Strawberry and Kiwi Smoothie

I have been baking a lot.. No posts about that cause i am in between trying different recipes and many of these tries are at night when i am free, so no postable photos. I know the photos i post are not the great photos we see on other food blogs. But thats the best i can do right now. 

 Any ho, so I figured i really really needed something healthy to eat or Drink. Strawberry is in season and as you know from my pancake post i like strawberrys. so here goes. i got this one from momtastic. Really nice blog and a nice smoothie.

Strawberry and Kiwi Smoothie:

Ingredients:

1 cup strawberrys

1 kiwi

1-2 Tbs Honey

1 cup strawberry flavored yogurt

1 cup ice.

Method:

Blitz it all up and enjoy

Chicken Handi

I love to make restuarant style foods at home. It certainly does not mean that i dont eat out. But when i cook something thats tastes like a restaurant dish i feel a little proud. hehe. dont know thats just me.

Anyways, one of the things that we order when having take out is Chicken Handi. Handi as seen below

is a baked clay dish. It was originally used to cook food in and our elders say that food tasted better in such cooking utensils rather then the new age non-stick cookware. These days the handis are used to decorative purposes. The cooked meal is served in these varnished handis. 

Anyhow, back to the recipe. I got this recipe from a Pakistani wife blog but it was quite sometime ago and i dont remember the address.  Please send me the address if anyone knows it, would love to give the due credit to the wonderful person who posted the recipe.

I am posting the original recipe. I didnt add the coconut as i am not a big fan of coconut in currys. Thats the only reason I dont eat thai currys as well.

Ingredients:

Chicken Boneless     1/2 kg

Onions                      2 medium, chopped 

Ginger- Garlic paste 1 Tbs

Tomatoes                  3 mediums, chopped

Red chilli powder    1 tsp

Salt                           to taste

Qasuri Methi (dried fenugreek leaves) 1 tsp

Green Chillies          3 chopped

Black pepper            1/2 tsp

Garam Masala          1/2 tsp

White cumin             1 tsp

Yogurt                      1/4 cup

Cream                      1/4 cup

Coconut powder       2 tsp

Flour                        1Tbs

Method:

- Heat  4 -5 tbs cooking oil in a Cooking pot, fry the cubed chicken on high flame so they retain their shape. Fry until they are lightly golden and tender. Take them out.

-Turn the flame to medium high heat. Put chopped onion in the same oil and fry them umtil golden.

-Add ginger-garlic paste and fry until aromatic. Now add cumin and tomatoes with a little water. Cover and cook for 10 min on low flame.

- Uncover to see if the tomatoes have become tender and loosenes their shape. Turn the flame on medium high again and cook the tomato mix until it leaves oil. Add the spices and qasuri methi. You can take tomato mix and blitz it with a hand blender if you want a smother gravy. Just be careful with it, the mix is very hot and dont do it with the pot on fire.

- Add the chicken back in . Add yogurt and cream. Cook a little. After 5 min making sure the chicken is thoroughly cooked add flour* .Turn the flame low, cover and cook for 5 min. Garnish and serve hot with naan and Raita.

* I added the flour this time but i preferred the look of my gravy without it. so next time i might not be adding this as well.



Kachumber Salad.

This salad accompanys many traditional dishes in my house. Its easy to make, refreshing i would say healthy as well. Its quite an open recipe, you can add more veggies to it, like radishes, carrots, lettuce. I like it simple. so here goes. 

Ingredients:
1 cucumber diced.
1 tomato diced
1 onion diced
juice of one lemon.
salt and pepper to taste.

Method:

combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix. Chill in the fridge and serve.

Favorite Breakfast......Pancakes

 I really really love pancakes. And more than that i love to have pancakes with strawberrys. Since its Feb and strwberrys are available for half the price then the rest of the year. Anyways......I tried lots of recipes and this is one recipe that have given me the best results yet. It can be made two ways. If you add more milk you can have them a little thinner, if you add the amount of milk in the recipe you will have cakier pancakes, we have had the both ways and love them either way.


Ingredients:
1 cup all Purpose flour
1 tbs  white sugar
2 tsp  baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup shortening, melted
1/2 tsp Vanilla

Method:
- Mix the wet Ingredients. Sift the dry ingredients in a seperate bowl.
-Mix the wet and dry ingredients.
-This is how the batter will be with 3/4 cup of milk. dont over mix.

- I add about 1/4 cup of more milk to make it a little thin.

- Cook them on a medium high heat. Flip them over once you these bubbles on the first side.(if making cakier pancakes reduce the heat and the bubbles will not be this visible)

- Serve with fresh fruit, honey or maple syrup.

Yummm Yummmm

Refreshing cucumber raita

In my house a meal without sides is a rare. But really its not easy for a lazy person like me to think up or look up new sides for my desi foods, belive me there are many. So the easiest and my go to side is a Cucumber Raita. Its refeshing, light, healthy very very easy to make and goes with moslty all the desi food you can think of.

Ingredients:

1 grated    Cucumber

2 tsp         Cumin

1 1/2 cups Yogurt
Milk or Water to thin the yougurt

salt to taste

pepper to taste

corriander for garnish

Method:

- Grate the cucumber

- In a bowl Mix yogurt with milk or water to a consistency you like.

- Dry roast the cumin in a pan until its fraganant. Put it on a side to cool a little.

-Add the cucumber to the yogurt, add the spices and cumin. Mix. Garinsh with chopped corriander and serve cold.