Green Pepper Chutney/Dip and an Upcoming Review

Before writing recipe for today's post let me share the reason for making this deliciously tangy chutney. I had no plans of making it & I was about to throw this green pepper which froze so well in my refrigerator, that it made me think that do I need freezer? If U r confused so let me explain my situation here a little bit. Within first week of moving into my new apartment, first I found frozen milk bottle so I decreased the temp. of the fridge but after couple of days some of the veggies were frozen. I further changed the temp. to more low and used most of the vegetables BUT green pepper. Planned to use it in some soup as frozen peppers don't taste good in dry preparations so let it sit on the counter to thaw, but by the end of the day was so tired(all the unpacking after moving) so decided or I should say kind of convinced myself that it's O.k if for once I'm wasting food by simply throwing it, I don't do this usually, today I'm tired, there r many other things to do but was still guilty. So when he came home I told him about my decision(see I didn't had a heart to throw a veggie). What was I thinking, he gonna support me in this crime.......his one line and I was back into the kitchen.....he said "C'mon U can do better than that, make some sort of chutney out of it".  I usually make red bell pepper chutney so keeping that in mind I made this one. Here goes the recipe or I should say the guidelines.....

What I used :

• 1 frozen green pepper/capsicum/bell pepper fully thawed (U don't need frozen)
• 1 small red onion
• 2 tomato
• 5-6 garlic cloves
• 3-4  green chillies
• 1/2 tsp. mustard seeds(rai)
• 8-10 curry leaves(curry patta)
• lime/lemon juice as per taste
• salt
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil

What I did :

Heat oil in the pan, add rai & curry leaves, once they start to splutter add roughly chopped garlic, followed by roughly chopped onion. Once it's translucent add chopped green pepper & finally tomato & green chillies. Sprinkle some salt. Once everything looks almost cooked add salt. It took me around 15 minutes or so. Let it cool a bit, puree it add some lime/lemon juice as per your taste. Serve it with crackers/pretzels/chips or plain rice, and I'm sure it'll taste very good with idli or dosas also.

Now coming to the review part, CSN is giving me another opportunity to do a product review, I'm sure most of the bloggers have already heard or read about CSN. It's a wonderful place to shop as they have 200 + online stores so without leaving the comfort of your home U can do all your shopping. As a food blogger first thing I think about is always kitchen but they have much more than that, for instance think travelling, it's already mid February spring break is not far & they have beautiful collection of luggage like Delsey luggage . What I'm trying to say here is that everyone can find something of their choice or need at CSN stores.

Now, to my blogger friends and readers as I mentioned in my previous post we moved to a new city and I'm still in the process of unpacking, so I'm not able to visit all of you or even when I sneak out from the kitchen & boxes to take a peak at all your wonderful blogs don't get much time to leave a comment, I hope U guys understand. I'm trying to set some routine, hopefully in few days it'll be better.

Cranberry Chutney or Sauce - Part 2 also an Update for previous post

Update on Pineapple upside down Cake : Finally I managed to upload the pics, and also I realized that I didn't took the picture of whole cake, I told you, I love this cake so much that only thing I can think of, while sitting in front of this cake is EATING IT. But I surely got some pictures of the whole process, though they are not very clear, but I wanted to share with you all. Also one more thing DH thinks I used too much sugar for caramel but to me it was perfect specially when eaten with whip cream(point to be noted I made that cake for me, after a long time), so I guess sugar for caramel can be further reduced to 3 tblsp. One more thing I wanted to add for vegan version soy butter can be used instead of regular one.

Now let's come to today's post Cranberry chutney/sauce/salsa or whatever you like to call it.

This is my second cranberry chutney, I think it's more like salsa. As I wrote in my previous post the first chutney I made was good but had lot of sugar b'coz of sourness of berries, so I came up with this more healthy option by adding 2 apples to it(so I can eat as much as I want, without any guilty). Apples I used were quite sweet, so try to use sweet varieties, that way you can cut the sugar out of this recipe.Now, little bit on health benefits of these berries(this info is collected from web), some common ones are :

1) treating UTI(urinary tract infections)
2)reduction of Dental Plague
3)anti-cancer activity
4)reducing the risk of heart disease
5)preventing the development of kidney stones
6) provide relief for asthma patients

Now the recipe.

Ingredients :

• half med. size onion chopped
• 2 apples peeled & chopped( i used red delicious)
• 1/2 lb. fresh cranberries(that's half bag)
• 1 tblsp. sugar
• salt as per taste
• black pepper as per taste(optional)
• red chilli powder 1 tsp.(can be left out if making for kids)
• garam masala 1 tsp.
• ginger 2 tblsp. freshly grated
• water/apple juice 4 oz. or more
• little oil

Method :

Heat little oil in a heavy bottom pan, saute onions for 2 min. or so then add rest of the ingredients. At this point only add 4 oz. of water. Mix everything together, cover & let it cook on med. for around 15 min., stir in between.

Add more water according to the consistency you like, I kept this one little loose like salsa kind. Once the apple & cranberries are cooked(they'll be mushy) it's done.

Serve it with with your choice of bread, roti, rice, as chips dip or as a sauce for grilled meat or seafood. I enjoyed it eating just like that, with nothing.So, go and grab these fresh berries before they disappear from store shelfs. As for me, I'm gonna make little extra this time & try to freeze it for later use.

