CABBAGE CHUTNEY

Ingredients:

Cabbage - 4 medium leaflets
Chick peas split - 1 tbsp
Green gram splita - 1 tbsp
Red chili - 4
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Salt to taste
Oil - 1 tbsp

Preparation:

Cook cabbage in water or steam it. Heat oil in a pan and saute chick peas splits.


When it turns golden brown add green gram splits.

When it turns gold add red chili and curry leaves. Saute for a few seconds and let it cool.

Grind with cooked cabbage and serve with idly or dosa. If we cook cabbage in oil then the chutney smells a little unpleasant. But boiling and grinding won't smell so and the taste will be very good.

SWEET POTATO FRIES

Ingredients:

Sweet potato - 1 big

Oil - to deep fry

Salt to taste

Pepper powder or chili powder to taste

Preparation:

Clean and cut the sweet potatoes.

Deep fry in hot oil until cooked but not crispy and spread on paper towel.

Again deep fry until crispy and golden. Sprinkle salt, pepper or chili of your choice and serve hot.

APPLE CHERRY SWEET BUN

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Warm milk - 1/2 cup + a little more to make dough
Dry yeast - 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Butter - 1 tbsp
Apple - 1 (Remove skin and chop)
Canned sour cherry - 1/2 cup
Liquid from the can - 1/2 cup
Honey - 2 tbsp
Cinnamon powder - a pinch

Preparation:
Add yeast in warm milk and allow it to prove for about 10 minutes. When it is raised Mix with flour and salt to make a stiff, non-sticky dough. If more milk needed add warm milk.


Cover with damp cloth and allow it to raise for 1 hour. In the mean time prepare the stuffing.
Heat butter in a pan and add apple pieces.


When it is cooked add cherries and mix well. Now add the liquid from the can, honey and cinnamon powder. Mix well until it is thickened. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Pre-heat oven at 180 degrees Celsius.


The dough is now raised.


Now make 4 balls of the dough and stuff with the apple cherry mix.
Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until golden.


When done brush with butter.


Now ready to serve.

TOMATO SAUCE WITH CHICKEN FOR PASTA

Ingredients:

Pasta - 200 grams
Chicken - 250 grams
Tomato - 2
Chopped onion - 2 tbsp
Chopped garlic - 1 tbsp
Butter - 1 tbsp
Dry Oregano - 1/2 tsp
Dry basil - 1/2 tsp or Fresh basil - few leaves (finely chop)
Salt and pepper to taste
Mozzarella cheese - 200 grams

Preparation:

Heat butter in a pan and add garlic.

When it turns brown, add onion and saute till it is translucent.

  

Then add chicken and allow to cook closing with lid. Do not add water.

When it is done add chopped tomatoes.

Allow to cook till it is mashed.

Add oregano, basil, pepper and salt. Mix well.

Now add pieces of mozzarella cheese and not the grated. Do not mix after adding cheese.

Serve hot with pasta.

CHICKEN RED GRAVY

Ingredients:

Chicken - 200 grams
Red onion - 1
Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Big red capsicum - 1
Tomato - 1/2
Red chilly powder - 1  1/2 tsp
Coriander powder (dry roasted and powdered) - 1/2 tsp
Garam masala - 1/2 tsp
Gingelly oil - 2 tbsp

Preparation:

Clean and cut chicken into 1 1/2 inch pieces. Slice onion into 1 inch and capsicum into 1 1/2 inch slices. Dice tomato and grind into a fine paste with few capsicum slices.

Set flame to medium. Heat oil in a pan and saute ginger garlic paste.


Then add onion with a pinch of salt and saute till translucent.


Then add sliced capsicum and allow to cook for a few minutes.


Now add chicken, close with lid and allow to cook for 15 minutes.


When cooked add the tomato capsicum paste.


Add chilly powder, coriander powder, garam masala and salt to taste.


Allow to cook for a few minutes and then serve with chapathi, poori, dosa, idly, aappam or idiappam.

PINK HEART COOKIES

Ingredients:

Eggs - 2
Melted and cooled butter - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
All purpose flour - 4 cups
Vanilla sugar - 1 pack/7 gms (or vanilla essence - 1 2 tsp)
Beetroot juice (extracted without water) - 7 tbsp ( or pink food color)

Preparation:

Grate beetroot and extract juice without adding water. Or use a juicer to extract juice. We need 7 tbsp juice. Beat eggs in a vessel. Then add sugar, vanilla sugar and butter one after another and beat well.


Now add 4 tbsp beetroot juice and mix well.


Then add all purpose flour little by little and mix well. Knead to a loose dough. Finally add another 3 tbsp juice to get a nice color and refrigerate for 30 minutes.


Preheat oven in 180 degrees Celsius. Shape the dough to heart shaped cookies.


Bake for 7 minutes if you need it in pink.


But pink cookies wont stay good more than 3 days. If you want to store long then bake for 10 minutes. This stays long but color will be brown.

  

Note:
Pink food color can be added for a better result. I don't want to add artificial color. So I used beet juice.

TOAST BREAD WITH VEGGIES

This is also my daughters own recipe, She asked me to toast bread, grate carrots and coconut and to chop red bell peppers. She prepared and had. and then said tasty ma.

Ingredients:

Toast bread - 2 slices

Butter to toast the bread

Freshly grated coconut - 2 tbsp

Grated carrots - 4 tbsp

Chopped red bell peppers - 2 tbsp

Grated emmental cheese - 2 tbsp (If emmental is not available any nutty semi hard cheese can be used)

Preparation:

Toast the bread slices with butter.

Mix together coconut and carrots. Now spread this mix over the slices. 

Now sprinkle chopped red bell peppers.

Finally sprinkle cheese and enjoy.

RAGI / FINGER MILLET IDLY (WET GRINDER METHOD - RAGI FLOUR AND WHOLE RAGI)

Using ragi flour

Ingredients:

Black gram splits - 1 cup

Ragi flour - 3 cups

Salt to taste

Preparation:

Soak black gram splits for one hour and grind in a wet grinder. Add water little by little to make a smooth and fluffy paste. When done transfer to a big vessel.

Add ragi flour, water and salt  to make a batter little thicker than idly consistency.

Allow to ferment for atleast 8 hours. Not like rice idly, ragi idly batter must be really fermented and raised. 

Now spoon batter to idly plated and steam for 10 minutes. 

Ragi idly tastes good with spicy gravy or sambhar.

Note:

No need to grease the idly plates before pouring batter. After steaming remove the plates and turn upside down. Pour some cold water carefully over the plate. 

Now let it sit for two minutes and use a spoon to remove idlies. It will be easier to remove and also hot too.

Using whole ragi

Ingredients:

Black gram splits - 1 cup

Raw rice - 1 cup

Whole ragi - 2 cups

Salt to taste

Preparation:

Soak gram splits in a bowl for one hour. Soak rice and whole ragi together in another vessel for one hour. When soaked grind the black gram splits into a smooth paste in a wet grinder until fluffy. Transfer to a big vessel and now grind rice and ragi together to a coarse batter.


Now mix this with the gram splits paste to get a batter of idly consistency. Add salt to taste and allow to ferment.


When fermented prepare idly and serve hot with any side dish of your choice.

When carefully noted some skin of ragi can be seen. Ragi cannot be grinded so smoothly but still the idly turns out very soft.

Note: 

• Grind ragi together with rice. Otherwise it takes a long time to grind and also it wont turn out good.
• Any whole grain millet can be used in this same ratio. 
• If so then grind rice and the millets separately. Only for ragi grinding together is must. Others give good results when ground separately.