HOTCHULHA

Ingredients:

• Immaculate Flaky Biscuits – 2 cans – 16 Oz
• Parmesan Cheese – ½ Cup – Shredded
• Cheddar Cheese – 1 Cup – Shredded
• Butter – 4 Oz
• Salt & black pepper – As per your taste
• Italian Seasoning – 1 Teaspoon
• Medium size Garlic cloves – 4 – minced
• Cooking spray for the Bundt Cake Pan.

Method:

1. Pre heat oven to 375 ^o degrees.
2. Spray the Bundt cake pan with cooking spray and keep it aside
3. In a small pan, put the butter, Italian seasoning, minced garlic, salt and pepper and heat it till the butter melts and then take it off the heat and keep it aside.
4. Open the Cans and cut the biscuits into small pieces and put them in a large bowl.
5. Now add the melted butter mix and mix it gently with the biscuit pieces.
6. Add the Parmesan and Cheddar Cheese and gently mix them.
7. Put the Biscuits mix into Bundt Cake pan and bake it for 30 minutes. Take the pan out and let it cool for 10 to 15 minutes.
8. Place a plate upside down over pan; turn the plate and pan over. Remove pan. Your yummy Savory Monkey Bread is Ready.
9. Server this Savory Monkey Bread with warm marinara Sauce.

Note: To have more fun, let people peel these biscuit pieces as monkeys. Believe me!!! this is much tastier way of eating the Monkey bread. You will love it.

Tags: bread, monkey, savory

Ingredients:

• Pasta Penney – 1.5 cups
• Fire roasted Tomato Sauce – 14 oz can.
• Kidney Beans – 1 Cup – Cooked or Soaked for 6 hours.
• Chicken Brest – Cut into bite sized pieces.
• Pepper -1/2 Teaspoon
• Salt to taste
• Olive Oil – 1 Tablespoon
• Cheese – Optional
• Dry Basil – ½ Teaspoon
• Dry Oregano – ¼ Teaspoon
• Dry Parsley – ¼ Teaspoon
• Water – 14 Oz.

Method: 

1. Puree the Tomatoes from the Can.
2. In a crockpot put all the above things except pasta and set it high for 5 hours.
3. After 4 Hours and 15 minutes, put pasta, mix it well, and let it cook for remaining 45 minutes.
4. Serve it hot. Sprinkle cheese before serving.

Ingredients:

• French cut Beans – 1 lb
• Raw Coconut – 1/4 Cup
• Green Chillies – 5
• Zeera – 1/4 Tea Spoon
• Amchur Powder – 1/8 Tea Spoon
• Tadka Seeds – 1 Table Spoon
• Curry Leaves – 10
• Salt to taste
• Oil – 2 Tablespoons

Method:

1. Boil French cut Beans for 5 minutes and keep them aside.
2. In a Grinder, put the Coconut, Green Chillies and Zeera, then Grind them Coarsely.
3. Take a heavy bottom pan put the oil and bring it to heat and then put the Tadka seeds and when splatter, put the curry leaves and and then add Boiled Beans and saute for 5 minutes.
4. Now it s time to add Coarsely ground mix and Salt  to Beans and fry it for another 5 to 10 minutes and finally add Amchur and mix it well and take it off from the heat.

* Serve this with roties or Rice Items.

Tags: beans, coconut

My hubby loves Karachi Biscuits (from Pista house – Hyderabad) so much. But once I started looking at what is in them, I decided to make better tasting biscuits with me knowing the healthy ingredients are in for sure. That was the idea created resulted in a question – Who says healthy food is not tasty? In the quest to answer this question, my new posts will be the reflection of my journey to answer this question.

Enjoy the healthy coconut butter cookies. Try it and let me know how it turns out.

Pinch of Salt and Cardamom powder gives you extra kick to your taste.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups – All-purpose flour (maida)(Organic)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1.5 cups shredded Coconut dry.
• 2 tablespoons vanilla essence
• 3/4 cup Organic brown sugar
• 2 sticks butter – I love grass fed – Kerry Gold Butter.
• 5 teaspoons milk(try Whole milk – Organic Valley)
• 1/8 teaspoon Cardamom powder.
• Salt – one pinch
• Few cashew halves

Method:

1. Mix the flour, baking powder and baking soda and sift it.
2. Whisk the sugar and butter together.
3. Add the vanilla essence, milk and coconut to the mix.
4. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together.
5. Add Cardamom powder.
6. Knead the dough, cut it up into 4 round pieces and refrigerate
   for half an hour.
7. Take small parts of the dough, flatten them out and use the cookie cutter to get interesting designs and if you like stick one cashew half on one cookie and bake them for 18 to 20 minutes at 350^oF

Your Yummy Coconut Butter cookies are ready. You can have them as snack or with your hot tea.

