Red Rice & Quinoa Ah-pums & Idlis

Attended a wonderful Remembrance day for 9/11 where my daughter sang as part of a choir - a wonderful show of patriotism and unity was presented and what's more parking was free :)

Of Up-pums and Ah-pums

After the first one, my daughter declares, “Ma, ah-pums are dosais with an idli in the middle J” I would not have put it that bluntly, but this is true – those who have the ah-pum pans will know that this is indeed true – I have made this for 2 reasons – one because I am hosting the Cooking for seeds and was experimenting with Quinoa and second, this was my humble tribute to Onam (: - I make the distinction by spelling it thus so that we do not confuse it with up-pums, the sweet delicacy that is also popular in the south. – I have made those as well and have yet to blog them :(

But I am putting few pictures of the up-pums as well

Here is my recipe

Ingredients

2 cups of Red Rice flour

½ Cup of Quinoa flakes

½ cup of Urad Dal

Preparation

Soak and grind urad dal

Soak the red rice powder in water

Mix both add salt and let it ferment

The beauty about this is you could make your ah-pums as soon as you grind the urad and mix the batters

However, an overnight ferment also yields the softest idlis

Before you are ready to make the crepes or dosais, add the half-cup of Quinoa and mix it in well.

The Up-pum – These I made another day with left over Idlima –or batter of regular idlis – I just added jiggery and cardamom powder to the old idli batter and made them in my awesome up-pum pan

Hope you enjoy the pictures :D

Linking this to the event I am guest hosting - cooking with seeds - Quinoa
Also linking this to Magpie Recipes' Kerala Kitchen

Black Beans in Guilt-free White Sauce

Entertaining this weekend? Need a quick, delicious dip to wow your family or friends? Well here is an under-10-minute wonder – And a guilt free white sauce at that! Here is my recipe do the Can-Can

Ingredients

Canned or boiled black beans (1 can or ½ cup) I used a can

1 Can Campbell’s Low Sodium Mushroom soup

½ cup of water

1 Habanero chopped round(optional)

1tbsp olive oil

1-2 cloves of garlic

Add caption

Preparation

Wash black beans and strain

Heat ½tsp of oil in a saucepan.

Add minced garlic

Add the beans and stir

Now add the can of mushroom soup and rinse the can with half cup of water and add to the pan

Allow the black beans to simmer in the sauce for 2-3 minutes or until you see it bubble

Remove from flame

In a separate pan, add about 1tsp of olive oil and add the chopped habanero and allow it cook for a minute in the oil

Note: if you do not want too spicy, remove the habanero and just dribble the oil into the dip

Some like it HOT – for you (and me) we garnish the dip with the habanero and serve with chips or soft tortilla

Hint: This can be served hot or cold – make and refrigerate for an hour or two before serving should you choose to serve it cold. This would also soften the tingle of the habanero! Decorate with a few sprigs of fresh basil before refrigerating so that its beautiful aromas infuse into the soup! 

Adios Amigos! Have a great weekend folks and hope to serve you again early next week!

Pineapple & Papaya Soup with Jasmine (Soup D'Ananas et De Papayes au Jasmin)

This soup is an adaption of the French chef par excellence, Roger Vergé ‘s Soup de Melon et De Papayes au Jasmin from his book Cooking with Fruits. My dear friend lent me this book to browse – I was totally fascinated at how wonderfully he was able to make a mélange of recipes with fruits.

This is a fantastic soup for all especially I believe my friends from South India who wear jasmines in their hair. The heady, intoxicating fragrance of the flower! I never thought that this could be used in cooking! Believe you me when I say that it infused the most exquisite bouquet to the soup and I felt in 7^th heaven at having reproduced, albeit with some changes, this soup delicacy and wowed my family with it… please enjoy the pictures and the recipe and it is one you can certainly try in the south given the abundance of papayas and jasmines and pineapples too.

