Lemon lentil soup

Warm yellow color, tangy taste, nice aroma, hm... whenever, I think of  lemon, I will go into my own lemony world.

Long long ago, my mami had a small lemon tree in her backyard, but it used to yield lots of lemons. Best example for the tamizh saying 'மூர்த்தி சிறுசு கீர்த்தி பெரிசு'. My mami's home was my summer holidays abode and I have sweet memories of that lemon tree and its fresh offerings. Poor thing, it had to make way when my mami's house was expanded. It is still a conversation starter when we all get together.

Coming to our story, I bought a dozen of big lemons and enjoyed all my favorite recipes, lemon rice, lemon sevai, lemon rasam, etc. Last week, when I was browsing, this recipe caught my eyes and when I fully read, it sounded more similar to our south Indian dish. One second I stopped reading and asked myself, am I reading the soup or sambar? Wanted to give it a try.

I found this recipe in Oprah.com. Tried this lemon lentil soup with a little twist and it tasted perfect. You can find the original recipe here.

Ingredients : Serves - 6 person 2 cup -- cooked lentil*** 1 cup -- mixed vegetables chopped 2 tbsp -- Tomato puree 1 no -- Onion, medium size chopped 2 tbsp -- Olive oil 2 clove -- Garlic lemon juice from half a lemon Fresh cilantro Salt and pepper to taste *** In the original recipe Oprah have used red lentil, I used the left over dal I had in the fridge, Combination of toor dal and the moong dal Method: --- Take a sauce pan with the olive oil and turn the heat to medium. --- Add onions, garlic and saute them in the oil for few minutes, Add the vegetables and cook until the vegetables become tender. --- You can use any vegetables, I used carrots, beans and squash. --- Once the vegetables become soft, now its time to add our cooked lentil, tomato puree. Add them to the vegetables and cook for 3-5 minutes. Let the mixture to cool a little. --- Transfer the whole mixture to the blender and pulse the mixture for few times. We neither want the vegetables to grind fully or big chunks. --- Pour the grind mixture in the pan again and add 2-3 cups of water depending upon the consistency. --- Turn the heat to medium and add pepper,salt and lemon juice. And cook for 3 minutes, just to bring the flavour to the soup. --- Finally add the chopped cilantro for color and taste.

Rich in protein, lots of vegetables and lemony flavour. Serve this soup with little cheese on top and along with the Garlic bread. I assure you that you will love this combination.

Garlic bread

Are you sitting in the couch and wondering what to serve your loved one for the dinner? or Thinking to have something warm and crunchy to fight the bone chilling cold ?
It happens to me more often. I always wanted to cook something different for Karthik and surprise him when he comes back from office. Most of the time, I make something very easy and healthy, so that I can enjoy the food and have less cleaning work.

A couple of days ago I came across the recipe for Garlic bread. Its very simple, easy to make, minimal number of ingredients, no messy cleaning work. Takes less time to prepare this nice crunchy, garlicky bread. And no one can go wrong with this recipe.

Ingredients: Bread slices -- 8 slices*** Garlic -- 2-3 cloves (depending upon the size) Salted or Unsalted butter -- 1 tbsp Olive oil -- 2 tbsp Cilantro --  few leaflets*** *** You can use any kind of bread. I used whole grain white bread. I wanted a mild taste, so I went with cilantro. If you like you can use any kind of herbs for topping. Parsley, powder onion, dried oregano, etc. Method : --- Preheat the oven to 375 F --- Melt the butter and add olive oil. Grate the garlic and chop the cilantro and add in to the butter oil mixture. --- Now take the bread and arrange them on a baking sheet. If you like cut the bread diagonally. --- Brush the butter oil mixture over the bread and bake it for 10 - 12 minutes. --- After 7 minutes, you just turn the bread and bake for few minutes. --- Voilà, freshly home made Garlic bread ready to serve.

You can serve this crunchy garlic bread for an evening tea with tomato sauce dipping or with a nice soup for a dinner. Enjoy !!!

Spinach Veggie soup

My laptop caught a virus and fell sick a fine morning and it took a week of heroic efforts from my husband and his friend to bring it back to pristine health. Thanks to 'draft' option in the Blogger, I was able to retrieve all the posts that I had completed a week ago. So after a long gap, here comes Spinach Veggie soup to recover any kind illness. Oh come on, Man or machine - soup is the best healing food

I have to admit that I was never crazy about soups. Almost all of my encounters with soups were in the form of ready-made soups, which have dried vegetables in it. I felt these flavours taste the same. Only the colors were different.

I love fresh vegetables. 99% I buy fresh vegetables only. No frozen or tinned stuffs. Now, weekly once you can find a soup in my dinner menu. No more store bought soups. I started making my own chunky fresh veggie soups. I love to have chunks of vegetables in my every spoon. Easy to make, hearty to eat.

Last week, I tried the spinach vegetable soup for my birthday dinner party. Oh, everybody like it.

Ingredients : Serves - 4 person 1 cup --- Chopped vegetables*** 1 no --- Medium size onion 2 no --- medium size Roma tomatoes 2 tbsp --- Butter (optional) / Olive oil 1 cup --- spinach Salt and ground pepper to taste *** Combination of vegetables will be great for the soup Carrot, beans, potatoes, peas, celery. Method : --- Maximum try to use fresh vegetables than the frozen or canned one. --- In a sauce pan add the butter and turn the heat to medium. --- Saute the onions until it turns translucent. Add all the vegetables and cook, until tender. --- Meanwhile in a pan cook the whole tomato and the spinach leaves with a cup of water. After few minute, the skin tomatoes will shrink and cracks. --- Take the tomatoes out, cool them and take the skin off. --- Now, we go to the other pan which is cooking vegetables. Check whether the vegetables are cooked, once done turn the heat off. --- In a blender, put the tomatoes, cooked spinach with the water and few cooked vegetables less than half quantity and blend it. --- Turn the heat on, take the sauce pan which is having the cooked vegetables, add the tomato mixture from the blender. The blend mixture give the thickness and texture to the soup. --- Add 3 cups of water to the mixture and cook for 10 minutes. You can increase or reduce the water accordingly depending upon the soup consistency. --- Now its time to give little taste to the soup, add freshly ground pepper and salt, cook for 2-3 minutes. --- Turn off the heat and serve warm with bake pakodas.