Steamed Ragi Sweet, my guest post on Tongue Ticklers.

Want to know what that is and how to make it? Check out my guest post on Tongue Ticklers (that website has unfortunately disappeared now).

Tongue Ticklers is a vegan blog run by Harini. It's filled with beautiful food photography, interesting recipes and lots of handy tips on vegan and gluten free cooking and baking. I'm super happy to have a guest post featured on it. :)

Vegan Tofu Scramble Salad Rice Paper Wraps.

I disliked eggs (aka hen periods) even during my pre vegan days. I only ate them when they were hidden in cakes and mousses and such desserts. If by mistake I put anything with the slightest eggy smell into my mouth, I immediately gagged and discarded it. So it's no surprise that after I turned vegan, I never really went out of my way to try out savory vegan egg-style dishes. The only time I had one was the Tofu Akuri made by Dr.Nandita Shah of SHARAN at the Reversing Diabetes with Dr.Neal Barnard seminar a few years ago. I liked it but not enough to inspire me try making it myself.

But last month, my friend Heather of Worceatsveg wrote a post about Vegan Eggless Salad and it got me curious enough to attempt a version of my own. I decided to turn it into rice paper rolls along with a few fresh veggies and the result was simply delicious!!



For the tofu filling:

2 200gm packs Tofu (rinsed, drained and patted dry)
1 Small Onion (finely chopped)
1 Medium Tomato (finely chopped)
3 T Nutritional Yeast
Turmeric (a pinch)
1/4 tsp Chilli Powder
1/4 tsp Pepper Powder
1 T Lemon Juice
1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
Agave (small splash)
Salt (Black Salt works best but I didn't have any so I used regular salt)

In a large bowl, crumble the tofu.
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
Taste and adjust the seasonings.



To proceed:

Sliced Vegetables - carrot, capsicum, cucumber.
Tapioca Sheets

Dip a tapioca sheet in warm water and place it carefully on a flat surface.
Place some tofu mixture in the middle of the sheet.
Top with sliced veggies.
Carefully roll up the tapioca sheet by folding the bottom half over the filling, then the sides and then the top half.

Enjoy immediately!

Vegan Hazelnut Kahlua Dark Chocolate Truffles

There's this story my paternal grandma used to tell us when we were kids. It's the Mysore Pak story. My granny is super adorable and she made all these sounds and expressions when she recited it. It was an absolute delight for a child to watch! :)

One day, a man says to his wife, "Darling, I have a hankering for Mysore Pak. Please make some for me".
The wife replies, "I don't know how to make it sweetheart but I'll ask the auntie next door to teach me".
And so she asked the neighbor who very sweetly agreed to teach her.

The wife asked her husband to buy all the ingredients from the market and the following day she went to the neighbor's house for a cooking lesson. She learnt how to toast the flour and add the sugar and the oil (yes, I'm veganizing it!!) and how to spread the mixture into a tray and slice it after it's cooled. As a thank you for teaching her, she gave the neighbor auntie half the Mysore Paks and brought the rest back home.

The Mysore Paks looked and smelt amazing!! The wife bit into one and her eyes went wide. "Mmmmmmm", she said, "my hubby's going to looooove these!!" She couldn't wait for him to come home from work that evening and taste them.

After sometime, she thought to herself, "I have got to eat another, they are so very tasty!" And so she did. A little while later, she couldn't resist having another one.

As the evening neared, she started pacing up and down on the front porch, waiting for her hubby. The excitement was too much! She kept going up to the table where she's placed the Mysore Paks to check on them and each time she checked, she couldn't help but pop one into her mouth. One, then another, then another one.

In this way time passed by and finally the evening arrived. She saw her hubby walking in through the gate. She ran up to him and excitedly told him all about the delicious Mysore Paks she'd made just for him!! She took him lovingly by the hand and led him to the table.

On the table, he saw one lonely Mysore Pak sitting in a tray with a few crumbs here and there.

"Is this all??" asked the hubby with shock.
"There were more", she replied sheepishly, "but I couldn't stop myself from eating them".
"But, but, HOW did you eat them all?" he asked, and regretted it the very next moment because his wife hypnotically reached out to the Mysore Pak, picked it up and said, "Like this!" and as a he gaped in amazement, the Mysore Pak disappeared into her mouth forever.

The End. :oP

Now why did I tell you this story? Because that is EXACTLY what has been happening to these Vegan Hazelnut Kahlua Dark Chocolate Truffles. Need I say more? :D



1/2 C Hazelnuts (toasted)
1 Bar 100% Bitter Dark Chocolate
1/2 Bar Semi-Sweet Dark Chocolate
1/4 C Brown Sugar + Agave for more sweetening as required
Kahlua (and/or Dark Rum)
2-3 T Soymilk

Keep half the toasted hazelnuts aside and crush the other half into a medium fine powder (I used a mortar and pestle but you could use a grinder if you like).

Melt the chocolate using the double boiler method. Basically one kettle/pan/vessel at the bottom and another, slightly larger one on top, covering it. Water in the bottom one and broken chocolate in the top one. Place on medium-low flame (water should get hot but not start boiling) and stir chocolate till half of it is melted. Then switch off the stove and continue stirring until it's completely melted.

Add sugar and mix well and keep stirring for a while longer.

Take the chocolate vessel off the water vessel and let it sit until it comes down to room temperature. VERY IMPORTANT!

Add the kahlua and/or rum and the soymilk and mix well. As soon as the alcohol hits, the texture changes slightly but that's absolutely okay.

Let the mixture sit in the fridge for a couple of hours.

With your palms, shape the chocolate into balls and press a whole hazlenut into the center of each ball as you form it.

