Spinach Lentil Soup - Lunch for one

Spinach Lentil Soup
(Click for larger image)

Cooking for oneself can get extremely boring and uninspiring even for a food blogger. Sandwich, salad or soup is easily made for one person, without going through the bother of making a 3 part Indian meal like roti, vegetable and dal. It is also a good way to compensate a heavy dinner buffet of the previous night. A soup like this is a perfect alternative to skipping a meal. The latter, as a nutrition doctor, I will never advocate.

Any fresh greens can be used instead of spinach and I have used Masoor Dal which are one of the lightest and fastest cooking lentils around. The 1.5L Hawkins Pressure Cooker is a blessing when cooking for one or a small family of two or for making your baby's meals. Whether it is cooking dal or rice in a matter of minutes, or making a light gravy vegetable in the cooker itself - this is one piece of kitchen equipment that I find indispensable.



Printable Version of Recipe

1. Wash 1/4 cup masoor dal well and place it directly in the smallest pressure cooker you have. To this add a cup of well washed spinach leaves, discarding the thicker stems. Also add 1-2 cloves of peeled garlic.
2. Add a cup of water and pressure cook for 2 whistles and 5 minutes on sim.
3. Once the contents have cooled, puree finely in a blender. Keep aside.
4. In a small saucepan, heat 1/2 tsp oil or ghee.
5. Add a tiny pinch of asafoetida, 1/4 tsp of cumin seeds and 1/4 tsp of ground black pepper. Once the cumin seeds splutter, add the pureed soup and required quantity of water to achieve the desired consistency. Bring to a boil. Season with salt and some more pepper if required. Remove to a bowl.

Serve hot with soup sticks, bread or a salad on the side.

This is a delicately flavoured soup that will also make a good option of stage 2 solid food for your baby. You can leave out the black pepper and take care to wash the spinach extra well, even if you buy pre-washed leaves. For an older baby, you can soak bread slice or roti pieces for more texture and a more filling meal.
Next time, I will add more cumin seeds, because the taste of the fried seeds and their crunchy texture was quite yummy!

And hey, my favourite Blogger is offering 4 Dynamic Views - Check out the links below and tell me which you like...I love all four and can't decide which one looks better.

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Simple cauliflower mash - Gobhi bharta

Dear Readers,
I have managed to update the recipe index and the blog template after ages. Hope the index is helpful and the colours of the template are cheery enough for you to spend time on the blog.
Your constructive feedback is welcome.


Coming to this post, this is one of the simplest ways of preparing cauliflower, as I discovered only recently. A perfect recipe for a beginner and quick to prepare. Delicately spiced by way of a simple tadka (tempering) this mash is a good match for rotis, bread and as a low-carb filling for masala dosa alike. I served it with toasted bread for a light dinner and it tasted just right. 

All this onion-tomato-ginger-garlic fry up with lots of other spices works fine but sometimes you just crave the simple taste of veggies with some essential spices that gently lend their flavour to the dish without getting overwhelming. This is just that sort of recipe. If you are a newbie in the kitchen, I'd highly recommend you try this with the freshest cauliflower you can find and the results will surprise you.

Please choose fresh cauliflower with tightly bound florets and no discolouration as it is the star of this dish.

Ingredients

2 cups cauliflower florets (broken into medium size)

1 medium potato, peeled and cubed

 1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp rice bran or any other cooking oil

Pinch of asafoetida

1 green chilli, finely minced

1 tsp finely minced ginger

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

Directions

1. Soak the cauliflower florets in salted water for 10-15 minutes while you cut the potatoes, chillies, ginger and get the ingredients ready.
2. In a pan with a lid, place 2 cups water with the salt and turmeric powder. Bring it to a boil. Drain the cauliflower and add this to the boiling water with the cubed potato. 
3. This will take around 8 minutes to be fork tender. Drain the boiled vegetables, transfer to a bowl and mash with a fork to a rough puree. Do not throw away the residual water. Use it in soup, rasam or dal.
4. In a small wok, heat the oil. Add the asafoetida,splutter the cumin and mustard seeds. Saute the chilli and ginger for a few seconds and transfer the tempering to the boiled, mashed vegetables.
5. Lightly mix around with a fork to flavour the vegetables evenly. Check for salt and adjust if required.

