Leftover Bread Dilemma

One thing always concerns me after relishing dahi idli ...what to do of all the edges that are cut off from the bread while making it?

Most often than not I roast the bread with tomato gravy which we at home call 'Bhuni Bread'. Occasionally I grind it after drying it in Sun to use as bread crumbs or bake it to use in Tomato Soup.
How do you use up your leftover bread?

Bhuni Bread

Ingredients:

5 Bread slices / Leftover bread from Dahi Idli
1 Tomato
1 T Oil
Pinch of Asafetida
½ tsp Mustard
1 Green chilly Chopped
1 tsp Chilli Powder
½ tsp Turmeric
Salt to taste
Coriander to Garnish

Break the bread into several pieces. Heat the oil in a wok and add mustard to it. Let it splutter and add hing and green chillies. To it add the Chilli, turmeric, salt and mix. Add the Tomatoes and sauté till the oil just starts to separate. Add the bread and mix well till it is coated with the tomato mix. Cook till it is a little roasted. Mix the finely chopped coriander.


Bread edges or leftover Bread used adds a crispness to the dish. While the soft portion of the bread turns soggy when used here.

I am sure Onion and Garlic paste would enhance the taste of this dish...However I still don't use it. Reason being I don't wish to change any dish, that I have learnt from my Mom, a bit. At my home back in Goa...My mom doesn't use Onion and Garlic in any preparation. That at times comes as a surprise to some. But thats the way we make all our dishes. However I do use Onion and garlic at my home but not for my Mom's recipe :)

Last week we chose Drona over Kidnap after much confusion as our Weekend watch. I indeed was happy after the not-so-good reviews Kidnap received, while it was a mixed bag for Drona.
DRONA primarily is a mythological film, set in today's time. For a mythological film to work it needs to involve you in, from the very beginning which drona fails miserably. Reason being several things left unexplained in the film, as a viewer you don’t feel excited about anything related to Drona being unfolded on screen. Without sounding too harsh I can say that there are high chances of one enjoying the mythological soaps telecast on TV than this movie.

The film borrows a lot from Harry potter but fails miserably. The animation is bad...something Hollywood did several years ago we are still struggling with.

As for the actors...Abhishek disappointed the most with Drona...You see him moving around with an angry face. He for once never looks the part for me. Kay kay came across as a very scary in his first scene...I had my eyes covered. But then on he disappoints.Priyanka is plain average. I wonder why she would be running around with her long flowing dresses when her job is to protect the savior of the world.

This is supposed to be a movie about a man with superpowers... But you never, even for a second can believe that the guy on the screen possesses any super powers what so ever.

Now something that never bothered me so much than in this movie, were the props used. Drona’s costume looked borrowed from some cheap theatre group with some motif work on it. One important prop used was a conch shell which when blown will open the doors to the place where the Amrit lies...Can u imagine that was painted in bright Purple and decorated all over with the sequin bindi stickers. Ditto was with the box hidden in the desert that stored this conch shell, so was the case with the hidden city of secret..decorated all over with sequins... I wonder if they bought the sequins in dozens.

Is Drona good for anything? Yes, it is. Its a good place to catch up with your old friend and chit chat for a couple of hours.

Director Goldie Behl has left the film well open for a sequel...and has in his recent interview confirmed that he indeed would go ahead with the sequel.


I had to share this with you'll...During a supposedly intense scene in the desert between Abhishek and Priyanka there was 'Tujhe dekha to yeh jana sanam' in the background...it leaves you with shock only to realize later that it was some body's ring tone in the theater and induces a huge laughter in the background. That was seriously funny.

Playing the guessing game

In my last post I had asked you'll to play a guessing game with me. A few of you did come close. I will come to that a li'l later.

Serving your guest with something they, in most probability, must have not had before, are going to love it and is still so simple to make...clicks with me. Works well even as an evening snack or when served in breakfast.

It is one snack whenever made for any of the guests, they have almost instantly asked for the recipe, men included! The men have always said that they would go back and try it at their home. How much of that really happened...I don't know :)

The dish looks like Idli...is called Idli..but definitely is not one.

This recipe is called DAHI IDLI / BREAD IDLI.

Ingredients:
10 Sandwich slices
2 Potatoes Boiled
8 T Curd
1 T Oil
1 t Mustard seeds
½ t Red Chilly powder
Salt to taste
Coriander finely chopped to Garnish

Add the chilli powder and salt to the boiled potatoes and mash it.

Add salt to the curd and mix well.

