Whole Wheat Pita Chips

Every cuisine has its own variety of bread. Though I was used to Indian breads like Roti, Poori, Chapathi, Paratha, Naan, Kulcha I did not know there are so many other breads. My knowledge of non-Indian breads were limited to white and brown (wheat) breads until I came to know about many other varieties like foccacia, ciabatta, brioche.. well the list is endless. Being a hardcore foodie and a passionate food blogger I love to explore other cuisines and try out the dishes whenever I can. It was one fine day when I tried these Home made Pita Bread from Denny's space. May be I did something wrong with the measurements the first time, the dough was very loose and wasn't perfect. The next time I tried, the Pita came out perfect but it was the chips that was too thick and hard. Apparently I hadn't separated the layers before slicing to bake chips. And as they say "third time's the charm", this time both my bread and chips came out perfectly. The process is little intensive but when you taste these homemade beauties they are worth the effort.

For the Pita Bread
Ingredients:
Yield - 8
Whole wheat flour - 3 cups
Salt - 1 1/2 tsp
Extra virgin Olive oil - 1 1/2 tbsp + more for brushing
Honey - 1 tsp (can substitute sugar)
Active dry yeast - 1 pkt (approx 2 1/4 tsp)
Water - 1 1/2 cups

Method:
Whisk the flour and salt together. Add 1 1/2 tbsp of olive oil and mix together until it is well incorporated. Heat 1/2 cup of water until lukewarm. Add honey and the yeast. Mix and set aside to proof the yeast. When the yeast is frothy add this yeast mixture to the flour and knead to form a dough using the remaining water. Use water as needed to form a smooth pliable dough. Coat another bowl with oil and place the dough ball (coated with oil) and cover. Set aside in a draft-free space to rise. I set aside for 2 hours to fully rise to double the original volume.

When risen, punch down and form equal sized balls out of the dough. Cover with a damp cloth and set aside again to proof for 15 mins. Place a cookie sheet inside the oven in the center rack and preheat it to 500 F. In a rolling board, place one dough ball and roll to form a flat bread (about 6" diameter). Transfer to a plate and cover with damp kitchen towel until other balls are rolled out. Repeat for other balls. When the oven is heated, place one rolled out bread and bake for about 3 to 5 minutes or until puffed. Remove carefully with tongs and brush with some olive oil. Allow it to cool slightly before being served. Can be served as pita bread or pita pockets for falafel.
Notes for Pita Bread:
You may or may not need 1 1/2 cups of water. Use as required.
For good leavening, allow the dough to rise 3 times. One as a whole dough ball, second, after making small balls when the oven is preheating. Third, After rolling out the bread (a couple of minutes is good).

To make Pita Chips
Ingredients:
Serves - 2
Pita Bread - 2
Olive oil - 2 tbsp
Salt & pepper - to taste

Method: 
Preheat the oven to 400 F / 200 C. Line a cookie sheet with aluminium foil. When the bread is still warm cut it into two and gently pull apart the cut part to form a pita pocket. Use a knife to separate the pockets. Cut into wedges. One pita bread can be made as 16 or 12 wedges. Coat the wedges with oil, salt and pepper. Transfer to the cookie sheet and arrange so that the wedges do not overlap. Bake for 10-15 mins until slightly golden and crisp. Serve warm or in room temperature with hummus or any dip of your choice.
Sending this to Nayna's Flavours of Greece event; Made with Love Mondays; Swathi's Favorite Recipes event.

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Chapathi Upma | Upma Recipes

This one is not much of a recipe per se, but an idea for a quick and healthy snack with leftover chapathi. If you want a colorful and healthy makeover for otherwise regular chapathi try this one. I also have another makeover recipe for chapathi which I will post soon. Now for the recipe.

Ingredients:
Leftover chapathi - 4
Onion - 1 cup - chopped fine
Green Bellpepper/Capsicum - 1/2 of a big one, any quantity of fresh vegetables can be added to make this dish more colorful and nutrient rich
Tomato - 1/2 - chopped fine
Oil - 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dhal - 1/2 tsp
Chana dhal - 1/2 tsp
Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp or to taste
Salt - to taste
Curry leaves - few (optional)

Method:
To reheat leftover Chapathi:
Wrap the chapathi in a wet kitchen towel and microwave for about 30 secs to a minute. Hot fresh chapathis ready.
Cut or tear the chapathi into small pieces. In a kadai heat oil and splutter the mustard seeds. Add urad dhal, chana dhal, curry leaves and onion. Saute until the onions turn soft and add the bell peppers. Fry for about a minute and add the chopped tomatoes with chilli powder and a pinch of salt. When the tomatoes are almost cooked add the cut chapathi pieces and mix until the vegetable mixture coats well on the chapathi. Serve hot for evening snack.

