Avocado-Palak Roti

Blogging Marathon# 66: Week 3/ Day 1

Theme: Kid's Delight -- Lunch Box Recipes

Dish: Bean Burrito with Potatoes
For the final day of this week's marathon, I have a healthy roti for the kids lunchbox. I was planning to make Nalini's Avocado roti but then had some baby spinach in the fridge that needed to be used up, so that's how these avocado-spinach rotis were born.

Avocados are very healthy and provide nearly 20 essential nutrients, including fiber, potassium, vitamin E and folic acids. I like it quite a bit but my husband is allergic to it, so I usually eat it by myself but never make it for the family. But I wanted to at least see how the kids like it.

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Wheat flour Kuzhi Paniyaram

Blogging Marathon#65: Week 4/ Day 1

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes 

Dish: Wheat flour Kuzhi Paniyaram from Sandhya

We are starting the last week of blogging marathon today and my theme is 'Bookmarked Recipes'. This happens to be one of my favorite themes because it gives me a chance to try some of the recipes that I bookmarked. First up are these delicious Wheat flour Kuzhi Paniyaram from Sandhya.

Sandhya made these instant paniyaram for the mega marathon and they looked too good to pass up. So I bookmarked them and tried them right away. Paniyarams are usually made with leftover idli batter, but this instant version uses atta (or whole wheat flour) and doesn't need any fermenting.

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Vegan Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Filling and Ganache for Blog Anniversary

I started this blog in 2006 to share the recipes I was trying at home and at the time I wasn't even thinking of how long I would keep doing it. I am actually surprised that I have been doing this for 10 years already. So here's a chocolate cake recipe to celebrate the occasion.

Even though I remember about the blog anniversary, with everything else going on in life, I wasn't actually planning on making anything special. But the BM group pushed me to get off my lazy behind and make this delicious chocolate cake. This is dedicated to the BM group, all my blogging buddies, my readers and my family who inspire me to keep blogging. Thank you all for your support without which this wouldn't have been possible.

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Rajasthani Dal Dhokli

Blogging Marathon#64: Week 3/ Day 1

Theme: Wholewheat Dishes

Dish: Dal Dhokli

We are starting our 3rd week of blogging marathon today and my theme for the week is 'Wholewheat Dishes'. For the first day I made a hearty and comforting dish popular in both Gujarat and Rajasthan, Dal Dhokli. This has been on my list of dishes to try for a very long time and finally got a chance to try it out.

Dal dhokli is a filling one pot meal where dhoklis aka Indian style wheat pasta :-) are simmered in dal until cooked through. From what I read, Rajasthani version is slightly spicier than Gujarati version. I tried the spicy version and it was amazing, both my kids loved it too. I told them this how close an Indian dish can get to Italian pasta and they were very happy to try.

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Easy to make Pizza Dough with Italian Vegetarian toppings

Blogging Marathon# 64: Week 2/ Day 2
Theme: Cook from 1 European Cuisine -- Italian

Dish: Pizza Dough with Italian Vegetarian toppings

Pizza is probably the most popular Italian dish all over the world. Each country conveniently customized the toppings to appeal to the local tastes -- like the spicy toppings in India and the extra cheesy toppings in America. But from what I heard, Italian pizzas are not overloaded with cheese or toppings and are usually made with light and refreshing tomato sauce instead of a slow simmered heavy tomato sauce that the American pizzas tend to use.

I've a few pizza recipes on the blog already, but wanted to try a new pizza crust recipe from King Arthur flour. They say this is the 'easiest pizza you will ever make'. After making it I can assure you that it is in fact very easy to make this pizza.

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Flax Oat Wheat Dinner Rolls for #BreadBakers

It's time to bake for Bread Bakers again. Our host for this month is Deepthi who blogs at Baking Yummies. She wanted us to make either yeasted or quick, sweet or savory rolls. I had quite a roll recipes that I wanted to try on my Pinterest board. Finally narrowed it down to these Flax-Oat-Wheat dinner rolls.

These rolls are hearty and have an earthy taste with the addition of oats, wholewheat and ground flax seeds. These are perfect whole grain alternate to the soft and squishy white dinner rolls. They are great to make for cookouts or for your everyday dinner.

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Heart of Winter Loaf

After enjoying a relatively mild winter weather in January, we are back in the freezer for February. I'm not complaining, not that I enjoy the cold but I'm happy when the weather is seasonal, if it is not then I get worried about global warming.

This 'Heart of Winter' loaf recipe is from King Arthur flour catalog and it caught my attention with its name itself. We are technically in the middle of winter and what perfect time but to make this bread right now.

