Fruit salad

Fruit Salad Ingredients:

Apple ( Peeled ) - 1 medium sized
Banana ( ripe ) - 1 medium sized
Grapes - 10 -15
Mango ( ripe) - 1 medium sized
Pomegranate seeds - 1/2 cup
Orange ( Peeled ) - 1 medium
Chikku ( Sapota ) - 1 medium sized
Custard Powder - 2 tsp
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Sugar - as per taste
Strawberry - few
Cashews - 8 or 9
Milk - 1/2 litre

Vegetable Soup

Soups are known for their health benefits.Often children wont prefer to take vegetables directly but soups are the easiest and best way to provide them with nutrients given by vegetables. We can see many ready made soups available in the departmental stores where we have to just add water and boil it for a few minutes. But i always prefer to prepare it homemade.

The total preparation time takes only 30 min including the cooking time. Just we have to cook all vegetables, make it to fine paste and boil by adding water,sugar,salt and pepper powder. 


Ingredients:

Carrot ( chopped ) - 1
Beans ( chopped ) - 1/4 cup
Potato - 1 
Peas - 1/2 cup
Onion - 1
Tomato - 250 gms
Ginger garlic paste - 2 tsp
Coriander Leaves - 1 tbsp
Ghee - 1 tsp
Salt - as per taste
Pepper Powder- as per taste
Sugar - 1 tsp
Crisp Bread pieces - few



Method:

• Wash all vegetables and cut them in to medium sized pieces except Peas. 
• Take a pan and add ghee to it. Now add ginger garlic paste. Fry for few minutes till raw smell goes.
• Now add all the chopped vegetables, coriander leaves and peas. Pressure cook it with enough water or until all the vegetables immerse fully in water.
• Cook this in the pressure cooker until you hear 4-5 whistles.
• Once the cooker eases bring it to cool completely.
• Drain water and preserve it for further.
• Transfer the cooked vegetables to a mixer grinder and add the drained water which we got from the last step and grind it to a fine paste.
• Pour the paste and add remaining drained water and boil it for a few min. Add Sugar, Salt, Pepper Powder as required.
• You can add Crisp Bread Pieces on top of the Soup while serving.

Eggless Chocolate Cake Recipe

Eggless chocolate cake :

I did some modifications to the vanilla cake recipe which i posted earlier, to make this chocolate cake. Because my son didn't like the flavor of vanilla, he likes to eat chocolaty.

Ingredients:

Cocoa Powder- 2 tsp
Condensed milk - 400 ml
Sugar - 1 tbs
Salt - 1 pinch
Baking Powder - 1 tsp
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Butter - 1/2 cup
All Purpose flour - 1 1/4 cup
Milk ( at room temperature ) - 1/4 cup

Method :

Sift all purpose flour twice and keep aside. Take butter at room temperature in a bowl. Add condensed milk, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and mix it till it becomes smooth. Add cocoa powder and all purpose flour and mix well. Now add milk little by little and make the batter in thick pouring consistency. Pour the batter in the greased pan and tap it to even it out. Bake it  at 180C till the bottom had started to brown. Or you can insert a sharp knife in to the cake, if it comes without any dough clinging, it is ready. Normally it'll take 40 - 45 min. Transfer the pan to the cooling rack and cool it completely and then slice it. Your egg-less chocolate cake is now ready. Kids like this chocolaty cake very much...

Notes:

Don't forget to take the quantity of sugar in lesser amount because already we are using condensed milk for this recipe. 

How to Cook Rice in a Pressure Cooker

A Friend of mine asked me how to cook rice in a pressure cooker, as he doesn't know and new to the kitchen. So, i thought of blogging how to make rice in a pressure cooker as it will also be helpful for many other bachelors and for the future great cooks. 

We need Cooking Rice and water to make this. I'm specifying here cooking rice because someone likes Raw rice and others Boiled rice. We can take anything but we have to measure it before washing. I'm doing only with Raw rice here.

Ingredients:

Raw rice - 2 cups

Water - 6 cups

Method:

• Wash rice twice.Rinse and drain it completely.
• Pour 2 cups of water in the pressure cooker and set the vessel with rice above it.
• Pour 4 cups of water on it.
• Close the lid of the pressure cooker ( with rubber gasket ) till it locks perfect.
• Keep the Pressure cooker on the gas stove and wait till you see steam releasing from the lid vent. The time it takes for the steam is depending upon the quantity of rice cooking and the heat set on the gas stove. You can set the heat as medium.
• Once steam comes out from the vent, place metallic valve ( also called weight ) on top of the vent and press firmly.
• Once you hear the cooker whistles thrice, switch off the stove and wait for 10-15 min.
• Remove the weight, open the lid and enjoy your rice.

