Bread Uthappam

Bread uthappam

I love the smell of freshly baked bread but am not a fan of bread itself. I do like a few types of bread but not the everyday loaf. However, for some reason I had been meaning to make bread dosa. I always keep a loaf of bread at home and more often than not, end up throwing it by the end of the week. My thinking was that if recipe worked then it would be a good way to avoid wastage. I fancied something hot so I added green chillies but you could skip it. It is not very dissimilar to rava dosa in terms of ingredients but it tastes different and importantly 2 of these are enough to fill you up. Ideal breakfast or dinner. I usually keep tomato thokku/chutney in the fridge so had it with the uthappam but any tangy chutney would suit I guess.

Recipe adapted from Manjula's kitchen

Yield: 3 uthappam

3 slices wholemeal bread
3 tablespoons semolina
2 tablespoons maida/all purpose flour
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
chopped coriander leaves
2 green chillies finely chopped
1/4 cup yogurt
Cooking oil
Salt to taste

Grind the bread to fine powder, mix all ingredients together and add little water to form a batter like dosa batter

 Heat a pan and pour ladleful of batter to make thick dosa. Drizzle oil around

Cook both sides like normal dosa and serve with a nice chutney

You could put all ingredients in a food processor and blend but I was lazy to take the bigger mixie jars out so ground the bread in small jar which is always on the mixie in my kitchen.

Fruit crumble (very low in fat and refined ingredients)

Fruit Crumble

First time I ever had crumble was in a canteen in the company I used to work in. I was a savoury crumble and I actually liked the dish. However, I never got to try the sweet crumble for some reason. When I used to watch the food channels, sometimes I would run into crumble recipes and the amount of butter and flour would put me off. In the recent past, I did get to try crumble in some nice restaurants but did not quite enjoy it as the crumble itself seemed to have been made with crushed biscuits and nothing exciting. I then decided to make a version of healthy crumble that can arrest any sugar craving one may have while being healthy at the same time. I used oats to get the crumbly texture and the coarsely crushed nuts also add to the lovely texture. I have used very little refined flour and just one spoon of sugar in the crumble mixture as I was hoping this would be enough to trigger the fruits letting out their juices. If you are on a calorie controlled diet or you just like to be mindful of what you are eating, this is a great dish to fill you up so you can reduce the main meal. The oats provides some carbohydrates, so you are not drained and needless to say how good fruits can be for you. Although cooked fruits may not preserve all goodness from uncooked state nevertheless, it is still nutritious. You could start your day with this too if you are not a porridge person. Nuts are an essential part of a balanced diet and they are also said to help protect against cardio-vascular problems. Whenever I have over ripe fruits, I just roughly cut them up and bingo, a lovely dessert is ready. I am trying to watch the quantity of food I eat and this dish is a lovely way to cut out the junk. This could be a snack or a dessert or even a breakfast. I urge you to try it and let me know what you think.

¾ cup oats

2 tablespoon flour

1-2 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon sugar

2 pears, 2 apples, 2 bananas chopped (I add cherries, raspberries, strawberries as well when available)

Handful of raisins or currants

Handul of nuts, chopped

Put all fruits together in a oven safe dish

Mix the flour, butter, oats, nuts and sugar and spread over the fruits to cover evenly. Use cold butter an duse your fingers to work the butter into the mixture

Bake in preheated oven at 180degC for 15 minutes or until top turns golden brown

Serve warm. It is even better when served with ice cream but that is not if you are watching what you eat.

Soya Sooji Dosa

Soya Sooji Dosa

A jar of soya flour is lying in my counter as I have been forgetting to add it to the chapatti dough I normally prepare. I thought I should make an effort to use them and wondered if they will be a good ingredient in a rava dosa like dish. That is how, this recipe was put together. This can make a quick breakfast or a light and quick dinner. I chose to add methi because I like its flavours. You will see I rant less and less these days before getting into the recipe purely because of lack of time and sometimes energy but I will hopefully keep the recipes coming. Here is the recipe...

