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Home made Whole Wheat Naan

Serving: 7 small naans (2 adults) Ingredients: Whole Wheat Flour 1 1/2 cup Refined flour (maida) 1 tbsp (optional) Salt to taste Curd 2 tbsp Baking powder 1 tsp Warm milk 3/4th cup (for kneading) Oil 1/2 tsp Ghee for frying Nigella seeds (kalonji/ onion seeds) for sprinkling Method: In a large mixing bowl, take the wheat flour, maida (if using), salt and baking powder. Loosely mix these ingredients. Add the curd and mix using finger tips so as to blend the curd into the entire flour. Next knead the dough with warm milk. Take care to not over knead the dough. Cover the kneaded dough with a layer of 1/2 tsp oil and cover with either a damp cloth or lid and keep it in a warm place for atleast 45 mins (best to keep up to 2 hours). For making the naans, divide the dough into 7 equal parts. Take a ball of dough and using flour for dusting, roll it into oblong shaped naans. I like making slightly thin naans than the thicker variety as the thin naans will co
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Paneer Butter Masala

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This is a comfort Junk Food. Health Alert: Try this home made junk food on your "cheat day" and instantly feel transported to food heaven. Quick, easy and kid friendly recipe. Serves 2 adults and 2 small kids Ingredients: Paneer 200 gms cubed For the gravy: Oil 1 tsp Onions 1 large Ginger Garlic Paste 2 tsps Tomatoes 1 large Almonds about 8-10 (soaked in hot water for 15 mins) [healthier alternative to cashews] Chilli powder 3/4 tsp Turmeric powder 1/2 tsp Corriander powder 1 tbsp Garam masala (ideally a meat/ chicken garam masala) 1 tsp Salt to taste Tomato Ketchup 2 tbsps Sugar / Jaggery 1 tsp (Can be skipped) Milk 1/4th cup Kasuri Methi (dried fenugreek leaves) 1 tsp crushed For tempering: Oil/ Butter 1 tbsp Cumin Seeds 1/2 tsp Bay Leaf - 1 Method: Soak almonds in hot water and keep aside. Chop onions, tomatoes and make ginger garlic paste. Take a tsp of oil in a pan and fry onions and ginger garlic paste till raw smell goes (say 3 mins)
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Eggs and cheese on toast n more

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Friends, here's something to pep up an egg on toast or an egg on a dosa. Quick to make and yummy to eat, such simple receipes help a lot in easing the pressures of cooking. Receipe 1 - Eggs on Toast (Serves 2): Ingredients: 4 Slices of plain white or any sort of bread 2 hard boiled eggs 1 Tomato cut into 1/2 inch thick roundels 2 tsps of Butter 3/4th cup Processed grated cheese 4 or 5 tsps of Cream Cheese Salt and pepper to taste Method: Butter the bread slices (cut the edges of the bread if kids like them so). Cut the hard boiled eggs into 4 round pieces each. Lay 2 slices of tomato on each buttered slice of bread, followed by 2 pieces of egg, add some grated cheese and a dollop of cream cheese. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste. Proceed with either 2 mins. on high in the microwave or 1 min. in a pre- heated oven at 180 deg. celsius or 1 min. on a pre-heated pan on the stove top - until the cheese has melted. Serve as it is or with sauce. This makes
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Home made Sub-way like Sandwiches

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Dear Readers, It has indeed been a very long time since my last post. Various things like repainting the house, detailed travel planning for others and caring for the sick in the household have kept me on my toes and away from experiments in the kitchen. This recipe materialized today out of an urge to have some healthy subway sandwiches without taking the pains of driving to their nearest outlet. Ofcourse, the sandwich ingredients were made out of whatever was available in the kitchen + addition of avocado guacamole to make it as healthy as possible. The idea was to use potato patties which can easily be substituted with corn cheese patties as per the recipe here:  corn-cheese patties  or grilled chicken or any other filling of your choice. There were some potato smileys and potato windows in the freezer so i just fried them as a substitute for home made patties (not so healthy after all......hehehe) So, here are the ingredients: 1. Bread slices or ideally l
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Sponge Gourd/ Turai/ Ghosavli - Sweet and Sour Curry Receipe

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Sponge Gourd or the hindi name for it Turai / marathi being Ghosa(v)li is not the number 1 favourite vegetable on anybody's list of favourite foods. Personally speaking it is a love hate relation with this veggie - if it's made horribly it cannot be ingested but if the curry is yummy, it's falling in love again. It is always my attempt to make something fresh and delicious out of this gourd. There is ofcourse, the tempting fried version called "bhajiya's" (aka tempura style) - dipped in gram flour and spices and then deep fried until golden. But this curry is a healthier take on this humble vegetable - sure to make you want to eat some more... Ingredients for sweet and sour sponge gourd (turai/ ghosali) curry: 1/4 kg. Sponge Gourd /Turai / Ghosali 50 gms. Cottage Cheese / Paneer (optional) (substitute for paneer is a handful of roasted and coarsely ground peanuts - i like paneer any time) 1 medium onion 2 small pieces of kokum  (or 1
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Corn cheese patties

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A receipe post has been more than overdue and i am giving a convenient excuse of the monsoon not allowing me to purchase varied ingredients and also dampening my spirits to experiment too much in the kitchen. This receipe is an inspiration from a similar receipe on tarladalal.com. Corn cheese patties (makes 10 +): Ingredients: Corn 200 gms (boiled) Potato boiled 1 (optional) 1/2 Capsicum - chopped finely 1 tsp Green chillies - paste / chopped finely 1 tsp Cumin powder (jeera powder) - optional 1/2 Lime juice handful of corriander (dhania) leaves (optional) Salt to taste - i guess i overdid it this time :-( Rice flour 1 1/2 cup (or as required) Cheese (in cube / tube) 4 to 5 tbsp oil for shallow frying Method: Coarsely grind the boiled corn such that some corn kernels can still be seen. In a mixing bowl, add the ground corn, mashed boiled potato, chopped capsicum, chopped green chillies, cumin powder, lime juice and salt. Then gradually add the rice flour so that
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Part IV - Bhutan - rightly called the last Shangri La

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Concluding Post on Bhutan Day 6 and 7 June 10th and 11th, 2013: Tiger's Nest - Paro - Haa Valley - Thimpu Ugyen Phendyling Resort begins it's restaurant at 5 a.m. in the morning - so those wanting to trek up to the Tiger's Nest Monastery can catch breakfast early. We, however, decided that filling our tummy might make the trek difficult. So we had a cup of tea and some cracker biscuits and left at 6.45 a.m. for the base of the trek. I regretted this decision after an hour :( We had packed some biscuits and some canned juice which we had later. We reached in 15 minutes and then had to wait for another 45 minutes because w e wanted to hire a pony for our daughter - and there was a lot of discussion amongst the guys hiring out horses / ponies about who we should hire from and how much money we should be charged. Our cab driver had given us an idea and we paid Rs.600 (this was the rate we saw others paying too). There was also the question of a caretaker along wit
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