Notes:

• When you cook rice in the pressure cooker, the bottom of the cooker gets slightly blackish because of  the heat it is getting. So, you can add a  pinch of citric acid after you pour water on the cooker.
•  You can also use few drops of lemon juice instead of citric acid.

Poricha Kootu Recipe

Poricha Kootu

Ingredients:

Moong Dal - 1/2 cup
Sambar Onion ( peeled ) - 250 gm
Tomato - 1 chopped
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Salt - to taste
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Oil - 1 tsp
Ghee - 1 tsp
Urad dhal - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - few
Asafoetida - 1/2 tsp
Red chillies - 1 or 2


For Grinding:

Coconut grated - 2 tbsp
Black Pepper - 1/4 tsp
Cumin - 1/4 tsp
Green Chilli - 1 medium

Method:

1. Cook Moong dhal partially by adding water, turmeric powder and salt. 

2. Heat a pan with oil or ghee, add onion and fry till it becomes golden brown.

3. Add this fried onions to the cooked moong dhal , add chopped tomato and cook again for five min.

4. Grind Coconut, Black pepper, Cumin and Green chilli and add this paste to moong dhal mixture.

5. Heat pan with little ghee. Splutter mustard, add urad dhal, asafoetida, red chillies and curry leaves and fry till it becomes golden brown and pour it on top of Poricha Kootu. 

6. Garnish with curry leaves. You can even taste this as a side dish for chapathi.

Aloo Paratha

Aloo paratha is a famous breakfast recipe and it is simple too. Instead of taking just chapathi, this paratha is good for health as we are adding vegetables to it.

ALOO PARATHA

Ingredients:

Potato ( Cooked, peeled and mashed ) - 4
Green Chilli - 2
Coriander Leaves - chopped
Garam Masala - 1/2 tsp
Oil - 4 tbsp
Salt - as per taste
Wheat flour - 2 cups  + some flour for sprinkling

Method:

1. Add wheat flour, salt and little oil  and mix well. Add water little at a time and knead well till you get soft dough. Cover and let it breathe for 20-30 min.

2. Take Cooked, peeled and mashed potato, chopped green chillies, garam masala, little oil and salt - mix well and keep aside.

3. Spilit the dough and stuff in to smaller balls.

4. Roll one ball of dough to small circle and keep the stuff in to it. Now close it from all sides. Pat it on your palm and sprinkle dough on both sides.

5. Now, roll paratha as you do for making chapathi.

6. Put it on the tava and cook paratha by adding oil on both sides.

Homemade Pizza Recipe

We all love Pizza especially kids love that. Even my son like pizza very much. I was really afraid whether it is good for health?How they are doing in shops, we dont know? I asked myself why cannot i prepare Pizza at home and give him? Reflection of that, the recipe came here... It would be better if i prepare even the Pizza base, but right now i'm doing only with readymade one. After i do definitely i'll post it.

Ingredients:

Readymade Pizza base - 1
Butter - 1 tbsp
Onion ( chopped ) - 1
Carrot ( chopped ) - 1 
Capsicum ( chopped ) - 1 ( small )
Carom seeds ( Omum ) - 1/4 tsp
Tomato - 2
Tomato sauce - 2 tbsp
Salt - as per taste
Red chilli powder - 1/4 tsp
Pepper Powder - 1/4 tsp
Grated cheese - 1/4 cup
Cooking Oil - 2 tsp
Ginger Garlic Paste - 1/4 tsp

Method: 

1. Spread butter to the top of the Pizza base fully and keep aside.

2. Heat oil in a pan, add onion and fry it for a few min till it looks transparent. Add Gingergarlic paste and fry for another two min on low flame.

3. Add Capsicum and Carrot and cook for 5 min. Add salt as per taste. Do not cook the vegetables fully, it should be partially cooked.

4. Now grind tomatoes and add this tomato paste to the mixture.

5. Add Omum and mix well till tomato paste mixes well with vegetables.

6. Add chilli powder, pepper powder and tomato sauce and cook for 4 - 5 min. 

7. Spread this vegetable mixture to the top of the pizza base which we have prepared earlier.

8. Sprinkle grated cheese to it. 

9. Preheat the Oven and cook it for 4-5 min until the cheese melts and spread all over the pizza base.

10. Serve with Tomato sauce.

Homemade Pizza

Notes:

* In shops they will add some color to to pizza to enhance the richness but i avoided it.