Pumpkin Coconut Cream Pudding… Once you’re on the fresh pumpkin spree, it’s tough to get off. The more fresh pumpkin puree I make, the more I’m inspired, the more you’ll see it popping up on the blog! Maybe it’s the season, maybe it’s pumpkins all over social media, it’s just such fun to work with this unassuming vegetable that is available year round.
This one is a no brainer. Fresh pumpkin puree + pie spice + maple syrup + coconut cream made for the base, blended to smooth sweetness in the artisan blender from KitchenAid. I stirred white chia seeds through, let them bloom, stirring a couple of times, then transferred the pudding into glass jars to set.
Thank you for this beautiful vintage brass coconut grater Madhuli at My Food Court. I love it to bits! I haven’t seen a prettier one ever and am so so grateful!
Pumpkin and coconut are a great combination and work well both sweet and savoury. Think a Pumpkin Coconut Thai soup, or then these mildly sweet gentle Pumpkin Coconut Cream Puddings. I’ve topped these simply with unsweetened coconut cream, then walnuts, roasted seeds and dried cranberries to tie in fall flavours. Alternatively, you could top them with a crisp buttery tuile, or maybe granola. A coconut chocolate ganache would really make it special. The possibilities are endless! ENJOY!
Pumpkin Coconut Cream Pudding. Pumpkin and coconut are a great combination and work well in these mildly sweet gentle puddings. I’ve topped these with unsweetened coconut cream, then walnuts, roasted seeds and dried cranberries to tie in fall flavours. You could top them with a crisp buttery tuile, or maybe granola. A coconut chocolate ganache would probably make it special.
Keyword dessert, eggless, glutenfree, homemade, no bake, sweet
Prep Time 10 minutesminutes
Total Time 3 hourshours10 minutesminutes
Servings 4people
Ingredients
500gpumpkin {peela kaddu}roasted in oven, pureed, room temperature
200gcoconut cream
1tsppumpkin pie spice {to taste}
3tbspwhite chia seeds
Maple syrup to taste
To top
100gcoconut cream
toasted walnutsseeds, cranberries
Instructions
Place pumpkin puree, coconut cream, pie spice in blender jar. Process until smooth.
Turn into a large bowl and stir in chia seeds and maple syrup to taste.
Stir a couple of times, 10 minutes apart to make sure the seeds don’t gel together.
Divide the pudding into 4 jars and leave to set covered overnight.
Pistachio & Rose Dark Chocolates … sweet bites made simple for times when you need a tiny guilt free indulgent nibble anytime of the day. These came about when someone asked me to make them a vegan recipe using chocolate and nuts. The request was a simple one – vegan, no added sugar, chocolate, healthy, easy to make, easy to carry, easy to gift, easy to share, make ahead!These simple Pistachio & Rose Dark Chocolates tick off all the boxes. Make ahead, simple, healthy, vegan, chocolate of course! Add to this gluten free and in so many ways these just might be the guilt free sweet snack you crave. Infinite possibilities on this very basic no fail recipe too. Pretty too, but then again, rose petals makes everything look pretty, don’t you think?Use roasted nuts of your choice. If you’re OK without them being vegan, maybe use honey instead of maple syrup. Also, clarified butter/ghee works just as well as extra virgin olive oil. More options – halve the nuts and add some granola. Else skip the nuts altogether and use only a nice crisp granola instead. You could flavour the truffles with your favourite essence too. Or maybe, some orange zest? I’ve tried them in a so many ways and they always come out great. Pistachio & Rose Dark Chocolates also a great way to begin kids off with the basics of simple no bake desserts. Tiny little hands whisking the chocolate, making their own truffles is so much fun. Can see their eyes open in amazement and wonder as the set truffles pop out of the molds. It makes me feel so pleased, so you can well imagine their joy!One key point before I sign off here. As with all recipes, please try and use only good quality ingredients. That way the end product really shines specially since this recipe has just a handful on simple ingredients.
