Orange, Peppers and Cabbage Salad

It was just one of those days. Between getting late for work and making the best of what's available in the fridge (My stock's run out), this salad is what I could rustle up for lunch.

Orange, Peppers and Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

• Cup of cabbage
• Cup of green pepper
• 1/2 cup carrots
• 1/2 cucumber
• Tablespoon of sunflower seeds
• 10-12 black olives
• 1 1/2 oranges
• 2 jalepeno peppers
• Teaspoon of olive oil

To make:

• Chop up the cabbage, carrots, cucumber, and peppers into thin long slivers.
• Juice half an orange. Mix this with the olive oil to make the dressing.
• Peel and seperate the remaing orange.
• Toss together the veggies with the jalepenos, olives and orange slivers.
• Add the dressing.
• Garnish with sunflower seeds.

What I Want Now: Seed and Nori Power Bars

Perfect for that extra bit of heat in the winter months - and I have most of the ingredients except the nori sheets!
Photo and recipe courtesy http://blog.asmartmouth.com/:

Carrot and Cabbage Salad with Coriander+Cumin Dry Rub

Apparently, Bugs Bunny isn't the only gone going gaga for carrots. They're everywhere, and I can't get enough of my organic carrots and mom's got a bunch of them red carrots. I made my salad today using dhana jeera powder, which is equal parts coriander seeds and cumin. If you can't find the same, dry roast some coriander and cumin seeds, then blitz them into a powder in a blender.

Carrot and Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups of carrots
• 1.5 cups of red and green cabbage
• Bunch of coriander
• Teaspoon of olive oil
• 2 teaspoons of sunflower seeds
• 1 teaspoon of dhana-jeera powder (coriander and cumin seed powder)
• Juice of one lime

To make:

• Chop up the carrots and the cabbage into slivers of roughly the same size.
• Add the dry rub powder, lime juice, and olive oil and massage it into the veggies.
• Add the coriander and sunflower seeds on top.
• Leave aside for a couple of hours for the spices to seep into the veggies for added flavor.
  
  
  

The Green Salad

Zuccini, Peppers and Beet Salad with a Spicy Green Dressing:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of yellow zuccini
• 1 cup of green and red peppers
• 1/2 of cabbage
• 2 beetroots

Dressing

• 10-12 black olives
• 3-4 jalepeno peppers
• 1 tablespoon of green chutney (coconut, chilli, and coriander)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Handful of coriander
• Juice of half a lime

To make:
Roughly chop up all the veggies. Mix in a bowl. Combine all the ingredients for the salad dressing. Mix well and pour over the salad.

Hummus and Veggie Patties

There's a quiet nip in the air over the last few days - well, you can't really complain that it is cold in Mumbai! So, I am definitely craving a bit of heat from my food. There's always alcohol to do that job for me - but you can't go around boozy all day!

...And my pot of hummus (quite literally - it came in an earthen pot) needed intensive attention before its demise this Sunday (at least that's what the hummous lady at the Farmer's market told me last Sunday). Hence, the hummus, which is already boiled and ground up, was the perfect replacement for other lentils I might have used. Mine contained the usual chick pea as well as sesame and pumpkin seeds.

I made the mistake of adding some water in the blender which left the patties a bit on the soggy side. So, definitely don't do that! And I had mine with normal white (yes, processed) bread grilled with a lettuce leaf and two patties in each sandwich.

Hummus and Veggie Patties

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons of hummus
• About 1 - 1/2 cups of zuccini, peppers, carrots
• 2 whole jalepeno peppers
• 1/2 teaspoon of curry powder
• A pinch of tumeric powder
• About a cup of semolina

To make:

• Chop up the zuccini, peppers and carrots roughly.
• Toss the veggies into a blender and blitz the life out of them.
• Add the hummus, jalepenos and the spices. Mix again.
• Form patties of your desired shape.
• Coat the patties uniformly in the semolina (or bread crumbs, if you have them).
• Deep fry till a golden brown.
• Enjoy with a mint chutney or Tabasco.

