Kothimbir Vadi

Today's recipe is a very healthy one. It is a modified version of famous Kothimbir Vadi.  Kothimbir Vadi is a Maharashtrian snack.  In Marathi, green coriander is called Kothimbir.

This is my version of Kothimbir Vadi that I always make at home. Tastes great and is guilt free too as instead of deep frying I simply stir fry it.  The crunchiness of outer crust and softness inside makes it so delicious.  Its a very good option for breakfast too.  You can prepare it in advance and fry just before serving.  Traditionally, a lot of green coriander is used to make this wonderful dish but as V doesn't like green coriander much I didn't add more of it.

I love the nice fragrance of til and coriander in these vadis.  I am sure it would become your favourite too.  It can be given to babies and kids too just skip green chilly and chilly powder, they would definitely relish it.  So give it a try and share your feedback.

Happy Cooking :)

                              

Ingredients:

Gram flour/Besan	½ cup
Rice flour	2 tbsp
Fresh coriander (Chopped)	¼ cup
Sesame seeds/Til	1 tsp (Roasted)
Lemon juice	1 tsp
Baking soda	1/8 tsp
Oil	1 tsp
Salt	½ tsp or to taste
Green Chilly	1 (chopped)
Red Chilly powder	1/8 tsp
Turmeric powder	2 pinch
Water	As required
Oil	For frying and greasing the pan

Method:

• In a mixing bowl, mix together gram flour and rice flour.  Add water little by little and make a lump-free and smooth thick batter.  Leave it aside for 15 minutes.
• Grease a round pan and set aside.
• Add salt, chilly powder and turmeric in the gram flour batter and mix well.  Add chopped coriander, chopped green chilli sesame seeds, oil and lemon juice.  Set aside.
• Take water in a pressure cooker and let it boil.  
• In the gram flour batter, add baking soda and mix well.  Do not over mix.  
• Pour the batter in the greased pan and put it inside the pressure cooker.  Put the lid and remove the whistle.  
• Let it cook for about 10-12 minutes or till a knife inserted comes out clean.
• Once cooked, remove the pan from the pressure cooker.  Let it cool down for 5 minutes.
• Unmould the steamed vadi and cut into desired shapes.  Set aside.
• Heat 2 tbsp oil in a non stick pan and add steamed vadis in it.  Stir fry till golden brown and crispy.
• Remove on a tissue paper and serve warm.

Notes:

1. If you wish you can deep fry the steamed vadis.
2. Adjust the salt and chilly as per your taste.
3. For steaming the batter, you can take a deep non stick woke/kadhai with glass lid.  Fill it with water.  Let the water boil and put the batter filled pan in the center of the woke.  Cover with glass lid and steam the batter.
4. If making in advance, store the sliced vadis in an airtight pan and keep in the refridgerator.  Do not store it for more than 1 day.

Pineapple Rava Kesari

Wish you all a very happy new year 2015.  New year, new beginning and new dreams, may all of that become sweeter than ever for you all.  

To make this new year a little more sweet and yummy I have made this Pineapple Rava Kesari.  A wonderful dessert that everyone would like to dig in.  Its so simple to make yet so delicious.  It sounds and looks so festive I must say.  This is the first time I have tried my hands on making this Kesari but it came out simply superb.  We all loved it to the core.  I would love to make it again and again.

Pineapple gives this kesari a unique flavour.  As I wanted a strong pineapple flavour I used pineapple essence but this is completely optional, even without the essence you will get the nice flavour of this kesari.  I used very little ghee but felt no compromise with the taste.  I strongly recommend to use less ghee as it is not needed to use more ghee as all the flavour will come from the pineapple but do not compromise with the sugar.  Use the exact amount of sugar that is given in the recipe.  I increased the amount of sugar little by little by checking its level during cooking and finally ended up using the amount I have given here in the recipe.  I added cashews also but you can skip this part or may add any dry fruits of your choice.

Now no more chitchat, I am leaving you here with this yummylicious dessert.  Try out and enjoy this new year.  Happy Cooking :)

Ingredients:

Rava/Sooji/Semolina	4 tbsp
Pineapple (chopped)	½ cup
Sugar	5 ½ tbsp
Cashews (chopped)	5-6
Cashews for decoration	2
Ghee	1 tbsp
Pineapple essence (optional)	¼ tsp
Yellow food color	1/8 tsp
Water	1 ¾ cup

Method:

• Take a sauce pan and boil together water and pineapple. Let the pineapple become soft.  Once softened, add sugar into it and boil for 2 minutes or till the sugar melt.  Remove it from the flame.
• Heat a heavy bottom non stick pan, add ghee and rava into it.  Fry rava till it gets light brown. Simmer the flame and add pineapple sugar mixture into fried rava little by little to avoid formation of lumps.  Add food color and mix well.  Add chopped cashews and mix again.  Keep stirring. Cover it and let cook for about 8-10 minutes on low flame.
• Remove from the stove and let it warm.
• Garnish with cashews and sprinkles. Serve warm.

Have a bite :)

Notes:

1. If during cooking the pineapple and rava together you find that some water is needed you can add a little bit of it, enough to cook the rava.
2. Dry fruits you can add according to your choice.
3. More ghee can be added if you like to.

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Cookies

Hi friends.  Marry Christmas to all of you.  I know its a bit late but there is no time constraint for sharing the good wishes :)

I had planned to make a fruit cake on this Christmas but couldn't manage the time for the same so now I will make it for the new year.  It would be an easy peasy recipe with no fuss.  No alcohol and nothing fancy going around.  So keep checking my space for the recipe.

