Instant Rava Idli

Ingredients:
1 cup Bombay Rava or Suji
1/2 cup yogurt
2 dry red chilies
1 sprig curry leaves
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp jeera
1 tsp udad dal
1 tsp chana dal
Salt to tastehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
1 tbsp oil

Method:
In a pan dry roast Rava to make it golden brown,take care not to burn the Rava. Take off the Rava and in the same pan start roasting all the spices. Add oil and once its heated add mustard seeds wait until it pops and then add jeera, udad dal, chana dal, curry leaves and red chilies. Take it off the heat and add it to the rava.
Mix in yogurt and salt to the Rava mixture and stir well. Leave it for about 1/2 an hour. Before you start steaming the idlis check the consistency of the batter it should be like traditional idli batter consistency. If its too dry add some more yogurt.
Steam them in idli molds and serve with any chutney of your choice. I have served it here with Mango chutney.

Raw mango chutney

Ingredients:

2 cups raw mango skin discarded and grated
2 dry red chilies (roasted)
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds (roasted)
2 tbsp sugar
salt for taste

Seasoning:(optional)
1 tsp Mustard seeds
Hing powder

Method:
Grind all the ingredients together except the seasoning. Add a few tbsps of water to grind to a smooth chutney consistency. Do a taste check, if the raw mango is not tart enough for the chutney you could add some tamarind at this point and grind again.
Next comes the seasoning which is optional but it give a good aroma to the chutney. Heat a tsp of oil, add mustard seeds. Once the mustard seeds start to splutter turn off the heat and add a dash of hing powder.

Serve chutney with dosas, idlis or as an accompaniment to a rice dish.

Veg Puff pastry

I have previously posted Egg puff recipe. A slight modification to it is its veg counterpart. It involves the same pepperidge farm's puff pastry sheets which need to be thawed for about 40mins at room temperature before using.

Ingredients:
4 Boiled and cubed potatoes
1/2 onion finely chopped
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp coriander powder
1 green chili finely chopped
1 tsp turmeric (optional)
1/2 inch ginger finely chopped

Salt and more chili powder as per taste

Method:
Heat oil in a saucepan and saute the onions, followed by rest of the spices. Add potatoes,salt and stir well. Turn of the heat and let it rest for a bit.

Take the pastry sheets thawed at room temperature for 40 mins, cut 1 sheet into 6 equal squares. Put the potato stuffing in the center of each square and fold them to cover all the stuffing. Bake in oven at 375 for about 40 mins or until they turn golden brown.

You could add more vegetables like mushrooms, beans, peas and corn to the vegetable stuffing. I didn't have anything extra with me so I kept it simple.

Peach Pie

Pies always looked complicated to me, with all the fancy crust and the delicious filling, I thought of it as something only professional bakers could pull. But then I ran into this recipe in a cook book which looked pretty doable to me. So here it goes..

Ingredients for crust:
2 cups of flour
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup milk
pinch of salt

Ingredients for filling
4cups peeled and sliced peaches(I thawed my frozen peaches)
1/4th cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
5 tbsp sliced butter
1 tbsp flour

Method:
Knead together the ingredients for the crust and make a pliable dough. Divide the dough into 2 balls. Roll the balls into sheets to line your baking pan, this will make the crusts for your pie.

Place one sheet in your baking pan and spoon peaches on it. Reserve a tbsp of sugar and sprinkle the rest on the peaches. Next sprinkle all of the cinnamon and top it with slices of butter and 1 tbsp of flour. Place the other sheet on top of this and pinch the ends of the 2 sheets together to seal the filling in between the 2 sheets.
Sprinkle the reserved 1 tbsp of sugar on top. Using a fork poke holes on top of the pie.
Bake at 350F for about 55mins or until you see the pie crust turning golden brown.

Strawberry preserve

I didnt know making preserves would be so easy. We recently bought a lot of strawberries(25lbs) from the local farm. I froze all of it except for about 1 lb that I used for making the jam.

Though the original recipe requires a lot of sugar,about double the quantity of berries you use, I used just 1/3rd. The result was the preserve didn't set well.. it ended up slightly runny. Which didn't bother either of us. Also the natural sugar in the strawberries gave it the perfect sweetness. We have loved the preserve on our toasts and bagels so far. Yet to try it on some vanilla icecream.. :) yummmm..

Ingredients:

2 cups crushed strawberries
1 cup Sugar
3 FL oz pectin

Method:

1. Mix crushed strawberries and sugar into a bowl and set aside for 15 mins
2. In a pot boil water and pour the pectin, boil for another minute mixing thoroughly
3. Pour this mixture into the strawberry-sugar bowl and mix well.
4. Pour it into sterilized glass jars and let it stand at room temperature for 24 hours

You can store this preserve in the freezer for a long time. They have a shelf life of 1 month in the refrigerator, if it lasts that long that is :)

Cauliflower soup

Usually if the dish in front of you is yummy then you had probably assume that the cook spent a long time in the kitchen making this elaborate looking dish. Not always true! Especially with this cauliflower soup that I have here today. Its as simple as it can get, but it will keep people thanking you for the yummy food and appreciating all the effort you have put into it. Little do they know.. :)

Ingredients:
1 cauliflower head roughly chopped
1/2 cup onions chopped
4-5 sprigs of rosemary
3-4 stalks of celery (optional)
2 cups milk
4 cloves of garlic
1 granny smith apple peeled and diced for garnish
1 tbsp oil
salt and pepper for taste

Method:

Take 1 tbsp of oil in a pan and chopped onions, rosemary, garlic cloves. Followed by salt and pepper for taste.
Saute until onions becomes translucent and garlic cloves turn a golden brown.
Add cauliflower and celery, cover and let it cook through. Once the cauliflower is slightly mushy add milk and bring it to a boil. Turn off the heat and pass it thru a blender to make a coarse mixture.
Return it to the original vessel, warm it again and adjust salt+spices as per your liking.

Before serving add a tsp of the diced apples to each bowl. Alternately you could slightly fry the diced apple in butter before garnishing. I tried it with and without frying the apple but didn't notice a significant difference, so I skipped the frying business this time around.

Enjoy, the simple yet delicious soup!

Chocolate cake

Ingredients for the cake:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup fruit cake mix (optional)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp soda powder
1 egg
2 tbsp butter


Ingredients for the icing:
2 tbsp butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1 tsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method for cake:

1. Beat egg in a bowl, add butter followed by sugar and whisk so that the butter mixes well into the sugar and egg.
2. Add cocoa followed by fruit cake mix, milk,cocoa powder and again whisk.
3. Next add the flour little by little and keep whisking.
4. Finally mix in vanilla extract and soda powder
5. Pour this into a greased baking dish and bake at 350F for 30 mins or until a knife pierced through the cake comes out clean.

Chocolate Cake Icing:

In a bowl, whisk together all the Icing ingredients to make a thick paste and refrigerate for 15 mins or so. Once the cake cools down, apply icing on cake with a butter knife.

Let the icing set for a few minutes and then serve! Yumm...