Gajar ka Halwa and Sabudane ki Kichdi

Yes, that's a wierd combination - but those were the new favorites of my son - so thought I'd put up the pictures and upload the recipes later - which is a first for me - haha!

Pav Bhaji - Mumbai Style!!!!

I have a constant craving for Mumbai street food and some of these dishes have become my party staples! One such recipe that I find myself repeating very often whenever I have guests or my family wants to eat something different is Pav Bhaji. I never fail to get rave reviews and never have seconds left! Recently, when a friend of mine e-mailed me for my Pav Bhaji recipe - I realised I don't have one posted on my blog. So this one is for her...

I remember reading a recipe for Pav Bhaji long long time ago in the Sunday Mid-day (my favoritest read on a Sunday) and from then on I have had a winner on hands (with a few tweaks here and there)! This is also a healthy way to get your husband and children to eat their veggies without turning up their noses! My recipe feeds 4.

Ingredients:
5 medium sized boild potatoes
1.5 cups vegetables (carrots, cauliflower, peas, beans or whatever else you have on hand and want to feed your family ;))

4 tomatoes boiled and pureed without their peels

1 large onion diced small

1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste

3 kashmiri whole red chillis

1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
Salt as per taste
Pav Bhaji Masala as per taste

Recipe:
Boil the potatoes and put aside. In a pressure cooker add 1tsp oil and the kashimiri chillis (broken in half), ginger-garlic paste and choppee d onions. Saute onions till pink. Then add the tomatoe puree and saute till the mixture leaves oil. Now add the vegetables and saute again. Add the dry masalas i.e. turmeric, chilli powder, salt and at least 2 tbsp pav bhaji masala. Add the potatoes and stir the mixture well. If the mixture is not in semi-liquid form - add some tomato puree so that the mixture is a bit pasty. Add about half a cup of water and give this a couple of whistles.

Open the pressure cooker and mash the mixture with a masher. Add water and bring to a boil if required. Now taste and add more pav bhaji masala, chilli and salt as per taste. This whole "bhaji" should not be very curry like - so if you think it's too thin - give this a couple of more whistles and leave aside - this dries up a bit on it's own. And you're all done.

Serving Suggestions:

I always serve this with a side of diced onions, lemon and grated cheese and a big chunk of butter.

The pav's are also nicely heated on a pan with butter!

Chewy Chocolate Chunk and Oat Cookies

Delhi and Gurgaon have been freezing this year and with friends and relatives being around on and off I have been too lazy and tied up to enter the kitchen. Nothing like snuggling into the blanket anytime the baby decides to nap :)! But one morning I got up and could literally smell the cookies I have been meaning to bake for over a month.

I have been trying to find an easy and healthy recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies (chewy so my 14 month old son can eat some too...) and have tested a few recipes that I found online courtesy Rachel Ray, All recipes and a couple of other sites and came up with mine which is a little variant from the others but delivers the goods!

This recipe uses the quick cooking Quaker Oats which are heart healthy and give many benefits. I have given up trying to give my husband Oats or porridge for breakfast. Breakfast in our house can range from eggs & sausages to paranthas or dosas - I try to keep it simple and healthy but we do end up indulging on the weekends.

Though this is not the healthiest way to incorporate oats into our diet - I thought we had to make a start somewhere and incorporate the goodness of oats into our lifestyle - http://www.quaker.co.uk/Benefits.aspx

This cookie is a winner with my family and there usually isn't much left when the aroma of oats, cinnamon, chocolate baking waft from the kitchen and I have to hide a box for these to survive over 3 days....

Here goes and do leave comments and updates on how these came out:

1 cup butter softened (about 225grms)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
2 eggs
1tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon powder (you can add more for flavour)
3 cups quick cooking quaker oats
1.5 cups all-purpose flour (wanted to use whole wheat but haven't tried it with this variation)
1.5 cups chocolate chunks made from cadbury chocolates (made about 1/4 inch big chunks but you can use any chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, raisins etc)
a couple of spoons of milk

I creamed the butter and sugar in the food processor but it didn't beat too well - so I added about 2 tsps of milk - do add more if required but very little at a time. I then added the eggs. I mixed all the dry ingredients and added the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients (excluding the chocolate chunks).

I then made balls (slightly sticky dough) of the size of a table-tennis ball. I then add the chocolate chunks individually into the cookies and put them on a greased parchment. Flattened them slightly with the end of a wooden spoon and left them a little rounded towards the top . These cookies don't spread too much - so you can make the balls the size of the cookies you want.

I baked them for 13-15 mins at 165 degrees centigrade and then left them on the wire rack to cool. They were yummy and full of taste and I ate the ones that had extra chocolate chunks hidden in them.

I definitely got less than 2 dozen cookies with this recipe but didn't count how many I got....

Pictures too follow soon. And please do leave me some tips on getting the darned pictures right!

Simplest Scrumptious Apple Crumble

I have been wanting to eat a fruity dessert for a while but due to the heat and rains there seem to be no great fruits around except for apples, pears and bananas.

