Quinoa Caprese Salad

Summer is here and the afternoons are slowly getting hotter. I often lose my appetite on such hot days and long for something cool to eat or drink. I am not really the kinds to sub a juice or smoothie for a meal and usually settle for a cold salad instead. The caprese salad is one of my favorite salads; basil, balsamic and cheese...yumm. However, the one I prepared the other day has a slight twist to it from the usual caprese. I have used cubed paneer instead of the mozzarella and added quinoa for some bulk. It's very easy and comes together pretty quickly. 

Ingredients

2 cups quinoa, cooked { Instructions for cooking the perfect quinoa}

200 gms paneer, diced

1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chiffonade { cut into thin strips }

Dressing

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1-2 tablespoon minced garlic

1-2 tablespoon lemon juice { optional }

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Servings: 4 as side salad, 2 as a main salad

Method

Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing in a bowl. Add the cooked quinoa to this and let the dressing seep into the quinoa for some time. Just before serving toss in the paneer, basil and cherry tomatoes, adjust the seasoning and serve. 

Finger Millet Cookies

My daughter has a sweet tooth and a mid-evening snack for means something sweet, which is not a fruit.  I have been trying to get her to eat fruits and other snacks items, every other day she requests for 'chocki bikki' in her tiffin. Though given her appetite she can manage to eat only one on most days, I am not really enthused about feeding her store bought sugar loaded maida biscuits. So I came up with these healthier Finger Millet biscuits, which are not very sweet, but just enough to balance the bitter taste that ragi lends.

Ingredients
(makes a dozen)
1 cup Ragi or finger millet flour
2 tbsp. All purpose flour
1 tbsp. cocoa powder

1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter

1 tsp. of curd/yogurt

1 tsp vanilla essence

Chocolate chips

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200C.

Dry roast the ragi flour for 5-8 mins to get rid of the raw smell and let it cool once done. Then add all the dry ingredients, AP flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar. Once sugar is completely dissolved add the yogurt and vanilla essence. Then slowly add the dry ingredients and mix into a hard but pliable dough.

Once the dough has come together, shape into cookies and top with chocolate chips. Place them on a parchment lined/greased cookie sheet. These cookies do not expand much, hence it is not necessary to keep a lot of distance between them.

Bake them at 200C for 12-15 mins. Mine were done in about 13 mintues.

Let them cool and store them in an airtight container.

Here they are ready for my daughter's tiffin for her and her friends.

Mawa Cake

As kids Mawa Cake was the only cake/ cupcake we knew. There were no black forest, red velvet cakes or fancy cupcakes with even fancier frosting. Only plain, simple, buttery but the oh so good mawa cakes.

My grandfather who used to work at fort, used to go down to Merwan's to get the cakes and we would wait the whole day for him to return with the cakes. They were special occasion treats for us.

Just a couple of days ago I read that the Merwan's will be closing it's doors forever this month. The news made me remember and crave the mawa cakes. It just so happened that I happened to have some mava left over from the gajar halwa I had made and decided to try the mawa cakes at home. Though my cakes are much lighter and not as loaded with butter as the original ones, they did a good job of satisfying my cravings :). As opposed to what I used to think, it is a pretty simple and straight forward recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cardamom

A pinch of salt

150 gms(3/4 cup) mawa

100 gms caster sugar

2 eggs at room temperature

5-6 tablespoons milk

cashew halves for decorating

Pre heat the oven to180 degree celcius. Sift together the flour, baking powder, cardamom and salt. Set aside.

In a stand mixer, cream the mawa, sugar and butter together till light and fluffy. Turn the speed to slow, add the eggs and beat till well incorporated. Slowly add the flour mixture and the milk till you get a smooth mixture. Feel free to add more or less milk depending on the consistency of the batter.

Pour the batter into greased muffin tins and bake at 180 for 20-25 minutes. I divided my batter in to 6 muffin tins and one loaf pan. The loaf took a little longer, ~30 -35 minutes to cook completely.

Mangalore Buns

I am not generally a sweet breakfast person, except when it comes to bhubhus roti or more commonly known as mangalore buns. It is a very typical breakfast in Mangalore and also in my grandfathers hometown of Puttur. It is a soft, chewy sometimes flaky bread, somewhat like a donut, that just melts in your mouth. When we make it at home, we serve it plain or with butter, but in Mangalore I have seen it being served with Sambar. Also there are two variations to this, one with bananas and one without. My mom made a version with bananas and a little bit of cumin to bring out the sweetness of the bananas. My mother in law makes it plain, without the bananas and cumin. I prefer the earlier version.

                                                           

These hot buns with filter coffee..ahh...and my day is made.

Mangalore Buns

Servings: 12-15 buns depending on size

Ingredients:

1 banana mashed (optional)

1 tsp cumin ( optional)

2 cups maida

1/4 cup yogurt

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp soda bi carb

2 tsp ghee

2 tbsp milk

Oil for frying.

Mash banana till soft, add in the cumin, sugar and yogurt and whisk till no lumps remain. Then add in the soda bi carb and finally the maida. Knead into a chapati dough and add milk as necessary, enough for the dough to form a soft pliable ball. Add ghee and knead a little more. Form a ball and cover with a damp cloth for minimum of 2 hours. I leave my dough outside overnight. Next day once the dough has risen, divide into small balls, roll into puri's 1/4 inch thick and fry till golden brown.

Enjoy with sambar or butter or as just as they are hot of the frying pan.