Shrikhand n Gujarati Thali! & See You In September!

With this, I am taking some time off for summer. See you friends in September! I will be around. No trip plans yet. So I sure will be dropping by your lovely blogs to look at those amazing pictures, to check out those lovely recipes…but I myself won’t be posting on my blog! Blah! Need to get away from the monitor and keyboard and laptop for at least in the weekends..work will be ongoing..but I need to take some time for myself to enjoy beautiful and colorful summer and yes, to try out new dishes, to take lots of pictures to put them up on my blog later on…

Today, I present to you Gujarati thali..as you might know, thali is a platter..in typical Gujarati meal, we have a stainless steel thali, with lots of small stainless steel bowls, full of different vegetables, curries, daals, rice, sweets accompanied by pickles, papadums and salads. Since I already have these thalis with compartments, I don’t bother to use small bowls. And seriously, we can’t even eat that much food in the one go. So why bother?

I made Gujarati Kadhi, rice with peas and cashews, puris, chhundo(sweetened shredded mango jam), dry potato curry, patra(steamed rolls of Colocasia leaves, sliced and sauteed with mustard seeds, curry leaves, sesame seeds and freshly grated coconut), sweet and tangy rasawala vaal(Hyacinth beans in sauce!typical accompaniment with shrikhand) and of course, Shrikhand!

But, I will only talk about shrikhand, one of the favourite desserts of my dad’s and my hubby! And of course, my mother in law's! It is very easy to make and equally complex in calories! Yes, it IS FATTENING! It is nutritious with all the yogurt and nuts that go in it but at the same time, all the dreaded sugar makes it very very unhealthy and I personally try to steer clear from it. So this time around, I tried making it with Splenda. The result was awesome and I really felt good about it. The soft yellow hues from saffron was so inviting. The equally soft, velvety feeling in the mouth was absolutely divine. So here’s how I made it.

Shrikhand

Ingredients

1 lb Greek yogurt
12 packets Splenda
1 tsp cardamom powder
Almond, pistachio nuts, chopped(optional)
½ tsp saffron strands, dry roasted and crushed

How to:

Easy, mix everything together, chill and serve!(I always make it a day ahead)
If you don’t have an access to Greek yogurt, then drain the regular yogurt overnight in the fridge over a bowl, using coffee filter or cheese cloth. And then mix everything.
If you want to use sugar, I suggest use the powdered sugar as it melts with yogurt quickly and keeps the shrikhand thick. You can add strawberry, grapes and/or mango pieces or puree as well. But pureed fruits thin out the shrikhand.

Have a safe and happy Summer!

Portobello Parmigiana

By now you all must have found out that I am a big fan of portobello mushrooms. I love mushrooms, period. I still have to try those gourmet mushrooms like Enoki and Oyster. But I try to incorporate portobello and regular mushrooms in my regular cooking as much as I can. I bought these beauties over the weekend and first thought of just bbq them to make sandwiches. Then the light bulb went off! Why not turn them into Parmigiana? I make chicken and eggplant Parm a lot. And these babies were about the same size, same texture and meaty. So I ended up with this dish and yes, as usual got the raves from family. Doesn’t that matter at the end? When your family loves your cooking and can’t stop talking about it and ask for more? Feels sooooo satisfying!

Portobello Parmigiana

Ingredients

6 large Portobellos
Oil, salt and pepper to taste
2 cups Marinara sauce
1 cup grated Mozzarella cheese
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese




How to:

Grill or bake the mushrooms, drizzled with oil, salt and pepper in the oven till soft.
place them on the baking tray, spread with 1 cup of sauce.
Spoon more sauce and sprinkle cheeses on mushrooms and bake in the 425° F hot oven for about 10 minutes or till the cheeses melt and a nice golden crust forms on the top.
Serve with more sauce and crusty bread on the side.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Thick Shake

When I was expecting about 17(doesn’t seem that distant past, seems like just yesterday! Time does fly by for sure!) years ago, I was feeling sick in my stomach, throwing up a lot and didn’t feel like eating or drinking regular food. I survived a first few weeks on McD’s pizza(yes, they HAD personal pan pizza back then) and thick shakes. My favourite was of course, strawberry thick shake. And it was really THICK! I remember I had to apply force from my guts to suck that thick shake out of the cup and into the straw. It was simply delish. I had lots of different milk shakes in India like banana, Chikoo, mango etc. But they were all kind of runny shakes. Not thick at all. I have developed a particular fondness towards the thick shakes and have turned them into my regular morning breakfast smoothies. This one was a new shake or smoothie I made just for fun and I really enjoyed it a lot.


