Avocado Gazpacho

I am on Avocado high these days and experimenting a lot with this wonderful and nutritious fruit, trying out new things.

In fact, there was a time when I never used to buy avocados - funny looking fruit, I often wondered then, wondered about it's taste and wether I would be able to do anything with them, and generally conveniently ignored them at the fruit counter. Well, things have changed now, so has my taste, and we now have something or the other with avocados at least once a week. 

Which brings us to today's recipe. The inspiration came from a TV show. However, my timing was bad and I just managed to catch the finished dish which was "Cold Avocado Soup with Prawns", which immediately registered in my mind and I made this soup the very next day, and served it with tomatoes and mozerella. 

Ingredients

For the vegetable stock

600 ml - water

1 - small onion, peeled and roughly chopped

1/4 cup - red bell pepper, chopped

1 - bayleaf

4-5 - whole black pepper

3-4 - cloves

salt 

For the Soup

1 -  ripe avocado, peeled, pitted and roughly chopped

1 1/4 tbsp - lemon juice

2 tbsp - coriander leaves

2 tbsp - low fat yogurt

2 tbsp - olive oil

2 - cloves

salt and pepper to taste

a few thyme leaves
vegetable stock

4 pieces - baby mozerella

5 - cherry tomatoes

2 inch - ginger

1 - dried red whole chilli

salt and pepper to taste

1 1/4tbsp - olive oil

sprigs of thyme leaves

Method

1. Put all the ingredients for the vegetable stock into a big vessel and bring to a boil. Boil for approx 5 minutes. Sieve and let the stock cool. 
2. Put the avocado pulp, lemon juice, coriander leaves, a few thyme leaves, yogurt, olive oil, salt, pepper powder and the vegetable stock into the mixer and blend well. Sieve with a strainer and let the soup chill in the refrigerator. 
3. Heat the oil in a pan together with a few sprigs of thyme leaves. Add salt, pepper powder, ginger piece and red whole chilli. Add the cherry tomatoes and cook on a medium heat until the tomatoes are slightly tender. (I foolishly gave a cross cut on the tomatoes but would advise you not to). 
4. Arrange the mozerella and the tomatoes on to a skewer. Serve the cold soup with the tomato-mozerella skewer and a sprig of thyme leaves. 

Enjoy!

Almond Mint Drink

The weather in this part of the world is pretty decent these days, warm and sunny, with interspersed bouts of clouds and some rain. Both my husband and I spend our free time, whenever we can, in our small garden. Last Sunday, when we were having our evening tea and enjoying the nice sunny day in the garden, we suddenly saw a reddish-brownish flurry of movement - it was a large squirrel, a cute little furry thing, on about its search for nuts and other eatables. It hopped about from one place to another and inspected our garden. And finally found something to eat and decided to stay still for a minute in one place...Quicker than the squirrel, my hubby ran off to get the camera, to capture this beautiful little thing. He did manage to get a few good photos. 

 Isn't it cute? :-) 

This drink was made one such warm sunny day last week and was indeed quite refreshing. A perfect way to beat the heat. 

The mint and almond combination in a drink is unique in it's own way and the taste is great. Thanks to my mom for this recipe - moms are the best cooks, aren't they?

Ingredients

1/2 cup - mint leaves, chopped

1/8 cup - almonds

3 pieces - cloves

3 pieces - cardamom

1 1/2 tbsp - sugar (adjust according to your taste)

1 1/2 cup - water + a little to soak

almond slivers to garnish

Method

1. Soak together the almonds, cloves and cardamom for 3-4 hours.
2. Remove the water. 
3. Grind together the almonds, cloves, cardamom, mint leaves and sugar using  some water. 
4. Sieve/press through a muslin cloth and extract all the liquid and keep aside. Reserve the residue.
5. Put the residue back into the mixer and grind again using little water and sieve again.
6. Put the drink in the refrigerator to chill.
7. Garnish the drink with the almond slivers and serve.

Serves : 2

Enjoy!

Stuffed Cucumber Curry

Have you ever had a writer's block? Well, I am facing this right now...I am sitting in front of my computer screen, wanting to write something special, a thousand ideas running through the brain, but somehow not able to write anything. Words do not seem to come to mind and I am just aimlessly looking at the screen, waiting for my brain to convert the ideas to words that I can put together into a meaningful sentence...but I still go on looking at the screen (this could be a long evening.....!)

Well, now, I'm giving up for the day and just jumping to today's recipe. 

