Green Pasta (for the kids)

Not sure about other kids, but mine refuse to eat spinach. Or any leaves. They love broccoli and most vegetables but hate spinach. But I've been trying very hard to get them to eat it. This is what we made for dinner tonight and they actually liked it. I wouldn't say loved but they did like it, and that's a huge step. And said they would like to have it again. Sometime.

Green Pasta
(Pasta with a lovely creamy spinach sauce)

1 cup Pasta, feel free to use any kind, cooked
3 cups Spinach
2-3 Garlic cloves
1 cup Plain Yogurt
1 tsp Salt
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese, grated, plus more for garnish
1/2 cup Pine nuts, toasted (optional or feel free to substitute any nuts that you like)

In a blender, add the spinach, garlic, salt, yogurt and parmesan and blend to a smooth sauce.

Put the pasta in a pan on medium heat and add the spinach sauce. Stir to combine and cook together for a few minutes. 

Spoon the pasta into bowls/plates. Top with grated parmesan and toasted pine nuts.

Really quite nice.

Spinach Raita

I had this for lunch at a friend's and though I'm not a big yogurt fan, I loved this one. And it's so super simple!

Enjoy.

Sonu's Spinach Raita

Clean and chop spinach leaves.

Put 1-2 cups of salted water to boil. When boiling, drop spinach in it for 3-4 minutes.

Drain well. Keep aside.

Beat yogurt lightly with a fork. Add salt and crushed jeera. Add the boiled palak, chill for ½ hour and serve with roti or rice.

Apple Salad

I was asked to bring a salad to a dinner last night. My family and I brainstormed on a fun new salad. Someone first suggested zucchini and cucumber together because of the similar textures and flavors. Then green apple and green bell pepper for crunch and color. I have a good yogurt dressing recipe, so decided to go with that. And for extra crunch, we decided to add peanuts. In the last minute I added some crushed red pepper for extra zing. It was a true culmination of ideas.

It reminded me of a video of chef Grant Achatz coming up with ideas for new dishes - something called Flavor Bouncing. Watch the video - it's very cool. How exciting to be doing this for a living!!

(As the salad was fast disappearing, I had to take a photograph quickly with my phone camera, so excuse the photo!)

Apple (and Bell Pepper and Zucchini and Cucumber) Salad

1 cup Apple, preferably green apple, peeled (optional) and chopped

1 cup Green Bell Pepper, seeded, cored and chopped

1 cup Cucumber, peeled and chopped

1 cup Zucchini, chopped

Dressing:

1 cup plain Yogurt

2 tsp Powdered Sugar

1 tsp Vinegar

A pinch of Salt

Garnishing:

2 tbsp Mint Leaves, chopped

1/4 cup Peanuts, crushed

2 tsp Crushed Red Pepper, or to taste (optional)

Heat a pot of water to boiling. Drop in the bell pepper and zucchini, and quickly blanch for a minute and drain. Cool completely.

Store the chopped cucumber and apple in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Combine all ingredients for the dressing (except for the mint), keep aside. Just before serving, toss the salad with the dressing, garnish with the mint leaves and serve.

Sit back and enjoy the compliments! :)

This is a forgiving recipe. Feel free to use substitutions, or leave out any of the vegetables you don't enjoy. Also a nice touch would be to cut the veggies into long strips. The dressing is a keeper recipe though.

Apple Pachadi

In the hot summer in India, there's nothing nicer than these cool pachadis. Pachadi is an Indian term for plain yogurt, mixed with fruit or vegetable and seasoned with spices. The most common ones are cucumber, onion and tomato. Apple pachadi is quite unusual but its absolutely wonderful!



Apple Pachadi

1 Apple, cut fine
2 cups plain Yogurt
2-3 Green Chillies, cut fine
1 tbsp Ground Coconut
1 tsp Mustard Seeds
1 tsp Urad Dal
2-3 Cilantro Leaves, chopped fine
Salt, to taste

Grind the coconut and green chillies together.

Mix together with the yogurt and the apples.

Heat a teaspoon of oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds and urad dal. When the mustard seeds start to splutter, add to the yogurt-apple mixture.

Sprinkle with cilantro leaves and add salt to taste. Mix together.

Gram Flour Curry

This is a shortcut, quick curry made with gram flour and yogurt. Its delicious with rice and tastes a lot like a more (buttermilk) kozhambu.


Gram Flour (Besan) Pachadi

1 tbsp Gram Flour
1 cup Yogurt
1 tsp Mustard Seeds
1 tsp Urad Dal/ split Black Gram
2 Green Chillies
4-5 Curry Leaves
a pinch of Asoefetida
2 tbsp Rasam Powder
1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder
Salt, to taste
a spring of Coriander Leaves, chopped, for garnish

Mix salt, gram flour and yogurt. Heat some oil in a pan, add the mustard seeds, urad dal, green chillies, asoefetida and curry leaves. Heat for 2 minutes.

Add the rasam powder and turmeric powder. Stir and remove from heat.

Yogurt Cake with Berries

I've had this recipe bookmarked for a very long time. When I was doing a bit of "spring cleaning" yesterday, I found this and almost sprinted to the kitchen, wondering why I hadn't bothered to make it all this while. Its one recipe where you will almost definitely have all the ingredients on hand and it promised to be delicious.


Yogurt Cake with Berries
(original recipe from here)

2 eggs
1 cup plain yogurt
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla essence
a handful of mixed berries

Preheat oven to 180 deg. C.

Combine yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla and oil in a bowl until completely mixed.

Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda together.

Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients gradually until well combined. Sprinkle the berries on top - they will gradually sink into the cake as it bakes.

Pour into a round tin and bake for about 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.


Absolutely perfect, soft and delicious.

This is also off to dear Siri for her Yogurt event - can't wait for the round-up!