Oats Khichdi (Oats-Lentil Porridge)

Blogging Marathon# 57: Week 4/ Day 1

Theme: Kid's Delight -- Cooking with Whole grains

Dish: Oats Khichdi

We are starting a new week of blogging marathon and my theme for theme this week is 'Kid's Delight -- Cooking with Whole grains' being hosted by lovely Kalyani @ the sizzling tastebuds. Kid's Delight event is a brainchild of Valli.

Coming up with kid approved whole grain dishes was not easy as I thought it would be. My kids are a little picky and I have blogged about most of the whole grain dishes that they eat. So coming up with new ones was a good exercise for the brain. I cook/ bake with brown rice, quinoa, wholewheat flour etc., and they eat most of what I serve.

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Lentil Chickpea Burger

Blogging Marathon# 54: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Lentils -- 3 Ways

Dish: Lentil Chickpea Burger

For Day 2 of this week's marathon, I have a protein rich burger made with a combination of lentils and chickpeas. Homemade veggie burgers usually don't hold up too well on the grill, but these burgers didn't fall apart on the grill and tasted awesome after grilling.

Recipe is from Vegetarian Times magazine and it was originally a Greek flavored burger, but I changed it to more of an Indian flavored one. If you want to, change up the herbs and spices and make up your own version.

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Brazilian Kale & Lentil Soup for #Food of the World (Sopa de Lentlhas com Couve)

We are going to Brazil for this month's #Food of the World event. I had couple of Brazilian recipes bookmarked from our A-Z International series, but both of them happened to be desserts and I was in no mood to make anything sweet. So after looking around for vegetarian recipes, I found this hearty and comforting lentil and kale soup on Cynthia Presser's blog.

I had a bag of kale ready to be used and I also had some brown lentils (aka masoor dal) in the pantry. I think the original recipe had green lentils but the brown ones were just as good.

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Gujarati Khichdi

Blogging Marathon# 49: Week 1/ Day 1

Theme: Weekend Brunch Recipes

Dish: Gujarati Khichdi

My theme for the first week of this month's marathon is 'Brunch Recipes'. Brunch should be hearty and filling, but not too filling that it is going to make you take an early afternoon nap. Also since we are skipping breakfast to eat brunch, it should be nutritious enough to keep you going and charged for at least 3~4 hours. 

With all those in mind, here's a one pot dish that is sure to keep you full and energized until the next meal. Being a south Indian, I grew up eating rice for just about all the meals. Breakfast could be anything like lemon rice, tamarind rice, curd rice or pongal and that used to keep us full till lunch. But nowadays eating rice for breakfast or even brunch has become quite a rarity in my household.

As I was thinking of Indian dishes to make for brunch, khichdi came to my mind right away. It has dal (lentils) for protein and rice for carbs, which in my mind is perfect dish for any time of day. I found this Gujarati Khichdi recipe in Sanjeev Kapoor's Vegetarian Rice, Biryani & pulao cookbook.

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Nepal -- Simple Vegetarian Thali (Recipes)

BM# 44: A-Z Cooking Series -- Around the World in 30 days
Country: N for Nepal

Dish: Vegetarian Thali (Recipes)

We are exactly half way through the marathon, 13 done -- 13 more to go. Our next stop is Nepal and this was the very first country that I cooked for. I knew it was going to be Nepal for N from the very beginning. Ever since I saw Sandhya's Nepali dishes for one of the previous BMs, I wanted to try them and this was the best opportunity I got. Also when I was planning the dishes, we were freshly done with the Indian states mega BM and all the thalis that were posted really inspired me to plan a thali for Nepal too.
The Nepalese are mostly immigrants from India, Tibet, North Burma and the Chinese province of Yunnan via Assam. So the culture and the cuisine is mostly influenced by all these countries. Much of Nepalese dishes are made in India too, especially in the North eastern Indian states.

