Tender Methi - Mung Dal Salad

This recipe is from Tarla Dalal's magazine. Since it called for tender methi, I planted a handful of methi seeds in a plastic tray on my patio and in about 8 days, harvested the tender saplings which were just enough for this refreshing salad.

Here's how I made the salad -

1/3 cup mung dal - soaked in water for 1/2 hour and cooked in boiled, salted water for 10-12 mins. till cooked but still firm.
Handful of tender methi shoots - leaves and stalks
1 small Persian cucumber
1 green chilli pepper - chopped
Salt, sugar to taste
1/4 tsp lemon juice

Just mix all the ingredients together and enjoy this salad at room temperature.

The tender, fresh methi had only the mildest of bitter tinge, which was perfectly set-off by the mung dal and cool cucumbers.

This was the first time I made this salad, next time I may try adding chopped onions and tomatoes also.

This Tender Methi - Mung Dal Salad goes to the Fenugreek Event at What's Cooking.
This event was started by PJ of Seduce Your Tastebuds.

Also contributing my all time favorite Methi Subji - Methi with Gram Flour (Methi chi Peeth Perleli Bhaji) to the above event.

I'm sending this Tender Methi and the salad I made with it to the Fresh From ur Garden event at Taste Buds.

Bread Pizza

Bread Pizza is an easy snack/light meal for kids and adults alike. Here's how I make it:

Toast bread slices till crisp. I usually use whole grain bread and toast in my pop-up toaster.
Cool and smear with a tbsp of ready-made pizza sauce. Yesterday I used Trader Joe's pizza sauce. Most store bought sauces are a little bland for our taste, so I add a pinch of salt, pepper and Mrs. Dash original seasoning blend.
Toppings - try to keep them as colorful as possible. Yesterday I used onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, green and red bell peppers, frozen corn, spinach leaves and shredded carrots. I like to chop the veggies fine since they do not get cooked much.
Lastly sprinkle the cheese. I think fresh mozarella tastes the best on pizza, but any other kind will also work. Like yesterday, I did not have fresh mozarella on hand, so I used a shredded cheese blend.
You can either microwave the bread pizza for 30 secs per picture above or cook it covered on the stove top on medium low heat with a little butter till cheese melts.

Serve immediately.

I find that the stove top method result in a crisper crust than the MW method, in any case, neither results in soggy crusts.

These Bread Pizza slices go to the Kids Delight - Colorful Fruits/Veggies event at Give Me Some Spice. This event was started by Srivalli.

Adorable Rotis

These are made with beets & tofu, which gives them a pink hue. My daughter nicknamed them "Adorable" rotis. The idea came from a friend - the moment she mentioned the this combination & the pink colored rotis, I wanted to try them myself.

Here's how I make them:

1 heaped cup wheat flour
4 small beets drained from a can of beets
1/2 block tofu
Seasonings to taste - salt, cumin pwd, coriander pwd, red chilli pwd, amchur pwd, ginger-garlic paste

The canned beets are cooked and very soft. I just mashed them up by hand and combied with the rest of the ingredients to form a dough. No additional water is needed. Let the dough rest for 1/2 hour. Then roll out into rotis and roast as usual. Smear with some ghee and serve hot.

Goes well with yogurt/pickles/curries.

Also good as a lunch-box item.

These Adorable Beet-Tofu Rotis go to the Pink Food event at Torview.

Strawberry Muffins

This delightful recipe came about from a combination of recipes I had seen online and my basic recipe for eggless cake.

1 cup APF
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking pwd
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp melted unsalted butter
3 oz milk
1 cup strawberry flavor yogurt
few chopped strawberries

Mix all the dry ingredients from APF to salt in a mixing bowl. Add the melted butter, milk and strawberry flavor yogurt. Fold the mixture gently. Add the chopped strawberries.

Fill the mix into muffin pans filed with paper cups. Bake in a pre heated oven at 350F for abt 30-40 mins until tops are lightly browned.

Cool completely before serving.

This yields me 12 mini muffins and 4 regular size ones.

Mung Beans Dumplings



I found this unusual & interesting recipe in my current month Kalnirnay calendar. I was looking for ways to use up a batch of sprouted mung beans and decided to give it a try.

Here's how I made these dumplings:

For the mung bean filling -

1/2 cup sprouted, boiled mung beans
1 inch piece of ginger
big handful of cilantro
1 green chilli pepper (increase for more heat, deseed & derib for less heat)
Seasonings to taste - salt, coriander pwd, cumin pwd, pinch of turmeric pwd, little jaggery
1 tsp oil

To make the filling, grind the ginger, cilantro and chilli pepper with 1 tbsp water.
Heat the oil, fry the ground mix for 2 mins, add the mung beans. Add a little water, cover and cook 10 mins. Then add the seasonings, mix well, cook some more till the water is absorbed.
Mash part of the mung beans mix with the back of a spoon.
Allow to cool.

To make the dumplings -

Heat 1 cup water along with pinch of cumin seeds, salt to taste and 1/2 tsp oil. When it boils, add 3/4 cup rice flour. Stir quickly to mix well. Cover and let steam on medium low heat for 10 mins, stirring occassionally. Take off heat and cool to room temperature. Wet hands and knead well for 5 - 7 mins.

Cooked Rice flour mix and mung beans stuffing

 To proceed -

Take a lemon sized ball of the rice flour mix. Flatten on a wet plastic ziplock bag. Fill 1 - 2 tsp of the mung beans mix. Shape the dumplings as desired. As you can see in the picture below, I made a few "modak" shaped and "karanji" shaped ones.

Ready to be steamed

Steam for 10 -15 mins. in pressure cooker, without the whistle.

Steamed dumplings

These Mung Bean Dumplings go to the MLLA 34 event being hosted by Desi Soccer Mom.

MLLA is the brainchild of Susan, The Well Seasoned Cook.