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Vegan Spiced Dry Fruit Laddoo/Balls

Vegan Spiced Dry Fruit Laddoo/Balls

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These Vegan dry fruit bliss balls are perfect for this gloomy summer or any other weather. These laddoos are packed with the goodness of nutrition and amazing flavor. The best part is I made this bliss with jaggery but you can make it with your choice of sweetener.

These laddoos or bliss balls are completely gluten-free, sugar-free, flourless, and easy to make with a handful of ingredients. You can serve this delicious treat with a lunch box or pick on the go or a sweet little treat for your colleague or friends. Or you can enjoy these laddoos with your afternoon tea.

Thanks to heartily fox nut, jaggery, and spices like ginger powder and cardamom, these laddoos are similar to normal dry fruit laddoos. A perfect snack or dessert for any occasion. Dry fruit laddoos are a very classic dessert in Indian cuisine, no matter where you live.

Basically, these laddoos are made with lots of ghee, wheat flour, sugar, and dry fruits. I just like my jaggery more than sugar. So these laddoos are my type of dessert. These laddoos are absolutely delicious that you won’t stop at one.

Lots of love guys and hope you will enjoy it when you will make these laddoos…

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Moong Dal Ka Halwa

Moong Dal Ka Halwa

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Well, today I am sharing the ‘Moong Dal Ka Halwa’ that was made for Holi celebrations. But, didn’t get time to share on the occasion. It is a very special north Indian festival and wedding delicacy – ‘Moong Dal Ka Halwa’.

Moong Dal Halwa is a popular Indian dessert made with skinless split green gram (mung lentils) and ghee (clarified butter). It’s very rich and sweet with loads of flavour in it and dry fruits. It is made especially for festivals and a wedding feast is incomplete without this special sweet.

This is an authentic, rich and power-packed winter special Indian dessert. If you get a chance to attend a wedding or festival in the Rajasthani family, then it is a must-try dessert in our culture. We Rajasthani peoples eat sweet and dessert with lots of ghee and dry fruits that make our life taste-rich. While making Moong dal halwa, the aroma of slow roasting dal in pure ghee is magical, and so aromatic that fill your house with droolicious smell.

A bowl full of this halwa that can satisfy your taste buds amazingly. It is delicious and pretty easy to make. The only hard task is to keep stirring, you can never step away from the pan or karahi when you are roasting moong dal, else it may get stuck or burn. Rajasthan is known for its royal heritage, colourful culture, most important the royal food and local amazingly spicy & sweet tasty food.

This Moong Dal Ka Halwa is:
• Flavour packed sweet delight
• Gluten-Free
• Full of richness
• Perfect for weddings & festivals
• A Winter speciality

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Tikhat Misal Pav

Tikhat Misal Pav

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One of the most famous Maharashtrian recipes, Misal is a scrumptious cocktail of savouries and sprouts! Wholesome and tasty sprouts are cooked with tangy tomatoes and red onions, not to forget the goda masala and the special coconut-coriander-green chilli based misal masala!

One of my Marathi neighbours taught me to make this special green masala that gives a special kick to misal. Misal Pav is a vibrant and delicious and spicy sprouted bean curry topped with crunchy sev farsan, onions, fresh coriander, and lemon. It is served with buttered velvety soft pav or dinner rolls.

What is Misal Pav? 

“Misal” is a spicy vegan sprouted bean curry also known as “matkichi usal” with special masala and “Pav” are buns or dinner rolls. The misal curry is garnished with fresh onions, coriander and farsan and served with warm buttery rolls. Farsan is a crispy and flavourful fried snack that is also used as a garnish in chat and Indian breakfast dishes. The beans are used in this recipe is called Moth.

I love Indian street food and this is one of my favourite Puneri spicy food. It’s mouth-watering street food for me. Misal Pav is relished as a breakfast as well as a snack throughout Maharashtra. It is one of the popular street food in Maharashtra along with other special food.

Give a try to my version of this easy to make spicy Maharashtrian delight at home and feel the local flavour on your plate.