Not so fond of apples and pears in dessert... I decided to experiment nevertheless and was pleasantly surprised! This recipe took me only 15 minutes to put together and was simply scrumptious and melted in the mouth. I read a lot of crumble recipes but decided to make my own concoction eventually.... coz some recipes called for old fashioned oats, others wanted to use nuts and some didn't use oats or nuts and used regular sugar - but I think the combination of oats and demerara sugar gave a nice crunchy and caramelised taste to the whole dessert.

Use a dish that you can bake and serve in - glass works best so you can see everything...

Recipe:

6 apples - cut into 1 to 3/4 inch cubes - i don't like apples cut very small but this is entirely upto you.
1 cup - all purpose flour
1 cup - demerara sugar
1 cup - quick cooking oats
2-3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 cup - water
150gm cold butter cut into cubes (I used margarine)
a pinch of salt

Add the cut apples and put in the bottom of baking dish, add a bit of water to cover just the base of the apples - sprinkle with cinnamon powder and mix the water and apples. Then put into the microwave for a couple of minutes.

Meanwhile for the cumble mixture - add all the dry ingredients together (salt, demerara sugar, oats and flour) and mix by hand. Then add the cubed butter and mix again with hand till you get a coarse mixture with about pea sized bites.

Sprinkle the sugar on the apples and then spread the crumble mixture over the apples and bake at 250 degrees for 40-45 mins or till top is slightly browned and the filling is bubbling and the apples are nicely stewed but not mashed.

I baked mine covered with foil so that the top didn't burn since my oven is really small and the top burns easily. Also, you can bake this at 350 for 20-30 minutes also...

Your beautiful dessert is ready - perfect for a party - coz you can serve it hot from the oven just as dinner gets done. Serve in beautiful margarita or balloon wine glasses with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream.

Apples can be substitued or used with pears, berries (any single kind or a mixed variety). It's especially nice to eat on cold gloomy rainy days or in the winter since the apple cinnamon combination with the caramelised sugar totally warms your inside.

As usual pictures to follow since I can already hear my 10 month old calling out to me!

This one is dedicated to my 10 month old son - Baby Food Recipes...

I have been meaning to post a few recipes off and one for the last few months but have been really consumed in coming up with some innovative food for my son since he refuses to eat the same thing two days in a row...


Anyone who has an infant at home - knows all the basic rules of introducing solids - single foods first, veggies then fruits, all food should be mashed, give the child a couple of spoons the first time and then slowly increase serving size, rice cereal is the easisest to digest etc etc. Also, there is a marked difference in the kind of foods introduced in India v/s the West - since I keep speaking to a lot of people in the US and lentils are a big no-no before 10-12 months and my baby has been on them since 6 months... so please use this information judiciously and ask your doctor your doctor for approval before introduing some of these recipes... since each child is different and different things work for different people.


I am going to give here recipes that I used to introduce food to Arav - some successfully and some not so successfully. This is just meant as a quick guide than can give you ideas when your mind has a thousand other things to worry about...

I was being advised from friends, family and acquaintences to introduce semi-solids to my baby from the 4th month but I resisted till 5.5 months and then everything I introduced to my baby gave him gas... so I held back till 6 months and I must say there is no harm. Do whatever suits your baby but starting off in the 6th month has worked well for us.

6th month onwards:

Lentil Water -Take a tablespoon of yellow moong dal and add at least a cup of water. Soak for 10 minutes and then cook in pressure cooker with a pinch of turmeric and hing - at least 4-5 whistles or in an closed pan till dal is cooked. Mash the dal a bit and then strain through a sieve and introduce the lentil water only to the child. My child had a bit of gas when I introduced this - therefore I had to add hing to this.

Oats with Formula: I used Gerber Oats with Formula in warm water and it made a perfect breakfast cereal for him. I slowly added cooked and pureed apples, mashed banana's and cooked and pureed pear to this.

Stewed Apples / Pear: A peeled apple or pear - put in a pressure cooker or closed pan with a little bit of water (gets too runny and bland if too much water is added since the fruit leaves it own juice on cooking). I used to add a bit of cinnamon / sugar/ jaggery depending on the sweetness required in the food.

Rawa (Sooji) / Nachni Porridge: Roast a bit of sooji, nachni, dalia in ghee till light brown. Add water, jaggery / sugar and cook till it boils and you get a runny consistency - can be made thicker for older children. Switch of gas and add formula and stir. Can be served without formula too.

Mashed Potato with butter: A hit with my son - boil a potato very well (I usually pressure cooked it) and puree in blender with butter. Can mash it and feed it after 7th month or after he develops teeth. Variations: Mashed potato & carrot, sweet potato, beans-carrot & potato etc.

I have been trying to post this page for the last one week and haven't had an opportunity... am going to keep adding my recipes to this. Coming up are recipes for - Vegetable Pulao, Vegetable Upma, Khichdi