Carrot Burfi

20 Dec

This is another of the dishes I made with my friend Rosani.  This is actually her recipe, and she’s super excited to be published via this blog.

This is a very nutritious and healthy dessert she had originally on her first trip to India.  It’s traditionally made with carrots, ghee and powdered milk.  Our version is trying to be dairy free, and I say trying because we ended up adding evaporated milk for the mixture to get the consistency we wanted.  And I will be TRUE to the recipe we actually did, which ended up super delicious.  I guess you at home can follow our example of just go with the dairy-free version… I’ll tell you where to adjust.

 Again, we did this for a crowd… so I am using a recipe I found on the Internet to guide me with the quantities.

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CARROT BURFI

4 medium-sized carrots, finely shredded
2  cups of sugar
1/2 pint of soy creamer
1/2 carton of evaporated milk
2 tablespoons of ghee or clarified unsalted butter
1/2 cup of shredded coconut
1 teaspoon of cardamom (optional, it’s traditional, but we didn’t use it on our version)

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** If making the recipe dairy-free, use 1 pint of soy creamer and omit the evaporated milk all-together.

  1. In a large skillet, cook the grated carrots and sugar, covered for about 20 minutes.
  2. Add the grated coconut, soy creamer and evaporated milk, if using.  Stir often to avoid it to sticking to the bottom.
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  4. Stir in the ghee and mix in the cardamom, if using.
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  6. Cook over medium heat until the mixture has absorbed most of the liquid and when a spoon is scraped across the mixture, you can see the bottom of the skillet.
  7. Spread in a baking dish to cool off.
  8. Spoon into dessert dishes and enjoy.

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Falafels

20 Dec

I love any type of street food, but I’ve had to learn to make my own sometimes because the original versions are not suitable for vegetarians.

Thankfully, falafels are great right from the start.  I had my first official falafels when I traveled to Israel.  They eat them inside a pita bread as a sandwich.  You then add tahini sauce, a tomato/cucumber salad and any extra fixings you desire.  We only ate falafels for lunch for a whole week… 

This is my friend’s Rosani recipe, but we collaborated.  We used chickpea or garbanzo flour to avoid using canned chickpeas or having to soak and cook the chickpeas first.  As I’ve said, we’re busy vegetarian girls… we love our shortcuts.  And did I mention we also love our fried foods?

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FALAFELS

1 1/2 cups chickpea or garbanzo flour
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons flat leaf parsley, chopped
4 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of black pepper
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of water – if needed
Canola oil for frying
  1. Place the chickpea flour, onion, parsley and garlic cloves in the bowl of a food processor.  Process a bit until blended, but not pureed. 
  2. Add the baking powder, salt, pepper, cumin.  Pulse a bit.
  3. If the mixture is too dry, add water and process until mixture becomes a small ball . If not dry,  skip right over to next step.
  4. Let the mixture rest for 30 minutes.
  5. Form the chickpea mixture into balls about the size of walnuts.  Let them dry up a bit while the oil reaches temperature.
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  7. In a large skillet, heat up canola oil at medium heat and fry falafels until golden brown.  It’s important not to have the oil too hot, because the falafel will brown, but not cook inside.  We want the whole falafel to the thoroughly cooked.

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Enjoy the falafels inside a pita bread and tahini sauce.  Or enjoy them as appetizers with a tamarind sauce or mango chutney.  As soon as I find tamarinds or tamarind puree, I’ll show you how to do it.

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Brown Rice Krispies Treats

19 Dec

This is my Xmas present to all my vegetarian friends.

I’ve always been a fan of Rice Krispies Treats but they’re made with marshmallows, which are made with egg whites. This version is a mixture of a bunch of recipes I found on the Internet. And I even made a few adaptations of my own.

I hope you and the rest of my friends enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making them.

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BROWN RICE KRISPIES TREATS

1 cup light corn syrup with brown sugar (Karo brand)
1 cup almond butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
6 cups brown puffed rice krispies
1 cup carob chips
  1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, mix together the sugar, corn syrup and almond butter until their all pretty warm, mixed together and syrupy.
  2. Remove from heat and pour in the puffed rice cereal. Stir well until all the cereal is covered in the sticky mixture. This is where going to the gym will some in handy…
  3. After all the mixture is combined, stir in the carob chips. They’ll melt a bit, but that’s part of the charm, in my humble opinion.
  4. Pour mixture into a greased 9 x 13 glass dish. I greased using my Canola Oil Spray.
  5. Spray your hands with the Canola Oil Spray too and press flat.
  6. Let cool for 1 hour before cutting into squares. Don’t put in the refrigerator, it gets rock hard there. I had a tough time cutting it.

Makes 18 nicely sized squares.

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Creamy Cranberry Dip

16 Dec

Using my Cranberry Preserves recipe, I decided to try it in a dip. People flipped when they tried it.

It looks like frozen yogurt, but it’s only my Cranberry Preserves recipe and mixed it with cream cheese.  That’s it.  Tastes sweet and looks like the holidays.  Enjoy!

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CREAMY CRANBERRY DIP

1/4 cup of Cranberry Preserves recipe
4oz cream cheese, you can use the 1/3 less fat kind
  1. Mix Cranberry Preserves jelly with the cream cheese in a food processor.
  2. Garnish with a bit of the cranberry preserves jelly on top… so people know what’s in it.

Serve with your favorite cracker.

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Artichoke and Spinach Casserole

16 Dec

I’ve been cooking a lot at the Yoga Center I attend.  Last week, I helped my friend Rosani fix dinner for about 25 people.  Sometimes when we do these menus, we buy what’s on sale and use our creativity to develop dishes we have not tried before…  this Artichoke and Spinach Casserole is one of them.  Luckily, most of the time, the inventions turn out fine… we think this one did… I’ll let you be the judge.

 Please bear with me and my adjustments on the quantities… I did a huge tray as the photo shows.

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ARTICHOKE AND SPINACH CASSEROLE

2 jars of marinated artichoke hearts, rinsed (because Rosani asked me to) and quartered
1 10oz. pack of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and water squeezed out a bit
2  tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 jar of chopped tomatoes or 1/2 carton of POMI chopped tomatoes
2 cups of shredded Parmesan cheese
  1. In a large saute pan, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Saute onion for a few minutes and later on add the garlic.
  2. Add the spinach to the onions and garlic.  Saute together to give some flavor to the spinach.  Salt and pepper to taste.
  3. In a casserole dish, place the rinsed and quartered artichoke hearts, mix together the spinach mixture.
  4. Add in the chopped tomatoes.
  5. Mix in one cup of the Parmesan cheese.
  6. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top of casserole.
  7. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, until cheese is melted and a nice crust has developed on top.

It looks like this before putting it in the oven.

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