Gitadini USA , Big Summer Giveaway!!!

Welcome to Gitadinis Summer Giveaway.

This Giveaway Will Be Happening on Instagram! 


I'll be giving away this great YinYang Masala Dabba from #gitadiniusa I have had one for years and use mine every day.  

To enter the giveaway get on over to Instagram @kathygori:

entrants have to follow @gitadiniusa , leave a comment (i.e. why do you want to win) and tag a friend that likes/loves Indian food/cooking

· The giveaway is open to UK and US mainland residents

check out the other prizes from my fellow Indian Food Bloggers on Instagram at @sandhyaskitchen @bengalicuisine @merry_tummy and @gitadiniusa

· The giveaway closes Sunday midnight your local time

· We’ll jointly announce the winners on Tuesday. If a winner doesn’t get back within 24hrs, a new winner will be picked#giveaways #giveaway #instacompetition #indianfood #indianfoodblogger #gitadiniusa

A Fast Cooling Soup Made For Tomato Season.

   Summer has hit Sonoma and we are already knee deep in delicious sweet tomatoes. I don't think I actually ever really tasted a proper fresh tomato until we started spending time in Sonoma. Before that the only tomatoes I'd had tasted like hard pink billiard balls and I would do almost anything to avoid using fresh ones as most of them just plain sucked. Then I tasted fresh summer tomatoes and I never looked back. We grew a lot of them last year. I used them in my Indian cooking and so they became a must when we planted this years garden.

   Normally those tomatoes would go into a raita or some other Indian dish. I certainly never made a soup from them, or a pasta sauce. But then  I started working for CocoaPlanet. The CocoaPlanet folks are opening their tasting room and bistro very soon here in Sonoma and I've been helping develop their menu. The owners are gluten free and so is their chocolate. Their Bistro and Tasting Room is going to be a totally completely gluten free establishment. You heard me... no gluten on the premesis.

   I've spent many years cooking gluten free for friends, (I myself am not gluten intolerant) and since Indian food is pretty easy to prepare gluten free, it's never been a problem for people visiting our house. I blend my own flours and we've been having a ball dessert-tasting tarts, cookies, cakes etc. A lot of the desserts are also vegan so this place is going to have something for everyone.

   Yes, these guys are both gluten free and vegan.....anyway, that brings me to this soup.  Man does not live by macarons alone. And Anne McKibben, founder of CocoaPlanet wanted a lovely fresh tomato soup, similar to ones made by her French mother. Totally pure, tasting of straight up garden fresh tomatoes, this was the unicorn of tomato soups. So after doing my research, I adapted this French recipe... no cooking involved, it's easily made in a blender no muss no fuss. All it requires is the best freshest tomatoes one can find, and this time of year that's pretty easy.

Fresh Tomato Soup With Tarragon Creme Fraiche

Here's What You Need:
4 lbs fresh tomatoes
1/2 cup olive oil
2 cups of vegetable broth
1Tbs red wine vinegar
2 tsps sugar

For the Creme Fraiche:
1/2 cup creme fraiche
1 and 1/2 Tbs chopped tarragon, and some extra for a garnish


Here's What To Do:
Cut the tomatoes in half on the equator side.
Using a teaspoon scoop out the seeds then cut the tomatoes in quarters.
Place the tomatoes in a blender
Add in everything else except the creme fraiche.
Hit Blend!!!
Pour the soup through a mesh basket to filter out any tomato skin or seeds that might be left.
Chill the soup for at least 2 hours and serve it up.

Before serving, whip 1 and 1/2 Tbs of chopped  fresh tarragon into the creme fraiche.
Place a dollop of the tarragon mixture in the center of the soup and you are ready to go!
If you want this to be totally vegan, either omit the creme fraiche or use a vegan creme fraiche.

If you want to make your own non vegan creme friache, mix together a cup of whipping cream with 2 Tbs buttermilk cover the cup with cheese cloth and set it out for 8 to 24 hours to thicken. Voila! Creme Fraiche! Store in a closed jar in the fridge.

   Coming up next, a contest. We're going to be giving away some Spice Kits from our company The Chaunk ...

...and  Spice Dabbas from the folks at GitaDini to store your spices in.

   So, watch this space! Meanwhile follow along on Twitter at @kathygori

Mango Kulfi Straight Out Of The Mold! Plus, A GitaDini Giveaway!

   I've been pretty busy since the last time I posted here. I've come a long way from the hazelnut cookies. I meant to get back here sooner but...idili. Anyone who's ever tried making those soft pillowy treats knows what I'm talking about. Idili may look deceptively simple, but unless you're making them from a package mix, they're not that easy. First there's the soaking of the rice and dal, then there's the grinding, then there's the fermenting and with the temperature dipping below freezing up here in Sonoma right now it's not the most salubrious time for that process.
  
   But why Idili, and why now? Well the  nice people at Gitadini USA  were kind enough to ask me if I'd like to try out their new silicone idili molds.

