Tomato Khejur Cranberry Chutney & some Meme

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Tomato Date Cranberry Chutney a beautiful, sweet and tangy way to kick off the New Year and some “meme”…

Sra had tagged me for a pretty interesting meme about "What Your Blogger Friends Look Like and Why" The meme sounded interesting but I thought before I went deep into describing I should take a more deeper look into the blogs to do justice. But the deeper I looked the more confused I became. 95% of the bloggers I read were food bloggers with a purpose and they rarely shared personal tit-bits of their life like the side of the bed they slept on or whether they preferred "Neutrogena" to "Dove" in their shower, leave alone sharing their dark secrets. So though each blog had a character it was very difficult to discern the face behind it.

Take for example dear Sra who was the initiator of this tag. I went through all her archives and though it seemed she is this "perky young journo (??) with very good writing skills and a penchant for cooking" , there was little in her blog that revealed anything personal except for her food. For all I know she might not be SRA but SRK , the "King Khan" writing up a food blog to satiate his eating pleasures. Please please tell me you are that.

Also there's a story to tell. Before going into food blogging I would often silently read random blogs. One of them was this PoisonPen which I would read off & on. The writer was some Vishnupriya RoyChowdhury, a bong connection which further kindled my interest. Being a personal blog it did reveal vague info about the person. After many such random readings, in the subconscious mind I had formed a picture of the person as in "the kind of person she is". After about a year and half of posts however the "creator" of the blog revealed a secret to the dismay of many ardent readers. This very very clever guy had created this blog and posted as Vishnupriya a female who was nothing but his imagination. In his own words

"Vishnupriya Roychoudhury is entirely a figment of a very colourful imagination. She was brought to electronic life by a slightly diseased mind with a tiny bit of a god complex.
Mine.

She was created as a prank. In order to make the prank work better, she was fleshed out. She had a personality, a history, friends and a family. She had interests and opinions. Most importantly, she had three things:
a) an email id
b) an Orkut account
c) a blog
"

Read his post here

Extremely clever and frightening at the same time, don't you think ?
If an EMail Id, an Orkut account and a Blog is all it takes to create a person Nature may as well take a sabbatical
Since blogs are so powerful, I don't think I am responsible enough to take a decision on what others look like or what they are. I am happy thinking of all my blogger friends as this group of friends like the one I would have in college each making their own mark and at the same time supporting others, each of us waiting every morning to talk/chat/update the other, each full of passion to do something, each dreaming not much caring about the real life. With time maybe I will know them more.So even though this meme is extremely interesting I will just pass it on to the more astute people around me

Coffee has also tagged me with another meme. But I am not good at this either. It's very difficult for me to pick up 3 things not because there are more than 3 but because even that keeps changing from day to month to year. The Best I can do is...

Three Things I love
1. My Family including myself . My daughter says "I love Mommy, Baba, etc. etc, and myself"
2. Reading mostly good fiction.
3. At present I love cooking, taking photos and blogging

Three TV shows/Books I watched/read as a kid:
1. Enid Blytons all of them
2. Tintin but I read them even now
3. HumLog ??

Passing on the Meme to Sra, IndoSunGod and Mandira. You can pick one of the above, all or none.

Now to Tomato Khejur Chaatni or Tomato Date Chutney which is a bengali favourite. You will find it accompanying many a bengali meal. I added Cranberrys for that seasonal touch. What resulted is a sweet chutney with a little tartness of the cranberrys. This pretty looking chutney is both good to look at and eat

Tomato Date Cranberry Chutney

What You Need

Tomatoes ~ 4/5 plump red medium chopped to small pieces
Cranberry ~ fresh cranberry 1 cup
Date or Khejur ~ about 20 pittless dates cut in halves
Mustard Seeds ~ 1 tsp

Ginger ~ fresh ginger grated and then pressed to extract 1 tsp of ginger juice
Sugar ~ ½ cup or more according to your sweet level
Salt
PanchPhoron or Five Spice Mix ~ Dry roasted and ground to a powder. Use about 1tsp

How I Did It


Heat Oil in Kadai/Frying Pan
Add Mustard seeds. To prevent them from sputtering all around the kitchen close the lid
When they start sputtering add the chopped tomatoes
Sauté till the tomatoes turn into a fine pulp
Add the cranberries and stir
Add the dates and cook stirring the mixture
Add 1 tsp of ginger juice. Grate ginger and squeeze to extract the juice
Add salt a little water and cover and cook
When the tomatoes are well cooked, add ½ a cup of sugar
Add a little water and bring the mixture to a boil
Check the consistency and the sweetness. It should be thick and sweet but tangy. Add sugar if you want some more
Sprinkle about 1 tsp of roasted panchpuran powder before serving

Update: Many people add 2/3 dry red chillies while tempering to make this chutney a little spicy. I have never done it though.

Enjoy this chutney with lunch or dinner. I have had a long love relatinship with tomato chutney and am sure you would love it too.
MyKhazanaOfRecipes has started a very interesting event "Monthly Blog Patrolling". I am not going to reveal how interesting it is, so go check it out and participate.

Trivia: Memes refer to a unit of cultural information transferable from one mind to another