Broccoli Naan

Weekend is the time I like to cook elaborate meals. A few months back, I was at an Indian restaurant for a  lunch buffet where they served broccoli naan. I am not a big fan of this vegetable and never really enjoyed eating it - be it baked or boiled - the flavor is a little too strong for my taste. Naturally, I was a little skeptical as to how the naan would taste. But I was in for a pleasant surprise. It was really amazing and it didn't taste at all like broccoli.  It was a good revelation for me as it gave me a way to eat broccoli - sneak it in parathas or naans. After all you cannot give a miss to eating something that is so packed with nutrients.  

Broccoli naan has been on my to do list of recipes ever since I had it at the Indian buffet. Making this naan is just like making any regular naan. The only addition is stuffing the broccoli.  

Broccoli Naan

Ingredients:

(Makes 6 palm sized naans)

1.5 cups APF (I used equal amounts of APF and whole wheat flour)

1 tsp instant/rapid rise yeast

1/2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp lukewarm water

1/4 cup yogurt (at room temperature)

2 tbsp melted butter/oil

Salt to taste

1/2 cup shredded broccoli  

Water/Milk to knead the dough

Recipe: 

Making the naan is a simple 3 step process - 

1. Make the dough 

2. Make the stuffing 

3. Stuff and roll the dough out, and bake the naans

Start by preparing the dough. The dough needs to be rested for at least half an hour (more is always better). Since we are using instant yeast, the dough rises pretty quickly and you can make naans with as little as 30 minutes of resting time. 

1. The Dough:

• In a bowl, mix sugar and yeast together and pour lukewarm water over the mix. Cover and let it rest for 10 minutes. 
• In another bowl, take flour and add salt to taste. Mix well and pour the yeast mixture over along with yogurt and melted butter/oil. 
• Mix all of the ingredients and add water/milk as required to form a loose, sticky dough. 
• Oil the dough, cover it with a damp cloth and let it rest for at least half an hour.  

2. The Broccoli Stuffing: 

To use broccoli as stuffing, it needs to be finely chopped, or shredded in a food processor. I find it easy the food processor way. All you need to do is clean the broccoli, put the florets in the food processor and pulse it a couple of times. 

I used just the shredded broccoli without even the added salt, but you can spice the broccoli up and use a spicy stuffing if you like. I prefer mine the simple way. 

3. Making the Naans:

• Now that the dough has been resting for some time, divide it into 6 equal balls. 
• Dip the ball in flour and spread it out with your fingers or simply roll it out to about 3" diameter.
• Put 1-1.5 tbsp of shredded broccoli in the center, and gather all sides around the stuffing to form a ball.
• Dust this ball with some flour and press it between your palms. At this point, you can choose to either roll it out or stretch it from all sides to form a triangular/oval naan. It should be about a quarter inch thick.  

Before baking, sprinke some dry flour onto a baking sheet/pan and then lay the naans over it. Bake the naans in a preheated 500 F oven for 10-15 minutes or until done. Apply butter on top and serve hot with your favorite curry.

The naans turned out really soft and stayed soft even the next day. 

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.

Whole wheat banana bread - A quick update

Last week I made Banana bread using whole wheat flour. I used the exact same recipe as before, but used regular chapati flour (which is a whole wheat flour) instead of all purpose flour. I was slightly worried as to how it would taste, but still decided to give it a shot. To my surprise it tasted even better with whole wheat flour. I am so glad because now I have another healthy snack to make, and I pretty much see myself doing it very often.

Banana -Date-Walnut Bread

I got this really amazing book- The Encyclopedia of Creative Cooking from the library. It has tons of recipes from appetizers to desserts. It happens quite a lot of times that we end up with really ripe bananas. And it feels bad to just dump them in trash. So of the times I have them, nearly half the time I end up making Sheera just so that I don't have to throw them away. I always thought of making banana bread instead, but never actually made it because sometimes I did not have eggs and other times some other ingredient. Anyway... to cut the story short, while I was reading this book, I came across a recipe for banana bread and immediately thought of two ripe bananas that were sitting in the kitchen. So here is how I made it.

Ingredients:
1 and 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 Tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas
1/2 cup chopped dates (optional)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Before your start, preheat oven to 350 F. Mix well all purpose flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl. In another bowl mix butter, sugar and eggs and beat until light and frothy. Next, add mashed bananas, dates and walnuts and mix well. Add the previously mixed dry ingredients slowly and in batches so that it doesn't form lumps. Mix until you get a smooth mixture. Grease a loaf pan and pour in the mixture. Bake for about 50-60 minutes until you have a golden brown and firm bread. Take out and let it sit for about 10 mins and then cool on a cooling rack before cutting. I followed the recipe from the book, but used butter instead of shortening.

I made this for the first time and it turned out great. I just wish I had added little more dates. But anyway it tastes great. May be next time I will try using whole wheat flour and see how it turns out.