Warm Lentil Salad with Grapes

It's been snowing cats and dogs for us this winter. I've had enough of this lousy weather already and we are only 1 month into official winter (official winter in Northern hemisphere started on Dec 21st, 2010), so this is going to be one loooooooong winter. To top that of, this is our first snow season in our new home and the shoveling all that snow seemed to be fun the first couple of times, but now I've thoughts of moving back to our old apartment complex where the management took care of cleaning up everything. Well, since that's not going to happen, I'm thinking of starting to exercise a little, so I'm physically fit to do it myself and not start hyperventilating after 5 minutes of pushing snow. My 3 year old says, "this is hard work Amma", after messing with the snow for few minutes. I'm not looking forward to anymore blizzards and winter storm advisories.

Coming to the Lentil Salad: Salads are not something that I make that often. I like to eat salads from a bag for lunch or dinner, but I rarely ‘make’ salads at home. Being a typical south Indian, I think all the dishes have to be eaten with rice, which explains why I don’t make ‘salads’.

But when I saw the recipe for this Lentil salad in Vegetarian Times magazine, I know it was going to taste great and was waiting for the occasion to make it. I made this for Sunday Lunch for a few friends and I really enjoyed it (even for lunch the next day).

Recipe adapted from Vegetarian Times magazine:

Ingredients:

French/ Puy Lentils – 2 cups, sorted, rinsed and drained

Leeks – 2 medium, thinly sliced

Fresh Mint – 3tbsp, finely chopped

Parsley – 3tbsp, finely chopped

Pistachios – ¼ cup, roasted and coarsely chopped

Red Grapes – 1½ cups, cut in half

Feta cheese – ¼ cup, crumbled (optional)

Salt & Pepper – to taste

Method:

• Soak the lentils for 8 hours. Add 4-5 cups of water to lentils and bring to a boil; lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until tender. Keep aside.
• Heat 2tbsp olive oil in a sauté pan, add the chopped leeks and cook on medium flame until the leeks are tender, about 15-20 minutes.
• Add the leeks to cooked lentils along with pistachios, chopped herbs and grapes. Season with salt and pepper.
• Serve warm or at room temperature. Tastes great cold too.

To save time, you can cook the lentils the night before you want to make the salad and mix in the warm leeks and other ingredients just before serving.

Sending this Yummy Lentil salad over to Simona @ Briciole, who is this month's host for My Legume Love Affair (MLLA) event started by Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook.

Also Sending this Salad over to Prathibha @ Chef & her Kitchen's "Only Salads" blog event which was started by talented Pari @ Foodelicious. Thanks Prathibha for telling me about the event.

Khandvi for ICC

For this month's Indian Cooking Challenge (ICC), Valli chose Khandvi, a Gujarati delicacy. This was truly a challenge for me since I've never tasted Khandvi before and looking at the recipe it seemed that it required quite a bit of expertise and practice to make them. Valli us to use either one of two recipes by Lataji or by Anupama Krishnamurthy. I ended up using both: Quantities from Lataji and technique from Anupama. Thank you all for the recipes.

Here's how I made my Khandvi:

Ingredients:

Besan (Chickpea flour) - 1/3 cup

Yogurt (sour) - 1/3 cup, beaten

Water - 1 cup

Turmeric - pinch

Ginger + Green chili paste - 1tbsp

Asafoetida (Hing) - pinch

Salt - to taste

Coriander leaves - 2tsp

Grated coconut - 1tsp

For Tempering:

Mustard Seeds - 1/2 tsp

Sesame seeds - 1/2 tsp

Method:

• Grease the back of a steel plate and keep ready.
• In a small bowl, combine besan with yogurt, water, salt, hing, turmeric and ginger+green chili paste. Using a hand mixer, blend the ingredients to form a homogeneous mixture.
• Heat 1tbsp oil in a non-stick pan, add the besan mixture and cook stirring constantly on medium-low flame. Cook until the mixture comes together and starts to leave the sides of the pan. (It took me about 20 minutes to get the right texture, I might have been over cautious and cooked on super low flame,).
• Once the mixture is ready, pour it onto the prepared plate and spread out to form a circle.
• Cut the mixture into strips and roll. Keep them on a serving plate.
• For the tempering: heat 1tsp oil in a small pan, and add mustard & sesame seeds. Once the seeds start to sputter, pour over Khandvi.
• Garnish with coriander leaves and grated coconut. Serve immediately.

I have to say that my Khandvi's were not very successful. I had trouble rolling them and they started to break apart. But the taste was awesome, so I'll probably try to make them again with better results (hopefully). Thanks for introducing yet another yummy dish Valli.

Homemade Granola-Healthy Start to the New Year

Hope everyone enjoyed the Holiday season. To start the New Year on a healthy note, I’ve two easy granola recipes. I gave Granola as Holiday give-away gifts this year to my co-workers and everyone seemed to like them, so I’m glad that I took time to make some home-made granola instead of buying things that I’m not if they are going to use or not.

Quick & Easy Granola: First granola I made is extremely easy and I just followed the most basic granola formula-Grains+Seeds/Nuts+Mixings+Dry fruit+Sweetener+Flavoring. So here’s how I made this simple granola:

Ingredients:
Rolled oats (Grains)– 4cups
Wheat Germ (Mixing) – ½cup
Pumpkin Seeds (Pepitas) – ¼cup
Sliced Almonds – 1 cup
Pure Maple syrup – ½ cup
Canola Oil - 2 tbsp
Salt - ½tsp
Dry cherries – ½ cup
Raisins – ½ cup

Method:

• Heat oven to 350°F.
• Toss the oats, almonds, wheat germ, pepitas with the maple syrup, oil and salt in a large mixing bowl.
• Spread the mixture evenly on a rimmed baking sheet and bake, tossing once, until golden and crisp, about 25 to 30 minutes.
• Add the dried fruit as soon as the granola comes out of the oven and toss to combine.
• Let cool. Keep at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 1 month.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Granola: When I saw this recipe in 500 Vegan Recipes cookbook, I could only think of one of my co-workers. She always has PB&J sandwiches for lunch and I wanted to make a batch of this granola just for her.

