Almond Shortbread

The Halloween celebrations last weekend have officially marked the beginning of holiday season. I love this last quarter of the year where you have all the celebrations, festive foods and lots of sales (read shopping) to look forward to. Considering the gigantic sweet tooth that I have, I love these sugar high holidays - A reason to eat more sweets and feel a little less guilty about it.

Almond Shortbread Cookies

(From this recipe, Makes 12 wedges)

I have a bunch of bookmarked recipes and have been wanting to make these shortbread cookies for a while now. This is probably the simplest baking recipe ever. You just cannot go wrong with it. The recipe calls for Almond Meal. This is an expensive ingredient. One pound packet costs about $12. I was very sure that I will not be able to use up so much quantity in a couple months. I was reading the label on the packet and it said "Almond meal is simply the blanched almonds ground..." So I thought why not make my own almond meal? All you need is blanched almonds.

(Almond Meal)

I used 1/2 lb blanched almonds which yielded 3 cups of ground almond. The recipe I followed for shortbread also mentions that adding sugar while grinding almonds helps absorb oils from the nuts.
1. Using a coffee grinder or Indian style mixer-grinder or mixie as many people call it, ground almonds in batches.
2. I divided half pound almonds in 4-5 batches. With every batch add a couple pinches of sugar and grind to a medium powder.
3. Voila, you almond meal is ready! Store in an air tight container in the fridge.


I followed the recipe from Joy of Baking word to word. The only change was instead of rice flour, I used corn flour.

• In a bowl, beat together 1/2 cup butter (at room temperature) and 1/4 cup sugar. Add 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract.
  
• In another bowl, mix 3/4 cup APF, 1/4 cup almond meal, 2 tbsp corn starch and 1/8 tsp salt.
• Fold in the dry ingredients in butter-sugar mix. This forms into a soft, buttery and loose dough.
  
• In an 8" round pan press the dough and score into wedges. Prick the dough with a fork so that it won't puff up.

• Bake in a 300 F oven for about 50 minutes or until golden brown.
  
• Let cool on a cooling rack for 5 minutes, then cut into wedges and cool completely before storing.
  

The shortbread tasted great and we had it with evening tea for three days in a row. The next time I make it, I think I will use a square pan and cut it into sticks instead. I think powdered cashews will taste equally good and plan to use them next time.


This weekend celebrates Diwali, the festival of lights. Wish you all a very Happy Diwali and a wonderful year ahead!

Delicious Vegetarian turns One!

Delicious Vegetarian turned ONE just a couple days back... YAY. I can't believe it's actually been a year. What started as a getaway from studying for CPA exam has become a fun activity for me (though I always thought I should write a blog, I was more than happy reading and enjoying what others wrote).

I'll take this opportunity to say "Thank you Mom" for teaching me the basics of cooking and being an inspiration. Thank you dad for trying my recipes in the times when I could barely call myself a cook. And a BIG thank you to A, my ever supportive husband. Oh by the way, he is also the designated photographer of this blog and often my sous chef too :)

I also want to thank all my friends who read my blog and email me their feedback, tips, comments etc etc. AND a thank you to all you readers. So let's celebrate the first birthday of my lil blog with something sweet.

But before I write any more, let me answer the question in my earlier post. The answer is PURPLE BASIL. It smelled so good. I thought it smelled like a combination of fennel and basil. How I wish I could cook with it. But with A being under the weather, I had no time for a few days and had to give away my basil before we went out of town. Hopefully I will get it again come next summer.

Gajar (Carrot) Poli

(adapted from this recipe)

Ever since I came across the recipe for Gajar Poli on Aayi's Recipes, I wanted to try it. I followed the recipe with some modifications.

1. For the carrot mix, I used a cup each of shredded carrots, milk and sugar. In a pan add a teaspoon of ghee (clarified butter) and saute carrots until slightly tender.
2. Add milk and cook until the mixture starts to thicken. Add sugar and mix well. The mix will loosen up after adding sugar.
3. Cook until the mixture thickens again. Add a teaspoon of cardamom powder and let cool.
4. To make poli, take a small ball of whole wheat dough and slightly roll it out. Stuff it with carrot mix and close all the edges as you would do for a dumpling.
5. Roll the stuffed ball and cook both sides on a pan, and serve.

Kiwis and Limes

Two months back, I was in India. My trip extended by ten days because of flight delays due to Icelandic volcano eruption. On my way to the airport, I was telling mom what all (of course food items) I wanted to take with me to US, but couldn't take for some reasons, and how she must get them when she visits me later this year.

With all those heavy-hearted goodbyes and the most annoying immigration procedures, I was finally at the gate, waiting for boarding to start. And suddenly comes the news that my flight has been canceled. Ughh... At first I was really very mad...you tell me who wouldn't. Mom was very happy that she got ten bonus days to spend with me, and so was I :p

In those ten days I bought all those food items that I had forgotten about...adjusting the weight of my bags, taking off items that I thought were okay not to carry etc etc. One of these days my cousin K and I were in a grocery store to buy stuff in my new list. As we were checking out, I noticed a Panha (which is a raw mango drink) concentrate. I so wanted to buy it, but it was available only in one kilogram cans, and no way I could have fit it in my luggage. I will make it this summer if I get good raw mangoes. I really miss having all these awesome concentrates which are used to make Sarbats; especially now that the temperatures are soaring up.

