Carrot Chutney / Carrot Dip

Carrot., as everyone knows, its good source of vitamin A, good for eyes. Its rich in sugars. This delicious dish is liked even by those who does not like carrot. I have one real example at my home. The lentil(dhal) used in this chutney blends with the carrots and gives nice taste.

Ingredients:
Carrot -  1 no.
Onion - 1 medium size or 1/2 big size
Tomato - 1 small size or 1/2 medium size
Dry red chillies - up to your taste ( I used 6 small round ones.)
Urad Dhal - 1/4 cup
Salt - to taste
Oil - 4 tsp (3 tsp for sauteing and 1 tsp for seasoning)
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves -  1 stem

Procedure:

• Dry roast Urad dhal.

• Then heat 3 tsp of oil and add diced onion and dry red chillies. Saute for 3 minutes.

• Add diced tomato. Sprinkle some salt. Saute till tomatoes are smashed.
• Add cut carrots and saute to half cook just till its raw smell goes off.

• Let it cool down. Course grind dhal first and add the veggie mixture and grind to make chutney.

• Season chutney with mustard seeds and curry leaves.

• Tastes as side dish for idly, dosa, rava uppma, idiyappam, appam, chappathi. Also goes good as party dip.

Muttai Kulambu / Egg Curry

Most of the vegans least non-veg(up to Me) food is Egg. Egg is protein rich and makes a good breakfast. Some people are worried about cholesterol in the egg yolk. But that gives only good cholesterol which our body fights to reduce the bad cholesterol and heart diseases. Here is a recipe for making egg curry which is one of my husband's favorite dish.

Ingredients:

Boiled Egg - 3-4 nos
Onion - 2 medium size
Ginger garlic paste - 2 tsp
Tomato - 1 no. diced
Coconut - Shredded 1/2 cup
Green Chilli - 2 no. (Optional)
Curry leaves - 1 stem
Oil - for sauting
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Cumin seeds - 2 tsp
Curry Masala Powder -  2 1/2 tsp (Ingredients shown below or get it from an Indian grocery shop)
Salt - to taste

Curry Masala Powder:  Dry Roast the below ingredients separately and grind. Store the unused powder in an air tight container.

Coriander Seeds - 1/2 cup

Cumin Seeds -  2 tbsp

Black Pepper - 1 tbsp

Black Mustard Seeds - 1 tbsp

Fenugreek Seeds -  1/2 tsp

Dry Red Chillies - 7-8 nos

Curry Leaves - 2 stem

Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp

Cinnamon - few. say 3, 2" stick

Clove - 7-8 nos.

Fennel Seeds - 3 tsp

Hinge / Asofoetida - 1 tsp

Procedure:

• Boil eggs and peel the skin. Cut them into halves lengthwise.

• Saute diced 11/2 Onion in a flat bottomed pan. Add ginger garlic paste to it and let the raw smell goes off.

• Add diced tomato to the saute. Sprinkle some salt so as to speed up the process.

• Let the sauted onion tomato cool down and nicely grind with coconut.

• Meanwhile in the same pan sputter mustard seeds, cumin seeds and add finely chopped 1/2 onion, green chillies and curry leaves.

• Add finely ground mixture. Add curry masala along with it. Saute for a minute or two.Add some water to bring it to required consistency. Check for salt and let it boil such that the raw smell from curry masala powder goes off.

• Put cut eggs softly into the curry. let it sit for 2 minutes. Remove the pan from stove.The egg soaks in the curry and gets the curry flavor.

• While transferring it into a serving bowl, make sure you transfer the eggs first and then pour the curry. Otherwise the eggs may break.

• Now the egg curry is ready to serve with rice or chappathi.

Walnut Halwa

Walnut, is an edible seed. It contains Omega-3, which plays a role in brain and cardio benefits. Samolina, from wheat, is a good and fast energetic source. The recipe here is a sweet, and can be prepared as a snack time food.

Ingredients:

Walnut- 1/2 cup or 1 hand full.
Samolina - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Cardomom - 2 nos
Cashewnut - 5-6 nos
Raisins - 5-6 nos
Water - 3 cups
Food Color - a pinch (of your choice and optional)
Ghee - 2 tsp
Oil - 3 tsp

Procedure: 

• Grind walnuts in a mixer coarsely.
• Heat ghee in a wide heavy bottom pan and roast cashew nuts, raisins. Keep them aside.

