Black beans Rice

This is just an awesome food, made it minutes and should say instantly. This rice goes well as itself or with the veggie kabobs or any dry/wet curries. Thank you Deepali for sharing this recipe with me. This rice is loved by the kids of our community. So I hope you like it too:

Ingredients
Black beans - 1 tin (I used the tin ones, but you can use fresh too)
Cooked rice (I prefer Basmati rice for this)
Red Onions - 1 or 2 chopped length wise (depends on your love of onions
Salt to taste
Jeera - Cumin seeds - 1/2 tea spoon
Oil - 1 table spoon or less, according to your taste

Method of preparation
 This easy and fast rice recipe is as follows: Take a pan which can fit the quantity of rice. Now add oil to it. Add jeera and then red onions after the oil is hot. once the red onions are roasted nicely, add the cooked rice, salt. Now add the black beans and turn off the stove. Since black beans are already cooked, they do not need to be on stove for long time. mix up the rice and beans properly. Garnish with cilantro if desired and serve. Enjoy!!

Paramannam (Chakkara Pongali) - Instant recipe

This is the recipe which I find easy to do whenever I want to eat or to put naivedyam (prasad) to god and I do not have time to do the long procedure of paramannam (also called chakkara pongali).Instead of cooking rice in milk as the traditional method says, I use cooked rice(which will be ready most of the times).

Ingredients
Cooked Rice - 1 cup
Milk - 1/3 cup
Jaggery - big chunk may be lemon size twice or more
Neyyi/Ghee/Clarified butter (1 table spoon )
Cardammom powder (optional and little bit)
Saffron (optional and little bit soaked in milk)
Dry fruits - like cashews, golden raisins or pipstachios, roasted in ghee/clarified butter

Method of preparation
Take a small pan, add ghee and roast the dry fruits in it. keep them aside, so that we can add them at the end of the recipe. Take a small kadai, and add the ghee to it - almost 1 table spoon (you can use less also). Add cooked rice to it and the milk. Mix the rice mixture until the milk is soaked in a little bit and careful not to make the rice/milk stick to bottom. Once the milk consistency is thick or absorbed by rice, add the jaggery to it. At this stage, keep stirring as the jaggery melts with the heat and gets mixed up with the rice nicely. Add the rest of the stuff like, saffron milk, cardammom powder, dry fruits. Turn off the heat and can serve hot. or you can cool it down and serve cold.

NOTE:
(1) If you are serving cold, then I would recommend adding more milk to above.
(2) If you like the Paramannam to be little liquid, I would suggest adding more milk to it than recommended above. I like the paramannam to be a little dry, same as the rice, so I use less milk.
(3) Some persons like the paramannam to have little moong dal in it too . If you wish to have it, soak the moong dal in hot water for a minute and cook it in microwave. Add the same when you add rice and voila!!!

Veggie Kabobs (BBQ)

Remembering hot grilled kabobs on a winter day. This post was supposed to go during summer. but I got a little lazy but what better time it is than a chilled day and remembering about hot grilled healthy stuff.

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Now today the day is really going to be hot and humid and I felt that, today is the day this should be published. well simple to make and a healthy option too, especially for picky eaters also. This can be your main dish, side dish or just a snack too. So try it out when you get time. and be creative :). Thank you to my friend Sharmila, who make it at our home, Yumm.....

As you all might have observed that any BBQ or grilling takes hours of soaking veggies in the sauce/syrup. Well unlike that, this will take just few minutes. 

Ingredients

Green Pepper

Red pepper

Red onions

Zucchini

Paneer (make sure you get the firm paneer, otherwise they break easily while we slide). I will post the brand and the name of the paneer I used later. 

Yogurt

Shan Kabob Masala 

Method of preparation

Mix the yogurt with the kabob masala. Adjust the spices accordingly, you can add more red chilli powder, salt etc as you needed. Now chop the veggies almost same size, cubes/rectangles, so that when we grill them, everything is evenly cooked. Soak the veggies in the yogurt mixture and put it in the fridge for 15 minutes. You can leave it for some more time inside, or take them out and keep it.

Now take the skewers and arrange it according to you taste. Put it on the grill and turn it slowly when one side is done. Your veggie kabobs are ready to be yumm yumm in your tumm tumm :). 

Some more visual feast. Enjoy !!!!