An aimless meal with an awakening!

There was no direction.. no aim.. I just chopped the cauliflower.. not even in nice shaped florets. After all I just had half a head of cauliflower...

All because I torn between making a vegetable preparation or a stuff paratha. Finally the mind latched on to a proper roti-subzi combination, then came the struggle of making either a curry based subzi or a dry one. With a frustrated 'tsk', I flung the knife down and drifted towards making a dough for rotis.

Not satisfied with the idea of rolling out soft fulkas, I absently added a bit of chopped spinach , salt, some turmeric, cumin-coriander powder to make a stiffish dough. Covered it and then decided to once again apply my mind to the (at that time) insurmountable problem of dealing with the roughly chopped cauliflower.

Hmm... roll the sleeves...

Chop 1/2 an Onion ( a big size one)

Open a can of diced Tomato (fresh would have been a far better option, but I did not have any on hand)

Placed a kadhai on the gas

Now what?

Add 2 tbsp oil

Stare with a blank expression , then on an impulse, grab the 'panch phoron' bottle and add approximately 1/2 tsp to the now hot oil.

Add a dash of Turmeric (approx. a little less than 1/2 tsp)

pitch in the onion , saute for a while, add the cauliflower, mix well. Cover and cook. Add the tomato .. cook.

I kept checking at regular intervals for the 'doneness', I don't like my cauliflower all mushed up in a unrecognizable mess.. I like it when it has a slight crunch to it!

Just the way i like it!! Added a bit of cumin - coriander powder and very little garam masala ( no measures, sorry, used 'andaz') salt , red chilli powder, water to make a gravy. Covered and cooked for another 2-3 mins. Finished!!!

Quickly re- knead the dough, make small portions... by this time I had decided puris would make a nice combination with this subzi.

Placed another kadhai on the gas.. with guilt nagging me, poured as little oil as possible.. Rapidly rolled out small discs of the dough and deep fried them with a few of them turning out cluris , oh well, I can always eat those!

Let out the usual yowl, " Dinner Ready!!"

Surprisingly, this combination turned out really well! The Husband grinned and happily started tucking in, all the time his eyes seemed however, to search something.. I wondered, as I put the first morsel in my mouth, if I had missed out salt.. no... that was just fine. Cocking an inquisitive eyebrow at him, I asked, " 'sup?"

"Where is the camera?"

"Huh? what for?"

"Don't you want to blog about this? it's very tasty!!"

"Oh!!"

So hastily swallowing my morsel, I washed my hands and grabbed my camera, clicked pictures and then dashed back to my dinner plate!

The keen observer, made a comment which made me realise something... he said, " happy now that you have another recipe to blog about? Your face shows it!!" And then it hit me (like a sock full of wet sand, I might add) my aimlessness in the kitchen was because I did not think of blogging ! I have been away too long!!! Shame on me!! Getting caught up in the daily routine I compromised and neglected doing something I love!!!

All these days I made just the regular stuff and sometimes recipes from other blogs ( that is another post to thank all of them!).

I hope I won't be as laid back now, especially since it is almost the year end and a new one is just around the corner!!!

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P is for PALAK PURI

Here I am .. in time this time too ! for 'P' of Indian Veges @ Nupur's One Hot Stove !!

Every once in a while I go and pig out on oily stuff! Oh Stuff those 'too much fat' 'too many calories' talk.. The bounce off me easily!!

I like to keep in shape.. the nice round shape I am in!

So to treat myself I made puri! with a slight change.. I made Palak Puri! Happily enough I had just this half bunch of spinach in the fridge... fat lot of good that was for making Alu Palak.... wouldn't feed a chicken.. but then... do chicken feed on palak!!??!! hmm...

Anyway... so Palak Puri it was!!

This deep fried goody holds a special place in every body's heart (or so I imagine). We always had Puri on a festival day (Ganesh Utsav, Diwali or when we had guests over for dinner) which was eaten with plain potato vegetable (maybe I'll post this later!!) or with a sweet, like Basundi.. heavenly!!

Or Mum would make masala puri when I had my school picnic, which was an instant hit and the first item to be cleaned up!

For the Puri, I basically used approximates.

~2cups Wheat Flour (Atta)

1/2 bunch of Palak / Spinach

2 tsp Farina/ rava / Sooji

1/4 tsp salt (or to taste)

4-5 sprigs Cilantro

1/2 Serrano Chilly (just to give it a hint of heat)

Water to bind to a dough

Blanch the Spinach and Drain the excess water

Grind spinach, chilly, cilantro to a paste

Mix the paste in the Flour, add the Farina, Salt (the farina makes them crisp)

Bind to a dough (should be stiffer than the normal Roti Dough)

Cover and keep aside for 15 mins

In the meantime, heat oil in a kadhai/ wok

Take small marble size and roll it to a puri

Deep fry in oil.

I served the puri with Alu subzi, and Beet Raita (canned beet (1 tin), chopped into cubes and mixed with plain yogurt, salt and 1/2 tsp of MDH~Raita Mix)

The puris taste great as they are, without any accompaniment, so personally i enjoyed them with Raita and as they are.

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