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{Baking/Preserving} SLOW ROASTED TOMATOES … Preserve the Bounty Week # 2
“It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.” Lewis Grizzard Tomatoes form an integral part of our everyday food, often like the butter on our daily bread. Whether it’s a simple tossed salad, soup, salsa, juice, pizza sauce, chicken curry or ketchup … it seems to rule the palate. Think tomatoes, think typically red edible juicy fruit {has seeds, is technically fruit}, one that originated in South America, but can be found in every little corner of the world. This heat loving crop is in season in India the whole year round, but not so in many other places, where it is a ‘seasonal vegetable‘,…
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{Baking} BUTTER CHICKEN … add zest to life with curry!
“I’ve been fascinated by Indian cookery since my mum took me for a curry when I was a child. It wasn’t me running away. It was doing something that excited me.” Gordon Ramsay There’s some thing homey and comforting in butter chicken, the curry that put India on the global culinary map. A quick Google for Butter Chicken throws up 7,220,000 results in 0.20 seconds! Phew, such is the popularity for this sumptuous curry from India that has won hearts over across the globe. Suman Bolar has delved deep into the origins of the dish … As a post-partition dish, butter chicken is a relative newcomer to the Indian culinary…
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SUN DRIED TOMATOES SANS THE SUN!
“A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins.” Laurie Colwin Making hay while the sun shines…? Well, I made sun dried tomatoes when the sun didn’t shine. Actually, the vegetable vendor had a bounty of the most luscious looking tomatoes one day… red, juicy & going cheap – Rs 10 a kilo (25 cents) for the beauties. Irresistible as usual, so I bought 2 kilos to make sun dried tomatoes, but the next 2 days were foggy & dreary as luck would have it, with worse weather forecast to follow. Back to the ever dependable net, & browsing led me to a simple recipe for ‘How to…
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WARMING UP TO SOUP…TOMATO & ZUCCHINI with BAKED HERBED CROUTONS
“Soup puts the heart at ease, calms down the violence of hunger, eliminates the tension of the day, and awakens and refines the appetite.” Auguste Escoffier Just when we thought that winter was finally on it’s way out, it snowed in the hills up North, & the temperatures here in the plains plummeted. Shiver me timbers…brrrrrrrr…so back it was to slurping hot soup & being bundled into duvets again! The daughter will NOT touch soup in any avatar, but the son loves a hearty tomato soup & I make it often. This time I tried a different one because I had zucchini & wondered how the zucchini would feel to…
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TOMATO TART…An eventful tart!
“A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins.”Laurie Colwin I had a Tomato Tart on my mind. Was it Tuesdays with Doris? Was it Mondays with Martha? It wasn’t Saturday Snapshots @ Cook Sisters as that’s a non-foodie post, it wasn’t the Friday snapshot at Dhanggits‘ as that is a sweet one. Was it the book Tuesdays with Dorie…or is it just old age approaching? Saw a pie I fell in love with the minute I set my eyes on it, but couldn’t find it in my bursting bookmarked folder. It was a tomato tart & a lovely one…one without eggs in the filling & it sang…
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TOMATO-CARROT SOUP…DELICATELY FLAVOURED WITH STAR ANISE
“Men are like soup: you always want to have one on the back burner, just in case.”Unattributed feminist quote Tomato-Carrot Soup with Star Anise Tried my hand at a tomato-carrot soup this morning, flavoured delicately with a spice that has intrigued me endlessly over the past few days. None other than the pretty star anise ! A nice & gentle vegetarian soup, beautifully flavoured & great for the winter chill that has descended upon us. This is an adaptation of a soup my mother makes almost everyday in the winter months.Star Anise…the pretty spice! Star anise plays a key role in the slow cooked dishes that characterize Eastern Chinese cuisine.…