Loaded Veggies Pizza

Recently I have re-discovered "naan-pizza" or Pizza like I used to eat in India as a kid, and I'm loving it! My kids are loving it too! So here is my twist to "naan-pizza" creating a healthy version of it.

Ingredients:
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A flatbread or Naan base for the Pizza

For the toppings:
Medley of vegetables used in fajitas or vegetarian quesadillas. I go for finely chopped veggies. It helps settle well on the pizza.My favorites are:
1. Onions
2. Peppers
3. Sweet corn
4. cauliflower
5. Broccoli
6. Carrots
7. Black-beans


Ketchup or pasta tomato sauce for base.

Cheese to top it.

Process:
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1. Stir-fry the vegetables you want to as toppings for the pizza in a sauce-pan. I use 1 tsp olive oil and stir-fry at high heat to keep some crunch in the veggies and giving it a little bit of char.
2. Add salt to taste and Italian spice to the vegetables for taste.
3. Keep aside for topping.
4. Take a flatbread or naan base for the pizza and lightly oil it at the bottom for better crunch.
5. Take a pan and put the flatbread/naan on it, butter-side down, on mid to low heat.
6. Top the flatbread/naan with Ketchup or pasta sauce (I use 1 tbsp per pizza, but if you kids like more tangy version you can use more), and spread.
7. Add the vegetable toppings on top of the pizza making a 1 cm thick layer of toppings on it.
8. Add cheese as little or as much as you like.
9. Cover the pan and let the pizza cook for 2-5 mins, until cheese melts and pizza base gets crispy.
10. Take off the heat, let cool for a minute and serve!

Chaana Daal Dhokla

Chaana Daal Dhokla

We recently had some friends over, who don't take dairy products. So I made these Chaana Daal Dhokla without using any dairy products. They loved it! So I decided to write down the recipe for them anyway :)

Ingredients:

1.5 cup Chaana daal (bengal gram)
1 inch x 1 inch ginger
1 green chili (not necessary - can add more if you like spicy food)
1 cup cilantro (fresh coriander)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 tsp oil
1 tsp cooking soda or fruit soda

For tadka:
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp sesame seeds

Procedure:
1. Soak the bengal gram in water for 2-3 hrs.
2. Then blend the soaked bengal gram, with ginger, green chili, cilantro (keep aside a little for garnishing), sugar and salt. Blend with little water, so that the final consistency is like that of cake batter.
3. In a skillet or any other vessel useful for steaming, boil some water.
4. Separately, heat the 1 tsp oil and adc 1 tsp cooking or fruit soda to it. Mix the oil and soda in the batter.
5. Grease the pan used for steaming with very little oil, pour the batter in the steaming pan, and steam for 20 mins.
6. After that, let it cool for 5-10 mins. Then cut into small squares.
7. The dhokla is ready!!

Tadka : This step is optional. You can also eat the dhokla as is without the tadka.
1. Heat 1 tbspt oil in a pan.
2. When hot, add musturd seeds, cumin seeds, and seasame seeds to the oil.
3. Coat the dhokla squares you made above in the oil and multi-seed mixture (also known as tadka).

Finally, before serving, garnish with cilantro and optionally with grated coconut.

Stuart and Diane, if this gets too complicated, just give me a call and I can make some for you :)

Tofu medley

My dear husband has become a fan of this really simple asian dish, mainly because it is super nutritious and tastes wonderful with some hot-sweet asian sauce.

Ingredients:

1 small bell pepper (cut into small cubes)
1-2 zucchini (cut into small cubes)
2-3 green onions (chopped)
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables (peas, carrots, corn, green beans)
a handful of spinach
1/2 ounce tofu (cut into small cubes)
3-4 cloves of garlic (minced)
salt to taste
ground pepper to taste

Preparation:

Steam all the frozen vegetables in the microwave or on the cooking range.
Take 1 tbsp evoo in a fry pan and add the zucchini, bell pepper and green onions to the pan. Roast the vegetables until cooked and slightly brown.
Add some spinach and the minced garlic to the mixture. Add salt to taste.
Add roasted tofu (or plain cut tofu) and the steamed vegetables to the pan. Add ground black pepper to taste.
Add 1 tbsp hot-sweet asian sauce to the mixture (optional.. tastes quite good).
Mix the contents and serve with some boiled noodles with some soy sauce (acts as salt+oil substitute), pepper (optionally mixed with sauted grated cabbage, carrots, green onions)

yumm.....

Doodhi platter

I usually have this question of what all can I cook using a particular vegetable. The answer to this question for doodhi (snake gaurd) is - doodhi-chana daal, doodhi-muthiya (steamed pakora types), and ofcourse, the famous kofta curry. All of the above are practically my favourite, and very few things come close to beating doodhi muthiya as a snack!