Chocolate Peanut Butter Thick Shake

Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups vanilla ice cream
1 cup cold milk
1/3 cup chocolate syrup
2 tablespoons creamy Peanut Butter
Whipped topping(optional)
Chopped walnuts(optional)

How To:
Place ice cream, milk, syrup and topping in blender container.
Cover; blend until smooth.
Garnish with whipped topping and cherry, if desired.

Happy Canada Day N Fire N Ice Gazpacho

To all my Canadian friends, Happy Canada Day!

 and to all American friends, Happy Independence Day in advance!

For those long, arid summer days, what is better to cool us down than chilled gazpacho? A hearty and pungent soup that has gained fame throughout the world for its amazing thirst-quenching quality. Gazpacho soup was invented for the summer. Refreshingly cold on hot summer days, this adaptation of the classic Spanish cold tomato soup deliciously combines the best of summer vegetables. Make sure you only use the freshest, highest quality ingredients for this soup.

Today, the Spanish-style soup most nearly resembles a sort of chunky liquid salad, with lots of fresh, uncooked vegetables suspended in a broth of puréed tomatoes with chicken stock or tomato juice. In the summer when all of the vegetables are at their finest, this simple, modern soup is full of refreshing good flavor. This soup remains true to its culinary roots that it is one of the finest uses for too many ripe vegetables that might otherwise go to waste. And the original ingredients, especially vinegar, olive oil and garlic, remain essential to a successful gazpacho.

Fiery looking in a bowl but cool on a spoon, this refreshing half salad/half soup that's make-ahead, low in fat and high in garden-fresh flavour has all the potential to be anyone's favorite. As a bowl of this chunky soup makes an easy beginning to summer meal or satisfying weeknight supper.

Fire N Ice Gazpacho

Ingredients
2 tomatoes, peeled
1/2 sweet red pepper, halved and seeded
1/2 green pepper, halved and seeded
1/4 jalopeno pepper, halved(Don't seed the jalapeño if you like a soup with more zip.)
1/2 English cucumber, peeled
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
3-1/2 cup vegetable cocktail, (approx. I used V8)
1/4 tsp hot pepper sauce( I used Sriracha)
1 pinch salt
pinch pepper
Green onions for garnish(optional)

How to:

Halve tomatoes; scoop out seeds, coarsely chop tomatoes, red pepper, green pepper and cucumber.
In food processor, or in blender in batches, puree chopped tomatoes, sweet peppers, jalepeno, cucumber, garlic, vinegar and oil until small chunks formed.
Mix vegetable cocktail and hot sauce. Refrigerate until chilled, at least two or up to 12 hours.
Thin it out with more vegetable cocktail if desired.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Now, add your chopped veggies and stir them all together in soup and enjoy!!

Taco Bell Crunch Wrap Supreme-My Way!

Another favourite of ours from Taco Bell is their Crunch Wrap Supreme. It is really nothing extravagant. It’s just a flour tortilla, topped with taco meat, cheese sauce, lettuce, tomato, crunchy taco chips, wrapped and toasted..And we pay almost $6 for one Crunch Wrap Supreme. So I thought why don’t try at home. I know how to make taco meat and cheese sauce. I’ve got lettuce and tomatoes and crunchy tacos in my pantry and refrigerator. So I made this over the weekend with a bit of a twist. Instead of putting lettuce and tomatoes inside of the wrap, I decided to top it with lettuce and tomatoes and sour cream. For cheese sauce, I decided to use real cheese instead of that silly cheese product. This was so amazing, I made it for weekend lunch with some salad for us and then, twice a week lunches for hubby and baby. They don’t seem to have enough of this wrap…sure is a keeper recipe.

Crunch Wrap Supreme
Ingredients

6 large tortillas
1 lb. ground chicken
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp or to taste red chili powder
Salt to taste
1 tbsp powdered dry oregano
1 medium onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, diced
2 tbsp oil
6 crunchy taco shells, broken in two or some Doritos chips
Lettuce, diced tomatoes, sour cream as required for toppings

Cheese sauce:

See Taco Bell Fries Supreme-My Way!


How to:

Brown onion and garlic in oil over medium high heat.
Add chicken and all the spices and cook till chicken is done.
Add a bit of water if chicken is sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Keep warm.
Make cheese sauce.
Now warm up large tortilla.
On work surface, lay one tortilla, spoon 2-3 tbsp ground chicken mix, top with cheese sauce and 2 halves of hard taco shells.
Wrap over the hard shell to encase the filling.
Heat up a griddle, lightly sprayed with oil.
Put the wrapped side down on the hot griddle, cook till nice and brown.
Flip and repeat on the other side as well.
Top the wrap with sour cream, tomato, lettuce and enjoy.