Who says Healthy Food(Organic Food) is not Tasty!

I had great experience making Mutton Biryani using the Instant Pot I bought recently. I am sure I will be making many more recipes using the Instant Pot and will be posting them.

Ingredients:

• Mutton – Bone or Boneless – 1 lb. – You can find grass-fed Lamb at Sproutes Farmers Market.
• One small onion – cut thin
• Green Chillies – 5 cut long and thin
• Cinnamon, Cloves & Cardamom – 4 each
• Tomatoes – 2 big
• Mint – handful
• Coriander leaves – 1/2 Cup
• Curd – 1/2 Cup
• Ginger Garlic paste – 2 Table Spoons
• Red Chillies powder – 1 Tea Spoon
• Turmeric – 1/8 tea spoon
• Clove Powder – 1/8 Tea Spoon
• Cinnamon Powder – 1/8 Tea Spoon
• Cashew nuts – 12
• Salt to taste
• Oil to Fry
• Basmati Rice – 2 Cups – Water 3 Cups. – Do you know Royal Basmati Rice is a non-GMO product?
  

Method:

1. Clean the Mutton and keep it aside.
2. Since it is mutton, I pressure cooked Mutton in a pressure cooker for 4 whistles beforehand. It is Chicken, we can cook it in Instant Pot(IP) directly.
3. In IP put the oil and then put the Cinnamon, Cloves, Cardamom, Cashew nuts and Fry them in Saute mode.
4. Add Onion & Green Chillies to it and fry it until it looks translucent. Add ginger garlic Paste and fry until the raw smell goes.
5. After that add the meat, yogurt and sauté it for 5 minutes. Add all the remaining powders, mint, coriander leaves and mix them well.
6. Added 2 cups of rice with 3 cups of water. Set the IP to rice mode (default is 12 mins on low). Let it cook.
7. Voila! Your Mutton Biryani is ready when IP beeps. Once the pressure is release naturally… serve it hot with homemade Raita.

Enjoy… IP people.

Now you know HAPPINESS is home-made!

As this is Month of Ramadan/Ramzan, you may enjoy eating this at IFTAR party.  Enjoy…

This is one of the variations of making Hyderabadi Haleem. I hope you like it …

Ingredients:

• Haleem Wheat    – 150 grams
• Young lamb/goat meat    – 100 grams
• Ginger Garlic Paste    – 2 Teaspoons
• Green Chillies    – 10
• Curd    – 1/2 cup
• Poppy Seeds    – 1 Teaspoon
• Cashewnuts    – 10
• Pista    – 2 Tablespoons – Grind it coarsely.
• Garam Masala    – 1/2 Teaspoon
• Mint    – 1/2 Bunch
• Cilantro    – 1/2 Bunch
• Lemon    – one
• Salt to taste
• For Garnish:
  • Raw Ginger – 1 inch cut into tiny pieces.
  • Cilantro – 1/4 cup – cut into tiny pieces.
  • Onion    – small one – Cut thin for deep fry. You can use store brought fried onion or in a small bowl using couple of tablespoons of oil to deep fry these onion pieces until they are brown in color.
  • Ghee – 1 Teaspoon

Method:

1. Wash Haleem Wheat and soak it in water for 15 minutes.
2. Drain the water and put it mixer and pulse it to coarsely.
3. Put one liter water in a sauce pan and put the  ground Wheat and cook it until it is soft.
4. In a pressure cooker add mutton, ginger garlic, green chillies, curd, poppy seed, cashew nuts, mint & cilantro and let it cook for 3 whistles.
5. Cool this down by placing it off the cook top  and mix the cooked wheat in the cooker and let it completely cool.
6. Put this in mixer and grind it soft. Add salt to taste.
7. Put this back in the cooker and cook it for 10 more minutes on medium heat.
8. To get good flavour, add garam masala & Pista to the mix and mix it well.

