Pumpkin stir-fry / Kumbalakayi Palya

While growing up my mother never prepared any dish with pumpkins, this was the vegetable that we always used to eat at our grandmothers house in village, where they grew their own pumpkins in the backyard. I like the flavour and texture of pumpkin very much and enjoyed them.

After I got married, at my MIL's place they also had a small backyard and they too grew pumpkins. When ever she make doses she always make pumpkin sagu, i'll post the recipe sometimes. Most times I make palya a dry stir-fry with Pumpkins.

Apart from the fact that it has nice colour and texture this veggie is loaded with Beta-carotene when consumed converts into Vitamin A, a powerful anitoxidant. That is one more reason I use them often now.



Recipe is very simple.

Vegetable

Pumpkin I used is Butternut squash - about 2 cups chopped to bite size peices

Tempering

• Oil - 1tsp
• Mustard seeds/ saasive - 1/tsp
• Cumin/ Jeera/Jeerige - 1/2 tsp
• Channadal/Kadalebele - 1tsp
• Red chillies - 2 crushed
• Hing- 2 pinchs

Garnish

• Fresh/frozen Coconut-1tbsp
• Cilantro leaves- 1tbsp chopped
• Lime juice - 1tsp

1. Peel the outer layer and cut pumpkin into small bite size peices.
2. Heat oil in a pan, when hot add all the tempering ingredients one by one, when channadal starts to get brown add cut veggies. Cover with a lid and cook on medium heat untill just tender. This takes about 15 minutes.
3. Once the pumpkin is tender, switch off heat and add salt, and garnis with coconut and cilantro. at the very end sqeeze lime/lemon juice and mix well.

We had it with rice and sambar for our lunch today. Palya also tastes good with dosas and chapathis.

Enjoy !

Vegetable-Chutney Sandwich

As many of you have guessed this is my entry for Sandwich festival hosted by Anupama of Food and more. At our house we like sandwichs with chutney spread inside and vegetables raw or roasted and always toasted and warm.


So here is the recipe for chutney.

• Cilantro leaves- 1 bunch
• Green chillies- 2(medium hot)
• Ginger and garlic- 1 each
• Lime juice- 1 tbsp
• Salt to taste.

Clean cilantro leaves and grind together with little water. Squeeze lime juice and mix well. Chutney is ready to be used.

Chutney can be stored in fridge up to 4 days and can also be used as spread for burgers, on soups, making fried rice and goes very well on top of chats and puffed rice.

For making Sandwich
Whole wheat bread- 2 slices

• Whole wheat bread- 2 slices
• All natural swiss cheese- 1 slice
• Vegetables- tomato, shallot and avacado slices
• Salt and pepper for taste
• Mustard (optional)
• Olive oil- 1 tsp for roasting

Arrange 2 slices of bread, spread chutney on one side and top with veggies sprinkel salt and pepper. On another bread put cheese and close it , put little oil on both sides and toast on grill which I have used. Can also be made on griddle/tava or in the oven.

Makes for quick breakfast or snack. Enjoy when its warm.

Sprouted Moongdal Dose

I make dosas atleast once a week for our weekday or weekend brunch. We like to eat dosas with aloo palya and chutney or only with chutneys somethimes or even gojju. The leftover dosa batter I always use that for making onion-chilli uttapam. This week I had some sprouted moongdal, so tried it along with some onion and tomatoes.

These days I have upgraded my dosa recipe from regular rice to brown rice to make it little more nutritious. With sprouts added to it, this will make a complete healthy breakfast.



Recipe for Dose Batter

• 2 cups - brown rice
• 3/4 cups-urad dal
• 1/2 cup - poha/aval/avalakki
• 2 tbsp - channa dal
• 1 tbsp - methi seeds

Soak all the ingredients in enough water for 8 hours. Grind to smooth batter, let it ferment for 8 more hours. Then it will be ready to me made into dosas/pancakes or use pancake mix for batter.

For making utthapa/ toppings

• 1/2 cup - sprouted moongdal
• 2tbsp- sweet sliced onions
• 2tbsp- tomatos
• 1tsp of each- chilli powder, cumin powder and salt.

Mix them all together. Keep aside.

1. Pour a laddle full of dosa batter on hot griddle/tava. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of mixture in top. It will spread on its own.
2. Cover for few seconds, let the bottom side get light brown and cook through.
3. Flip for few seconds and serve.

Can eat it like that, we had ours with yogurt mixed with chutney-powder.

Enjoy !

Back to blogging with Pineapple Gojju

Hello dear friends,

Its been more than 2 months since I posted any recipe, days are going so fast. I was on vacation for 5 weeks to my cousins house in NJ. It was fun I did lots of shopping, chating and enjoyed spring there.

Now I am back in Alaska, where its still snowing. Getting back to my regular routine of cooking and checking my fellow bloggers recipes and finally today I got to update my recipes.

So here is the recipe of Pineapple gojju, which I have been thinking to make from very long time.
Gojju is a combination of sweet-sour/tangy-spicy-salt . While making regular gojju like tomato,onion or brinjal we use tamarind and Jaggery. Since Pineapple tend to be both sweet and sour I have not used tamarind and jaggery instead its made with roasting and grinding few spices and lentils with coconut, this kind of gojju is usually made during special occasions and festivals.

Since we get lots of canned, pre-cut pineapples here, I made it for our lunch today. This is a very simple, easy and tasteful side dish goes well with rice, dosa and idlies or any rice based items.


Ingredinets :

• Pineapple chopped/crushed - 1 Can (I used Del Monte with natural juice)
• Garnish - 1 spring onion

Tempering :

• Oil - 1tsp
• Mustard seeds - 1/2tsp
• Channadal - 1/2 tsp
• Hing - 2pinchs

To Roast and Grind:

• Channadal - 2 tsp
• Uraddal - 1tsp
• Cumin/jeera - 1tsp
• Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Methi seeds- 1/2 tsp
• Red chilles- 2-3
• Coconut fresh - 1tbsp
• Oil - 1tsp

1. Remove the pineapples from the can, drain the juice, give it a rinse to remove sweetness. Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan once hot enough add mustard seeds, Channadal and hing. When dal turns light brown add pineapple and fry for few minutes just to make them coat with oil and seasonings.

2. In a pan heat 1 tsp of oil and roast all the ingredients mentioned above. Once cooled down grind into powder or make paste using little water.

3. Add the grounded mixture to the pineapple, add water if required or pineapple juice. Add salt let it simmer for 10- 15 minutes until pineapple mixes will with the flavors of the ground mixture.

4. Switch off the heat, garnish with fresh herbs I used spring onions as a garnish. Ready to serve.
*This curry was bit too sweet for me, so I added more chili powder at the end to balance the sweet-sour flavor.


We enjoyed gojju with dosa.