Green Tomato Chuteny

I have been looking for green tomatoes all these years. Ours being a small town, the Farmer's market here is a tiny one. I was never able to get green tomatoes here.

Two months back I bought a membership to a farm co-operative located in some town nearby, which recently opened their store here. With one membership, you can buy a total of 120 pounds of organic veggies without paying a single penny over what you have paid for membership. Isn't that amazing? And yes the membership is dirt cheap. I am so happy this summer as I am getting fresh and luscious veggies. I go there every Saturday morning and get my week's stock of vegetables.

On my yesterday's trip I was very happy to see green tomatoes at the store and got a few of them. To my disbelief, some of them already started changing color by the time I was home. I was out for a long time and it was the crazy heat that was responsible for it. Thankfully it did spare a couple for my chutney. Huh...

I was planning to make this green tomato chutney for a while now. I always loved chutneys, especially the tangy ones. Mom used to make this chutney quite often and of course I follow her recipe.

Green Tomato Chutney

1. Cut 4 green tomatoes in big chunks and saute on a teaspoon of oil for a minute. I used 4 small tomatoes.
2. Lightly toast a teaspoon of sesame seeds, grind them to a coarse powder and set aside.
3. Grind together 4-5 green chillies, 1/2 tsp grated ginger and tomatoes into a paste.
4. Add a teaspoon of sugar, ground sesame seeds and salt, and pulse it a couple times.
5. Make tempering of 1 tsp oil, 1/4 tsp mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp asafetida and a pinch of turmeric. Pour this tempering on the ground mixture and mix well.

Add some cilantro if you like. Serve it as a side with rice or chapati, or slather on bread slices to make sandwiches.

Zucchini Flapjacks...Desi style

Weekend is here and fridge looks deserted as it looks every weekend. There is a lone zucchini lying in the crisper and nothing else. It's been in the fridge for a week and I still haven't used it. Huh... A is out for his cricket practice and I am too bored to go out and shop (though it takes just 5 minutes of walking to go to the grocery store). I was thinking of what to cook for dinner with this single zucchini and it just clicked.

(serves 2)

1. In a bowl mix 2 cups grated zucchini, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup each of rice flour and gram flour and about a quarter cup of chopped onion.

2. Add a teaspoon each of red chilli powder, white sesame seeds (lightly toasted), and carom seeds. To toast the sesame seeds, simply microwave them for 30 seconds.

3. Also add 1/8 tsp turmeric powder, a pinch of asafetida, and salt to taste.

4. Mix all the above ingredients well by adding water as needed, to form a soft dough. You need about a quarter cup of water.

5. Coat the bottom of a pan with very little oil and put a small ball of dough in the center. Spread the dough by pressing it with your fingers until it is about quarter inch thick.

6. Put the lid on and let it cook until you hear a sizzle. Now take the lid off and flip it to let the other side cook. Add some oil if needed. Don't put the lid on when the other side cooks.

7. Serve hot with the condiment of your choice.

Mixed Fruit Sandwich

I must confess... ever since I read the theme for Blog Bites#4 hosted at One Hot Stove, I have been thinking of using the long waiting ingredients in my kitchen. In fact I loved this concept so much that I now plan on looking for such lurkers once every month.

Here is a list of current lurkers in my kitchen. This is the same list from my previous post. The only difference is that I have striked out the items that I used or that I finally started using as a part of this challenge.
1. APF ( I have this for the longest time since I started using whole wheat flour as much as I could in baking). I still have a little more APF left.
2. Chana dal which I don't use very often and which has not been used in almost 3 months
3. 1 packet of cake mix - Totally forgot about it and it had expired a couple months back, so had to trash it- So what if it cost me just a dollar? Felt very bad for wasting it
4. Baking cocoa
5. In the fridge door- Red chilli sauce, Soy sauce
6. Soyabean flour: I have started using this daily with whole wheat flour for making Chapatis
7. Found in my freezer- half a packet of methi leaves, drumsticks, pineapple chunks, leftover tomatoes from can, paneer ( I didn't even know it was there - just a few small cubes - but without even thinking about it, I trashed it - well if you don't know of something that you have you better not use it... right?) and of course frozen bananas-4 of them 1 left
8. 3 carrots, half a cabbage, spinach packet
9. 6 4 Eggs which expire in a couple days
10. About 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chunks

Wow... I am impressed :) that's a way better use of ingredients. I don't think I would have used them so quickly otherwise.

Well there is one more thing that I forgot to add to this list and that is strawberry jam... just about a tablespoon of it way down at the bottom of the bottle. And yes it expires in next 2 days... and I actually mean 2 days. I normally would have thought of having a regular bread butter jam sandwich for breakfast or would have trashed the bottle after realizing that it had expired and probably not felt bad for trashing it thinking it was just a tablespoon of jam after all. But wait...not at present, and that is because presently, I am going through 'Find ways to use lurkers' phase. So I had to use that last tablespoon.

Mixed fruit Sandwich

I was browsing Suma's blog and read this post where she mentions her family's favorite Banana sandwich. After reading it I thought wow... a Banana sandwich! I have never had a fruit sandwich before. Her sandwich (and that leftover jam in the bottle) actually compelled me to try this mixed fruit sandwich. I thought what if I try using different fruits and nuts instead of just Banana, and that is how I came up with this Mixed Fruit Sandwich.

