Fresh Produce of the Month #4 - Roundup!

I'm a little late, but as an excuse I must say that right after we came back from Italy, Lucas and I moved and so I had to deal with boxes and furniture for the past week (and still have to)... but in any case, finally, here is the longly desired roundup for our 4th 'Fresh Produce of the Month' event.. centered on grapes! This time too we got a really nice set of entries! So let's not waist any more time, and let's see what everyone brought to the table!

The first people who answered were Bee and Jai at Jugalbandi, with their amazing 'Friendship Chelsea Buns'. They explain that 'The Chelsea bun was first created in the eighteenth century at the Bun House in Chelsea, an establishment favoured by Hanoverian royalty and demolished in 1839.', and it is always filled with raisins, which is why they chose it for this event.. Doesn't the picture make you feel like having a piece of those wonderful buns, sipping some tea with a British friend who just came to visit? :)

Ahsa at Aroma! took part to the event again and presented this super creative 'Tapioca-tricolor grapes pudding on pastry'! She mixes tapioca pudding, grapes and grape jam and put them on a crescent pastry.. mm.. I never had tapioca pudding, I'm really curious about how it would taste with grapes!





Namratha at Finger licking food prepared for us three grape-centered dishes: 'Green Goddess, Grape Chaat, and Raisins (Onadrakshi) Gojju! The one that caught my attention the most was the first divine drink: grapes, cardamom, sugar and milk.. a delicious drink for the summer!







A new contributor for this event is A Kitchen Scientist from The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star! She prepared this yummy 'Grapes kebab' - a delicious easy way to serve fruit on a skewer, rolled in condensed milk, then in dessicated coconut and chilled! And she adds some ice cream and custard to increase the scrumptiousness of the dish :)





Next we have Nags at For the Cook in Me, who presents another delicious grape-centered drink: grape tea! It's a cold tea prepared by blending tea and grapes! What's most amazing is that she 'whipped it up' in the 'micro-kitchen' of her office while she was at work!! Congratulations, Nags :)






Aarti at Aarti's Corner prepared for us another summery treat: 'Black Grape Sorbet'. Simple, healthy and delicious. Go check out also all the wonderful pictures she has of the vineyards she visited in Luxembourg and Germany!





Mansi at Fun and Food prepared another creative combination: 'Grape and Green Tomato Chutney'! It looks really good, perfect with these summertime fresh ingredients. She also suggest to use it to dip chips, fingerfood, or pakodas... and she also provides a link for the pakodas recipe!






Next we have Dhivya at Culinary Bazaar, who prepared a 'Healthy P.A.C. drink'! Now, you're all wondering what the letters stand for, right? Well, she explains it: 'Since this drink is so rich in P- Potassium , A - Antioxidants, Vitamin A , C - Carotene, i call it Health P.A.C or P.A.A.C'. In fact the drink is a delicious mixture of carrots, grapes and apple! It seems like a great and indeed very healthy idea. :)




At last I'll put my entry - I was hoping to prepare another grape dish to add to what I had already presented to Swapna's event (please go check out her roundup too!), but between travelling and moving I really didn't have time.. So here it is, my 'Strawberry and red grapes preserve', to eat with bread or ricotta/apple pancakes! Hope you all enjoy it :)



I thought this was a really nice collection of grape-centered recipes.. from drinks, to sweets, to chutneys, to jams.. how cool, how many things we can do with this fruit! And now, I'm even more curious to see what the great cook-bloggers will come up with for the next Fresh Produce of the Month event, since I'm going to launch an interesting theme..... Brussels sprouts! At least here, the Berkeley Bowl is flooded with this cute vegetable. You can find it loose or still on the stem.. as in the picture that I used below for the event logo.
I honestly didn't know that's how Brussels sprouts grew, before I saw it here. It's really big and heavy, you can hold it like a sword :)
Now, what wonderful dishes we can make with this great tasting vegetable? Please take part to the Fresh Produce of the Month #5 and share your ideas! The rules are simple:
1) Put a post on your blog with a recipe involving Brussels sprouts. If you live somewhere where you cannot find Brussels sprouts, use any other sprouts that are in season. Add a link to this post on my blog and mention that it's an entry for the 'Fresh produce of the month' event. If you like it, feel free to place the logo of the event on your post.
2) Send me an email with a link to your post, your blog homepage and your name. My email address is chemcookitATgmailDOTcom. Specify 'Fresh produce of the month' as subject.
3) If you don't have a blog just send me an email with your recipe and if you have a picture of the food you made, that's even better. I will add it to the round-up as well.
The deadline for this event will be November 16th.

Important note: if you send me an entry and I don't reply to your email or leave a comment on your blog, it means that I didn't get it.. in that case, just leave a comment anywhere on the blog and I'll definitely see it!! Thanks and sorry about this in advance.

Hope to see the number of participants increasing more and more!