Simple Lentil Soup with InstantPot

Sharing the recipe for a simple Lentil soup - very easy to make using an InstantPot

Ingredients:

Green Lentils - 1 cup
Water - 3 cups
Onion - 1
Garlic Pearls - 1-2
Carrots - 2
Celery - 2-3 stalks
Potatoes - 1
Tomatoes - 1

Black Pepper Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Italian seasoning - 1 tablespoon
Salt - 1 teaspoon

Cooking oil - 2 teaspoons

Steps:

Wash the Lentils with water in a small container
Wash all vegetables and chop the Onions, Carrots, Celery, Potatoes, Tomatoes - keep each separately
Fine dice the peeled Garlic pearls

Plug in and turn on your InstantPot
Press the 'saute' button

Add the 2 teaspoons of oil and let it heat for a minute

Add the chopped onions, garlic and fry for 2 minutes

Add all the remaining vegetables and mix together

Add the black pepper, salt, Italian seasoning and give a quick mix

Add 3 cups of water

Hit Cancel on the InstantPot

Pressure 'Pressure Cook' and adjust time to 12 minutes

Close the lid and ensure sealing mode

Come back in about 30 minutes or when the pressure has fully released

Enjoy your soup with any crackers, bread or toppings you like.

Tips & Substitutions:
a. 1 teaspoon salt is a starter, in the end adjust to your taste if you need more
b. If you want more spice adjust the black pepper quantity
c. If you do not want to cut vegetables - dump a small bag of frozen vegetables
d. You can substitute any of the vegetables you have at hand
e. If you do not have Italian seasoning, you can add basil, rosemary, oregano, parsely - just add 1/4 teaspoon each.
f. If you want the soup to be thinner, add little water to adjust the consistency

Onion Pakora

1 cup Gram flour (called besan in India)

1/4 cup rice flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Salt to taste

¼ teaspoon red chilly powder

One large onion chopped fine

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Optional – chopped green pepper (Serrano or Thai or find something milder)

One pinch Asafeotida (called Hing in Indian store)



Dry mix all above in a mixing bowl. Add about half cup water, mix it up. Add more water till we get to a thick mix.



Heat up cooking oil, after it is heated up use a tablespoon and drop the mix one TBSP at a time. Should be able to fry 4-6 TBSps at a time, make sure they don’t stick to one another.

Flip one side to other and fry till golden brown.



Enjoy with a chutney of your choice.

Chenai Puzhuku

Cut vegetables into cubes - following can be used
Mainly Chenai and one Raw Banana,

In a vessel add some water and add a pinch of turmeric powder and some curry leaves
Cook in a pressure cooker for 3-4 whistles. This will depend on your cooker to cook the Chenai

Take about 1 cup grated coconut, one teaspoon of cumin seeds, some green chillies, one red chilly and grind them coarse.

Add the ground mixture to the cooked vegetables, after 2-3 minutes add 1-2 Tablespoon of coconut oil and some more curry leaves.

No other garnishing is required.

Thengai Araicha Kuzhambu

Select either one vegetable or a variety

Single could be - okra (ladies finger) or white pumpkin, along with drumstick

Variety could include a mixture of vegetables -
Drumstick, White pumpkin, etc

Use small quantities of each vegetable and cut them as cubes

In a vessel add some water and cook the vegetables, add a pinch of turmeric powder and some curry leaves

When vegetables are reasonably cooked (dont want to cook too much to make them pasty - al dente should work) add small quantity TAMRIND extract juice. Let it cook together for couple of minutes. Adding the TAMRIND juice at first will make the vegetables tart.

Fry half teaspoon fenugreek seeds, couple of red chillies and add to 1 cup grated coconut and grind them coarse.

Add the ground mixture to the cooked vegetables, and cook for 2-3 minutes till it froths.

Garnish with mustard seeds tempered in oil

VARIATION: Along with fenugreek seeds and red chillies you can also add 1 teaspoon Urad dal and fry, This will give a different taste.

VARIATION: Add a little churned yoghurt - 2-3 Tablespoons after everything is complete and mix it up. Heating with the yoghurt will curdle

Aviyal recipe

This is the recipe from my mother.

Cut vegetables into long one inch pieces - following can be used
Carrot, Drumstick, White pumpkin, Raw Banana, green beans etc

Use small quantities of each vegetable

In a vessel add some water and cook the vegetables, add a pinch of turmeric powder and some curry leaves

When vegetables are reasonably cooked (dont want to cook too much to make them pasty - al dente should work) add small quantity TAMRIND extract juice. Let it cook together for couple of minutes. Adding the TAMRIND juice at first will make the vegetables tart.

