Easy Vegetable Cutlet with beetroot potato and peas

Cutlets are my all time favorite vegetable snack. But somehow I never tried preparing them at home. This was my first attempt to prepare vegetable cutlet and YESSS... it came out very well :)

So here comes the ingredients and method to prepare tasty vegetable cutlets at home.

Beetroot : 1 

Potato : 3 

Green Peas - 1 cup

Finely chopped Onion : 1 big 

Ginger (Chopped) : 1 tbsp

Garlic (Chopped) : 1 tbsp

Green chilli (Chopped) : 3

Turmeric powder : 1 tsp

Coriander Powder : 1 tsp

Red chilly powder : 2 tsp

Pepper powder : 1 tsp

Garam Masala : 1 tsp

Bread crumbs & Rava mixed: 1 cup

Maida mixed with water  : 2 cup

Salt : As required

Oil : for frying

:- Pressure cook the potatoes and beetroot. Microwave peas or you can pressure cook it with very little water till done. Peel the potatoes, beetroot and add peas and mash all of them together. Keep it aside.

:- Take a bowl and mix Maida and water together to form a smooth paste. This should not be a thick paste (watery consistency).

:- Mix Bread crumbs and rava together in a plate and keep it aside for coating the cutlets. Rava will give extra crispiness to the cutlets.

:- Heat oil in a pan and add green chilies,ginger,garlic and onion.Saute until onion turns golden brown. Add chili ,turmeric,coriander,black pepper and garam masala powder.Saute for 2 minutes. Now add mashed vegetables and salt to it mix well and cook for 3 more minutes. Allow this mixture to cool.

:- Now roll out small portions of the mixture into small sized ball and flatten them between your palms to give it shape.

:- Dip each cutlets in the prepared batter and roll in breadcrumbs-rava mix making sure that all sides are nicely and evenly coated.

:- Heat oil in a pan and deep fry the cutlets in medium flame ,turning once in between. Once done transfer to a kitchen tissue.

Serve the tasty cutlets hot with tomato Ketchup and tea.

Tips:-

You can use egg mix instead or Maida.

You can add chopped coriander leaves, carrot and beans to the veg mix.

Watermelon Special Recipe for the summer days

This season watermelons are available everywhere. Watermelon is one of the best fruit you can have during summer days.

This is a simple recipe which you can prepare at home and have it whenever you feel to have something cold and tasty.

First cut the watermelon into half. Now peel the watermelon and cut it into small chunks using a knife. Place this in a bowl and cut all the remaining pieces into very small chunks and mash it using a spoon.

Once you can see small pieces of watermelon and juice in the bowl, add some sugar according to taste and cover the bowl and refrigerate for an hour.

Serve chilled and enjoy.

Kid's Special :- Spinach Soup

Spinach Soup

Ingredients:-
1 tsp ghee
½ tsp jeera
3 black pepper corns
2 garlic cloves
½ chopped onion
½ tsp chopped ginger
1 bowl of cut spinach
½ potato
½ carrot
½ small beetroot (Here I have added one big beetroot so the color of the soup turned red :-))
Salt
2 Bowls Water


Preparation:-

Heat ghee in pressure cooker.

Add jeera, black pepper corns, garlic cloves, chopped onion and chopped ginger.

Saute for a minute and add 1 bowl of cut spinach, potato, carrot and beetroot.

Saute for 3-4 minutes and also add salt to taste.

Add 2 bowls of water to this and pressure cook for around 10 minutes on medium.

Puree this once it is cool. Strain and serve warm to kids.

Note:-
You can add little cream for better taste.

Lunch box recipe - Vegetable rice with soya chunks | Vegetable biriyani

Its very difficult to prepare a complete meal on a weekday morning and also its not very easy to carry a big lunch box to office. Here is an easy and healthy recipe you can prepare in very less time and rush to office.


