Grilled veggie sandwich and bell pepper eggs.

Feeding my 18 mo is not a challenge. He simply is a good eater. However, I like to experiment and do different stuffs so my little one can have a variety. Being from India, the staples are always Idly(rice pancakes), dosai (rice flour savory crepes), thayir sadham (yogurt rice), and paruppu sadham(lentil rice.) Apart from these I make pasta dishes, bread sandwiches, cutlets, etc for him. That being said, I do not cook meat at home although I make eggs. He doesn't seem to like the taste of eggs and when I give him a boiled egg, he just loves to squish the yellow part and throw it down so I can go ahead and clean up the rugs for the next one hour! Phew!! Still, I try to boil, scramble, fry or do something or the other for him to eat to get him used to the flavor. Recently I kept seeing pictures of capsicum/bell pepper eggs and wanted to try them.  They were yum and we all enjoyed eating eggs that looked very appealing. So here are the pictures without much ado.

I did not want raw bell pepper rings and so I did char them a bit on all sides first. Then I broke one egg inside one of the rings. What I found was that the eggs just did not hold inside the rings as I originally thought it would but just ran all over. So I added a couple of other rings and thought I would try to get half and half in them. So I ended up having just the white in one more of the rings and the remainder of eggs with yolk on another ring. They simply ran out even then. I realized that may be I just needed to cut them out to shape in the end.

I like my eggs fried and done well on both sides and so I flipped them over and then while serving cut of some large chunks that were dangling outside. 

 Next, I had left over bell pepper rings from top and bottom and some zucchini slices and so I seared them on the tava and added them to a grilled cheese sandwich to finish off dinner for my DS.

 

One easy 15 minute meal ready! My LO just devoured the sandwich and egg. I should say that he loves just a hint of spice as of now and so he loved the red pepper which has a slightly sweet taste to it.

My favorite wraps!!!

I somehow like the idea of food wrapped around all snug and ready to eat. It is one of my favorite diet concepts (I usually eat half a wrap and store the other half for another meal). However now-a-days, I have this feeling that store-bought wraps are not that healthy and, I am not getting enough vitamins from vegetables because you cannot put a lot of items if you want the wrap to stay intact. So, wraps have become more of a splurge for me rather than my go to food because of the carbs vs vegetables war that I am recently engaged in. I have a goal to get 10 lbs off me, that I have gained in the past three years due to lots of reasons and I am not going to give them as excuses. Just a goal that I want to achieve in say over the next couple of months - slowly, steadily, and surely!

Onto the recipe: I had some button mushrooms and was not in the mood to make a sabji so I decided on wrap for dinner!

Button mushroom

 Mushrooms and vidalia onions getting deglazed with lemon juice. You can deglaze with wine or any choice of yours.

 The wrap cut down through the middle and to be stored for another meal. Not a lot of vegetables, still the store bought wrap is huge and I don't like to pack with calories. I did add a side of salad for me instead. I need to start making my own tortillas as I am sure they would be healthier and better tasting!

Mushroom avocado wrap

Mushroom-Avocado Wrap Recipe:

Ingredients:
Vidalia sweet onion-1
Button mushroom - 20-chooped lengthwise
salt- to taste
Any salad/spinach mix
Tomato diced -1
Avocado - 1 -cut in lengthy strips
Hummus/baba ghanoush/- 1 tbsp
Lemon-1
Oil  - 2tsp
Wraps -4-5

Method:

1. In a pan, add the oil  and when hot, add chopped vidalia onion. Saute in a high flame for 2 minutes or till the onion turns translucent.
2. Add the button mushrooms (or any other mushroom you prefer) in the pan and continue to saute. After a minute, add salt as per taste.
3. Add pepper/paprika depending on your taste. I did not add either.
4. After a couple of minutes, add lemon juice to deglaze.
5. Saute on high, till the mushrooms turn soft. Keep stirring to avoid burned mushroom.
6. Once the mushroom turns soft, turn off the stove and cool completely. Transfer the contents to a different bowl/plate to cool quickly. If not in hurry, let it cool on the pan itself.
7. Now prep the other ingredients as the mushroom cools down. Dice the tomato, and cut the avocado into lengthy strips.
8. Heat a griddle or tava, and put the wrap when the griddle is hot. Do not heat for more than a minute. Turn the wrap over and heat it, for around 30 seconds.
9. Turn of the griddle and place the wrap on a plate. Spread a tbsp of hummus/any other spread over it. Add salad mix of your choice in the middle along a straight line, leaving around an inch around the edges to be able to fold the wrap.
10. Top with tomato, mushroom, avocado, and and drizzle some lemon juice over. 
11. You can add some salad dressing if necessary
12. Wrap the tortilla as you would a burrito and serve.