Heat oil in a pan (or a smaller utensil used for Tadka) and add the mustard seeds. Let it splutter and take off the stove.


To cut a slice into round you would require something circular which when placed over a slice will cover only the soft of the slice and not the edges. I normally use a glass or a sharp bowl for it.

On a cutting board place a slice of the bread and cut into circular using a glass, making sure edges are left behind. Similarly cut all the other slices


Apply a layer of potato mix on one side of the slice.


Heat the tawa and sprinkle few drops of oil. Place 2 potato covered slices at the center of the tawa, with their potato side down. Apply a generous coat of the Curd, making sure it doesn’t drip around.


This now needs to be covered with a lid making sure the lid doesn’t touch the bread. I use my pan lid for it.

After approx a min take off the lid and sprinkle ½ tsp of mustard oil mix over each bread and cover again. Cook till the potato layer is lightly roasted. Take it of the tawa and sprinkle some coriander leaves on it.


Serve hot with green chutney or tomato ketchup.

Now for the guessing part...there were a couple who guessed the ingredient, Curd, correct and the others guessed it as Idli. While Sripriya came closest with her Bread Idli guess!

Bread, Can anything be simpler?

Last afternoon I was going through my bookmarked recipes, a bread recipe caught my fancy. Did I say Bread...naah, I meant the simplest bread recipe. There couldn’t be anything simpler than this. Very low chance of anybody going wrong on this one (I got it perfectly after all!). Oh BTW I was suppose to be trying pizza recipes, wasn’t I? Hmmm...that post is coming real soon too, since I have got a very good recipe for it.

Back to the bread...Have you ever thought what goes in making a bread …All Purpose flour (Maida) which is the basic ingredient, Yeast to make the dough rise, Salt for the taste and of course water to make a dough. This is where I would stop my thinking and would wonder what else goes in to making that perfect bread.

To my surprise that was all! Yes the 4 magical ingredients + some time and you are done. I came across this bread recipe on Siri’s corner and couldn’t believe that bread making could be so simple. You should also check out this, it has some very good lessons about bread making.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 All Purpose Flour (Maida)
1 tsp Active Dry Yeast
1 tsp Salt
½ + 1/4 Cup warm Water

In a bowl pour the ¼ cup water and add the yeast to this. Keep this to froth. Takes approximately 10 mins. Make sure the water is not too hot as this can destroy the yeast, it should just be warm enough to comfortably dip your finger in it.

In a mixing bowl sift the flour and add salt. Add the frothy yeast and ½ cup water. Form this into a dough. If required use some more water. We do not want the dough to be dry with lumps. Form nice soft dough for perfect bread.

On a lightly floured surface transfer the dough and knead till you get a smooth dough. This step takes around 10 mins.
What is the correct way to knead the bread dough, if this is the same question haunting you, you need not look any further. Check this video. Since Kneading is a very important step of bread making, it is important that you get this right,

Grease a big bowl with oil and transfer the dough in it. Pat some oil on the dough with your fingers. Cover with a cling film and keep it to rest in a dark, warm place. I always keep this in my microwave and if the weather is cool I heat the oven for a minute before placing the dough. Now see the yeast do its magic.


Wait till the dough has doubled. This has almost always taken 2 + hours for me.


Punch the dough down and knead again for 2 mins. This goes back again in the greased bowl and cover it. Let this rise for another 45 mins, it would be back to nearly double its size by now.


Take it out and shape roughly into a loaf. Make scores (cuts) with a sharp knife to help release the trapped gases. This will prevent the loaf from breaking. Preheat the Oven to 200 deg C.


Just before putting the loaf to bake I brushed egg yolk on top of the loaf. Bake it for 30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.




I don’t remember when was the last time I was relishing the bread as it is. I ate 2 slices without any butter or anything. It was so damn tasty. I loved it. It was no different from the bread I buy from the store every week.

Healthy Breakfast..Some Movie bashing..Awards...Tags and a Break

Weekend Breakfast Blogging, WBB started by Nandita is one of my fav food blog event, as it emphasises on the importance of Breakfast. It is a known fact that Breakfast is the most important meal of the day...I really don't need to make a point about this. However even though we all know this...at times we land up skipping our breakfast. Sometimes it seems difficult to cook up an elaborate breakfast...but you don't need to. Even a fruit and some whole grain cereal with milk is also enough. Necessary is that Breakfast is taken...and taken on time.

The month of Aug sees the event being guest hosted by Latha of Masala Magic. She has come up with a wondeful theme 'WBB-Combi Breakfasts'.