Ingredients:-

Soya chunks - A handful / As required
Onion - 1
Tomato - 1
Carrot - 1 small
Beans - 5
Gobi/ Cauliflower - A handful / As required
Green chilli - 2
Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tsp (Optional)
Green peas - A handful
Curry leaves - 1 spring

Rice - 1 cup (Basmati / white rice) - I used white rice

Biriyani Masala - 2 tbsp (I use badshah/eastern vegetable biriyani masala)
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Salt - As required

Water - 2 cup  / As required (General measurement is if you are taking 1 cup rice then take 2 cup or water, just double of the quantity of rice)


Preparation :-

Heat oil in a pressure cooker and add onion into it. Saute onion till it is soft and add ginger garlic paste and green chillies to it. Add all the vegetables one by one and saute for 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes also.

Now add the cleaned and drained rice to this and saute for 2 more minutes. Add biriyani masala, turmeric powder, chilli powder and salt and saute for a minute.

Add water to this and check the salt. The salt should be little more which will help to get the proper taste at the end.

Wait for 3 whistles and switch off the flame. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Tips:-
You can use only soya chunks or vegetables to prepare this rice.
Add garam masala powder for better taste.

Kid's special - Beetroot rice

Beetroot is one of the vegetable which is full of nutrients. Beetroot contains folic acid, lowers cholesterol, reduces blood pressure etc etc. This vegetable is very good for growing kids.

This is a very simple recipe and kids will love to eat as it is bit sweet and colorful.

The ingredients required for beetroot rice is as below.

1. Beetroot - 1

2. Green chilli - 1

3. Curry leaves - 1 spring

4. Salt - As required

5. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

6. Ghee - 1 tbsp / As required 

7. Cooked rice - 1 cup

8. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Preparation:-

Cook the rice with salt and keep it aside.

Grate the beetroot and chop green chilli. Heat a kadai and pour ghee into it. Add mustard seeds and curry leaves into it. After a minute add the grated beetroot, turmeric powder and salt into it and cook it till the beetroots are done.

Now mix the cooked rice with the cooked beetroot and stir for a minute. Switch off the flame and keep it covered for five minutes.

Serve hot with curd or pappad. 

Tips:-

You can add cooked peas or small pieces of potato to this rice.

Tasty Palak paneer recipe - Cottage cheese in Spinach gravy

Palak paneer is one of the healthy food you can prepare at home. This is very easy and it will not take much time to prepare.

To prepare homemade fresh paneer refer the post "Home made fresh Paneer - Indian cottage cheese"

Ingredients :-

Palak - 1 bunch
Jeera - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
salt - as required
Green chilli - 2
Onion - 1
Tomato -1
ginger - 1 small piece


Preparation :-

Remove stems and clean the palak leaves with lots of water and keep it aside. The palak should be cleaned thoroughly as there are chances of dirt and mud get stuck on the leaves.

Heat a kadai with little ghee/oil in it. Add jeera and let it splutter for a minute. Add the cleaned palak leaves and cover the kadai. Stir it in between and after 3-4 minutes you can see all the palak turned to dark green color and the volume gets reduced. Switch off the flame.

Now let this cool for sometime then grind it with green chillies.

Now grind tomato, ginger, onion together and keep it aside. Heat oil in a kadai and add the onion-tomato paste and saute well for 5 minutes. Once the oil gets separated add the ground palak leaves to this and saute well till oil separates. Cook for 5 minutes and check that the raw smell/taste of the palak is not there.

Add some water and cover it and cook well. Add palak cubes to this mix and cook for some more time. Once done switch off the flame and serve hot with roti/chapathi.

Tips:-
To make this gravy rich just add some milk cream once cooked.
Palak can be fried before putting into gravy.

Besan Ka Chilla (Cheela)- An easy breakfast

This easy breakfast is prepared with besan (gram flour). To prepare Chilla you need the below ingredients.

Gram flour - 2 cups
Onion chopped - 1
Tomato chopped - 1
Green Chilli Chopped - 2
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Jeera - 1/2 tsp
Crushed dried chilli - 1/2 tsp (Optional)
Grated carrot - 1 small (Optional)
oil - As required.
Water - 1 cup

Mix all the ingredients gram flour, onion, tomato, green chilli, turmeric powder, jeera, crushed dried chilli (optional), carrot (optional) and salt in a bowl with little water. Continue to add water till the batter becomes to a dosa batter consistency. Taste the batter to check the salt.

