mayurisjikoni

It's potatoes again Nice creamy potato salad is a hit at any party. Kids and adults love potatoes and the salad goes well with hot crispy pizzas. I am already drooling.... not for the salad but for the pizzas! To make it an absolute veggie salad I do not use mayonnaise or salad cream. Combining thick yogurt and fresh cream makes this salad refreshing. POTATO SALAD 4 TO 6 Servings 500g baby potatoes 3½ tsps salt 1 cup thick yogurt or ½ cup thick yogurt and ½ cup fresh double cream 3 tbsps chopped fresh dill (suva bhaji) 2 tbsps roasted sesame seeds (tal) 8 to 10 chopped walnuts ½ to 1 tsp sugar ½ tsp green chilli paste Wash and put the potatoes in a pan. Cover it with enough water. Add 3 tsps of salt and boil the potatoes till they are done.  Drain out the water and let the potatoes cool down completely. Peel them if you like. If some of them are big cut into half. You want bite size potatoes. Mix remaining salt, sugar, dill, cream and green chilli paste into the yogurt. Pour the yo

After a long time I saw some cannelloni at Nakumatt. Before I got too excited, I rushed to the chiller section to check if there was any ricotta cheese and quickly grabbed it as there were only 2 tubs left. Bought the cannelloni and ricotta and was all excited as I was now ready to make my all time favourite, cannelloni. Lasagna, cannelloni, ravioli are some of my favourites. Making cannelloni at home is a bit time consuming as filling the tubes of pasta requires a bit of patience. I read in my numerous searches that filling it with an icing bag is easy, but they forget to mention that you have to be pretty skilled to use the icing bag! So my old method of pushing the stuffing from both ends of the tubes works for me till I master the skill of using an icing bag. I prefer to use spinach and ricotta cheese as my filling as I tend to use a mixture of vegetables for lasagne. After you have soaked the cannelloni for the required time, make sure no calls, visitors or anything else disturbs

cool and creamy Panna cotta is an Italian dessert made by simmering fresh cream, milk and sugar together. Gelatine is added to make it into a firm dessert. Vanilla panna cotta is the most common one as it can be served with chopped fresh fruit, chocolate or caramel sauce, fruit coulis, nuts etc. The first time I had vanilla panna cotta with strawberry sauce at an Italian restaurant  Via Milano in Bangalore. I fell in love with the dessert and started my search for a recipe. I collected several but never got down to making it at home. Browsing through the tonnes of recipes collected, I came across the panna cotta recipe. I made mango panna cotta without gelatine. Its very easy to make this dessert and sets within a few hours. You can replace the mango puree with any other fruit puree. If you are going to use pineapple, use tinned ones or cook the fresh ones before you puree it. The protein digesting enzyme bromelain does not allow gelatine or agar agar to set well. I used thick yogurt i

A few days ago Verity my niece, celebrated her 21st birthday. If 21st is out of your teens celebration then why not 20th? 21st means freedom which I have really never understood. Freedom from what? Freedom from parents some might say but isn't it good to have parents looking over you all the time whether you are 21 or 50? I feel that 21st signifies to one that hey time to become independent, grow up, take more responsibilities etc. Its like one day you are still a kid and bang on your 21st there are a lot of expectations from you. Well, Verity deserved a special treat on her birthday. I made this eggless pineapple cake with fresh cream. This is an original eggless cake recipe from Tarla Dalal book, I just added the pineapple in the cake too.    EGGLESS PINEAPPLE CAKE Serve 6 to 8 people 1¼ cup plain flour (all purpose flour) ½ can sweetened condensed milk (full can is 7oz) 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp soda bicarbonate (baking soda) ¼ tsp salt ½ cup melted butter 432g can of pineapple

orange and red, what a combination ! So far all the beetroot salads that I have blogged have cooked beetroot. The recipe I am going to blog today has raw beetroot. Raw beetroot too tastes equally good. A good salad for barbeques, dinner parties, light lunch. No,I am not going to suggest that for breakfast. Go crazy with all the different types of seeds you can lay your hands on for this recipe. I had pumpkin and sunflower seeds, though the pumpkin seeds were a bit chewy.  BEETROOT CARROT SALAD 4 Servings 1 cup (heaped) grated beetroot 1 cup (heaped) grated carrot ½ cup mixture of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, roasted pine nuts,raisins Dressing : 1 clove of garlic , minced 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar or lemon juice 1 tsp honey 2 tbsps olive oil 1 tsp mustard paste ½ tsp salt ½ tsp pepper powder Topping : ¼ cup chopped fresh coriander a bit of shaved parmesan cheese, optional Whisk the dressing ingredients together. Put the grated beetroot and carrots in a bowl. Add the dressing and mix we

