Foodie Workz

Coming back after a long time decided to start on a healthier note with some nutritious twist to the ever preferred idlis... 1 cup jowar 1/2 cup quinoa 1/2 cup whole green moong 1/2 cup idli rice 1/2 cup urad dal 1/4 cup poha 1 tsp fenugreek/methi seeds Start off by soaking the quinoa, whole moong and the jowar.  Basically I soaked these three ingredients double the time that I did for urad dal, rice, poha and methi seeds.  Wash everything thoroughly before starting to grind.  Grind the urad and methi in the idli grinder first till it is smooth and fluffy.  In the meanwhile, grind the quinoa, moong and the jowar individually in the blender jar with very minimal water.  You do not want to add too much water which might end up in a runny batter.  Add the rice to this and let it grind to a coarse consistency.  Now add all the other ingredients and also the ground poha to the above batter and let the grinder run till it is mixed t...

I decided to prepare this poha for lunch one day for myself as I usually never get to make this.  My kids are not a big fan of the Poha dishes, though this can be a good snack when they get home hungry.  However, as this poha alone would not quite keep me filled up, I decided to add some cooked lobiya to it.   This was quite delicious and enjoyed it thoroughly with some usual seasonings. 1 cup thick poha - washed and soaked in abt 1/2 cup water 1/2 cup of cooked lobiya water drained(I soaked 1/4 cup of lobiya just for this purpose and got a 1/2 cup heaped amount of lobiya -cooked with little salt) 1 tsp mustard seeds 1.5 tsp urad dal hing powder 1 red chilli curry leaves salt to taste 1 tblsp oil grated coconut to taste crushed black pepper to taste Take the oil, splutter the mustard, urad, red chilli, hing and curryleaves, add the poha and salt needed and stir till it combines well.  Add the lobiya, crushed pepper and stir once again....

A snack cannot get any better if it is just steam cooked with lot of vegetables and these Muthias are all about this.  Muthias is one of the most popular Gujarati recipes which is traditionally made with vegetables like lauki or methi leaves and gramflour. They are  just steam cooked with very little oil added for binding the dough.  Ever since I came upon this recipe on Manjula's Kitchen , I have been a fan of this simple and healthy delicacy.  Having tried these using cabbage and methi leaves, today I experimented with some radishes.  As always, the taste was just awesome!!!    5 oz red radish( I used 6 oz but felt could have used less - hence 5 oz) 1/2 cup besan 1 tblsp wheat flour 1/2 tsp salt 1 green chili chopped 1 tbsp crushed kasoori methi 1/2 tsp jeera 1/4 tsp turmeric powder 1/2 tsp lemon juice 1 tbsp oil Seasoning 1 tbsp oil 1/4 tsp mustard 1 tsp sesame seeds chopped coriander leaves 1 long red ch...

Ragda Patties, a very popular Indian street food, is typically made with dried white peas.  But I have made these using some dried green peas.  This makes a wholesome and a healthy snack for the kids coming home hungry from school.  This dish goes to CWS - Peas event of Priya  and  HLI  event hosted @  Veg Junction  originally started by  Kalyani . For the ragda: 1 cup green peas 1 small tomato 1 small piece ginger 1 green chili 1/2 tsp each cumin and coriander powder 1/4 tsp chili powder 1/2 tsp paprika 1/4 tsp black salt(I did not have any) 1/2 tsp garam masala 1/8 to 1/4 black pepper powder salt few sprigs of coriander leaves chopped finely chopped onions green chutney and sweet chutney if preferred Sev For the patties: 2 medium to large size potatoes 4-5 green chilies grated 1 tsp grated ginger 3 tbsp chopped coriander leaves some lemon  juice salt to taste Oil for frying Preparation of the Ragda: ...

1 cup steel cut oats 1/2 of an onion chopped fine 1 medium carrot 1/3 cup each of frozen beans and frozen peas 1-2 green chilies chopped small piece of ginger grated 1/2 tsp mustard seeds 1 tsp urad dal few curry leaves Heat up a spoon of oil or ghee and roast the oats till it changes color and you begin to get a nice aroma.  Keep it aside. Heat up a table spoon of oil and splutter the mustard seeds followed by urad dal.  Add the chilies and ginger and stir for 1/2 a minute.  Follow it with onions and saute it on high for a minute. Add the beans and add the carrot and peas after a minute.  Add salt just enough for the vegetables and cook covered on low to medium heat for 3 minutes.  In the meanwhile heat up about 2 cups of water and add it to the vegetables. Once it begins to bubble, add the oats and the needed salt and let it come to a nice boil.  Cover the pan with a lid and cook the oats on low heat.  It took about 20 minutes for ...

As mentioned in my other MAITRI post, I made these onion fritters and it came out really good....it was all gone in a few minutes!!! 1/2 cup besan/gramflour 1/4 cup corn flour 1 medium onion chopped into thin 1 inch slices 3/4 tsp chili powder 1/2 tsp salt pinch of baking soda, turmeric, hing and orange food colour water for the batter oil for frying Transfer the chopped onions into a bowl, add 1/4 tsp salt and set it aside.  I did this step in the beginning thinking I will do the crispy pakoda which uses almost no water.  Later I changed my mind to do the soft pakoda variety(which is liked by all of us at home).  So,  I added all the dry ingredients in a different bowl.  To this I added 1/2 cup water and made into a thick batter.  As the onions let out some water because of the addition of salt, I added 2 tablespoon of rice flour.  I then combined this with the batter and fried them in hot oil till golden and crispy. Drop the onions into ...

