Biscuit Pudding

Biscuit Pudding can be a great way to make children happy. Many kids like this pudding since it is kept cold in refrigerator and tastes like ice-cream. Hence try this dessert at home and let me know if you like the idea. Also check out other great ideas on how to make Biscuit Pudding on the web. There are so many of them really.

Biscuit Pudding Ingredients:

• Marie Biscuit or Parle-G Biscuit – 10-15
• Milk Maid or Condensed Milk – 1/2 tin or 200 ml
• Banana – 2 Medium sized, if small use 3
• Milk – 1 Cup
• Custard Powder – 2 Tbsp (I used Vanilla flavour)
• Sugar – 2 Tbsp
• Cherries – 2-3 for decorating

Preparation Time : 30 min

Refrigeration Time : 1 to 1 and 1/2 hr

How to Make Biscuit Pudding :

1. In a bowl mix Custard Powder and 1/4 Cup Milk (Milk should be in room temperature). Keep aside.
2. Transfer the remaining 3/4 cup Milk to a vessel, add Sugar and boil until the Sugar dissolves completely. Now add the Custard Powder + Milk mixture from Step 1 to the boiling Milk and heat until the preparation becomes thick without forming lumps. This may take about 10 min of time. Now switch off the flame and let the mixture to cool completely. The Custard Paste required for the Pudding is now ready.
3. Chop the Banana into small chunks and keep aside. Do not chop too early and keep ready since banana may turn black and lose the fresh fruit look/feel.


Biscuit Pudding

4. Crush the Biscuits to medium sized pieces (medium would mean about 5-6 pieces from one Marie biscuit). Now take a medium sized bowl as in the image, arrange the first layer at the bottom of the bowl by spreading the crushed 10-13 pieces of Biscuits (Marie Biscuits used here).
5. Now pour 2-3 Tbsp of Condensed Milk on the top of the crushed biscuits, cover the biscuit completly with Condensed Milk. Milk Maid is a good choice for Condensed Milk.
6. Next layer, arrange the chopped Banana from Step 3 on the Condensed Milk/Biscuit layer. On the top of this layer of Bananas, pour 2-3 Tbsp of Custard Paste from Step 2 with the help of spoon and cover the chopped Banana pieces.
7. Repeat the process from crushed Biscuit to Custard Paste i.e., repeat the steps 4, 5 and 6 till the bowl is completely covered. Close the lid and refrigerate for about 1-1/2 hours.

Biscuit Pudding

Now the Biscuit Pudding is ready to serve. Garnish with Cherries.

Serving Method :

Once the Biscuit Pudding turns sufficiently cold, take out the Biscuit Pudding with the help of bigger sized spoon from top till all the way to the bottom of the bowl and transfer it to a serving bowl to make ready for serving.

Serve this dessert always chilled; Biscuit Pudding tastes best when cold.

Dates Halwa or Khajoor Ka Halwa

For the Dates Halwa to come out really well, do make sure you choose soft de-seeded Dates packed appropriately. If the Dates are found to be a bit hard, soak them for little more time in Hot Milk to soften them before preparing the Halwa as mentioned below. If you soak less, the Dates will not get crushed completely and pieces remain in the paste used for preparing the Halwa. I used soft Dates which took only an hour of time to turn soft.

You may want to check out my post Dates Milkshake to know about the Health benefits of Dates. For those curious to know more about this wonder fruit, here is a web site with information on nearly 100 commercial varieties of Dates grown in Libya alone.

Cooking Time : 30-40 min

Soaking/Preparation Time : 6 hrs

How to Make Dates Halwa :

1. Remove the seeds from the Dates and cut into medium size pieces and soak it in hot Milk for 5-6 hrs. If using soft Dates just soak it for half an hour to one hour before grinding.
2. Grab a plate, grease it with Ghee or Clarified Butter and keep it ready.
3. Take out the soaked Dates along with milk from the vessel and transfer them to a big mixer jar and grind them to a smooth paste.
   

   Dates Halwa or Khajoor Ka Halwa

4. Remove the Dates-Milk mixture paste from the mixer jar and transfer to a big kadai, add 1-1/2 cups of Sugar and mix it once, then switch on the stove to high-medium flame. Stir continuously with the help of a laddle without a break even for a minute; need to avoid Dates mixture from getting roasted/burnt at the bottom of the kadai.
5. While stirring continuously, add the Ghee 1/4 cup at a time to the kadai and keep stirring while the Ghee or Clarified Butter mixes completely with the Dates-Milk-Sugar mixture. Once the Ghee is mixed well, again add 1/4 Cup of Ghee and stir continuously. Repeat this process until the Ghee is used up completely, all the while making sure you keep stirring. At the end add Cashew Nut pieces and Cardamom powder and stir well.
   

   Dates Halwa or Khajoor Ka Halwa

6. Continue to stir the entire mixture until it starts separating out from the sides of kadai and starts forming a big lump. It may take around 30 minutes to form a Dates Halwa lump. Once the lump is formed, transfer the Dates Halwa mixture to the Ghee greased plate (Step 2) and spread the mixture evenly across the greased plate with the ghee greased flat spoon. The flat spoon needs to be Ghee greased too to help avoid the Halwa mixture from sticking to the spoon while you use the spoon to lay evenly the Dates Halwa mixture across the plate.
7. Leave the mixture for 15-20 minutes in the plate and then start marking the Halwa to shapes of your preference. Do not try to take it out until the Dates Halwa cools completely; if you hurry, the shapes of Dates Halwa pieces can get changed and give a soggy look although it might still taste great.

Now the Dates Halwa is ready to serve.

Dates Halwa or Khajoor Ka Halwa

Tips:

1. Better to use the soft and black Dates, which is very tasty and easy to prepare when you are in a hurry(just half hour of soaking in milk required instead of 5-6 soaking time).
2. Do not use non-stick Kadai; Halwa mixture and Ghee will not get mixed properly, Ghee will start separating out when stirring and the proper Dates Halwa consistency will not be achieved.

I had earlier posted a spicy variation of Mint Juice with Lemon described in my Mint Juice recipe post. Read about multiple health benefits of Mint here.

Mint Lemonade

You may interested in a number of other variations of Mint Lemonade posted on the web. Here is another version of Ginger Mint Lemonade. There is also healthy Mint Lemonade made out of Basil. Replacing Ginger with fruits/vegetables of various kinds produces a few more interesting combinations like the Blueberry Mint Lemonade, Kiwi Mint Lemonade, Raspberry Mint Lemonade, Mint Lemonade with Strawberry, Cherry Mint Lemonade that looks absolutely tempting, thirst quenching Mint Lemonade with Cucumber and so on.

Mint Leaves

Time to Prepare : 10 min

How to Make Mint Lemonade:

1. Hand remove the Mint or Pudina leaves from the bunch; discard the stem. Soak the Pudina or Mint Leaves in normal water for 5-10 min. Wash the leaves thoroughly to remove dust etc. from them when in water. Once clean, remove the Mint leaves from water.

Mint Lemonade

2. Transfer the leaves into a mixer jar with Ginger pieces. Add a cup of water to the mixer vessel and grind the Mint and Ginger combination to a smooth liquid paste. Filter the Pudina mixture with the help of a sieve to obtain Mint Juice in a vessel or a bowl.

3. Take the remaining unfiltered Mint Ginger pulp, add to it one more glass of water and grind them in the mixer grinder to a smooth liquid paste. Filter out the Juice content once again as in Step 2 above to the vessel or bowl.

Mint Lemonade

4. Now that we have the Mint Juice in the vessel or bowl, add the Jaggery (or Sugar) and Lemon Juice to the vessel/bowl and stir well till the Jaggery dissolves completely. Adjust the Sweetness and by adding Jaggery or Sugar and also the lemon Juice. If the Mint Lemonade turns too strong add water and adjust the consistency.

The Mint Lemonade is now ready.Pour the Mint Lemonade to a serving glass. Decorate and serve the Mint Lemonade with Lemon Piece tucked on the top of the glass with bits of Pudina Leaves sprinkled on the Juice.

Kovakkai Dondakaya Curry or Kovakkai Poriyal

Dondakaya/Kovakkai is known by names like Dondakaya in Telugu, Tindora in Hindi, Tendli in Marathi , Kovakkai in Tamil and Thondekayi in Kannada. As for health benefits of Dondakaya/Kovakkai/Thondekai, this vegetable has been used to come up with products that can help diabetic patients control their blood sugar levels.

