Cucumber, Orange juice smoothie

One of the things which health and diet advisers always keep saying, if you feel hungry instead of grabbing something to unhealthy and oily to munch on, snack on something healthy.

So here is the series on Smoothies for you. These are simple, good, tasty, healthy and they can be made really fast and without much fuss. If you have kids who tend go on battle with you once they hear about fruits and juices, this is a solution to your nightmares.

So here is a quick smoothie for your evenings. Serves 2 persons

Ingredients:

• Half of a medium size cucumber
• Orange juice - 1 cup
• Lemon juice - 1 tsp
• Cucumber fingers
• Ice cubes
• Mint leaves

Preparation:

• Peel half of a medium size cucumber and cut it into medium pieces.
• Peel the other half and cut them vertically to make fingers out of them
• Put the chopped pieces of the cucumber, orange juice, lemon juice and ice cubes into a blender
• Hit the button and blend it for about 2 mins.
• Pour the smoothie in a tumbler. Garnish with the cucumber finger and mint leaves

There you go. Cheers... mate!

Pasta with creame & mushroom

This recipe I picked up from the tv show Everyday Exotic on TLC.The simplicity of the dish inspired me. Even though I could not  pick all the actual ingredients that were required, I did my best.

Ingredients:

• Pasta - 200 gms
• Olive oil - 5 tbsp
• Butter
• Shallot or onions - 2
• Garlic - 4 cloves
• Thyme - 1/4 tsp
• Mushrooms - 200 gms
• White wine - 1/2 cup
• Whipped cream - 1/2 cup 
• Spinach - 150 gms
• Salt & black pepper

Preparation:

• Cook pasta as per the direction and keep aside
• In a pan add olive and let it warm up. Also add butter. Adding the butter with oil, ensures the butter doesn't burn
• Stir in the diced shallots & garlic. Add the salt and pepper. Saute them over low to medium heat, until they are golden brown
• Add the thyme and diced mushroom and saute them until golden brown
• Add white wine and stir and mix them all well.
• Mix the whipped creame & stir
• Allow the sauce to reduce, it should become thick. In order to check if its thick, dip the spoon and the sauce should coat evenly on the back of the spoon.
• Dice the spinach. Add spinach to the mix and mix them well. Let the mix cook for some time over low to medium heat
• Drain the water from the pasta and mix it with the white sauce. Mix well.
• Add salt & pepper to taste

Tandori Paneer with Vegetables

Ingredients

For Marinade

• Curd – 6 tbsp
• Salt – to taste
• Red chilies – 2 tbsp
• Pepper – ½ tbsp
• Cardamom – 3
• Green chilies – 6
• Oil – 2 tbsp
• Ginger Garlic paste – 3 tbsp
• Sugar – ¼ tbsp
• Lemon juice – ½ tsp

Other Ingredients

• Paneer – 300 gms
• Capsicum – 1 medium
• Onion – 2 large
• Carrot – 1 medium
• Tomatoes – 2 medium
• Oil – 5 tbsp
• Chat masala – to taste

Preparation

• Prepare the marinade
• Coarsely crush the cardamom so that the pods open up and seeds come out. Crush the green chilies coarsely (don’t make a paste)
• Mix all the ingredients together for marinade and keep aside
• Dice the Paneer to ½ inch cube; you may keep them larger as well. Dice the capsicum in large chunks however scoop out the seeds
• Similarly dice the tomatoes into large chunks, and scoop out the seeds from the inside. 
• For the onions, dice them into four large pieces
• Mix all these with the marinade and mix them well. Keep them in refrigerator for over an hour.
• Set the microwave to Convection mode. Pre-heat to 150 deg 
• On the microwave metal tray place all the ingredients so that they are nicely distributed. Sprinkle oil over the top.
• Microwave on convection mode @ 150 deg for 15 mins. After which take them out, toss a little and again microwave @ 150 deg for another 15 mins. Check if the vegetables are cooked. If not, then microwave again.
• Place your ingredients in a platter, add a dash of lime and sprinkle with chaat masala. Enjoy

Mushroom Chicken with hot sauce

This simple recipe involves slow cooking of mushrooms along with onions & chicken. The ingredients are simple and make the taste authentic. Remember this a hot dish, so we are going to put loads of chillies, both dry red ones and green ones. So here is the recipe for your cooking.