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Orissa -- Mitha Khechudi & Mitha Dali

Blogging Marathon# 39 - Indian States: Day 21
State: Orissa
Dish: Mitha Khechudi & Mitha Dali (Sweet Khichdi with Sweet Dal)

Today we are going to Odisha, formerly known as Orissa, located in the east coast of India. Orissa shares a border with Andhra Pradesh, but I never had a chance to visit it. My dad went there for work years ago and brought back a souvenir from Konark Sun Temple. I've seen his pictures at Puri Jagannath temple and Bhubaneshwar. That's the most I knew about Orissa.
Cuisine: Odisha has culinary tradition spanning centuries. I was really surprised to read that rasgulla actually originated from Odisha, I always thought it was from Bengal. Also Kheer or rice pudding, that is relished all over India, also originated in Puri 2000 years ago.
Oriya cuisine is rich and varied and relies heavily on local ingredients. The flavors are usually subtle and lightly spiced, unlike the fiery curries typically associated with Indian cuisine. Only 6% of the population of Odisha is vegetarian. Oriyas are very fond of sweets and no Oriya meal is complete without the dessert course at the end.
Specialties: Dali, Dalma, Khechedi, Mittha Dali, Pakhala, Chena Poda, Dahi Bara, Kalakand etc.

Today's Dish(es): After reading about the Oriya cuisine, I initially planned on making a dessert. But after making quite a few desserts for the marathon, I decided against it. I wanted to make something simple, yet traditional and authentic to Orissa. So after a lot of searching, I found this Oriya blog, Turmeric Kitchen, by Jagruthi. She has a ton of traditional dishes and I picked two that were simple and easy to make.

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Assam -- Labra (Mixed Vegetable Curry)

Blogging Marathon# 39 - Indian States: Day 3
State: Assam
Dish: Labra

Assam is a state in the North eastern part of India. It is located south of the Eastern Himalayas and comprises of the Brahmaputra and the Barak river valleys. It is surrounded by the six of the other Seven Sister States. Geographically Assam and the other sister states are connected to India via a narrow strip of land in West Bengal called the Silguri Corridor or 'Chicken's neck' (this is something new to me and wanted to share with all of you)

Cuisine: Because of the geographical location, Assam has both the mountains and plains which influence their style of cooking. It is a confluence of cooking habits of the hills that favor fermentation and drying as forms of food preservation and those from the plains that provide fresh vegetables and abundance of fish from the many rivers and ponds that run through the state. The cuisine is characterized by very little use of spices, little cooking over fire and the preparations are rarely elaborate.

Staple Food: Rice, Fish, Meat & Vegetables.

Specialties: Tenga (light and sour fish dish), Pura (Assamese version of smoked or barbecued meat or fish), Pitika (side dishes), Bor-a etc.,

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Mesir Wat (Ethiopian Lentil Stew)

Blogging Marathon# 36: Week 3/ Day 2
Theme: Ethiopian Cuisine
Dish: Mesir Wat (Ethiopian Lentil Stew)

Ethiopian cuisine is very vegetarian friendly. There are a number of vegetable based and lentil based dishes that are perfect options for vegetarians and vegans. Today I have a lentil based dish called Mesir Wat. Wat is like stew and Mesir Wat loosely means lentil stew.
Red lentils aka Masoor dal is cooked until thick and creamy with berbere spice making this a very hearty and comforting dish. Addition of berbere spice makes this dish taste amazing.

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Bengali Lentil Fritters Curry (Bora'r Jhol)

I love dishes that include lentils and one of my favorite ways of enjoying them is in fritter form. So when I saw this recipe for lentil fritter curry or Bora'r Jhol on Sandeepa's blog, I wanted to make it for BM# 22.

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Masoor Dal Sambar (Indian Style Red Lentil Stew)

VeganMofo Day 10: I had plans to post everyday for this year's Veganmofo. So much for my wishful thinking, little did I realize that tending for a newborn can be so time consuming, even though all I'm doing is holding her so she doesn't spit up or rocking her to sleep. It's been 5 years since we had done this with my older one and I don't really remember what we did when he was a little baby. Time surely flies..

Thankfully my mom is here to help me out and for today's post I have this delicious Masoor dal Sambar that she made for our lunch. I usually use toor dal to make sambar. Masoor dal makes a smoother and milder tasting sambar. Vegetables like eggplant, bottle gourd, carrot, potato, chayote etc can be added to the sambar to make it more substantial.

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Dal Baati

It's time for Blogging Marathon #12 and I chose "Rajasthani Specials" as my theme for this week. I've heard a lot about Rajasthani cuisine, but never tried to make any dishes myself. So when I saw Srivalli's theme for this edition of the BM, I wanted to try as many delicious Rajasthani recipes as I can. 

