Cranberry Relish

This is a quick and easy relish/salsa that you can pair with Chips or even with the Curried couscous from the previous recipe I posted. As easy as throwing a bunch of ingredients in the food processor and giving it a quick whirl!

Serves : 6

Prep Time: 5 minutes (or less!)

Ingredients: Cranberries 2 cups washed, Red onion 1 (medium), Scallions 1/4 cup chopped, Serrano pepper chopped 1/2 tsp, Cilantro 1 cup chopped, Sugar (to your liking)

Blend Away...

> Add all the ingredients to the food processor and pulse a few times until everything is chopped but not a paste

> Transfer to serving bowl and serve with Chips or pair with any dish of your liking!

My Thoughts..

> Since cranberries are quite tart, I had to add about 1/2 a cup of sugar. You can adjust the sugar depending on how sweet or tart you want the relish

> Store it in the refrigerator right away if you are serving it later. It keeps nicely in the fridge for a few days

Enjoy!

Two Bean Chili With Curried Couscous

The inspiration for this recipe was a Vegetarian Chili recipe from Healthy Eats/Food Network by Robin Miller http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robin-miller/vegetarian-chili-recipe/index.html

and the suggested recipe on the Whole Wheat Couscous package that I purchased from Trader Joe's. It's amazing how most of the suggested recipes on anything I buy at Trader Joe's almost always works out great!

Anyways, since this was the main dish of my vegetarian thanksgiving menu, I decided that a combination of beans and couscous would make it hearty and filling, as there was going to be no Turkey for our thanksgiving :)

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients: Soy beans 1 15 oz can, Dark Red Kidney Beans 1 15 oz can, Whole Wheat Couscous 1 cup, Olive oil 2 Tbsp, Red Onion 1 medium, Scallions chopped 1/2 cup, Coriander powder 2 Tsp, Red Chilli powder 1 Tsp, Serrano Pepper 1 chopped, Turmeric 1 pinch, Tomatoes Roma 2 medium, Cumin seeds 2 Tsp, Salt to taste, Parsley 1 Tbsp, Thyme - couple of sprigs

Cook Away...

> Put a saucepan on medium high heat on the stove and add the olive oil

> Add cumin seeds, thinly sliced red onions, scallions and serrano peppers and saute for a couple of minutes

> Add the tomatoes and saute for a few more minutes

> Now add the two beans (drained and rinsed)

> Add coriander powder, salt, turmeric and the red chilli powder and add about half a cup of water and let it all simmer for 5-7 minutes

>Now add about 11/2 - 2 cups of water and add the couscous in and stir frequently

> If needed, add a little more water and stir

> Add the parsley and thyme and turn off the heat once the couscous is completely cooked

> Serve hot!

My Thoughts..

> If you want this dish more Chili-like, reduce the couscous to about half a cup or so

> You can also cut back on the serrano pepper or the red chilli powder to reduce the spice level

Enjoy!

Butternut Squash soup

Another appetizer on my vegetarian Thanksgiving menu...Butternut squash soup. And I made it using this recipe from the Healthy Eats blog. It turned out delicious. I topped it with some scallions and toasted pine nuts as suggested by the recipe. Easy to make and yummy.

http://blog.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/2009/11/11/spotlight-recipe-butternut-squash-soup/#more-11270

**Picture from my Kitchen. Recipe Copyright Healthy Eats

Pumpkin Cheesecake Filling Squares

I love a good Pumpkin Pie. Pumpkin is one of my favourite ingredients of Fall. However all the pumpkin pie recipes I know are unfortunately laden with fat and butter and calories. So I decided to bake a pumpkin pie, minus the graham cracker crust. That way I at least cut down on all the butter that goes in a crust. I took Paula Deen's recipe from the Food Network website as the base and made a couple of minor modifications. Here's a link to her recipe http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pumpkin-cheesecake-recipe/index.html.

For the filling, I mostly took the same ingredients as the above recipe calls for. However, I only used 1 8 0z package of cream cheese and instead of the rest of cream cheese and the sour cream, I used a cup of natural no-sugar added applesauce. I wasn't quite sure how this would work out, but I have to say it wasn't bad at all! I also substituted half of the sugar with Splenda. Not sure how many calories I chopped off but I am guessing quite a few! The rest of the ingredients were all the same. And I baked the mixture in a 350 F oven on an 8 inch baking sheet for about 45 minutes. It turned out quite yummy in the end and I didn't miss the pie crust at all. Well, maybe I missed it just a little bit...but with fewer calories, this was almost as good.

