Recipe: Gajar ka Halwa (Indian Carrot Pudding)

Tomorrow is Diwali, so on Sunday we gathered together with about 5 or 6 other families and, as most communities do during holiday celebrations, made and ate lots of treats.

Carrot seera or gajar ka halwa is an Indian sweet dish usually made with clarified butter, milk, and lots of white sugar. I love it, but wanted to make a less sweet, non-dairy version that let more of the natural carrot flavor come through. After all, why start with the brilliant idea of taking the antioxidant powerhouse carrot, which has pretty sweet juice to begin with, turn it into a glorious deep orange pudding even the most vegetable-resistant kid will ask for second helpings of, but then heap it with harmful fats and white sugar? So here's a version I successfully made yesterday, with no dairy and no white sugar. The almond milk and almond butter also add to the flavor profile.

Gajar ka Halwa (for 12)

18 big juicy organic carrots, trimmed, peeled, washed, and grated

Grapeseed (or other mild-tasting and good-for-you) oil spray

4 tablespoons almond butter

Several pinches saffron

1/4 Cup cardamom pods, pounded using a mortar and pestle until the black seeds are exposed

9 whole cloves

4 Cups almond milk (unsweetened)

1.5 Cups brown sugar (taste test to decide whether to use more or less, depending on how sweet the carrots naturally are already and the sweetness you prefer)

Optional: add golden raisins at the same time that you add the brown sugar

Garnish: slivered almonds

Spray the bottom and halfway up the sides of a big, heavy-bottomed soup pot with the grapeseed oil spray. Turn the stove on to medium heat and briefly fry the saffron until its color begins seeping into the oil. Add the almond butter and let it warm for a few seconds. Add the carrots, pounded cardamom pods, and cloves, and fold and stir until all the carrots are coated with almond butter and the fragrant spices. Add the almond milk and the brown sugar and stir until mixed thoroughly. Let the mixture simmer on medium heat, half uncovered, stirring every now and then, until the milk is reduced and the mixture is so thick that no liquid drips off a spoonful. Serve hot or at room temperature garnished with slivered almonds.

It took me about 2 hours to make it yesterday, but the nice thing is you don't have to do anything during this simmering phase except for check on it and stir it every now and then, so yesterday, I let the carrot seera simmer while I made other dishes. And if you divide this recipe by thirds, as it would make sense to do if you're just making it for a group of four or so, it will be done much more quickly.

Recipe by Miz Paprika: Savory Sun-Dried Tomato Muffins

This is a Guest Blog Post by Miz Paprika! Enjoy : )

Hi all! Miz Masala asked me to share with you one of my new favorite recipes: savory muffins.

This is adapted from 101cookbooks.com, the incredible and beautiful website maintained by Heidi Swanson, author of “Super Natural Cooking.”

Savory muffins are great because they are 1) high protein and low carb and 2) incredibly portable, so I often take them with me for lunch or as a snack for the airplane when I’m traveling. Like most muffins, these take only one bowl to make and are incredibly easy to alter to fit your tastes. This recipe includes sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan, and basil, so they taste a bit like a very wholesome pizza, but you could easily do scallions and cheddar cheese, ham and gruyere, spinach-feta, or rosemary, garlic, and parmesan. Once you have this basic recipe, it’s very easy to experiment.

Savory Sun-Dried Tomato Muffins

1 cup cottage cheese (I use farmer’s cheese because it blends better, and I like the texture, but if you have some available and want to try this, make sure you add a little bit of milk to compensate for the dry texture of farmer’s cheese vs. cottage cheese)
¾ cup parmesan cheese
¼ cup flour (any kind will do, but I prefer to use all-purpose white flour or whole wheat pastry flour to cut the rough texture of the almond flour)

1 cup almonds, finely ground (you can use almond flour, if you have it available - I know Whole Foods sells it)

¼ cup sun-dried tomatoes (in oil) finely chopped
¼ cup fresh basil (finely chopped)
¼ cup water
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 °F. If you bake with any frequency at all (or even if you are an infrequent baker and want to try baking more), I highly highly recommend purchasing some silicone muffin pans. They changed my life : ). The muffins just slide out when they’re done and you don’t have to grease the pan or mess with those annoying paper cups. If you don’t have a silicone muffin pan yet, line a regular muffin pan with paper cups or grease the pan - just be careful to get it all the way up the sides and around any corners so the muffins don’t stick.

Combine all of the ingredients except ¼ cup of the parmesan in a bowl and mix all together by hand. Pour into your muffin pan and top each muffin with a sprinkling of the parmesan cheese. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. I have never made it this long, but they should keep for a week.

Makes 9-12 muffins depending on the size of your pan.

Food Poem Fridays: Sylvia Plath's MUSHROOMS

Mushrooms
By Sylvia Plath

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

Recipe: Gobi Masala

I hosted my book club Sunday night and thematically served an all vegetarian, Indian-with-a-hint-of-Anglo meal (we read "The Indian Clerk," historical fiction but very much based on reality - the story of the Cambridge don and mathematician G. H. Hardy's encounter with the genius-but-unschooled mathematician and upper caste vegetarian Srinivasa Ramanujan, brought to Trinity College from South India and treated as an exotic specimen of "Hindoo calculator" by Hardy and his colleagues).

The menu: hariyali tikki sandwiches; chhole (chickpea curry) served with imli chutney and brown basmati with browned onions and peas; avial (yogurt curry); gobi masala (cauliflower) with chapatis; chopped raw mushrooms, mild radishes, and baby japanese turnips tossed with chaat masala and lemon and lime juice; red onion salad; and butternut squash raita. One of the book club members brought lemon almond whole grain tea bread and we had that with Concord grapes for dessert.

Gobi Masala for 8 (served alongside other dishes)
One head cauliflower, washed, trimmed and broken into bite-sized florets
One bunch collards, washed, ribbed, and shredded (I've used other mild greens, too)
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tbsp. ground coriander seed
salt to taste

1" piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced

1 tsp. red chilli powder

two small tomatoes, chopped
1/4 Cup hot water

Heat the olive oil over medium high heat in a wok or shallow sauce pan (make sure it's large enough that you can easily toss the quantity of vegetables). Saute the onion in the olive oil until translucent. Add the turmeric and ground coriander seed and saute until fragrant. Add the vegetables, salt, fresh ginger, and red chilli powder and toss to combine. Saute until every piece of cauliflower is coated with the mixture of onions, ginger, and spices. Toss in the chopped tomatoes, combine well, add the hot water, cover and let steam for about 10 minutes or until the vegetables are well cooked, checking every now and then to stir/toss. Finish by removing the lid and allowing some of the excess water to evaporate, stirring.