Creamy Corn on Toast

I'd bought 2 cobs of fresh, juicy corn and was in the mood to try n cook something new.....out of the depths of memory, the recipe for cream of corn soup suddenly gushed out....Inspired by that recipe but wanting something creamier and more substantial, i decided to cook corn with garlic and mash it up..n oh boy! super hot, creamy n with a hint of chilly n pepper, it was an absolute delight to eat...

Ingredients:

Corn kernels from 2 medium sized cobs (use corn off the cob for best results)
1/4 litre milk (this can vary depending on the corn n consistency you want)
6-7 garlic pods
6-7 peppercorns
chilli flakes and salt - to taste
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 teaspoons grated cheese (ideally, parmesan or cheddar)

Mehtod:

Heat the oil in a pan, add peppercorns and garlic pods and saute till the garlic gets all brown. Add the corn kernels and cook on high heat for a few minutes till the corn kernels swell up a bit and have just acquired a golden hue.

Add half the quantity of milk, reduce the flame and cook the kernels in the milk till they are soft. Cool it to almost room temperature and blend to a creamy consistency along with the cheese, chiili flakes and salt.
Return this mixture to the pan, add the rest of the milk and cook on a low flame till the milk is absorbed/you get the consistency you want.\

Serve hot with toast, crackers or chapathis :).

Note: To make this recipe richer, saute everything in butter, add more cheese and a dollop of cream right at the end.

Holige (Obattu)

Holige/Obattu/Puran poli - call it what u will...but d mere mention of obattu makes almost everyone's mouth water...especially when it's fresh n hot off the tava!
I've seen mom n granny slogging over this dish and i always thought i could never make it...apparently, i can :) and it feels good!!
Yeah, the mere mention of obattu can be unnerving..but trust me on this - just think of it as a sweet stuffed paratha... n before you know it, you'll be done.
It's hard to say how many you can make with this recipe, but u should be able to make 5-6 at least.

Ingredients:

For the covering (kanaka):

1 cup, maida (sifted)

4-5 teaspoons water

1 cup oil + 5-6 tablespoons oil (you may require more depending on the maida)

For the filling (hoorana):

1 cup, channa dal

1 cup jaggery, broken into small chunks (Vary this quantity depending on how sweet you want the obattus to be)

2 pods cardamom

Oil/ghee, to roast

Method:

Kanaka:

Sprinkle the water on the maida and mix. Now add 1 cup oil and mix until you get a cohesive, soft, pliable dough. If required, add more oil. Put the dough into a bowl and pour 5-6 tablespoons of oil over it. Let this rest for 2-3 hours at least (even overnight in the fridge is cool).

You may have some left over kanaka...use it to make parathas once you run out of the hoorana.

Hoorana:

Traditionally, the dal is boiled in an uncovered pan until cooked. I opted to use the pressure cooker...use whtever works for u. However, i must mention that if boiled in an uncovered pan, drain the dal and collect the water. You can make yummy saaru (curry) from it which i will post one fine day.

Cook the dal until soft and tender (but not mushy) and let it cool a bit. Blend the dal and cardamom. Transfer to a pan, add jaggery and cook till the jaggery melts and the end  result is a smooth, slightly sticky paste. Let this mixture cool.

Now comes the tough bit....Just follow the process of making a stuffed paratha.

Take a small lemon sized portion of the kanaka and using oiled foil or an oiled plastic sheet, spead it out a bit to form an even circle. Place a small orange sized portion of the hoorana on it.

Seal the ends of the hoorana enclosing the kanaka inside it. Now, starting from the centre, moving outwards, pat with your hands to form a big sized circle as shown below.

P.S - Do not worry if some hoorana oozes out or the kanaka wears out a bit. It's fine :)

 Heat a tava, overturn the obattu on it and using ghee or oil, roast on both sides till golden brown and yummy!! Serve with dollops of ghee/milk or both...

Sit back and savour the compliments, it'll be worth it! :)

 

Chunky Peanut Pesto

Pinenuts - i searched around in quite a few places for them, but nada...bored of searching, i finally decided to try it out with groundnuts instead..of course, the taste wasn't original but it definitely was good :). This recipe is a no cook, no chop recipe. Simply combine and blend. And this version stays for days  in the fridgesince it's pretty dry..just ensure there is a film of oil on top if you're storing it for more than a week. And do replenish the oil everytime you scoop out a spoonful.

