Carrot Soup

After a very long gap, I am again hooked to blogging. This is a diet recipe. But adding cream will enhance the taste of the soup.

Serves 3
Carrot 3-4 Medium peeled and diced
Onion 1 chopped into two
Garlic 6 or 7 pods
Black Pepper 1/2 table spoon
Tomato 1 (No need to chop)
Salt as required
Dried Basil 1/2 tea spoon

Put all the above ingredients except salt and basil in the pressure cooker with enough water and let it cook for 5 whistles. Once cooled, remove the skin of the tomato and whirl the cooked ingredients in the blender. Add enough salt, 2 cups of water and bring it to boil. Season with basil and serve!

Notes:
* I prefer whole black pepper over the powder as it gives good flavour and heat. Otherwise you can use pepper powder
* It would be easy to remove the skin of the tomato when we cook it whole in the cooker. 
* I have added potato once before for the thick starchy texture. It was also very tasty. If you care for the potato you can add one peeled and diced in the cooker along with other ingredients.

Top for Pattu Pavadai

These Pavadais I've stitched for my DD. 

Summer Dresses 2013

These are the summer dresses I've made for my DD. Most of them are simple and serviceable. Rather than going for designs, I prefer comfortability.

Most of them are stitched from the left over salwar materials of my dresses. Only for the Black Blue and Pink dress I've bought material. My daughter is 7 Years and 120cms, one metre of cloth is sufficient for stitching these dresses.

Lasagna

It was raining badly yesterday thanks to Jall cyclone and we had to stay indoors all day. With so much of time, we thought of having something special for dinner and zeroed on Lasagna. Lasagna is our favorite Italian food. When I searched for recipes, I got this from Tarla dalal's Facebook discussion board. I altered it to suit to our taste and the ingredients available with me. It is an elaborate process but it was worth it!

Red tomato sauce:

Tomatoes - 4

Onion - 1

Salt - as required

Garlic pods - 10

Chilly powder - as required

Sugar - 1 spoon

Italian seasoning - 1 spoon(contains thyme, oregano, basil)

Prepare a puree with blanched tomatoes and onion. Add salt, chilli powder and sugar and cook in medium flame till the sauce is almost thick. Add the chopped garlic pods. Cook for another 5 mins. Finally add the italian seasoning and switch off the stove.

White/Bechamel Sauce:

APF - 2 spoons

Milk - 2 cups

Salt - as required

Pepper powder - as required

Mozzarella cheese - about 1/4 cup( recipe asked for Fresh cream)

Butter - 2 spoons

Over low flame melt the butter and add the flour. Simply cook it for 2 mins. Add 2 cups of milk to it and continue stirring for about another 2 mins. Add the salt and pepper. The milk will start to thicken. Add the mozzarella cheese to it and cook for another minute.

Filling:

Carrot, Beans, Sweet corn, cabbage(vegetables as preferred) - Boiled about 3 cups

Crumbled paneer - 1 cup

Onion - 2 chopped finely

Salt - as required

pepper powder as required

Kitchen king masala - 1/2 spoon

Add 1 spoon of oil in a frying pan, add the onions and fry till cooked. Add the vegetables and continue frying. Add the Salt, Pepper powder, Kitchen king masala. Now add Panneer to it and cook for 2 mins.

Lasagna sheets:

APF - 1 cup

Cold butter - 1 Spoon

Salt - as required

Water

Oil - 1 spoon

Knead the above ingredients into the consistency of poori dough. Take about a lemon size dough and roll it like a thin chappathi. Cut into broad square pieces. Boil about 1.5 litres of water with a spoon of oil in a wide vessel. Put the thin broad pieces in the boiling water and cook for 1 minute. Take care to put only 4 pieces at a time so that they dont overlap each other in the water. Take the strips out and strain them.

Final Assembly:

I used a circle cake pan. Spread the lasagna sheet first without leaving any space. Apply the tomato sauce on the sheets. Now layer with the vegetable filling. Apply the white sauce over the vegetable layer. Now again layer with the lasagna sheet, tomato sauce, Vegetable filling and finally white sauce. Shred some mozzarella cheese and bake in a preheated oven at 200 deg for 20 mins.

There is a layer of spinach but we couldnt get out and buy it so just left it. This layer is after the tomato sauce.

Vegetable Manchurian

Fried rice with low fat Vegetable Manchurian is a treat for me. I dont deep fry the manchurian balls but they will be still yummy. I usually make more balls than I require for the dish so that I can have them like a cutlet with sauce.

To make the Manchurian Balls:

Cabbage, Carrot, Beans, Cauliflower – Shredded – All together 2 cups

Corn flour – 2 spoons

Ginger garlic paste - ½ spoon

Oil, salt as required

Manchurian Gravy

Spring onion – 1 bunch

Garlic – 5 pods finely chopped

Ginger – 1 inch finely chopped

Capsicum, carrot, cabbage – All together 1 cup

Fine Oats powder – 1 ½ spoons

Soya sauce – 2 spoons

Tomato sauce - 2 spoons

Chilly – 1 no

Cook the vegetables mentioned for Manchurian balls with ginger garlic paste. Add required amount of salt. Once cooked cool them, add corn flour and mix. After Refrigerating for about an hour take the mixture out, make balls out of it. Flatten them and toast them in the tawa with oil till they become crispy and golden brown.

Keep them aside

In a pan add the vegetables for Gravy, ginger, garlic, chilly and salt in 1 ½ cups of water. The vegetables should be half done, crispy and should not be cooked completely. Add the sauces, oats powder and half of the chopped spring onion. I used oats powder to make the gravy thick. Corn flour can also be used. Bring it to a boil. Just when you are about to serve add the Manchurian balls in the gravy and add the Spring onions over it.

Stuffed Naan

I love stuffed naan. But what we get in restaurants are made out of Maida. When I saw the post for Wheat stuffed naan from Jayasree-Kailas Kitchen. I bookmarked immediately. It came out very well and couldnt even smell anything different. The naan were soft and tasted yummy. Thanks Jayasree for the recipe.

Paper Mountains for Golu

I always wanted a mountain in my Golu for Navarathri. As we are in flats, we dont get so much mud to create a big mountain. Last time I used a basket and covered it with mud so that I dont require huge amount of mud. So this time I created this paper mountain. I wanted them to look natural with the rugged look.

I made two types of mountains a simple one with painted steps and a gopuram on top of it. Another on with road and a holiday home on top of it.

All you need to make these are:

Newspaper - lots and lots of them

Fevicol

cello tape

tissue paper

Colours and Brush to paint the mountain

Roll the news paper lengthwise(along the longer side of it) and rotate it forming a circle(like a mosquito coil, but tightly). The coil with larger diameter forms the base. Stick the open end of the paper using the cello tape. Make another coil of paper but less in diameter than the base. Keep it over the base and stick it with the base. Repeat until you reach the top of the mountain. Stick the tissue paper all over to cover the newspaper. Dry it over night and paint in brown. Stick some grasses made out of paper. Draw the steps. Mountain is ready.