simplefoodsforcomplicatedpeople

  A simple dinner. But it needed some prep time. Raw banana fries, tomato saar, rice. For the fries, peel the raw bananas, cut in half. Then make 3 or 4 slices length wise. I took 4 bananas for 3 of us. Sprinkle salt, red chili powder, turmeric, and asafoetida on the chips and coat with hands. Set aside for at least half an hour. Shallow fry in oil. For the tomato saar, cut two tomatoes in half, add some water and cook in the pressure cooker. I cooked these when I put the rice in the cooker. Once a little cool, blend with a hand blender or you can use the mixer wet jar. Pour in a sauce pan, add a cup and a half of buttermilk. Add a slit green chili, one or two crushed garlic cloves, salt, and sugar if you like. Bring to a boil, but see to it that it doesn't overboil, else it splits. You can add one tablespoon of rice flour for thickness, this also prevents it from splitting. Give a tadka of ghee and jeera. Add coriander leaves. Raw bananas are rich in vitamins and fibre. We eat the...

I love pancakes. The Indian version of it. Called dhirdi in Marathi, chila in Hindi. It is similar to a dosa or uttappam, but not made with fermented batter. Actually for me, it is one of the quickest meals I can cook without much preparation. The main ingredients for these dhirdi are rice flour+besan+rawa. You can decide the proportion, you can drop any of these and add some other flours - nachni/ragi, jowar, corn, wheat, even oats. Make a thick batter with water, add about two tablespoons of curd or half a cup of buttermilk. This should be Idli batter consistency. Now, let your creativity take over, or whatever is leftover in the fridge! I had half a cup of spinach sabji leftover from lunch. I put that in the mixer jar, added lots of fresh coriander leaves and some stems, ginger, garlic, green chilies. Made a paste and added to the batter. I tasted it for salt, as the sabji had some salt. Added salt and some turmeric for colour. Let it rest for an hour. (You can make the pancakes imm...

Sunday evening, and like everyone else, I am thinking 'Oh, it's Monday in a few hours!' So I wanted a quick dinner but felt like having something to munch too.  Then I remembered that 3 rotis were left over from lunch. Cut them into 6 pieces each and deep fried. Sprinkled some salt and jeeravan. Yummiest side dish was ready. Made soup in the soupmaker. Made big chunks of 2 beetroots, two tomatoes, one onion, one carrot, and some ginger-garlic. Added salt & pepper and water. All went in the soupmaker and the soup was ready in 20 minutes flat. Plain white rice was good enough with this.

Another simple Sunday lunch. Carrot-tomato koshimbir, AmTi or Daal, Yam/Suran sabji. Poli-cum-  bhakri. Grate one carrot, chop one tomato. Add some crushed groundnut if you have, or fresh coconut. It's okay if you don't have any. Add salt, add sugar if you like. Mix well. Give a tadka of oil-turmeric-mustard-asafoetida. Add a green chili to it. Squeeze some lemon juice. Add fresh coriander if you have. Mix well.  For half a kg Yam - Cut yam in squares. Soak in water with one or two pieces of kokum or tamarind to get rid of the sourness. Chop one tomato and one onion. In a pressure pan or pressure cooker, make a tadka of oil, mustard, turmeric, asafoetida. Add the tomato and onion and saute till they are almost cooked. Add the yam pieces, salt and garam masala. Add a tablespoon of water and cook for one whistle. Check if yam is cooked, most often it gets cooked in this much time. Add coriander if you like. For the poli-bhakri 1/3 wheat flour, 2/3 nachni/ragi and jowar flours. K...

ताकातला पालक aka spinach in buttermilk. I love this type of spinach, goes well with both roti and rice. Whenever I cooked it in BC times, I carried rice also in the tiffin. Clean and chop spinach leaves. Cook in the pressure cooker for one whistle. I usually add peanuts and chana dal in this, it tastes good and adds proteins too. If you want to add, soak a handful for 2-3 hours. Cook in the pressure cooker but in a separate container. Once cool, add a spoonful of besan to the cooked spinach and mash well. Then add buttermilk. Add the peanuts. Salt, sugar if buttermilk is sour. Some goda masala or garam masala. This is not supposed to be a spicy dish so use garam masala in moderation. Boil it only till the besan is cooked. Give a tadka of mustard, asafoetida and chili powder. Stir and serve. You can top it with a tadka of crunchy garlic and a dry red chili. In the small plate is the syrup from the mango murabba I made, have added lemon juice to it. We call it Sudharas, one of my favou...

