Vegan Coffee Panna Cotta

Its vacation time for my son and we are in Bangalore. No early morning alarms that shake you out of your sleep, no cooking for the lunch box, no crazy Ahmedabad heat...just plain lazing around, meeting friends and cousins and checking out the new restaurants in Bangalore over the next few weeks.

Remember this post on Grape and raisin focaccia that I had posted last month as part of the Groovy Gourmets ? This time around, we had to make panna cotta. I had tried making panna cotta maybe a couple of years back. It was the first time and a huge hit. The next few times the gelatin really let me down.



I've always been fascinated with desserts set in a jar and I found this one, which is actually a candle holder in Ma's collection, so I used that as a mould for the panna cotta. I set the rest in some ramekins. Its always nice to serve this as individual servings, in little ramekins.

Panna cotta is an Italian dessert with milk, cream, sugar and some flavours set with gelatin.
My mother is lactose intolerant and anything with milk and cream is a big no-no. She loves coffee and so I decided on a coffee flavoured dairy-free panna cotta. I was very apprehensive how this would turn out since it was my first time with a no cream panna cotta. I used soy milk and coconut milk and also substituted the gelatin with its vegetarian counter part agar agar. The agar agar set it beautifully and my panna cotta turned vegan !



The coffee flavour was mild and with no real cream, it made for a light dessert. I garnished it with some grated dark chocolate.


Vegan Coffee Panna cotta

What you need -

500 ml unflavoured soy milk
200 ml thick coconut milk
8 gm agar agar
1.5 tbsp instant coffee powder
3 tbsp sugar

What you do with it -

Pour out the soy milk and coconut milk in a pan and simmer it on a low flame
Add the sugar and stir it in well
Dissolve the coffee powder in two tbsp of the soy milk and then pout it into the pan
Soak the agar agar in water for at least 10 mins. This packet of agar agar was more like a little mat, which turned into strands when soaked
Rinse the water three times and strain the agar agar
Add this to the pan and mix well on a low flame till it dissolves completely
Turn off the heat
Strain and pour into moulds
Allow it to set in the refrigerator for at least 2-3 hours
Serve cold, garnished with some chocolate

Aamras / Mango puree

The best thing about the summers in India is the abundance of mangoes. There are almost 70 varieties of mangoes cultivated across India. In Gujarat, the mango season starts as early as mid March and goes on till the first few weeks of July. The kesar is my favourite one, which is as good as the famous Alphonso, but not as exorbitantly priced..
I love eating mangoes as is, but a favourite combination is Aamras (Aam - mango, Ras - Juice) with puris. This is quite a popular dish in Maharashtra and Gujarat.



The thali places in Ahmedabad have aamras on their menu every summer. In addition to all the little bowls of vegetables and kadi, there is a bowl of aamras, which is filled every time you are nearing the end. My son is too small to have an entire thali, so he always gets a little plate for the puris and a bowl for aamras. The people serving are extremely attentive to him, despite the unending rows of people seated to eat and they fill up his bowl with aamras every time they pass by. He is always overawed with their service.

Here's a picture of a regular Gujarati thali. You will have more farsaan and sweets, in a fancier looking thali, if its a more upmarket restaurant


Pic Source: Sanjiv Khamgaonkar for CNNGo.com

My little fellow has been having mangoes after every meal these last few weeks. Ma made aamras puri when my cousins came over for lunch last week. He had that and then mango ice-cream for dessert. He is on a mango diet these days and totally loving it !!

The Raspuri variety is the best for the pulp, or you can use Alphonso, or a combination of the two. This time we used one Alphonso to add to the sweetness.



Aamras

What you need -
(Serves 4-5 people)

8 ripe raspuri mangoes
1 alphonso mango (This adds to the flavour, or you can just make do with the raspuri)
1 tbsp sugar, if required
1/4 cup water
1 cardamom (optional)

What you do with it -

Soak the mangoes in water for about half an hour - this makes it easier to remove the pulp
Peel the skin off the mangoes and soak in the water
Remove as much pulp as possible from the mango as possible, using your hands
If using the cardamom, peel it and add the seeds along with the pulp
Blend the mango pulp with sugar. Use as much sugar as required
Squeeze the remaining pulp from the skin of the mangoes and add to the blended pulp
Blend once more for a smooth consistency
Serve with hot puris, or refrigerate for an hour and serve cold as a dessert

Guava Kheer

Here's an absolute winner of a recipe..Very simple to make and tastes awesome !
All you need to have is really ripe pink guavas. The only catch is you cant really tell if the guava is pink on the inside or not, you just have to trust your fruit vendor with this !



