My tomato soup 😊

It was a cold night and I yearned for something hot and spicy and filling and healthy. Well, not many food items fulfill that category. Suddenly, a hot bowl of tomato soup floated in front me. That's it !! 

So, I searched for recipes of this yummy soup online. There were many. But none of them were that easy. So, I made my own recipe. 

Ingredients (for 4 servings):

Tomato - 8

Onion - 2

Garlic - 4-5 cloves

Cream - 4-5 tbsp

Salt

Pepper

Italian herbs (either fresh or dried)

Red chili flakes

Add oil to a hot pan. Add onion, tomato and garlic. Cook until they are soft. After switching off the stove, add Italian herbs, chili flakes, salt and pepper. Let it cool. 

Mix in a blender until smooth. Transfer back to the pan, bring it to a boil. Switch off the stove. Now, add cream. Serve hot. 

For croutons: 

Take 4-5 bread slices. Cut each into 8-9 pieces. In a hot pan, add 1tsp olive oil, add these bread pieces. Add garlic herb butter ( Amul), sauté them well. Sprinkle salt. 

Tada!! Soup with crispy croutons are ready. 

Ps: you can add basil leaves before blending the tomato and onion mixture. 

Also, if you want a smooth soup, strain after blending. 

Do lemme know how the soup turned out 😊

Broken wheat pongal

This dish is one of my go-to dishes of all times. I love it because 

1. It's healthy. Hello broken wheat!

2. It's yummy. 

3. It's damn filling. 

4. Very easy to prepare. 

5. Can be had for breakfast, lunch and/or dinner 😊 

Ingredients:

Broken wheat - 1 cup

Veggies of ur choice

Milk and cream - 2-3 tbsp

Red or green chilies 

Stuff for seasoning

Salt and pepper

Steps:

1. Cook the broken wheat in cooker. 1:2 broken wheat and water ratio. 

2. Prepare the seasoning wit mustard, jeera, haldi, hing, curry leaves and chilies. 

3. Sauté the veggies. 

4. Add the cooked broken wheat and little water. 

5. Let it all cook for 5 mins and then add milk and cream. 

6. Once everything is cooked, switch off the stove and add salt and pepper. 

Pretty simple right. Lemme know how it turned out 😊

Papaya and other stuff smoothie !!

Lately I'm hearing so much about smoothies, I wanted to join the bandwagon. So I did. That was the day I had a very healthy morning. Worked out for an hour and had this as post workout smoothie. 

Ingredients:

Papaya

Banana

Cucumber

Carrots

Protein powder 

Pepper powder 

Blended all these for a nice looking smoothie. I say nice looking because that's all it was. I personally did not like the taste. Do not get wat the fuss is all about. I'd rather eat all of the fruits and veggies raw. 

But hey, if you want to try it, you know how to do it !!

Pesto pasta

So I had this huge craving for pasta last week. Being a new mom, I'm not allowed to eat out. So the only other option I had was to prepare it at home. 

Searched online for the recipe of pesto paste. It's so damn simple. I was floored. 

Ingredients:

Basil leaves - a handful

Olive oil - as required 

Garlic pods - 3-4

Cashew nuts and walnuts

Salt and pepper

Pasta of your choice

Veggies that you like

Mozzarella - a few chunks

Mix the first 5 ingredients and blend in a mixer/blender. That's it !!

For the pasta, I sautéed capsicum and corn, added the pasta and mozzarella cheese. Switched off the stove and then added the pesto paste. Turned out so yum. 

For the garlic bread, I found the garlic and herbs readymade butter in the super market. That made my job very easy. 

Qahwah tea review

To break my 11 am filter coffee addiction, I thought I ll try this tea powder my dad's friend had got from Kashmir. Needless to say, it worked well. Atleast for today. 

I'm a huge coffee lover. To deviate me, u need something really extraordinary. This tea powder.... Not so much. 

It is sweet. It should be had without milk. N it almost tastes like badam powder. It has a strong flavor of cardamom n kesar. First time I had this, I made the mistake of adding extra sugar. Ooh sugar rush. 

To sum it up, I may enjoy this tea once in a way. But def not a great substitute for my coffee. 

Tomato chutney

This chutney is so yummy you can eat a full cup all by itself. To appear lil more civilized (:P), eat it with chapati, dosa, idli, akki rotti.....

This particular recipe I picked from my mom and my aunt. My aunt (from Dharwad) is an awesome cook. She experiments so much and comes up with easy tips to make cooking a delight.

Ingredients:

• Tomato - 3
• chili - 2
• fried ground nut - 2 tsp
• coriander
• hing, jeera, turmeric, cumin seeds
• coconut grating

Steps:

• Prepare seasoning with cumin, jeera and hing. Add chilies and let them crackle.
• Now add cut tomatoes and let it cook till water content is gone.
• Let it cool a bit and transfer this to a mixer container.
• To it, add ground nuts, coriander, coconut grating and salt.
• Grind it to a paste and enjoy!!

Prepare this instead of the regular coconut chutney for dosa and idli and let me know if people at your home liked it :)

Bon appetite!

My version of baked vegetables

It was the day when I had had junk through out the day and so badly wanted my daily dose of veggies. I was so tired to prepare a full meal but was very hungry. This just came to my mind. May be I had read the recipe somewhere or seen someone cook on the telly. Once, the dish was done, it was gobbled up in 2 minutes flat. It turned out super yummy and without a guilt in the world, I had lots of it.

Ingredients (for 1 person):

• carrots - 2
• beans -  a handful
• potatoes - 2 small ones - cut it like potato wedges
• salt, pepper
• italian seasoning 
• chili flakes
• olive oil

Steps:

• Boil all the vegetables in water till they are partially done.
• In a shallow pan, add 1 tsp of olive oil and let it heat. Take out the potato slices from water and shallow fry it on the pan till they are done.

• Similarly, fry rest of the vegetables.
• Add salt, italian seasoning, chili flakes and pepper.

Do try it out when u feel the need to eat nothing but veggies. This can be prepared as a side dish too, for pasta or a burger.

Bon appetite!