Delicious and Healthy Bread Upma

I recently tried out a Bread Upma that took just 5 minutes to make.. was yummy and a perfect breakfast  when you have yesterdays bread left over. This is how I made it.

  

Quick and Yummy Bread Upma

Ingredients:

4 to 6 slices of previous day's or fresh bread.

2 cups salted  lassi or buttermilk

1 medium sized onion finely cut into vertical slices

2 green chillies finely chopped

1/2 piece ginger ground finely

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

8 to 10 curry leaves
pinch of turmeric/haldi

1 to 3 tbsps oil

salt to taste

A few coriander leaves fine chopped.

Method

Heat oil in a kadai. Lower flame and add mustard seeds, chillies, curry leaves and ginger. Allow seeds to splutter. Then add chopped onion and saute till translucent. 

In a wide bowl pour the lassi/buttermilk, add haldi to it and mix well 

Soak each slice of the bread in the buttermilk and quickly squeeze out the excess and keep aside. Add all the soaked slices to the cooked onion mixture. 

Stir well and add  a pinch of  salt to taste. Cover kadai and steam for a minute. 

Turn off flame. Serve hot, garnished with chopped coriander leaves. 

TilGul Ghya ... !!!

Today is Makar Sankranti , a festival celebrated almost  across the  country on the same day every year, with different names like Lohri in Punjab , Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Uttarayan in Gujurat and Rajasthan. It is the day when the sun begins it's movement  away from the tropic of Capricorn and signifies that we should turn away from the darkness of delusion in our lives  and begin to enjoy a new life of brightness and joy.    Each Festival in India has a distinctive type of celebration with  food that  is specially made on that day of the year. Just as Modaks are an integral part of Ganesh  Chaturthi, Bhang and Ghevar a must at Holi, Til ( sesame) ladoos and other sweets  made of sesame seeds like Gajak and Revaris  are made ,  eaten  and served as prasad on Makar Snkranti!

The cool weather on this day  makes eating these delicacies fun !

Hope you are all having your fill of til ladoos and other goodies! 

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.

Tasty Chilly Cheese Toast

Cheese is much loved food.  From kids to the elderly,  everyone enjoys a well made dish with cheese. A very popular dish at my home is Masala CheeseTtoast. We sometimes have it as a Sunday breakfast. On other occasions as  a tea time or after work snack and sometimes even as a Sunday evening meal accompanied with a bowl of soup. It's pretty simple to make and really delicious,  though  high on calories.

Ingredients

4-6 slices of bread

2 eggs

100 gms of cheese grated

1 cup milk

4 tblsps  maida or cornflour

1 small onion finely chopped

1 green chilly finely chopped

A few coriander leaves finely chopped ( optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tspn butter

Oil for frying

Method

Break eggs in a flat bowl and beat well. Slowly start mixing in the maida with a little milk,alternating  gradually  till you have a thick mixture. Now mix  in the grated cheese and blend  well. Add salt, pepper, green chillies,onion, coriander  and mix well so that you have a thick mayonnaise like mixture. Taste for accuracy of salt. Heat oil in a kadhai. When hot, reduce the flame. Take 1 slice of bread at a time and evenly spread out the egg cheese mixture to cover the entire surface and slowly put the slice into the hot oil with the wet side facing downwards. Let the slice fry while occasionally moving it around till it is golden brown on the cheesy side. Now turn it over and let the other side also fry to Golden Brown. Drain out any excess oil and place on tissue. Cut each slice into 2 traingles diagonally. Similarly fry  all slices , arrange on a serving tray and serve with tomato ketchup, chilli sauce or green chutney.

You can also have the Low-Fat version by baking it in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

Divine trip to Amritsar and Dharamshala

Just back from a lovely trip to Amritsar and Dharamshala. Besides having memorable, spiritual moments, we had some great gastronomical experiences like yummy melt in the mouth, oh so fresh tikkis with chholas, chutney and dahi at a small stall on Bazar road in Mcleodganj, fabulous lassi and onion Khulcha, Paneer bhurji and parathas at Bharwan da Dhaba in Amritsar.
Our hotel in Dharamshala, Pong View served good ghar ka khana whenever we decided to have a meal there. What struck me was how well they used shredded ginger as a topping in most of their gravy dishes like Choley, aloo matar, aloo bhaaji etc. The one centimeter long ginger shreds gave a very fresh and delicious taste to each dish.

I am going to start doing the same at home.