This is one more of Ma's favourite desserts when we have people over !

What you need -
3-4 large ripe pink guavas
1/4 tin condensed milk
upto 1/2 cup milk

What you do with it -
Peel the skin off the guavas, not too thick, we just want a thin layer removed here
Scoop out the portion with the seeds
Cut out the pink portion that has no seeds, into tiny pieces and keep aside
Add the portion with the seeds with the skin that was peeled off. Add a little water to cover it and then cook for 10 mins in a pressure pan prefereably
Cool it and then sieve out the seeds. Keep the pulp aside
Add the condensed milk to the pulp and mix well
If its too thick or too sweet, add as much milk as needed to get the right consistency and sweetness
Add the chopped pieces and mix well
Refrigerate for an hour at least before serving

Cherry Clafoutis and Apple Flaugnarde

Till a few months back, I had no idea what 'Clafoutis' and 'Flaugnarde' meant, but thanks to all the blog hopping, I actually made these on Sunday !
I am still not sure I know how to pronounce these, though !!
Deeba, the baking diva, has some amazing creations on her blog...Her pictures are fantastic and I can spend hours drooling over all the exotic dishes she comes up with !
I've seen her use these pretty little ramekins and I recently picked up six of them, so had to try out something in them - thankfully, I didnt have to wait too long - with cherries in season and this really neat recipe on her blog, I knew exactly what I was going to make as a Father's day special !!



Deeba used plums in hers and I am sure the juice of that added a lot to the taste of the clafoutis, but after my overdose with plums last year, I decided to stay far away from them...



Filled three ramekins with the pitted cherries (learnt that here)that looked really nice and red and for the remaining three, I tried the flaugnarde. I learnt from Deeba's blog that flaugnarde was basically the same batter used with fruits other than cherries - this was a great idea - it meant I saved my time pitting the cherries and I could get 2 desserts with one meal !!



I used apples and raisins for the flaugnarde and actually liked it better than the clafoutis - I am guessing the cherries were not sweet enough or perhaps didnt seem to ooze out too much juice to make the clafoutis moist...Maybe, I will try with the plums someday...

For the original recipe, go straight here

To see my tweaked version, continue reading...

What you need -

25- 30 red cherries
3 eggs separated (this was another adventure !)
3/4 cup castor sugar
1/2 cup plain flour / maida
2-3 drops vanilla essence
3/4 cup fresh cream

What you do with it -

Preheat oven to 170C
Grease 6 small ramekins with oil / butter
Pit the cherries, and halve them
Arrange half the fruit at the bottom of the greased ramekins
For the flaugnarde, I chopped the apple and heated it in a pan with 2 tsp of brown sugar till the apple looked a little stewed. Arrange these in the ramekin. Drop in 5-6 raisins in each ramekin over the apples
To make the batter, whisk the egg yolks with half the sugar until thick and pale. With a rubber spatula, fold in the flour first, the vanilla essence and then the cream
Whisk the egg whites with the remaining sugar till they form firm peaks
Fold them into the batter gently
Pour the batter over the fruit to reach about 3/4 of the way up
Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins, take out and arrange 3 whole cherries on top and bake for a further 5-7 minutes
Serve warm with some cream or vanilla ice-cream

Peach Cobbler

Last week was wonderful..Cousins and ma were visiting and the weather was really nice..After one year of living here and cribbing endlessly about how hot it was, it finally cooled off and its been raining almost everyday for the last two weeks...
The nicest thing about this part of Ahmedabad is the number of peacocks we have walking around here. They stroll around even in the apartment complex. The rains made these birds wake up real early...you could hear them (and they dont sound so nice, they cry like little kittens, just much louder) from about 4 in the morning...A few weeks back, one of them had flown up to my balcony (on the 3rd floor) and till then I never knew peacocks fly !!
After telling you so much about the peacocks, I am really tempted to post one picture of them taken at a museum garden..Here are the handsome fellas...



Like it always happens when family is visiting, we did a lot of shopping, eating, chatting, even played scrabble till really late at night ! Made a whole lot of stuff from other blogs and mine - Red Chillies' baked nippattu, Miri's carrot coconut muffins, Sia's rhengan reveya, Ginger potatoes, Pesto Pasta, Corn Chowder, Spaghetti Bolognese with soy flakes(cousin's recipe) and the simple dal chawal, roti sabji on some days !



