Arugula Tomato Raita (stirred yoghurt with arugula and tomatoes)

...with home grown tomatoes!

Now this is such a simple dish that you might wonder why I'm posting it here.
Well, for two reasons. First of all it contains my very first ever home grown pesticide-free organically manured garden tomatoes. Secondly, because I just love this creation of mine, however simple it may be.
Now, if you have eaten arugula, then you know what I'm talking about. If not, these are a wonderful variety of salad leaves with a wonderfully pleasant pungent and spicy flavour, similar, but only similar, to that of radish beans (beans of the radish plants), if you have eaten them.
Although since my visit to Italy last year I know arugola is not always arugola. I knew about the difference between the varieties available in the US, which were much milder in taste than those available here in Germany, but after having eaten those wildly growing spicy and pungent arugola leaves and flowers in a village near Bari, I was so overwhelmed by its rich flavours that I needed time to get adjusted to these varieties available in the markets back here which almost tasted bland in comparison to those I ate in Italy last September.
And that brings me back to the second reason of my writing this post. These arugola leaves I bought this time tasted the nearest to those from Italy and since I love this green salad I had just chopped some leaves into the yoghurt and added one tomato from my garden into my Raita and I had a delicious side to the paranthas in no time.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
serves 2-4 people

Ingredients:

300 -450 g probiotic Yoghurt
1/2 tsp ground roasted cumin seeds
1/4 tsp black salt (available in Indian and Asian shops)
1/4 tsp table salt (regular salt), or to taste
1 pinch chilli powder (or even more; optional)
1 nice bunch of Arugola leaves, chopped coarsely into large pieces
1 large tomato, chopped


Method:

• Stir yoghurt throughly along with the salt and roasted cumin
  
• just before serving, add the chopped leaves and tomatoes and stir gently
• eat it plain, as it is, or served with other Indian savourys like paranthas or rotis or even rice (check previous post for it too!)
  

Chocolate dessert

Preparation time: 5 minutes
3 servings

Ingredients:
For the smoothie:
2 cups yoghurt (from the fridge)
1 cup cold milk
1/2 Banana, sliced
1 tbsp haselnut spread (like Nutella)
1 chocolate muffin, cold (from the fridge)











In addition:
3 muffins with chocolate glaze

Method:

• Mix the smoothie ingredients in a Blender.
  
• Cut the muffins horizontally into two halves.
  
• Take 3 dessert glasses. Put in each: the lower half at the bottom.
• Put some fruit pieces over it.
• Add the smoothie.
• Followed by the other half of the muffin.
• Decorate with another piece of fruit. and serve.

I have tried to make it as healthy and low in calories as possible. Basically this is another effort to feed my son some milk and yoghurt. And it surprisingly turned out better than I feared. But I do need to optimise it further. This was a very spontaneous idea which I just made with my gut feel.

Bananas playing hide and seek

In this picture you don't see bananas. 'cause they are hiding! That is how I made my son eat his yoghurt the first time. I tried to persuade him to eat yoghurt. And now he himself askes for it.
"Versteckte Bananen" is how I called it in German, to make it a game for my 3 years old son. I guess in Hindi I would call it " केला खेले छुपन छुपाई".