Ingredients:

Old fashioned Rolled Oats – 1½ cups

Brown Rice powder – ½ cup, divided

Creamy Peanut Butter – ¼cup

Your favorite Jelly/ Jam – ¼ cup (I used blackberry jam)

Sugar - 2tbsp

Cinnamon - ½tsp

Water - ¼cup

Salt - ¼tsp

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Combine the peanut butter, sugar and water in a microwave safe bowl. Heat for 30-60 seconds so that the peanut better is more manageable.
• Stir in 2tbsp of brown rice flour, cinnamon, salt and oats. The mixture will be very thick and quite unmanageable at this point, just place it on the baking sheet and combine using your fingers.
• Sprinkle the remaining 2tbsp of brown rice flour on top and work it in gently until it is completely incorporated. Try not to break the granola chunks too much while doing this.
• Add the jam in little pieces, try to leave them as chunks or bits instead of mixing and coating the granola.
• Spread the mixture evenly on a rimmed baking sheet.
• Bake for 8 minutes. Stir well.
• Bake for another 10 minutes or until golden brown.
• Let cool and transfer into an airtight container. Store in the fridge once completely cooled.

I also made Chocolate-Cherry Granola from Nupur's blog and kept a container for myself after giving away 3 of them. Homemade granola is extremely easy, quick and very inexpensive to make. Compare them to the ones you get in the grocery store, they are fresh and not laden with preservatives and chemicals. I'll sure be making these granolas more this year.

Best of 2010

I’ve never done a Best of any year before, because to me it’s extremely difficult to pick “the best” in anything. I like everything, but I don’t usually love something (except for eggplant of course). For me to love something, it has to be extra special and I think this year there are a few that I really loved and would like to share it with you guys. Also this happens to be my 400th post, so I wanted to make it a little special.

So here is the list of my Best things this year (everything is not food related):

2010 was really a very eventful year for me: Buying our first home, moving in and organizing everything as per our taste took a lot of time; a lot of time away from the blog. Family visit this summer was one of the Best family times we had this year; again lot of time away from the blog. But then came the Best time for the Blog in the month of November with Vegan Mofo and I was able to post 22 posts which is unheard of for Cook’s Hideout in 2010.

Here are some more Best Of 2010 list:

Best Vegetarian restaurant: We stopped by Veggie Heaven in Teaneck, NJ one weekend, just because we were looking for Chinese restaurants in the area and this was the first one that came up on my Iphone search. We were pleasantly surprised how flavorful each dish was and thoroughly enjoyed everything we ate there. They had some killer Kung Pao Chicken dish (all veggie, of course) and the Spicy Hunan dumplings were to die for. We’ll definitely be going there frequently now.

Best Dish in a Restaurant: I’m partial to eggplant dishes, but this Baingan Mirchi ka salan (Eggplant-Chili gravy curry) that we had at Moghul restaurant in Edison, NJ is probably the best salan dish I’ve ever had in my life. The eggplants were creamy and just melted in your mouth, chilies tasted spicy, but not fiery hot and the gravy was so smooth and delicious. I’m actually on the quest for the perfect salan dish now.

Best Dish I made/ tried: This has to be Rasmalai that we made for ICC. Even though it is a time consuming and involved recipe, loved the end result.

Best Ingredient tried: My newest favorite ingredient is “Almond Butter”. I love it so much that I’m thinking of adding it to everything I cook, be it dal, subzi, rice, anything (I don’t add it to everything, but the thought definitely crosses my mind). It’s perfect for making creamy pastas & curries without adding cream and tastes super yummy on toast too. I buy 16oz. Trader Joes Almond Butter for $4.99 and that’s the best deal I found in town (beating even Walmart).

Best Picture(s): I love both these pictures:

Best Kitchen investment: This has to be hands down my new KitchenAid Stand mixer. I got the most basic model for $110 ($199-30% discount-$20 Kohl’s credit-$20 Mail-in rebate+7% NJ Tax) and I love love love how easy life’s got and how many things that can be done when your hands are free from holding a mixer. This is money well spent for me.

Best Pants I bought: Now this is totally off from the kitchen, but I wanted to mention about these pants from Coldwater Creek since I absolutely love them. They are knit denim, they look like regular denim pants but they are so comfy that you could wear them the whole day. A must in everyone’s wardrobe, I’d say.

Well 2010 went by quite fast as any other year, but I do have lots of good memories of it to remember for years to come and made quite a few good friends both online and offline. Hoping that the New Year brings lots of joy and happiness to all of you.

To end the year the old year and begin a New Year on a sweet note, here’s Almond cake I made recently from David Lebovitz’s blog.

The only change I made to the recipe is to use 4 whole eggs and 4 egg whites (to replace 2 whole eggs). I don’t think this changed the texture or the taste of the cake, it was still very moist and extremely delicious. The top cracked a little bit making it look very rustic.

Wish you all a Very Happy & Prosperous New year. Enjoy!!!

Sending this over to Srivalli @ Cooking4allseasons for her "Best of 2010" event. Thanks Valli for reminding.