Gajar ka Halwa (Carrot Pudding)

Gajar ka halwa is one of those famous Bollywood cliches of course, but is also undeniably one of the most popular dishes from Punjabi cuisine to seep into other parts of India.
It has always been a favourite with me - I remember eating it in my neighbour's house in Mumbai - their daughter and me were inseparable as kids; same age, same school, same everything - we would have to be puled apart at the end of the day howling and screaming when we were taken to our respective homes! They are Punjabis and Aunty A made the most amazing melt-in-your-mouth carrot halwa.

I made sure it was on the menu for my wedding - thats how much I love it! I guess its something about the lovely taste of almost caramelized carrots cooked into sweet nothingness in milk and sugar which makes me sigh with satisfaction. In Chennai I would have to wait for that fleeting month when the red carrots would make their appearance - here in Delhi they flood the markets from November to March.

No wonder then (especially when they are also cheap at this time) that the winter here sees me making this almost every other week. Its a great snack/dessert/breakfast - you name it :) I don't use khoya though and cook the carrots in the milk right down till it becomes khoya! I also don't add almonds or other nuts and nor do I serve it with ice cream - less is more.

Gajar ka Halwa

Peeled and grated carrots (preferable red, juicy carrots) - 2.5 cups
Milk - 6 cups
Sugar - 1 cup
Ghee - 3 tbsp
Cardamom powder - 1 tsp

1. Bring the milk to boil in heavy bottomed pan and continue to simmer till it reduces to half the quantity. Make sure you keep stirring once in a while, so it doesn't stick to the bottom.
2. Meanwhile, in another pan, heat the ghee and add the grated carrots.
3. Saute for about 5-8 minutes on a low flame till it loses its raw smell and softens.
4. Add the carrot to the reduced milk and continue cooking till the milk is completely absorbed and the carrot is just moist.
Once the carrot is cooked, add sugar and cook for 5 minutes, till the sugar dissolves.
5. Add the cardamom powder and remove from flame.
6. Serve warm

Carrot Coconut Muffins

A special family occasion always calls for something which warms the heart as well as the palate. And when we are talking about celebrating the joy that our little girl brings into our lives, her twinkling eyes and impish smile which make every day a new wonder - then it has to be something which screams "Sunshine"!


These carrot coconut muffins do just that - their warm orange colour seems to be a shade of happiness itself and their moist insides burst with the goodness of carrots and apples. I saw them first quite sometime back on the Joy of Baking website and later on Meeta's wonderful blog "Whats for Lunch, Honey".
These muffins are the easiest thing to bake and use ingredients which we usually have at hand. My daughter loved making it with me and couldn't wait for them to bake and then cool to see how they turned out - very much the way she pestered us that whole morning for mehendi and then as soon as it was on she wanted to take it off and see the colour "NOW"! :)

I didn't make the cream cheese frosting since I didn't think they were needed at all - warm them just a little in the oven and you're good to go. I used homemade unsalted butter instead of the oil in the original recipe and toned down the sugar a wee bit.These muffins are apparently also called "Morning Glory Muffins" - I can see why!

Carrot Coconut Muffins

1 1/2 cups maida
1/2 cup wheat flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs

2 cups grated carrots
1 apple, peeled and grated (should be crisp and not the mushy kind)
1 cup grated coconut (I used fresh coconut)
1/2 cup walnuts, lightly toasted, peeled and chopped
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder (For some reason everytime I combine cinnamon and salt, the dish seems to get over salted, so this time I did away with the salt in the original recipe,completely)

Method:
1. Sift the flours and the baking powder,cinnamon powder and soda together.
2. Beat the eggs and keep aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together till creamy.
3. Mix in the eggs and vanilla essence into the butter and sugar and then add the flour, grated carrots, apples, chopped walnuts and coconut mixing just until combined.
4. The key to spongy muffins is not to mix the ingredients too much but just till they come together.
5. Spoon the batter into lightly greased muffin pans or you can line the muffin pans with muffin papers and then spoon the batter into them.
6. Bake in a pre heated oven at 180C (350F) for 22-25 minutes till a skewer inserted comes out clean. Rest for 10 minutes and turn out of the muffin pan and let it cool completely.

Pasta Primavera

Primavera comes from Italian for "season of spring" or "spring style". Pasta Primavera then, is a very light pasta tossed with fresh, crisp vegetables - usually spring vegetables. It can be served with a creamy, alfredo sauce or a robust marinara sauce or even just tossed with herbs and parmesan cheese.

I like to keep my Pasta Primavera light and so don't go for the Alfredo sauce nor do I spend time slaving over a marinara sauce. I do use tomatoes though, just that I don't reduce it to a sauce and am happy just sauteing them with the rest of the vegetables. You could use cherry tomatoes for a different texture.

