Melon Feta Salad

A very refreshing easy crunchy salad!

In a mixing bowl you need to take
1/2 cup watermelon pieces
1/2 cup cucumber pieces
1/2 cup tomato pieces
1/2 cup musk melon pieces
1 bunch of salad leaves roughly broken
1/4 cup feta cheese broken roughly or crumbled
1/4 cup olives
2 tablespoons of olive io
2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
Salt to taste
Black pepper powder

Mix all ingredients well and serve chilled.

                                                           
                                                                  Stuffed Sweet Poli

                                     Indian flat bread with a stuffing of dry figs and cashews, lovely cashews brought  straight from Goa by my sweet friend Rachana. She always the first one to like my recipes and share my links. A big thanks to her for the appreciation and love. It is people like you who keep us motivated to do better and post new recipes. Thanks once again dear.

Ingredients

 For the dough I used normal whole wheat chapati dough, make it and let it sit for about half an hour.

For the stuffing

6 pieces of the dry figs, easily available at the dry fruit store
1/2 cup cashews
1/2 cup of milk
All the above to be blended ( not too smooth) to a mixture

Method

In a pan take the blended mixture, add sugar, take care of how much sugar to add, since the figs in itself are quite sweet, cook it till it becomes into a semi hard mixture. The texture should be not too wet, not too dry, you should be able to stuff this into the dough ball. Cool and make into small equal sized ball. Now stuff each dough ball with the mixture, very gently roll out into a thin roti and roast with ghee on the pan. Roast as shown in the picture and savour it with the blob of  home made ghee which will melt slowly on the hot roti.

While roasting, the aroma of the dryfruit and the ghee is so inviting, it is heavenly to savour this with the home made ghee!!

                                     
                                          Mushrooms in slow roasted tomato and basil gravy

A sure experi-mental dish, I thought of trying this when I saw lots of  lovely sweet basil growing in my tiny balcony. I had tasted the slow roasted tomato basil soup in one of my favourite restaurants and loved the flavour. My son loves pepper of any kind, black, white, red, green fresh ones, so I have used 2 kinds of pepper and cloves, the only  aromatics  to add to the aroma of basil. 

Ingredients
250 gms of mushrooms cleaned chopped and sauteed with a little salt

2 tomatoes chopped into roundels
2 sprigs of sweet basil or about 10 to 12 leaves
2 onions chopped into thin long pieces
1 inch ginger crushed
6 cloves of garlic
1 tspn chilli powder
1 tspn of black peppercorns, 1 tspn of white peppercorns, 3 cloves pounded in a mortar pestle

3  green chillies slit in between for the garnish

Method

On a flat pan smear a bit of oil and arrange the basil and the tomato roundels to roast on a slow flame, flip and cook each piece and leaf till done

Meanwhile in another  take some oil, add the pounded spices, saute a bit till the aroma spreads in the 
kitchen,  add the garlic saute till light brown, add the ginger and  the onions, cook this till it turns golden brown. Now blend all the ingredients to a smooth paste, this includes the tomato basil too.

In the same pan as you cooked  the masala add the paste and cook till done, no need of oil since the ingredients have already been cooked in oil, cook till the mixture leaves the sides of the pan. Add the mushrooms and salt  and add water if required. 

For the final garnish I have used only a bit of oil and the slit chillies.

Serve with roti, phulka, rice or paratha. What will hit your palate first is the pepper, what remains on your tongue after eating it is the sweet aroma of the basil.

Got good pictures of the basil flower, felt like sharing them with all of you.

Egg curry with spring onion

A curry which is a big hit in my family, I remember the huge vessel in which this would be made by mom and would be polished off within no time, the credit for the recipe goes to her. Can be eaten with roti, rice, bread or phulkas

6 eggs boiled chopped into halves and kept ready

Ingredients for the masala powder which u can make and store
100 gms black peeper, green cardomom, cloves, cinammon, shahijeera, cumin seeds

50 gms nakesar, bayleaf, pattharphool, rampatri.
Dry all these in the sun and grind to a fine powder

Ingredients to pressure cook
1 cup pigeon pea lentil or tur dal
1 bunch of the spring onion, only half of the green leafy portion finely chopped (the rest will be used in the tempering)

