Yumm Sauce

This recipe had appeared in my local newspaper several months back. I was quite intrigued by one of the ingredients - Nutritional Yeast - and had clipped it to try it out. It took me a while to find Nutritional Yeast (found it at PCC Market) and finally make this sauce.

Here's how I made Yumm Sauce:

1/2 cup store-bought salsa of your choice
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup almond meal
1/4 cup chickpeas (I used canned, drained and rinsed)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp red chilli pwd
2 tsp cumin pwd
handful of cilantro leaves

Just blend all the ingredients together until smooth. Adjust seasonings if needed.

This will make about 1.5 cups of sauce. This sauce can be refrigerated for few days.

I used this sauce in quesadillas and tacos that night.

The next day I made myself a tortilla bowl salad for lunch and used this sauce between layers of rice, black beans, onions & tomatoes and a dollop of top.

Super Yumm!

Savory White Bean Dip

I have adapted this recipe from a cookbook called Magic Beans by Patti Bazel Geil.

Here's how I made it:

1 15oz. can of white beans (cannellini beans)

1 tbsp yogurt

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp onion pwd

1 tsp garlic pwd

1/2 tsp paprika pwd

1/4 tsp black pepper pwd

1/2 tsp red chile pwd

1/4 tsp coriander pwd

1/2 tsp cumin pwd

1/2 tsp salt or per taste

pinch of sugar

Blend all the ingredients together. I used my Magic Bullet blender, food processor should also work or you can even mash it all together with a fork. I left a few small chunks of beans. Garnish with chopped cilantro and the greens of spring onions. 

Serve immediately with chips/crackers, or cover and refrigerate. I like to eat it at room temperature so when I refrigerate it, I leave it out for a couple of hours before eating. The chips in the pictures are Trader Joe's Veggie and Flax Seed chips.

Curry leaves chutney

This is a dry chutney made of kadipatta (curry leaves) and alsi (flax seed). It is an accompaniment to a typical Indian meal of roti-subji or rice-dal. It is as tasty as it is healthy.

Here's how I make it:

1.5 cups curry leaves - washed and patted dry
2 tsp veg/canola oil
3 dry red chiles or to taste
2 tsbp flax seed or flax seed meal (I use the flax seed meal)
1 tbsp dry roasted, unsalted peanuts
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp salt or to taste

Saute the curry leaves in oil in a wide pan till they turn crisp. This should take abt 10 mins on medium to medium-low heat. Add the dry red chiles, flax seed meal and peanuts and roast another 5 mins on medium low heat. Take off heat and cool to room temperature. Dry grind to a fine powder. I use a coffee grinder specially reserved for masalas and dry chutneys, being small in capacity I have to do this is small batches. Once it is all ground up, add the salt, mix well and if necessary run it thru the grinder another time to ensure all the ingredients combine well. I always do this step, but if you have a bigger/more powerful grinder, you may be able to skip it.

Store in a dry, air-tight container. It will stay at room temperature for abt a month.

Avocado Chutney

I have adapted this recipe from Raghavan Iyer's 660 Curries. I loved the fusion of Indian and Mexican flavors in this chutney.

Here's how I make it:

2 avocados - chopped
1/4 red or sweet onion - finely chopped
1 tomato - finely chopped
1 tsp tamarind paste
1 tsp salt
1 green chile - deseeded and deribbed for lesser heat - chopped
1/2 tsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
few curry leaves - finely chopped

Mix the avocados, onions, tomatoes, tamarind and salt in a bowl.

Heat the oil in a small pan, add the mustard seeds. When they stop spluttering, add the chiles and curry leaves. Take off heat and add to the avocado mix.

Mash lightly with a fork.

Serve this Avocado Chutney as part of an Indian meal or as a filling for wraps or alongside veggie quesadillas or any other way you can think of. Today we made a totally fusion meal out of this - I had some leftover rotis and cabbage-peas subji. I made "quesadillas" with these and we had the Avocado Chutney along with them.

