Beetroot Soup

Currently the weather here in Bangalore is very pleasant and at times quite chilly too especially towards the evening. Its during times like these, just the thought of sipping a hot bowl of soup while sitting in the balcony, makes one feel good. I decided to change visualization to reality and headed straight towards my fridge. I had a few vegetables but only one beetroot. So decided to use this. I then rummaged through my recipe collections and found three beetroot recipes. But could not follow any one recipe as I did not have all the ingredients needed. Thus a new Soup was born with bits of inputs from all the three recipes. And the result was very satisfying.

My spouse just loved it. So that made my day!

Ingredients:

Beetroot (boiled)	1 medium
Tomato (blanched)	1 medium
Spring Onions	2
Ginger (minced)	1inch piece
Green chilly (sliced)	1
Coconut Milk	3-4 tbsps
Oil	3tsps
Salt	As per taste

Method:

1. Peel the skins from the blanched tomato and boiled beetroot and roughly chop them and keep aside.
2. Slice the spring onions and separate the onions from the greens and keep aside.
3. Heat a pan with oil in it. Add the greens (only) of the spring onion and lightly fry it for a few minutes and remove. This is then used for garnishing.
4. In the same pan, now add the sliced onions, green chilies and minced ginger. Saute it for a while.
5. Next add the beetroot and tomato pieces, salt, coconut milk and the stock left over after boiling beetroot and tomato.
6. Allow this mixture to boil for about 10-12 mins and remove from flame.
7. When slightly cooled, blend the whole mixture to a puree.
8. Serve hot. Garnish with prepared greens of the spring onion.
   
   

Ingredients

Ingredients - chopped and kept ready

Onion, ginger and chilly being stir-fried in oil

Added beetroot, tomato, salt and coconut milk and kept for boiilng

Mixture blended into puree

Beetroot Soup garnished and ready to be served

Preparation time: 10 mins

Cooking : 25 mins

Serves: 2

Note:

• I used packaged coconut milk in this recipe.
• If you like it more spicy, you can either add pepper powder or include one more chilly. The choice is yours.
• I used spring onions instead of regular onions as the prices of these are sky-rocketing!

Chocolate

Recently during my casual visit to one of my neighbours, I was offered chocolates. Well, who can resist chocolates? At least not me ! I gladly took one and found them to be delicious. She then told me that they were home-made. After hearing that, I took another one and was keen to have the recipe. She apparently, got this recipe from her friend who got it from hers and so on and so forth.

Well to cut a long story short, I prepared it immediately and thought of sharing the same with you all. So here it is.

Raksha-Bandhan is fast approaching, this is a treat to all the brothers.

Happy Raksha-Bandhan day to you all.

Ingredients:

Curd	1 cup
Sugar	2 cups
Wheat flour	1 cup
Butter	1 cup
Cocoa powder	3 tbsps
Vanilla essence	1 tsp

Method:

1. Heat a non-stick pan.
2. Add butter, wheat flour, curds and sugar in it and keeping the flame low, mix it well and stir the mixture from time to time so that no lumps are formed.
3. When the mixture becomes semi-solid and leaves the sides of the pan, add vanilla essence and cocoa powder and keep stirring till the the whole mixture turns into a solid mass. This may take about an hour and a half.
4. In the meantime, prepare a greased plate/tray and keep it aside.
5. When the mixture hardens and turns into a solid mass, remove from flame, and place the contents on to the greased plate and immediately spread it as evenly as possible.
6. Cut it into squares and allow it to cool in the plate.
7. When completly cooled, separate each square and store them in air tight container.

Ingredients

Curd, butter, wheat flour and sugar being mixed together

The mixture being stirred to prevent any lumps being formed

Vanilla essence added

Cocoa powder added

A solid mass formed

Mixture spread evenly and cut into squares

Chocolates ready to be devoured!

 

Preparation time: 10 mins

Cooking time: 1hour 30 mins.

Makes: 56 pieces ( each pc. approx. 1.5inch square in size)

Note:

• Can be kept for a month or two when stored in an air-tight container and refrigerated.
• To make it more attractive, you can wrap them up individually in coloured /silver foil wrappers.
• To enhance its taste, you can also add chopped nuts and raisins.
• I have noticed that the colour of the cocoa lightens as the mixture hardens.
• I greased a baking tray and also placed a greased butter paper for easy removal of the chocolate pieces when cooled.

 

Spicy Green Gram Idli (Sanna Khotto)

This spicy idli is not a breakfast dish. It is served as a side-dish with a teaspoon of coconut oil dribbled on top of the pieces. ( If you are averse to coconut oil, you can omit it. It still tastes great.)  We “Amchis” (Konkani speaking people) call it “Sanna Khotto” and we love our coconut oil on specific dishes (to name a few - Pathrado, Humman etc) and this is one of them. Traditionally, it is prepared with rice only or with rice and green gram and is steamed in cups stitched with leaves from jack-fruit tree and the cup prepared in this way, is known as “Khotto”.  This can also be steamed like normal idlis in greased idli cups.

I have omitted rice totally in this recipe and steamed it in a greased steel plate. It tasted wonderful.

Ingredients:

Green gram (Moong)	¾ cup
Coconut gratings	½ cup
Roasted red chilies	4-5
Tamarind pallet	Marble size
Asafetida (hing)	¼ tsp
Salt	As per taste
Oil	For smearing the plate

Method:

1. Wash and soak the green gram for about 2-3 hours and then drain the water.
2. Grind the soaked green gram along with coconut gratings, roasted red chilies, tamarind, asafetida and salt with very little water to a coarse (like semolina) paste.
3. Grease a steel plate with oil and spread the ground mixture evenly in it and steam it in a pressure cooker (without the whistle) or in a steamer for about 35 - 40 mins or until done.
4. When slightly cooled, cut it into squares.
5. Serve hot.

Ingredients

Ingredients ground to a coarse paste

 

              Ground paste spread evenly on a greased steel plate

Steaming under process

Just removed from the steamer

Cut into square shapes when slightly cooled

Placed in a serving bowl

Makes: 16 pieces

Note:

• Chopped onions can be added if desired to the ground mixture instead of asafetida.
• Another variation is:  chopped spinach when added to the ground mixture also enhances its taste.