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Instant Pot Jeera Rice

Instant Pot Jeera Rice

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Aromatic yet simple instant pot jeera rice is a very easy and delicious Indian rice dish. It is flavoured with cumin seeds and some very basic spices. A speedy side dish for Indian plater, that can be made in 15 min. If you like Indian restaurant-style food or Dhaba style food than you gonna love this quick jeera rice recipe.

What is jeera rice?

Jeera rice is also known as Cumin Rice, that is one of the most popular side dishes served at Indian restaurants & Dhabas and commonly prepared in Indian homes for a quick meal.

Flavourful basmati rice is toasted and cooked with whole spices like cumin, cloves, peppercorn and bay leaves. You can pair it perfectly with curries or kormas or dal fry.

Ingredients:

One of the main ingredients to make the most flavourful Jeera rice or cumin rice is a good quality Basmati rice. And in the Instant pot, Basmati rice always cooks perfectly.

Nowadays instant pot is life saving for working persons and also when you have kids around and you need to cook quickly. I use regular cumin seeds or jeera that is easily available in all the grocery stores but you can also use shah jeera (caraway seeds). It is darker and tastes much sweeter than the normal jeera.

Jeera Rice tastes the best when cooked in ghee. However, you can use (dairy or non-dairy) butter or vegetable oil as well. Whole spices give the rice an earthy and aromatic flavour. It adds a wonderful aroma to this simple side dish.

Whole spices are base of Indian pantry like bay leaf, cardamom pod, cloves so no need to rush in the supermarket. It’s easily available in every Indian kitchen and also available in the Asian grocery store.

Each grain of Jeera rice should be nicely separated and well cooked. It does not look good when it is mushy. That’s why the ratio of water and cooking time should be balanced. Adding ghee enhances the flavour and texture that gives a nice flavour as well.

This Instant Pot Jeera Rice:

✓ super easy to make in the instant pot
✓ infused with flavours of cumin and other whole spices
✓ great alternative of plain rice
✓ you can make this recipe vegan also
✓ naturally gluten-free
✓ pairs well with korma or curry even with dal as well
✓ is the perfect restaurant-style jeera rice, where each grain of rice is well separated

Benefits of cumin seeds or jeera

It does not just give a nice flavour to the dish, but it also has lots of health properties:
• Cooling property
• Promotes digestion
• Boosts immunity 
• Has an anti-inflammatory effect
• Most important it gives next level flavour to any curry or dish
• Good for cholesterol and diabetic problems

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Til Mungfali Gajak (Sesame Peanut Brittle With Jaggery)

Til Mungfali Gajak (Sesame Peanut Brittle)

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Sesame Peanut Gajak or Til Gur Gajak with Mungfali, Til Laddu is what Lohri and Makar Sankranti made for. I remember growing up eating Til Gajaks and Laddu for Makar Sankranti. It is a very special winter delicacy of north India. In winters we all crave for warm, delicious Gajaks that comes in various flavours, shapes and sizes either with some crunchiness or some flakiness. It’s healthy textures, a flaky and crispy treat for January festivals. Most people buy Gajaks from shops but can be made easily at home as well.

Basically, Gajaks are made with sesame seeds, peanuts and jaggery with a little bit of ghee. It is made with dry fruits and different flavours as well. A delicious treat you can enjoy in foggy-cold winter days. It’s quite popular in north India during the winter season. Festivals play such an essential role in our lives and special food as well.

Makar Sankranti is known for till gajaks and laddus AND the sky full of kites. Lohri and Makar Sankranti – is celebrated in January every year and marks the termination of the winter season and the beginning of a new harvest season. Each year on 13 January is Lohri and 14 January is Sankranti celebrated.

Makar Sankranti is dedicated to Lord Sun. It also refers to a specific solar day in the Hindu calendar. On this auspicious day, the sun enters the zodiac sign of Capricorn or Makar which marks the end of winter months and the beginning of longer days. This is the beginning of the month of Magh. To recompense for the distinction that happens due to the revolution around the sun, every 80 years the day of Sankranti is deferred by one day. From the day of Makar Sankranti, the sun begins its northward journey or Uttaran journey. Therefore, this festival is also known as Uttaran. And we offer til or sesame sweets with jaggery as an offering and celebrate this beautiful day.

