Sunday, February 26, 2012

Tomato soup pulao...




Hello everyone! How have you all been. My today’s recipe is very simple and easy to make plus everyone loves it. Pulao is eaten a lot and lovingly in my home and I am sure everyone  enjoys it. There are many variations all the mommies come up with and I am no exception. I made this pulao using tomato soup powder and well end result was it was finished off with happy satisfied feeling in tummy.

So lets begin our pulao.  Again the measurements I give here are just for indication and you can adjust it your way.

Ingredients:

1cup rice washed and soaked
½ cup tomato soup ( I use the knorr ready soup)
½ cup mix vegetables of your choice ( I have used here peas, cauliflower, carrots and potatoes)
1 onion sliced
1 dalchini/cinnamon stick cut in small pieces               
 2-3 cloves
1 cardamom broken                               
Salt to taste
1tsp garam masala powder
 2tsp  red chilli powder
2 tbsp ghee
1tsp jeera/cumin seeds
Water as required

Method:

Take a pan, add 1tbsp ghee. Let it heat then add jeera. Once it splutters add onions and sauté till they turn bit pink. Add dalchini, cloves and cardamom and stir them. Add mix vegetables, stir them for a min and add salt. Be careful with salt as it would be used later also. Put little water and cook them. Add other masalas and cook for a min more and it should be dry, not watery. Keep it aside.

In another pan heat the remaining ghee and add rice. Stir the rice nicely and softly for a minute. Add the tomato soup and if needed some water and add salt. Don’t put too much water or your rice would get too soggy.  Cook the rice for few minutes. Once rice is done take it off the gas.  Add your cooked vegetables to rice and stir it slowly till rice and vegetables are mixed. Your tomato soup pulao is ready.

Serve it hot with any raita. I have used boondi raita here.

P. S. Tomato soup should not be cooked if its in powder form. just mix water and add this soupy water to rice to cook.





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Let's Cook # 1 ~ "Pulao"

Monday, February 20, 2012

A ghost story............ Believe it or not!!!!!!!!!!






Boo! ! Got scared…… No its not Halloween time or trick or treat time. Its time for some ghostly talks or stories.  Do you believe in ghosts? Have you experienced a ghostly feeling around  you or felt any presence of any spirit.   Well let me share with you my ghostly experience, and I doubt if it was imagination as there were witnesses.  Hold on to your seats……………..







This incident happened years ago but still its quite fresh in my mind. My grandma had passed away some months back and that time we were staying on top floor of building and we had glass doors and windows with huge balcony outside.



It was  8pm and that time me,my brothers,my sister-in-law and sis were at home as my parents were away on holiday. It was hot summer evening and no wind of any sort. Air-condition was on and all doors and windows closed and locked. 



We were all watching tv and suddenly all of us heard a weird noise.  We thought maybe we just imagined it and ignored the noise. After few mins, again we heard a noise and this time something  weird we saw.  The handle on balcony door moved slightly, just like they show in movies. All of us were shocked and looked at handle in disbelief. We asked each other did you see that and everyone agreed, yes,the handle moved!


We waited and watched for some time then felt again it was imagination and decided to continue watching tv but after few mins door started rattling hard and handle moved again. It got so scary we huddled around each other but none of us had the guts to open the balcony and see whats making noise or who is moving the handle. There was no wind and it was too hot  outside.  We tried to peep through glass windows but couldn’t see anything at all.  Not knowing what to do, we all just  switched off tv, lights and ran away to our bedrooms and locked ourselves inside, as if the ghost or spirit needed locks to open the door..



We all thought our granny has come back as ghost and she wanted to enter the house. The next morning we all asked each other did we imagine or was there something.  But all of us were dead sure we heard  and saw handle moving.



It has been years now but that eerie feeling of that night is still there. Till this day none of us is sure what happened but one person may have imagined not  all  5 people in the house. 



I am not fond of horror movies or any ghost related stuff as I get scared and get nightmares. But this one was something weird and real.



So believe it or not that’s your choice. But did any of you ever had such experience. Would love to hear your views……………..




I have one more blog which is all about ten best things. feel free to check it if you want to increase your knowledge...  THE TOP TEN









Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Wheat flour halwa..




Hello everyone! This week I have a reason to be happy as my page rank went up to 2 and now since this is valentine day so why not make something sweet.

It is very easy to make and I am sure most of you have already tried that. Its wheat flour sheera or halwa as you may like to call. I usually make this for breakfast but it can be eaten anytime.


Ingredients: 

3tbsp ghee

1cup wheat flour

1/2cup sugar

Few strands of saffron

1tpsp khus khus /poppy seeds (optional)

For garnish pieces of almonds &/or  pistachios

Water 1 cup


Method:

Heat ghee in pan and add wheat flour. Keep  stirring it till it becomes dark brown but be careful not to burn the flour. If its too dry add one tbsp more of ghee.  Reduce heat and add water while stirring it continuously so no lumps are formed.  All the water would be soaked and flour would be cooked and then add sugar. Sugar would also leave some water so keep stirring it till sugar dissolves. Add khus khus here.

Take it off heat and add saffron and garnish with almonds and pistachios..

Your sweet sheera is ready in instant. 

Be careful with browning part of flour as when you add sugar then also color changes a little.

Serve hot.

P.s. I have made my own adjustments in this so try it your way with the adjustments you are ok with. Khus khus is optional but I use it for bit of crunchy feeling. I am sorry about picture quality as it seems something went wrong with my camera.






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I have one more blog which is all about online games. feel free to check it if you want to pass your time...  ONLINE GAMES

Friday, February 10, 2012

5 best online contact form builder




Hello! Since I started blogging and over the months I have learnt a lot of things and one of them is to have Contact Me option. My friend Vinod at itechcolumn has explained in details how to make contact form. That set me thinking this is easy so why not comply a list of some online sites where we can make contact forms. I have tried the first , second and fifth option here.



