Kitchen gardening

Spinach - Liver curry

For this curry you will require the following ingredients:

1. Spinach         :         6-7 bundles
2. Tomatoes      :         3
3. Onion            :         3
4. Gram flour     :         4 tablespoons
5. Rice powder  :        3 tablespoons
6. Ginger-Garlic paste
7. Chilli powder
8. Turmeric powder
9. Garam Masala powder
10. Oil
11. Salt to taste


Firstly, cut the spinach leaves (not the stems, branches). Boil them and put into mixer but do not add water. You will get a paste. Now add salt, chilli powder, rice powder and gram flour to this paste. Next you have to steam this paste. After you do this, cut the obtained cake like thing (that you get after steaming the paste, I cudn't get any other proper word, so I used 'cake') in desired shapes (generally they are cut into liver-shaped).

In a pan, fry cut onion slices, tomato pieces, ginger-garlic paste, garam masala powder, chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt. After these have fried very well, add the cut spinach cake pieces. Next add a little water in order to get a gravy like consistency. And there you are! The curry's ready! The taste will remind you of any animal's liver that you might have eaten in one of your non-veg meals.

My Extended Vegetable Garden

In our backyard, we had banana plants. Two inflorescences started coming up few months back. They grew  

 really slow. But we waited and waited. And see what we got. So many bananas! I prepared a tasty mouth-watering curry and we all ate it up! Do you folks know that there's an island in Egypt called 'Banana Island"?

            

Spices form an indispensble part of Indian cooking, especially mustard seeds. so i grew them too. In contrast to the bananas, the mustard plants are quite quick growing. The plant is too gregarious.

 

The yellow flowers against the green leaves, stems and pods makes a good color combination, pleasant to the eyes.

Here, in India, especially the Punjabis (in the north) prepare a curry out of mustard leaves, popularly called 'Sarson (mustard) ka Saag'.

 Fields of mustard over large areas of land give the impression of a yellow mattress and its simply awesome to watch one.

My Grown-up Kitchen Garden

Hello Everyone. Its been a long time since I blogged. The last time I told you about a recycled garden adjacent to my kitchen. There had been some growth (obviously!) in my plants. Let me first tell you about the tomato plants. The first 3 pics here was on shot in the third week of Jan. You can see the plant has started flowering. bright yellow flowers and tiny tomatoes growing up... The next one with strawberry-sized tomatoes, light green and hard, was shot just 10 days later. Growing really fast, indeed.

With the potatoes, I had been a little unlucky. Actually I cudn't resist myself from uprooting the two potato plants. I was anxious to see really big ones but I was expecting too much, too early. So I ended up with these cute little ones. But its okay 'coz small things are beautiful. I decided not to cook these and but just enjoy their cuteness.

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Clusters of white flowers had appeared on the coriander plants. Few corianders had also appeared but I forget to click them.





I had sprinkled mustard seeds just like that, not with the motive of actually sowing them. All of them growing together have created a mess here, you see.

Ah! I forgot the beans! But, you see, the beans appear sort of malnourished. No, they aren't diseased or something like that. What happened was that in the pot in which I had grown beans, I unknowingly dropped a corn seed probably. Aand maize plants, you know, absorb a lot of water and hence, my beans were deprived of water. So, they showed slow and stunted growth.






We got shifted to this new place, where we are presently, about 2 months ago in Febraury. Something really disappointing happened. We were waiting anxiously for the tomatoes to get ripened. We were about to pluck these but probably they were not destined to be ours. One fine morning, I wake up and what I see is all my tomatoes are gone! and I looked around to check who the thief was. and this was most surprising. On the neem tree nearby there were some monkeys. If you have watched the program 'Monkey Thieves'

Vermicelli Veg Uppama

Ingredients:-

Vermicelli    -  1 cup

 Carrot        -   1 

Potato         -   1 

Peas         

Onions

Green chilies

Curry leaves 

Mustard seeds

Chana dal

Method:-

Fry vermicelli till it turns golden colour by adding  little ghee,and transfer it onto a plate.

Add oil in the pan, add mustard seeds. When the seeds split, add chana dal, chilies, onions, curry leaves one by one and fry it.

When they get fried, add carrot,  potato (small-sized slices) and peas.   

Fry the vegetables till they take a little brownish colour . Now add 1 and 1/2 cup water and salt to taste.