Time to Prepare: 15-20 min

How to Make Thondekayi/Dondakaya/Kovakkai Curry :

1. Wash and clean the Dondakaya/Kovakkai thoroughly. Cut and make 4 slices out of each Dondakaya/Kovakkai.
2. Pressure cook the Dondakaya/Kovakkai/Tondekayi by adding 1/4 cup of water until you hear 3-4 whistles. One can also cook the vegetable directly after seasoning is done. I usually pressure cook Dondakaya/Kovakkai to save time.
3. Meanwhile, add Grated Coconut and Red Chillies in a mixer grinder and powder it. Make sure you do not add water to the mixture.
4. Heat Oil in a frying pan, add Mustard Seeds. When the Mustard Seeds start to pop, add Urad Dal and fry until the Dal turn golden in color. Now add the Curry Leaves and fry for a minute.
   

   Kovakkai Dondakaya Curry or Kovakkai Poriyal

5. Now add the cooked Dondakaya/Kovakkai with little water used while pressure cooking. Also add the ground powder from step 3. Add Salt and Jaggery and mix well. Cook until the water content in the pan disappears. Take care to see that the Thondekayi/Dondakaya/Kovakkai pieces do not get burnt.
6. Or if you need to cook the Dondakaya/Kovakkai without pressure cooking, directly add raw Dondakaya/Kovakkai or Ivy Gourd after seasoning in Step 4 above and add little water and close the lid and leave it to cook for about 10 min or until the vegetable pieces become tender. Then add Salt, Jaggery and the Coconut+Chilli Powder (from step 3) to the pan and mix well. Cook until the water content disappears from the pan.

Now the Thondekayi/Dondakaya/Kovakkai Curry is ready to serve. I love to have this accompany Chapati, but it goes well with plain rice.

Tips:

1. Always use Tender and Green Dondakaya/Kovakkai, this tastes good. As you probably already know, do not use Dondakaya/Kovakkai if it is “ripe” or has turned to red color inside.
2. Be careful to not add excess Salt, since it’s easy for Thondekayi/Dondakaya/Kovakkai Curry to absorb more salt.

The recipe for the Tomato Soup is actually quite simple. The total preparation could take just 30 min including the cooking time. All we need to do is to cook the listed ingredients, grind them into smooth paste and boil by adding water, Salt and Pepper Powder. Serve this Tomato Soup preparation with Cream or Croutons (Fried Bread Pieces).

Tomato Soup

Soups are known for their health benefits. Often children resist having vegetables directly and Soups are one easy way to ensure that we provide them with nutrients provided by Vegetables. We can prepare varieties of Soups like Palak Soup, Oats Soup, Minestrone Soup, Broccoli Soup, many other simple Vegetable Soups. Good thing is that we can often consume Soups to our benefit even when we are suffering from health issues like fever.

We see many varieties of ready to make Soup sachets sold in the department stores. All you need to do is to add water to Soup powder, boil the mixture and within ten minutes Soup is ready. While it is good to have this option, I believe it is always better to prepare homemade Soups like the one I describe below.

Preparation Time : 30 min

How to Make Tomato Soup :

1. Wash and cut the Tomatoes. Peel the outer covering of Potato and Onions. Cut all of these vegetables into medium sized pieces. Clean the Ginger and Garlic with water, peel the outer covering and cut them into pieces. Keep aside.
2. Transfer all the above cut ingredients to a cooker vessel or directly to the cooker container and add enough water or until all the cut vegetables immerse fully in water.
   

   Tomato Soup

3. Cook these ingredients in a pressure cooker until you hear 4-5 whistles. Ensure that Potatoes are cooked well. Once the pressure eases, remove the cooked vegetables from the pressure cooker and keep them aside to cool or until they reach normal room temperature. Preserve the water used for cooking in the cooker vessel for further use in the next two steps.
4. Transfer the cooked vegetables to the mixer jar and add enough water (used for cooking – from Step 3 above) from the cooker vessel. Grind them to a smooth paste. Filter the paste using a strainer to remove the outer covering of the Tomato, Ginger and Garlic.
5. Pour the paste and remaining water from cooker to a vessel and add Sugar, Salt and Pepper and cook it on stove top for 8-10 minutes. Adjust the Salt, Pepper and sweetness of the Tomato Soup if required after you switch off the flame.
   

   Tomato Soup

Now the Tomato Soup is ready. Serve it with Croutons or Crisp Bread Pieces.

How to Make Bread Croutons or Crispy Bread Pieces:

1. Take a Bread pieces out of Bread loaf and cut it into small square pieces with the help of knife. Keep aside.
2. Heat Oil or Ghee (I used Ghee) in a small frying pan, add 4-5 pieces at a time and fry until Bread pieces turn golden brown in color. Place them on a paper towel to remove the excess Oil from the Bread Croutons.
3. Place these Croutons or Crisp Bread Pieces on the top of the Tomato Soup while serving.

Eggless Candied Fruit Cookies

As said earlier, the recipe was sourced from Sharmis Passion blog. I made one little change – just added Baking Powder. I wanted these Cookies to come out soft and did not want to take a chance by omitting Baking Powder. Just added 1/4 tsp of powder and the Cookies really turned out to be crispy, delicious yet light on stomach. All my baking was done in Convection Mode of Samsung Microwave Oven. Placed the lower rack grill in the Microwave, on top of the grill I placed my non-stick tray with Cookies without greasing. Baking was accomplished in about 15 minutes with Microwave preheated and temperature set to 180°C.

Total Duration : 1:45 min
Time to Prepare: 30 – 45 min

How to Make Eggless Candied Fruit Cookies:

1. In a mixing bowl, add Butter and Powdered Sugar and mix well with the help of hand or with a whisk until the mixture looks smooth and fluffy. I used my whisk to cream the Butter-Sugar mixture.
2. Sieve the All Purpose Flour (Maida) and Baking powder together once to mix well the two ingredients.
   

   Eggless Candied Fruit Cookies

3. Add the sieved ingredients from Step 2 and Candied Fruits to Butter-Sugar mixture from Step 1, mix well with the hand and prepare soft sticky dough. If needed add Milk to obtain the right consistency. I did not add the Milk as I was able to get proper soft-sticky dough without Milk.
4. Divide the dough into two portions and shape the dough into 2 logs of about 1-1/2 inch diameter thickness. Wrap the rolled 2 logs in butter paper in 2 separate butter sheets. If the dough is too sticky sprinkle flour on a paper before wrapping.
5. Keep the wrapped logs in Freezer for 40 min to 1 hr. I did freeze the dough logs for an hour. Take the logs out from the freezer after an hour and slice the logs into Cookie dough pieces of about 1/4 inch thickness with the help of sharp and smooth knife. To obtain the right shape, do not use knives with wavy impression or those of zig-zag shape to cut the logs into round shape cookies.
   

   Eggless Candied Fruit Cookies

6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees or 160°C for 10 min. Arrange the cut Candied Fruit Cookies on a lined butter paper leaving the space between each cookie. Bake it at 160°C for 10-12 min or until the edges turn golden in color.
7. I baked the Candied Fruit Cookies in convection mode of my Microwave Oven. To bake Cookies, I used the lower rack grill and on the grill I placed the Candied Fruit Cookies tray and baked for 15 min at 180°C. Actually with first batch, I tried baking Cookies with 160°C as suggested by Sharmiliee – this took me almost 18-20 min to bake the Cookies in my oven. To reduce baking time, I tried the second batch of baking by setting 180°C and was able to get all baked in about 15 min.
   

   Eggless Candied Fruit Cookies

8. Cookies will remain soft after baking. So, carefully transfer the baked Eggless Candied Fruit Cookies Or Tutti Frutti Cookies to a rack and leave it to cool for 15 min. Once cooled, the Cookies turn crisper.

Eggless Candied Fruit Cookies is now ready to serve and savor.

Eggless Candied Fruit Cookies

By itself, Cabbage is a low calorie, near zero fat vegetable which can been used in weight-loss programs. They are a good source of Vitamin C and Calcium. Cabbages have been known to treat conditions like acute inflammation, peptic ulcers and cancer. Read more about benefits of Cabbage here.

The Cabbage Sabzi recipe I have given below is a simple one that anyone can try preparing. This Sabzi can be served with Chapati or can be mixed and consumed with regular White Rice too. You may also be interested in recipe for Band Gobi Chole, a tasty preparation that goes well with Chapati/Roti. One more variety of Cabbage Sabzi was tasted by me in my native – this special Cabbage Sabzi was served with Jolada Rotti or Jowar Roti by my neighbor and was prepared with good amount of Toor Dal and Onions. I wish to prepare and post this unique Cabbage Palya/Poriyal someday.

