thayirsaadham

I love muffins. I really do. They are very easy to whip up, can be frozen and reheated for a quick snack and are perfect as to-go foods. Plus they can be made as healthy as possible by reducing the amount of butter or oil and by substituting it with applesauce or yogurt or buttermilk. You can even add jam to the batter! Don’t ask me why I am so excited at adding jam to the muffin batter. But I am. Imagine biting into a warm, moist muffin and tasting blueberry or blackberry jam. I am drooling.

I do make muffins pretty often. I have never posted any here because I almost always finish them before taking pictures. I make muffins in batches of 6. As soon as I make them and they are cooling, I think to myself “I should take pictures.” Then I start looking for the camera and 99% of the time, as soon as I switch on the camera, it tells me to change the batteries. I am great at anticipating things and being ready for them, you know? So anyway, I charge the batteries and by the time they get charged and I remember to take the pictures, the muffins are gone. I swear I don’t know how but somehow I end up eating all the muffins. My waistline is not happy but who cares?

Today, I am posting this recipe for savory muffins. I made these corn muffins to go with this Moroccan Red Lentil-Bean Stew that I made sometime back. They were a perfect side to go with the soup. I searched online for corn muffin recipes and there were tons of them. I finally ended up using the common ingredients but I kicked up the heat a notch by grinding green chillies into the muffin batter.

Ingredients

Makes 6 regular - sized muffins

1. All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
2. Stone ground yellow cornmeal - 1/2 cup
3. Baking powder - 1/2 tbsp
4. Chilli powder - 1 tsp
5. Salt - to taste
6. Ground black pepper - 1/2 tsp
7. Baking soda - 1/4 tsp
8. Butter milk - 1/2 cup
9. Vegetable Oil - 2 tbsp
10. Green chillies - 2
11. Corn kernels - 1/4 cup
12. Green onions - 4-5 (chopped finely)

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients (1-7) together and keep aside.
3. Grind the green chillies with 1 tbsp of water.
4. Mix the wet ingredients (8 & 9) with the ground green chillies.
5. Add the corn kernels and green onions to the wet ingredients.
6. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients.
7. Mix gently. This is an important step in making muffins. Overcome the temptation to be thorough with the mixing. It is okay to have some lumps and/or some unmixed flour. These will be covered when the muffins are baking in the oven.
8. Grease the muffin pan (or line them with paper cups) and fill the cups with batter up to 2/3-rds of the cup.
9. Bake for 15-18 minutes.
10. Check for doneness, remove the muffin tray out the oven.
11. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes.
12. After 5 minutes, gently pry the muffins out of the muffin pan.
13. Let the muffins cool on a wire rack for 5 more minutes. Serve with soup

A word of caution when using this recipe. This is a bit spicy. Please reduce the amount of green chillies/chilli powder/pepper according to your taste. Taste the final muffin batter and adjust accordingly. Some corn muffin recipes also have sugar in them. So, you can also add sugar to yours to compensate for the heat.

There can be a lot of variations to this recipe. You can add bell peppers, fresh cilantro. You can even add other vegetables and make it a more wholesome muffin. I am thinking of making a version with more vegetables and without the corn meal. Maybe I will try with whole wheat flour to make it more healthy. What do you think?

Hey all,

Am alive. It’s just that things are crazy at work and I have started swimming classes and that leaves me with less time to cook and even lesser time to blog. Excuses, I know. When am I ever going to master time management? I have this window in the morning from 6:30 a.m to 8:30 a.m which I currently use for snoozing the alarm clock and burrowing deeper under the covers. I should use that time to blog/cook. Even if I don’t use that time to do something useful, I could use it to get ready for work at a leisurely pace. Now, I just get up around 8 a.m and then run around the house like a headless chicken getting ready. I have always wanted to have a relaxed morning routine. Is that ever going to happen?

I also started reading Zen Habits . In the words of the author - Leo Babuta - “Zen Habits is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives. It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, find happiness.” Please do read if you get time. Though I am not even kind of close in doing the things on that blog, I like to read and pretend that I have a plan for doing those things. The first step of all my plans are - Start tommorrow. I am doomed, aren’t I?