• Put the ground walnut in the remaining ghee and let it cook for a min. Stir well.

• Add water into the pan. Let it start to boil. Add food color you would like. I used green, just to feel earthen color.

• Mix samolina and sugar. Pour little by little and mix while pouring into the pan.

• Now our halva would be done in 3-5 minutes. Keep stirring. 
• Once the samolina-walnut gets thicken, add some oil to it and continue stirring, to incorporate the oil into it.
• Add roasted cashews, raisins and cardomom.

• The halva is done when walnut and samolina, get mixed together and start to leave out the oil. Till then continue stirring. It will take another 2 min since incorporating the oil.

• Now halva is ready to serve hot.  An inverted Tree.

• Or transfer the halva in a baking pan or a glass container. Let it cool. Make Slices. It can be served as a sliced cubes or in any shape, our kids would like.

I'm so happy, that my picky eating kids finished their serving and wanted some more..

Vanilla-Walnut halwa

Vanilla Walnut halwa is a variation of rava kesari and walnut halwa, which is shown in my recipe posting. To follow, click here for the walnut halwa recipe. 

Just add an extra ingredient, a tsp of the vanilla extract while you add water to the walnut, as mentioned in the procedure.. This time I used a different food color.

Wow, the final dessert is mouth melting vanilla flavored walnut halwa. Just a tsp of vanila extract transforms the nutty kesari sweet into a western touch dessert..

Thippili Rasam / Long Pepper Soup

At home kids been suffering from cold and cough.. My mom used to make milagu(pepper corn) rasam to help liquefy mucus. And she also send me this thippili(long pepper) from India to use as a medicine for cold.  I saw it here in Houston, in some of the Indian stores. Here is the recipe to make thippili rasam.

Ingredients:

• Toor Dhal  - 2 tbsp
• Cumin seeds - 2 tsp
• Black pepper corns - 1 tsp
• Long pepper(Arisi Thippili) - 1 tsp
• Dry Red Chillies - 2 nos
• Tamarind - small lemon size
• Salt - to taste
• Curry leaf - 1 stem
• Ghee - 2 tsp
• Mustard seeds - 1 tsp (to saute)
• Water - 2 cup

Procedure

• Heat a small pan, add a tsp of ghee and saute toor dhal, cumin seeds, black pepper, long pepper, red chillies, till a nice aroma comes (till toor dhal becomes golden brown).

•  Mean while make tamarind extract from the soaked tamarind, add curry leaves and bring it to boil

• Coarse grind the saute toordhal mixture and add it to the boiling tamarind.

• Bring it to boil. And add necessary water to make rasam. Also add salt to taste.

• Let it boil for a minute. Sputter little mustard seeds, in a tsp of ghee and pour into it.

Pattaani Sundal / Peas snack

 Its "Thengai, Mangai, Pattani, Sundal"... Beach Sundal / Park sundal

It would be a nice evening snack at home too., even healthier, tastier, energizer...

Ingredients:

• Yellow Peas - 2 cup
• Coconut - 1/2 cup shredded
• Ginger garlic paste - 2 tsp
• Dry Red Chilies - 4 nos.(up to taste) 
• Cloves - 3 nos
• Cinnamon Sticks - 2 nos
• Fennel Seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Poppy Seeds - 1/2 tsp (Optional)
• Salt - to taste
• Turmeric Powder - a pinch
• Water - to soak and boil
• Oil - 2 tsp
• Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

To Garnish:  Finely chopped as for required amount

• Onion
• Tomato
• Cilantro/Coriander Leaves
• Mango

Procedure:

• Soak the peas atleast for 4 hours.

• Dry grind coconut, ginger, garlic, red chillies, turmeric powder, cloves, cinnamon sticks, fennel seeds finely.

•  Splutter mustard seeds in oil and add the ground masala into it and saute till the raw coconut smell goes off.

• Add the soaked peas into it and add required water to cook it. Add some salt to taste

• Add water in between to nicely cook the peas in masala itself.
• When done water must be used for the peas to cook and dry.
• Serve with the garnishing.... hmmm yammm.

• Tip : If you find your peas would take long time to cook, pressure cook the peas first with little salt and add them into the masala saute, and mix them well and correct for salt..