Chill for another hour in the fridge.

Start popping them into your mouth and be transported to heaven.

The End. :oP

Creamy Vegan Sweet Potato Pumpkin Tofu Stew

January 15th was a festival day here. It's called Sankranthi/Pongal and it's the festival of harvest. You can read more about it in an older post I've written about the festival, its meaning and the traditional foods we make on this day.

During Sankranthi, there is an abundance of sweet potatoes, pumpkins and sugarcane in people's houses. On the festival day my mom makes this amazing Sambar with peanuts, sweet potatoes, pumpkin and avarekai (the most delicious kind of bean in existence). Along with this Sambar, she sent me some pumpkin, sweet potato and sugarcane. The sugarcane was quickly chopped by hubby so we could chew and slurp on the sweet sweet juice. Ahhh the simple pleasures of life! With the other two I decided to make this stew.

It started off as a soup but then the previous night's dinner of Korean stew at Shiro must've had a subconscious influence because before I knew it, I was stewing chunks of tofu in the soup. Either ways, it was a delicious, hearty meal.

I used just one small sweet potato because that's all I had at home but I tweaked the recipe because this'll taste far more scrumptious when the flavor of the sweet potato is stronger.



1 Small Pumpkin
3 Sweet Potatoes
1 Medium Red Onion
1 tsp Olive Oil
1 tsp All Spice Powder
1/4 tsp Cinnamon Powder
1/2 tsp Pepper Powder
1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder
2 200gm packs Tofu
1 200ml pack Thick Coconut Mylk
Salt

Wash the pumpkin and de-seed it. Scrub the sweet potato and clean it well. Make large cubes of both vegetables with their peels intact.

In a large pot, heat the oil and stir fry the vegetables. Add the spices and salt and stir fry again.

Add 4-5 Cups of water and bring to a boil. Cover and cook on a medium flame for about 20 minutes, until the vegetables have become soft. Stir once in a while in between.

Meanwhile, chop the onion into big chunks and spread them out on a baking sheet by separating the layers with your hands. Grill/broil them in an oven until they are crispy and almost burnt (or cook in the microwave on high for 5-6 minutes). These onion 'chips' take on a sweet flavor and are yummy to eat plain!

Also cube the tofu and keep aside.

Once the vegetables are cooked, let them cool for a few minutes. Then add the burnt onions and puree everything together (I find a hand blender to be very convenient for this purpose. They are inexpensive and handy).

Add the coconut mylk and more water if required and blend some more. Taste and adjust the seasonings.

Place the pot back on the stove and add the chunks of tofu. Simmer covered, on a low flame, for 10-15 minutes.



Serve hot over plain rice or straight by itself in a big bowl.

Enjoy! :)

Baked Bread Bonda

Bondas are balls of spiced mashed potatoes dipped in a gram flour batter and deep fried. Bread Bondas are essentially the same thing, except, the potato mixture is wrapped in moistened bread instead and deep fried. Main theme? Potato. Deep fried.

I made a baked version of the Bread Bondas instead. It's not that I'm overly health conscious and scoff at deep friend deliciousness. It's simply because deep frying can be quite a tedious process and what with the boiling, mashing, spicing and wrapping involved, I just felt like skipping the deep frying part. Lining them up on a baking sheet and popping them into an oven was soooo much easier.

So how did I keep them crispy? Just when I began to wonder if brushing oil onto the outer layer would be the next move, my oh so sprightly mind came up with a fairly healthy solution... Coconut Mylk!

Heck, I wasn't gonna deep fry anyways, so might as well keep the oil at bay right?

Read on...



BAKED BREAD BONDA

8-10 slices Vegan Whole Wheat Bread (crusts removed)
1/4 C thick Coconut Mylk
5-6 medium sized Potatoes (steamed/boiled in salted water, peeled and mashed)
1 Carrot (finely chopped and nuked/steamed for a few minutes)
Small handful Green Peas (nuked/steamed for a few minutes)
1 tsp Coconut Oil + a few drops for greasing
1 Green Chilli (very finely chopped)
6-10 cloves of Garlic (crushed)
1/2 tsp Ginger Paste
1/4 tsp Pav Bhaji Masala Powder
1/4 tsp Garam Masala Powder
1/8 tsp Asafoetida Powder
1/8 tsp Turmeric Powder
Curry Leaves (finely chopped)
Salt

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan and add the garlic, ginger, curry leaves and chillies.

Stir on medium flame for half a minute.

Add the carrot and peas and stir fry for another half a minute.

Add the rest of the spices and salt and mix for a few seconds.

Add the mashed potatoes and mix well.

Turn off flame and keep aside.

Once the mixture has cooled a bit, shape into elongated balls.

Lightly grease a baking tray.

Preheat the oven to 250 C (475 F)

Pour the coconut mylk into a wide, flat pan and dilute with 1/8 C of water.

Quickly dip a slice of bread into the coconut mylk to moisten it completely, very gently squeeze between your palms to remove any excess coconut mylk and place it on a flat surface.

Place a ball of the potato mixture in the middle and fold the bread over it.

If the bread tends to break, don't worry, just take the whole thing in your palms and gently squeeze the bread onto the potato filling till it's covered on all sides. With a little bit of practice, you'll get the hang of this.

Place the prepared Bondas on the baking tray 1 inch apart.

Once the tray is full pop into the oven and grill for 10 minutes.

Carefully turn the Bondas over and continue grilling for another 10 minutes (until the bread is all toasty and golden brown).

Serve hot but be careful when you bite into it because the inside will be piping hot.

I like mine with ketchup but Tabasco would work too if you like it to be spicier than it is.

Enjoy! :)