Cucumber Coconut Raita

I had this Cucumber Coconut Raita at my Cousin Shylaja’s house along with Bisibele Bath. This week I had invited my Co-sisters to my Service Apartment here in Bangalore for lunch and decided I needed to prepare this raita. It tastes just so delicious quick and quite thick. You can see the items in the Banana Leaf. We ate the Cucumber Raita with Vegetable Rice, and Poori. You can eat it with plain rice or even chapathi also.

Ingredients:

1. 1 big Cucumber cut in small pieces, remove the skin.
2. 2 cups Yogurt
3. 1 head coconut, 3 green chillies and 1/2 tsp Jeera, grind this to a fine paste.

Method:

1. Add chopped cucumber, the ground paste and salt to taste.
2. Adjust yogurt based on the consistency you need.
3. You can add seasoning also with little oil, mustard seeds, Hing and Jeera. I skipped since I didn’t want too much oil.

Pudina Shavige Bath with No Onion Garlic

I can’t remember the last time I uploaded a recipe for food. Ms. Prabhavathi Udupa at our temple gave me this delicious Pudina Shavige Bath without onion or garlic while I was looking for something intriguing to publish. Our Achar Nagendra Udupa’s wife is Ms. Prabha. It was really fantastic, so I asked Prabha how she made it and tried making it myself with a few modifications.

You can do it several ways, and I am posting one method here. You can add a variety of vegetables like Carrot, Potato, Green beans, Capsicum, Fresh peas or any other vegetable you like.

Pudina Shavige Bath is a delicious South Indian dish that is made with vermicelli (shavige), mint leaves (pudina), and a variety of spices. Here is a recipe for Pudina Shavige Bath that does not include onion or garlic:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup roasted vermicelli (shavige)
• 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves (pudina)
• 2-3 Carrots cut bite size
• 2-3 Potatoes
• 15-20 Fresh Beans
• 2-3 Capsicum
• 2-3 green chilies
• 1 inch ginger
• 1/4 cup grated coconut ( optional)
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp urad dal
• 1 tsp chana dal
• 1/4 tsp asafoetida (hing)
• 1 sprig curry leaves
• Salt to taste
• 2-3 tbsp oil
• 2-3 tsp Pulav Masala

Instructions:

1. In a blender or food processor, grind the mint leaves, green chilies, ginger, and grated coconut to a fine paste. Set aside.
2. In a large pot, bring water to a boil and cook the roasted vermicelli according to package instructions. Drain and set aside.
3. Heat oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the mustard seeds and let them splutter. Add the urad dal and chana dal, and fry until golden brown.
4. Add the asafoetida and curry leaves, and fry for a few seconds.
5. Add the vegetables and cook them until soft.
6. Add the ground mint paste, pulav masala and salt to taste, and fry for 2-3 minutes, until the raw smell of the mint disappears and the mixture is fragrant.
7. Add the cooked vermicelli to the pan and mix well. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
8. Serve hot with coconut chutney or raita.
9. Another variation is to cook the vermicelli along with the vegetables and the paste. Both taste good. Just make sure you have the right portion of water so vermicelli doesn’t become soggy.

Enjoy your delicious and flavorful Pudina Shavige Bath without onion or garlic!

Sprouted Moong Beans Spinach Poori

I planned on making dosa, was doing it almost every week, felt bored to eat dosa again. As I poured the ground batter into a bowl, kept thinking how boring to eat dosa again and again. Why not eat something else, why not Poori for a change and completely transformed the dough from dosa batter to Poori batter and fried pooris for a change. Day 1 we had 5 pooris. By the time we ate 3, we were full. This poori is quite protein rich because of Sprouted moong beans. The second day I made, we just ate 3 each.

You can easily use the same recipe for making parathas. It becomes an healthier version with all nutrients.

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups Whole wheat flour
2. 1 cup spinach leaves – washed
3. 1 cup sprouted moong beans or hesaru kalu
4. 1/4 inch ginger
5. 3-4 green chillies
6. 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
7. Water to mix
8. Salt to taste
9. Oil to fry

Method:

In a mixer, grind the sprouted moong beans, washed spinach, ginger, green chillies and salt and grind to a smooth paste. In a large bowl, add the flour, salt, cumin seeds, ground mixture. Knead well to make a soft dough. I didn’t need any water. I had maybe 1/4 cup of water while grinding and so used the same.

Roll poori and fry in oil.

I served with potato, tomato, capsicum curry.

