A Break!

Dear friends,

We are going on vacation to India for about 3 weeks. We would be welcoming the new year "2010" with our parents!!!!!! Hence my next post will be 2010 :) (reason being 1. enjoying the vacation 2. laptop is dead!) So new year to me means new hopes, new resolutions, new ideas for blogging and of course, new laptop too!

So Wishing you all Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Promising New Year!!!!

Cheers!
Rohini

Vegetable Pulav, T&T Chilly Paneer

Yay, I'm back! Thanks a bunch friends, for all your concerns, tips and wishes, my laptop has gotten itself some life and is normal (at least as I am typing this post!) For anybody who is facing this issue, I uninstalled and re-installed my Anitvirus and did a couple of malware scans and that did the trick. Please do write to me if you would like to have the complete steps.

Coming to our recipe for today, Vegetable Pulav is one yummy, complete meal that is a sure hit in most of our homes, be it a party or a lazy sunday lunch! I have about half-a-dozen pulav recipes, with difficulty level ranging from easy to high, the simplest (yet tasty) one being my MIL's version. I shall post that some time soon!

Here is a version that calls for a little bit for work before hand, but is well worth the effort. So without much talks, let's see how I made Vegetable Pulav.

Vegetable Pulav
Basmati rice cooked with marinated vegetables and spices
Serves 2

What we need:
Basmati Rice - 2 cups
Onion, big sized - 1, thinly sliced
Tomato, big sized - 1, roughly chopped
Vegetables - 1 cup ( I have used Carrot, Beans, Peas, Cauliflower, Potato)
Soya chunks - a handful - Optional
Green chillies - 2 or 3, minces
Mint leaves - less than a handful
* Pulav Masala powder - 1 tbsp.
Bay leaf - 1
Cumin seeds - 1 tbsp.
Ghee/Oil - 3 tbsp.
Water - 3 cups
Salt - according to taste
Coriander - chopped, for garnish

To marinate:
Thick Curd - 3 to 4 tbsp.
Red Chilli powder - 2 tsp.
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp.
Cumin powder - 1 tsp.
Coriander powder - 1 tsp.
Salt - a little
Kasoori Methi - 2 tbsp., crushed
Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tbsp. - Optional
A few mint leaves

* If you don't have store-bought Pulav masala, you can dry-roast 3 to 4 cloves, 1" inch cinnamom stick, a black cardamom, 2 or 3 green cardamom, cumin seeds, fennel seeds and powder them.

How to do:
1. Wash well and soak the basmati rice in water for 30 to 40 minutes.
2. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients given under 'To marinate'. To this, add the vegetables and give a good mix. If you are adding soya chunks, boil them for 3 to 4 minutes, squeeze the excess water and add them to the marinade. Let this also sit for 30 minutes.
3. Heat ghee/oil and add the bay leaf and cumin seeds.
4. When they are done, add the onion, green chilli, mint leaves and saute well.
5. When the onions turn translucent, add the tomatoes, salt and Pulav masala powder.
6. After the tomatoes turn soft, add in the marinated vegetables and the remaining marinade if any.
7. Drain and add the rice; mix well. Now add water (1 cup of rice: 1.5 cups of water)and cook till the rice is done.

Notes:
Take care when adding salt, as our marinade has a bit of salt.
If you are using Pressure cooker, in step 7, add boiling water, add a few drops of lemon juice and cook for 1 whistle.

Garnish with chopped coriander and serve hot with a raita of your choice!!

T&T Chilly Paneer from Kanchan's Personal Tadka

Paneer is my all-time favorite ingredient, and am sure it is for most of us too! (That is evident from so many Paneer-related events in the blogsphere!) But for snacks, I stick diligently to Paneer tikkas or Paneer bites. Kanchan's Chilly Paneer kept coming back to me, so I made it one evening. Only change I did was to add red bell peppers instead of green ones, as I didn't get the green ones that week.
And the outcome: DH and myself, ate in complete silence!!! It was sooooo tasty and finger-licking-delicious (in our case, fork-licking!) Thanks Kanchan, I am passing to you my DH's thanks too :)

See you all soon! Till then, Happy Cooking and Happy Blogging!

A tale of my trouble!

First of all, a million "Sorry" buddies, for not catching up with any of your posts of late. I would like to give the due credit to none other than my own "Laptop"...Argggghhhhh.... Somehow my laptop has gotten an idea that it is a 6 months old baby and it is craaaaaaawwwwwliiiiiing! (I feel even babies nowadays are faster!) Every single page/blog takes nearly 20 minutes to load, and if I start punching in the comments, that is another 20 minutes! I sometimes feel like throwing the laptop out of my balcony and happily wait for someone to take it away! :(

Talking in techincal terms, my CPU usage always shows 100% and the process "svchost.exe" seems to be culprit! No virus, all probes run clean!! I have already tried so many fixes but nothing seem to help. So any techies out there, if you have faced such issue and had a fix, please let me know!

Even this post, I am typing from the notepad, as that seems to be the only application not affected by the "god-knows-what" issue! So please bear with me for a while (a while can be a few hours, a few days or even a few weeks!) and I shall try to be back as soon as possible. However I'll try to post whenever my laptop permits me to do so!

Take care buddies and see you all soon! Till then, Happy Cooking and Happy Blogging!