Pudina Vegetable Pulao (Mint flavored Vegetable Pilaf) -- (Revisiting Old Recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 45: Week 4/ Day 3
Theme: Revisiting Old Recipes
Dish: Pudina Vegetable Pulao

One problem with blogging regularly is that I am constantly trying out new recipes to post here on the blog and don't usually find time to go back and cook old recipes. Whenever Valli has 'Revisiting recipes' theme for blogging marathon, I make sure to sign up for it so I get a chance to remake the dish and redo the photos.

This Pudina Vegetable Pulao is from my early blogging days way back from 2006 -- more than 8 years back. This was the fanciest rice dish I knew in those days and made it regularly until my pulao & biryani repertoire started growing and this simple one pot meal became a rarity in my house.

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Vankaya Kurma (Eggplant Kurma) -- Revisiting Recipe

Blogging Marathon# 45: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: Revisiting Old Recipes
Dish: Vankaya Kurma (Eggplant in Peanut-Yogurt sauce)

I am revisiting old recipes as part of this week's Blogging marathon theme and of course I had to browse through my eggplant recipes to see what needs a face lift. This also gives me a chance to make the dish again and enjoy it. My poor husband is the victim to all of my eggplant creations. I'm a eggplant lover and I'm on a mission to convert an eggplant hater to a somewhat liker. I think he's now in at the junction where he neither likes it nor dislikes it -- so hopefully he'll get to where I want him to be pretty soon.

So browsing through the archives, I ended up on this Eggplant kurma that I posted more than 3 years ago. I am not a big fan of yogurt in curries, but I've to tell you the yogurt gives the dish tanginess and makes it absolutely delicious. I used 'labneh'-- a Turkish style thick cream sort of yogurt that is almost like Greek yogurt and I loved the results. I was skeptical if my husband would find out the presence of yogurt (which he also dislikes with a passion), but labneh didn't have the smell that Indian yogurt has and it was virtually undetectable.

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Darbari Dal (Revisitng Recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 45: Week 4/ Day 1
Theme: Revisiting Old Recipes
Dish: Darbari Dal

We are starting our final week of blogging marathon today and I picked a seemingly easy theme, Revisiting Old recipes. But it was quite a tough task picking just 3 dishes to revisit from my archives. This blog has been around for more than 8 years and there are ton of dishes that need some TLC. So after browsing through the blog for a very very long time I decided on 3 dishes that I wanted to remake and take some new pics.

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Dimer Dalna (Bengali Egg & Potato Curry)

Blogging Marathon# 38: Week 4/ Day 3
Theme: Revisiting Recipes
Dish: Dimer Dalna (Bengali Egg & Potato Curry)

It was a little difficult to choose just 3 dishes to revisit for this week's BM. With 900+ recipes on the blog and over half of them taken with no sense of style or knowledge of lighting, it became an impossible task to pick the ones that needed the most TLC.
In the end I decided to make dishes with the ingredients that I had on hand. So for the last day of this month's marathon, I made this Bengali egg & potato curry, Dimer Dalna, because I had some boiled eggs (which happen to be my kids favorite) and boiled potatoes in the fridge and this seemed to a tasty way to combine both the ingredients.

I am going to keep the post short because I'm getting really nervous about the upcoming month long  mega marathon like a student preparing for final exams. Even though almost all the dishes are cooked and clicked, I still have to start working on the posts. Hopefully I'll be done drafting my posts soon.

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Pad Thai (Vegan Recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 38: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: Revisiting Recipes
Dish: Pad Thai

Today I'm revisiting one of my favorite noodle dish, Pad Thai. Recipe is from the cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra. It is a simple recipe, but it sure needs some preparations to be done. Once all the veggies are chopped and the sauce is made, dish gets done in no time. 

Below recipe serves 2, if you are planning to make this for a crowd, then multiply the ingredients according. Make the sauce in bulk, but assemble the noodles only 2 servings at a time and serve immediately.  

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Farro Salad with Roasted Vegetables

Blogging Marathon# 38: Week 4/ Day 1
Theme: Revisiting Recipes
Dish: Farro Salad with Roasted Vegetables

We are starting the final week of blogging marathon# 38 today and I chose a relatively simple theme. I am going to be revisiting some of my old posts and updating them with new pictures. 

