Za Recipes

Monday, March 31, 2014

Kheema minced meat

INGREDIENTS:

Minced meat 1/2 kilo

Onions 2 Medium

Ginger-Garlic paste 2Tbspns

Green chillies 6-8

Red chilli powder 2Tspns

Turmeric Powder 1/4th Tspn

Small methi 2Bunches or Kasuri methi 2handfuls.

Whole garam masala loung 2,patta 1 inch

Coriander leaves 1 bunch

Salt to taste

METHOD

Heat 6Tbspns of oil in a cooker and add the whole garam masala with sliced onions & green chilles.Fry to golden brown in colour.

Add Ginger-Garlic paste,fry for a minute.

Add the kheema with salt,red chiili pwdr,turmeric pwdr and methi leaves or kasuri methi.

Fry well for 5minutes and add 2 cups of water and pressure cook on low flame for 15minutes.

Add the coriander leaves and fry till oil starts leaving the sides.

RECOMMENDED COMBINATIONS:

Khichi,khatti dal,Can be also used as stuffing for samosas and puffs,tomato ka cut.

Parotta Lacha Paratha Flaky Paratha

Learn how to make flaky easy parotta - flaky layered Indian flat bread

Lacha Paratha

Ingredients

Maida flour/ All purpose flour- 2 cups

Sugar- 1 tsp

Curd- 1 tbsp

Oil- 4 tbsp

Ghee- 1 tbsp

Milk- 1/2 cup

Water to knead

Salt to taste

To make layers

Oil- 1/4 cup

Rice flour- 1/4 cup

Parotta

How to mix parotta dough

In a wide bowl add maida, sugar, salt, oil, milk and required water. Knead dough for 15 mins until soft and smooth. Set aside for 1 to 2 hours( the long you rest the parotta dough it becomes soft, elastic and flaky).

How to make layers in parotta

Divide the dough into equal lime sized portions. Roll out each lime sized dough into chapati( round discs) as thin as possible. Spread one tsp oil on the rolled dough and sprinkle 1/2 tsp rice flour on top of rolled and oiled dough. Starting from one end make fleets like doing for saree or fold like making paper fan till u reach other end. Gather the fleets made with dough. Hold one end of gathered fleet in center and roll like a wheel( clockwise) and tuck the other end below the wheel. Do the same process with rest of dough until fleeted and wheeled. Cover these prepared parotta dough with damp cloth and rest it for 30 mins.

How to cook parotta

After 30 mins roll out each prepared dough wheel into thick parottas( into circle).

Heat tawa or griddle, when hot, lay each rolled thick parottas on tawa and cook on both sides on medium heat for 5 mins, smearing oil around parotta if needed. Fry parotta until cooked and golden brown on both sides.

How to bring flakes in cooked parotta.

Place upto 5 to 6 cooked parotta on top of another. Cover piled parotta with clean cloth( since its too hot) use both hands and dab on sides of parotta, by dabbing vigorously on the sides the layers in parotta will open up and become flaky. Remove parotta from cloth and serve hot with chicken curry or veg curry of your choice.

Click here for Chettinad Soya Curry recipe

Click here for Chicken Kurma recipe

Flaky Paratha

Sunday, March 30, 2014

My Nail Polish Addiction

I used to be obsessed with watching Dr. Phil in college. With topics like "Does Mother Know Best?" and "Girly Men", I couldnt get enough of all the crazy that the world had to offer. One of the segments I remember best was called "Is This Normal?" in which people would ask whether diapering their 6-year-old or eating in their sleep was considered normal.

I bring all this up to ask you, Cupcult, is my nail polish collection normal?? I must own at least a few dozen polishes and I change my nail color about twice a week. Ive got so many polishes, I actually dont know how to store them anymore. Enter this bowl:

I procured this glass bowl from Gilt Group a couple weeks ago and got the genius idea to use it for nail polish storage. Smart, right?

RIGHT?!?!

Since were on the topic of nail color, heres whats in my constant rotation lately:

{1. Butter London Chancer, 2. Tom Ford Ginger Fire, 3. Sephora by OPI Only Gold for Me,
4. Essie Mint Candy Apple, 5. Essie Ballet Slippers}

But I want to know: Is this normal?? How many nail polishes do you own? And how do you store them? And how often are you changing your nail color?? I need answers, and I need them now, before its too late.

