Besan Toast

These days I am making things out of the leftover stuff lying in the fridge, I am in the process of clearing the fridge and concentrating on many veggies and other stuff. In this case, it is bread, there is a big packet of it unused yet. We don't normally feel like eating bread but I got about 2 packets thinking of making bread roll but I made many with just one packet. Looks like I am wasting a lot of money on food...

Anyways, this is a simple food for the weekend brunches if you are in the middle of weekend chores. Add anything you like to the besan and make a toast of your choice.

I added salt, pepper, chilly powder, turmeric, ginger-garlic paste, fresh chopped coriander to the besan and added some warm water to mix it. Don't make it too thick as it takes sometime to cook and will not cook well. Make the batter into a semisolid consistency and leave aside for 15-20 mins.

Heat a pan, smear some oil on the pan. Dip the bread and shallow fry in little bit of oil. Actually I didn't use oil at all and it was good that way too. I don't know how nutritious this is, it can be if we make the toast with either whole grain or wheat bread. But besan is all protein and I guess that's enough for one meal. Serve it with sauce (something hot) and some juice or milk. I served pista and saffron milk with this meal. It was full and we were not hungry until late night.

Our Saturday's brunch

Tikki Pav

I got this pav from Harris Teeter's fresh bakery thinking of making Pav Bhaji. But, things changed and we wanted to eat Vada Pav instead but we didn't want to deep fry anything. We are attending so many parties these days and eating all oily and unhealthy stuff, we thought let's make Aloo Tikkis and use them as vadas, that is how this new recipe, a cross between a sandwich and vada pav was born.

And actually Ravi made this dish (I should have taken pictures of the tikkis he made, he is a perfectionist, I showed him how small the pav was and he made the correct size that would go with the pav and he made exactly 24 for the 24 pavs I had), I only shallow fried them in little bit of oil and arranged the tikkis in pavs.

We made this from organic russet potatoes from whole foods and some green peas.

To make this you need...

3 pototoes

1 cup green peas

1 tbsp red chilli powder

1 tbsp garam masala

1/2 tbsp amchoor powder

1/2 bunch coriander

1/2 tbsp ginger garlic paste

a pinch of turmeric

half juice of lemon

salt to taste

oil for shallow fry

pav bread

1. Boil pototoes and peas separately, remove skin from potato and mash both potatoes and peas.
2. Add powders like red chilli(you can add green chillies if you like), turmeric, garam masala, amchoor and salt.
3. Add shredded cilantro, lemon juice, and ginger garlic paste and mix everything together.
4. Make small patties of the mixture and keep aside.
5. Heat a pan, put a tbsp of oil and smear evenly on pan.
6. Depending on the size of the pan, cook all tikkis together or some at a time until the tikkis are brown on both sides and remove.
7. To arrange, cut pav into half, put some butter to the sides (we avoided this step) and toast. Smear green chutney and garlic chutney on one side and put the patties on the bottom side, top it with the other side of the bun and press a bit.
8. Do the same for the remaining buns. I made 24 small tikki pav's with this mixture.

Serve with onions and some ketchup or sauce. This was very close to Vada Pav recipe but a healthy one without a lot of oil.

Our Sunday's brunch