Makes: 4-5 wraps.

Fabric Markers Fun!

I wanted to personalize a pillowcase to send to my son's daycare. Due to regulations and standards, all nap items for our tots are to be sent in a pillowcase and I hated the plain pillowcase that I have been using for almost a year now! I had meant to go shopping for a nice pillowcase for him but never finished that task! So here I had a bunch of colorful markers with which I had colored my key holder and I thought, why not create my very own special pillowcase for DS. Of course, I took a lot of inspirations from fellow pillowcase painters and came up with a design I liked. The end result is not fab, but hey, my 18mo is too young to notice the flaws and he just absolutely loves the "star" and "truck" and he just is able to say those words like a million times for the amount of them in the design!! Win-winner!

Tofu Tikka!

Paneer is one of my favorite dishes although eating all the paneer butter masala from USA has made me hate it so much! Every potluck, every restaurant, every dinner always has one paneer dish as it is very easy to prepare and is always a winner as most people love it. Probably because of the fact that I was having more and more of it, that I started to stay more and more away from it. I buy Tofu, instead, which looks similar but god forbid! doesn't taste similar and also coz it's healthier. So I wanted to try to make a tikka out of the tofu this time and so went ahead with the experiment. I cleaned and pressed extra firm tofu to remove all water and cut them into big chunks. I sliced half way down the tofu and put some coriander thovayal(Cilantro quarter of a bunch  cut and slightly sauteed in about 1/4 tsp oil pureed with 2-3 dried red chillies also sauteed and salt to taste.) in it. Then I added in a separate plate some turmeric powder, chilly powder, amchur powder, ginger garlic paste, garam masala and oil and mixed well. I then carefully put the tofu one by one in this mixture and coated it as good as possible and refrigerated for around 2 hours. Then back from refrigerator, into a hot tava with a few teaspoons of oil. I made sure they were well cooked on all four sides from the tava till they all got a nice brown coat on them. A pack of extra firm tofu yielded around 10 cubes of tofu and me and DH had five each. I forgot to take the picture and it was finished too soon! Was very filling as I was unable to finish my dinner after eating the 5 pieces. Next time, should marinate with some yogurt/lemon and also add vegetables - onions, tomatoes, peppers to make it much more interesting in presentation and also take pictures. So here are just the pictures from my prep.

 As you can see, the tofu is a bit more crumbly than a paneer would be, but in the end, it did hold well on the tava as I waited till they were done on each side before turning over so that gave a little bit of firmness to tofu as it got done on the tava.Sorry that there are no pictures of the final result, but I am going to do them once again just for the sake of the pictures!

Verdict: A fulfilling snack - protein rich - add along with vegetables and it is great food! Kids can have this itself as a lunch in their boxes along with vegetables. But remember, don't expect paneer tikka - tofu tastes different!

Hummus No Ways!!!

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love hummus and I am not sure whether it is with tahini or not as these are from hummus that I have ate at food courts and restaurants. Well, I know what the basic ingredients are, how to mash it up in a food processor and of course, I had all ingredients plus a bunch of carrots and celery that DH bought to use. So, I mused, I'm making up hummus to eat these vegetables...And because I did not have tahini in stock, borrowed a  recipe from online - here!
        No big deal, just rinse well your can of chick peas, add some salt (remember canned peas already has enough!), two garlic pods as mentioned in the recipe, 1/4 cup olive oil, and chilly flakes (My own addition for heat!)  Blended it all to a super cool mushy hummus and here it is!

