White Sauce Vegetable Sandwich

The summer is treating us all bad. I really don't feel like having heavy breakfast at all. Something simple and light would be more than sufficient and I would love to have more liquids to keep me going for the day. 

I am sure you all would be feeling so too. Since I go out for shoots these days I prefer packing simple sandwiches too which keep my eating mess free and tummy happy. 

This sandwich recipe is my mother's suggestion and I completely fell for it the very first time I made it. Creamy, yummy and a fantastic way to incorporate carrots into a sandwich. I am very sure you all would get pretty creative in using your favorite vegetables into this recipe once you go through!! :)

Ingredients:

Carrots – 5

Onion – 1

Mint leaves – ½ bunch

Green chilly – 2

Butter - 1 tblsp

All purpose flour (Maida) – 4 tblsp

Milk – 1 ½ cups

Pepper powder – for taste

Salt  - for taste

Method:

Grate carrots. Chop onion and green chilly finely. Wash and chop mint leaves too.

Take butter in a pan and fry the chopped onion until it turns golden brown. Now add the grated carrots, green chilly and mint leaves and sprinkle some salt to it and fry for few minutes until the carrot becomes soft.

Now add the maida and fry again for a couple of minutes and then simmer the stove completely and pour the milk to it mixing gradually.  Keep stirring until the mixture becomes slight thick and creamy. Cook in low flame for few more minutes and finally add adequate pepper powder and mix well.

Remove from flame and once it comes to room temperature transfer it to an air tight container.

Apply it on bread and sandwich it with another. Serve and enjoy eating.

This mixture will keep well for 3 days if kept in the refrigerator. 

Tips:

You can use other vegetables like sweet corn, cabbage etc for making the same kind of sauce for sandwich. 

You use other varieties of bread like ciabatta etc too for sandwich of this kind. 

Try toasting your bread before applying the sauce for a difference. 

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here. 

Summer special series - Beetroot Chaas

Summer is showing its full fledged action!!! I am dripping with sweat even though I am sitting under the fan :(

All I do to keep myself hydrated and chill is to have loads of liquids in the form of juices, shakes, chaas and water. 

I made this chaas a day back and it was sure a hit at home. The flavor was fantastic and the light pink color was very attractive.

Ingredients:

Beetroot - 1/4 of a medium sized beetroot

Carrot – 1/2 

Green chilli - 1

Jeera – ½ tsp

Salt

Pudina – 10 leaves

Curd – 1 cup

Water - 1 cup

Method:

Grind beetroot, carrot, green chillie, jeera, salt, pudina and ½ cup curd in a mixie. 

Then add remaining curd and water to it and blend again. 

Serve it chill with ice cubes topped with mint leaves.

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here. 

Gutti Vankaya Koora - Stuffed Eggplant Curry

Gutti Vankaya Koora is the traditional dish of Andhra where the brinjals are split and filled with spice mix. Its almost the best brinjal dish I have ever had :) My mom makes it really well and in the authentic way. Happy to share her recipe here :)

This is almost the best brinjal dish I have ever had :) It has changed the history of me never touching brinjals ;)

Ingredients:

Brinjal - 1/2 kg
Urad dhall - 2 tblsp
Channa dhall - 2 tblsp

Redchillies - 10

Jeera - 1 tblsp

Turmeric powder

Fenugreek seeds - 1/2 tsp

Tamarind - 1/2 lemon size

Salt - for taste

Method:

Take a tsp of oil in a pan and fry urad dhall, channa dhall, redchillies, fenugreek seeds and jeera together for few mins. Collect it in the mixie jar. 

Wash the tamarind. Take a dry pan and drop in the tamarind and saute for few mins for it to become dry. 

Put the tamarind, turmeric and salt also in the mixie along with the above fried items and powder it a little coarsely. 

Collect the powder in a plate and smear 1 tsp of oil in the powder and mix it well. 

Wash and split the brinjals like a plus mark from above leaving 1/2 cms on the bottom. Now fill the above done powder into the brinjals. 

Take few tsps of oil in a heavy bottomed vessel and crackle mustard and curry leaves. Now place the brinjals carefully into the vessel and keep the flame medium. 

Now take a larger flat bottomed vessel and fill it with 1 cup of water and place it on top of the brinjal vessel. The brinjals would get steam cooked from the top. 

The brinjals would get cooked in 10 minutes. Check inbetween and turn the brinjals a little until it is evenly cooked. 

Remove from flame and serve it hot with ghee rice :)

Note:

The taste depends on the brinjal quality. Choose the best purple brinjals that are medium sized and firm but not too hard. 

Be careful while splitting the brinjals and fill the powder and press firmly for it to stay intact. 

The taste ofcourse adds on when you do it in the traditional method of placing water on top. Do not skip that step. 

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here. 

Musk Melon Punch & all about Group Dining Deals

Mocktails are the fancy of the time! Summer is up and people try to beat the heat with some delicious mocktails while dining at their favorite Fine dining restaurants in town. 

While chilling out with friends and family for a party, people these days tend to choose fine dining restaurants as its the trend of the day. Mostly people eat at restaurants at least once a week either with family or with their friends. There are loads of choices for restaurants these days but the high cost involved is often a concern when its a large group of people :(

With the launch of GroupTable, customers have a cost-effective option for dining in large groups as they make significant savings on the total bill with great restaurant deals.