Picture from the book

6 servings

Preparation 20 minutes

No cooking required

Ingredients

Zest of 1 lemon

Juice of 2 limes

½ Pineapple

1 medium sized papaya

¾ cup sweet wine such as Sauternes

(I subbed dark cherry juice)

1/3cup sugar

1 pinch of salt

36 very white jasmine flowers (you can sub this with few drops of orange blossom water when you are ready to serve)

6 sprigs of fresh mint

White pepper, finely ground (I used black)

Add caption

Preparation

Grate the lemon for the zest

Peel, deseed and cube papayas

Peel and dice pineapple

Juice the limes

Measure ¾ cup of cherry juice (you can sub with pomegranate or other easier available juices or use sweet wine if you prefer)

Add all the above in a blender with the sugar and the pinch of salt

Pour into a wide bowl and add the jasmines and gently stir them in

Chill for about 2 hours

Strain the soup before serving

Garnish each soup bowl with 2 jasmines and a sprig of mint

Enjoy (:

NOTE: The Jasmine I garnished the soup with was for decorative purposes and perhaps not meant to be eaten :)

Linking this to Taste of Pearl city's Anyone Can Cook, Priya's & Aipis Bookmarked Recipes, My event Fast Food Not Fat Food guest-hosted by Archana of Mad Scientist's Kitchen

Fig Mascarpone

This is one of the easiest deserts to put together, if you have some figs, some mascarpone cheese, fresh rosemary and some maple syrup handy – Let me rephrase – equip yourself with these ingredients to make this incredibly delicious dessert – It takes all of 10 minutes start to finish and I must thank 5 minute live videopedia http://www.5min.com/Video/Fig-Mascarpone-Recipe---Under-One-Minute-60117976for my resource where the chappie on the video claims it cam be done in under a minute – true if you have this recipe – The baking time I used was 10 minutes but I would recommend 5-7 minutes tops @ 350 if you don’t want you Mascarpone to melt and flow like a river (which mine sort of did). But it still tasted completely delicious

Here is the recipe

Ingredeints

4-5 sprigs of Rosemary

3tbsp Mascarpone cheese

8-10 ripe figs

2tbsp Maple syrup

1 square sheet of aluminum foil

Prepararion

Set oven at 350 degrees

Wash figs and from the conical top, make 2 cuts like an X and pinch the bottom of the fruit so it opens up like a flower

Lay the aluminum sheet flat

Arrange the sprigs of rosemary in the middle

Place the semi-diced figs over the bed of rosemary

Scoop 3tbsp of mascarpone cheese into a bowl

Add the maple syrup and gently mix so as to not liquefy the cheese

Now place a good-sized blob over each of the fig cuts

Bake for about 5 minutes

See If the cheese has melted half way into the fig

Leave for a minute or two longer and remove from oven

Place in a serving dish and serve hot or cold

Guest Hosting COOKING WITH SEEDS -QUINOA or Millet For Friends in india

Today, it is my pleasure to announce that I am guest hosting another seed event, initiated by star blogger Priya Suresh of Priyas Easy n Tasty Recipes. This event is simply called Cooking with Seeds and I have chosen Quinoa. Please see the rules of entry and use the linky tool given to submit your recipes :)
Quinoa has commonly been mistaken for a grain, but it is indeed a seed and now a popular one with various health benefits. I was blown away by how nutritional it is and this is also the reason I decided to go with this seed - we should all try and make that switch from rice to quinoa for many of our preparations. It tastes SO good and comes in 2 colors RED and YELLOW! Read more about this Wonderful grain here 

Rules of Entry
Vegetarian recipes only please :) (this include no eggs either-ty :)
Entries can be linked via Linky tool given below
Linky will be open from today until Sept 30
Please add event logo to the entered recipe on your website
Link back to this announcement and to Priya's blog
Multiple entries welcome
Archived entries are allowed to if you repost them on your blog :)
Non bloggers can email me their entries with the names and a photo
A running round-up is posting via the link tool on this page
Look forward to your participation on both seed events going on on my blog

Dear friends,  I had previously announced the event Cooking with Whole Foods -Subsegment With seeds and the seed of choice was Fenugreek - This event is a brainchild of Kiran of Sumadhura please click here to view that event.This event is ongoing until October. So please send in your entries to this event as well. Thanks and Love <3

