3 Day Detox Diet -- Detox Smoothie Recipe

Blogging Marathon# 64: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: Detox Diet

Dish: Detox Smoothie with Strawberries & Grapefruit

After a month blogging nonstop, we are back in the regular 3 days a week blogging schedule this month. I picked up an interesting theme to start the month off. After indulging on delicious Indian food for the mega marathon, I thought detoxing would be just perfect to reset my system.

I bought 'Clean Slate' cookbook couple of weeks before Valli announced this month's themes. Even though at the time, I didn't really had a chance to read about the detox diet, I went ahead and signed up for this theme. It wasn't until I was done cooking for the mega marathon that I started thinking on how to go about this whole 'detox' business.

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Norwegian Apple Trifle for #Food of the World

We are going all the way to Norway for this month's #Food of the World event. I have little knowledge of Norwegian cuisine, so I went looking for recipes online. Thankfully I found this amazing blog, Nordic Diner, written by Trude who lives in Oslo now but spend her childhood in Northern Norway.

I was spellbound by her photos of Norway, the greenery, the mountains, the clear blue water, everything looks so pristine and picturesque. So Norway has been added to my bucket list now :-)

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Apple Ricotta Cake

Blogging Marathon# 57: Week 2/ Day 3

Theme: Food52 Contest Recipes from here

Dish: Apple Ricotta Cake

I'm ending this week's marathon on a sweet note with this Apple Ricotta Cake from Food52. We went apple picking couple of weeks back and I had quite a few apples left. I also had some ricotta cheese that needed to be used up in the fridge. So I looked for recipes with apples and ricotta in Food52 and found this delicious cake recipe which happens to be the 'Best recipe with Fresh Ricotta' contest winner.

This recipe uses only 1 apple and doesn't really taste like an 'apple' cake. I'm not a big apple fan so that is totally fine with me, but if you are looking for an apple cake that tastes like an apple pie (or more apple'y'), then this is not for you.

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Doon Chetin (Apple Chutney)

I saw the recipe for this Apple chutney called Doon Chetin on Vaishali's Kashmiri thali and wanted to try it. This chutney is spicy and sweet and tasted yummy when scooped onto the rotis. It takes just a few minutes to make this chutney, so give it a try if you are a lover of spicy, sweet food. This is part of my Kashmiri Thali.

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Fruited Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Bake-a-thon 2014: Day 14

Bake of the Day: Fruited Sourdough Bread

It has been a busy Christmas weekend. We drove to Chicago to see my cousins. It was a really long drive (about 800 miles) and thankfully it went really well, though we are still recovering from the after effects. I had all the last weeks posts scheduled ahead of time and planned on baking couple of cookies for the last 2 days of bake-a-thon.

But unfortunately the hectic weekend is taking a toll on me. I can't seem to keep myself awake, so I looked through my drafts and found 2 bread recipes that I baked a while back. After the eggless ricotta loaf, here's another loaf bread using sourdough starter and fruits like apple & raisins.

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Fruit & Toasted Almond Stuffing for Thanksgiving

Stuffing is a quintessential Thanksgiving side dish. I never understood the concept for stuffing, to me stuffing has to be inside something to be called that, but this stuffing is usually served on the side.
There are regional differences in the way stuffing is made. Southerners make their stuffing, called dressing in the South, from cornbread, while those in the other parts of the country make it from white, wheat or rye bread as base. Apples, chestnuts, raisins, celery and/ or other vegetables, sausage are added to stuffing.

Generally there is meat added to the stuffing and even if it is meat free, the bread is usually moistened with chicken/ turkey broth. So I've eaten stuffing very few times and never thought of making at home either. But my Thanksgiving recipe series made me look for traditional recipes and try and make them vegetarian.

