Beet and Chocolate Brownies

Remember the Groovy Gourmets I told you about a couple of months back ? Every month, we make something based on the selected theme. Made the grape focaccia, vegan coffee panna cotta for this earlier. Well, I missed out the last two months of posting, but am back now. This week's theme was brownies, with a twist, not just the regular chocolate ones.



I've read a lot about beet and chocolate cakes and though I was a bit apprehensive, I wanted to try brownies with beet puree. We love beets at home and cook quite a bit with it, but beets in something sweet was really something new.
The colour was a pretty dark pink and the taste was really good. I added a bit of butterscotch chips and some almond flour and this gave it a really nice texture.

If you like the idea of sneaking in some veggies in your brownies, give this a try. It isn't easy to figure out the beet in this, lesser calories than a regular brownie and tastes yum !

Beet and Chocolate Brownies

What you need -

3/4 cup APF / maida
2 tsps ground almond flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cooked beets
1/2 cup grated dark chocolate
2 tbsp butter (at room temperature)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup butterscotch chips
a pinch of salt

What you do with it -

Line an 8" square pan with baking sheet / butter paper. Allow the sides of the paper to fall over the edges, makes it easier to remove the brownies later
Grease the baking sheet / butter paper
Pre heat the oven at 180 C
Sift the flour, salt and baking powder. Add the almond flour to this and keep aside
Heat the grated chocolate in microwave safe bowl, in 15 second intervals
Peel the cooked beets and make a puree
To this puree, add the butter, melted chocolate and sugar and whisk till the sugar is dissolved completely
Add the butterscotch chips to the flour and then add the flour to the beet puree
Add the batter to the pan and bake for about 35 mins
Cool, pull the paper up from the edges
Cut into 1.5" squares
Sprinkle with icing sugar if you like

Cochi-Konkani style Beets

A sect of Konkanis moved to parts of Kerala many many generations ago (I'm talking like 13th century) and over the years have adapted a lot of Kerala in their dialect and cuisine.
They are known as Cochi-Konkanis and their Konkani has so much of Malayalam that I may not understand it too well.

This recipe is from my mom's friend, who's spent the better part of her life in Kerala. This one has garlic, which really makes it different from the regular upkaris / poriyals we make.

I love beets and so does my little one, so I make it quite often in some form or the other. Beets have a good nutritional value, scoring high on potassium, calcium, antioxidants and folic acid ! Juice of beets combined with other juices like carrot and cucumber are supposed to be great for cleansing the kidneys and gallbladder and being a fibrous root, is excellent for eliminating constipation.

All this apart, I love the colour, though my chopping board, peeler, grater, basically half my kitchen and my son's clothes have a nice pink hue when I make anything with beets at home..




What you need -

3 medium sized beets
3 cloves garlic
6-8 curry leaves
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp oil
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp grated coconut

What you do with it -

Peel and chop the beets into small pieces.
In a pan, add a little oil and season the mustard seeds and curry leaves
Add the beets, salt and a little water and cook covered on low heat
Grind together 3 tbsp coconut, cumin and garlic
When the beet is almost done, add the coconut paste and cook till done
Garnish with the remaining grated coconut

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