Masala toast

INGREDIENTS:

Eggs- 2
Bread slices- 3 nos
Onion-1/2 small, chopped
Green chillies- 1 or 2 finely chopped
Cilantro- For garnish
Red chilli powder, Turmeric powder, Salt and pepper- To taste


PROCEDURE:

• First beat eggs with all spice powders till frothy. Add onions, chillies and cilantro and mix
• In a hot pan, spread butter on both side, now spread the egg mixture on one side of the bread and keep on pan with egg side down. Then add the egg mixture on the other side of the bread and toss till well cooked. Use medium heat to toast the bread.
• Enjoy while hot. You can add milk and get another slice if needed.

Saagu

Saagu is a vegetable curry sort of gravy. In Bangalore, it is commonly served with Set Dosa or Rava Idli or sometimes even with Poori's.

It is a great way to get your daily serving of vegetables when having dosa or rava idli instead of just the daily serving of potatoes ;-) It's one of the few south-Indian dishes that my hubby will gobble up and ask for more.

Here goes:
A few things:
- All vegetables are chopped small.. maybe a 1cmX1cm cube size
- All vegetables shopped to the same size will ensure that things cook evenly.
- 1/2 onion chopped
- 1 cup chopped carrots
- 1 cup chopped Chayote squash (Seeme badnekai in Kannada)
- 1 cup chopped potatoes
- 1 cup chopped bell peppers
- 1 cup chopped green beans / 1 cup chopped yellow squash/ 1 cup chopped zucchini
- 1 cup peas.
- 1 inch piece whole cinnamon
- 1.5 tbsp whole coriander seeds
- 2 cloves
- 2 black pepper corns
- 1 tsp poppy seeds (optional)
- 1/4 cup fresh/frozen coconut(you could add more if you like it very coconut-y)
- 2 tbsp roasted channa daal (dalia)
- 2-3 green chillies (I say, more the merrier- if you can handle it)
- 1 inch piece of ginger
- Tamarind (paste or whole). I use whole tamarind, and end up taking a ball of inch diameter
For seasoning:
- 1 tbsp oil
- Black mustard seeds - 1tsp
- curry leaves - 10
- Asafoetida (optional) - a pinch

You can add almost any vegetable, I just make sure I add potatoes, 1 squash of any kind, peas, and bell peppers, the rest - feel free to substitute with whatever you want. - Its a great way of getting rid of that stray carrot or squash lurking at the back of your crisper.

Pressure cook all vegetables (except onion) with salt and a pinch of turmeric. 1 whistle is usually enough, remember, we are making saagu and not pav bhaji. On the bright side, if you do end up over cooking the vegetables to a mush.. there is always pav bhaji!


Now for the curry paste:

Dry roast the cinnamon, cloves, poppy seeds, pepper corns and whole coriander seeds until they are fragrant. Cool down.
Grind, coconut, green chillies, ginger, tamarind and roasted channa daal and the roasted spices with enough water to create a paste.

This curry paste will give you a green curry. Some people make a red curry. They use dried red chillies instead of green chillies. If you want to go that route, roast the red chillies with the rest of the dry spices. I think about 5 red chillies should be enough. Also, skip the dalia (roasted channa dal). Instead, roast about 2 tsbp of raw split channa daal until it starts turning brown, and grind this along with the rest of the ingredients.

Once the paste is ready and the vegetables are cooked, we are ready to bring it all together.

- Heat 1 tsbp oil in a pan. Once the oil is hot, add asafoetida, mustard seeds, curry leaves.
- Add onions and cook until transparent.
- Then add the curry paste and heat it for a couple of minute stirring constantly.
- Now add the cooked vegetable.
- Add water if needed to bring it to a curry consistency.
- Now let this boil for 5-10 mins on low heat to allow the tamarind to cook and the flavors to blend.

When one, garnish with fresh chopped cilantro.

Enjoy with dosa, set dosa, rava idli, poori or roti's.

