DIY Cardboard Fabric Box

DIY Cardboard Fabric Box

I am so much in love with those fabric covered boxes, we get at supermarkets. For so many days I was thinking to buy one, but I didn't.  As a result I thought of making one at home myself. I have not made any fancy box. I have made this simple fabric box out of less material and in short time(like half an hour). You can make it even better with your imagination. I am just sharing my DIY project.

These boxes can be used for lots of storage purpose. The one I made here is for bathroom storage, like shampoo, moisturizers bottles etc. And I made this out of shoes box.

You will need

Any size cardboard box

Your choice of patterned fabric

Matching plane fabric

Scissors

Glue (specially fabric glue, I had one which was multipurpose and worked perfectly)

Procedure

Cut the plane fabric, taking measurements of inner side of the box. As we are using plane fabric to inner lining of box. First cut fabric for inner walls of box and paste it using glue. Then cut for inner base and paste it. While pasting make the fabric even and plane with your palm. Now cut the patterned fabric by taking outer measurements. Same as inner, cut fabric for outer walls first and paste. Here keep extra width of fabric to fold little inside. Finally while cutting for outer base, keep extra edges from all sides. Now here you need to fold and paste every side in one inch. And paste this fabric on outer base. Your box is ready.

Pardon me as I did not take the step wise photographs while doing this projects. But this is so easy, that I am certain you will get the idea from the final box. And it is up to you, you can do it however you want.




Tip

For inside lining, you can use any old fabric available at home, like piece of old cushion covers, bed sheets etc.

If you don’t want to use fabric for inside lining, you can use any plain desired color paper or just white color paper as well. That works great.

Pasta in White Sauce

Pasta in white sauce

I have been making this pasta for quite a while now. This simple and delicious pasta is one pot meal and kids' favorite too. So whenever you need a break from routine meal and want your kids to have veggies, try this homemade pasta. Once you taste this, you will never go for store bought pasta sauce, it is this simple and easy.

Pasta - any type of pasta tastes good with this sauce, but penne and macaroni are the most used types of pasta with this sauce.

Vegetables

Onions

Bell pepper

Sweet corns

Olives

Broccoli

Carrots

(use your choice of vegetables)

For sauce

Butter 1 tbsp

Olive oil 1 tbsp (can be skipped)

Flour 1 tbsp

Milk 1 cup

Cheese 1/2 cup

(you can use mixture of any cheese, I generally use chedder and mozzarella for this sauce)

Salt and Pepper for seasoning

Italian seasoning

Recipe

1. Cook pasta according to packet instructions. Generally pasta takes 8-9 minutes to become al dente. Pasta should not be over cooked, it should be firm to bite.

2.Meanwhile cut your veggies and stir fry them in a little butter and olive oil.

3. In a deep pan add butter and oil, once the butter melts completely add flour to it and stir it for a minute, do not burn it. Add milk to it while stirring. Keep stirring until it thickens.     

4. Now add cheese to this and stir until cheese melts.

5. Season with salt and pepper.

6. Finally add this sauce and veggies to cooked pasta and sprinkle little bit Italian seasoning and some more cheese and serve hot.

Note-

1. Al dente is the stage before softening the pasta.

2. Once your pasta has become al dente, drain the water and run it through cold water to stop further cooking.

  

Paneer in corn gravy

If you want a change from regular gravy vegetables, try this one. Paneer in corn gravy. This is the gravy I made using corn.

Ingredients

For gravy
Corn 1 cup steamed and pureed
Tomato puree 1/2 cup
Onion 1/2 cup finely chopped
Ginger, garlic and chili paste 2 tbsp

Paneer cubes 1 1/2 cup
Cumin powder 1 tsp
Coriander powder 1 tsp
Chili powder if needed
Salt as per taste
Kasoori methi 1 tsp
Fresh coriander


Recipe

1. Steam 1 cup corn and puree in mixer. Make tomato puree, paste of ginger, garlic and chili. Now in a pan heat oil and shallow fry paneer cubes and keep them aside.
2. In a pan heat oil, to it add ginger, garlic and chili paste. Saute it for a minute.
3. Now add onions and saute them until they become translucent. Then add tomato puree and cook it for 1-2 minutes.
4. Now add corn puree and stir it well. No need to cook as we have already cooked the corns. To this add all the spices except salt.  
5. Add paneer to it with sprinkling of salt as per taste. Cook it by covering for 2-3 minutes.
6. Add kasoori methi and serve hot by garnishing with fresh coriander.

