Category: Recipes

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Whole Wheat Banana Cake

In this lockdown we are struggling to use over ripe bananas and my son is always behind me not to waste food. We got fed up eating his whole wheat banana chocolate mug cake so decide to make a proper cake and share with some of my friends in the time of social distancing. Again a simple one but healthier

Ingredients

  • Whole wheat flour- 1 cup
  • Brown sugar- ½ cup
  • Over ripe bananas mashed- 3
  • Oil- 1/3 cup
  • Eggs -2 ( you can skip eggs and add ½ cup curd and 1tsp Baking Soda)
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1tsp Vanila essence
  • 1+1/2 tsp Baking powder
  • ½ cup nuts, choco chips etc of your choice

Method

  1. Beat the oil and sugar together in a bowl
  2. Add eggs one by one and then the banana
  3. Now add Flour, Baking powder, Vanilla essence and lightly fold in the mixture
  4. Add the nuts and put in a cake tin of 7 inch
  5. Preheat the oven at 180 degree and bake the cake at 180 degree for 35-40 min or till toothpick comes out clean
  6. Let the cake cool before you take it out

Suggestion : In case you want a chocolate flavour in it then reduce the flour by 1 tbsp and Add coco powder in place of it. In nuts I prefer walnuts compared to other nuts, but you can use any.

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Nutella Cookies

Hello to everyone, it has been a long time that I posted something.  Between lockdown and lot of pressure from friends and relatives, finally I am back and this time I promise to be more regular.

My daughter is just fond of eating calories and loves Nutella in any form. Last year I had chanced upon this recipe and regularly make this at home.  My little brat suggested this to be shared as it has limited ingredients.

Nutella cookies are eggless and it has only three ingredients. Yes! You heard it correct it has only three ingredients.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Nutella
  • 1 Cup All-purpose flour/Maida
  • ½ cup thick curd

Method

  1. Mix all the ingredients together with a beater or hand whisk
  2. You can pipe them with a star nozzle or put small roundels with spoon
  3. Put them in fridge for some time to make them firm while baking
  4. Bake in a pre-heated oven for 180 degree for 8-10 min
  5. Cookies are ready
  • The three ingredients – Flour, Curd and Nutella
  • Whisk Together
  • Pipe and Bake

This is simplest one without having any rising agent and it is fun for a Nutella lover

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Broccoli and Carrot Kebab

My kids are not fond of broccoli at all and in this season I am getting fresh broccoli from various sources and in excess. Not sure how much to eat as salad or vegetable in various forms. Finally my “mom” thinking cap got on and I grated the broccoli – and this is what happens!!!

Broccoli & Carrot Kebabs
Some yummy broccoli & carrot kebabs!!

Ingredients

  • Broccoli – 2 nos grated
  • Carrot – 2 nos grated (optional)
  • Ginger – 1 inch (grated)
  • Garlic – 4 slices (grated)
  • Salt to taste
  • Pepper powder to taste
  • Oregano seasoning
  • Potato – 1 small boiled or 2 slices of bread crumbs
  • Oil – 1 Tea spoon for grilling

Method

  • Saute the broccoli with ginger and garlic and salt in 1 tsp oil
  • You can add the grated carrot
  • Add the seasoning like salt, pepper, oregano seasoning
  • Add small grated boiled potato for binding
  • Mix all the same and make round shapes
  • Grill them on a pan
  • Serve with salad and sauce of your liking

The carrot is optional, I added so that my kids eat both the veggies and they loved the taste. But if you add too many vegetables then it will become like mix veg kebab rather than broccoli, so be careful.

Enjoy your broccoli this season !!

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Basant Panchami Sweet Rice

It is two years since I started my blog and what better way to say thank you to god on Basant panchmi. Made this special sweet rice for the prasad today. This also has a special significance today and connection to my mom. It happens to be my parents anniversary as per Hindu Calendar and my mom used to make it every year.

Ingredients

  • Long grain rice- 1 cup soaked for 30 min
  • Sugar – 1 cup
  • Green Cardamom – 2 nos
  • Dry fruits- cashews and raisins
  • Water- 2 cups
  • Turmeric- 1/2 tsp
  • Ghee- 1tsp

Method

  • Take pressure pan , add ghee and dry roast the dry fruits
  • Add cardamom, rice and turmeric and saute for some time
  • Add sugar and water
  • Pressure cook for 1 whistle and on low sim for 10 min. You could also do it in open pan and cook till water dries.
Sweet Rice
Sweet Rice

That’s it!! It’s a simple recipe, so enjoy the lovely sweet rice.

