Virgin Cider Mojito

Hello mates,

Today, I am posting the recipe of a drink. This is very quick to assemble if you have all the ingredients at home, and it tastes great. For non-alcoholics, it is a great refreshing drink as it is loaded with mint leaves and lemon. Well, I am talking about Virgin Mojito. We can fuse various fruit flavours with the drink. I made this one with apple juice fused in it. It tasted delicious. The following recipe would make 2 glasses.

Ingredients:

2 lemons (each cut into 8 pieces)

2 tbsp lemon juice

Mint leaves (about 30 pcs)

2 tsp brown sugar

Ice cubes 

Lemon based aerated drink (I used Limca)

2 cups apple juice

Garnishing: 

Lemon slices, Apple slices (1 cm thick - like a french fry)

Method:

1. Take a glass. Put 4 lemon pieces in the glass. Also add 1 tbsp lemon juice.
2. Put 10-12 mint leaves in the glass.
3. Add brown sugar to the glass. Muddle a bit. You can crush it with the back of a spoon, so that it is lightly muddled, and the essence of lemon and mint is mixed with sugar.
4. Add ice cubes.
5. Fill 3/4^th of glass with lemon based aerated drink.
6. Fill the remaining glass with apple juice.
7. Garnish the rim with lemon slice and put 2 apple slices in the drink)
8. Ready to serve.

Tips:

You can experiment with different fruits like pomegranate, peach. You can just replace apple drink with any other fruit drink of your choice. Add same fruits for garnishing.

Pasta with Broccoli and Onions in Cream Sauce

It has been 2 weeks that I wrote down any recipe. Ok, I have not been really busy, but been very lazy. Now when we had my husband's cousin over for dinner, I wanted to try something new in pasta recipes.

I was browsing through net when I found this yummylicious pasta recipe and it can be made in a jiffy, really. It is a white sauce recipe. Of late, I had started making tomato-based pasta recipes as white sauce was all about butter and cheese. But this recipe, I just had to try out once. And it came out so perfect, even my husband loved it, who is an ardent cream sauce hater. So, do try it once. Th original recipe can be found here: 

http://www.ivillage.com/baked-macaroni-and-cheese-broccoli/3-r-487597

Ingredients:

2 cup pasta

1 and ½ cup broccoli

3 tbsp grated cheese

2 cups milk

2 heaped tsp all-purpose flour (maida)

2 tsp butter

½ cup diced onions

¼ tsp black pepper

Salt to taste.

1 tsp butter for greasing baking tray.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200 degree Celsius for 10 minutes. Grease baking dish with butter.
2. Take a large pot. Add ½ tsp salt and 1 tsp refined oil to the water. Boil water and cook pasta in it. Add broccoli to water 3 minutes before pasta will be done. Drain pasta and broccoli and return to pot.
3. In a large pan, add 2 tsp of butter. As it melts, add 2 tsp of maida and whisk it thoroughly so that no lumps are formed. Add onions and mix it properly.
4. Add 2 cups milk and simmer it till it is no more watery. If it gets thick, u can add more milk. The white cream sauce is ready.
5. Add salt and pepper. Mix the boiled pasta and broccoli to the white sauce. Coat it properly.
6. Transfer to a baking dish and sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the cheese is slightly brown.
7. Ready to serve.

Tip:

You can sprinkle bread crumbs as well along with cheese.

Cheese can be added in the white sauce itself, if people don’t prefer cheese to be sprinkled above.

Nirvana

Today, I am posting the recipe of one of my favourite drinks. It is called “Nirvana”. No, you don’t actually get Nirvana after drinking it, but it tastes just so good and heavenly and is quite filling too. I learnt this recipe at the cooking school where i first started learning how to cook. It was one of the 10 drinks that were taught there. I would put up the rest of the recipes as and when I try making it here. Also, my brother never really praises me for my cooking. He is a man of few words. But this one, he just loves it. Now that I am married and settled in a different city, whenever I go back home, I try making this drink at home as everyone loves there and remembers when I first started making it about 9 years ago. Long time.:)

Ingredients:

¼ cup Khas syrup

¼ cup Limca or Lemonade

½ tbsp lime juice

1 and ½ tbsp vanilla ice cream

½ cup chilled milk,

1 and ½  tbsp sugar

1 tsp fresh cream

4 ice cubes

Serves: 2 persons

Method:

1. In a mixer, pour khus syrup, Limca, lime juice, sugar and crushed ice and churn.
2. Add milk and churn again
3. Add Vanilla ice cream and churn. Also put cream and churn once or twice.
4. Take a long glass, pour little khus syrup in it and coat the glass by rolling it.
5. Pour the drink in the glass.
6. Garnish with a little khus syrup on top.
7. Ready to serve.

