Spinach Carrot Pulao & Paneer Fry

One dish meal is always a life saver. Served with a simple raita, can make a very good satisfying meal. This pulao can be made in a jiffy. Not much chopping required. If you have the chopped veggies at hand, this is very simple and no grinding of masalas needed. I wanted to make a tasty one dish meal with minimum work and finally it turned out to be the way I wanted. It was very flavorful with the whole spices and crunchy while biting into the crisp carrots.

Ingredients

Chopped spinach - 2 cups Carrots chopped into small cubes - 1/2 cup Rice - 1 cup Onions sliced - 1 nos Red chilly powder - 1/4 tspn Ghee/oil - 1 tblspn saunf - 1 tspn Cardamom - 2 pods Cloves - 3 nos Cinnamom - 1" Poppy seeds - 1/2 tspn Wash and soak the rice in 2 cups of water for 30 minutes. If you are hard pressed for time, you can avoid soaking. Still it comes out well. Heat ghee/oil in a pan. Add all the spices. Roast till fragrant. Add sliced onion and suate till they turn pink. Add chopped carrots and cook till it is tender but crisp. Add chopped spinach and cook till the they wilt. Drain the rice and reserve the soaked water. Tip off the soaked rice. Saute for 5 minutes. Add salt and red chilly powder. Add the reserved water. Cover and cook in the same kadai. Stir the rice in between. Rice will be cooked in 20 minutes. You can either microwave for 25 minutes or pressure cook for 2 whistles. I have served with MW roasted papad, pan roasted paneer and cucumber raita. Cucumber Raita Grated cucumber, 3 slit green chillies, a teaspoon of jeera/cumin powder and salt is mixed to a cup of whipped curd. Garnish with some chopped coriander. Paneer fry Cubed paneer - 15 nos For marinade Hung curd - 1 tblspn Tomato sauce - 1 1/2 tblspn Pepper powder - 1/2 tspn salt Beat all the ingredients of marinade till smooth. Marinate the paneer for 30 minutes. Sprinkle few drops of oil on a tawa. Place the paneer pieces and cook on low flame. When one side is browned, flip the paneer and cook the other side too. This makes a good starter too. Spinach Carrot Pulao is going to Srivalli's Rice Mela JFI:Carrots hosted by The Cooker Sapadu Ready Event hosted by Aartee of Nalabagham

Wheat in Bisibelebath and a salad

Bisibelebath with broken wheat

I use broken wheat for making pradhaman. Other than that it doesn't feature in our regular menu. So when bought for making payasam, usually there will be left over, since only a small quantity is required for the preparation. When I had some broken wheat to be used up, I was thinking of recipe where I can replace rice with wheat. I had posted pongal with wheat before. The next trial was making bisibelebath out of broken wheat. Broken wheat is not the same as wheat rava. This is coarser. Believe, broken wheat made good substitution for rice. Unless told, you cannot make out the difference. From then, I have been regularly including broken wheat in my shopping list.

Only when I searched my archived to link this to bisibelebath post, did I realise, that I haven't posted the recipe yet. So here is my recipe.

Broken wheat - 1 cup ( Usually rice is used)

Toor dal - 1/2 cup

peas(fresh/dried) -1/2 cup

chopped veggies - 1 1/2 cups (carrot/beans/potato/capsicum)

shallots/pearl onion - 15 nos

tamarind -small lemon size

sambhar powder - 1tspn (optional)

turmeric powder

salt

Seasoning

Oil

mustard seeds

red chilli - 2 nos

curry leaves

For masala

red chilli - 6 nos

coriander seeds - 1 tspn

cloves - 4

cinnamon - 1" piece

hing - 1/2 tspn

grated coconut -1/4 cup(kopra is preferred.)
If fresh coconut is used, saute them till lightly brown. Grind all the ingredients for the masala to a smooth paste.

Soak tamarind in warm water for 10 minutes and extract pulp.

Wash, broken wheat,dal and peas.If dried peas is used, soak them for 5 hours.Pressure cook them together. Keep it aside

Heat oil in a pan, add the seasoning ingredients. Saute the onions till golden. Add the chopped veggies, turmeric and salt. When it is half cooked, add the tamarind pulp. When the mixture starts boiling, stir in the ground paste and mix well. Cook for 10 minutes. Mix the cooked wheat-dal mixture to the cooking masala and mix well. Cover and cook for 5 minutes till the flavors seep in the wheat-dal combo.Heat one tablespoon of ghee in a seasoning pan. Add a teaspoon of sambhar powder and pour on top the cooking mixture. This step is optional. But it does enhances the flavor of bisibelebath. Remove from fire. Garnish with coriander and serve hot with papad.