Sending this to Srivalli’sKid’s Delight event hosted by Pavani.

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Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is an entry from my oven after a long time. I hadn't been baking much lately due to pregnancy. Now that my LO is here I am planning to experiment more in baking (with his "schedule" permitting me of course). I made these little drop cookies to finish the leftover bananas on my fruits basket. With this scorching summer banana gets to over-ripe very fast, don't you agree? I followed this recipe from Namitha's space.

Ingredients:
Wheat flour - 1/2 cup
All purpose flour/Maida - 1/2 cup
Quick cooking oats/Rolled oats- 3/4 cup
Cinnamon powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - a pinch
Butter (room temperature) - 1 stick or 1/2 cup
Light Brown sugar / Granulated sugar - 1/2 cup
Mashed banana - 1/2 cup (1 big)
Egg - 1
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Chocolate chips - 1/2 cup

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F/175 C. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Sieve/mix together the flours, oats, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Set aside. Whisk the butter and sugar until light and fluffy using a whisk or hand mixer. Add the egg, mashed banana and vanilla extract and mix well. Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture and fold until mixed. Use a rounded 1 tbsp to measure the dough and drop into the cookie sheet. Place the dough two inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes are until light brown. Remove from the oven and let it cool in the cookie sheet for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. These cookies also tastes good when warm.

Sending these scrumptious cookies to the following events.
Let's Party - Go Bake It;
Taste of the Tropics - Cinnamon;
SYF&HWS - Cinnamon of Anu;
Lets cook with Fruits;
Bake Fest #10;
Bake Along Challenge: Bananas;

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Wheat Halwa / Tirunelveli Halwa for Indian Cooking Challenge (ICC) / Godhuma Halwa step by step | Diwali Sweets Recipes

The chosen dish for this month's Indian Cooking Challenge is Wheat Halwa/Tirunelveli Halwa. This is my first month of participation and I am truly excited about the challenge. ICC is all about traditional cooking and trying out Indian cultural recipes. In this fast moving world, we all have traditional cooking mostly only in our memories. Every month a traditional recipe from different regions of India is chosen and we, the ICC participants try to recreate the recipe. I joined ICC with an interest of learning the traditional recipes. This month's recipe is Wheat Halwa / Godhumai Halwa / Tirunelveli Halwa. I have watched grandma make this tasty halwa at home but never really cared to learn the proportions, except of course help her stirring. When Srivalli announced the challenge, she gave a option of 3 recipes to choose from for wheat halwa. I chose Lathaji's recipe. I was really happy to start the ICC journey with a favorite sweet and tried to get step-by-step pictures. And, oh was I overly enjoyed and in high spirits when I made this halwa and we purely enjoyed it.
I had a tough time hunting for whole wheat berries in Indian stores and local groceries but managed to find it in Whole Foods Market.

Ingredients:
Using standard US measurement cups
Soaking time: 8 hrs; 
Pre-preparation (grinding): 45 mins;
Milk setting time: 2 hrs;
Stirring time: 1 hr;
Setting and cooling time: 30 mins;
Wheat berries - 3/4 cup + 1 tbsp
Sugar - 2 cups
Ghee - 1 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp
Orange Food Color - a pinch
Cashewnuts - broken - 1 tbsp - if using
You also need:
A heavy bottomed vessel
A ladle with a rounded handle, easy to hold and stir
A lot of patience and perseverance.. :)

Method:
Extracting the Wheat milk:
Soak the wheat berries in water for 8 to 10 hours. I soaked it overnight. Grind the berries in a wet grinder or a mixie with 1 cup of water. After 10 mins, take the ground wheat and filter the milk using a sieve. This is first milk. Keep aside undisturbed. Return the fibrous wheat to the grinder and add 1/2 cup of water. After 10 mins, repeat the filtering process and keep this second milk in a separate bowl. Repeat the process again for third milk and then discard the wheat fiber. 

Set this 3 bowls with milk undisturbed, covered in a draft free place. After 2 hours, the thick milk would have settled in the bottom. Carefully scoop out all the water on the top of the three bowls (second image below) and discard the water. Mix milk in all the three bowls.

