Tomato Rice - South Indian Style

Well there are different styles of making tomato rice. This one I called it the south Indian style because I did not use the ginger garlic paste or the garam masala. Tomato rice is one of my favorite rice items however it is made. Ingredients: Onion(cut length wise): 1 cup Tomatoes( finely chopped): 1 cup Tomato paste: 1 tsp Green chillies( cut length wise): 3 Lime juice: 1/2 tsp Cilantro( finely chopped): 2 tbsp Curry leaves: 2 Red chilli powder: 1 tsp Salt as required Channa dal: 1/2 tsp Urad dal : 1/2 tsp Peanuts: 1/2 tsp Sesame seeds: 1/2 tsp cumin seeds: 1/2 tsp Cooked Rice: 2 cups Seasoning: Oil: 3 tbsp Turmeric: 1/4 tsp Channa...

Read more »

Gutti Vankaya/Stuffed eggplants in peanut and sesame sauce

Eggplant is one vegetable that can be cooked in 100 different ways. I have said this before too in one of my eggplant posts and now I'm saying again. In India if you go to the vegetable market, you can see some 10-15 varieties of eggplants. the colors ranging from light green to dark purple. Gutti Vankaya or stuffed brinjal(we call eggplant as brinjal in India) is an authentic south Indian dish. Different spices are stuffed into brinjal and then cooked slowly on a low heat. Again when it comes to stuffing brinjal there are different combinations of spices you can stuff that leads to different varieties of stuffed brinjal. If you ask...

Read more »

Quinoa with stir fried veggies

Here is another Quinoa dish from me. I tried to make it similar to the Chinese style veggie fried rice. Just used quinoa instead of rice. Ingredients: Quinoa: 1 cup Carrots (cut into small pieces): 1/2 cup Tofu: 1/4 cup Green Beans (cut into small pieces): 1/4 cup Soy sauce: 1/2 tsp Red chilli sauce: 1/4 tsp salt as required. Green onions (finely chopped): 1/4 cup. Oil: 2 tsp Pepper: 1/2 tsp Procedure: Cook the quinoa in a rice cooker with 2 cups of water.  Add oil to a pan and when the oil is heated add the veggies and the tofu and stir fry them. Add the cooked quinoa to the veggies and mix them together. Add the soy sauce,...

Read more »

Creamy Corn Curry

Here is a simple corn curry that is very easy to make, tastes great with rotis or you can just eat it by itself like a side dish. Ingredients: Sweet Corn: 1 cup Onion ( Big sized)( finely chopped): 1 Milk: 3/4 cup Salt as required Seasoning: Oil: 1 tbsp Mustard seeds: 1/2 tsp Cumin seeds: 1/2 tsp Turmeric: 1/4 tsp Curry leaves: 4 Green chillies: 2 (optional) Red chillies( Broken): 2 Asoefetida( Hind): a pinch Procedure: For the corn, I used the frozen yellow corn. You ca use canned or fresh corn too. Add oil to a pan and heat it. When the oil is heated, add all the seasoning ingredients in the order mentioned. When the seeds...

Read more »

Pasta Salad - Deli style

I love the pasta salads that you get in a deli. So decided to make this at home and searched on google for the deli style pasta salad recipe. Went through a couple of recipes and combined a few and the result is my Deli style pasta salad.  Cold salads right out of the fridge taste heavenly during summers. Pasta salads are so filling that they can be had like the main course rather than a side dish. Ingredients: Rotini pasta( spiral shaped pasta): 1 cup medium sized tomatoes: 2 Black olives(cut in half): 1/2 cup Feta cheese(Crumbled): 2 tbsp Chopped Cilantro: 2 tsp Parmesan cheese: 1 tbsp Sundried tomatoes in oil(drained and chopped):...

Read more »

Pottu Pesara Kattu

Blogging is very addictive. I open up my blog with the intention of posting a recipe and before I start that, I will check some of my fav blogs and from the comments section on those blogs, I enter few more blogs and from there to few other blogs and this goes on. Does that sound like "been there done that" :) I'm sure it sounds familiar to every food blogger. Here are some of the blogs I check almost every day. RedChillies - I like her style of writing. VeggieBelly - This blog I visit for it's amazing pictures. Talimpu - Has some authentic south Indian recipes. RedChillies maintains a food blog aggregator. My fav space on the web:)...