Ingredients

1 - long cucumber

For the stuffing 

2 tbsp - gram flour (besan) 
1 - green chilli, chopped 
2 inch piece - ginger, peeled and finely chopped 
1/4 tsp - red chilli powder (more or less)
1/4 tsp - garam masala 
2 1/2 tbsp - sunflower oil 
1/4 tsp - dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi) 
1/4 tsp - whole coriander seeds, roughly broken 
1 tbsp - lemon juice 
4 tbsp - fenugreek leaves (methi), chopped 
1 tbsp - coriander leaves, chopped 
salt to taste

For tempering 

2-3 tbsp - sunflower oil 
1/4 tsp - panch phoran ( a mix of fenugreek, cumin, fennel, mustard and nigella seeds)
a generous pinch of asafoetida (hing)

Method

1. Peel the cucumber. Cut a 2cm wide "window" into the cucumber with a margin of around 2 cms at both ends as well as the bottom (see photo) Remove the cut out part. 
2. Rub some salt onto the cucumber all around.
3. Add all the ingredients of the stuffing to a bowl and mix well.
4. Fill in the stuffing into the cucumber Cut the cucumber into approx 5 cm long pieces. 
5. Heat the oil in a pan, add the panch phoran and hing. When the seeds start to splutter, add the stuffed, cut cucumber pieces and cook on a low heat, turning the pieces carefully every couple of minutes until they are brown from all the sides. (the cooked cucumber should not be too soft)
6. Serve hot with rice or rotis, or even as a starter!

Enjoy!

Back after a long break with some delicious Crumpets.

Apologies for vanishing suddenly from the blog world and being away for such a long time....and especially about leaving midway my two part recipe of Saffron Plum Compote with Crumpets. So, here am I again, and here is part 2 of the 2 part recipe. 

But first, a big Thank You to all of you who have left mails with comments and wishes - It makes me feel really special and happy. I sometimes wonder about this beautiful bond of friendship we share with each other - though we have not met, we are bound by a common passion - for blogging, for good food, for sharing our thoughts, our joys and sometimes our sorrows. 

This passion connects us in a special way, and I enjoy it, like it and even miss it when I am not active.

Today's recipe was lying in my drafts for a long time...I made it with a Saffron Plum Compote (recipe here). These crumpets (recipe taken from here ) went very well with the whipped cream (mixed with a little vanilla extract and castor sugar) and the fruity saffrony flavour of the compote. And it looked really pretty too!

Hope you like the crumpets as much as we did and I promise to be a regular again!

Ingredients

112.5 grams - all purpose flour

1/4 tsp - sugar

1/8 tsp - salt

1/2 tsp - dried yeast

75 ml - warm milk

75 ml - warm water

a generous pinch of cinnamon powder

Method

1. Place the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon powder and the dried yeast in a large bowl and mix well. Pour in the warm milk and water and mix well until well combined.
2. Cover the bowl with a cling film or a plastic wrap and leave it in a warm place to rise for about an hour or until the batter doubles the volume.
3. Remove the plastic wrap and stir the batter really well. 
4. Grease lightly a non stick pan and heat the pan over a low flame. Sit the greased crumpet rings in the pan and leave to heat up for a minute.
5. Pour in the batter to fill the rings just over halfway up the sides. Cook on a low heat until plenty of small holes appear on the surface and the batter has just dried out. 
6. Remove the rings carefully and turn the crumpets to cook further for  a couple of minutes.
7. Let the crumpets cool on a wire rack.
8. Serve the crumpets with some whipped cream and saffron plum compote.

With or without the cream these crumpets were simply delicious...

and this one is for you :-)

Enjoy!

Saffron Plum Compote

It's finally time that the winter should be over, that the new green on the trees can be seen again and the chirping of the birds starts again, and that a few rays of golden sunshine light up this part of the world again...Well we did have a small preview of spring a couple of weeks ago, but the last few days have again been cold and dark and dreary, wet and grey.

Well, to somewhat light up the atmosphere, I decided to combine my favourite spice with one of my favourite fruit. Last week I went to the Vitualienmarkt - Munich's historical marketplace, where one can find all possible varieties of exotic fruit and vegetables, all times of the year. My basket did have some luscious plums on the way back, which I could not resist biting into until I was back home. But the few that did make it back home, went into this delightful compote. The best part about the compote is, you can serve it warm or cold, you can keep it for a few days (well, that is, if you can resist the temptation to clean it off at first chance!), and it goes well with almost any dessert - or is absolutely yummy on its own, licked by the spoonful ;-)

Along with the compote, I made some Crumpets (recipe up next on your favourite food blog, so stay tuned!).

Ingredients

3 - plums, pitted and chopped
1 tbsp - crystallised ginger, finely chopped
2 1/2 tbsp - honey (more or less according to your taste and how sweet the plums are)
1/4 tsp - cinnamon powder
10 - 12 strands of saffron

Method

1. Place the plums, crystallised ginger and honey in a pan and cook on a low heat, stirring occasionaly until the plums are slightly soft. 
2. Add the cinnamon powder and saffron and cook for a minute. 
3. Remove from the heat and serve hot or cold with a dessert of your choice.

Enjoy!