Bottle Gourd & Peas Milk Curry, Lauki Matar Malai, Sorakkai Pattani Paal Curry

          It's holiday time, and most of us are either busy with kids at home or visiting family and friends. We are in Singapore now, visiting my sister's family and some old friends and I am having a wonderful time with my 2 year old nephew, and very little time to spend on the blog. I had wanted to schedule my posts, back in India itself, but it didn't work out, at least I had edited and uploaded these pictures there, so I could do a post today. Today's dish is Lauki Matar Malai/ Bottle Gourd And Peas Milk Curry, it's a slight variation from Methi (Fenugreek Leaves) Matar Malai. The curry goes well with rotis or any kind of pilaf, absolutely delicious and very different from the regular dals or curries that we make with bottle gourd. Even though malai means cream, it's not very rich or loaded with calories, I have used only low fat milk here and the flavor from kasuri methi is too good..

Fettuccine Bolognese

          Pasta Bolognese, I have never tasted this dish, because most of the restaurants serve only a non-vegetarian version of the bolognese sauce which is made with meat. And then one day, I watched this vegetarian version in a show, the sauce was made with soy granules and some Indian spices. Usually the sauce is served over spaghetti, but I had only some fettuccine with me and had all the other ingredients. I made it the same evening, but I used only Italian seasonings. It's really a simple dish, but at the same time very delicious and nutritious,and my family loved it too..

Dali Varan, Lentil Gravy

          Couple of months back I bought this cook book Rasachandrika, a very old book on Saraswat cooking, originally written in Marathi and later translated in Hindi and then in English. The first edition of the book came out in 1943 and I love the picture on the front cover, showing an Indian kitchen in the 1940's. There are many interesting recipes, and I tried this Dali Varan, a simple gravy with tuvar dal/ split pigeon peas. It's like our sambar, but tastes a little different and goes very well with plain white rice or even with idlis and dosas..

Cabbage Briyani, Muttakos Briyani

          The last couple of weeks has been so busy, can't spend much time with my blog, today I had made up my mind that I have to do a post. I had made this Cabbage Briyani or Pulao couple of weeks back, it came out very well, very flavorful, I also used some fresh raw peanuts in it instead of the usual green peas, it gave a nice different taste to the rice. Serve it with some raitha for a complete meal..

Bottle Gourd And Spring Onions Curry, Sorakkai Vengaya Thaal Curry

         Last time when I bought spring onions, it was a huge bunch and I had to find new ways to use it. I was going to do some kind of subzi with bottle gourd/ lauki/ sorakkai and instead of making the usual dal that I make with it I made a curry along with the spring onions. The curry came out very well and the spring onions gave a different flavor to the curry and it goes very well with rotis or can be also be mixed with some white rice too..

Soy And Vegetable Cutlets

          It's been a very long time since I made cutlets, I always thought it was a long and tedious job. Couple of weeks back, we had some friends visiting us in the evening and I made this for a snack. I had cooked breakfast, lunch, baked a cake and still had time to make these cutlets, it was then that I realized that they didn't take much time to prepare but a little bit of planning. I had a packet of soy granules, so just went ahead and used it along with some vegetables for making these cutlets. They were simply too good, my daughter who is not a big fan of the store bought ones, loved these, just serve them with some sliced onions and tomato sauce/ ketchup..

How To Freeze Green Peas

          My freezer is always stocked up with green peas, whenever fresh peas are available, I get them and freeze them and when fresh peas are not in season, there is always store bought frozen peas. When I buy fresh ones, usually, I shell them, wash and freeze the peas as such and mostly use them up within a week or two. This time I got a lot and I wanted to freeze it in the proper way, so that it would last longer. It's a very simple method, if you have shelled the pea pods, the rest takes very little time..

Kurumilagu (Fresh Green Peppercorns) Dal

          Kurumilagu or Fresh Green Peppercorns, this is not available everywhere, but when I get them I do this dal with it. When we went to Coorg, I came to know that pepper, cardamom and vanilla beans are grown along with the coffee plants. When we were shown around the coffee estate, I saw these pepper plants and the green peppercorns in them. The guide plucked me some and I brought them with me to Bangalore. This is a very simple dal, I have used tuvar dal/ split pigeon peas and flavored the dal with some garlic and the green peppercorns and it goes well with both rice as well as rotis..

Eggless Slovak Paska Bread And Paska Peeps

          For the Eggless Baking Challenge this month, we had to bake Slovak Paska Bread or Paska Peeps or both. This bread is traditionally eaten during Easter in Eastern European countries, looks very beautiful, and has a nice buttery taste. The Paska Peeps is bread, shaped like cute little birds using the same dough. I have replaced eggs with flax seeds and used oil instead of butter, also I have replaced some of the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour. The bread turned out very good and this is first time I have tried braiding the bread dough, the peeps/ birds were really very easy to make and I enjoyed the whole process..