A.W.E.D-Morocco Round up

Thank you DK (@ Chef In You) for giving me this opportunity to guest-host A.W.E.D. It is always interesting to learn about other food cultures and it is so amazing to see the similarities between them. Moroccan cuisine to me is something very exotic with lots of colorful vegetables and spicy flavors. And all of you have sent in such delicious dishes that I was drooling just looking at the pics. Thank you all for taking time and participating. So let's see what was cooked for A.W.E.D-Morocco... Shall we!!

Nutritious Moroccan Appetizers - Soups & Salads:

DK @ Chef In You sent this nutritious Moroccan Harira Soup. I can probably have this soup everyday in winter.

Meenakshi @ Ponderings of a Product Manager Mom sent in her version of Moroccan Harira that she makes in the pressure cooker; fast, convenient & nutritious.

Priya @ Priya's Easy n Tasty Recipes sent in 3 appetizers: Moroccan Shorba that is simple enough to make and is packed with flavor.

She also sent in Harira-a Traditional Moroccan Soup.

Her final appetizer is this simply delicious Sweet Carrot Salad. My carrot loving son will be very happy when I make this.

Lastly here's my Moroccan Soup that actually started of being a salad and ended up a soup. But I promise it was yummy and we licked our bowls clean.

Update: Curry Leaf sent in this Carrot Macharmal - Moroccan Spiced Carrot that looks absolutely delicious.

Yummy Moroccan Entrees:

Indhu @ Thayirsaadham sent in this protein packed Moroccan Red Lentil & Bean Stew. This dish will fill you up and warm you out on a chilly winter night.

Cham @ Spice-Club sent in this mouth watering Chickpea stew, that she served along with Couscous cooked with raisins and almonds.

Priya @ Priya's Easy n Tasty Recipes sent in her Moroccan Vegetarian Couscous that's filled with tons of veggies and lots of flavor.

Lavi @ Home Cook's Recipes sent in this Moroccan Seven Vegetable Stew with Couscous; name of the dish itself fills me up.

Finally here's my Vegetable Tagine that is colorful and flavorful at the same time.

Spicy Moroccan Condiments:

Grazina @ Erbe in Cucina (Cooking with Herbs) sent in her Spicy Harissa that can be used in many Moroccan dishes.

Sweet Moroccan Desserts & Beverages:

Priya @ Priya's Easy n Tasty Recipes sent in her Almond milk that's flavored with Orange blossom water.

Sheba @ Forks Boots & A Palette sent in her mouth watering Moroccan Chocolate Yogurt Cake.

Last but certainly not the least Ambika @ Ambika's Kitchen sent in these cute Moroccan Cookies called Ghriba.

Update: Curry Leaf sends in these yummy Sellou-Moroccan Sesame-Almond Dessert, that sounds super nutty and delicious.

Thanks again everyone for participating. Please let me know if I missed any entries. I apologize in advance 'cos that wasn't the plan :-)

I took a small break from veganmofo III today to post this round up. Will get back on track tomorrow.

Day 2

For the 2nd Veganmofo day, I made this Gujarati Thali with dishes from my dear blogger buddies. First up is Trupti @ The Spice Who Loved Me’s Bharelu Ringan Shaak. Being a sucker for all eggplant dishes, I wanted to make this dish the minute I saw it on her blog. Stuffing Japanese eggplants instead of regular Indian ones was very interesting and the Japanese eggplant gives a slightly sweet taste to the spicy filling. Yum.. this is a keeper.

To go with the Gujarati “shaak” I made Gujarati dal, Osaman, from DK’s Chef in You. Loved the addition of chopped peanuts, it adds a totally new dimension to regular good ‘ol dal.

So I served my Gujarati meal with a side of rotis, steamed rice and mango pulp (this one’s for my DH). Loved it.

