Red Kidney Beans Curry

I was not a great fan of beans back in India. I make beans curries only for my husband but then I had a chance to taste some of the north Indian curries and wonder how they make the curries so tasty. The only thing I identified in the curries are butter and the beans as they grind all ingredients. Then to my surprise I learned it is yogurt or curd that make it different.

The recipe ..

Ingredients

• 1 cup Red kidney beans
• 2 tsp Ghee
• 1 tsp Butter (optional)
• 1 big Onion
• 1/2 tsp ginger paste
• 1/2 tsp garlic paste
• 1 tsp tomato paste
• 1 Tomato
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp kashmiri chilli powder
• 3 Tbsp plain Yogurt or Curd 
• some coriander leaves
• salt to taste
• 1/2 tsp sugar

Method

1. Cook the beans with water and some salt. And keep it aside.
2. Saute onion in some oil and ghee in a frying pan. Once it is translucent add ginger/garlic paste and saute for 1 mnt. Then add tomatoes and saute.
3. After 2 mnts, add the tomato paste and saute again for couple of minutes.
4. Then add coriander powder and both the chilli powders and saute until the the oil starts come out. At this stage you can blend this mixture if you want. Make sure the mixture is cold before blending.
5. If you are blending, bring it back to the frying pan.
6. Add the cooked beans into the mixture and stir it. If want, you can add some more water and cook for 5 minutes.
7. Add yogurt make sure its not sour. Check the salt and add sugar. 
8. Once its start boiling ,remove from the heat and add butter and garnish with chopped coriander leaves. If its fresh then its great ,I only had dried ones.
9. Serve!

Enjoy!

Pasta With Mushroom Sauce

Its good to have some change sometime for dinner. If I feel like this, I just grab some mushrooms from the super market and make sure there is pasta at home. 

Ingredients

• 1 pack pasta of any kind
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 onion
• 1/2 tsp ginger paste
• 1/2 tsp garlic paste
• 1 tomato
• salt as needed
• pepper as needed
• oil as required
• 1 cup milk
• 2 Tbsp flour
• chopped fresh or dried parsley leaves for garnish

Method

1. Cook pasta in water with salt and 2 tsp oil. Drain once its cooked.
2. Saute onion in a frying pan with oil. Once its translucent add ginger garlic paste and saute for couple of minutes. Add chopped tomatoes and saute.
3. Once its sauted well add the mushrooms and fry it until it turns slightly black in colour.
4. Now add the milk and mix enough salt and pepper to taste. Put the flour and stir. After sometime the mixture starts to become thick.
5. Mix the pasta with the milk mixture. If it looks dry, add a little more milk. Check the salt and pepper
6. Garnish with parsley and grated cheese (optional).

Serve!

Bolognese

My husband and my elder son are fans of bolognese , one of the reasons I make this often.

This recipe serves for 5 - 6 people.

Ingredients

• 1 pack spaghetti
• minced meat 500g
• 1 onion
• 1/2 tsp ginger paste
• 1/2 tsp garlic paste
• salt
• pepper powder
• 1 can tomato based pasta paste or tomato puree
• shredded cheese for topping

Method

1. Cook spaghetti in water with salt and a little bit of oil. Once its cooked ,drain it and keep aside.
2. Saute onion in a frying pan with oil. Once its transculent add ginger, garlic paste.
3. After couple of minutes add minced meat and fry until its cooked.
4. Add tomato puree to it , taste so that it wont become sweet. Cook for a while adding salt and pepper.
5. Reduce the water content if you want to.
6. Transfer the spaghetti into a bowl and pour the minced meat sauce over it and put grated cheese.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Cookie

Everyone like cookies, so do I. But the first batch of my cookies got burnt due to my over anticipation to eat it. But for the rest of the cookies, I was really careful and the result was crisp outside and soft inside cookies..

The recipe makes big 18 cookies..