When I was visiting my brother in Mumbai, my SIL made us a Karvanda Sarbat from the concentrate they had just bought from their Konkan trip. It was extremely refreshing and tasty...beautiful pale pink color ,a little sweet and a little sour. A & I adore lemonade made from fresh limes and have lot of it every summer. With my busy schedule these days, I was planning to make some concentrate so that we can have lemonade instantly. Suddenly I remembered the Karvanda sarbat and thought what if I make a kiwi lemonade instead. I thought probably kiwis would give a similar taste as they too are sweet and sour.

Kiwi Lemonade
(Kiwi Lemonade Concentrate - Makes about 15 cups of Lemonade)

I was looking for Kiwi Lemonade recipes and found a lot of identical recipes, but they were not close to what I was looking for. I wanted to make a lemonade that tastes more like Sarbat. Mom gave me a recipe once for Lime sarbat concentrate, and I decided to make some modifications to incorporate kiwis into it. Here is how to make this concentrate.

1. In a pot mix 2 cups of sugar with 2 cups of water to make simple syrup. Once the sugar dissolves completely, let it boil for a minute, and then turn the heat off.

2. Peel 5 Kiwi fruits, cut them into big chunks and puree them. This will be about a cup.

3. Strain and mix kiwi pulp with half a cup of fresh lime juice, and add this to sugar syrup.

4. Let cool and store in an airtight jar in the fridge. This can be used in the next 5-6 days.

5. To make lemonade mix 2 tablespoons of concentrate with a cup of water. Add a pinch or two of salt and stir well. Serve very cold.

I used a colander to strain kiwis and that is why the seeds are also in the concentrate. If you don't want the seeds in your lemonade, strain in a regular strainer. The lemonade gets a nice pale green color because of kiwis and is very refreshing.

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.

Sweet Shankarpali

I am leaving for India in a couple of days and wanted to keep some snacks ready to eat for DH. One of the snacks I made is Shankarpali, because they have a long shelf life and are quite filling.

Shankarpali is a Maharashtrian snack often made for Diwali. A dough for Shankarpali is formed by boiling together milk, ghee and sugar and then adding flour to it. Small squares are then cut and deep fried. All purpose flour is often used in making shankarpali, but shankarpali made with whole wheat flour are also popular.


To make Shankarpali, simply follow these steps-
1. In a saucepan mix a cup each of milk, sugar and ghee (clarified butter) and bring to a boil. Add a quarter teaspoon of salt to the boiling mixture. You can also add oil instead of ghee, but according to me, ghee tastes much better.

2. Take the mixture off heat and add as much whole wheat flour (or all purpose flour) as needed to form a soft dough. Make sure that flour and milk mixture are properly combined. You probably would need about 3-3.5 cups of flour.

3. Let the dough cool. Once cool enough to handle, knead it well and let it rest for about 1.5-2 hours. Before making Shankarpali knead it once again.

4. To make Shankarpali, take a small ball of dough and roll it about quarter of an inch thick. Make sure that you don't roll out the dough very thin. This will make Shanarpali hard once they are fried.

Cut into squares (or diamond shape) with a traditional Shankarpali cutter (which is like a rotary cutter) or regular pizza cutter. Luckily I have a cutter that has multiple cutters attached to a rolling pin, which makes my job a lot easier. This is how it looks like -

5. Deep fry the cut squares in oil or ghee until golden brown. Let them cool. Store in an airtight container.

Shrikhand

There was no special occasion to make Shrikhand today. In India, sweet dishes like this one are made on some special occasions such as festivals. I bought this yogurt tub and totally forgot about it. I generally don't throw away yogurt containers but reuse them to store things in my fridge (they are especially very useful in storing Idli and Dosa batters in the freezer in small batches). So there were two more yogurt containers sitting beside this one and I didn't even realize that I have one unopened yogurt tub. Duh... I immediately checked the date on it and said to myself "Ah... I am glad I still can use it" (though it can still be usable for a couple days after the use by date, I strictly stick to the date on package and use it by that date). There was no way I could have used it in one day. A loves Shrikhand and so do I. Needless to say DH was very happy to see this on tonight's dinner menu :)

Shrikhand is made of strained yogurt. In India, the most common method to get rid of excess water in yogurt is to tie the yogurt in a cloth and hang it overnight. This makes the yogurt thick and creamy. Now you just need to add a few more ingredients and voila Shrikhand is ready! No cooking involved. It is just the assembling and mixing of different ingredients.

Ingredients:
1 tub yogurt (32 oz)
Sugar as needed
A few strands of saffron
Handful of slivered almonds or charoli nuts


1. Strain the yogurt. Initially I used the traditional "hang in a cloth" method, but now I don't use it any more. I think the best way to get thick yogurt is to use a colander or big strainer like this. Line with cheesecloth or a couple of sheets of paper towel, and dump in the yogurt. Cover the yogurt with paper towels and make the colander/strainer sit on a deep bowl in the fridge. After 3/4 hours you will get a thick yogurt.

2. Add sugar, saffron strand and nuts, and mix well. You will need about half the sugar of total yogurt(strained). Start by adding little less than half a cup and increase the quantity of sugar as required.
Traditionally Charoli is used in Shrikhand. But I always hated it :P, so I don't even bother to look for it in Indian stores. For me almonds work the best. I soak them in warm water for a few hours, take the skins off and finely cut them vertically.

Once your mixing is complete, Shrikhand is ready. Serve it with puri. There is no other combination that is as good as Shrikhand- Puri.