Celery Dal

It gets boring sometimes using the same vegetable, same dishes. I always used celery in soups. However, in summer you don’t feel like eating soup.

So, it was dal and made it quite thick so we could eat with chapathi. Very simple ingredients, and an amazing dal with goes well with rice or chapathi.

Ingedients:

1. 1 bunch celery washed and chopped if measured it was almost 3 cups
2. 1 cup pressure cooked Moon dal
3. For seasoning – oil, mustard seeds, 1 red chilli, 3 green chillies, curry leaves, hing, salt, fresh grated coconut and lemon juice.

Method:

1. Chop celery and cook them separately with less water.
2. Pressure cook moong dal.
3. Take a pan, heat oil, add all ingredients for seasoning.
4. Add cooked celery, cooked dal, add salt, fresh grated coconut let it boil for 3 minutes.
5. Turn off heat and add lemon juice.
6. Serve with chapathi or rice.

Simple Yellow Squash Vegetable

This year we planted yellow Squash and seeing it grow and giving so many squashes is just truly amazing. We have 5 plants and I see almost 30-40 of them growing.

Until today, I had never brought them or even tasted them. Not sure how I missed especially seeing how much health benefits it has.

I prepared a very simple vegetable/Palya with just 4 ingredients and it tasted just delicious and buttery with chapathi.

1. Wash and chop them.

2. In a pan put 2 tsp oil, when hot add mustard seeds, jeera, red chillies, hing.

3. Add chopped squash. Let it cook. Takes less than 4-5 minutes since it is quite soft.

4. Once cooked, add salt and fresh coconut. Turn off heat.

Serve with chapathi or rice. Buttery Yellow Squash palya is just plain simple and delicious.

Cabbage Chayote Palya

Eating the same food over and over again is sometimes boring. And coming up with new recipes is not easy either.

We had 1/2 cabbage and just 2 chayotes. To be honest, we eat lots of vegetables and I was tired doing the same vegetables or even using the cabbage in Upma or Sambar. So, I decided why not combine both of these vegetables and do a very simple vegetable/Palya on a Thursday.

With less than 4 ingredients, basic seasoning, and less than 15 minutes an amazing palya for Chapathi was ready.

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 finely chopped cabbage
2. 2 finely chopped Chayote or semebadanekayi
3. 3 green chillies sliced
4. 3-4 tsp grated coconut, and finely chopped cilantro
5. Oil, mustard seeds, Jeera, and hing for seasoning
6. Salt to taste

Method:

A. In a microwave I cooked both cabbage and chayote seperately.

B. Heat oil in a pan, when its hot, add mustard seeds, jeera, hing and slit green chillies.

C. Next, add the cooked vegetables and mix everything.

D. Add salt, and grated coconut and finely chopped cilantro.

E. Serve with chapathis.

White & Moong Beans with Colored Capsicum Sabzi

 

A very interesting and super delicious and protein filled palya or sabzi which goes so very well with Chapathi. You can pick and choose any choice of beans and vegetables.

Ingredients:

1. 1 can white beans washed throughly
2. 1 cup soaked and cooked moong beans ( hesaru Kalu)
3. 1/2 green capsicum ( I used frozen ones from our garden)
4. 1/2 red capsicum ( I used frozen ones from our garden)
5. 1 firm tomato chopped
6. 1 green chilli
7. 1 tsp each red chili powder, cumin powder and coriander powder
8. Salt to taste
9. Coriander leaves and lemon for garnishing
10. Oil, mustard seeds and cumin seeds.

Method:

1. Cook the moon beans (hesaru Kalu) in your pressure cooker
2. Wash the white beans ( I used the can)
3. Chop capsicum into 1 inch cubes, green chillies
4. In a pan add oil, when its hot add mustard and cumin seeds
5. Next, add the capsicum and tomatoes and fry for a few minutes
6. Once you feel the capsicum is cooked, add all the dry masala like red chili powder, cumin powder and coriander powder
7. Add the white beans and cooked moon beans. Add salt
8. Adjust water and let them all cook for 4-5 minutes together
9. Finally, switch off the stove and garnish with coriander leaves and lemon juice
10. Serve with Chapathi along with Yogurt.

Some useful links on various white beans you can use for this dish:

1. white beans

 

Celery Chutney

We are almost a dozen close knit satsangha group who have truly become sisters. We eagerly wait for the monthly satsangha, each one a staunch devotee of our beloved Rayaru. The very first attraction to all of us is our Rayaru, and the second the love and affection we have for each other, and last but not the least the food.