Vegetable Rava Idli

Last night, for dinner, I made Rava Idli which was served with Sambhar. Rava Idli is lighter and taked hardly 45 minutes for preparation and cooking. One of my favourite items for breakfast and occasionally for dinner too.

For Idli Batter:

2 cup rava (sooji)

¾ cup curd (dahi)

¾ to 1 cup water (Pour more as per thickness)

1 tsp fruit salt (I used Eno)

1 cup vegetables (carrots, capsicum, peas, onion)

Method:

1. Mix the rava, dahi and water in a bowl and keep aside for 20-25 mins.
2. Chop the vegetables into small sizes.
3. Heat 2-3 tsp refined oil in a pan. Add Mustard seeds and curry leaves to the oil. When it starts crackling, add mixed vegetables to it. Add salt to it. Stir for 3-4 mins. Then turn off the gas and let it cool.
4. Once the vegetables cool down, add the vegetables to the rava batter. Add fruit salt and mix well.
5. Grease the idli moulds and pour 2 spoons of batter into each mould. Steam for 10-12 mins.
6. Check with a knife, if it is done.
7. Serve with Sambhar and chutney.

Tips:

1. Add a tomato chopped into small pieces to the batter, the idlis would be reddish in colour.
2. Add a little turmeric powder to the idli batter, if you want a yellowish colour. 

Khandvi

Today,  I tried to make Khandvi. It is a Gujarati dish. My inspiration was Sanjeev Kapoor. I saw him make this dish on Master Chef India on Wednesday 20^th March. It was an interesting thing to make. A delicious dish made with very few ingredients. But it is the technique which needs to be proper as it is a very delicate roll of besan mixture.

Don't these look tempting?

I made these years ago quite successfully. Then my second attempt wasn't that good. So I haven't tried this again for all these years. Hence, yesterday when it was shown in Master Chef, I thought to try it once again. And it came out pretty good. 

Here's the recipe:

For Khandvi:

1 small bowl of besan (gram flour)

½ small bowl of curd

Salt to taste

1 pinch turmeric powder

1 small bowl of water

1 tbsp oil

For garnishing:

1 tbsp oil

1tsp mustard seeds

2 green chillies (slit)

Coriander leaves

Grated coconut

Method:

1. Mix besan, curd, salt, turmeric powder, 1 tbsp oil and water in a bowl. Ensure that no lumps are formed. Put in a non-stick pan and cook on a slow flame. Stir continuously till it becomes thick. May take about 5-7 mins.
2.  Grease a steel plate or an aluminium plate on the reverse side. Spread the batter evenly on the plate. It should not be very thick. And it should be done very quickly because the batter begins to set once it cools down.
3. Now horizontally cut strips and roll it. Do it very delicately, otherwise khandvi may break.
4. For the tempering, heat 1 tbsp of oil and add the mustard seeds. Add green chillies to it. Put this on the khandvi.
5. Garnish with coriander leaves and grated coconut and it is ready to serve.

Julie and Julia

I watched a movie some days back “Julie and Julia”. It was about a girl called Julie who loved cooking and her idol was Julia Child who was a very famous cook. So to pass time and also to do something interesting, Julie starts following Julia Child’s published cookbooks and cooks dishes as per the book. She sets herself a target of a year to complete the dishes in the book. And to maintain the progress, she writes it all down in a blog.

Well, I always liked to cook. I had lots of time in hand, as I am not working. So I cooked, take pictures and posted on facebook. But then, I thought, after seeing the movie, that why not start a blog of mine regarding the dishes. This would help me be more expressive towards my cooking. May be just another way to kill time. But, what a way. J

Currently, I am not setting any target and I am not following any particular book, but I would like to post one recipe per day. I hope I fulfil this commitment to myself.