Palak Paneer

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.....

Delicious dish of Spinach with paneer....

Cube of cottage cheese simmered in a rich spinach gravy. A perfect dish for Sunday lunch when everybody is in the mood for a lavish meal before an afternoon rest……:)

Recipe for microwave cooking...
Ingredients:
300 gm Palak (spinach)
100 gm paneer
2 medium size onions
4-5 fresh green chillies
1 piece of ginger
1 tbsp garam masala
½ tbsp coriander+cumin seeds powder
¼ tbsp turmeric powder (haldi)
3 tbsp oil
Salt to taste Method:
Step 1: Wash & drain the water from Spinach. Chopped them coarsely.

Step 2: Cut the paneer into thick strips and keep aside.

Step 3: Place the chopped spinach on a microwave safe dish.

Step 4: Microwave on high for 2 minutes.

Step 5: When all the leaves is become soft Blend in a liquidizer to a smooth puree and keep aside.

Step 6: Peel the onion. Coarsely chopped the onion, green chillies and ginger piece.

Step 7: Blend the onion green chillies and ginger to a smooth paste.

Step 8: In microwave safe bowl, add the oil and the ground paste of onion.

Step 9: Microwave on high for one minute.

Step 10: Add coriander+ cumin seeds powder, turmeric powder, garam masala and salt to taste.

Step 11: Add the spinach puree and mix well.

Step 12: Microwave on high for 5 minutes.

Step 13: Add the paneer cubs, and mix well.

Step 14: Microwave on high for a minute.
Step 15: Serve hot with Roti , jeera rice and dal...great meal for sunday...enjoy it:)

I thank God I'm rich not with money but with people like you. I may not have the most expensive things but I've got a most precious gem. a friend like you.
If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn't jump with them; I'd be at the bottom to catch them. :)

Top Ten Gluten-Free Recipes on Gluten-Free Goddess

Reader's faves: the top gluten-free recipes on Gluten-Free Goddess blog.

As the first decade of the new millennium chugs to a long slow finish like the spunky little engine that could, top ten lists are sprouting up everywhere. Top ten movies, top ten playlists. Which begs the burning question for celiac survivors. Hello! Where is our own gluten-free top ten list? Where is our shining and sparkly Top Ten Gluten-Free Goodness? It's a new year. A spanking new decade. Let's party.

So without further ado, here is my own humble contribution to the Best of the Best in the expanding gluten-free recipe universe.

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Poha Khaman/Instant Poha Khaman

Khaman is favourite farsaan…usually the khaman are made from gram flour or chana dal but Here I have experimented with poha with milk. Once you taste this khaman, I am sure you will be tempted to try more!!!

Ingredients
1 big bowl poha (Poached Rice or Beaten Rice)
1\2 bowl milk
7-8 green chillies
1 piece of ginger
11/2 lemon
3 tbsp sugar
½ tbsp turmeric powder
3 tbsp oil
Salt to taste
For the tempering:
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp mustard seeds
For the garnish:
2 tbsp chopped coriander (dhania)
1 tbsp dry coconut powder
Method:
Step 1: Finely chopped the green chillies without seeds and grated the ginger. Keep aside.

Step 2: Wash the thick poha with cool water until moistened, turn poha over with your hand to ensure all poha is damp, but not soggy.

Step 3: Heat the milk in big heavy bottom pan and add the sugar, salt, and turmeric powder for nice color.Step 4: When the milk is boiled, add the moist poha, lemon juice, mix well and sauté on low flame, while stirring continuously.

Step 5: In other small pan heat the oil, add the grated ginger and green chillies.

Step 6: Sauté on a medium flame for a few seconds.

Step 7: Remove from the flame and pour this tempering over the boiled poha on other flame.

Step 8: Stirring continuously, when the the pohas soak all the milk and is becomes a thick consistency turn off the flame.

Step 9: Place immediately into a greased thali evenly to make a uniform layer using a spatula while the batter is still hot.

Step 10: When cool cut the Khaman into square pieces.
Step 11: Heat the oil in small pan.

Step 12: Add the mustard seeds, when the seeds crackle, remove from the flame.

Step 13: Pour this tempering over the khamans and garnished with coriander and coconut.

Step 14: Serve immediately.
Message for coming year...

The Old Year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!

A Bevy of Gluten-Free: Fruit and Vegetables

Jewels at the farmers' market -- naturally gluten-free.

Walking the Santa Monica Farmers' Market beneath dove gray December skies I fell in love with the quiet beauty of seasonal fruits and vegetables protected under netting. There is something so poetic, so archetypal about it. So shy and evocative. Seductive and beckoning. So downright bridal. So understated gorgeous. So rather than waxing all Emily Dickinson on ya and conjuring words for the experience I thought I might use my camera instead.

And let my pictures do the talking.

Chocolate Quinoa Brownies- Gluten-Free and Vegan

Vegan gluten-free brownies made with quinoa flakes.

Your stubborn and chocolate obsessed gluten-free goddess has been working overtime. In between shooting photographs of the holiday lights and skaters in Santa Monica and battling the return of the flu I fought off some weeks ago (I believe in recycling, Darling, but this is a wee bit ridiculous) I have been utterly possessed. Haunted by the ghost of chocolate brownies. Vegan chocolate brownies, to be exact (because I've already served up the best egg-based gluten-free brownie I can think of, so if you haven't tried my Dark Chocolate Brownie recipe or the Chocolate Brownie made with pecan meal, Darling- Go!).