Serving: Will make about 6 patties.

What I Want Now: English Plum Pudding

Here's an absolutely gorgeous looking Christmas Cake photo/recipe:

(C) http://makinglifedelicious.com/

Mmmm...

Vegetable Upma

Upma, or savoury semolina porridge, is a staple of any self respecting South Indian household. This tasty breakfast staple is best eaten piping hot and can be endlessly adapted depending on what you add to the basic semolina mix. Carrots and peas are the most commonly used veggies used to complement this dish.

We also have handy upma pre-mixes available - most famously by MTR, which is what I had and happily used this morning. I was originally going to make a ragi (millet) based upma, but then I realized I hadn't soaked my ragi overnight, so, screw that!

The pre-mix is essentially semolina with all the seasonings - so all you have to do is pour the mix into boiling water. In case you cannot find such a pre-mix, go to the bottom of the post for the full version of the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup upma pre-mix
• 1 1/2 cups of assorted vegetables (I used carrots, onions, peppers, cabbage, tomato)
• 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil
• Coriander to garnish

To make:

Bring two cups of water to a boil in a pot.

Drop the cup of pre-mix semolina into the water and let it cook for 5-7 minutes.

Be sure to stir regularly to ensure no lumps are formed.

When the semolina looks cooked (no more than 7 minutes, usually), turn off the gas.

Add the vegetables. Stir thoroughly.

Garnish with the coriander and squeeze a quarter of a lime over.

Serve immediately.

If you do not or cannot find an upma premix packet, use plain semolina and add the following in addition to the ingredients outlined above:

• 2 green chillies slit lengthwise
• 1" piece of ginger grated
• 3/4 tsp mustard seeds
• Pinch of turmeric powder 

The Leftover Salad

Everyone's got clumsy leftovers - not bad enough to throw out, and not tempting enough to eat them on their own. So, what do you do? Lazy that I am, I toss them all up in a salad. I had a quarter of an avocado and pepper each, and some mushroom rice from the previous night. My rice was slap-bang cold and I didn't have the time to thaw or heat it before as I was already late for work!

The Leftover Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of fried mushroom rice (boiled would work great too!)
• 1/4 of an avocado
• 1 cup lettuce
• 1 cup green and red peppers
• Handful of red cabbage
• Handful of watermelon and sesame seeds (to garnish)
• Dash of olive oil
• Dash of dark soy sauce

To make:
Chop up the peppers and avocado into cute little squares, the cabbage into long slivers.

Add the rice. Mix well.

Add the olive oil and soy sauce.

Garnish with watermelon and sesame seeds.

Parsi Vegetable Dhansak

Once upon a time, I was a Parsi - I have Persian blood, which would explain why everyone thinks the Parsis are a crazy bunch. However, religion  - like milk - stopped making sense to me over a decade ago and I am now proudly atheist.

However, my point is, we do have some lovely food! My personal favorite is was the Patra-ni-Machhi (fish fillets with a spicy pesto, steamed inside a banana leaf).

The most famous of the lot is probably Mutton Dhansak. Dhansak is essentially white rice caramelized to a red/brown colour; topped with a spicy lentil and meat curry.

Here's a vegetarian recipe for Dhansak, courtesy of My Diverse Kitchen.

Curried Beets and Carrots

Since I do have a pile of organic carrots and beets and didn't want to mess too much with their taste, I just grated a couple of beets and carrots and added some dry savory spices. I've used curry powder - you'll get little packets of premixed curry powder at Asian stores. If you are feeling adventurous, try making it yourself with a little help from this curry powder recipe.

Very healthy and keeps well all day - In fact tastes better after a few hours!

Ingredients

• 2 beets
• 1 carrot
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• Handful of dessicated/fresh coconut (garnish)
• teaspoon of olive oil
• 1 lime wedge

To make:
Peel your beets and grate them.

Grate your carrot and add to the grated beets.

Add the curry powder, chilli powder, and oil. Mix well.

Garnish with the coconut and squeeze the lime for that twang.