I am going to post the recipe today and run away. I need work out a schedule so that I can blog more frequently. Pray that I should get this plan to move past the first day.

The weather in Seattle is back to normal and by that I mean, we are back to gloomy, chilly, windy days. All I want to do is to settle down on the couch with a hot cup of coffee and a good book. Also, do get hold of Bill Bryson’s books. I should warn you though that they are not fit for reading in public. Unless you are the kind of person who does not mind when people around shoot weird looks at you for slapping your thighs and laughing out loud at sporadic intervals. Seriously, he is damn funny.

Soooo, back to the recipe before you guys go “grrrrrrrrrrr”… I was looking for a good soup recipe to chase away the chilly weather. I love soups. They are healthy to eat, easy to cook and taste yummmy. Do you need more reasons? I had this book - A Beautiful Bowl of Soup (by Paulette Mitchell) and saw this recipe for a moroccan red lentil stew there. This book is good with lots of vegetarian soup recipes. I changed the recipe a little bit going by what I had in my pantry.The original recipe had white beans, rosemary, saffron threads and fennel seeds among the ingredients. I did not have any of those. So, I substituted with chick peas, dried spices and no saffron. I also changed the spices used and added some ground cumin and coriander because I like that combination.

Moroccan red lentil-bean stew
Adapted from A Beautiful Bowl of Soup - Paulette Mitchell

Ingredients

1. White Chick peas - 1/2 cup
2. Black chick peas - 1/2 cup
3. Red lentil - 1/2 cup
4. Rice - 1/2 cup
5. Extra virgin olive oil - 1 tbsp
6. Onion - 1 (chopped finely)
7. Tomato - 2 (chopped finely)
8. Tomato paste - 1 tbsp
9. Cumin seeds - 2 tsp
10. Coriander seeds - 2 tsp
11. Chilli powder - 1 tsp
12. Italian seasoning - 1/2 tsp
13. Dried Oregano - 1/2 tsp
14. Salt - to taste
15. Cilantro - 1/2 cup

Recipe

1. Soak the chickpeas in water for at least 6 hours.
2. Pressure cook them for 2 whistles if you are using a pressure cooker. If you are using the stove top method, bring a pot of water to boil. Add the chick peas to it and simmer till the chickpeas are cooked a little bit. Make sure they are firm and not cooked to a mush.
3. Add the olive oil to the pot in which you are going to make the soup.
4. Add the onions and let it cook till the onions are browned.
5. Add the tomatoes and cook them till the tomatoes break down.
6. Add the tomato paste, dried oregano and italian seasoning and let it cook for 2-3 minutes.
7. Grind the coriander seeds and cumin seeds and add these to the soup pot.
8. Add the cooked chickpeas and let it simmer for 5 minutes.
9. In the meantime, wash the red lentils and clean them. Do the same with the rice.
10. Add the lentils and rice to the soup pot.
11. Add chilli powder and salt.
12. Bring the soup to a boil and then simmer for around 30 minutes.
13. Just before switching off the stove, add the cilantro and let it simmer for 2-3 minutes.
14. Adjust for salt and spice level and switch off the stove.

When this soup simmers on the stove, there is this heavenly smell around the house. It makes you want to dig out your most comfortable (Read oldest) night wear and settle on the couch with a big bowl of soup and watch a rerun of your favourite sitcom (Read Friends). I had this soup with some corn muffins. I will be posting the recipe for those soon.

Off goes this recipe for AWED-Morocco event started by DK of ChefinYou and hosted by Pavani of Cook’s Hideout.

