Baby Spinach and Beet Lentil Soup

We have been trying many new soups these days. Our traditional Bengali moong masor’er dal got recently a new twist. I happened to have some beet and baby spinach, in pursue of introducing healthy vegetables in to our meals, I decided may be I should go ahead and try adding them in dals or lentils.

Now I am sure everybody has their own versions of these dal or lentil soup. The recipe below is my way of incorporating flavors together. I skip tempering the dal with onion, ginger and garlic, instead I do like to add them right with the lentils and pressure cooks it. It saves whole lot of effort and flavor wise tastes wonderful.

Now to the recipe

Baby Spinach and Beet Lentil Soup

Recipe requirements

• 1 large bowl of baby spinach
• 1 large beet with tender leaves if possible
• ½ cup of massor dal/red lentils
• ½ cup of dhuli moong dal/yellow lentil
• 2-3 tbs of pearl barley
•  1 medium size onion
• ½ inch ginger
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 medium size tomatoes
• 1 tsp of salt
• 2 tsp of crushed black pepper

Method

• Chop and wash beetroots. Wash and clean baby spinach leaves well in water.
• Now chop in garlic, ginger, onion and tomato roughly.
• Clean and wash the lentil mixture of moong and masoor dal , couple of times in water.
• In a pressure cooker, add enough water say about 3-4 cups . Add in lentil mixture, when a white froth appears, scoop out and discard that.
• Now add in all the chopped vegetables- beet, tomato, onion, ginger and garlic and also pearl barley. I have added barley to give a little more filling touch otherwise it’s not necessary to add it. Do not add spinach now.
• Now lock the pressure cooker and put it to cook. One whistle at high, lower the flame – 1-2 mints and then takes it off from the flame.

• Open the lock once the pressure subsides. Add in baby spinach leaves. As spinach leaves are tender, it will get cook easily.
• Now adjust the seasonings, add salt and also add freshly crushed black pepper. This imparts a great flavor.Or you may add cayenne pepper for some extra spice in the soup.
• Let it cool a little bit, then pulse thro half of the soup mixture in a grinder/mixer, reserving the beet root pieces. Otherwise leave it and serve without making a puree whichever way you prefer. Personally I do feel making a puree adds some great color and texture to the soup, making it more creamy sans cream and thick.
• At the time of serving, sprinkle some dried herbs over it. Even Kasoori methi can work great here as an alternative to Italian dried herb or oregano.

Sending this soup recipe to Priya's  Healthy Diet Event- Warm Soup at Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes...............

                                                        **********************

These two pictures below were clicked by our DD, while we were roaming around in a park in Cambridge.

Aren't they gorgeous!! 

Well can’t believe entire week has gone and now it’s finally Friday.Enjoy your weekends friends...and 

Happy cooking friends.

Baby Spinach Mushroom and Barley Soup

Tomorrow India celebrates it's Republic day and to all the Indians living and spread across the globe and in homeland also.Wish all of you a very happy Republic Day..Even we are far away from our home..we always carry a small portion of it wherever we travel or live in abroad..

I have felt a sense of discomfort whenever we come across people back home..you know oh! you live in abroad so obviously you lack "prem for your matrobhomi"..why ?

 I have seen most insensitive people even living in India and having an unsympathetic feelings for their  own country....It's just so easy to criticize the present norm there..but if you can bring on changes and is capable of doing it then take proper interest in doing so..and changes always start from your own home..Don't they? ..Treat your own ladies and children in home well first ..society automatically will get molded for better later on....
But come on not all NRI's  are bad ...It's the fact ..take it or leave it ..up to you!! End of rant!!

Now to the Recipe


Another day and a new soup recipe for all of you.This time made the soup with baby spinach and mushrooms and of course pearl barley.This soup tends to fill you up and it's a great way to warm up your cold and rainy evenings which is what we have been seeing for the past few days or so.

