SunshineMom’s Recipes for the rest of us – Starters event. The event originally started by Ramki of One Page Cookbooks.

Long time back in one of Rachel Ray’s show I saw her frying canned chickpea on stove top and she was mentioning that its a nice and crispy snack. I always thought that chickpeas and green peas were deep fried in oil to get that crunchiness. I used to love these while growing up. It was my grandmother’s favorite snack too but we never made it at home. We used to get it from Ambica Depot. After seeing the show I also wanted to prepare it but somehow did not get to it until last week. Instead of sauteeing it in a pan, I decided to roast it in the oven. Otherwise you would have to stand nearby and keep stirring it.

I immediately googled to see if somebody has already done that and found a lot of results. Here I thought I was the smart one, with this brilliant idea! So I was going through a lot of those recipes and found that the oven temperatures, time to roast were different in each case and the reviews of the result were also mixed. So I decided to follow my own method and was really surprised that it worked out very well. My son generally likes chickpea by itself, but he liked these roasted chickpeas even more.

The recipe is very simple, actually it’s not a recipe at all. You have to just keep in mind the oven temperature and the time to roast it. The amount of chickpeas you want to roast, the seasonings are truly your call. As mentioned before you can roast it in a frying pan on stove top itself.

This is my entry for
JFI – Chickpeas, hosted by MS. JFI created by Indira.
My Legume Affair hosted by Srivalli. The even originally created by Susan.

Next to cauliflower and broccoli, tofu is my husband’s favorite. Actually he would eat anything vegetarian if it’s healthy. For me the criteria is, it has to taste good. So I experiment with tofu to satisfy both our needs. So far our favorite is tofu paratha. I drain the tofu well, grate it, add some Indian spices and divide the mixture into small balls. Then proceed to prepare the parathas as usual, using the tofu stuffing.

The Tofu Mango Pudding did not get his vote. The truth is he is not a “dessert” person. My son, my mother and myself loved it so much.

Recently I was going through Mallika Badrinath’s cookbook and found a recipe for paneer tikkis. Again paneer is my most favorite and his least favorite. He doesn’t eat it because of the fat content and calorific value. I wish I have the self control like him, I would be 30 pounds lighter! I remembered having a packet of extra firm tofu in my fridge, so decided to used it instead of paneer and changed the seasonings to suit our taste.

For long time now, I have wanted to prepare vegetarian burgers, or rather it was my husband’s long pending request and I finally made it yesterday from Jai and Bee’s blog. Their Spicy Kidney Bean Burgers is a fantastic recipe. I was able to prepare it for dinner in no time.

I used canned and drained kidney beans (2 cans, 15.5 oz each). It was also the “No Salt Added” store brand canned beans, this allowed me to control the sodium content in the burgers.

I don’t have a food processor, so at first I just drained one can and rinsed it well and mixed all the other ingredients listed in the recipe and blended it using my Indian mixer. And let me tell you, it was little tricky to get the right consistency. Initially it did not grind at all and once I added a little water it became very mushy. I was glad that I reserved the other can. Now I opened the 2nd can, drained and rinsed it and mashed the beans nicely with a potato masher and mixed the ground mixture to this. Even then I was not able to make balls out of it. So instead of adding flour to the mixture as they had mentioned, I added a handful of quick cooking oats and I got the desirable consistency to shape them into burgers.

I also used curry powder and Maggi’s tomato chili ketchup to give it a desi taste. The original recipe mentions to use either ajwain (omam) or cumin, but I strongly suggest to go with ajwain, because I felt that it gave a very good flavor and aroma to the burgers. I also did not have nutritional yeast, so used roasted chick pea flour (besan) instead. Also don’t forget to add the 1/4 cup of chopped almonds, because this gives a nice crunch to the burgers, which you don’t want to miss.

I used a stove top non stick griddle to cook the burgers. Sprayed the grill with non stick canola oil spray and placed the burgers on it. It took around 8 -10 minutes for one side. Let it cook completely on one side, don’t be in hurry and bother to turn them immediately, because it will lose it’s shape. After 8 minutes or so, slowly flip it over the other side and let it cook for another 7-8 minutes. For 2 cans of beans I got 8 medium size burgers.

For the buns, I used Arnold’s Select 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Thins. It is a mere 100 calories, with 6gm fiber and 5gm protein and it doesn’t taste like mulch also

We had our burgers on a bed of iceberg lettuce, grilled zucchini with a side of potato/sweet potato fries. (Ya I know, was trying to reproduce their original menu!)

Jai and Bee we loved them absolutely. Thank you very much for such an easy and healthy recipe. Your Recipe Rocks!

This is also my entry to Zlamushka’s Tried and Tasted event.

J and B’s Baked Plantain Chips has become yet another favorite in our house.  This is the 2nd time I’m making it.  Before knowing this recipe I used to find plantains everywhere but I never used to buy it because I did not not know what to do with it.  Then one day I found this recipe and believe me or not I couldn’t find plantains anywhere.  I did not take pictures the first time I made it, because my husband was snacking it away and actually we did not have anything left to be taken with rice.  This time I managed to take a picture before we could gobble them up.