Sprouts are good for health since they are high in protein. They taste delicious with onion, tomatoes, black salt and and a hint of lemon. A few days ago Rahul was craving sprouts for breakfast and I made it for him. So let me share this recipe and I hope you will like it too. Its perfect for a protein packed breakfast that keeps you going during the day!

How to sprout Mung beans at home?

• Day 1:Soaking: Take one cup mung beans and soak them overnight. Make sure they are soaked in double the quantity of water as the beans.
• Day 2: In the morning remove the water and wash them 2-3 times. Put them back in the same container and loosely close the container as if we are letting them breathe. Shake the beans such that the ones at the bottom of the container are at the top. Spray few drops of water. Do not let the water dry out.
• Day 3: Check the beans, they have sprouted.

Time to cook!!

Preparation time : 10 mins (after the mung beans are sprouted!)

Serves:4-5 people

Ingredients:

• 1 tea spoon cumin seeds
• Spouted Mung beans
• Pinch of Turmeric Powder
• Pinch of Red chilly powder
• 1 table spoon coriander powder
• 1 tea spoon oil
• 1 cup onions (finely chopped)
• 1 green chilly (finely chopped)
• 1/2 cup tomatoes (finely chopped)
• Lemon juice as per taste
• Salt as per taste
• Pinch of Black Salt (optional)
• Pinch of sugar (optional)
• Cilantro to garnish (finely chopped)

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a pressure cooker and add cumin seeds. Cook them until they diffuse their aroma.
2. Add turmeric powder, chili powder and quickly add the sprouts (make sure you do not burn the turmeric and chili powder).
3. Sprinkle a few drops of water and add coriander powder and close the lid and cook it up to 1 whistle.
4. Carefully remove the mix from the pressure cooker in a bowl and add onions, tomatoes, chillies, lemon juice, salt/black salt, sugar(optional) and garnish with cilantro and serve.

Note:

1) You can find ready sprouts in the grocery stores.

2) You can also sprinkle some thin sev and yogurt for a change.

Upma is made from Suji/Rava. This snack and lunch is prepared differently in various parts of India. In North India it is made spicy with a hint of lemon, whereas in the western part (Gujrat) it is prepared with sugar, salt and a hint of lemon. Not only does the taste differs, but also the style of cooking differs: Some add water to cook, while others add milk or yogurt.

Last week, we had some family come over to our place and I made Upma for brunch. This recipe is the traditional way of making Upma in Gujarat (my home state), however, the ingredients can vary based on your taste.

Preparation time:30 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cup Suji/ Rava
• 1 cup chopped onions
• 3-4 curry leaves
• 1 green chilly
• ½ tea spoon mustard seeds
• 1 table spoon Urad daal
• 1/4 cup frozen peas
• 1 table spoon oil/ghee (ghee is optional)
• 2-3 table spoon sugar (as per taste)
• 2-3 tea spoon salt (as per taste)
• 2-3 table spoons lemon juice (as per taste)
• 4 1/3 cup water
• Cilantro (finely chopped) to garnish
• 4-5 roasted cashew nuts to garnish

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds and let them splutter.
2. Lower the flame to low-medium and add the curry leaves and Urad daal. Saute until the Urad daal turns light brown in color.
3. Turn the flame to medium and add the green chillies and onions and saute it till onions turn translucent.
4. Add the Rava/suji and saute it on a low-medium flame untill it turns light brown (approx 5-10 minutes)
5. Now increase the flames to high and then add water and keep stiring constantly for approximately 1-2 minutes. The Suji will become thick in consistency after adding water.
6. Add lemon juice, salt, peas and sugar to this mixture and close with a lid and let it all cook on medium-low flame for 5 minutes.
7. When the mixture comes to a desired consistency, garnish it with cilantro and cashew nuts.
8. Enjoy!

A lot of bakeries in India sell delicious bread and an assortment of pastries, with an Indian twist! Ever since I was a kid, my favorite has been the vegetable puff pastries that are now sold not only at bakeries but also at many fast food joint.

These puffs are filled with potatoes and peas, spiced and mashed and then baked inside pastry sheets. A couple of years ago, I found these pastry sheets at the grocery store and tried to make the vegetable puffs at home. They tasted delicious! However, after I discovered Masala burgers at Trader Joe’s, I figured making the mashed potatoes mix is such a waste of time. The masala burgers are vegetable cutlets in themselves, so I use them instead!

This receipe can be twisted a little bit if you taste buds crave for spices. You can always add ginger, garlic and green chilly paste to the stuffing and make is more spicy. Another option is to add mozarrella cheese. In this receipe, but I’ve not tried that yet.

