Cooking&more

For most people in India, the days between July and August are generally a busy time for most auspicious rituals are conducted during the Hindu month of Shravan ,  which falls sometime between these two months. One ritual associated with Shravan month is the exchanging of tamboolam. Married ladies give each other gift bags typically containing turmeric,  vermillion,  betel leaves and sprouted brown lentils( channa), signifying a wish for marital happiness and prosperity for both the giver and the receiver.  It is a fun ritual because you get to dress up in your best sarees and go and visit your neighbors and get to meet people,  but as the bags keep coming you start to wonder what to do with the endless supply of brown lentils.  Lots of times I  either make a curry out of them or I just boil them and have them with a little salt and tempering. We absolutely love having them both ways. However it gets tiring eating the same thing after  a while.  Last week DH's cousins

I tried my hand at baking cookies with fenugreek leaves for sankranthi. With both DH and me getting to be so health conscious, I decided to break away from the traditional deep fried crunchies or ghee filled sweets. I googled for methi biscuits and found this recipe on foodinthemain . I tweaked it a bit and added multigrain flour to make it more healthier. The biscuits didn't turn out to be as crunchy as I expected, but were soft and chewy like oatmeal cookies or little hot cakes. They were very flavorful with just the right hint of fenugreek Baked fenugreek Cookies 2 cups multigrain flour 2 bunches fresh fenugreek leaves 1/2 tsp carom seeds 2tbsp oil salt and chilli powder to taste. enough water for kneading In a frying pan, dry roast fenugreek leaves till they emit a nice odor. Take care not to burn them, to this add the flour,spices and enough water to make a stiff dough. shape into rounds and press gently between your palms to shape it like a cookie. grease a baking t

DH is an absolute health food freak. He is far more happier if I give him a bowl of sprouted mung beans with a little lemon juice drizzled on top, than with all the exotic creations I slave for hours over. Whereas I am a junk food junkie, In my husbands own words, "I can literally live on pizza and potato chips." Many a time it's a clash between health and taste for me. And, though it makes things much easier for me generally to cook healthy, I really miss the crunch and taste of snacks like, say bhel? So here I came up with a healthy recipe for bhel/marmara/puffed rice mix. The original version is made with, tomatoes, onions and cilantro. I skipped the tomatoes, added oranges, apples, carrots and sprouted mung beans to the mix, making it much more healthier. This recipe is going to Divya's Dil se's 'show me your salad event'. http://divya-dilse.blogspot.com/2010/01/show-me-your-salad.html My very first entry to a food blogging event Healthy bhel/puffed r