Potato Rice for Lunch box (Aloo bhath)

Blogging Marathon# 66: Week 3/ Day 2

Theme: Kid's Delight -- Lunch Box Recipes

Dish: Potato Rice with Spice powder 
Both my kids love potatoes and can eat it every single day without getting bored. I'm the one getting bored to make them the same potato curry. So when I saw this recipe on a cooking show, I noted it down and made it for my kids.

This rice has crispy fried potatoes mixed with a homemade spice powder. The use of lentils (dals) in the powder adds some protein to the dish. Serve it with some yogurt for a filling meal.

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Potato Curry leaf Curry (Aloo Karivepaku Podi Kura)

It is quite frustrating when you can't find that one ingredient (or that one thing) you are looking for -- in my case it's curry leaves. They have been MIA from most Indian groceries in NJ for more than 1 month now. With the mega marathon cooking in full swing, I needed curry leaves for some of the dishes and they were no where to be found. I am thinking of growing curry leaf plant this year in my container garden.

Well, I made today's dish couple of months ago after watching a Telugu cooking show. This was the last of the curry leaves I bought couple of months ago. A spice powder is made with the curry leaves which is then used to flavor the potatoes.

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Sambhariyu Shaak (Gujarati Stuffed Mixed Vegetable Curry)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 3: Gujarati Cuisine 

Day 19: S for Sambhariya Shaak

Today's Gujarati dish is yet another traditional vegetable dish. Here the veggies are stuffed with a spicy coconut filling and then pressure cooked until cooked to perfection. Another amazing recipe from Tarla Dalal.com.

All of my recipes for this week are from Tarla Dala's site. It has been a great resource and I love watching her videos as well. She makes even a hard recipe sound very easy to make.

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Sabich (Israeli Vegetarian Sandwich) for #Food of the World

We are visiting the beautiful Middle Eastern country of Israel for this month's Food of the World event. Israeli cuisine includes local dishes by native Israelis and the Jewish dishes brought in by the Jews from the Diaspora. One of the most popular Israeli dish, Shashuka (eggs poached in spicy tomato sauce) was my fist pick for today, but then I saw this mouth watering Sabich sandwich on Serious Eats and it looked too good to pass up.

Sabich is an Israeli street food. It is supposed to be influenced from Iraqi Jewish immigrants. The Israelis took a traditional Iraqi breakfast spread of fried eggplants, boiled eggs etc and put it in a pita and made into a trendy delicacy.

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Punjabi Aloo (Spicy Potato curry with Yogurt)

Blogging Marathon# 62: Week 4/ Day 1
Theme: No Tomato Gravies
Dish: Punjabi Aloo
We are starting the final week of this month's marathon and my theme for the week is 'Gravies with No tomatoes'. When I signed up for this theme, I wasn't expecting it to be as difficult as it turned out. I realized that I'm very much dependent on tomatoes for making gravy curries. I have fresh tomatoes, canned tomato paste and puree always in the pantry. Coming up with 3 tomato-free gravy recipes was quite a challenge.

I have tried 3 curry recipes using different ingredients to give the gravy consistency. For the first day, the curry is thickened with yogurt and a little bit of heavy cream. I was skeptical if my yogurt-hating husband would like it or not. But he didn't really notice the yogurt that much, so this curry goes into our recipe rotation.

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Cheese and Potato Gözleme for #BreadBakers

I almost forgot that today's the posting day for #BreadBakers. I'm glad that I checked Facebook to see our lovely Host, Anshie's post about the event, otherwise I would have totally forgotten about it. So thank you Anshie for reminding and also for being such a gracious host.

Our theme for this month is 'Griddle breads' and I almost wanted to make an Indian bread. But then as I was looking through my Pinterest boards, I found these Turkish Gözleme that I had pinned a while back.

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Three Cheese Potatoes

Blogging Marathon# : Week 1/ Day 3

Theme: Taste of Home Top 100 recipes of 2015

Dish: Three Cheese Potatoes
For the final day of this week's blogging marathon, I made this very addictive 'Three Cheese Potatoes'. My son is a self acclaimed super lover of both potatoes and cheese, so this dish was a hit with both my kids.

The original recipe for these three cheese potatoes on Taste of Home were made on the grill. But since it's very cold to grill, I made this recipe in the oven. Pre-cooking the potatoes before baking makes the dish cook faster. If not just bake the dish longer until the potatoes are tender.