Carrots, bell peppers and peas are what I usually use, sometimes throwing in mushroom, corn or zucchini depending on what I have in the 'fridge. Since pasta is so light I make sure I use Italian herbs and seasonings to give it more flavour. Garlic is a must for me.

The winter evenings are perfect for having a warm bowl of light pasta along with some soup - and in summer one could easily turn this into a cold salad by cooking the vegetables separately and tossing them with the pasta and herbs.

Pasta Primavera

Ingredients:

Pasta - 200gms
(penne, farfalle,fusilli)

2 cups chopped vegetables
(peppers, carrots, peas,mushroom, corn)
1 onion chopped fine
1 tomato quartered
4 cloves of garlic minced
Olive oil - 1 tbsp

Italian mixed dried herbs / seasoning - 1 tsp
Red chilli flakes - 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Crushed black pepper - 1/4 tsp

Grated parmesan cheese - 1/2 cup

1. Heat the olive oil in a wide pan and saute the garlic briefly, add the onions and saute for about 4 minutes till transluscent.
2. Add the vegetables and saute for 3 minutes on high, then lower flame and cook covered for about 5 minutes.
3. Uncover, add the tomatoes, salt, chilli flakes and herbs and saute for 2 more minutes.
4. Meanwhile, when the vegetables are cooking bring a big vessel of salted water to boil and cook the pasta in it till just done. Drain, toss with a tsp of olive oil and keep aside.
5. Toss the pasta with the vegetables, sprinkle crushed pepper and the grated parmesan cheese and serve warm.

Carrot & Mustard Bread

It's funny how certain things you buy seem to acquire a vibe or a kind of reputation attached to them. Like that dress which you seem to be perpetually running late in or spilling things on or the car which always seems to be getting into scrapes while the other one you owned only reminds you of all the lovely, long road trips you have taken.

Of course, it could be that you always spend time looking for matching earrings for that particular dress, which is why you run late or you love wearing a particular dress for lazy lunches - and if you're anything like me that's a guaranteed recipe for splotches and stains!. And of course we took more road trips as a cozy couple and handed over the car to a driver when the kid came along!!

Inspite of all the rational explanations, these things seem to stick in our mind. The same thing happened with a lovely loaf tin my friend picked up for me when she saw a dealon while shopping. This was in June and immediately after that I somehow simply stopped baking! It had everything to do with the fact that I went back to full time work in July, but of course I blamed it on the poor loaf tin.

The best way to break that jinx? - bake something in it! So, I brought out my Sara Lewis book and saw this lovely Carrot & Mustard bread. I started quite late (around 7.30pm) and realised later it would only become colder as time wore on - definitely not ideal bread baking time. But I just can't seem to give up an idea once it takes hold, so I soldiered on. The yeast was fine and bubbled over, but when I kneaded the bread and left in a warm oven, it really didn't rise as much as it normally does. So I left it for almost an hour and 45 minutes before the second proofing. Kneaded it again and shaped the dough into three small buns and one oblong loaf.

30 minutes later it had not risen much at all and I was really sleepy and didn't think it was going to rise much anyway, so popped it into the oven to bake after glazing it. It baked quite beautifully and the glaze made it a nice golden top. But the inside of the bread, though cooked, was not the lovely spongy texture I look forward to....I guess, now that it's winter, I should stick to baking in the day when its a bit warmer. Or maybe it was the fact that I had used whole wheat flour instead of "granary flour" and plain flour instead of "strong white flour" and did not change the proportions. The flavours of the carrot and mustard were excellent though - definitely worth a second attempt.

Ah, well, atleast now the jinx has been broken and I can stop blaming the loaf tin........on the other hand, maybe I can blame the loaf tin for the bread!*evil grin*

This loaf of carrot bread specially to dear Cooker who is hosting this month's edition of JFI - where the ingredient is the Carrot. Jihva for Ingredients (JFI) is the brainchild of Indira and is probably one of the longest running Indian food blog events. Thank you Cooker for extending the last date!