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Navratri Special Panjiri with Singhara Atta

Navratri–or the nine sacred days–mark the most auspicious days of the lunar calendar according to Hinduism. Celebrated with fervour and festivity all over north India, and every Hindu community the world over, these nine days are dedicated solely to Maa Durga (goddess Durga) and her nine avatars. People fast during this and eat very restricted items of Kuttu Atta (buck wheat flour) , Potato, Singhara (water Chestnut Flour)..

This is simple recipe of Singhara Flour Barfi with basic ingredients. It can be made in advance and stored to have it during this period. Most of our familiy loves the same

Ingredients

  • 1 cup atta
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup ghee
  • 4 cup water
  • One plate or try to spread the mixture

Method

1) Dry roast the flour till brown in a pan

2) Add ghee and roast little more

3) Switch off the gas ( this step is done to ensure no lumps are formed). Let the atta cool a little

4) In another pan dissolve sugar with water and add it to the flour

5) Cook the same till everything comes together without lumps

6) Quickly spread it on the greased tray and put lines like a diamond cut on batter till it is warm

7) once the Barfi/Panjiri is set you can remove it and store in airtight container

Singhada Atta Panjiri

If you feel you want to add dryfruits or garnish it with silver paper. Pl do the same. I do not do so as everyone loves it this way.

In case you want to have it like halwa then reduce water and add milk to it and then it can be served as halwa.

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Easy to make Lauki Halwa

Bottle Gourd (Lauki) is not a very popular vegetable in our household. But my hubby likes to order it more than the required quantity. Not too sure why does it happen every time : to irritate me; or to give me hints I need to eat it to reduce weight; or challenging my culinary skills on what different things I can make with it!! So this time I’m sharing a simple desert (halwa) variation with Lauki & Milkmaid. It is very simple and does not require too much effort.

Ingredients:

  1. Bottle Gourd – 3 Cups grated
  2. Ghee – 1/4th cup
  3. Milk – 3/4 cup
  4. Sugar – 2-3 tbl sp
  5. Milk maid – 200 gm
  6. Nuts for garnishing
  7. Green color – 2-3 drops (optional)

Method : 

  • Take a non stick wok and saute the grated lauki for 2 mins.
  • Add milk to the wok and let it boil till lauki cooks. It will take about 10min or so.
  • Add sugar after some time and let it dissolve and then add ghee
  • Add Milkmaid and roast the same for 10min. You can colour if u want at this stage or leave it. I have not added any colour in my dish.
  • Roast till the ghee separates. It will take max 10 min or so
Lauki Halwa

It is very yummy and when i first made it, I did not tell the kids that it is lauki and it was polished off. Try making for this Rakhi as a surprise.

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Tricolor Rice

It is great feeling on the 72nd Independence day for India. It feels liberating. Typically I make something in the national Tri-colour like sandwiches, puri, cutlets, dhokla or rice. Today keeping my tradition in mind and influence of Bangalore I created this tri-colour rice using our natural ingredients. This rice has a personal history as it connects with my favourite person in my unmarried days. My Sister-in-law used to make it and we like gluttons use to polish this off in minutes. I have tried to get the same flavour.

Ingredients

  • 2 cup Boiled Long grain Rice
  • 1/2 cup boiled spinach puree
  • 1/2 cup curd
  • 1 carrot grated
  • 1 chopped tomato
  • 1 chopped onion
  • 1 tsp ginger
  • 1 tsp garlic
  • 1 tsp mustard seeds
  • 3 tsp oil
  • salt and chilli to taste

Method

  1. Make 3 equal portions of the boiled rice.
  2. For the Green Colour :  Take a wok & put 1 tsp oil and heat. Add mustard seed, onion ginger, spinach puree and saute. Then add 1 portion of rice with salt & chilli and saute for some time. Keep Aside
  3. For White colour : Take a wok put 1tsp oil and heat. Add mustard seeds and salt and rice and saute. Let the rice cool and then add curd to the same. Keep Aside.
  4. For orange Colour : Take a Wok put 1 tsp oil and heat. Add Mustard seeds, ginger, tomato, grated carrot and saute for some time. Add salt, chilli and rice and saute for some time. Keep Aside
  5. For assembly of the rice please take a glass flat bowl and layer the same. Since curd rice can bleed so after that layer put in fridge till it sets and then put the third layer.

My family just love to eat it like this or with some pickles or Lentils. Do share your version and combinations.

