Channa Masala in 10 minutes!

What do you do when you’ve just came back from the gym and are staaarving? Well, you make Channa Masala of course! Now, this is not Mama Raj’s way of making this meal, but I like short-cuts. For those of you who like to do things the long way, I’ll have a delicious recipe for you in the next while. Chickpeas are wonderful bean and super healthy for you. They are high in protein and cholesterol-lowering fiber. Garbanzo beans (another word fro chickpeas) are a very versatile bean, and when in a hurry, I use them in soups, salads and even dips. 1 can chickpeas 1 tomato, chopped 1/4 onion, diced (you can use more if you like the taste of onions) 3 tsps Channa Masala Powder (you can find this item at Indian grocery stores) 1-2 tsp cumin powder 1/2 lemon, juiced handful of cilantro, finely chopped salt to taste This recipe is so easy! All you have to do is blend the onions and tomatoes until they are pureed. (BTW, when I don’t have any fresh tomatoes, I just use some tomato sauce!) Alternatively, you can dice the onion and tomato if you prefer a chunkier Channa Masala. Then I just pour this puree in a pan and heat it thoroughly on medium high heat for about 5 min. Then I add the spices and chickpeas and let it cook until much of the water in the puree has evaporated. On a side note, I find it saves me time to buy a variety of masalas (Indian spice mixtures) for various Indian dishes I enjoy. This takes the guess work out of the cooking process. Before I serve this dish, I squeeze a fresh lemon over the whole pan. Wow does this make the flavors pop! Imho, when I added lemon to this dish, it just made the flavors come to life, so don’t forget to do this! Lastly, I top the dish with some fresh cilantro. Since I am not at home in TO anymore where my parents make anything I ask them to, I just used some whole wheat pita bread instead of your typical Indian roti. Enjoy!

Tastes of India: Mama Raj's Delights

As promised, this week I’m going to share Mama Raj’s wonderful Indian recipes. This chutney is my absolute favorite! I’ll eat it with anything I can get me hands on! Mama Raj once made what she called a “Indian Club Sandwich” with mint chutney and ever since I fell in love with it. She spreads the chutney on one side of the bread, the other has margarine (optional) and she then add slices of tomatoes. Oh it’s delightful! Whenever I make this chutney, I eat many many club sandwiches all day long! Maybe it’s nostalgic for me…but I think it’s more than just that. It’s a very unique flavor which may take getting used to, but I know you’ll enjoy it. My husband wasn’t sure about this at the very first bite, but the more bites he took, the more it grew on him and now we eat it often. I remember picking tons of mint leaves in our backyard garden for this chutney. Of course, nothing beats the flavor of fresh picked herbs! Mint is really easy to grow in the summer, but in colder weather there’s always the grocery store. Here are all the basic ingredients you need: 1 tomato 1/8-1/4 red onion 1 lemon, juiced 1 apple 1 bunch mint 1 handful of cilantro (optional) 4-5 chunks of mango (optional) salt and pepper (to taste) So all I do is blend everything in a blender with just a tiny bit of water. I have a very powerful blender, so I don’t need much water, but feel free to add more to make the ingredients blend better. Now you don’t need to follow my recipe, I never do! This chutney is always in a state of flux for me! I add different fruits for different flavors. (I usually like adding kiwi) Please experiment with this recipe and make it your own. That’s it, its done! You can eat this on the side with any Indian food as it always enhances the flavor for me…or you can make Indian Club Sandwiches from it as well…mmmmmm!

Exotic Food from an Exotic Land: Mama Raj's Rajma

Here is the debut of my Mama Raj. She’s an awesome cook and I learned a lot about making great food from her. I can’t say I always appreciated her pressure to make me roll out perfectly round rotis (Indian wheat tortillas) or her attention to detail in every aspect of the meal preparation. However, years later I can look back and appreciate her efforts in helping me become a good Indian house wife (not!). Today’s dish is just as yummy as it looks…Rajma (curried red kidney beans ) has a robust flavor and the beans seem to melt in your mouth. How can a bean melt in your mouth…I don’t know how, but these totally do (excuse me as I wipe drool off my keyboard…ya, it’s that good!) Once you try it, you’ll eat it everyday! Believe me, given a chance, my brother will eat Rajma for breakfast, lunch and dinner if we let him! It’s like a bowl of divine ecstasy for him…he’ll go on and on about it so this is why I’m not asking him to write this blog!

The wonderful thing about this dish is that red kidney beans are very high in iron, folate, protein and anti-oxidants…so you can’t go wrong eating this for every meal (if you chose to) So here is my mom. She's hardly ever used a computer let alone written a blog... (enter mom)

1 cup Red Kidney beans, dry or 1 can cooked 1 medium onion, diced 3 garlic cloves, crushed 1 large tomato, diced Seasonings: salt, cayenne pepper, and garam masala to taste I soaked one cup of red kidney beans in four cups of water over night and pressure cooked it for 20 minutes. As the beans were cooking, I sautéed the onions and garlic in a little bit of canola oil. Once the onions are browned, add the seasonings and diced tomato in it and sauté it for 5 more minutes. Then add 1/4 cups of water and cook for 5 more minutes until it becomes a thick sauce. Mix this sauce with the cooked red kidney beans and add one tea spoon of garam masala and salt to taste. You can add a touch of cayenne pepper to lift up the taste of the dish but Sangeeta loves it mild. So enjoy. Easy……..Rajma goes very good with any kind of rice. This time I made rice pullouve. I heat one tea spoon of olive oil in a large pot and add one teaspoon of cumin seeds and 10 black peppercorns. Let it splitter in the pot (5 seconds is enough to let the seeds pop) and then add rice. Mix it up and add 1 teaspoon of salt. Throw in some frozen peas or mix veggies to boost the vitamin content. Now add 1 1/2 cups of water and bring it to boil. When it boils, bring the heat to low and let it cook for 5 more minutes. Turn off the heat but let the pot stay on the stove for five more minutes. Voila, a delicious meal is ready. Your family will be happy!