Cabbage Sabzi or Cabbage Poriyal

Time to Prepare: 15-20 min

How to Make Cabbage Sabzi or Cabbage Poriyal:

1. Heat Oil in a pan, add Mustard Seeds. Once the Seeds splutter, add Urad Dal and fry until they turn to golden in color.
2. Add Curry leaves and fry for a min. Now add the slit or chopped Green Chillies and fry again for a minute to take the extra spice out of the chillies.
3. At this stage, add the Shredded Cabbage and Turmeric Powder and stir once, so that all the ingredients mix well and continue frying for one more minute. Now add 1/4 cup of water to the pan and close the lid to cook the Cabbage thoroughly. This cooking may take 5-7 minutes of time.
4. Once the Cabbage turns tender, add Salt, Jaggery or Sugar, Grated Coconut and mix well and cook in low flame for 2-3 minutes. Once the Salt and Sugar mix well with the other ingredients, add Lemon Juice and mix well and leave it to cook for a minute. Be careful not to prolong cooking after adding the Lemon Juice to the Sabzi. Remove from flame when done.

Now the Cabbage Sabzi or Cabbage Poriyal is ready to serve. Serve this Cabbage Sabzi or Palya with Chapati, Plain white Rice or with Curd Rice.

According to Foodelicious, Avarekalu in Kannada is known by names – Mochai in Tamil, Lima/Hyacinth beans in English, Surati Papdi in Gujarati and Popati/Vaal in Maharashtra. And I hear that in Telugu, it is known by the name Anapakaya. Actually I was not aware of Avarekalu before I came down to Bangalore and till recently had not used them. The idea of using Avarekalu to prepare mixture was given my cousin’s wife Girija who provided the recipe posted here. She also told me about frying the Poha/Avalakki the easy way using stainless steel sieve dipped in oil as described in instructions below.

Note that you can make the Avarekalu Mixture described here even more tastier by adding additional ingredients like Almonds or varying the quantities of ingredients like Poha, Cashews, Raisins to suit your taste. If Avarekalu is not available, replace it with fried Beans or Pulses of your choice.

Savor Avarekalu Mixture in the evenings with a cup of Coffee/Tea.

Avarekalu Mixture

Time to Prepare: 30 min

How to Make Avarekalu Mixture :

1. Soak the Field Beans or Avarekalu in water for 2-3 hrs. Then remove the outer skin by pressing with the help of hand. One can also get already pressed and peeled Field Beans (Hidakavare) in market especially here in Bangalore.
2. Remove the Flat Beans or Field Beans from soaked water and spread it on a muslin cloth, leave it on the cloth for 10-15 min. Do not drain the water content from the Field beans. Remove the Field Beans from cloth and put them in a vessel and slightly sprinkle Cooking Soda and little salt on Field Beans. Gently mix once, so that the Salt and Soda mix well with the beans.
3. Heat Oil in a frying pan. Once the Oil turns to boiling point, take some of Field Beans or Avarekalu in hand and carefully drop them into the Oil and deep fry (the water content in the Field Bean may make the hot oil to splutter, so be careful while dropping the Field Beans into the Oil). You may observe that at first, the Field Beans or Avarekalu will place themselves at the bottom of the frying pan, and then slowly the Beans bubble upto the top. This is the stage to remove the Avarekalu slowly from the Oil. Remove and place them on a paper towel to remove the excess Oil. Follow the same procedure for frying rest of the Field Beans in batches.
4. Once done with frying the Field Beans, next deep fry the other ingredients one by one at a time in the same oil. Fry the Groundnut or Peanuts until they turn to golden brown in color. Next fry the sliced Dry Coconut – just drop the dry Coconut or Copra in hot oil and remove immediately from oil, because the Copra can turn black if placed in heated oil for a longer time. Then fry the Cashews, Raisins and Curry Leaves seperately and keep everything on paper towel to remove the excess Oil. Do NOT deep fry in oil the roasted Bengal Gram. It will not give the good taste to the mixture.


Avarekalu Mixture

5. Fry the Avalakki/Poha or Thick Flattened Rice Flakes or Beaten Rice in 2-3 batches. Take a stainless steel sieving filter with handle, keep 2-3 Tbsp of Thick Flattened Rice Flakes in sieving filter and dip the sieving filter with Rice Flakes into the hot Oil for few min till the Rice Flakes turn crispy and bubbled in shape. Make sure they do not turn brown in color. If you do not have the stainless steel sieving filter, just deep fry the Rice Flakes normally as we do for other ingredients above. The sieve filter method helps quite a bit to fry the Poha or Rice flakes; with second method, it can be slightly difficult to remove the fried Avalakki or Poha from the Oil, specially if you are not used to it. Once removed from the Oil, keep the Poha/Aval on the paper towel. Repeat this process for multiple batches of frying.
6. Transfer all the fried ingredients from the paper towel and also the roasted Bengal Gram to a mixing bowl. Add Chilli Powder, Salt and Sugar Powder and mix well with hand. The fried Curry leaves may crumble, but do not worry – it gives good taste to the Mixture. Adjust the Salt, Sugar and Chilli Powder as per your taste.

Now the Avarekalu Mixture is ready to serve. Serve it with Tea, Coffee as evening snacks.

I am a big fan and regular visitor of Sharmis Passion and try out many of the recipes posted there. I sourced the Gobi Mutter Curry recipe from Sharmilee’s blog and it came out really good. Recipe is quite simple and just reading the ingredients, one can guess the instructions. This one goes well with Chapati/Puri and I found it can accompany Rice too well. There is a nice aroma to the Curry, it’s not too spicy and does not have too much masala in it.Try out and let me know if you like it.

Gobi Mutter Curry or Cauliflower Peas Curry

Time to Prepare: 30 min

How to Make Cauliflower Peas Curry :

1. Cook Cauliflower florets in a bowl containing water and a little salt for 5-8 min. Then strain out the water and keep aside.
   Cook Green Peas in a Microwave for 5 min or cook in a pressure cooker until you hear a single whistle.
2. Heat Oil in frying pan, add the seasoning ingredients mentioned above one at a time. Then add finely chopped Onion and Turmeric Powder and saute until the Onion starts to look transparent. Then add Tomato Puree and cook for 2-3 min or until the raw smell of the Tomatoes disappears.
3. At this stage, add all powders – Red Chilli Powder, Garam Masala Powder and Dhaniya Powder, Salt. Finally add Sugar, mix well, add a little water and cook for 2 minutes.
4. Now add the cooked Green Peas and Cauliflower or Gobi from Step 1, close the lid and cook for 5 minutes or until the gravy is mixed well with the Cauliflower florets and Green Peas.

Now the Gobi Mutter Curry Or Cauliflower Peas Curry is ready to serve. Serve the Curry with Roti, Chapati or Naan or rice.

Gobi Mutter Curry or Cauliflower Peas Curry

Note:

1. You may add chopped Tomatoes instead of making Puree out of it.
2. You can replace Fennel Seeds with Fennel Powder. I used Fennel Seeds, but as per original Gobi Mutter Curry recipe from Sharmilee, you can use Fennel Seeds Powder.

Eggless Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Time to Prepare: 1 hr

How to Make Eggless Banana Chocolate Chips Muffins:

1) In a bowl, mash the ripe Banana with the help of hand. Ensure that there are no lumps left. I did not puree the Bananas. As per Nitya, you can puree the Banana in a mixer grinder.

2) Mix together all the dry ingredients, i.e., All Purpose Flour/Maida, Wheat flour, Baking Soda, Baking Powder. Sieve the mixed ingredients thrice before starting the beating process. Sieving three times helps to mix the ingredients more thoroughly.

3) Grind the White Sugar and Brown Sugar (Demerara) in a mixer grinder and prepare a fine powder out of it. Powdering the Sugar will help in mixing the Butter and Sugar well and in lesser time.

4) Mix the Butter and Powdered Sugar and beat in a beater or with a whisk until you obtain smooth paste. Now add mashed Banana and Vanilla Essence and mix well once.

5) Divide the sieved ingredients from Step 2 into 3 equal parts. Add the sieved dry ingredients to the Butter-Sugar mixture step by step in 3 proportions and beat all the ingredients properly to prepare the Muffin batter. If the batter is found thick, add Milk slowly in the middle of the beating process. The batter must turn just to the pouring consistency. Milk is optional and should be used only to obtain the right thickness of batter and be careful not to dilute the batter.

6) Add the Chocolate Chips and Raisins to the Cake/Muffin batter and mix once. Preserve some Chocolate Chips for the toppings.

7) Preheat the Oven for 10 minutes by setting the temperature to 190ºC. Meanwhile arrange the paper cups in a Muffin tray and fill upto 3/4th of the cup with Muffin batter. Top it with Chocolate Chips.

