Hot, Sweet & Sour Veg Soup

The weather is getting colder by the day, which itself is getting shorter and shorter. It starts getting dark by 3.30-4 in the afternoon and it does feel a little odd in the beginning. But as time passes we will get used to it & in fact I am sure it will feel odd when the day starts to stretch after March-April!

When its cold & dark, you feel like having something hot & spicy, at least I do :) I have a weakness for anything that has Garlic & Soy Sauce as its main ingredient. Of course for me this mainly means what is popularly known as the Indo-Chinese cuisine. This soup is as good as it gets. Full of flavour & healthy veggies. Perfect for me when I ‘think’ I am on a diet.

Hot, Sweet & Sour Vegetable Soup

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 2 medium sized carrots, chopped
• 5-6 Baby Corns, cut into rounds
• 1 Green Pepper, chopped
• 1/2 French/Fine beans, chopped
• 4-5 Asparagus tips, chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• 1/4 tsp Green chilli paste (optional)
• 500 ml Vegetable stock (or water)
• 1 tblsp oil
• 1-2 tsp Soy Sauce
• 1-2 tsp White Vinegar
• 2-3 tsp Corn Flour
• 1 tsp Sugar
• Salt & Pepper

Method:

Boil the Asparagus tips till they turn bright green, approx 2 min. Drain and set aside.

Heat the oil in a deep pan. Add the onions, ginger & garlic and sauté. Add the chilli paste if using and fry for 2 more minutes till the onions turn soft.

Add the  carrots, beans, baby corn and mix well. Put in the soy sauce, a little salt (keeping in mind that the soy sauce is salty too), pepper powder and the sugar.  Mix and cook for another minute.

Add the stock and bring it to a boil. Add the pepper and vinegar, mix and simmer till the vegetables are cooked, aprrox 10-15 minutes.

You can get this soup ready till this point and go ahead with the following steps when you are ready to serve.

Dissolve the corn flour in a little bit of water and add it to the soup to thicken it. Also add the boiled asparagus now, stir and cook till the soup reaches the desired consistency. Serve piping hot!

My Notes: It was delicious, full of flavour and completely filling. Give me a bowl of this hot soup and a mystery novel to read or an Agatha Christie’s Poirot movie and I am set for the evening!

Looks like Meeta’s Monthly Mingle is celebrating Soups at the right time, over at Tongue Ticklers this month!

Chinese Style Vegetable Stir fry

We always knew it, but the weighing scale brought us out of our optimistic thinking that the weight gain was temporary. On Sunday we realised that it was for real, was here to stay and in fact threatened to increase with time. It was high time we did something about it. And obviously food was the prime suspect. There were others like complete inactivity during the weekends, an almost wasted gym membership etc, but it was easy & convenient for us to put the blame on the food we consume & so we decided to change it, at least one meal of the day.

Now, we are not doing anything drastic not even following any particular diet. Although I have to say, inspired by Sig, I did a lot of reading up on the South Beach diet and other Low carb ones. I even tried to follow the SBD for some time but could not keep up with it. I find it a bit difficult to completely follow such diets being a vegetarian. There are a lot of Carb less options for the Non Vegetarians but for me it was very tough thinking up low carb meals without using Meat, Sea food, Eggs & even Mushrooms (I have an allergy!).

So currently we are replacing our usual dinner meal for something more healthy, low fat & low carb and combining this with a mandatory 30 min workout everyday. We are also limiting the consumption of bread for breakfast and fried items & sweets are prohibited unless absolutely necessary on days when there has to be a Naivedya. Believe me its an uphill task to start a diet in the month of Shravan!

I don't think I will be able to write daily about this ‘diet’, but will try to update with the dinners we had, as frequently as possible. And success, if any, will be conveyed with bold letters!

Chinese style Vegetable stir fry

Ingredients

• 2 Carrots
• 5-6 Baby Corns
• 1 Green pepper, sliced
• 1 Cup small florets of Cauliflower
• 1 cup Peas
• 1.5 Cups of Paneer Cubes
• 1/2 tsp oil
• 2 cloves of Garlic, minced
• 1 tsp ginger, chopped finely
• 1 Green Chilli, slit lengthwise
• 1 tsp Soy Sauce
• 1/2 tsp White Vinegar
• 1 tblsp Tomato Ketchup (Optional)
• Salt & Pepper

Method: Peel and cut the carrots into medium sized pieces. Cut the baby corns into equal sized discs. Boil these along with the cauliflower florets for about 3-4 min. The veggies should have a crunch to them but be cooked.

Put a Wok on to heat. When hot, add the paneer cubes and stir fry on high flame till the sides are browned. Remove and keep aside.

Add the oil or use an oil spray.

Put in the garlic, ginger and the green chilli & sauté for a min. Add the boiled veggies and sauté on high flame for about 3-4 min till the edges start browning.

Next, add in the sliced pepper and continue to stir fry. Add the peas, soy sauce, vinegar, salt & pepper and sauté on high flame.

Add the ketchup if using and mix. Lastly add in the paneer and mix till well coated. If at this point you fell that the veggies are dying up, add 1-2 tblsp of water and keep cooking on high flame for another min or so.

We both had a bowl each of this delicious stir fry and actually enjoyed the fact that we are on a diet! If diet food can taste like this then I am all game for it!

Instant Carrot Paddu

This is a variation on those round ones. I stumbled upon Carrot-Ginger Appe at As Dear as Salt, when looking for options for breakfast and liked it very much. I made some changes to the original recipe and made these.

The best part about them is that they are instant, no fermentation required. And they pack in carrots so they are healthy too. I would like to try a different combination of veggies next time.