In the month of August we had Satsangha at Ms. Radhika’s house. Ms. Padma prepared Celery Chutney and it was just delicious and something I had never eaten. My Sister used to make Majjige Huli from Celery, but I had never eaten Celery Chutney. It was very very delicious and immediately became a super hit.

Yesterday, we had Satsangha at Ms. Vandhana’s house, and Padma once again made this chutney, and once again it was liked by one and all. Everyone started asking the recipe, and the next thing I know they all wanted me to post it here so we can refer to it anytime we wanted. So, here comes the recipe for Celery Chutney. Thanks Padma, and Radhika.

Recipe as sent by Ms. Padma on our WhatsApp group.

Ingredients:

1. Celery Sticks – 1 bunch
2. Peanuts – Handful
3. Mustard Seeds, Jeera, Methi seeds, Hing
4. Oil
5. Ginger, Tamarind, Green chillies, Jaggery, Coriander leaves, Curry leaves

Method:

• Celery sticks – fresh medium size bundle (you can use the leaves also). Wash , chop into small pieces and keep aside. Use them fresh so that it has water content in it.
• In a kadai, put some oil and let it heat. Add the following in same order:
• 2 handful of peanuts and let it fry till light brown, move it to the side in the kadai itself and add 2 tea spoon of mustard seeds and let it splutter, add 2 tea spoon of jeera, 1 tea spoon of methi seeds and mix all the ingredients, add a small ball of tamarind and  little hing and stir, add 4-6 green chillies based on how much spicy you want, add coarsely chopped ginger, curry leaves broken into pieces by hand and give it a stir, add chopped celery, stir and leave it open to cook on  low to medium flame – do not close the vessel, it will anyways leave water.
• Cook for approx 8 to 12 mins
• Add salt, jaggery and Coriander bunch and stir. It will leave more water. Let it cook for another 5 mins in low to medium heat.
• Let it cool completely
• Blend either finely (for sandwiches) or coarsely for rice/ idly/dosa. Celery will still have water in it and most likely, you will not need to add water while blending.

Warm Quinoa Salad

Healthy eating is tough, is challenging, is boring, and is quite expensive. However, when you apply a little bit of creativeness in preparing your meal, it is no longer tough, challenging, boring or even expensive. You might have seen several recipes I have been posting, I know it is not typical Indian food we all like to eat. However, it is important to have a list of recipes we can use and what better way to memorize them than this blog, right?

I prepared this warm quinoa salad after being a little bored of eating Oats for almost two weeks. My daughter had a box of Organic Quinoa and she asked me to try it.

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup quinoa, yielded 2 cups of cooked quinoa.
2. 1/2 onion
3. 1/2 each green, yellow and red capsicum or bell pepper
4. 1 tsp olive oil
5. 1/2 tsp jeera
6. 1 tsp red chilli powder
7. 1 cup cooked Channa or Garbanzo beans
8. Salt to taste

Method:

• It was easy to prepare, 1 cup of quinoa, cooked in 2 cups of water. Yielded quite a bit of the same. Follow cooking instructions on the package.
• In a non stick pan, heat oil and add jeera
• Once it  starts cracking, add onion and all colored peppers.

• Saute until Onions turn translucent.
• Add garbanzo beans, channa.
• Add red chilli powder, salt. and the cooked quinoa.
• Simmer and let it all mix together.

• Serve warm.
• You can add lemon if you wish, I don’t like, so skipped.

Jowar Upma

Everyone I know here in the United States have been eating healthy. When we had this conversation in our Satsangha, it was surprising to see everyone using millets, oats and jowar kernels. My Sister Suma said she prepared this Jowar Upma the next day and shared the picture and recipe. Here it comes, the most tasty, healthy and delicious upma.

Thanks Suma for an amazing recipe.

• Soak Jowar overnight.
• Wash and cook Jowar in pressure cooker.
• 1 cup jowar added 1 and half cups of water.
• Cut all color peppers, carrots, onion, small cucumber and green chili
• Heat Oil and add mustard, Chana and urad dal, chili
• Added onion first, mixed and then the cut vegetables
• Added cooked jowar it still had water I didn’t add that water
• Added little water and salt and kept on stove for a good 15 mins
• Added 🍋

Oats Khara Pongal

It has been a couple months since I was on regular travel, and you know how hard it is to maintain a good diet while traveling. The past week I have been home, and just local travel to work, decided to make it Oats week or if I may say Oats month.