It goes well with Indian Chai!

Preparation time: 30 mins
Serves: 2 People

Ingredients

• 2 Puff pastry sheets(room temperature)

• 1 Masala Burger (from Trader Joe’s)

• Water for brushing the edges to seal the pastries

Directions

1. If the pastries are frozen, bring them to room temperature.
2. Cook the Masala Burger in an oven until it is hot and ready to be eaten.
3. Cut the burger into half and place this half on the pastry sheet as shown in the picture above.
4. Seal the sheet by brushing some water over the edges.
5. Cook it in the oven at 375-400 F until the puff turns light brown.
6. Enjoy with tomato ketchup and hot chai!

Redraks is the creator of instant food products, launched by our friends’ Vedant Rajput and his wife Rakhee years of research.

Most Indian folks have seen cooked food available in packets in the grocery store. You microwave it and eat it. But, how about food that is pre-dried and cacuum sealed that you cook at home by just adding water? No additional requirements and does not have chemicals or preservatives. Most of the items cook in about 5 minutes.

We’ve tried the Kanda Pohe, Dal Fry, Masala Rice and Pulao so far and all of these have been delicious! The quantity was enough for two people. We even had a few of our friends try it out (and some of these are real picky eaters and they loved it too!

Thanks to Rakhee and Vedant for bringing this wonderful product to all of us who miss the way food was in India!

Check out their website: http://www.redraks.com/ for a complete list of items offered. They’re superb!

Last weekend we went to our Uncle’s place where we did a long hike in the Saratoga hills, as well as some yoga. Since he starts the hike at 6 AM, we spent the previous night at his place. When we got to his place, he made us a delicious smoothie (with 13 ingredients, that we had to individually identify while we drank it!) which we enjoyed.

After coming home, we’ve been drinking this extremely nutritious and delicious smoothie everyday. It has different nuts and berries that are essential for the body and should be consumed daily. It can be made in advance and stays good for up to two days.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Serves: 2 people

Read the rest of this entry »

Nan-Khatai is an Indian version of cookies, which originated from a very popular city in India, Surat. Surat has a sizable Parsi population. The concept of bakeries came into existence when the Dutch came to Surat in 1800′s. However, when the Dutch left India, they left the bakeries behind, which were of no use since the Indian staple diet that consisted of whole wheat roti instead of bread. The enterprising Parsi community, instead of letting these bakeries close down, took them over and came up with these cookies: Nan-Khatai. The Nan-Khatai of Surat is very famous, to this day. A visit to Surat would mean coming back with a load of these cookies!

These days, they are available everywhere in India, and with a lot of variations: flavors, mixed dry fruits, chocolate coating, butterscotch etc. They can be made sweet, or salty by adding cumin seeds and salt to them.

While all these variations are fun to try out, nothing beats the simple original version. And that is the recipe I am going to share with you. Its simple, easy and delicious, with not too many complications. Enjoy!

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Baking time: 15 minutes

Total cookies: 7 cookies

Ingredients

• 2/3rd cup white flour (maida)
• 5 cloves of cardamom finely ground
• 1/4th teaspoon vanilla essence
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 5 tablespoons clarified butter (ghee)
• 2 teaspoon sooji/rava
• Few drops of milk to sprinkle

Directions:

1. Mix above ingredients in a bowl, sprinkle some milk and make them into a cookie shape.
2. Place an almond on each cookie and put all the cookies in the oven to cook for approximately 15 minutes at 375 degrees .
3. Enjoy once they are cooled down.

Note

1. I have portable small oven and so I bake these cookies at 375 degrees, so use the settings as per your oven requirements.
2. Make sure the ghee is in liquid form when you mix the ingredients in step 1.
3. Ghee is available at any local Indian grocery store.

There are some days where I just feel lazy to cook (and they are few and far in between), but am craving something spicy that cheers up my mood. At these times, I resort to baked dishes that do not require a lot of time or work on my part, yet do the trick of uplifting the mood.

