Featured November Blogger of the month at Foodies 100

The Foodies 100 is the UK’s largest and most exciting network for food and drink bloggers, with more than 2,500 members reaching 5m readers a year.

Foodies 100 provide a platform for bloggers and give them opportunities to share and grow their blogs through their website. They host events for bloggers to meet, learn and share their knowledge with each other and connect. Through Foodies 100 bloggers are able to get in touch and work with brands and build relationships for product reviews, giveaways and much more. Foodies 100 also provide very informative posts on technical help for blogs, seo workshops and much more. They also help bloggers to share their experiences and posts through guest blogging. I am proud to be a member of Foodies 100.

This month I am very proud and excited to be featured as November 2013 blogger of the month at Foodies 100 site. It is a great honour to have such a wonderful space to showcase my blog and share my blogging experience. Thank you so much Foodies 100 for reaching out to me and giving me this wonderful opportunity.

You can read my feature here.

Farmers market soup ~Secret recipe club challenge-18th November 2013

This is my assignment with the Secret Recipe Club.The aim of the club is that you are allocated a blog from which you have to select a recipe and try it and blog about it. My assigned blog was teaandscones. I had lots of fun looking through the blog and finally settled on a soup recipe. I liked the sound of  Farmers market soup as it was the type of soup that you can make with any thing you have in your fridge and produce a hearty bowl of soup.The only changes I made were that I swapped a couple of the vegetables in the original recipe for what I had in my fridge.

Delicious and hearty veggie soup packed with protein.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small white onion finely chopped
1 small red pepper finely diced
1 clove garlic finely chopped
2 small carrots peled and finely diced
1 small potato peeled and finely diced
1 zucchini finely diced
14 oz / 400 g precooked lentils
14 oz / 400 g chopped tomatoes
handful chopped baby spinach
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
500 ml water

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a pan when it is hot add the onions and the garlic and saute until onions are soft and translucent.
2. Add the carrots, pepper, zucchini, potato and the chopped tomatoes and saute for 3-4 minutes.
3. Add the water and the lentils and bring the soup to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer the soup for 10-15 minutes util all the vegetables are cooked.
4. Stir in the lentils and the chopped spinach and season with the salt, pepper and chilli flakes.
5. Remove soup from stove and serve in large bowls with bread and butter.

Moong Beans ( green lentils) cooked Gujarati style

 Moong Beans are a super food, they are low in calories and very nutritious. They are high in proteins, minerals, fibre and vitamins. They are also high in antioxidants which can help to reduce chronic diseases such as heart disease, certain types of cancers and diabetes.
They can be eaten boiled, cooked in soups and curries and also sprouted in salads like in this red camargue rice and sprouted moong bean salad and this boiled moong bean salad and curries too.

Yield: Serves 4

Author: Nayna Kanabar

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 Moong Beans cooked Gujarati Style

Moong beans (green lentils) cooked with onions, ginger and garlic . Flavoured with aromatic spices in a rich gravy. Full of protein and very healthy.

Prep time: 15 MCook time: 45 MTotal time: 60 M

Ingredients:

• 240 g / 8 oz dried moong beans
• 1 teaspoon chilli powder
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 3-4 curry leaves
• 1 red dried chilli
• 2 pieces cinnamon
• 2 cloves of garlic finely minced
• 1 small onion finely diced
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger paste
• 1 /2 teaspoon garlic paste
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh coriander leaves
• 1 tablespoon oil.
• ½ teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1 tomato finely chopped
• 4 tablespoons passata (blended tomatoes)
• 2 green chillies finely chopped
• Some fresh ginger slices and chopped tomato for garnish.

Instructions:

1. Wash and soak the moong beans the night before.
2. In the morning, drain the beans and put in fresh water and  boil the moong beans and cook until tender. Takes about 30 minutes.
3. In a pan heat the oil, when hot add the mustard seeds, red dried chilli, cloves, cinnamon and curry leaves.
4. Add minced garlic and onions and saute till onions are translucent, add the ginger paste and tomato passata and the chopped tomatoes.
5. Cook till tomato softens, then add salt, chilli powder, turmeric, lemon juice and the finely chopped green chillies.
6. Add boiled moong beans and extra water if necessary to make a thick soup consistency.
7. Bring to boil stirring occasionally.
8. Simmer for 5 more minutes and then transfer into serving dish.
9. Garnish with chopped coriander, some slices of ginger and fresh chopped tomato.