For gravy

• Onions – 2 large
• Mushrooms – 150 gms
• Vinegar – 2 1/2 tbsp
• Chicken 300 gms
• Salt – to taste
• Ginger garlic paste – 2 tbsp
• Vegetable oil - 4/5 tbsp
• Coriander

For hot sauce

• Dry chillies – 20
• Green chillies - 6
• Tomato – half of a medium size tomato
• Garlic – 5 cloves
• Salt - 1/2 tsp

Preparation of hot sauce:

Okay, you may done this before. I am going to make the same sauce which we use along with momos. It is simple yet its ferocity can humble your palate. If you end making extra, well you can always use it as a dip for tortellas and chips

• Wash the dry chillies and tomatoes thoroughly and keep aside.
• Take whole dry red chillies and  half the tomato; add them to the water and let it boil, until the chillies and tomato are tender. 
• Drain the water; however keep it aside in a bowl.
• Put the boiled chillies, tomato, green chillies and garlic in a blender. Add salt along with 3 tablespoon of water. Use the water kept aside earlier.
• Let it run for a couple of minutes. Check for texture and taste. When you open the blender lid, be careful, don’t lean over. The chilly fumes can be "toxic"
• If required add a little more water and run the blender if it does not make a smooth paste.
• Once you have a smooth paste keep it aside in a bowl

Preparation of chicken:

• Slice the onion and mushrooms into thin slices. 
• Add oil to a kadai and let it warm up. Add onions & salt to it and saute. Once the onion starts to become tender, add the mushrooms
• Saute them so that they become tender. Turn down the oven to simmer. Add vinegar and ginger garlic paste, and allow them to fry. Also add 2/3 tablespoons of hot sauce into the mix, and allow it to slow fry.
• Once the mix has turned golden and has become dry, put it into a separate bowl
• Add 4/5 table spoon of oil to the kadai again and add a little bit of the onion-mushroom mix into the kadai, and add the chicken pieces to it. Add salt & 3/4 table spoon of hot sauce and let it fry. Cover the chicken and let it cook on simmer.
• Once the chicken has become tender, add the remaining onion-mushroom mix and mix them well.
• This is a dry recipe therefore, allow the water to dry off a little bit.
• Garnish with chopped coriander and serve hot

Simple Chicken Rice Recipe

This simple chicken and rice recipe is in order to cook chicken and rice without any masala. This recipe is inspired from a Saudi chicken recipe called "Saleeg"

Ingredients:

1. Chicken - 750 gms
2. Onion - 2 large
3. Pepper corns - 10 - 12
4. Butter - 50 gms
5. Cardamoms - 4
6. Olive oil - 4 tbsp
7. Rice - 300 gms
8. Salt - to taste

Preparation:

Chicken:

• Wash the chicken clean. In a deep pan, add the chicken, 4 cups of water, 6 pepper corns, cardamoms and one whole peeled onion. Don't dice or cut the onion, just add it whole.
• Cover the pan and let the chicken boil. It will take approximately 20 - 25 minutes for the chicken to cook.
• Once done, you would see the meet coming off the bones. Gently take the chicken pieces off the pan and keep them in a separate plate.
• Keep the water, onion and spices, we will need them later.
• Coat the chicken with butter and salt, nicely. In a microwave set it to grill and grill it for 5 mins. Turn the pieces and grill them again, till they are all nicely cooked. Keep the chicken pieces aside.

