Easy gravies for fast cooking – Coconut gravy

Morning times are busy times. Having to cook for the family, getting ready for work, getting your LOs ready for their school, packing 3-4 different lunch boxes whew!! Sometimes I wonder if we start our days so busy and packed, won’t we carry fatigue all through the day. Well let me not put too many thoughts in that calm seeking mind of yours.

But the fact is, in this ever demanding mornings your kids still expect you to create something magical for lunch boxes. After all you are super mom! I have some easy Indian gravies (sauce for main course dishes) which you can make over the weekend and use it for 2-3 days when stored in the fridge.

1) Coconut gravy

Can be used for a mixed vegetable dish. Or solo curry dishes. Will work for plantain, carrot, snake gourd, bottle gourd, drumsticks, brinjal (aubergine), cabbage, potatoe and many more.

Serves 4 when you add 1/2 KG vegetables into the gravy.
Take 1 whole coconut flesh, 5-6 green chillies, and 1/2 small cup jeera seeds (caraway seeds).
Blend them in a mixer until smooth paste.
Add water as and when required.

Adding salt is optional as you can also add salt while adding vegetables to the gravy.

To cook;
In your pan add 4-5 tsp oil.
Add tempering.
Add the gravy and cook for 5 minutes.
Add water to increase quantity.
Add steamed vegetable(s) and cook for 10 minutes.
Add salt to taste.

Your coconut gravy curry is ready. In the Indian state Kerala, similar gravy curry is extensively made. The dish is popularly known as Aviyal and is a huge favourite of not just Malayalis but many Indians.

Easy gravies for fast cooking – Onion tomato gravy

Onion tomato gravy is probably one of the most popular for most wet and main course dishes in India. It’s used in Rajma (Kidney beans) curry primarily but can be used with a host of other vegetables too.

This is very easy too and can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days and used more than twice.

Ingredients:

1) 3-4 onions chopped

2) 2-3 tomatoes chopped

3) 4-5 green chillies chopped

4) 1 TBS chopped ginger

5) 7-8 garlic cloves

6) 1 tsp Dhaniya(Cilantro, Coriander) powder

In your pan;

• Add 4-5 tsp oil and heat.
• Add ginger, garlic, green chillies to sautee for 2-3 minutes.
• Add Onion and saute for 3-4 minutes.
• Add tomatoes and saute for 3 minutes.
• Finally add Dhaniya powder, turn the flame off and leave it for 2 minutes.

Let the ingredients cool for sometime. Blend them in the mixer until smooth paste.

To cook:

• In the pan heat 4-5 tsp oil.
• Add the paste and cook for 5 minutes.
• Add 1. small cup water and let it simmer.
• Add any steamed vegetable and cook for 5 minutes before turning the flame off.

Most popular vegetables to add to this gravy are Brinjal, Potatoe, Ladies finger, Bottle gourd, and baby potatoes.

Pineapple Jam Smoothie

Hello there, here’s a little fun recipe, easy to make, seconds away smoothie.
Ingredients:

Quarter Pineapple – Chopped in small cubes

Mixed fruit jam (Or any of your personal flavor) – 2 tablespoons

Sugar – 1 tea spoon

Frozen/chilled yoghurt – 2.5 tablespoons

Milk cream – 2 teaspoon

Honey – According to taste or 1 tea spoon

Ice – Few cubes

Pineapple cream and mint to garnish

Add all the above ingredients excepting Pineapple cream and mint to the blender. Let it mix for 3-4 minutes. Check in between to see if Pineapple has pulped enough. Pour the juice into a glass. Add Pineapple squeeze to the top and place mint leaves to garnish.

This is really quick and comes out in a pale pink colour (because of the mix fruit jam) which is pretty to look at. To minimize the levels of sweetness you can do away with sugar and restrict Jam to one table spoon.

This also gives you the luxury to add other fruits like apple, pears or grapes. Try to avoid banana as banana has the tendency to dominate every other taste. If banana is a favourite you can replace the fruit and keep the other ingredients as it is.

Zomato – What I like about you and what you can do better!!

Ever since Zomato announced that it needed feedback to upgrade and was willing to give away an Ipad for the most constructive feedback, I’ve been so excited. To see what I like, I first browsed through your entire site, that’s exactly what you asked us to do!!

What I like most;

1) Featured User reviews: Ofcourse, this is the live wire of your site. People visit your site to read which restaurant is offering good food. Your user reviews are the most valuable asset of your site.

2) Your Blog section: I like your blog sections. You’ve tried to add a lot of useful information and your experiences which make the blog section a good read.

3) Newsletter CRUNCH: You keep your newsletter updated which is what I like. I read the Chefspeaks article and liked it. I always like to listen to great chefs and understand how they feel about flavours.

Here’s what I didn’t like;

Your open spat with your competitor. I understand you may have 100 issues with anyone. Just because you have the internet and because there are no rules to web journalism doesn’t mean you will wash your dirty linen in the open. Honestly why would your visitors care if someone is copying your listings. It’s your problem, deal with it and don’t make it my headache.

What you can add;

1) When a user wins the review contest, try and give the meal vouchers of the restaurant they wrote a review for. It’s a whole different delight. The restaurant will also be able to feature this customer and send you snaps of the visit. This will increase the number of people wanting to write reviews.

2) Add thumbprint pictures of the restaurants featuring in your website. Similarly let your users also be able to upload their pictures.

3) In your CRUNCH section introduce Chef’s favourite recipes sections. Make sure the Chef gives a rather simple recipe of what he likes. Your users should be tempted to try this at home and send you feedback with pictures preferably. Also add tips from the Chef.

4) Ask restaurant owners to list top 3 popular dishes from their menu. Ask them to provide MONTHLY DISH COUPON in your site giving a 10%-20% off on those dishes alone. When a customer visits their restaurant they should have the MONTHLY DISH COUPON printed or have the coupon name/number.

5) For similar starred restaurants compare prices and publish them on the site. Let the customers know what they are paying for.

6) If a user writes a bad review for a restaurant, contact restaurant owners and let them know. Coax them to understand the complaint and make changes accordingly. If a restaurant does listen to you and make changes, publish it as a success story and encourage visitors to visit the restaurant.

7) If you are not doing this already, pick up an orphanage for a social cause. Instead of commuting food to the orphanage, coax huge restaurant owners for a dinner or lunch in their restaurants for these kids at least once in every 6 months. Publish your cause for everyone to read.

I like your website, and feel you can do a great deal in helping improve restaurant conditions all over India. Most of them charge a bomb and let pests eat along with us at tables.

Susmita Vavilala

www.greatlivingtips.com