Carrot Quinoa delight

Almost anyone who is on a special diet has heard of quinoa by now. Our journey with it was rather limited till about a year ago. I used to use it like I would use rava(cream of wheat). Never really experimented with it as a substitute for rice. Once we made that leap, we realized what we were missing! Good friends of ours eat their Rasam and Sambar with quinoa. This recipe came about one evening when I was pondering on what to cook within 20 minutes with quinoa. This is also my first recipe with pictures, yay!

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups of white Quinoa, cooked according to package directions
• Grated Carrots - 4
• Slivered almonds - 1/4 cup
• Jalapenos/Green Chillies - 2/3 pieces
• Crushed ginger - 1 tea spoon
• Grapeseed/Peanut oil - 2 tbsps
• Lemon juice - 3 tbsps
• Cilantro for garnishing.

Method:

• Heat the oil in a skillet and add the green chillies and crushed ginger to it.
• Add the carrots & sprinkle some water.
• Cook covered on medium heat till the carrots are tender.
• Add the slivered almonds and toss with salt to taste. Here's what it looks like when the carrots are cooked.

• Add the lemon juice and mix in the cooked quinoa in small parts.
• Garnish with chopped cilantro and enjoy.

Long hiatus, mixed lentils pongal

I haven't been posting for the last year and a half due to various complicated reasons I don't want to get into. Hopefully 2012 is the year of food blogging for me. I will be posting GFCF recipes as that's what we are all eating these days.

Today was Pongal, the south Indian spring/harvest festival. I got really homesick, mostly because the hubby was away playing racquetball, and I talked to my parents (my sister & BIL were visiting them). I so wanted to be there with them. Nostalgic memories of past Pongal days flashed through my head. My sister and I never cared so much about the actual significance of Pongal but we sure did enjoy the food. :) I decided to make venpongal, only to realize that we were out of Moong dal. I did have this mixed lentil soup mix from whole foods. It has red(masoor), whole green(toor), black(urad), yellow(moong) and white lentils. Voila, here comes mixed lentil pongal -

Ingredients:

Mixed lentils as described above - 1 cup

Rice 3/4 cup

Whole peppercorns - 2 tbsps

Cumin Seeds

Cashew cut into small pieces ~ 1/2 cup

Ghee - Clarified butter. (See my note at the end about this).

Curry leaves - 4-5

Method:

• Mix the lentils and rice and let them soak for half an hour. Pressure cook, waiting for at-least 5 whistles to ensure soft texture.
• Mash half the peppercorns into a coarse powder. I just used a sheet of paper and a heavy porcelain cup to do this since I don't have a mortar and pestle. (Note to self - buy one :)
• Heat the ghee and add the peppercorns, cumin seeds and cashews, fry until the cashews are light brown. Ghee can burn really quickly so watch out.
• Add the curry leaves after turning your stove off. The heat from the ghee is sufficient to roast the curry leaves.
• Add the cooked lentils and rice mix, salt to taste.

We ate this with this tomato gojju on the side. I omitted the onions from that recipe since we were out of those as well.

* I should warn readers that this pongal looks strange, its mostly a grayish-green color because of the black lentils and whole toor dal, but tastes yummy! Hopefully, I'll get better with adding pictures to my recipes this year.

** Ghee is made from butter but does not contain casein. The process of making ghee, turns it into 98% fat. See http://www.gfcfdiet.com/bakingcanning.htm for more info.

Mango Lassi

This is really not a recipe:) its too simple to be labelled that.. but I wanted a place to note it down , just in case my alzheimers gets worse!
I made this for an office potluck and it was a super hit.. easy and yummy

Mango Pulp -1 cup
Yogurt - 3/4 cup
Milk - 1/4 cup
Honey - to taste
Sugar - 4 teaspoons
Cardamom powder - a pinch

Blend everything together with some icecubes, thin down with some water if required.
Serve chilled and Enjoy.

Brocolli Pasta for kids

This is an easy breezy recipe for kids. Yummy enough for kids at heart like me as well.

Ingredients
1. Whole Grain pasta - 1 cup
2. Brocolli florets - 1 cup
3. Ricotta cheese - 1/3 cup
4. Pasta sauce - 1/3 cup ( more or less)
5. Salt & pepper - to taste
6. Grated Cheese

1. Boil the water. Once it starts boiling, add salt, pasta and cook till tender. This takes about 8 minutes.
2. Around 6 minutes of the pasta boiling, add the brocolli and let it boil.
3. In the meantime, mix the ricotta cheese and pasta sauce ( any tomato based sauce will do). You can add some parsley to this too.
4. Drain the brocolli and pasta mixture and add to the above sauce until coated well. Add salt and pepper to taste
5. Grease a baking dish and pour this mix. Sprikle with grated cheese. You could add some breadcrumbs or oats on top of this.
6. Broil in the oven till the cheese on top melts.

Enjoy!

Vegetarian Korean Sweet potato noodles

I had some Japchae at lunch the other day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japchae) and was inspired to try that at home. Here is the quick and easy recipe I came up with.

Ingredients

Sweet potato noodles (Korean noodles) available at any asian store.

Miso Paste (also available at asian stores)

Red Onions

Veggies to stir fry - carrot, beans, peas, baby corn. I found canned baby corn at the local grocery.

Method

1. Cook the noodles as usual, the only change is that these noodles cook very fast, so they need to stay in boiling water for only about 3 mins.
2. Stir fry the onions in oil,.
3. Add the other veggies and sprinkle some water , cover for few minutes to let them cook.
4. Microwave about half a cup of water and add a spoon of miso paste to it and mix well. Miso has a very strong flavor, so tread carefully here..
5. Add miso water to the veggies, some salt to taste and let them simmer in it till the water is all evaporated and the mixture has a thick sauce like consistency.
6. Finally add in the cooked noodles and mix well. Drizzle a few drops of soy sauce on top. Fans of spice can also add a few chili flakes.

It tasted yummy and somehow the transparent look of the noodles made the dish very appealing to me.

Hearty tomato soup

Here's my version of tomato soup, made it today for dinner.

Ingredients
Onion & Garlic finely chopped
Bell peppers - half of red & green chopped
Tomatoes - 4 to 5 pieces
Butter
Clove & cinnamon
Vegetable broth or water

Recipe

1. Melt some butter in a saucepan and add the cloves & cinnamom.
2. Saute the onions, garlic and peppers.
3. Add in chopped tomatoes and saute for a couple of minutes
4. Add the broth/water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes.
5. Blend everything in a food processor, and then add a bit of milk, salt and pepper to taste.

Brussel sprouts kurma

I made this when my cousins came over to visit, this is mom's recipe with my teeny tiny modification.

Ingredients

• Brussels sprouts - 10 to 12 pieces cut into halves (one bag serves 4)
• Grated coconut (frozen works)
• Cashewnuts - 5/6 pieces
• Green chillies 2 pieces - I actually used Jalapeno instead of green chillies.
• Fennel seeds - 1 tbsp
• Ajwain seeds - Original recipe calls for poppy seeds or khus khus, but this adds an interesting taste too.
• Coriander leaves

Method

• Boil the brussel sprouts in water with a pinch of salt and turmeric added.
• While they are cooking, take all the other ingredients and grind into a paste adding a bit of water.
• Those with a bit of extra time can dry roast the ajwain seeds before grinding.
• In a pan, heat a few table spoons of oil, add mustard seeds and then cook the paste till it loses the raw coconut smell.
• Add the cooked brussel sprouts to this and simmer for 1/2 minutes.
• Tastes great with rice, roti and even bread.