Rice:

• Wash the rice with water.
• In a pressure cooker add, olive oil and let it warm up. Add the 6 pepper corns, 1 large diced onion, and salt. Saute them till onions are soft.
• Add the rice and saute it for 1 minute. If you see the ingredients burning, turn the heat to simmer.
• Now add the water and spices left over from cooking the chicken (don't add the boiled onion left over). If you feel the water is less for boiling the rice, add a little more and let it cook.
• Take the boiled onion left over from the boiling the chicken and press it gently, it will split into smaller petals.
• Serve the rice in a platter and add the chicken and boiled onion pieces on the top. Serve hot.

Potol Bata

Potol Bata, potol means Parwal or pointed goured in English, and bata means paste. This simple recipe is of a parwal paste. It is so simple to cook and yet tasty to eat. One can make this as a side dish to the main course.

I must give due credit to my Boudi (bhabhi) in Kanchrapara. She casually gave the recipe to my Ma and she in turn suggested it to me. The recipe is quite similar to Chingri bata. So what are we waiting for, lets start.

Ingredients:

1. Potol (parwal) - 250 gms
2. Onion - 1 (large)
3. Garlic - 5 cloves
4. Ginger - 1 inch
5. Salt to taste
6. Haldi - 1/2 tsp
7. Red chili powder - 1 tsp
8. Green chillies - 5
9. Vegitable Oil - 5 tbsp

Preparation:

• Peel the potol with the help of a peeler. Once all the potol is peeled off, dice them into tiny pieces. Smaller the pieces the easier it would be to cook.
• Dice the onion, garlic and ginger. Slit the green chillies in between
• In a kadai add oil and warm it up. When the oil is nicely warmed up, add the potol, onion, ginger, garlic and all the spices.
• Mix them well. Cover the kadai and let it cook in simmer. In between stir them occassionally.
• Once all the ingredients are well cooked, take the kadai off the head and let it cool.
• Take all the contents and grind them in a stone grinder or food processor. Remember you just want to grind them once.... dont make a paste out of it.
• Serve with the main course.

Pure vegetarian pizza (Indian Style)

A vegetarian pizza made in the Indian style. Good for Tuesday s and Thursday s when you cannot have non vegetarian yet want to have something nice.

Ingredients:

• Pizza topping
• Nutrela (soya beans) – 10 to 12 cubes
• Tomato – 1 finely chopped
• Curd – 2 tbsp
• Red chili powder – ½ tsp
• Zeera powder – ½ tsp
• Dhaniya powder – ½ tsp
• Salt – as per taste
• Olive oil (for marinating) – 1 ½ tbsp
• Cheddar Cheese – more the better
• Olive oil (for frying) – 8 tbsp

Pizza Base – 6 inch base (available in bakery)

Preparation:

• First of all, take the nutrela (soya beans) cubes and crush them. Don’t crush them to dust, just make smaller pieces of them, and keep aside.

• Take all the masala, curd and olive oil and mix them together. Take the crushed nutrela cubes and add them to this. Keep this aside for marinating for about 45 minutes. In the mean time, finely chop the tomato.

• After marinating it for 45 minutes the pizza topping is almost ready

• Add olive oil to a frying pan and add the marinated mix to it. Let it fry in simmer. Add the chopped tomatoes to it.

• You may need to add water. Add a tea spoon at a time. Keep frying till the nutrela cubes become brown and soft. Once done keep aside

• Take the pizza base; grate the cheese on top of it, so that it’s covered with cheese. Don’t get health conscious, you are going to eat a vegetarian food, so keep grating the cheese till you are satisfied.

• Add the fried nutrela cubes and masala to the top of the cheese layer

• Turn you microwave oven to convection mode. Pre heat the microwave to 120 – 140 C for 4 minutes

• Place the pizza on the metal tray. The metal tray must have been provided with your microwave (use the metal tray not the grill)

• Place the tray and set the temperature for 120 C and timer for 10 minutes. Check after 6 minutes, if the cheese has melted stop, else continue. Check the sides if they have turned brown, bring down the temperature.

• You are done, sprinkle some chili flakes and you are ready to eat your veg. pizza. Enjoy