Orange Juice Rasam

I had always thought that creating a food blog meant sharing your own cooking experiments and recipes. What I didn’t know was that doing so opened a whole new world of culinary expertise at your dashboard in the form of similar blogs.

Clicking on one such page led me to this wonderful recipe. Read on to get a taste of this deliciously tangy Orange Juice Rasam, originally posted by NOW SERVING and slightly modified by me.

Ingredients

Fresh orange juice – 1 cup

Water – 3 cups

Dry shredded coconut – 6 tsp

Cumin seeds – 1 tsp

Coriander powder – 2 tsp

Green chilies – 2 small

Dry red chili – 1 small

Readymade Rasam powder – 1 tsp

Lemon juice – 2 tsp

Cilantro – for garnish

Heat a skillet and roast the red chili, green chilies, cumin seeds, coriander powder, Rasam powder and coconut for a couple of minutes. Blend them into a nice paste using some water in a mixer. Transfer this paste to a cooking vessel, add 3 cups of water and bring to boil. Add salt and pepper, cook on low heat for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat, add orange juice and mix well. Squeeze in the lemon juice, garnish with cilantro and serve hot.

Serving suggestions

·         As soup

·         With rice

Tips

·         Freshly squeezed orange juice has been used in this recipe but you can very well use the store bought juice.

·         This Rasam can be cooked without the ready-made Rasam powder as the recipe relies more on the freshly grounded seasoning.

·         Using the juice of Moro (blood) oranges enhances the flavor and color of this recipe.

  Interesting fact

·         Other than food, orange is used in a lot of other things like making a perfume, a bug repellant and beauty treatments.

This recipe goes to :

http://usmasala.blogspot.com/2011/04/bookmarked-recipes-every-tuesday-event.html

Potato Soup

Comfort foods are back in fashion. We see celebrity chefs giving out recipes of comfort foods on their shows, food writers writing about them and well, we the ordinary people, never stopped cooking them! There can be a lot of reasons why they are back in the shows and celebrity kitchens. Maybe to keep “grandma’s” recipes alive, maybe to stress the importance of simple food in our life that keeps getting more and more complex day by day or maybe to remind us of the importance of home cooked meals.

Whatever is the reason, I am not complaining. Cooking comfort food gives me the same joy as cooking an intricate meal, but to be honest when it comes to eating I enjoy the former more. And that can be because I love eating what my kids eat!

Ingredients

Yellow onion – 1 large

Potatoes – 4 medium

Butter – 1 tsp

Milk – 1 cup

Water – 4 cups

Italian seasoning – 1 tsp

Red chili flakes (optional) – a pinch

Corn starch (optional) – half tsp

Cinnamon powder – quarter tsp

Grated cheese and dried parsley – for garnish

Salt and pepper

Chop onions and potatoes into big cubes separately and keep aside. In a deep pan, heat butter and add onions. Cook them till soft. Add potatoes and cook for 2 minutes. Add water, seasoning, chili flakes, salt, pepper and cinnamon powder. Mix well, cook covered for 20 minutes or till the potatoes are done. Cool and puree it in the mixer. Transfer it again to the pan and turn the heat on. Dissolve the corn starch in the milk and slowly add to the soup once it starts boiling. Stir well and cook for a minute before turning the heat on. Sprinkle more pepper if desired, garnish with grated cheese and parsley for better presentation. (Which is what I did, the soup itself is so scrumptious, doesn’t need any garnish at all).

Serving suggestions

·         With sourdough toast/garlic bread/crunchy veggies

Tips

·         Vegetable stock or broth can be used in place of water in this recipe.

·         Corn starch has been used to thicken the soup, you may skip it.

  Interesting fact

·         The potato originated in Peru.

·         Potatoes are the easiest to grow but do not store well.

·         There are over 4000 varieties of potato.

·         Potato is also used to make wine and is used the same way as vodka though the alcohol content is a lot less.