**Pictures are from my kitchen. The recipe is from Food Netwrok's website, Copyright Paula Deen

Vegetarian Thanksgiving Menu

Just finished cleaning up and putting away left overs from the vegetarian thanksgiving meal! All items turned out pretty good. I made a cranberry relish, Butternut squash soup, Couscous with beans (hybrid of a couscous salad and a vegetarian chili.. yum), masala mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie filling squares (basically the pumpkin pie filling minus the graham cracker crust..save those calories!) and last but not the least, carrot cupcakes. I'll blog about these recipes soon...right now I just want to curl up in front of the television and watch a movie while eating the carrot cupcake! Ah, bliss...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Born and brought up in India, I hadn't really heard of Thanksgiving until I landed in the US in '98 as a student. And I remember that year, my Professor from the University invited a bunch of new students over to his house for the Thanksgiving feast and that's when I first found about about the different thanksgiving ingredients and how they are cooked. Of course, being a vegetarian I didn't sample the Turkey, but I really enjoyed a lot of the side dishes. Mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, green bean casserole, yummy butternut squash soup, not to mention a nice big serving of Pumpkin pie topped with some  homemade whipped cream! So this year, I've decided to cook an All-Vegetarian Thanksgiving feast for my family. I am not sure what I'll be making yet, but I know all the different ingredients I am going to work with. Plus, I saw this wonderful article from Food Network/Healthy Eats about how to cook up a vegetarian Thanksgiving feast. So with that as the inspiration, I am looking at coming up with my own recipes using these ingredients:

> Butternut squash

> Green beans

> Potatoes (I am thinking add Indian touches. How does Masala Mashed potatoes sound?)

>Cranberries (Cranberry Chutney?? Yum!)

> Pumpkin Puree (I am thinking Pie or Pumpkin bread French-toast-style, topped with some cinnamon sugar and whipped cream)

I am not sure what the main dish would be...the Vegetarian Chili recipe from the above link from Healthy Eats sounds fabulous. Or I might just make a rice or a couscous based dish, with lots of veggies and some Indian spices.

I'll post the recipes here over the weekend, if they turn out good of course.

Hope you have fun planning and executing your Thanksgiving meal too!

Foodie Blogroll

If you are a reader of my blog, you must have noticed the "Foodie Blogroll" widget on the sidebar that I added recently.  It's a great site with links to a lot of wonderful food blogs and recipes (my blog is featured on it too!). A wide variety of blogs are featured on this website - cooking,  baking, healthy recipes, desserts, you name it. Check it out when you get a chance. Here's the link. Enjoy!

Paneer (Cottage cheese cubes) in spiced Tomato sauce

I found a recipe for Paneer Makhani (Cottage cheese cubes in heavy cream sauce) from Sanjeev Kapoor's cookbook and decided to make my own version of it by stripping off the heavy cream the original recipe calls for. I decided to substitute the cream for some yogurt and corn flour and it turned out really yummy. I paired this dish with the Ginger Rice from the previous post and the combination was to die for!

 

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients: Paneer (store-bought package), Ginger - 1.5 inch piece, Garlic - 6-7 cloves, Tomato sauce - 2 cups, serrano chilli peppers - 1, Black peppercorns - 5-6, Cloves - 5-6, Cinnamon stick - a couple of sticks, broken into small pieces, Corn flour - 3 tsp, Yogurt (low fat or non fat) - 3 tsp, salt to taste, Olive oil - 2 Tbsp, turmeric - a pinch

Cook Away..

> Roughly chop the ginger and garlic and serrano peppers and throw them into a blender and make a fine paste

> Dice the Paneer into 1/2 inch cubes

> Heat a sauce pan on medium heat and add the Olive oil and lightly fry the paneer cubes until light golden brown and set them aside on a paper napkin to soak up additional oil

> In the same pan to the remaining oil, add peppercorns, cloves and cinnamon and fry on medium heat

> Add the ginger-garlic-chilli paste and fry for a couple of minutes

> Add the tomato sauce and about a cup and a half of water and let the mixture come to a boil

> Now lower the heat and add the paneer cubes and fold them into the mixture lightly (don't stir too hard as this will cause them to break)

> In a bowl, take the corn flour and add about half a cup of water and mix thoroughly so there are no lumps of flour

> Now add this corn flour paste to the Paneer and tomato mixture and combine lightly

> Add the yogurt and stir slowly and turn off the heat

> Transfer to a serving bowl and serve hot with Naan or Chapathis or Rice

My Thoughts..

> If you do not have tomato sauce on hand, you could use tomato puree or even diced fresh tomatoes. Just add a little more water while cooking so it becomes more of a paste

> For a creamier version like the original recipe, you can skip the yogurt and corn flour paste and add a cup of heavy cream or even some cream cheese (yum!)

> Although I haven't tried it yet, I am thinking you could substitute Tofu cubes for Paneer cubes as well. Will try soon and post here

This dish is so comforting on a cold evening. Pair it with the Brown Ginger fried rice and seat yourself in front of the TV to watch your favourite show. Oh-so-blissful. Enjoy!