On an unrelated note, all you Seattle-ites, can you point me to good breakfast places near Seattle? Some place good for waffles? Stop drooling Indhu! I have been searching for one for a long time now. It is a completley different issue that by the time I wake up, they will be serving lunch. We will cross that bridge when we come to it

Hey all,

How you doing? (To be read in a tone similar to the one used by Joey in Friends). By the way, how many of you have watched Friends again and again and again? I know 99% of the dialogues by now and I am working on getting it upto a 100%. Wish me luck

I know I have been late in posting this. I really wanted to post this long back - just did not get the time. I joined a swimming class at the gym. So if any of you see a person wearing senthil trousers (I am sorry but I cannot explain that to the non-tamizh audience ) trying haaaaaard to stay afloat, please say a hi and send some prayers my way. I went to the gym today morning to practice and I was doing fine upto a depth of 6 feet. As soon as I realized I was swimming in waters with a depth of more than 6 feet, what did I do? I did the exact opposite of what I was supposed to do. I panicked! Instead of continuing to swim, I completely stopped moving my legs and sank like a bag of potatoes. Drank a lot of water and came back up sputtering and coughing. Not a pretty sight!

On to today’s recipe, I have been seeing a lot of cake and quick bread recipes with zucchini in them. I am sure a lot of you had the same question as me - a vegetable in a cake? I know there are carrot cakes. But somehow, zucchini seems a lttle weird. I finally decided to try one. I wanted to go for a plain zucchini bread. But I chickened out and made a chocolate version hoping it would mask the taste of the zucchini. Maybe I will try a plain version the next time. The basic recipe is from ClosetCooking. I modified it a little bit using the ingredients available in my pantry.

Ingredients

1. All purpose flour - 1 cup
2. Whole wheat flour - 1 1/4 cups
3. Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
4. Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
5. Cocoa powder - 1/4 cup (I used Hersheys unsweetened chocolate powder)
6. Cinnamon - 1 tsp ( I added 2 tsp because I love cinnamon)
7. Grated zucchini - 1.5 cups
8. Brown sugar - 3/4 cup
9. Honey - 1/4 cup
10. Oil - 1/4 cup
11. Vanilla yogurt - 3/4 cup (I used low fat)
12. Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
13. Egg whites - 2 (lightly beaten)
14. Walnuts - 1/2 cup (cut into little pieces)
15. Chocolate chips - 1/2 cup

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F
2. Mix the dry ingrdients (1 to 6) together.
3. Mix the wet ingredients (7 to 13) together.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.
5. Fold in the nuts and chocolate chips. You can also omit the chocolate chips but please don’t. Once they melt in the oven, they give such a yummy taste and awesome texture to the bread.
6. Pour the batter into a greased 9X5 inch loaf pan.
7. Let it bake for 45-50 minutes. (I checked mine after 35 minutes and kept an eye on the bread.) Check for doneness and remove the bread from the oven.
8. Let it cool on the pan for 10 minutes.
9. After 10 minutes, remove the bread from the pan and let it cool on the wire rack.
10. Once it is completely cooled, slice and eat or store it in the refrigerator.

This bread is not too sweet. That is the way I like it. But if you want it to be sweeter, increase the sugar or the honey. Entirely upto you.

This bread tasted much better the next day. I read somewhere that whole grain breads taste better when you leave them overnight. Is that true? I popped it in the refrigerator and when I wanted to eat it, I let it sit on the counter for 15-20 minutes and zapped it in the microwave for around 15 seconds. Good to go

Hey all,

Loooooooooong time. I know. Thank you for all your comments and emails. It definitely helped to know that there are people wishing good things for me. This break was good in more ways than one. I spent some time doing a lot of things that I like - reading, walking, etc. So, the issues that I had mentioned in my last post are still there… but I have come to the zen conclusion that I can only try as much as I can… and the rest is upto … well, I don’t know… God??? not God.. I guess it is upto the people involved… including me… so, I have decided to do as much as I can to help the situation and then take it easy… and I also took this as an opportunity to get it in my mind that life is going to throw me all sorts of nasty challenges and I just have to tackle them as best as I can. Attitude is everything…right?

Anyway, I was catching up on my reading and I read an awesome awesome book - Ponniyin Selvan.It was spectacular. Reading it in tamizh was awesome. I am not sure how the English version will be but am glad I stuck with the tamizh version. Kalki was such a prolific writer. I don’t think I can describe his writing prowess. I am not even going to try.Those of you who can get hold of this book - please, please do read it.. And tell me when you read it, how many of you had a crush on Vandhiyadevan? how many of you had one on Arul Mozhi Varmar? and how many of you had one on both? That would be me

Coming to today’s recipe, summer is giving way to fall.. and I am trying to hold on to the last bits of summer - which means less time in front of the stove and more time outside. I was looking for something quick with pasta and I found this on Veganyumyum . I modified the recipe a little bit to suit my taste and pantry. I am not going to specify the exact measurements because I just eye-balled them and made this for 2 people. You can adjust the amount according to your preferences.

