Blueberry, Vanilla, and Bread Pudding

I had my first taste of blueberries today. We don't get blueberries around here - like ever, not because its winter. So, I'd bought a can of blueberries a couple of weeks back. Having heard about a friend gorging on wild berries in another part of the world, I just decided to bust open the can and have some. I was quite disappointed - the berries looked purple rather than blue, for one; and they were swimming in a sugar syrup and I just tasted sweetness rather than any real flavor from the berries. That's Rs 270 gone down the drain. I was so looking forward to making a spinach and blueberry salad later this week. So, the only sensible thing to do with these sugary babies is to make dessert and put the syrup to good use.

My blueberry and bread pudding turned out quite nice. Would be so much better had I had some fresh berries. But then again, if I had fresh berries, I wouldn't dream of cooking them.

Spicy Tofu Pakoras

I love the Hairy Bikers. They're adorable, in that cuddly teddy bear way. We have our own Indian version of the hairy bikers, by way of Rocky and Mayur on Highway on my Plate. One guy plays good cop (vegetarian) and one plays bad cop (eats everything). However, the one dichotomy about India is that while vegetarian food is plentiful and easy to get; vegan is not. Everything's cooked in ghee (clarified butter) for that authentic old India taste, and the default meat substitute is paneer (Indian cottage cheese).

Speaking of paneer, the hairy bikers, while touring India, had made Palak Paneer (Spinach with Cottage Cheese). Indians normally just dunk chunks of paneer inside the spinach pot and let it simmer for a while. The hairy bikers, ingeniously, coated their paneer chunks in semolina and then fried the paneer to give it a crunchy coating and then added the paneer on top.

That sounded good to me. Only, I substituted the paneer for tofu. You do have to use a firm tofu, though. Mine said Firm on the carton, but I did find it a bit soft and I hate having to handle my ingredients with extreme care.

Tofu Pakoras

Servings: 6-8 bite sized pakoras

Ingredients

• 100-150 grams of firm silken tofu
• 3/4 cup besan (chickpea flour)
• 1 green chilli
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1/2 cup semolina
• Juice of half a lime
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

To make:

• Slice your tofu into square cubes, patting them dry.
• Make a batter using the chickpea flour, chilli (finely chopped), garam masala, and lime juice. You'll need about 1/2 cup of water to bind everything into a smooth liquid batter.
• Dunk your tofu cubes into the batter and let it marinate for 30 minutes or so.
• Heat oil in a pan.
• Dunk the marinated tofu into a plate of semolina, ensuring that the cubes have a decent amount of batter on them firstly, and then are completely coated in semolina.
• Fry till golden brown.
• Serve with more lashings of lime, and a mint or chilli chutney.

Vegan Strawberry Sorbet

Strawberries are finally in season!! So, I bought a carton of strawberries and a 200 mils soy milk box to make a frozen strawberry treat. Well, I was going for strawberry ice cream, but it turned out more like a sorbet.

Vegan Strawberry Icecream Sorbet

Servings: 2-3 scoops

Ingredients:

• 12 strawberries
• 75-100 mils of unsweetened soy milk
• 2 tablespoons of organic cane jaggery (replace with brown sugar, if needed)
• Pinch of rock salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon rasberry food coloring

To make:
Freeze the strawberries for a couple of hours in the freezer.

Take them out, thaw them for a while, then roughly chop them.

In a blender, add the strawberries, jaggery, salt, and soy milk.

Blend well for 5-10 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and the coloring.

Spread the mixture in a bowl and let it freeze for at least 4 hours in the freezer.

After that, put the solid mixture back in the blender (or stir it up roughly by hands). Put back in the freezer for a couple of hours more for a final freeze.
Garnish with strawberries and serve.