This tasted divine to my taste buds and the pure tastes of the vegetables came shining through, with the ginger giving the right spice hit.


Try this for your toddlers to go with rotis or soft bread, I'm sure they will like it too.


A lot of my bachelor friends on Twitter have been asking me to post bachelor-friendly recipes and this one is the first of many to come.

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Arisi Upma - A breakfast in minutes

Steaming hot upma is served

This recipe is another example of how simple traditional Tamil Brahmin cuisine is. No frills, no laundry-list of ingredients and yet divine in taste.

In earlier times, rice rava used to be painstakingly prepared at home by picking, washing and draining the rice. It then used to be left to dry on layers of old muslin cloth in the shade. The rice would then be hand-pounded into a coarse powder. My mother and grandmother still follow the procedure except that in the last step, the food processor has replaced the hand-pounding. Thankfully. 


As much as I love traditions, I am deprived of this virtue called patience. My husband will tell you the same thing. So I pick this packet of readymade Idli Rava from the supermarket and that makes life a lot easier for me.



Idli rava / rice rava (rice that is broken into a coarse rava) is a very useful ingredient to have around the kitchen. It cooks in a jiffy compared to whole rice or regular rava (semolina). You can use this to make delicious Upma Kozhakattai - which is one of the lesser known Tamilian tiffin items that I have never seen in a restaurant menu. This was one of the earliest entries on this blog.

You can also soak this instead of rice to grind idli batter. A simple rice porridge can be prepared in minutes for your toddler at a moment's notice if you have idli rava at home. And of course this breakfast recipe that you can virtually make in the time your family takes to settle on the dining table. 

This makes a quick weekday breakfast. To make it a more sumptuous breakfast, serve it with sambar and a variety of chutneys.

The coconut oil used in this recipe gives a deep aroma to the upma, but it's not a must really. Use any other vegetable oil or ghee instead.

This is way faster than the regular upma because you need not roast the rava nor chop any chillies, ginger, onions etc. and this cooks in almost half the time as regular rava.

So you have no excuses not to try this out. Just make sure you add 'Idli Rava' to your grocery list the next time :)

Arisi Upma - Broken rice upma

Serves 3

Time taken - Under 10 minutes

Ingredients

1-2 tsp edible coconut oil

Small pinch of asafoetida

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1-2 dried red chillies

1 tsp udad dal (ulutham paruppu)

1 sprig curry leaves (optional)

1 cup idli rava

3 cups water

1 tsp salt

1-2 tbsp scraped fresh coconut

1 small piece of jaggery

1/4 cup frozen peas (optional)

Directions

1. In a large non stick kadai, heat the coconut oil.
2. Stir in the asafoetida and splutter the mustard seeds. Add the udad dal and fry till lightly golden. Fry the curry leaves if using for a few seconds and the dried red chillies.
3. Add 3 cups of water, salt, coconut scrapings, frozen green peas (if using) and jaggery. Let this come to a rolling boil.
4. Reduce the flame to sim and add the idli rava while stirring constantly to avoid lumps.
5. Cover with a tight fitting lid and cook until the water evaporates - this takes under 3-4 minutes. Give it a good stir. Check for salt. If you think the upma is too dry and the rice rava needs to be cooked some more, add few more tablespoons of water, cover and cook on low flame for 2-3 minutes more.
6. Once this water is absorbed and the rava is cooked, turn off the flame. Keep covered for 2-3 minutes. This will make the grains absorb the moisture from the steam and fluff up some more.
7. Serve hot garnished with some more fresh coconut if required.