Pistachio & Rose Dark Chocolates ... sweet bites made simple for times when you need a tiny guilt free indulgent nibble anytime of the day. These are simple - vegan, no added sugar, chocolate, healthy, easy to make, easy to carry, easy to gift, easy to share, make ahead! Did I forget delicious?
Prep Time 5 minutesminutes
Cook Time 2 minutesminutes
Total Time 1 hourhour7 minutesminutes
Servings 15truffles
Ingredients
150g52% couverture chocolate pellets {or chopped}
15gpure maple syrup
5gextra virgin olive oil
50gpistachiosroasted, chopped
To garnish pistachio sliversrose petal
Instructions
Place the chocolate pellets or chopped chocolate in a large heat proof bowl.
Microwave for 30 seconds on high power. Stir, then repeat.
Whisk with a balloon whisk until the chocolate melts. Stir in extra virgin olive oil, then the remaining ingredients.
Put a few pistachio slivers and rose petals into each cavity of a 15 hole silicon mold. Then divide mix between the cavities.
Set in fridge for a couple of hours. Demold and store in a cool place.
Roasted Cauliflower Salad … not sure why it took me so long to discover this. There was a time that I disliked everything cauliflower other than a cauliflower based lamb curry or Gobhi Gosht that my mother made every winter. Cauliflower was the most boring vegetable at our place, and we looked in wonder as the literal truckloads that the farms around our place produced.Then I began gently trying a few things. First the raw nibble,then a quick stir fry, a vinegar based raw ferment. Then soup. Hmmm, now so bad. The big breakthrough came when I began making stuffed parathas {flatbreads} and everyone at home began enjoying them. Next a quick Indian stir fry that became one kids favourite. Yes, there was hope!Then one day I thought the oven is on, let me toss a quick lot of sliced cauliflower in olive oil and grill it. Turned out quite delicious and I couldn’t stop eating them off the tray. Be warned that this is addictive as it comes out of the oven, especially the bits that are crispy brown on the edges. Also be warned that the cauliflower shrinks quite a bit while baking, so a medium head of cauliflower might yield enough for 2 servings only.This Roasted Cauliflower Salad a great salad for winter, and also for spring. I have served this warm from the oven, as well as chilled overnight. It’s addictive good both ways. I have to say I love it because the garlic just shines. I usually up the garlic quite a bit. If you love garlic, you might consider doing that too!
Grilled Cauliflower Salad is a great salad for winter, and also for spring. I have served this warm from the oven, as well as chilled overnight. It's addictive good both ways. I have to say I love it because the garlic just shines. You can play around with the dressing as you like.
Prep Time 10 minutesminutes
Cook Time 30 minutesminutes
Total Time 40 minutesminutes
Servings 2
Ingredients
1medium cauliflower
Dressing
3tbspextra virgin olive oil
3-4clovesgarlicminced
1tspred chili flakes
Sea salt
Juice of 1/2-1 lime
Garnish
1/2cuppomegranate pearls
fresh rocketbeet greens etc.
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Slice the cauliflower vertically to get a cross section of florets.
Dressing
In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, garlic, red chili flakes, sea salt and lime juice. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Place cauliflower in a large bowl. Pour the dressing over and toss gently to coat.
Lay the florets out on a baking tray in one flat lot. Do not overlap else the baking will be uneven.
Bake for approximately 30 minutes, until the edges begin to brown.
Serve warm or chilled pomegrabate pearls, rocket, beet greens etc.
“If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.”
Robert Browning
This Olive Oil Walnut Garlic Rosemary Foccacia is bursting with flavour, topped with everything I love and more. To get an even heartier bread, you could even double the toppings, maybe knead in some extra walnuts, olive and cheese through the dough after the first rise. These are thoughts that race through my head as I write, things I would definitely consider doing for my next artisan loaf. I know that will be sooner than later!