Today I am updating my hearty and healthy Farro salad with roasted vegetables post. I don't know what I was thinking when I was taking those pictures, I used my used pizza stone with stains on them which wasn't the best of backgrounds to use. So here is a simple salad with some updated pictures. 

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Butternut Squash Curry (Revisiting Old Recipes)

Blogging Marathon# 26: Week 4/ Day 3
Theme: Revisiting Old Posts with New Pictures
Dish: Thiyya Gummadikaya Kura (Butternut Squash Curry from August 2007) 

Butternut squash is one vegetable that I buy and keep in the pantry. It doesn't have to be refrigerated, which is a bad thing because I usually end up forgetting that I bought it and it stays in the cabinet for days. Good thing is it is a tough veggie and can be stored in a cool dry place for quite some time. Once the realize I have it and cook with it, I always end up thinking why did I wait for this long!! 

So this time I decided to make 2 dishes with the 2lbs. butternut squash that I bought. I cooked with half of it right away, then microwaved the rest of the pieces and stored it in the fridge for later use. I made a Kale-Butternut Squash risotto with one half and for this curry I used with the microwaved pieces later in the week.

I had blogged this post way back in August of 2007 and I think my pictures have come a long way from then :-)

This curry is tangy, sweet and spicy and once you have the cooked squash in hand, it takes mere minutes to put this dish together.

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Quinoa Lemon Pulihora (Revisiting an Old Post)

Blogging Marathon# 26: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: Revisiting Old Posts with New Pictures
Dish: Quinoa Pulihora (from December 2009)

This quinoa pulihora is one of the top 10 posts on my blog and it desperately needed a face lift. Quinoa is one of the whole grains that I use quite frequently. Its nutty and I love how it swells up with that lovely saturn ring around it after cooking. 

Quinoa can be used in place of rice in many Indian recipes and this lemon flavored quinoa is one of the quickest and easiest dishes that I make.

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Undrallu with Allam Pachadi (Revisiting an Old Post)

Blogging Marathon# 26: Week 4/ Day 1
Theme: Revisiting Old Posts with New Pictures
Dish: Undrallu & Allam Pachadi (from June 2006)

Revisiting old posts with new pictures is something that I have been planning to do for quite some time now. But time seems to be of premium these days and since I can't even catch up with the present, past keeps waiting. So this week's theme is perfect as it lets me update some of my very old posts that are in dire need of better pictures.

When I started blogging almost 8 years ago, I didn't have any props and I didn't even think of buying any props for blogging. All I used to do was cook at night and click with the flash glaring right onto the plate. Didn't realize that food needs to be presented in an appetizing way. It was only recently that I started playing around with the props, settings and the camera.

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Thokkudu Laddoo (Revisiting Old Recipe)

Merry Christmas to All of you. Hope all of you had a great time today. 
My mom has been cooking up some delicious treats for us. For this holiday, she made "Thokkudu Laddu" so I can update the old recipe with a new picture.

 

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Kohlrabi Curry (Revisiting an Old Recipe)

My theme for the last week of blogging marathon for this year is "Revisiting Old Recipes". Very apt for this time of the year when all of us are reminiscing on what happened through the year and making new resolutions for the upcoming new year. 

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A Review and Garden Update

This post has been long overdue. This space has been quite for a while as we have family visiting us and it’s been fun spending time with them and showing them around the New York Metro area. We have been enjoying a lot of yummy dishes made by my MIL, will post about them some soon.

Product review for CSN stores that I had mentioned in my previous post is finally here. It took me almost forever to decide on what to get as they have such a wide selection of products to choose from. After almost 2 days of browsing, I decided on this Calphalon Stainless Steel Pan. I’ve been thinking of buying stainless steel cookware for a while but I was always skeptical. I was worried that food is going to stick to the bottom and it will be difficult to clean. So I decided to try the pan and see how I liked it. I also ordered a Jelly roll pan. Thanks to CSN Stores for this opportunity to review the product.

Order arrived within 2 days and I was so happy to see my shiny new pan and the baking sheet. One of the main reasons I chose this pan is that it is oven safe upto 450ºF, very convenient when you are making a dish that needs to be finished in the oven. The sloped sides and flat bottom makes the pan look small, but I made a curry for a family of 4 with some leftovers.
The Stay Cool handles makes it easier to handle the pan even after long stove top cooking. Since it is stainless steel, I can use any utensil, but for now I prefer my wooden spatula. I especially like the see-through glass lid making it easier to see what’s going on in the pan and also it fits perfectly avoiding any moisture to escape.

