Cottage Cheese Club Sandwich

I love eating sandwiches for breakfast. My family calls me a westerner in this regard as they somehow are yet to develop a taste for it as breakfast dishes. This recipe, which is inspired from tastypalettes,spicy chilly, impressed me, partly because it calls for so many vegetables and partly because it is so darn simple. But since tofu is not easily available in my market, i have substituted it with Cottage cheese. health conscious people can take cottage cheese made from skimmed milk or low fat milk. I have also made changes here and there whenever i ran out of the ingredients hoping that it would still make for its taste. And yessss it did......

Take a look.....

Ingredients:

Brown Bread- 4 slices

Cottage cheese (paneer) 50 gms

1/2 capsicum chopped finely. (take any colour you want, i have taken green which was readily available).

1/2 carrot grated or finely chopped

Little cabbage grated

Mixed sprouts 1/4 cup (boiled) (Take care to boil in less water and keep the water for kitchen use rather than discarding. It can be added to gravies or rasam)

Salt to taste

Pepper powder 1/2 - 3/4tsp

Mixed herbs ( readymade powder available) 1/2 tsp

Lemon Juice 1/2 tsp (optional)

Butter or Nutralite (got widely in India) (it is cholestrol free butter so healthier)

Method:

Take the boiled sprouts in a bowl, add grated cabbage, chopped carrots, capsicum, crumble paneer and add. Add salt, pepper powder, mixed herbs, lemon juice and mix well.

Toast bread slices on tawa with little butter on it. Keep the stuffing in between 2 slices, cut in between to form 2 triangles. Serve fresh else the bread will get soggy.

Serve with a glass of your favourite juice (i have served with fresh homemade pomegranate juice) and a bowl of cut fruits to complete your power breakfast.

Idli Sambhar

South indian breakfast mainly consists of Idli, Dosai, pongal and vadais...

Don't we drool over it even if we have it every second day.

Steaming hot idlis served with piping hot sambhar is a must have.....

Ingredients:

IDLI

4 cups idli rice (ponni) available widely in tamil stores.

1.5 cups Urad dal

2 tsp Methis seeds (for the lovely aroma and flavour)

2 tsp soaked aval (for softer idlis)

1.5 cup Raw rice (for brown dosas)

I follow this ratio and this is taken from Ms.Mullai's website (http://www.spiceindiaonline.com/)

Soak all the ingredients for 5-6 hours and grind. Add 4 tsp Kallu uppu for the batter. It gives better taste. Keep for fermentation.

Make idlis with the fermented batter.

For Sambhar:

Arachu Vitta Sambar
Oil – 1 tsp

Mustard seeds – ½ tsp

Curry leaves - few

Quartered shallots or sliced red onions – ½ cup
Toor dal – ½ cup

Moong dal – 1 tbsp

Turmeric powder – 1+1 tsp

Tamarind paste – 2 tbsp

Salt
Cilantro – 2 tbsp, chopped
Spice mixture
Oil – 1 tsp

Coriander seeds – 2 tbsp

Chana dal – 1 ½ tbsp

Dried red chillies – 8

Raw rice – 1 tsp

Fenugreek seeds – ¼ tsp

Grated coconut – 2 tbsp
Red onions – 2 tbsp, chopped

Tomato – ¼ cup,chopped
Heat oil and roast coriander seeds through coconut and grind with onion and tomato to a smooth paste. Alternately, you can grind 2 tbsp of sambar powder (homemade or store-bought) with onion and tomato.
Method
Pressure cook toor dal and moong dal until soft, with 1 tsp of turmeric powder.
In a sauce pan, heat oil, splutter mustard seeds and lightly sauté shallots or red onions with curry leaves. The onions should turn just soft, but still crunchy. Remove and set aside.
In the same pot, boil tamarind paste, salt and the remaining 1 tsp of turmeric powder with 2 cups of water. When tamarind doesn’t smell raw anymore, add the cooked dal, ground spice paste and a cup of water. Simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, add sautéed onions and garnish with cilantro.

Taken from http://www.tastypalettes.com/

Serve hot

Mixed Dal

Dal as we all know are a major source of proteins.
Usually we make any one variety of dal in our homes but how about making a mixed version so as to gain maximum benefit out of it??

Ingredients:

100 g Toovar dal
100 g Chana dal
100 g Black dhall whole
100 g Masoor dal (split)
100 g Moong dal
100 g Green dal whole
1 Tomato (big) chopped
1 Green chilli slit
2 tsp Oil

Salt to taste
½ tsp Haldi powder
½ tsp Garam masala
1 tsp Jeera (cumin)
2 stks Coriander chopped
1 stks Curry leaves
¾ tsp Red chilli powder (or to taste)

Method:

Soak all dals together overnight.

In the morning, pressure cook for 2 whistles and keep aside. Take a pan, add oil, jeera seeds. When they crackle, add curry leaves, tomato, green chilli and saute. Add salt, haldi, red chilli powder, garam masala and saute. When oil leaves the sides, add cooked dal along with little water and boil till thick consistency. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve.

Serve hot with rotis or white rice and aloo fry.