1. Toast and butter bread slices.

2. Spread jam/ preserve of your choice.

3. Add whatever fruits and nuts you like and serve.

I used whole wheat bread; and banana, apple, dates, and coarsely chopped pistachios & cashews. The sandwich tasted really good with the crunchiness of nuts. There are a couple of things that I would like to share. Add bananas at the end so that they don't turn black and sandwich won't get soggy. The drawback of this sandwich is that unfortunately it can't be made ahead of time. You must immediately eat it to really enjoy the taste. I have no experience with kids, but I am positive that kids would love it.

I am sending this to Blog Bites# 4 as my second entry.

I am glad that I was able to use the perishable stuff as planned and did not waste it, which doesn't always happen.

Banana Bread for Chocolate Lovers

The theme for this month's Blog Bites event hosted at One Hot Stove calls for using up the food and ingredients in the kitchen that are just waiting to be used. Hmmmm.... interesting! So get ready, it's time for stock taking of the pantry.

Okay, here goes the challenge... in Nupur's own words -
Look into your kitchen cupboards, your refrigerator and freezer and raise your hand if you see any of the following; And my response to each question follows.

• Open bottles of jams and preserves that have not been touched for months: Yes
  
• Ingredients bought for a specific recipe that you have not used again: Yes
  
• Foods given to you as gifts but that you never get around to using: No
  
• Food at the back of the freezer that you can't even get to: Yes
  
• Bottles lined up in the fridge door filled with mysterious sauces: Yes
  
• Leftovers in the fridge waiting to be used up before you forget about them and chuck them out next weekend: Yes
  
• Ingredients that you buy because they are nutritious and you feel like you should be eating them, but you can't think of ways to use them, so they sit there, taking up space and mocking you: Yes
  
• Foods that are dangerously close to or just past the expiration date: No
  
• Overripe bananas that you are collecting in the freezer: YES
  
• Spices that you bought in bulk because the price was right but are now rapidly losing their flavor: No
  
• A bulk package of something that will last you until 2035: No
  
• Ingredients that you are saving for a "special occasion" that never comes: No
  
• Impulse purchases from grocery shopping trips that are sitting around 6 months later and making you feel guilty: No
  

Well as you see I said yes to more than half of these questions and realized how much stuff I have that seriously needed my attention. So thanks Nupur for coming up with this great idea.

To start with, I made a list of all those lurkers in my kitchen. Some of these need an immediate action, else they will have to go in the trash and others need to be used because they have not been used in a really long time. So here goes the list -
1. APF ( I have this for the longest time since I started using whole wheat flour as much as I could in baking)
2. Chana dal which I don't use very often and which has not been used in almost 3 months
3. 1 packet of cake mix - Totally forgot about it and it had expired a couple months back, so had to trash it- So what if it cost me just a dollar? Felt very bad for wasting it
4. Baking cocoa
5. In the fridge door- Red chilli sauce, Soy sauce
6. Soyabean flour
7. Found in my freezer- half a packet of methi leaves, drumsticks, pineapple chunks, leftover tomatoes from can, paneer ( I didn't even know it was there - just a few small cubes - but without even thinking about it, I trashed it - well if you don't know of something that you have you better not use it... right?) and of course frozen bananas-4 of them
8. 3 carrots, half a cabbage, spinach packet
9. 6 Eggs which expire in a couple days
10. About 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chunks

Surprisingly, the list is not as long as I thought it would be. I ended up using almost half of these items in the last two days and have plans for using a few of these in the next two days. I used methi leaves and some of chana dal by making Dal-Methi. Pineapple chunks were used as an additional topping on a takeout pizza yesterday.

Double Chocolate Banana Bread

We had friends over for cards night and I decided to make this double chocolate banana bread from the recipe that I read on The Sisters Cafe. I had all the ingredients that the recipe calls for and amazingly a lot of them were in the list above. Probably that was the main reason for making this chocolate banana bread.

I followed this recipe from The Sisters Cafe with a slight modification. I used butter instead of oil and baking powder in place of baking soda (since I did not have baking soda on hand). I did not use a lot of chocolate chips since I had just about half a cup of them. Everyone loved the cake bread. It was very moist and inspite of having so much chocolate, it still had that banana flavor.

This is my entry for Blog Bites # 4 hosted at One Hot Stove.

I plan to use carrots and drumsticks in Sambar (recipe is in the middle of the post) that I will make today to go with Idlis. The plan with the remaining carrots is to go in Manchurian along with cabbage, soy sauce and red chilli sauce. Some more chana dal will be used in Mixed Dal Appey sometime this month. And predictably enough spinach will be used for making Spinach parathas in the next 2-3 days. The last frozen banana, which can definitely sit a little longer in the freezer may be used in Sheera or Banana Pancakes.

I hope to use all of these as planned and not waste any. I also have one more kitchen cabinet left to check for any hidden packets. Thankfully I am not an impulsive shopper when it comes to groceries, so the chances of finding something mysterious are quite unlikely.