Mango Pie

Mango Pie - from Swapna G

Ingredients

Mango pulp - 1 Can Laxmi brand Keasar Mango pulp is great

Heavy cream - half pt
Unflavoured Gelatine - 2 packets
Sugar - 1 cup
Cream cheese - 1(8 ounce)
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Warm water - 1/4 cup
Graham cracker crust - 2

Steps to do
1. Boil heavy cream in a pan.

2. Mix the Gelatine in warm water and allow the Gelatine to get dissolved completely.

3. Blend the heavy cream and Gelatine together.

4. Add cream cheese and sugar into it and blend again.

5. Pour the mango pulp turn by turn into the blender and beat it, until the whole can of mango pulp is finished.

6. Add vanilla essence into the beaten pulp and beat again for a minute.

7. Pour the entire pulp into the graham cracker crust and refrigerate for almost 7 hours to set completely.

From one pie crust, u will be able to get 8 slices

Bean Casserole

A recipe from my friend Swapna. Thanks for contributing to this blog.

Ingredients
    •    1 cup  chopped onion (1 large)

    •    3/4 cup chopped green bell pepper (1 medium) 

    •    1 small can diced tomatoes and green peppers, 

    •    Jalapeno peppers 2
    •    Onion flex ( you can omit these.  I do not like its taste)
    •    Garlic powder or Papa John's Garlic Pizza spice
    •    Red chili flex (again I used leftover from Papa John's  pizza ;)

    •    2 Teaspoons ground cumin (if you want to make it more spicy. Adjust the amount as per your need)

    •    2 cloves  garlic, minced 

    •    1 Can black beans or red kidney beans soaked over night and drained now.
    •    Soy chunks or soy balls (if you are meat person, put ground chicken )

    •    5 Roties/ Pita bread/ Naan or if you want to go fancy get store bought corn or flour tortilla. I used leftover Pita bread from my day before's Mediterranean dinner.

    •    8 ounces  reduced-fat Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (2 cups) 

    •    1 medium Tomato, chopped

    •    2 cups shredded Lettuce


    •    1/2 cup  plain low-fat yogurt (make sure yogurt is not watery but tough like sour cream) 


Directions
1. Take 10-15 soy balls in a bowl, pour water till 3/4 level and boil in microwave for 5 mins. After they soften, squeeze out all the water from them. Chop them fine like onion. You can put them in food processor to make course pieces.

2. In a large skillet combine onion, green pepper, undrained tomatoes, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, and garlic and soy pieces. Bring to boil; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Stir in beans.

3. Spread one-third of the bean mixture over the bottom of  bowl(You can use fancy baking dish too ). Cover with Pita bread/ Tortillas/ Rotis, cover it up with 1 cup of the cheese. Add another one-third of the bean mixture; again cover with Tortillas and remaining bean mixture.

4. Bake, covered, in a 350 degrees F oven for 35 minutes. Keep checking in between. Sprinkle with another layer of cheese. Let stand 10 minutes.

5. Cut it like a cake and serve with cake knife (again save it from last birthday cake;)
Sprinkle some chili flex if you are one of those who do not feel full until your tongue is burnt.
Top with chopped shredded lettuce, cilantro and serve with yogurt dollop.

Serves
Makes 4 main-dish servings.

Tip: Serve with Grilled Jalapeno peppers on side.

I am thinking of making it more desi next time. I would recommend adding hot sauce to the bean mixture. If you have some Tomato salsa at home which is waiting to be finished , that can be added to bean mixture. Also some salt to bean mixture would  not hurt. Before you add salt to bean mixture, find out how salty is your cheese.
Also instead of buying canned black beans, you can soak some red kidney beans at home and use them instead of canned black beans.

Enjoy...