Sprouted Fenugreek seeds curry

Haven't you heard it all the time time - 'All Good things must come to an end'. Well thats my feeling now. My awesome Nanny who makes these Sprouted Methi seeds and other stuff is leaving. She has some personal reasons and will quit next month. Well - what do I say? I am still in shock. After getting pampered to good food and awesome care of my little one, she is moving on. Soon my search for another nanny will start and I don't know what/who I will meet. I hope it is someone who is as patient as this Nanny with my kids.So here is a curry that she makes
with Sprouted Methi seeds.  She adds a lot of tomatoes and chili powder to balance the bitterness of the fenugreek. My husband really enjoys this curry!

Sending this sprouted methi seeds curry also to SE's cooking with seeds event

Ingredients
1 cup Sprouted Methi seeds - see how to here
1 big onion - chopped
1 tea spoon of ginger garlic paste
1 large boiled potato- cubed
1 large onion - diced
1 table spoon oil
Salt to taste
1 tea spoon Turmeric powder
1-2 tea spoon Chili powder

How To
Wash the sprouted methi seeds well and let the water drain.
Put some oil in a pan. Once it is hot, add diced onions and fry.
Once the onion changes color, add the ginger garlic paste and the turmeric and chili powder.
Mix well and fry until the oil leaves the sides.
Add the tomatoes and the boiled potatoes and salt and cook for a few minutes.
Add the sprouted methi seeds and cook for a few minutes, until it softens and serve hot.
You can add some garam masala, but she doesn't like adding it to this curry.

Enjoy and wish me luck with the Nanny search!

Happy Valentine's day

Hope you all had a lovely time celebrating this Valentine's day. My husband doesn't believe in such celebrations and over time I have also given up. But now the kids make projects from school and want to do something special. So we end up baking cookies or doing something together, mom and kids. So we made these chocolate cup cakes and chewy chocolatey cookies, but the cookies didn't look so good. They tasted good, but I had to think of something else to post for the V Day.

So here is a quick project that my 3 year old son and I put together. We had great fun putting it together and the kids had fun eating off the toothpicks, but no one touched the yummy gooey chocolate. So I took a spoon and finished it off later!


Have a fun time with friends, family and your love!

Ingredients
Fruits of your choice
toothpicks
some chocolate melted (optional)
loads of love

How to
Wash the fruits, cut and string on a toothpick. Dip in melted chocolate (optional) or eat directly off the toothpick! Enjoy!

Sprouted Fenugreek seeds

I know I haven't been regular here. Its the usual excuses, too much work and stress and work and and so on and on. When I saw the event on fenugreek seeds, I knew I had to come out of hibernation and post. My Nanny makes these sprouted methi seeds every other week. She sprouts the fenugreek seeds and then makes Salad or curry or rice. She loves it and enjoys trying different dishes with it. I rarely eat it since it is too bitter for my taste. But my husband also enjoys the taste. Of course it very good for health too.


Sending this sprouted methi seeds to SE's cooking with seeds event

Ingredients
Water
Fenugreek seeds - 1 handful
Loads of patience

How to
Wash the methi seeds in warm water a couple of times and drain the water.
Put the wet seeds in a glass bowl and cover with a wet paper towel and keep in a warm place.
After 12 hrs, wash the seeds and repeat steps 1 and 2 again.
Wait for 2 to 3 days and your patience will pay off and you will see the nice long sprouts.

These sprouts should be consumed within 1 or 2 days, else they might rot. If you cook them and put in a pulao or curry, they last a week.

Mooli daal

When I was growing up, I hated veggies. Well who didn't ? Sometimes when my mom would get exasperated, she would try tricks to get me eat my veggies. This one was a favorite of hers - mask the vegetables in dal or rice or mix it with something that I like in small quanties.

This Dal trick is something that I use on my kids too. Basically cut the radish really small (basically grated) and add to nearly cooked arhar dal towards the end. One thing that gives this trick away is the strong smell of the boiled radish. So if you really plan to trick your kid to try it, make sure you boil the Dal and radish long before the kids come back from school. Also my usual dal tadkas do not have any ghee it, but this needs a generous amount of ghee.

Here is a copy of the recipe as written out by her in my recipe book.in the background of the picture....

Ingredients
1 small cup of Arhar/Toor Dal washed and soaked for a couple of hours
1 to 1-1/2 cup of grated Radish or mooli (I cut it larger for the picture here, it shouldn't be so large)
2 tea spoon ghee
2 tea spoon whole cumin seeds
pinch of hing
3-4 green chilies
handful of coriander leaves
Salt to taste

How To
Boil the arhar dal with salt and water. When it is nearly cooked, add grated radish and cook until both are cooked and mixed well.
Take a small separate pan,  heat it and add ghee to it.
Once it is hot, add green chilies, cumin seeds and Hing. Pour on the dal.
Garnish with coriander leaves.

Enjoy with rice or roti and feel gleeful if your kid slurps it up and asks for me. If your kid doesn't like it, there is always a next time!