Lots of other poori recipes can be found in the blog:

• Potato Methi Leaves Poori
• Sweet Potato Poori
• Poori Saagu
• Rave and Maida Poori

Lots of recipes for Sprouted beans :

• Sprouted Green Gram Dosa
• White & Moong Beans with Colored Capsicum Sabzi

Lots of recipes for Paratha as well:

• Potato Methi Leaves Paratha
• Green Peas Potato Paratha
• Sweet Potato Mint Paratha
• Spinach or Palak Paratha

Enjoy what you eat, and once a while eat foods that you crave.

Tower Idlis or Cup Idlis

What’s in the shape you may say? But, honestly the different types of Idlis you prepare taste differently with different sizes and shapes. The same Idli batter when done in normal idli plate versus plate idli the taste is completely different. I can attest to this because we make Plate or Tatte idli for Lord Ganesha festival and it truly tastes divine. And the batter we use is the same.

Today, with the Idli batter we had, my Husband surprised me with these Tower Idli’s. When he brought the small steel coffee glasses from the stack of steel utensils we had, I thought it was for drinking small amounts of coffee rather than using the oversized coffee mugs we use here in the USA.

When I came back to the kitchen after several meetings, I saw Tower Idlis ready to be eaten. He used two different steel tumblers for making the Idlis. If you have small size steel glasses or tumblers try this new type of Idlis.

And having those on plantain leaf was just too delicious. With a dollop of ghee on those piping hot idlis and yummy sambhar what’s to not like these idli’s right?

Tomato Uppittu or Upma

We have hundreds and hundreds of Tomatoes, green chillies and capsicum growing in our garden. My husband loves Tomato Uppittu or Upma. So, less ingredients, and a very very tasty upma. Yummy.

So, used almost 10 big tomatoes, 5 red chillies in this Uppittu or Upma.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Rava or Sooji or Rave
• 10 big tomatoes chopped.
• 5 red chillies.
• 4-5 curry leaves finely chopped
• 3 tsp finely chopped cilantro
• Salt to taste
• sugar to taste
• 2-3 tsp Oil, and 1 tsp mustard seeds,  1/2 tsp turmeric, pinch of hing for seasoning

Method:

First, in a non stick pan or any deep vessel fry the rava continuously until it turns golden brown. Make sure it doesn’t burn out. Transfer this onto a plate.

Next, add  oil. When it is hot enough add all the seasoning ingredients one after another. Add green chillies and curry leaves also. Add the tomatoes and 2 cups of water and cover. Let this boil until the tomates are cooked. Now add the salt, sugar. Once this boils as well, slowly add the rava. While you are adding rava, make sure there are no lumps, so keep stirring continuously. It should look watery when you have added all the rava.

Now, cover the vessel, and cook on slow fire for another 15-20 minutes, once the rava is cooked, add coconut, finely chopped cilantro.

Serve with chatnipudi and yoghurt. Enjoy.

Yellow Squash Huli or Sambhar

Anytime I prepare sambhar or Huli I never use the sambhar powder, I always grind fresh and prepare. This one is a slightly different powder will less ingredients. Tasted divine with chapathi, you can serve with rice also.

Yellow squash is growing amazingly at our house. We get at least 4-5 of them a day. So, trying so many new recipes with it.

Ingredients:

1. 6-7 numbers yellow squash washed and chopped
2. 1 cup Tuvar Dal cooked in pressure cooker
3. To fry – 3 tsp coriander seeds, 1 tsp urad dal, 1 tsp jeera, 1/4 tsp methi seeds, 7 red chillies as seen in picture, 1/4 tsp whole black pepper
4. 1/4 cup fresh grated coconut
5. 1 lemon sized ball tamarind or tomato paste
6. For seasoning – oil, mustard seeds and hing

Method:

1. Pressure cook Tuvar dal.
2. In a separate pan, make the seasoning, add chopped yellow squash and cook it with little water.

1. Fry all ingredients

1. Grind with fresh coconut and tamarind or tomato paste.

1. Add cooked dal, and ground paste to the cooked yellow squash.
2. Add salt and 1 tsp jaggery.
3. Let it boil completely.
4. Serve with chapathi or rice.

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.

Potato Methi Leaves Poori

Exactly same recipe as Paratha, but made Pooris instead. We are allowed to have a cheat day once a while right?

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups Whole wheat flour
2. 1 cup methi leaves
3. 1 boiled and grated potato
4. 1/4 tsp Turmeric powder
5. 1 tsp Red chilli powder (use according to your taste)
6. 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
7. Water to mix
8. Salt to taste
9. Oil

Method:

In a large bowl, add the flour, salt, cumin seeds, grated potato, methi leaves, chilli powder and turmeric powder. Knead well adding as much water as you need to make a soft dough.

Roll poori and fry in oil.

I served with coconut chatni.

Potato Methi Leaves Paratha

Green Chutney – Coriander Chutney