This Avocado Chutney goes to Srivalli's Condiment Mela.

This Avocado Chutney also goes to the Life is Green event at Yummilicious Food.

Lasun Tikhat (Dry Garlic Chutney)

Lasun Tikhat is a great accompaniment to the everyday poli-bhaji (roti-subji) or varan-bhaat (dal-rice) as it adds a kick to any ordinary meal. You can also use it innovatively like atop butterred toast, in wraps, in vada-pav etc.This dry garlic chutney can be stored in an airtight container for 2 weeks at room temperature or even longer if you keep it in the fridge.

The dry garlic chutney, also called gun powder, available in stores is too spicy for our taste, this version suits our everyday needs better as it has a good balance of heat, salt and tang and a lot of flavor.

Here's how I make it:

1/2 cup dry shredded coconut
5 big cloves of garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp red chilli pwd
betel-nut size ball of tamarind (seeds and husk removed)

Roast the dry shredded coconut in a pan on medium low heat until lightly browned. Cool completely. Add all the other ingredients and grind in a dry grinder or coffee grinder.

Store in an airtight container.

This will make about 1 cup of Lasun Tikhat.

This Lasun Tikhat goes to Srivalli's Condiment Mela.

Green Chutney Sandwich

Every 2 weeks or so when I buy fresh cilantro and mint, I make a small batch (abt 1/2 cup) of green chutney. It comes in very handy for quickly putting together my daughter's lunch box in the morning and she loves her Green Chutney Sandwich. I usually use whole grain or whole wheat bread, remove the crust - her preference, slather one side with the green chutney, the other side with some butter and put some slices of boiled, peeled potato or cucumber. Thats it, lunch box gets ready in a jiffy.

Here's how I make the Green Chutney:

Blend together 1 cup chopped cilantro, 1/2 cup mint leaves, 1/2 a serrano pepper (or to taste), salt to taste, pinch of sugar, 1 tsp lemon juice and 1 to 2 tsp roasted ground peanuts (optional) with just 1 or 2 tbsp of water. This chutney can be stored in an airtight box in the refrigerator for 1 week.

Here's my Green Chutney Sandwich with some more veggies (onions, cucumber, tomato and potato) and sprinkled with fresh ground black pepper.

Dahi Chutney (Chutney with yogurt)

I usually make this on upaas/vrat days. Here's how I make it:

1/4 cup roasted peanuts

1/4 cup frozen or fresh shredded coconut

1/2 cup yogurt

1 - 2 green chillies per heat level desired

4 - 5 sprigs of cilantro

Salt & Sugar to taste

1 tsp grated ginger

1 tsp lemon juice

Blend all the ingredients until smooth. No additional water is needed, unless you want to make a runnier chutney.

We had this chutney with bhajani thalipeeth for breakfast on Saturday.

This Dahi Chutney goes to the CMT - Chutney event at Joy of Cooking.

Roasted tomato-chickpea dip

This is an easy and versatile dip I've adapted from The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook my co-worker gave me last year.

2 tomatoes - chopped

1/2 large onion - chopped

1 can chickpeas - drained & rinsed

1 bayleaf

2 cloves garlic

1 tbsp lemon juice

Salt to taste

Fresh or dry basil leaves for garnish - chopped

1 tsp olive oil

Heat the oil and saute the onions for 5 mins. on medium. Add the tomatoes and cook till very tender. In the meanwhile, microwave the chickpeas with 1/2 cup of water for about 2 mins. Add the chickpeas and the bayleaf to the tomato-onions mixture. Cook covered for 2-3 mins. Take off heat and allow to cool a bit. Remove the bayleaf and blend till smooth along with the garlic, salt and lemon juice. Mix in the basil.

This makes about 1 to 1.5 cup of the dip.

Apart from using this as a dip, I also slather it on toasted bread, sandwiches, parathas, use it to thicken soups, it even works well as a pizza sauce/spread.

This Roasted Tomato-Chickpea Dip is off to Mane Adige for the Chutney/Dip mania event.