Beetroot pulav

On  a busy weekday morning, I packed this for my kids lunch box. This is easy to make and gets ready in minutes.

Ingredients:-
Rice - 1 cup
Beetroot- 1 big
Onion - 1 large
Garlic - 3-4 nos
Kashmiri chilli powder - 1/2 tbsp
Coriander powder - 1tbsp
Refined oil - 1tbsp
Ghee - 1tbsp
Cumin seeds - 1tsp
Salt - to taste

Preparation:-

In a vessel wash rice and add 2.5 cups of water. Cook rice with the amount of water you cook usually. Close the vessel with a lid. Wash beetroot thoroughly and chop off the top portion which is rough. Place it on top of the lid. Put this in a pressure cooker filled with water. When the steam lets out, put the weight on and cook for 3 whistles. In the meantime, chop onion fine and set aside. Chop the garlic as well.

After the pressure subsides, take the beetroot and remove the skin. Grate the beetroot and set aside.

In a kadai, add oil and ghee and when its hot, add cumin seeds to it. When they splutter, add the chopped garlic followed by onion and fry till the rawness goes off. Add the masalas - chilli powder, coriander powder and fry it without burning it. Now add the beetroot along with salt and fry till the beetroot is mixed with the rest of the ingredients. Now add the rice and give a quick mix, check salt and add more if required.

Since, I was making this for my kids, I did not use much of masala like cinnamon, elaichi etc. and chopped most of the ingredients fine as my kids are fussy vegetable eaters.

Beetroot dosa

Moms go to any extent to sneak in some vegetables to their kid's boxes. This is one such way to make them eat the veggies and also it is inviting to the eye owing to its color.

Ingredients:-
Beetroot - 1 medium
Dosa batter - 2 cups(around 4-5 medium sized dosas)
Salt - as required

Preparation:-

Wash beetroot and pressure cook for 1-2 whistles. Once it cools down, remove skin of beetroot and grind it in mixie to a fine paste. Add this to the dosa batter and mix well. Check salt and add as required. Prepare dosa the usual way.

Bajra Idli

"Necessity is the mother of invention"...how true!!!

One Friday night, while I was planning to soak rice for idli, I found out much to my dislike that I was falling short of idli rice and was angry that I would not be able to finish off the task the next day morning.

I searched my kitchen cabinets and found a pack of bajra a.k.a Pearl millet lying unattended. My mother is fond of millets and stocks up my kitchen with various ones whenever she visits us here.

I soaked rice and bajra together at night and got up the next morning to prepare a fresh batch of idli batter

Ingredients:

Bajra - 2cups
Idli rice - 3 cups
Urad dal(round) - 1 and 1/4 cup
Methi seeds - 1tbsp

Preparation:
Wash well and soak bajra and rice together for atleast 6 hours. Before starting the grinding process, wash and soak methi seeds and ural dal together in clean water for 30 minutes-1 hour.

First grind, urad dal and methi seeds along with the water in which it was soaking, until they turn fluffy. Add water little by little and grind well. Transfer this to a tall vessel. Next strain water from rice-bajra and put it in grinder with enough salt and little water. Add water little by little. Grinding this may take approximately 30 minutes. It should be ground well to a fine batter. Add the urad dal to the same grinder and quickly mix it. Transfer this to a tall vessel with enough room to accommodate the batter after fermentation. If you do not have a tall vessel, then use multiple small vessels to store the batter. Depending on the weather, fermentation might take 6-10 hours. Store it in fridge as soon as the batter rises.

Make idli in idli moulds the usual way. You can also refer my idli batter post here for more details.

Aloo bhaji

I hate doing deep frying and hence find some reason or the other to avoid it. My family loves eating all fried items like appalam, vada, bhajji etc. When my mom visited during X'mas holidays, I asked her to prepare poori and I made this potato bhaaji to go with it.

Ingredients:-

Potato - 2 large, pressure cooked and mashed(not fine, but few chunks here and there would be nice)
Onion - 1 large, chopped fine
Ginger - 1 inch piece, chopped fine or grated
Green chilly - 1 or 2 depending on your spice tolerance
Curry leaves - few
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Gram dal - 1 tbsp
Turmeric powder - 1tsp
Refined oil - 1 tbsp
Salt - to taste
Lemon - juice of half lemon
Water - 2 cups
Coriander leaves - for garnishing

Preparation:-

Heat oil in a kadai and add mustard seeds when oil is hot. Once they start spluttering add gram dal and fry until golden brown. At this stage, add onion, green chillies and curry leaves. Saute till the onion turns translucent and green chillies are fried. Add turmeric powder and give it a quick mix. Now add the mashed potato and salt. You can mash it with a ladle or a potato masher. Don't mash it into a paste. Mix them thoroughly and add 2 cups of water. Allow it to boil. Transfer it to a bowl and squeeze the juice of half a lemon and mix it. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Tomato thogayal

I wanted to prepare some super quick and easy chutney to go with Idli the other day. The only thing in my fridge was some tomatoes. I came up with this tomato thogayal.

Ingredients:-

Tomato - 2 medium, chopped fine
Urad dal - 1tbsp
Red chillies - 2
Gingely oil - 1tsp
Salt - to taste

Preparation:-

Heat oil and add urad dal and red chillies when hot. Roast them until dal turns golden brown and chillies are fried. At this stage, add the tomato and salt. Fry for 2-3 mins and set aside to cool. Grind this into a coarse paste without adding water in a mixie. Serve this with idlis topped with some gingely oil.

Bhelpuri

I made super quick bhelpuri at home one day with not much fancy ingredients. I used up whatever was available at home at that time. This is my super quick version of this chat. Try it out

Ingredients:-
Puffed rice/mutta pori - 1 cup
Onion - 1 medium, chopped fine
Tomato - 2 medium, chopped fine
Coriander leaves - chopped fine
Murukku - 2 tbsp. I only had murukku at home which I broke with my hands to get the crunchy effect of sev(omapodi). You can use sev instead if you have.
Tomato ketchup - 1tbsp
Vinegar -1 tsp
salt - to taste

Preparation:-
Mix together puffed rice, onion, tomato, coriander leaves, crumbled murukku nicely in a wide bowl. Now add vinegar and tomato ketchup and mix it. Check salt and add as required. You are ready to munch you super quick bhelpuri now.

Kothu chappathi

Whenever we have left over chappathis, I store them in fridge in a air tight container to prepare this kothu chappathi. No side dish required to eat this and makes up a complete meal on its own.

Ingredients:-

Chappathi - 4, chopped into small strips
Mixed vegetables - 1 cup. Cauliflower, carrot and frozen peas is what I used and the quantity should me more than the quantity of chopped chappathi.
Onion - 1 medium, finely chopped
Refined oil - 2tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1tsp
Chilli powder - 1tsp
Salt - to taste
Coriander leaves - chopped fine for garnishing

Preparation:-

Heat oil in a kadai and add mustard seeds once oil is hot. When mustard seeds start spluttering, add onion and fry until translucent. Now add the vegetables, except the frozen peas. Add turmeric powder and give it a good mix. Cover with a lid and let it cook on very small flame. Keep checking in between to avoid burning. Once the vegetables are semi cooked, add salt and continue to cook with lid closed. Once vegetables are cooked, add frozen peas along with chilli powder and saute for few seconds. Add the chopped chappathi and mix it thoroughly. Once the chappathi is uniformly heated up, transfer it to a bowl and garnish with coriander leaves.

You don't need anything to go with this, if at all, you can try with some tomato ketchup. This is best eaten hot.