No sweat Mango icecream

Im new to this but its like when a tiger tastes human blood...............LOL.....I know that sounds so gross but that's exactly how I have begun to feel about blogging events. My first entry like you all know was the easter eggs for "Lets go nuts- cashewnuts" and the best part is that post of mine has yet to get a hit. LOL. .... Still I seem to be compelled to walk down this road. I dont know, there is a certain kind of excitement in participating in an event.......... I'm not getting enough time to visit all my blogging friends, let alone put up a new post myself. God bless you, some of you guys really manage to update a new recipe twice a week...............you guys keep doing that and its becoming increasingly difficult for me to keep visiting you and I hate to miss something you have taken the pains to post..............

okie this Mango Icecrean is as the name suggests prepared in a jiffy.....and the best part is its childs play and everyone will love it..............P refuses to eat mangoes in any other form ever since I made this recipe six years ago. Special thanks to my dear friend and cooking guru Sandhya who shared this recipe with me. She knows I'm a sucker for anything that is non fussy. So here its is my friends "No sweat Mango icecream". I 'd like to send this recipe to "15 minute cooking " event being organised by Mahimaa of Indian Vegetarian Garden

It also goes out to " Celebrating Festive Food: Summer Treat" event being organized by Priti of Indian Khanna

Theres still time for the contest due dates so if you can make it please do visit these sites.

No Sweat Mango Icecream

Ingredients:

11/2 cup full cream

11/2 cup milk

3/4 can milkmaid

1tsp mango essence

5-6 cups of Mango pulp.( I prefer to use fresh Alphonso mango pulp) but any frozen pulp is good to go. If you making the mango pulp at home use 8 Alphonso mangoes and add Three cups sugar to it or lesser if you dont like your icecream too sweet. It also depends on the sweetness of the mangoes.

Method: Just mix all the ingredients with an electric beater for five minutes till they are well blended and put the mixture in an airtight container in the deep freezer...................This is the basic mixture. After 3- 4 hours remove the basic mixture and beat it again in its half frozen state and put it back in to the freezer. I always have this handy .............

Then take the pulp of 8 alphonso mangoes.........or you can use ready made pulp..........Basically you need to have roughtly five to six cups of sweetened mango pulp. Now add this pulp to the frozen basic mixture and beat it again.....for two to three minutes and deep freeze again.................If you like you can remove it from the freezer and beat it again.......It improves the consistency of the icecream and keeps the ice crystals at bay...................As simple as that....................Mango icecream my dears is ready to eat...............

Kothmir chutney/ Cilantro chutney/ Kothimbir chutney

oops I havent done this ever.............putting up two posts in the same day...........so why now.........Cilantro is a herb much used in my home.........a big bunch which weighs close to 1/2 kg is the amount of cilantro that is consumed between me and P in a week so when I came across a blogging event hosted by Cilantro although today is the last day for the event I knew I could manage it...............so here is a chutney made from cilantro and groundnuts........This is a staple in my home.....................every day P will have it for breakfast with his teplas , for lunch with his dal rice , at tea time as an accompaniment and also in the night for dinner with whatever he is having................so thats why I can do this at such short notice..........LOL. One moment please ,,,,,I must tell you that I learned to make this chutney from my mother-in-law Ranjan Thakershi and its amazing how many people have gotten hooked on to it after tasting it at my place.........thats why I like to refer to it at as Ranjan's chutney..............................


The ingredients are as under:
1/2 cup of groundnuts
6-7 green chillies
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp turmeric
the juice of 1/2 a lime
and one cup of chopped cilantro leaves.
1/2 cup water
Salt to taste

Method: In a wet grinder take the groundnuts and the green chillies......grind for a minute. then add the cumin, turmeric, salt, lime juice,1/2 cup water..............and the chopped cilantro leaves...........and grind again........You can add a little more water depending on the consistency you like ...............and your cilantro chutney is ready ...... serve it with teplas or dosas or parathas..........tastes wonderful with anything..............and is packed with the goodness of cilantro and groundnuts.................................

Easter eggs

This is my second attempt to participate in a blog event...........the first one like you know was chicken mustagreek which got disqualified coz the event was supposed to be a vegetarian do..............well so lets hope I dont screw up again.
okie so everybody was just going through Poornimas blog ........ and saw her hosting this event called lets go nut which originally was Aquadazes brain child..........

now there are a lot of rules and im not really sure how all of this is done so poornima be a dear and if you can just hold my hand and guide me on..........LOL.

