Hot and Spicy Stuffed Peppers, perfect for Brrrrr weather

Hot and Spicy Stuffed Peppers

If you are like me growing up food was always the center of activity at home, a herculean task that was performed by the ladies of the house without any hiccups. You see I lived in a joint family big one i.e. with great grand parents, grand parents, uncles, aunts and all my cousins, our house always had visitors and come Summer or vacations we had extended family join us it was non-stop fun. During peak summers sometimes our home housed more than twenty five people yet ladies of the house made it look so seamless and easy to feed the crowd weather it was making pooris or bajji or dosa's everything was done in a order. I wonder how much they used to plan, it was so easy to crib in spite of all their hard work, never realized nor respected for that matter what went into making these delicious meals until of course I had to feed a micro family of four. Most evening snacks made were always deep-fried, never had to watch calories or carbs. Of course, now with so much awareness about calories and healthy eating it makes you rethink before you deep-fry or get the oil going.
Today’s recipe is one such variation slightly healthy then deep frying with weather like today all you want to do is have a few of these catch a book and snuggle.
Ingredients
Feeds 6- 8
Peppers (20) (sweetish kind with fairly thin skin)
3 potatoes (boiled)
1 red onion cubed finely
1/2 cup feta cheese (substitute your favorite)
Shredded mozzarella for topping
Seasoning
1-2 tbsp of cumin powder
Salt according to taste
1/2 tsp red chili flakes
Process
1. Pre heat over to 350
2. Clean chilies and slit vertically in the middle
3. Deseed chilies by removing the pith and seeds
4. Take a pan add tbsp of oil and when hot add chili flakes and red onion.
5. Sauté till onions caramelize
6. Now add boiled potatoes, cumin and salt and mix well. When warm to touch add feta cheese and keep aside to cool
7. Now stuff the above on to the deseeded chilies and top off with shredded mozzarella
8. Line them on baking sheet and allow to bake for 8 minutes
9. Change the setting to broil and high and allow to broil for another 8 minutes.
10. Serve right out of the oven.
Result is hot and spicy stuffed chili and a bite into melted feta boy it feels heavenly and the sweetness of the chili flesh makes it a beautiful concoction. Low cal and low fat but high on taste a true crowd pleaser that your friends and guest alike will love.

Stay warm,
Sreelu

Diwali Greetings

Happy Diwali

Wishing all my family,friends, readers and my blog visitors a very happy and a prosperous Diwali. May the Diwali lights brighten your lives and fill you with peace and happiness.

Special wishes to my little brother who celebrates his birthday today.

With Love,

Sreelu

Soups on ..

Hearty Twelve Bean Vegetarian Chili/Soup

Have been absconding from my blog for a while, off late I am finding it extremely difficult to find time to blog, wish there were 48 hours a day. We in Bay area have been experiencing tipsy turvy weather, you have a Saturday with 80 degrees a park kind of day and a Sunday with 55 degrees super windy and cold, kinda a day to cozy up with your favorite book in your goose down and wish magically a cuppa of warm hearty soup appears.

Well a cup of warm chili with hearty vegetables is always a welcome in cold weather, usually chili is made with red or black beans these days you get such fancy combinations of beans that its very enticing recently picked up a combination of twelve beans . So here goes my version of chili or bean soup however you call it.

Ingredients

1 Cup of dried beans (Black, red or today's case 12 beans combination), soak overnight

1/2 cup celery

1 onion chopped finely

1/2 cup carrot

1/2 cup tomato

2-3 potatoes peeled and cubed

2tb sp Cumin powder

2 tbp Ginger garlic paste

2 tbsp Red chili flakes

Salt according to taste

Toppings

roasted corn

red onion

green chilies sliced very very fine

nacho's

cheese

Process

1. Soak beans overnight.

2. Pressure cook bean with salt

3. Add 2 tbsp oil to a pot, when oil is hot add chili flakes , ginger garlic paste and saute for 1 minute

4. Now add chopped onion and fry till they turn brown

5. Add celery, tomatoes, potatoes and mix well

6. Add boiled beans , save the water in which beans were boiled.

7. Mix all the ingredients and add water if it seems to thick.

8. Use hand blender and run the blender in the pot for few times to make mush some beans.

9. Adjust salt accordingly and allow to boil in simmer for 8-1o minutes.

Serve hot with your choice of toppings, roasted corn, red onion, green chilies sliced very very fine, nacho's crushed roughly, a slice of lemon and of course cheese.

Warm and hearty makes a complete and satisfying meal.
Enjoy your fall.
Love,
Sreelu

When Life Gives You Lemons --------

When life gives you Lemons... you make Lemon Pickled Carrots

So glad to be back to blogging, had a fantastic vacation going home, it was great meeting family, friends and huge extended family. It was continues food, parties, visitations and not to mention hectic travel. I usually get very very home sick once I get back and it happens every time though it’s been more than a decade since I started living in US, guess some things never change.

Back to scheduled chaos, summers come to an end, kids back to school and its almost fall, my favorite time of the year weather perfect not to hot and not to cold just right for a walk in the neighborhood.
This year we enjoyed having lemons in a yard, planted it almost nine years ago never has it borne so many lemons like it did this year. Having fresh lemons out in the yard reminded me of my grand mothers picked radishes this time on it’s substituted with carrots.

Ingredients
2-3 fresh and tender carrots, sliced thinly
½ cup fresh lemon juice
2 tb fresh ground pepper
1 thinly sliced green chili
Salt according to taste
Chat masala for additional flavoring (optional)

Process

1. Slice carrots finely, to sliced carrots add lemon juice, pepper, salt , green chilies and optionally chat masala.
2.Allow it to marinate for an hour or so.
3.Once marinated you can eat like a salad or use as side dish to compliment to roti’s/naan
Carrots can be substituted for Radishes and even raw mango.

