Beet Treats

Beetroot in my kitchen, is often cooked as a side, for my usual traditional lunch of sambhar, morukootan etc. Sometimes its added along with other veggies prepared for sandwich filling. I came across the beet juice at Tarla Dalal. At the same time, Viji Akka of Vcuisine (private blog) posted the recipe for beet syrup. The syrup recipe interested me and decided to make it. I didn't quite follow Viji Akka's recipe exactly. On searching for the benefits of beets, I found the following info.

Never drink beet juice by itself. Beet juice should always be mixed with other vegetables and/or apple juice. Pure beet juice (from the bulb or greens) can temporarily paralyze your vocal chords, make you break out in hives, increase your heart rate, cause chills or a fever. Consider mixing beets with apples, cucumber, carrots, etc.

Beets are best used in small amounts. Use moderately. Both the roots and greens are powerful cleansers of the body. Beets are said to really cleanse the blood and kidneys and this is why it is suggested you use beets moderately.

Ingredients
Beet roots - 2 big

Medium carrot - 1
Citric acid -1/4 tspn ( can use lime juice instead)
Brown sugar - 1/4 cup (I used damerara sugar)
White sugar -1/4 cup
Water -1/4 cup
Dried ginger powder (Chukku) - 1/2 tspn

Method
Wash, peel and cut beetroot and carrot into cubes. Take juice of beetroot and carrot by adding
water. Strain and keep it aside.
Mix both the sugars with 1/4 cup of water and prepare sugar syrup. Add juice, ginger powder and citric acid. Simmer for 5 minutes. Skim the foam on the top. Bottle it and refrigerate.

Beet Drink

To make beet drink, add 3 parts of cold water to one part of syrup and serve. Makes an excellent summer cooler loaded with vitamins. You can add soda instead of water and you will not for Coke again.

Now some other ways you can make use of the beet syrup.

Carrot cucumber in beet yogurt

Stir in a tablespoon of syrup in a cup of yogurt. Whip well and mix in grated carrot, cucumber and a slit green chilly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with fresh coriander. A yummy salad is ready.

Beet flavoured milk.

Stir in a tablespoon of beet syrup in a glass of cold milk and enjoy. I am not sure if it will curdle when added to warm milk. To this if you add a drop of rose essence, it will make delicious rosemilk.

Beet Lassi

Curds - 1 1/2 cup

Milk - 1/2 cup

Beet syrup - 1 tablespoon

Water - 1/2 cup

Whip all the ingredients with a blender until smooth. Serve Chilled. Adjust water according to how smooth you want your lassi to be. No need to add extra sugar.

All the preparation with beet syrup tasted very delicious. Its very versatile and you can use it according to your creativity. Let me know any other ways, this can be used. I will be glad to try those.

I am sending the three pink treats to FIC: Pink/Rose hosted by Priya, an event started by Sunshinemom.

Berries Cream Puffs

A sweet lady bought me super sweet and giant size of strawberries last week. Normally I find big size of strawberries would not be so sweet however these package of strawberries really super sweet. I need four big bites to finished a strawberry and imagine how big it is and I love strawberries crazily.

To appreciate her lovely thought, I quickly tuck into my kitchen to make some cream puffs to sandwich the strawberries and some leftover blueberries for her. The berries cream puffs was very refreshing in this hot and humid weather.

Recipe for 20 puffs:

For the Puff: 70g plain flour/3 beaten eggs/100g water/60g unsalted butter/Pinch of sugar and salt

For the custard: 3 egg yolks/200ml milk/60g sugar/20g plain flour/10g unsalted butter/1 tsp vanilla extract

How I made it:

1. For the puff, boil the water, butter and pinch of sugar and salt in a cooking pan until its bubbling. Off the heat, add in all the plain flour and mix with a wooden spoon until well combine and become a smooth dough.


2. Add half of the beaten eggs and mix (this stage is a bit hard work but please patient and keep stirring until the egg mix into the dough.) Once the eggs completely mix with the dough, you will find it quite dry and hardly to mix. Add the beaten eggs little by little into the dough and continue mixing. You might not finish using the beaten eggs. You will need to have a smooth and silky consistency of the mixture. When you spoon up the mixture, it should drop back to the pan very slowly. The mixture should not too dry or too wet.


3. Once you get the right consistency of mixture, transfer it into a piping bag and pipe out about 20 dollops of mixture on a baking tray with baking paper.


4. Dip your fingers with some water and gently touch the top of the mixture. This is to prevent it over burning while it's baking in the oven. Then spray some water on the mixture surface. (Not too much)


5. Bake at 200'C preheated oven for 15 minutes until it puff up then turn the temperature to 170'C and bake for another 15 minutes. Transfer the puff on a wire rack to cool down.


6. For the custard, boil the milk with sugar until sugar dissolve but not boiling. Meanwhile, mix the egg yolks and flour a thick paste but no lumps. Add two tablespoon of milk if you find it too dry to mix.


7. Pour the dissolve warm sugar milk into the egg yolks mixture, pour little by little and mix with a hand whisk until everything combine. Then, pour back the mixture into the cooking pan. Cook in very low heat and keep stirring until it thicken.


8. Once the mixture thicken, remove from the heat and keep stirring until the heat slightly cool down but slightly warm. Then add in the butter and vanilla extract. Continue stirring until well combine.


9. Transfer the custard into a plate and cover with cling film. Make sure the cling film touch on the mixture, this is to prevent it from skin forming on its surface.


10. To assemble the berries cream puffs, squeeze in some custard then sandwich some strawberries and blueberries. Chill in the fridge before serve.

Pineapple Kesari

Picture clicked by my hubby :)

Kesari comes out perfect every time I follow my mom's recipe. The ratio of rava to water should be right to get the right consistency. I usually don't compromise on ghee because it is the only ingredient which makes this dish tasty.

Serves: 2-3

Ingredients:
Sooji/Rava/Semolina-1/2 cup
Sugar-1/2 cup
Water-1 cup
Ghee(clarified butter)-2 tbsp
Cardamom-1/4 tsp
Saffron-a few strands
Pineapple pieces chopped finely-1/4 cup
Milk-2 tbsp
Chopped nuts(almonds, cashews)-1 tbsp
Raisins-2 tsp
Food color(any color)-a pinch(I used pink)

Method:
Soak saffron in warm milk.
In a vessel, bring water and pineapple pieces to a boil.
In a pan, melt butter and make ghee. Roast nuts and raisins in ghee and transfer the mixture to a bowl. Return the pan to stove. Roast rava on low flame for 5-6 minutes. Add cardamom, saffron-milk, boiling water(with pineapple pieces) and food color. Keep stirring while pouring hot water to avoid lumps. Cook for a minute. Add sugar. Stir well and cook for 2 minutes. Add half of the ghee+nuts mixture and mix well.

Before serving kesari, top it off with remaining ghee and nuts.

Note: You may also add a few drops of pineapple essence to make it even tastier.
Instead of adding pineapple, you can make plain kesari and add a few drops of almond essence.



I am sending this to FIC: Pink/Rose - March 31st event started by Sunshinemom and hosted by priya.

BTW today is my parents' anniversary :) Last year they were here in the US with us and we went to Flower fields(in San Diego). The flowers are spread across 50 acres of land! It is a breathtaking view. They are open from March through May every year.