Indian Style Beet Salad

Blogging Marathon# 65: Week 3/ Day 1
Theme: 1 Vegetable -- 3 Dishes
Dish: Indian Style Beet Salad

We are starting a new week of blogging marathon today and my theme for this week is to pick 1 vegetables and make 3 dishes. My favorite eggplant and the family favorite potato were fighting to get into the spotlight this week, but I wanted to give the less favored Beets a chance, so this way I can add new recipes to my repertoire.

I am not a big fan of beets but at the same time I don't completely dislike it. The whole family is against it -- the color doesn't attract them at all, I think it actually make them go the other way. Anyway my husband liked this beet salad that I made during the detox diet (I guess he was forced to like it after eating the same dishes 3 days straight), so that is one of the main reasons for picking Beets for the week.

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Xmas Fruit Cake (Kerala Christmas Fruit Cake)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 4: Kerala Cuisine 
Day 24: X for Xmas Fruit Cake

So here we are at probably the most difficult letter of all, X. There are very few dishes or veggies that start with the letter X, so this must have been a tough letter for everyone except for those cooking from Spanish or Chinese cuisines. I was initially planning to go with an adjective or a verb but finally ended up making this Kerala Style X mas Cake.

I was thinking of doing a post like xplore Malabar cuisine, xperience Kerala sadya or something on those lines. I even asked Rajani for her input and she said try a sadya meal by making dishes over couple of days. I was tempted but the amount of work involved seemed too tedious and with the husband traveling, it was way too much food for just me. It is one of my dream meal to make in my lifetime.

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Hara Butter Paneer Masala (Spicy Green Curry with Paneer)

Blogging Marathon# 62: Week 4/ Day 1

Theme: No Tomato Gravies

Dish: Hara Butter Masala
For the final day of this week's 'No Tomato Gravies' theme I have an interesting curry made with green pepper and cilantro. Regular butter masala is made with butter, tomatoes puree and cream. This 'green' version is made with butter, green pepper, cilantro and cream.

This recipe is from a Telugu cooking show and it looked too good to pass on. It is very easy to make once you have hara/ green masala prepped. Switch paneer with other protein like tofu, chickpeas or beans and skip the cream and use vegan butter for a vegan version of the curry.

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Vegan Eggnog with Almond Milk

I've heard a lot about Eggnog but never tried it myself. The thought of drinking raw egg didn't really appeal to me. Last year I made this Mango Eggnog and it was quite a hit even with the kids.

This year I was tempted to try a vegan eggnog recipe when I saw this on Food52. It  is made with soaked cashews and full fat coconut milk to make it thick and the spices give the required oomph and deliciousness. I looked for more vegan eggnog recipes and found another recipe from Tasty Yummies, this one is made with cashew milk, soaked raw cashews and coconut milk.

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Kashmiri Dum Aloo

To go with my Kashmiri Rotis and Saffron rice, I made this Kashmiri Dum Aloo. This curry is so delicious with stuffed potatoes that is served with a spicy, creamy gravy.

I already have another Kashmiri Dum Aloo recipe on the blog, but this recipe is quite different from that one because here the potatoes are stuffed with paneer and unsweetened khoya. I replaced khoya with ricotta cheese because I didn't have khoya on hand and strained ricotta worked like a charm.

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Cherry Tomato Kurma

Blogging Marathon# 55: Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: Healthy Family Dinners

Dish: Cherry Tomato Kurma

For the second day of  'Healthy Family Dinners', I have a creamy and delicious kurma made with cherry tomatoes. This dish can be served with either rotis or simple vegetable pulao.

I have been cooking a lot with cherry tomatoes lately like this cherry tomato pachadi or this cherry tomato & kale pasta. I make sure to keep some handy to make quick pasta sauces or toss into salads for a juicy bite.

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Zucchini Masala Curry

Blogging Marathon# 49: Week 3/ Day 2

Theme: One Vegetable - 3 Dishes

Dish: Gravy Curry -- Zucchini Masala Curry

After yesterday's dry curry with zucchini, today I have a gravy curry that goes really well with rotis and even rice. I remember the first time I tried making this gravy curry for rotis couple of years ago. I didn't have any other vegetable in the fridge except for some zucchini and I had to make something to serve along with rotis. So I made this curry with tomato puree and almond butter and it came out creamy and delicious. It has become one of my favorite go-to roti side dish or even rice and has been on the rotation ever since.

I have tried few different ways to thicken the curry and make it creamy: I either add almond butter (or soaked and ground almonds or cashews) or some thick coconut milk. Apart from these vegan options, I have also used heavy cream or some whole milk or yogurt. So the options are endless to make this dish.

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Vegan Mango Bread

Blogging Marathon# 47: Week 4/ Day 1
Theme: Bookmarked Recipes
Dish: Vegan Mango Bread

We are starting our last and final week of blogging marathon for this year today. My theme for this week is 'Bookmarked Recipes'. I have so many recipes in my bookmarks that it is even impossible to make them all in this life time. Also I don't think I will ever be able to organize them in a proper way to actually see what I have in there. All these recipes are bookmarked all over the place -- some on Pinterest, some on Foodgawker, some on my desktop and some on my laptop.

