Avocado-Onion Veggie

Today I tried one of the most innovative dish. This is such a simple recipe and tastes wonderful, especially if you love eating Avocados. We all 3, love avocados and try to incorporate as much as  possible in our diet either in the form of Salad, smoothie or even as a veggie. Last week in my office one of my colleague got this Avocado veggie. She said she had tried it in one of the restaurant and she loved it. So even I wanted to try making it at home and finally I was able to.The recipe is:



Avocado-Onion Veggie

Ingredients:
2  riped Avocadoes mashed( not finely mashed)
1/4 red onions diced
Ginger-garlic paste
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
2 curry leaves
1 tsp Oil
Salt

Procedure:
Heat up the pan and cooking oil to it. Add the mustard seeds. Once it starts popping, add the curry leaves and the Ginger-garlic paste. Then add diced onion and saute till it turns translucent. Add the mashed Avocadoes and the salt as per your taste.
Enjoy this simple and tasty recipe. I am sure you would love it a lot!!!

Taro Root (Arvi) Chips

Taro Root or more commonly called in northern India as Arvi/Arbi is a starchy tuber vegetable and taste more like potatoes. They are extremely nutritious as they provide a good source of fiber, contain a high amount of protein, calcium, and phosphorus. I remember my mother making Arbi chips at home. When i came to US i had no idea that it was sold by the name of Taro root. It was only when i had it at one of my friends place i realised that it was easily available in the Indian stores by the name of Taro Root. So last week when i went for my grocery shopping i just picked up a few of them and decided to make chips of it. In this recipe, the chips has not been deep fried since i wanted something on a healthier side. So i just shallow fried it and the recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

5-6 Taro roots
Oil
Salt
3-4 tsp Ajwain (Carom Seeds)
Chaat Masala

Procedure:

Wash all the taro roots properly under running water to remove the dirt. Put it in the pressure cooker, add water and 1.5 tsp of salt and pressure cook it for 4-5 whistles. Alternatively you can also boil it so that it becomes soft. We need to make sure that it doesnt become very mushy. Peel the Taro roots and cut it into circular slices.
Heat up the griddle and put 2-3 tbsp of Oil. Add 1 tsp of Ajwain to it. Once it starts crackling, place the circular cut pieces of Taro root in the oil. Cook it for a few minutes until it turns little brown. Flip it to the other side. Once both the sides are brown, remove it and put it on a paper to absorb excess oil. Repar the same prcoess in batches until all the pieces are cooked.
Sprinkle Salt and Chaat masala and serve. Trust me, its the easiest recipe and truly delicious. Enjoy!!!

Tomato-Carrot Chutney

I first had this chutney at one of my cousin sister's dinner. It was so yummy that i could not resist myself from not making it. This chutney goes very well with Dosa, Idli, Pessarettu or any other snack items and can be used as a good substitute for Ketchup. So the recipe is:

Tomato-Carrot Chutney

Yield: 1 small bowl

Ingredients:
2 ripe Tomatoes (if the tomatoes are very small you can make it 3)
7-8 baby carrots or 1 medium sized carrot
1.5 tsp cooking oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
Pinch of Asafoetida( Hing)
2-3 fresh curry leaves
2-3 whole red chillies
1/4th tsp turmeric powder (optional- can use if you want the color to be slightly yellowish)
Salt as per taste

.      =n bbbb
1) Puree tomatoes and carrot in a blender.
2) Heat a small pan and add oil to it. As the oil becomes hot, add mustard seeds to it. Once the mustard seeds starts cracking, add asafoetida,, curry leaves and whole red chillies.
3) When the curry leaves and red chillies starts changing the color, add the tomato-carrot puree. Add  turmeric powder and salt.
4) Stir and keep it on the low-medium flame for 15-20 minutes until the puree takes the consistency of a chutney.
5) Remove the pan from the stove and transfer the chutney to a bowl and relish.

Eggless Blueberry Coffee Cake

Today i tried making Blueberry Coffee cake. I love baking cakes as much as i love eating them :-). So, whenever i get into a mood for baking i just go for it. I had a box of fresh blueberries lying in my refrigerator which i bought from the farmers market on Saturday. So i wanted to make something fesh, tasty and sweet. And to my surprise, it came out just AWESOME! Here's the recipe for it:



Eggless Blueberry Cake



Ingredients:
DRY
1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup Maida (All-purpose Flour)
3/4 tspn Baking Powder
1/4 tspn Baking Soda
1/8 tspn Salt
1/2 cup Sugar

WET
1/2 cup Whole milk
1/2 tblspn White Vinegar
1/4 cup Yoghurt
2 tblspn Melted Butter
1 tspn Vanilla Extract
1 cup fresh Blueberries
Cinnamon Powder to sprinkle on the top

The steps to make this delicious cake are:
Preheat the oven to 350F and grease a 6" or an 8" baking pan with oil or butter.
a) Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl and keep it aside.
b) In a different bowl mix milk, vinegar, yoghurt and the melted butter.
c) Once mixed properly, add all the dry ingredients slowly and blend well.
e) Add the vanilla extract and mix again. Then slowly fold in the blueberries to the batter. Do not over-mix.
f) Tranfer the batter to the greased pan and sprinkle cinnamon powder on top of the batter.
g) Trensfer it to the preheated oven and bake it for 25-30 mins or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 
h) Cool the pan and tranfer the cake to a wire rack and let it cool completely. Cut it into pieces and enjoy.