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Hasselback Potatoes

Blogging Marathon# 59: Week 4/ Day 1

Theme: Holiday Bakes

Dish: Hasselback Potatoes

We are starting our last week of blogging marathon for this year and my theme for the week is 'Holiday Bakes'. I'm starting with a simple baked potato dish called 'Hasselback potatoes'.

Even though it has a fancy name it is not that difficult to make. Once you get the thinly slicing the potatoes without cutting all the way through part correct, everything else happens in the oven and is pretty much hands free from there on.

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Dry Potato-Cauliflower Curry (Sukhi Aloo-Gobhi Subzi)

Blogging Marathon# 57: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Side Dishes for Rice/ Roti

Dish: Dry Aloo-Gobhi Curry

Today's side dish is with a popular combination of Aloo and Gobhi (potato and cauliflower). If you have watched 'Bend it like Beckham' movie you know how important it is to learn to make Aloo-GoBHI in Punjabi families :-)

There are quite a few different ways of making this curry. This particular recipe is from a Telugu cooking show and the chef said this is dhaba style of making this dish. I never ate in a proper dhaba, so I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the curry, but all I can say is it tastes amazing.

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Skordalia (Greek Potato-Garlic Dip)

Skordalia is a traditional Greek appetizer dip made with whipped potatoes flavored with fresh garlic, almonds and olive oil. Serve at room temperature or slightly warm with warmed pockletless pita triangles or with crispy oven-roasted eggplant and zucchini.

This recipe is from 'Vegan Eats World' cookbook. I was so excited to see this creamy potato dip recipe that I made it right away for the Buffet on Table -- Condiments week, only to realize that I already had a dish from Greece, so moved this over to this week's Cooking from Cookbook Challenge.

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Kashmiri Dum Aloo

To go with my Kashmiri Rotis and Saffron rice, I made this Kashmiri Dum Aloo. This curry is so delicious with stuffed potatoes that is served with a spicy, creamy gravy.

I already have another Kashmiri Dum Aloo recipe on the blog, but this recipe is quite different from that one because here the potatoes are stuffed with paneer and unsweetened khoya. I replaced khoya with ricotta cheese because I didn't have khoya on hand and strained ricotta worked like a charm.

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Malaysian Curry Sauce

Roti Canai is usually served with a creamy curry sauce. The one served in our nearby Penang restaurant is made with chicken, so I've never tasted it myself. While surfing for Malaysian curry sauces, I found this one with potato and like I said before in my previous post, anything with potato is welcome in my house.

This curry sauce is made with generous quantity of coconut cream. But I subbed it with regular coconut milk and the sauce was still creamy and delicious. It tasted great with roti canai and even with some plain rice. I also added some green peas to add some protein to the dish.

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Potato Curry

We are a potato loving family. They are happy if I make anything with potato, which is great because I add it to dishes that they normally wouldn't eat and the potato in it lures them to eat it. For example, which kid really likes wheat rava upma (godhuma rawa upma)? At least I didn't while growing up, but my kids eat it without fuss when I add potatoes to it -- happy mama :-)

Today's potato curry is super simple and my kids absolutely love it. It tastes great as is, but tastes even better with mor kuzhambu. Give this combo a try, you'll know what I'm talking about.

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Mor Kuzhambu and Potato Curry

Buffet on Table: Week 1 -- Combos from Countries

Day 1: Mor Kuzhanbu & Potato Curry

We are starting our Mega marathon today and it's going to be a very very interesting September with lots of delicious International and Indian dishes. Theme for the first week is Combo dishes from different countries.
My first stop is in India, Tamil Nadu in particular. Ever since I saw this combo of mor kuzhambu with aloo/ potato curry in Sandhya's blog, I wanted to try it too. But since the husband is a yogurt-phobic, I was waiting for the right opportunity to make these dishes. Finally I made them while he was travelling and enjoyed all by myself :-)

My mom makes majjiga pulusu too but the method is slightly different from the Tamil Nadu version. Even with my very limited Tamil knowledge, I think even mor kuzhambu literally means majjiga (buttermilk), pulusu (stew). Correct me if I'm wrong my dear Tamil friends :-)

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Green Mango-Potato Pulao

Sometimes I wonder if I would be this adventurous at making new dishes if I was not a food blogger. I saw the recipe for this raw mango & potato pulao on a Telugu cooking show one day and made it the same day because I had all the ingredients on hand. As I was making it, I started wondering if I would try this combination if I wasn't thinking about posting it on the blog.

