Eggplant and Capsicum Curry

Eggplant and Capsicum Curry

I never imagined that I could club eggplants and capsicum and make a curry with very minimum Indian spices. However when I read this recipe on the internet, I decided to give it a try. Lucky for me that my husband is very accommodating and loves to try new dishes. The real thing is - he is my guinea pig! I try all new recipes on him. In his defense, he eats them all. Coming back to this recipe, it is fairly simple to make and needs very few ingredients. Do make it t home..

Eggplant and Tofu stir fry in Hoisin Sauce

While I was growing up, there used to be a children's program on Doordarshan about all vegetables. Eggplant here was famously coined as the Baingan Raja. As children we would love watching this serial, however the true message of the serial was not followed by me. It spoke about how all the veggies are equally important and that we must eat them all. I never really found this Baingan Raja very tasty as a child. I was more in the Aloo camp. My mom however made this one particular gravy dish with baingan in it, which I loved. Unfortunately I never took the recipe from her. So now I just don't know how to replicate it, rather I don't wish to. Anyways coming back to this dish that I made today. As I was chopping, I was only reminiscing about my childhood memories with this particular vegetable. In the past I have tried some variations with eggplant, so today I wanted to surprise my husband with an unexpected dish. I researched on the internet and found some interesting dishes to make. This particular one had to be made in Hoisin sauce which of course I didn't have. Thanks to the internet, there was a way to make it at home with some ingredients as a substitute which luckily I did have. So I decided to combine my husband's two favorite items - Tofu and Eggplants and stir fry them in hoisin sauce. I don't think this dish can be had with our Indian roti so I served it with some brown rice. You can try brown bread as well.

Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Veggies

Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Veggies

Well, I am a sucker for noodles. Be it Maggi or the regular chilly garlic noodles. I love them all. Hence I wanted to remake my chilly garlic noodles using spaghetti. Usually I use the egg noodles to make it, however this time I tried using the whole wheat spaghetti and was very content with the end result. It was not only healthy but also tasty. I tried to keep it as healthy as possible by using lot of veggies and less oil. You can also use any other kind of pasta instead to make this dish.

Masaledaar Baingan

Masaledaar Baingan

This week during our grocery shopping we picked up 2 large eggplants. Since my husband enjoys this vegetable, I decided to make a dish with it. Eggplants are a very good source of dietary fiber, Vitamin B1 and copper. Although I am not a fan of this vegetable, I know my husband is and hence have made couple of dishes for him with baingan in it in the past. This time I wanted to try something different with it. I usually make Vangi bhaat or the south Indian style sabzi so this time I tried to give it a restaurant type flavor. Sharing the recipe with you.

Carrot and Peas Paratha

Carrot and Peas Paratha

We are going on a vacation in two days so I wanted to make sure that my fridge is empty and there are no degradable leftovers. I managed to use all the veggies except these baby carrots, cilantro and green chillies. While green chillies are a rare commodity in US for now, so I decided to freeze them. But I had to use the carrots somehow. Both me and my husband are not a fan of any carrot dish but I had to use them and not waste it. My husband did make a face when I told him that I was thinking of making carrot parathas. I had to add something more to it. Lucky for me, I did have a packet of frozen peas in the freezer. So I decided to make Carrot and Peas Paratha. I knew that the carrots would be too sweet so I ensured that I add enough spices and green chillies to keep the hot quotient high. I also tried to keep it healthy by adding soy and oats flour in the dough and using less oil. So here I am with these delicious parathas. Give it a try..

Adai Dosai with Tomato Almond Chutney

Adai Dosai with Tomato Almond Chutney

Being a South Indian, dinners on Sundays usually was the famous Adai Dosai. My mom would keep making them while we would hog on greedily loosing count of how many we have eaten. While my dad enjoyed his adai with some curd and jaggery, I always loved to eat them with mulagapudi. There is a running joke in my family that I eat dosas and idlis just for the mulagapudi. It is more funny when one hears it in Tamil though ;). Anyways coming back to this recipe..this is one of my comfort food as it reminds me of home and my childhood. Obviously the taste is no where close to my mom's adai, however I manage to make my own version and enjoy it too. Over time, I have evolved as a person and so has my adai recipe. It has become more healthier while not compromising with the authentic taste.