TGIF! TGIF! 
Finally, the end of a hectic week!! And to end it on a high note, I am making quinoa+oats idli and sambar for dinner tonight. Plenty of left overs from yesterday and today which could be reused over the weekend! 

Quinoa + Oats Idli:

Take 1 cups oats and 1.5 cups quinoa and mix them with 1 cup yogurt. Add a couple of pinches of baking soda (optional). I add grated ginger, chillies, grated carrot, roasted nuts of some kind(small pieces) and some seasoning with mustard seeds and jeera. Add salt to taste. Your batter is now ready. Cook it like you would make idlis. Once you turn the heat off let the idlis cool for a bit before you serve them. The catch to getting perfect idlis is to not have a lot of moisture in your batter - else oats will become too sticky.

Sambar:
Pressure cook toor dal and any veggies you find in your refrigerator (butternut squash, mango, tomatoes, mixed veggies) until done
Transfer them to a hard bottomed deep vessel and add a cup of water
Boil the mixture until it reaches your desired consistency
Add salt, sambar powder and let it cook some more
When you are about to take it off the stove, season it with mustard, jeera, asafetida, garlic, red chillies. 

Thursday - that time of the week when frustrations start spilling over and the wait for the weekend begins. I prefer to keep something yummy for Thursdays. Today I made the cabbage and peas curry and also made Kolhapuri egg masala.
Cabbage and Peas Curry:
Shredded green cabbage from TJs
Fresh English peas from TJs
Ginger
Rasam powder (since V cannot handle the spiciness from red chilli powder)
Jeera powder

Heat oil in a wok. Season with mustard and jeera. Add shredded cabbage and let it sauté.
Meanwhile boil the peas in the microwave for about 90sec. Once the raw smell from the cabbage is gone, add grated ginger and peas. Add some salt to taste, turmeric and about a tea spoon of jeera powder and let it cook until done. Eat this with rotis or as sandwich in bread.

Kolhapuri egg masala: I followed Sanjeev kapoor's recipe as this is the first time I made it. 

It's Wednesday - it means a one pot meal for my little family.
Ingredients:
Green capsicum - 2 - diced into small pieces (do this on Sunday so you have it ready for the weekday craziness)
Mint -  handful
Ginger garlic paste (1/2 tea spoon) - I make this fresh on Sundays enough for the week
Brown basmati rice - 2 cups
Heat oil in a wok.
Add biryani spices( star anise, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom pods) and fry for a minute
Add cut capsicum to the oil and fry it
After about 5 mins, add chopped mint and ginger garlic paste
Mix it for a couple of mins
Add brown rice and roast for another 3-4 mins
Transfer it to the rice cooker and cook it
Note: I have a timer cooker by Sanyo that I bought on Amazon. This is such a life saver, I should say and an essential tool in the kitchen for all working moms. Basically you add all your ingredients to the vessel and set the timer for when you want your food ready. Say, I set it for 6:10pm in the evening and it's brown rice, it turns on at 5:30 and finishes cooking by the time you come back home.
That's it for today peeps! Have a good one!!

Tuesday's dinner:

We lovingly call this power meal as green paste rice (coined by V when he was three years old)
2 bags of any greens. I use the power of greens from Trader Joe's. It contains baby kale, baby chard, baby spinach.
A handful of coriander seeds
Two red chillies
Two garlic cloves
A half teaspoon of tamarind paste
In a wok heat a tea spoon of oil(olive oil is fine too). When the oil is hot, add red chillies and roast them. Add the coriander seeds and garlic cloves and roast for a couple of minutes. Remove them from the wok and add the greens to the same wok and sauté for a couple of minutes (you don't want to kill the goodness so sauté only until they shrivel a little).
Grind the coriander seeds, garlic, red chillies first and when they are made into a fine powder, add the greens along with the tamarind paste and salt to taste.
Eat this with rice, idly or as a spread on bread.
Boil an egg or make an omlete and it completes the meal.
Enjoy!

This week's menu
- Cauliflower with egg (rotis)
- green chutney (brown rice)
- capsicum pulao (quinoa)
- cabbage + green peas + potato (rotis)
- oats + quinoa idly with sambar
- pasta with chicken meatballs
- eat out!!!

Groceries:

Trader joes has cauliflower florets, chopped green cabbage,  peas, chopped onions etc. I always bring these as they help me save some chopping time.
Cauliflower with egg:
Heat a tea spoon of oil in a wok
Season with mustard seeds and jeera
Safe onions until they are translucent
Add turmeric
Pulse cauliflower florets in a food processor a couple of times
Add cauliflower to the wok and keep mixing
Add salt, chilli powder, grated ginger
Sprinkle a little water and put the lid on
Mix occasionally.
When the cauliflower is almost cooked, beat a couple of eggs into it (like egg Bhurji)
Add Garam masala and let the egg cook.
Turn off the heat when done.

Since I became a mom, every time I meet my girlfriends , our primary topic of conversation has been how do you do it all? Specifically, what do you cook for your family? How do you manage to not burn yourself in the process and still feed a decent and nutritious meal to the family? More often than not, I think we women are our worst enemies and worst judges of our accomplishments. This blog is to capture what I am cooking for my little family which includes my 7yr old who is a borderline picky eater. All he loves to eat is Mac n cheese. He dislikes fruit with a passion, doesn't eat any snacks at all!! No chips , no cookies nada. Yah, I am happy about it except when we are on the road and he won't eat anything for hours!! 

Anyway, I digress - so back to the blog - I am going to post what my weekly menu is going to be and how I execute it . Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section.