Wholegrain Caramelized-Banana Bread

Banana bread is probably one those things which everyone bakes all the time. Each one following a time-tested recipe of her own which yields a lovely loaf every time. My favorite recipe is an adaption of Tarla Dalal's Banana Pecan Walnut Muffin Cake, an eggless whole wheat banana muffin recipe with layers of flavors added by the addition of nuts and raisins. Adding cocoa powder and chocolate chips to the basic batter always takes the bread up a notch so I unfailingly do it every time.

Kale Cucumber Smoothie

Memorial Day weekend was delicious. I ate everything I had been abstaining from. Pizza, ice cream, soda, doughnuts, chips.. you name it. To counter it all I was determined to start the week on a healthy note.. So this morning I resumed my yoga schedule, ate a light breakfast, brisk walked in the campus, pushing my toddler around the place and for lunch blended this kale cucumber smoothie and later followed it up with two tablespoons of granola and some blueberries for dessert. Ahh... bliss ! It was so darn satisfying...

Venthayakeerai Paruppu Urundai Mor Kuzhambu # South Vs North July Challenge

This month Sowmya of Nivedhanam challenged the Northern Group of SNC to cook Venthayakeerai Paruppu Urundai Mor Kuzhambu(VPUMZ). Since I do not know Tamil, before plunging into the recipe, I googled to find out what VPUMZ meant. And this is what i gathered. Venthayakeerai translates to fenugreek leaves, Paruppu to lentil or dal,  Urundai to balls, Mor to  buttermilk and Kuzhambu to curry, in English. So the dish we were challenged to make was in fact Fenugreek leaf-lentil balls in Buttermilk Curry.

It was a fairly simple dish to cook. in spirit, it felt like a south Indian version of Palak Kofta Kadhi. while besan is used to add flavors and thicken the gravy in Kadhi, a coconut-lentil paste is used to thicken the gravy in Mor Kuzhambu. the other point where VPUMK differed from Palak Kofta Kadhi was that unlike the Palak koftas which are deep-fried,  the Venthaya keerai Paruppu Urandai's are steam cooked thereby making them a healthier and easier-to-cook alternative.  

so over all, i have only praises to sing for this south Indian version of Kadhi and i thank Sowmya immensely for having introduced it to me.

now the recipe....

Venthaya keerai Paruppu Urundai Mor Kuzhambu (Serves 4)    Recipe Source : Nivedhanam

ingredients             for Mor Kuzhambu 2 tbsp toor dal 2 tbsp chana dal 4 green chillies 1/2 cup grated coconut 1/2 tsp cumin seeds 2 cups curd, well beaten 1 tsp salt for Venthaya keerai Paruppu Urandai 1/2 cup toor dal  5 red chillies 1 tbsp semolina* 1/4 cup fenugreek leaves 1/4 tsp asafetida 1/4 turmeric 1/2 salt 1 tbsp oil  for tempering 1 tsp oil 1/4 tsp asafetida 1/2 tsp mustard seeds 2 red chillies 6 curry leaves   what i did for Mor Kuzhambu i soaked the toor dal and chana dal in warm water for 1 hour.  then along with the green chillies, grated coconut and cumin seeds i ground the dals to smooth paste and added the paste to the beaten curd, seasoned it with salt and kept it aside. for Venthaya keerai Paruppu Urandai       i soaked the toor dal in warm water for 1 hour. then along with the red chillies i ground the dal without adding any water.  the idea was to make a coarse paste. however since the ground paste did not look coarse enough i added some semolina to the paste*; then added the fenugreek leaves, asafetida, turmeric and salt to the paste and made 1 inch diameter-ed balls out of the paste. with the quantity of paste I had, i ended up making 15 small balls.  next i glazed the balls with some oil and then steamed them for 5-6 minutes. (I used a Stainless Steel Vegetable Steamer to steam cook the Paruppu Urandai and therefore glazed the balls prior to cooking and cooked them in batches of 5. In case you have a idli plate, you can grease it and then steam cook the fenugreek-lentil balls in it.) once done, i removed the balls from the steamer and kept them aside. after the Mor Kuzhambu had rested for about 15 minutes, i heated it and brought it to a simmer.  i then added the fenugreek-lentil balls or Urandai to the Kuzhambu, added some water to the saucepan and cooked the balls in the kuzhambu until the balls floated up on top. finally i heated the oil for tempering, added asafetida and mustard seeds to it. once the mustard seeds started spluttering, i added the red chillies and curry leaves to it and soon after added the tempered oil to the Paruppu Urandai Mor Kuzhambu.     and thats it. the curry was ready !    * this was not part of the original recipe. skip the semolina if you can make a coarse dal paste.

We had it with rice and zucchini-posto for dinner tonight and we enjoyed the combination a lot.
Thanks to Sowmya for the challenge and a big thanks to Divya for starting the South Vs North Challenge. 

Linking this to Nivedhanam & Divya's space...

and a few other food events on the web...

Fava Yogurt Soup

The other day I spotted fava beans at the local grocery store. I remembered them from one of Chef Giada De Laurentiis' cookery show. almost in an impulse i bought a bunch. not too many just a few to find out how they taste. and when it was time to cook them i sat browsing the web for fava recipes. Since Mr MN does not have fish Chef Laurentiis' recipe of Red Snapper with Fava Bean got ruled out. so i searched some more before stumbling upon a few fava recipes in the Heath section of  New York Times. Fava and Buttermilk Soup was the simplest one and i decided to try it out last night. just to suit our taste i made some minor changes and wowed Mr MN and baby with this tasty and super healthy Fava Yogurt Soup. 

as i mentioned before, i did not have a lot of fava beans in hand. after skinning the beans i had a mere half cup of beans at disposal. though the soup was nice and flavorful and great as an appetizer, next time i'll probably make it with double the amount of fava beans. with that in mind i have slightly modified  the quantity of ingredients listed for the recipe.

Chicken kebabs baked in Yogurt Sauce

Chicken kebabs baked in Yogurt Sauce is a dish inspired by the Greek dish Keftedes Me Yiourti aka Meatballs baked in Yogurt Sauce.  I found the recipe in Diane Kochilas's cookbook  The Glorious Foods of Greece. In the original recipe  ground veal is used and I guess that makes everything different. The first time I tried the recipe using chicken in place of veal and the end product was not as delicious as I had expected it to be. so over my subsequent trials I tweaked the recipe here and there

until Mr MN and I were wowed by the present version.

I must mention here that I cut the ground chicken into square pieces rather than shaping them into discs or balls like conventional kebabs. That is just because it was the easier and a less messy thing to do. if you like, you can sweat a little more and shape the chicken mixture the way you like before baking them. But my guess is that the shape will not alter the taste. So why waste your time and energy ;-)