I looked through all my photo folders from this year and found 3 bookmarked recipes that I already made but didn't get a chance to post. So this is my idea of cleaning up my folders for the new year.

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Dates & Nuts Laddoo

BM# 34: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: Cooking from Sapana's blog
Dish: Dates & Nuts Laddoo

It has been a very busy weekend. Saturday whizzed by really fast with 2 birthday parties -- my sister's where we had lunch and evening snack with cupcake cutting then a surprise 50th birthday party for a friend. Of course we were late for the surprise part since we were driving from one corner of New Jersey to another. But all in all it was a great day with loads of good food and fun with family and friends.

Sunday started out lazy but soon became busy with house cleaning and laundry. We are hosting our first ever Thanksgiving party this year and even though it's going to be a potluck, I'm getting nervous about the menu, quantity of food, decor and just about everything related to hosting a party. So rest of the Sunday quickly went by with menu planning, laundry folding and Kung Fu Panda watching (not sure how and when the last one got onto the list -- but it's definitely worth the time, kept my mind off the impending work).

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Poushtik Moti (Seasoned and spiced Rice balls)

Wish you All a very Happy Diwali..

Hope everyone is enjoying the festival. Today's post is going to be short because I've to cook for Diwali lunch, then attend an early Thanksgiving party in the evening. Too many things going on in the head and in the kitchen, so I'm going to keep this post short and simple.

This dish is perfect for days like the one I'm having today. Too many things going on and suddenly you realize that you have only sweet dishes and forgot to make the savory dish. You also don't want to make anything deep fried, then this dish is perfect for you.

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Kaju Badam Katli (Cashew Almond Fudge)

For today's post I have a melt in your mouth Indian dessert that is so simple to make and can be made vegan too. 9 out of 10 times Indian desserts/ sweets have either copious amounts of ghee (clarified butter) or made of milk (a big NO-NO to my husband), so when I saw that Katlis can be made with little or no ghee, I jumped up in joy. 

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Creamy Mixed Vegetable Curry with Nutty Rice Pilaf

This holiday season has been extremely busy for us with parties everywhere, at home and at work. The theme for one of the office parties was organic & vegetarian. I jumped up with excitement and decided to make this curry and rice dish. 

I thought of adding paneer, but wasn't sure if my co-workers would like the texture, so kept it simple with mixed vegetables. For the rice dish, I wanted to make something that wasn't too spicy and I found this nutty pilaf recipe in Raghavan Iyer's "660 Curries". This rice is a keeper and goes well with any spicy side dish. Both the dishes were a hot at the office holiday party.

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Mango-Cashew Upside Down Cake

Summer is HERE in our neck of woods. We have heat wave advisory for the next 3 days with temperatures reaching upto100°F (38°C). It’s nothing when compared to Indian temperature standards but we got so used to the weather here that anything above 35°F is scorching and makes us run for cover.

But summer brings the yummy tropical fruits and veggies, so instead of complaining I just try to enjoy the warm weather and the bounty of treats it brings. We picked up a case of mangoes from our local Indian grocery and after enjoying them as is; I still had some left that needed to used up. Google brought me to this upside down cake and the picture was too tempting, so I had to try it right away.

It was a perfect tea cake, fresh, nutty, not too sweet and quick and easy to make. I had to change the amount/ quantity of ingredients since the recipe used a 6” cake pan and I only have a 8” cake pan. I also substituted macadamia nuts with cashews since I didn’t them.

Ingredients: 

Mangoes – 2 medium, peeled and thinly sliced (I diced my mangoes, but thinly slicing would make for a prettier cake) 

Lemon juice – 1½tbsp

Light Brown Sugar – ¼ cup 

Butter – 1½tbsp, melted 

Cashews – 3tbsp, chopped 

For the Cake batter:

Butter – 3tbsp, softened 

Sugar – 1/3 cup 

Egg – 1, lightly beaten 

All-purpose flour – 1 cup 

Baking powder – ¾ tsp 

Ground cardamom (elaichi) – ½tsp

Salt – ¼tsp 

Milk – 1/3 cup 

Method: 

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 8” round cake pan with parchment paper and lightly spray with cooking spray.
• In a small bowl, combine mango and lemon juice. 
• Combine brown sugar and butter and sprinkle evenly in the cake pan. Arrange the mango slices and sprinkle the nuts. Set aside. 
• Whisk flour, baking powder, salt and elaichi in a bowl. 
• In a medium bowl, whisk butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg until incorporated. 
• Add half of the flour mixture and whisk until incorporated, next add half of the milk and mix well. Repeat with remaining flour & milk. 
• Pour the batter evenly over the prepared mangoes. 
• Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 
• Cool for 5 minutes, before inverting onto a plate.

Sending this over to Harini's "Only Baked" event which is a brain child of Pari @ Foodelicious.

Indira’s Dum Aloo

I don’t know what restaurant makes this good Dum Aloo, but this recipe is just out of this world.. Spicy, creamy, tangy gravy with the yummy baby potatoes goes perfectly well with rice or roti. I did not make any changes to the recipe except I cut down a little bit on the red chilies and peppercorn. Recipe needs a little prepping ahead, but Indira points that out in her recipe, so I was prepared for it. I’m going to make it again when I see those tiny potato beauties. Thanks Indira.

PS: Will upload the picture soon.