Did you know?? GroupTable benefits their diner-members by getting a flat rate of discount, ranging from a minimum of 20% on buffet spreads to 25-30% and more on a la carte meals, at premium fine dining restaurants. 

GroupTable effort towards enriching the group dining experience, by making the whole process absolutely diner friendly! No printed coupons (mobile SMS replaces paper coupon) & minimal restrictions of other kinds, even as the discount is offered on the whole bill value, irrespective of how many people eat at the table. Diner-host is sure to feel more power in the wallet! Isn't that surprising and interesting!!!!!

In addition GroupTable customers are awarded Dine Points every time they utilize a reservation. These points can be accumulated and redeemed against gift certificates from leading restaurants and hotels. Diner feedback is also obtained so as to help restaurants improve their service.

I am sure you are going to like their latest feature which finds"Deals near you" which helps you dine happily within 2kms from your home that too at a discounted rate. 

Knowing all the above I am sure what you would do next!! 

Checkout and have your favorite mocktail at your favorite restaurant! :)

Ingredients:

Musk melon - 1 

Lemon or lime soda - 1/2 ltr

Fresh grated ginger - 1 tsp

Orange juice - 1/4 cup

Honey - 3 tbsp

Method:

Blend musk melon with ½ bottle of the soda and the orange juice.

Add honey, ginger, and lime and blend until very smooth.

Add remaining soda, give it one last whip in the blender.

Serve chill with ice cubes added. 

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here. 

Summer Special Series - Tomato Punch - A chill & spicy drink

Why should all the juices be sweet???? 

When I was thinking of something in these lines, I came up with this delicious combo of spicy but chill drink. It worked out well and tasted just too delicious :) 

It can also be served in the name of Cold tomato soup :P

Since its super hot summer at Chennai already, I thought of posting some chill juice varieties to beat the heat. Hence I shall be posting 1 juice recipe per week under this Summer special series :) Keep watching. 

Ingredients:

Tomato – ¼ kg

Tulasi – 10 leaves

Salt - for taste

Chilli powder - for taste

Pepper - a pinch

Chat masala - a pinch

Palm sugar powder (Panankalkandu powder) - 1 tsp

Honey – 2 tbl sp

Method:

Grind tomato and tulasi together and filter it through a sieve.

Add salt, chat masala, pepper, panankalkandu powder and honey and mix well. 

Serve topped with ice cubes and tulsi. 

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here. 

The Magnificent Magnum Experience!

Do you like chocolate?!!! If so send me your email id said the status in a fb group! WHY WILL I NOT! I did immediately and there were few interactions with my buddy who posted it and so was I at the ball room of The Hyatt Regency, Chennai on 27th of March.

It was indeed a happy Friday night with a delicious experience of chocolate and ice cream. The best two ingredients in the world I must say :)

Magnum the international brand of ice creams were going to launch their first flavors in India and I was one among the privileged crowd to taste it first!!! Does that sound exciting?! 

Yup it was for me! The session started off with the chirpy happy VJ-RJ Cary talking a lot about chocolate and then introduced to us the Chef Abhiru Biswas who added more to the temptation by talking about Swiss chocolate and so on. 

He first asked us to taste three varieties of chocolate and identify them rightly. The Belgian chocolate was a perfect blend of cocoa and milk. The Swiss was soft melt in the mouth but a lot milky and sweet. The last was French, the hard, dark and bitter chocolate. I found it pretty easy to identify and felt proud when I knew I was right :P 

Without any more of delay we were served with the first packs of the Might Magnum ice creams  I got to taste the classic choco bars and you got to know that I loved it! 

The rich Belgian chocolate coating was pretty thick and crunchy that every bite made a noise or rather the music of chocolate :) 

Then followed the delicious, rich and creamy vanilla flavored ice cream. The right amount of sweetness and richness that you wouldn't get bored of. 

Guess what! The thick chocolate coating keeps the ice cream intact until the last bite. So no messy eating! ;)

Was that it?? Nope. 

We had a small contest or say activity to bring our creativity out. We were given a long list of ingredients that we can use to make a sundae. All we had to do is choose the five best ingredients and along with the group of ppl at each table make a delicious sundae and name it too. 

So what did we do?!! 

We picked up orange cakes, crunchy sugar coated chestnuts, Strawberries, Cinnamon and finally basil. Yup you read it right. Basil for ice cream ;) Oh yeah plus the two sauces, strawberry and chocolate. 

We lined a layer of orange cake at the base. Followed by some strawberry sauce to wet the cake. Then went the chopped Magnum chocolate truffle ice cream, followed by some basil leaves, ice cream again, strawberries on top and last was the chestnuts and the ice cream's chocolate coating. We stuck the ice cream stick on top as well :) 

The Dark Blush Sundae was all ready and tasted yummy too :)

The Magnum ice cream will be in town available for all pretty soon :)

They are coming up with three variations, the classic vanilla bars covered by Belgian chocolate, Chocolate truffle ice cream covered with chocolate coating and lastly the Almond ice cream covered with chocolate. 

They are all just too delicious and tempting :) I am waiting to buy them, and I'm sure you are too!!!! 

Written by: Nithya