Chickpea Croquettes with Tzatziki Sauce

As I was looking for dishes to serve with tzatziki sauce, I saw these chickpea croquettes recipe in Vegetarian Times magazine. Original recipe was not served with tzatziki, but I thought they tasted great with the addition of the creamy yogurt sauce.

I found adding chickpea flour (besan) and whole chickpeas in these croquettes was quite interesting. The whole chickpeas give these croquettes a hearty texture.

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Amiri Khaman (Split Chickpea Squares)

Blogging Marathon# 47: Week 1/ Day 3

Theme: North Indian Starters

Dish: Amiri Khaman

I think my geography is a little dicey but I have a pretty good idea of Indian geography. I know where each state of India is located and I promise that I know this even before I did A-Z Indian states marathon. I'm surprised that most of the people from the North are so confused about the 4 south Indian states. They think everyone from the south is from Chennai and no the hindi movie 'Chennai Express' does not help even a little bit.
So anyway I know where today's starter is coming from :-) This dish is from the western state of Gujarat. I saw this recipe in 'Vegetarian Cooking of India' cookbook by Mridula Baljekar. These protein packed squares are simple, delicious and nutritious. They are excellent to serve as snack/ appetizer along with some ketchup and/ or sweet tamarind chutney.

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Baby Corn Pepper Fry

Blogging Marathon# 47: Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: North Indian Starters

Dish: Baby Corn Pepper Fry

For Day 2 of this week's blogging marathon, I made an Indo-Chinese favorite. Even though I stay away from deep frying, I couldn't stop myself from frying these yummy baby corn pakoras/ fritters. I had this appetizer way back when in India and have been thinking about it ever since, finally got a chance to try it at home now.

I am not 100% sure if this Indo-Chinese dish is really a North Indian starter, but since it is Indo-Chinese and China is in the north of India, I decided to run with it :-)

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Chole-Aloo Tikki Chaat (Chickpea & Potato Pattie Chaat)

Blogging Marathon# 47: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: North Indian Starters
Dish: Chole-Aloo Tikki Chaat

We are starting our last marathon for this year and my theme for this week is 'North Indian Starters'. Starters/ Appetizers are not really my forte because most of Indian starters are deep fried and I try to stay away from deep frying. When I saw this theme, I knew this will give me a chance to research on North Indian starters that I can add to my repertoire.
Valli hinted that we can made Chaats under this theme, so for the first day I have a very filling and delicious Chole-Aloo Tikki Chaat. I think this can be served as a first course for a simple North Indian meal.

Recipe is from Tarla Dalal's site. Delicious potato-pea patties are served with spicy and tangy chickpea gravy, then topped with crunchy sev and yummy mint & tamarind chutnies. This is a dish with lots of textures and flavors. A must try for all chaat lovers.

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Happy New Year

Wish you all a very Happy & Prosperous New Year.

Hope all of you had a great holiday season. Our holiday season was pretty much uneventful except for the party we hosted last weekend. Good food, great friends and lots of fun.

I made 2 types of appetizers:
Tomato Phyllo Shells filled with mozzarella, cucumber, tomato and basil salad (recipe from here).

Bruschetta with Roasted Red pepper puree (recipe from Vegetarian Times).

For Main course we had two types of Pasta:

Three Cheese Tortellini w/ my creamy tomato sauce (recipe here).

Whole wheat Penne with chickpea sauce (lovely Suganya’s yummy recipe).

For the grand finale we had home-made Tiramisu Ice cream. I couldn’t take a picture of the ice cream, but it was awesome. Everybody loved it (I didn’t tell them that it had Kahlua & Rum.. they would have asked for seconds ;-)

Before leaving each family got a homemade box filled with 3 kinds of homemade cookies (Oatmeal-Raisin, Dorie Greenspan's Sugar Cookies & Chocolate chip).

Now that all the fun’s over, it’s back to routine in the New Year. Hope all of you have a wonderful year ahead.