Quinoa Sweet Pongal

Quinoa lends itself easily to any dish where traditionally rice has been used. So it was no real surprise that the chakra pongal aka sweet pongal came out well when rice was replaced with Quinoa. The outcome is a satisfying protein rich quinoa sweet pongal.

Recipe

1. 1 Cup Quinoa
2. 1/2 Cup Moong Dal (Small yellow split lentil)
3. 3-4 pods of cardomom
5. Jaggery 1 Cup
6. Cocount grated 3 tbsp (optional)
7. Evaporated milk/Milk - 1 cup
8. Ghee/Butter - 2 tbsp

1. Slightly shallow fry the quinoa and moong dal in 1/2 tbsp of ghee until the raw smell of the lentil goes away
2. Pressure cook the quinoa, lentils, with 1 cup of milk and 2 cups water. You could increase the amount of milk and reduce the water.
3. In a vessel, put enough water to actually cover the jaggery. Let the jaggery melt and mix up with the water. Let this jaggery water solution thicken.
4. Add the powdered cardomom seeds
5. Add the grated coconut
6. Remove the pressure cooked rice and add it to the jaggery syrup.
7. Let it mix up well. Add the remaining 1-1/2 tbsp of ghee. Mix well and remove from fire after 5-10 minutes in medium heat

Conscious Eating

This summer, my daughter, Sanjna has been going to a summer camp, which has swimming among other activities. I wanted to give her a break from her usual montessori school. She has been pretty happy trying to learn soccer. She gave me a few lessons too on that. One day casually on one of our car trips, she mentioned, she doesn't like this school. Reason being, they give too much junk food.
Wow, that was the sweetest thing I have ever heard.

Kale with Garbanzo beans

Curly Kale is so beautiful to look at. I, like most others have often shied away from this vegetable in the supermarket. However after incorporating the kale in soup and in this dish, and given the fact that this is packed with nutrition, we have grown to like this vegetable. Kale is much denser than spinach and is perfect to make this medley with garbanzo beans. Plus garbanzo beans is so forgiving that it requires enormous talent to screw up a dish with it.

Ingredients

Kale - 1 bunch
Garbanzo beans - 1 cup boiled
Red chillies - 2
Salt - to taste
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Chana dal - 2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp

Recipe

0. Soak garbanzo beans for 6-7 hours.
1. Put a 2 tsp of sunflower oil/olive oil.
2. Once the oil is warmed up, add some cumin seeds, mustard seeds and let it crackle.
3. Add the chana dal, red chillies, turmeric.
4. Chop the kale finely, rinse and add to the oil, cumin seed tadka.
5. Let it cook for 5-10 minutes.
6. Pressure cook garbanzo beans.
7. Strain the water, add the garbanzo beans to the cooked kale.
8. Add salt to taste.

Serve hot with rice or chapathis.

Making Naan, Demystified

Naan was one of those items that I never thought I would make at home. I was always discouraged by the equipments (aka tandoor) that was thought to be necessary to make this dish. I gave a pat on my back to have not bought those expensive cast iron skillets (which else where was suggested as a good alternative). All you will need from equipment perspective is a non non-stick tava. Note the double negative there !


Ingredients

All purpose flour - 2 cups
Whole wheat flour - 2 cups
Yeast - 1/2 tsp
sugar - 1 tsp
milk - 1 cup
curd - 1/2 cup
salt - 1 tsp

Recipe

1. Mix the sugar, yeast and lukewarm milk. Set aside for 10 mins.
2. Mix the curd and leave until it ferments (roughly 1 hour)
3. Mix the flour and wet mixture. Make it into a soft dough. Knead so that no dough sticks and it forms into a smooth ball.
4. Cover and leave until it doubles in size ( about 4-5 hours)
5. Just before preparing naan, knead the dough again slightly.
6. Take a small potato size ball and roll it with a rolling pin. Apply a little flour to both sides to make rolling smoother.
7. Apply water on one side of the naan and stick it to the tava.
8. When it starts getting cooked (bubbles appear) invert the tava upside down so that the naan is now exposed to the flames.
9. Show in the flame until the naan puffs up nicely like a puri.
10. Remove it and apply butter if preferred.

Enjoy the naan with daal or paneer side dish. Half measure all purpose flour works well with half measure whole wheat flour. Increasing the proportion of whole wheat flour may not make it softer. If you tried different proportions, share your comments here.

Spring is in air

Thanks to El Nino! San Diego had a good show of rain this season. The jasmine plants in our garden is in full bloom. Wow to the amazing fragrance it brings to our home. I couldn't resist making a garland with the bountiful supply of flowers, Indian style.