NOTES:

• You can easily substitue the flour with whole wheat pastry flour if you like the rustic flavour. I love cooking and eating healthy so at time i have tried the whole cake with WW Pastry flour too. 
• You can use frozen blueberries as well, but make sure that you dont over mix blueberries as the color will start bleeding.
• You can easily substitute White vinegar with Apple cider vinegar.
• You can even top it with almonds as it goes very well with blueberries.

Grilled Tofu with vegetables: A Healthy Starter

Tofu is such a versatile food. It almost resembles our Indian version of 'Paneer' and can be called a vegan substitute for 'Paneer'. I love Tofu as much as i love Paneer; not just because of the wide uses that it has but also from the nutritional point of view. Since it does not have any taste of its own, it can be easily marinated or seasoned to suit the taste of the dish. Also, since it comes in different varieties such as silken, firm, or very firm it can be used to prepare wide varieties of dishes ranging from Veggies, curries, stir-fries to cakes, drinks and desserts.
Last week i experimented a Tofu with vegetables starter. This is totally my version of the recipe and discovered it by trial and error. Fortunately, it turned out to be so good that both me and my husband relished it till the last bite. Here is the recipe:

For Marination:
1 packet of High Protein Organic Firm Tofu
2 tsp of Sesame Oil
4-5 tbls of Soy Sauce
1-2 tsp of Chili-garlic sauce
1/4 tsp of salt

Canola Oil for cooking
Onions - diced
Bell Peppers -diced
Mushrooms - cut
Celery - cut
Baby Corn - cut into small pieces.
Salt as per taste
White sesame seeds

• Take a big, preferably flat bowl. Add sesame oil, soy sauce, chili-garlic sauce and salt and mix it thoroughly with a spoon.
• Cut tofu into small cubes and add it to the above prepared mixture. Mix it properly to ensure that all the pieces are covered with the paste. Cover the bowl with the a plastic wrapper and keep it aside in the fridge for 4-5 hours.

After 5 hours:

• Heat the pan, and add oil to it. Once the oil gets heated, add onion, bell pepper and mushrooms and 1/4 tsp salt. Let it cook for some time till onion and bell pepper become soft and transparent and mushrooms become dark in color and soft. Then add celery and baby corn and let it cook for another 2-3 mins. Do not over-cook it as we want the celery to be crunchy and not soft.
• In the meantime, heat up the griddle ( I used griddle since i did not have a grill and believe me, it tastes awesome:-)). Add a drop of oil onto it and wipe it with a paper towel just to make the griddle greasy. Add tofu pieces to it and cook it on all the sides, till it turn dark.
• Add around 1.5 teaspoon of sesame seeds on it and let it cook for 2-3 minutes.
• Remove and add it to the cooked vegetables. Again start off with the second batch of tofu. You can add the remaining marinate mixture on the griddle or can add it to the vegetables. Proceed with the same steps of cooking tofu with sesame seeds.

Once the tofu has been added to the vegetables, add salt as per your taste ( you don't really need much as tofu as enough salt because of soy sauce). You can add chili-garlic sauce if you want to make it more spicy or else your dish is ready.

Both of us love making and eating healthy food. This is definitely a keeper in our lest of healthy and tasty recipes.

Teaching

I have recently started my voluntary service as a teacher in one of the elementary schools in Bellevue. I teach Math to a group of 4th grade students. Its been almost 3 weeks since i have started this and have been thoroughly enjoying spending time with my students.

Tomorrow I have to make them understand the the concept of Area and Perimeter and have to teach them how to calculate it. I have been looking on the internet for some creative and fun way of teaching them. Though i didn't find any interesting activity, i found a poem that could be taught to children to remember what to do if they have to calculate the area and the perimeter.
Here is the poem- (sing it to the tune of Jingle Bell)

Perimeter, perimeter
Goes around and round
Add up all the sides and then you write your answer down

Area, Area
Throughout the whole middle
For rectangle its base times height
And your answer will always be right

Let's see if it would be helpful to the chidlren. Also i got a few worksheets from one of the website which has a lot of exercises for children to solve.