For the third post for the Blogging Marathon #93 theme for the week, “One Ingredient, 3 ways”, here is a rice that I have fallen in love with recently! Not only because of its taste, but because of its simplicity to cook it! Like I mentioned earlier, even since I have been on quantified eating, I have been prepping my meals a lot. One of it is the rice. Cooking little quantity of rice everyday can be daunting, so I cook the rice for the whole week, weight them individually for days and pack them in dabbas. By doing this, it used to make my life easy. Since I had to have paneer for my protein, and some form of vegetable, this combination of capsicums with paneer became my favorite. I guess majority of my nights, my meal was this. I never clicked it because I never thought…
Paneer Matar Masala | Matar Paneer
For this week’s Blogging Marathon #93, the theme I had chosen was “One Ingredient – 3 ways” and the ingredient I chose was “paneer”. After the first recipe of the Kadai Paneer, here is another paneer gravy. If you really go to see, there is one standard way of making paneer gravies. A ground paste of onion and tomato is used as a base and the seasonings are adjusted as per your needs. Since paneer in itself is rich, you can skip the use of cream in the gravy. But to make paneer taste and look more tempting, the use of cream or yogurt – to make it more guilt free – is always recommended. I would like to emphasis on the use of kasuri methi. A sprinkling of crushed kasuri methi just lifts up the whole spirit of a simple paneer dish. So whatever said and done,…
Kadai Paneer
I always look forward to doing the Blogging Marathon. Last month, the group had a mega marathon of 26 flatbreads and every one who participated did an amazing job with compiling them on their blogs. I, for one, would never be able to do it! Sometimes, with the way my interest in cooking is spiralling down despite cooking on and off, I sometimes wonder if I will be able to pull up even posts for the BM. Hehe… I guess we all go through such a phase in life where we just loose our interest. I am trying hard to hold on to it and hopefully it doesn’t slip through my fingers… 😉 Coming to the topic I chose for the next three days for this first week of Blogging Marathon #93, it is “One Ingredient – 3 ways” and the one ingredient I chose is paneer. There…
Omelette Paneer Roll
Do you see some connection here? While doing the posts for the Blogging Marathon #90 for the theme “Wrap and Rolls”, I unconsciously went with all egg recipes! Whether the Kolkata Egg Rolls or the Egg Toasties and now this one, all are with eggs! 😀 So it feels like I did a theme within the theme! Hehe… I had mentioned earlier that at the moment, I am on a quantified diet, ie. I get to eat limited stuff within my macros. Alhamdulillah, I have been able to steadily lose weight and am very happy with my progress. I now have the last block of weight to lose and I am pretty much sure that my body would not want to let it go. 😉 I am targeting this year end to get to my goal, InShaAllah. Definitely it will need a close watch on my diet plus…
Umma’s Egg Toasties
Food that makes you miss childhood is the best food. Would you agree? While I was brainstorming myself of what to make next for the Blogging Marathon #90 theme of “Wrap and Rolls”, my mind kept loitering around the egg toasties that umma would make almost every second Thursday. Thursday is weekend here, and we would have no madrassa that day, so naturally, we would be hungry around tea time. Umma would make toasties every single Thursday, alternating the filling with eggs, chicken or frozen mixed vegetables. I feel today’s generation is pampered with too many ideas that we are lost as to what to make for our kids, but our mothers had simple ideas and simple dishes, that were cleaned up. I guess many of you would agree to this fact of life. I had some bread sitting in the fridge and I wanted to use it…
Kolkata Egg Roll | Cheat Version
This week, for the Blogging Marathon #90, I chose the theme “Wraps and Rolls”. Most of the time, the themes I choose are easy, but are too easy that I get confused what to make and at the end skittle through my posts! 😀 Having too many ideas is also not a good thing, isn’t it? 🙂 The first one I chose to make were the Kolkatta Egg Rolls. The egg rolls are a famous street food in the lanes of Kolkatta, or formerly called as Calcutta. Freshly made parathas, smothered with an omelette, filled with some vegetables, sometimes even having a sprinkling of shredded chicken. Kolkatta folks literally go gaga over these rolls, as to how delicious they can be and I wanted to test out if they were actually delicious. So I used HD as my guinea pig and got making one roll, albiet a cheat…
Yogurt Rice Pudding
I guess as I finish up the theme “Single Serving Dessert” for the Blogging Marathon #90, I get to a recipe that fits the theme perfectly. While the Sticky Date Pudding and the Strawberry Fool were made for more than one, but served individually, this Yogurt Rice Pudding is just for one serving! I had mentioned earlier that I am on quantitative nutrition, and I am allowed to eat certain foods in certain quantities. This approach has actually made me realize that I am intolerant of milk and I may not be using it frequently as I used to in the future for sure. I wanted to make a dessert all for myself that fit into my macros and that is how this pudding was born. I was actually in two minds, then I thought, “It’s just for me. Why am I even thinking?” I am so…
Strawberry Fool
When I chose the theme of “Single Serve Desserts” from Valli’s list for the Blogging Marathon #90, I was totally buzzing with ideas. I mailed Valli asking her what she actually meant. I already had the Sticky Date Pudding in my draft kitty, so I had to think of two more. But I wanted to know if she was looking for microwave type dishes or anything that is served individually would do. Actually, by me sending her that email, she got all confused. Then she wrote back, as long as they are served individually and it is a dessert, anything is fine. Ah, matter over! 😀 This is one of the easiest pudding recipes I have ever tried, apart from the Serradura. A typical no-brainer – I wonder whether that is the reason this dessert is called “Fool”? 😉 Jokes apart, a fool is an English dessert, where…