Now take a dosa tava, heat it and pour some oil into it. Now Pour a spoon full of mix on the tava(the same way as we make dosa) and spread it into circular motion. Cover it for a minute.

When one side is ready flip it over and cook the other side as well. When the chilla is ready remove it from tava and serve hot with sauce or chutney. Repeat the steps for the remaining batter.

Note:-
You can add grated vegetables like carrot, beans etc to make it colorful.
Add coriander leaves to the batter if required.

Vegetable Rava Upma

Here is another easy breakfast recipe, the vegetable rava upma. Many people don’t like upma but if you add some vegetables like carrot and beans then definitely it will be a hit. Here I am going to prepare upma with the ingredients listed in the below table.

S. No	Items Required	Quantity
1	Rava	1 cup
2	Musturd seeds	1 tsp
3	Urad dal	1 tsp
4	Dried Red chilli	1
5	Ginger Finely Choped	1 tsp
6	Green Chilli finely chopped	1
7	Onion dinely chopped	1
8	Tomato finely chopped	1
9	Salt	As required
10	Curry Leaves	Few Leaves
11	Water	1 n 1/2 Cup
12	Carrot Finely chopped	1 small
13	Beans finely chopped	4
14	Oil	1 tsp
15	Grated Coconut(optional)

Chopped Veggies for the upma preperation

Step 1: 

Heat a kadai and pour oil. Once the oil is hot add mustard seeds, Urad dal , dried red chilli and allow it to splutter.

Step 2: 

Now add the finely chopped onion, green chilli and ginger into it. Add curry leaves also.

Step 3:

Once the onion becomes soft add chopped tomatoes and cook till tomatoes are soft. Add carrot and beans and sauté again till all the vegies are cooked.

Step 4:

Now add water into this mix and put salt as much as required. Allow it to boil. Once the water comes to boil then add rava slowly into this and stir continuously. It’s important to stir otherwise the lumps will get formed.

Step 5:

Once the rava absorbs all the water, add grated coconut into it. If you don’t like to add coconut then leave this step as it is optional. 

Step 6: 

Cover and cook the upma for 2 minutes. Dont forget to stir in between.

Step 7:
The tasty tasty upma is ready to serve now. You can serve it with chutney, Achar, Sauce, banana or sugar.

The final product : The Vegetable Upma

Beginners guide :- How to knead the perfect dough for chapathi

I love chapathi's especially with chicken curry :) But i always hate the idea of making chapathi's just because I need to knead the dough. But after marriage there is no excuse of not making chapathi just because you are lazy and don't want to knead (he he) so here I am. My first attempt of kneading the aatta turned to such a bad experience that I couldn't make even one chapathi with that dough :D.

But now after many years of marriage, making dough is such an easy thing and part of my daily work. I just thought of sharing this post here to make life easier for the beginners.

Here I am giving the steps which does not require oil. If you are particular about putting oil in the dough then you can add it any time during the process.

S. No	Items Required	Quantity
1	Whole wheat/aatta	2 cups
2	Water	1 1/4 cups
3	Salt	as required

Mix aatta and salt in a wide mixing bowl.

Now pour little bit water and start mixing the dough. Keep adding water and keep kneading. Don't pour too much water at a time. Take your time and knead till all the flour comes together.

Now the tricky step is here. Wet your hands and knead the dough. Don't take too much of water else it will be difficult to knead and the dough will become sticky. If that happens add little more flour and knead. 

Now spread the dough with your hand and roll it back half. Now wet your hands again and knead it. Continue this till your dough becomes smooth and soft.

Now cover the dough with a lid or you can cover it with a cloth. Let it set for 30 minutes and you can make fluffy and round chapathi's/roti's now.

This is not a difficult task girls. Practice it and I am sure you will master it :) 

Tips:-

Add oil in the mix for making poori dough. For poori knead the dough with less water.