AdiRuchi

Give me good basmathi, some spices and some vegi. I am sure I can make a rice dish out of it. So when I see ideas from my blogging friends that has rice as the staring ingredient I have tto try those. The rice dish I tried today was an an inspiration from this post. I liked the idea of baking the rice so I tried it with my standard pulav recipe. I cook my pulav on the stove top so I have more control over it. You can surely do it in a cooker.

Ingredients:
- 1 cup basmathi rice - Wash and soak it before you start your prep work
- 2 cups mixed vegetable - (I used beans, carrots, peas and bell peppers, frozen black eye peas.)
- 1 cup small onion pealed.
- 1 big onion cut pealed and cut to round slices
- 3-4 potatoes cooked and cut to round slices
- whole spices (2 anise seed, small piece of Cinnamon stick, 2 black cardamom, 1 tsp fennel seeds, 1 tsp jeera seeds, fewe cloves)
- 2 tsp puluv/biriyani masala
- 2 green chilies slit
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp chili powder (adjust to taste)
- 2 tbsp oil
- salt to taste.

Method:
1. In a large pan (you need a pan to hold the vegis and rice) add the oil. Once hot add all the whole masala and cook till they turn brown.
2. Now add the small onions and saute till the outer layer changes color. Add rest of the vegetable and toss it around.
3. Mix in your spice powders (turmeric, biriyani masala, chili powder). Add salt to this and let it all cook for a few minutes. Now add the soaked rice to this vegetable. Add 2 cups of water. Bring this to a boil. Once it starts to boil reduce the heat and cover the pan.
4. Cook for 5-7 minutes. The rice should be three fourth's done by now. Turn off the stove.
5. In a separate bowl add the sliced potatoes and onion. Add some salt, little bit of chili powder and 1 tsp of oil. Toss them all around. This adds flavor to these vegetables.
6. In a oven safe dish spray some oil and add the cooked rice. Arrange the slices of potato and onion. Add 1/2 cup of water to this. Now cover this and bake for 15 - 20 minutes.

Now serve it hot with your favorite raita or subji.

Sending it to book marked reciepe hosted by Priya

This months tried and tested event features vegi inspiration. I had a few recipes I had book marked and I decided this was a good time to try these. I picked two of her recipe to make a light dinner. The first one is Sweet potato buns. This was a simple and a healthy bun to prepare. Made very few changs to the original recipe.

Ingredeints:
- 3/4 cup oat flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour ( atta)
- 1/4 cup toasted wheat germ
- 1 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast
- 2 tsp brown sugar
- 1 cup mashed cooked, mashed sweet potato
- 1 1/4 tsp salt
- red chili flakes to taste
- 2 tbsp oil
- ground cumin and whole pepper, flax seed

Method:
1. Mix the oat and wheat flour with salt.
2. Add the ground cumin, black pepper and flax powder. Mix in your crushed red chili flakes with salt and brown sugar.
3. Now add the salt, and yeast (as I am using bread machine yeast I typically skip the proofing part). Add the sweet potato and now kneed the dough with required water until you get a soft and a pliable dough. I kneeded mine for 10 minutes.
4. Add 11/2 tbsp of olive oil and kneed it more until the dough absorves all the oil. Coat this soft dough with more oil and keep in a clean bowl that is twice the size of the dough.
5. Keep this in a dry place and let it rise for an hour or so. It should double its original size.
6. Now take the dough and seperate them to small balls. The size depends on how big you want your bread to be. Now line these dough balls in a greasd baking sheet. Let it raise for another hour.
7.Meanwhile preheat your oven to a 375 degree. Bake these buns for 20 minutes. Adjust temp to suit your oven.

Serve them hot with a soup which is exactly what I did. I made a minestrone soup to go with these delicious bread which was another recipe from veg inspiration. Here is a link to the original recipe. I had the day to myself and I was planing this soup for dinner. So I used a cast iron pot and simmered it all day. When I served it at night it was very flavorful and the vegi's had become very tender.



Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup white beans (I used lima beans) cooked
- 1 cup dried pasta ( I used shell pasta)
- 1 medium yellow onions
- 2 medium carrots chopped
- 2 stalks of celery chopped
- 3 very large tomatoes
- 1 tsp each of dried basil and oregeno
- 1 tsp red chili flakes
- 1 tsp of black pepper
- 1 tbsp of sun dried tomatoes (I used the one soaked in oil)
- 3 tbsp of tomato paste (I used this because I did not have vegetable stock)
- 1 tbsp oil
- salt to taste

Method:
1. In a large cast iron pot add oil and saute your onions. Once they become translucent add the carrots and celeray.
2. Cook them for a couple of minutes. Now add the chopped tomatoes, tomato paste and 2 - 3 cups of water, salt and let it simmer. I let this go at a low flame for an hour.
3. Now add your sun dried tomatoes, and all the spices. Add more water if needed. Mix in your boiled beans.
4. If you have time then I suggest you keep the cast iron pot in a low heat and let it cook through out the day. Otherwise try to use a vegetable broth. In spite of not using vegetable stock cooking it in a low flame just made the soup very flavorful.
5. About half an hour befoe serving add the uncooked pasta and cook till the pasta becomes aldente.

Garnish with parsley and serve hot with a som bread or bun. This was a real easy and healthy dinner.

Sending this to Tried and tested hosted by the taste space – steam, bake, boil, shake!

Ingredients:
- 3 boiled potato
- 1 Capsicum (any color)
- small marble size tamarind - Extract a cup of tamarind water.
- 1/2 tsp sambar powder
- 1 small piece Ginger
- 3-4 Green chilies
- juice of l small lemon
- salt to taste

Seasoning:
- 1 tsp Mustard
- 1 tsp Urad dhal
- 1 tsp Chana dhal
- 4 tbsp Coconut
- few curry leaves
- few peanuts
- 1 tsp oil

Method:
1. In a sauce pan add the chopped capsicum turmeric and water. Cook it till the capsicum are three fourths cooked. Mash the boiled potatoes by hands. Add it with the capsicum and mix in the tamarind water and salt.
2. Add the sambar powder. Bring it to a boil.
3. In a separate pan add oil and mustard seeds. Once it starts to splutter add urad dhal, chana dhal and peanuts. Fry till they turn brown. Now add coconut and curry leaves till they turn golden brown.
4. Add it to the potato mixture and simmer it for 2-3 minutes. Turn off the heat and pour the lemon juice.

Tastes yummy with rice.

Ingredients:
- 4 cups mixed vegetables chopped into 2 inch pieces
(Some of the vegi we add are ash gourd, snake gourd, potatoes, carrots, beans, valakai(plantain), eggplant/bringal, chow-chow, unripe mango (mankai))
- 1 cup butter milk/ curds
- pich of turmeric
- salt to taste
- 1 tblspn coconut oil (optional)

Grind to paste:
- 1/2 cup shredded coconut
- 1 tspn jeera
- 1 tspn rice flour
- small lemon size tamarind softened
- 3 Green chili
- 2 red chili

Method:
1. In a deep vessel add all the vegetables with salt and turmeric. Boil them till they become tender.
2. Add the ground mixture. Let it boil for a few minutes.
3. Finally add the butter milk/curd. If you need it to be like kulumbu add buttermilk. But if you need it to be like kootu then add curds. Add curry leaves and coconut oil. Simmer it for a few minutes. Make sure it does not boil too much else the buttermilk will start to curdle.