That’s just how good this bread was. As you might have noticed, I’ve been baking a lot more artisan bread of late. The recent Cheese Garlic Rosemary Eggless Brioche is anothergreat bread, almost similar flavours, though that was cheesy good to the core! Then of course another favourite, the Wholewheat Garlic Oat Soda Bread, rustic, moorish, earthy and wholegrain. While kneading dough is therapeutic and a lot of fun, I think I’ve become a little lazy.
I find myself turning to the trusted stalwart on my counter, the Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. That paired with the great quality bakeware they offer makes the whole process so pleasing, so fuss free. Baking bread is something I’m doing more and more, often wholegrain, sometimes part wholegrain. With dough making sorted out, the mixer kneading in the background, I reach out to flavours my bread might like.It’s often fresh herbs as they grow in my little patch, especially rosemary, as long as it lasts. This past harsh summer killed one of my two precious little plants; the second is kind of surviving. The other thing I like to add is nuts, walnuts in particular. Drizzled with olive oil, they toast up quite beautifully on top of the bread. The rest is pretty optional, whatever catches my eye really. Olives, sun dried tomatoes, mature cheddar, garlic, garlic greens, finely sliced mushrooms, sunflower seeds etc.Use herbs and nuts of your choice, play around with ingredients, but do make this. I think a sweet version with saffron and pistachio might work great here too. Maybe a grape foccacia. The recipe results in a light, airy, easy to form bread, a dough which behaves beautifully if kept in the fridge overnight as well. Plenty of good quality extra virgin olive oil is key for a Olive Oil Walnut Garlic Rosemary Foccacia like this.
Nothing like a bowl of salad and a crust of artisan bread. Once the weather gets cooler, maybe some soup to complete the meal. Until then, we’re just happy to keep it light with the Olive Oil Walnut Garlic Rosemary Foccacia & a Roasted Beet, Chickpea, Red Onion, Walnut Salad.
Note: The beautiful ceramic ware is from a local ceramic artist, Anumita Jain, from Delhi. You can find her at A Clay Story. I think you’ll see a lot more of her art in my frames now, like in the Eggless Wholegrain Almond Jaggery Oat Cookies featured above {recipe coming soon}. Her pottery is very inspiring.
Nothing better than fresh home baked bread, and this Olive Oil Walnut Garlic Rosemary Foccacia is bursting with flavour. The Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer and their great quality bake-ware make baking breads so therapeutic, so fuss free. Use herbs and nuts of your choice, play around with ingredients, but do make this.
Course Appetiser, Snack
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 10 minutesminutes
Cook Time 30 minutesminutes
Total Time 1 hourhour40 minutesminutes
Servings 2loaves
Ingredients
Starter
1cupwarm water
1tsphoney
1tspdried active yeast
Garlic Rosemary Dough
2cupsplain flour
1/2cupwholewheat flour
2tbspextra virgin oilve oil
4clovesgarlicminced
1tspdried rosemary
1tsprock salt
Topping
1/2cupwalnut halvesroughly broken
1/4cupgreen olives/ sliced
Few sprigs fresh rosemary
Himalayan pink rock salt
Extra virgin olive oil to drizzle over
Instructions
Starter
Place warm water, honey and yeast in bowl of stand mixer. Stir and leave for 5-10 minutes.
Garlic Rosemary Dough
Add remaining ingredients to bowl of KA stand mixer fitted with dough hook. Stir to mix on speed 2, then knead for 5-7 minutes on speed 4 until the dough is smooth and elastic. Add a few spoons of wholewheat flour if the dough is too wet, or a tbsp or two of water if too dense. We are looking for a soft dough.
Form into a ball, drizzle over with a little olive oil, cover the bowl with cling-wrap or a wet kitchen towel. Leave to rise in a warm, draft free place for an hour or two until doubled.
Preheat oven to 200C.
Divide dough into 2, knock back a little and make 2 balls. Flatten gently into the base of a lightly oiled round baking tin. I used the Kitchen Aid non stick 9" pie pan. All their bakeware is excellent.