OKie so as you can see this lets go nuts event features cashewnuts........one of my fav......I love them with the skin and i love them salted love them deep fried. I love them anyway really.....................

Since theres just one day for the end of this event i thought id post the recipe of the easter eggs i made this easter..................so here are the ingredients...........plain and simple and believe me these are so easy to make they are practically childs play.............

150 gms cashewnuts.

200 gms icing sugar

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 tsp almond essence

1 tsp color of your choice......

Method......first add the sugar to the water and bring it to a boil......watch it boil nicely for half a minute and then get it off the fire and cool.

Dry grind the cashewnuts in the mixer.........okie now this has to be done in short bursts so that you dont end up extracting oil from the cashews ......so keep running on short bursts in small batches till all the cashews are powdered fine..............

Now in a bowl take the cashew nut powder and add just enough sugar syrup to make the cashew nut powder into a sticky paste.........use a spatula or a spoon to mix the sugar syrup with the cashewnut powder...................

Thats my friend farah putting the sticky paste together.........

Now to the sticky paste add the icing sugar.............bit by bit untill you have a stiff but pliable dough......try not to knead the dough as this will result in the oil getting out of the cashewnuts..........

Thats my big hand getting the dough ready , i didnt have a spatula but if you do please use it.... youll end up with eggs that looks nice and matt..................and not with ones that look like they broke into a sweat..................LOL

okie now you are ready to go........just add the almond essence and the color of your choice in the dough ,mix well put into egg moulds and and you are done.....

so this is what the end result looked like...............

if you like you could decorate the eggs with icing..................made of sugar and eggs..........You can take one egg white and beat it until it forms a peak.Then add icing sugar until the desired consistency and smooth paste is formed. Mix the color of your choice and put it in the piping bag and go on a creative trip.............this royal icing becomes hard soon enough so there...............you have your very own signature easter eggs..........................

Happy birthday to me.................

so well it is my birthday today..........and ever since I got my oven repaired the one that belonged to my mom Ive been itching to bake... so well decided if there has to be a baking disaster may it be on my birthday so no one else is dissapointed......................... Since ive been seeing so many strawberries everywhere i thought to myself why not a strawberry cake..............now i know a chocolate cake would have been a better choice for a first cake..........but no...................you see Im different and will always take the road less travelled.............Besides that I had been snooping around Raags space and she had this strawberry cake and and almond strawberry cake recipe that i felt was easy enuf to try.............so im not going to give you the recipe...................you can check it out at Raagas...........

http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/

But ofcourse you get to hear all about my experiment...........so well it baked right......and it was soft..................and moist as well something ive never managed before in my microwave...................seriously when i was mixing that batter...................one egg somehow did not make it fluffy enuf i thought..................so i had my doubts ......but its was soft........springy and although it was not the shade of Raagas cake ........it seemed okie for texture..........now for the taste.............see looks are deceptive.............it turned that it was bitter..........now where did I go wrong..................i checked to see if the almonds i used were bitter but they werent, perhaps the choice of almond essence was wrong..........................okie so with it having that bitter aftertaste what was i going to do with that big cake
so well i went to work...................I creamed it nice and white.........cut it in the middle and creamed the centre , the tops the sides all over..................and then sprinkled some chocolate on it and finally put some glazed cherries on top.............a lot of them actually to cut that bitter taste........................hmmmmmmmmm now since im on a diet and i cant eat cake...............and i had actually baked it for my neighbors................i thought hey why not................

everybody thought it was nice................LOL.........do you think people tell each other if something hasnt turned right????????/unless ofcourse if its in the family, then they are vocal to the point theyll chuck it out......now neighbors are another thing.........they might chuck it after you leave but still have to be nice to you...............LOL........my one really good neighbor told me it was a little bitter...............smart kid she figured.....................
so heres the picture of the cake .............

As you can see theres nothing strawberry about it..................i swear i put strawberries in it though.........LOL.........its actually strawberry almond cake with black forest topping..............sorry Raaga i didnt mean to screw up ........It just happened....................................Happy birthday to me.....hehehe!