Baking failures do not sit pretty with yours truly. Especially when I am achy and voiceless and my head feels like a giant damp wad of gluten-free dough with too much xanthan gum added (you gluten-free bakers know exactly what I'm talking about). I feel like the goddess of sticky, thick and dull. And there ain't no cure. Except maybe a hot toddy. Or three.

Lucky for me I have a husband who likes to bake. A husband who says (as his brittle, grumpy hot-flashing wife is muttering expletives and scraping another gooey not-in-a-good-way gluten-free vegan brownie failure into the perky polka dotted trash can), So. 

How can we make this work?

For a split second I panic and think, He's over it. He's finally tired of living gluten-free. Living without baguettes and bagels and croissants out of love, a sense of duty, or comradeship and support. 

He's done. Finished. He's out the door, no looking back.

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Happy Winter Solstice!

Wishing you and your family 

the warmest of winter greetings 

for a safe, healthy and beautiful holiday season.

xox

Karina

Merry Christmas and Recipe of a Chikki

Merry Christmas to all my Friend....Enjoy your day with lots of fun!!!

Santa the Magical Person
Christmas is a very special time for many children -- the day presents are left by a magical person.

Christmas is the time of year that children from all over the world await with wide-eyed anticipation. Brightly wrapped packages are left under the Christmas tree or in a sack at the end of their bed. But how do the gifts get there? Who puts them there? Most children, faced with this line of questioning, will barely contain their excitement when they describe a jovial elderly gentleman in a big red coat and a large white beard.

Make a wish dear children.....Santa is on the way of your home….

However, most of his illustrations added to what is now the modern day concept of Santa. Among his additions to the story were the following:
* Santa lived at the North Pole (thus, making him a “citizen of the world.”)
* He wore fur suits
* Elves assisted in his toy workshop
* Children wrote Santa letters
* He kept a list of all who were “naughty or nice”
* Bad children were not rewarded with gifts
Nast’s engravings were popular throughout the country, appealing to both rich and poor, literate and illiterate alike.

In the United States of the late 18th-century, Christmas in most parts of the newly formed country centered around drinking, eating, and raucous noisemaking. However, this would change during the 1800s when Christmas became a quieter, more child centered and family oriented event.


This post is special those friends which are eagerly waiting for this recipe....Thanks for your polite request for chikki. Your request is always valuable for me. :)
Sesame Seeds Chikki

Ingredients:
1 cup sesame seed
3\4 cup shred jaggery
2 big spoons water

* Special type of jaggery which is available in market in winter for making Chikki.

Method of making chikki:
Step 1: Heat two big spoons of water in a kadai (Thick pan).

Step 2: Add shred jaggery in it.

Step 3: Melt nicely on medium flame.
Step 4: When its color is slightly change in dark side then add sesame seeds and continuously stirring.Step 5: In low flame mix jaggery and sesame seeds very well within a minute then turn off the flame.Step 6: Grease a tray or any clean surface and roller of roti before start to make chikki.

Step 7: When you turn off the flame spread the material into grease surface.

Step 8: Quickly roll the material with roti roller so it becomes thin. (As early as possible)

Step 9: Slightly draw horizontal and vertical lines before it cool.

Step 10: When it is cool cut in to square pieces.
Step 11: Store in container in cool place.

Puffed rice Ladoo/Puffed rice Chikki


Ingredients:

3 cup puffed rice
3\4 cup shred jaggery
2 big spoons water

Method of making chikki:
Step 1: Heat two big spoons of water in a kadai (Thick pan).

Step 2: Add shred jaggery in it.

Step 3: Melt nicely on medium flame.

Step 4: When its color is slightly change in dark side turn off the flame on low.
Step 5: Add puffed rice and stirring continuously.

Step 6: In low flame mix jaggery and puffed rice very well within a minute then turn off the flame.Step 7: Take one cup with cold water and take the 3-4 drops of water in your plam and then make the ladoo.Step 8: Here you want extra hand to help coz you make all ladoo as early as possible before the material to be cool.
Step 9: Quickly make the ladoo from the material. Step 10: When it is cool place in container.

Peanut Chikki

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut
3\4 cup shred jaggery
2 big spoons water

How to Roast Peanut:
Step 1: Take the peanuts.

Step 2: Roasted the peanut in thick pan or kadai in law flame.
Step 3: When it is roasted then turn off the flame.

Step 4: This is your roasted redskin peanuts coz it contain the skins. When it's cool remove the skin and break each peanut in to parts so it is easy spread in chikki.

Method of making chikki:
Step 1: Heat two big spoons of water in a kadai (Thick pan).

Step 2: Add shred jaggery and mix well.

Step 3: Melt nicely on medium flame.

Step 4: When its color is slightly change in dark side then add roasted peanuts in it.Step 5: In low flame mix jaggery and peanuts very well for 1-2 minutes after that turn off the flame.Step 6: Grease a tray or any clean surface and roller of roti with oil before start to make chikki.

Step 7: When you turn off the flame spread the material into grease surface.

Step 8: Quickly roll the material with roti roller so it becomes thin.

Step 9: Slightly draw horizontal and vertical lines before it cool.

Step 10: When it is cool cut in to square pieces.

Step 11: Store in air tight container in cool place.

Cashew chikkiSame way you make peanut chikki...Note: If you try first time then take small portion.

Thought of the day:

" If you CANNOT be a pencil to write Anyone's Happiness , then try Atleast to be a NICE Rubber to ERASE everyone's SORROWS..."