You can create a variety of online forms using their easy form builder. Design and build surveys, contact forms, and lead generation forms. Seamlessly integrate their HTML contact forms on your website.Full details on how to do it is given  here.



JotForm is a free web form builder. For basic usage, upto 100 submissions/month, you can use JotForm fully. No crippleware. No ads. Just what you need.

It is an online e-mail form creation and processing service that allows you to easily add sophisticated contact forms to your web site. The arduous task of creating contact forms, e-mail forms, feedback forms, questionnaires, surveys, order forms, polls, or any other type of web form is a thing of the past!


Creating basic web forms without having to deal with their design.
Adding dependencies to create a compound flow in the form


The contact form for your website with integrated anti-spam protection!
I have used this form now on my blog.

I am sure there are many  sites but these I found easy ones. 








Monday, February 06, 2012

Kofta in spinach gravy

Hello! Welcome to my space again. Today's recipe koftas in spinach gravy was told to me by my sister-in-law.  My son never liked spinach and I had to coax him many times telling him you would become just like Popeye the sailor man and he would still refuse to eat spinach.

Since then I tried mix and match version and this recipe is result of those experiments.
But before I begin, since I use quantity as I see fit so the measurements I give below may not be accurate.  You are free to adjust them as you see it fit.

Ingredients:

For gravy:

2 bunch of spinach washed and boiled (spinach reduces after boil)
1 onion cut in small pieces
1tbsp ginger garlic paste                                         
2 green chillies  cut in small pieces
1tomato cut in small pieces.
Salt to taste
1tsp garam masala powder
1tsp amchur powder
1tbsp oil or ghee

Method:

Boil spinach in vessel, drain out water and make a puree of it.  Keep it aside. In another pan put ghee or oil to heat. Put ginger garlic paste to sauté for a min, and then add onions, sauté it again till raw smell of onion goes. Add green chillies and tomato. Stir it for a min and add little water for tomatoes to cook. Bring to boil and then add salt, garam masala powder and amchur powder. Switch off the gas and put all this mixture of onion tomatoes in mixer and make puree of it.   Mix this with spinach puree and keep it aside.


Koftas:

Ingredients:

4-5 potatoes boiled and peeled
½ cup bread crumbs or 4-5 bread pieces soaked in water and squeezed.
Salt to taste
1/2tsp amchur powder
1/2tsp coriander& cumin powder
1tsp red chili powder
1tsp garam masala powder
1/4cup coriander leaves cut
( you can add vegetables of your choice but here I kept plain)

Oil to deep fry

Method:

Mash potatoes and add all the items mentioned for kofta above.  Make small lemon sized balls of it and deep fry them.   Take them out of pan and keep on kitchen paper to soak extra oil

Before serving heat the spinach gravy for some time.  On a plate or bowl put spinach gravy first and add koftas.  If u add koftas before they would break.

For garnish I used a spoonful of butter.
End result came out as the picture below and my son happily ate his spinach.




I hope I was clear with instructions above and as a home maker  I use quantity as per my guesswork. So I am sure all you cooks would be able to make this as per your need.

Enjoy making this kofta dish and let me know how it turned out for you.


Submitting  this dish to:    
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Sharing this with Minnie's  dinner extravaganza

Thursday, February 02, 2012

Places to visit near Mumbai



Hello all.   This week is  my finale part  about Mumbai. Today  I  would list out some of the places to visit near Mumbai.  Some are religious places, some hill stations and some beach destinations.



I have been to some of the places which  I would describe  as  I mention names. These places by road are  aprox  4-6 hrs travel time.



Hill stations: 
Matheran:  One of the few places in the world where all vehicles are banned which makes this place unique.  To go to Matheran you have to take a toy train from Neral station.




Mahableshwar:  beautiful hill station in Satara district of Maharashtra. It has many beautiful points to enjoy and the venna lake is one of the major tourist attraction.

VIEW FROM ABOVE


ONE TREE AT MAHABLESHWAR

Lonavala/Khandala:  just about 3hrs away from Mumbai by road and you enter this lovely hill station. Its famous for Lonavala chikki and Bhushi dam.  Khandala is  joined to Lonavala. The famous Amby Valley is in Lonavala.

 
LONAVALA






VIEW OF LONAVALA

I have been to above places  some years back its like taking a very relaxing break after hectic life in Mumbai.  There are few more places which I have not visited like, Amboli, Jawahar, Saputara, Panhala.


Lavasa is a new hill station which is near Pune city.



Beaches:


Though Mumbai has its own beaches but if you want a beach holiday away from Mumbai then you can try these places.
Alibaug: I  had written about this  in one of my earlier blog post here.

Daman, Dahanu, Ganpatipule, Kashid. Murud are some of the other beach destinations.
I have been to Dahanu too and its quiet place away from fast paced life of city and famous for its chikoos.

DAHANU BEACH






SUNSET AT DAHANU BEACH






Religious Places:

Nasik, Shirdi Trimbakeshwar are some  of the places to visit


Apart from these there are numerous getaways like Silvassa, Bhandardara.Igatpuri and Aurangabad where world heritage sites  of Ajanta and Ellora caves are located.  I had been there years ago so I don’t have any pictures of the caves.




There are many more places but if I list them all my post would get real long. And with this concludes my series on Mumbai.



Also read Part 1-- WELCOME TO MUMBAI 

                 Part 2--  STREET FOOD OF MUMBAI 



The above pics were taken by old camera and I had visited some of the above places long back. Now there would be some changes. 


I have one more blog which is all about online games. feel free to check it if you want to pass your time...  ONLINE GAMES

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