'Mushroom-Baby Corn Stir Fry’- A Quick Food- Healthy & Yummy

     Hi, here is a quick dish simple and yummy! You just need a vegetable and a Fungus, I mean the Mushroom, stir fry with little spice and condiments ... Voila ! You have a tasty and filling meal in a jiffy!

     People around the world including our state collected natural grown mushrooms after rains, as they were a delicacy. As a student of Agriculture, we were taught about the edible Fungi, known as Mushrooms. But only during mid 70 ies I have tasted them in soups. Those days’ button mushrooms were available only as a canned product. Oyster (Pleurotus) Mushroom made an entry in the eighties around Coimbatore and other plains and was instantly become popular. Only in the last decade the Button (Agaricus) mushrooms are seen in many supermarkets and vegetable shops in India.

     Mushroom and Baby corns are in fact exotic in origin. Button Mushrooms available in supermarkets are the cultivated edible ones containing essential B-vitamins, minerals and fibre. Baby corns are good source of dietary fibre, carotenoides, sugar and protein.

Ingredients

1.       White Button Mushroom – 250g

2.       Baby corns- 10 no / 150g

3.       Small onion/ shallot -4 or Onion– 1 no - finely chopped 

4.       Garlic cloves- 5 no -diced

5.       Ginger – 1 cm cube finely chopped

6.       Mint leaves- 12-15

7.       Coriander leaves finely chopped– 50g or Handful

8.       Green Chilly- one

9.       Cumin seeds- Half Tea spoon

10.   A tea spoon of cooking oil or one spoon of butter

11.   Pepper corns –5-6 pounded.

12.   Salt to taste- 2 to 3g

Preparation (5- minutes)

Always wash and clean the mushrooms of any soil. Dice the mushroom as half or quarter as per the size. Cut the baby corn in to four long slices. Add oil or butter to the frying pan; heat it on a medium flame. Add the cumin and fry followed by onion, garlic, chilliy and ginger. Fry them for a minute or two with a pinch of salt. Now toss in the finely chopped mint and coriander leaves; fry them for a minute more. Now add the mushroom and baby corn stir fry them adding the required salt. The water in the mushroom will start coming out and will be sufficient to cook them both. Cover the pan with lid for a while to cook partially. Then toss them to remove the excess moisture. A good aroma will tell you that the dish is ready! Sprinkle the pounded pepper and finish the dish. Make sure the mushroom and corn are rightly cooked and should be crunchy when tasted.

Now the delicious yet filling dish is ready as a main course!

Still it can turn into a good side dish too. One can role it in a chapathy or make a sandwich with bread. Also can accompany with a bowl of steamed Rice for a sumptuous meal ! 

 I recommend this to our children who are in different corners of the world; pursuing their higher education; always hard pressed for time to cook a decent meal! Instead of falling again for a fast food, I wish they try this Quick filler!

I hope my nieces and nephews will mail me back after trying it!

Tossed Bread with Egg & Vegetables - My Culinary Escapades!!

                                          “Egg and Vegetable Bread Toss”

After few days of intense Landscape designing on my computer and with aching neck and stiff back; what better way to relax yielding to the call of the Kitchen!

Good recipes as they say strike at the spur of the moment! All the more if, you are hungry and have to stir out something fast for the morning breakfast, and you realize that your culinary grey cells (is there a part of the brain identified with culinary skills?) switch instantly to the overdrive mode and throws up amazing ideas!!

Well it happened to me today; when I entered the kitchen as my better half left me fending for myself and was enjoying her bath. There were four slices of brown bread and a noodles packet welcomed me and I could have gone for the easy way out with them. The moment I saw few cut vegetable left by my wife, Bingo! I had a solution right there!

Why not vegetables and bread tossed together! I mean literally! And it didn’t take me long; in fact seven minutes exact to cook up this idea with whatever I could find in our kitchen!

India has adopted bread in various forms like bread channa, bread uppma, bread bajji etc. Now here is one more simple meal out of it!