Chicken Mustagreek

Hi!! I hope that title has managed to get your attention...........hmmm Chicken Mustagreek is defintely not from Greece , but  I' ll tell you one thing its definitely a  Musta...Have.

okie every body Chicken Mustagreek is my entry to ""Recipes for the rest of us - Starters" being hosted this month by Harini of http://tumyumtreats.blogspot.com . This event was originally started by Ramki of One Page Cookbooks (http://ramkicooks.blogspot.com/) . Okie so they play something like passing the baton and the one with the baton now Harini is hosting the event.....If you want to participate as well theres enough time so go and check out Harinis blog........

Ive wanted to participate in a cookery event.........and this is my first time.........so bear with me.....LOL.....but why did I pick this up...............Id love to participate in FIC Pink but damn pink is just not my color.............but hey this event is totally my cup of tea...........it calls for my url no frills cooking..................

My kitchen is strictly vegetarian thanks to P who is a Jain..........but if someone asks me for a recipe the first thing on my mind would be fish, then chicken, then meat, and the last vegetables........ since fish requires a lot of cleaning and i was going to use a friends kitchen I decided it had to be chicken.............besides starters means chicken starters to me, period. So I called ahead and told my friend that I needed her kitchen for a day..............she was more than pleased................LOL.

chicken, chicken , chicken .........and yeah I just thought I have to use fenugreek leaves Ive only just discovered them and I love thier rather teeka ..........pungent ??? flavor........and whats my favorite with chicken ...........mustard..........yum yum.............so here it is peoples-----------

Mustard and Fenugreek coming together to create ...........................CHICKEN MUSTAGREEK.

Ingredients

1/2 kg boneless chicken breast.( If you are in India check out Godrej boneless chicken , its awesome and totally foolproof when it comes to texture and succulency........mmmmm)

11/2 tbsp of ginger garlic paste

1 over the top heaped tbspn of chilli powder ( Use Kashmiri chilli powder if possible it gives you this vibrant red color but is easy on the GI)

3tbspns of mustard paste ( the one you use in sandwiches is fine but really if you are a mustard person like i am be adventurous and use wholegrain mustard paste........besides giving the chicked a smarter grooming it also increases the texture..................)

Salt to taste 

1 tbspn honey

and a handful of dried fenugreek leaves  crushed between your palms.........( available at Indian stores under brand name Everest Kasoori Methi) 

a pinch of turmeric.

1tbsp oil.

Method:

Clean and wipe the chicken breast dry , Make cuts in to the meat along the grain of the muscle fibre. Smear with ginger garlic paste and rest for fifteen minutes.   Now in a bowl take all the ingredients except the fenugreek leaves and mix them with your fingers..............lol seriously spoons cant do what fingers can.........LOL no pun intended there...........this is a food blog.... lets keep it that way.........so well mix the mixture really well and then apply no !no! sorry the word is rub........yes rub this mixture in to the chicken........all over in the cuts and everywhere.........Now refrigerate this chicken for atleast two hours so that the chicken is well marinated..........You can keep it in the refrigerator for a couple of days without it spoiling................

OKie when its time for starters just remove, let them reach room temperature.........

Now take the fenugreek leaves and like i said take a nice palmful and rub them between your palms and just spread them over your chicken..........court all around  if you want you can add some more make sure the chiken is coated all over with the fenugreek leaves.............

then grill this like you would grill any chicken in the grill.........I like to use the George Foreman grill for chicken..........doesnt require any oil and the chicken gets cooked in its own juices and is soft and succulent the way i love it..............

But my friend didnt have a Griller so we just put some oil a tbspn in a nonstick pan and put the chicken in it and covered it with a lid to let it cook while it fried..........turn over and fry the other side as well and you are done...........CHICKEN MUSTAGREEK people is ready...........

you will like this if 

• you like chicken
• you like mustard
• even if you dont like mustard coz the honey masks that part of mustard that mustard haters detest................lol
• and if you like charred fenugreek leaves.............( part of the fenugreek marinade gets charred when you grill the chicken this is the part i simply love)

hey you dont need sauce with it , you dont need a dip and what do you  know you dont need a chutney  either.  Drinkers you can enjoy it with almost everything  except white wine, and non drinkers well just go ahead and feast...................Hey I think I pretty much stuck to all the rules.....Lets see what Harini has to say though.....

*** Harini just dropped by on my space to tell me she had forgotten to mention it was supposed to be a strictly vegetarian , no egg thingie.............BOOOOOOOOOoHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

so this means Chicken Mustagreek cant go to the event.........umm never mind ,thanks to Harini forgetting to mention that on her blog, my friend and I got treated to chicken starters..........

