Pav Bhaji

Wow! A platter of colorful vegetables. What else could you expect from a person like me who loves different colors and a variety of vegetables? It is actually good to eat a colorful variety of fruits and vegetables by means of which you are giving your body a wide range of nutrients that are important for good health. Each color offers something unique, like different vitamins and minerals that work together to protect your health. So try and include as much in your diet.
Having said all this, I only made use of the veg to make a fast food snack - Pav bhaji :)
C'mon u can't eat low calorie food all the time :P
But you can make this healthier by reducing the amount of potatoes and butter. I did omit the potatoes today mainly because I didnt have any but compensated by adding more butter than usual :P Easier said than done



Ingredients:
Peas (unshelled) 1/4 kg
onions 1/4 kg
potatoes - 350g
carrots 1/4 kg
beans 1/4 kg
red and yellow bell peppers 1 each
cauliflower 1
Butter 1 table spoon
coriander 1 bunch
tomatoes 1/4 kg
chilli powder 3 tsp
pav bhaji powder 3 tsp
ginger(small piece),garlic 6,green chillies 6 - ground to a paste
salt to taste

Method:
1. Cut the veggies into fine pieces and pressure cook
2. Add a little butter to the pan and fry finely chopped onions till light brown.
3. Add the ground paste(I was lazy to grind so just added the ready-made ginger garlic paste and crushed chillies) and fry well
4. Add the dry powders, tomatoes and cooked veg. Mix well and add some more butter
5. Roast the pav bun with a little butter over a tawa.
6. Serve it hot with chopped coriander, raw onions and squeeze a lime
Sending this to Sunday Snacks - Chaats hosted by Pallavi.

Chinese Fried Rice

Here comes my fav chinese fried rice. I just love it. Whenever I have to order something in a restaurant which has a lot of non veg food and just a little veggie stuff, I zero in on fried rice. Owing to the fact that it's one of the easy recipes that call for minimal ingredients, I believe it tastes gud enough in every restaurant. Check it out!!!
Ingredients:
Butter 1 tsp for frying
Basmathi rice - 500 g
Onions - 250g
Carrot - 250 g
Green chilli - 6
Beans - 100g
Cabbage optional
Capsicum - 200g
Leek and celery few sticks
spring onions - a handful
soya sauce 3 tsp
salt to taste

Method:
1. Wash and soak the rice for 15 min
2. Drain it
3. Fry leek and celery. This adds nutrition and flavour. Add rice and butter.
4. Cook the rice with double the amount of water and keep aside
5. Cut all the vegetables diagonally.Fry the onions, add green chillies in 2 tsp oil and fry till tender
7. Add all the veg, salt and soya sauce and fry them over high flame for a while to make them crisp.
8. Mix with rice and reheat for better taste
9. Garnish with spring onion

PS: You may also add half a tsp of ajinomotto. I generally avoid using it

Sakkarai pongal

Hi all,
I have always been passionate about food. Till I was in Chennai, it was limited to eating alone. Now that I'm left with no option, I started cooking too. But still I love it and thought why not share my recipes online. Here comes my first recipe. With pongal around the corner, let me start with the sakkarai pongal recipe.



Ingredients

Rice - 2 cups
Moong dhal - 2 cups
Jaggery - 3 cups
Cardomom - 6
Melted Ghee - 1 cup
Milk - 1 cup

For garnishing
Cashews - 1/4 cup
Raisins - 1/4 cup

Method
Fry the moong dhal on a dry tawa till the color changes slightly.
Add rice, mix both with double the amount of water (I added a little milk too) and cook in a pressure cooker.
Now boil jaggery with a cup of water and cook till it boils.Strain to remove any stones or particles.
Now add one cup of milk, jaggery syrup to the cooked rice and dhal mixture and stir continuously over slow fire
Add ghee and mix well.
Now season with cashews, raisins fried in ghee and sprinkle cardomom powder.

Happy pongal!!!

Update: Last time,I made this I had to add double the amount of jaggery since the jaggery, I got was not sweet enough. You can use 1: 2or 2.5 rice:jaggery for real sweet pongal.
You can also reduce the amount of dal if you don't like too much dal.