Strawberry Milkshake

Time: 5 minutes
Serves: 2 persons



Ingredients:
approx 15 medium strawberries (please read tip at the bottom)
1 cup strawberry Ice-cream (may be more :))
1/4 cup chilled milk
2 tbsp milk powder
1 to 2 tsp sugar

Method:
1) Blend milk powder with milk.
2) Now blend milk+milk powder, sugar, chopped strawberries and ice-cream. Blend everything well using a mixie till frothy.
3) Pour into 2 glasses. Decorate with strawberry slices. Serve instantly.

Tips:
1) You may peel the strawberries to remove the seeds. Some people may find these crunchy seeds little annoying.
2) You can stir in bits of strawberries into milkshake to give little chunky texture.
3) Add a scoop of icecream or whipped cream on top. 

Badam Malai Kulfi

Serves – 2 to 3

Ingredients:
3 cups whole Milk
¼ cup Fresh Mawa (2 Tbsp)
½ to ¾ cup Sugar
1/3 cup Almond pieces
2 tsp Corn Flour
½ tsp Cardamom powder
Pinch of Saffron

Method:
1) Grind Almond pieces to coarse Powder.
2) Heat a saucepan. Keep the heat on medium. Add milk and reduce it to half i.e. approximately 1½ cup. Add sugar while reducing milk. Stir continuously from start to end, to avoid milk sticking to the bottom.
3) Crumble Mawa with hands and remove all the lumps.
4) Take 2 tbsp cold milk in a small bowl. Add 2 tsp Corn Flour. Mix well and add it to the boiling milk. Milk will start thickening.
5) Once milk become thick; add Cardamom Powder, Saffron, and Mawa. Mix well and remove lumps. Mix well and remove from heat.
6) Let the mixture become little cool down. Then pour into Kulfi mold or any Icecream mold and set into freezer.

Sooji Khoya Laddu

Time: 25 minutes
Yield: 25 medium laddus

 Ingredients:
2 cup Rava (fine)
1.5 cup khoya
1.5 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/4 cup ghee
1/2 tsp cardamom powder

Method:
1) Add ghee and rava into a kadai. Roast rava over medium heat for 5 to 8 minutes. Stir continuously to prevent rava from burning. Transfer roasted rava to a big thali (plate).
2) In the same kadai add crumbled khoya and roast over low heat till color changes. Transfer khoya to a bowl.
3) When rava and khoya becomes lukewarm, mix them together very gently.
4) Now, prepare one string consistency sugar syrup. For that, mix sugar and water to a medium saucepan. Bring it to a boil. Stir occasionally. To check one string consistency, dip a spoon in syrup, touch carefully with your index finger. Press your index finger against your thumb.When finger and thumb pull apart, a thin string should form between them [the string will be for fraction of a second]. OR the easy way is, once syrup starts boiling, boil for 3 to 4 minutes and turn off the heat.
5) When one string consistency syrup is done, add rava-khoya mixture. Mix nicely. Consistency of the mixture will be loose. However it will thicken after sometime. Add cardamom powder. Mix this mixture occasionally.
Once mixture is thick enough to form a ball, make laddus. Stick one golden raisin on each laddu.

Tip:
1) Even after few hours of waiting, if the mixture hasn't thicken, then microwave for a minute. This will help to thicken the laddu mixture.

Pasta with Coriander Pesto

Time: 25 to 30 minutes
Serves: 2-3

Ingredients:
100 gram pasta (I use Penne Pasta)
1 tsp Salt
For white sauce
1 tsp butter
1 tbsp Maida
3/4 cup hot milk
pinch of pepper
2-3 pinches Salt
For Vegetables
5-6 button mushrooms, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
2 tsp Olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pasta mix (spice blend)
For Pesto
1 cup chopped coriander
3 tbsp olive oil
10-12 almonds
3-4 garlic cloves
2 tsp lemon juice
Pinch of black pepper
Salt to taste
Other ingredients
grated Cheese
Chilli flakes


Method:
1) Heat sufficient water into a pan. Add salt and pasta. Cook pasta till soft. Once cooked, drain.
2) To make pesto, grind all the ingredients given under label 'pesto'. You may add little water to give thick yet flowy consistency.
3) Take a kadai. Add 2 tsp olive oil. Add sliced onion. Saute onion slightly. Add mushrooms and salt. Saute till mushrooms becomes soft. Add pasta mix and remove from flame.
4) Take another pan. Heat butter over low flame. Add maida. saute for few seconds. Add hot milk. Stir vigorously till you get smooth texture sauce. add salt and pepper. Add cooked pasta. Mix well.

You may mix cooked vegetables, pesto and pasta at this stage. Warm it, sprinkle cheese and chilli flakes on top.
OR into an ovenproof dish, spread pasta. Spread vegetables evenly and then coriander pesto. Top it with grated cheese and chilli flakes. (use ovenproof dish)
Broil it till cheese melts.
Serve hot.

Tips:
1) You may add other vegetables like red, yellow capsicum, broccoli etc.