Baby spinach mushroom and barley soup

Recipe requirements

• 1 large bowl of baby spinach
• 2-3 cups chopped mushrooms
• 1 tomato chopped finely
• ½ cup of barley
• 5-6 penne pasta 
• 2 garlic pods
• half inch ginger 
• 1 onion chopped
• 1 tsp of salt
• ½ tsp of cumin powder
• 1 tsp of crushed black pepper

Method

• Wash and chop tomato, mushroom, onion, tomato, garlic and ginger.
• Now fill in 4-5 large cups of water in pressure cooker.You can use chicken broth or vegetable broth as wel.
• Add in all the chopped vegetables except the baby spinach leaves.Add in barley and penne pasta.You may add some bread chunks in place of barley and penne pasta.Barley or penne pasta or bread chunks gives the thick and creamy look.A good alternative to cream or potato in soups making it even more healthy.
• Adjust the seasoning with salt, black pepper powder, cumin powder.
• Lock the lid and put on for one whistle.Lower the flame and let it cook for 4-5 mints.
• Open the lid once the pressure subsides.
• Take out and after cooling little bit , pulse half of the soup in a mixer.
• Now transfer this soup mixture in to the soup pot and add the baby spinach leaves.
• And let it simmer a little bit.This will make it smooth and thick making it even more filling.

Serve pipping hot with toasted bread or whatever way you prefer.

Sending this soup to Priya's  Healthy Diet Event- Warm Soup at Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes...............

Happy Cooking Friends 

Pearl Barley Sweet corn and Carrot soup

How many times you can watch a movie? Two times .Three times. I ,we have been watching “Lion King” for 10 times now and each time we see it, we find something new and amazing about it.

We slowly have started liking, watching cartoon films (yeah that is how most of our weekend evenings are spent now).Credits goes to our adorable DD who insists on watching it with us.

But interesting thing to mention here is that each time we see it, there is always some hidden message. So, will go with what Timon and Pumbaa sings “Hakunamatata”…You will think we have gone nuts. But trust me “Hakunamatata” philosophy does help…so for the time being I am in that mood “problem free philosophy” even in cooking food. So, I do think soups needs less tension and time to be prepared but when it comes to nutrition and benefits they excel...don’t they...

This week it’s soup week here. Barley as you all know is a healthy alternative to rice or wheat. So, whenever I feel like having something different other than eating rice for lunch, most of the time I end up eating soups made with barley.

Sweet corn and carrots do add nice and healthy nutrients and some color also to this soup. And this is really will be great way to eat healthy after last week’s filo pastry indulgence.

Pearl Barley Sweet corn and Carrot soup

Recipe requirements

• ½ cup of barley
• 1 cup of sweet corn
• 2 carrots
• 8-10 penne pasta
• 1 tomato
• 2 garlic pods
• ½ inch of ginger
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of crushed black pepper

Method

• Cut and chop vegetables roughly. Finely chop garlic and ginger.
• In a pressure cooker add in 4-5 cups of water. You can use vegetable or chicken broth in place of plain water.
• Now add in all the chopped vegetables- tomato, carrots, garlic and ginger. Adjust the seasonings with salt and crushed black pepper. Add in sweet corn.
• Now add in washed barley and also penne pasta.
• Lock the pressure cooker and let it have one whistle. Lower the flame and cook for 3-4 mints. Switch off, open when the pressure subsides.

Serve warm with some toasted bread.

Sending this soup to Priya's Healthy Diet Event- Warm Soup at Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes...............

Happy Cooking Friends

Mince Pie Pinwheels - Vegetarian

This will be my last recipe with filo pastry for the moment. It’s been really great to know that a readymade filo pastry can be used to create many delicious recipes and it does look pretty as well.And also as far as the ingredients that goes in for manufacturing the filo pastry is concerned , this can be good as vegan food as well.

I have been eating the  mincemeat pies but boxed and store bought which I do get from M&S here .Of course its vegetarian though, as they use various assorted dried fruit mixture as meat replacement.