Blueberry Muffin Recipe

When I was on my dear friend Ritas food blog, I came across this "blueberry muffin recipe" and knew I had to bake it, I love blueberries and this recipe was absolutley amazing.

These muffins were soft, fluffy and moist with the jam of the beautiful fresh blueberries ouzing out of the muffins, all I can say Rita is WOW.

Thank you Rita for sharing this recipe as we will be using it everytime we fancy some blueberry muffins.

Rita is a very talented baker and is excellent at baking cakes and desserts and I am sure you will love her excellent recipes.

Cooking Ritas Blueberry Muffin Recipe..

Mixing the ingredients for the blueberry muffins.

Blueberry muffins ready to go into the oven.

Beautiful blueberry muffins all golden out of the oven.

Delicious and ready to serve Ritas blueberry muffins recipe.

We enjoyed Ritas blueberrry muffin recipe so much that there was only the paper muffin cases left over!

We really enjoyed eating blueberry muffin recipe why dont you give them a try yourself as they are so wonderful.

Well done to Rita for sharing these lovely baking recipes.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Rachel Zoes New Clothing Line I Do Not Die

Rachel Zoe is a brand genius. Homegirl can spot a trend from a mile away, no matter how many sequins, feathers, and studs it may be drowning in. Shes such a style icon, shes even shaped the lexicon used by influential trendsetters like myself, obvi ("Ba-na-nas", "Ahmazing", "Litrally", "Shutting it Down", and of course "I Die" are among my favorite Zoe-isms). So its no surprise that in todays multi-hyphenate-career-ambition crazed society that shed venture out beyond peasant things like celebrity styling and into, say, designing clothes.

And she did. Once upon time, Rachel struck a deal to co-design various accessories for QVC and put her moniker on things like scarves, cocktail rings, and handbags. It wasnt groundbreaking design (a few faux fur vests, some floppy hats), but it was affordable and enough on-trend that it worked.

But apparently it wasnt enough, because Rach went and did this:

These are looks from the new "Oh So Zoe" Rachel Zoe collection available for pre-sale as of today at Neiman Marcus, and it litrally HORRIFIES me to admit that there is nothing being shut down about these looks.

Theres nothing wrong, per se, with her simple silhouettes and color palette. Its just that theres nothing, oh, I dunno, AHMAZING or BANANAS about any of these pieces. Furthermore, since the price tag on these items (and high end retailer selling her wares) suggests shes meant to go up against the likes of Diane von Furstenburg or her multi-hyphenate peers Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsens Elizabeth & James line, Im disappointed the clothes arent more interesting. I mean, this is Rachel Zoe were talking about--student of excess and vintage Chanel. Wheres the spice??

Even the simplest, most classic clothes can have interesting details. Perhaps Im not seeing them?? Or worse, perhaps theyre not there.

I do like a few pieces, including this $295 sequin dress:

This wide-leg white pantsuit:

And these $395 double-platform wedges:

Ill reserve my final judgment for seeing the clothes in person (maybe the craftsmanship is impeccable!), but for now, I do not die.

How about yall? Do YOU die for this collection?? Do you think Rach was BANANAS for unveiling this collection in the first place? I LITRALLY want to know everything you think in the comments!!

A Visit to Erbcroft Farms

Our next stop was Erbcroft Farms, home of sheep, chickens, ducks, horses and pygmy goats. There was some mention of a llama Im pretty sure, but we didnt see one. The sheep are fairly mixed breeding; Suffolk cross and North Country Cheviot predominating.

Erbcroft Farms has been in the family for 4 generations, but until Tim & Luann took it over it was a cash crop farm. They still grow those, but the animals have become a very important part of the farm.

Chickens roam the yard, supplementing their diet with bugs and seeds.

Two 9-day old lambs whos mother is unable to nurse them are thriving on milk from a local dairy sheep farm. The milk is in a tub outfitted with "nipples" so that the lambs can nurse when they like; a simple thing but it makes taking care of lambs that need to be hand-raised so much easier because like other babies, they need to nurse often and with no regard to anyone elses convenience.

Two kinds of ducks, Rouen and Muscovy, hang out at the creek.

When called, the sheep came thundering up to the fence. The Erbs have about 120 ewes now; eventually they would like to double the number.

Lamb can be ordered as a freezer order from the farm, or purchased at the Mitchell Farmers Market as lamb sausage. We had some samples of the sausage, with it flavoured with Luann Erbs own blend of herbs - very delicate and tasty!