Simply Asparagus

Spices and sauces add life to a dish but there are a few ingredients which taste the best if left by themselves. Asparagus has been called “the vegetable with a delicate flavor” and now I know what exactly it means. This particular vegetable has a flavor subtle enough to hold out on its own and yet a couple of additional ingredients or extra cooking time can ruin the balance.

Ingredients

Fresh asparagus – one bunch

Garlic sliced thinly – 4 cloves

Butter – 2 tsp

Water – 4 cups

Salt and pepper

Trim the asparagus and cut into long pieces. Bring the water to boil in a vessel, add salt and asparagus. Cook for 2 minutes and transfer the asparagus into a bowl filled with ice water. Take it out in 2 minutes, the asparagus is now blanched and ready to use.

Heat butter in a skillet and sauté garlic for about a minute. Add the asparagus, some more salt and pepper. Cook on high flame for 3 to 5 minutes. And that’s all it takes for the asparagus to turn into a delicious side dish from a plain green bunch lying in your fridge.

Since I did save on a lot of cooking time on this one, I compensated by adding on whole wheat pasta with fresh tomato and zesty brown rice with cilantro to the menu (recipes to follow soon). Now does this scream “HEALTHY” or what??

Interesting fact

*Asparagus aids the human body in ‘cleansing and healing’.

*It is a low-calorie source of folate and potassium and high in antioxidants.

*Asparagus can be pickled and stored for several years.

Purple and Green Salad with Pear and Gorgonzola dressing

Ever heard of planning your dinner over a salad dressing? This is precisely what has happened today. A trip to the local grocery store got me wandering in an aisle (as is usually the case) examining bottles and packages I had no need for. Never a salad- eater, I was literally lost in the sea of salad dressings, all the time thinking no wonder people love salads, with a million yummy dressings to choose from, who wouldn’t.

After a lot of internal deliberation as to whether the 4 dollars to be spent on what looked like a bottle of mushy oil with bits of cheese floating was warranted or not, my curiosity got the better of me. Soon enough I returned home with a bottle of “Pear and Gorgonzola” dressing.  Here goes the small list of some colorful veggies I put together, a bright absorbent for this very exotic salad dressing.  

Ingredients

Penne Pasta – half a cup

Water – 4 cups

Purple cabbage roughly chopped – 1 cup

Lettuce roughly chopped – 1 cup

Tomatoes chopped in big pieces – 2 large

Carrots cut in thick strips – 1 medium

Pear and Gorgonzola dressing – half a cup

Dry Parmesan cheese – for garnish (optional)

Olive oil – 1 tsp

Salt and pepper

Boil water and add salt, pepper and olive oil. Add in pasta and cook till tender. Drain and transfer to a salad bowl. Add the dressing while the pasta is warm, mix well and cover the bowl. Refrigerate for 2 hours. Add the cabbage, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, some salt and pepper and mix again. This time around put it away in the fridge for half an hour. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top before serving.  I decided to skip the garnish as I had oodles of cheese waiting for me in the cauliflower au gratin tucked in the oven.

For those of you who want to make this dressing at home, it is really simple to put together like most dressings. And I definitely intend to, the next time around. All you will need is a can of pear halves, salt, pepper, 1 tsp of olive oil, 1 tsp vinegar, 2 tsp lemon juice and some crumbled gorgonzola cheese. Drain the pear and puree them with all the other ingredients in the food processor except for the cheese. Add the cheese once the dressing is smooth. Refrigerate to store for a couple of days. Till then, food and more food....

Meatless Red Chili

Last year, the community I stayed in hosted a big chili cookout. Till then, the only green and red chilies I knew where the ones from the grocery store. A click on Google revealed that the chili they were talking about was supposed to be a spicy stew. Now that seemed very convenient because a stew can be a combination of any vegetables and any meat, perfect for hiding one’s cooking blunders!

What ultimately made me take part in the competition was not my love for cooking but the prize of 300 dollars off in next month’s rent. As I ventured into the unknown territory of cooking a chili (that too a meatless version) it was like entering a fascinating world of colors and aroma. For one it takes ages to cook, the slower the better and so the flavors and the smell just float around you for hours while it cooks until you can’t wait to eat it. However the highlight of a chili is the use of so many complex ingredients to create this one simple dish. You keep adding and adding and adding ingredients only to create a solitary dish where all of them blend in beautifully together.