Brown Ginger Fried Rice

This recipe is inspired by the Ginger Fried rice recipe from one of the cookbooks of a very famous Indian celebrity Chef, Sanjeev Kapoor. I was flipping through is vegetarian recipes over the weekend and saw this one and decided to make it, with some of my touches, of course! :)

Prep Time: 45 minutes (most of it to cook the brown rice)

Serves: 4

Ingredients: Brown rice (raw) - 2 cups, Ginger - about 1.5 inch piece, Onion (red) - 1 medium, Cilantro - half a bunch, red chilli powder - 1-2 tsp, Cumin seeds - 2 tsp, serrano chilli peppers - 1-2, salt to taste, soy sauce - 1 Tbsp, cloves (whole) - 1-2, Olive Oil -3 tsp, turmeric -  a pinch

Cook Away...

> Cook the Brown rice according to the instructions on the package

> Slice the ginger into thin, long pieces

>Slice the red onion into thin, long strips and chop the cilantro and dice the serrano peppers

> Heat the olive oil in a pan and add the ginger and fry until golden brown

> Now add the cloves, cumin seeds, serrano peppers and onions and continue sauteing for a few minutes until the onions are golden brown

> Add the cooked rice to the mixture and stir all ingredients together

> Add soy sauce, red chilli powder amd turmeric and combine everything and let it cook on a low heat for a few more minutes

> Serve hot with a curry dish on the side (Suggest the Paneer dish whose recipe follows this one)

My Thoughts...

> You can skip the red chilli powder or the serrano chilli peppers if you want to reduce the heat levels

> You can make the same dish with White rice as well, I chose brown rice because of it's nutritional value

Carrot cupcakes -- From Food Network

I came across this recipe from the Food Network website...sounds delicious and healthy. Can't wait to try it this weekend
Carrot Cupcakes with Cream cheese frosting

**From Food Network website

Chocolate Hazelnut Mocha

This is a super-easy and super-delicious beverage.. you just need to have a Chocolate Hazelnut Hot chocolate mix on hand and you are all set. I absolutely love this "mocha-like" concoction and this has come to be my regular weekend early-morning beverage.

Prep Time: 2 minutes

Serves: 1

Ingredients: Milk ( 8 oz), Instant coffee ( 2 tsp), Ghirardelli Chocolate Hazelnut Hot chocolate mix (3 tsp)*, Sugar/Splenda( to your liking), Whipped cream (optional), dark chocolate shavings (optional)

* or any other hot chocolate mix.

Prep Away..

> On the stove top, place a saucepan and add the Milk and let it get warm/hot

> Add the Instant coffee, Hot Chocolate mix, splenda and stir everything together

> Stir for a minute until everything combines and the temperature is to your liking

> Pour the cocoa/mocha into a serving Cup and add whipped cream

> Add dark chocolate shavings on the top

> Sip and Enjoy!

My Thoughts..

> You could add only 2 tsp of the Hot Chocolate if you want the drink to be less chocolate-y. I love loading up on that chocolate! Similarly with the instant coffee, you can add only 1 tsp if you want more of a chocolate taste and less of coffee. You can alter the proportions and make it work for you!

This is just a cup of heaven on a chilly Sunday morning..Enjoy!

Pasta with Creamy Spinach and Basil Pesto

This pesto is a small twist to the regular Basil Pesto. It is creamier and lets you sneak the goodness of spinach into it.

(Will upload a picture soon...doesn't help if all the pictures are on my laptop and I write these blogposts from a different computer!)

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients: Spinach leaves (3 cups), Basil leaves (1 cup), Garlic (2-3 cloves), Cream cheese( 2Tbsp), Parmesan Cheese(1/4 cup),Lime Juice(1 Tbsp), Cilantro (1/4 cup), Salt to taste, Pepper( 1 tsp), Extra Virgin Olive Oil(2 Tbsp),Angel Hair Pasta (or any other pasta) 1 lb

Blend Away..

>Wash and drain the spinach and basil leaves, roughly chop the garlic cloves

>Add them to the blender, add the cream cheese and parmesan cheese and squeeze the lime juice

> Add salt and pepper and the EVOO and blend into a fine paste

>Add a little more EVOO if needed

>Cook the Pasta according to the instructions on the package and drain the pasta water

>Add the sauce to the pasta and serve warm!

My Thoughts..

> You can also add half a cup of toasted pine nuts before you blend to paste, if you have them on hand (like traditional pesto). I actually like to toast the pinenuts and add them as a garnish to the pasta

>You could also substitute Mint leaves for Basil. I've tried it and it tastes great, although I personally like Basil a little bit more

You've got to try this one...it's super delicious!