For Day 1, I made the most famous dish from the Indian desert - "Dal Baati". Recipe from a dear friend who shared her family recipe with me when I told her that I will be making Rajasthani dishes for my blog. Big thanks to her for a fool-proof modern day kitchen recipe that tasted amazing. Baati's are traditionally baked on charcoal grills or well heated cow dung cakes. But for the modern day home cooks, ovens are the best alternate to use.

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Bengali Red Masoor Dal (Bangali Musuri’r Dal)

I’m back to blogging with Blogging Marathon #5. Big thanks to Valli for organizing this event yet again and coming up with very interesting themes. I chose "7 Days of Regional Special" and decided to make dishes from Bengal. I was debating whether to go with Rajastani or Bengali dishes since I’ve never tried these before, but finally settled with the Bangla recipes. There are quite a few Bengali bloggers with authentic recipes that I’ve been trying and will be posting for the next 7 days.

For my first recipe, I made this very comforting dal from Sandeepa’s bongcookbook. It’s a simple preparation made with masoor dal and tomato that is tempered with panch phoron. Panch phoron or Panch puran is a mixture of 5 spices, fenugreek, mustard, fennel, nigella and cumin seeds. I bought a packet of panch phoron some time back and have been adding to curries just because I like the subtle flavor the different seeds impart to the dish. But this is the first time I used them in a dal and we really LOVED it. As Sandeepa says in her post that this is a comfort dish, I totally agree with her. It was so easy to make and wasn’t any different from how I make, but the final dish was amazing and oh-so comforting.

Sandeepa's original recipe here.
Ingredients:
Red masoor dal – 1 cup
Red onion – 1 medium, thinly sliced
Green chilies – 2-3, slit vertically
Tomatoes – 2 medium, chopped
Panch phoron – 1tsp
Curry leaves – 6-8
Salt – to taste
Lemon juice – 2tbsp or more to taste

Method:

• Pressure cook dal until tender, I cook for 4 whistles in my cooker.
• Heat 1tsp oil in a sauce pan, add panch phoron and curry leaves; once the seeds to splutter, add onions and green chilies. Sauté until onions are lightly browned and translucent.
• Add chopped tomatoes and a pinch of turmeric; cover and cook until tomatoes are mushy, about 4-5 minutes.
• Add the cooked dal along with 2-3 cups of water and salt. Bring to a boil on medium high flame, lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice and mix well.

Serve with steamy hot rice for a comforting meal anytime of the day.

Let's check out what my fellow marathoners have been cooking up today:
Curry in a hurry under 30 min: Priya Suresh, Srivalli, Usha
Seven Days of Colorful Dishes Kid's Special: Vardhini,
Seven Days of Indian Sweets: Harini, Suma, Veena
Seven Days of Regional Specials: Aarthi, Kalyani, Pavani, Shylaja
Summer Coolers: PJ, Vaishali
Under 15 mins Quick Breakfast: Sushma Pinjala

Swiss Chard & Tomato Dal (Lentil Soup)

Vegan Mofo Day 9:

I love making dal with greens, I think greens make dal special, yummy & nutritious. I used a combination of moong and masoor dal (red lentils), but toor dal can be used too. I pressure cook the greens and tomatoes with dal, but dal & the veggies can be cooked separately too (it just takes longer to cook)

Ingredients:
Masoor dal (Red Lentils) – 1 cup
Moong dal (split yellow colored) – ½ cup
Swiss Chard – about 3 cups, chopped roughly (half of a medium size bunch)
Tomatoes – 2, medium
Green chilies – 2, slit
Tamarind pulp – 2tbsp
Red Chili powder – ½ tsp (or more to taste)
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Salt – to taste

For tempering:
Cumin seeds – 1tsp
Mustard seeds – 1tsp
Hing (Asafoetida) – pinch
Curry leaves – 6-8
Dry Red Chili – 1-2

Method:

• Rinse dals and cook with 3-4 cups of water in pressure cooker. I put the greens, tomatoes and chilies in the pressure cooker in a separate container along with the dal. Cook on medium flame for 4-5 whistles. Wait till the pressure is completely released.
• In a saucepan, heat 1tsp oil; add the tempering ingredients and once the seeds start to splutter, add the cooked greens and mix well.
• Next add dal, turmeric, tamarind, red chili powder, salt and 1-2 cups of water (depepnding on the desired consistency). Bring to a boil and simmer on medium-low flame for 10 minutes.

