Eggless Butter Cake

          It's the end of the month and time to reveal our Eggless Baking challenge for the month of October, and the challenge we had was Butter Cake. The cake as such was easy to bake, very delicious, rich and buttery (true to the name) and the recipe is adapted from Reader's Digest. The recipe calls for a 7" spring form pan, since I had only a 5" pan, I halved the recipe. I've replaced the eggs with milk and lemon juice, try it, once in a while we can have such rich desserts..

Homemade Paneer

          Though I have made over 150 posts, there is not a single post about a basic recipe like our sambar and masala powders or making a good idli batter, so today I thought I'll make some posts in between other dishes about them. I feel a food blog is not complete with these basic recipes and to start with, today's post is about making paneer ( Indian cottage cheese ) at home. It's very easy and it comes out very well, you'll stop buying it from the store..

Taboule ( Couscous Salad )

          I am on a two weeks trip to the US, we haven't yet completely moved back to India. I was checking in the pantry for something that'll make up for a light lunch and found this box of whole wheat couscous. While checking the packet, I found the recipe for this salad ( Taboule) on it, and since I had all the ingredients in hand, went ahead and made it. Try it, it's so easy, ready in minutes and very healthy too..

Mushrooms & Peas Kurma

          Most of the days during the week, we have rotis or chappathis for dinner, and I have to come up with some side dish using any vegetable that's in hand. I had bought this pack of button mushrooms the previous day, I like to cook them when they are fresh and white and  since it's been a long time that I had cooked any kind of kurma, I made this one with the mushrooms. To add some color to the dish, I threw in some fresh green peas, the result was very satisfying, this goes well with any kind of bread or any pilaf or briyani..

Puffed Rice With Boiled Peanuts

          Anybody who has been to Indian beaches would be familiar with some kind of snack with Puffed rice.  I came across this one in Chennai, my daughter and niece, both wanted to have it, I was very reluctant to buy it for the fear of falling sick after having it. But finally got a single packet and shared among ourselves ( thinking, that the less we have, the lesser chance of food poisoning, well, nothing happened, we are all fine). I took a mental note of the ingredients and made it at home whenever we felt like having it. The snack itself is a very healthy one, no deep frying and a nice way of making kids have their veggies. Yeah, we add shredded cabbage in this, try it, I am sure you'll love it..

Keerai Masial (Mashed Spinach)

          Keerai Masial or Mashed Spinach, this is a very easy and healthy dish, and a favorite in my home. It's literally fat free, not even a drop of oil is used but still tastes really good. I have used sirukeerai ( a type of greens) available in India but you can do this with regular spinach too. Everybody has their own way of doing this masial, even I do it a couple of different ways, give this a try if you like the flavors of pepper and garlic..

Cauliflower Masala

          Cauliflower, I love this vegetable in any form, but my daughter, like many others can have this only in the manchurian or pakora form, now, I love them too but both the dishes are deep fried. Cauliflower Masala, well I gave it a name, I've tasted something similar to this long time back and I've tried reproducing it in my kitchen. It was a definite hit, tasted awesome, my daughter loved it so much. She had it with rotis for dinner and the next day, she had it just like that, as a snack, I should say, an healthy alternative to the manchurian and pakoras, give this a try, you'll love it..

Chickpeas (Chana) Sundal

          Sundal, everybody from the southern part of India would be very familiar with it, there are a couple of festivals for which we make different varieties of it, especially during Navarathiri. It's one of the healthy snacks recommended for kids and adults including diabetics, a good source of protein and fiber, and very filling. I made this sundal with chickpeas on Ganesh Chaturthi, used the darker variety which is supposed to have more fiber content than its white counterpart. This is a basic sundal recipe, which goes well with most of the other bean varieties too..

Pav Bhaji

         Pav Bhaji, this is one of my favorites, something that I order most often in a chat house, it's a very popular Indian fast food. Pav ( soft buns) with bhaji ( a gravy with a mixture of vegetables) makes up for a nice snack or as in my home, a good dinner. Today I've used regular, store bought pav (buns made with all purpose flour), but when you use whole wheat buns and use butter sparingly, I can say this dish becomes healthy too..

Black Beans & Basil Rice

          Now that basil is available here in Chennai (at Nilgiris) I get some whenever I go there. The first time I used it in the tofu curry, the second time I got it, I used it to make this rice. Basil along with black beans makes an excellent combination, I added some beans and potatoes, making it one healthy one pot meal..

Strawberry Jelly Milkshake

          How many times in a day or in a week we get excited about something, and then what are all the things for which we get excited, well, this differs from person to person. But as a food blogger there is one more thing we get excited about, when the dish we make comes out super good and it's a double bonus when it's just two ingredients that go into it and it's super easy too. Well this strawberry jelly milkshake is one such, it tastes very different from the regular strawberry milkshake but very tasty..

Chana (Chickpeas) & Mint Pilaf

          What's the difference between a pilaf and a briyani, as far as I know, the pilaf or pulao is mildly spicy compared to the briyani but both are equally flavorful and I like both of them. They appear in the weekly menu atleast once and so many varieties can be done by changing the vegetables or the spices. This chana or chickpeas pilaf is again a very flavorful one, gets it from the loads of mint added to it, rich in protein from the chickpeas added and forms a complete meal with some vegetable raitha..