I am replacing Oats for everything, Dosa, rice, gojju avalakki, and pongal. All recipes coming here soon.

For now, here is Oats Khara Pongal.

I have ground Oats with flax seed and stored in a air tight container. This is the box we got from Costco. The oats are quite thick and so I ground it to fine powder along with flax seed.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup ground Quaker Oats
• 1 and 1/2 cups hesaru bele or moong dal
• 6-7 curry leaves
• Whole and ground black pepper
• 1 tsp Jeera – Cumin
• pinch of hing
• 4 tsp Oil
• 3 green chillies

Method:

• In the pressure cooker, add oil. When it becomes hot, add the  jeera, curry leaves, green chillies,  haldi, black pepper and fry for a few minutes.
• Next, add the moong dal and fry.
• Add water to cover moong dal, and also salt to taste.
• Close the pressure cooker, and allow for 2 whistles. Dal is cooked.
• Add  oats in a large bowl, with enough water to cover and cook until soft.
• Now, add the cooked moong dal and let it cook for 5-6 minutes.
• Your most healthy, spicy, peppery Oats Pongal or Khichadi is ready!
• I made it a little watery since I didn’t want to eat it with anything else.
• A hot cup of yummy pongal is all I had for lunch.

 

Quick and Easy PC2 Palya

Can you guess what PC2 is? Of course, you can after seeing the image below –  Potato, Capsicum and Corn. Such a great combination, and can be done within minutes. Quick, and easy and yummylicious.

Ingredients:

• 4 Potatoes
• 2 Red Capsicum(Bell pepper), you can use any color, I used Red
• 1 box frozen corn
• 3 Green Chillies slit lengthwise
• 1 sprig curry leaves finely chopped
• 3-4 springs coriander leaves finely chopped
• 1 inch ginger finely grated
• Lemon juice to taste
• salt to taste
• 2 tsp oil, 1/4 tsp mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp jeera

Method:

1. Clean, boil and remove the skin of the potatoes. Chop into bite size pieces. You can boil them traditional way or use microwave.
2. Microwave the frozen corn.
3. I also microwave red capsicum for 3-4 mins until it is soft
4. Next, in a pan heat oil. Add mustard seeds, jeera, green chiilies, curry leaves. Fry for 2-3 minutes.
5. Next, add potatoes, and grated ginger. Keep frying for another 3-4 minutes on low heat.
6. Add Red Capsicum, and corn.
7. Finally, add salt, and coriander leaves.
8. Just before serving, add the lemon juice.

Another look at the yummy, quick and easy palya:

P.S: I ate it as is, but it is a good combination to use in a chapathi wrap, or eat it with chapathi. You can also use different colors of capsicum.

Sprouted Green Gram Dosa

It has been months since I prepared dosa. I wanted to make the most healthiest dosa and what better way than to use Sprouted Green Gram or Hesara Kalu.

I kept the batter for a week and it didn’t turn sour, came out perfect every time. I ate just 1 dosa each day. 🙂

To know how to best sprout green gram, read this post from a while ago.

• How to make Green Gram Sprouts or Hesara Kalu Molake?

Ingredients:

1. 3 cups sprouted green gram – Hesara Kalu
2. 1/4 cup urad dal
3. 1/2 cup channa dal
4. 3 tsp Methi seeds
5. 1/4 cup Brown rice
6. Salt to taste
7. Oil for preparing dosa

Method:

• Wash and Soak all the ingredients  from 2-5 in water for 5-6 hours.
• I soak them before I go to work, around 7.00 AM in the morning.
• In the evening, grind the soaked ingredients in two batches with little water.
• I used my wet grinder and the batter was super smooth.
• Make sure the batter is very fine. Add salt to taste.
• I make dosas in the night without the batter being fermented. Make dosas as you do always. No change here
• Leave it outside so it ferments for making dosa the next day.
• Use very little oil, I usually use Olive Oil for making my Dosas.
• Enjoy with Chatni, or Saagu, or Potato Palya.

Link for other Dosas, Chutney and Saagu can be found here:

• 16 beans Dosa
• Healthy Red Dosa
• Raagi Rava Dosa
• Kadake Bele or Channa Dal Chutney
• Coconut Chutney
• Pudina or Mint Chutney
• Saagu
• Rava Dosa
• Quick and Easy Instant Dosa
• Tomato Utappam – Tomato Dosa
• Topi or Cone Dosa
• Brown Rice Dosa