Carrot & Mustard Bread
Recipe adapted from Sara Lewis's The Bread Book

Ingredients:
Wheat flour (atta) - 200gm (approx 2 1/4 cups)
Refined flour (maida) - 150gm (approx 1 3/4 cups)
Water - 200ml (1 cup)
Dried active yeast - 3 tsp
Sugar - 1 tsp
Honey - 1 tsp
Mustard - 2 tbsp
Carrots - grated, 1 cup
Salt - 1 tsp
Butter - 2 tbsp
Egg yolk - 1

Method:
1. Warm up the water, dissolve the sugar in it and when lukewarm add the yeast to it. Keep aside for about 15 minutes till it bubbles and froths.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix the flours with the butter, rubbing till it resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Add the salt, honey, mustard, grated carrot and the yeast mixture and knead for 10 minutes to a smooth dough.
4. Cover with an oiled clingwrap and set aside in a warm place for about an hour or till it doubles in size.
5. Knead again and shape into an oblong loaf or form into a thick rope and twist from one side like a corkscrew.
6. Put into a greased loaf tin (I used a 1 litre loaf tin for the loaf and made the rest of the dough into three small rolls) and set aside for another 30 minutes till it rises to the top (depending on the height of the tin).
7. Pre heat the oven to 200C, brush the egg yolk mixed with 1 tbsp water on to the top of the loaf and then bake for about 30-35 minutes. If the top is browning too much after the first 15 minutes, cover with foil and continue baking.
8. Remove from oven, the bread should sound hollow when tapped. Remove from tin carefully and keep on wire rack to cool.

Soup and Salad Lunch - Tomato Carrot Soup

I made two soups and a salad for lunch on Janmashtami after a heavy festive breakfast. One of the soups was this creamy Spinach soup and the other one was this delicious tomato carrot soup. The salad was my usual roasted salad with lots of mixed vegetables.

Shredded carrots and peeled tomatoes, cooked along with some herbs and spices and then pureed for a quick, tasty bowl of warm goodness! You can add a small grated potato to this for some thickness. This time though, I went with a small piece of pumpkin - it not only adds texture but also a beautiful orange colour.

Tomato Carrot Soup

3-4 tomatoes, blanched and peeled
(immerse the tomatoes in boiling water for 5 minutes, remove and plunge into cold water. Peel)
2 carrots, peeled and grated
1 onion finely chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1 bay leaf
small piece of pumpkin, peeled and roughly chopped
1/4 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
salt and pepper powder to taste
a sprinkle of mixed dried herbs
oil - 1 tsp

1. Chop the peeled tomatoes. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan, add the bay leaf and garlic.
2. Toss in the chopped onions and saute for 5 minutes till transluscent.
3. Add the grated carrots, chopped pumpkin and tomatoes and saute for about 3-4 minutes.
4. Add the chilli powder, salt and cumin powder and after a minute, add 3-4 cups of water and bring to boil.
5. Reduce flame and simmer covered for about 10-15 minutes till the vegetables are cooked.
6. Cool, remove the bay leaf and puree the mixture. Add a little water if needed and return to the fire. Adjust salt and pepper, put in the mixed herbs and pepper and remove from flame.
7. Serve warm with a crusty bread.

Appam and Vegetable Stew - WBB - Balanced Breakfasts

Appams are something both of us love and when in Chennai, we hardly needed a reason to go out to the neighbourhood Kerala joint and feast on those lacy fluffy circles of heaven. I haven't been very successful making aapams at home, though to be honest I didn't really try too much - why bother with facing failure when we could just as easily eat out!

Then we moved to Delhi - if I thought Chennai needed Mumbai's Udipi restaurants when I moved there, then Delhi definitely needs any kind of South Indian restaurants (yeah sure, Saravana Bhavan is here with meals that cost a minimum of Rs 300 per head!!; Sagar Ratna restaurants are few and far between)

So we pined for our appams with chicken curry and vegetable stew......The last straw was when Hubby started travelling extensively to Cochin for a month and used to come back raving about the food. That's it - I decided that it was time to shake off the laziness and crack this thing!

I found a similar story to mine on Ginger and Mango and was quite inspired by Inji Pennu's success in making perfect palappams - they looked so delicious! The rice flour paste in her recipe was the one major difference between other recipes I have tried before, and also appears in Madhur Jaffrey's recipe for Appams.

Well, it did the trick and I was able to make fluffy appams for the first time. I was afraid that the batter wouldn't ferment enough since February in Delhi was still quite cold, so I left it out quite long and it became a tad sourer than needed. Easily remedied the next time round! And there is definitely going to be a lot of next times!


I served this with a vegetable stew (ishtoo) which is easily the dish for me, which has the simplest of ingredients and the richest of flavours!

I am sending this breakfast duo to Weekend Breakfast Blogging #20, the brainchild of Nandita of Saffron Trail which is being hosted this month by Mansi over at - Fun and Food. This month's theme is "Balanced Breakfasts" and Mansi makes it easy with this definition - "A balanced and wholesome breakfast is something that combines 2 or more of the food groups below to fulfill nutrition needs.

Fruits or vegetables (dried fruits are fine too)
Grains and Cereals (whole grains, oats, high-fiber foods)
Dairy (skim milk, low-fat yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese (paneer) )
Proteins (eggs/egg whites, peanut butter, beans, nuts, sprouts, protein isolates)"

With rice in the appam and vegetables in the stew, I think this breakfast is as balanced as they come...not to mention so so tasty!