One evening, we had a chaat party - aloo tikki with Ranjani's khattey meethey choley, paani puri and dahi batata puri.
I had bought some peaches but wasn't sure what to make with them..My cousin promptly suggested a peach cobbler - I had never made or even tasted one before, so looked up and found this recipe on Food Network
It was really simple and tasted great.
I followed the recipe except for these few changes...
I didnt have brown sugar so used regular sugar mixed with some vanilla essence and cinnamon. I had two pears, so sliced them and added it up too..Also sprinkled some icing sugar on top...

A spoonful of peachy yumminess...



If you dont have peaches, I think apples and pears should work just fine

Pink Mania

Recently "pink" has been a lot in the news here -
Firstly, the pink carpet event for the premiere of Pink Panther 2, all the hype the media created earlier when Aishwarya signed up and the flak she got after release about the length and nature of her role
and then the famous 'Pink chaddi campaign' in bangalore after some 'rama sene' people decided to take the moral policing in their own hands and went about hitting and abusing girls who wore 'western' clothes, spoke english and well, were employed, unlike the many 'ram sene' activists !

And on a happier note, there's also the FIC - PINK this month.

Got two entries to send across to FIC - Pink hosted this month by Priya. FIC or Food in colours is the brilliant idea of Harini, more famous as Sunshinemom

A simple and easy Beetroot Raita, which is an add on to a meal during the hot summers. Moms always tell you to eat this so you'll get pink cheeks :) and I do this to my son now, who shows me his cheeks after every bite of the beetroot raita and i have to tell him how pink his cheeks are :)



and

Strawberry flavoured yoghurt - this was the dessert I mentioned in Pasta Salad post




Here are the recipes -

Beetroot Raita

What you need -

2-3 beetroots
2 cups yoghurt / curds
1/2 tsp jeera powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp chopped coriander leaves

What you do with it -

Cook the beetroots
Peel off the skin and chop into small pieces
Whick the yoghurt with jeera powder, sugar and salt
Mix the beetroot pieces into it
Garnish with chopped coriander leaves

Strawberry Yoghurt

What you need -

10-12 strawberries
1 ltr curds (6 cups or so i guess)
3 tsps sugar

What you do with it -

Tie the curds in a muslin cloth and hang the cloth, so that all the water drips away
You will need to keep this for an hour or longer
Meanwhile, wash the strawberries and take off the stems
Keep aside 2-3 to decorate on top
Chop the remaining strawberries into large pieces
Run in a blender with the sugar till its a smooth liquid
Once all the water in the curd has drained out, mix in the curd with the strawberry pulp
Beat to get a smooth consistency
Garnish with cut strawberries
Refrigerate at least for an hour before you serve

Eggless Bread Pudding

I was out with a friend who is familiarising me with this new area and all stores for our everyday groceries and vegetables. At one of the stores here, my friend pointed out to this loaf of bread, where the sides were all cut ! Very innovative idea - he even charged more for removing the sides. I don't have a problem with bread sides, but I do take it off when I make sandwiches for my son.

I really don't like wasting anything, so these sides and the slices at the two ends of the loaf come in very handy in making a simple steamed bread pudding. This one has bananas, milk and raisins along with the bread - sounds like a perfect breakfast !

Serve it hot or cold - works well both ways. Always a hit with kids - my son loves this one



Bread pudding

What you need -

2 cups of shredded bread slices / sides (I used brown bread this time)
3/4 cup milk (or enough to just soak the bread)
2 bananas
10-15 raisins
3-4 walnuts / almonds
1 tsp cinnamon powder or 1/2 a vanilla bean (whatever suits your taste)
2 tsp sugar + 1 spoon sugar for the caramel syrup

What you do with it -

Heat the brown sugar in a small bowl and pour it into a shallow vessel or smaller moulds
Mash the bananas and chop the walnuts or almonds into little pieces
Pulse the bread along with the sugar for 2-3 mins till its a coarse powder
Slit the vanilla bean and scrape the "caviar" out
Mix together bread, bananas, walnuts and raisins. Add the vanilla caviar or cinnamon powder
Pour enough milk to cover the bread mixture
Keep for 5-7 minutes so that the bread gets soaked well
Pour this bread mixture over the caramel syrup
Steam this for about 15-20 (I used a cooker, without the pressure)
Once done, upturn the pudding, so that the caramelised sugar layer is on top
Serve hot or refrigerate and serve with some cream