Eggless Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

9) I baked the Eggless Banana Chocolate-chip Muffins in Microwave Convection Mode instead of OTG. I have explained how to bake the Muffins in my previous Eggless Banana Muffins post. Pls refer to the same for detailed instructions on how to bake the Muffins in Convection mode.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Now the Eggless Banana Chocolate-chip Muffins are ready to serve. This quantity makes roughly 12-14 Muffins (depends on how much batter your paper cups can hold).

Fruit Yogurt

Preparation Time: 12 hours
Time to Make :30 min
Total duration: 12 hours 30 min

How to Make Fruit Yogurt:

1. Pour Milk into a thick bottom pan/vessel and start boiling it. Then add Sugar and Cardamom Powder and boil the Milk till the Milk is reduced to 3/4 of its volume. Switch off the flame and let the Milk mixture cool to room temperature. This may take about 2 hours of time.
2. Once cooled, transfer the Milk mixture to another bowl and add Curd or Yogurt to it. Leave this mixture to settle and ferment for about 6-8 hours. Once fermented, keep the preparation in refrigerator for about 2 hours by closing the lid.
   

   Fruit Yogurt

3. Peel the outer skin of the Banana, Apple and Chikkoo. Now cut all the peeled fruits, Guava and Grapes into small pieces. Peel out the Pomegranate skin, remove fruit seeds from it.
4. While retaining a small percentage of Pomegranate seeds for garnishing, transfer all the fruits and dry fruits like Cashew, Raisins and  Pistachio to a bowl. Now sprinkle some Sugar on the fruits in the bowl and mix them all well with the help of a spoon. Sugar is added to helps cut fruits not change their color.
5. One can serve the Fruit Yogurt in two ways:
   

   Fruit Yogurt

1. Take a long glass, add one layer of mixed Fruits and Dry Fruits from the above step and on the above layer, add one layer of Curd or Yogurt. Repeat this process till glass gets full as shown in the images above. Garnish with Pomegranate Seeds as in the Image.
2. Second way of serving involves just mixing all the Fruits with Curd or Yogurt directly and then serving in a bowl, as in the other image. Both the versions taste superb.

Now the Fruit Yogurt is ready to serve.

Tips:

1. Instead of adding Sugar and Cardamom Powder to Milk, boiling and cooling the Milk and then mixing with Curd, one can add Sugar and Cardamom Powder directly to the Curd (no Milk involved) and use the same in Fruit Yogurt. But I feel the above method involving boiled and cooled Milk tastes better and worth the extra effort.

2. One can use any type of seasonal fruits and not all are required. When I prepared Fruit Yogurt, I could not find Grapes but still it tastes good. Use at least Banana, Apple and Guava. Guava fruit, specially, makes the Fruit Yogurt taste better.

Homemade Coffee Chocolate

For those of you who have never tried this at home before and still doubtful if it is worth the effort, I can assure you that these chocolates that you can make at home will come out really really well, both taste and look wise if you just spend a few minutes understanding the recipe for it posted here. And there is no chance of you getting bored with these in near future because; you can try huge variety of chocolate based recipes – simple great tasting Oil Essence based Chocolates which come in a number of popular flavors like Coffee, Orange, Mango, Vanilla etc. , Center filling Chocolates, Truffles, Rock Chocolates with dry fruits, Biscuits and Fruits (Banana, Apple, Strawberries, Pineapple) coated with Chocolates like the Chocolate Banana Stick etc.

Below I explain the recipe for Coffee Chocolate – an easy and basic Homemade Chocolate which can be easily prepared at home. And it requires just about 15 minutes of your time to make them. Before you attempt this, do read my earlier post How to Melt Chocolates for detailed directions on melting the chocolates. This step is common to many varieties of chocolates you can prepare at home and hence will serve you well whenever you attempt to prepare of these chocolates of various forms and tastes. Always use the oil based essences when mixing directly with melted chocolates; water based essences make the chocolates to decay. You may use water based essences for Center filling Chocolates. As noted below, using the below method, apart from Coffee flavor, one can obtain variety of Homemade chocolate flavors by using other oil based essences like Orange, Mint, Vanilla, Butter Scotch, Lemon etc. Recipe is the same, changing the essence will give you chocolate of different flavor. And if you can obtain varied shapes of chocolates by changing the mould used for making chocolates. There are a number of them available – heart shapred, bird shaped, square or star shaped and so on. Below I use the Coffee bean shaped mould for prepare Homemade Coffee Chocolate!

Note: I buy all the ingredients like Chocolates, essences/flavors, moulds etc. from General Food Additives, located near Seshadripuram, Bangalore here. This store is known for reasonable rates and quality materials.

Time to Prepare : 15 min

How to Make Homemade Coffee Chocolate:

1. Take 2 microwave safe bowls to melt the Chocolates. Also, have the plastic chocolate moulds ready before you start off. I used coffee bean shaped mould here but you are free to use moulds of your choice, of any shape.
2. In one of the microwave safe bowls, place the chopped Dark Chocolate and melt the Chocolates for around 1-1/2 minutes in Microwave.
3. In another microwave safe bowl, place the chopped Milk Chocolate and heat and melt for nearly a minute in Microwave. The Milk Chocolates take less time to melt than Dark Chocolates. Make sure you read through the detailed instructions in my previous post on how to melt the chocolates.
4. Now mix the two melted Chocolates, Dark and Milk ones, and stir well till the melted Chocolate looks shiny or has a glossy finish. Ensure that there are no lumps formed when mixing.
   

   Homemade Coffee Chocolate

5. Now add the oil based Coffee essence to the above mixture and mix well.
6. Take a deep chocolate mould and pour the melted Coffee Chocolate into the moulds as seen in the image.
7. Leave the filled mould in the freezer for about 10 minutes to take shape. Once the Chocolates are set, remove from the freezer and leave aside for about 5 minutes.
8. On a butter paper or on a plate, turn the chocolate filled mould over and pat the mould gently. The Coffee Chocolates should come out of mould easily taking the shape of the mould. As mentioned earlier, I used Coffee bean shape mould, so I got the Coffee Chocolate in Coffee bean shape!
9. One can serve the delicious chocolates now. If you plan to preserve these Coffee Chocolates, wrap them in a wrapping sheet by cutting the paper into rectangle shapes and wrap it as shown in the image below.


Homemade Coffee Chocolate In Moulds

10. Now enjoy the easy to make great tasting Homemade Coffee Chocolates at any time of your choice. Store the home-prepared chocolates in an air-tight container in a cool place. Do not store the Homemade Chocolates in refrigerator.

Further Notes:

1. If you like the strong flavor of dark chocolates, you can vary the relative measurements of Dark and Milk chocolates. You may add 3/4 cup of Dark Chocolate and 1/4 cup of Milk Chocolate. I usually prefer each of these varieties to be in equal quantities. You may even forego Milk Chocolates completely and go with Dark Chocolates only of instead of melting and mixing the Milk Chocolate.
2. Aside from Coffee flavor, one can obtain variety of Homemade chocolate flavors by
   a) using Oil based essences like Orange, Mint, Vanilla, Butter Scotch, Lemon etc., and
   b) by changing the measurements and proportions of Dark, Milk or White Chocolates.


Homemade Coffee Chocolate

3. For Orange, Mint or Lemon flavored chocolates, use White chocolates. This provides good taste as well as good look to the Chocolates.
4. The time taken to melt the Chocolates may vary since this depends on the model, make and configuration of your microwave. I have a Convection mode Microwave with higher temperature settings and hence takes less time to melt the Chocolates, This microwave has higher temperature settings than normal or grill mode microwave.

Chopped Dark and Milk Chocolate

Melting Chocolates with Double Boiling Method:

1. Take the Chocolate bars, cut them into small pieces with the help of a knife. The chopped Chocolates must be at room temperature before melting.
2. You need two steel bowls for Double Boiling Method. One for boiling the water and other for melting the Chocolate. Transfer the chocolate to a sauce pan which can fit well over the other vessel with only slightly bigger diameter. When the sauce pan sits on top of the bowl, ensure that there is no space on the sides for the steam to escape. If steam escapes while melting chocolate, it might result in the chocolate getting mixed with humidity or water content in the steam and spoiling the mixture. The name double boiling method is derived from the fact that you have two vessels being heated, one sitting on top of the other.
3. Fill the bottom vessel with 1-1/2 inch water and boil it. When the water boils, reduce the heat to the minimum. Now transfer all the chocolates to the sauce pan on top of it, making sure that the base of the pan does not come in contact with water boiling underneath. Leave an inch of space between the two vessels and allow the chocolates in the top pan to melt with heat transferred by the steam coming out of bottom vessel. Again, the water in the bottom vessel should not be boil too much and ensure that the heat is set to minimum when the water is boiling.
4. Once the Chocolates in the top pan start to melt, gently stir with spatula or with spoon. When the Chocolate has almost melted fully, turn off the heat. Now remove the sauce pan from vessel and place the pan on a towel, so that the moisture will be absorbed. Now stir gently the melted chocolates in the pan again for 2-3 min till the Chocolate is fully melted and its feel is smooth and look of melted chocolate is shiny or glossy.