Jai hind

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Summer Drinks

It is summer time in India esp North India gets really hot and with kids at home you need to keep them hydrated as they want to run out and play and do lots of swimming . While I make lots of lemonade, my kids are ready for experiments and trying out different drinks. Today we will do simple Bael (Wood Apple) Drink and Mango drink.

Bael Cooler

Ingredients

  • Bael (wood apple)-1 no
  • Sugar 2-4 tbsp
  • Lemon juice- 2 tsp
  • Salt/black salt to taste
  • Roasted cumin powder
  • Bowl of water

Method

  1. Peel the bael by breaking it and put all the pulp in a bowl of water and leave it for 30 min to one hour
  2. Mash the bael in water and sieve the water out. Don’t increase the water quantity as we want it more like a concentrate
  3. Mix sugar ( you can increase and reduce or skip as per your taste), salt and cumin powder in the concentrate
  4. Put ice in a glass and pour the concentrate in the glass about 3/4
  5. Add little lemon juice and put some water in the glass . Stir it
  6. sprinkle some more cumin powder and serve it chilled
  7. Concentrate can be kept for a week or so

Bael Sherbet

Mango cooler

This was created to curb the usage of tetra pack juices. I had tried only doing juice with fresh ripe manages but kids said it is tastier to have raw mango juice.  So I came up with this combination of the two !!

Ingredients

  • Ripe Alphonso Mango  1 to 2 nos
  • Raw Mango 1 nos
  • Sugar 4-6 tbsp depending upon your taste and sweetness of your mango
  • Water 1.5 liter

Method

  1. Peel and chop the mangoes
  2. Put in a big pan with water and sugar
  3. Let it boil for 15-20 min or till mango becomes soft
  4. Pass the juice through a sieve and let it cool
  5. Refrigerate the same for 2 hours and serve chilled mango juice

Mango Cooler

Do share once you try making the two. These two have become top favourite with my kids after lemonade

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Potato Halwa Navratri Special

Navratras have special place in most North Indian households. Often there is less of fasting and more of feasting which happens! Potato halwa is one of our family favourite and I never had it after my mom’s death. Suddenly cleaning my cupboard, I chanced upon my mom’s recipe book and saw the potato halwa recipe . Just got tempted to try it and relive my childhood. It is an easy recipe and you can reduce or increase the ghee quantity

Ingredients

  • – 1 ½ cup boiled and mashed potatoes (let the boiled potatoes cool naturally)
  • – 1/4 cup ghee
  • – 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
  • – 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • – 1 /2 cup milk

Method

  1. Take a pan and put some ghee in it. Heat it for a min
  2. Put the potatoes and fry them in ghee for about 10 min. Use a non stick vessel so that it is easier and potatoes do not stick to the pan
  3. Add sugar and roast it for a min
  4. Add milk and cardamom powder to the mixture and let it cook for another 3-4 min
  5. Serve it hot with almond garnish

It is really yummy, my kids had it for the first time and they loved it . It took them a while to find out it is boiled potato

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Whole Wheat Eggless Waffles

Post Holi, the kids wanted something different than Indian food. To end the long weekend decided to surprise the kids by making these Whole wheat eggless waffles. This is the first time I tried waffles without egg and made them whole wheat. The results were amazing. I can vouch for the same as I had kid’s friends over and everything was polished off in minutes. I had to make extra for clicking pics!!

Here it goes.

Ingredients

  • Whole wheat flour  – 1 ¼ cup

  • All purpose Flour (Maida) – ¼ cup

  • Baking powder- 1 ½ tsp

  • Baking soda –  ½ tsp

  • Sugar- 3 tbsp

  • Milk – 1 cup approximately

  • Butter – 20gm melted and for applying on the waffles pans

  • Serving – Maple syrup or Ice-cream or dust icing sugar

Method

  1. Sift all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl
  2. Add Sugar to the batter
  3. Slowly add milk to the batter. Depending on the grade of whole wheat flour you are using, the milk can vary. Please note the batter is not to be runny but on thicker side
  4. Add melted butter and mix well
  5. Let the batter rest for 5-10 min
  6. When the batter is resting, please preheat the waffle maker
  7. Pour the batter in the waffle maker and let the magic begin (It takes about 7-8 min in my machine – I have used a Morphy Richards one)

You can serve them hot with ice–cream or maple syrup

Whole Wheat Eggless Waffles

You can store waffles in an airtight container once they have cooled and  reheat them in a toaster. Let the kids enjoy these guilt free waffles anytime.

Keep following, as I will share more variations with Banana and gluten free.