I use many of their products in my own kitchen and so of course the answer was YES! Idili I thought, no problem. I'd made idili before, what's the big deal? The big deal as it turns out was I needed a good idili recipe. In the past I'd made rava idili but could not find my recipe for that. So what does one do about a missing recipe? I went to the source of my Indian cooking and contacted the person who started me on this path 25 years ago. I called my sister in law.
 
   When I told her I was making idili, she laughed. "From scratch? Nobody in India bothers to make those from scratch any more. It's too much work. Why do you want to make idili anyway?"
 
I explained about the molds, how cute the half  moon shapes were, how I'd planned a wonderful fresh coconut chutney, how I'd invited people over... My sister in law uses the old fashioned idili steaming tray, the same one I've used before on the rare and distant occasion when I'd made idili. I explained how beautiful these new silicone steamers were, how I was dying to break them in.

   "Good luck" she said, "get a mix."
 
   I plowed ahead with my soaking and grinding  (I'd found a recipe online), I poured  my rice and dal into my Ninja blender and got a batter. I turned on my warming oven to its lowest setting then turned it off and popped the bowl of idili batter wrapped in a towel inside. Sunday morning I'd planned to have idili and chutney and chai. Dreamer. As I waited by the steamer, I was starting to get discouraged.

My idili fantasy turned into a nightmare.  Instead of pillowy soft  cloud like idili, I had tough idili.

So tough they refused to leave the molds. Now we're talking silicone molds here so those were some hard ass idili. Shockingly, when I tried in my embarrassment to toss them, no one would let me.  It seems, though the texture was totally wrong, I'd  devised some sort of breakfast crumpet, that paired with the spicy coconut chutney tasted delicious. As long as you don't look at what you're eating. So ok, a week wasted on failed idili recipes. I was back to square one and googling idili mixes when I started my cancer treatment.
 
   My tumor was very very small and thankfully had not gone anywhere when I had surgery at UCSF in December. I fall into a grey area as far as additional treatment goes. Very small cancer, no nodal involvement, to treat or not to treat. As it turns out, with targeted biologic treatment the survival rate goes from 90% up to 98% and I like those odds a whole lot better, so I'm doing that. It won't impact my hair etc and I'm glad for my weird mutated DNA that there's something that works on it, as opposed to 25 years ago, when I had a much riskier situation. In short they hadn't even discovered my gene yet. So I've been running around dealing with that, and banging my head against the idili wall ( which in my case is not pillowy and soft)!

   I knew I needed to regroup, clearly this idili thing needed further study. It was either fly my sis in law out here for further research, (she had plans to go to Key West where it's even warmer), buy a mix or pour something else into those molds. But what??? Then it hit me, Kulfi! Easy, sweet, and who doesn't like ice cream? It could even be made vegan if I so desired. So Kulfi it was.

Mango Cardamom Kulfi

Here's What You Need:
2 mangoes, peeled and chopped
1 can evaporated milk (full fat)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 cups of whipping cream
1 large pinch of ground cardamom

Here's What To Do:
Peel and chop the mangoes into pieces. Here's how:

Puree the mango in a food processor or blender and set it aside.

In  a bowl whisk together the sweetened condensed milk and the evaporated milk.

 Add in the whipping cream.

And the pinch of ground cardamom.

Whisk the pureed mango into the milk mixture, blend it in well.

Pour the kulfi  into the molds. Don't fill them all the way up as it will expand slightly.

Cover the top of the molds with foil and place them in the freezer until they are solid.

This takes a few hours, so plan ahead.
When the kulfi has set, unmold...

...and enjoy!

   I really loved these GitaDini molds and they're letting me share a mold with someone. So if you'd like to get one of these idili molds drop me a comment. Let me know what you're planning. These molds can be used for ANYTHING, and not just idili. Bake in them, make ice cream, a savory dish, whatever.

   Just give  @GitaDiniUSA and @kathygori a shout out on Twitter, or just leave a comment right below. It's all good. I'll choose someone via random.com in one week. To win. you must reside in the USA.

   I've been using GitaDini products in my home for several years now I know you're going to love them just as much as I do! Coming up next, I shall not surrender the idili fight and more easy Indian recipes for busy days and nights, follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Time Out For Fun, Easy Slow Cooker Soup. Plus A Giveaway

   One of my earliest soup memories is of split pea soup. Split pea soup in a can from a place called Pea Soup Andersons in Buellton California.

   Now if you've never heard of Buellton California, it's a little town off the 101 on the way from San Francisco to LA. It's familiar to every kid who ever rode in the back seat of their parent's car on the way from San Francisco to Disneyland. Oh, it was also made famous a few years back by Alexander Payne in his amazing film Sideways based on the equally amazing book of the same name by Rex Pickett. Buellton and its' gorgeous surroundings turned out to be the co star of the film. Buellton became known for where you don't drink Merlot, rather than where you do drink/eat split pea soup.

  But back to pea soup and Pea Soup Andersons specifically. For years the closest I ever got to the fabled place was the cans of soup I loved. The actual restaurant was just a fleeting blip out the back window of my dad's Chevy as he zoomed toward LA during Summer trips to Disneyland trying to see how far he could get on one tank of gas.