¼ cup soya flour

½ cup sooji

¼ cup rice flour

Handful of methi leaves/coriander or any other greens

Salt to taste

2 green chillies, finely chopped

Asafoetida

Bring all ingredients together and add water to make a runny batter

Pour a ladleful on hot tava and add some oil

Once the lower side turns golden, flip side and briefly cook second side

Serve with spicy and tangy chutney

Multigrain Mango Muffin

Multigrain Mango Muffin

MMM recipe! Sounds tacky isn’t it? Well, I thought it is a good acronym for this really multigrain mango muffin. I had some left over mango pruee following my eggless mango cake trial and wanted to make a good breakfast. I thought cardamom would go well with mango as it is not a very strong flavour and will not fight with mango. I tried to take as many clicks as possible as I made the muffins but towards the end, after resting them, I thought they may not be good enough. I was so wrong and my fear of the effect of the ingredients I used was unjustified. I thought it will be an extremely dry muffin and will have a poor texture. However, it was quite good. It was quite springy, soft and easy to eat. Usually, millets tend to make the baked product a bit dry and difficult to swallow but I think it is the fruit puree that helped this muffin. If you find you child binging on this, just as well, the goodness in it will help their growth. Here is the recipe, lets get the holiday season started. Like most of my recipes, this is not very sweet so if you have a sweet tooth, please increase the sugar but have in mind that the mango pulp is sweet as well.

¼ cup ragi flour

¼ cup oat flour (oats ground)

1 teaspoon cardamom powder

¾ cup all purpose flour

½ cup water

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup mango puree

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoon oil

2 teaspoon baking powder

Mix together the flours, baking powder, sugar, cardamom powder and salt

Add the oil, mango puree and water and mix until just combined

Pour into muffin moulds, about 3/4^th full and bake in a preheated oven at 180degC for 20-25 minutes. A skewer inserted in centre should come out clean.

You may dust with some icing sugar and serve.

Cornmeal Methi Dosa

Cornmeal Methi Dosa

I like to have cooked breakfast, especially when I have family here. While it has been hard to plan in advance for breakfast as we only managed to make something if we got time, otherwise it was oats porridge with a banana, I managed to make some instant dosa (crepes) on some days. This is one such recipe and to enhance the nutritional value, I added methi, you could skip it or add any other herb of your choice. To me, this is a very simple and quick dish that can help you keep going. Here is the recipe...

¼ cup rice flour

¼ cup rava (semolina/sooji)

¾ cup cornmeal

Couple of handful of chopped methi leaves

Few curry leaves

2 green chillies, finely chopped

Salt to taste

Cooking oil

Mix together the rice flour, rava and cornmeal and add enough water to make a thin batter and rest this for about 15 minutes. Add the curry leaves, green chillies, salt and chopped methi leaves and more water if needed

 

Heat a tava and pour ladeful of batter on it, best to start from the centre and work outward. You cannot spread this batter like regular dosa but it will be more like rava dosa batter, a bit less watery

Put some oil and flip sides once browned. It can come out quite crisp like rava dosa.

Serve with a nice hot and tangy chutney

Fresh Apricot Cake (Eggless)

Fresh Apricot Cake
While growing up in India, I did not get a chance to see or try a number of fruits. One of those was apricots. I do remember having dried apricots but not fresh ones so when I saw them here, I was quite excited. I did buy a box of fresh apricots though I was not sure if we will use it up. I was then tempted to bake something with it and chose to make a cake. It is more a breakfast cake as they can be quite filling and ofcourse quite nutritious. If you like cakes sweet, then add more sugar. I quite liked the cake and think I will make it often, although may use tinned apricots rest of the year.

5-6 apricots, cut into slices
¾ cup all purpose flour
¾ cup wholewheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon soda bicarbonate
¾ cup orange juice with pulp (juice from two oranges)
¼ cup yogurt
1/3 cup margarine/butter/oil
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoon vinegar
2 tablespoon mixed peel
2 tablespoon black currants or any other dried fruit of choice
3-4 tablespoon water

Whisk together the orange juice, sugar, oil/butter/margarine and sift together baking powder, soda bicarbonate, flours and add to the orange juice mixture

  

Add yogurt, mixed peel and currants, mix until combined. Add little water to make a batter to dropping consistency

Add vinegar and mix lightly

Line a cake tin with baking paper and arrange chopped apricots on the bottom

Pour the cake batter into the tin and tap gently about ten minutes

Bake in a preheated oven at 180degC for 30-40 minutes, until skewer inserted in centre comes out clean

Cool in tin for five minutes then transfer to cooling rack and cool completely



Herbed Potato Cheese Scones (eggless)

Herbed Potato Cheese Scones (eggless)

I recently bought couple of books which have 500 recipes each. One is full of cakes and other is full of biscuits, cookies, scones etc. I was super excited seeing the books arrive by post and have been glancing through the recipes since then. I must say that when I first looked at them, I was put off by the amount of fat and the quantity of eggs used in each recipe and wondered if I will ever use those books. Later, I had a think about some recipes and gathered some ideas and thoughts. The general recommendation is that one does not replace eggs with anything else if the original recipe calls for more than three eggs. Anyway, with a lot of learning in mind, the first dish I tried was these potato scones. They did go down a treat, especially at breakfast time. I used milk instead of eggs in this recipe. Here it is...