This recipe goes towards MAITRI, a friendship chain created for food bloggers across N America.where a bogger sends a mystery ingredient to another blogger who then whips up something with it and blogs about it.  For more details on MAITRI, visit the blog site of Priya or Reshmi   who are behind this. As a part of this chain, I was matched with Shylaja who had sent me a packet of cornflour and a cute little bunch of decor grapes.  Eventhough I could tell right away, I made sure it was cornflour by tasting it and getting a confirmation from Shylaja.  The bunch of grapes are sitting along with my other artificial fruits on the center of the dining table. Well coming back to the food part,  I was not quite sure what to do with this flour as I am not a big fan of corn.  After about three days since I received the packet, I came upon with this idea of using them in a Dhokla.   As I decided to combine cornflour with some besan,  I was le...

Whenever I come across any cooking events in the food blog sites, I begin to think as to how I can come up with recipes or variations of recipes that will be apt for the event. So when I heard about the Herbs and Flowers in my platter event, I was very excited and without any hesitation immediately sent in my Coriander Pulao and Coriander Mint Paste entries. However, I wanted to cook up something different and decided to try out the very famous Dhokla with lot of coriander leaves. To add more interest, I also decided to use some capsicum/bell peppers - the green variety. In the past, I have substituted these peppers for the regular green chilies to get the similar flavors without the heat with the intention to avoid spicy foods. However, today I was using them partially for the above reason and also to get the benefits of this vegetable....each 100 gm of these peppers contain 80 mg of Vitamin C which is 134 % of the daily value......compared to green peppers, red peppers have mor...

Yesterday being Rama Navami, I decided to make some Medhu Vadas....however they ended up being Bondas as I got little extra water in the batter.. along with Neer Mor and Paanagam... the traditional offering to Lord Rama.  I was not too keen on making any sweets as I am the only one gulping it down. Anyway, having decided that, I wanted to get in some veggies into the bondas and decided to use the zucchinis for a change and lot of chopped coriander.  Eventhough the traditional bondas have only urad dal(black gram lentil), I decided to add some toor dal for color and rice for crispness.  They were indeed nice and crispy!! 3/4 cup urad dal (split or whole) 3 tbsp toor dal 1 tbsp rice 2 green chillies(increase it for more spice) 1 inch ginger piece handful of coriander leaves chopped 1 medium zucchini grated with skin salt to taste oil for frying Soak the first three ingredients for 3-4 hours.  Drain and rinse and grind this into a smooth fluffy paste....

With the leftover dosa batter after making the masala dosas, I wanted to do something different.   Adding any vegetables to a dosa batter and preparing them becomes an Uthappam.  However, I wanted to try it out differently. I remembered that Kanjeevaram Idlis are done using the seasonings given below which are sauteed with some cashew nuts and then added to the batter or they are just simply added to the batter without sauteing.  I decided to use all those ingredients excepting the cashews and also some vegetables sauteed and then use it in the batter. Here is what I did: 3 cups of dosa batter 3 stalks of celery trimmed 1 small carrot peeled few sprigs or coriander leaves with the stems 3 spring onion stems - just use only the green part 1 green chili chopped finely 1 small piece of ginger chopped 1/2 tsp of pepper cumin powder coarse 2 tsp of chana dal soaked and drained Process the celery stalk coarsely and also the carrot and the coriander leaves.  C...

Idlis and dosas are always very common in South Indian households. These are such a relish which can be enjoyed any time of the day. I am in the habit of making this batter almost every fortnight as it comes in handy to fix a meal or to serve the famished kids after a long day at the school. This time I stuck to the traditional idli/dosa batter with idli rice and urad dal. Having done that, I wanted to make some dosas with masala but did not want to prepare that in the usual style. My kids love having cheese inside their dosas...give an option, they will choose the cheese dosa over the regular plain dosa or masala dosa. So, I came upon this idea of trying dosas in Quesadilla style using some veggies. I deliberated over mixed veggies or spinach and finally settled to making some veggie Quesadilla style dosas. However, since I did not have the mexican seasonings, I just went ahead and used our regular seasoning and garam masala. I could have just used some cumin and chilli powd...

While the word Upma usually refers to Rawa/Sooji Upma, we have other many varieties using  ingredients like the Semiya, Sago and Poha.  Yet another variety of Upma is the Arisi Upma or Rice Upma which is a very traditional preparation in the Tamil Brahmin households.  It is done by processing the rice and the toor dal to a coarse rawa like consistency.  Usually the rice is powdered and stored for quick use and the toor dal is ground just before making the upma.  These days it is being substitued with the store bought cream of rice (raw) which is readily available.  Growing up, I was really fond of this Upma and could never say enough to it.  It tastes so good with some sambar:-) Anyway, in continuation of my Quinoa experiments and also after the conversation I had with my friend, I realised that Quinoa is a perfect ingredient for this dish....thanks to her, I now have this wonderful recipe which I will never hesitate to do whenever I want a quick fix...