  kids will love it. Potatoes are very healthy. They are rich in carbohydrates, has high content of dietary fiber and many vitamins, minerals and anti oxidants. Since they are full of carbohydrates, potatoes give you the feeling of fullness for a long period of time. What makes them unhealthy is when we fry them or load them with butter, mayonnaise,tonnes of oil etc. The following recipe of sukhi bhaji is very popular in our family. We make it when we have guests, big dinner parties and when its Ekadashi. Sukhi means dry and bhaji is shaak or vegetable. So basically this a a dry vegetable made from potatoes. Serve it with rotlis, parathas or have it on its own with some yogurt. Goes well with ras... mango juice. Ras, rotli, sukhi bhaji, kadhi, rice etc etc etc. Who is drooling? Coming Sunday, that's my menu so come over. SUKHI BHAJI (FARARI BATETA NU SHAAK) 4 Servings 3 big potatoes ½ cup roughly chopped cashew nuts ¼ cup raisins 3 tbsps oil 1 tsp coarse pepper powder 1 tsp cumin

a daily health drink Chaas or lassi is a healthy yogurt drink. Besides getting your daily dose of calcium and protein, chaas is very cooling drink and settles your tummy after an extra hot, I mean chilli meal. We have chaas everyday and I don't consider my meal complete without it. Don't laugh, but these days I have it with pasta, tacos, basically any meal. Out goes the fizzy damaging coke and in comes the chaas. Haven't had chaas and pizza yet!  Now that I don't keep any fizzy drinks at home, I do offer it to my guests, but occasionally do get  funny looks too.... what serving chaas instead of soda or packet juices! But then its so normal to serve chaas in India especially during summer. VAGHARELI CHAAS   Serves 2 1 cup yogurt 1 cup chilled water ¼ tsp salt 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander 8 curry leaves ½ green chilli, finely chopped ½ tsp cumin seeds (jeera) 1 tsp oil or ghee (clarified butter) Whisk yogurt, water and salt together in a deep pan or bowl. Heat oi

Healthy and rich Ridge gourd (luffa) known as turai or turia in some parts of India, is a summer vegetable. Its spongy inside and cooks quickly. Its rich in dietary fiber and low in fat and cholesterol. Its high in Vitamin C, riboflavin, thiamin, iron, zinc, magesium and manganese. It has blood purifying properties. Turia can be cooked on its own with a bit of tomato puree or with other vegetables. I made turia in cashew nut gravy and loved the rich taste. Buy turias that are tender and not too fat. The fat ones tend to have lots of seeds in them. If you press the turia gently and its not firm, then don't buy it. It has begun to grow fibrous. It will not cook well. And the most important thing to remember is to taste the ends. If bitter do not use it. TURIA (RIDGE GOURD) WITH CASHEW NUT GRAVY 4 Servings 6 cups of peeled and cubed turia ½ cup cashew nuts  1 tbsp oil 1 tsp salt ¼ tsp fenugreek seeds (methi) ¼ tsp turmeric powder (haldi) pinch of asfoetida (hing) ½ tsp mustard seeds (

Rich and heavenly Rice cooked plain or with other ingredients is a meal on its own. Most people love rice in some form or the other. Today I am going to share my biryani recipe with you. Everyone has a different method of making biryani, be it vegetarian or non vegetarian. Some just let it cook over low heat usually on top of a sigri (jiko, charcoal stove) in a pan, some put it in an earthen pot, seal it and then let the biryani cook. Usually the lid is sealed with a flour dough to retain the flavours and steam. Modern methods are less complicated. Just prepare the layers, cover with a foil and in it goes into the oven. Slow cooked biryanis are much tastier. However, my version is quicker. I prefer to use ghee for this recipe as it makes it more flavourful and the aroma is heavenly. Ghee or clarified butter and all the spices mentioned below are easily available in all indian stores. VEGETABLE  BIRYANI 6 to 8 servings For the rice layer : 2 cups basmati, pishori rice 1 tsp salt 1 cup m

healthy snack Pudlas, pudas, chilas is basically several names for a very healthy simple snack. Very popular in most gujarati families as a quick snack. Its so similar to the dosas of the south but without the sambhar and vegetable or to the french crepe but full of spices. I prefer to use the non stick tawa to avoid any messy, sticky pudlas etc. Serve them hot as cold ones don't taste that great. Serve with pickles, chutneys or if my cousins from Harrow were coming down all they would need is a huge bottle of Heinz ketchup. Kids love pudlas. Mine use to have them with ketchup and I could easily sneak in the fenugreek or spinach without them knowing. What is the green stuff and I would so innocently reply "dhania beta dhania". Oops now the secret is out. The absolute quick version is to just make a batter with chickpea flour (chana flour, besan) but I prefer the moong dal ones as they turn out crispy and taste different. MOONG DAL PUDLA OR CHILAS (SPLIT GRAM LENTIL CREPES

 warm golden Soup is becoming a common feature in our home especially during dinner time. I find making the creamy or pureed version quick and easy. A few days ago I was shopping at Nakumatt when I saw this young mother loading her trolley with the packet soups where you add the powdered stuff to water and the soup is ready. I wanted to pull her hand to the veggies section and tell her " make fresh soup". The packet variety is salty and it has I don't know how many preservatives and colourings and what not. I have always hated the packet version and also don't like using the stock cubes as it just adds a lot of artificial flavours to the soup. If we are blessed with so many varieties of fresh vegetables, why make the packet version? Anyway, today I am going to blog a butternut squash soup. Because it's naturally sweet, there are so many spices and herbs that compliment the butternut squash. Every time I make the soup, it tastes different. This recipe is a rough gu