Note:

• The jaggery will not make this taste sweet, but according to my granny rice-rava has a slight bitter tinge about it which this jaggery will neutralize.
• The original arisi upma recipe does not use peas. This is just to make it more filling and add to the protein content.

15 June 2010

Edited to add- Comment from my Dad on email after seeing this post:

Unnudaya uppumavai partha udaneye appdiye sappidanumbola irukku. Moreover, the garnishing is TOP. God bless you. Appa.

This made me so happy this morning :)

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Simplest ever yogurt muffins

Ever since his famous No Knead Bread, I have been in love with Mark Bittman. Needless to say I was so excited when S got me his 'How to cook everything vegetarian' a couple of years ago. That book is an encyclopedia and even for someone who has been cooking vegetarian stuff all these years, I discover new ideas all the time. His muffins chapter has a simple muffins recipe and all the modifications / substitutions you can make to bake your favourites. On a Sunday morning, these seemed like the perfect things to go with a cup of milk as a light breakfast to precede a heavy lunch.

This is my adaptation of his recipe, where I've avoided eggs and used some cornmeal for some a bit of crunchy texture. You can omit the cornmeal and use all AP flour. The recipe can be doubled easily, this quantity was just perfect for our family of three.

The simplest ever yogurt muffins

3/4 cup AP flour

1/4 cup corn meal

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp oil or melted butter

3/4 cup yogurt

2 tbsp - strong fruit infusion / flavoured tea [The original recipe uses one egg, I used this instead]

Handful of raisins or rehydrated dried berries [I used dried blueberries]

• Preheat oven at 400 F or 200 Celsius.
• Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl with a fork.
• In a small bowl, whisk the wet ingredients (oil, yogurt and tea).
• Make a well in the large bowl with the flour and add the wet ingredients, bring them together with a spatula until mixed yet lumpy. Do not try to over mix or beat.
• Line a muffin tray with paper cups or oil the cups.
• Spoon into 6 medium sized muffins and bake for 15 minutes till golden brown.
• Eat warm.

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Pumpkin Date Cake

Since Christmas, actually since December, I've been on a baking spree and the reason is a certain person - a young woman who is here to take care of my son for some hours each day - it has freed  some hours to do the things I like or to do just nothing - which was completely impossible for the last one year since Atri was born. So I'm back to baking for the few friends I have here, for my wonderful neighbouring aunty-uncle and for my little one of course. He is quite the foodie and shows sincere appreciation for everything his mom cooks up. After devouring Shammi's carrot-banana cake on his first birthday, he quite liked it that he got a new cake to eat on his 13th month birthday. The rum-soaked Christmas cakes I baked was out of bounds for him as I didn't want him getting hooked on to Old Monk this early in life - although some of my relatives and friends think otherwise.

He has been eating Pumpkin puree since he started on weaning foods six months ago, hence the familiar taste of pumpkin in this cake along with iron-rich dates that play the role of natural sweetener, replacing most of the sugar in this one. Hope you and your little ones enjoy this.

Ingredients and directions

Preheat the oven at 25o Celsius.

In a bowl mix well the following:

1 cup pumpkin - date puree (2 cups golden pumpkin cubes and 10 dates, pressure cooked and pureed)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp yogurt

1 tbsp vinegar

1/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

Sift the following together:

1 1/2 cups flour or 1 cup plain flour & 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon powder

1 tsp ginger powder

Optional : Some chopped dried fruits or nuts, I used some chopped dried fruits soaked in juice (1/4 cup)

Gently mix the sifted dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Pour into a well oiled 8" square tin, or line a muffin tin with paper cups and fill upto 3/4th (makes 12 muffins).

Bake at 175 Celsius until a tester comes clean; 30-40 minutes for cake and around 20 minutes for muffins.


Cool on a rack and cut into slices. Serve with coffee or tea. Great when served for a kiddies' party too.

And that's me enjoying a slice of cake with my tea!

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