Ingredients:

a huge bunch of basil leaves
a handful of roasted groundnuts with the skin removed ( i used a microwave, about 4 mins on high)
3 medium sized cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon chilli flakes
1 tablespoon grated cheese (preferably parmesan but i used cheddar)
salt, to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil

Method:

Dump everything into the blender jar and blend till you get a medium coarse paste. Ensure you do not blend into a fine paste as you won't really get to taste the diff ingredients then.



Lemon Rice (Chitranna) With a Twist

Bored of the usual chitranna that's made in my house, i wanted to try something a lil different this Ugadi. This gojju recipe is half borrowed from my memory banks but modified based on my mood when i made it :). It's an easy recipe and can also be used as a chutney for chapathis or bread..

Here's what the gojju looked like:

Ingredients:

For the gojju:
2 medium sized raw mangoes, peeled and grated (or chopped finely)
3-4 tablespoons grated coconut (you can add more)
5-6 green chillies

For the tadka:
1/2 teaspoon hing (yes, 1/2 teaspoon!)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon each of mustard, sesame (til), coriander seeds, methi seeds - dry roasted and ground coarsely
1/2 tablespoon urad dal
2-3 dry, red chillies
a handful or so of groundnuts
1 tablespoon oil
salt, to taste
juice of 2 lemons

Method:

Grind the coconut and chillies in the blender for a few seconds. Add the grated mango and belnd everything into a fine paste.

Heat oil, add the hing and groundnuts and fry till the groundnuts are well roasted. Now add the mustard seeds, urad dal, red chillies and fry till the mustard seeds crackle. Add the corasely powdered mixture of mustard, til, coriander seeds and methi seeds. Immediately add the the mango-coconut-chillies mixture and fry till the water evaporated and the entire mixture forms a cohesive lump.

Turn off the fire, add lime juice and salt to taste. Do add the lime juice, it gives a freshness to the dish, not to mentiond added tanginess.

Mix this with cooked rice and enjoy maadi!

One tip here is to add just enough salt to taste to the gojju so that you can use the leftovers later on. When mixing with the rice, you will need to add extra salt.



H for Hummus

Hummus, for me, conjures up visions of exotic pita pockets either filled with crisp veggies or baked to a crisp, served with creamy hummus....

Once i realised how easy it is to make hummus, it's become an often made dish...and i've experimented with adding mint leaves, basil, oregano and pretty much anything that i fancy at the moment.

I've read loads of recipes and a lot of them call for tahini and for the skin to be removed from the channa...for my version, simple sesame seeds and channa with skin work...so here's d recipe for my plain, simple, not so-classic hummus.

Ingredients:

4 handfuls of dried kabuli channa (chickpeas), soaked overnight and cooked till soft

2 teaspoons olive oil (i used extra virgin olive oil) 

1 teaspoon sunflower oil (or any other neutral oil)

1 handful of til (sesame seeds), dry roasted till slightly brown

4-5 cloves garlic

reserve liquid from cooking the channa/water

salt, to taste,

chilli powder, to sprinkle on top

Method:

Lightly crush the cloves of garlic and roast in a pan. Add the sesame, garlic, salt and the sunflower oil to the blender and whizz till the sesame gets coarsely crushed. Once that's done, add the chickpeas and olive oil and process till the whole thing forms a smooth paste.

If required, add a little reserve liquid to adjust the consistency.

Turn it out into a bowl, flatten with a fork and run the prongs of d fork on the surface to form ridges. Sprinkle the chilli powder on top and serve!!

You can also add extra olive oil on top, specially if you want to keep it for a few days.

Spicy Roast Baby Potatoes

As far as i can remember, i've always loved cooking with potatoes (considering there's very little that can go wrong!!). Add a lil bit of salt, a bit of spice, some oil and ur dish is done!
You can make this dish with chopped potatoes but the potatoes' lil cousin, the baby potato, is a lil sweeter in taste.
And it makes for a perfect morsel to pop into your mouth without having to nibble!

This recipe calls for a tingling of your tastebuds (courtesy the chilli and dry mango powder) and is absolutely yummy to eat with chapathis, as a side dish or just as is!

Ingredients:

8-10 baby potatoes - par boiled and peeled,
2 tablespoons of hung yoghurt,
1 teaspoon of oil,
a teaspoon each of red chilli powder, turmeric powder, garam masala and dry mango powder(amchur)
1/2 teaspoon of ginger-garlic paste
salt, to taste

Method:

Prick the potatoes with a fork to allow the flavours to seep in.
Mix the yoghurt, all the powders, salt, ginger-garlic paste and oil in a bowl.
Add the potatoes to this mixture and mix such that each potato is coated with the yoghurt mixture.
Let this marinate for an hour or so in the fridge. Once that's done, you can either grill the potatoes or heat some oil in a pan and roast on a low flame.