Traditionally this healthy and wholesome recipe is cooked on the auspicious occasion of Makar Sakranti, in Northern parts of India such as Haryana and Punjab, Rajasthan. The best part is, the crunchy brittle can be stored for months and can be enjoyed any time of day.

So this winter sweet treat is crunchy nutty flavoured with cardamom. Here is the recipe of sesame-peanut gajaks, made with jaggery (Gur) that helps in keeping the body warm and boost metabolism.

It is a must-have for winter sweet craving that is also a favourite on festivals of Makar Sankranti and Lohri.

So Enjoy! Stay healthy, stay humble!

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Vegan Spiced Hot Chocolate Milk

Vegan Spiced Hot Chocolate Milk

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Happy new year guys! This vegan chocolate milk tastes so rich, creamy and delicious in every sip and it’s completely dairy-free & sugar-free. For this special version of chocolate milk, you don’t need any sugary chocolate syrup or any dairy product and still, it tastes so creamy and heavenly amazing.

I really like my chocolate milk thick and silky, rich and also guilt-free so this is exactly what I want. I don’t like thin chocolate milk so this my version of chocolate milk purely heaven with a little hint of date sweetener and sharpness of ginger.

Pure vegan chocolate milk is made with 5 ingredients and under 10 min voila. Super delicious, refined sugar-free, vegan and healthy version of classic chocolate milk is so much better, that your little munchkin going to ask for another cup.

This healthy hot/chilled chocolate milk recipe is:
  • Dairy-free
  • Vegan
  • Naturally sweetened
  • Low fat
  • And super easy to make
  • You can serve either hot or chilled as per your choice.
Can you use cocoa in place of raw cacao powder?

You absolutely can! The benefit of using raw cacao is that you’re getting the added extra dose of antioxidants! Whenever possible, look for ethically sourced cacao. It will give you a nice rich taste, too

Can you use store brought vegan milk?

Absolutely! The taste may be slightly different but it’s still chocolate milk pours it and drink any time of year. I love to use creamy cashew or almond milk in this recipe as its rich flavour blends seamlessly with the rich cocoa powder. If you want a creamier and nut-free drink, then try coconut milk instead.

Can you use vanilla or any other spices?

Defiantly it’s totally up to you. How you want to spice it up to your chocolate milk or you can totally skip any spices and use vanilla instead. I love ginger in my chocolate milk.

A perfect hot drink for cold, foggy winter nights. Stay healthy, stay humble!

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Vegan Chocolate Brownies

Vegan Chocolate Brownies

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These vegan chocolate brownies are super fudgy, dense and have an intense flavour that you just love it. As a person, I am chocoholic and brownies are on the top of my list. All I want is chocolate in everything. Plus my munchkin loves chocolate too. So, I made these Droolicious brownies with her for this Christmas.

These vegan brownies has cocoa powder, melted dark chocolate and espresso coffee shot. These are fudgy with so much intense chocolate flavour. It will blow your mind, after making them from scratch. This vegan brownie is actually super easy to make and you can store or freeze them also. And the best part is you don’t need any eggs or dairy in it. These homemade vegan brownies are super soft, rich, fudgy, dreamy and dense chocolatey… and surprisingly vegan!

Homemade Vegan brownie has:

✔️ Dark Chocolate Chips– the key of these beautiful brownie bars is dark chocolate! I have used dark dairy-free vegan chocolate chips and a chopped up chocolate bar. 
✔️ Flax Eggs– flax eggs are a vegan replacement for eggs. To make a flax egg, you combine ground flaxseed with water.
✔️ Expresso Coffee– for intense flavour! Coffee brings out the chocolate flavour, without any taste of coffee at all, and leaves you with rich, vegan excessively chocolaty brownies.
✔️ Coconut Sugar– to sweeten the brownies and give them the gorgeous crackly tops! You can use any granulated sweetener you like – white sugar or brown sugar or cane sugar also works well. 
✔️ Vegan Butter– be sure to use a good quality vegan butter.
✔️ Vanilla Extract– a must for any good brownie recipe! 
✔️ All-Purpose Flour– also known as plain flour.
✔️ Cocoa Powder– be sure to use a good quality cocoa powder, as it really does make all the difference! 
✔️ Baking Powder– leavens out the brownies and gives them some rise! 
✔️ Salt– brings out the sweetness. For the ultimate sweet and salty taste, sprinkle a little bit on top of the cooked brownies as you like.