Topping
Make indents into the surface, generously pour over extra virgin olive oil, allowing it to get into the indents.
Scatter fresh rosemary, walnuts, olives and Himalayan pink rock salt over the top.
Drizzle a little more extra virgin olive oil over.
Leave covered with a kitchen towel until the oven preheats.
Bake for approximately 30 minutes until golden brown and done. Serve warm or at room temperature.
It’s been an extended hot summer, really hot in every sense, now humid too. Add a HOT harissa to it and the combination gets teasingly explosive, bearable maybe? The Red Harissa turned out to be quite explosive, flavours that danced on the tongue. It’s become an integral part of my pantry, a sauce that I find myself reaching for more often than I really should be, but well!Once in a while you trip across a condiment, a sauce, an additive that is HOT in every sense! I’m not the only one who thinks so. I often find the dieting diva sneaking some into her ketchup, salsa, sandwich. She claims chili helps you lose weight, burn calories, but I suspect she is quite addicted to it too.The recipe is from a beautiful cookbook called Moorish, which lives up entirely to its name, and covers flavours from Mecca to Marrakesh!Greg & Lucy Malouf seduce your taste-buds with well laid out recipes, beautiful photographs and interesting trivia. They tempt you to churn our a chermoula as easily as you would a pesto, or to get as comfortable with tangines as you are with casseroles. NICE!With more and more pantries stocking up on spices and ingredients no longer considered ‘exotic‘, you would find most of the stuff either at home or at the corner store. The book reflects the cuisine that sprang as a result of the Arabic occupation of North Africa in the 18th century … the very idea of this culinary expedition is moorish!This sauce is more complex than most Moroccan versions, and one of many basic recipes Moorish offers – Dukkah, Za’atar, Preserved Lemons & Limes, Pickled Green Chilies, Tahini, Green Harissa, Toum, Taklia, Chermoula. The Chicken Paillard Fried in Cumin Butter is a recipe I use really often. Simple, quick to make, no do ahead stuff, and the flavours are amazing. A salad, a rustic bread, maybe roasted potatoes with it … We love a good chili sauce, the hotter the better; must be the Indian taste-buds, though a little goes a long way. The Sriracha Style Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce above is amazing and my to go recipe whenever red chilies are in season. This year however, I was a little busy and missed making a batch. With the tiny chilies in my garden in bloom, it was time to try the Red Harissa.
Initially taken aback by the number of chilies it used, dry and fresh, I was intrigued by the fact that it used a roasted bell pepper. Harissa is usually made with tomato paste. I made my first jar with slight hesitation; now on my fourth! Used the first batch on these Lamb & Purslane Pidescombined with a homemade sweet Plum sauce. Was floored by the explosion of flavour!There’s been no looking back. A tiny 1/4 tsp in tomato ketchup makes it sing, and some in a salsa sets the floor ablaze. Even if you don’t like it hot, just a teeny dot perks up the flavours. Are you game?
[print_this]Recipe: Red Harissa
Summary: A flavoursome Moroccan red chili sauce which can be found in restaurants across Morocco. Hot and explosive, it’s worth making. Adapted minimally from Moorish. Makes approx 200ml
Prep Time: 5 minutes Total Time: 25 minutes plus cooling me Ingredients:
1 red bell pepper, whole
10-15 dried long red chilies
4-5 small red chilies {recipe says 10}
3-4 cloves garlic {recipe says 2}
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cumin seeds, roasted, crushed
1tsp caraway seeds, roasted, crushed
60ml olive oil
Method:
Soak the dried red chilies in just enough water to rehydrate them while you roast the pepper. Crush the garlic with sea salt.
Preheat the oven to 200C. {I usually roast my bell pepper when I am baking something else, or do a large batch together}.
Place thee bell pepper on a tray and roast till blackened and blistered, turning often. Remove and place in a bowl, cover with a kitchen towel and leave for 10 minutes. Peel off skin carefully, discard seeds and stalk.