How to Melt Chocolate in Microwave:

1. Take the Chocolate bar, cut them into small pieces with the help of knife. The chopped Chocolate must be at room temperature before melting.
2. Transfer the chopped Chocolate pieces to a microwave safe bowl. Place the chocolate bowl in the Microwave and heat the contents in regular Microwave mode for about 60-90 seconds depending on the type of the chocolate(see below for details). Melt in such a way that the Chocolate looks just a little melted (not too much). Now remove the heated Chocolate bowl from the Microwave (immediately after heating) and with the help of spoon/spatula stir the melted chocolate till it turns to a smooth paste without lumps being formed as seen in the image below.

Melted Chocolate

I use Samsung Microwave, so for that

Dark Chocolate – takes about 1-1/2 minutes to melt.
Milk Chocolate – takes about 1-1/2 minutes to melt
White Chocolate it takes about a minute (60 sec).

Notes:

1. Always store the Dark, Milk and White chocolate bars in an air-tight container. Do not place the Chocolates in refrigerator or freezer under any circumstances. This can spoil the Chocolates and also make it difficult to melt it.
2. Do not melt the chocolate over direct heat on stove and always go for double boiling method if you do not want to use Microwave. Direct heating will spoil the Chocolate and can make it unfit for consumption.
3. Do not overheat the chocolates in microwave as it spoils the chocolates and lumps may form after stirring the Chocolates. The time taken to heat depends on which microwave oven you use, the make and the model. Some microwave ovens takes more time to melt. To be on the safer side, try keeping initially for a minute and then go for 30 seconds or a minute more upto a total of 2 minutes. Also, if you are going to melt the Chocolates in multiple phases, keep in mind that once you have used the oven to heat the chocolates, next round of heating the Chocolates will take lesser time.
4. Always use separate bowls to melt each type of Chocolates (Dark, White, Milk) since each of these types of Chocolates can take different amounts of time to melt as noted above.
5. When adding essence to the Chocolates (like Orange, Coffee, Mint, Butterscotch essence) always use oil based essence. The water based essences spoil the chocolates and you cannot preserve the Chocolates for larger number of days without degradation of quality.
6. By reading the above instructions, it should be clear now that the Chocolates should be always kept free from water, humidity and moisture. Hence during Double Boiling method of melting chocolates, care should be taken to prevent steam from coming in contact with the chocolates and spoiling the same.

Feels healthy, nutritious, less heavy (no milk products like cream or paneer) compared to some of the other popular curries without sacrificing much of taste – that’s how I would describe this curry/subzi. Do try it out if you have never done before and hope you will like it.

Green Lentils Curry or Mung Bean Curry

Know more about Green Lentils or Mung Beans from Sprout People. If you do not feel like trying out curry now but want to try out something quick made out of green beans, have a look at healthy salads here and here. They are real easy to make.

Time to Prepare: 30 min

How to Make Green Lentil or Mung Bean Curry :

1. Chop the Onion and Tomato into medium sized pieces; keep the two aside separately.
2. Into a mixer jar, add Peanuts/Ground Nuts and roasted Bengal Gram (Chana Dal) and grind into a smooth powder. Keep aside.
3. Heat Oil in a pan, add Mustard Seeds. Once the seeds splutter, add Jeera or Cumin Seeds. Wait until the Cumin Seeds crackle. Then add the Curry Leaves to the pan and fry for a minute.
4. Now add the chopped Onion and Turmeric Powder and fry until Onion turns to light golden in color. Then add Tomato pieces and cook until Tomato turns soft and mushy.
5. At this stage, add Green lentils or Mung Bean Sprouts and mix well with all the ingredients in the pan. Pour a cup of water to the pan and leave it to cook for 5 minutes. Make sure you do not overcook the Mung Bean Sprouts.
6. Now add all the spice ingredients – Red Chilli Powder, Garam Masala Powder, Jaggery Powder, Salt and mix well. Cook for few more minutes.
7. Once all the spices have mixed well with the vegetables and Mung Bean Sprouts, add the roasted Bengal Gram + Peanut Powder from step 2 to the pan and mix well with a spatula.

Transfer to a bowl and garnish with chopped Coriander Leaves / Cilantro. Now the sprouted Mung Bean Curry is ready to serve.

Serve Mung Bean Curry or Green Lentil Curry with Chapati, Jowar Roti, Plain Rice Roti etc.,

Green Lentils Curry or Mung Bean Curry

Tips:

1. The Roasted Bengal Gram + Peanut Powder gives thickness to the Curry and also provides good taste.
2. I like Sprouted Green Lentil or Mung Bean Curry to be a little sweeter than your normal Curry. Change Jaggery amount depending on your taste.
3. By adding Turmeric Powder while frying chopped Onion pieces in Step 4, you help Onion to cook faster without changing the color.
4. As I said earlier in the post, I prepare this green lentil curry quite regularly as a side-dish for Chapati.

It’s always a challenge for the less experienced to come up with great tasting cakes, breads that contain no eggs and are baked in Microwave instead of OTG. Fortunately for everyone of us and thanks to Nitya, the Eggless Banana Muffins came out really well – soft, fluffy and delicious. And some did not believe that it was eggless and the softness or fluffiness was achieved with the help of ripe Bananas, Baking Powder and Soda. I am so glad that things are working out very well for me and people at home are having a good time with what comes out of my baking experiments.

Eggless Banana Muffins

I tried Eggless Banana Muffins with just two bigger sized, nicely ripe Morris Bananas. The Muffins require a total of 20-25 min of actual baking in an oven. All I did was to prepare Cake batter, pour them into Muffin cups and bake them in convection mode of a preheated Microwave Oven. During baking, the top of the Muffins will slowly raise/expand by about 30% (contributing to the softness of the cake), starts to lightly “break” after about 15 min of baking and then turns golden brown in color almost towards the end of total 20 min baking in my Samsung Microwave Convection Oven. I baked an extra 2 min to obtain that nice crusty layer on the top of the Eggless Banana Muffin.

Below I will try to explain how to make Eggless Banana Muffins or Cupcakes in conventional OTG as well as in Microwave Convection Mode. If you happen to try this out, I hope you will have as much fun as I did giving shape to these little ones you see in the image below

Eggless Banana Muffins

Time to Prepare: 1 hr 15 min

How to Make Eggless Banana Muffins:

1. Mix All Purpose flour or Maida, Baking Soda, Baking Powder. Sieve the mixed ingredients thrice before starting the beating process (described in Step 4 below). This helps the ingredients to mix well and also removes the air in the flour.
2. Mash the ripe Bananas well with hand. I do not prefer to puree the Banana in a mixer grinder or a blender. I also powdered the Sugar before starting beating process, since powdered Sugar helps to mix the Butter and Sugar fast.
3. In a bowl, mix Butter and Sugar and beat well with the help of beater or with whisk. Add the mashed Banana, Vanilla Essence and a pinch of Salt to the this Butter-Sugar mix and beat once to blend and mix well.
4.  Divide the sieved ingredients (from step 1) into 3 proportions. Add these sieved ingredients to the bowl slowly, bit by bit while you keep beating the batter. If the batter is found thick, add the Milk to batter in increments, slowly (not all at once) when beating. The batter must be of pouring consistency just like the regular Idly or Dosa batter.
5. Add a few chopped Cashews to the batter and mix once. Do not use up the Cashews completely; hold a few Cashew bits to be used as toppings to be placed on top of Muffins as described in the next step.
6. Preheat the oven for 190ºC for 10 minutes. Line the Muffins tray with Muffin Cups(I used Aluminum Tray). Fill the Muffin Cups with Banana Muffin batter to about 3/4th of its size and top it with chopped Cashews.
7. Bake the Eggless Banana Muffins for 20 min in oven by setting the temperature at 190ºC. When baked, the Muffins will expand to fill the cup. Allow to cool completely on wire rack before serving.

Now delicious, fluffy and soft Eggless Banana Muffins are ready for savoring. The measurements mentioned above makes about 14 Banana Muffins.

Eggless Banana Muffins

I usually bake the Cakes or Muffins in Microwave Convection Mode.

Here is the way how to bake the Muffins in Microwave Convection Mode. I have Samsung Convection Microwave of 30 liter Capacity. For good or bad, I do not own an OTG, and I am always looking to prepare cakes and cookies in my Microwave. My Eggless Chocolate Cake and Eggless Vanilla Cake were also baked in Microwave Convection mode. As you can see from the comments posted there, there is a lot of interest from the readers to know how they can leverage Microwave for baking.

