Mango Cake-Eggless

My brother told me not to post this on the site by looking at the color and look of this cake, but don't go by the looks, this infact was much tastier than it looks. I tried for eggless cakes and I found this Mango version. The original recipe asked for real Mangoes but I didn't have any, so I used Mango Pulp instead.

1 cup diced fresh mango/mango pulp
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup skim milk powder
1/2 cup yogurt
1/2 cup crushed pista
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Sift together the wheat flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl.Add crushed Pista.
3. Put mango, water, sugar, milk powder, yogurt, and oil in a blender. Blend until smooth.
4. Pour the mango puree into flour mixture and mix well.
5. Put the whole mixture in a baking pan and bake until done (about 20-30 mins).

Pour some mango pulp and add some dry fruits on the top for decoration.

Note: I felt that the cake was lesssweeter, so you can increase the quantity of sugar or put some extra mango pulp in the plate and eat.

Strawberry Shrikhand

I got a big bag of strawberries from farmer's market and didn't realise that they were turning bad. And then I decided to make whatever I can from Strawberries, like Shrikhand and a Shake. I still have some left, let's see what other things I can make from them. Was thinking of making Pancakes this morning but somehow didn't find much time as I had prepare something for lunch at the same time.

Recipe is exactly the same as the regular shrikhand except you will add strawberry pulp to yogurt. This is the first time I tasted Shrikhand with Strawberry and the taste was tangy.

2 cups of non-yogurt
5 fresh strawberries
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp honey
1/2 cardammon powder
few crushed dry fruits for garnish

1. Hang yogurt in a muslin cloth for 3-4 hours or until the liquid drains out.
2. Make pulp from strawberries.
3. Whisk together yogurt, strawberries, sugar, honey and cardammon.
4. Garnish with crushed dry fruits.

Serve cold with puris.

Palak Kadhi

A simple and nutritious kadhi loaded with iron, protein and calcium. Very easy to make.

Heat oil, add cumin, rai and few red and green chillies. After they splutter, add Palak/Spinach and cook until done. Add ginger garlic paste, turmeric and cook for a minute. On the side, mix Besan/Gram flour with Dahi/Yogurt with enough water. Add that Dahi, Besan mixture to Palak/Spinach and cook until the curry becomes thick. Add salt before removing and eat hot with rice.

Forgot to add, this was made by my brother when I was busy doing other things in the kitchen.

Kaju Capsicum

These days my younger sister in India is cooking some special dishes everyday in the evening. And she in turn is sending me the recipes of those dishes that she tried. This is one of the her recipes that I tried and I must say it turned out excellent. It was like a feast for us on July 4th with both kaju capscicum and bagara annam.

You need...

3 capcicums/green peppers, cut into ribbon shapes
2 medium onions, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
1 cup kaju/cashews
1/2 tbsp cumin powder
1/2 tbsp coriander powder
1 tbsp cumin
2 cups yogurt, beaten
1/2 cup coconut
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
4 tbsp oil
a pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
cilantro for garnishing

1. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan and roast onions, tomatoes. Add ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute. Remove and blend 3/4th of this mixture along with half cup kaju/cashew.
2. Heat 2 tbsp oil in the same pan again and add cumin and fry for a minute.
3. Add capsicum and fry until it is cooked. Add the remaining 1/4th onion mixture. To reduce the time in cooking capcisum here, you can cook that in the microwave for 5 mins after chopping.
4. After capsicum is cooked, add the blended gravy, red chilli powder, turmeric, cumin and coriander powder, remaining half cup kaju/cashew and mix everything for a minute.
5. Add yogurt and cook for 10-15 mins under reduced flame. Keep mixing in between.
6. Add salt and cilantro at the end.

Serve hot with either Rice or Chapathi.

Capsicum Masala Curry

Just the way we make Stuffed Brinjal, we make this in the same style except we add yogurt to this dish...This goes very well with Bagara Rice or any Pulao or Vegetable Biryani. But, I always liked this with those small capsicums found in India because they are so thin and have fresh taste in them. I don't like the ones found here, but something is better than nothing.

My friend Nandy came back from India and we asked him to come over for dinner. He said he wanted to come by 6.30 pm and I had just 45 mins to make these two dishes. so I quickly made these two dishes for our dinner. My friend like Capsicum Masala very much and kept on praising.