Doodhi Moothiya:

Ingredients:

1 grated doodhi
2 tbsp besan (gram flour)
2 tbsp rawa or thick wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp crushed green chilies
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
salt to taste

Directions:

1. Grate the doodhi and squeeze it to remove as much moisture as possible. The drier the doodhi the better are the moothiya.
2. Mix all the ingredients with the grated doodhi, and mix it gently to avoid too much watering of the doodhi.
3. Once mixed, roll the mixture gently into cylinders, about 1 inch thick and place them in a microwave closed container. Make sure you do this asap after the mixture is made, since the doodhi will start watering, making things difficult.
4. Microwave the cylinders for 3-4 minutes, turning them after 2 minutes. Do this in a closed container.
5. Let the cylinders cool and then cut them in discs about 1/2 cm thick.
6. For tadka, heat 1/2 tsp oil in a pan and add rai, jeera, til and curry leaves. Spread the tadka on the cut discs for garnish. Add hopped cilantro and grated coconut for garnishing.

cream toasts

This is one of my favourite appetizers. Its a recipe my mom invented and has been my brother's and my favourite dish. Its also usually a great hit at potlucks :D

Ingredients:

1 medium sized onion (finely chopped)

1 bell pepper (finely chopped)

1 tbsp ginger paste

2 tbsp heavy cream

5-6 green chillies (chopped)

1/4 cup rawa/sooji

salt to taste

a pinch of baking soda

bread

Preparation:

1. Mix all the ingredients mentioned above (except bread) in a bowl.

2. Toast the bread and cut into smaller triangular pieces (2-4 per slice)

3. Apply the above mixture on the bread and shallow fry the created toast i.e. take a tsp oil on a tawa and just fry the side of the toast with the mixture.

4. Serve hot or warm with ketchup or green chutney.

Strawberry shortcake

I visited a cousin last christmas and was quite awed by a very nice strawberry shortcake one of my sister's friend made. Upon taking some notes from her on the recipe, I came back and tried it out, only messing it up completely! My darling friend who was visiting with me, added some more notes to the recipe, which atleast sounded like not ending up into a tragedy. Finally with a lot of contemplation on the recipe, I have come up with this one. Fortunately it turned out to be quite good this time!


Ingredients:
1 angel food cake / pound cake
1 packet strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
whipped cream



Procedure:
1. cut the strawberries (leaving 4-5 for decoration) into small pieces and add the sugar to it and keep aside for 2-3 hours. The strawberries are quite nicely dipped in sugar syrup by then.

2. Arrange one layer of angel foodcake in a tray. Layer the strawberries on the cake.

3. Add another layer of the foodcake on top of it and pour the sugar syrup on it. In case you think the strawberry flavour is not enough, you can use some jello syrup too. Just make sure you don't wet the cake too much (that was my mistake first time along)

4. Let the cake set for 2-3 hrs so that the syrup mixes well with the cake. Set it in the fridge.

5. While serving, cover the cake with a layer of whipped cream and decorate it with fresh strawberries. Serve cold.


Some notes:
1. As some friends pointed out, you can also add alcohol to the cake, instead of using more jello syrup. Just wet the cake with alcohol!

2. Add the whipped cream before serving, this keeps the cream fluffy and nice.

3. Using pound cake is also fine, but that makes the shortcake too heavy. Angel foodcake is light and nice!

4. Beware of the sugar content you use. Account for the fact that angel foodcake itself is sweet.


Here is a picture of a smaller version of the true cake I made. Hope you like it!

stuffed bell peppers

After a long time I returned back to experimenting with cooking. Due to the presence of my mother (who is an expert cook and thinks I suck at cooking), I haven't really been cooking much. So here is a new experiment I tried today, trying to imitate some stuffed bell pepper I had at a mid-eastern place.

Ingredients:
1 small potato
2 bell peppers
1/2 cup cooked rice (brown rice tastes better)
2-3 tomatoes chopped
1 tbsp garlic paste
1 tbsp oil
salt to taste
1 cup tomato-garlic-onion pasta sauce

preparation:
1. boil the potato and peel and keep.
2. In a pan, heat the oil and add jeera (cumin seeds), garlic paste, tomato (blanch them), red/green chili paste/powder, mashed potato, the cooked rice and salt to taste.
3. Cut the bell peppers from the top, removing the centre on the pepper, keeping the remaining intact.
4. Fill the above made filling into the bell peppers.
5. Coat the bell peppers with oil and cook (in microwave or pressure cooker or oven) until the pepper gets cooked, but doesn't get soggy.
6. Heat some pasta sauce in a pan and pour the sauce over the cooked bell peppers.

The stuffed bell peppers are ready!