Keep using all your vessels

I was visiting a friend, when she brought tea and biscuits. The tray in which she brought was looking dirty, there were ants crawling in its corners and the handles of the cups also had dust on them. Would you feel like drinking that tea? But I had to; we have to do certain things for social reasons.

This is the reason that I keep using all my trays, tea cups, glasses, plates etc., in rotation. Otherwise dust will settle and invariably, when guests arrive, you are not going to give too much attention to the cleaning of the vessels in which you are going to serve, at least the tray..  My principle is, if you have things, enjoy them yourselves too. Why should we think that the nice things should be used only for the guess?

Banana Cake

Ingredients:

Refined flour (maida)    -2 cups

Baking powder - 2 tsps

Eggs     - 3

Bananas           - 3, mash with forks

Sugar   - 1 ½ cups, powder it, keep I tbsp aside to sprinkle on top of the cake later

Salt      - a pinch
Milk cream       - ½ cup

Refined oil        - ½ cup

Vanilla essence- ½ tsp

Raisins and cashew nuts 50 gm each, mixed with a bit of maida

Method:

-         Sieve the maida and baking powder; mix with the powdered sugar and salt.

-         Beat the eggs lightly, add the mashed bananas, milk cream and oil

-         Add the maida mix to the above, 2 tablespoons at a time and mix in.

-         Mix in the vanilla essence, raisins and cashew nuts.

-         Pour into a ring vessel.

-         Bake in a preheated oven, at 170 degrees for 40 minutes, or when a tooth pick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

-         Cool the cake a little bit, invert it into a plate, and sprinkle powdered sugar over it.

Green chilli chatpati

There are many health benefits of Indian green chillies that we are not aware of. They can protect the body against free radical damage giving you natural immunity to cancer and also slow down the ageing process. Indian green chillies are rich sources of Vitamin C. You might have noticed that having chillies helps you open up your blocked nostrils. The Vitamin C in green chillies strengthens your natural immunity to diseases. Green chillies can balance the blood sugar levels. They are a natural source of iron.

Ingredients:

Green chillis      - 5 wash, dry and cut into small pieces

Husked and coarsely ground mustard seeds (Rai Dal)  - 1tsp (if you don’t have this, just rough grind some mustard seeds)

Fenugreek seeds roughly ground           - ½ tsp

Turmeric powder          - ½ tsp

Salt to taste

Oil        - 1 table spoon

Method:

Heat the oil till it smokes. Switch off the gas and let the oil cool down. Add the musard dal, fenugreek powder, turmeric powder and salt, mix well. Now add the cut chilli pieces and mix. Keep for a day before serving. If it has to be kept longer, refrigerate.

Jal Brahmi chutney

Pennywort, Indian Pennywort, or Jal Brahmi as it is called in Hindi, is used as a medicinal herb in Ayurvedic medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. The plant pacifies vitiated vata and pitta in the body. It is known to enhance the memory and is very effective in treating Alzheimer's disease, learning skills, anxiety, depression, stress, and ADHD in children. When eaten raw as a salad leaf, it is thought to help maintain youthfulness.

Ingredients:

Jal Brahmi        - take the whole plant, wash and clean and cut – 1 cup

Scraped coconut          - ½ cup

Red chilli powder          -    ½ tsp

Ginger  - ½ inch piece

Tamarind          - a small ball

Salt to taste

Method:

Grind all of them together. Goes great with curd rice.

Shallots and fenugreek sabzi

Shallots have a milder taste and odor than onions. They contain vital nutrients like vitamins B & C, calcium, iron and potassium. They are great for your hair and are widely used as an ingredient in hair treatment products. Both onions and shallots contain allicin, which helps lower blood sugar levels in diabetics. Onions are also a rich source of chromium, which helps tissue cells respond appropriately to insulin.

Fenugreek contains saponins that help reduce the body’s absorption of cholesterol from fatty foods. An unusual amino acid (4HO-Ile), so far found only in fenugreek, has possible anti-diabetic properties such as enhancing insulin secretion under hyperglycemic conditions, and increasing insulin sensitivity. 

