INDIAN CRACKERS

It’s time for a salty snack, which has an original, distinct taste and a delicate crunchy texture. What I’m talking about are Indian crackers – if you ever get to make them, you can be sure they will disappear from the plate faster than they were prepared. :)

Things we’ll need:

• 2 cups of flour (best to have 1 cup of ordinary wheat flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour)
• 1 tablespoon soft butter
• 1 flat teaspoon of curry
• 1 tablespoon ordinary cumin seeds
• 1 flat teaspoon salt

Mix all the ingredients well in a bowl. The dough will be a bit crumbly because of the butter. Now you have to gradually add this much water, so that the dough will not stick to your hands and will be pleasant and elastic. Form your dough into a ball and put a cloth over it, then leave it for about 30 mins. (here I have to confess, that sometimes don’t have the patience to wait this time and actually the effect on the ready snack is similar :) After this, roll the dough up to some 5mm thickness and then you can start cutting out the crackers. The best way to do this is to first cut strips about 5cm wide, and then diagonally again 5cm wide. In this way you’ll get nice rhomb shapes.

In a medium pan, heat this much oil that the crackers can easily float. You can check the temperature by putting a small piece of the dough in the oil. If the temperature is fine, the dough first lands on the bottom of the pan and then goes up and sizzles. Then you can fry the rest of the crackers. Fry them a few at a time, on both sides until they are golden in color. Then let them drip on a strainer or paper cloth. That’s it! I’m sure that it will be a hit on your party. I advise you to prepare a double portion of dough!

PIZZA – NOT PIZZA

I have a really good recipe for… actually I don’t know how to call it. It looks a bit like a pizza, but it is very exotic in taste because of the batter, which is made from chickpea flour. I got the recipe from my friend Magda, whom I wish to warmly greet, taking advantage of the chance. Here are the ingredients for this interesting “pastry”:

· 0,5 liter of water

· 250 g chickpea flour

· 3 tablespoons olive oil or any other oil

· 1 teaspoon salt or universal seasoning

· Curry, coriander and other spices you like (can be skipped)

· Ketchup

· Olives, feta cheese, mushrooms, raw paprika, tomatoes, onion – whatever you want to put on the top of the pizza – it’s your choice.

Mix the water, chickpea flour, oil, salt and spices in a bowl. Leave this mixture for 3-4 hours and then pour onto a greased baking tin. Don’t worry that the batter is very liquid, it will quickly set in the hot oven. You just have to make sure, that your baking tin is not leaking! J For this amount of ingredients, I used a tin 28 cm. wide.
Now you can put the things you like on the top, how I said in the last point. Put your pizza into the oven preheated to 190 degrees (Celsius) and bake 40-45 mins. till it’s golden in color. Cut it and decorate with ketchup.

JELLY DESSERT

  Today I will present a very easy and delicious dessert, which will be appreciated by you and your unexpected guests. The only things we’ll need are:

         - potato flour

         - half a lemon

         - 2 spoons of sugar

         - a bit of your favorite jam, although it isn’t that necessary

         - two grated apples and

         - 2 spoonfuls of cream or yoghurt.  

So let’s go for it!

Measure about half a liter of water, and from this liter pour out about half a cup. Bring to boil the rest of the water. Now, put the ingredients mentioned earlier (except the apples and yoghurt) in the half a cup of water saved earlier. Mix and pour out on the boiled water in a pan. The starch from the potatoes and the boiled water will make the whole dessert thicken, and make it quite transparent. Now you can add the grated apples and cook for a moment. Then, you can add the cream or yoghurt and mix. Pour the dessert out into nice dishes and serve to the honorable guests :). Bon Apetit! 

SWEET RICE

Today I would like to present my sweet rice, which shares a big part in our morning menu. I’m so surprised to remember that I couldn’t manage to eat it when I was young. I come from Silesia, where during my youth rice was hardly ever in our menu, except sometimes for dinner, in its salty version. On the begging, we had dumplings, potatoes or other typical Polish dishes. So one time the kindergarten cooks served rice with cream and a bit of sugar and cinnamon, I had a really hard time to accept this kind of breakfast. The other children had already finished their shares a long time ago and ran to play, while I was still stuck with my sweet rice, hardly eaten. I was almost crying, every bite grew in my mouth, until…. The whole swallowed content landed back on my plate. I made a lot of commotion around me, and I still remember feeling really bad about it :)

Today, sweet rice is my favorite breakfast and I never hesitate to get my seconds. The rice I’m going to present today is of course really easy, but it is a delicious and filling meal.

