Sesame seed chutney

 There are so many varieties of chutney that are served along side dosa or idli in India. Every restaurant has its own specialty and even when they serve the same chutney every single one of them tastes different.

The chutney I made today is from Bharat's recipe. He is one of the chefs who has lots of easy recipe shorts and videos on youtube.

Sesame seed chutney (Accompaniment for Dosa or idli)

Peanut sesame seeds chutney

Ingredients: 

1. 1/4 cup each of peanuts, sesame seeds
2. 3 red chillies
3. 1 large or 2 medium garlic pods
4. 3/4 teaspoon salt
5. 1-1.5 cups water

For tempering:

1. 2 teaspoons oil
2. 1 teaspoon urad dal
3. 1/2 teaspoon each of cumin, mustard seeds
4. 2 red chillies broken
5. few curry leaves

Dry roast the peanuts and red chillies and set aside. Add the garlic to the last 1 minute of roasting. Dry roast the sesame seeds for 5 minutes of medium low frame. Keep stirring so that they do not burn. Let them cool. Grind all the ingredients into a smooth paste.

Heat the oil in a small pan and add the mustard seeds and cover and fry for 1-2 minutes until they start to splutter. Add the curry leaves and fry and turn the heat off. Add the rest of the ingredients and fry for 30 seconds and add this tempering to the chutney in a bowl. Mix well and serve.

Enjoy with idli or dosa

Grind the peanuts

Rava Dosa from scratch

Urad Dal Dosa

Rava dosa with maida (all purpose flour)

Wheat Dosa

Paneer Dosa

Besan Dosa

Raagi (Finger millet) Dosa 

Ancient grains dosa

Masala Oats Dosa

Rajgiri Dosa (Amaranth crepes with vegetables)

There are so many variety of Dosa you can make. But the Rava dosa I made today is from scratch and is made with rice flour and rava. It is very crispy and delicious

Rava Dosa from scratch (Rice and cream of wheat crepes)

Rice and Rava dosa

Ingredients:

1. 11/2 cup rice flour
2. 1/4 cup rava
3. 1 teaspoon cumin
4. 1 teaspoon finely chopped green chillies or red pepper flakes (adjust to taste)
5. 3/4 teaspoon salt
6. 2-2.5 cups water
7. handful of curry leaves chopped
8. oil to make dosa

In a bowl add the rice flour and 1 cup water and mix so there are no lumps. Add salt and 1 more cup of water and stir vigorously for 2 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients except rava and set it aside for 10 minutes. Add rava and mix well.

Heat a griddle on medium high heat until a drop of water sizzles. Stir the batter well and with a ladle add the batter from the outer edges of an 8 inch circle. Take more batter and fill the center. Keep it as thin as possible. Add oil to the edges of the dosa and cook until the edges raise up. Add a teaspoon of oil on the dosa and flip and cook for 2 more minutes.

Enjoy with your favorite chutney

Vegetable Tuna egg rolls

 The other day I made 10 of SouthWestern Egg Rolls and I had 10 more of the eggroll wrappers.

I wanted egg rolls but I did not want the South Western because I just made them.
So I made egg rolls filled with vegetables and canned tuna with some Chinese flavors. Those turned out to be fantastic. They grew wings and few away pretty fast

Vegetable Tuna egg rolls 

Vegetable tuna egg rolls

Ingredients:

1. 10 egg roll wrappers
2. 3 cups thinly sliced cabbage
3. 1 medium small carrot shredded
4. 1/2 can drained black beans (optional)
5. 1 can tuna in water drained
6. 1/2 tablespoon each of sesame oil, soya sauce, rice wine vinegar, worstshire sauce, sesame seeds (if possible, toasted)
7. 1/4 teaspoon salt or adjust to taste
8. 1/2 teaspoon each of black pepper, red chilli flakes
9. 2 green onions chopped
10. oil for shallow frying or bake for 20-25 minutes at 375 degrees in the oven

in a wide pan heat the sesame oil and fry the cabbage and carrots for 7 minutes on medium flame. Add the rest of the ingredients except the green onions. Mix everything well and continue to cook for 2 more minutes. Add the sesame seeds and green onions mix and let it cool.

Divide the mixture into 10 parts and make the egg rolls.

Fry or oven bake them and enjoy with your favorite dipping sauce

Seafood potpie

 Pot Pies are always popular around my household. They look exotic . 
This time I made the potpie with mixed seag=food but did not add the crust on top. It just has the crust at the bottom.

And also I used shortcuts...I used store bought pie crust.

Seafood potpie 

Seafood pot pie

Ingredients:

1. 2 cans chopped clams in clam juice
2. 1 can oysters (chopped into 4 pieces each)
3. 1 can crab meat
4. 2 cups frozen tiny shrimp thawed
5. 3 cups whole milk
6. 2 cups chicken broth or clam juice
7. 2 tablespoons cream cheese
8. 1/2 cup while onions chopped
9. 1 cup chopped packed spinach (optional)
10. 2 big garlic cloves minced
11. 1/2-1 teaspoon salt (depending on how salty the chicken broth or clam jucei are)
12. 3/4 teaspoon each of fresh ground cumin, paprika
13. 1/2 tablespoon dried dill or 2 tablespoons fresh dill
14. 1 tablespoons butter +1/2 tablespoon olive oil (or use 1.5 tablespoons butter)
15. 1/2 cup all purpose flour +2 tablespoons if needed
16. 2 frozen pie crust thawed
17. 4 pot pie bowls

open all the cans and drain oysters and crab.

Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees

divide the pie crust into 4 and lay at the bottom of the pie bowls.

Bake for 7-8 minutes. Take out of the oven and set aside

In a pan heat the oil+butter and add the onions and fry until they become translucent. Add the garlic and fry for 30 seconds. Add the flour and stir and cook on medium low flame for 5 minutes. Heat the chicken broth or clam juice and milk in the microwave for 1 minute.
Add the cream cheese to the pan and stir to melt. Add the liquids and stir until the flour and cream cheese mix well in the liquids. Add all the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. 
Ladle into the potpie bowls and top it with any pie crust if you want and bake for 20 minutes.

Cool for 5 minutes and enjoy

Mediterranean fish cakes

Fish cake are always a fav at my house. I have made fish cakes with many different ingredients but this one takes the cake...pun intended. These fish cakes have good amount of protein in them and I served it with a Tahini yogurt sauce and to make it a meal, I searched it on top of a salad and with toasted pita bread.

Original Fish Cakes

Mediterranean fish cakes (Fish cakes with canned tuna and chickpeas)

Mediterranean Fish Cakes

Ingredients:

1. 2 cans of Tuna in water, drained
2. 1 can chickpeas, drained, washed and drained
3. 1 egg
4. 1/2 cup finely chopped onions
5. 1-2 cloves to garlic chopped fine
6. 1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
7. 1 teaspoon each of salt, pepper, ground cumin
8. handful of mint, cilantro parsley chopped
9. oil for shallow frying

Grind the chick peas...not to a fine paste. Leave it a bit more rustic.

Mix all the ingredients together until well blended.

Divide into 12 parts and make it into cakes about 3 inches wide. Make sure you press the cakes a bit so they stay together. Leave it in the fridge for 15-20 minutes.

Heat a griddle and add a tablespoon of oil and swirl it around. Fry the cakes 3 minutes on each side and enjoy

Tahini Yogurt sauce

1. 1 tablespoon tahini or white sesame ground to a powder
2. 3/4 cup plain yogurt
3. 1/3 teaspoon each of salt, pepper
4. 1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
5. a few mint leaves or dill chopped
6. 1 garlic clove chopped

Mix all the ingredients together and enjoy with the fish cake

Banana Ragi muffins

 W The last time we got bananas we went out of town on a small trip...guess what the bananas did when we were not around. They got ripe and started getting their skin all brown and sad. So...no one will touch them. Hence I had to go hunting for recipes to use up those yummy sweet ripe bananas. So I found this banana muffin recipe and I modified it just a tad bit and made it more healthy and it turned out super delicious.

Ragi which is Finger Millet is supposed to have quite a bit of health benefits. Also I like it. It has a bit of sweet after taste to it. Also this is a vegetarian recipe...no egg

Banana Ragi muffins (Banana and Finger millet muffins)

Banana ragi muffin

Ingredients

1. 2 large or 3 medium sized bananas
2. 1/3 cup sour cream or plain full fat yogurt
3. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4. 3/4 cup sugar (You can also reduce this to 2/3) or any other sweetener of your choice
5. 1 cup each of all purpose flour, ragi flour
6. 2 teaspoons baking powder
7. 1 teaspoon baking soda
8. a pinch of salt
9. If you want you can add chocolate chips to it (1/2 cup)

Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees

Mash the peeled bananas with a potato masher into smooth pulp. Add yogurt or sour cream, sugar , vanilla extract and mix until the sugar dissolves. 

Sift the flours and baking powder and baking soda and salt and add it to the liquid ingredients and gently stir until well combined.

Add chocolate chips if using and mix to combine

Line a muffin pan with muffin liners and spray with cooking spray. 

Drop heaped tablespoon of the batter and bake for 20-23 minutes.

Let them cool for 5 minutes before serving

Avocado milk shake

Any new country you go to, there is so much to discover. It opens up your mind in ways that is just not possible by not going to a new land. You see so many new places, new people, new foods and new ways in which people live their lives. Recently we went o Saudi Arabia. It was a very different country in ways I never knew. Other than the language barrier the visit was a pleasant one.
May be I would avoid going there in the middle of summer , or in the beginning or in the end of summer but I would like to visit Saudi Arabia again.
 The variety of food from various countries really surprised me. There were so many things I wanted to try but couldn't . If I ever visit it another time, I know what I would like to try.

One of the things which was a real surprise for me...were the variety of fruits and vegetables available in Saudi. Looks like they import a whole lot of fruits and vegetables from all over the world. The biggest surprise were the variety of drinks and milkshakes...obviously to keep cool and hydrated from the desert heat.

The one thing I would never imagine was Avocado milkshake

Mango, Guava, Avocado and Strawberry milkshake

Avocado milkshake 

Avocado Milkshake

Ingredients:

1. 1 ripe hash avocado
2. 2-3 cups milk or 2 cups milk 1 cup ice
3. 1 tablespoon each of honey and sugar (adjust to taste)

Blend all ingredients together into a smooth milkshake and enjoy