1 large potato, boiled

¾ cup wholewheat flour

¼ cup grated cheddar cheese or use paneer instead

2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves or any other herbs of choice

2 tablespoon milk

2 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoon oil

Salt to taste (remember cheese may also have some salt in it)

Sift the flour and baking powder, add salt, add mashed potato and oil and mix. Add grated cheese, coriander leaves and milk and mix just until it forms a soft dough. Do not over knead

Roll into about ¾ inch thick disc and cut into circles and place on lined baking tray and bake in preheated oven at 200degC for 15 minutes

Serve warm

Sprouted Mung Beans and Oats Dhokla

Sprouted Mung Beans and Oats Dhokla


For a long time dhokla remained a dish that was a failure in my kitchen. I have tried a few different ways of making them without using fruit salt and using very little soda bicarbonate. However, I hit a brickwall especially with dhokla with besan as I encountered two problems. One was it had a strange smell coming through and second it discoloured and had some sort of brown colouring on it. Both were not appealing. I then took the chance with mung beans and the problems were to a milder degree. It was not until recently that I figured out what the smell was due to. Believe it or not, it was because of a branded soda bicarbonate I was using. I could not find it and had bought supermarket brand and made some cakes which had no smell other than the aroma of the ingredients. Then I found this tub of branded soda I was using and thought I will use it up but only to find that the end product had that same strange smell. So, this time my dhokla was more or less defect free and nutrition rich as I made it with sprouts. I made this for breakfast and wanted to add some carbohydrate so chose to add oats. The dhokla was very nice and it would have been even better if I had eaten with tomato chutney. Green chutney may not be ideal as there are already greens in the dhokla.

1 cup mung sprouts
2 green chillies
2 teaspoons chopped ginger
2 tablespoon coriander leaves
Handful of methi leaves
2 tablespoon yogurt
½ teaspoon soda bicarbonate
¼ cup oats
Salt to taste
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon sesame seeds

Grind together sprouts, chillies, ginger, yogurt and oats together. Add salt, coriander leaves and methi to the ground mixture

Add soda bicarbonate and mix lightly and pour into a greased plate. Cover and steam for 15-20 minutes. Cool briefly and transfer to a plate

Heat little oil and add the mustard seeds and sesame seeds and wait until mustard seeds crackle. Spread this on the dhokla and cut into slices and serve with chutney. You could add some coconut and curry leaves to the tempering as well

Walnut Pesto Sandwich

Walnut Pesto Sandwich


I am not a big fan of sandwiches although I every now and then I do fancy couple of sandwiches that I had when I was in the States. Somehow, untoasted bread does not really appeal to me so I prefer few grilled sandwiches. I came across a recipe for walnut pesto on a television porgram and thought it will be good on a grilled sandwich and make a quick and healthy breakfast. Walnuts are very nutritious and their shape reminds me of the brain and they are indeed good for the brain. They are said to improve memory and also have anti-inflammatory properties in addition to being anti-oxidant rich. The vitamin E in walnuts is said to be special as it is in a form in which it lends significant protection against cardio-vascular problems. Having said all this, I am not a fan of walnuts so any dish in which I cannot quite detect it would be ideal for me. This pesto was very good in that sense. I spread generous portion of it on wholemeal bread, slapped a slice of cheese, grilled and packed it for breakfast. The best part is that my husband liked it too. What a healthy dish that goes down well!

7-8 walnuts, broken to smaller pieces
1 pack of basil leaves (30g)
1 teaspoon black peppercorn
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoon olive oil
Salt to taste
Bread slices to make the sandwich along with some cheese slices if desired

Roast walnuts in a dry pan until it just begins to change colour. Also roast the black peppercorns

Grind together the walnuts, pepper, basil leaves, garlic, olive oil and salt to a paste without adding any water

Smear this on a slice of bread, slap a slice of cheese on it, close with another bread slice and grill the sandwich

Yum yum yum!