Ingredients:

- 1 cup basmati rice, or whatever rice you have

- a tablespoon of butter
- 3 cups of freshly boiled water

- 1 banana

- 1 apple

- a handful of sunflower

- a tablespoon of cream

- vanilla sugar, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 big bay leaf, cinnamon

Melt the butter in a medium pan, put in the rice, and add in the water. Add the bay leaf, a pinch of salt and cover. After a moment of cooking, mix the contents to make sure that none of the rice grains had stuck to the pot. Slice the banana into cubes and grate the apple into big shreds. When all the water is absorbed, add the remaining ingredients (except cinnamon) and cook a bit more so that the fruits will release their juice. Put the rice into bowls and decorate with cinnamon. You can also sprinkle on some raisins :) Hope you like it!!

HALAVA

When spring time begins, we have a tradition in our family to do some cleaning in our bodies. You may think: “What? They are vegetarian, follow a healthy lifestyle and now body cleaning? “Well I have to explain that it is also a part of the healthy lifestyle. We like to use what we get, and spring is the best time to do some body general cleaning. The easiest and at the same time most pleasant way of doing this, is drinking lots of freshly juiced fruit and vegetable juices. Best are those made from carrots and apples.
I was always really sad to see all these carrot remains landing in the trash can after every carrot juice we made. I thought that we should somehow use it. After all, there must be a way to utilize those carrots!
I got the idea of making them into a halava – a piquant and sweet appetizer, which is ideal with your dinner menu, or can be served separately as a great dessert.
So what do we do?
Melt minimum 2 spoons of butter in a pan (actually the more butter the better :) and put about 2 big handfuls of the carrot remains. Then, pour a glass of water or milk on this and cover. Cook about 30 mins. and mix from time to time so that the carrots won’t stick to the pan. Now add 1 vanilla flavored sugar, 3 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons ginger powder. If someone doesn’t like ginger, or the dessert is meant for children, you can omit putting in the ginger. Kids usually don’t like spicy dishes. You can also add a handful of raisins – they underline the taste. That’s it! Healthy and delicious, you have to try it yourself.

For those of you, who don’t have a fruit juicer, or you do, but hardly ever use it, I have a different version of this halava. Grate 5 big carrots to small shreds and do the same thing as with the previous recipe, but don’t add any water or milk. The grated carrots have enough water in them, which will evaporate during the cooking and cook the carrots thoroughly. I admit that this version of halava is richer and more delicate in taste, but you have to remember that my idea was to utilize the juiced carrot remains.

BASMATI RICE

The first recipe is Basmati rice, which cooks very fast and is always loose – it is my favorite kind of rice. Here are the ingredients:

· 1 cup Basmati rice

· 1 tablespoon butter

· 1 teaspoon curry, a teaspoon of salt (you can use other spices instead of curry like cumin or coriander)

· 2 cups freshly boiled water

Melt the butter in a medium pan, add the spices and salt, toast for a moment and then add the rice and mix a bit, so that each grain of rice is covered in butter. Meanwhile, boil up the water, and when it’s boiling, add the 2 cups into the pot. Mix and cover. This rice cooks for about 12 minutes, so it’s ready really quickly. You just have to mix one more time after some 5 minutes, to make sure that the rice is not stuck to the pan. Then don’t uncover it until all the water is absorbed, and little holes will appear on the surface, through which the air escapes. Turn the gas off and leave for a moment, to make sure that the rice is loose. And that’s it.

Since I’m talking about rice, I would like to also give a recipe for a dish that is very nourishing, but light and of course very tasty. You’ll just need the green mung beans – soaked for about 2 days, so that you can easily take the green shells off. My kids love these sprouts, and when the “clothes” are taken off, they say that the mung beans are “naked” :).

So you will need:

· half glass of the "naked" beans,

· a cup of Basmati rice, (although you can use any other rice)

· a tablespoon of butter

· half a teaspoon of turmeric, teaspoon of salt, a pinch of asofetida, a teaspoon of ground cumin

· 4 cups of freshly boiled water

Melt the butter in a pan and add the spices, mix a while, then add the rice, mung beans and the boiled water. Cook until all the water is absorbed (about 40 min.) and it’s ready!

On this site, I would like to post different recipes for my easy meals. I am a person who thinks that there is no sense in time-consuming cooking. I’m too impatient and I don’t like wasting my time, although on the other hand I want to care about the health of my family, so I have to combine fast cooking with healthy lifestyle. My dishes aren’t very refine but very tasty and very fast. When my beloved husband asks for a dinner, there is no greater joy for me to see his pleasantly surprised face when he sees the healthy steaming meal which appears on the table 20 – 30 minutes after being ordered. And that’s what I mean! :)