Get Cozy with Delicious Hot Parathas !!

It's lovely cool weather in Mumbai and with it come farm fresh vegetables and fruits. It's a great time to have melt in the mouth parathas with winter vegetables like raddish and cauliflower. Parathas can be made in a jiffy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Here's how you can do it

Ingredients (for 6-8 parathas)

2 long raddish scraped and grated or 250 grams of cauliflower grated
2 green chillies finely chopped
1 bunch coriander leaves finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon dhania powder
1/2 teaspoon chat masala
1/4 teaspoon red chillie powder
Salt to taste
1 small bowl oil
2 cups wheat flour

Method
Knead the dough for rotis in a tray with water and 2-3 tspns of oil with a pinch of salt and keep aside.
Squeeze out excess water from raddish/cauliflower and put in a bowl.
Add all spices and salt to taste and mix well. The paratha filling is now ready.
Divide the dough into lemon sized balls
Flatten each ball to puri size.
Sandwich the raddish/cauliflower filling between 2 puris. Close the edges and roll out into full size paratha.
Heat tawa and roast the paratha till both sides golden brown spots. Add 1 tspn of oil and roast both sides for a minute or two.
Serve hot with pickle, dahi and papad.

Banofee Pie to Die for !!

I was recently on vacation in Dharamshala and a friend who had visited the hill station a few moths ago, gave me a full list of places to see, shop and eat. She strongly recommended that we have Banofee pie, a delicacy of Dharamshala. Unfortunately throughout  our stay we couldn't find Banofee at any eatery in spite of a thorough search  - no one seemed to be making Banofee anymore, which was so disappointing!
 A few days ago I was having lunch with a friend at Mama Goto in Bandra and was pleasantly surprised to  find  Banofee pie on their dessert menu. I couldn't resist ordering it and relished it thoroughly!

Banofee is a multi layered dessert - the bottom is a  rich wheat flour, sugar and butter mixture, topped with a layer of caramel sauce with bananas, further topped with a  layer of whipped cream followed by chocolate chips,... making it ohh so yummmy !!!

Delicious Pumpkin soup

All of us are  becoming more  health conscious and  soups are an  important part of a healthy meal. A most of us  look for easy recipes of soups beyond tomato, mushroom, chicken and sweet corn. Yesterday I tried pumpkin soup which turned out really well and here's  my recipe

Makes for 4

Ingredients

1/2 kg pumpkin

2-3 spring onions

5-6 flakes of garlic (preferably fresh green garlic)

1/2 inch piece ginger

Salt and pepper to taste

Few coriander or  mint leaves for garnish

Method

Peel and cut pumpkin, onion, ginger and garlic into small pieces. Put all ingredients in  a  pressure cooker. Add 2 mugs of water. Pressure cook for 7-8 minutes after first whistle. When cool, transfer contents to a blender and blend for a minute or two. Add salt, pepper and coriander or mint leaves for garnish. You can also add a few spoons of fresh cream if you want your soup richer. Serve hot with garlic bread or soup sticks.