Eggless Banana Muffins

1. Follow the above process till step 6. In step 6, keep the high rack grill for preheating. In my microwave, there is a pre-heat option. I usually use the pre-heat button to set the pre-heat temperature to 200 degree centigrade before pressing start button. Pre-heating takes exactly 10 min. If there is no separate pre-heat option provided, then just set the microwave temperature to 200 degrees and allow the oven to pre-heat in convection mode to about 10 minutes.
2. Once pre-heated, place the Muffin Tray filled with Muffin cups on the high rack grill and bake the Eggless Banana Muffins for 20-25 minutes by setting 180ºC temperature or till done. To know if the Muffins are completed baked, insert a tooth pick into one of the baked Muffins, pull it out and check if there is nothing sticking to it. It took me about 22 min to bake the Banana Muffins and I just slightly kept it a little longer until I obtained light golden brown color on the top of the Banana Muffins. I did the whole baking in 3 batches with each batch baking max of 6 Eggless Banana Muffins.
3. Once done, remove the Banana Muffins from the tray and allow it to cool on the rack. When it is cooled completely store the Eggless Banana Muffins in an air tight container.

Enjoy the privilege of relishing home-made Banana Muffins. I kept them for 3 days in a Tupperware container and all the Banana Muffins were quite fresh for the entire duration. So enjoy by preparing the Eggless Banana Muffins at home.

Eggless Banana Muffins

Note:

1. One can choose any type of Bananas. If using small Bananas like Yellaki Banana, use 4 of them or else use 2 fully ripened big sized Green or Morris yellow Bananas.
2. Apart of Cashews mentioned above, nothing stops you from using more Dry fruits like Pistachios, Walnuts, Almonds. It’s all your choice when it comes making Muffins at home.
3. If the Muffin batter turns out thick, add Milk to dilute a little. Nitya mentions in her post that water can be used too for thinning the batter.
4. I once spoiled Banana Bread Loaf using low rack. Always use high rack for the baking Muffins in Microwave Convection mode.

Shankar Poli or Shankarpali

Time to Prepare: 30 min

Shankar Poli or Shankarpali

How to Make Shankar Poli or Shankarpali:

1. Boil the Milk to medium heat; keep aside.
2. Melt 3/4 cup Ghee in a vessel or in a pan. Add the medium hot Milk, Sugar, Salt, Baking Soda to the melted Ghee and mix well with the help of hand until the Sugar dissolves completely.
3. Now slowly add the Maida or All Purpose flour in increments (do not add in one go) to the Milk-Ghee mixture and mix well with the help of hand and prepare dough like Chapati dough. No need to give rest for the dough.
4. Take sufficient amount of the dough (little more amount of dough than what you would for prepare a single Chapati) and prepare a dough ball out of it. Next roll it just like you would for Chapati to about 1/4 inch thickness with a help of rolling pin. To avoid dough sticking to the rolling pin, dust Maida during rolling.
5. Cut into rolled dough into diamond shape or square shape with the help of knife or pizza cutter.
6. Heat Oil in a frying pan, add the cut pieces of the dough into Oil and deep fry till all the pieces turn golden brown. Repeat the steps 4 to 6 with the remaining dough.
7. Remove the deep fried pieces from the Oil and drain out oil on absorbent paper towels. Now the Shankar Poli is ready. Serve once the Shankar Poli turns cool.

Transfer to an air tight container. Shankar Poli can be stored for about 15 days.

Shankar Poli or Shankarpali

Oats Idli

The other day I prepared Oats Idli. I was very happy when it came out very well – soft, tasty and filling. In fact, it tasted almost like Rava Idly and hence, I feel if you do like Rava Idly, you will like Oats Idli. It should help make a good breakfast for your family. So, why Oats Idli on breakfast menu?

Idli are well known and well received, healthy, nutrition rich food. The Black Gram lentil or Urad Dal is protein rich and Idli itself is spice and oil-free. Doctors recommend going for Idli as an easily digestible healthy food during illness. Oats are known to heart friendly and rich in dietary fiber. The soluble fiber found in Oats is known to lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterol levels. Oats are also known to aid weight loss, reduce blood pressure, increase energy levels. So, when these two healthy foods come together, I can only imagine things turning out to be good (although, lentils are left out in Oats Idli but some of the protein content of lentils missing is compensated by its presence in Oats. Protein content in Oats is known to be higher than those in other cereals).

The other advantage with Oats Idli is that its preparation time is lot lower than normal Idli. No need to soak Dal or lentils for hours, prepare batter and then leave it to ferment overnight for 12 hours. Hence, like Rava Idli, Oats is instant preparation and hence the term Instant Oats Idli.

After my Oats Breakfast recipe became the most popular recipe on my blog, readers have been asking me for more Oats recipes. Hence, after Oats Upma, Oats Soup, now I am posting Oats Idli. I found its recipein Sharmilee’s recipes blog. I admire her work a lot and do check out her post too for some step by step instructions on how to make Oats Idli. I made some small changes here – instead of Wheat Rava, I used normal white or medium sized Rava and used Green Chilli paste. Also, Instead of using Curd + Water, I used Buttermilk. We usually prepare Buttermilk at home daily, so I used sour Buttermilk. I added the Coriander Leaves to the batter directly without frying. It really came out well and my relatives who tried it out based on my instructions found equal success with it. Do try it out and let me know if you like it or post questions if you have issues.

Oats Idli

Time to prepare: 30 min

How to Make Oats Idli / Idly:

1. Dry roast the Instant Oats in a frying pan for 3-4 min and set aside to cool it completely. Then grind the roasted Oats to a fine powder in a mixer grinder or in a food processor.
2. In the same pan, dry roast the White or Medium Sized Rava for 3-4 min or until you get a nice aroma from it. Allow the Rava to cool. Now transfer the roasted Semolina/Rava and powdered Oats from above step to a mixing bowl and mix well.
3. Seasoning Part: Heat Oil in a pan, add Mustard Seeds, once they splutter add grated Carrot and Chopped Green Chilli or Chilli Paste (I used Chilli Paste) and saute till the raw smell of the Carrots disappear. This may take about 5 min of time.
4. Add these seasoning ingredients to the Oats-Semolina mixture bowl and mix once. Now add Asafoetida/Hing, Finely Chopped Coriander leaves/Cilantro, Baking Soda, Curd + Water or Buttermilk and mix everything together with the help of spatula to prepare the Oats Idli batter. If batter becomes too thick adjust with sufficient water or Buttermilk and the batter turns as thick as the normal Idly or Dosa batter.
5. Grease the Idly/Idli plate with Oil/Ghee and pour the sufficient amount of batter to the Idly/Idli molds with the help of ladle. Arrange the Idly/Idli plates and steam it for 10-12 minutes or till done. It may take maximum 15 min to cook the Idlies.

Now the Oats Idly/Idli is ready. Serve hot Oats Idli/Idli with Coconut Chutney, Saagu or Chutney Powder depending on your preference.

Tips:

1. One can use Wheat Rava or Semolina for healthier version of Oats Idli.
2. Baking Soda provides good texture to the Oats Idli and the Idlies turns fluffier by adding just a little Soda to the batter.
3. One can add Fried Cashews to the Oats Idli batter. This gives rich taste to the Oats Idli, if you are ok with just a few extra calories.
4. Other vegetables of your choice can be added to the Oats Idli.

Oats Idli

Palak or Spinach has lot of iron content in it, while I can say that the Aloo or Potatoes contain vitamins, minerals and starch in them. So when both Spinach and Potatoes come together to form a delicious combo, we have a tasty, nutritious dish added to our menu. The procedure for making Aloo Palak Curry may be slightly difficult, but once prepared you will love the taste and will feel like going for it again.

The below recipe uses Baby Potatoes instead of normal Potatoes, but I have a sufficient instructions added to help use normal Potatoes as well. I sourced this recipe from Sailu’s Kitchen and minor changes to it. I prepared Aloo Palak or Spinach Potato Curry as a side-dish for Chapati that forms part of our everyday meal.

Nags has a version of this curry posted here which is just a little bit simpler than this one.