  Pumpkin kheer/payasam/payesh गुळशेल gulashel in Marathi. Only four ingredients. My absolute favourite. Grate 250 gram pumpkin, which has a nice saffron colour, not the yellow variety. Saute it in a thick bottom pan with a tablespoon of ghee. Add about half a cup jaggery when pumpkin is half cooked. Stir this mixture till jaggery is fully dissolved and pumpkin is fully cooked.  In another vessel, boil half a litre of milk. Thicken it a bit if you have the patience. Add this milk to the mixture and let boil for a couple of minutes.  Milk sometimes curdles because of the sour elements in jaggery. No problem even if it curdles, tastes as good.  You can add dry fruits to it but it tastes great as it is. And it gets a lovely color naturally. T You can make carrot or lauki kheer similarly. You can change proportions according to your preference, to make it thick, to make it less sweet, etc.

Sanja This is a simple breakfast dish in Maharashtra, with just a few ingredients. All it needs is rawa/suji/semolina, salt, lemon juice, onion, green chili, curry leaves, salt, water, oil. You can add potatoes, sweet corn, green peas if you have to enhance the flavors and nutrition value. I didn't have any today. It might look similar to Upma, but the taste is quite different. In my household, upma has tomatoes, red chili and no turmeric. Sanja is yellow, has green chili, no tomatoes. Roast one cup rawa. (In many Maharashtrian households, roasted rawa, grated dry coconut, roasted groundnuts, groundnut powder is always kept ready to be used.) Boil 2 cups water. Make a tadka of oil, jeera, mustard, asafoetida, turmeric and add onion, chilies, curry leaves. Add groundnuts if you like. Let it cook. Then add rawa, add salt, a little sugar and mix well. Add water, mix well and cover. After 2 minutes, stir once, add a spoonful of ghee on the sides, cover again. Check after 2-3 minu...

  Grated sweet potato, but it's a savoury dish, popular in Maharashtra for fasting days. Grate sweet potato, if they are clean, no need to peel. I used a thicker grater. Make a tadka of ghee and jeera and add the grated sweet potato. Mix well and cover. Check after two minutes. Add groundnut powder, salt, a little sugar. Mix well and cook covered. It cooks quickly so keep a watch. Serve with a dash of lemon, coriander of you have.  Sweet potato can be replaced with potato too.

  Palak parathas in the making, showing their various stages.  Lunch can be parathas and curd, dal rice, a salad/koshimbir. Or this can be your breakfast/brunch. Blanched the palak, once cool made a paste with ginger, garlic, and green chili. Added salt, one measure wheat flour, half measure jowar and half measure ragi flours. You can take only whole wheat or any flour/s of your choice. Kneaded a soft dough, applied oil in the end. Let it rest for 10 minutes. Rolled parathas. Roasted with oil on both sides. Served with curd/pickle.

  Kothimbir Wadi A typical Maharashtrian snack item. I don't know if Kothimbir wadi is made like this anywhere else.  I make this with soaked chana and moong dal, the wadis that you get in shops are made with besan. You can make either way. Soak about 250 grams of chana dal, or take both chana and moong dals overnight or at least for 6 hours. Grind it with ginger, garlic and chilies in the morning. Make a pretty fine paste. Take this paste in a large bowl, add salt, coriander seed powder, jeera powder, amchur, turmeric. Mix well. Then add lots of chopped coriander and mix well. The consistency should be like idli batter. The mixture should look yellow and green, not yellow with some green here and there. You can add a little baking soda, usually I don't. Mix and spread on the greased plates. Steam for 10-12 minutes. Cut and shallow fry, or deep fry. The 3-in-1 stand is very useful for such dishes. It comes with three types of plates. One is this, plain. Second is plates ...

  This was dinner. Moong dal-rice khichdi, chatpat chana aka sundal, and a kind of saar that we call kaLaN / kaDhaN. I had boiled the sprouted chana/chickpeas in pressure cooker with lots of water. Separated the water, added some buttermilk to it. Added crushed garlic, one slit green chili, salt and coriander. Gave a tadka of ghee and jeera. Heated it, didn't boil, so that it won't curdle.  I make this with sprouted moong too. Tasty and healthy.  You can make a salad/raita/koshimbir to go with this too.

