Mixed Vegetable kootu

I had to finish up cleaning my refrigerator, so I gathered all the vegetables left in small quantities and made this tasty kootu.

INgredients

Leftovers of :

Beans
Butternut squash
Zucchini Squash
Carrots

Cocounut powder - 1/4 cup
Red Chillies - 3
Coconut Milk - 1/4 cup
Cumin seeds - 1 Tbspn
Salt
Oil
Mustard seeds


1. In a pan or the pressure cooker, put all the vegetables and cover with little water and cook till the vegetables are tender.
2. Grind the coconut powder, red chillies and cumin seeds to a coarse paste.
3. Once the vegetables are cooked, add the ground paste, salt and boil for a minute.
4. Finally , reduce the flame to low and add coconut milk and mix well and boil for another minute.
5. In a sepate pan, add some oil, mustard seeds and curry leaves. When the mustard seeds splutter, add it all to the vegetables and enjoy.

I had about 1 1/2 cups of leftover veggies, so I used these proportions. You can modify to taste as you desire.

Bean and vegetables kootu

I found this beans& vegetables mix at the bulk section in whole foods. It has a mix of green and white lentils, kidney beans, white beans , dried carrots and beans. Looked like a healthy option, so here's the recipe.

Ingredients

1. 1 cup of the 32 beans & veggie mix
   
2. Dry coconut powder - 3/4 spoons
   
3. Red chillies 1/2 pieces
   

Method

1. Soak the grains in hot water for half an hour. If you don't have time to soak, just wait for more than 7 whistles on your pressure cooker, otherwise cook as you would normally cook dhal.
   
2. In a pan take oil, add mustard seeds, urad and bengal gram dhal.
   
3. After the seeds splutter, add the red chillies and coconut and fry for about a minute
   
4. Add the cooked beans, some turmeric powder and salt to taste. These beans do tend to get very thick after cooking so add water as well.
   

P.S: Other ingredients to experiment with - Dry ginger powder, a spoon of tamarind paste, some peanuts or peanut powder..

Lima Beans and Potato curry

I bought Lima beans a month back in anticipation of providing more proteins into our vegetarian diet. I would look at them everyday since then , but had no idea what to do with it. So I kept pushing it away for another day!

Last weekend I was tired of seeing them stare at me and I needed some pantry space, so I soaked a cup of them and decided to use them. So here is a recipe that came out of it and pretty tasty too.

Lima Beans and potato curry

Ingredients
Lima Beans - 1 cup
Potatoes - 2
Onions - 1 small
Tomatoes - 1
Tomato Paste - 1/2 Tbspn
Garlic - 2 pods
Cumin seeds - 1 Tbspn
Garam Masala - to taste
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tspn
Salt - To taste
Chilli powder - 3/4 tsp
Green onions ( cut) - a handful
Cilantro - a handful
Olive Oil - 2 tsps

Method

1. Soak the Lima Beans in hot water for about 3-4 hours.
2. In a pressure cooker, add some oil and some cumin seeds.
3. When the cumin seeds begin to splutter, add garlic and saute till it turns slightly brown.
4. Add the onions , Garam masala, turmeric powder, chilli powder and salt. Saute for a couple of minutes till the onions lose their raw smell.
5. Add tomatoes and tomato paste and mix well.
6. Drain the soaked Lima beans and add to this mixture.
7. Finally add the potatoes and mix it all well.
8. Add water till it covers the vegetables and beans.
9. Close the lid and pressure cook till 2 whistles
10. Finally, open the lid and add some chopped Green onions and Clilantro.
11. Enjoy with chappatis or rice.

Notes:

1. You can add any kind of Masala for taste.
2. This need not be done in a pressure cooker. It can be directly cooked in a pan with water and covered till everything is cooked
3. Add a dash of lemon of you like at the end when the mixture had cooled.
4. Ginger Garlic paste can be substituted in place of Garlic
5. Use any oil you wish.

Crispy Cauliflower

I tried this out today - its my version of dry Gobi Manchurian.

Ingredients
Cauliflower cut into small pieces
Besan 3/4 large spoons
Corn flour (or corn starch) 3/4 pinches
Ginger-Garlic paste 1 spoon
Red Chilli powder - 1/2 pinches

Method

1. Take a large bowl and mix all the ingredients together except the cauliflower. There's no need to add water, the moisture from ginger-garlic paste is sufficient.
   
2. Add salt to taste
   
3. Add the cauliflower pieces to the bowl and toss a bit to mix with the paste.
   
4. Sprinkle cornflour to the mix. (This is an optional step)
   
5. Heat oil in a pan, add the contents of the bowl and stir fry for about 10 minutes in low flame.
   

Tastes great, my daughter loved it!