Eye-catching addition to Yummies from Blogosphere!!!

I love the colorfulness of this week's dish for the Yummies from Blogosphere series...one of my biggest inspirations, which propelled me towards active blogging was the immense beauty of all the foods portrayed in simple digital images all over blogosphere...it totally made my mind boggle to see Indian food and of course, other foods too(that we cook and eat everyday) presented with such elegance...and it was not just the complex, difficult-to-make dishes but also simple recipes that looked almost ethereal when captured so tastefully on film.

This week's dish was very simple to prepare, but so extremely beautiful to look at, you would think it took hours...I love almost all the dishes presented by this blogger, Tina of kaipunyam.com...in fact she is just awesome at baking up the most beautiful yummies I have ever seen. But I chose this dish because of its traditional nature and immense ease of preparation. Also, I feel the more I can add beets to our diet, packed as it is with nutrients, the better it would be.

It is a wonderful yoghurt-based beetroot side-dish wonderful with rice and curry as well as with chappathis/bread as a spread/dip. I know a lot of people who dont use beets as much as they should, just because they are afraid its deep colors are going to stain their work surfaces and require a lot of clean-up!!!! I hope these kind of dishes wil inspire more people out there to try this awesome veggie more often!

Notes/Variation: In this dish, I did very little in terms of modification, because its flavor lies in the minimal number of ingredients...the only thing was, that I added some channa dal(split yellow gram) and some grounduts to the seasoning items. Also, since I dont add much coconut nowadays to my dishes, I reduced the quantity of coconut to 1/4cup. Suggested garnish: Yoghurt topping

Thank you for this simply elegant dish, Tina!!

Link: Original Recipe for Beetroot Pachadi at kaipunyam.com

Recipe for Beetroot Pachadi

Serves: 4

Prep/cook time: 15-20 mins.

Ingredients:

Beetroot 1 big

Onion 1 med

Chilly 5 to 7

Yoghurt 1/2 to 3/4 cup

Coconut 1 cup grated

Ginger 1 small piece

Shallots 1 to 2

Curryleaves

Fenugreek

Mustard

Water

Salt

Oil

Method

Clean the beetroot. Finely grate it and cook it (in little oil) with chopped onion, ginger, chilly, salt and little water.

Grind together coconut, onion, chilly and little mustard seeds. Add this paste into cooked beetroot.

After cooling down, add yoghurt into this and mix well. Season it with shallots, fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds and curry leaves.

10 Minute Recipe Series:Vibrant Mixed Salad with a healthy punch of anti-oxidants

Whenever I add a salad to our meal, I try to make it as colorful as possible...you know, so the kids will atleast let me put it on their plates because they like the colors...once it gets on their plates, of course, chances are it has some hope of making it to their tummies!!! Otherwise, it is "Can I have something else to eat?" and of course, the other high feature on the list of complaints about food being - "This doesnt look cool." Then, I launch into the usual lecture about how we could not open our mouths to do anything except eat when we were at the dining table as kids...sigh!

Of course, the more colorful the salad is, the greater nutritional punch it can pack - from a variety of veggies and fruits. Yes, I like to combine veggies and fruits in salads...not just because of the colors, but also because it is so tough to get kids to eat both...so any help one gets from combining them, the better.

Of course, when I am starting to mix things up with fruits and veggies...I dont stop there...I also sneak in some dry fruits and nuts for the anti-oxidant punch!!!

Also, here I like to use a simple salad dressing combining lemon juice and honey...which is great because I understand that one of the health benefits of honey is in regards to how it can help people lose weight. Believe it or not, by combining honey with lemon juice, the body can more easily digest the fat in various foods. And I can always use that benefit...another sigh!

The awesome thing is that, the flavors are so varied, it does not need any addition of cheese, croutons or any of the other flavor enhancers for salads!!!

This salad I have here is not only colorful...it also gets ready in under 10 minutes...a great accompaniment to breads, pastas, rotis and even great as a snack by itself!!!

Recipe for Vibrant Mixed Fruit and Veggie Salad:

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Serves: 4

Prep/Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

Carrots - 1/2 cup cut into thin slices

Grape Tomatoes - 1/2 cup sliced in half (or any other firm tomato variety cut into small chunks) 

Cucumber - 1/2 cup cut into small chunks or slices

Apples  and / or Pears - 1/2 cup cut into pieces(I used the variety Golden Delicious but any crisp yet juicy variety should be good)

Raisins - 1/2 cup seedless

Pecans / Walnuts - 1/4 cup cut into small pieces

Grapes(optional) - 1/2 cup(you could also do half raisins and half grapes or just omit the grapes altogether - both ways work fine)

For seasoning / salad dressing: Mix /whisk together all of the following and set aside -

Light olive oil - 1  tbsp

Lemon juice - 2 tbsp

Honey - 1 to 2 tbsp(depending on how sweet you like the salad to be)

Crushed Black Pepper - 1 tsp

Salt to taste

Method:

Add all the cut veggies. fruits, nuts and dry fruits together in a bowl.

Pour the seasonings / salad dressing on top of the salad.

Whoo Hoo!!!

Note: This salad is better when consumed immediately or within an hour or two of preparation, otherwise the apples start turning brown.

I wonder how my blogger friends add punch to their salads???!!!!