Aloo Palak or Potato Spinach Curry

Time to Prepare: 45 min

How to Make Aloo Palak or Potato Spinach Curry:

1. Wash the Baby Potatoes. Prick the washed Potatoes with a knife or with the help of fork (will help cook better). Cook the Baby Potatoes in a pressure cooker adding a little salt along with sufficient water. Pressure cook until you hear 7-8 whistles. Remove from flame and allow the cooker contents to cool. Once the Baby Potatoes turn cool, peel the outer skin.
2. Heat 1 tsp of Oil and fry the cooked Baby Potatoes until they turn golden brown in color; keep them aside. Or if using normal Potatoes, just peel the outer skin and cut them into cube sized pieces and fry these Potato pieces in 1/2 tsp of Oil for few minutes.
3. Wash the Palak or Spinach leaves thoroughly. Heat a cup of water in vessel, add the washed Palak/Spinach leaves and cut Green Chilli and cook for 2-3 minutes. Take out the Palak/Spinach leaves and Green Chillies from water (leave the water in the vessel) and grind them to a smooth paste. Retain the water in the vessel for later use in Step 7 below. One can cook the Palak or Spinach and Green Chilli combination in microwave too.
4. Rest of the Aloo Palak or Potato Spinach Curry preparation happens in a medium sized frying pan. Heat Oil in the pan, add Cumin seeds or Jeera. Once the Jeera seeds splutter, add finely chopped Onions and Turmeric Powder and saute the Onions until they turn transparent or until they turn golden brown in color.
5. Now add the Ginger + Garlic Paste and fry for 2 minutes. Add Red Chilli Powder, Coriander or Dhaniya Powder, Garam Masala Powder and mix well.
6. Add Spinach-Green Chilli paste from step 3 to the pan and let it cook for 5 minutes. Add the cooked and fried Baby Potatoes or normal Potatoes from Step 2 to the pan and cook again for 10 more minutes.
7. Add sufficient amount of the water retained in Step 3 above (the water used for cooking Spinach/Palak) to the cooking pan. Note that it may take less water for the Baby Potatoes preparation, because Baby Potatoes are already cooked. Now add salt to the pan and cook again for 5 minutes.
   For normal Potatoes, before adding salt, add the full amount of retained water from Step 3 and cook for 15 minutes until the Potatoes turn soft. This extra step is not required for Baby Potatoes since they are already cooked.
8. Finally add the hand crushed Kasuri Methi or Dried Fenugreek Leaves and Milk Cream or Malai to the Aloo-Palak mixture and mix well with a spatula and cook on low flame for a minute and turn off the heat.

Now the Aloo-Palak is ready to serve. Serve Aloo Palak or Potato Spinach Curry with Roti, Chapati, Kulcha or with plain Rice.

The idea behind Rasam Powder recipe is quite simple – just dry roast the below ingredients and grind them into smooth powder. In just 20 minutes time, less than the time it takes to drive to the supermarket to get it, you have a home-made aromatic Rasam Powder ready. Make sure you store the powder in an air-tight container to keep it pure and fresh. When you need to prepare Rasam like the Tomato Rasam, just add 2-3 tsp of this powder to obtain good taste.

Also have a look at my recipe for Spicy Poha where I use this Rasam Powder to come up with a quick evening time snack. You may have more creative ways of using this powder as in say, a Palya or Poriyal preparation. Do let me know if you have tried something like this before.

Rasam Powder

Time to Prepare: 20 min

How to Make Rasam Powder :

1. Dry roast the Coriander Seeds or Dhaniya in a pan until you obtain good aroma or until the color of the seeds changes slightly. Pour out the Coriander Seeds to a medium sized bowl; keep aside.
2. In a same pan, dry roast the Cumin Seeds or Jeera for 3-4 minutes and transfer them into the same bowl as the one used for Coriander Seeds in the previous step.
3. Pour Oil into the heated pan, add Asafoetida or Hing followed by Fenugreek Seeds or Methi and roast in Oil for a minute. Now add Peppercorn and fry for a minute.
4. Now add Red Chillies and roast for 2-3 minutes and finally add Curry Leaves and fry again for 2-3 minutes and transfer all these ingredients to the above bowl(in Step 2).
5. Leave the mixture to cool and finally grind them in a mixture grinder until you obtain a smooth powder.

Now the Rasam Powder is ready. Transfer the powder to an air tight container to retain the freshness and aroma of the powder. Use Rasam Powder as required when preparing Rasam soup.

Tomato Rasam is perhaps the most common and most popular variety of Rasam. Easy to prepare, specially if your have Rasam Powder handy, Tomato Rasam plus Rice combination can make one happy meal for a South Indian family Make sure you have the right Poriyal / Palya prepared to help achieve a balanced meal. Palya/Poriyal have nutrition offered by green vegetables not found in many varieties of Rasam.

There are many ways and many varieties of Rasam that can be prepared. My earlier post, Lemon Rasam showed how we can prepare great tasting Rasam soup without using Rasam powder. If you need to have less spice in your Rasam, you can prepare Lemon Rasam. This Rasam can be had with Rice or can be consumed without Rice accompanying it just like a soup.

Tomato Rasam

Seasoning Ingredients:

• Ghee or Clarified Butter – 1 tsp
• Mustard Seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Hing – 1/4 tsp

Time to Prepare: 15 min

How to Make Tomato Rasam :

1. Wash and cook Pigeon Pea or Toor Dal in a pressure cooker by adding sufficient (approx. 1 to 1 and 1/2 Cup) water. Keep on the flame until you hear 3-4 whistles or cook until the Toor Dal turns soft.
2. Grind the cooked Pigeon Pea or Toor Dal in a mixer grinder to a fine paste or just mash the Dal with your hand, as per your choice. Both versions taste good in my opinion. Keep aside.
3. In a vessel, add 1/2 cup water, add chopped Tomatoes and cook for 3 minutes or until Tomatoes turn soft. Now add Tamarind Paste/Extract to the boiling water and cook for a minute.
4. Now add Curry Leaves, Salt, Jaggery and Rasam Powder and cook for 5 minutes. Then add Toor Dal Paste or Mashed Pigeon Pea from Step 2 to the boiling mixture and cook again for 5 more minutes.
5. Now comes the seasoning part – In a small frying pan, heat Ghee or Clarified Butter, add Mustard Seeds. Once Mustard Seeds splutter, add Hing and switch off the flame. Now Seasoning is ready. Immediately add this seasoning to the vessel with Rasam, mix well with the help of a spatula.
6. Finally add the finely chopped Coriander Leaves / Cilantro to get a good aroma to the Rasam. Now Rasam is ready to serve.

Serve hot Tomato Rasam with plain Rice.

Methi has many health benefits and used to treat joint pains, Arthritis and improve Lactation in pregnant women. This dish combines Methi/Fenugreek with Kabuli Chana or Chickpeas, the nutrition rich legumes that are known to be great source of protein, carbohydrates with high dietary fiber content and low fat content.

Methi Channa Pulao / Pulav

Time to Prepare: 12 hours
Time to Cook: 30 min
Total time: 12 hours 30 min
My Rating: 4 stars: ★★★★☆

How to Make Methi Channa Pulao/Pulav:

1. Soak the Chickpea or Kabuli Chana in hot water and leave it soaked overnight. Next day, cook Kabuli Channa in a pressure cooker by adding 1/4 tsp of Salt and a pinch of Baking Soda until you hear 6-7 whistles or until Kabuli Channa turns soft. Leave the Channa in the same water you used for cooking until you are ready to use the Channa for preparing Pulao/Pulav. If removed from water and left to dry, Channa may lose its softness and turn hard.
2. Clean and soak the Methi Leaves in water by adding a 1/4 tsp of Salt. This helps reduce the bitter taste of Methi or Fenugreek Leaves and it also helps keep the Methi Leaves fresh until cooked. Drain the water and finely chop the Methi or Fenugreek Leaves; keep aside.


Methi Channa Pulao / Pulav

3. Wash and Soak 1 cup of Rice in water for 10 minutes. Then drain out the water completely and keep the Rice separately.
4. In a mixer jar, add all the Masala Paste ingredients listed above and grind with little water to prepare a smooth paste. Keep aside.
5. Now take a pressure cooker container (outer container). Heat Oil + Ghee in the cooker container until the Ghee melts. Add Cashew Nuts and fry in the cooker until they turn golden brown in color.
6. At this stage, add the Masala Paste ingredients from Step 4 to the cooker container and fry for 2-3 minutes. Now add finely chopped Methi or Fenugreek Leaves from Step 2 and mix well with the Masala paste ingredients and fry for 2 more minutes.


Methi Channa Pulao / Pulav

7. Now drain the water from Kabuli Channa (from Step 1) and add the Channa, soaked and drained Rice from Step 3 to the container and fry for 3-4 minutes. Now add 2 cups of water and Salt to the container and close the pressure cooker lid and allow the contents to cook.
8. For best results, keep the pressure cooker on flame until you hear 3 whistles. Then let the cooker stay on low flame for 2-3 more minutes.
9. Turn off the flame and allow the cooker to ease the pressure for few minutes. Once you open the cooker lid, add the Lemon Juice and mix well all the ingredients of Pulav/Pulao.