Summer Tomato Salad

I can't believe what I am doing right now! Just got a few minutes free from work, and here I am. Posting....
As I mentioned in one of my earliest blogs, I love to eat tomatoes. Raw, cooked - in any form. I love the green and red tomato dishes with spices that my mom makes. Truly divine. They are more like jam and I eat them with my rotis smeared with them. Today, I am not making that dish though. It's still waiting for mom to come back and make! Today, I want to talk about the delicious tomato salad I made that was finger licking good and a treat to look at.  I saw a few blogger friends come up with such pretty, eye pleasing dishes, I thought hmmmm, what I should make that could really stand out?! And I wanted to make a real easy, simple dish that could be made in a jiffy and at the same time, it should be filling and pretty looking. And yes, most important part - the ingredients. I didn't want to use exotic ingredients that you can hardly find. It should be made of easy to find and relatively inexpensive ingredients.

So I was still debating myself on what to make and last Wednesday, I went out for a walk in my lunch time to the nearby farmers' market. Every summer, we have this farmer's market opens up that sells fresh from the farm veggies, fruits and freshly baked breads and cookies. There I saw these pretty Roma tomatoes. Hard to resist. I tried a piece of it, and wow, it was so sweet and juicy. So I just bought a basket of those tomatoes. I knew that I will be making a tomato salad with those tomatoes. I also have a very pretty looking oregano plant in my garden and some mozzarella di bufala in my fridge. So my tomato salad was all shaped up. This is going to be a very healthy and delicious salad for sure, I thought. In my mind, I was sure I would be just chopping everything and tossing them together. Finally, it occurred to me to make a salad a Virtual Treat! And here it is. Simple, fresh ingredients transformed into a palate pleasing healthy dish.

Summer Tomato Salad
Ingredients

2-3 Roma tomatoes, sliced in 1/4" thick slices
A palmful of oregano leaves
1/2 lb. mozzarella di bufala cheese, sliced
1 cup Italian bread crumbs
Oil for frying cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil

How to:
Dredge cheese slices in bread crumbs and deep fry them.
Keep warm on a paper towel.
Arrange a thick slice of tomato on a serving plate.
Season with salt and pepper. Top with a slice of cheese, seasoned well.
Place a few oregano leaves on top of the cheese.
Repeat.
Season each layer with salt and pepper as you go.
Drizzle some balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil and serve.
Enjoy the anti oxidants and lycopene rich salad that is not only an eye candy but very beneficial for skin too!

Taco Bell's Fries Supreme, MY WAY!

Happy Father's Day to my readers who are fathers, uncles and grand fathers...And a very special, warm wish to my DAD and my hubby!

Original Taco Bell Fries Supreme!

I believe it’s just Taco Bell Canada that offers this delish dish called Fries Supreme. It is freshly prepared french fries covered with seasoned ground beef, warm zesty nacho cheese sauce, diced ripe tomatoes, chives and cool sour cream. I haven’t seen it in the United States. Elsewhere, I am not sure. So yesterday, I thought about making my version of this very popular Fries Supreme at home. The verdict: this is the best dish in the entire meal! Now I liked it.

I used dots of hot taco sauce instead of fresh diced tomatoes. And green onions instead of chives. It was surely a fit for a satisfying meal itself, let alone the side dish.

Fries Supreme

Ingredients

1 lb.frozen french fries(you can make your own fries, frozen saves a lot of time)
1/2 lb.ground chicken
1 medium onion,diced
3-4 cloves garlic,chopped
2 tbsp Mexican Chili powder
1 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp cumin powder
1 tbsp powdered oregano
Sour cream, sliced greens of green onions for garnish
1 Diced tomato

Nacho Cheese Sauce:

Nacho cheese sauce

Ingredients
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp AP flour
1 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste
1-1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1 fresh jalapeno pepper, finely diced


How to:

Prepare fries as package direction.
When fries are baking, make nacho cheese sauce.
On a medium high heat, melt butter and cook flour in the butter till raw smell disappear, about 3-4 minutes.
Add milk, salt, pepper and bring to a light boil.
Add cheese and jalapeno and remove from heat.
Keep warm.
In the meantime, brown ground chicken with onion and garlic.
Add all the spices and cook till chicken is done, for about 8 minutes, taking care chicken won’t stick to the bottom of the pan. If it happens, add a tbsp of water to the pot.
Stir to make sauce consistency.
Place fries in a serving platter.
Cover with chicken mixture.
Pour nacho cheese sauce over the chicken mixture.
Add sour cream, diced tomato and green chilies and serve.