Ingredients

1. Whole wheat linguine - enough for two
2. olive oil - 2 tsp
3. salt - to taste
4. tomatoes - 2
5. cashew - 10
6. green chillies - 2
7. black pepper - to taste
8. capsicum - 1 (chopped)
9. red chillies - 3
10. lemon juice - 2 tbsp

Recipe

1. Chop the tomatoes and green chillies
2. Add the chopped tomatoes, green chillies and cashew nuts to the blender and grind them to a paste. You can add a little bit of water if you want.
3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
4. Salt it and add the linguine to it and cook according to package instructions.
5. Take a saucepan and add the olive oil and red chillies to it. Saute it for a minute.
6. Add the capsicum and let it cook for a 3-4 minutes (Make sure the capsicum stays crunchy)
7. Add the ground paste to the saucepan. Add salt and let it simmer for 4-5 minutes.
8. Add the pasta and freshly cracked black pepper and let it cook for a couple of minutes.
9. Switch off the stove and add some freshly squeezed lemon juice and serve.

This is a quick dish - the sauce can be made while the linguine is cooking and we can get the dish on the table in under 30 minutes which makes this a winner in my book

As good as this tasted, there are some things that I would like to change the next time I make this. I was in a hurry and I had just one sorry looking capsicum in my refrigerator and thus the measly amount of vegetables. This would taste great with some more bell peppers, carrots, peas, broccoli. Basically, anything you can load it up with. Also, I think I will add some basil to the sauce the next time - make it a kind of tomato-pesto-cashew sauce. Yup… am definitely adding basil the next time.

God.. it feels good to be back

Hey all,
I have been meaning to post something for the past 2 weeks. Every time I start to write something, I get stuck after a couple of lines and the result is that I have lots of 2 line drafts. There is a personal issue back home that is taking up a lot of my time and energy… I have just been sitting around the house in a depressed state. I haven’t been visiting other blogs and I seem to have lost the interest to cook. My work is also suffering as a result of this. Let me stop blabbering. I have decided to take a break. I don’t want this to be a long break and I hope I can come back. So, this is a temporary (hopefully) goodbye from me.
Hope to see you guys soon and please keep posting those awesome recipes. Bye!

Hey all,
It is awesome weather in Seattle… at least during the first half of the day. It starts raining at around 7 p.m and it keeps raining for most part of the night. But as long as it doesn’t rain during this weekend, I am happy. I have some friends coming to spend the long weekend and I am soooo going to get kicked if the weather doesn’t behave.

This is a recipe that I tried from Susan’s Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. Her blog is AWESOME. When I saw this event announcement on Vaishali’s blog, I hopped on to Susan’s site and I was amazed at the number of recipes. And the variety of recipes she has! Name any ingredient and she has a bunch of totally different recipes using that ingredient.

So, I was all set to make a pulao one night and I was going through her recipes and this jambalaya caught my eye. I had this block of tofu in my freezer that was screaming at me to use it before it died a slow, miserable death. I feel that a jambalaya is similar to a pulao - we use a lot of vegetables and there is rice involved. The spices alone are different. Instead of the Indian garam masala, jeera, coriander powder, curry powder, etc., the jambalaya uses cayenne pepper, dried thyme, basil, oregano. I followed Susan’s recipe for the spices. The only thing I did not have was the Liquid smoke seasoning and she had mentioned that it was optional. So, yayy! And yeah.. I did not use canned tomatoes. I had fresh tomatoes and I diced them and tossed them in.

You can get the recipe from from here. I really loved this dish. One mistake I made was that I did not squeeze out the water from the tofu properly. So, the tofu was kind of rubbery. Plus I can never make fluffy rice with each grain standing out separately :(. So, the grains were not as separated as they should be. But the dish was yummy and I am happy .