Once the potatoes have blackened in bits and pieces, serve them with a final sprinkling of lime juice.

Apple Upside Down Cake

Inspired by the yummy pineapple upside down cake, i set about trying to make an apple upside down cake simply b'cos i was b-o-r-e-d..... not to mention i'd run out of cocoa powder or anything chocolaty!

This is a simple recipe and can be made in a jiffy, the longest time required is to peel and chop the apples.

I actually sat and thought how eaxctly i need to make this considering i use a microwave and the apples wouldn't get cooked and glazed in a microwave....finally settled on this method and it came out quite well...

Ingredients:

For the apples:

1 medium sized apple
1/2 teaspoon butter (i used Amul Nutrilite)
a pinch of nutmeg powder
a pinch of cinnamon powder
a teaspoon of honey

For the cake:

1 cup (traditional Indian katori) maida
3/4 cup sugar + 3 tablespoons honey
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil like sunflower oil (you can use butter but i find using oil easier)
1 tea spoon baking powder
2 pinches baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
a teeny pinch of salt
a teeny pinch of yellow food colour
1 drop of vinegar (this reacts with the baking soda/powder and makes the cake light n spongy)

Method:

Apples:

Peel and chop the apples into whatever shape you desire, just keep in mind that the slices/pieces need to be a little thin and even.
Heat butter and cook the apples in it (with the nutmeg and cinnamon), over low heat, till the apples are soft (approx 5 minutes). Drizzle the honey and cook for another minute.

Let this cool to room temperature and spread over the bottom of the dish you are using to bake the cake.

Now for the cake:

Mix all the wet ingredients together and beat with a fork for 3-4 minutes. Sift all the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Now add the dry to wet (yep, always dry to wet although i don't really know why!) and mix thoroughly taking care that no lumps are formed. Pour the batter over the apples.

Bake in a microwave at 650-700 deg C for 2-3 minutes. Then turn down the temperature to 400 and bake for another 2-3 minutes. Insert a toothpick in the middle and if it comes out clean, you're good to go. Else, bake in bacthes of 30 seconds till the toothpick comes out clean.

Potato Gnocchi

Gnocchi, pronunced nyoki is a kind of pasta, generally made using flour and potatoes (you can also make them with pumpkin or ricotta).

Once cooked, these light, little morsels dunked in almost any kind of sauce are a delight to eat and are extremely filling!

This is a super-simple, non-traditional way of making Gnocchi and is pretty quick too!
This is what they looked like before boiling..yes, i did go the whole way and rolled them over a fork n stuff...but was definitely worth the effort (or so, i'd love to think!)

Ingredients:

3 medium sized potatoes, boiled

2 teaspoons flour ( i used maida/all purpose flour) - you may need more or less depending on the potatoes

1 teaspoon fine semolina

salt to taste

Method:

CAUTION:

Two things you need ensure:

1) Steam/boil the potatoes just right (please don't overcook)

2) Use as little flour as possible while kneading

Half/quarter the potatoes and steam/boil them until they are just cooked through ( I dumped them in the microwave, along with a bowl of water and microwaved at 700 deg C for 6 minutes).

Once done, peel them while they are still hot (be careful here). Mash coarsely with a fork till the potatoes are coarsely powdered.

( i must admit i tried to blend them at this stage, but they turned out all gooey n horrible, so pls avoid this)

Add the salt, semolina, and a teaspoon of the flour and knead gently. Keep adding the flour bit by bit as required and knead till everything just binds together.

Divide this dough into 2 or 4 and roll into long cylindrical 'strands'. Now using a sharp knife, cut bits of the dough and press the prongs of a fork to give each bit a design.

Bring a large pot of water to boil and drop these in. At first, they sink to the bottom but rise to the top in a matter of minutes...once the gnocchi start floating, they're cooked through. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain in a colander for a few minutes before using.

You can serve this with a basic tomato sauce, a classic white sauce or just sauteed to a crsip along with some garlic.

I made a white sauce to go along and added loads of chilli sauce on top since i was out of chilli flakes.

Slurpy Chunky Veggie Soup

Soup - the very word conjures up feelings of warmth and comfort, specially on cold winter nights. This version is a simple, 5 minute procedure and for me, it acquires the top spot, even beating Maggi :).