You'll need...

3 capsicums/shimla mirch/green bell peppers, chop each one vertically into 4 or 5 pieces
1 large onion, chopped
1 small tomato, chopped
4 tbsp oil or more
1/2 cup each mint and coriander, chopped
1 cup yogurt, beaten
salt to taste
1/4 tbsp turmeric
water

For Masala:
1/2 cup coconut
1/4 cup each of Sesame Seeds, poppy seeds, coriander seeds
1 tbsp jeera

1. Heat oil and fry peppers until light brown. Remove and keep them aside.
2. Fry onions until brown in the same oil and add tomatoes and fry them for 2 mins. Next add green chillies, turmeric and mix.
3. Roast the masala items and blend them with salt and water. Add the masala paste to the above onion mixture and add desired amount of water to get the consistency you want. (Remember if gets thick after cooling down). Keep mixing as it tends to stick to the bottom.
4. Add mint, coriander, yogurt (beat well with little water) and add to the curry and cook for about 10 mins.
5. Add capcisums and salt and cook for another 5 minutes.

Remove and serve hot.

It tastes better the next day, so if you are expecting guests next day, you can make it one day before and store in the refrigerator and reheat it just before serving.

Squash Raita

This is my friend Sunitha's favorite recipe. Don't know where she is now (feel so sad, we are out of touch even in this email and internet world) , was my punjabi neighbor while I was doing my MS and she taught me many punjabi dishes. She was working in our school at that time and used to call us whenever she made any special dishes. I hope we find each other through blogs. Anyways, this is very very easy to make and less time consuming and thanks to my hubby for chopping Squash for me with the mandoline.


You'll need...

2 cups yogurt
1 squash, chopped
coriander, chopped
1 green chilly, chopped (optional)
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp jeera powder
salt to taste

1. Beat yogurt well and add salt.
2. Add squash, coriander, chilly, sugar and jeera powder.

Serve with any Pulao or just with anything.

Dahiwale Noodles

I laughed when my brother said “White Noodles” as soon as he saw this dish. Few years back when I was in Engineering College, my friends came over to my place and my mom was out. So I had to make something for them, and I made fried Noodles but the dish was so salty that I didn’t want to throw it and waste so much, instead I added Perugu Pachadi that was in the refrigerator and that fixed our problem. Since then, we like this very much and make it often.

Noodle lovers , I guess you should try this.

You’ll need…

½ packet Haka Noodles, boiled
1 cup yogurt
1 cucumber, chopped into fine pieces
2 green chillies
cilantro for garnishing, chopped
½ inch ginger, chopped to very fine pieces
Salt to taste
2tbsp oil

for seasoning:
½ spoon each of jeera, rai, urad and chana dal
5 or 6 black pepper corns
Few cashew nuts

1. Beat yogurt well and make it to a semi-solid consistency.
2. Add salt, chopped cucumber, cilantro, green chilly, ginger and keep aside for 5 mins. You can even fry ginger and chilly along with the seasoning for extra flavor, but I like to keep it natural.
3. Add oil to the pan and fry the seasoning items for a minute, add noodles to it and fry for a minute(optional) or you can directly add noodles and the seasoning directly to yogurt.

This is too simple and too easy to make. It is just like Yogurt rice, instead of rice, we add noodles. It is very good for the summer.

Achari Aloo Methi

This is for my entry to Jhiva-Greens. I congratulate Indira of Mahanandi for one year anniversary of Jhiva. Though I could not participate in all the last year’s events, I am still happy for making it here.

I am submitting Achari Aloo Methi for this entry as I found fresh Methi at the Indian store; I guess the good thing about spring is that we get to eat fresh veggies and fruits and also the farmer’s markets glow with the newly born veggies/fruits. The prices are also reduced so much that you want to buy them all.

You know that you are cooking Methi with the aroma it spreads out in the whole house and I had to switch on the kitchen fan at the highest level. It smelled so awesome that I was ready to go for the second round of dinner. I then posted the picture online and writing the recipe now. My brother Naveen asked me if it can stay until Friday as he usually visits me on weekends, it seems like he likes aloo methi. I told him that I would make a fresh curry again on the weekend.