A breakfast should contain protein and fiber. Hence I decided to cook Kaale chane and Daliya (Broken Wheat Porridge)...one of my family's traditional breakfast. Its very simple to make, is a very healthy option and doesn't call for much of preparation time.

Kaale Chane

Ingredients:
150 gm Black Chana
2 Green chillies finely chopped
1 T Oil
Pinch of Aesafoetida / Hing
1/4 tsp Jeera
1 tsp Red Chilli Powder
1/2 tsp Turmerica Powder
1 tsp Coriander powder
Salt to Taste
Juice of Half lemon
10 sprigs of Coriander

Wash the black chana and Soak it overnight. Add Salt and Pressure cook it till tender. Drain the water.

In a wok heat the oil and add hing and Jeera to it. Once it spluters add the green chillies, Red chilli powder, Turmeric powder, Coriander powder. Add the Black chana and mix well. let it cook for 3-4 mins. Add the lemon juice and coriander and mix well.



Daliya

Ingredients:
7 T Roasted Daliya (Broken Wheat)
200 ml Milk
1 1/2 T Sugar

Pressure cook the daliya with just enough water to cover it (Daliya gets cooked really fast, 2-3 whistles will be enough). Once the cooker cools down open the lid and add Sugar and milk to it. Wait for a boil and take off the stove.
Serve hot.




Now some movie bashing...Last Saturday nite after the shopping spree...Both of us felt like watching a movie. But where were we going to get tickets on Sat nite? Luckily for us (Later I ws going to realise how bad an idea this was) tickets were available for ‘Maan Gaye Mughale Azam’. After giving some thought we decided to book the tickets...afterall there were some credible names that of Rahul Bose, Kay Kay Menon, Mallika Sherawat (One cannot forget Pyar Ke Side effects and to an extent even in Ugly aur Pagli & Welcome), Paresh rawal, Pawan Malhotra associated with the movie.

Expecting some jokes funny enough to make you laugh is not asking for something big from a comedy film. From the promos one would never guess what one was for. I do not expect much logic from a Hindi Comedy film as long as they make me laugh...I enjoy them. But Logic was the director’s last concern it seemed. This was supposed to be a comedy film, but none of the jokes work. They are terrible to even smirk on. It is not as if there are no good jokes...But they come in so late, by that time you just don’t care.

After some time into the movie you realize this movie deals with the issue of terrorism in India and the Mumbai Blasts. Where is this heading, one would think?

In one particular interview the director of the movie had this comment to make ‘Paresh is the soul of the film, Rahul is the mind of the film, Mallika is the body of the film and Kay Kay is the shadow’.
Paresh definitely requires to do some soul searching before picking such scripts, such absent mindedness is not expected from an actor of Rahul Bose’s caliber with whom you associate credibility, Mallika definitely is the Body...I mean BODY only, least spoken the better about Kay Kay in the movie.

None of the actors seem interested...they sleep walk their roles. I wonder what made them take this film, were they threatened at gun point?? May be.

I could have walked out of the movie midway, like most did, if it was a bad one. But I had to sit thru because this was the worst movie I was watching and I had to know how bad a movie could get.
As I was going to publish this post...came across Rahul Bose's interview 'I admit Maan Gaye...was bad'. I wonder what is the point in giving this interview as we all already know it by now. If he really is not that kind of a person who will go on telling good because he is involved with the product, as he claims...I wonder why this particular interview was not given before the film's release. Could have saved us a lot of time and money :)

Awards...its been pouring awards everywhere in food blogs and I have been lucky to recive a few of them myself!

Usha and Suma have generously passed me the 'Beautiful Site Award' and 'Best Blog Dart Thinker Award'



Kitchen Flavors, Srilekha and Vidhya have passed me the 'Wylde Woman Award'


Health Nut Yasmeen has passed me the 'Brilliant Weblog Award'. Earlier passed to me by Srikar's Kitchen and Purva.


'Perfect Blend of Friendship' is passed onto me by Vidhya.



I have been tagged!
Dershana has tagged me with a poem on friendship.


We need friends for many reasons,all throughout the season.

We need friends to comfort uswhen we are sad,and to have fun with us when we are glad.

We need friends to give us good advice,

We need someone we can count on,and treat us nice.