Sakhar Amba

Simple sweet side dish to go with poli/chapati. As mango season is on the way here is my simple mango recipe. If you make sakhar amba with alphonso(hapus) mango, it will taste heaven.

Ingredients

Ripe mango 1 diced

Sugar 1/2 to 1 cup (amount of sugar depends on the sweetness of mango)

Water same as sugar

Cloves 2-4

Pinch of Cardamom powder

Recipe

1. In a saucepan add sugar and water and let it boil until sugar dissolves.

2. Now add diced mangoes and let it cook on low flame. As we are using ripened mangoes, it will take 5-7 minutes to cook.  

3. Once mangoes cooked add cloves and cardamom powder. Check sugar syrup consistency. It should be one thread consistency. If it’s not then cook it for another 1-2 minutes. That is it sakhar amba is ready. Cool it  and serve with chapati/roti/poli with whatever you want.

Tip
You can store sakhar amba up to 1 month in fridge.

Sprouted Moong Dosa

I had some sprouted moong sitting in my fridge, so I thought of making moong dosa with my own recipe. It is really close to pessarattu, the only difference is I used little rice flour here. Though I did not use ingredients by measurements, I am giving rough measurements here.  

Ingredients

Sprouted moong 1 cup
Green chilies 2-3
Ginger grated 1-2 tsp
Rice flour 1-2 tbsp
Salt as per taste
Water as required

Recipe

1. Mix together sprouted moong, chilies, grated ginger and grind them in a mixer by adding little water.
2. Take this mixture in a bowl.
3. Now add rice flour to this mixture and add little extra water to make it pouring consistency. Do not make batter runny.
4. Add salt to the mixture as per taste.
5. On a flat tava or dosa tava sprinkle some oil and pour spoonful of batter. Spread it evenly and let it cook.
6. serve hot with chutney or sauce.

Tips

When dosa is cooking, spread little butter(makkhan) on top of it. That will give you a divine taste.  
 

Eggless Blueberry Muffins

I never knew the difference between the cupcakes and muffins. As I started exploring them I came to know that they are different from each other in many ways. Cupcakes are like miniature of cakes and muffins are more of a bread type. They are crumbly, less sweet than cupcakes. In western countries muffins are often eaten for breakfast while cupcakes eaten as desserts. So I tried to make some muffins, the most common and famous blueberry muffins without eggs. I followed recipe from here.

Ingredients

All purpose flour 2 cups
Baking soda 1 and 1/2 tsp
Baking powder 1/2 tsp
Salt 1/2 tsp
Sugar 1 cup
Milk 1 cup
Oil 1/3 cup
White vinegar 1 tbsp
Fresh blueberries 1 cup

Recipe

1. Preheat Oven at 375F(190C). Grease your muffin tray.
2. In a medium bowl combine together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, mix it well and keep aside.
3. In another bowl add Sugar, milk, oil and white vinegar. Mix well.
4. Now add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir them until they get mixed very well.
5. Now add blueberries and fold them in the mixture gently.
6. Fill the muffin tray 2/3.
7.  Bake in the preheated oven for about 20-22 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean.
8. Let them cool for 5 minutes, then remove from pan and cool on wire rack.

Gajar and Beet root Halwa

Gajar halwa is one of India's favorite desserts. I just made it with a twist. Here is my take on this famous and delicious dessert. My mother makes gajar halwa with mava(khava) to get the rich flavor. So here I added heavy whipping cream to get that rich creamy taste.