It's very healthy for kids also, with only 1 tblsp. of sugar, which infact can be replaced by honey also. Kids will surely like this fruit sauce, tangy & sweet. I would like to send this recipe to :

1) Radhika & Sudeshna's Food for 7 Stages of Life - Kids(4-14 yrs.) .

2) Yasmeen's Helath Nut Challenge 3 : Healing foods .

3) Sharmi's CFK- Veggies & Fruits.

4) On Sanghi's suggestion I'm sending this cranberry chutney as well as Pineapple upside down cake for her FIL-Fruits event. I'm dedicating the cake to my DD as I love to bake for her, she love cakes and specially after eating this one she said this is the most tasty & soft vanilla cake she ever ate. And as far the cranberry chutney is concerned I dedicate it to my Mom who's the inspiration behind my cooking.

Saturday morning breakfast - Homemade Bagels with Apple Peel Chutney

Too much of googling can some time lead you to this.......

I was not exactly looking for Bagels but surfing for one thing easily takes you to other once you are on net, so that's how I ended up making Bagels this weekend. Doesn't need much planning, I just followed the original recipe ,tasted good DD ate with cream cheese but I liked it with some whipped butter & home made Apple Peel chutney. DH gave me 7-8 out of 10 (10 being the best), so I guess I did good as it was my first try.

Bagels taking hot bath(in water) before baking :

I'm not writing the recipe here as I didn't made much changes except that I divided the recipe into half so I got 6 bagels out of it. Another change was instead of all-purpose flour I used bread flour(b'coz I had a big bag of it). As for timings are concerned mine were done in 25 min., I usually keep my timer set for 5 min. less then time asked for, in the recipe, whenever trying something new.

One more thing I rolled & shaped 5 bagels acc. to the direction in the recipe but for one I just made the ball of dough & with finger poked the hole (like you do for vadas), and that one(right one in the bottom pic) came out little smaller in size. So I believe roll & shape process is better to use.

Ready to go in the oven :

It's a food blog so a post without recipe doesn't sound good....here's the recipe for my Home made Apple Peel chutney or as I say by-product of applesauce because I wanted to use peel left after making applesauce, so I came up with this idea.

Ingredient :

• Peel of 2 apples cut into pieces(I used red delicious)
• half apple cut into pieces(preferably granny smith but use what ever u have)
• 3-4 dry red chillies
• around 2 tsp. of chopped ginger
• salt as per taste
• black pepper as per taste
• 3-4 cloves(loung/lavang)
• 1/2 tsp. mustard seeds
• 1 tsp. cinnamon powder
• juice of half lime(if using granny smith taste the chutney before adding lime juice)
• apple juice around 1/2 cup(water can be used)
• little oil

Method :

1) Heat little oil in a pan then add mustard seeds, cloves & red chillies, let them splutter. Now add ginger, apple peel & apple. Sprinkle the salt & cook the mixture on med. heat for roughly 20 min. or so. Keep adding little bit of apple juice whenever you feel it's getting too dry.

2) Once peel & apple become soft add black pepper & cinnamon powder.cook it for a minute or so then turn off the gas & let it cool down a bit(If it's too dry splash little water or juice).

3) Once cool add lime juice and grind it using blender or food processor.

Enjoy the chutney as a side with roti or spread it on your favourite bread/bagel or as a dip. Sorry, no photos we were busy eating & I totally forget to take pic of my bagel with butter & chutney on it.

Baingan Ka Bhartha with Matar(Peas)

(Baba Ghanoush-eggplant dip)

This is one of those dishes which me & my dear hubby both likes or I should say love. We can eat it everyday with anything like roti, parantha, bread, rice,salt crackers or just with the spoon yep! to get it’s real taste you just need to eat it by itself. Though the bhartha I make is fairly tasty enough but I still love the taste of bhartha which my mom makes, it use to be in big demand among my colleagues back in India.

I call Bhartha the Indian version of Baba Ghanoush, which is a dish from Middle East & use tahini in its preparation.I know many people who think bhartha is a time consuming dish, but it's not. It's only the roasting part which take some time other than that it's very easy to cook. For roasting baingan(eggplant) you can click here.

Ingredients :

1. Pulp(meat) of 2 Medium size Roasted Eggplants
2. Half a cup frozen sweet Peas
3. One Large Onion diced
4. Two Roma Tomatoes diced
5. Green Chillies chopped 3-4
6. Jeera(cumin seeds) – 1 tsp.
7. Turmeric-1/4 tsp.
8. Red chilli powder-1 tsp.
9. Dhania(coriander) Powder-1& ½ tsp.
10. Garam Masala-1/2 tsp.
11. Salt-as per taste
12. Oil-2 tablespoon
13. Fresh Cilantro-handful

Method :

1. First & the most important step for making bhartha is to roast the baingan aka eggplant. How to roast an eggplant.

2. Once the roasting is done, heat little oil in some heavy Karahi or wok.Add cumin seeds to it & when they start to splutter add onions and sprinkle half a tsp. of salt. Saute them a little bit on med. high flame around 5-7 min.

3. When the onions become translucent add tomatoes and chopped green chillies, stir them.

4. After 5-7 min. when tomatoes become soft add eggplant meat & peas(frozen). Mix everything gently and let it cook for 2-3 min. then add turmeric, chilli powder, dhania powder, garam masala & salt(remember we used the salt on the onions also so please adjust the quantity) mix it & let it cook for around 10 min. covered in med.-low gas( If u are using less oil then u might need to stir it more frequently).

5. Before serving put chopped cilantro on top & serve it warm.