Most of the time, not only are they easy to make, they also can be added as a side-kick to the main dish when we have a lot of people over for dinner. I usually make this dish with eggplant & potato. But this preparation can be made using different variations like adding okra, onions, eggplants, potatoes or garlic. This time I am using eggplant, potato and okra.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Baking time: 30 minutes

Serves: 3-4 people

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup ground peanuts
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon red chilly powder (check the note)
• 1 tablespoon coriander powder
• 1 teaspoon Amchur powder (or lemon juice)
• 2 tablespoon oil
• 3 small eggplants
• 5-7 sticks of Okra
• 1 medium size potato
• water to sprinkle
• Salt, as per tase

Directions:

1. Mix all the spices, oil and ground peanuts.
2. Cut the potatoes and eggplant in wedges and the okra into half.
3. Spray some oil in a baking dish and spread all the potatoes, eggplants and okra in this dish and sprinkle the spice-mix over it.
4. Sprinkle few drops of water ( 1-2 table spoons).
5. Cover the baking dish with an aluminum foil and bake it for 30 minutes in the oven at 400 degrees.
6. And… Voila! It’s ready!

Note:

1. Mine is a portable small oven so I cook it on 400 degree for 30 minutes. Adjust your oven temperature accordingly.
2. If you are using paprika then add 1-2 table spoon and this will give a nice red color to the food.
3. You can also use Japanese/ Chinese long dark purple colored eggplant. .
4. In this preparation you can put cloves of garlic if you prefer garlic flavor.
5. If you do not have Amchur powder, you can sprinkle some lemon juice instead, when it is baked

Total Preparation time: 15 minutes

Serves: 2

Part 1: Making the syrup Ingredients:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water

Directions:

Mix the above ingredients and let it cook on a slow-medium flame for atleast 8-10 minutes. (The sugar syrup should neither become too watery nor remain too thick). Let it cook and in the meanwhile you may finish part 2 ,3 and 4 – we need the syrup hot/warm when pouring it.

Part 2: Deep fry the bread

Ingredients:

• 2 slices of bread
• Oil for deep frying

Directions:

1. Take the bread and cut with a round cutter into a nice big round shape and deep fry it till it turns to a crispy golden brown color.

Part 3: Dry fruit mix

Ingredients :

• 1 table spoon dry coconut powder
• 1/4 tea spoon cardamom powder
• 4-5 Almonds (cut into thin long slices)
• 4-5 Pistachios unsalted (cut into thin long slices)

Directions:

• Mix all the ingredients and keep it aside.

Part 4: Bread and milk mix

Ingredients:

• 2 slices of bread
• 2/3rd cup milk

Directions:

1. Remove the brown edges of the bread and cut into big cubes.
2. Add milk and cook the mix for atleast 5 minutes on a medium flame, stirring it constantly. Cook it until it has a consistency of a thick porridge.

Putting it all together

1. Take the deep fried round slice of bread and on it, put a lump of the bread and milk mix.
2. Put some syrup all over the mix and let it soak. Ensure that the syrup is warm or hot.
   
3. Now sprinkle the dry fruit mix and enjoy!

Thandai is one of the main drinks made during Holi. It is a combination of almond, poppy seeds with a hint of black pepper. The poppy seeds and almonds dominate the flavor. Rose water is added to add a slight hint of it’s flavor.

Thandai is a cooling drink and can be quite refreshing.

The ingredients

Ingredients:

• 1/4th cup poppy seeds (khas-khas)
• 10-12 whole almonds
• 1 table spoon fennel seeds (saunf)
• 1 tea spoon whole black peppers
• 4-5 whole cardamoms
• 4-5 whole raw cashew nuts (optional)
• 1 tea spoon rosewater
• 2 tablespoons rock candy sugar (khadi sakhar)
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup water
• 3-4 threads of saffron

Directions:

1. Soak the almonds, poppy seeds, cashew nuts and fennel seeds in separate bowls overnight ( 6-8 hours )
2. Grind the black pepper and cardamom into a smooth powder. Then add the poppy seeds and grind it into a smooth paste.
3. Add the almonds, fennel seeds and cashew nuts and grind it well.
4. Add the rose water and water and sieve the mix .You can do this through a muslin cloth.
   
5. Then add milk and serve cold with ice and a sprinkle of almonds and saffron.

Holi is a festival signifying the start of spring in India. It is celebrated on the day after the full moon day of Phalgun month (which falls roughly between march and april). It is a festival of colors, bringing joy, happiness and imbues the spirit of friendship in people of all faiths. Holi symbolizes different shades of life and inspires all to rejoice in the glory of nature in its varied colors. According to Hindu mythology this festival is a celebration of good over evil. A very famous tale of Hiranyakashup, the father, Hollika and Prahallad is considered to be the legend for this celebration.

In India, people come together in their respective neighborhoods to light a fire and perform rituals. The next day, they play with colors and water with each other.

Along with the fun there is a lot of food made – sweet and savory dishes! In the spirit of this festival of colors, I’m going to post a few of my favorite recipes of the food that we make during this time of the year to welcome the new season!