Kerala Vegetable Stew

Ingredients:

Potatoes - 2 medium peeled and chopped
Carrots -1 medium peeled and diced
French beans - 8-10 diced
Green peas - 1/4 cup
Cauliflower florets - 1 cup
Coconut milk - 1 cup thin milk and 1 cup thick milk
(If using coconut powder, then just make 2 cups of coconut milk as per the instructions)
Onions - 2 sliced
Green chillies - 5-6 slit lengthwise
Ginger - 2.5 cm grated
Curry leaves - 10
Salt to taste
Coconut oil - 1 tbsp
Cinnamon stick - 1 "
Cardamom - 1
Cloves - 3-4

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a pan and add the whole spices to it (cloves, cinnamon, cardamom). Saute for 3-4 minutes
2. Add half of the curry leaves and the green chillies, all of the grated ginger and sliced onions. Fry till onions turn translucent and then add the chopped potatoes, 1 cup of water and 1 cup of thin coconut milk and salt.
3. In the meanwhile, boil the chopped vegetables in 3/4 th cup of lightly salted water till just cooked and keep aside.
4. When the potatoes are soft and well cooked, add the cooked vegetables, rest of the green chillies and curry leaves and the thick coconut milk. Gently heat through for about 5 minutes, take off fire and serve with hot appams.

Broccoli Soup

The weather just isn't letting up here and we have been having unseasonally cold weather. "Its February!", I want to scream,"Time to put back the sweaters and move around with a light stole, and oh yes! no socks on my feet the WHOLE time!!".

Instead we are stuck with single digit minimum temperatures and its slated to get worse! My daughter, down with a bad cold, was struggling to breathe through her blocked nose....mealtimes quickly turned into a nightmare.

So, what do I do? Plan a week full of soups, runny khichdis and lentil stews.

One of the soups I made was a broccoli soup with potatoes and carrots in it to give it a bit of body and more flavour. I usually add spinach to this soup which makes it a darker green, but didn't have any on hand.
Having been in hot and humid Chennai for such a long time, my soups tend to be as light as possible and so I don't really add cheese - but colder temperatures may warrant some calories, so go ahead if you feel like.

Broccoli is a vegetable related to the cauliflower (it looks like a green version of cauliflower anyway) and a member of the cabbage family. But what I found out was that the stem of the broccoli is much more fibrous than cauliflower, and remains crunchy when cooked.

In Italian , it is known as "Broccollo" which means "Cabbage sprout" and shares the sulphur smell of cabbage and cauliflower, which is released if overcooked.
So, to prevent nutrition loss as well as the smell, it is always better to steam this vegetable for salads and stir fries, so that it is just tender and not mushy.

It is packed with vitamins like A,K,C and riboflavins as well as fiber, calcium and potassium. Besides a huge list of health benefits which include protection against cancer and cardiac disease, it also has anti oxidant properties which help the skin.

While researching foods that would help my digestive system's limited capacity, I also found out that this vegetable supports stomach health by eliminating bacteria responsible for gastritis and ulcers.

Broccoli is no longer as difficult to get in India nor as expensive, and it is a good idea to make it part of your diet, even if just once a month.

This soup is going to "No Croutons Required" which has just been started by Lisa of Lisa's Kitchen and Holler of Tinned Tomatoes. The event is a new monthly soup and salad challenge and this month's theme is Vegetarian Soups and is being hosted by Lisa.

Broccoli Soup

Ingredients:

Broccoli - 7-8 florets
Carrot - 4 tbsp grated
Potato - 1 small grated
Onions - 1 chopped
Garlic - 2 cloves chopped
Bay leaf - 1
Butter or vegetable oil - 1/2 tbsp
Vegetable stock - 350 - 400 ml
salt to taste
freshly crushed black pepper
Cream - 1 tbsp per portion (optional)

Method:

1. Heat the butter or oil in a heavy pan and drop in the bay leaf. Add the onions and saute till translucent, put in the chopped garlic cloves and fry one minute.
2. Add the grated carrot and potato and fry for 2 minutes. Put in the broccoli pieces, saute one minute, then the salt and the stock. Bring to boil and then cover and simmer for about 20- 30 minutes till the vegetables are cooked and soft. Alternatively, you can pressure cook the vegetables at this stage.
3. Strain the water and let cool. Remove the bay leaf, blend the vegetables to a smooth paste and add as much of the strained soup liquid as needed to give it a thick creamy consistency.
5. Pour it back into the pan, adjust the salt and heat through. A dash of cream and a sprinkle of freshly crushed black pepper and it's ready!