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Japan - Vegetable Curry with Edamame

BM# 44: A-Z Cooking Series -- Around the World in 30 days

Country: J for Japan

Dish: Vegetable Curry with Edamame

We are going all the way east to Japan today. I knew it is an island but I didn't know that it is a archipelago of 6,852 islands. Japan always amazes me because it is one of the smaller countries in the world and even after enduring 2 atomic bombs in Hiroshima & Nagasaki back in 1945, it is now one of the most developed countries.
Japanese cuisine is based on combining staple foods, typically Japanese rice or noodles, with a soup and okazu (or side dish) -- dishes made from fish, vegetable, tofu and so on -- to add flavor to the staple food. Japanese cuisine is known for its emphasis on seasonality of food, quality of ingredients and presentation.
Some version of Japanese Sushi is probably found in very corner restaurant in the world. Tempura is also a very famous Japanese dish were veggies and seafood are battered and deep fried. Finding vegetarian dishes in Japan is quite difficult because they use dashi (seafood) stock in most of the dishes.

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Apple-Orange Mocktail

Blogging Marathon# 41: Week 4/ Day 3
Theme: BM Pair (Sujatha Ram)
Dish: Apple-Orange Mocktail

For the final day of this month's marathon, I have a very simple mocktail from Sujatha's blog. I hardly ever make juices at home, I'm just too lazy to make them. Because it takes quite a bit of effort to make these juices and takes mere seconds to finish them. Sigh!! Its better for everyone to just eat their fruits than drink them. This is totally my personal opinion, no offense meant to anyone.

But this particular mocktail caught my eye on Sujatha's blog. I loved her clicks and the combination of apple and orange with ginger sounded interesting. So I made it for my kids, but I guess I was the one enjoying it the most. The weather in our neck of woods has been quite summer like and this drink was very refreshing on a hot afternoon.

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Potato Latkes (Eggless vegan recipe) with Chunky Applesauce

Blogging Marathon# 38: Week 3/ Day 3
Theme: One Dish, Different Countries
Dish: Iranian/ Jewish -- Potato Latkes

When I signed up for this theme I actually wanted to make dumplings from 3 different countries. I even narrowed my dishes to Chinese dumplings, Italian gnocchi and Indian samosas. But with the impending month long mega marathon these dishes seemed too much work and had to change my choice.

Then one day my son came back home and asked me if I had ever made latkes. He said they read a book in school that mentioned about latkes and he wanted me to make them for him. Then I realized I could make pancakes for this week's marathon -- 2 birds at 1 shot.

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Apple Galette

Blogging Marathon# 37: Week 2/ Day 3
Theme: Kid's Delight -- Oven Baked Snacks
Dish: Apple Galette 

For the 3rd day of blogging marathon# 37, I have this simple and easy to make apple galette that I actually made couple of months ago. My son has been asking me to make apple pie for quite some time now. I didn't want to bake a full fledged apple pie as I wasn't totally convinced if he'd really like it or not. So I took the easy route and made this galette with the spelt crust scraps leftover after making this quiche recipe.

Galette is a free form pie and can be made with pie crust or even puff pastry. The crust I used for the quiche had some dried herbs in it. If I had thought of making this apple galette earlier, I probably would have skipped the herbs to make this dessert. But the herbs in the crust didn't really bother us. Galette tasted great with some vanilla ice cream.

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Apple Pie Smoothie

I make sure that I take a copy of 'Chop Chop' magazine from my kid's pediatrician's office. It is a fun book with some very simple to make recipes and activity ideas for kids. My son loves to read this book cover to cover and really enjoys doing the word scramble and kid quizes.

Today's recipe is a simple smoothie from that book. I asked my son to pick a recipe that we can make together and this was something he thought he would like. He didn't really care for the texture of oats in the smoothie and I tried to explain to him the health benefits of oats. All in all this is a very healthy smoothie and is great as an after school snack.

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Fruit Salad with Vegan Custard

VeganMofo Day 16: Rice Milk that I bought from Trader Joe's is still sitting in my fridge waiting to be used. The consistency of the milk is very thin, almost water like and I can't see myself using it in my morning coffee (I started to like my coffee with soy milk these days). So after using it in these cupcakes and smoothie, I wanted to try and see how it would work in a custard. 

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