Halloween

I have always been interested in craft and art. When I heard about Halloween, I was very tempted to carve a pumpkin. As an amateur, I bought a small pumpkin and made a handmade design on it and carved it with my kitchen knife. I wanted to make a funny looking pumpkin than a more serious or scary one. Later I came to know that there are special tools available in the market to carve pumpkins. This is the pumpkin I carved in 2008. I am sending this to the event hosted at Chef In You .

Ridge gourd or Turai Chutney

This is a very simple and tasty chutney. Traditionally, only the ridge gourd peels are used to make this chutney, but I add the ridge gourd pieces with skin. The ridge gourd skin had lot of vitamins and provides a very good texture to the chutney. This chutney uses very less coconut because of the dense texture of the ridge gourd. It goes very well with dosas and idlis. Ridge gourd can sometimes be bitter. Ridge gourds have cheated me many times. I would make the dish using the ridge gourd and then find that the dish is bitter due to the ridge gourd. Now a days, I taste pumpkin, ridge gourd, cucumbers, summer squash and bottle gourds before using it in any dish. Taste the ridge gourd before frying it or you could end up with a bitter chutney.

Ingredients
1 cup ridge gourd with skin (or just the skin of 2 ridge gourds)
2 tablespoon grated coconut
5-6 garlic pods
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon jeera
small piece of tamarind
2 -3 green chilies or as per taste
salt for taste
oil

Method
Fry the onion, garlic and jeera in a teaspoon of oil. Fry till onion is brown and th garlic is pink. Add the ridge gourd or the skin and fry for 10-15 minutes on a medium flame till it is light brown.

( If you don't have much time to make the chutney, the fried onion and ridge gourd can be stored in the freezer before hand and then ground it with other ingredients when you need the chutney). Grind the onion and ridge gourd/ skin with other ingredients into a fine paste. I don't season this chutney as it already has a great flavor from garlic and onion.

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Serves: 3-4

Pumpkin Sabzi

This is another of the winter sabzi made with butternut squash or pumpkin. This sabzi is spicy and sour due to use of amchur or dry mango powder. This balances the sweet taste of the pumpkin. Read more about pumpkin here. Peas, or beans can also be added to this sabzi. When I visited Calcutta, I had brinjal and pumpkin sabzi. I will post this sabzi recipe later.

Ingredients
3 cups cubed pumpkin
1 medium sized onion
1/2 teaspoon kalonji or Nigella sativa
1/2 teaspoon jeera or cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon sauf or fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon chili powder or as per taste
4 fenugreek seeds or methi seeds
1/2 teaspoon jeera powder
3/4 teaspoon amchur or dry mango powder
salt for taste
1 tablespoon oil
Method
Chop the onion finely. Add 1 tablespoon oil in a pan. Add the jeera, sauf, methi and kalonji seeds. Add onion and fry it till brown. Now add the pumpkin, chili powder, turmeric powder, amchur powder. Add 1 cup water and cook covered till the pumpkin is soft. Add salt and serve hot.


Preparation time: 20 minutes
Serves: 2-3

Thai Forest Curry

I love Thai food as they use a lot of vegetables and lemon grass. One of my friend had invited us some weeks back and made excellent Thai curry with chicken and vegetables. Upon asking, she gave me this Thai curry paste which she had used to prepare the curry.
Some time back after shopping at the Mountain View Farmer's market we went to Amrin Thai restaurant for lunch. We tried the forest curry and it tasted similar to the curry paste which my friend had given me. I also loved this curry because it didn't have coconut (which is a major source of fat in Konkani cooking and we try to avoid the excess use of coconut in our day-to-day cuisine). It also was very spicy and I thought it would make a great dish for people suffering from cold, cough or sore throat. The next week, I bought Shiitake mushrooms and lemon grass from the farmer's market and tried to make this curry just like it had tasted at Amrin Thai. I am not sure if I used all the correct ingredients used in Thai curry, but it turned out to be great.

