Chicken Curry

I made this chicken curry with the basic ingredients, nothing fancy. I wanted to have enough gravy so that we can eat for both lunch with rice and dinner with chapati. 

Ingredients:

-----------

1 whole chicken cut to medium size pieces

1 big red onion sliced

2 tomatoes chopped

1 tbsp Ginger-Garlic paste

1 Bay Leaf

2-3 Green Cardamom

1 1/2 inch stick Cinnamon

5-6 whole Black Peppercorns

3-4 Cloves

1/4 tsp Fennel seeds

1/2 tsp Cumin seeds

1 tbsp Red Chili powder

1 1/2 tbsp Coriander powder

1 tsp Garam Masala powder

1 tsp Turmeric powder

Salt to taste

1/4 cup Cilantro chopped

2 tsp Oil

Method:
---------
1. Clean and wash the chicken. Marinate the chicken with half of the ginger-garlic paste, salt, turmeric, chili and coriander powder for about 2-3 hours or overnight.
2. In a sauce pan or deep dish pan, add oil, when it's hot add bay leaf, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon stick, peppercorns, fennel seeds and let it saute it for a min.
3. Add the rest of the ginger-garlic paste, and saute it for about a min or until it turns slight brown, add the onions and saute it until it turns brown, add the tomatoes, cover and cook until the tomatoes get soft.
4. Now add the chicken and increase the flame to medium high and cover and cook it for about 2-3 mins each side.
5. Now add enough water and cook the chicken for about 15 mins or until the chicken is tender and fully cooked.

6. Off the flame and garnish with cilantro and serve hot with steamed rice or mixed rice or chapati.

Brown Rice Dosa with Mysore Red Chili Garlic Chutney

After Anush was born, I always used to forget to soak rice and urad dal to make dosa or idli batter, so I came with an idea to use rice and urad dal powder to save time and from forgetting. Now that I am trying to keep healthy and to include some healthy ingredients in cooking my recipes, am going back to the original dosa batter process. Comparatively I have time now, as Anush goes to Preschool, I am trying to use brown rice in the place or ordinary rice for making dosa and idli. So I hope this would be an inspiration to you all too.

Ingredients:

------------

For Dosa Batter:

-----------------

2 cups Long Grain Brown Rice

1 cup White Rice ( I used Basmati Rice, you can use any rice that you use for cooking)

1 cup Urad dal

1 tsp Fenugreek seeds

1/4 cup cooked Rice or Poha

Salt to taste

For Red Chili Garlic Chutney:

------------------------------

1/4 cup Roasted split Chana dal

6-7 dry red Chili (Adjust the chili according to your spice level, my measurement makes spicy chutney)

3-4 Garlic pods

Method:

--------

For Making Batter:

-------------------

1. Wash and soak brown rice, white rice and fenugreek seeds with enough water for about 6-8 hours. (Make sure it is socaked for 6-8 hours, because once I soaked only for 4 hours and the batter didn't come out well)

2. Wash and soak the urad dal in enough water for about 6-8 hours.

3. Grind the urad dal first, transfer it into a large bowl.

4. Grind the rice and to it add cooked rice or poha while grinding and mix the batter to the urad dal batter.

5. Keep it to ferment overnight or for about 8-10 hours. (You can also keep in oven or any other warm place for it to ferment better)

6. Now mix again and add enough salt. Now the batter is ready to make dosas.

For Making Mysore Red Chili Garlic chutney:

----------------------------------------------

1. Put all the ingredients in a mixer with enough water and make it to a fine paste.

To Make Dosa:

----------------

1. Take a dosa pan or tava, preferable non-stick pan, when it's hot add a ladle full of batter and with a flat bottom spoon spread it to form a medium size circle, make a thin or thick layer as you like it.

2. Sprinkle 1/2 tsp ghee, when you see some slight brown spots on the dosa, take a teaspoon full of the chutney and spread it all around the dosa and let it cook for few seconds.

3. Lift half of the dosa and fold it and serve it hot. You don't need any separate chutney to go with it.

Vegan Black-Forest Cake with Choco Frosting - Day 4, Blogging Marathon #4

For the past 3/4 days, my kiddo is seeing me making cakes in  various shapes and sizes. Today, Morning while getting him ready for the school, he asked me whether i am  going to make his favourite Chocolate Cake today. I promised to bake him one, when he is back from school. I made 2 Small Cakes and 2 Muffins. When i went to pick him up after school from the bus stop, he asked whether his cake is ready. The moment he entered the home, removed his shoes, went straight ahead to the Kitchen and Whooooshhhhh!!!! Muffins Vanished!!!! With great effort, Saved the other two cakes!!! 

This recipe is from CCN's One Minute Microwave Vegan Black Forest Cup Cakes. Madhuri has actually made this cake using Microwave.  I too have tried this cake 2 or 3 times in the microwave. It has come out in a jiffy and perfect for a Weekend Morning Breakfast!!!! This time, for the marathon, i have tried baking it.  Yeah, i have already got the results and have passed out with flying colors!!!!!!

Ingredients
3/4 Cup All purpose flour/Maida 
1/4 Cup Cocoa
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar (i used 1/2 Brown sugar and 1/4 Cup Normal Sugar) 
1/2 tsp Baking powder 
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
Salt a pinch
2 tsp of Flax seed powder in 1/2 cup warm water
1/4 Cup Warm Water
1/4 Cup Oil
1 tsp Vanilla essence


For the Frosting
1/2 cup Cold Milk (little less, would do good)
1 packet of Foster clark's Dream Whip
1 tbsp Cocoa
1 tsp Vanilla essence

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C. Mix Flax seed with 1/2 cup of Warm Water and set it aside. Sift together flour,Cocoa, Baking powder, Baking Soda and salt together in a bowl. Add sugar to this and stir well. Stir in the warm water, oil, vanilla essence and the flaxseed powder-warm water mixture. Mix well. The batter must have a dropping consistency now.

I have used 2 Silicon moulds, a heart-shaped mould and a Teddy-bear mould. You can use a 8"inch round pan. Whatever you use, grease the pan/mould. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake it @ 180 C for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 160C and bake it for another 15 minutes. Baking Temperature differ from Oven to Oven. Please do the Skewer test to check the done-ness of the cake. Let the Cake Cool a bit, take it off the mould and place it on a plate/Cake stand. Let it cool completely. 

For the Frosting

I have used Foster Clarks Dream Whipp to get the frosting. But, unfortunately i added extra milk i believe, i used my normal tumbler to measure the milk :( so the cream didnt acutally peak-up!!! Thank God, It was a bit thick.

Cool the cake well, Pour a  tsp of orange juice on the top of the cake, then pour the whipped cream and spread it well with a spatuala. Cool the cake for an hour or two, before digging it!!!!! 

Check out my Blogging Marathoners doing Group 3 BM#4 along with me 
Diabetes Diet/Management: Kamalika, Smitha, Suma
Kid Friendly Recipes: Anusha, Cool Lassi(e) 
Seven Days of Soup: Priya Suresh 
Seven Days of Indian Bread: Jayasree, Pavani 
Seven Days of Cakes:  Me 
Seven Days of Preserves: Gayathri Kumar, Vaishali 
30 Minutes Meals: Priya Mahadevan, Srivalli