Now the Methi Chana Pulao/Pulav is ready to serve.

Methi Channa Pulao/Pulav can be served with or without Raita.

While I did not receive a prize, the 30-odd pieces of this yummy Choco preparation I had prepared were over in no time at all during the competition. Apparently, Nestle wanted me to use their chocolates for preparation to qualify for a prize.

Do try out this recipe for yourself and you won’t disappoint yourself or your family. My family loved a few pieces I managed to save for them.

Marie Biscuit Choco

Time to Make : 30 min

How to Prepare Marie Biscuit Choco:

1. Cut the Marie Biscuits and transfer it to a mixer jar and grind it in a mixer grinder until you get a soft powder.
2.  Cut the Almond, Cashew Nuts  and Raisins into small pieces; keep aside.
3. In a bowl, add Marie Biscuit Powder from Step 1, Almond and Cashew Nut pieces, Raisins and Condensed milk and mix well with hand and prepare like a chapati dough. If you feel the dough is too hard adjust with the Condensed Milk.
4. Take a small ball from the dough, roll it out like chapati into 1/4 inch thick base and cut them into different shapes with the help of cookie cutter, as in the image.

Marie Biscuit Choco Preparation

Note: If one doesn’t have cookie cutter you can give any shape of your choice. Eg: Round, Square, Rectangle etc.,

1. Transfer the grated Dark Chocolate and Milk Chocolate to a microwave safe bowl and heat and melt them for about 2-3 min. Or if one doesn’t have microwave oven, melt the chocolate by Double Boiling Method.

Marie Biscuit Choco

1.  Once the Chocolates melt, dip the shaped biscuits from Step 4 in melted Chocolate with the help of spoons and transfer them to butter sheets and keep them in deep freezer for 10 minute.
2. Remove from the deep freezer and wrap it in aluminium foil sheets, so that the chocolates do not melt at room temperature, else one has to keep these Marie Biscuit Chocos always in a refrigerator.

Marie Biscuit Choco

Delicious bits of Marie Biscuit Chocos are now ready for relishing.

I have posted two Fruit Salad recipes earlier in my blog. This is my third and is due to a few questions I received asking me how to use Custard Powder for Fruit Salad. The original Fruit SaladI posted involved Maida or All Purpose Flour and requires additional time to prepare Milk paste. Using Custard Powder cuts down time. I have used Vanilla flavored Custard Powder which suits this Fruit Salad. We can also add more dry fruits like Figs, Dates, Raisins and Cashew nuts. Just prepare this Custard based Fruit Salad and enjoy this summer.

Fruit Salad with Custard Powder

Time to Prepare: 20 min

How to Make Fruit Salad using Custard Powder:

1. Cut all the fruits listed – Mango, Banana, Apple, Sapota into small pieces and transfer to a bowl. Peal off Pomegranate, extract seeds and transfer them to the fruit bowl along with Cashew Nuts and Raisins. Sprinkle 1 tsp of Sugar immediately onto this fruit bowl and mix well with the fruits. Mixing with Sugar helps prevent the change of color you see in the cut fruits like Banana and Apple; maintains the fresh look of freshly cut fruits. Keep in refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

2. Take Vanilla flavored Custard Powder in a small bowl. Add 2 Tbsp of boiled and then cooled Milk, mix well with spoon the paste formed without allowing lumps to be formed. Keep aside.

3. Boil the remaining Milk in a vessel. Add Sugar to the boiling Milk and stir continuously until the Sugar dissolves completely.

Fruit Salad with Custard Powder

4. Now add the Vanilla flavored Custard paste from Step 2 to the boiling Milk and stir for 5 minutes until the whole mixture turns thick. Remove from the flame. Make sure you leave the mixture to cool for 10-15 minutes.

5. Now add the fruits mixture from Step 1 to the Custard paste and mix well.

Fruit Salad using Custard Powder is now ready. If needed, keep this mixture in refrigerator for 30 minutes and serve the Fruit Salad chilled.

Aloo Methi Subzi or Fenugreek Potato Curry

Time to Prepare: 30 min

How to Make Aloo Methi Subzi or Fenugreek Potato Curry:

1. Prick the Baby Potatoes with fork or with knife (will help cook Potatoes better). Cook Baby potatoes with a pinch of Salt in a pressure cooker until you hear 6-7 whistles. Switch off the heat and once the Potatoes cool, peel out the skin. Keep aside.

2. Soak the Methi or Fenugreek Leaves in water with a pinch of Salt for 5 minutes which helps to remove the dirt and also reduces the bitter taste of Methi Leaves. Wash the Methi Leaves twice in water or until the dirt is removed from the leaves. Cut the Methi / Fenugreek Leaves and keep them aside.

3. Chop the Tomato and grind it in a mixer grinder and prepare Tomato Puree. Place side.

4. Heat 1 Tbsp of Oil in a pan, add the peeled and boiled Baby Potatoes from Step 1 and fry the Potatoes until they turn golden brown in color. Remove the fried Baby Potatoes from Oil and place them aside on a plate.

5. Add the remaining 1 Tbsp of Oil to the same pan and heat for a minute. Then add Cumin seeds or Jeera. When Jeera seeds crackle/splutter, add the Tomato Puree from Step 3 and cook for 2 minutes.

Aloo Methi Subzi or Fenugreek Potato Curry

6. Now add to the pan all the spices – Turmeric Powder / Haldi, Coriander/ Dhaniya Powder, Red Chilli Powder and Salt. Mix well all the ingredients in the pan with the help of a spatula.

7. At this stage, add the cut Methi/Fenugreek Leaves from Step 2 and 1/4 cup of water and mix well. Close the lid and allow Methi Leaves to cook for 2-3 minutes.

8. Then add boiled and fried Baby Potatoes from step 4 back to the pan; mix well. Cook the mixture for another 5 minutes. Once cooked, remove from heat.

Aloo Methi Subzi is now ready. Serve Aloo Methi Subzi or Fenugreek Potato Curry with Chapati, Roti, Naan, Kulcha or Plain Akki Rotti.

The recipe involves Capsicum and I used Capsicum of all three colors I could find in the local store – Red Capsicum, Yellow Capsicum and the regular Green Capsicum. The tri-colored Capsicums make this dish special due to their varied taste. If you are find the Red and Yellow colored varieties, just go with the Green Capsicum only.

I did a couple of changes to the Curry posted on Tarla Dalal site. I used Red Onions instead of Spring White Onion. Second, someone left a comment on Tarla Dalal’s website that addition of Milk provides better taste to Baby Corn Paneer Jalfrezi Curry and since I felt the same, I experimented by adding Milk and overall the preparation came out really well. Do try out this recipe and let me know your comments/feedback.

Baby Corn Paneer Jalfrezi

Time to Prepare: 30 min

How to Make Baby Corn Paneer Jalfrezi:

1. Cut all the vegetables like Baby Corn, Red, Green and Yellow Capsicum into strips (lengthwise) and Onions into medium sized cubes; Keep aside.

2. Cut one Tomato into small sized cubes and from other Tomato, prepare Tomato Puree; cut the Tomato into big sized cubes and grind the pieces in a mixer grinder and prepare a smooth paste, now Tomato Puree is ready.

3. Heat Oil in a pan, add the Cumin Seeds or Jeera and Asafoetida or Hing. When they crackle/splutter, add the chopped Onions and Turmeric Powder and fry for 2-3 minutes. Now add Ginger + Garlic Paste to the pan and fry until the aroma of the paste disappears.

Baby Corn Paneer Jalfrezi

4. Now add the chopped Tomatoes to the pan and cook until they turn tender.

5. At this stage add cut Red, Green and Yellow Capsicums from step 1 and saute for 2 minutes and look that the tri colored Capsicums are mix well with all other ingredients properly.

6. At this stage, add the Baby Corn, Red Chilli powder, Tomato Puree and salt and saute on a low flame for 4 to 5 minutes until the baby corn is half cooked.

7. Add a Cup of Milk to the pan and allow it to cook for 2 minutes and mix well the Curry with the help of spatula.

8. Add the Paneer or Cottage Cheese Strips to the Curry and cook for 5 minutes by closing the lid, so that the spices mix well with Paneer.

9. Now add Spring Onion Greens and mix well. Transfer the Baby Corn Paneer Jalfrezi to a bowl and garnish with chopped coriander or Cilantro.

Baby Corn Paneer Jalfrezi

The dish is now ready; serve Baby Corn Paneer Jalfrezi hot with Chapati, Kulcha, Naan or Roti.