Ingredients
8-10 Shiitake mushrooms
2 cups chopped vegetables (choose or mix and match from pumpkin, brocoli, beans, carrot, baby corn)
1/2 capsicum
2 tablespoon long sliced bamboo shoots
3-4 strands of coriander or cilantro leaves
6-7 very thin slices of ginger
2 tablespoon lemon grass chopped in rings
3 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon red curry paste or as per taste
pepper powder for taste
3 byadgi or kashmiri chilies
1/2 teaspoon tamarind concentrate or as per taste
salt for taste
1 teaspoon oil

Method

Soak the red chilies in water for 20 minutes. Slit the chilies and remove the seeds and grind it into a very fine paste with 1 cup of water. Add another cup of water to this paste and add ginger, pepper powder, garlic cloves and lemon grass root and boil it for 20 minutes. Discard the garlic cloves. Add red curry paste, tamarind juice. Slice the capsicum and fry it on all sides in one teaspoon of oil. Add the capsicum, bamboo shoots, mushroom and vegetables and boil till soft. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Preparation time: 50 minutes
Serves: 2-3

Quick Panipuri in 20 minutes !!/ Golgappa

I love Indian street chat food. So I try to make some or the other chat or snacks during the weekends. We had been to one chat place few weeks back and the chat food there was not at all good. So I had this panipuri project in mind to reminisce the chat food I used to have in Pune. Pani means "Water" and puri means crispy fried puffed chips. It is possible to make puris at home, but I usually get it ready made from the Indian store. We would get amazing chat food in the City area and in Aundh. I have also made panipuri's in India and I would be the panipuri wala bhaiya making the puris while my father and sister would compete for eating the puris. This weekend I tried making panipuri and my husband and myself devoured many panipuris.

Ingredients
Ready made Puris from the Indian grocery store
2-3 potatoes
2 cups of sprouted moong or green gram (boiled kabuli chana or chick peas can also be used)
ice cubes
sev (optional)

For Metha Pani
1 tablespoon tamarind concentrate or tamarind water
1 1/2 cup grated or cut gur or jaggery
1/4 teaspoon coriander powder
1/4 teaspoon red chili powder or as per taste
salt for taste

For Theeka Pani
2 tablespoon Everest jaljeera masala
1/4-1/2 teaspoon kala namak or black salt
4-5 green chilies
1 handful coriander leaves
around 10-15 mint leaves
1 teaspoon amchur
1 tablespoon ginger chopped

Method
Peel and cut the potato into small cubes. Boil the potato and moong in the microwave.

Sweet chutney: Mix all the meetha pani ingredients and add water as per desired consistency. I like it more watery, so I added 2 cups of water. Get the meetha pani to a boil in the microwave (I heated it for 5 minutes). Add ice cubes to the water to cool it down.


Theekha chutney: Grind the green chilies, coriander leaves, ginger and mint leaves with 1 cup of water. Strain it one and keep the water aside. Grind the remaining green residue with another cup of water to extract all the flavor of the herbs. Strain again and mix the strained water with the previously extracted water. Add rest of the theekha chutney ingredients and salt as per desired taste. Add ice cubes if you desire cold pani.

Assemble the puris, pani and potato and moong. Take a puri and break the top lid. Put the desired quantity of moong and potato in the puri. Add desired amount of the theeka and meetha pani. Garnish with sev and eat it immediately.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Pumpkin and Corn Soup

This is an awesome soup for cold and windy winter days. I use both the pumpkin flowers (if available) and pumpkin to make this soup. I also add tomato to balance the sweet taste of the pumpkin. This soup is a great source of beta carotenes (vitamin A) and it helps to protect and provide immunity against cold and cough. Both my husband and myself love to have this on a cold evening after coming home from work.

Ingredients
1 cup cubed pumpkin
1/2 cup cooked corn kernel
1 tomato chopped
2 inch piece of carrot
1 teaspoon cumin powder
pepper for taste
salt for taste

Method
Boil or pressure cook the vegetables in one to one and half cup of water till the vegetables are soft. Blend the vegetables with cumin powder and pepper. Add desired quantity of water and corn to pureed vegetables and get the soup to a boil. Season with salt and serve hot.

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Serves: 2