Mushroom Corn Pulao

I am a big fan of one pot meals. Those are huge time savers. We can prepare it in a jiffy and the end result will be a satisfying meal. While I was searching for yummy rice dishes I happen to see the mushroom corn pulao in US Masala blog. I had all the ingredients in my pantry. 'A' is not so fond of mushrooms. I sliced the mushrooms in tiny bits and he couldn't even recognize that mushroom is there in the dish. If you want to add mushroom in your diet , then you can try out this version.

Ingredients:

Mushroom (Sliced) - 2 cups

Cooked Basmati Rice - 2 cups

Corn Kernels - 1/2 cup

Garam Masala - 1 tsp

Garlic - 4 Cloves

Salt - To Taste

Black Pepper - 1/2 tsp

Oil - 2 Tbs

Method:

Heat oil in a pan and cook the mushrooms along with black pepper, Garam masala, garlic cloves, corn kernels and salt. Cook the mushrooms till it become light brown and all the water evaporates from it. Add the cooked rice and mix everything together till the rice gets heated.

Pal Payasam

It's been long since I have written something here. I was busy with my sister and kids visit and I wanted to make all the delicacies my nieces asked me to prepare. I was on a baking spree and then roaming with them during the weekend. They left two days back and the apartment is very quiet now. I was so touched and little surprised when  my little niece send me a thank you mail. My sister brought few of my favorite food items with her which are easily getting vanished now.

 The celebrations of Onam is happening everywhere. I love this season where you can see everyone with the traditional Kerala saree , flowers on head and a smile on the face. I am terribly gonna miss my mother's onam sadhya as I have to go for work tomorrow. I was telling 'A' that I want to keep the tradition alive atleast by preparing a payasam. I headed straight to my kitchen after coming back from work. Ria's express pal payasam came to my rescue. I was really happy to have the payasam done in couple of minutes. Thanks ria for an awesome recipe. I quartered the recipe as there are only two of us who are going to consume it. I  avoided cashew nuts as it was already rich and creamy. I am sure I will make this again when I have guests come over.

Ingredients:

Milk - 4 Cups

Sugar - 1 Cup

Basmati Rice - 1/4 Cup

Directions:

Mix everything together in a pressure cooker and close the lid with weight and cook on high flame for one whistle. Reduce the flame to low and cook for thirty minutes with weight. Let go the steam , open the lid and stir.

 The consistency was perfect for me. I didn't add cashew nuts and raisins. If you are adding it then fry it a little. 

Mushroom & Potato Pie

When you are bored of having the same food and looking for a change from the regular vegetarian food, try this bake which gives you a fulfilling taste. This cheesy bake is a stomach filling dish. The fried potatoes gives it a crunchy taste. It is very easy to make and I am sure it will turn into a regular at your home. I was going through ally's blog and bumped into this recipe. I followed her recipe to the dot.  you can find the recipe here.

Nutty Chicken

I am sitting infront of my laptop and thinking what to write?? I am not getting the flow of words. I am not yet into the blogging mode. Hope things will get improved soon. Weekends are my cooking day. After started working , I usually cook up a storm during weekends and stock up in my refrigerator. I started preparing a chicken dish which can be paired well with Parathas /Rotis. I like adding cashew paste to curries. It gives a rich creamy taste to the dish. Hope you all will like it.

Ingredients:

Marinate: 

Chicken - 1 kg
Salt - 1 1/2 tsp
Lemon - 1
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
Marinate for 1 hour.

Roast & Powder:

Cardamom - 4 pieces
Cinnamon - 4 pieces
Cloves - 4 pieces
Jeera - 1 1/2 tspind:

Grind:

Cashewnuts - 50gms
Ginger - 1 small piece
Garlic - 8 cloves

Fry:

Onions - 4 finely chopped
Chilli Powder - 1 Tsp
Corriander Powder - 1 1/2 Tsp
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
Tomatoes - 2 chopped
Tomato Sauce - 2 Tsp
Sugar - 1 tsp

Method:

Heat oil. Fry Onions. When brown add the chilli powder mix and roast. Then add the groundnut paste and fry.  Add the tomatoes and cook till oil separates. Add the meat and little salt. When 3/4 th cooked, add the tomato sauce and the spice powder and simmer. When cooked and thick, add sugar and mix and set down.

Cauliflower Masala

It's been long since I have updated my blog. I am being confused on whether to blog or not. These days I really don't have enough time to log in and check out the updates in the blogosphere.  I am back to the work  now after taking a one year break. Being out from home for more than twelve hours a day,  only thing I feel like doing is to sit and relax after reaching back. Meanwhile I decided to stop blogging inspite of all my liking towards it. But even in these times encouraging and motivating words from my fellow bloggers made me to rethink. All the time when I was in a dual mind 'A' was constantly telling me to continue with blogging and he was telling me to make this space active and post atleast one in a month. I am promising everyone that I will be irregularly regular. Here is an easy dish for your Parathas/ Rotis.

Ingredients :

Cauliflower - 1kg

Cut the cauliflower into small florets and put in hot salted water. Drain. Fry till it becomes light brown and drain.

Grind :
Ginger - 1 small piece
Garlic cloves - 20
Jeera - 1/2 tsp
Cardamom - 2
Cinnamon - 2 sticks
Cloves  - 2

Blend :
Tomatoes - 2

Chop tomatoes into big peices and blend in mixie without water. Add 1 Tsp cornflour and mix it with the cauliflower and keep it for half an hour.

