Spring Pizza, Banana Muffins and Fresh Fruit Salad

This is my contribution to Meeta’s Monthly Mingle, Spring is in the air .
For this Spring event I made three recipes. one is with vegetables and the other two are with fruits.
The Banana muffin and fruit salad is also my contribution to Barbara’s blog event A taste of yellow . It is a Cancer awareness event. To read about this event or to donate for a good cause visit her blog.
The spring pizza is a lovely mini pizza with colorful veggies, topped with cheese.
The muffins are basically made of bananas and grated apples. These are “no egg muffins".
The Fruits are pampered with evaporated milk and sugar and is a great refreshing salad.

Spring Pizza

Ingredients
Square or round bagel bread
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped tomatoes
1 cup of chopped yellow, red, and green capsicum
Cheese spread
Tomato sauce or green chutney
Shredded cheese




Preparation
Cut open the bagels and top it with cheese spread, evenly. Above that add any kind of tomato ketchup or green chutney (find the recipe in previous post). I mix up both and add. Now top it with all the given veggies. Add shredded cheese and bake it for about 5-10 minutes at 350 degrees (preheated) just until the cheese melts above those veggies. Delicious, crunchy pizza is ready.




Banana Muffins

Ingredients

1 1/3 cup All purpose flour
½ cup sugar
1tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
3 large mashed bananas
½ cup grated apples
1-2 tbsp oil or butter
1/3 cup buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup chopped walnut
½ cup sweetened coconut


Preparation

Sift the flour. Blend all the dry ingredients and set aside. Mash the bananas, add oil or unsalted butter. Also add the buttermilk and vanilla extract. Combine this with the dry ingredients. Remember, stir until just mixed. Finally add grated apples, walnuts and sweetened coconut and fold them together.
Pour the mixture in to muffin pans and bake them at 350 degrees (preheated) for 35-40 minutes. They turn in to a beautiful golden brown color. Just insert a clean, dry knife into the muffin to see if it comes out clean. This means it’s done.

The same recipe goes for banana bread. Just that you have to use a bread tray.

I also made some fresh fruit salad with strawberries, green grapes, bananas and apples.To these I added evaporated milk and sugar. Yummy fruit salad is ready.

Palak Pakodis with Hot and Sweet Hari Chutney (green chutney)

I am very happy to contribute this recipe for JFI greens hosted by Indira of Mahanandi and
Nandita of Saffron Trail .

I had lot of recipes in mind. I wanted to make something with Gongura which is a famous green leafy vegetable in Andhra but it comes in stores only during the mid summers. When JFI greens was announced I bought almost all the greens from my near by Subzi mundi not sure what I might want to make.

The greens I used in Palak Pakodis are Palak, Curry leaves, and Kasuri methi.

The greens I used in Hari chutney are Mint and Cilantro. Now this is called maximum utilization of greens.

Ingredients for Palak Pakodis

1 cup Chopped Palak

1 cup Curry leaves (chopped or whole)

2tsp Kasuri methi

2 cups Gram flour (Besan)

1 cup chopped onions

1tsp Carom seeds (Ajwain)

Chilli powder

Salt

Water

Oil for frying

Preparation

Mix all the ingredients in water to make a thick batter, as it is usually done for Bajjis and pakodis. drop the mix very carefully with a spoon or hands in to hot oil so that they don’t fall apart and deep fry them until golden brown. Spoon was easy for me. Crispy, crunchy, pakodis are ready to go. The aroma of kasuri methi and Ajwain from the hot fried pakodis are divine.

Hari Chutney (green chutney)

Ingredients

2 cups mint

2 cups Cilantro

2-3 green chillies

Salt

Sugar or Jaggery

½ cup tamarind water

Preparation

Grind all the ingredients together. Depending on how thick or watery you want your chutney to be you can increase the amount of tamarind water. It’s the same with Jaggery or sugar. Lovely green chutney with breath taking aroma is ready.

Hot crispy pakodis dipped in this tangy green chutney is a great treat to go with tea.

My Green Photography!!

Taro Cutlets

Arbi (Hindi), Chama dumpa in(Telugu)
This is a very simple recipe to make and I enjoy having these crispy cutlets with rasam and rice. It goes really well with tangy rasam and plain rice.

Ingredients

Boiled Taro roots
Bread crumbs
Salt
Chilli powder
Oil

Preparation

Combine the bread crumbs with salt and chilli powder. I used Italian style bread crumbs which we get in stores. This has got all the seasonings. If that is not available you can add garam masala to plain bread crumbs. I pressure cooked the taro roots, you can also boil them in a vessel to make sure they don't get over cooked. Pressure cook them for two whistles. Coat the taro roots in the bread crumbs completely and then press them down flat into patty shapes so that they dont stick to your hands. Add oil to a flat frying pan or tava and place them gently in medium heat. Let them get crisp for 30 minutes on both sides. Add more oil to each side if required.
My mom used to make these for me. Taro roots cause a little itching in the throat, so if combined with tamarind rasam, this itching can be avoided. These crispy and crunchy cutlets are my childhood favorite.