Another Award + Fruity Yoghurt Side Dish

My fantabulous blogger friend who blogs @ Joy of Cooking...Jagruti has bestowed this Tag Award upon me...She is a wonderful blogger who has an eye-catching blog and equally eye-catching recipes...not only Indian but also from different corners of the world...Thanks, Jagruti for this Tag award...awesome of you to think about me!

This award comes with certain rules...the first rule being that you link and mention the person that tagged you(Jagruti, how can I forget you?)...secondly, I need to pass it on to seven blogger friends...so I have chosen seven blogger friends randomly by picking names after assigning consecutive numbers to my blogger pals' names and asking my family to pick seven random numbers. The toughest part always is to pick just a certain number of blogger friends to tag. So here goes:

Jyoti of The Veggie Hut

Rachana of Veggie Fare

Latha of A Peek into My Kitchen

Gita of Gita's Kitchen

Shahana of Me N My Apron

Daisy Blue of  Spicy Lounge

Love2cook of Love2cook-msia

Thank you for your awesome support and hope you enjoy these awards, my friends!

As part of the rules for accepting this award, I am also required to post one or more of my favorite pictures...which I will post next week...

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Now, for today's Fruity Yoghurt Side Dish aka Fruity Raita with Dahi:

This is part of my ongoing effort to incorporate as many fruits and vegs. as possible into my family's daily diet...I always find that whenever we buy fruits, most of them tend to sit on the counter...isnt it funny how kids never reach for a fruit when it comes to snack-time...it is always the fried or sugary food that holds their attention. So now I sneak fruits just as much as vegs. into almost every meal.

This fruity yoghurt side dish or raita would be a great accompaniment to rotis, rice dishes or even as a sandwich-stuffer. The best part about this is that you can pack in multiple daily servings of fruits and vegs into one super-simple dish.

Recipe for Fruity Yoghurt Side Dish or Raita:

Serves:4

Prep/Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

Pears - 2 ripe but of crisp variety(like the Asian Pears), grated finely

Carrot - 1 grated finely

Cucumber - 1 seedless or de-seeded and grated finely

Tomato - 1 cut finely

Red Onion - 1 cut finely(optional - I have made these fruity yoghurt raitas with and without the onion)

Green chilli pepper - cut finely or slit in half

Yoghurt - 1 1/2 cups ( I like the thick Greek yoghurt variety - lowfat or nonfat for this dish but any variety should work good)

For seasoning: salt, pepper and cilantro

In a bowl, add all the ingredients and top with seasonings and mix well till well-combined.

Serve chilled or at room temp.

Asian Pear

Easy Lunch-box Item: Fragrant Stir-Fried Greens and Brown Rice

I normally don't include rice dishes in our family's lunch-box, mostly because rice dishes are best, when served fresh and hot. But recently, I prepared a rice dish which was very fragrant and I felt it would make a good addition to the lunch-box...the fragrant nature of the rice helped it keep its freshness. Plus it is a super-healthy dish with a medley of greens(spinach, dill, mint and cilantro) and brown rice(of course, you could substitute with white rice).

When I prepare this dish for the lunch-box, I tend to put aside some cooked rice the night before so that it saves time when it comes to prep-work in the morning...also I usually refrigerate some boiled mixed vegs. the night before, because I normally cannot find more than 20-25 mins. in the morning to prepare lunch-box items.

I normally use plain yoghurt as a side for this rice dish because it has so much fragrance and veggies in it...it does not need an elaborate side dish or I might serve it with a simple okra and yoghurt side-dish(raita/dip)

So here goes with the recipe...

This fragrant and healthy rice dish goes to the FFSSL: Tiffin-box Series by RV and Sudeshna.

Recipe for Fragrant Stir-Fried Greens and Brown Rice:

Serves: 4

Prep/Cook Time: 20-25mins.

Ingredients:
Brown Rice - 3 cups(cooked)...both medium and long-grain brown rice will work.
Dill leaves - 1/2 bunch fresh(cut finely)
Spinach - 1/2 bunch fresh(cut finely)
Mint leaves - a small handful
Onion - 1 cut finely
Mixed vegs - 1 cup boiled(I used frozen mixed vegs. including carrots, peas, corn, green beans)
Ginger-garlic paste - 2tsp(could increase if you like the taste, 2tsp will give mild flavor of ginger and garlic)
Green chillies - 3 cut finely or slit in half
Coriander powder - 2 tsp
Curry powder or sambhar powder - 1 tsp
For seasoning -
Cooking oil - 2tbsp(could also use butter), Saunf(fennel seeds) - 1tsp, Cummin seeds - 1tsp, Cinnamon stick - small piece, cardamom(elaichi) - 2 or 3, slivered almonds/cashews - 2 tbsp(for garnish), salt, turmeric, sugar - 1tsp(optional) cilantro, and lemon juice for garnish.