Sweet Corn Soup

Time: 25 minutes
Makes: 4 servings

Ingredients:
2 cups Sweet corns
1 tsp butter
2-3 tbsp bell pepper, chopped
2-3 tbsp carrots, small cubes
2 tbsp cabbage, chopped
1 tbsp corn flour
1/4 tsp white pepper powder
Salt to taste
2 tsp sugar
Spring onion, green part for garnishing


Method:
1) Pressure cook sweet corns. Add water along with the sweet corns. Pressure cook upto 4 whistles.
2) Grind 1.5 cups sweet corns to a fine puree. Strain using a fine mesh strainer.
3) Heat kadai. Add butter and saute bell pepper, cabbage and carrots for a minute. Add strained puree and 1/2 cup boiled whole corn kernels. Also add around 2.5 cups of water.
4) In a small bowl. Mix corn flour and 1/2 cup water. Once the corn puree starts boiling, add mixture of corn flour+water.
5) Simmer for a minute. Add salt, sugar and pepper powder.
Garnish with green part of spring onion. Serve hot.

Nutritional Info: (per serving) (Considering 4 servings)
Calories: 93| Carbs: 20 g | Fat: 2 g | Protein: 2 g | Sat. Fat: 1 g | Sugar: 5 g

Sesame Laddus

Tilgul Laddus (Sesame laddus)

Ingredients:
½ kg While Sesame
½ kg Jaggery (Chikkicha Gool)
1 cup Roasted Peanuts coarse powder
½ cup grated and roasted Dry Coconut
½ cup Pandharpuri Chana dal
1 tsp Cardamom Powder
1 to 2 tbsp Pure Ghee

Method:
1) Roast ½ kg sesame till golden brown
2) Keep ready roasted coarse peanuts, grated and roasted Dry Coconut.
3) In other pan, melt Chikki Gool. After some time, it will start boiling. The jaggery should be at the “soft-ball” stage. That means that when you drop a bit of it into cold water to cool it down, it will form a soft ball. If you remove the ball from water, it will flatten like a pancake after a few moments in your hand. Sesame Laddus are made using the jaggery in softball stage.
4) Add roasted Sesame, coarse peanuts, roasted dry coconut, Pandharpuri Chana Dal and cardamom powder and mix well.
5) Grease hands with little Ghee as we are going to make laddus while the mixture is hot. Therefore, because of ghee, hot mixture will not stick to hands.
6) Make 1 inch round shaped laddus while mixture is hot. If it gets cold, it won’t form the round shape as the jaggery will become hard. So, while making laddus if mixture becomes cold, put it again on high heat so that jaggery will melt and you can make laddus from that remaining mixture.

Note:
1) To make laddus rich in flavour, add unsalted cashew pieces or any other dry fruits.
 

Champakali

Time: 1 hour
20-22 medium champakali

 Ingredients:
100 gram Maida
15 to 20 gram Dalda (or any vegetable fat)
Pinch of salt
Powdered sugar, as much needed
Oil and ghee for frying


Method:
1) Add pinch of salt and dalda to maida. Mix well until you get bread crumbs like mixture. dalda should be well mixed. Sprinkle very little water and make a stiff dough. Cover for 15-20 minutes.
2) Divide the dough into 1/2 inch ball. Roll each ball into a thin poori (disc). Make vertical slits keeping the ends intact. Try to make the slits closer. (please refer the above picture.)
3) Start rolling from one end and seal the edges while rolling. Make all the champakalis and deep fry over low to medium heat. When they cool down a bit (warm) sprinkle powdered sugar.
Let them cool completely and then store in airtight container.


Tip:
1) Do not sprinkle sugar over hot champakali, it will make them soft.

Stuffed Idli

 15 idlis
Time 20 minutes

Ingredients:
2 to 2.5 cups Idli batter
little oil to grease idli moulds
::::Stuffing::::
3/4 cup freshly scraped coconut
2 tsp cashews, broken
2 tsp golden raisins
2 tsp paste of green chilies and cilantro
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1/2 tsp lemon juice
Salt to taste

Method:
1) Mix the ingredients given under label 'stuffing'. Grease idli moulds.
2) Boil water in Idli cooker (2 inch at the bottom). Half-fill the idli moulds. Sprinkle some stuffing. Then cover it with idli batter.
3) Steam cook for 15 minutes. Open the cooker after 5 minutes. Remove idlis.
Serve hot.

Jowar flour thalipeeth

Time: 25 minutes
Yield: 2-3 medium thalipeeth

Ingredients:
1 cup Jowar Flour
1 cup water
1 big onion, julienne (thin vertical slices)
1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp hing, 1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tsp green chili paste
2-3 tbsp finely chopped cilantro
Oil
Salt to taste

Method:
1) Heat the water. Add salt, cumin, hing, and turmeric. Check the taste, it should be slightly salty. When water starts bubbling, turn off the flame, add flour and mix. Cover and keep it aside for 10 minutes.
2) After 10 minutes, knead the dough. Add chili paste, onion, and cilantro while kneading. You may sprinkle little water to make the dough pliable. Divide the dough into big portions (approx size of a tennis ball)
3) Take 2 thick plastic sheets. Grease them from inside. Place the ball in between. Press and spread evenly or you may roll it with rolling pin. Poke at 2-3 places to make space for drizzling oil.
4) Heat nonstick tawa and drizzle little oil. Put the thalipeeth on it. Turn heat to low. Cover and cook for 2 to 4 minutes. Remove the lid and increase the flame slightly. Drizzle some oil around. Flip and cook the other side too.
Serve hot with yogurt or homemade butter.