Ingredients

Carrots 1 cup grated
Beet 1/2 cup grated
Ghee 1-2 tbsp
Sugar 1/2 cup (increase it if you like sweeter side)
Heavy whipping cream 1/2 cup
Milk 1/4 cup
Cardamom powder 1 tsp
Dry Fruits 1-2 tbsp finely chopped
Raisins 1-2 tbsp

Recipe

1. In a pan heat ghee and add grated carrots and beet. Cook them for about 4-5 minutes.
2. Now add heavy whipping cream and milk. While it starts simmering keep on stirring. Cook on medium flame until cream and milk start to reduce slowly.
3. When milk has reduced little bit add sugar and cardamom powder and let it simmer for some more time. Keep on stirring while halwa is cooking.
4. At the end add dry fruits and raisins.
5. Serve halwa hot if you like or let it cool down and then serve.

Tip

You can serve this halwa by adding some milk. I like to have my halwa that way.
 
 

Mushroom do Pyaza

I use mushrooms on pizza but I had never found a good recipe for mushrooms until now. One day I found a recipe which satisfied my taste-buds with mushrooms in it. Mushroom do pyaza, you would say there are so many recipes available for this dish. I tried so many recipes for it but none of them ever worked for me. This recipe was spot on. I am always grateful to the person behind this recipe, as I don't remember the name of that person as well the blog, so sorry for that. I have made some changes according to my convenience and taste.    

Ingredients
1 cup mushrooms
1 cup sliced colored bell pepper (use whichever color available )
1 onion diced
1 small onion finely chopped
2 tomatoes roughly chopped
1 inch ginger finely chopped
2 big cloves of garlic finely chopped
(use 1 tsp of ginger garlic paste instead)
oil
cumin seeds
chilly powder as per taste
salt as per taste
1 tsp lemon juice
finely chopped fresh coriander



Recipe
1.Heat oil in a pan, add cumin seeds and when it starts to splutter add chopped ginger–garlic and onion.
2.Fry till the onions are translucent.
3.Then add turmeric powder and red chili powder. Mix all the ingredients well.
4.Add tomatoes and cook for 2 minute, till tomatoes are little pulpy. Add little salt at this stage.
5.Add the diced onions and capsicum and fry for 2-3 minute, till capsicum is little soft. Sprinkle little water and cook on medium flame.
6.Now add the mushroom pieces along with salt. Cover it with a lid and cook till done. Cook on low flame.
7.When mushrooms are cooked, add finely chopped coriander and lemon juice and serve hot.

Tip
Careful at the time of adding salt as we add salt two times. Or to avoid confusion add salt at the end with mushrooms only. 

Cranberry Sol Kadhi

When we were in Pune I never needed to make sol kadhi at home. We could get it easily in restaurants. Even if I ever needed to make it at home i had kokum aagal (concentrated kokum/amasul juice) handy for the recipe. I used to do kokum sar as well with that aagal, which is my favorite. Here i did not find kokum agal or kokum juice in any Indian grocery store. We get kokum here, so we can make traditional sol kadhi by soaking them and extracting juice from it. Though it was not the kind of food we miss here, but still it has it’s own place in our choice of food. Long story short, we brought cranberry juice on our last trip of grocery shopping and we found it tastes somewhat like kokum aagal. So my hubby suggested me (he is the one behind my recipes) to give it a try making solkadhi with this juice. I made it and it was totally a hit. It tastes just like a solkadhi. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

1 Cup coconut milk
1 Cup concentrated cranberry juice (increase quantity according to taste)
2-3 Cloves garlic crushed and finely chopped
1 Green chilly finely chopped
Salt to taste
Fresh coriander

Recipe

1. Mix coconut milk and cranberry juice, keep it aside.

2. In small bowl crush together already chopped garlic and chilly and add it to the above mixture. Or make a paste of garlic and chilly and add to the mixture.

3. Add salt as per taste and chopped coriander to it. Serve chilled topped with little fresh coriander leaves.

Egg-less Vanilla Cupcakes

I am a fan of baking but I did not get the chance to bake frequently before this. I love cakes and now enjoying baking them.

