Mixed Fruit and Vegetable Salad

The month of March brings with it the Indian festival of Holi, which is a  festival of colours that creates an atmosphere of fun and joy all around. This festival, a celebration of arrival of Spring, brings together people of all age groups enjoying throwing and splashing colour and water on each others. It is one of my favourite, and I definitely had lot of fun moments this year too.

Friends, just as the colours in Nature marvels our mind and soul, a couple brush strokes of paint on a white canvas brings out life in form of a picture, so does the different coloured vegetables and fruits in our diet work their wonder on our body. They are power packed sources of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, dietary fibres etc. adding bulk and fullness. Just with mixing of couple raw vegetables and fruits we too can create something wonderful in our kitchen to give us a reason to raid the refrigerator without a guilt, on a hot summer afternoon. My food plate has to have a splash of colour in terms of the food choices and today sharing here one of my favourite salads, a very colourful one for the sight that definitely draws our attention and tickles the taste buds with its combination of sweet and tangy flavours. The combination of fruits and vegetables added purely depends on personal taste, and one could make it as versatile as one wants it to be. To get a nutty taste do not forget to throw in some dried nuts of  choice.

INGREDIENTS:

Bell peppers: 1/2 Yellow, Green, Red, Orange

Carrot: 1 Small

Cucumber: 1 Medium

Strawberries: 3-4

Blueberries: a handful

Grapes: few (preferably seedless)

Apple: 1/2

Orange: 1

Pomegranate: 1

Nuts: Almonds or Walnuts: A handful.

Salt and Pepper- For seasoning.

Olive oil: 1Tsp

METHOD:

1. Wash and towel dry all the vegetables and fruits.
2. Remove the pearls from the pomegranate.(Click Here to see how to do it) Remove the skin of the apples and orange.
3. Cut all the vegetables and fruits into small even size and put into a bowl. Mix the pomegranate pearls into this.
4. Sprinkle sliced almonds or any roughly crushed nuts of choice into the bowl mix. Add the olive oil.
5. Season with salt and pepper and toss all the ingredients together to mix properly so the different flavours are infused together.

I like the salad cold and hence use all vegetables and fruits that are just taken out from the fridge. Use fresh fruits and vegetables to get the crunch in the bite. One could also add sliced pistachios or cashewnuts. Chat masala can also be added, but I prefer only salt and pepper.

Go ahead, try eating this fresh salad after a good workout😉, you will definitely feel refreshed.

Enjoy!

Christmas special Dry Fruit Cake

Today being Christmas,  I decided to bake a cake using dry fruits and a cup of red wine.

Ingredients:

1 Bowl each of Raisins, Apricots, FigS, Dates, Mixed peels, and Sultanas

½ bowl of Almonds, ½ bowl of Walnuts.

1 cup of Red wine.

25 gm Butter/2 tbsp Castor sugar (use fine sugar)

225 gm Unsalted Butter

225 sugar: Firmly packed Dark brown Muscovado sugar

1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

1-2 tsp spice ( I used nutmeg/cinnamon/clove/pepper/cardamom )

250 gm All purpose flour (Maida)

5 eggs.

Method:

1. Chop and combine all the raisins, sultanas, dates, figs, apricots, and mixed fruit in a bowl.
2. Place the castor sugar in a thick sauce-pan over slow heat until sugar melts, add 25 gm butter and 1 cup of wine . Stir it.
3. Add the 225 gm butter, the brown sugar, and the mixed fruits, and stir so all gets mixed, bring to boil and remove from heat.
4. Transfer this into large bowl, stir in the bicarbonate of soda and cover the bowl to let it stand overnight at room temp. (pic#5 show how it looks)
5. Pre-heat the oven to 150 °C (fan assisted). Grease and line the cake tin with parchment.( I used 2 cake tins, different shapes)
6. Beat eggs in a bowl, add the spice to it and then mix it with the fruit mixture. Add the nuts. Fold in the all-purpose flour into the mixture.(pic#6 shows the batter after adding the eggs)
7. Pour the batter into the lined cake tin and bake for 1 hour and 30 mins.
8. Cool the cake on wire rack.

Fruit juices can also be used as an option instead of wine. The Muscovado sugar imparts a nice color and flavor to the cake, hence I used it for this cake. I had fun baking it, go ahead and try it out.

.

ashu 🙂

Dry fruit laddu

Hello to all the readers of my first blog. It is a happy day today, as after contemplating for a long time to create a blog, but not working upon the thought, here I am, finally, writing before the year ends.

We all love good tasty food, and when anything favorite is cooked, we tend to overindulge. With kids who are foodies, variety of menu is essential. When winter approaches, eating more dry fruits is what I try to enforce, but it is an activity that they tend to avoid. Hence the best and easy method I follow, is to grind the dry fruits and make laddoos. The first recipe that I am sharing today is dry fruit laddoos, without sugar. Cooking is a personal style, hence it’s always good to try out the recipe according to one’s own preference.

Dry fruit laddu without sugar:

Ingredients:

250 gm each-Pistachios, Cashew-nuts, Almonds, Walnuts.

500 gm of dried dates, with seeds removed. (I use both types of dates -the dried as well as ripe depending on availability)

200 gm each -Dates, Figs, Apricots, and Raisins.

Depending upon personal preference for sweetness desired and the quality of these dry fruits used, the quantity needs to be adjusted. I love the crunch in the bite that the  figs add to the Laddu.

Note: This mentioned quantity of ingredients make too many laddus. You can  adjust all the dry fruits and use only as much as are required for consumption for your household. It is not essential one has to use all listed ingredients, but if done so then taste is very yum. Sometimes I totally avoid the dried form of dates and use only the ripe ones. We get very good quality and lots many varieties of dates here in the UAE.

Method:

Grind the nuts in the mixer to make a coarse powder. Chop the dried dates into very small pieces. Try to hunt for deseeded dates in the market; I had to deseed all the dates and chop them into very small pieces, since I could not find deseeded ones. Grind these small pieces to a near-fine powder state. Chop the other Dates, Figs, Apricots and Raisins into small pieces and grind them in the mixer. Since these fruits are not completely dry, it appears to be a difficult task to grind them as they stick to the mixer blades.  To make this easier, mix them with the coarsely ground nut powder and then together grind at a higher grinder adjustment. The fruits now get completely mixed with the nuts, forming a somewhat of sticky mass, which must be kept aside. After mixing all the ingredients, add little cardamom and nutmeg powder to the whole mix, and make round laddus of desired size.

I enjoyed making them, an easy and not a very time consuming recipe. Go ahead and try them. One can incorporate any dry fruit as per taste to the recipe.

ashu 🙂