Healthy Cooking Challenge - Movie time Snacks

Health is Wealth is a well said proverb! And it is great and nice to have healthy things around. Healthy foods, healthy environment, and healthy stuffs is all what all of us want.
All of us ask, does healthy food means tasty food too? Yes, Ofcourse, I would say surely! We are going to have too yummy and HEALTHY snacks here...
When I wanted to guest host Healthy Cooking Challenge this time, Rekha popped up immediately with a Yes! And this is the start to all the fun in having healthy foods, snacks, and desserts.

Dec 1st to 31st

Bread roll chaat

Call it Bread roll chaat, or Sandwich rolls, or bread rolls! What ever you call it all means the same, and I like it with this name! We always crave for some chaats. Any kinda chaats, it is great to have as a winter day snack. Sundar, comes home looking for some snack always! But some days are so busy with both my kids, that I hardly prepare my dinner. And time runs out thinking what to prepare?

So, I suddenly remembered that its the fortnight event tom! So, I at once went to Rinku's blog and was looking at the menu card and my pantry. I found hard to match them up. And finally came the roasted Sandwich rolls.

Gothsu

This is a simple and very tasty side dish for variety rices. They are prepared on all marriages for venn pongal and other upma varieties.

Venn Pongal

Pongal o Pongal! Pongal is a long way...not very long, but atleast we have some other festivals coming before. I do not wait for any occasion to prepare ven pongal. When my mouth waters for the dish, I make it! Its just my favorite at home, so no one else requests. Rather, Sundar asks for the sweet pongal!

Poricha Kootu (dhal gravy)

I do this Kootu when I feel bored to cook sambar and veggie separately. The work is simple, without affecting the vegetable intake. Just mix it with hot rice or it is great with chapathi some days. Fresh, green vegetables are preferred. I have used Snake Guard to make the kootu.

Masala Idlis

Tingle your taste buds with our Traditional and Mouth watering South Indian Masala Idli Recipe.
A very tasty snack of left-over idlis. Masala Idli is quite easy to prepare.When the idli batter in the end gets hard to prepare idli, this should do wonders! Most of us in our house are dosa fans. So, only these kind of variations in the idli would attract everyone, and all ages!

Cream of Celery Soup

After all that Thanksgiving fun and dishes, "This calls for some Celery!".
We seem to getting into soup mania for our dinner time. Well, it is good to have a light dinner, don't you? Who said soups are meant for lunch? We are having just for dinner, no, no, not before dinner, but just as our dinner!

This classic puree of celery soup is beautifully aromatic. You can make it either with celery or celery root. 

Gobi kofta pulao

Well, another Thanksgiving treat!

I wanted to prepare these and had bought 2 to 3 gobis. And finally at the end of the week, I prepared when I was left with just 1/2 gobi! Well, just for the 2 of us, we had quite a lot of koftas prepared!
These are cheesy koftas in pulao. The flavor of gobi with mild taste of potatoes mixed with cheesy mozzarella and fried to make the pulao!

Grilled Gobi Masala

A special Thanksgiving treat for all vegetarians! 
Why run behind the turkey when we have gobi?

Amongst all Gobi recipes, I wanted to make, my style of Gobi. I thought I would prepare Gobi kofta. Although, I have not seen any recipes similar to this (may be somewhere some cook book would have one), so I tried my version. To my surprise, the entire Grilled Gobi has got emptied very soon. It just came out very yummy. The soft Gobi with the taste of mild masala all over has still left its flavor in our mouth.

Chilli Mushrooms

Do you love mushrooms?
I do, no we do!
We do love them for their fabulous taste and texture. But there’s more to mushrooms than its taste, mushrooms are fat free and they are rich in proteins,fiber and vitamins.

Here’s my favorite mushroom dish which is very much on the spicier side,this can be served along with roti, or jeera pulao.

Pav Bhaji

What chats you like to have on a evening with a company? Now, don't ask me what sort of company! Any company, indeed! Someone to chat with and have the chaat!

Pav Bhaji (also transliterated as pao bhaji and pau bhaji) is a fast food dish native to Maharashtra and popular in most metros in India. Pav means bread (the term derives from the Portuguese "pão") and bhaji means a curry and vegetable mix. The serving of pav bhaji consists of the bhaji (a potato based curry) and the pav (bread) garnished with coriander and chopped onions. Pav is a meat-less dish, which is high in carbohydrates and fats (if served with butter) and bhaji is high in carbohydrates and proteins.
(Source: Wikipedia)

Pav Bhaji is a wonderful evening snack or full meal by itself! It is quite fulfilling and hot on the chaat list for most of us!  I always buy the pav from Indian store but this I bought these burger buns from near by local market.