Created using The Recipes Generator

Serve with plain boiled rice or rotis.

Review-20 cm Ozeri Green Earth Frying Pan

I was recently sent a 20 cm Ozeri Green Earth Frying Pan with Ceramic Non-Stick Coating . It is one of the world's first frying pans to achieve non-stick perfection while remaining absolutely free of PTFE, PFOA and other harmful chemicals. It is made in Germany and designed to cook food with minimal use of oil making cooking easy and healthy. It has a textured cooking surface to prevent food sticking and the special coating means that no harmful fumes are released in the foods at high temperatures. The Green Earth Pan by Ozeri is made of the highest quality anodized aluminium that allows for even cooking and browning without the risk of hot spots. It has  a magnetized bottom for rapid heat transfer on induction stoves, and a heat resistant silicone coated handle.

I really enjoyed cooking with the pan and found that it was easy to wash as well. I found the 20 cm size a little small and limiting for family cooking however it was perfect for cooking smaller portions and frying eggs and making pan cakes. The Ozeri range does come in larger sizes. The 20 cm pan retails at £ 24.95 and is available form Amazon UK

I would like to thank Ozeri for sending me this pan to review, all the opinions in this review are my own.

Ghotma Ladoos Rajasthani Indian Sweet

 Wishing all simply.food readers a very happy Diwali

This recipe for Ghotma Ladoos, I discovered at Jagruti's cooking Odyssey, it is a ladoo recipe very unique to Rajasthan -Jaisalmer. Jagrutis recipe post can be found here and here is also a video showing how the Ghotma ladoos are made in the authentic way in Jaisalmer.
I have adapted the recipe slightly and added a few extra ingredients.

Ingredients:

Boondi

250 g chickpea flour
1 tablespoon melted ghee for batter

½ cup water
1 litre sunflower oil for deep frying

Mawa

175 g sugar
125 g condensed milk
60g clarified butter
30 g milk powder
30 g almond powder

1 teaspoon cardamom powder
1 teaspoon nutmeg powder
30 g coarsely chopped pistachio nuts
30g coarsely chopped almonds
1 tablespoon almonds flakes
coloured red and slightly crushed

How to colour almonds red:
Put almond flakes in a zip lock bag and add few drops of red food colouring, shake the bag to colour the almonds red.Place a sheet of kitchen paper on a tray anddry the coloured almonds, once dry use them for garnish

Method:

1.Mix the chickpea flour and water with the melted ghee and make a lump free batter.
2.Heat oil in a large wok and using a ladle with holes pour the batter through it into the hot oil to form small droplets of batter.
3. Deep fry the boondis until crisp ad drain them on kitchen paper .Repeat for rest of batter.
4. Once all boondis are made weigh out 350 grams for the recipe and store rest away for future use.

5. In a microwaveable bowl add the clarified butter, condensed milk,milk powder and almond powder and mix well.
6.Cook on medium heat for 2 minutes stirring after 1 minute.The mixture should start to come together to form a semi solid ball. Cook for a further 30 seconds and remove from microwave and leave to cool.
7. In a food processor add the 350 g of prepared boondi and the sugar and blend until a fine sand like texture forms.
8. Add to this mixture the prepared mawa mixture made in the microwave, cardamom powder and nutmeg powder  and blend again until all the ingredients are combined.
9.Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and add the coarsely chopped pistachios, almonds and the red crushed almonds.Mix everything together.You should be able to form balls from the mixture, if the mixture appears dry add an additional spoonful of condensed milk, just enough to bind the mixture.
10. Make bite sized ladoos from the mixture freeform or using aladoo mould.

Round Up ~Lets cook with Pumpkin

Thankyou to everyone who participated in this event.Here is the wonderful round up of the dishes.