Chutney Mary!

Well! Well! Well! Look what I found last week at the farmers market. I pretty much have now settled for the Pleasantville market. I see this interesting Chutney Stand, made by a lady who hails from, you guessed it -India.

I liked all her products, but this fiery mint concoction seemed really good. I picked this up at $7.50 with these lovely eggplants that were priced at $4.50 a quart. I also got a lovely bunch of green onions at and a fresh head of garlic and came home and paired this with some feta cheese and fresh tomatoes from my neighbours garden to make this lovely dish.

Minted Garlic Eggplant

Served 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp oil

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 onion thinly chopped

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tomato sliced

4 small eggplants, sliced

1 tsp salt (optional)

2 tbsp mint chutney

1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the oil and add the cumin seeds.

2. When this begins to sizzle, add the onion and garlic and saute briefly.

3. Add the tomato and eggplant and chutney and the salt if using and coat well.

4. Cover and cook on very low heat for 15-17 minutes till the eggplant is soft and fairly mushy.

5. Stir in the feta cheese and serve with some crusty bread.

Palak Ghia Paneer Kuchran - Spinach, Zuchini Puree with Garlic and fresh Cheese

Well, with a fridge-full of farmers market veggies, I have to find ways to cook my bounty. This is the first of my experiments. This a great variation on palak paneer, I wanted to get the impact and taste without killing the vegetables. This variation is very gentle on spice and cooks the vegetables very delicately so as to retain the nutrients.

Spinach, Zuchini Puree with Garlic and fresh Cheese

Serve 6

Ingredients

2-3 tbsp oil

1 tbsp fresh garlic, minced

1 onion cut into a fine dice

3 tbsp tomato puree

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cumin-coriander powder

1/2 cup fresh cream

2 heads fresh spinach

1 tsp ghee

1 tsp cumin seeds

3 zuchini grated with the skin on

1 cup grated paneer

1 tsp garam masala

1/2 tsp red chili powder

Method of preparation

1. Heat the oil and add the garlic and onion and cook for 5 minutes stiring well.

2. Add the tomato puree, salt, and cumin-coriander powder and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

3. Cool and puree with the cream and spinach in a blender.

4. Heat the ghee and sizzle the cumin seeds and add the grated zuchini.

5. Saute for 5 minutes and add the spinach mixture with the paneer and mix well and cook for 3-5 minutes.

6. Stir in the remaining spices and let this sit for 1 hr.

7. Reheat and serve with rice or rotis.

Summer Loving!

"Summer Loving had me a blast,

Summer Loving happened so fast!"

Well, probably not quite what you are thinking, the past two year with the the kids still in tow and not really into anything, the little one at least I had skipped the active farmers market scene, this year not really.

Well, I was certainly in for a treat, I tried two markets this weekend and I think I am hooked certainly to the Pleasantville Farmers Market,

I was so thrilled, I think I truly got a little carried away, I picked up fresh garlic, garlic scrapes, corn and jalapeno chicken sausage, bok choy, beets, carrots, spinach, fresh peas, and zuchini.

Well, in case that was not enough I wandered onto the muscoot farms farmers market, now this might have been a little later in the day, but I did not find as much to excite as the former market, nonetheless I definitely picked up some lovely green onions and mushrooms. Look forward to my upcomming posts where there shall certainly be creative ideas on getting your 5 a day and more.

Nutrella Cutlets

I have tried over the years to work with meatless sources of protein. I just feel, once in a while it is good to have options. The latest in my quest is Nutrella or soy nuggets.

I also recently picked up a package of these soy grains that look a lot like cous-cous in the local store. I made these cutlets using a combination of these grains and let me tell you these were good! I used them as veggie burgers and they went down very well with the home crowd.

Nutrella Cutlets - TVP cutlets

Makes about 12 medium sized cutlets

Ingredients

For the cutlets

1 large sweet potato (cooked and peeled)

1 regular potato (cooked and peeled)

1 cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained

1 cup prepared TVP ( this is soaked in hot water and then the excess water is squeezed out

1 cup frozen peas

2 green chillies, finely minced

2 tbsp cilantro, finely minced

2 tsp chat masala

1 tsp red chili powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp garam masala

For the batter and breading

1 egg

3-4 tbsp all purpose flour

water as needed

1 tsp salt

1 cup whole wheat breadcrumbs (whole wheat panko works well)

Oil for frying.