The Humble Poha need not be humble after all........

Yes Humble Poha it is today and might I add that this is a staple at my home, it being one of husbands comfort foods........Hes among the few who eat to live and not the other way around........LOL.....so HUMBLE POHA it is today.........except ill show you how it need not be humble at all....................

Poha is beaten rice and looks like this..........

you get it in two varieties thick and thin. The thick one is used to make  a meal and the thin one is used to snack on......Now to why I call it humble......well by itself its rather ordinary its after all just beaten rice , right???? Also its easy to cook........it doesnt need any elaborate cooking methods or fancy utensils..........Its plain and simple - so humble.........okie okie its humble becoz I said so yeah thats my fav line when I cant think of a better reason..........

So here it is people Not so humble Poha..................

Ingredients..............

2 cups thick poha ( put it in a colander and run water throught it for one minute......that should get rid of the starch) Now squeeze a lime over it and leave it in the colandar.

4-5 curry leaves

1 tbsp mustard seeds.

3-4 green chillies slit through the centre ( I like to put them like that so i can remove them later so while they give the dish its spiciness noone actually accidentally bites into them)

1 /2 cup peas

1/2 cup groundnuts

1/2 cup chopped coriandar

1/2 chopped tomato (t his is imp dont chop the tomato too finely just cut it in 12 pcs roughly)

1 potato peeled and chopped into 12 pcs

2 tbsps sugar or to taste

and salt to taste

Method

Take eight tbspns oil .  when hot add the potatoes. Fry till they are done and then add the mustard seeds, when they crackle, add the curry leaves, and then add the green chillies fry for thirty seconds then add the peas and the ground nuts fry for two minutes till the ground nuts are done . then add the turmeric and fry for half a minute and then add the poha...........and tomatoes sugar and salt..................stir for three to five minutes and garnish with lots of coriander..........

Here are the pictures................

So there - is there anything humble about that poha????...........with potatoes that fulfill your pure carb desires and peas and groundnuts and tomatoes............this poha is a great way of having a light dinner...........Its easy to prepare and and light on the stomach too....................

A great accompaniment for this poha is green groundnut chutney......... but Ill leave the recipe for another day.........sooon .........I promise...............

Vegetable Biryani as colorful as holi..........

If its Holi today , its got to be colorful

Everybody Happy Holi!!!!!!!!!. Hope you guys are having a riot spraying each other with color and water.........As for me I'm allergic to powder of any kind especially if its thrown at me or even if my nose manages to sniff it...........so well no throwing of colors for me ........But heh its holi and I am going to play with colors today, only my colors are wee different..................you can eat themmmmmmmm ......I got up today and said to myself think holi Sanjana think color..........okie red, green, yellow, white..................Yep its got all these colors.............its Vegetable Biryani guys............

A quick call to my dear friend Sandhya who is my other instant salvation when Im in culinary distress...........and she says just put this and that and some more of this and that and then viola veg biryani and I am like Puhleasssssssse! How many times do I have to tell you to give me proportions , gee you cant trust me to do it by andaaaaaz..........for heavens sake that would be catastrophic. But nah she is the andaaz queen..........Ill tell you a thing about all these andaaz queens, by the way its their way of not telling you the right recipe.........stupid they dont want you to cook as well as they do...........so I tell her that for the umpteenth time........LOL yeah shes my friend right so I can tell her anything......anyways so she tries to remember the proportions and a couple of quick jottings and the recipe is written a few arrows going upward and a few downward...............

Time now for my second line of action google for it on one hot stove my second cooking SOS and ofcourse trust Nupur to have it listed  and that too so well chronicled i thought to myself why bother taking the pictures shes done such a good job of it herself. Check out Nupurs biryani at http://onehotstove.blogspot.com/2007/02/vegetable-biryani-for-crowd.html. 

Okie you guys might think that everytime i take a recipe down I make it........well think again.........but just coz this blog is new Im going to do it alrite??????//

im going to quickly give you a recap......k

Basmati Rice ( kohinoor Rice its a tad expensive but believe me you wont regret it)= 200gms

Wash the basmati thrice to remove the starch. and then parboil it in salted water ......