Storage & Freezing

Place any leftover vegan brownies in an airtight container and keep them right on the counter at room temperature for up to 5 days. You can keep them in the fridge, wrap in wax paper separately and store in a freezer-friendly bag. They’ll get rock-solid, so before eating either put in microwave for few seconds or keep it on the counter for some time before eating.

These super fudgy, and melt in mouth vegan brownie beauties are easy to be served with some Vegan Ice-cream, or a drizzle of extra chocolate, or even warmed up and served just like that.

You have an insanely DELIGHTFUL chocolatey treat at home! Stay healthy, stay humble!

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Paneer Butter Masala

Instant Pot Paneer Butter Masala

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Making paneer butter masala in my new instant pot is really easy, much effortless. A super easy and quick recipe requires little effort in the instant pot or its kind of one-pot paneer recipe. This super creamy paneer butter masala is so delicious and saves time as well. It is great as a mid-week meal as it is so quick to make.

The masala and paneer are all cooked in the Instant Pot and you just need a hand blender or jar blender and strainer for much creaminess in masala after puree. I prefer to do straining.

Super creamy, melt in the mouth, Dhaba style paneer butter masala, is super easy to make at home. It’s definitely one of my all-time favourite paneer curries. This creamy and addictive curry is made with onion- tomato, cashew, cream plus yes butter based gravy with wholesome aromatic spices.

I always love simple and homemade curry recipes that take less time and fewer ingredients, and this super simple masala curry is perfect for paneer lover. But you can simply skip paneer to tofu butter to oil for making this curry vegan. The taste may be different but not so bad… So, if you want vegan version go for it. Isn’t it sound delicious? For me and my family hell yeah…

Instant pot and Indian cooking:

Indian cooking and making curry need a heavy bottom pan or kadhai so using instant pot is a bit scary for me. I am slowly getting used to it and trying many recipes in the instant pot in mostly sautéing mode and less temperature. I read somewhere adding little water helps masala to cooked well and it prevents burning. And it’s working for me.

Sometimes it’s hard because of the inner pot is very thin but keep the temperature low that is helpful. It’s easy but electronic cooking is a tricky. But this method is easy and handy for busy & working mums. However, if you have not much time then it is a life-saving.

What is paneer butter masala or paneer makhani curry?

This finger-licking masala curry is a classical Indian curry that is made of tomato-onion, cashew-based creamy sauce with whole spices in it. Also known as paneer makhani curry (makhani as buttery and creamy) and beautiful cubes of paneer dunked in it. This curry is easy to make, pantry friendly and with richness of butter & cream.

Creamy curry is perfect for weeknight special dinner or weekend brunch or any other occasion. It’s a kind of crowd-pleaser style main dish.

What is paneer?

Paneer is Indian style fresh cheese also known as Indian cottage cheese. Making paneer is very simple and we can easily make it at home. We make it by heating the whole milk and then curdle it using lemon juice or vinegar. You can add spices and herb as well while making paneer for extra flavour.

Can I freeze the gravy?

Yes, you can. Prepare in advance and freeze. just do not add cream while freezing. Then when needed, defrost, give a boil and add cream, add tender cubes of paneer. And why the only paneer, you can add green peas or any other vegetable in this gravy.

I am also sharing the stovetop recipe as well. So it’s easy for the people who prefer cooking in stovetop as well as like me. Actually, the instant pot is an easy way for me making food. While my kid is at home, working with her is a bit difficult task. So, I prefer an easy way but feel free to use the traditional way of cooking.

This is a Dhaba style butter masala paneer cooked in an authentic cream and butter-based gravy flavoured with the most aromatic Kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves) and creamy cashew.