Ingredients

Red onion diced – 1 large

Minced garlic – 4 cloves

Red bell pepper diced – 1 medium

Orange bell pepper diced – 1 medium

Crumbled tofu – half a cup

Diced tomato – 1 can (28 oz)

Tomato ketchup – 1 tsp

Dark red kidney beans – half a can (14 oz)

Light red kidney beans – 1 can

Vegetable broth – 1 can

Corn kernels – 1 can

Cooking oil – 2 tsp

Red chili powder – 1 tsp

Red chili flakes – half tsp

Cumin powder – 1 tsp

Water – 4 cups

Salt and pepper

Thinly sliced green bell pepper – for garnish as needed

Grated carrot – for garnish as needed

Grated cheese – for garnish as needed

Heat oil in a deep cooking vessel and sauté onions till cooked. Add  garlic, red and orange bell peppers, tofu, corn and cook for 5 minutes while stirring. Crush the dark red kidney beans into a thick chunky paste and add to the vegetables already being cooked. Add the remaining kidney beans, diced tomato, spices, salt, pepper, water and vegetable broth. Now let it cook on low heat for 2 hours. Alternatively, transfer the whole thing into a slow cooker and let it simmer away for 6 – 8 hours. At the end of the cooking time the dish should have a stew like thick consistency. Add tomato ketchup and mix as you turn the heat off.  Garnish with green bell pepper, carrot and cheese before serving. Till then, food and more food..

Wholesome Tomato soup

Once in a while I feel like having just soup for dinner but invariably at midnight hunger strikes and at that time I wish I had cooked something to eat too. So this time around I made a trio of wholesome tomato soup, garlicky cheesy potatoes and a veggie sandwich. Needless to say, it was a bit too much and the sandwich was carried forward to breakfast the next day.

Let me start with the soup first, combination of fresh, frozen and canned ingredients, the result – appetizing.

Ingredients

Butter – half a spoon

Frozen mixed vegetables – one cup

(corn, carrots, beans, peas)

Broccoli florets – half a cup

Diced Zucchini – half a cup

Italian seasoning – one tsp

Pinch of cinnamon powder

One bay leaf

Small can of tomato sauce

Three cups of water

Salt and pepper

Heat butter and add the frozen vegetables and bay leaf. Cook for a couple of minutes and add the remaining vegetables. Add salt and pepper and mix well. Add water and all other ingredients except tomato sauce. Put the lid on and let everything cook together for 15 minutes. Add tomato sauce and cook for another 15 minutes or so. Sprinkle some pepper right before serving.

Go ahead and make a pot full of this one, tastes even better the next day. Till then, food and more food…

Mushrooms in a Jiffy

Vegetarians like me can have their share of meat by way of mushrooms. They take little time to cook and absorb the essence of all the ingredients real nice. But I love them because they taste sooo good!

Ingredients

White mushrooms thinly sliced – 8 to 10

Carrot thinly sliced – 1

Garlic diced finely – 2 cloves

Salt – to taste                                                            

Pepper -1 tsp

Dried parsley – half a tsp

Red chili flakes – as tolerated

Cooking oil – 2 tsp

Heat oil in a non stick pan and add the sliced carrots. Cook on high flame for two minutes. Add the remaining ingredients along with the mushrooms and keep cooking on high flame for five minutes or so stirring in between. Turn off the heat and serve hot.

Tips

·         Never wash mushrooms, clean them with a damp towel

·         Never over cook mushrooms, they turn soggy and chewy

Some serving suggestions

*Make a “Mushroom on toast” for breakfast with this recipe; toast some bread to go with it

*Serve it as a side along your pasta

*Use it as a filling for your veggie wrap

*top it on an open sandwich with some sprinkled cheese.

Ready to eat, all in 10 minutes from start to finish, can’t get any faster than this for today, till next time, food and more food…..