Pesarattu Dosais/ Green Grams crepes

This week in Blog Hop Wednesday, I was teamed up with Vidya of Curry Leaves. What struck me the most about Vidya’s blog is the fantastic photography of her food -  While I enjoyed browsing her healthy and vegetarian foods, I was almost instantly drawn towards this dosai because I have made them in the past and it has not gone over well with my son – You know how the one person who does NOT like something sometimes determines what is made in the house and what’s not? Well it has always been the case in my home until recently when I decided not to pander to the taste of the one person who does not like it but the taste of the 4 other who do J

Tough luck Sonny!  - but his tastes have been changing (for the better) because he now loves upma which he used to love for the first 5 yrs of his life then started detesting – I am happy to say we are the love upma stage again- yay – And I am hoping that he will love this dosai he once denounced.

I used a few additional ingredients that I thought would make this even more delicious like coconut

Ingredients

Whole and halves green gram (green mung) 2 cups

Green and red chilies per taste

1 inch thick piece of ginger

Curry leaves

¼ cup of coconut

Preparation

Soak over night and grind

Saute batter with mustard seeds & asafetida, using 1 tsp of sesame oil

In a nonstick pan spread thin 1 ladle of batter

Roast on the one side and flip over after a minute or two remove from flame and serve with chutney of your choice

We had it with coconut Chutney

Recipe below

Ingredients

1 cup of grated coconut

3-4 green chilies

¼ inch piece of ginger

½ cup of roasted grams

Preparation

Grind all the above ingredients

Salt

Sauté with mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves and  a pinch asafetida in 1 tsp of ghee

Yen-jai

Blog Hop Wednesday is a brain child of Radhika of Tickling Palates 
Sending this to Shilpa's Life is Green Event 

The 7 Question Tags

Thank you Krithi of Krithi's Kitchen and Sobha Shyam of Good Food for tagging me in this 7 question link about my blog.  No bias here, but it was really tough to pick certain categories, esp the one that I most proud of since I actually put my heart and creativity in trying many new recipes. Most of you know that I like to think outside the box and love the fuse wonderful ingredients in ways that also make for a cross cultural fusion cuisine.
Nevertheless, I have picked a few (more than 1 in certain categories, please don't mind)

1)The Most Beautiful Post
For this I was torn - there are several that could fit this category, but I ended up picking
The Fresh Fruit Tart and my Strawberry Curd Pancake

Category 2: The most "popular" post

If I judge the popularity of my posts based on the number of comments it received, then I would have to pick The Rose Malai and my Baklava Posts

Category #3 - None I hope

Category # 4 Most helpful Post

I picked these

Mayan heirloom Squash

How to layer a Lazagna

Zucchini blossom Bhajis 

Stuffed & Baked Patty Pans

Category #5 Suprisingly Successful Posts

I chose my Strawberry Payasam &  Spicy peanut balls posts

Category #6 The Post that did not get the attention it deserved - I think many of my earlier posts can fit this category quite well :) I realize now what I did not know then -that to get more comments on one's page, one must make the effort to go and comment on others blogs :)

But here are the posts I would say deserved more attention were two extremely healthy recipes!

The Great Q-uinoa Stir Fry & The whole Wheat Pizza

Category # 7 The One I am most proud of ...
This one’s a doozy since I like to think outside the box and try to be as creative with my recipes as possible

Banukah

Kaju Almond Vadais/Falafels

Some of these collages are purely because I have recently learnt to make them and could not resist

Here are some fellow bloggers I'd like to tag for showcasing their recipes

Archana 

Aysha Banu

Az

Suja 

Deepa Deb

Reshmi Mahesh

Sadhana

Harini

Raks Kitchen

Suchi

Gayatrhi

Kitchen Queen

Premalatha

Deesha

Shanavi

Nashira

Jabeen

Akheela

Ayeesha Riaz

Sanjee Vijay

Deepthi Divjay

Jabeen

Smitha

Paaka Shaale

Soujanya

Mughda

Khushi

R&R

Love to cook

Geetha Achal
Shailaja

Julie
Junia

Yummy Chunklet

Priya
Mary
Vijitha Shyam

Adios Amigas