   "This is how we did it during the war!" as he flipped off the headlights."so the Nazis wouldn't see us"

   "Daddy, no!!!!!!!!!!!!"

   Stopping was not an option.

   Flash forward a few years (the '80s) I had a car of my own, stopping became an option, and pretty soon Pea Soup Andersons became a regular pit stop on my car trips between family in Northern California and home in LA. I always ordered the pea soup. Until The Event.

 

   One stormy Christmas, driving back from San Francisco to LA in driving rain Alan and I decided to make our usual stop at Pea Soup Andersons. Shelter from the storm and all that, besides my car was making some very weird noises. So we pulled off the 101, tucked into a big bowl of split pea soup, and decided to wait out the weather for a bit.

   As things started to clear, we paid the tab and hit the road once again. After Buelton, it's a haul over the rugged Gaviota Pass, and after that a straight shot down hill toward Santa Barbara and home in LA. So we cranked up the Devo (hey it was the '80s) and started out. It happened when he hit the fateful song Time Out For Fun.

  The car started freaking out, followed shortly by me. Cold, dark, rain, strong winds and inclement weather makes me want to start building the ark. Alan, who grew up in New York and Connecticut was used to driving in snow. Me not so much. Skiing, yes, but someone else always drove to the mountains. I just slid down them. So I'm a weather wuss. Every time the little snowflake light on my Volvo's dashboard goes on indicating frost, I go all Donner Party on Alan. As the car failed in the mountains I started losing it. I'm not ashamed to say so. Well yes, I am ashamed, but it was a long time ago. The car gasped up the mountain heading for the summit as Devo chirped "Time Out For Fun!"

   "Turn that fucking thing off!!!!!!!!" I screamed and yanked the cassette out, (yes, it was the 80's) I flipped it into the back seat. 

   All I wanted was for us to get to the top of that freaking hill so we could coast down the hill to Santa Barbara and help (the '80's. No cell phones remember?) I never played Devo again. In typical superstitious Italian fashion I also never ordered the split pea soup at Andersons again, though I stopped there many many times in my new car.

 

   Well, I finally broke my split pea soup taboo. Once again bad weather was responsible. It's been cold in Sonoma, very, very, cold. We've had freeze warnings the last several nights and have been trying to stay warm in a house that can get very cold. Central heat does a good job in most of our place but the living room, dining room and kitchen have very high beamed ceilings and there we rely for warmth on a wood stove, and soup. 

   Last week I suddenly craved split pea soup. Somehow, it seemed the right thing to do as Wilfred Brimly always says. So I made some. Only with all the family stuff going on around here I knew I wouldn't be able to give it my full attention. I'd be running around doing errands and the last thing I wanted was to come home to a cold dark house and start making soup. So I got out the slow cooker. It took about 10 minutes to get the soup put together, and the aroma when I opened the door to the cold dark house 6 hours later made it all worth it. If you've got a slow cooker you can do this too.

Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup

Here's What You Need:

A 1lb bag of  green split peas
1 large leek (just the white part) chopped
4 allspice berries
2 bay leaves
1 onion finely chopped
1 large shallot chopped
1 carrot peeled and chopped
2 stalks of celery peeled and chopped
4 sprigs of thyme
10 stems of parsley
kitchen twine
1 lb of ham hocks or smoked pork w/bone
7 cups of water
salt to taste
pepper to taste


Here's What To Do:

Put the split peas, onion, carrot, celery, shallot, leek, ham, and water into the slow cooker.

Tie the parsley stems and the sprigs of thyme together with some kitchen twine and drop them in also.

Place the allspice berries and the bay leaves into a bouquet garni bag (I use a muslin tea bag) and drop that in.

Put the lid on the slow cooker, and turn it on to the low setting.

Cook for about 6 hours.

  

When the split peas are softened and everything is cooked down. Take the pork out of the soup. Shred it and set it aside.

Remove the thyme tied to the parsley stems and toss them.

Remove the bouquet garni bag and throw it out.

With an immersion blender or food processor, puree the rest of the soup.

Add in the shredded pork and reheat everything.

Serve it up with croutons (I made some) or not.

It's hearty, filling, warm, and reminiscent of stormy nights at Pea Soup Andersons, without Devo or car trouble of course.

 
   And now the Giveaway. I'd like to share my wonderful discovery of the wonderful Masala Dabba box from the nice people at GitaDini.

It's a great box with twelve stainless steel containers just made for holding whatever you need stashed.

I love this thing and I'd like to offer one to one of you. Even if you don't use it for spices it's great for snacks, candies or serving treats to guests. Plus I love the way it fits right on the counter. Perfect size.

   So if you'd like the Gita Dini spice box,and live in the USA  just follow them on Twitter at @GitaDiniUSA and me at @kathygori, and leave me a comment letting me know. I'll be drawing a winner on January 31st via @random.org.

 
   Coming up next an Indian twist on party food for awards season, and sporting event weekends. Just follow along on Twitter @kathygori