Tomato Rasam

Rasam reminds me of just one person in my life, its my pati. I grew up with her rasam for almost 360 days in a year! I still have the same liking to the rasam. And everytime I prepare, I try to prepare like my pati(grandma).
'Rasa' means Juice. It can refer to any juice but in Tamil simply rasam commonly referred to the one prepared with Tamarind/Tomato juice with added spices. Historically, it was prepared mainly with black pepper and tamarind, both ingredients native to and abundant in South India in general. It is also referred to as SatruAmudhu (Tamil: சாற்றமுது) by Iyengars.

Smiley Dosa

A little treat for my little girl! It is hard to make my daughter eat! She is such a picky eater..She took 4 years to start eating dosas. And this dosa is what I make her every time. She starts with the cheeks, mouth, nose, eyes and so on..

This post is just for my little daughter (as not much recipe involved). She is the major contributor to my blog by being so sweet and giving me such great time for myself!

Vote for me!


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Urulai Chettinadu

Ihad my cousin visiting our home! I usually invite him for weekends to have better food, as he is a bachelor! He should be hungry by the time reaches our home. I was not happy with just one subji for roti and just rice. I wanted to prepare something quick, then thought of potatoes! My cousins reads my blog and likes to taste some recipes from here. So, I always try to make something diffrent. One another reason is he is cooking with friends.
Well, I saw these chettinad potatoes were into most of the blogs, and this time I wanted to invite here! I have never tasted chettinad cuisine! But the mighty men liked the potatoes.

Chettinad cuisine is originated in the southern parts of Tamil Nadu state comprising of Madurai, Tirunelveli and Karaikudi regions. This cuisine is well known for its hot and spicy, aromatic non vegetarian dishes. Chettinad cuisine is so different from the traditional healthy vegetarian cuisine of the Tamil Brahmins.

Creamy Broccoli curry

Its been festive time filled with lots of savories and sweets! Every other blog was filled with sweet recipes. And its time to switch to our routine foods!
We always have rotis in the night, mostly! Sometimes we feel like trying out something totally new. New means completely new! Doesnt that sound interesting?
I saw this broccoli recipe in Schmetterlinwords' blog, and at once I decided I will prepare that. Broccoli was never my favorite! Great healthy things do not taste heaven! But you can make them to taste and feel wonderful.

Badhusha

One of my favorite sweets is Badhusha. Not sure since when, somewhere from my school days! When I think of the sweet Badhusha, hhhhhhhm, feel like eating one! It is hard to buy Badhusha here, so I wanted to prepare one for myself! Yes, I want to treat myself, a sweet treat! And one more big reason to celebrate, as this is 100th post! Badhusha is an easy sweet and quite delicious. They do not require much time like other sweets. We used to keep these sweets for the marriages and other functions. And everytime, I visit India, my mom sends these sweets to me. They are so dear to me!!:)

Lettuce Cups

A 30 min ready to eat salad. Most of the salads are healthy if you are using natural food. But do they taste great which will make you to eat next time.
This is very light salad for dinner. The original recipe called for chicken, which I have replaced with cooked and diced potatoes.
Lets peek into the recipe

Vegetable Pulao

Thank God its friday! Soon will be the weekend, which means relaxed cooking, and everything will go @ a slower place.
I just wonder how kids get to know so many things these days! My daughter is just 4 years, and resists taking the regular sambar or other south Indian food for her lunch. Yesterday, she informed me that she needs either a paneer pulao or a veg pulao for her lunch. She came to me and she says, "mommy, just give me only roti. I don't want pappu sadham (rice)". I thought, its time to change our cooking to what she likes, provided something healthy has to be packed.
I prepared veg. pulao for the two busy bees in our home. And the recipes goes here,

Mint raita

I always want some change from the routine things. When we want it for the main courses, why not for the raita? Instead of the regular raitas, the mint raita is great with any kind of pulao. Pulaos have a mild flavor of the spices, so the mint raita pairs well with them. And we both are mint lovers. We like mint in all forms, body coolant, mint pulao, mint chutney, and now mint raita.

Aloo Ka Raita Recipe

One another simple side dish from Mughlai cuisine. Aloo raita is different and very filling. This is a refreshing Indian recipe.
This goes great for rice or pulao (with mild flavors) or even rotis.

You need:
Yoghurt, whisked - 1 cup
Potatoes - 2 boiled, peeled, cooled, diced
chopped coriander leaves - a handful
Mint leaves - 1 tsp chopped finely
Green chilli, deseeded, chopped fine
roasted ground cumin seeds
red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
chaat masala - 1/2 tsp (optional)
Salt to taste
Oil to saute (1 tsp approx)

In a skillet, add a tsp oil. Once hot add the potatoes. Along with it add the salt, red chilli powder, cumin powder, green chillies. Saute for a while and add this to the curd (yoghurt) and mix well. Taste and adjust seasoning. Add the coriander leaves and mint leaves. Mix well.
Transfer to a serving bowl. Garnish with roasted cumin powder and chat masala. Refrigerate until required .

I prepared the raita for my paneer peas pulao. Sundar couldn't say which was better to the other. You can have them for your plain parathas too!

I'm sending this for Radhika's Let's cook series: Mughlai Cuisine.