Homemade Cream of Tomato Soup

It's the season of chilly breeze and chapped lips yet again. And as much as we love the nipping cold we also love our hot cups of tea, coffee, hot chocolate and soup. 

Today I am going to share with you my recipe of cream of tomato soup. It's not authentic Italian nor is it close to tamatar ka shorba. I will call mine a friendship between the two. 

This soup is extremely filling and can be your dinner if had with a small portion of grilled veggies.

To make your cup read below 

INGREDIENTS (serves 6)

10 tomatoes (boiled and peeled) 

3 carrots (boiled)

2 bay leaves 

6 cloves of garlic

3 tbsp butter

Salt to taste

2 tbsp brown sugar

3.5 tbsp pepper

4 tbsp fresh coriander leaves

8 cups of water

3 tbsp malai/ heavy cream 

RECIPE

Purée the boiled and peeled tomatoes and carrots.

Put butter in a deep bottom pan. Add bay leaves and stir for a few seconds.

Add garlic and sauté till golden brown.

Pour in the puréed tomatoes and carrots.

Cook till the purée reduces by a quarter.

Add water, sugar, pepper, salt and half of coriander leaves and keep cooking. 

After 10 minutes of cooking add malai and cook for another ten minutes.

Take a taste test. Add sugar, salt or pepper as per your liking. 

Strain the entire soup into a different bowl  to get a smooth texture. 

Serve hot with dash of cream, some pepper and coriander leaves with bread sticks on the side. 

NOTE

Do not throw away the water in which you have boiled tomatoes and carrots. Instead use it in place of plain water for a better flavour.

You can substitute 2 tbsp of brown sugar  with 1.5 tbsp of white sugar. 

I chose to add on to the nutritional value by adding carrots. You can also add some beetroot. 

Stay warm and full with a cup of this rich soup. Happy winter! 

Pizza Style Sandwiches

So the other day hunger pangs came knocking on my stomach. Not wanting to eat the same old butter toast, I started surveying the refridgerator to cook myself something interesting. 

While I was frisking things my eyes went on a box of pizza sauce sitting in the side shelf. Instantly a picture of pizza popped over my head. 

Since there was no pizza base available and I didn't want to do all that baking I thought of creating a sandwich that tastes like pizza and hence this post. 

Your kids will love this with their glass of milkshake and so will the adults.

Ingredients

For the sauce

1tbsp oil

1 tomato puréed

2 tbsp readymade pizza sauce

1 tbsp ketchup 

Salt to taste

3/4 tbsp pepper

1 tbsp oregano

For the sandwich filling

Cheese slices as per liking

1/2 a capsicum chopped 

75gm of cottage cheese (diced)

2 beans (chopped and steamed) 

For the sandwich 

2 tbsp butter (optional)

4 slices of bread

Sauce (mentioned above)

Filling (mentioned above)

Recipe 

Put oil in a pan. Add grated tomato and a pinch of salt.

When the tomato has reduced almost by half add pizza sauce, ketchup, salt, pepper and oregano. Give it all a good stir.

Add capsicum, beans and cottage cheese.

Mix well, cook for another minute or two and then take it off the flame and let it cool for a few minutes. 

Put a pan on the flame. While it gets hot, place a cheese slice on one slice of bread, top it with the sauce and veggie filling and then cover it with another slice of bread. 

Put a little butter on the pan (optional),and place the sandwich on it. Flip it over to grill the other side. 

Once both sides are brown, put in a on a plate, slice it in halves or quarters and serve hot.

Repeat the same for the other two slices of bread.

These sandwiches make a wonderful snack. Try them and leave a comment! 

Happy cooking! 

Father-in-law style Fish Curry

Keeping this post short, and coming directly to the topic, the other day my father-in-law cooked us a fish curry.

Before I go any further I must mention that my father-in-law is QUITE awesome at cooking mutton and fish. 

Coming from a household with a vegetarian kitchen I was quite ecstatic about the fact that I would be getting married into a household where cooking meat in the kitchen was not forbidden. 

Talking about today's post this fish curry which is basically my father-in-law's recipe is fairly simple to cook and is light on the stomach. Not to forget it is absolutely delicious!

Easy home-made Fried Rice-Manchurian Combo

This is the story of an Accidental Indian Chinese Menu for dinner at our place. Just the other day my mother-in-law was planning to make Kofta curry (dumplings made from gram flour and cabbage served with tomato gravy). Now my sis-in-law and I are not the biggest fans of this curry. While we were still exploring other options for dinner my sis-in-law suggested that we make Chinese since the kofta dumpling was more or less like Manchurian belonging to the Chinese cuisine both in terms of appearance and taste.

Masala Khichdi

There are certain days in a month when we are simply too lazy to cook something lavish. And then there are days when we want plain comfort food. Just the other day, these two types of days coincided at our place.

My dear husband’s stomach had been acting funny (thanks to the momos he had the other day). So I decided to cook him masala khichdi. Khichdi is a dish cooked with lentils and rice. Unlike plain khichdi which is cooked with a heeng-jeera (asafoetida-cumin) tempering, masala khichdi is slightly more interesting (though I love the plain tempered khichdi too).

Hello Again!

Ok. So, I realised that I have not blogged for a month! I know crazy. But I have been keeping busy on the personal front. I am not denying that I do have a responsibility towards the blog and you dear readers but I am sure I can be spared once in every few months. Then to follow there was a vacation, which I am still hung over on. 

It was the longest vacation we took after our honeymoon which was two and a half years back. So I think it was well deserved. The fact that it was planned with our friends made it all the more fun. 

Hold on! Hold on! I am coming to the details.