Getting prepared for the Halwa stirring:
Before you start with the stirring process make sure that you have the ingredients handy and set on easy reach. I made sure I have laid out the food color, cardamom and greased the plate with ghee (for setting and making pieces). A backup person to help stirring is appreciated. DH was of great help in stirring and taking step-wise pictures.
Shall we start:
In a heavy bottomed vessel (I used a pressure cooker), mix sugar with water and heat on med-high flame until it boils. Now add food color and reduce the heat to medium. Keep stirring and check every minute for the consistency of the syrup. Touch the syrup with your index finger (Caution it would be hot) and press with thumb. It should be sticky and when released, there should be a thick string between the fingers. Achieving the string consistency of the sugar syrup would take about 10 - 15 mins from start to finish.

When this consistency is reached, reduce heat to medium-low, add the wheat milk and keep stirring continuously. Do not dare to stop stirring as the milk will tend to settle at the bottom. Stir continuously until it thickens slightly. Add the cardamom powder and 1 tbsp of ghee. Keep stirring continuously with the long spoon adding ghee in tbsp measurements in equal intervals of time. I used up about little less than a cup of ghee. After stirring for about 20 - 30 minutes, you would see that the halwa becomes glossy, comes together and it no longer sticks to the bottom. This indicates that it is done (as in the fourth pic below).

Set and Cut:
Transfer the halwa to the greased plate and allow it to cool and set for about 30 minutes to an hour. Cut into desired shapes and serve garnished with your favorite nuts. This recipe yielded me 14 pieces of 2" squares.

Enjoy your favorite sweet - homemade - just like grandma's preparation!!

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Ragi Kaara Biscuits / Finger Millet Savory Cookies

Ragi or Finger Millet is a very healthy wholegrain rich is amino acids, protein and fibre. In India, Ragi is a widely used grain made into rotis, dosas, idlis, porridges (koozh), mudde and puttu. It is consumed for its wholesome goodness and it is a great energy producer. Being so good for health it is sometimes not desirable for the palate. But as you know all that is healthy can absolutely be made tasty too. And here comes the healthy and tasty ragi savory cookies. 

Ingredients:

Recipe adapted from Shanavi's space
Ragi flour / Finger Miller flour - 3/4 cup
Wheat flour - 3/4 cup
Sugar - 1 tbsp
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Salt - 3/4 tsp
Butter - 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp (or margarine/shortening)
Plain Yogurt - 3 tbsp
Green chillies - 3 or 4 - chopped fine
Basil leaves - from 4 twigs - chopped fine (Can use any herb like mint/cilantro/parsley)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 400F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Sieve the flours, sugar, salt and baking powder. Whisk the butter until light and add the chopped green chillies, basil and yogurt. Add the flour mixture slowly, while still running the hand mixer on low speed. When it comes together, knead to a soft dough with your hands. Divide the dough into 4 parts. Flour a board and roll the dough to a 1/4" thickness. Use a cookie cutter to cut into desired shape. Transfer to the cookie sheet and place with 1/2 " distance. Repeat for the rest of the dough. Bake the cookies for 15 to 20 mins or until the edges are brown. Mine took 18 mins. Transfer to a cooling rack. When cooled, store in an air tight container. Perfect accompaniment for tea/coffee.

Sending these scrumptious and delicious cookies to Kiran's Cooking with Whole Foods-Finger Millet event hosted by Denny of Oh Taste N See, Healing Foods - Whole Grains event by Siri guest hosted by Simona, Let's Cook - Breaktime Snacks event by Radhika and to Only - Baked event by Pari guest hosted by Harini-Jaya of Tamalapaku.

Also sending my Ragi Dosa to CWF - Ragi and Healing Foods - Whole grains event

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Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins (Eggless)

Are you searching for a healthy and tasty oatmeal muffin which is eggless, butter-less, and low in sugar? Here it is. I wanted to make something different for breakfast, but didn't really want to miss my regular oatmeal. So I whipped up this quick and easy muffins with my instant flavored oatmeal packets at hand. The whole batch was ready in 30 mins, this includes the preparation and baking time. This muffin is comparatively healthier than the regular muffins and definitely would not add on to your muffin top. Taken with a glass of Orange juice and fresh fruits it makes a complete and satisfying breakfast.