Its a sad fact that there is little point in shearing the sheep if it can be avoided. The last time they sheared their sheep they paid $500 and received $189 for the wool; thats .02 cents per pound. There just isnt much of a market for wool any more.

One of the Erb children collects eggs from the chicken pen as one of the farm tourers watches.

The poultry are all trained to return to the barn at night for safety.

There are also some very charming pygmy goats on the farm.

Finally we went into the barn where the pregnant ewes are being watched. Our timing was amazing; we arrived just in time to see 2 newly born lambs still being licked clean and thinking about standing up. Unfortunately I dont have a picture as my camera chose THAT MOMENT to run out of batteries. It was definitely one of the highlights of the tour though!

Friday, March 28, 2014

CHOCOLATE HALLOWEEN CAT COOKIES

These chewy, chocolate, Halloween cookies would be a great project for the kids to make this holiday and they taste great too.

1 cup butter at room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup baking cocoa
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
candy corns
In a large mixing bowl, cream butter & sugar until smooth; beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt and gradually add it to the creamed mixture.
Roll dough into 1½" balls and roll in granulated sugar. Place on cookie sheet (I baked mine on parchment paper). Pinch the top of the cookie to form ears. For the whiskers, press a fork on each cat cheek (at 45 degree angle according to hubby). Bake at 350 for 10 minutes, remove from oven and immediately press candy corns into the cookie to form the eyes and use a red hot for the cat nose (I just cut off the end of a candy corn and used that). Cool on wire racks. Makes 24.

HAPPY TRICK-OR-TREATING !!

NOTE: Hubby says my whisker angle made these "cats" look angry lol. Maybe he is right about angling the fork tines a little more.

Spicy Khajas Nankhatai in Diwali Blogging Part I

Continuing from here....

Cleaning is half-way through and home is already looking beautiful. For most Hindus, Diwali is a wonderful excuse to spruce up the house, discard old unused stuff, bring in new little ideas and ofcourse make delicious food to share with loved ones.

I truly believe that old unused stuff brings in a stagnant negative energy. Simply getting a few new things and throwing away all the junk can makeover your home and bring in the positive energy. Gone are the days of whitewashing each Diwali - thanks to the expenditures involved and who-has-the-time! For starters - just hanging up new curtains over the gleaming panes is making my bedroom look brand new and spacious. Heres what Ive been upto...

Improvised side-table Livening up the indoors Festive thoran

- Panes have been scrubbed clean, enough for accident-prone me to walk into them

- Organised the kitchen cabinets well enough to find the right pots and pans in a jiffy

- Gave away stuff that we havent used in the last 6 months

- Bought nice earthern lamps painted red and a red thoran to hang outside our door

- Also improvised on a boring, black side-table to make it colourful and bigger (Read as hold more junk)

- Brought in my favourite areca nut palm plant indoors to liven up the living space

Cut to our favourite topic - FOOD

Ive been wanting to try Nankhatai - our goold ol Indian cookie for quite some time. Doing a blog search on the same lead me to some blogger recipes for this cookie. Here are the recipes for the same:

Jyotsnas Nankhatais from Pune

Krithika making Nankhatais Jyotsnas style

Manasis Plain Jane cookies - A cook @ heart

Vaishalis Narayan Kataar Naankhatai

After a great deal of blog hopping, I finally settled for Manasis recipe with a bit of modification in technique.

I rolled the dough in cling film, chilled them and cut them into slices instead of rolling them into balls. I actually reduced the sugar to 1/4th cup and added a pinch of salt with coarsely powdered fennel seeds. It was a salty sweet version that will appeal to the sweet-lover as well as the savoury-lover.

Spicy Khajas (Recipe adapted from bawarchi.com)

Deep fried savoury crisps

Type - Festival Food, Indian Snack

Time taken - Around one hour including drying time

Ingredients:

1 cup gram flour (besan)

1/4 cup all purpose flour (maida)

1 tsp red chilli powder

1/2 tsp carom seeds and 1/2 tsp cumin seeds - roasted and crushed

Salt to taste - roughly 3/4 tsp

1 tbsp oil

Oil for frying ( Iused Saffola losorb)

Method:

1. Mix the flours with salt and spices.

2. Add water little by little to make a smooth and pliable dough. Knead with one tbsp oil into a smooth ball.

3. Divide into 4 big balls. Spread each ball into a big round (less than 1/2 cm thin). You can cut this into desired shapes. Prick both sides of all pieces with a fork.