Method of preparation

1. Mash all the ingredients for the cutlet together into a firm mixture, since a fair amount of frozen vegetables are used, if needed add a little chick pea flour for tightness

2. Shape into hamburger sized patties.

3. Beat the egg with flour, water and salt to form a thick batter.

4. Dip the cutlets into the batter and coat well with the breadcrumbs.

5. Place in the fride for 1 hour.

6. Heat the oil and fry well on both sides.

7. Serve with ketchup or as veggie burgers in buns.

Dal Makhani and Dahi Methi Bhindi

I had blogged earlier about the bhindi recipe, but nothing like simple good creamy dal Makhani. I recently made this to teach Aeisha how to make this.

She is an interesting person who has made her way to my culinary studio. She is a second generation American-Pakistani who ideally would love someone to teach her Pakistani cooking but will settle for Indian, as long as the spices are not too different. As I tell her, the spices are almost the same but their use is sometime not the same across the different parts of the sub-continent or even the country we call India. Anyhow, good food is a universal thing.

Dal Makhani - Creamy Urad Dal and Red Kidney Beans

Serves 6

Ingredients

1/2 cup whole urad dal (mapte beans)
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 onion finely chopped
1 tsp finely grated ginger
2 tomatoes finely chopped
1 can red kidney beans
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp red chili powder
1/3 cup cream
2 tbsp finely chopped cilantro

Method of Preparation
1. Pressure cook the dal with 2 cups water and salt for 15 minutes.
2. Heat the oil and add the cumin followed by the onion and ginger after a few seconds.
3. Add the tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes.
4. Add the dal and drained kidney beans, chili powder and simmer for 30 minutes.
5 . Stir in the remaining ingredients and serve with rice or roti.

Why Yellow?

I was out of town for about a week, this past week, just before leaving I read about this cause - Clicking Yellow for Bri in a blog I enjoy reading a lot.

The original Click Event being hosted at Jugalbandi, that hosts a monthly food photography event. Maybe, this was on my mind since all through Tampa Bay, Fl. Possibly, it was the general upset, I have to tell you it seems almost every other person that I know, ends up falling prey to this disease.

The corn and pepper came later, the other yellow was just on my mind.

Dearest Bri,

please keep the spirits up. People like me hope and pray that tomorrow will be better.

Ever felt that there was a connection and you could not tell why? This outbreak had troubled me just because....As I was about to submit this, I read further and realized that Bri was the daughter-in-law of Cynthia and Bill,

they had attended my son's rice ceremony by chance (She was with someone we knew and wanted to see this event) and Cynthia had taken some of the best pictures on my son at this event.

Here is the recipe that was created from the Corn and Pepper

Roasted Corn and Pepper Chowder

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

2 ears of corn on the cob

2 yellow bell peppers

2 tbsp butter

2 shallots finely chopped

2 pods of garlic

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 16-oz container of chicken broth or 4 cups homemade broth

1 tbsp black pepper

Additional salt if needed

1 lemon

2 tbsp chopped cilantro

Method of preparation

1. Roast the corn and bell peppers on the open flame. The corn needs to start turning black at spots and the bell peppers are charred completed outside.

2. Set the corn aside to cool, and place the bell pepper on ice to rub the blackened skin off.

3. Heat the butter and add the shallots and garlic and saute for about 5 minutes.

4. Add the sweet potatoes and chicken broth with salt and pepper and simmer for 20 minutes.

5. Chop the roasted pepper and mix in.

6. Cool and puree in a food processor.

7. Remove the roasted corn from the cob.

8. Bring the puree back to simmer add in the corn, squeeze the juice of the lemon and stirr in the cilantro and serve hot.

Am so thrilled!

I was so thrilled by a comment on my blog left weeks back by Sangeeth. It just had been a few crazy weeks, summer is wonderful, but sometimes just has a life of its own, leaving very little time for this little space called my blog. Still, it is a little space where some of the creations of my favorite passion cooking are displayed. I cannot help feeling happy when someone aknowledges this effort.

It is difficult to narrow this to three blogs, especially since there are so many lovely blogs around. Some of my other favorite blogs have recieved this award already so, these are the three that come to my head today which I think may not have yet been awarded this,

Cooking for All Seasons

Jugalbandi

What's for Lunch Honey

Thank you again!