Ingredients:

• Dry peas – 2 Cups
• Carrot – 1/2 Cup Shredded
• Onion – 1 medium – diced into tiny pieces
• Green Chillies – 2 – Diced into tiny pieces
• Curry Leaves – 1 Stem
• Tadka Seeds – 1 Teaspoon
• Oil – 1 Tablespoon
• Salt – to taste.
• Lemon Juice – 2 teaspoon
• Cilantro – 1/4 Cup

Method:

1. Soak the Peas(Green or Yellow) for 4 hours and then pressure cook it for 3 whistles let it cool and drain the water and keep it aside.
2. Take a heavy bottom pan and put 1 tablespoon of oil and let it heat, add the tadka seeds. When they crackel, put the onion, green chillies and curry leaves. Saute them for couple of minutes.
3. Add the peas, salt and continue saute them for 5 more minutes on medium heat.
4. Squeese the lemon juice into this mix and mix it well.
5. Add half off the cilantro and mix it gently. Take it off the heat.
6. Ganish it with remaining cilantro and shredded carrot and serve it while it is warm.

This is a after-school snack or starter for any get-together

If you like, you can garnish it with cucumber and deseeded tomatos.

Ingredients:

• Frozen Raspberries – 1 Cup – Thaw
• All purpose Flour – 1.5 Cup
• Sugar – 1 1/4 Cup
• Butter – 1 Stick – room temperature
• Eggs – 2
• Baking Soda – 1 Teaspoon
• Vanilla essence – 2 Teaspoons
• Orange Jest – 1 Teaspoon
• Salt – 1/2 Teaspoon

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a bowl put the flour, salt and baking soda, mix it well with the fork and keep it aside.
3. In the mixer bowl put the butter and sugar and mix it till the sugar dissolves.
4. Add eggs one by one and mix it slowly.
5. Add the vanilla essence and orange jest and mix it gently.
6. Add the flour in 2 to 4 batches and mix it gently.
7. Add the raspberries and fold it gently with spatula.
8. Butter and Flour the baking pan and put the mix and bake it for 55 minutes.
9. Let it cool before you slice the cake.

Tags: raspberries

Ingredients:

• Masoor Dal – 1/2 Cup
• Canned Tomatoes – 14 Ozs
• Onion – 1 Medium – finely chopped
• Garlic – 2 Cloves
• Red Chillies Flakes – 1/2 Teaspoon
• Potato – 1 Medium – Shredded
• Salt – to Taste
• Oil – 3 Tablespoons
• Cilantro – 1 Tablespoon
• Water – 3 Cups

Method:

1. Grind the Tomatoes to puree
2. Take a heavy bottom sauce pan and add the onion, garlic and saute till the onion become soft.
3. Add red chili flakes and mix it well
4. Add Masoor Dal and 3 cups of water and bring it to a boil, cover it with lid and cook this until the Dal become soft.
5. Mash the Masoor Dal with the spoon add the Tomato puree, salt and shredded potatoes(if you like it to be hot, you can add red chili flakes) and cook on medium heat till the potato cooked through.
6. Add the Cilantro and simmer for 10 minutes.

* Serve this soup hot with any kind of toasted bread.

Yesterday, I had a get together at my home and I made lot of food which also

included Raita too. When we had all the fun and as they were departing, I was

packing the leftover food. I had lots of Raita left over.

I was going to throw this raita to clean the bowl as you know it won’t be

good for the next day. That is when my friend Aruna Yerramalla told me you

can make Uthappa with this left over Raita. I asked her how? That is how I got

this recipe and when I made them, they came out good.

I learned not to throw away the left over Raita, but make yummy Utappa.

Try it out… you will like it.

Also note that this is a healthy snack too.

Ingredients:

• Raita – 2 Cups
• Rice Flour – 1.5 Cups
• Salt – to taste
• Oil – to make Uthappams

Method:

1. In the raita, mix the rice flour and salt and let it ferment for 5 to 6 hours.
2. Take a skillet and put little oil and put 1/4 cup of mix and spread it like pan cakes and put some oil around the uthappa and let it cook.
3. After few minutes flip it other side and cook.
4. Take this in a plate and serve this with any chutney.

Tags: dosa, leftover raita, Rice Flour