Instant Carrot Paddu

(Adapted from this recipe at Richa’s As Dear as Salt)

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups grated carrot
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• 1-2 Green Chillies, finely chopped
• 1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
• 2-3 tblsp chopped fresh coriander leaves
• 4-5 tblsp All Purpose Flour (Maida)
• 2-3 tblsp Rice flour
• 1-2 tblsp Semolina (Rava/Sooji)
• Salt
• Oil

Method:

Mix all the above ingredients except for the oil to make a thick batter. Use a little water if required.

Heat the Appam Pan and lightly oil each depression.

Pour spoonfuls of batter into each depression, reduce the flame and cover and cook for about 2-3 min.

Remove the cover, drizzle some oil on each of them & cook on high flame for another minute.

Flip over the paddus & continue to cook on medium flame for another 2-3 minutes.

Remove on Kitchen towels. Serve hot with any chutney of your choice. I served these with the Dhaniya-Pudina Chutney.

My Notes: Adjust the quantity of the flour (Maida, rice & Semolina) depending upon the consistency of the batter. The final batter should resemble a thick Dosa Batter. Actually it could be a little thicker than that too. I will try to reduce the Maida, the next time I make it.

Bollywood Cooking

I am writing this straight from Bollywoodalaya, which translates to 'Abode of Bollywood'. Bombay/Mumbai, the commercial capital of India also happens to house most of the Film studios where Hindi films are made, along with the 'Stars' of these films. Although the city has a lot more to it than just the Bollywood connection, this is the most obvious thing one thinks of when talking about Bombay. I remember when I was shifting to Bombay, people told me that I was very lucky as I would now get to see & meet all the stars :) As if all of them were waiting just to meet me!

Coming back to the real purpose of this post, ever since the Monthly Mingle was announced, I have been thinking what should be my entry for this lovely event from Meeta at What's for lunch, honey? The theme for this month is Bollywood cooking. I thought about various dishes and dismissed them for one reason or the other. Then it struck me that nothing could be more 'Bollywood ish' than the good old Gajar ka Halwa and that too Maa ke haathon ka!

There is hardly any Hero who doesnt like it. In fact it would seem that it is one of the criteria if you want to become a hero in a bollywood potboiler(pun intended!). What? You dont like Gajar ka Halwa? Then how can you become a hero???

Every second Bollywood movie has the Hero rushing in bringing one of these good news
a) Maa mujhe naukri mil gayi maa!
b) Maa main paas ho gaya!
c) Maa tera beta aaj vakil/Inspector/Dr ban gaya!
And the 'Maa' would invariably reply saying " Accha ? Yeh toh bahut khushi ki baat hai. Moonh Haath dho le beta, aaj maine tere liye tera man pasand Gajar ka halwa banaya hai!"

But just as the face of Bollywood has changed a little with time, this Gajar ka Halwa also has a 'recipe mein twist'. I have used Dates along with carrots. This has been adapted from one of the recipes of Sanjeev Kapoor, Khana Khazana.

Added on 5th Feb '09 (Made without dates):

Ingredients
2 cups grated Carrots
1 cup chopped Dates
1 cup Sugar (This can be changed to suit your taste, keeping in my mind that Dates also add to the sweetness)
Cardomom powder
1/2 cup grated Khoya/Mawa (Dried thickened whole milk)
Dry fruits such as Almond, Pistachio, Cashewnut, raisins etc
1/4 cup milk
2 tblsp ghee

Heat the ghee in pan. Add the carrot and dates and roast them. Add the sugar and cardomom powder, mix properly and cook for sometime.
Add the nuts and the milk and cook for some more time. Now mix in the grated khoya. Stir properly and turn off the flame. Gasrnish with some more dry fruits.
This simple sounding recipe is as rich as it can be!
So 'Maa ke haath ka Gajar ka Halwa' is my entry to the Monthly Mingle 20.

Gajar Matar ki Sabzi

What do you do when you don't have any vegetables readily available with you and you are not in the mood to have chole, rajma, moong or other such things? Let me tell you what I do. I make Gajar Matar ki sabzi. For some reasons I always have carrots in my kitchen. Not that I get it & then don't use it and it keeps lying in the refrigerator. On the contrary we use it almost everyday as a salad and also sometimes in my 9 months old daughter's meal in the form of puree. So Carrots are always on the list when I go for my weekly veg/grocery shopping. Also frozen peas are always stocked in the freezer. So many times this is on the menu on a Friday evening when I am out of all the veggies and nothing special is planned for dinner.

Serves 2

Ingredients
2 carrots washed, peeled & cut into small pieces
One large bowl peas
1 tsp jeera (cumin seeds)
1 pinch of hing (asafoetida)
1/2 tsp haldi (turmeric powder)
1 medium sized tomato, chopped
1 tsp chili powder
2 tsp dhaniya jeera powder (coriander & cumin powder)
1/2 tsp garam masala powder
Salt
Chopped Coriander leaves

Method:

Heat oil in a pan and add the jeera. When it changes colour put hing & haldi. Add the carrot & saute for a few min. Add the peas and cook on medium heat for about 3-5 min.

(The colours were looking so vibrant that I could not resist taking this snap. I only wish we could get those red carrots here that we get in India)

Add the chopped tomatoes & mix. Now add the salt, chili powder, dhaniya jeera powder & Garam Masala powder & mix properly. Cook for 2-3 min.

Add enough water to immerse the carrot & peas. Cover & cook till the carrots are tender. Add the coriander leaves & mix.

Now simmer & cook without the cover till the water evaporates. Garnish with some more coriander leaves.