However when I was working with filo pastry , I searched on the internet about filo pastry and dried fruit mixture. I came across many recipes that look quite like pinwheels.So below recipe that got formulated at the end, is the adaptation of many recipes out there in net.

I have spiced it up with whatever ingredients I had in my pantry at the time of making them.So, a different flavor was quite evident.And also I had some left over dried fruit mixture even after I made Christmas Cake and Cous-cous and dried fruit stuffed chicken breast.

This was another great hit with my family.

Now to the recipe 

Dried Fruit Mincepie pinwheels

Recipe requirements

• 1 packet Jus Roll  long puff pastry
• ½  cup of caster sugar
• pinch of red pepper powder
• 2 tsp of cinnamon powder
• 2 tsp of nutmeg powder
• About 2 tsp of mixed spice powder
• 1 cup of assorted dried fruit mixture

Method

• Preheat oven at 180 Deg C.
• Now sprinkle sugar and some flour over your working area.
• Roll out the thawed puff pastry to more about 1-2 inch further long but still in rectangular shape. 
• Now sprinkle nutmeg powder+cinnamon powder and some caster sugar evenly over the rolled pastry.
• Use the rest of sugar to coat the dried fruit mixture very well. Add in mixed spice powder and red pepper powder.
• Place the dried fruit mixture on one side of the pastry. If you wish you can finely chop the fruit mixture and then add it.
• Now start folding the pastry so that it ends up being a long sausage sort of shape. Seal the other end with some milk or water.
• Put this into refrigerator for about an hour.
• Take out and again sprinkle some flour and sugar evenly over it.
• Cut it into rounds of equal sizes of about 1 inch thick. You can make them little bit more fat of about 3 inch or even more thin.
• Transfer them over the baking tray. Bake those 30 mints or till barely golden.
• Take out and let it cool.
• Serve hot or cold with cream or honey or whatever way you prefer.

Note-

• You can add muscavado sugar in place of normal caster sugar to increase the shell life.
• I have added red pepper powder to spice up little bit, but if you don’t like it then skip it.

Have a Nice weekend friends

Happy Cooking 

Petite Cinnamon Puff- Black and White Wednesday

When I was making these, elephant ears or palmier was on my mind. But I end up making small replica of palmiers as I used half of the puff sheet and also cut wise I have left the pieces little fat.Anyways the end result was gone in one day, thanks to a very picky eater who loves to gorge on these fast foods. She is my DD and has demanded another batch....

Kids I tell you are so unpredictable. What goes in their mind who knows? She even helped me, sprinkling cinnamon powder and caster sugar over the pastry. And also in melting chocolates in M/W.

More of a play thing for her than some serious stuff. We made these way back when DD had long winter holidays.

These are quick to make and a great way to engage your child if one has nothing to do any positive or creative work or some challenging brain sensitizing stuff.

Now to the recipe-

Petite Cinnamon Puffs

Recipe requirements

• 1 package puff pastry
• 3-4 tbs of cinnamon powder
• 3-5 tbs of caster sugar
• For the glaze
• ½ cup of milk
• 2 tbs of double cream
• 3-4 tbs of icing sugar

Method

• Line up a baking tray with grease proof paper.
• Preheat oven at 175 deg C.
• Cut the sheet into half.Roll out little bit to spread it out. Sprinkle generously cinnamon powder+caster sugar.
• From one end start rolling the sheet towards middle. When you have reached to the middle, start working from the opposite end coming towards the middle of the sheet. The shape will look elephant ears.
• Now you can refrigerate it for half an hour to firm up the shape. I didn’t this time.
• Bake the petite puffs for 20 mints or just barely golden. Take out and let them cool a bit.
• Now make the glaze
• Mix in milk,cream and icing sugar very well.

• Drizzle this over the cooled petite palmiers.If you wish you can drizzle chocolate as well.
• I happen to put some chocolate shavings this time.
• Serve as snacks or breakfast accompaniment what ever way you prefer.

Sending the picture below to Susan's Black and White Wednesday......... at The Well Seasoned Cook.

Happy Cooking Friends