Honey Brownies - Celebrating a few hundreds

I am happy to share with you that today is my 100th day of blogging. My blog is also being followed by 100+ friends in Google connect and also in Networked Blogs. I would like to thank all my fellow bloggers and friends who made this happen by their constant support and encouragement. I feel really delighted for every comment left in my posts. I wanted a reason to celebrate this and so I made

Kottamalli Tokku - Coriander Relish

KOTTAMALLI TOKKU

My husband is very enthusiastic when it comes to shopping for food items. I really get inspired to cook a variety of dishes with all the different coloured fresh vegetables he purchases. But to my greatest horror he keeps getting bundles and bundles of coriander every time he returns from shopping. Most of the time I have to discard the half used up, dry old bundle half heartedly when the new bundle arrives. God bless the kindly greengrocer who drops an extra bundle of coriander as kosru ( complementary ) in our shopping bag even in these days of sky rocketing prices !

After tasting the store bought Kottamalli Tokku at my daughter's place I decided to prepare tokku at home using all the kottamalli ( coriander ) my husband buys from time to time. Now we have a constant supply of kottamalli tokku which we relish with every meal !

INGREDIENTS

                      

Fresh coriander - 1 bundle ( makes two loosely packed cups when chopped)
Red chillies - 5
salt - 2 tsps
Fenugreek seeds - 1/2 tsp
Asafoetida - 1 pinch
Tamarind - 1 marble size ( soaked  in 1/4 cup of warm water )
Jaggery - 1 tsp
Gingely oil - 2 tbsps
Mustard seeds - 1 pinch

METHOD

1. Remove the roots and wash the fresh coriander thoroughly before chopping. The stems can also be used as it is good fibre and it also adds to the body of the finished dish.
2. Dry roast fenugreek seeds till  brown in colour and add the red chillies to it.
3. Roast till the chillies are crisp and the fenugreek seeds become dark brown in colour.
4. Heat 1/4 tsp of oil in a pan and add asafoetida followed by the chopped fresh coriander.
5. Saute till the leaves wilt.
6. When the coriander cools down grind it with the roasted fenugreek seeds and red chillies, salt, tamarind and jaggery into a smooth paste. Add the water used for soaking the tamarind while grinding.
7. Heat the remaining oil in the pan and add mustard seeds.
8. When the mustard seeds splutter add the ground paste.
9. Keep stirring and cook till the oil separates.

    

Cool and store the Kottamalli Tokku in a clean dry bottle. Enjoy it with hot rice and a dollop of ghee. Relish it with dosas or chapaties. Spread it on bread for a tongue tickling sandwich.

This post goes to "Herbs and Flowers in my Platter" - Coriander leaves/Cilantro event in Krithi's Kitchen  and here's the original event announcement in Seduce Your Taste Buds.

Eggless Pumpkin Apricot Cake

Initially I had planned  to use the apricot received as part of the Arusuvai Friendship Chain in a baking recipe. And I bookmarked few recipes too. I tried a cake using the recipe from Allrecipes. The original recipe was for two cakes. Since I wanted to bake a single cake, I halved the ingredients. I replaced eggs with flaxseed meal and used whole wheat flour (atta) in place of all purpose flour(maida). Except for these two changes, I have followed the original recipe. 

I chose this recipe since I have never baked with pumpkin puree.  Its just mixing the wet and dry ingredients and no creaming/whisking required here. Actually you can do all the mixing in one bowl as mentioned in the original recipe. Since I am used to doing it separately and also wanted to be sure that the wet ingredients are combined well for even distribution.

Ingredients

• Dried apricots  -8 nos  1/4 cup puree
• Pumpkin puree - 1 cup
• Whole wheat flour - 2cups
• Baking powder - 1 tspn
• Baking soda - 1/2 tspn
• Ground cinnamon - 1 tspn
• Salt -1/4 tspn
• Caster sugar  - 1 cup (I powdered granulated sugar not very fine)
• Flax seed meal - 1 tblspn mixed in 4 tblspn of water
• Vegetable oil - 1/4 cup

Method

Prepare the apricot puree

Soak the apricots in boiling water for half an hour. Water should be enough to cover the apricots. Puree the apricots in a mixer grinder. Add some water while grinding. The puree should measure 1/4 cup. You can use the soaked water to make it to 1/4 cup.

Prepare the pumpkin puree

Take 250 gm of pumpkin. Peel and deseed the pumpkin and then chop it into cubes. Steam cook in the pressure cooker or microwave until it is tender. Puree the pumpkin to get 1 cup of puree.

To bake

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and sugar in a bowl.  In another bowl, add flax seeds mixed in water, apricot and pumpkin purees. Make a well in the centre of the fry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients and mix until they are just combined. 

The batter consistency is similar to that of muffins. At first, I had mixed flax seed meal in 3 tablespoon of water. But I found the batter to be very thick and added. another tablespoon of water to get muffin batter consistency.

Bake in a greased and dusted tin at 180 C for 45 minutes or until the skewer inserted comes out clean

The cake was moist and airy. The cake is just sweet enough for my palate. If you prefer it be very sweet, then increase the sugar by 1/4 cup more. After tasting, I felt addition of a handful of nuts/tutti fruity/chocolate chips will be better to make it more than just a plain cake. Else a butter cream frosting would have complemented the cake well but decided not to go for it since I did not want to add more calories.

I will be sending mystery ingredients, as part of the Arusuvai Frienship Chain, to Rajani of Healthy Slurps and Rituparna of ChocolatesAndDreams