This goes to the event Tried and Tasted started by Zlamushka’s Spicy Kitchen hosted by Vaishali at holycow.

Hey all,

Having a major writer’s block. It is not like I can rival J.K Rowling with my writing skills. (By the way, I have started reading Harry Potter… again… and sooo loving it! I can almost feel myself reaching for my (non-existent) wand at times to do spells ). I don’t like going to the recipe directly.. seems bleh. But that’s kinda what I am going to do today.

Sundal is a dry snack made with pulses and legumes. This is pretty famous in South India during Navarathiri - the 9 day festival. I remember my mother making 9 different kinds of sundal - one for each day. The one made with chickpeas is my favourite. It has a slight crunch from the chickpeas and coconut. The spices used are very minimal - just some mustard, urad dhal and asafoetida. This is a simple wholesome snack and we can get our protein fix from the chickpeas.

Ingredients

1. Chickpeas - 2 cups
2. Olive oil - 2 tsp
3. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
4. Urad dhal - 2 tsp
5. Red chillies - 3 (Adjust according to your preference)
6. Salt - according to taste
7. Coconut (grated) - 1/4 cup
8. Curry leaves - 5-8
9. Asafoetida - a pinch

Recipe

1. Wash and soak the chickpeas overnight. Then pressure cook them for 2 whistles. You can also use canned chickpeas. In that case, proceed to step 2.
2. Add the oil to a pan and splutter mustard seeds. Add urad dhal and once they start turning light brown, add the red chillies.
3. Saute for around 30 seconds till the red chillies turn darker.
4. Add the curry leaves and asafoetida. Saute till the curry leaves become dry - around a minute.
5. Add the chickpeas and salt and mix everything. Let this cook for 3-4 minutes. Since the chickpeas have already been cooked, we only need to wait till everything is mixed well.
6. Add the coconut and saute for 2-3 minutes.
7. Adjust for taste and we are done.

Wasn’t that simple? This is one of the quickest dishes you can make and is very healthy. If you have the chickpeas ready (soaked and pressure-cooked or canned), this dish doesn’t take more than 10 minutes. So, off it goes to Mahimaa’s 15 minute cooking event. I am very eager to see the round up for that event … as I am sure all of you are. I am always looking for quick-fix recipes and the idea of getting dinner ready in 15 minutes is so enticing .

I just realized that for a person with writer’s block, I have rambled on. Ah..well… if only self-control was easier

Hey all…

If you haven’t noticed, I changed my site’s layout. The old one (if you can call it a layout) looked…how do I put it… UGLY!!! I have been meaning to change it for a looooooong time… but was just plain lazy to do it. I was thinking that I will develop the site on my laptop, perfect it and then publish it. Ha! FAT chance of that ever happening. I am the queen of procrastination. So, I decided to publish what I have and then work on it. The first thing I need to do is work on my recipe index. I am having some issues tailoring it to suit the new theme. Now, I need to find someone to give me a swift kick in the b*** if I don’t update the site with the features. I am relying on you guys for a virtual kick .

Coming to today’s recipe, I wanted to use oat bran in some recipe. Let me digress here and say something that I am sure a lot of you would agree with. One of the main benefits of blogging and having this network of foodies is the increased awareness about eating healthy. My knowledge on healthy diet was very minimal. I mean… I knew that fruits and vegetables were good for health, too much of rice was bad… you get the idea. Browsing through the food blogs, I gained so much knowledge on which food has what nutrients, how to substitute for a not-so-healthy ingredient with a healthy alternative… the list is endless. Healthy eating is no longer a struggle. I look forward with pleasure to my breakfast of oatmeal every morning - tasty and healthy.

So, coming back to the recipe before you guys start grinding your teeth, I got some oat bran from Whole Foods and was looking for some recipe with it. For people who are not familiar with oat bran, it is the outer casing of the oat kernel. It is an excellent food for people with high cholesterol levels. It is very effective in bringing down the level of LDL or the “bad” cholesterol. You can use oat bran in a variety of dishes. You can toast some oat bran and top your morning cereal with it. You can add it to smoothies. You can make cakes, breads,etc using oat bran. I made a coffeecake with oat bran. I found the recipe on wholegraingourmet. I changed the recipe to suit my taste and the contents of my pantry. I have mentioned my recipe below. You can refer to the link I have provided for the original recipe.