The first dish that I made is this White Pumpkin Gravy Curry. Gravy is same as the one I posted here; instead of Chayote I used white pumpkin (Budidha Gummadikaya).

Coming to the garden: Since this is our very first year having a house and a back yard and since we are extremely new to gardening, we decided to take baby steps and plant only few plants. So for our first attempt we planted: White & Red Potatoes, White Onions, Dalias in the ground (bought all of these at BJ’s for a reasonable price); Cherry tomatoes, cayenne pepper, green bell pepper, eggplant, basil, arugula in the container garden.

We harvested our first potatoes yesterday and it was such fun to search for these tiny beauties in the dirt. We ended up with about 12 of them. Don’t mind my dirty hands; I was too excited to take the picture that I didn’t wash my hands. Here are some of the other plants from my garden.

Cherry Tomatoes

Budding Green Pepper

Dahlias in full bloom

Kanda-Bachali Kura (Suran & Malabar-Spinach Curry)

I’m re-visiting this recipe that I posted about 2 years ago. It features in most of Andhra bhojanams (feasts). I love it since I was little and still do. Here is how we make it:

Ingredients:
Bachali kura – 2-3 cups chopped
Spinach – 2 cups
Kanda (Suran) – 1 cup (I used frozen cubed suran)
Ginger – 1 tbsp, minced
Green chilies – 3, chopped
Curry leaves – 10
Tamarind paste – 1tbsp

For Tempering:
Urad dal – 1tsp
Chana dal – 1tsp
Mustard seeds – 1tsp
Cumin seeds – ½tsp
Red chilies – 3
Hing – pinch


Method:

• Heat 2tsp oil in a pan; add the tempering ingredients and once the seeds start to splutter; add ginger, green chilies & curry leaves and sauté for couple of minutes.
  
• Then add the green veggies; cover and cook on medium-low flame for 5-8 minutes or until almost wilted.
  
• In the meantime, de-frost frozen suran in the microwave.
  
• Once the greens are ready, add the suran and ¼ cup of water; cover and cook till suran is completely cooked. I like this dish smooth instead of chunky, so I mash suran with the back of the spoon at this stage. Then add tamarind paste and salt. Cook for another 5 minutes. Serve with steamed rice for a yummy Andhra meal.

This is my entry to Cooking for Kids-Leafy Greens event. Send in your entries by the end of this month.

Ada (Mixed Lentil Pancake)

Today's Vegan dinner is Ada - Mixed Lentil Dosa (pancakes!!!) with peanut chutney. I used Chana, Toor, Moong, Urad & Masoor dals (1/3 cup each).

JFI-Tamarind: Besan Chikki

My second recipe is for this month’s JFI, being hosted by Sig of Live to Eat. I’m revisiting one of my husband’s favorite, Besan Chikki for JFI-Tamarind. My MIL made it on demand and it was just awesome. I can never make it the same way she does even with the recipe on hand. Here’s the recipe.


Ingredients:
For Chikkis:
Besan – 1 cup (sifted)
Green Chilies – 3-4, chopped fine
Curry leaves – 3-4
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Cumin seeds – ½ tsp
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Salt – to taste
For Gravy:
Onion – 1 small, chopped
Tamarind pulp – ¼ cup thick home made kind
Fenugreek powder – ½ tsp
Cumin powder – 1 tsp
Coriander powder – ½ tsp
Red chili powder – 1tsp
Cumin seeds – ½ tsp
Salt – to taste


Ingredients:

• To make besan chikki: Fry besan in a pan on medium-low flame, until it turns golden and does not smell raw anymore. Remove and keep aside.
  
• Heat 1 tbsp oil, add mustards and cumin seeds; after they pop, add chilies, turmeric and curry leaves.
  
• Add 1¼ cups water and let it come to a simmer. Slowly add the fried besan and mix thoroughly making sure that there are no lumps. Keep stirring until the mixture comes away from the sides. Remove onto a greased plate, cut into squares and let cool.
  
• For the gravy: Heat 1 tsp oil in a pan, add cumin seeds and after they splutter, add onions and sauté till light brown. Add tamarind pulp and ½ cup water. Add all the remaining ingredients and on a slow flame, bring the gravy to a simmer, about 15 minutes. Add the besan squares and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
  
• Serve with rice or roti.