I basically used 3-4 veggies, but you can use most root veggies like onions, turnips or pretty much anything you desire.

Ingredients:

2 large carrots, diced (i used the red "Delhi" carrots)

a huge handful of beans, chopped into bits

3-4 leeks, chopped

sweet corn kernels, a cupful

water, 3/4 litre

cornflour - 1 tablespoon

ginger-garlic paste, a teaspoon (or 1/2 spoon each of finely chopped ginger and garlic)

salt, to taste

pepper, to taste

red chilli sauce, 3 teaspoons

soya sauce, 1 teaspoon

oil, a teaspoon

Method:

Heat oil and saute ginger-garlic. Add leeks, saute for a minute. Now add in carrots, beans and sweet corn. Saute for another minute and add the water. Wait till the water comes to a boil, lower the flame and add the cornflour mixed with a spoon of cold water. 

Now simmer for just a minute or so and turn off the heat. If you simmer anymore, the veggies get cooked through and then, its no fun eating this soup.

You can also omit the cornflour and make a clear soup.

Season with salt and sauces and you're done! Serve it with some warm, crusty garlic bread.

Huli Avalakki (Tangy Tamarind Poha)

Huli avalakki, also known as gojju avalakki, is an all time favourite of mine. Super simple to make, can be whipped up in a jiffy to satiate hunger pangs at any time of the day (or night!)

Here's what my version looks like - the pic looks kinda sad b'cos i remembered to take a snap when most of it was over and all the curry leaves had been picked out :), but trust me, this is one yummy dish!

Ingredients:

1 cup avalakki/poha, coarsely powdered  (ask for the thick poha, dont ever make this with thin poha)
2 tablespoons rasam powder (if you don't have this, substitue with a tablespoon chilli powder and a half spoon each of jeera and dhania powder)
Tamarind extract - use a lemon sized ball of tamarind, soak in water and squeeze out the pulp
Salt, to taste
1/4 cup jaggery or sugar (you can adjust as per requirement)
Groundnuts, a handful
1 teaspoon each of mustard seeds, urad dal, chana dal
6-7 curry leaves
4-5 dried red chillies (i used guntur variety)
a pinch asafoetida
2 tablespoons oil

Method:

Mix the powdered poha, rasam powder, tamarind water (use 2 and a half cups water), jaggery, and salt. Leave aside for 20 minutes for all the flavours to get soaked in. At this stage, do taste it and adjust salt/jaggery if required.

Heat oil in a pan, add the asafoetida, mustard, urad dal, chana dal, dried rad chillies, and curry leaves. Fry for a minute. Now add the groundnuts and fry on a flame flame till they are well roasted.

Crumble in the avalakki mixture and saute on a low flame for 5 minutes or till the 'rawness' disappears.
Your avalakki is now ready to eat!

Ganesha Habbada Kadubu

Kadubu - A traditional dish made during Ganesha habba (Ganesh Fextival), can be sweet or savoury. This recipe is for the sweet variety.
Contrary to the popular belief, this is pretty simple to make..specially if you've made the filling a day in advance. If you use a mould (like i did), you get pretty edges and if u seal the edges by hand, the kadubus are yummy anyway!

Ingredients:

For the dough:

a cup of rice flour
one and a half cups of water
a few drops of oil or ghee

For the filling:

1/2 cup jaggery, powdered
1/2 cup til, roasted and coarsely powdered
1/2 cup of fresh, grated coconut (yes, u can also substitute with a cup of dessicated coconut)

Mix all these and adjust jaggery to taste.

Method:

Boil the water, add 2-3 drops of ghee/oil. Now add the rice flour, stirring continously and ensure no lumps are formed. Once the enitre mixture becomes one cohesive ball of dough, empty out onto a plate and knead it (as quickly as you can get to it).

Steam this dough for 10 minutes in a pressure cooker/steamer. Now make small balls from the dough and roll it out quite thinly into a small chapathi.

If you're using a mould, put this chapathi onto the mould, fill with a spoon of mixture and press the edges of the mould together. Hold for a minute and then open the mould carefully.

If making by hand, simply place the chapathi onto your palm, place a spoon of the filling in it and seal the edges together.

Your kadubu is now ready to eat!

Channa Masala

Chana Masala -a classic Indian, vegetarian recipe - is a lip-smacking, spicy, tangy, finger-lickingly good dish...you can serve it with chapatis, puris, or the best-suited bhaturas.

