Carrot n Coconut Date Squares

It has been too long. Way too long. I don't know where the last three months went by (apart from five weddings and a vacation)  but I'm hoping to keep a tab on the coming months. Thankfully I have no more excuses left to update recipes now, so I hope to do this more often.

I don't ever remember having Date Squares before I made this one. It intrigued me even more when I was planning to make it for a cook along because it sounded so healthy and because I knew I could make it even healthier. I used this recipe from Joy Of Baking as my base and played around with it to make it vegan and healthy. I eliminated wheat from the recipe (though I know sometimes oats can be contaminated with wheat) and also used organic jaggery instead of sugar. The addition of coconut to the base gives it a nice nutty flavour and the carrots are just for added bursts of orange.

I was not so convinced about this recipe until I tried it and I think you should too.

You need:

For the base and crumble:

3 cups Oats powdered

¼ tsp Salt

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp Cinnamon

½ cup Desiccated Coconut

1 medium carrot grated

½ cup jaggery melted

½ tsp vanilla extract

4 tbsp oil

For the filling:

400gms pitted dates

1/2 cup water

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp orange peel

Preheat your oven to 180

Mix all the dry ingredients for the crumble and then add the wet ingredients. Make it into a thick firm dough.

Boil the dates with ½ cup water for 15 minutes. Make sure it doesn’t burn. Once it cools, blend it into a smooth paste and add more water if required. Add the vanilla and orange peel.

In a square or rectangular baking dish lined with parchment paper, put 2/3rds of the oat mixture and spread evenly. Spread the date mixture on top of it. Crumble the rest of the oat mixture on top of it.

Bake for 45-50 minutes.

It should be a lovely golden brown on top.

In other news, I am on my way to improving my "make a cake look pretty" skills. This is something I made for an order as an engagement cake at The Green Stove. The bottom tier is a Vanilla Sponge with Vegan White chocolate Frosting and the top is all Dark Chocolate. What do you think?

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Tamarind & Date Chutney aka Sweet Chutney

It's day four of the Vegan Mofo challenge and as much as i would love to see what all the 600 people are doing every single day, I'm afraid it's just not possible. Everyday from now on I will share an interesting blog I found while attempting to see all that I can among all the blogs.

Today's find of the day is : Vegan Fling. Check out Melissa's amazing No Bake Oatmeal cookies or the Pomegranate Vanilla Limeade. Her pictures are stunning too!

In keeping with my chutney theme, today's chutney is a sort of a complex recipe. Most of the other chutneys I have come across are simple and involve a little bit of cooking and a lot of blending. This chutney is a little more time consuming. So when I make this, I make a big batch and freeze it for subsequent uses. I usually don't freeze stuff because in India, the idea  of eating freshly cooked food every day is something of a habit. Our weather permits us to get fresh fruit and vegetable every day and food kept longer than a day is considered stale. Many communities (mine included) will not eat food cooked the previous day. So our freezers are usually a small section of the fridge unlike the ones in the US where the freezer is a huge, deep, never ending drawer. I do see people buying those humongous fridges here too, but the freezers aren't nearly as full as the ones I have seen in the US.

This chutney is the partner/wife/husband/spouse of the basic green chutney that I have posted earlier. It is almost always served up with the spicy green chutney so that you get a bit of both when you take a bite of whatever you are eating. This chutney is also served with spicy samosas and bhajjis. It is famously used in street food (also known as Chaat) in Bombay. It is a very sweet chutney but lots of people add red chilli powder to this to make it a sweet, sour and spicy chutney in one. I usually make the green chutney when I want to use this one because I feel like the coriander/cilantro-mint combination adds a nice depth of flavour when it is all mixed together.

You need:

500gms of seedless Dates (any variety)
1 and a 1/2 cups of jaggery powder
50gms of skinless tamarind or 3tbsp thick tamarind paste
2 and a 1/2 cups of water
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp red chilli powder (optional)
2 tsp cumin seeds roasted and powdered

Cook the dates in the water till they become soft. Stir it around in intervals to ensure that the dates are not sticking to the bottom. If the water has evaporated, add little water. It takes about 30 minutes for the dates to become fully soft. Once cooked, cool it a little bit before you put it into a blender. You do not want a kitchen full of date purée  You can also use a hand blender to purée the dates.

In the mean while, soak the tamarind in about half a cup of water. If you are using tamarind pulp, you can omit this step. After 20 minutes squeeze the [life out of] tamarind so that you extract all the pulp. Remove the fibre and seeds and put it through a sieve and add this to the date purée. Add the jaggery and put it back on the stove. Let it come to a boil, after which you can add the salt, chilli powder and cumin powder. That's it. 

Cool it completely before freezing.

Dense, flavourful and yummm!

Some ideas to use this chutney:

It can be added to a potato chaat - boil potatoes and chop it into big chunks; mix with green chillies, chopped coriander, diced tomatoes, onions, salt, lime and this chutney.

It can be served as a sweet dip for spicy snacks like samosas, bhajjis and wadas

It is very commonly used in street food in Bombay and one of them is Ragda Patties (pictured above). Ragda is sprouted white peas that are cooked in a spicy tomato-onion gravy base and the Patties are mashed potatoes made into medals and roasted on both sides. And then after you've done all that, serve it with the spicy green and this sweet chutney on top. 

It can be added along with green chutney to make bhel puri - puffed rice, diced tomatoes, onions, coriander, sev, roasted peanuts.

You can even add some vinegar to it and make it into a salad dressing.

I even think this will make a great sorbetto when frozen. It is very sweet and has the sourness from the tamarind. 

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