Serve with steamed rice or roti or slurp it as soup.

Update on the Heating situation: We have the guys from the repair company working in the basement as I type this (it's now 8:30PM and this is officially the 18th day we are going without heat). If we are lucky we will have heat tonight, still keeping crossed and toes curled. Will update tomorrow.

Spinach Fry & Tomato Dal

I missed Veganmofo over the weekend, so I thought I will post 2 very simple recipes to make up for it. These two dishes are actually too simple and easy and they don’t need a recipe, but I’ll give them anyway. :-)

First up is Spinach fry or sautéed spinach. I sometimes add soaked moong dal to make it even more nutritious.

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Moroccan Lentil Salad… errrr Soup

So I start out making a salad and it ends up becoming a soup, is that weird or did it ever happen to you too?? I borrowed this North African cookbook from the library and have bookmarked a few recipes to make for the A.W.E.D-Morocco event currently going on my blog.

I wanted to make this simple and easy sounding Lentil salad, I pressure cooked the lentils and must have put too much water while cooking that it became a soup but it tasted pretty good, so I decided to post it anyway. I used sprouted whole masoor dal, but any kind of lentils would be good in this recipe.

I'm giving recipe as is from the cookbook, I pressure cooked the lentils in about 3 cups of water and it was too watery. I'm not sure if the proportion given here is correct or not. I'm going to try soon and update the recipe.

Recipe adapted from Vegetarian Table: North Africa by Kitty Morse
Ingredients:
Lentils – 1 cup
Onion – 1 medium, chopped
Tomato – 2 medium, seeded and diced (I used canned diced fire roasted tomatoes)
Garlic – 2 cloves
Coriander leaves – ¼ cup, chopped
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Ground cloves – ¼ tsp
Ground cumin – 2tsp
Paprika – 1tsp
Cayenne – ¼ tsp

Method:

• Rinse and clean the lentils.
  
• Combine lentils, 5 cups of veggie stock or water, onion, tomatoes, turmeric, tomatoes, garlic and ground cloves in a pot. Bring the mixture to the boil; lower the heat to low and simmer for 20-25 minutes until all the water is absorbed and lentils are completely cooked. Turn off the heat.
  
• Add ground cumin, paprika, cayenne and salt and mix well. Serve hot or warm.
  

This is a very flavorful dish with all the different spices. I served the soup with some store-bought pocket-less pitas for us and some whole-wheat couscous for my son. It tasted even better for lunch the next day, very filling too.

Pumpkin & Whole Masoor dal Sprouts Stew

I’ve never tried sprouting whole masoor dal and when I saw Indira’s(@ Mahanandi) post, I wanted to give it a try. After about 2 days of soaking/draining/rinsing & sprinkling, I had beautiful sprouts.

The recipe for this sweet & tangy sambar type stew is from my dear friend V. Her original recipe used brown chickpeas and was little liquidy, I made it more like a stew. Simple with very few ingredients, but very very tasty. It gets better as it sits.

Ingredients:
Whole Masoor dal sprouts – 2 cups
Pumpkin – 3 cups, chopped
Tamarind Paste – 2tbsp
Jaggery (or light brown sugar) – 2tsp (or per taste)
Sambar powder (home-made or store-bought) – 2tsp (or to taste)
Salt – to taste

For tadka:
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds – 1tsp
Curry leaves – 6-12
Hing – pinch

Method:

• Add 4 cups of water to sprouts; bring them to a boil, then reduce the flame and simmer until they are 3/4th cooked through, about 5-10 minutes.
  
• In the meantime, microwave pumpkin pieces with a pinch of turmeric and salt until tender (but not falling apart), about 6-8 minutes.
  
• Heat 2tsp oil in a pan, add the tadka ingredients and once the seeds start to splutter add the pumpkin & sprouts. Cook for 2 minutes.
  
• Then add tamarind, jaggery, sambar powder, salt and 1cup water (or more if you want a more sambar like consistency). Cover and simmer till it reaches desired consistency.

Enjoy with steamed rice (or with rotis).




This lentil stew is off to MLLA-13 (My Legume Love Affair event) being guest hosted this month by lovely Sunshinemom (@ Tum Yum treats). MLLA is the brainchild of Susan @ Well Seasoned Cook.