Sweetcorn Salsa

Ingredients

1 cup sweet corn
1 small jalapeno
1-2 tsp lemon juice
salt to taste
Black pepper to taste
Fresh cilantro

Recipe

1. First roast the jalapeno. After roasting, take out the black skin and chop finely.
2. In a bowl take sweet corn, roasted jalapeno, salt, pepper, lemon juice and cilantro. Just mix it and your salsa is ready.

Guacamole

The most tempting mexican salsa. The simple yet delicious. You will be surprised, if I said, you can eat this with roti as side dish like chutney or salad.

Ingredients

1 Avocado
1 small tomato finely chopped
1 small onion finely chopped
Finely chopped green bell pepper Half or less than half (if it is big)
Garlic cloves 2-3 finely chopped or grated
Jalapeno finely chopped ½ to 1 tsp (add extra if you like it hot)
Salt to taste
Black pepper powder to taste
Lemon juice 1-2 tsp
Fresh cilantro finely chopped

Recipe

Take perfectly ripe avocado, just mash it. Add other ingredients and gently mix all together. Adjust salt and pepper according to taste and your guacamole is ready.

Tomato Salsa

Ingredients

Tomatoes 1-2 medium sized finely chopped
Bell pepper ½ or less the half (If it is big one)
Onion 1 small finely chopped
Jalapeno 1 tsp finely chopped
Salt to taste
Black pepper powder to taste
Lemon juice 1 tsp
Fresh cilantro finely chopped

Recipe

Mix all ingredients. Adjust salt and pepper as per taste and your fresh tomato salsa is ready to serve.  

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.