It is a simple curry; I just followed the Achari Noodles recipe. I had some baby potatoes left from the Dum Aloo curry I made recently, and I used them all for this curry.

You need…

Fresh Methi/Fenugreek leaves (about a cup)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 potato, cut and boiled
1 cup yogurt
½ tbsp amchur powder
1 tbsp jeera
¼ tbsp rai, fenugreek seeds
1 green chilly
1 tbsp red chilly powder
A pinch of turmeric
Salt to taste

1. Heat oil in a pan and fry jeera, rai, fenugreek seeds until they splutter.
2. Add onions and green chilly and stir fry until brown.
3. Add boiled potatoes and fry them for a minute.
4. Add Methi fry until the raw taste is gone and the nice aroma of methi leaves come.
5. Add chilly powder, turmeric, amchur powder and fry them for a minute.
6. Reduce flame and let the curry cool down a bit and finally add yogurt and mix for a minute. Add salt at the end and remove.
   
   Serve hot with Rice.

Badusha

If you want real authentic recipe with correct quantities, please refer to the recipe here

I made Badusha many many times and each time it turned out different, I don’t know why. May be the quality of maida or yogurt made them different. I learnt little from each experiment and I used that experience today while making this Badusha. Seriously speaking, I have not measured oil and yogurt in this recipe. And the Badusha has turned out really well. Ravi and Naveen loved those instantly and we finished all at one go.

What I did was, I took 2 cups of maida, added little salt to it, a spoon of baking powder and 1/6th cup of rice flour and mixed them thoroughly (usually people sieve the whole thing together). I kept on adding oil instead of ghee (as I ran out of ghee) until the mixture became like breadcrumbs. Then I kept adding yogurt until the mixture looked like layers and made that into a ball. Do not put water. These are the ground rules for making badusha. Oil/ghee and yogurt form an important part of the recipe. Then covered it with a wet cloth for half an hour. Made small balls out of the dough and pressed in the center. Made thin sugar syrup on the side. Deep fried the balls and soaked in sugar syrup for 15 mins. Took them out and left them aside for an hour.

You can store them for more than a month in a refrigerator. Heat those for 10 sec before eating.

Tutti Fruiti Lassi

It was one of the most sunny and muggy days for this season today, surprisingly. It is just the beginning of April and it is only spring but the temperature went upto 98 degrees.

We all went for an afternoon walk (we have a nice trail around our office location, it is more than 4 miles but we walked only 3 miles) and we were dead tired by the time we came back to work. We didn't feel like going back to work after going through all this humid and unpleasant climate.

Then, I took off from work early and started driving towards home. The inside of the car was so hot and the heat was so direct on my face, it was a scorching heat, almost felt like it was
going to burn my hands.

I wanted to come home and drink something very cold to cool my body off. I could not wait to get home and take a cold water bath. Then I made this Tutti Fruiti lassi. It is basically a plain lassi but I added a Tutti Fruiti ice cream ball to eat at the end. That quenched my thirst for something cold and nice. I then relaxed for a while indoors before fixing dinner.

You need...

2 cups yogurt
1/2 cup waterl
little crushed ice
pista, 3 or 4 (optional
1 spoon cream (optional)
little cardammom powder
little salt
4 spoons of sugar
Tutti Fruiti Ice Cream (you will find this in Indian Stores)

1. Blend all except the Ice Cream.

Just before serving, put the Ice Cream ball in the Lassi and serve cold.

Mango Lassi

I took my brother to an Indian restaurant lately and he took Mango Lassi as his drink. He liked that so much that he kept asking me to make one at home. On his request, I made this with readymade mango pulp. I got this can from the store and I don’t remember the name of it, I already threw the can. I wish I had fresh mangoes in the kitchen; it would have made a big difference in the taste.

I envy those who are in India and who get to eat Raasalu in the summer. I love that variety of Mango so much. I just could not wait to get them home in those days. My mom used to buy them and soak them in water until evening and we used to eat them soon after the dinner. Ah! Who can forget those summer days with those mangoes around?
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Ingredients
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½ cup of mango pulp
1 cup of yogurt (or buttermilk)
½ cup water
Sugar (as per your taste)
½ tbsp cardamom powder
2 tbsp cream

Blend all together and serve cold. Add some ice before serving.