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Homemade flatbread

Blogging Marathon# 60: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: Bookmarked Dishes

Dish: Homemade flatbread
For the final day of this week's BM under 'bookmarked recipes' theme, I made these soft and multipurpose flatbread. Recipe is bookmarked from Mel's Kitchen.

I usually buy pita bread, but do take the time to make them at home sometimes. I also have couple of pita bread recipes on the blog already. They are like our very own naans but thinner and not as fluffy.

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Pancakes with Multigrain Flour and buttermilk

Today I have a healthy and nutritious multigrain pancakes. I recently borrowed this 'Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole grain flours' cookbook from the library. I was hoping to find a bread recipe for this month's Breadbakers 'Breads with Ancient grains' theme. Unfortunately most of the recipes in this book had whole wheat flour in them.

But I did find a few recipes that looked very good and these pancakes made with Multigrain flour is one of them. There is a master recipe for multigrain flour mix that can be made in large quantity and kept in the pantry along with your other flours. It can be used in place of or along with other flours in any of your baking recipes.

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Wholewheat Banana Bread (made with Honey)

Bake-a-thon 2015: Day 5

Bake of the Day: Wholewheat Banana Bread

I sometimes feel that overripe bananas are a bane of my existence. They haunt me with their lingering smell and I can't eat or throw them away. The family abandons them the minute they turn slightly blotchy outside even though they are perfect inside. I have learnt to show them only peeled ones so they don't judge it by the package.

Even with all this I end up with 3~4 overripe bananas by the end of the week. I have so many versions of banana breads/ muffins that making another one doesn't excite me that much. But this recipe from Cookie+Kate is made with wholewheat (pastry) flour and is sweetened with honey (or maple syrup) got me off my behind and into the kitchen to bake.

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Harvest Grains Loaf

Bake-a-thon 2015: Day 2
Bake of the Day: Harvest Grains Loaf

Here's another family favorite bread that is soft and delicious with a nice blend of grains and seeds. I used King Arthur's Harvest Grain blend which is a mixture of 4 grains and 4 seeds. You can use any combination of grains and seeds. Grains like oat berries, millet, barley flakes and seeds like flax, poppy, sesame, sunflower etc can be used.

I think the next time I make this bread I will use a higher ratio of wholewheat to all purpose flour. Like I said before this is a very soft and tasty bread that is great toasted for even in a sandwich. I made some potato curry & cheese sandwiches and also Nutella sandwiches with this bread. Both tasted great.

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Chocolate Malted Muffins

Blogging Marathon# 57: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: Kid's Delight -- Cooking with Whole grains

Dish: Chocolate Malted Muffins

For the 3rd and final day of this week's blogging marathon, I made these delicious Chocolate Malted Muffins. These go to Kalyani's 'Kid Delight -- Cooking with Whole grains' event (an event started by Valli).

I usually substitute some of the all purpose flour with wholewheat flour and wholewheat pastry flour to add some whole grains and fiber to my bakes. I have also used barley flour in a strawberry cake but this recipe uses 1 cup barley flour and is the main ingredient for this muffin.

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Khamiri Roti with Shahi Mixed Vegetable and Paneer Curry

Buffet on Table: Week 2 -- Indian States

Day 10: Uttar Pradesh -- Khamiri Roti

After yesterday's simple Karnataka meal, I've 2 delicious Mughalai dishes from Uttar Pradesh today. Uttar Pradesh cuisine is influenced greatly by Mughal cooking techniques. In the Mughal era, Uttar Pradesh became the heartland of the empire.
Mughlai cuisine is rich with the use of spices and different cooking techniques. I decided to make a simple flatbread and a creamy vegetable & paneer curry.

Khamiri roti is a Mughlai leavened bread. Khamir means 'yeast' and it is used in this roti to make it thick and spongy. I thought it is similar to naan, but these are made with wholewheat flour and are not made as thick as naans.

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Kashmiri Mini Thali - Roti, Dum Aloo, Apple Chutney and Saffron Rice

Buffet on Table: Week 2 -- Indian States

Day 8: Kashmir -- Kashmiri Roti with Dum Aloo, Doon Chetin & Kashmiri Yellow Rice

After seeing my marathon buddies make amazing thalis, I made a mini Kashmiri thali for today's mega marathon. Thanks to Valli's and Vaishali's Kashmiri posts for the inspiration. I picked the recipes from their thalis to make mine. Here's what I made:

• Kashmiri Roti (recipe follows)
• Kashmiri Dum Aloo
• Kashmiri Kesari Rice
• Doon Chetin (Apple Chutney)

Kashmiri roti is a very flavorful recipe with spices that are added right into the dough. It is kneaded with milk instead of water to make soft and delicious rotis. Served with Kashmiri Dum Aloo, these rotis tasted simply amazing.