A filling and nutritious lunch, that can be cooked in one hour. Cook the beetroots and dal in the pressure cooker. Remember to put the beetroots in the bottom container, and keep some water in it. Also, if possible, soak the dal for half an hour at least. This will ensure that both are cooked properly. Peel and grate the beetroots once cool. Add salt, just a little bit of sugar, ans squeeze some lemon juice. Remember, the iron in the beetroots won't get absorbed without the C vitamin in the lemon. Mix well. If you have time, you can add some crushed groundnut or fresh coconut or chopped onion. A tadka of ghee-jeera-asafoetida with a green chili will make it a proper koshimbir कोशिंबीर. You can add fresh coriander too if you have the time and the inclination. Cut the carrots. Make a tadka of oil, mustard, asafoetida, turmeric. Add the peas. Cover immediately if peas are fresh because they start dancing the moment they hit the hot oil. Then add the carrots and cover. Add salt, amchur...

  Rice with vegetables, spiced with biryani masala plus kitchen king. Sundal. Homemade curd. Sauted the vegetables in oil in the pressure cooker. I have a small one in which I cook all sorts of rice and vegetables directly. I have used capsicum, carrot, sweet corn. You can add whatever you have or you like. Added washed rice. For one cup raw rice, I take at least one and a half cup of chopped vegetables. Sauted for about 2 minutes. Added 2 cups water. You can add more if you want the rice soft. Added kitchen king and biryani masala. You can add any other masala you have at home. Added salt. Covered and cooked for 2 whistles. Sundal - Soaked chickpeas/chana overnight. Pressure cooked them, like I would for Chhole. Added chili and curry leaves in the tadka of oil, mustard and asafoetida and sauted the chickpeas in it. Added salt and a little bit of amchur. Done.  Always have homemade curd in the fridge.  How to make curd/dahi at home? Will come up with that soon.

  Lauki aka bottlegourd (दुधी भोपळा) peel chutney. Wash and peel the lauki. Cut the peel in small pieces and spread on a plate to dry. Works best in sunlight but in shade also okay. You will need grated dry coconut, some crushed (not powdered) roasted peanuts, lots of curry leaves, sesame seeds, green chilies, salt, a piece of tamarind or kokum. Make tadka of oil, mustard, asafoetida and turmeric. Add green chilies and sesame seeds. Saute. Add coconut, peanuts. Saute. Add peels, curry leaves, tamarind. Salt. A pinch of sugar. Saute till everything is crunchy. Switch off the flame. Sprinkle this on dal chawal and feel the magic. Use iron kadhai for better crunch. I love the crunch of this chutney so o don't make a powder, you can if you like. You can use any other peels also. Or without peels too.

Thalipeeth थालिपीठ, typical wholesome Maharashtrian dish, and easy to make. Quite simple. Usually it's made with a particular mixture of grains/sprouts roasted and then grinded coarsely. It's called Bhajani भाजणी. We make it at home sometimes, or buy a readymade packet. Every Maharashtrian household has its own recipe for this.  When I don't have the ready mix, here is what I do. Mix jowar and bajra flours. Add coriander, salt, chili powder, dhania-jeera powder, finely chopped onion. Mix everything and adding water, make a soft dough. You should be able to pat it with hands.  I pat it on a wet handkerchief, then it becomes easy to pick up and put it on the hot tawa.  Cover and let it cook. Turn once the bottom is brown, let the other side cook. Serve with curd, white butter, chutney, anything.  You can add any vegetables in it, like grated cabbage, radish, spring onion, methi, palak, beet, carrot, etc. It's a healthy and fulfilling dish.  You can make it with an...

Rasam, Indrayani rice, raw banana fry A simple dinner. Indrayani rice is best to be eaten with any kind of dal, be it the Maharashtrian AmTi, South Indian Rasam or Sambhar, or kaDhi or tomato saar. It is not good for fried rice or masalebhat or chitranna etc. Raw bananas are a good source of vitamins and fibre. They are a good substitute to potato. They are also quite reasonably priced. Pressure cook the bananas with skin for one whistle. Peel once cool. Cut into small pieces. Make tadka of oil, mustard, asafoetida, turmeric and add the banana pieces. Take a flat pan if you want them crispy. Add salt, some grated garlic, and sambhar masala. Stir till they are brown. You can drop the sambhar powder and garlic, and add red chili powder instead, or chaat masala or jeeravan. Rasam is great to sip on a cold, rainy day. Also perfect when one has a cold, or one has lost taste in the mouth due to fever.  Pressure cook just a fistful of toor dal, with a tomato thrown in. Once cooked, mix it...