Sweet and spicy tomato carrot jam

This is a great way to celebrate the tomato and red carrot season of the year. All you need is a kg of tomato and half kg of carrots. This jam/preserve can be used for sandwiches, chappathis and even dosas. It has that sweet and spiced tangy taste. I would say the tangy taste is very subtle in this jam. Easy to make and easy to taste.

Following is the recipe for the same
Ingredients 
Tomatoes - 1 kg ( remove the skin and puree - would come up to 4 cups)
Red carrots - 1/2 kg ( peel and finely chopped - would come upto 2 cups)
Sugar - 3 cups
Spices- cloves, cardamon, cinnamon , pepper corns, star anise.


Method
Mix the tomato puree/paste and the finely diced carrots( I used food processor) in a wide thick bottom pan. Sprinkle the sugar and mix well. Keep it on flame and keep stirring it. Be very careful as it releases a lots of water, hence bubbles up a lot. Add in the spices, to your level of taste, and you have the option to omit if you don't like any of all of the spices. But adding spices gives it a distinct taste, flavor and aroma.
Keep stirring until the jam thickens and store in sterilized jar while it is still hot. Close the jar once the content is cooled.

Your jam is ready!!!!

Hazelnut butter

I  bought hazelnuts and hazelnut oil to make home made nutella (I dont buy Nutella), I did hazelnut cupcakes too with hazelnut oil and this time I tried hazelnut butter. You can avoid hazelnut oil or use any non flavour oil to make this butter. It super easy too, hardly take 10 mins and a very healthy butter is ready as a spread!

Ingredients
Hazelnuts - 100 gms
Hazel nut oil - 1 - 2 tspn

Honey - as required

Vanilla pod - half of  pod

Method
Take a thick bottom pan and dry roast the nuts for sometime, just enough to heat it and then put it in a mixie jar or a blender or a food processor. Pulse it until it starts releasing oil. Scrape in the vanilla pod and also add the oil. Finally add honey as a sweetener. If you want exclusive hazelnut butter stop with oil , don't add vanilla or honey :). If you add cocoa or scraped chocolate nd replace honey with sugar you get nutella.

And yea 'keep refrigerated'
So try and enjoy!!

Whole wheat garlic and cumin bread

Started baking this bread with a combination of white flour and whole wheat flour but I ended up baking it with only whole wheat flour and it doesn't look bad either .. right? Of course it was a little crumbly but yea tasty too and of-course healthy!!

Ingredients
4-6 cloves garlic 
1 package rapid−rise yeast ( 2 1/4 tspn)
1/4 cup luke warm water
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 to 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup milk

Method
Add yeast and the granulated sugar to the luke warm water and wait for the yeast to froth up.
Heat milk and mix olive oil.
Now mix the yeast mixture with the milk - olive oil mixture and keep in a big bowl. Also grate the garlic and throw in the cumin powder in the bowl, not to forget the salt.
Using a hand dough mixer add in the flour while the mixer is still running, keep adding the flour until the dough forms a ball. Place the dough in a bowl and keep in a warm place and wait until it rise.
Knead back the dough, make small balls and place in a baking tray. Keep it covered for a second rising. 
Once the dough has risen again , brush the dough with milk and bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes until its brown on top and you hear a hollow sound when you tap the bread.

Bake and enjoy!

Jowar roti - easy method

Jowar is a millet and jowar roti is a staple food in many places in India. My Marathi neighbour had once shown me how to make jowar roti the traditional way, but failed miserably whenever I tried it. Finally I found a way to make jowar rotis, not the traditional way but I do fetch good rotis by this process, Glad to share and save the recipe :)

Ingredients
Jowar flour - 2 cups
Water - 2 cups
Salt - 1 tspn
Oil - 1 tspn

Method
Take a flat pan and pour water and keep on the stove. Let the water boil properly, sieve in the jowar flour to the boiling water. Cook the flour in the water till all the water is absorbed by the flour. Remove from flame and knead the dough as much as possible while the dough is still hot/warm. The more you need the better the rotis. 
For the next step, i.e to knead the dough its highly recommended to have a chapatti presser/tortilla presser, else it is very difficult to roll the dough way you roll out chapatti dough.

So keep the chapatti presser ready by spreading plastic sheets in between ( so that you can easily remove the rotis ). Take a small portion the dough, make a small round ball and keep it in the presser between the plastic sheets and press it. Lift the lid of the presser, remove the roti and cook on a medium hot tava , flipping in between and also showing it directly to the flame , so that it puffs up. Repeat the process to get nice fluffy and soft jowar rotis.

Enjoy with some spicy curry !

Broccoli - mushroom - walnuts sandwich

A very simple and easy filling to make for  quick sandwich and can I say it is tasty too:) yes it was !!

Ingredients for the filling
Mushrooms- 200 gms
Broccoli - 200 gms
Garlic- 3-4 pods
Green chili - 1-2 
Salt and pepper 
Walnuts- coarsely crushed - a handful
One cheese cube

Method
Coarsely chop mushroom and broccoli and cook in high flame with grated garlic and green chilli and season with salt and pepper

Assembling the sandwich
Put on the sandwich maker and wait for the iron be hot. Place a slice of bread and then spread the filling generously. Sprinkle some grated cheese and also throw in some crushed walnuts. Cover it with another slice of  bread and close the lid of the sandwich maker. Grill it and serve it hot with tomato sauce and green chili sauce.
Enjoy!

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