For the gravy
Grind to a fine paste
One onion 3-4 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons full of groundnuts
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
7/8 black peppercorns
4 green chillies
1/2 an inch of ginger
2 normal onions cut fine kept aside
Chopped baby shallots
Coriander finely chopped for garnishing
Salt to taste

Method

In a pan take some oil, add the finely chopped onions saute till pink in colour add the ground paste, cook till the masala leaves the pan. Add the finely chopped onions and the baby shallots from the spring onions, cook till the onions become transparent, saute half the spring onions too which we kept aside, now add 1 teaspoon of the ground masala powder, little more if u like it stronger, as per ur taste since the powder is in itself quite strong. Mix well add the cooked dal and spring onion mixture , add water as per required consistency, depending upon whether u are eating it with rice or roti. Add salt as per taste. Give it a nice boil, u can now add the eggs and cook for a while, serve garnished with finely chopped coriander. You can saute the eggs just for a bit before adding them to the curry if you wish to.

Egg curry with spring onion

A curry which is a big hit in my family, I remember the huge vessel in which this would be made by mom and would be polished off within no time, the credit for the recipe goes to her. Can be eaten with roti, rice, bread or phulkas

6 eggs boiled chopped into halves and kept ready

Ingredients for the masala powder which u can make and store
100 gms black peeper, green cardomom, cloves, cinammon, shahijeera, cumin seeds

50 gms nakesar, bayleaf, pattharphool, rampatri.
Dry all these in the sun and grind to a fine powder

Ingredients to pressure cook
1 cup pigeon pea lentil or tur dal
1 bunch of the spring onion, only half of the green leafy portion finely chopped (the rest will be used in the tempering)

For the gravy
Grind to a fine paste
One onion 3-4 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons full of groundnuts
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
7/8 black peppercorns
4 green chillies
1/2 an inch of ginger
2 normal onions cut fine kept aside
Chopped baby shallots
Coriander finely chopped for garnishing
Salt to taste

Method

In a pan take some oil, add the finely chopped onions saute till pink in colour add the ground paste, cook till the masala leaves the pan. Add the finely chopped onions and the baby shallots from the spring onions, cook till the onions become transparent, saute half the spring onions too which we kept aside, now add 1 teaspoon of the ground masala powder, little more if u like it stronger, as per ur taste since the powder is in itself quite strong. Mix well add the cooked dal and spring onion mixture , add water as per required consistency, depending upon whether u are eating it with rice or roti. Add salt as per taste. Give it a nice boil, u can now add the eggs and cook for a while, serve garnished with finely chopped coriander. You can saute the eggs just for a bit before adding them to the curry if you wish to.

Raw Banana Subzi

Ingredients

4 raw bananas peeled and cut into medium sized long pieces, sauteed in .coconut oil till light brown adding salt as required

For the masala
4 green chillies
2 raw green tomatoes chopped roughly
2 onions chopped roughly
1/2 cup freshly scraped coconut
1 inch ginger
6 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons of cumin seeds
All the above ingredients should be put in a chutney jar and ground into a smooth paste

Method
In a kadhai, take little coconut oil , pour the ground paste, cook for a while adding little water if the gravy is too thick, once it leaves the sides of the kadhai add the already sauteed banana, add little salt if required, mix well, drizzle little coconut oil on top, garnish with finely chopped coriander and serve with phulka, roti as per choice.

                                                     
                                                        Vegetable made of broad beans

A very tasty accompaniment with phulkas, specially if the beans are fresh this dish gives the best taste.

Ingredients

250 gms of broad beans, deveined, chopped into small pieces and pressure cooked to 1 whistle with minimal quantity of water, so you don't need to throw it away while tempering the vegetable.
Salt to taste
1/2 tspn chilli powder
1 tspn goda masala easily available in the market
1 tbspn of jaggery
1/2 cup freshly scraped coconut
Coriander for garnishing

For the dry powder

Dry roast 1/4 cup peanuts and peel them, 1/4 cup dry grated coconut, 1/4 cup white sesame seeds, once cool grind all these into a coarse powder and keep ready.

In a pan take some oil and add mustard seeds, allow them to splutter and add turmeric powder and asafoetida, add the broad beans and with a little water in which they were pressure cooked, add all the above mentioned ingredients, I have added the coriander too while cooking itself. Cover and cook till the jaggery melts, mix well, see that it is moist enough and serve hot with phulkas.