No Egg Tomato Omelette

I'm not a big breakfast person at all. But lazy Sunday mornings are ideal for a nice relaxed breakfast. Tomato omelette is a popular Indian vegetarian breakfast food. Frankly, I had never ever heard of it until my parents moved to the city of Pune. I first tried it at my favorite udipi joint, Vaishali, and really liked it. So this Sunday morning I made tomato omelettes for my in-laws and husband. Although I find chickpea flour quite heavy, its o.k if you eat just one of these. Its a good breakfast meal to make for your vegan/vegetarian friends. Go ahead and try one of these.

Ingredients (makes 4-6)

2 cups chick pea flour/Besan
Cold Water
2 tblsp tomato paste
one medium onion chopped
One medium tomato chopped
chopped cilantro
chopped green chillies
salt to taste

Method

Add tomato paste to flour. Add cold water and stir to make a thick paste. Then add tomatoes, onion, cilantro and green chillies. Add more water to make the batter more like pancake batter.

Heat a non-stick pan with some oil. Ladle in the batter to form a pancake.



Cover and cook on medium heat. Flip and cook till both sides are golden brown. Serve hot with ketchup and butter.

Leek Potato Soup

This soup is my MIL's favorite. Everytime she comes to the US she wants me to make the "leek soup". The recipe is a modification of the original from my Victory Garden cookbook by Marian Morash. The book was recommended by my friend and coworker HDL. HDL always used to bring these enormous lunches and each day his wife would make him something very interesting. This soup was one of HDL's favorites and it looked so hearty and yummy I had to get the recipe from him. This recipe originally is very "rich". Butter and cream add great flavor to it. However I just can't get myself to drink bowl-fulls of such heartiness. So here is my reduced fat version. If you want to make the original full fat recipe substitute olive oil for a stick of butter and milk for heavy cream and you should be all set. The original recipe asks to use chicken stock but you can use vegeatble stock or water also. I recommend some form of stock. So here it is my leek potato soup for Aai.

Ingredients (Serves 4-6)

1 tblsp oilve oil
6 cups of chopped leeks: make sure you have washed the leeks well to remove all the grit
2 stalks chopped celery
one large onion chopped
5 to 6 potatoes chopped
2 quarts of vegetable stock/chicken stock/water
1/2 to 1 cup 2% milk
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Heat olive oil. Add chopped onion. Saute till transparent. Add celery and leeks. Saute till they reduce in volume.

Add chopped potatoes and stock. Mix and bring to a boil.


Reduce heat. Add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer covered till potatoes are cooked. Use a hand blender and carefully puree the soup in the pot till it turns smooth and thick and all the potatoes, leeks and celery are nice blended together. The soup in this form freezes well. To serve, add milk to simmering soup, stir. Serve hot garnished with parsley along with some crusty bread.

My first award!!

Yaaaaayyyyyyy!! My first blog award. O.k O.K I know its no big deal but hey i'm super excited! Hetal from Isha's kitchen passed this award onto me. This award, started initially by Rupa is passed on from one blogger to others for the yummiest recipes and photos. The rules require me to state a couple of my favorite desserts that I have made or eaten. So here they are:
1. Pistachio Panna Cotta (ate this at a restaurant)
2. Pumpkin pie (with whipped cream most def)
3. Trifle pudding (I have an amazing recipe i'm going to post soon)
4. chocolate mousse (o.k i think i can go on and on....so i'll stop here)

Also, I am supposed to pass this award to four of my favorite bloggers so i'm giving it to the following four people (in no particular order).
1. Sig of Live to Eat
2. Shilpa from Aayis recipes
3. Arundathi of My Food Blog
4. Honey Butter

Congratulations to the new winners. The rules to winning this award are here. You have to post the yummy award logo, state the reason for the award, name a few of your favorite desserts and then pass the award on to four other bloggers.

Thanks Hetal once again for passing this award to me.

Crostinis

This is an older post and I am reposting it for Mansi's Monthly Mingle on vegetarian appetizers. The monthly mingle event was started by Meeta. If you have the time, please do check out their blogs.

I love this really simple and beautiful recipe and its ideal for this event. As an appetizer its perfect. Its bite sized, easy to eat, good to taste, liked by all and really nice to look at. Plus, you can make many in no time at all. Its important to serve it right out of the oven when its hot and crispy. If you haven't tried this one yet, please do.

Ingredients

One french baguette, cut into pieces
One large onion chopped
Half a green pepper chopped
One tomato chopped
Italian parsley chopped, a fistful
balsamic vinegar 1 tsp
salt
black pepper
Olive oil

For variations: Add any fresh chopped herbs like basil or oregano.

Chop tomatoes, onions, green pepper and parsley.

Add to a bowl. Add balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and 1 tsp olive oil.Mix. Baste each piece of bread with Olive oil.

Top each piece of bread with the mixture. Broil on high for about 5 mintues. The bread toasts very fast so keep watching it or it might burn. Serve hot right out of the oven.

Banana Toffee Pie

I know I know my blogging is reduced to a slow crawl. Its just that with my in-laws in town, I hardly have to cook on weekdays and the weekends are spent frolicking about so I have no time to try out all these recipes I want to. Today is my in-laws' 33rd anniversary...33 years can you believe that!! Wow! Well I wanted to make a vegetarian dessert for them and I was looking high and low. I found this recipe in a number of blogs namely here and at aayis recipes. So I tried it and it was really easy (although the boiling of the condensed milk takes time). Here it is.

Ingredients
Graham crackers-1 Box, I used 4 cracker packets makes 1 1/2 cups of crumbs
1/3 cup melted unsalted butter
1 14 oz can of condensed milk
Large pot of water
3-4 large bananas
Whipped cream

Method
Boil water in a large pot. Place the condensed milk can in the water such that the can is completely immersed in the water. DO NOT let the water dry up above the can or it will explode. Boil the can for 2 hours. Remove and keep aside. The condensed milk will turn into brown caramel and can be stored unopened in your pantry. Meanwhile crush the graham crackers in the food processor into fine crumbs. Remove. Add butter to the crumbs and mix well. Add crumbs into a pie dish (I used a cake pan) and press down. Cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour. Alternatively just buy a pre made graham cracker pie crust from the grocery store.

Meanwhile peel and slice bananas into evenly thick rounds. Place onto graham cracker crust in a nice layered pattern.

Pour over the caramelized condensed milk.

Refrigerate covered with saran wrap for 2-3 hours. Add whipped cream just before serving.