Ranch Eggs / Ranchero Eggs : Call them whatever you like ,they are simply awesome !

Sunday ho ya Monday roz khao Ande!! This slogan is taken very seriously in my household. OK maybe not everyday ,but that's only because I don't give my family the option of having eggs everyday. If I let them have their way they would live on eggs . So you can imagine their reaction when I made this dish for the first time. My son ate this eggy breakfast at my sister's once and since then he kept telling me how Moni maushi had made this very very yummy egg dish that I just had to make at home for him. So I first asked her to make it for me too and I too loved it . And from there onwards began the tradition of cooking eggs in this way.
It's a very hearty and filling dish that is a great combo of some of the elements of a five item English breakfast and then some other things thrown in to make it even more versatile. It's got eggs, baked beans, mushrooms ,coloured peppers, sweetcorn and you eat it with hot buttered toast. My sister uses tomato puree instead of baked beans, so the recipe is very much tweakable.



Here's how you make it for 4 people:
Ingredients:


8 eggs (I normally take 2 eggs per person)
1 400gm can of baked beans
1 onion thinly sliced
2 cups sliced coloured peppers
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup sweet corn
4 tblspns cooking oil (use olive oil if you have that)
1 tspn jeera
Italian or Mexican spice mix as per your taste (you can even use the spice sachets that come along with takeaway pizzas)
salt and pepper
1/2 cup of water


Method:
In a non-stick pan heat the oil and add the jeera first
When the Jeera is slightly dark in colour add the onions and fry for a few seconds
Next add the coloured peppers, and the mushrooms ,fry these until the mushrooms lose all their moisture
Now it's time to add the sweetcorn and the baked beans
Add the spice mix, salt and pepper next and let the beans heat through completely. Give this a taste now and adjust all the spices and salt etc . You can even add a little chilly powder to turn up the heat a bit. Add a little water if the mixture gets too thick
Now lower the heat and make little dents in the pan and crack one egg in each dent very gently so that the egg does not spread through the whole pan ,but stays in that dent. Cover and cook over very low heat . This does not take too long. Make your toast in the meanwhile.
The dish is ready when the eggs are slightly firm but completely cooked.


Serve with toast and your favourite juice.
As I said this dish is very forgiving and tweak friendly, so make your own additions to it by all means.

Mataar Usal and Bread ( A very hearty and filling winter supper)

Winter has settled beautifully over Pune . The mornings kick off  really cold and all throughout the day the air is pleasantly cool even with strong sunshine. It makes going out, even to do daily chores a pleasurable activity . I mean you don't return home all sweaty and feeling all dusty and gritty.  So I am enjoying it while it lasts. Another lovely delight is the wonderful veggies that are available in this season. The greenest of greens can be seen at the grocers and everything is so fresh that you want to buy even those veggies that you wouldn't know how to cook.:))

 And to top it all I have found this wonderful little stall that sells organic vegetables..  Yes !! really delicious and fresh and the tastiest of organic fruit and veg is available to me on my daily morning walk route. The spinach  and methi are awesome , the ginger and garlic are so packed with flavour that I was completely zapped the first time I used them , but the star attraction for me are the sweet limes. They are sugar sugar sugar sweet. I have never eaten a sweet lime that has so lived up to its name. And of course I must mention the carrots. To look at they are quite unattractive , but they are sensational to taste. We have been eating bagfuls of carrots and practically fighting over them at the dinner table. Last week though I also bought a whole load of green peas from the same place and these too passed taste and freshness test with full marks.
Now in most Maharastrian households you will find that this mataar usal (call it green peas curry) is cooked for dinner at 5/6 times during these cold winter days. Firstly because the best of green peas are  available in abundance and secondly and more importantly it is a very  comforting and soul warming to eat this hot and spicy usal  on a cold winter evening with soft slices of bread ,dollops of homemade white butter (लोणी) ,thinly sliced onions and wedges of lemon.
The bread soaks up this thin runny curry or (रस्सा )  and each mouthful is a delight.

So here goes: (For mataar usal for 4 people)

1/2 kg green peas (boiled )

For the green masala paste)

3/4 cup fresh grated coconut
1.5 cups fresh coriander
juice of 1/2  a lemon
5 to 6 small cloves of garlic
2 tspns jeera
1 large onion (optional)
1 tspn salt

2 tblspns jaggery
5 tblspns oil for tempering
2 tspns mustard
1/4 tspn hing

4 to 5 tea cups of water (start with 4 and add the last one only if you want a very thin curry)

Method:
Boil the peas until slightly soft. They don't have to be completely cooked at this stage as we will be cooking them further later
In your grinder put all the green masala ingredients and grind to a fine paste. Don't forget the lemon juice as this retains the green colour of the dish.
In a pan heat the oil and temper it with mustard and hing.
Add the green masala paste to the pan and fry it on a moderate heat for 5 minutes. Adjust the heat so that the masala does not burn
Now add the boiled peas , water  and jaggery and increase the heat to high
Bring the usal to a roaring boil and then lower the heat back to moderate. Give it a taste. It will need more salt but do taste it first before adding any. Let it boil on a moderate heat until the peas are completely cooked and the oil in the curry rises to the top.
Give it a final taste and immediately transfer the usal to a glass serving bowl so that the fresh green colour is retained. Leaving the usal in the pan tends to darken it in colour.

As I said before enjoy it with fresh bread, butter and an onion salad.

Happy Sankrant Everyone ! Tilgul Ghya Goad Bola!!