Ingredients

1. Oat bran - 1 cup
2. Whole wheat pastry flour - 1/2 cup
3. All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
4. Brown sugar - 1/4 cup
5. Baking Powder - 2 tsp
6. Organic Fat-free milk - 1 cup
7. Egg whites - 2
8. Honey - 1/4 cup
9. Vegetable oil - 2 tbsp
10. Cinnamon -1 tsp
11. vanilla extract - 1 tsp
12. Blueberries - according to your taste
13. A combination of your choice of nuts - almonds, pecans, walnuts, cashews.

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Mix the dry ingredients (oat bran, whole wheat pastry flour, all purpose flour, baking powder, cinnamon) and set aside.
3. Mix the wet ingredients (egg whites, honey, vanilla extract, milk, oil)
4. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix. Do not overmix.
5. Gently fold in the blueberries and nuts.
6. Spray a baking dish with cooking spray (or grease with butter) and pour the mixture into the dish and slide it into the oven.
7. Let it bake for 30-35 minutes. (I had to bake mine for 40 minutes. So, please adjust according to your oven)
8. Check for done’ness with a toothpick or a fork.

The changes I made to the original recipe are as follows
* The original recipe mentions the use of 2 cups oat bran. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. So, I used 1 cup of oat bran, 1/2 cup of whole wheat pastry flour and 1/2 cup of all purpose flour.
* I did not add banana to my cake as I did not have any banana.
* I added a tsp of vanilla extract to the wet ingredients for the flavor.
* The original recipe says to use a square baking dish and not a loaf pan. I don’t know why. I used a 8X8 baking pan and got 16 squares.

This cake made for a wonderful combination with coffee. Some days, I paired it with fresh fruits and it made for a very filling and healthy breakfast. This cake is not very sweet as I don’t like my breakfast to be overly sweet. You can increase the amount of brown sugar or honey to suit your taste. Or drizzle some maple syrup on top for your breakfast. Dig in to this healthy cake without any guilt

Hey all…

Stilllll here. Just been a little busy at work. Plus with the weather improving little by little, I have been trying to spend more time outdoors - walking, running, etc. Seattle, for all its gloomy weather, is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I have been living here for more than an year now and even now, everytime I catch a glimpse of the mountains - either from my office or when I am driving, it never fails to astound me. I want to stop and look. Not a cool idea when you are driving at 60 miles per hour.

So, coming to today’s dish, I started with no idea about what to cook. I cut some vegetables and then kind of built up the recipe as I went along. Usually, I can never function that way. I need to know what I am cooking, what the side dish should be and everything that goes into the dish. I usually cook at night and take it for lunch the next day. So, it has to be something that I can carry to work and something that will taste edible after 18 hours. This needs a lot of planning for someone like me with limited culinary experience.

Ingredients

1. Onion - 1 (chopped finely)
2. Tomato - 1 (chopped)
3. Potato - 1 (chopped into small cubes)
4. Carrot - 1 (chopped)
5. Peas - 1//2 cup
6. Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
7. Olive Oil - 2 tsp
8. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
9. urad dhal - 1 tsp
10. Salt - to taste
11. Asafoetida - a pinch

To grind into a paste

1. Coconut - 5 tbsp
2. Green chillies - 2 (chopped very finely)
3. Coriander powder - 1 tsp
4. cumin seeds - 1 tsp
5. red chilli powder - 1 tsp
6. garam masala - 1 tsp
7. cashew nuts - 5-8
8. ginger - a small piece

Method

1. Soak the cashews in warm water for 10-15 minutes. Then grind them with the other ingredients for the paste and keep aside.
2. Take a heavy bottomed pan and add some oil to it.
3. Add the onions and fry them till the onions turn pink in colour.
4. Add the tomatoes next and let them cook for 5-6 minutes till they break down. You can add some water at this stage.
5. Add salt and turmeric powder and the vegetables. Cook them till the vegetables are soft but make sure they don’t turn mushy.
6. Add the ground paste and let everything simmer at a low flame for 15 minutes.
7. Adjust salt as needed. You can also add more red chilli powder if you want the dish to be more spicy.
8. Do the final tadka with mustard seeds,urad dhal and asafoetida.