Sprouted Wheat berry salad

I buy whole wheat to make dosa. My co-sister always sproutsome of the soaked berries. Ever since she told gave me the idea, whenever I soak berries for dosa, I keep aside a handful of the soaked berries for sprouting and use that in salad. Steam cook the berries before using for salads. These will be chewy, but very tasty. Toss in any veggies(I have used grated cucumber and carrot, onion and tomato) you have and sprinkle some salt, pepper and lime juice and teaspoon of olive oil for dressing. You can have the bowl of healthy salad as a meal by itself or use it in wraps.

Wheat berry salad is my entry to EC's : WYF- salad/soup/starter

Diet friendly bisibelebath and salad is making to Divya's Diet Food Event

Soya Vaangi Bhath & Sprouted Horsegram Salad

Soya chunks/nuggets was all that I knew of the soya products some years back. In those days, I was not aware of the nutritious benefits of the same. Soya chunks was not cooked in my home. I was introduced to these spongy balls at my friend T's house, who is my childhood friend and am happy to say we still maintain that friendship, in the same spirit, as was years before. (Touch wood). These soya chunks/meal makers as it is also known, was cooked regularly at her home. I developed a liking towards that. So when I started cooking on my own, I tried to include them in my menu too. Also for all the health benefits attached to soya.

During the weekends (Sat/Sun), me and my sister spent the whole day at T's house playing. T has a sister too. Four of us will play, like there is no tomorrow. We were not bored of playing the same set of games, every weekend. They had a huge backyard with many trees, literally making a roof over the backyard. In one summer vacation, we even managed to build a small house using bricks and clay. That house did not have any roof. So its just small walls partitioning each room. One of T's elder cousin was also there on vacation. He helped us in digging the clay and mixing with water etc. T's mother got us small earthen vessels and we cooked rice and sambhar in the newly built house . It was real fun. Our house did not last more than a week, since it could not with stand the heavy summer downpour. It was all fun for the 12 yrs old kids at that time.

Now to the recipe

Recipe source:Mallika Badrinath

Rice - 1 cup
Soya chunks - 1 cup

Small violet brinjals - 3 nos
Onion - 1
Ginger-garlic-chilly paste - 2 tspn
Lemon - 1

For masala

Cinnamon - 1" piece
Cardamom - 3 pods
Poppy seeds/Khus Khus - 1 tspn
Dried coconut/Kopra - 2 tblspn


Dry roast the spices together. If you don't have dry coconut, fry the dessicated coconut till brown.

Soak the soya chunks in hot water for 15 minutes. By then it must have puffed up well. Squeeze and wash in cold water twice. Crumble the soaked soya granules to break them up. Don't powder it. Cut brinjals into small cubes. Pressure cook the rice and spread on a plate to cool.

Heat oil n a pan and season with mustard, urad dhal and curry leaves. Fry onion till brown. Add cut brinjals, ginger-garlic-green chilly paste. When the brinjals are tender, add the soya granules, salt and cook. You can sprinkle little water if required. Add cooked rice, the ground masala powder and mix well. Remove from fire. Stir in lemon juice. Garnish with coriander leaves

For the salad,

Sprouted horse gram/kolli/kulith - 1 cup
Shredded cabbage, grated carrot, chopped onion and tomatoes - 1 1/2 cup
2/3 slit green chillies
Hung curd - 1 tblspn
Salt
Pepper powder
Chaat masala
Olive oil - 1 tspn

Wash and soak the horse gram overnight. Drain and tie the gram in a muslin cloth and hang it near your kitchen window. Make sure moisture is maintained in the hung cloth by dripping few drops of water at regular intervals. By next day morning, it must have sprouted well. It takes longer time for the horse gram to start sprouting when compared to whole moong.

Pressure cook the sprouted gram for 2 whistles. It doesn't turn mushy on pressure cooking. Mix everything in a bowl and serve the protein rich salad with the pulao. This salad can be eaten as a meal by itself . It is very filling.





Soya Vaangi Bhath is my entry for JFI-Soya, hosted by Sia of Monsoon Spice.