Ingredients:
For 6 regular muffins
Wheat flour/Atta flour - 1/2 cup
Baking powder - 1-1/2 tsp 
Salt - 1/8 tsp
Instant Oatmeal - Apple Cinnamon flavor - 2 packets - approx - 3/4 cup
Canola oil - 2 tbsp
Light brown sugar - 2 tbsp (firmly packed)
1 tbsp flax seed meal + 3 tbsp water (replace with 1 egg if using)
Milk - 1/2 cup (room temperature)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 375F/190 C. Mix the wheat flour, baking powder, oatmeal and salt well with a sieve or whisk. In a small bowl, mix the flax seed meal and water and set aside for 5 minutes. Add milk to flax meal mixture. Whisk oil and sugar together and add the milk mixture. Add the sieved in flour-oatmeal mixture slowly. Whisk until it is just mixed and do not over-mix. Pour into the lined muffin pans (until three-fourth) and fill in any empty muffin cups half-way with water. Reduce the oven's temperature to 350 F/175 C and bake for 18-20 mins until done. Serve warm or store in an air-tight box for a couple of days.
Tip: You could use 1 egg in the place of the flaxseed meal. Since I was trying to replace my breakfast oatmeal I did some healthy replacements. I used flaxseed meal because it has half the amount of calories in one egg and 8% of daily requirement of dietary fiber, most important for breakfast. I used oil for butter for it is low in saturated fat than butter. You could use skim milk instead of regular milk. I used the one with 2% milk fat.
If using unflavored oatmeal increase sugar to 4 tbsp.

Sending these super-easy light muffins to WWC-Spelt/Oats for Breakfast event by Sanjeeta guest hosted by Heather of Girlichef and to Nithu's Quick & Easy Recipe Mela and also to Let's Cook - Break Time Snacks event by Radhika.

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Dhal Chapathi | Roti Paratha Recipes

Chapathi with dhal is an usual combo, but using cooked dhal in chapathi itself, not very usual. The other day I had some cooked moong dhal, leftover from doing Sago Upma (recipe coming soon) and wanted to put a best use of it. It was too little to go as a side dish and so I added it directly to the wheat flour to make chapathis. I added onions and chilli powder to spice it up and I loved this quick and easy chapathi. Makes a great breakfast or a lunch box recipe.

Ingredients:
Whole Wheat flour/Atta flour - 2 cups
Moong dhal (cooked) - 1/2 cup
Onion - chopped fine - 3/4 cup
Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Cumin powder - a big pinch
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Oil - 2 tbsp

Method:
Boil moong dhal with 2 cups of water and a pinch of salt until soft but firm. Heat 1 tsp of oil and add the onion. Saute until transparent and add chilli powder, cumin powder and salt and saute for 2 mins. Add the onion mixture and cooked dhal to the wheat flour. Sprinkle water and knead to a soft dough. Coat with little oil and set aside for 30 mins. Take golf ball sized dough and roll to thin chapathis. Heat a hot tawa and place the rolled out chapathis and cook on both sized sprinkling oil. Serve hot with any curry of your choice or just yogurt and pickle.

Sending this to Srivalli's Breakfast Mela.

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Quinoa Savory Pancakes

I know I cannot be so late in posting something for the Breakfast Club event I am hosting this month, but better late than never. I was planning to make some fruity pancakes, but thought why not something savory. After all my DH loves pancakes though he is not a big fan of sweet dishes. So decided to make it savory by adding onions, spinach and one of my recent discovery - Quinoa. I was quite skeptical about quinoa until I cooked and tasted some. And wow I did like it for its nutty texture.

Ingredients:
Quinoa - cooked - 3/4 cup
Wheat flour - 1/4 cup
All-purpose flour - 1/4 cup
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp or to taste
Pepper - to taste
Oil - 1 tbsp
Onion - finely chopped - 1/4 cup
Spinach leaves - a few - chopped
Milk - 1/3 cup or more based on how thin/thick your pancakes should be
Egg - 1
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp(optional)

Method:
Wash and cook quinoa with with twice the amount of water in a saucepan in medium heat for 15-20 mins until soft. Here is my tip for quick cooking of quinoa. I pressure cooked it with twice the amount of water for 3 whistles. Voila! Done in less than 15 mins.
Whisk together the flours, baking powder, salt and pepper, followed by the cooked (cooled) quinoa. Beat the egg until frothy and add in the vanilla. Heat oil in a small saucepan and add the onions and fry until transparent followed by the spinach. Saute until the leaves wilt and add the mixture to the quinoa mixture. Add the beaten egg and milk and mix to form a batter. Heat a pan and spray some oil and pour 1/4 cup of batter and allow it to spread on its own. Maintain a medium heat on the pan. After a minute flip and cook for some more time. Serve hot with a pat of butter or a drizzle of maple syrup.

Sending these Quinoa savory pancakes to the Wholesome Wholegrain Cooling - Quinoa event by Sanjeeta guest hosted by Denny of Oh Taste N See and to Only - Fusion recipes event by Pari guest hosted by Priya of Now Serving and to Srivalli's Breakfast Mela. 
This also goes to Breakfast Club - Pancakes event by Helen of Fuss Free Flavours, happening here this month.

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