Oats Dosa

This dosa can really be called Oats Dosa because of the proportion of oats that goes into making it. The source for this recipe is "show me the curry". I have enjoyed watching lot of their recipes. They have very professional quality videos in spite of being homemade. This recipe makes amazing dosas and for all you oat lovers out there, this will be a new way to have your oats, if you are used to Indian cooking. Basically like any dosa this recipe calls for advance planning but when you have the batter ready it makes for a quick breakfast, lunch or dinner. Serve it with your choice of vegetable, sambhar or chutney. You can have a balanced meal in between a rushed day, if you can store the batter in refrigerator or freeze it. I got 2 meals for my family with the batter.

Friday dinner: Oats dosa with kanda bhaji (onion stir-fried in yogurt) & apple chutney

Sunday afternoon lunch: Oats dosa with potato masala stuffing and tomato chutney

Ingredients:

• 3 cups oats (old fashioned or instant)
• 2-1/2 cups water
• 1 cup rice with 1 tsp fenugreek seeds
• 1 cup urad dal
• salt to taste
• Water as per need

Directions:

• Wash rice and urad dal lightly.
• Soak them with 1 tsp fenugreek seeds in sufficient water so that they can double easily soaking water. Let rice and dal soak for about 6 hours.
• Just one hour before you are ready to grind dal and rice, soak oats in 2-1/2 cups of water.
• Drain water from rice and dal, and grind them to fine paste. Add water as needed to facilitate grinding. 
• Now grind the oats into fine paste with the water it was soaked in.
• Mix the two paste together and adjust consistency, it should be like dosa batter, should be able to spread on griddle.
• Put this batter in a deep pot with cover and let it ferment for 8-10 hours in a warm place like lightly preheated oven or just leave it in oven with light on. 
• Because of the presence of oats the batter will not double in size but will be bubbly and you can see that it has fermented. But still allow some room in the pot in which you will be fermenting your batter.
• Add salt as per taste to the fermented batter.
• Heat a flat griddle and pour a ladle full of batter and spread it with the ladle in circular motion making a thin crepe.
• Let it get crispy and brown below and when the edges start coming off griddle on their own, you can flip it and cook on the other side.
• Serve hot with chutney, sambhar or potato masala or all :)

* For a quicker version I have used 1 cup rice flour and 1 cup urad flour as a substitute for the grains. Jut add water as needed and grind it with oats. Then keep it for fermentation  and enjoy dosas.

Homemade Granola

This is a simple recipe, just have to mix up things and let oven do the rest of the job for you. I found this recipe while going through cake designs on the blog "I am mommy/ i am baker". It was like you get the best things when you are not looking for it. It is healthy, homemade so you know what goes into it, inexpensive and versatile- eat it with milk for breakfast, have it as a topping on yogurt/ frozen yogurt or ice-cream or just have it as it is for a quick healthy snack. I do not like most of the cereals because they get mushy in milk and I hate that texture in mouth. I love this granola with milk for breakfast or snack.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups old fashioned oats
• 2 cups quick cook oats
• 2-4 tsp cinnamon powder
• 1 tsp clove powder
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup dried fruit of your choice (dried cranberries, blueberries, etc)
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup canola / vegetable oil

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 250 degree F.
• Mix all the ingredients and spread them out on a baking sheet.
• Bake for about an hour. After 30 minutes just sift it so that it gets baked evenly.
• Cool for an hour before transferring into an airtight container.

* I have tried it with maple syrup and honey too. So if you don't have maple syrup available around you honey works.

* I just had old fashioned oats so I just used 4 cups of it and still works great.

Meen Kalumbu (Fish Curry)

As I have mentioned in my posts before, I grew up eating mangalorean food and I love chicken curry with rice chips (kori rotti), dry chicken (kori sukka), fish fry (kaidina meen), all mangalorean delicacies. I will post recipes for each one when I get to them. Today I am posting a recipe for meen kalumbu, which is not authentic mangalorean but comes little close to it. I tried it once when I was craving fish and got hooked to it. I can say that it is the best fish curry rather the fish curry which I enjoy the most. I think its roots can be traced to Chettinad (Tamilnadu) cooking.

Ingredients:

• 6-7 pieces tilapia/ salmon pieces
• 2 big onions (one chopped fine)
• 1 tomato chopped fine
• 1/4 cup grated coconut
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp methi/ fenugreek seeds
• 1 tsp red chili powder
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 tsp coriander powder
• 1 green chilly chopped
• 1 tbsp tamarind pulp
• 4-5 tsp cooking oil
• few curry leaves
• salt to taste

Directions:

• Grind together one onion, coconut and fennel seeds and keep aside
• In a deep pot heat oil and add methi seeds, green chilly, curry leaves and chopped onion. Saute well.
• When the onions lose its color add tomatoes and cook till mushy.
• Add red chili powder, turmeric and coriander powder and mix well.
• Add the ground paste and saute till raw smell of onion goes away.
• Add salt and tamarind pulp, mix well and adjust the consistency of your curry.
• Add the fish pieces.
• Keep cooking with a closed lid on medium flame till the fish is cooked.
• Garnish with cilantro (optional)
• Enjoy the yummy fish curry with rice or rotis.