Ingredients: (what I found in my hurry)

1.   One cup of finely grated cabbage

2.   Two baby corns chopped

3.   Two cloves of garlic.

4.   One  small green chilly chopped finely (if only you like spicy food)

5.   A pinch of cumin/ few pepper corns

6.   One table spoon of oil

7.   Hand full of chopped Spring onion leaves

8.   Four slices of Brown bread cut into one inch squares

9.   One egg beaten with a pinch turmeric.

10. Coriander leaves and slices of cheese for garnishing   

Once the oil in the kadai is heated up, I added the cumin. After the splutter I have added the chilly, garlic and spring onion and stir fried them for a minute. Then chopped vegetables were added, and lightly fried them for two minutes adding a pinch of salt.

The bread pieces were added and tossed them well for a minute. Finally I poured the beaten egg and added one pinch pounded of pepper and tossed them well. The egg gets soaked in the bread and the stirring helps the pieces not binding them together.

Now it is ready for serving! Garnish it with chopped coriander leaves and pieces of Cheese. Any sauce or chutney will go with it.

 I had a sumptuous breakfast, filling yet healthy too! The brown bread/ whole wheat bread becomes more tasty and healthy when combines with the crunchy vegetables. I like spicy stuff and hence the green chili and pepper corns while the garlic, cumin and egg gave the inviting aroma.

Children will love it (without chilly of course) and working couples can make it in a jiffy. You can always try some variations to suit your taste. Enjoy then !!  

Say ' Welcome Back'

 
I saw this video clip send by my friend, and enjoyed every moments of it- the surprise, the joy and happiness felt by the recipients and the performers at the air port.
Well it conveyed many a things to me.
Lets face it..
We, our friends, relatives, employees, employer.....or spouse or children....well everybody makes mistakes, errs, misunderstand others, judge their motives, scared of  what others do....
In our life we have time for every thing except to show true Love, compassion or felt sorry to near and dear whenever it matters!!
We are not inanimate but are emotional beings, hence susceptible for all our misgivings !!
Time is running away but Life is short.
Let us Break our egos and embrace humanity!!

Welcome back our friendship, relationship.
Welcome back empathy and LOVE in our life
Welcome back the magic of SHARING called LIFE !! .

Dawn at Chennai Marina.

The 'Marina Beach' is a beautiful landmark of Chennai. Me along with my family visited after Diwali to enjoy the dawn and also to photograph the scenes; as my son is an avid shutterbug!

It is rare to get a cloudless horizon during monsoon period and hence the dawn of the sun happened over the clouds above the horizon.

But then when the Sun breaks out of clouds with its wonderful burst of rays is an addictive sight. It is pure magic with orange and yellow spectrum, precedes the Sun over the azure blue sky and the aqua blue sea; whose ceaseless waves lapping the shore!

What hits you when you enter the beach is the cacophony of sounds from the people who come for walk, the crows, the cars, motorbikes which overwhelms the sound of breeze and the wave. 

The 300 m spread of sand from the shore to the road offers a veritable platform for a plethora of activities for one and all.

Too many thoughts Gushing.....

Feeling little jittery to begin, for once I thought i wont have any thing worth to share here. But like flood gates opened, too many thoughts gushing out and creates a chaos now!
I am fond of Food.(well everybody)  Ummm, forget some one has said that 'we eat to Live', my taste buds does floored me to foods and the lingering tastes of them; inasmuch i definitely wont brand me ' classic critic', but a connoisseur who just loves.
I am fond of nature (who isn't) ,,wait a minute.... let me my views on ..   the speeding auto mobiles,  polluted rives,  of course politics! no not politics as that's not my forte! ( as if others are)
Well i am stuck now in my very first attempt to blogg !! Who said writing is easy?   well soliloquy may be !!
I love to write about travel ( for a person who hardly travelled in my own country ) share my treks and walks.
Why i am doing this? definitely for my two minutes of Glory !! (seriously!). Am realising now that its going to be a struggle and fun (for who?). so let me channelise my thoughts and come back soon on a single issue!
Wait.. I forgot to include the following , architecture, landscape, biology, .......no forget about it!!
As the finishing line approaches.. i need to quote some one to finish this blogg ! and whom to quote?
One vegetable vendor said yesterday " touch my vegetables only if you want to buy."
Well i too can say ' open mine if only want to read'
bye bye for now.. i am sure my next will be on a serious note !!