Oondhiyu (Undhiyu) (Gujarati Mixed Vegetable dish)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 3: Gujarati Cuisine 

Day 15: O for Oondhiyu
We are starting third week of our mega marathon 'Journey through the cuisines' and my choice for this week is 'Gujarati cuisine'. The main reason for picking Gujarat is to cook today's dish. I wanted to try this delicious mixed vegetable dish called Undhiyu or Oondhiyu for the mega marathon and initially I was thinking of doing Gujarati cuisine for the last week (so U would have been Undhiyu), but I couldn't find dishes for most of the other letters, so it became Oondhiyu instead.

This was actually the very first dish I cooked for the marathon. Few months ago, I ate Undhiyu for the very first time at one of our Gujju friends and it was absolutely amazing. Since then I had it in my mind and when I sat down to make my list for the marathon, this was the first one on there.

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Thai Coconut Lime Dressing (and a Salad) Vegan recipe

Blogging Marathon# 62: Week 3/ Day 2

Theme: Cook with Coconut

Dish: Thai Coconut Lime Dressing

Today's dish uses coconut milk in a very interesting way, in a salad dressing. I bookmarked this recipe from Food52 a while back and made it for this week's 'Cook with coconut' theme because who doesn't like creamy coconut dressing with Thai flavors and served with colorful veggies. I sure do :-)

This recipe could not be simpler, mix all the ingredients for the dressing, chop all the ingredients for the salad, cook rice and assemble. Original recipe used fish sauce in the dressing and I subbed it with low-sodium tamari (soy sauce would work well too). I'm sure fish sauce is much more flavorful than just soy sauce, so if you can your hands on some vegan or vegetarian fish sauce, by all means use that. This dressing is great for salads or as a dipping sauce for spring rolls or lettuce cups.

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Spicy Coconut Rice (Masala Kobbari Annam)

Blogging Marathon# 62: Week 3/ Day 1

Theme: Cook with Coconut

Dish: Coconut Masala Rice
We are starting a new week of blogging marathon today and my theme for the week is 'Cook with Coconut'. Coconut is a very interesting ingredient in that it comes in so many different forms, oil, milk, fresh grated, desiccated, flour and sugar. So this week I have 3 recipes using various forms of coconut.

First up is a delicious rice made with fresh grated coconut. Recipe is from Suma's blog. I made it a few days after she posted the recipe. It is a spicy version of regular coconut rice with some added masalas as well.

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Green Quinoa Salad with Peas and Avocado

After a week of Indian dishes, here's a healthy Quinoa salad with peas, avocado and lots of herbs. I like to make this kind of simple dishes when I'm cooking for myself -- everything goes into 1 bowl, mix and eat -- that's it, no fuss, no mess.

This recipe is from Vegetarian Times magazine and I made it as soon as I saw the recipe. It is definitely going to be in rotation in my home going forward.

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Iyengar Bakery Khara Bread (Spicy Indian flavored Bread)

Blogging Marathon# 53: Week 4/ Day 1

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes -- Veena's Veg Nation

Dish: Iyengar Bakery Khara Bread

We are starting the final week of Blogging Marathon for this month today and I'm paired with Veena and for the next 3 days I'm going to post 3 dishes from Veena's blog. Veena blogs at Veena's Veg Nation and she has an awesome collection of recipes both traditional Indian and International. She is an amazing baker, I have quite a few of her breads and other baked goodies bookmarked, hopefully I'll get to bake them some time soon.

For the first day, I made this Iyengar Bakery style spicy Khara Bread. This bread has delicious Indian flavors with cumin seeds, onions, mint and cilantro. Make it as spicy as you want with green chilies. I kept it mild because my kids are too big on spicy food.

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Healthy Cilantro Rice (with Brown rice)

Recently I started watching a Telugu cooking show where the chef, a holistic nutritionist -- Sridevi Jasthi, shows recipes that incorporate whole grains, healthy fats and seasonally available ingredients. I like these kind of shows because they show a totally different perspective on cooking healthy everyday food.

I have tried quite a few of her recipes and they have all turned out great. I will be posting them here periodically.

