Stir fried Butternut Squash

Ingredients:

Butternut Squash

Olive oil

Salt

Chilli flakes or black pepper powder

Procedure:

Pill the squash and cut it into pieces. Hit the olive oil( I have spicy olive oil which I made by putting chilli flakes and keep it in bottle for weeks) stir fry butternut squash till its tender. Sprinkle salt and enjoy!

Ragi udad dink ladoo

Ingredients:

1 cup udad daal flour

1 and half cup raagi flour

1/2 cup toasted almond powder

1 cup edible glue or Dinka fried in ghee and powdered little coarse

2 cups sugar

2 sticks butter

7-8 cardamom cloves

Procedure:

Make clarified butter or ghee from butter sticks, roast the raagi and udad flour in ghere till there is nice aroma, around 30mins in low/medium flame. Roast it in microwave before so it take less time on stove. Then add almond powder

Roast Dinka in ghee till it swells into ligh balls and cool it down and make powder

Add sugar, cardamom powder and Dinka powder

Then roll the laddoos

Gola Bhat

For gola:

1 cup ladu besan

1 medium onion finally chopped

Coriander and cumin powder

Red chilli powder

Turmeric powder

Salt

1/4 cup oil

For rice:

1 cup rice

2 cups water

Salt

For oil:

7-8 cloves of garlic cut in small pieces

Mustard seeds

Cumin seeds

Udad daal

Curry leaves

Hing

Red whole dry chillis(optional)

For saar:

Soak tamarind in water for couple hours and take out the juice

Jaggary

Salt

Turmeric

Mustard seeds

Cumin seeds

Methi seeds

Curry leaves

Garlic minced

Procedure:

Mix gola ingredients in a bowl except oil. Once everything OS mixed well, add oil till the mixture is crumbly. Add very little water so balls are formed.

In rice cooker put the rice to make and in steamer these balls or you can use regular pressure cooker but close it before 1 whistle since we want the rice to be not sticky.

For saar, hit the oil and put Mustard seeds, Cumin seeds, Methi seeds, Curry leaves, Garlic minced and add turmeric juice and some water, add jaggary, turmeric powder, salt and red chilli powder. Boil till the row smell goes away.

For seasons the oil is must. Hit the oil and put all the ingedients for oil and switch off the gas when garlic is light brown so in hot oil it turns brown and is very crispy.

How to eat:

Break the gola in very small pieces and mix with rice, add the seasoning and eat with saar so its not dry. Instead of saar it tastes good with buttermilk too.

This is our comfort food and Ram loves it too. You can make gola spicy as per your taste. All the tastes go really well, spicy, sweet, soar and tangy!! Yum!!

Appe

Ingredients:

1 cup rice(brown/White)

1/2 cup chana daal

1/4 cup udad daal

Soak overnight

Grind and ferment it

Add ginger, green chili, salt, onion, corridor leaves and make appe in appe pan. 

Savory Oatmeal with Ginger-Lemon English Breakfast tea

In the morning I like to eat savory than sweet oatmeal. On a busy weekdays this can be made in 10mins, fresh and healthy.

Here is my recipe with #no-grease
English Breakfast tea goes well with some lemon and ginger, #no-sugar. Perfect for cold mornings!!

Savory Oatmeal:

• 1/4 cup rolled oats
• 3/4 cup water
• salt according to taste
• turmeric powder 2-3 pinches
• green chilies finally chopped/ red chili flakes
• lemon for taste

Mix everything except lemon, cook on stove for 3-4 minutes or till gets thicken. Take it off from stove and add lemon to it and enjoy.
You can make this in microwave too, it takes around one and half min.

Ginger-Lemon Tea:

• Ginger Slices 2-3
• Lemon slice 1
• English breakfast tea 1 teaspoon loose leaves (I like Teavana brand)
• Boil 1 cup water

In brewing cup/kettle add tea leaves and ginger slices, add boiling water to it. Let it brew for 3-4 min.

Pour it in cup and add some lemon juice or lemon slice and enjoy the hot cup.

Multigrain Dosa

Here is the healthy and tasty recipe for dosa (find more about Indian dosa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dosa )

Usually dosa is made from rice and udad daal. I have twisted the recipe to make it more healthy and tasty by adding more grains. Steel cut oats gives better texture and taste. With horsegram daal, which is good source of iron makes it rich. Basmati rice can be replaced by brown rice as a healthier option.

Ingredients

• 4 portions of basmati rice
• 2 portions of steel cut oats
• 2 portions of udad dal
• 1 portion of horsegram daal
• 1/4 portion of fenugreek  seeds

Soak all of the above in water for 6-7 hours, essentially overnight.  Grind the mixture into dosa batter. During winter time add little bit of salt to help fermentation process.

Make dosas on cast iron griddle instead of non-stick griddle, cast iron adds to the texture and crispy dosa experience.

Tasty dosas are ready to eat with chatni, sambar or potato sabji.

I use cast iron griddle, health bhi-taste bhi.

Enjoy first recipe from my blog!

Idea Behind the blog

I started cooking after my Engineering, when I came back home. I used to be home, preparing for GATE examination and used to have time and INTEREST to try new dishes everyday and surprise everyone in the evening :)

My cooking buddy was Manju and we both used to cook together. She had one marathi recipe book,  which she got as a gift in her marriage. We both had same enthusiasm :) Wow those good old days!!

I remember the happiness, we used to get when the dish came out really good and all praising words.

After that, I got married and learned many things with my Grand Mom-in-law's stay with us in Vashi. I learned mostly Vaidharbhian or Varadhi recipes. After that I started experimenting with my cooking like mixing in-laws' side recipes and moms' side recipe and make my own :)

My mom-in-law is a great cook and learned many things form her. If there is big gathering at home she will decide the menu for 2 days before the occasion. I have applied it to any guest visits. I write down menu for all their stay. I list down, what I can prepare in advance and will spend less time and kitchen and maximum time with the guests.

My mom used to make delicious dishes in very less time and secrete behind it is, her beforehand preparations. She used to work, but few things were prepared during weekend and that helped her.
I have been watching her, so those tricks help me a lot.

These four ladies are responsible for my interest/love for cooking. Addition to my enthusiasm, Shrikant's readiness to try out new things.

The inspiration behind the blog is Shri, who always encourages me to do whatever I want. His thought about cooking is "Find ways to make fresh food with less efforts and do other creative things too." He doesnt like to cook but has always great ideas. His support is great!!

I love to eat out and try new things a lot too.

With full time job and kids, its parents responsibility to find ways to cook nutritious food for the family everyday. I feel there are many things, which helped me to do fresh, nutritious food and want to share those recipes, tips on this blog.

Keep checking, I will be posting my next blog soon.