Ingredients:

4 handfuls of chickpeas (soaked overnight and pressure cooked with a little salt)
reserved water (drained form the cooked chickpeas)
1 large onion, chopped
2 medium sized tomatoes, chopped
3 chillies, chopped (you can vary this depending on your requirement
2 teaspoons ginger-garlic paste (alternatively, 2 pods of garlic and an inch piece of ginger roughly chopped)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon of chilli powder and jeera powder
2 teaspons of garam masala
2 teaspoons of curd
a teaspoon of oil
salt, to taste
a pich of sugar
chopped coriander, a handful

Method: 

Heat oil in a pan. Add the ginger-garlic and saute for a minute before adding the onions and chillies. Cook the onions for 4-5 mins till slightly brown and cooked through. Now add the jeera, turmeric, chilli powder and tomatoes. Cook this mixture till the tomatoes are soft.

Cool the mixture and bled it till you get a not-very-fine paste. Pour this paste back into a hot pan, add the curd and cook till the "curdy" smell is gone (this makes the curry creamy w/o the calories of cream or butter). Now add the cooked chickpeas and garam masala, and stir till the chickpeas are covered with the paste. Add the reserved chickpea water, lower the flame and cook till the gravy turns thick.

Garnish with chopped coriander and serve it hot!

Chocolate Cake With Gooey Choco Icing

Me, being one of those who can't resist choco cakes, this was the first thing i learnt to bake in a microwave...When cooking, i can't be bothered about measurements..i usually have a fair idea of the ingredients and then add/delete stuff as per my liking...so this choco cake may not be "traditional" but it works...

For the cake

Ingredients:1 cup (traditional Indian katori) maida
3 tablespoons of cocoa powder (i used Cadbury's)
3/4 cup powdered sugar (alternatively, use castor sugar in the same quantity)
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil like sunflower oil (you can use butter but i find using oil easier)
1 tea spoon baking powder
2 pinches baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
a teeny pinch of salt
1 drop of vinegar (this reacts with the baking soda/powder and makes the cake light n spongy)

Method:

Mix all the wet ingredients together and beat with a fork for 3-4 minutes. Sift all the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Now add the dry to wet (yep, always dry to wet although i don't really know why!) and mix thoroughly taking care that no lumps are formed.
Bake in a microwave at 650-700 deg C for 2-3 minutes. Then turn down the temperature to 400 and bake for another 2-3 minutes. Insert a toothpick in the middle and if it comes out clean, you're good to go. Else, bake in bacthes of 30 seconds till the toothpick comes out clean.
For the icing

200 ml cream
1 bar of cadbury's (the 10 rupee one)
2 tea spoons cocoa powder
a cup of icing sugar (you can substitute with powdered sugar + 2 tea spoons corn flour)
2 teaspoons of honey

Heat the cream over a low flame, stirring continously. Once the cream is scalding hot, turn off the heat and allow to cool for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and pour the hot cream on top. Stir ensuring no lumps are formed.

Let this mixture cool to room temperature.

Now slice the cake in half horizonatally and spread some choco-cream on one half. Top with the other half of the cake.

Pour the remaining mixture on top of the cake and drizzle all along the edges. At this stage, you can decorate the cake.

Let this cake cool in the fridge for 20 minutes so that the icing is firm..n it's ready to serve!

Sweet Potato N Corn Cutlets

Ever since i ate sweet potato chaat in Delhi (thanks to a friend), i've been dying to experiment with this versatile veggie....these super-simple-to-make cutlets are perfect for rainy/cold evenings with a cup of chai.


                                  

                    

Ingredients:

1 medium sized sweet potato
a handful of sweet/regular corn
1/2 spoon each of garam masala, jeera, turmeric, and amchur
2 chillies roughly chopped
salt to taste
a splash of lime juice

Method:

Par boil the sweet potato (i dunked it in a bowl of water and microwaved for 4 minutes). Peel it and grate/chop roughly. Put this mixute and the rest of the ingredients into a blender and roughly blend till the corn kernels are crushed.

Heat a tava and spread oil on it with the back of a spoon. Shape cutlets from the mixture and roast on the tava till the cutlets are crisp on both sides (alternatively, you can coat the cutlets by dipping in a paste of cornflour and then breadcrumbs and deep-fry it).

Serve these with sauce/mint chutney.

Trifle Pudding

Trifle pudding is a dish with layers of sponge cake, fruit, custard, and whipped cream in that order..however, you can customize it to an extent as per your requirement.