Thai Yellow Curry

Vegan Mofo III starts today. For the uninformed Vegan mofo is Vegan Month Of Food started by Isa Maskowitz. The idea is to write as much as you can for the month of October about vegan food. It doesn’t have to be about food, it could be any vegan topic. So this is my 2nd Vegan Mofo and I’m excited about participating this year. I’m planning to make as many vegan recipes as I humanly can and if I make any on-vegan dishes, they will have to wait to be posted until November.

I’m kicking off the event/ month with this super delicious Thai Yellow curry way back in June and has been waiting in the drafts to see the light of your screen.

Ingredients:
Japanese Eggplants – 3 medium, chopped into half moons
Green pepper – 1 medium, chopped (any other color pepper would work too)
Potato – 1 medium, chopped
Onion – 1 small, chopped
Sprouted Moth Beans – ½ cup (chickpeas would be great too)

Yellow Curry Sauce – 1 cup (I used store-bought sauce, if it is homemade, you might have to use lesser amount)

Coconut milk – ½ cup
Soy sauce – 1tsp
Brown sugar – 1tbsp (or jaggery)
Salt – to taste

Method:

• Heat 2tbsp peanut oil in a large sauté pan; add onions and sauté till translucent, about 8minutes.
• Add eggplant, potato and pepper; cover and cook until the veggies are half cooked.
• Add the beans, curry sauce and all the other condiments. Cook until the veggies are tender and serve with steamed jasmine rice or whole-wheat couscous.

If you are interested in joining the other 265 enthusiastic vegan bloggers and participating in this year's event, head right over to Kittee's blog and leave a comment by October 2nd. I guess you still have a few hours to join the wagon. So hurry up...

Muruku for Indian Cooking Challenge

We are making crunchy fried Murukus for this edition of Indian Cooking Challenge. These are probably the most time consuming, yet the tastiest muruku’s I’ve ever made.

I made a couple of changes to Srivalli’s recipe, not to the recipe, but the way I prepped my ingredients. After consulting with my mom: I soaked the rice the night before and shade dried it for half an hour before I grind it into a powder. I then used a sieve to sift the ground flour to get only the fine flour and blend and sifted it couple of times. According to my mom, the more you soak the rice the smoother & softer is the flour. Apart from that I followed the recipe to the T. Here is the recipe verbatim from Srivalli.

Ingredients:
Raw Rice - 4 cups
Urad Dal - 1 cup
Water - app 1/2 cup or more

For Seasoning:
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Sesame seeds- 1 tsp
Asafetida/ Hing - 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Butter - 75 gms (I used 4tbsp butter)

Method:

• Wash and drain the rice. Shade dry the Rice for 1/2 hr. (I soaked the rice overnight and shade dried in the morning for 30minutes to 1hour.)
  
• Dry roast the Urad dal to light brown. Allow it to cool.
  
• First grind rice into a fine flour, keep it aside. Then grind the urad dal to fine powder. (I sifted both the flours couple of times and used the finer flour for murukus)
  
• In a wide vessel, take both the flours along with salt. Mix well. Add cumin, Sesame seeds to the flour, mix well.
  
• Whether you use Asafetida powder or the solid ones, you got to mix it in water, make sure it is dissolved before adding to the flour. If its not dissolved properly, when deep frying the muruku, there are chances for the hing to burst our due to air bubbles. Mix in the hing to the flour and finally add the butter.
  
• Gather everything well and you will get more of a crumbling mixture. Now slowly add water and knead dough which is little softer than the puri dough.
  
• Heat a kadai with oil enough to deep fry. Once the oil is hot enough, simmer to low flame.
• Take the Muruku Aachu, wash and wipe it clean. Then divide the dough into equal balls. Fill the Muruku maker with the dough. You can either press it directly over the flames or press over a paper and gently slide it down the hot oil. But since the quantity mentioned here is less, you can press it directly over the kadai. Cook over medium flame, using a slotted spoon, turn it over to other side to ensure both sides turn golden colour. You will know by seeing the colour that it’s cooked. Remove to a kitchen paper and store it in a air tight container. This normally stays good for weeks, provided you forget about these which hardly happen!