Spring Onion Paratha - For Roti Mela

With my kid taking away all my time, nowadays our weeknight dinner has become endless saga of dosa's. Just put some extra effort on the weekend and you have the week's dinner ready. It seems like ages since I made roti's or chappati's for dinner.

When I came across the Roti Mela, thought why not make something different for this friday night (of course late dinner :) ).

Although Iam a big fan of stuffed paratha's, I rarely make them. Somehow I could not make it right every time I try to make one. So I always choose to mix the stuffing directly to the flour while kneading be it methi, mooli or any other vegetables.This time I decided to use Spring onions.

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour

3 sprigs of spring onion

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp jeera power

2 tblsp olive oil

salt to taste

Method:

Mix all the ingredients and knead the flour by adding water little by little into a tight dough.

Knead well, cover with a plastic wrap and allow it to rest for an hour.

Roll out into roti's and cook them on a tawa turning both sides till brown spots appear on both sides. Serve it with any curry and a dollop of yogurt.

Eggless Dates Walnut Cake

Came across this Incredible Date cake from Shilpa's Aayi's receipes. It was very simple and since I had the right ingredients tried the recipe the same day.Can you beleive it!!! I was on a baking mood, and morever we had a trip planned that weekend and thought it would be a nice snack for us. I added lots of walnuts and cut the oil to 1/4 cup, the taste turned out excellent.

Ingredients:


2 cups chopped dates
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup oil
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chopped walnuts


Method:
Soak the dates in warm milk for couple of hours or until soft. Remove the seeds if it has one.
Chop into pieces and grind to a smooth paste along with sugar. Add in the oil and give a quick pulse to give it good mix.
Sieve the flour and baking soda together. Add the flour little by little to the dates mixture.
Do not over mix the batter.


Butter and flour the 8 inch cake pan.Preheat the oven for 350F
Transfer the batter and bake the cake for 35 - 40 mins or until a tooth pic comes out clean.




Notes: 
You can also add an egg to the recipe and it also turns out great.
The colour of the cake pretty much depends on the colour of the dates

Stuffed Bell Peppers - JFI Bell Peppers

Stuffed Bell Peppers with Mozzarella cheese



I made this dish a week before and it was lying in my drafts waiting to be posted.This weekend when I was cruising through the blogs I came across the JFI event for the month and was surprised to see the theme "Bell Peppers". Wow!!! What a coincidence.
So thought its hightime to publish my long pending post.
When Indira announced her first JFI, I was not able to participate in it as I was busy packing for my move to chennai. Its been 2 years now and here Iam ready to take part in JFI for the first time.
Usually I just use potatoes to make the suffing, but this time I made some variation and added mushrooms and topped it up with some mozzarella cheese.Its better to have it as a main course rather than a starter as the potatoes and cheese fills up your appetite.Have it with the salad of your choice on the side.
Here is the recipe...


Ingredients:

2 medium Bell peppers (any colour)
10 small button mushrooms
2 medium potatoes
1 medium onion
4 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1 green chili
1 tsp jeera
3 tblsp bread crumbs
shredded mozzarella

Method:
Boil the potatoes, peel the skin and mash it.
Add 2 tsp of oil in a pan , add jeera ,chopped chillies and garlic to it when heated.
Add the chopped onion and fry till translucent
Now add the sliced mushroom and fry till the mushrooms shrink in size.
Add potatoes, chili powder and salt.Mix well
Cook well till the potatoes blend well, add the bread crumbs at this stage and give it a stir.
The mixture should be thick and not soggy
Allow it to cool for some time.


Stuffing the Bell peppers.

Preheat the oven to 200C
Cut the top of the Bell pepper's and carefully core the seeds from it.
Bast the Bell pepper with spoon of oil on both sides.
Stuff it up with the potato mixture.Bake in the oven for 30 mins
At this stage sprinkle the shredded cheese over the top of the bell peppers and bake for another 10 mins or until the cheese melts.Serve hot.

From Other Blogs I

Ever since I started blogging again, I have been trying out various recipes from other blogs rather than doing my own.There's so much interesting stuff out there.
Last weekend I baked some potato rolls from Pushpa's blog.Came out great and liked it very much.Lots to bake from her blog, bookmarked some of my favourites goodies, will try those as and when time permits. Here's the picture of the yummy potato rolls.


Thanks pushpa for such simple baking recipes

Pineapple bread

Pineapple bread

Felt like baking something this weekend, but was not in a mood to try something new.
So I took the good old banana bread recipe , did some modifications and just used canned pineapple chunks instead of banana.
Turned out very flavourful and tasty.
Should Definitely try with a scoop of Ice cream.


Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 egg
1/2 stick butter/ 1/4 cup softened butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 small tin chopped pineapple
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the Oven to 180C
Mix in the butter and sugar.Beat till smooth and frothy.
Sieve the flour and baking powder and soda mixture three times.
Beat the egg separately and add it to the butter mixture little by little, while mixing simultaneously.
Add the flour mixture and mix well.The mixture will be very thick at this stage. Fold in the pineapple pieces at this stage and mix well.Add the remaining juice also and mix well.
Grease the baking tray with butter, dust it with some flour.Pour in the mixture and place it in the preheated oven.

Bake for 45 -50 min's.The time can vary depending on the oven.So check periodically after 40 min's,a knife or toothpick inserted in the middle should come clean.