Dosa, Sambar and Strawberry Cheese Cups

These are my entries for this month's AFAM(strawberry cheese cups) by Maheshwari and Pooja's valentine's special. You may wonder what Dosa and Sambar has to do with Strawberry cheese cups...Yes this is what I made specially for my husband. Dosa and sambar is my husband's all time favourite. He can have it without any complaints for breakfast,dinner and even lunch. He doesn't like many desserts... doesn't eat icecream ,almost all sweets ... I had made these strawberry cheese cups before and he liked it . As I wanted to make a really nice dessert for him, I chose this one. Though the menu sounds extreme, I wanted to make only this because this is SPECIALLY FOR HIM!!!!!

Dosa

Ingredients
Idly rice- 4 cups
Urad dal- 1 cup
Methi seeds- 1/2 tsp
salt to taste
Method
Wash and soak rice and Dal+methi seeds seperately. soak for atleast 4 hours. Grind dal in to a fine past by adding water little by little . Then grind rice into a fine paste and mix it with dal .Add salt to taste and ferment it for abt 8 hours or overnight.(It may take a longer time in winter)
Sambar


Ingredients
For sambar powder
Red chillies- 2 to 2 1/2 cups
Coriander seeds- 2 cups
Bengal gram dal- 1/4 cup
Thoor dal- 1/4 cup
Pepper- 3 tsp
Fenugreek- 2 tsp
Jeera- 3 tsp
Curry leaves- a few
Dry roast all these seperately and powder.
Thoor dal- 1 cup
green chillies- 5 sliced
garlic- 5 cloves
tomato- 1 chopped
pearl onions- a few( u can use one chopped big onion too)
methi seeds- 1/4 tsp
turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
Hing- little
Tamarind juice- from small lime sized ball
Veggies of ur choice- (carrots, brinjal, drumsticks... etc)1/2 cup
For Seasoning
Mustard seeds- 1/4 tsp
red chillies-1
hing- little
jeera-1/4 tsp
pepper- 4 to 5
methi seeds- less than 1/4 tsp
curry leaves- a few
coriander leaves- a few
Oil - 3 tsp
salt to taste
Method
Wash 1 cup of dal and add greenchillies, garlic,turmeric powder, hing, methi seeds, tomatoes in one bowl and the veggies in another bowl and pressure cook this .
Heat oil in a pan add mustard seeds , when it splutters add the other ingredients for seasoning and then the onions . Saute till the onions are transparent . Add the tamarind juice and 1 to 2 tsp of sambar powder. now add the cooked dal (mash it well with a ladle) and the cooked vegetables. Add enough water and salt to it.simmer it and close it with a lid for 10 mins. garnish with chopped coriander leaves. Sambar is ready. Serve hot with dosa,idly or rice.

note

Sometimes when I grind sambar powder I was not able to get good colour cos of the red chillies. so I reduced the amt of chillies (10 ) and prepare powder. Then when making sambar I add 1 tsp of readymade sambar powder(i use shakti masala) and 1 tsp of the sambar powder which I made.By this way I get good colour for sambar.

Strawberry cheese cups

Actually I found this recipe for the cups, in the Pepperidgefarm puff,pastry sheet packet . They had printed a recipe for choc peanut butter cups and I replaced it with creamcheese filling.. Crispy puff and creamcheese was real Yumm!!
Ingredients
pepperidge farm's puff pastry sheets
cream cheese-1/2 cup
powdered sugar-1/4 cup or to taste
heavy cream- 2 tbsp
strawberries- a few(slitted half)
Method
Thaw the pastry sheet at room temperature 40 min. Preheat the oven to 400F.Unfold the pastry on the lightly floured surface , roll it and cut into 4" squares approx.Press the squares in the muffin pans. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown.
Mix sugar, creamcheese and cream together and beat well till u get a smooth texture.
Place the cream in the puff cups and then a piece of strawberry on top.

About Valentines day... Though we knew what is valentine's day in our schooldays we didn't celebrate it or bother about it much.There was an 'Archie's gallery' opposite to my college and it used to sell wonderful valentine cards. That's how I got a better picture of valentine's day . Me and my husband had exchanged valentine cards only in the first year of marriage as feb 14 was only one week after our wedding. After that we don't care much for V'day because I feel that if u want to epress ur love to someone u can do it anytime, not only on v' day.

And now about my Husband.. His Name is Sundar.. He is a person who doesn't talk much while on the other hand I talk a lot...(I think in these 7 yrs it has reduced a bit ). He is a very patient guy while Iam not.Though we are chalk and cheese in some aspects there are a lot of other aspects where we have similar tastes too, and all these makes life interesting... He has stood beside me during some of the hard times in my life and I can never forget that. In short, He is a real gem of a person(My Husband who sitting near me ,reading this gave a big,broad smile )Happy Valentine's day!!!