Go check out some more drooling pickling recipes from Cynthia
Hope everyone had a great summer .

Love,
Sreelu

Ganapathi Bappa Mourya

Wishing my family,friends and all my readers a very Happy Ganesh Chaturdi.

May the lord shower his blessings to one and all and may there be peace and happiness .

Summer Series Garden Escapades

Anyone who has got a book collection and a garden wants for nothing.
Cicero

At the end of the day gardening for me is away to wind down. Gardening represents optimism for me and being a true optimist the amount of satisfaction I get nurturing saplings and see them fruit and flower is beyond words. Dairy of my garden from last year, this year with an up coming long trip did not plant much as I would hate for them die and wither away.

Summer for me arrives with Jasmine flowers, these tiny blooms so fragrant and sensual a true summer quintessential.

Indian Jasmine (Malle Puvvu)

A must have for any home vegetable garden are Tomatoes, thanks to the Californian summersthese grow plenty. Very hardy and easy to grow. Last year went to local gardening chapter and got plants/seeds of Heirloom variety, and true to the picture these were so sweet,It would be an insult to cook anything with them. All you have to do is wash and eat. Extremely delicious,meaty and sweet.

Heirloom Tomatoes are my entry for Click hosted by Bee& Jai of Jugalbandi, this months theme -Stacks.

We had a bounty last year and most of my friends got to taste them.
Summer vegetables we grew include corn, yellow squash and cucumber. Nothing beats the taste of freshly picked fruit /vegetables hands down.
Eggplant the hotter the weather the better the crop.
Lemon Cucumber or Indian cucumber (Dosakaya) excellent for Dals and pickles.

Uncontrollable mint, find it every where in my yard and the king of south Indian cooking Kadi Patta or Curry leaves, No dish is ever complete without curry leaves seasoning.

Indian Guava, these flower in summer and takes a while for the fruit to form usually in November, though they are very small in size they are big on flavor.

Pomegranate or Anar, this is the Kabuli Anar, so soft sweet and very fleshy. Get to enjoy them untill fall.

No yard is complete without fragrant flowers. Pink Calla Lilly and my favorite red rose.

Few other variety of roses.

Lovely Hydrangea,depending on the soil conditions one year its blue flowers and one year its pink and one year a combination of both a visual treat to my eyes.

Hope you have enjoyed a tour of my modest sub urban yard. I will be gone for few days hopefully I get to take pictures of places,people and food I see and eat. Have a happy summer everyone.

Hope to be back soon.

Love,

Sreelu

Summer Series : Jalapeño Guacamole

Summer Series : Jalapeño Guacamole

Friends are amazing and the way you meet and develop friendship is even more amazing,some friends are to die for and some are a social obligation and some in between.When I came to US about a decade ago ( boy makes me feel old) anyways back to point,I was a newly wed bride trying to figure out my way into this new and strange at times country, I started working for a very high energy start up in San Francisco, which meant I had a long commute from south bay where we lived. With no kids and no other obligations that long train ride to SFO was such a pleasure, it was my chance to catch with new paper and my favorite past time ever reading. Well during these commute day met a girl in a very similar state as me newly married immigrant figuring out things just like me, after some awkward initial hi and byes we realized we work very close to each other take the same trains slowly we became friends since both of us had quite a few common shared interest.Then one day lady Jane and her husband decided to move across the coast for a better opportunity,initially phone calls were regular then frequency changed to monthly then mostly for wishing each other on special occasions and then to none and eventually lost touch.Thanks to the era of social networking few weeks back out of the blue I get pinged by Lady JANE wow it felt nice to catch up.Met up with her for lunch at her home , you see we had seven years worth of catching up todo. She moved into this cute little home right out of some Jane Austin's novel. A huge fruit orchard and a nice vegetable patch, she had lilacs in her front yard and a gigantic Avocado tree.I have never see avocado tree before, so as you can imagine after a delicious lunch came home with a bag full of avocados.M this is for you and to many more lunches together.
For a person where guacamole was out of a jar most of the time eating a freshly made one was heavenly. Heard Avocado is high in anti oxidants and has good fat.Kicked it up a little by adding canned Jalapeños and boy o boy it tasted great.

Ingredients

Preparation time about 15 minutes

serves about 2 people

2 medium sized Avocadoes

1/2 firm ripe tomato cut into thin cubes

1 garlic pod minced very very fine

2 canned jalapeños, squeeze the water out of it and chop finely into pieces

few springs of Cilantro

fresh ground pepper

1 tbsp lemon juice

salt according to taste
Preparation

1. de shell avocado and cut into cubes, to this add tomatoes, minced garlic,chopped Jalapeños.

2.Mix with a fork trying to squish avocado, I like it chunky so I don't mush it much.

3.Add salt ,pepper and lemon juice and mix well

4.Add cilantro and mix well
Serve with Chips or on top it of on a cheesy quesadilla or eat just like that, either way I swear you will love the taste.

PS: During conversion with my friend she mentioned what a pain fruit and vegetable trees can be when they have abundant crop,ripe fruit fallen on the ground makes a mess.When you have bounty of fruits and vegetables that you can share please donate it to your local food bank or call organization like http://www.sfglean.org/ where volunteers will come collect your crop and god know if you get lucky a good voluteer might even prune your tree for free, its a win win situation your garden stays clean and a family in need is helped.

Stay cool this summer and have fun.

Love,
Sreelu