Ingredients:

Shallots            - ½ cups, peeled. If they are very large, cut into two pieces

Fenugreek seeds           - 1 heaped tablespoon, soaked for about 4 hours

Oil        - 1 tbsp

Mustard seeds  - 1/3 tsp

Salt to taste

Turmeric powder          - 1/3 tsp

Red chilli powder          -1/2 tsp

Water   - 2 tbsps

Method:

-         Heat oil, add the mustard seeds.

-         When the splutter, add the fenugreek seeds. Stir for a few seconds, add the shallots.

-         Stir on high flame for about half minute, add salt, turmeric powder, and red chilli powder.

-         Mix well, add water, cover and cook for 6 minutes, or till done.

-         Goes well with rice or chapatis

Boiled sweet potato for breakfast

Ingredients:

Sweet potatoes - 3 medium sized for two persons

Salt to taste

Oil        - 1 tbsp

Mustard seeds  - ¼ tsp

Cut onion         - 1 bsp

Curry leaves a few

Red chilli pieces            - 4,5

Scraped coconut          - ½ cup

Method:

- Wash and dry the sweet potatoes, smear them with oil, put in a container.

- Pour two cups of water inside the pressure cooker, keep the container inside the cooker and pressure cook for 8 minutes.

- Cool and open the cooker. Peel the sweet potatoes and cube them.

- Heat oil in a thick bottomed pan, add mustard seeds. When they splutter, add the red chill pieces, onion and curry leaves.

- When the onion turns dark brown, add the sweet potato pieces and salt, mix well and finally add the coconut.

- Stir and remove from fire.

- Serve with coconut dry chutney made by grinding coconut, red chilli, onion, curry leaves and salt

Roasted pumpkin curry

A cup of cubed pumpkin contains almost twice the recommended daily intake of vitamin A, which promotes good vision, especially in dim light, according to the National Institutes of Health. Pumpkin is rich in beta-carotene and other antioxidants with cancer protective properties, and its fiber content protects the heart.

The following recipe is inspired by the Ethiopian kitchen - an adapted version of the pumpkin wat/wot using their combination of spices called "berebere" like we have garam masala.

Ingredients:

Pumpkin, cleaned and cut into 1 inch cubes          - 3 cups

Onions            -3 peeled and sliced thin

Tomatoes       - 2 big

Capsicum      - 2 medium size

Oil       - 2 tbsps

Milk     - 2 cups

Cinnamon powder

Clove powder,

Ginger powder

Nutmeg powder

Coriander powder,

Black pepper powder,

Pinch of turmeric powder and

Red chilli powder,

Fenugreek powder,

Garlic powder, if available

Sugar to taste

Salt to taste

Method:

-          Mix the cubed pumpkin pieces with some oil and salt, put them in a pan. Keep a small vessel of water in the center of the pan and bake it at 250 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes.

-          Put the tomatoes cut into half also inside the oven in another vessel. They will be roasted in about 20 minutes.

-          Meanwhile, roast the capsicums over open flame, remove the skin and cut into pieces

-          Take the roasted tomatoes, peel off the skin and grind them with the capsicum pieces into a smooth paste.

-    Dry roast sliced onions for about 20 minutes.

-          Add all the spices to the dry roasted onion, stir for about a minute.

-          Add oil to the onions and spices; allow the oil to process this for a while.

-          Now add the tomato capsicum paste, milk, salt and sugar, let it simmer for about 5 minutes

-          Add pumpkins (roasted) and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes

-          Serve with rice or chapatis

Courtesy; Anisha Goel

Tips and Tricks

1. Boiled sweet potatoes

Usually we boil sweet potatoes in a pan of water or  cook them inside the pressure cooker with water. For some recipes, we may like to get it boiled without the sogginess. Just wash, dry, apply oil over the sweet potatoes. Cut them into two or three pieces if they are large. Put them inside a vessel which will sit inside a pressure cooker. Pour water inside the pressure cooker, put the vessel with sweet potatoes inside the cooker and pressure cook for about 6 to 8 minutes. Let it cool and open.

2. Easy way to cook jackfruit seeds

Pressure cook the seeds for five to six minutes. Cool and open. Drain the seeds and spread on a plate. Within a few seconds, the upper parts of the seeds will dry. Now cover it with another plate and invert it so that the wet side of the seeds are now up and that will also dry in  a few seconds. It will be difficult to peel the seeds while wet as they will be very slippery.

Cut the seeds longitudinally into two and remove the outer skin. Now this can be done very fast.