Quinoa-Lentil Falafel

Blogging Marathon#66: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes 

Dish: Quinoa Lentil Falafel from Food52

Today I have a yummy variation to traditional falafel. This is made with quinoa and lentils instead of chickpeas and fava beans. I bookmarked the recipe from Food52. Original recipe used whole mung beans but I subbed them with some French lentils.

These falafel are baked and are healthier than the traditional deep fried version. Adding quinoa makes them more substantial and filling. Along with quinoa and lentils, chickpea flour or besan is added to bind the falafel and also to impart a nutty flavor.

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Lemon Rasam

Blogging Marathon#66: Week 4/ Day 1

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes 

Dish: Lemon Rasam from Nalini

We are starting our final week of blogging marathon today and my theme for the week is 'Bookmarked recipes'. For the first day I made this simple yet very tasty Lemon rasam from Nalini's blog.

Nalini made it for the April mega marathon and I bookmarked and made it right away. It took this long to post the recipe here. Rasam in our households is made with tomato and tamarind. Toor dal or any kind of dal is not usually added. Our version is rather watery and is usually eaten along with a thicker dal.

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Leeks Sambar

Blogging Marathon#64: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: Mega BM Bookmarked Recipes 

Dish: Leeks Sambar from Vidhya

For the final day of this month's marathon, I have an interesting sambar made with Leeks from Vidhya's blog. I bookmarked it the minute I saw it on her blog and made it once I got my hands on some leeks.

Leeks belong to the 'Allium' family along with onions and garlic. They have a mild onion-like taste and are crunchy when eaten raw. But they get soft and mild when cooked. I buy leeks quite often and make pasta sauces or dry sautes with them. Vidhya's leek sambar sounded very interesting and delicious.

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Rajasthani Dal Dhokli

Blogging Marathon#64: Week 3/ Day 1

Theme: Wholewheat Dishes

Dish: Dal Dhokli

We are starting our 3rd week of blogging marathon today and my theme for the week is 'Wholewheat Dishes'. For the first day I made a hearty and comforting dish popular in both Gujarat and Rajasthan, Dal Dhokli. This has been on my list of dishes to try for a very long time and finally got a chance to try it out.

Dal dhokli is a filling one pot meal where dhoklis aka Indian style wheat pasta :-) are simmered in dal until cooked through. From what I read, Rajasthani version is slightly spicier than Gujarati version. I tried the spicy version and it was amazing, both my kids loved it too. I told them this how close an Indian dish can get to Italian pasta and they were very happy to try.

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Punjabi Dal Tadka

I made this Punjabi Dal tadka along with this Aloo curry for a mini Punjabi meal. Recipe for the dal is from a Telugu cooking show and I have made it quite a few times already.

Like any dal, this is very easy to make and is very hearty and comforting dish. It is a simple dish but tastes amazing and the lovely thing about this dish is it can whipped up for a simple dal-chawal menu on a weeknight or can be served with naans and jeera rice for a party.

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Taco Salad (Vegetarian Recipe)

Blogging Marathon# : Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: Taste of Home Top 100 recipes of 2015

Dish: Taco Salad
Today's dish from Taste of Home top 100 recipes is this delicious Taco Salad. I wanted to make taco salad for a while now and when I saw it on the top 100 I knew I had to give it a try. Original recipe also has cooked meat but I omitted it and just made the rest of the recipe.

Key to this recipe is the dressing that is made with Thousand Island dressing. You can either use store bought Thousand Island dressing or make it yourself at home. I didn't want to buy a jar since I know I will let it sit in the fridge for god knows how long.

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Mysore Kattina Saaru

Blogging Marathon# 60: Week 3/ Day 1

Theme: Regional Specials

Dish: Mysone Kattina Saaru
We are starting 3rd week of blogging marathon today and my theme for the week is 'Regional Specials'. I chose Mysore as my region and I have 3 delicious dishes from there.

Vani who blogs at Mysoorean has a ton of authentic dishes from Mysore. After a lot of browsing on her site, I found this simple dal recipe that only needed few ingredients which was perfect because I only had a couple of veggies left in the fridge and it was time to go grocery shopping.

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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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Tomato Dosa with Oats

Blogging Marathon# 54: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: Lentils -- 3 Ways

Dish: Tomato Dosa with Oats

I have an interesting dosa recipe for the final day of this month's blogging marathon. Dosas are an excellent mix of lentils and rice and give a good dose of protein and carbohydrates to the body.