Powders :
Chilli Powder - 1 1/2 Tsp
Turmeric Powder- 1/4 tsp

Fry :
Onions - 4
Green Chillies - 6

When brown, add the powders and roast. Then add the ground paste and fry. Add cauliflower and little water and cook on low heat with lid closed. Ad 2 Tsp tomato sauce and mix and set down.

Chicken Quiche

Hi everyone, We are meeting after a very long gap. I came back to India and now setting up my home in the Garden city. The past three weeks was very eventful. The most tiring of all was house hunting. We had seen endless number of flats and after a point both of us were so disappointed and thought we had to settle in with what is available. On top of that 'A' hectic work schedule makes everything even more difficult. Now I am back with internet and things have slowly started settling down. I missed going through each and every one's post and now I am catching up with all the posts which I have missed. I will be posting the recipes which I have tried out in the U.S for some time. Theese days I am not cooking anything fancy in my kitchen. Just the basic things to survive. 

Today I am introducing you to chicken quiche : A baked dish which I was eagerly waiting for during my childhood. Asha chechy ( My mom's sister always makes this for me whenever she comes to my granny's house.) Her  deserts are excellent. All her desert's are super duper hit. In my family everybody looks for deserts after every meal. If not every meal , it's a must have during special occassions. I found the recipe for quiche at swapna's cuisine and followed it to the dot. I liked the fact that She used less eggs for the pastry as well as the filling. The dish was liked by my guests and it will top among one of my favourites.

Recipe Source : (http://swapnascuisine.blogspot.com/2010/09/golden-onion-chicken-quiche.html)

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

Maida -200g

Unsalted Butter - 75g

Baking powder-1/4 tsp

Salt-to taste

Ice cold water- As Required 

Method:

Sieve maida, salt and baking powder together. Grate in the butter and mix it with the flour with your fingertips till it resembles coarse sand. Add in the beaten egg and water and gather it into a soft dough.

Roll it out on a lightly floured surface and line it in the tin that you will be baking . Whichever tin you are using, make sure the dough comes a little way up the sides, so that it can hold the filling in.

Filling: 

Ingredients:

Boiled and shredded chicken-1/2 cup

Onion- 2 chopped

Milk- 1/2 cup

Cheddar Cheese- 100g 

Beaten egg- 1

Salt and pepper to taste

Oil- as needed.

Method:

Heat oil and slightly fry the chicken til it is golden brown. Add in the onions and fry till onions have caramelized. Switch off the flame. Add milk, cheese, beaten eggs, salt and pepper and mix well.

Pour into the pastry case and bake for 25 mins or till golden brown.

Stuffed Bell Pepper

I am in the middle of packing and selling stuffs which we won't be able to carry to India (as we are moving from U.S to India). I am not doing much of cooking these days as I am busy with all other stuffs. I have couple of things in my draft. Let me tell you what I meant by draft. I usually get blank look from people when I say I have couple of stuffs in my draft. As an obsessive food blogger I usually take pictures of what I cook and will save it in my comp. Sometimes I won't be having the time and energy to post in my blog. But I always keep it aside by thinking that I will post it sometime. Today I am going to share a very interesting recipe which I saw in Ally's blog. When I first saw it in her blog I bookmarked it and was sure that I am going to try it soon. It can be called as a meal by itself and is super filling. When you don't have much time to prepare a meal, this recipe comes handy. 

I love bell peppers. I like to add it to my salads and I am very fond of adding bell peppers to dishes. I like the vibrant colors. There are so many different colors to choose from : Red, Green, Yellow and Orange. But I am partial towards the red coloured ones. I made a quick research about the stuffed bell peppers over the Internet. It is claimed to be an American dish. Enough of all the stories now, let's get back to the recipe.

Recipe Source :

Slightly adapted from http://recipesfortheverydaywoman.blogspot.com/

Ingredients :

Red Bell Pepper - 3

Filling :

Vegetable Oil - 1 tsp

Onion - 1 finely chopped

Garlic - 2 cloves chopped

Turkey Sausages - 250gms cooked and chopped

Coriander Powder - 2 tsps

Tomatoes - 1 finely chopped

Crushed red pepper - 1 tsp

Hot chilli peppers - 4 (Depends upon your spice tolerance )

Cream - 1 cup

Rice Cooked - 3/4 th cup

Cumin Powder -  2 tsp

Cheddar cheese - To Sprinkle

Salt to taste

Method :

Cut the tops off each bell pepper; pull out the stem portion , seeds and membranes and make room for the stuffing. Set aside. To make the filling, heat oil in a frying pan, saute the onion and garlic for few minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook till the tomatoes are softened. Add the ground powders, crushed red pepper, hot chilli peppers and sausages and cook on medium fire for about 3-4 minutes. Add in the cream and let the mixture  thicken. Stir in the rice into the  mixture and put the filling into the bell pepper shells. Place the filled shells into a greased baking dish and bake for 25 minutes at 140 C. Sprinkle some cheese over it. Enjoy !!!

Notes : To make a veggie version , you can use mushrooms and kidney beans. If bell peppers does not stand up straight, slice a little off the bottom of the pepper to level it out.

This month I have been showered with loads of awards from my blogger friends. Biny Anoop of Biny's Recipes has passed on the following awards to me. I would like to share it with all my friends in the blogosphere.

Thanks a lot Bini for sharing these awards with me. :-)