For the masala layer= Grind together the following ingredients

3 onions sliced and fried in ghee till nicely pink

4 green chilles the spicier ones if you please

1/2 cup fresh coriander sprigs

1 elaichi seeds

6-7 flakes garlic

1" pc of ginger.

For the vegetables.

11/2 cup of cauliflower florets 

1 cup of peas

1/2 cup of french beans

1/2 cup of carrots

Method. Put all the veg in a bowl and add enough water to cover and cook . Boil enough to cook the vegetables while still maintaining theri crispness. remove from fire and strain. Please reserve the stock you going to use it later.

For the garnish

1 onion sliced and fried in gheet till crispy brown

2 potatoes fingers deep fried till golden brown

1/2 cup cashewnuts fried till golden brown

1/2 cup raising fried till they puff ( remove immediately so they dont burn)

Lots of finely chopped fresh coriander

few circular slices of tomato and cucumber.

Method: Take ghee in a pan . when hot add 1/2 tsp turmeric  and 1 tbsp of red Kashmiri chilli powder stir it once and quickly add 2 tomatoes finely chopped . ( I like to use kashmiri chilli as it gives the dish color and its not so spicy) fry the tomatoes nicely now add 1 capsicum finely chopped ( mark I did not add capsicum to the other veg that were parboiled coz capsicums taste batter when they are crunchy.........and even parboiling them kills their flavor........ofcourse thats just my opinion and this is my blog............LOL.) awrite once this is done add the ground masala...........NOw fry this masals well until it starts leaving the sides then add the star ingredient of this dish " everest Shahi Biryani masala" rougly 11/2 tbsp  and salt and 1/2 cup of youghurt whipped well...........stir in the youghurt nicely so that it evenly spreads.........now add salt and 2 tbspn of sugar...................yes sugar.............it actually accentuates the flavors of the dish...........and gives it a subtle taste which is not sweet.  okie gravey is all ready add the stock to this mix and another 1/2 cup of water ( i always  put some water in the mixer after ive removed the ground masala - gee i don t know any Indian who doesnt - besides its better than adding plain water, no??) okie now bring the gravy to a nice boil simmer for few minutes but not for too long we dont want to kill those vegetables. okie switch off the gas, its time now to assemble the biryani

Take a thick bottomed vessel ( i use the bottom of my cooker -it works beautifully) apply ghee to the bottom. then sprinkle some browned onion on it then a layer of rice , then a layer of vegetable gravy, a layer of brown onions again, a layer of cashew and raisins, a layer of potato chips, a sprinkle of coriander leaves. now repeat all over again to finish the rice.........just divide it in a way that you end up with garnish on top and not rice........LOL that wouldnt look as pretty.........

Now add 1/2 cup saffron milk over the top.

okie another thing i like to do at this point is take a steel cup and put some whole spices in it and just place the cup over the rice.........my husband abhors whole spices so for those of you who do and dont like to bite in to whole pepper this is what you can do to get the flavor while omiting the spice....okie time to close the vessel with a lid . Make wheat dough and stick dough over the top of the vessel and lid so that steam doesnt leave..............now keep this thich bottomed vessel over an iron skillet so that its not in direct touch with the fire......keep the fire on sim or the slowest you can and cook for 1/2 an hour.............

I promise you when you open the vesselllllllllllllyou wont have to call out to the family for lunch......theyll make their way to the table on their own.............

alright to go along this biryani my family likes a raita .........

ingredients for the raita

2 onions choppped finely

2 tomatoes chopped finely

1/2 cup finely cut fresh coriander

salt to taste

and 1/2 tsp red chilli powder

just whisk the youghurt nicely and mix in all the ingredients...........theres not much fuss to this raita but it tastes simply great with a vegetable biryani.

okie for those of you who are like me lazy as hell and hate to go through all the works and still want to make this biryani...........what i like to do is make the veg gravy the previous day..........i generally do that in the evening when im free ...........so the next day when i have guests im only doing the assembly and the garnish.............It helps and you dont end up being tired and wanting to turn your guests away the moment they show up.........LOL. There have been times in my life when ive wanted to do just that.............hey i hope you give this recipe a shot.......yeah i did plan to follow Nupurs recipe first but im no good when it comes to sticking to the rules..........I must do my own thing..................lol..............so i tweaked her recipe a bit.........just so I could call it mine.............LOL...........no seriously i tweak with recipes mostly becoz i dont have an ingredient or if i want to adapt it to our palates...........