Masala Murmure/ Mandakki Usal

My partner for this month's Taste & Create is PJ @ Seduce your Tastebuds. PJ has a ton of quick and easy recipes and I tried quite a few from her blog in the past. But for this month's Taste & Create, I chose a very quick and easy Mandakki Usal aka Masala Murmure from PJ's blog.

I wanted to make something quick for my lunch one day and happened to this recipe on PJ's blog. As she says, it takes no time to put together and is spicy and delicious. Since murmure don't need to be cooked for long, the only time consuming part of the dish is chopping and cooking the veggies. I thought the addition of grated ginger really made the dish taste spicy and yummy!!

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Pasta with Mushrooms and Chipotle Cream Sauce

I have signed up for this month's Taste & Create event after a long time and I'm paired with Min @ The Bad Girl's Kitchen. There are a ton of dessert recipes that I looked awesome and I really wanted to try them from her blog, but it's just me and my 5 year old at home this week, so didn't feel like making a whole batch of anything. 

When I saw this penne pasta with chipotle cream sauce recipe, I knew I had to make it. It sounded delicious and I had all the ingredients at home. I made very few minor changes like using rotelle pasta instead of penne and I used frozen wild mushrooms instead of fresh. I reduced the amount of chipotle sauce since I'm not a big fan of smoky stuff.

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Corn & Carrot Rice

Finally we had our first Snow of the season this weekend. Not that I was missing the snow, but I get a little paranoid when weather is not normal for a season, it makes me think of global warming and it's extreme effects. Well for now, I can be rest assured that real winter is here and will probably be here for sometime. 

For this month's Taste & Create, being hosted by Min of Bad Girl's Kitchen, I got paired with Veena @ Veg Nation. Veena blog has tons of delicious vegetarian dishes and I had quite a few bookmarked to try. But as always got busy with other things and was able to make 2 of dishes. One is this easy peasy Corn rice and the other one is the Spring onion Dal. I couldn't take pictures of dal since I made it on a weekday and had no time to take the pics.

 

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Scallions & Cheese Scones

It has been a long time since I took part in Nicole’s Taste & Create event and decided to sign up when Min @ Bad Girl's Kitchen asked for participants. For this month I got paired with Corina @ Searching for Spice.

Corina has a ton of great dishes from all over the world, but I narrowed down to these spicy and yummy looking Cheese scones with chili kick. I added some finely chopped green onions and used jack cheese with veggies. Also to make them a little healthy, I added some whole wheat pastry flour as well.

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Tried & Tested – Tasty Palettes

I’m a frequent visitor to Suganya’s blog; for her recipes definitely, but also mostly to gawk at her snatch-from-the-monitor worthy pictures.

I have tried quite a number of recipes from Tasty Palettes before, but I have not taken pictures of them. But I made sure took pictures for this month’s Tried & Tested event being hosted by Sweatha @ Tasty Curry Leaf. Tried & Tested is the brain child of Zlamushka @ Burntmouth.

First of is Sweet Ragi Dosa. These dosas are sweet, but not overly so and my son absolutely loved them. Will be making more of these.

Lentil Fattoush: One of my colleagues was kind enough to bring me Sumac from a middle-eastern market. This fattoush turned out awesome, very flavorful and filling. The only change I made was to use avocado instead of cucumber. This will also made again.

Soup Overdose

It is raining cats and dogs today ruining a much awaited weekend. It has also got very cold not very typical for this time of the year. So that gave me plenty of reason to make not one but two soups even though DH was sulking that he wasn't getting real food, ONLY SOUP.. NO FOOD!!! But the tune changed when he tasted the roasted butternut squash soup, "Wow.. mmmm.. this is good".

The first soup I made is with Roasted Butternut Squash from Bad Girl's Kitchen: Recipes from Shell. I have been paired with Shell for this month's Taste and Create (Created by Nicole @ Forfood and hosted by Min @ Bad Girl Kitchen) and this soup recipe sounded awesome and it tasted awesome too. The only additions I made are, I added curry powder, maple syrup and some lemon juice and of course to make it vegan I used olive oil and did not add any milk. It was still creamy and delicious.

Second soup was my leftover veggie soup with carrots, red and green bell peppers, onions and some ditalini pasta simmered in veggie broth. I totally forgot to add tomatoes, it was on the bland side but still served the purpose of warming us from inside.

Have a great Rest of the Weekend Everyone.

Thai Broccoli Salad

I got paired with 28 Cooks for this month's Taste and Create XIII edition created and hosted by Rachel @ For the love of food. Fiber @ 28 Cooks calls herself a Vegaquarian and her blog has a wide variety of vegetarian and vegan recipes. Her hearty vegetarian sub, Curried Lo Mein and Black Bean cakes are on my must-make list. For the event I made Broccoli salad with Thai peanut sauce. It was simple, but full of flavor.

Ingredients:
Peanut butter, smooth - 1/4 cup
Sugar - 1 1/2 tbsp
Hot water - 1 1/2 tbsp
Lime juice - 1 1/2 tbsp
Soy sauce - 1 tbsp
Sesame oil - 1 1/2 tsp
Red pepper flakes - 1/2 tsp
Oil - 1 1/2 tbsp
Broccoli florets - 2 bunches
Bell pepper - 1 medium, julienned (I used 1 green bell pepper)
Carrot - 1 medium, julienned
Onion - 1 medium, thinly sliced
Garlic - 3 cloves, minced

Method:

• Blend peanut butter, sugar, water, lime juice, soy sauce, sesame oil, and pepper flakes until well blended and set aside.
• Heat oil over medium high heat in a large pan. Add the veggies and garlic, and stir-fry until tender crisp.
• Remove from heat, place in a large bowl and pour dressing over it. Mix well and serve.

This salad is quick, filling and delicious. I would add fried tofu for a complete meal next time.