Take about 1 cup grated coconut, one teaspoon of cumin seeds, some green chillies, one red chilly and grind them coarse.

Add the ground mixture to the cooked vegetables, after 2-3 minutes add 1-2 Tablespoon of coconut oil and some more curry leaves.

No other garnishing is required.

Awesome Whale watching

We took the Whale Watching trip from Anacortes using Island Adventures trip (www.orcawhales.com) It was a 5 star trip - awesome boat, very knowledgeable naturalist Tyson and Captain Scott. Free powerful binoculars to borrow, 3 decks on the boat to watch the whales, superb audio system and everything was so clean. We will take this trip again!

Here is a summary of the whale watching report published by them. We saw


The smoke has finally left the building folks!!! As we headed out today on our journey we began to enjoy clean air for the first time in weeks. There were blue skies all around and even mount Baker showed up today and gave us some amazing views. Our first stop was in Rosario strait where we saw a bunch of harbor seals and briefly spotted a Steller sea lion. From there we headed to the south end of Lopez and cruised by Castle rock. Here we found an adult bald eagle and a few more harbor seals. It was a great start of what would turn into a great day. Continuing west along Lopez and San Juan island captain Scott found the first whales of the day at Salmon Bank. It was BCY0160 “Heather” and BCY0458 “Raptor.” Two humpback whales that have been spotted in these waters for many years. They gave us amazing close up views and even fluked for us multiple times and even did it simultaneously once or twice. After an amazing show from these gargantuan whales we headed to Whale rocks just outside Cattle Pass. Here we found dozens of Steller sea lions hauled out on the shore enjoying our new sunshine levels. These sea lions were definitely of the bigger caliber making us feel pretty humble on the boat. We headed back to the east after that for an adventure under the Deception pass bridge. It was awesome cruising in and out of Deception Pass and with great weather we continued on our search toward Anacortes. On the backside of Burrows Island Captain Scott saved the day once again when he discover T65A3 and A4 playing around a fishing boat. We watched these two Biggs killer whales frolicking for quite some time. As we did we began to really see them get playful, their toy of choice, crab pot buoys. We watched as the younger orca would grab the crab pot line and pull it all around and finally let the buoy bob back to the surface.  We had some amazing looks at these two animals and got to see some very unique behaviors from them as well. It was an amazing trip on the Salish Sea today with lots of great animals and plenty of memories made!!!

Dosa/Idly Batter recipe

Dosa/Idly/idli/uthappam Batter:

This batter makes perfect batter for idly (day 1-2 after fermenting), Dosa Day 1-5 and Uthappam (day 1-5 after fermenting).

These measurements are for using a wet grinder. See notes on grinding with a mixer / grinder.

Ingredients:

Soak the following with water for 8 hours or overnight in separate containers. Add a half teaspoon of Fenugreek seeds with the Urad Dal.

3 cups - Idly rice or Ponni Boiled rice

1 cup - Raw rice (white Sona Masoori raw or Ponni Raw Rice)

1/2 cup - Urad Dal Gota

1/2 cup - Urad Dal Chilka (this is half broken Urad Dal with skin). This makes the batter really fluffy compared to using only Urad Gota fully.

If you dont have Urad Dal Chilka --> Use 1 cup of Urad Gota

If you use a mixer/grinder, use 1.25 cups of Urad Gota

 

1 cup dry Poha (flattened rice). Do not soak this.

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Wash the rice and dals and drain the water in their containers. Add water to the 1 cup poha now, till it soaks. Add this to the rice when grinding.

Grind the dal to a smooth paste adding water slowly. The paste will become fluffy and change to more lighter (or white color). Once done empty the paste to a larger vessel. You will be combining the rice paste as well to this - so pick a large enough container.

Next grind the rice and poha adding water slowly and 1.5 teaspoons salt. Grind till a smooth or fine rava (sooji) consistency.

Tip: Fine paste is good for Dosa, fine rava (sooji) consistency is good for idli.

Mix the rice paste to the dal and mix it well. Use your hands to make the batter fluffy. Add water for right consistency.

Heat your oven to 200 F. Place your container with dal and rice covered in the oven and heat for 10 minutes. Switch OFF the oven and let it rise over night or 12 hours.

You can also pour your batter in an instant Pot and hit the yoghurt button. 

If the fermentation is excess, the batter can overflow. In the oven you can keep a bigger plate below your pot.

Once the batter has risen you can make idly, dosa or Uttappam. Idly is best made the day after grinding when the batter has risen.

Note: You can use the same recipe by cutting the quantities into half including salt!

Enjoy!