It is:

✔️ A delicious vegetarian paneer curry
✔️ Gluten-free
✔️ Easily made vegan
✔️ Crowd-pleaser
✔️ Tastes just like the restaurant and Dhaba

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Spinach Flatbread

Spinach Flatbread

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Flatbread or roti or phulka, chapati is an essential part of the Indian kitchen. It’s basically a whole wheat flatbread that is made by almost every Indian moms. Sometimes it’s hard to feed green leafy vegetables to your family and little ones. This very bright green flatbread packed with nutritious spinach and very few spices that makes a healthy and simple way to eat your green.

Spinach flatbread is quite easy to make and having full of nutritious. Green roti or flatbread is super soft, puffy and beautifully round shaped Indian flatbread that is very common in Indian kitchen. These buttery soft rotis are a flavourful yet healthy; a bunch of spinach adds the essential nutritious and ginger, spices add flavour to it. This is a great way to add green to your daily meal. Once you and your little ones get used to eating these beautiful green round rotis, you’ll never go back to your simple roti.

Actually, it is a great variation of our regular rotis, that we make every day at home for our loved ones. Simply additions of purred spinach not just add colour and softness to regular roti but it also adds healthy nutrition in our daily meal. I like to add spices to my rotis while making dough that gives extra flavour. The dough needs to rest 20-30 min before cooking the chapatis that help to hydrate the dough and absorb all the flavours and also give softness to rotis or chapatis.

These super soft and flavoured spinach rotis are really packed with nutrition, iron, fibre and beautiful bright green colour. And they go very well with any curry or curd or just with pickles. I usually make these rotis with multigrain flour that give extra nutrition to these beautiful rotis. Well getting enough green leafy vegetables in our daily meal is a bit difficult.

But one way or another need to add more colours and fibres in our diet, so why do not mix in our daily diet? This is my munchkin’s favourite way to eat spinach and mine too. This is a better way to add colourful benefits of spinach into your loved one’s meal.

How to make gluten-free or low carb?:
These rotis can be made gluten-free and low carb by using gluten-free flour like gram flour, sorghum flour simply rice flour. Or even you can make low carb also simply using low carb flour.

It is vegan and yeast- free Indian flatbread. You should try this healthy version of plain rotis, it’s simply easy to make and perfect for lunch, lunch box and dinner as well.

Stay healthy, stay humble!

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Gulab Jamun

Gulab Jamun

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Festivals and sweets season is ahead, and Diwali is never completed without having the most delicious and sinful sweet aka Gulab jamuns. Gulab Jamun is one of India’s most authentic sweet. These deep-fried doughnuts made of dried milk (khoya), that are dipped in a rose-cardamom scented sugar syrup and make quite a treat for any festivity. Truly speaking these are heavenly delicious and much more beautiful for the feast. When you had these sweet fried balls while it warm and soaking in scented syrup that you can have with rabri or ice-cream, it feels like heavenly delicious. Even you can make a cake with Gulab jamuns as well.

So, let’s start with basic!

Gulab Jamun is prepared with Mawa or Khoya – a thickened mixture attained after boiling milk. Khoya is smooth, delicate, tasty and caramelization of khoya that gives these sweet balls a nice brown colour while deep frying. You can make these Gulab jamuns for any festivity. Festivity is incomplete without homemade delicious sweet.

Traditionally Gulab Jamun is made using Khoya or milk solids. Khoya is made by cooking milk for hours on low flame until all the water is evaporated and solids are left. You can make khoya at home but it’s really time taking. You can buy from any sweet shop, or you can simply make gulab jamuns with milk powder also. The taste is not the same but it’s an easy way to make at home.

Tips to make smooth and yummy Gulab jamuns at home:

1. You can use some all-purpose flour also for kneading and binding. It gives a firm and beautiful round shape while frying.
2. Second most important thing is need of scented sugar syrup. For this you will need sugar, cardamom powder, rose water and saffron as per your choice.
3. Make sure you knead khoya and all-purpose very smooth, that will avoid cracks in Gulab jamun while frying.
4. Fry them in just warm ghee or oil, and medium-low heat is good for Gulab jamun frying.
5. Make sure ball is evenly fried from all sides for that you need to constantly move them while frying. But they are delicate so do this step softly.
6. Dunk the balls immediately in warm syrup as soon as out after frying. Syrup should be warm and not hot.

These sweet-scented Gulab jamuns are small bites of happiness that can bring more joy in your family on this festival season.

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