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

I got this recipe from our friend,Meike and have been using this for the last 4 yrs almost.
Ingredients:
Butter-1/2 cup
Sugar-1 cup
Eggs-2
Vanilla-1 tsp
Ripe bananas-3
Milk-1/4 cup
Flour-1 1/2 cups
Baking powder-1 1/2 tsp
Baking soda-1/2 tsp
Salt-1/4 tsp
chocolate chips-1/2 cup
Procedure:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.Grease loaf pan with baking spray.
2.Combine butter,sugar,eggs,vanilla essence in a large bowl.
3.In a separate bowl, mash bananas with milk.
4.Beat on low speed to blend into other ingredients.
5.Add baking powder,baking soda,salt,flour with the above mixture and beat till moist.
6.Use a spatula to stir in chocolate chips. Do not use blender for mixing chocolate chips.
7.Pour into the greased loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8. Wait for 10 minutes to cool and then remove from the loaf pan.

Kale leaves pesarettu

I am in love with this dish right now for its protein content and the tasty use of Kale leaves. It is so similar to murungai keerai adai (drumstick leaves adai)

Makes 10 pesarettus

For the batter:
sprouted Mung beans - 4 cups(can substitute soaked mung beans 2-3 cups)
Soaked Rice (1/3 cup) or rice flour (1/4 cup)
green chillies - to taste
salt to taste

Kale leaves - half a bunch
 sesame oil

Instructions for sprouting:
http://www.sproutpeople.com/seed/mung.html

I use the jar method - I fill yogurt containers with mung bean and soak in water for 8-12 hours. If seeds are soaked more than required time, they may 'drown' and will not sprout. Then I cover the container with cheesecloth fitted with a rubber band and drain out the water. Rest the inverted container in a colander or plate (if using plate tilt the container so the seeds don't rest in water that may have pooled in the plate) I keep filling and draining water every 12 hours to keep the seeds moist. Sprouts are ready in 2-3 days.  Grind the ingredients together.The batter should be of pouring consistency but should not at all be runny.

Chop up the kale leaves fine enough to allow spreading of batter and add to batter. The stems are crunchy and tasty as well but chop up real fine to allow them to be cooked and for easy spreading of batter. Add to batter and spread on tava or pan. Thinner the spread, it is crispier and cooks faster. However pesarettu does not spread as evenly or as thinly as dosas do. Add sesame oil to the edges and flip to cook the other side.  Press down the thick portions with a flat flipping spoon to for crispier results only after the pesarettu is flipped.  The leaves may smell super raw and 'green' while chopping but they transform to a tasty cooked addition to the pesarettu and truly enhances it (just like drumstick leaves)

Troubleshooting:

If the pesarettu is too soft, and hard to work with on the tava, add more rice flour. if the pesarettu is too dry and cracks on the tava, rice flour is too much.

Let me know your favorite side dishes for pesarettu. I like Grand Sweets Kothamalli thokku and green chutney.

Use the rest of kale leaves to make very yum parathas by adding it to roti dough and (rolling like radish parathas)

Breakfast beginnings - Cooking Steel-cut oats

While all oatmeal available is a "whole grain", rolled oats, oatmeal are all pre-cooked/steamed/rolled and dried with the husk of course. What makes steel cut oats different is that it is the whole grain machine-cut into 3 pieces with no other pre-processing.


While there are many great tips out there to cook steel cut oats, I needed one using a pressure cooker. So after some trial and error, here is how I cook it ...

Soak 1/4 cup of steel-cut oats in 1 cup of water(1:4 = oats:water) for any length of time from 2 hours to 24 hours. If you choose to skip this step, oats tend to cook like par-boiled rice - (semi cooked separate grains) with a crunchy texture that doesn't blend well with milk/yogurt. Some like it this way though. I prefer mine mushier. So I never skip this step.

Fill the cooker with some water and pressure cook the soaked oats in a stainless-steel vessel placed in the cooker upto 2-3 whistles. This set up avoid burning the food that is pressure cooked. Make sure the vessel is only half-filled with the oats-water mixture as oats tends to bubble out of the vessel.

Also if you want to pressure-cook oats and say rice which may require more whistles (in separate vessels placed in the cooker at the same time) the extra time will not hurt the oats as long the vessel is big enough for the oats to bubble up.

I tried oats with milk and stevia (natural leaf - sugar substitute) and not having the sweet tooth for a sugary breakfast I switched to having oats with yogurt like a runny 'thayir saadham' with a tiny dollop of my favourite pickle (anything from mango pickle to carrot thogaiyal). Love my breakfast now.
Have a hearty healthy Beginning everyday :-)