Bruschetta my way

Being vegetarian leaves lesser options when eating out. Bruschetta is one of our safest choice when we go out for food. My husband often ends up in ordering it as an appetizer. Having sour dough bread in my fridge triggered me to try some twist in original tomato basil flavor. And it tasted yum and husband was delighted :). It might be a bit far from what we taste as authentic, but trust me with this simple combination of veggies on sour dough bread, it’s a light and delightful treat.

Ingredients:

Boudin sour dough bread – 8-10 slices
1/2 cucumber
1 Large Roma tomato(they are less juicy and have firm body, so don’t create mess on bread)
2 Spring onion
American cheese slice – 4
Fresh Basil leaves – 8-10
Salt and pepper for seasoning
Butter/Margarine.
Olive oil

Method:

Toast bread slices in a toaster.

Cut all veggies in small pieces.

Thinly cut basil leaves into a separate bowl.

Now heat some olive oil in a pan, put on all the veggies into it, add basil leaves, salt and pepper to taste. No need to cook. Hot oil is sufficient for extracting the flavors together.

Now on the toasted bread, spread some butter, put half/quarter size of cheese slice to it depending on the size of the bread you are using. (Remember that we just want very subtle taste of cheese here. If you add full slice, the bread will taste a lot of cheese and will lose it essence of bruschetta.

Place all the breads with butter and cheese slice into a microwave safe tray. Microwave for 1 min. When you take them out, you will see bubbling cheese and butter over the breads. Immediately with the help of a spoon add the veggies mix that we have made earlier onto each bread. Be careful for quantity so as to retain the convenience of eating. As the cheese and butter will cool down, they will help to veggies to stick to the bread. Serve immediately.

Masala curd bread

This is a simple and quick recipe to use any leftover bread. And it tastes great. Curd helps the spices to spread well across the bread, while itself providing slight sourness to the taste, and also keeps the bread moist.

Ingredients

Serves:2

Bread (any )- 8-10 slices

For tampering:
Oil – 1 Tablespoon
Peeled Black grams (udad daal) – a Tablespoon
Mustard seeds – 1 Teaspoon
Cumin – 1 Teaspoon
Garlic – 1 large clove
Onion – 1 small

For seasoning:
Curd – 3 Tablespoon
Water – half of curd
Chili powder – 1 teaspoon
Turmeric powder – 1 teaspoon
Garam masala – 1 teaspoon
Coriander cumin powder – 1.5 teaspoon
Curry leaves – 6-8 small ones.

For garnishing: – Fresh coriander leaves

Method:

Roughly chop onion and garlic.
Make small bite size pieces of the bread.

In a bowl mix curd, water, chili powder, turmeric powder, garam masala, coriander cumin powder. Add curry leaves in the curd mixture itself.

Heat oil in a pan. Put mustard seeds. Let them sputter. Add udad daal, cumin seeds to the oil. Cook till the daal is light brown. Reduce stove to medium. Add chopped garlic and onion. Saute till onion becomes partly translucent.

Add curd mixture which we have made earlier to the pan. Let it cook for about 30 seconds.

Finally add bread to the pan and mix well till the time spices cover all of the bread. Serve hot after garnishing with fresh coriander leaves.

Sweet spicy grated mango pickle (chundo) – in microwave

Ingredients:

4 Large raw mangoes (1.5 kg)
Sugar (1.5 kg)
Red chili powder (2 Tsp)
Cashews (50 grams)
Cinnamon (1 stick about 3 cms long )
Dry Coriander seeds (1 Tsp)
Cloves (4-5)
Cumin (1.5 Tsp)
1 green cardamom

Note: Spices needs to be adjusted as per individual taste

Method:

Grate all mangoes with a medium coarse grater. Now take the amount of grated mangoes that fits in between your palms, squeeze the mixture to take out some water from it. (The purpose of this is to reduce sourness of the pickle. If you want it to be sour, you can avoid this step. Also do not remove all the water otherwise it will loose all its sourness and pickle will not taste good).

In a large microwave safe bowl, mix the grated mangoes and sugar. Microwave the mixture for about 2-3 mins. Take out and stir the mixture before putting back in microwave. Again microwave for 3 mins. Check for the sugar syrup consistency. (This can be done by taking out a small amount in a spoon. Cool it. Take small part of it between your index finger and thumb to check for the thickness. If you get a single long strand forming while you gradually separate your thumb and index finger when pulled for at least half centimeter apart, that means the sugar syrup is of right consistency. Put back in microwave if required for 2-3 minutes more till you get the desired consistency.

Take coriander into a pan. Roast it on the stove without adding any oil on a medium flame. When you get an elevated fragrance , transfer it to another bowl. Roast all other spices one by one in similar manner.In a mortar and pestle, triturate coriander and cumin so as to form a powder. Add it to the pickle and mix well.Do the same for clove, cardamom and cinnamon, but this time make a rather coarse mixture. Add to the pickle. Add chili powder and mix well. Finally add halved cashews and mix well.

Transfer in a glass jar after it gets cool.

Mango Jaggery summer drink

This is a very simple drink. And its very very refreshing on the hot day of a summer. This was actually not planned, but was made from leftovers.

I had raw mangoes, just turned yellowish. I grated the mango’s so as to make a pickle (Pickle’s recipe follows in next post). Removed the excess water of the mango so that it loses its sourness a bit by squeezing them in between palms after making it to a ball shape. I wanted to utilize the water that I had taken out of the grated mangoes. So ended up with this drink.

Ingredients:

Serves 2

Mango water – 4 large mangoes
1 glass water
Dried mint leaves – about 5-6 large leaves crushed to near powder.
Cardamom powder – pinch
Jaggery powder

Method:

Mix all, make sure the jaggery dissolves well. Strain if necessary. Serve chilled.