Wednesday, November 26, 2008

POM Salsa

Pomegranate Salsa is a great combination with whole grain tortilla chips. I mixed up a bunch of other fruits along with it to make a delicious hot, sweet and sour salsa.



Serves 4 people
Ingredients:

1 cup fresh POM pomegranates
1/2 cup chopped red onions
1/3 cup diced apples
1/3 cup diced mangoes
1/3 cup diced tomatoes
1tbsp olive oil
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
1 chopped Jalapeno pepper
2 tbsp fresh chopped cilantro
salt and pepper as per requirement





Preparation:

Mix up the pomegranates, mangoes, apples, onions, tomatoes and fresh cilantro in a bowl. Season it with lemon juice, olive oil, Jalapeno pepper, salt and crushed peppercorns. Toss them all together gently and chill in the refrigerator for sometime before serving. Serve with whole grain tortilla chips.




I am sending this to POM Wonderful Contest and Foodie Blogroll contests hosted by The Leftover Queen.

This also goes to Vegan Ventures-2 by Suganya

Monday, November 24, 2008

Pomegranate Fruit cups



These colorful mini cups are perfect for holiday entertaining and kids will love them.

Serves 6-8 people
Ingredients:

1 pkg. Raspberry or cherry gelatin
2 cups POM wonderful 100% pomegranate juice
2 tbsp POM Wonderful fresh pomegranates
2 tbsp chopped walnuts
2 tbsp chopped pineapple
2 tbsp chopped apple
2 tbsp cranberry
8 foil muffin cups
Muffin pan





Preparation:

Boil 2 cups of POM 100% Pomegranate juice. In a bowl pour in the gelatin and boiled juice. Stir for 2 minutes until completely dissolved.
Stir in Fresh pomegranates, apple, pineapple, walnuts and cranberry.
Spoon into foiled muffin cups, place then into a muffin pan to keep up the shape and refrigerate for 2-3 hours until firm. Remove liners and serve.



Wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.

I am sending this to POM Wonderful Contest and Foodie Blogroll contests hosted by The Leftover Queen.
This also goes to Vegan Ventures-2 by Suganya

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Berry-licious Pomegranate Smoothie




Ingredients

1 1/2 cups POM Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice, chilled
1 cup mandarin oranges in light syrup, chilled
8 ounces low-fat frozen blueberry yogurt or plain vanilla yogurt and 1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup ice cubes
Orange slices or fresh mint leaves, for garnish









Preparation

Place pomegranate juice and mandarin oranges in the freezer for about 30 minutes before starting the recipe.
In a blender add pomegranate juice, mandarin oranges, blueberry yogurt and ice. Blend until smooth.
Pour into tall glasses and garnish with orange slices or mint leaves and serve.

I am sending this to POM Wonderful Contest and Foodie Blogroll contests hosted by The Leftover Queen.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Thank you Foodbuzz!!

I am very happy to share the NEWS that I won this beautiful Juice fountain in foodbuzz weekly raffle. Thank you foodbuzz!! I and my family are very happy to receive this lovely "Breville Compact Juice Fountain", which we never imagined of.



I had received an email that I won the raffle and that I was soon going to get a juice fountain. The very next evening a huge box was at my door as a great surprise. I was so exited to open the box. My husband was not ready to believe that I had got this huge Juicer as a gift. Foodbuzz made it possible!!

I am very happy be a part of foodbuzz which is a beautiful community of foodies around the world. Wonderful recipes to learn and share , restaurant reviews, meeting new foodie friends, visiting their blogs and above all celebrating food are some of the awesome features of foodbuzz.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Some More Diwali Treats:)




Boorelu- A traditional Andhra Delicacy made during festivals.

I wanted to make boorelu ever since I saw it in Sailu's blog. I tried it for this Diwali , Thanks to Sailu for the wonderful masterpiece recipe. It came out very well.

Ingredients:

For batter:
1/2 cup black gram dal/urad dal
1 cup rice salt to taste

For Filling:
1 cup bengal gram dal/channa dal
1 cup sugar or 1 cup grated jaggery
1/4 cup fresh grated coconut
3/4 tsp cardamom powder
1 tsp Ghee (clarified butter)
oil for frying



Preparation:

Soak rice and black gram dal for about 4 hours. Drain the water from the black gram dal and rice. Grind into a thick dosa batter like consistency adding very little water. Add little salt and mix well. Set it aside.


Cook bengal gram with just enough water to cover the dal. The dal should be cooked and should hold its shape. Drain any left over water from the dal after its cooked. Add jaggery or sugar to the dal and blend them together till it folds well.In a heavy-bottomed pan add ghee, the dal paste and cook till the extra water from the sugar dries off. Stir continuously as the dal tends to stick to the pan. Turn off heat. Add grated coconut, cardamom powder to the paste and fold. Make small balls as shown in the picture.




Heat oil in a wide heavy bottomed vessel for deep frying the balls. Dip each ball in the batter to coat evenly. Deep fry till golden brown. The shelflife for boorelu is 2-3 days but it disappeared in my house within hours .




Badam /Almond Halwa




This Halwa is one of my own experiments which turned out to be a success.

Ingredients:

1 cup Almonds (Soaked for an hour and peeled)
1/2 cup condensed milk
3 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
1/3 tsp cardamom powder
pinch of saffron strands for garnish
raisins for garinsh




Preparation:

Grind the soaked and peeled almonds into thick paste adding very little water or milk. In a heavy bottomed pan melt ghee and add this paste.The heat should be in medium. To this add condensed milk and fold.Keep stirring until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan.You can see the ghee and the oil coming out of the halwa .The mixture will completely stop sticking to the pan. Add cardamom and transfer the halwa to a ghee coated plate. Garnish with raisins and saffron strands.


This recipe is quite easy and simple to make with very limited ingredients.Once the halwa cools down you can cut them into squares and store it in fridge.

I am contributing this to All That Glitters-Sugar High Friday hosted by my dear friend Susan and created by Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess.



Chocolate Burfis


This burfi is my mom's trademark . I used to tease her when ever festivals were nearing and she used to shop for Khoya/mawa. Now that she lives away from me, I miss her and try out her recipes:). It is a quite simple recipe and can be made in minutes.


Ingredients:

1 cup Fresh grated coconut
1/2 cup chocolate powder
1/2 cup condensed milk or Khoya or both
3-4 tbsp ghee
1/3 tsp cardamom powder
Nuts for garnish


Preparation:

In a heavy bottomed pan add ghee, grated coconut, condensed milk, khoya and fold well.


If you don't find khoya you can do with condensed milk alone but the burfis will be little soft so you have to set them in fridge. With Khoya, burfis get some good square shape.


Well after stirring the mixture for a while, you can see that they leave the sides of the pan.The mixture should be transfered into a ghee coated plate and spread evenly. After it cools down, cut them into squares, garnish and serve. This also can be stored in fridge.



All this goes to JFI- Festival treats hosted by Srivalli.


I am sending the boorelu to Ruth's Kitchen Experiments .
All these Festive sweets go to Ivy's World food day event. I want to thank God for what ever he has blessed me with.

I am sending all these to Aparna's diverse Kitchen celebrating her Blog Anniversary too.