Banana Sheera (Pudding)

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups milk 
2. 1 cup Semolina 
3. 1 cup chopped ripe bananas 
4. 1/2 cup sugar or more if you  have a sweet tooth 
5. 1 tbsp butter, the more you add the better it tastes 
6. 1 tbsp cashews
7. 1 tsp crushed cardamom

  Method:

1. Heat butter in a pan on low heat and roast the Semolina until it gets golden brown. Keep stirring so that it dosent burn.
2. Stir in chopped bananas and again let it brown a bit.
3.  Add sugar and let it caramelize   (Note: Stirring at each step is very important so as to not burn the ingredients.)
4. Add cashews followed by milk and cardamom, stir and put on the lid.
5. Allow to cook for about 5 mins or until the milk is completely absorbed by the semolina.

 Serve hot!

Cantaloupe Ice pops

Ingredients: 
2 cups chopped cantaloupe
2 tbps sugar
1/8th cup condensed milk

Method: 
Blend all the ingredients together into a smooth paste in a blender. Pour into ice pop molds and let it freeze for 4-5 hours. Unmold and enjoy!

Note: For a tip on how to unmold check out the Strawberry ice pop post.

Garden Salad

We have had some luck in the garden this year, specially with spinach and lettuce. We harvested 3 bowls of salad so far and I see some more to come. This salad mostly has spinach and miner's lettuce, the latter was introduced by a local nursery who specialize in california native plants. Here is how I like my salad,

Ingredients:
1 cup spinach
1 cup miner's lettuce (the leaves are pretty small and dont need any chopping)
1 fistful of slivered almonds, I get mine from Trader Joe's
1/2 an avocado flesh, roughly chopped into bite sized cubes
2 radishes, sliced thin
1 tbsp of cottage cheese
1 tbsp of Lite Italian dressing
A dash of pepper

Toss all the ingredients together in a bowl and dig in with your forks :) The buttery avocado bites richen and the pungent radishes give a nice kick to the salad!

Tofu Kofta

Tofu Kofta is the healthier version of Malai Kofta. To cut down on the calories I have substituted paneer(cottage cheese) with tofu, we love this version and dont feel too guilty indulging in these koftas. The recipe involves tofu, firmness level 4. I am a big fan of Costco tofu and I have raved about it in an earlier post, Tofu Tikka Masala




Kofta Ingredients:
1/2 pound tofu drained
3 medium sized potatoes boiled and mashed
2 tbsp minced cilantro
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
minced green chili as per taste
salt as per taste

Kofta batter ingredients:
1 cup All purpose flour
water to bring the mixture to batter consistency

Kofta gravy ingredients:

3 tomatoes
1 medium onion
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 green chili
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp corn starch
1/4 cup thick yogurt
1/4 tsp garam masala powder
1 tbsp oil
salt as per taste
2 sprigs of minced cilantro for garnishing

Kofta Method:

The tofu has to be completely dry, so squeeze out all the water from the tofu. Crumble the tofu with your fingers into crumbs.
Now mix all the kofta ingredients together and make ping pong sized balls with wet palms so that it dosent get too sticky and messy when kneading them into balls.
For the batter, mix the flour and water into a thick consistency(like batata wada batter). Dip the the kofta balls in this batter and fry each until golden brown.



Gravy Method:

Blend the tomatoes, chilies, onions and ginger garlic paste into a puree. Heat the oil in a deep dish,temper with cumin seeds followed by chili and turmeric powder. Next add the puree and cook for a few minutes. Mix corn starch into yogurt taking care not to leave any lumps and pour it into the puree, add water to get the desired gravy thickness. Let it simmer for a few minutes. Mix in garam masala and salt. As soon as it comes to a boil add tofu kofta balls and take off heat.

Garnish with cilantro. Serve with rice or naan.

Paav Bhaji

Paav Bhaji is a very popular street side food in Mumbai, its a medley of vegetables(bhaji) cooked together and spiced with a special masala, called Paav Bhaji masala. Its garnished with finely chopped onions, cilantro and some fresh lime. Served with lightly buttered and toasted hamburger buns(paav)

Ingredients:
3 cups of cauliflower florets
3 potatoes peeled
1 bell pepper, minced
2 cup tomato puree
1 cup peas
1 tbsp butter(optional)

Spices:
1 tbsp Paab-Bhaji masala
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp. ginger-garlic paste
Salt to taste

Garnishing:
finely chopped onion
couple of sprigs of cilantro chopped
1/4 lime

Method:

Pressure cook the florets, peas and potatoes together, until done(usually takes 2- 3 whistles). In a deep pan heat a little oil and sauté the bell pepper followed by ginger-garlic paste, turmeric powder and chili powder. Add the tomato puree and let it cook for a few minutes. Next add all the cooked vegetables, salt, butter and the paav bhaji masala. Mash the vegetables in the pan if you see any vegetable chunks, so tha it starts looking like a homogeneous mixture. Check the consistency if its too thick you could add some water at this point. Let the mixture come to a boil on medium heat for about 15 minutes.

In a bowl ladle some paav bhaji and garnish with onion, cilantro and a few drops of lime juice. Serve along side toasted and buttered hamburger buns. Enjoy! :)

Spinach curry in yogurt sauce (Palak Kadi)

So I ended up getting a spinach bag from Costco and like all other things it was a jumbo pack(I love the part that it is pre-washed). And since then I have been trying out all the spinach recipes that I know of to get to it before they go bad. We had spinach-tofu curry, spinach salad, omelet with spinach filling and spinach curry in yogurt sauce.

This recipe is for a yogurt based spinach curry, in India its also called Palak(= Spinach) Kadi(=Yogurt based curry).

Ingredients:
2 cups of chopped spinach
1 cup thick yogurt
1/2 cup peanuts
2 green chilies slit in the middle
2 tbsp besan (chickpea flour) or corn starch
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp coriander(cilantro) seed powder
1 tsp sugar
salt to taste

Method:
In a deep pan heat oil and the chilies followed by cumin seeds, turmeric and coriander powder, saute it for a minute. Add peanuts and spinach and let the spinach cook on medium heat.
In the meanwhile mix besan in yogurt completely so that there are no lumps. When the spinach has wilted add the yogurt mixture and sugar. Bring the curry to a boil on a low flame.
Serve hot with rice, you could also enjoy it as a soup.

Vegetable kurma

Ingredients:
1. 2 medium size potatoes cubed
2. 1 cup of vegetables(peas, corn, cut beans, chopped carrots). I used frozen
3. 1/2 bell pepper chopped
4. 1/2 cup cauliflower florets
5. 1/2 cup cashews ground
6. 1 medium sized onion chopped finely
7. 3 tomatoes chopped
8. 2 tbsp oil
9. Salt to taste
10. 1 tsp of Kasuri methi
Spices:
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder

Method:
1. In a saucepan saute onion in oil, and when its translucent, add tomatoes and sautee until its mushy
2. Add all the spices, cashew powder and salt
3. Add all the vegetables, a little water and cook covered until all the vegetables are done.
4. Turn off heat and garnish with kasuri methi.

Serve with Rotis.