I saw this recipe for dosa with tomato and oats on a Telugu cooking show and immediately noted it down in my book. I made these couple of days ago and they turned out great. Adding oats makes these dosas a little more nutritious.

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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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Cuban Black Beans for #Food of the World (Vegan Recipe)

For this month's #Food of the World event, we are traveling to Cuba. Cuban cuisine is quite new to me. I've never made any Cuban dishes at home nor tried anything outside. So I took to Google looking for vegetarian Cuban recipes.
Cuban cuisine is a fusion of Spanish and Caribbean cuisines. Cuban recipes share spices and techniques with Spanish cooking, with some Caribbean influence in spice and flavor. Traditional Cuban meal is not served in courses, all the dishes are served that the same time.

The typical meal consists of plantains, black beans, Cuban bread, pork with onions and tropical fruits. Black beans and rice, referred to Moros and plantains are staples of the Cuban diet. Garlic, cumin, oregano and bay leaves are the dominant spices.

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7 Layer Mexican Dip

Blogging Marathon# 53: Week 2/ Day 1

Theme: Movie Night Snacks

Dish: 7 Layer Mexican dip

My theme for this week's blogging marathon is 'Snacks for Movie Night'. Family movie nights have become rare with my husband's crazy travel schedule but we try and catch up once in a while. I'm not big on snacks, I rather eat a full meal and I'm happy. But the kids and the husband love snacks. So for the next 3 days, I'm going to share some make ahead or quick to make snacks that are great for a movie night (or for any night or party for that matter).

First up is a Mexican layer dip. It has 7 layers with gaucamole, refried beans, salsa, sour cream, shredded cheese, olives and scallions. If you are up for it, you can make some of the layers at home, or if you are like me, just buy some good quality guacamole, refried beans and salsa.

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Vegetarian Rice & Beans Burrito with Queso Sauce

Blogging Marathon# 53: Week 1/ Day 3

Theme: Tortilla based Dishes

Dish: Vegetarian Rice & Beans Burrito with Queso Sauce

For the last day of this week's marathon under 'Tortilla based dishes' theme, I made rice & beans filled burritos. We love Mexican food and I make it at least once a week. I always keep tortillas in stock for quick wraps, burritos or tacos.

Taco Bell happens to be our favorite fast food restaurant and before you start judging me let me tell you that is the only place where we get a decent choice of vegetarian options. Also they keep adding new items on to their menu unlike other fast food chains where we usually exhaust the dishes to try the first time we visit. Other Mexican fast food places we visit are Qdoba & Chipotle. So moral of the story is we love Mexican food and eat it quite frequently at home and outside.

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Vegetarian Sincronizada (Quesadillas)

Blogging Marathon# 53: Week 1/ Day 1

Theme: Tortilla based Dishes

Dish: Sincronizada

We are starting a brand new edition of Blogging marathon today and my theme for this week is 'Tortilla based dishes'. Valli gave us a list of tortilla dishes to choose from to make our lives easy. Tortilla is nothing but the Spanish version of Indian rotis. They are soft and made with finely ground wheat flour or corn flour.

So for the first day, I picked Sincronizada. The name seemed very complicated but making it is not complicated at all. Sincronizada is usually confused with Quesadilla, but they are considered are completely different dishes. Quesadilla is traditionally made with corn flour and is single folded. Whereas sincronizada is made with flour tortilla, has 'ham' as a mandatory ingredient and is usually made as a sandwich.

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Veggie Burger Sandwich (Beans & Veggie Burger)

Blogging Marathon# 50: Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: American Sandwiches

Dish: Veggie Burger Sandwich

Homemade Veggie burgers have a bad rap -- they are flavorless and have a very high tendency to fall apart while cooking. There are quite a few good quality frozen veggie burgers but most of them are soy based and have long list of unnecessary ingredients with very complicated spellings. There are a ton of recipes for veggie burger recipes on the Internet and after going through a number of recipes I found this recipe by Guy Fieri on the Food Network site.

This recipe uses 3 different types of beans; white, chickpeas and black beans. I used only 2 types of beans and the burger worked beautifully, it didn't fall apart on me and cooked perfectly in the skillet.