We need friends to remember us once we have passed ;sharing memories that will always last.
Spread the poem of friendship 1.Everyday Life 2.Words of Love 3.Sheng's Simple Thoughts . . . 4.My Wonderful Life .... 5.Can of Thoughts 6.Designs By Vhiel 7.Vhiel's Corner 8.Anything and Everything in Between 9.A Mother's Stuff 10.Housewife at work 11.My Receipes 12.Vblogger 13.thefootloosechef 14.sizzling bites 15.You Next

I would like to pass this to
Jayasree
Uma
Usha
Vidhya
Yasmeen


Sireesha has tagged me for 7 facts abt me. It was nice knowing Sireesha through this meme.
The rules of the meme are:
(a) List these rules on your blog.
(b) Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog.
(c) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

7 Facts about me...

Work: My first job after completing B.E. was in HP exactly 3 years back and I continue to be in the same company.

Education: B.E. (I.T.) from Goa College of Engineering.

Friendship: Life has made it difficult to stay in touch with everybody, but I am definitely very much in touch with my close friends. We do meet whenever possible.

Relationship: I weigh the Relationships heavily. All of them are very important to me. I like to be surrounded by my near and dear ones.

Internet (WWW): I started using it when I got in college. Thanks to the WWW that we have these online communities which let us share our common interests.

Fitness: I like to walk and swim. I do not follow a fitness regime as much as I would have liked to. Every 10 days I come up with a plan and drop it by the 5th day

Dreams: I m not a dreamer, with my my eyes open that is. It is when I hit the sack that all the dreaming starts...But I never remeber any of them for more than 10 mins once I am awake. Only exception is the baking dreams I m getiing these days...I rem them clearly. Luckily for me they are not nightmares :)

Now this is not fair...There surely are more than 7 ppl people whom I would wish to know through this meme...For the sake of the rules I will pass this to 7 bloggers only :(
Bhawana
Dershana
Divya
Priyanka
Rajani
Suma
Sunshinemom

Sireesha and Divya have tagged me for the 'Booky meme'. I did this a couple of weeks back and have not been reading nything new lately. So I am linking it here.

Thank you ALL!


Now to the best part...The much needed...BREAK I m travelling back to Goa today, to celebrate my first Ganesh Chaturthi. I am looking forward to spending some quality time with family and getting to know the festival closely. I wish all of you a Happy Ganesh Chathurthi.

Happy Blogging!

To err is Human

How much time does one take to be successful at a dish?
A week's try, or may be a month or few. I have gone way beyond this benchmark and took almost 2 1/2 years to get one of my favorite breakfast right. Mix Veggie Oothapams that my Mom made always topped my list. I was never into cooking until 3 years back, and cooking was the activity I did only when my Mom was out of station.

It was when I moved out of my house to take up a job, cooking caught up with me. Initially, to save myself from getting ready day after day, walking to the nearby restaurant and eating, the almost same tasting food, irrespective of what you ordered. Expectedly, cooking started off as a bit of cumbersome job; to fill my and my roomies (She didn't know to cook much) stomach and eventually it started relaxing me after the day's work. Now it is something I look forward to. Anyways I think I got a little sidetracked, back to the Oothapams. I made several attempts to make Oothapams, but they Never seemed to turn out fine. I never gave up however, until my husband started avoiding them :)

So this time when I was visiting my mom I asked her to show me how she made them, and I realized I was making too many mistakes in the proportion of the ingredients. I have learnt my lesson the hard way (Though my husband feels he has had it the hardest, eating up those unsuccessful Oothapams).

Mix Veg Oothapams are fast to make, very healthy and you can always experiment with the vegetables depending on your choice or even availability.

Mix Veggie Oothapam

Ingredients:
1/2 Capsicum finely diced
1 Tomato finely diced
1 Green Chilli finely chopped
10 Coriander leaves chopped
10 T Rava
1 1/2 T Curd
1 tsp Red Chilli powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
200 ml Water
Salt to Taste

Mix the capsicums, tomatoes, green chillies, coriander, red chilli powder and salt.

Add the Curd, Rava and Water to this and let this mix stand for 10 mins. Heat the tawa. When the tawa is ready, add the baking soda to the rava mix. Just mix it a little. Put a portion of the mix on the tawa and flatten it using your fingers, depending on how thick you like it, 1/2 cm thick should be good.

Put some oil and roast. Take care while flipping the Oothapam, it can be very tricky. I still land up breaking them while flipping.

Enjoy it with Green chutney or Tomato Ketchup.

Incase you don't have capsicum, try it with cucumber. I have never done this personally, but my mom makes this combination as well.

I am sending this to Weekend Breakfast Blogging, WBB July'08 which is being hosted this month by Sia of Monsoon Spice.

In her own words, this event was started by Nandita from Saffron Trail to popularise breakfast among food bloggers.

Isn't the logo by Sia wonderful?