Dahi Bhindi (Okra in yogurt sauce)

My brother in law was over here for the Christmas holidays. Since he is a bachelor and has to cook and feed himself, he really looks forward to good home cooked food. While I am no match to my mother in law's skills, I do try to make him few things that he enjoys and are easy to make. While the kids get spoilt by Uncle, he relishes some of the typical Oriya dishes. Dahi Bhindi is an all time favorite of mine.

But I don't usually prepare Dahi Bhindi at home, since hubby is not that fond of it. But everyone enjoyed this this fried Okra in spicy yogurt sauce.

Ingredients


Okra with both ends chopped off - about 2 cups
1 cup of yogurt
1 tea spoon of mustard seeds
2-3 green chilies
handful of curry leaves
2-3 big garlic cloves grated/chopped
1-2 tea spoon of fried cumin seeds powder
pinch of black salt
salt to taste
1 tea spoon of oil


How To

Take a pan and heat oil in it. Once the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds, green chilies, grated/chopped garlic and the curry leaves.
Mix well and add the Okra and salt and cover and cook for 7-8 minutes until the Okra is soft.
Add the chopped/grated garlic and curry leaves and cook for 1 minute.
You can add some red chili powder now.
Take the yogurt, beat it well and add to the okra (after the okra has become colder).
Sprinkle dry roasted cumin powder (freshly ground) and black salt and serve.

Celebration with fruit cake

New Years time always puts me in a nostalgic frame of mind. I somehow always remember the good old days when I was young - really young. My dad was a fun loving person. He loved movies, Hindi movies. I have been watching Hindi movies since I was a year old I guess. Every Wednesday (or at least most Wednesdays) we would go to see a Hindi movie in the evening. Those were the days when there was no TV at home and so it used to be an evening to look forward to. During the intermission of the movie, papa would get a cold drink for me. After the movie, sometimes we went to eat chat! Life was so simple and blissful.

So here is to a simple and blissful fruit cake. Enjoy it when you want. It is easy to make though takes long to bake. And this fruit cake celebrates my 1st anniversary in the blog sphere. Again I feel blogging is a simple pleasure of my life and I am glad to be doing it, very therapeutic after a stressful day job. Thanks to everyone who listens to my ramblings here and also provides their thoughts comments. Your words and advise keeps me going.

Here is to sweet and lovely New Year - 2010.

Ingredients

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 eggs separated

2 cups of candied fruit (tuti frutti)

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup cashews

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

2 tea spoon of baking powder

1 tea spoon vanilla essence (optional)

1/2 cup orange juice

How To
Soak the candied fruit in orange juice overnight.

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F. Place a small pan of water in the oven.
Line one loaf pan and 1 small cake pan with aluminium foil. Grease it well.

Mix the flour with baking powder. (this is my 3 yr son's favorite job. I start with more than 2 cups of flour and end up with about 2 cups after he is done mixing/playing/throwing...).

Break the cashews into smaller pieces (this is also a job my son loves, wonder how much of it eats while breaking them)

In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar. (it doesn't have to beaten in a food processor as shown on food TV. Mix well with hand for 5 min).

But the egg whites have to be beaten well as shown on food TV. [This is where you get your family members to help - if you don't have an electric beater. You make it a family project. I do - since I don't have the electric beater and I think we all have loads of fun doing it]

Stir in beaten egg yolks and the soaked fruits and cashew and vanilla essence.

Fold in the flour into the batter. Add the additional juice left over from the soaked fruits, if needed.

Pout the batter into the pans and fill them 2/3 full.

Bake for 1 hr and then cover the cake with aluminum foil and bake for 1  more hours until golden brown.

Check if the cake is done by using the toothpick inserted in the center to check if it comes out clean.

Once baked, let the cake cool for 5 minutes, before diving in...

Sweet memories and savory baby corn snack

If I said I had fun on my India tip it would be an understatement. I didn't realize when the 2 weeks flew by. Adding to the short trip was a wedding to attend. We had loads of fun at the wedding. My cousin who was getting married had arranged for several fun evenings. Every evening was a party and the day times were endless trips to the temples or peoples houses. My daughter who was attending a wedding for the 1st time had a whale of a time. Here is a picture of her colorful mehndi hand.

Ofcourse I found time to read some of the latest (maybe not so latest anymore) - Chetan Bhagat books. The '2 States' was hilarious though slightly predictible.

After coming back, I have been so swamped that there is no time to click, post or blog hop. Ofcourse cooking/eating and surviving is still happening. Chinese baby corn is a quick recipe and goes well as a snack or a side dish. Enjoy this and have a safe and Happy New Year!

Ingredients

Baby corn - 1 packet

2-3 Green chili (optional)
4-5 grated garlic (or chopped into small pieces)

Salt to taste

1 table spoon of Oil
1 table spoon vinegar

1 table spoon soy sauce

1 table spoon chili sauce

How to

In a large bowl, mix the mushrooms, salt, corn starch, besan and ginger garlic paste and leave aside for 1/2 hr.

In a separate bowl, heat oil and deep fry the above mushrooms in slow fire and then keep aside.

In a pan, put oil and add the green chili and then the baby corn. Fry for about 10 min on low fire, until the baby corn is cooked through but still crunchy (taste it - that's the best way to figure out whether it is cooked enough or not). Add the garlic, sauces and salt and take off the stove.

Serve hot with chinese fried rice or noodles.