It's that time of the year again folks, winter is in full bloom in Pune and it is deliciously cold. After experiencing the severe winters in UK for last  six years this mildly cold weather of Pune is a delightful change for all of us. I admit it still makes getting up early in the morning on school days very difficult, and almost everyday I am tempted to let my little one sleep and not bother him to go to school. Hmmm .... but that's not the way it works does it? If I give in to this temptation he would probably miss school every second day, and that is definitely a big NO NO.
Its also Sankranti time. One of my favourite festivals! I love tilgul and gulachi poli and halwa and the fact that the colour black is celebrated. I have a favourite black saree which I always make a point to wear on Sankranti. Sankrant is normally celebrated on the 14th of January,only this time it is on the 15th. So tomorrow I'll be preparing gulachi poli, and tilgul.

 As with most Indian festivals which are in one way or the other associated with the seasons of the year , Sakranti too has an association with the winter season. Sesame and jaggery the 2 main ingredients here both produce heat in the body and are the main heroes in all the sweets prepared for this event.
Many married women also invite other ladies to their homes for a haldi-kumkum ritual ,during which tilgul is distributed and each lady also gets a small gift to take home. That's the fun part of this programme. It's great fun going into the markets which are jam packed with different goodies you can buy for your haldikumkum function.
Today I am going to share with you the recipe for Gulachi Poli, which is a delicious sweet poli made with a filling of jaggery and sesame. Its to be eaten strictly with generous dollops of homemade ghee. That's a must.
So here goes:

Ingredients for 10 to 12 polis

1/4 kg plain jaggery (available at any grocery store)
1/2 cup of roasted sesame powder,
1/2 cup gram flour
1/4 cup oil to roast the gram flour
1/4 tspn cardammom powder

For the outer poli cover:
2 cups of wheat flour
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup fine semolina
1/4 cup gram flour
1/2 tblspn rice flour
1 pinch of salt
1/4 cup of very hot oil
1/2 cup rice flour to dust the poli when rolling it out

To make the filling:
Heat the oil and roast the gram flour until it changes colour slightly
Grate the jaggery. When the gram flour cools down add to it the  jaggery and the cardammom powder and the sesame powder. Knead the mixture until it all blends well together. You could even pound it a bit. Keep it to one side.

For the cover:
Mix all the ingredients for the cover and knead into a slightly stiff dough.
divide the dough into 18 to 20 equal portions and the jaggery filling into 9 to 10 equal parts
Now for every poli you need two portions of dough and one portion of jaggery.
Roll out all three portions into small discs of equal size. Place the jaggery portion in between the two dough portions and then roll out all three together into a thin poli the size of the regular phulka or roti.
Roast it on the tawa .
These polis will not be soft like normal rotis . They are slightly stiff to touch and break easily into smaller pieces. That's the way they should be.
They keep easily for 8 days without refrigeration.
Serve with big dollops of ghee.

Other Sankrant special recipes on Food-n-More:
Sesame snaps

Tilgul

Simply Refreshing Homemade Widaa (Paan)

This post of mine has been coming up for the last 6 months and I am sure most of you are thinking that I have completely forgotten about it or have simply abandoned my blog and run away. Initially I found it funny that I have a very smart statement (a bit oversmart actually) like coming up next  posted here but nothing happens for six months and I actually had a good laugh over it everytime I popped in to see my blog  but then gradually it was not funny anymore. I knew I had to get down to actually  creating the post, as this is definitely something worth sharing .
The delay happened at first because I wanted to click step by step pics of the whole process of filling and  rolling a widaa, but somehow I never got to take the pics. I just kept thinking I'll get them I'll get them but to no avail. So I have finally decided that I am going to share this post with you pics or no pics :))

So here we go:

As most of you know this is a paan recipe, except that it is a homemade paan which called Widaa in marathi. It is a very much healthier version of the paan we buy at the roadside paan shops and very very delicious.

Paan is basically the betelnut leaf which is found in many varieties the most popular being Maghai and Banarasi. Paan or Widaa is eaten after a meal to cleanse the palate and leave a very refreshing taste in the mouth and it also acts as a very good digestive so much so that new mothers are advised to one paan everyday for at least a month after giving birth.
At home we make Widaas  on special occasions and it is my mom who is the expert although my sis and I have learnt the art too.

What you need to make these homemade widaas:

For 10 widaas:

20 Maghai leaves (can be bought at the local paan shop , some people also have the maghai plant in their gardens)

10 generous  tspns of gulkand

5 tspns of store bought ground masala supari

1 tspn elaichi powder (a pinch in each widaa)

10 tblspns of fresh grated coconut

paan chutney (available at paan shops)

a small amount of chuna (a smear of chuna on each paan is enough)

and kaat balls (this is what colours your mouth read after eating a paan)
10 cloves to pin the paan together
10 whole almonds
few strands of saffron (optional)

Method:

1. Wash and de -stem all the paan leaves .
2.Place 2 leaves one on top of the other with the dark green and glossy side of both leaves facing downwards. Arrange all the leaves (in pairs) similarly in a row so you fill all the widaas simultaneously .
3.Put a smear of chuna on the top leaf of each pair. Then place a tspn full of gulkand on top followed by half a tspn of masala supari, pinch of elaichi , a couple of kaat balls, 1/4 tspn of paan chutney and half a tspn of coconut and a couple of strands of saffron .
4.Now roll the top leaf only by bring in all the sides (OOHhh I wish I had the pics at this stage)
And then wrap this rolled leaf into the outer leaf ( close the bottom edges and leave the tops open)securing the edges with a clove.Prop up all the rolled paans tightly together  in a container as you see in the pic above
5. Put the remaining coconut into the open tops of the paans and tuck in an almond in each of them.
6. You can place them in the fridge for a little while as they taste really fresh when eaten cool .

Believe me although it is very easy to pop over to your local paanwaala and buy a paan these homemade widaas are highly appreciated when you are entertaining guests , people can't believe you took all the effort to make these at home and they are worth every bit of the effort you take