Method:

• In a deep - bottomed non-stick pan, add the oil and when it heats up, add all the seasonings except cilantro and lemon juice.
• When the seasonings start to brown, add the cut onions, ginger-garlic paste, green chillies and saute for a few minutes till onions turn brown and crispy.
• At this point, add the cut spinach, mint leaves and dill leaves to the mixture and saute again for 3 or 4 minutes till the leaves turn nice and soft.
• Now, add the mixed vegs. to the pan and let cook for a few minutes...at this point you can add all the spice powders like coriander powder and curry/sambhar powder to the mixture.
• When the vegs. are well mixed with the spices, add the cooked brown rice and mix well.
• Turn off the heat and add all the garnish items like cilantro and lemon juice.
• Serve hot or at room temperature with yoghurt, salad or raita.
• Note: All ethnic ingredients are available at Asian/Asian Indian grocery stores or in the International Foods aisle at any grocery store.

Yummies from Blogosphere: A sweet start to a new series!

As I mentioned in my post last week to my readers, here is my new series: Yummies from Blogosphere - where I am delighted to showcase beautiful recipes from Bloggerworld which I have tried and relished with my family and friends. I feel that this is the best way that I could show appreciation for all the inspiration that I get from my fellow bloggers.

I have bookmarked wonderful food creations from almost every food blog I read regularly...so, naturally I had a humongous variety of dishes to choose from, to try out last weekend...I did not know which one to choose because they are all foods to die for!  I wanted to start this new series with something sweet... I could not believe that I had bookmarked so many recipes!

I just could not fix on one recipe to try out. Finally, I ended up making a serially numbered list of favorite sweet recipes (one from each of the blogs that I regularly read) and had my daughter give me a random number and tried out the recipe corresponding to that number. It just goes to show what amazing talent we have in Blogosphere, I think.

Without further ado, let me go on to the recipe that I tried last weekend...

It was a wonderfully sweet recipe for Microwave Cashewnut (Kaju)Peda originally posted by Priya of  Priya's Easy n Tasty Recipes. I will provide a link to the original recipe below. It was posted almost a year back by Priya. She has provided some great info on cashewnuts - their nutritional benefits and method of storage and so on...what attracted me to this recipe was the fact that it is probably one of the quickest and fastest sweet/dessert recipes that I have made in a while, not to mention the fact that is also extremely healthy... I started making it with 10 minutes to spare for dinner time and it was still ready, well in time to have as a tasty, bite-size dessert. The pedas were easy to shape into round discs(actually my 9 year old daughter helped me with this step...it was easy enough to shape for her!)

NOTES AND POSSIBLE VARIATIONS:  I followed the original recipe as much as possible. The only change I made to the original recipe is that, I ended up using 4 tbsp of water in place of the original recipe (which required 2 tsp water) That was mainly because I used totally non-fat milk powder which was very crumbly and needed some extra water for the cashew and milk powder mixture to come together. I also used some raisins as well as pistachios for the garnish. Plus, I was thinking it might be good to use some saffron strands the next time I make this for an extra touch of flavor...talk about icing on an already beautiful cake!

The taste of course, was unbelievable inspite of the fact that it is almost totally devoid of butter/oil. Needless to say, my family loved it  - even my toddler!

Links: Original Post for Microwave Kaju Peda at Priya's Easy n Tasty Recipes

Thanks, Priya for this fabulous recipe!

 I so love this series...I(and of course, my family!!!) cant wait to try the next Yummy from Blogosphere!

Recipe for Microwave Kaju Peda(as posted on Priya's Easy n Tasty Recipes):
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1cup Cashew powder
1/2cup Milk powder
2tsp Water
3/4cup Sugar
Few pistachios (garnishing)


Take a wide microwave bowl...add the cashew powder, milk powder, water and sugar together and mix with a spatula, microwave for 2 minutes in high, stir in between..Keep aside and let it cool..


Now it will look like soft chappathi dough, roll or shape them as u desire..Garnish the pistachio..