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Cilantro Lime Quinoa

Blogging Marathon# 46: Week 2/ Day 1
Theme: Lemon/ Lime Recipes
Dish: Cilantro-Lime Quinoa

We are starting another week of Blogging marathon today and my theme for this week is 'Lemon/ Lime recipes'. Adding lemon juice to any dish brings out the flavor and makes it taste refreshing.
I wanted to make Cilantro-Lime rice for today, but used quinoa instead of rice and made this cilantro-lime quinoa. This is a light and fresh tasting dish that is a great alternate to plain quinoa. Lime and fresh herbs make this dish a perfect complement to heavier stews and fried foods, and it's super simple to put together, too, a great plus when there are other dishes cooking on the stovetop.

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Green Chutney for Chaats (Cilantro-Mint Chutney)

Green Chutney is the quintessential ingredient for all the chaats. It is very simple to make with few ingredients but balance is the name of the game when making this dish. A little too much of any ingredient will change the taste. So adjust the ingredients as per your personal preference.

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Poblano Corn Rice

Blogging Marathon# 38: Week 2/ Day 1 
Theme: Gourmet Rice Dishes 
Dish: Poblano-Corn Rice 

We are starting our 2nd week of Blogging marathon today and my theme for this week is 'Gourmet Rice Dishes'. Valli wanted us to prepare rice dishes that are special and different from regular rice dishes. So for the next three days, I'm going to post 3 rice dishes that are slightly different and can be made for for company as well.

I wanted to try poblano & corn combination after making this baked mac & cheese I made for last month's BM. After tasting the pasta I really liked the green sauce and since my husband doesn't like mac & cheese, I wanted him to taste the flavors in a rice dish instead of the cheesy pasta. The dish turned out pretty good.

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Falafel (Eggless, Lower fat recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 33: Week 1/ Day 2
Theme: Combo Dishes - Tikkis/ Burgers
Dish: Falafel with Pita

Officially it is Fall season in our neck of woods, but it feels like summer for the past couple of days. Not that I'm complaining, but I had planned to make baked falafel for day 2 of BM# 33 and had to change plans and shallow fry them because I didn't want to turn on the oven. Baked or fried these falafel are crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. We had these for lunchl served with store bought pita bread, creamy tahini sauce and crispy lettuce and cucumber salads. 

I already have a recipe for falafel that has egg in it and I've been looking for a recipe that doesn't have any egg and does not use as much oil. So when I saw this recipe @ Cookie and Kate, I knew I had to try this recipe. It is super simple to put together. Interestingly the recipe uses soaked chickpeas that do not need to be cooked, that saves time and is much more convenient.

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Soy Nilgiri Kurma and Dal Rotis

Blogging Marathon# 29: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: Cooking with Colors
Dish: Soy Nilgiri Kurma --- Green

Today we are starting the 29th edition of Blogging marathon and my theme for this week is "Cooking with Colors". We can all agree that we eat with our eyes first and the more colorful a dish is, the more healthier and appealing it is. So for the next three days, I'm going to post dishes that have one featured color ingredient.

For the first day, I'm cooking with the color 'Green'. I saw this dish being made on a Telugu Cooking show (abhiruchi) and it looked very appealing, so I jotted down the recipe. As I was looking through my notebook for ideas of dishes to make for BM, I saw this recipe and thought this will highlight the color green really well. 

This dish tastes very earthy and is quite delicious. It is a little time consuming to make, but ones all the components are ready, the curry takes no time to finish.

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Corn Pulao

Blogging Marathon# 27: Week 4/ Day 3
Theme: Miscellaneous - Cooking Rice on Stove top
Dish: Corn Pulao/ Pilaf

I made this one pot Corn Pulao for my lunch today. Rice is cooked along with the veggies. There was a time when I tried to cook rice using the open pot method, it would either end up uncooked or burnt at the bottom. I have gotten better over time and now I make decent rice dishes without using the pressure cooker.
This corn rice has both corn kernels and baby corn. It is lightly spiced, so I served it with some tomato raita. It makes for a filling and delicious weeknight meal. Add some paneer or soy chunks or other protein to make this a complete meal. This is another recipe adapted from the Telugu cooking show I have been talking about a lot in my previous posts.