Sticky Date Pudding
After a lot of deliberation, I got to doing the Blogging Marathon #90 this month. Two reasons – this month-end, I am travelling home and I won’t be able to participate. Also, September is the mega marathon, and I won’t be able to take that month as well, considering I will still be in my holiday off-mood. So I thought, instead of giving a long break, I will jump in and do it this time. I wasn’t sure how I am going to handle it, but wanted to do it, come what may be. The first theme I chose was “Single Serve Desserts”. I had far too many ideas and it confused me all the more. I tried to keep it as simple as possible not to defeat the purpose of the theme. 😀 With everybody exercising portion control these days, desserts being made for single servings is…
Kozhi Musuman | Whole Chicken in Chana Dal Sauce
Let me be frank here. I wanted to make a totally new curry for this Blogging Marathon #88 – Dazzling Dal series, so that I could leave my drafts untouched. I even made cholar dal once, but it didn’t turn out well, so I skipped clicking it. Then something happened, that whole thought of wanting to cook and click a totally new dish, really puts me off these days. If you see my camera now, my clicks are so wide spread. I cook new dishes and click them only if I am really in a mood for it. Otherwise, I just leave it at that. I feel glad that my drafts are feeding my blog without me having to worry about the next dish to post. During those times, I used to wonder why am I in a hurry to cook and click, and now I clearly understand the…
Mughlai Dal Kabila | Urad Dal Tadka
After the Muringakaya Parippu Curry, here’s the second recipe under “Dazzling Dals” for the Blogging Marathon #88. I don’t have a single recipe on the blog which features urad dal as its main ingredient, so I am glad finally it is being featured! For us, urad dal is for idli batters. Period… I never knew it was used in curries till I was wondering what to have for lunch one day in the office, and our Pakistani office boy mentioned, “Aapi, mash ki daal order karoo?” (Can I order “Mash Ki Dal”?) I had no clue what it was, but since it was “daal”, I told him OK. When he got it with a roti, I was shocked to find urad dal. Mash Ki Dal is what it is called in Urdu. I was like, “Esse curry bhi banaathe hai?” (Oh, we make curry of this?), he gave…
Muringakaaya Chelli Parippu Curry ~ Malabar Drumstick Lentil Curry with Dried Shrimp
Time for the second week of the Blogging Marathon #88! After choosing “Protien Rich Ingredient” as the first theme, where I chose eggs, and featured Double Cheese Omelette, Akuri and Microwave Omelette, the second week theme that I chose was also another protien ingredient – “Dazzling Dals”. I had already done a lentil theme in one of the previous BM edition, but then lentil recipes are never enough, right? We are always looking at new ways of cooking up lentils so that people who have folks like me at home who frown at the sight of lentils will at least eat them without much fuss. 😀 The first recipe I am featuring is an example of how we Malabaris love to add a non-vegetarian twist to our vegetarian dishes. Hehe… Most of the households will have a little jar of “chelli” (ചെള്ളി) in our pantry. It is basically…
Omelette in Microwave | Mug Omelette
If you have a microwave in your home, then there is no excuse of missing breakfast, isn’t it? 🙂 When I selected eggs as my “Protein Rich Ingredient” theme in the Blogging Marathon #88 – the other posts being Double Cheese Omelette and Akuri, I really wanted to try the omelette in mug, which has been doing rounds for quite some time. With the microwave oven becoming a part of almost all households, despite what all negative image it may have, we all still use it for something or the other. It makes a lot of cooking quite easy especially when you have some time constraints. I wouldn’t say that this omelette tastes as good as the one you make slowly on a frying pan, but for breakfast on the go, this is such a good option. My only advice if you are trying this is to…
Akuri ~ Parsi Scrambled Eggs
I love umma’s scrambled eggs so much that I have never tried making any other way or even trying to eat it from out. 😀 So when this month’s theme came in for the Blogging Marathon #88 and I decided on choosing egg as my “Protein Rich Ingredient”, my attention went into trying a creamy scrambled eggs, associated with the Parsi community, called “Akuri”. The name of the dish is itself very cute, isn’t it? The difference between the Egg Burji and Akuri lies in it’s basic preparation method and ingredients. The Akuri is quite spicy, with the green chililes and red chilli powder used, so if you can’t take the spice, disregard the green chilli. I actually regretted adding the only one I used. I kept biting into it, and gulping down water to tame my tongue. 😀 The main thing for your Akuri to be…
Double Cheese Omelette with Sauteed Mushrooms
I seriously needed some push and motivation to continue my blogging. Even though you can see posts appearing on my blog, there is a lot of mental struggle behind it happening. When Valli’s post on the Blogging Marathon #88 was up, I decided to let my lack of motivation get a hit and signed up for two weeks. This week, the theme is “Protein Rich Ingredients” and I chose to focus on something that I am having on a daily basis now – eggs. Eggs is one ingredient that wasn’t without a bad name until some time. Eating eggs on a daily basis was taboo, especially considered to be a source of fat and weight gain. When I had my first attempt at losing weight, which happened when Rasha was 2, I was told to eat maximum three eggs a week. When I am repeating my attempt to…