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Cast-Iron Skillet Pita Bread

Pita bread is a quintessential element for any Middle Eastern meal. I already have a recipe for pita bread that is baked in the oven. This one is made on the skillet and the pitas turned out soft and delicious.

These pitas involve quite a bit of work, read the recipe thoroughly and plan accordingly. I don't usually add cooking and prep times to my recipes, but I thought it is important to add them here because I miscalculated the time and it took me past dinner time to make these pitas.
A 'Sponge' made by mixing some of the flour before preparing the dough is the secret to the success of these homemade pitas. Try these and I'm sure you'll love them.

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California Veggie Pizza Recipe on Whole wheat Crust

I have missed the last edition of International Food Challenge because of summer vacation and possibly poor planning on my side. Even this post is late, but I didn't want to miss the 1st Anniversary of IFC. Hearty congratulations to Saras and Shobana for coming up with the event idea and completing 1 successful year.
For this month's challenge, Saras picked 2 dishes from each of the previous years challenges. It was quite tough picking just one and I ended up making California Veggie Pizza that Joanne T Ferguson suggested.

My son has been asking for a pizza and I thought I can shoot 2 birds in 1 shot :-) I wanted to try whole wheat pizza crust and voila King Arthur has an amazing recipe for whole wheat pizza crust. One thing to keep in mind while making this crust is that the dough has to be refrigerated overnight, at least 18 hours, so plan accordingly. Don't tell your kids you are making the pizza until you are ready to put it in the oven or you will be in a night long trouble.

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Whole Wheat Milk Bread

Blogging Marathon# 43: Week 1/ Day 1

Theme: Tame the Yeast

Dish: Mir's Whole Wheat Milk Bread

We are starting another edition of Blogging Marathon today and I signed up for all 4 weeks this month. We are at the tail end of our summer vacation in India and I can't believe how fast the time went. I had plans of meeting old friends and doing a lot of shopping, but nothing got done. With the 2 kids, it was impossible for me to get out of the house. Hoping that this final week will be a little fruitful.

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Wholewheat Waffles

Blogging Marathon# 41: Week 3/ Day 1
Theme: E-N Breakfast Items
Dish: E for Eggo -- Wholewheat Waffles

My theme for this week's marathon is very interesting. Valli gave a list of breakfast items and asked us to cook dishes starting with the letters from E-N. Breakfast is probably the least thought out meal of the day in our household. I eat breakfast everyday, but it is something really quick: pb&j sandwich, oatmeal or just cereal. I usually make a little elaborate breakfast on the weekends, my son loves pancakes and waffles, so I make them at least 2~3 times a month.

So for the first day of the marathon, I picked E for Eggo. Eggo is a frozen waffles brand in the US. Once I bought the waffle iron,  I stopped buying frozen waffles or even store bought mixes to make waffles. They have way too many preservatives and extra ingredients that are not really healthy.

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Hummus Bread

I had no plans of baking bread this morning. When I woke up, it was foggy and raining heavily -- I didn't feel like doing anything at all. Then I opened my Facebook account and saw one of the groups having a 'Baking with yeast' event this weekend. Sun finally peeked out and I decided to bake something for the event.

I got my 'King Arthur Flour: Whole Grain Baking' book out and after looking through some amazing breads, I narrowed it down to this yummy looking Hummus bread. I had a container of store-bought  spicy black bean hummus that needed to used up and that went right into the bread. I was concerned if the bread will turn out too spicy, but it was just perfect.

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Soft Wholewheat Bread

Blogging Marathon# 40: Week 1/ Day 2
Theme: Yeast Breads
Dish: Wholewheat Bread

Making homemade bread is quite satisfying. I'm not a pro at bread baking and I always follow the recipes to the T. Baking is a science and I don't think I have the expertise to make up my own bread recipes yet. I go-to site for everything related to baking is King Arthur flour site. The only changes I usually make is to add wholewheat flour for a part of white flour other than I don't take too many chances in baking.

Wholewheat bread is a challenge to make. I've tried quite a few recipes and most of them turn out 'almost cardboard-like'. I added molasses in one recipe and the bread turned out a strange brown color with a strong molasses flavor -- I didn't get the seal of approval from the family members. So in my quest for whole wheat bread, I tried this recipe from King Arthur Flour.

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