Getting back to today's recipe i.e. whole wheat peanut butter cookies.  I had a bottle of peanut butter which I bought for some baking recipes.  I like peanuts but I can't have peanut butter on the bread.  So the bottle was almost full. Yesterday I was in baking mood so I mixed up different things with peanut butter and got these nice peanut butter cookies.  I added healthy flours to make it anytime craving snacks.  Fat is also very less.  Crushed peanuts gave a nice crunch to these cookies.  I used brown sugar for the deep brown color but you are free to use white sugar instead.  You can also decrease the sugar level, there wont be any compromise with the taste I bet.  We enjoyed these cookies with tea.  You also try out.  Happy Cooking :)

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour	½ cup
All purpose flour / Maida	½ cup
Oats flour	¼ cup
Brown sugar	¾ cup
Peanut butter	½ cup
Dessicated coconut	2 tbsp
Baking soda	¼ tsp
Roasted peanuts (crushed)	2 tbsp
Golden syrup	1 tbsp
Cardamom (crushed)	1
Vanilla essence	1 tsp
Ghee/butter	3 tbsp
Water	3 tbsp

Method:

• Take a bowl and mix together wheat flour, all purpose flour, oats flour,coconut, baking soda and cardamom powder.  Keep aside.
• In another bowl, take brown sugar, peanut butter, golden syrup, vanilla essence and water.  Mix well and keep aside for 10 minutes.
• After 10 minutes, mix together sugar batter and flours.  Add butter little by little. Add crushed peanuts and mix again.  Check the consistency.  The mixture would come together if you press it with your fist but it would not form a soft dough.  The texture would be a little crumbly. 
• Take a small portion of mixture and form a ball and press it between both your palms and shape it into cookies.  You can use a cookie cutter also as I did.  As the mixture is crumbly, forming cookies would take a little more time.

 

cookies ready to go in the oven

• Preheat the oven at 180 degree. Take a baking tray and line with an aluminum foil.  Grease the foil with butter.
• Arrange the cookies in the tray and bake for 15 minutes or till the cookies start getting brown.  Do not bake for more than 15 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest for 2 minutes. 

Just out of the oven

• Shift the cookies to cookie rack and let them cool for 15 minutes.
• Enjoy with tea or coffee.

Notes:

1. Sugar level can be adjusted according to your taste.
2. White sugar can be used.  Brown sugar will give the deep brown color to the cookies.
3. Use the butter/ghee at room temperature.
4. If you find the mixture is too crumbly to shape into cookies you can add some more butter.
5. Do not over bake the cookies else they would burn.

Sweet Corn Idli

Hi friends. As you know, through my previous post of Sweet Corn Kheer that I love sweet corns. Today also I am gonna post a new dish with sweet corns. 

I had just two sweet corns left and I wanted to make something with it for lunch that too something which my baby could also have with us so decided to try this innovative dish called sweet corn idli.  At first I was apprehensive about the taste as sweet corns give a bit sweetness to any dish but when I tasted the idli, it was super soft and taste was just so good. We all liked it very much including my LO :) I accompanied it with Sambar and it turned out to be a perfect lunch. These idlis are delicious at the same time very healthy as it has no oil and I have added oats flour in it. These soft and spongy idlis will just melt in your mouth provided you dont forget to add fruit salt in the batter :D  Generally I do not like idlis much but these sweet corn idlis has just stolen my heart and I ate up more than usual.  I strongly recommend you to try it atleast once.  So here is the recipe for you to try.  Happy Cooking :)

Ingredients:

Fresh sweet corns	2 medium
Semolina / Suji/ Rava	1 cup
Curd	1 cup+ 1 tbsp
Oats flour	¼ cup
Ginger (grated)	1/2 cup
Salt
Oil	1 tbsp
Curry leaves	5-6
Mustard seeds	½ tsp
Urad dal	1 tsp
Eno fruit salt	1 tsp

Method:

• Take the sweet corns and wash them well. Grate them and get the pulp. (I got exact 1 cup of pulp).  Keep it aside.
• In a mixing bowl, add semolina and curd.  Mix well. Add oats flour and mix.  Add sweet corn pulp and mix again.  Let it rest for 10 minutes.
• After 10 minutes, add salt and grated ginger in the mixture. Stir well.
• For tempering, take a tadka pan and heat oil in it.  Add mustard seeds and urad dal and let it fry till dal changes the color to brown.  Add curry leaves and let it fry for 5 seconds,  Tadka is ready.  Pour it to the prepared idli batter and give a nice stir. Keep it aside for another 10 minutes.
• Take  the idli cooker/rice cooker / pressure cooker and put 3 cups of water in it.  Let it boil.  Till that time, take the idli stand and grease the moulds. 
• Take the idli batter and add in eno fruit salt and mix (do not over mix).   Fill the greased idli moulds with this batter and put it inside the cooker.  Keep the flame on high and let it cook for 15 minutes.  After 15 minutes, check if the idlis are prepared.  
• Remove the stand from the cooker and let it cool down for 5 minutes.  Remove the idlis from the moulds with the help of a greased knife or dinner knife.
• Arrange them in the plate and serve hot with chutney or sambar.

Note:

1. If you do not have the fresh sweet corns you can take frozen ones and grind them with the help of a blender and make a one cup pulp with it.
2. If you wish you can add green chilly and red chilli powder to the batter.
3. If using pressure cooker, do not put the whistle on it while cooking the idlis in it.
4. Do not forget to add eno fruit salt else your idlis would become dense and hard.
5. If you do not have eno fruit salt you can replace it with same quantity of baking soda though I have not tried with the baking soda.