Main Course: Baked Capsicum

Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 15 mins
Baking time: 15 mins.
Serves: 2

Ingredients:

5 Small sized capsicums.
Potato 3 medium sized.
Cottage cheese (paneer) or tofu 2inch cube.
Onion 1 medium.
1 green chilli
Cumin seeds 1 teaspoon.
Garam masala 1 teaspoon
Channa masala 1 teaspoon
Black Pepper powder 0.5 teaspoon

Coriander seed powder 1 teaspoon
Oil for cooking
Salt to taste

For garnishing:
Pizza Cheese grated 2 table spoons (optional)
Bunch of coriander leaves

1. Boil the potatoes, remove there skin (prefer to have them with skin as most of the nutrients are in the skin only) and mash them.
2. Mash in cottage cheese as well.
3. Cut onion and green chillies into small pieces.
4. Take a wok and put in 2 teaspoon oil (This may vary depending upon the type of vessel you use for cooking. I use non stick). Once it has heated up add cumin seeds and saute them until they start releasing there flavor.
5. Add onion and saute on medium heat until onions are golden brown.
6. Add mashed potato and paneer mixture and also add the green chillies.
7. Mix it well for a minute or two.
8. Add garam masala, channa masala, pepper powder and salt. Allow it to cook on medium flame for a couple of minutes. Cover it and switch off the flame.
9. Take the capsicum and remove its stem. Make a small hole at the top and scoop out all the seeds.
10. In a vessel, take enough water to soak the capsicum, add a pinch of salt and boil it for 5-8 mins, until the capsicum is tender.
11. Strain the boiled capsicum and apply some oil on its inner and outer surface.
12. Fill in the potato mixture that we had prepared earlier. Garnish with cheese.
13. Preheat a oven to 240 deg C.
14. Keep the capsicum on a baking tray and bake for 10-15 mins.
15. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot.

Tips:
1. If you are not able to find small capsicum , you can take big ones and cut them from middle to make 2 pieces.
2. You can also replace capsicum with brinjal.
3. The water that you used to boil the capsicum, can be used to make dough for bread/chapati or to cook rice. Remember, boiling will take out lots of nutrients off the vegetable and throwing that water down the drain is going to waste these nutrients.

Desserts: Chocolate Pudding

This is a very quick and easy to prepare. This is from my mother's diary.

Preparation Time: 0 mins
Cooking time: 10-15 mins
Refrigeration time: 3-4 hrs
Serves: 6 (150 ml serving)

Ingredients:
1 lt milk.
6 tea spoons vanilla flavored custard powder
0.5 cups drinking chocolate.
2 tea spoons cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ghee
0.5 cup cashew or almond for garnishing.
Method:

1. Take a think bottomed pan/wok. Put in the ghee and heat it.

2. Add the drinking chocolate and cocoa powder and mix it well. The idea is to make a paste of this thing. If the amount of ghee is less, add few milliliters of water and make a paste of the cocoa+drinking powder. Roast this mixture for a couple of minutes. Reduce the flame to medium, else the paste may burn.

3. Take a cup of milk from the 1lt and put in the custard powder. Dissolve the custard powder in the cold milk only.

4. Pour in the remaining milk in the chocolate paste and increase the flame to high. Stir well to mix the chocolate paste.

5. Allow it to boil once and then add the custard powder solution. Keep stirring else custard may form knots. Boil it once and then add sugar. Keep it on medium flame for a couple of minutes and turn off the stove.

6. Slightly roast the cashew/almond, either on stove or microwave. The idea is to make them slightly crispy. When cold, coarsely ground them into very small pieces, but not powder.

7. Pour the pudding in the the serving bowl and garnish with cashew.

8. Keep in freezer until cold, but don't allow it to freeze.

Tips:
1. More the fat content in the milk, smoother the pudding will be. I generally use tonned milk (3% fat). If your lifestyle permits, you can use whole milk as well (~6% fat).

2. Try to consume the pudding within 1 day. Any thing more than that and you will feel its taste changing a bit (not spoilt, but it doesn't taste the same)

3. If you like more chocolate flavor, you may reduce the quantity of drinking chocolate and increase the amount of cocoa powder by a few spoons.

4. The strength of chocolate depends upon the brand of product used. I prefer to use Cadbury cocoa and drinking chocolate. You may need to tweak your portions depending upon your brand's quality.

Recepies and cooking tips that I liked

I shall be using this space to put down some of the recipes that I have tried. Some of them are picked up from the internet (from other blogs) and tweaked a little bit to our liking. I shall also be trying to type in the recipe book that my mother has compiled, over a period of years.