This tastes great with chapathi/rice. It was creamy due to the cashews but was also low-fat. You can also skip the cashews if you want. Or you can add milk instead of cashews. Also, you can add other vegetables. I was on a refrigerator cleaning mode and added whatever I could find.

This dish started out as a south indian dish. I wanted to grind just coconut and jeera . Then, I realized that too many of my dishes have that in common. So, I thought of making in north indian by adding cashews, coriander powder, chilli powder and garam masala. At the end, I decided to make it south indian by doing the tadka with asafoetida. Don’t ask me why. I think I was in a weird mood that night.

I like soups a lot. One of the reasons is that they require very minimal supervision while preparing. Just dump everything in the pot. Then go do your thing. (For me, that’s zoning out on the sofa with a book). After 30-45 minutes, come back to a warm comforting bowl of soup

The weather in Seattle has been the usual - rainy and gloomy. My mood reflected the weather last week. So, I wanted a hot bowl of soup to chase away the blues. I was thinking of making it a one-pot meal which translates to cleaning the refrigerator . I had some beans that I had soaked for making a salad but had never gotten around to doing it. I decided to make a vegetarian chili.

I was under the impression that chili was a Mexican dish. Turns out I was wrong. Though it might have had its roots in Spanish cuisine, chili is an American dish and has been known since 1800s. Also, chili is the official dish of Texas. Woohoo… That is where I graduated from. Hence the woohoo .
Wonder what the official dish of TamilNadu is - idly, sambar, pongal and vadai… I guess. I am drooling as I type this.

I had the chili with some brown rice and some herbed croutons. I had a couple of slices of bread left over from this. So, I ended up making croutons from that. It was a very filling dinner and I took it to lunch the next day and it tasted even better.

Chili

Ingredients

1. Onion - 1 (chopped finely)
2. carrots - 1 (chopped)
3. Tomatoes - 1 (chopped finely)
4. Bell pepper - 1 (chopped)
5. Black beans - a handful
6. Red kidney beans - a handful
7. Cumin powder - 1 tsp
8. Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
9. Salt - to taste
10. Olive oil - 2 tsp
11. dried parsley - 3/4 tsp

Recipe

1. Take a soup pot or a heavy bottomed vessel and add the olive oil to it.
2. Add the chopped onion and saute it till the onion becomes translucent.
3. Add the tomatoes and let them cook for a minute or two.
4. Add the bell peppers, carrots and saute them for a minute or two.
5. Add the cumin powder, chilli powder, parsley and salt.
6. Add some water and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes.
7. Add the beans and let everything simmer for 20 minutes.

Herbed croutons

Ingredients

1. Olive oil - 5 tbsp
2. Bread - 2 slices
3. Salt - to taste
4. pepper - 1/2 tsp
5. herbs of your choice

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 275 F.
2.Cut up the bread slices into bite sized pieces.
3.Take a wide bowl. Add the olive oil and the other ingredients except bread and mix them well.
4. Add the bread to this and mix well.
5. Spread the bread on a baking sheet and pop into the oven.
6. Let it bake for 8 minutes.
7. Remove the sheet and with a spatula, turn over the bread pieces (This is so that they get browned evenly.)
8. Pop into the oven for 8 more minutes.
9. The croutons should be done by now - crunchy and yummy.

To serve, take a bowl and add some brown rice to it. Ladle some chili over it. You can either drop the croutons in the chili or keep them as a side.

This was one yummy chili and very easy to prepare. You can add any combination of vegetables here. The traditional chili has some corn in it. I did not have any that day. Also, I used black beans and red kidney beans. You can use chick peas, pinto beans.. anything really. This is a very healthy dish and is full of vegetables and you get protein from the beans. So, slurp away to good health