Ingredients

• 2 cups All purpose flour
• 1 cup Chocolate chips
• 200 gm butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

Method

1. Mix white sugar and brown sugar with melted butter. Add vanilla extract followed by egg. Beat the mixture.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients to the sugar mixture. Don't worry if the mixture is stiff.
3. Fold in the chocolate chips and cover dough with plastic wrap and put in the freezer for 1 hour.
4. Cut the dough into equal sizes and make into balls and bake in preheated oven at 150C for 10-15 mnts until it turns brown.
5. Let the cookies cool for a minute then remove from the cookie sheet and place in wire rack to cool completely.
6. Serve!

Happy Baking!

Pizza

This is my first recipe that I learned ,to make my husband and my elder son happy. Usually I make pizza with cheddar cheese, I thought any cheese will do. But last time , I tried with parmesan ,its a little bit costly but it smells and tastes really good.

After making this, I am sure you won't go for ready made pizza.

The recipe goes below..

This yields 2 pizza.

Ingredients

    Pizza dough

• 3 1/2 cups All purpose flour
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 tsp honey
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp oil

    Pizza toppings

• 1/4 cup tomato sauce
• grated parmesan cheese
• diced bacon
• diced bell peppers (capsicum), it will be colourful if you choose different colour ones
• cherry tomatoes or diced tomatoes

Method

1. Put warm water into a bowl. Add salt and honey and mix with a spoon. Add yeast, mix and let it sit for about 10 minutes.
2. Gradually add flour and oil and start mixing.
3. When the mixture gets too heavy to mix, start kneading the dough with your hands.
4. Knead the dough until you have a smooth ball. If the dough cracks it is too dry. Add water bit by bit until if forms a nice coherent ball. If your dough feels more like batter, it is too wet and you need to add flour bit by bit. If you need to add water or flour, do it by small amounts.
5. Coat the dough with oil, place it in a large bowl and cover it with kitchen wrap or a grocery bag. Let the dough rise for about an hour at room temperature, then push it down again so it deflates. Let it sit for about another hour. If you want to use it the next day, put it in a refrigerator.
6. Put the dough on a lightly floured surface, put a bit of flour on top and make it into the shape of a pie by stretching it out from the center outwards. Use a rolling pin until the dough is about 1/4" thick. Punch some holes in the dough with a fork to let the air escape while the pizza is in the oven.
7. Spread tomato sauce over the dough half inch away from the edges.
8. Sprinkle with grated cheese and put your toppings and finally sprinkle with a little grated cheese.
9. Bake the pizza in the preheated oven at 200C for about 20-25 mnts until the crust is light brown.

Cheers!

Sultana Cake

I really wanted to stop making cake for sometime to cut down on sugar. But I couldn't resist myself from making this cake as I love sultanas and also it does not have sugar , ahh I mean white sugar ;) ..

This is a perfect tea cake with less sugar. Here is the recipe below..

Ingredients

• 250 gm Sultanas
• 1 lemon juice and zest
• 1 orange juice and zest
• 150 gm chopped butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 All purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder

Method

1. Grease the cake pan with butter and preheat the oven to 150C.
2. Place the sultanas and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for 5 minutes then remove from the heat and drain well. Add the butter, orange and lemon zest and stir until the butter melts and ingredients are combined.
3. In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs and brown sugar and then add this to the sultanas mixture.
4. Sift together the flour and the baking powder and the sultanas mixture and stir just until combined.
5. Pour into cake pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until the toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Perfect combination for your tea, Enjoy!

Palmiers!

It took me sometime to learn this name. I was searching for a recipe with puff pastry that calls for no other special ingredients.

The recipe goes here...

Ingredients

• 1 sheet puff pastry
• lots and lots of sugar :)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150C.
2. Sprinkle the workplace with sugar and place the thawed pastry sheet over it.
3. Sprinkle more sugar over the pastry sheet.
4. Roll up the left vertical side inward till the middle of the sheet. Roll up the right vertical side inward till the middle of the sheet. Both the rolls should meet in the middle and touching.
5. Cut the log into pieces of 1/2 inch thickness.
6. Place on baking tray with space around each cookie as it will increase in size.
7. Bake in the middle of the rack until the sugar starts caramelize.
8. Allow them to cool.

Enjoy!