I was trying to bake cupcakes for quite a while. But anyhow they did not come out well. But finally I got the perfect recipe to relish those beauties. The last batch I made was way too perfect for me. They were light, they were spongy and they were moist. The cupcakes were perfect as they had to be. This was the first time, I was so happy with my baking experience. I followed the recipe from ‘Glorious treats’. Here the recipe says use cake flour, i did not have the cake flour so used the substitute of making my own cake flour. I have just replaced eggs with yogurt/curd (for each egg ¼ cup yogurt), as I always do egg-less baking.
One might think what is the purpose of using buttermilk and yogurt at the same time. I had not planned it such way, I just followed the above recipe and used yogurt as a replacement for eggs. The original recipe has buttermilk in it. But I would definitely want to try it by excluding one of these ingredients in my future experiments. For now this recipe works perfectly for me.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups cake flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of plain yogurt/curd
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup buttermilk
(or 1/2 cup milk plus 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar or lemon juice- add acid to the milk then set aside for 5 minutes before using)

Recipe

1.Preheat oven to 350°F. In the bowl add plain yogurt and beat until it becomes smooth. Add sugar and continue to beat until sugar dissolves. Add vanilla and oil, beat.
2. Sieve in cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. (here I used cake flour substitute, recipe in the tips below). Stir the mixture slowly by adding the milk in small portions.
3. The batter will be thin, like pouring consistency. Pour batter into a muffin pan prepared with paper liners. Fill liners about 2/3 full.
4. Bake cupcakes in preheated oven for 12-14 minutes. Mine came out in 14 minutes.
5. Cool in pan for 1-2 minutes, then remove cupcakes from the pan and finish cooling on a wire rack.

Tips

If you don’t find cake flour at grocery store then do not worry. You can make it at home and use it as a substitute for cake flour.

Recipe

For 1 cup of cake flour, take 1 cup of all purpose flour or maida. Remove 2 tbsp of flour from it and add 2 tbsp of cornstarch to it. Your cake flour is ready.

Gobi Manchurian

I love gobi manchurian. My mother used to make it since I was in 11th-12th grade. So of course this is my mother's recipe. This is one of the recipes that I learnt in my teenage days. So I am little nostalgic about it. When first time I was making gobi manchurian without help of my mom, after marriage of course, i was curious about how others make it. So I googled for the recipe and to my surprise I did not find any recipe for gobi manchurian that can be made with cabbage. Yes I make gobi manchurian with patta gobi/cabbage/kobi. That time the recipes for gobi manchurian I found were with phul gobi/cauliflower. This was way back in 2009. I did try those recipes as well but after that I never searched for cabbage gobi manchurian.

This recipe is totally different from what we get at food stalls or hotels. This is simple and easy to make recipe. There is no need to make gravy for this recipe. Still it tastes good. This recipe has been developed as time passes. Some changes made by mother some by me. But the original procedure of the recipe is still the same. So here is my family recipe for gobi manchurian.

Ingredients

Cabbage 1 1/2 cup finely shredded
Carrot 1/2 cup finely shredded
Whole wheat flour 1 cup
Cornstarch 1 tbsp
Ginger 1 inch shredded or paste
Chilies 1-2 finely chopped
Soy sauce 1 tbsp
Sugar 1/2 tsp
salt as per taste
Oil for deep frying
Finely chopped cabbage for serving

For sauce
Tomato ketchup
tomato and chilly sauce

Recipe

1. In a large bowl combine together cabbage, carrot, ginger, chilies, soy sauce, sugar, salt (be careful about adding salt as soy sauce has some). Mix them together.
2. Now add cornstarch and flour and make a dough. Add little more flour if you feel dough is still wet but don’t make it dry. Keep this dough aside for half an hour.
3. Heat the oil in a deep pan. Roughly make small size balls of the dough and fry them until they become golden brown.
4. Heat a separate pan and to it add 1 tbsp hot oil from earlier pan, 1-2 tbsp of tomato ketchup, 1 tbsp chilly tomato sauce. (For this step you can add your choice of 2-3 types of sauce).5. Warm it up little while stirring and now add the fried balls. Mix the balls in sauce till every ball covers with sauce. Serve this gobi manchurian hot with sprinkle of finely chopped cabbage.