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Bagara Rice (How to cook Pulao/ Pilaf in Pressure Cooker)

Blogging Marathon# 27: Week 4/ Day 1
Theme: Miscellaneous - Tips to cook Pulao/ Pilaf in Pressure Cooker
Dish: Bagara Rice

We are in the last week of our Blogging Marathon# 27 and the theme for this week is 'miscellaneous" and 'arts & crafts'. I've to say that I'm a little crafty. No, I guess I have to say I was crafty more than 10 years ago and now I can't even think of anything fancy for my kindergartner's projects. 

When Valli announced that the theme for the last week is arts & crafts, I started watching a Telugu cooking show that had a segment on food carvings. I made note of quite a few and started trying out my crafting skills. After seeing my creations -- Tomato tulips/ Strawberry flowers & Cucumber Chinese fan, my husband decided to start cooking himself because of the amount of time and energy I was spending on trying to precisely cut the fruit/ veggie to get the right shape. Oh, mind you none of what I made actually looked what they were supposed to look like and it seemed waste of resources to the husband. After hacking away a week's worth of tomatoes for one trial, I had to agree with him and accept my failure.

So for the next few days, I'm going to post some quick and easy rice recipes. Also I'm planning to post  what I learnt in my Wilton Cake Decorating course later on in the week.

Today, I have a very simple and tasty rice dish. It is spiced with whole garam masala (spices), mint and cilantro. I cooked it in the pressure cooker. Recently couple of my blogging buddies have asked me how my pressure cooked pilaf/ pulao's come out so fluffy. There was a time when my pressure cooked pilafs were either mushy, burnt at the bottom or uncooked. So after some experiments, I think finally I've started to make some decent rice dishes in the cooker.

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Mexican Green Rice (Arroz Verde)

Here I am for another edition of Blogging marathon (BM# 19). This time I signed up for all 4 weeks since the themes were very interesting, thanks to our brilliant organizer Valli for that. It has been really busy past few weeks -- too much work at office and home. With my husband travelling continuously for the past 2-3 weeks, once I get home, I can't even find time to turn on the computer. But things are looking up and hopefully this madness will end pretty soon.

The theme I chose for the first week is "Cooking with Greens" and I picked the combo with Indian bread, Rice & a Gravy dish. So that is what is coming up for the next 3 days. As I said before, life's been a little crazy and I couldn't prepare the dishes in advance, like I usually do. Me and my son will be like Popeye eating spinach and other leafy greens for the next 3 days.

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Grilled Eggplant Sandwich with Tomato Pesto (Chutney)

This month, my blog completed 6 years. I wanted to celebrate by making some sweet, as is the Indian tradition, but lack of time has let me down. But I wanted to celebrate in my own way by making my favorite eggplant sandwich (you know I'm all about simple pleasures :0) ). Actually I was looking for recipes to make for Dish It Out: Eggplant &Tomatoes event and this one seemed like the perfect fit for both the event and the celebration.

This is a very simple sandwich with toasted bread spread (rather generously) with the tomato pesto (chutney) and layered with grilled eggplants, onions and lettuce. Pesto was so good that I was eating that by spoonfuls before I made the sandwiches.

 

If outdoor grilling is not your thing, veggies can be grilled on stove-top grill pan or roasted/ broiled in an oven or even sauteed in a saute pan. If you don't like eggplant (but why wouldn't you eat an eggplant......hmmmm), then you can substitute with zucchini or peppers. Don't let anything stop you from making this yummy sandwich, especially the pesto.

I used canned fire-roasted tomatoes for the pesto, but if you have abundance of good fresh tomatoes, then slow roasted tomatoes would taste excellent too. Pesto recipe is a fusion between Italian pesto and Indian chutney, you will see why from the ingredients and the method I used to make it. This is a great accompaniment to many Indian dishes like idlis, khichdi and even plain rice.

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Khara Biscuit for ICC-May

For this month’s Indian Cooking Challenge (ICC), Srivalli wanted us to make an Indian baked goodie. We are using Champa’s Khara biscuit recipe that makes savory, melt in your mouth cookies that are a snap to make.

This is the first time ever we baked for ICC and I was really excited about the challenge, since I’ve never made savory cookies before. The recipe also requires very few ingredients and needs less than 30 minutes of hands on time.

Even though the recipe is simple enough to make, I had to get some help to make these yummy goodies. My 3 year old had a blast making (messing up) the cookies. Here’s how I made them.

Champa's Original recipe here.