The Grilled Chicken Platter

It is kind of ironical for me to write a food post about meat on a Tuesday but anyway. So, some chicken was lying in our deep freezer. I have cooked chicken the Indian way a lot of times. This time I thought of cooking it and presenting it a little differently.

I decided to present my husband with a platter just the way you get at fancy restaurants. The platter consisted of some grilled chicken with sautéed vegetables, mushroom rice and mashed potatoes on the sides, drizzled with some white sauce.

AAM Dessert

Summer is the perfect excuse to indulge in icecream after every possible meal. While there are various flavours available in the market it is always good to try something different using icecream especially when you have some people coming over.

On Saturday night we had some guests over and I decided to give the final touch to the meal with some AAM sweetness. 

Most of us have vanilla icecream with mango cubes for dessert in summers. I decided to prepare an extremely simple dessert involving these two ingredients. Believe me the effort put in this dessert is minimal and the compliments that will follow will be many!

Fruitilicious Summer Bonanza

Hello people! I will not be asking you how the day is treating you since I know that the heat wave is nicely grilling us all. Anyway, my dear laptop is in a state of injury and will take some time to recuperate which is why I am writing this post from my phone today. 

I am sure you all are taking the best measures to beat the summer heat (read: drinking lots of liquids, applying sunscreen, carrying an umbrella and the list goes on). In this post I will share with you a smoothie recipe that will be a perfect drink to kickstart a hot morning. I prepared it the other day and I am not lying when I say that it was amazingly refreshing, yummy and best of all filling. 

It is super nutritious. The kids will have it happily without making any faces. 

All you need to do is gather some fruit, yoghurt and milk. 

I called this smoothie “ SUMMER BONANZA”. It gave just the perfect fruity taste.

Random Rumble

In the midst of ash....

Among the little goblins....

Deafened by the nipping silence of darkness....

I flounder my way to fluorescence....

A staggering me gropes for a brush of hope....

Wanting to be blinded by the light....

The light of a new life....

Playing with the cherubs....

I sense a graze on the tip of my finger....

And just like that, unknowingly, it curls into this hand....

The hand with new promises....

Weeding me out of the heather....

Ushering me to a new place....

A place called LOVE....

Introducing Mrs. and Mr.

A BIG Hello to all the lovely people reading this post right now. 

Before going any further let‘s take a moment to pray for the people in Nepal.

So, busy April has bid me goodbye and the lighter on the calendar but warmer May has come to say Hi. Like I mentioned in my last post that April would keep me on my toes and so it did. It was a wedding marathon starting with my sis-in-law’s engagement followed by my sister’s wedding. I managed to reach the finishing line by being just as energetic for the final wedding (a friend’s) as for the previous two (even though the first event was technically an engagement but still since it was no less than a wedding event, it has been counted in ).

The weddings were a lot of fun. Today this post will be less about words and more about pictures. 

To the Readers

So, I had absolutely no plans to write this post today for several reasons. Firstly my dearest darling sister is getting married this month. Secondly, my sister like sis-in-law who is no less than a friend has got fixed. As if my duties as badi didi (elder sister) and bhabi (sister-in-law) were any less that Almighty scheduled one of our closest friends wedding also this month. 

If I mark the days on the calendar this month for the events I have to help organise let alone attend and host, my April 2015 is nothing but circles. While there is too much of hitched happiness in the air (touchwood) I would not deny the fact that it is keeping me on my toes, literally (read: shopping and staying fit), which points out to the reason I have been away for almost a month. I would have still kept myself from writing this post today, but in the last few days I noticed a hike in the number of likes “My little Diary” has fetched on Facebook. 

I will not lie when I say that I am surprised to see the growing likes for the page. “My little Diary” had started with a humble 100-110 likes that too from people who already knew me. But in the last few months the page has been receiving likes from people from various places, who I have never met and the response has been nothing but overwhelming. 

Home Sweet Home

This is not a story. These are random thoughts that make me look up, that make me wonder, that make me smile and that make me a grateful person.

Have you ever taken notice of your expressions when you see your serene room in that beautiful boutique hotel? You are in awe. But have you also noticed that the sigh of relief only comes once you are on your own bed in a place called home sweet home. It doesn’t matter how big or small it is, doesn’t matter how cluttered or organised it is. The feeling to be home is so familiar and so positive that no one sings us a lullaby and yet we sleep like babies. It is the feeling of belonging.

Still Confused what to buy your Valentine?

Hi! I know I have been on quite a sabbatical but now I am back. And since Valentine’s Day is knocking at the door I am sure a lot of you have already decided how to woo the love of your life, but for those of you who are still confused this post might just come to your rescue.

Now we all have our own wallets. The good news is that love sees no pocket. It can be expressed in many ways irrespective of how deep or shallow your pocket is. Even words are enough and they cost nothing! 

Cream of Spinach

First things first, wishing you all  A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hoping 2015 brings you good news, better days and lots of love and happiness.

Now, I am sure that most of you agree with me when I say that bonfire, good company and some extra hot soup makes for a perfect winter night, for the non-drinkers ofcourse! (LOL).  The high-spirited people (pun intended) stay loyal to their glass of Old Monk on such occasions. 

Just the other day when Delhi winters got a little wet with some drizzle, we had our loved ones over. Instead of serving the premixed soups I tried preparing one at home. Now, I have nothing against premixed soups. They are the saviours when one doesn’t feel like moving a finger. But there is nothing like home cooked goodness. And if sometimes it requires just a TINY bit of effort then needless to say it is worth it.  After putting a little bit of thought I zeroed in on Cream of Spinach rather a healthier version of it.