Verdict: Loved the textured, but I did not like this hummus at all. Zilch. For me the 2 pods of garlic was very overpowering that it caught in my throat. It has been a week and I gave it to DH for lunch but am not eating it. I guess it will go to trash in another few days :(

Mista Pasta

Pasta, is a comfort food for me to cook for my 1yo when I am out of options. This is because I always will have some vegetable in fridge/freezer, pasta is always in stock, as also milk, tomatoes, and some italian seasonings. This is one of my favorite dinner meals for my lil one. I do not like the marinara as I come from South India and if it is not hot - hot enough for you to sniffle and have a few tears down your cheeks, then the food is not really worthwhile ;) However, cheese is an acquired taste for us desis who grew up without it in India and so can eat it bland. This is why I would easily make a white sauce instead of marinara for my ds. Here is my usual routine for him for pasta.

1. Cook pasta, al dente. Strain and keep aside.
2.  Microwave, steam, stir-fry, or grill vegetables
3. Make white sauce, and stir everything in it.

This takes utmost 8-10 minutes especially when you can do each in different stoves. 

For white sauce, I don't follow any particular recipe. I just put a pat of butter on a pan in medium high and once the butter melts add about a teaspoon of flour and just fry the flour for a minute or two and before it browns, add milk to it. I usually add the whole milk as that is what I give my 1yo. I probably would add around 1/4 or 1/3 cup of milk and then simmer till the sauce thickens. Once it is to my desired consistency, I add salt, a few dashes of pepper, mix well and then put the strained pasta as well as the veggies and voila I have a one dish wonder for my 1yo. Of course, I make enough so me and my DH can eat a few teaspoons! Non-guilty pleasures :)

Pasta with bechamel sauce

Pasta with white sauce and zucchini

Verdict: My 1 yo absolutely loves this pasta and so does DH!

Valentine's Day Special - chocolate cake and cupcake

I was to have the company of my nephew and niece on V-day but it turned out they couldn't make it until Saturday and I had already thought of making them yummy cakes/cupcakes to enjoy their time with their aunt and I also wanted to do some pastry puffs for savory. As you already know, I am no baker and so bought the "Betty Crocker super-moist chocolate cake" mix and set up to work on it. I just followed the instructions down to the 't' and the cake couldn't have been better. The recipe called for a 9X13 pan. All I had was a 7X11 pan so added some in it and made 6 extra cup-cakes also for the little ones aged 9,7,and 1. And, what is a cupcake without icing?? I actually checked the internet to get a chocolate icing recipe and whisked it to finish as I do not have any of the electric beaters. Not a bad deal, is what I think. I took the recipe for chocolate icing from here. The recipe is as follows:

Chocolate buttercream frosting

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened ( Do not melt in microwave. Keep it outside the refrigerator and smash it down with your beater once it is soft ;))
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract(optional)
• 4 tablespoons milk or cream

Method

1. Prepare the dry and wet ingredients separately until ready to mix.
2. Sift together the sugar, cocoa powder. Add salt and keep it separate.
3. In a separate big bowl, add the butter and mash till it is creamy. I use a whisk and so mashed it up to a softer butter. If using electric mixer, probably use a low to medium setting to mash it up. 
4. Add all the dry ingredients to the bowl. If using a stand mixer, I will assume that you have the mixer off, unless you want your dry ingredients all over you and all around ;) If using an electric mixer, turn to lowest setting and slowly incorporate the dry ingredients with butter. With a whisk I had to do slowly to first mix and then start mixing up vigorously to incorporate the two. It will look a lot like crumbs but that is right.
5. Add the vanilla extract, and the milk/cream and incorporate. Now as you mix, you will begin to see that you get the proper frosting. Once whisked well and you take the whisk, you will find the icing sticking out. For a stickier icing, add more sugar. For a thinner icing, add more milk. Do this till you are satisfied with the icing consistency. 

 Verdict: The icing I did not realize then, was thin and so you can see how the cupcake icing kind of sagged, fell, and did not hold shape while I was able to clearly write well with it on my cake . This was my first time at making a cake, and icing so I am not unhappy. It was a successful effort and who cares about the decor when the cake, cupcake and frosting was yummelicious ;) The kids and adults all had a good treat!