Ingredients:
All purpose flour – 2 cups
Butter – 1/3 cup, softened
Yogurt – 4tbsp (original recipe had only 2-3 tbsp, but I added a little more than 4tbsp to get the correct consistency of the dough)
Sugar – 4tsp
Salt – 1tsp
Pepper – 2tsp
Cilantro – 2tbsp, finely chopped

Method:

• Preheat oven to 325°F. Cover 2 baking sheets with parchment papers and set aside.
• Whisk flour, salt and pepper in a small bowl and set aside.
• Cream butter and sugar in a medium bowl, until light and fluffy. Add 2tbsp yogurt and continue to beat.
• Next add flour mixture and beat slowly. The mixture was pretty dry, so I used my hands to incorporate all the ingredients and added an additional 2tbsp of yogurt to make a smooth, non-sticky dough. Add chopped cilantro and work it into the dough.
• Roll the dough into ¼” thickness.
• Use cookie cutter or bottle lids to cut the cookies. Place them on the prepared baking sheets.
• Bake for 18-20 minutes.

Enjoy with a cup of tea (You can tell from my half filled cup that I'm not a tea drinker :-) . We usually serve a sweet (dessert) with a hot (savory) when serving tea, so I made Champa's Ricotta coconut fudge. The only modification I made to the recipe is that I added 1 cup of coconut powder along with 1 cup of roasted ground cashews, this is one quick and easy dessert that can whipped up in no time. Thanks to Champa for both the recipes and thanks to Valli for choosing this savory snack for ICC.

Creamy Avocado-Cilantro Dressing

I love avocados, they are so creamy and delicious. I usually buy a 4 pack from BJs, I make sure that I pick slightly firm ones. I let them ripe on the counter for 2-3 days, use as required or refrigerate in plastic bag for future use, but make sure to use them up within 7-10days. I add them to salads, use them to make rotis (thanks to Indira for her awesome avocado roti recipe), make guacamole or make this dressing.

This makes a thickish dressing that’s great on a salad or as a dip. Inspired from Rachael Ray’s avocado dressing.

Ingredients:
Avocado – 2 ripe
Cilantro – 1 cup, roughly chopped
Red Onion – 1 small, chopped (or 2 medium shallots)
Juice of 2 lemons (more or less depending on the tanginess of the lemon)
Garlic – 2 cloves, minced
Jalapeno – 1, chopped
Olive oil – 2-3 tbsp
Salt & pepper – to taste

Method:

• Put all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth and creamy.

I served it over salad greens with grape tomatoes and chopped scallions. This is my entry to JFI-Cilantro being hosted by Cilantro. Thanks to Cilantro for extending the date for sending in the entries. Indira @ Mahanandi is the brain behind JFI.

Vankaya Kottimeera Karam Kura (Eggplant in Cilantro Gravy)

I love anything made with eggplant (brinjal) and this is one of my absolute favorite recipe (I know I said the same thing for a lot of my other eggplant recipes and they all countJ). This dish tastes delicious and the aroma of cilantro cooking with eggplant is just wonderful. I used small Indian brinjal and I think they have the most flavor compared to Japanese or American eggplants.

Ingredients:
Indian eggplants – 10 – 12, cubed

For the Masala paste:
Cilantro (coriander leaves) – 1 cup
Green Chilies – 6 (or according to taste)
Ginger – 1” piece
Grated Coconut (fresh or dry) – ¼ cup
Salt – ½ tsp

For popu:
Chana dal – 1 tsp
Urad dal – 1tsp
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Cumin seeds – ½ tsp
Red chilies – 2 (optional)
Curry leaves – 6

Method:

• Grind all the ingredients for the masala paste with water. Add just enough water to grind, so that the paste is not too thick or too runny. Keep aside.
  
• Heat 2tsp oil in a pan, add the popu ingredients and after the seeds splutter and the dals turn light brown, add curry leaves and eggplant pieces. Cover and cook on medium-low heat for about 8-10 minutes or until the eggplants are half way cooked.
  
• Mix in the cilantro paste and salt; cover and cook until eggplants are completely tender and the masala paste doesn’t smell raw anymore. This will take 10 more minutes.
  
• Serve hot with rice and dal for a wholesome meal.

This is my entry to this RCI-Andhra event hosted by Latha (@ Masala Magic).