While the water is boiling, add vermicelli, mix well, reduce the flame and cook by covering  the lid for a few minutes. Check whether the vermicelli has boiled or not, mix and turn off the stove.

Serve hot with sambar  or as you wish.

RAVA laddu

Ingredients:-

Rava/Semoline- 1cup

Grated coconut -1/2 cup

Sugar -1cup

Raisins/kismiss

Cashew nut

Elaichi/Cardamom

Almond (optional)

Ghee

Milk 

Method:-

 Fry rava with ghee until it turns golden on a low flame.

Add grated coconut and stir fry and turn off stove.

Add sugar powder/ sugar ( to taste) and cardamom powder and mix well.

Add fried cashew nuts, almond and kismiss. Mix well

Make laddoos by adding little milk   in partitions

VERMICELLI IDLI

Ingredients:-

Vermicelli  - 1 cup

Semolina   -     1/4 cup

Thick curd    -   1/2 

Soda

Method;-

Fry  vermicelli and semolina lightly,separately with little ghee.

Keep aside. 

Now add  curd and water, mix well.

Add salt and soda, mix well make flowing consistency  (not too much liquid, a little thick.).

keep aside with a lid for 1/2 an hour.

Prepare idli in idli cooker.

Serve with  whichever chutney  you like.

Veg. Rava / Semolina Idli

 Ingredeints :-
  
Semolina -1/4 kg
Thick curd - 100 gm
Salt to taste
Pinch of soda
Mustard seeds
black gram dal / urad
Channa dal
Curry leaves
Carrot - 1 (grated)
Tomato- 1
Onion chopped -1
Green chillies - according to taste

Tomato, channa dal, onion, green chillies are choice.
Method:-

Heat a small sized spoonful of  ghee and fry the semolina  for a minute, and remove on a plate.
Again heat the  little oil and fry all the above ingredients except salt and soda. After frying turn off the stove and allow to cool.
Prepare the batter by adding all ingredients and water together, mix well.
Remember the batter should have thick consistency and not too much thin.
Cover with  lid and keep aside for 1/2 an hour.
Later cook in idli cooker
Serve with coconut chutney or as you like.
Note:-  Don't fry carrot and tomato too much.

Mysore pak

Mysore pak is a traditional and popular sweet of south india. It is a mouth-watering sweet. 

Ingredients:-

Gram flour/besan         -  1 cup

Sugar                          -  1.5 cup

Ghee                           -  1.5 cup

Pinch of soda

Cooking method :-

 Take a thick-bottomed pan and heat on a low flame. 

 Fry gram flour by adding   2 tsp of ghee until it turns light brownish.

 But keep in mind not to neglect  stirring it otherwise it gets burned  easily .

 when frying don't allow lumps.After frying, transfer the flour into a plate.

 Again put the pan on stove,  add sugar and equal proportion of water to make syrup.

 When the syrup becomes slightly sticky,  add gram flour and 2 tsp ghee and mix well thoroughly. Don't add     the ghee at once. add it little by little instead. While the batter is boiling in the ghee it starts giving a smooth   texture.When the batter is rapidly boiling, add a pinch of soda to make it consistent and this is the final stir.  Remove from  fire and mix well continuously. Pour onto a greased plate and cut it into pieces. Allow it to  cool.

Chakra Pongali

Chakra  pongali  is sweett dish. My children  like it very much. I think you would also like it.

Ingredients:

 Rice (good quality) - 1cup

Green gram(moong dal) 1/2cup

Sugar- 1cup ( or according to your taste)

Milk    -  3cups

Ghee

Cardamom power

Cashew nut

Kismiss/Raisin

Cooking  method:-
           

              Wash rice and dal  separately and strain the water. After straining, fry the rice and dal with ghee on low flame until it gives some flavour and  off the stove. Boil milk by adding little water. when milk is boiling, add rice and dal to cook on medium flame.After boiling the rice and dal, add sugar and ghee and mix it well. Keep a lid to cook on a low flame. After a while, when the rice and dal absorb the ghee and sugar, touch the rice.it will be smooth and not sticky, this means it is well cooked. Remove from fire.Now add the cardamom powder,  fried cashew nut and kismiss. Cover with a lid and  leave 5 minutes.then transfer the pongali into another container. And its done.