4. Dry out the cut out pieces on a clean kitchen towel. Repeat the same process for the other 3 balls. Dry out the pieces for 20 minutes or so on the towel like shown in the picture below.

5. Heat about 1.5 cups of oil in a kadai. (use the one you prefer for deep frying)

Dried and ready to be fried

6. You can decide if the oil is hot enough by putting a small piece of dough. If it rises to the top immediately, the oil is ready.

7. Put the cut out pieces in batches and fry till golden brown on a medium flame. Drain excess oil on kitchen tissues. Store in airtight container.

This is my entry for the Special Edition Jihva hosted by Vee of Past, Present, Me.

Note:

You can add any of your favourite spices like black pepper, sesame seeds etc. to the dough. The original recipe asked for the dough to be rolled into small puris, but I found my method more practical.

Tags:

Diwali recipes, Deepawali, Indian snacks, festival food, Nankhatai, khaja, besan, savouries

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Just reminding you about Weekend Breakfast Blogging - the theme for this month is Twist in the Plate. Did you jazz up an ordinary breakfast for Diwali? Did you try your favourite bloggers recipe with your own twist? Did you turn a sweet one into a savoury one?

Come on, share it with us. You have time till 29th of this month to send me your entries. WBB turns monthly and theme-based this month onwards. Read more about it here.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Spiced Lamb and Vegetable Pasta Recipe

I enjoyed eating this wonderful dish so much that I had to go back for a second serving.

The spiced seasoning paste I use for this tasty pasta recipe is absolutely delicious and aromatic.

If you love vegetables and lamb then this dish is for you, it is perfectly spiced and the combination of pasta being stirred through the dish is fantastic.

I used Buckwheat pasta spirals but you can use any pasta of your choice. This recipe is gluten free if using buckwheat pasta and also dairy free as there is no need to add cheese to this perfect pasta dish.

Considering this dish uses little oil, lean lamb, buckwheat pasta, herbs, spices and a combination of zucchini, peppers, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts and fresh spinach leaves....then this is one scrumptious very healthy recipe to cook.

Ingredients for Spiced Lamb and Vegetable Pasta
1 Zucchini (diced)
2-3 Handfuls Brussels Sprouts (sliced)
1 Red Pepper/Capsicum (diced)
1 Green Pepper/Capsicum (diced)
1-2 Large flat Mushroom (diced)
1/4 Cup Water
Rapeseed oil
1 Pack Lean Minced Lamb
2-3 Handfuls Fresh Spinach Leaves
2-3 Handfuls Buckwheat Pasta Spirals
1/4 Cup Water

For the Seasoning
1 Tbsp Tomato Puree/Paste
1 Tbsp Garlic Paste
1/2 tsp Paprika
1 tsp Cumin Powder
1 tsp Coriander Powder
1/2 tsp Turmeric
1/2 - 1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
2 tsp Dried Chives
1 tsp Dried Thyme
1 Tbsp Rapeseed oil
Pinch Salt

Picture of Jeenas Spice Paste.

Picture of fresh vegetables.

Picture of cooked buckwheat pasta spirals.

How to make Jeenas Kitchen Spiced Lamb and Vegetable Pasta Recipe

In a small bowl mix all of the spice paste ingredients together well.

Heat a large frying pan drizzle some oil and add zucchinis on a medium heat.

Once the zucchini starts to soften add the lamb mince.

Chop at the mince using a spatula cook for a few minutes.

Add the spice paste, stir well.

Add 1/4 cup of water then red and green peppers, stir well and simmer with a lid on for 10 minutes.

Whilst the the lamb is simmering bring a small pan of lightly salted water to the boil and cook the buckwheat pasta until it has softened and almost cooked but not cooked fully, drain.

If you use wheat pasta you may need to cook the pasta for slightly longer as buckwheat pasta is quick to cook.

Add 1/4 cup water and the Brussels sprouts, stir well and simmer with a lid for 5 minutes.

When the Brussels have softened add the buckwheat pasta and gently stir well.

Simmer with a lid on for another 10 minutes.

Once the pasta is fully cooked stir well and sprinkle the spinach leaves on top of the pan, place the lid on a let the spinach cook for a minute or two.