Drain the red chillies and place with remaining ingredients. Puree with the olive oil. Taste carefully for seasoning – it is extremely hot. Adjust sea salt if required.
“The time has come the walrus said to talk of other things,
of sauce and chips and sealing jars,
red chilies and their sting!”
It’s the end of a cold blistery winter on the plains of North India, and now is the best part of the year. Spring is in the air, albeit for just a clutch of days, and is a celebration of flower beds bursting with colour, birds, butterflies, vibrant fresh produce, making the atmosphere ideal for all things creative. This is the time to make the most of the few good days before the searing summer heat descends on us. The bazaars are bursting with farm fresh vegetables and the overladen baskets of ripe red tomatoes {prices at ridiculous as Rs 4 a kilo in Hyderabad, 1$=Rs44}, bell peppers and red chilies tempt you to do something with them. For long I’ve wanted to make a Sriracha style sauceposted on White on Rice’s beautiful blog. Have searched high and low for tiny hot Thai red chillies, but it’s proved futile as they remain elusive here … Then one day, to my rescue came my knight in shining armour – as always, good old Twitter! A tweet for ‘an alternative to Thai red chilies’ had the super talented & lovely Leela @ She Simmers suggest I could use red jalapeños. Now why did I never think of that? A quick check of the red chilies at the local vendor gave me hope, lots of it. Cross checking with a few vendors I was able to confirm that the heat element in the local red chili peppers is far greater than that in the green ones. I was soon back armed with 250gms of the prettiest red chilies priced at a ridiculous Rs 15 {30cents}.This post is written with Sana in mind, a sweet reader of my blog, who writes to me often for advice, with feedback, with appreciation and makes me believe that I have made a difference to her culinary happiness. She asked me the other day if I could post something with the local red chilies that are flooding the market, something other than red chili pickle she asked! This dipping sauce is for her, and she’s offered to send me her MILs stuffed red chili pickle recipe.Who would ever imagine that life can be so fulfilling & delicious. Who was to know that a few red chilies can make a difference!!IMHO, you can live with Sriracha, but you can’t live without it!! I had longed to make this delicious dipping sauce, a sauce which works well with seafood of course, but also beautifully with other batter fried foods, Indian pakoras/fritters, batter fried onion rings {my son’s fave}, olive oil crackers {the daughters fave}, fried fish/chicken, buttermilk breaded chicken, to give mayonnaise or a marinade a chili kick, in a sandwich, with burgers, lavished in a chicken/cottage cheese roll. It offersAsian fusion at its best!! Though an Asian sauce, it works beautifully with most cuisines; after all what’s not to love about chili-garlic-sweet? Did I forget French fries with sweet chili spiked tomato sauce?With thanks to Todd & Diane for the several inspired posts of Asian foods and sauces, I stopped on the recipe page of sweet chili dipping sauce in my Thermomix recipe book. With basic ingredients that can be found on shelves in every home, this is a great accompaniment to spice up your platter. Use the recipe as a guide and play around with quantities to suit your palette.
Sriracha is the name for a Thai hot sauce named after the coastal city of Si Racha, in the Chonburi Province of central Thailand, where it was first produced for dishes served at local seafood restaurants. It is a paste of chili peppers, distilled vinegar, garlic, sugar and salt. Sriracha is a common condiment in many Asian restaurants and increasingly found in American and European homes. Traditional Thai Sriracha tends to be tangier, sweeter, and thicker in texture (higher viscosity) than non-Thai. In Thailand, Sriracha is frequently used as a dipping sauce.
Keep the seeds in if you like it hot, or deseed the red chili peppers to make the sauce milder. Taste as you go seems to be the mantra as with most sauces. I’ve made this a couple of times. The first time I found it to be a little runny, so I thickened it with some cornflour mixed in water, and cooked it till it got to the right consistency. Not sure if this was the right or the purists way of doing it, but it worked fine for me. The next time I just simmered it over low heat till it looked right. I do love the pretty colour it has, vibrant and exciting.