Read more »

Orzo Salad

When summer hits it's stride and produce at it's peak, a simple salad can be magical. This a simple pasta salad with orzo, cucumbers, onions and olives. Orzo is rice shaped pasta. It looks just like long grains of rice and you can find in the pasta section of the grocery store. Ingredients: Orzo pasta: 3/4 cup Cucumber(Kheera): 1 Red onion(medium sized): 1 Blck olives: 1/2 cup Pepper: 1 tsp Salt as required Olive oil: 4 tsp Cilantro( finely chopped): 2 tbsp Pesto sauce: 2 tbsp Feta cheese: 2 tbsp Procedure: Cook the orzo pasta just like regular pasta with water, a pinch of salt and a tsp of olive oil. When the pasta is soft drain the water...

Read more »

Cilantro Chutney

Ingredients: Cilantro : 1 cup Tomato( small-sized) : 1 Green chillies: 2 Red chillies: 2 Coriander seeds: 1/2 tsp Cumin seeds: 1/2 tsp Urad dal: 1 tsp Channa dal: 1 tbsp Jaggery or Sugar : 1 tsp Tamarind: cherry size. Oil: 1 tbsp Seasoning: Oil: 1 tsp Urad dal: 1/2 tsp Mustard seeds: 1/2 tsp Cumin seeds: 1/2 tsp Curry leaves: 4 Red chillies( broken): 1 Turmeric powder: 1/2 tsp Asoefetida( hing): a pinch Procedure: Add oil to a pan and when the oil is heated enough, add channa dal, urad dal, red chillies, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and green chillies. When the seeds start to turn brown, add the chopped tomato and cook for few minutes...

Read more »

Quinoa salad with spinach, black beans and chickpeas

Have been hearing a lot about "quinoa - the super grain" lately and wanted to give it a try. Quinoa is not actually a grain. It is the seed of a plant that is closely related to species such as spinach and beets. You can read more about quinoa here. I bought them and they have been sitting in the pantry for a while now waiting for their turn. I never ate or cooked quinoa before. I also had some left over canned black beans and canned chickpeas that I had to use.There was also some baby spinach waiting for its turn. Before all these get spoiled I wanted to use them and combined them all and cooked with quinoa. The result was just wonderful!!! Quinoa...

Read more »

Vegetable Fried Rice

This is indian chinese style vegetable fried rice. One of my favorites and an instant food if you have left over rice.   Could there be a better way to use the left over rice than loading up with tons of fresh vegetables and make it complete sumptuous nutritional meal?  I had some left over rice from the previous day and made this yummy colorful fried rice. I added more vegetables to make it more nutritious.     I generally cut carrots and beans into small pieces and keep them in my freezer. That makes it even more easy to cook this rice. All you have to do is heat the oil in a pan, toss in the veggies, add rice and spice...

Read more »

Black Bean and Corn Salad

 Ingredients: Black Beans: 1 can Whole kernel corn: 1/2 can Bell Pepper: 1/2(finely chopped) Tomatoes: 1 medium - sized (finely chopped) Onions: 1 medium - sized (finely chopped) Salt: as required. Sugar: 1 tsp. Extra virgin olive oil: 1 tbsp Cilantro: (finely chopped) White wine venigar: 1/2 tsp lemon juice: 1 tbsp Procedure: Mix all the ingredients, refrigerate for 30 minutes and serve. This was big hit in my house. My little girl just loved it. &nb...

Read more »

Nimmakaya Pappucharu(Lime lentil soup)

Ingredients: Tomatoes1 medium - sized Onion1/2 Large - sized Green Chillies3 Cilantro leaves10-15 Garlic1 pod Lime Juice1 tbsp Toor dal1/2 cup Saltas required Ghee1 tbsp Seasoning: Urad dal1/2 tsp Mustard seeds1/2 tsp Cumin seeds1/2 tsp Curry leaves5 Broken red chillies2 Turmeric1/4 tsp Asafetida/hing1 pinch Procedure: Boil toor dal with water in a pressure cooker adding salt and turmeric powder. Mash the boiled dal evenly in to a smooth paste without any lumps. Add more water to the dal and keep boiling on a low flame. Chop the onions length wise. Cut the tomatoes into medium size pieces. Cut the green chillies length wise. Now...

Read more »