After that I started wondering how the dish would taste and how the husband would like it. The dish ended up tasting pretty good, even though in hindsight I should have added a little more chili powder and green chilies to make it a little more spicy.

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Parsi Style Crepes (Chapat)

Blogging Marathon# 52: Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: Parsi Dishes

Dish: Parsi Crepes (Chapat)
For the second day of this week's marathon, I made Parsi style Crepes. These are great to serve for breakfast or as an evening snack. They are thicker than a French crepe and thinner than a pancake. As Mother's day is fast approaching these crepes with berries is the perfect dish to serve for your mom.
I actually wanted to post the famous Parsi eggs & potato dish, Pateta per Eeda, today. I made the dish couple weeks back and clicked pictures too. It wasn't until I started to edit the pictures that I realized my potatoes were burnt and the dish looked awful. We are a potato and egg loving family, I guess our love for the ingredients blurred our eyes as we ate and didn't even notice the burnt bottom.

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Afghani Bolani (Potato Stuffed Afghani Flat bread)

Blogging Marathon# 49: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes

Dish: Afghani Bolani

For day 2 of this week's marathon,  I made a stuffed flatbread from Afghanistan called Bolani. This recipe has been on my to-make list ever since I saw a bunch of my fellow bloggers make it for the A-Z International marathon.

Bolani also spelled as Bulani or Boulanee is filled bread in Persian. Afghani bolani is a stuffed flatbread that is either baked or fried. It has a thin crust and can be stuffed with any veggie like potato, pumpkin, spinach, lentils or chives. It is served with either plain yogurt or mint yogurt. Since my husband doens't eat yogurt, I made him a simple tomato chutney.

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Vegetarian Three Bean Stew with Roasted Potatoes

This winter doesn't seem to end any time soon. The temps have been hovering below freezing and it feels like a deep freezer when we step outside. I am sick of wearing all the layers and I feel bad for the kids who have to lug around their heavy book bag in addition to 3~4 layers of clothing. My son said he felt like a brick with all the layers. The weather man said it's going to be red hot over the weekend -- predicted temps are in lower 40's and he thinks that it is going to feel hot like summer.
Anyway our woes with winter will probably continue for a few more weeks. In the mean time, I made this hearty vegetarian 3 bean stew to warm me up. I tasted this dish at Medieval Times last year and it has stuck with me ever since.

Medieval Times is a place where you step back into Medieval times with epic battles, jousting tournaments along with a royal dinner. We have a location very close to our house and we had a chance to visit it last spring. My son had a great time there. I wasn't much into the battle but I enjoyed my vegetarian feast for sure.

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Vegetarian Thai Massaman Curry

Blogging Marathon# 48: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: 1 Cuisine -- 3 Dishes

Dish: Thai Massamun Curry

After the refreshing first course of yesterday's Green Papaya Salad, I have a spicy, sweet and tangy Thai Massamun curry today. This curry is very aromatic and flavorful and uses a variety of Indian herbs and spices. I thought the curry tasted a lot of tangy, sweet South Indian pulusu.

If you have the curry paste already prepared and ready to go, then this dish does not take long to make. This curry is also very versatile and can be customized to ones likes and dislikes. I added some tofu puffs that I had in the freezer to amp up the protein, but regular tofu or soy chunks can also be used instead.

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Chole-Aloo Tikki Chaat (Chickpea & Potato Pattie Chaat)

Blogging Marathon# 47: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: North Indian Starters
Dish: Chole-Aloo Tikki Chaat

We are starting our last marathon for this year and my theme for this week is 'North Indian Starters'. Starters/ Appetizers are not really my forte because most of Indian starters are deep fried and I try to stay away from deep frying. When I saw this theme, I knew this will give me a chance to research on North Indian starters that I can add to my repertoire.
Valli hinted that we can made Chaats under this theme, so for the first day I have a very filling and delicious Chole-Aloo Tikki Chaat. I think this can be served as a first course for a simple North Indian meal.

Recipe is from Tarla Dalal's site. Delicious potato-pea patties are served with spicy and tangy chickpea gravy, then topped with crunchy sev and yummy mint & tamarind chutnies. This is a dish with lots of textures and flavors. A must try for all chaat lovers.

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