa is the new health grain that is being touted a lot and I have to admit I love it. It is actually a pseudo cereal and not really a grain. If you want to eat healthier and you really don’t enjoy brown rice, I would suggest giving this a try.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup onions chopped fine
- 1 cup quinoa
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 1/4 cup frozen peas
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- salt to taste
Method
- In a pan heat oil and saute the onions.
- When the onions are translucent, add a pinch of salt to season the onions. Then add the quinoa and the broth. Stir well.
- Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook covered on medium heat for 12 to 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile defrost and cook the peas in a microwave on high for 3 minutes.
- When all the water has evap0rated, turn off the stove, fluff the Quiona and stir in the peas. Cover and let ti stan for another 10 to 15 minutes before serving.
Notes
- Use a low sodium broth to reduce and sodium content and salting the onions can also be skipped.
- Serve as is or with a curry. Can be used as a substitute for rice.
Rava Laddu is a simple and easy to make sweet and Iwanted to make something special for Sankranthi. Most recipes, called for equal amounts of the main ingredients. But I find equal amounts of rava, ghee and sugar a bit too sweet for my taste. So I scaled down on the ghee and sugar.
When it comes to Upma, I have had to cave in and resort to the traditional way of making it with ghee only; and a lot of it at that. But the results are indeed delicious as a recent phone call from hubby confirmed it.
Adding some veggies is my way of making it a wee bit healthier and I can get my kids to eat more veggies this way.
Aditya’s First Grade teacher gave me a loaf of Whole Wheat Bread as a thank you for helping out in his class. It was delicious and I was hooked. She told me that she ground her own wheat and preffered using Hard White Winter Berries. This ofcourse set me off on a exploratory trip on the different kind of wheat berries available.
Over the weekend I baked bread from two different kinds of flours. Flour from hard white winter berries and flour from hard red winter berries. Aditya liked the bread from the white berries and Shilpesh preffered the red berries.
Bread from Hard Red Winter Berries
Aditya loves pancakes and I always make extra to freeze for later. This time around I decided to make the pancakes a bit more healthy and added whole wheat pasty flour to the recipe. He loved them and did not notice the change.
Blueberry Pancake
I tried to cook a lot of food during the New Year week end. It’s not an easy task when one is also down with a bad cold virus. Cooking healthy also was the aim. That I did achieve to some extent. When it comes to food I believe excess of anything is not good. Some of the stuff I did make were:
Pizza cups – with whole wheat pasty flour
Egg fried rice – with brow rice and basmati rice
Chicken noodle soup – with veggies and tri-color pasta
Eggless Pumpkin pie – with Neufchatel cheese, smart balance butter and whole wheat pastry flour.
Blueberry Pancakes – with whole wheat pasty flour
For the pizza, pancakes and pie I combined the Whole Wheat Pastry Flour with All Purpose flour.
Healthy Fried Rice
The vacation last month was a much needed respite for me. Despite a hectic travel schedule I did manage to sneak in some R & R while staying with my parents. Right now I am recharged and have started getting up early to cook a little everyday. As my Mom is visiting again, I also get some time to take it easy and only cook one dish in leisure. Today I made Pancakes with Berry Compote for breakfast.
I have a pack of mixed berries in my freezer and am trying to use them up. Usually I buy fresh berries during the season and freeze them for the rest of the year. I still have a small stash left from last year though and am trying to use it up.
Darn!! I’m late. Well I do have a good excuse for posting late. I have had a sudden trip to India come up. I wasn’t planning to go initially and then, well I am going now. Which mean’t a flurry of activities. I again lost track of the dates and my post is late. Oh Well!!! 
We made the tart for Father’s Day. It was really rich. I loved it though and Aditya’s favourite part was the crust. I really did not make any changes to the recipe so if you wan’t the recipe check out the original at Jasmine’s blog.
Recent Comments