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Vegetarian Three Bean Stew with Roasted Potatoes

This winter doesn't seem to end any time soon. The temps have been hovering below freezing and it feels like a deep freezer when we step outside. I am sick of wearing all the layers and I feel bad for the kids who have to lug around their heavy book bag in addition to 3~4 layers of clothing. My son said he felt like a brick with all the layers. The weather man said it's going to be red hot over the weekend -- predicted temps are in lower 40's and he thinks that it is going to feel hot like summer.
Anyway our woes with winter will probably continue for a few more weeks. In the mean time, I made this hearty vegetarian 3 bean stew to warm me up. I tasted this dish at Medieval Times last year and it has stuck with me ever since.

Medieval Times is a place where you step back into Medieval times with epic battles, jousting tournaments along with a royal dinner. We have a location very close to our house and we had a chance to visit it last spring. My son had a great time there. I wasn't much into the battle but I enjoyed my vegetarian feast for sure.

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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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Vegetarian White Chili with Roasted Poblano Peppers

Can you make a wild guess of what could be the scariest thing that can happen to you right now? We experienced it recently -- it's not flu or ebola virus or zombie apocalypse!!!!!!! It is losing your internet, tv and phone service for an entire DAY. WHAT??? Yes, it happened to us yesterday and everything went haywire at home. You would think the adults will be the ones most affected, but it was the 7 year old who declared a state of emergency and wanted to leave the house. His dad who was (supposed to be) working from home was more calm than the kid who gets about 1 hour (if that) of computer time every day and he looked soooo lost without it. Let me tell you, we got a lot done in this 24 hours: the whole basement looks clean now and I finally got a chance to look through all the new cookbooks I recently got free from the very friendly librarian. 

Thankfully we are back in action with all the devices up and running and fully connected. I was worried I won't get this White Chili post in time for the upcoming Super bowl XXXXIX sunday. But here it is for those of you looking to make something different for the party this weekend. 

This Chili uses white beans instead of the more traditional red or black beans, hence the name White Chili :-) This recipe is from Vegetarian Times magazine and has roasted poblano peppers that add nice smokey flavor and depth to the dish.

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Fasulye/ Barbunya Pilaki (Turkish Everyday Beans) for #Food of the World

We are visiting the beautiful Turkey this month for the #Food of the World event. Turkish food happens to be one of my favorite and I'm always looking for opportunities to try new dishes. I borrowed 'The New Middle Eastern Vegetarian' cookbook by Sally Butcher from the library. As the book's name suggests it has vegetarian recipes from the Middle East and after reading through the book a couple of times, I am tempted to try almost all the recipes :-)
This Turkish Everyday beans recipe, Fasulye Pilaki, is traditionally made with white beans like navy or cannellini or Fasulye. Pilaki refers to the method of preparation: anything that is served cold with olive oil is a Pilaki.

I thought I had a can of white beans in my pantry but unfortunately I didn't, so I ended up using small pink beans in the recipe. I don't know the translation of pink in Turkish, so I'm going to stick with the Fasulye Pilaki (modified) name. My dear Turkish friend told me the name of the dish with red beans is called 'Barbunya Pilaki'. But no matter which beans you use, this is a recipe with simple ingredients and delicious flavors. So try it with whatever beans you have in the pantry.

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Vegetarian Meatloaf (with Rice & Lentils) with Checca Suace

Blogging Marthon# 46: Week 1/ Day 2
Theme: Festival Special -- Thanksgiving
Dish: Vegetarian Meatloaf (with Rice & Lentils) with Checca Sauce

Well's Vegetarian Thanksgiving from New York Times is a great resource for vegetarian and vegan dishes to make for Thanksgiving. The New York Times editors curate a huge list of non-traditional no-turkey/ meat dishes on their Well's blog. I think they have been doing this every year since 2010. They have an impressive line up of dishes from famous food writers and chefs utilizing the fall harvest and delicious vegetables. 

The idea to make a Vegetarian meatloaf came from one of the Well's Thanksgiving menus. Meatloaf is exactly what it sounds like --- meat made into a loaf. Most vegetarian meatloaves are  made of lentils, mushrooms or TVP (soy granules). The recipe I used today uses both lentils and rice for the structure. I remember watching Giada making it on Food Network and wanted to try the recipe.

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