Varada's Kitchen and Garden

I wanted to try out some new combination patterns on bread. Pinterest is full of designs and I really loved the mix and match patterns. I figured out what I wanted to do and was waiting for my daughter to come back home from school. The first two weeks she was home she was not interested in any new recipes. Now she is back to her normal self. And I cannot wait to try out everything in my wish list before she is off to college in fall. This is my first attempt putting a decorative element on the bread. These decorations are supposed to be baked in a different color. It is just flour and water without any yeast. I have some breads with more complex decorations in my wish list and this was a good start for me. This bread is put together in two distinct parts. The first is a round stuffed bread roll. And the other is a stuffed long roll. The long roll is covered in a lattice pattern and every thing is baked together. I needed a filling and asked my daughter what she would like.

Gozleme is stuffed flatbread from Turkey that is rolled very thin. Is is a popular street food. Spinach and Turkish white cheese are commonly used as stuffing. I have a recipe for Gozleme with potato and cheese filling in this space. But that was made as part of a sourdough challenge and that flatbread was folded differently. This time I wanted to try the more popular folding technique. So here is another recipe for gozleme, this time with a spinach and feta filling. I blanched the spinach before use. I used cilantro in place of parsley as I am not at all fond of parsley. I used crumbled feta with the greens and added no other spice or seasoning. It did not need anything else. Family loved it. The dough is called Yufka and it is sold by the sheets in specialty stores. The sheets are large and very thin. When you eat the finished product all you can taste is the filling. I wanted to replicate that so I rolled the dough to the point of tearing. It made the transfer to the grid

The Tutmanik caught my eye when I was researching breads for the baking marathon a long time ago. I bookmarked several in languages I did not understand. Only I had them as their generic name Pogacha or flatbread. I like the concept very much and knew the flavor of feta would be loved in my house but for the longest time I did not know what it was called. I finally found out. It is called the Tutmanik. It is made with white flour and commercial yeast both of which I try not to use. So I converted the recipe to sourdough and used mostly whole wheat flour. In doing so I sacrificed the golden brown color on the finished product but I am okay with that. As you can see the bread is shaped using stuffed layered strips of dough. Finding the right dough and stuffing recipe was a challenge. Some used a lot of oil in the dough. Some used margarine or a lot of butter in the stuffing. This is a common dish in Bulgaria and so every household has a recipe. Finally I decided to create my own b

Olive Tapenade, the name sounds so exotic! And the ingredient list is mouth watering. The first time I tasted it I fell in love. I had never used capers at home back then but I wanted to try the tapenade. My homemade version came out pretty good. And then I forgot all about it. A couple weeks back my daughter came home for summer. I spent a good deal of time listing all the dishes I would cook while she was home. I came across this old recipe and decided it had to go on the list. As it happened I made sourdough crackers  the day I made the Tapenade. It made the perfect spread for the crackers for an afternoon snack. I am glad I got all my pictures before I let the family eat it because there wasn't enough left for pictures! When my daughter was little I worked hard to help her broaden her palate. Living in the US we have access to a variety of foods from all over the world, both restaurants and grocery stores. Luckily for me most Moms I interacted with were like me and

One day when I was looking up bell peppers I saw a chutney made with not red but green bell peppers. It looked amazing and I loved its texture. I was not very sure about the taste. I have a lot of recipes using red bell pepper on this space but I use green bell pepper sparingly. It is not my daughter's favorite so I usually use it with other vegetables, not as the star of the dish. But I knew I had to try this Green Bell Pepper chutney someday. Well, last week I was reading the Blogging Marathon group blogs and I saw this chutney on Nisha's space. She blogs at the Magic Saucepan and has some awesome recipes. I bookmarked it and asked Alexa (Amazon Echo) to add green bell peppers to my grocery list. On Memorial Day, my daughter and I had to run out for some errands and when I got back it was too late to cook my planned lunch menu. I made a quick mixed vegetable rice and needed something to go with it. This bookmarked chutney seemed perfect and it was done while the rice co

It is mango season and there are a dozen Haden mangoes in the house. They are very juicy and sweet. We have had mangoes in all forms over the last few days when I realized I have never posted the mango salsa. I decided to fix that right away and made this simple mango salsa. The mango was very juicy so I left the pieces big. For a different variety of mango I would have diced finely. I used one mango so what you see in the picture is all I got. The amount of bell pepper you need is very small. I usually have a whole lot of fresh diced vegetables in the refrigerator. So I just pulled a really small quantity to add to this salsa. You could use more than one mango and increase the amount of bell pepper accordingly. That never made it back to the bowl. It was all gone right after I took the picture. Mid morning snack for my daughter while she was on a break form studying for her summer classes. You will need 1 mango, diced 1 tbsp diced red bell pepper 2 tbsp. onion, diced 1