This dish is time consuming (specially if you're baking the cake!) but well worth it in the end. You can reduce effort by preparing the cake and custard in advance and just assembling it a few hours before it needs to be ready.

I omit whipped cream entirely and replace it with jelly (instant jelly packs available in the market).

This was what my trifle pudding looked like..I'd made a HUGE quantity for an office party but the recipe below makes enough for 4 greedy people :)

Ingredients:

Sponge cake - 250 grams (See recipe below to bake a sponge cake)
Assorted chopped fruit - 2-3 cups (apples, bananas, tinned pineapple, tinned peach, cherries, strawberries etc)
5-6 tablespoons of light sugar syrup (if using tinned fruit, use the syrup from it. Alternatively, use rum for an alcoholic version)
3 cups thick custard (recipe below)
1/2 pack jelly, made as per intructions on the pack (I used Weikfield raspberry flavour)

Method:

Cut the cake into thick slices and arrange in a deep dish. Ensure that the slices of cake are tightly packed together. If required, break the slices inbto huge chunks and fill in the gaps.
Pour the sugar syrup evenly over the cake layer, ensuring the layer is soaked.
Now arrange the layer of chopped fruit, evenly over the cake.
Top with custard and refrigerate till custard is set (at least a half hour).
Pour prepared jelly (just off the heat) over the set custard layer and refrigerate again till the jelly is completely set.

You can decorate it as per your imagination..serve with vanilla ice cream for a yummy ending to a hectic day or as a dessert after a particularly heavy meal.


Sponge cake:

1 cup (traditional Indian katori) maida
3/4 cup powdered sugar (alternately use castor sugar in the same quantity)
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil like sunflower oil (you can use butter but i find using oil easier)
1 tea spoon baking powder
2 pinches baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
a teeny pinch of salt
1 drop of vinegar (this reacts with the baking soda/powder and makes the cake light n spongy)

Method:

Mix all the wet ingredients together and beat with a fork for 3-4 minutes. Sift all the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Now add the dry to wet (yep, always dry to wet although i don't really know why!) and mix thoroughly taking care that no lumps are formed.
Bake in a microwave at 650-700 deg C for 2-3 minutes. Then turn down the temperature to 400 and bake for another 2-3 minutes. Insert a toothpick in the middle and if it comes out clean, you're good to go. Else, bake in bacthes of 30 seconds till the toothpick comes out clean.

Custard:

500 ml milk + 3 spoons
3-4 tablespoons custard powder
2-3 tablespoons sugar (adjust to your liking)

Method:
Heat milk, dissolve sugar in it. Lower the flame and let it sim. In the meantime, mix the custard powder and remaining milk into a paste (ensure this is w/o lumps).
Pour this mixture into the milk in a thin, stead stream..all the while stirring so that no lumps are formed (if there are small lumps, turn off heat, strain the mixture and put on the heat again).
The mixture starts thickening immediately. Cook on a low flame for 4-5 minutes, stirrring continously, till custard is done.

Yummilicious Healthy Pizza

Here's a simple, quick fix pizza...comfort food when you need it and super healthy at the same time!
What's more, you can cook it in a conventional oven, a combination of microwave + tava, or only a tava!! I used a combination of microwave and tava.

This is what my pizza looked like finally! :)

Ingredients:
1 pack whole wheat pizza base (I used Omega 3)
A pack of chilli flakes and oregano (This is available with Omega 3 pizza base, you can substitute accordingly)
Veggies - assorted, chopped similarly (bell peppers, sweet corn, carrot, onions, leeks...)
1 medium sized tomato, sliced thinly into roundels
Olives
Jalapeno slices
2-3 pods garlic, chopped into very fine pieces or flaked finely
2 teaspoons tomato sauce (I used DelMonte)
1 teaspoon red chilli sauce (I used Chings)
1 teaspoon mayonaisse (I used Remia Mayolite)

Method:

Mix the tomato sauce, red chilli sauce and mayo together, and spread on the pizza base. Top it with the tomato slices. Sprinkle chopped garlic, chilli flakes, and oregano over the tomato slices.

Microwave it at 650 deg C for 1 minute.

Top with the rest of the veggies and microwave for another minute. Top with olives and jalapeno slices/pieces.

Now, put it on a tava on medium flame till the base is crisp and brown.

Alternatively, you can bake it in an oven the regular way...you can even top it with loads of mozzarella.

To cook it on a tava, all you need to do is roast all the veggies and garlic in a pan beforehand and follow the same method.

                                                 Picture of my half demolished pizza