Botanically a tomato is a fruit not a vegetable; cashew is not really a fruit; a peanut is a legume and not a nut; an almond is a seed and not a fruit. And there are fruits that may not necessarily be naturally dry but dried either by sun bathing or with a help of a dehydrator.
However, in a culinary sense dry fruits would refer to not just fruit that’s dry but also all nuts whether fruit or seed and even ordinary dates, even if they also happen to be sold in another drier “dried” form . Since definitions are so wildly varied, even if one is looking at an ingredient from a purely culinary standpoint, how does one define if something qualifies or not as a dry fruit?
When we chose “Dry Fruits” as the theme for AFAM in December 2007, we anticipated these differences in definitions and we decided that we’ll not set any boundaries of what would qualify as a dry fruit and what wouldn’t. We decided to let the food lovers in the virtual world define what a “dry fruit” is – although this might seem like making things very vague, we were quite confident that no one would drastically call a cabbage a dry fruit.
So here’s the round up of all the lip smacking entries we’ve received.
Panettonne Pudding with Dried Apricots
Dhivya Karthik at Culinary Bazaar
Dried Fruits,Apple and Oats porridge
Dhivya Karthik at Culinary Bazaar
Dry Fruit Pongal
Suthi at SuthiRecipe
Dry Fruit Burfi, Cahew Murukku, Almond Murukku, Nuts Kheer and Kulfi
Suthi at SuthiRecipe
Peas Pilaf with Raisins and Cinnamon
Kalva at Curry in a Kadai
Dry Fruit Muffins
Viji at Vcuisine
Spicy Pumpkin Bread
Viji at Vcuisine
Fruit and Nut War Cake
Bee and Jai at Jugalbandi
Christmas Cake
Happy Cook at My Kitchen Treasures
Coconut Banana Bread with Lima Glaze
Gretchen Noelle Jones at Canela & Comino
Mewa Nu Achaar
Meera at Easy Indian Food
Cashew and Almond Chikki
EasyCrafts at Simple Indian Food
Fruit and Nut Oatmeal Bar
Rajitha at Hunger Pangs
Festive Fruit and Nut Squares
Namratha at Finger Licking Food
Nuts in Honey
Srivalli at Cooking 4 All Seasons
Cookies with dry fruits and nuts
Vijaya at Daily Meals
Torte Di Mandorle – Shell like Almond Chocolate Cake
Marta at An Italian in US
Mom’s Delight
Nags at For the Cook in Me
Dry Fruits Kuzhipaniyaram
Renuka at Fusion
Fruit Cake
Sailu at Sailu’s Food
Eggless Cinnamon Fruit Cake
Paru at Brindavan – a journey for authentic Karnataka recipes
Christmas Fruit and Nut Cake
Rina at Rina’s Recipes
Almond and Pistachio Ice Cream Pie
Mansi at Fun and Food
Fig, Golden raisin and Date Focaccia
Bharathy at Spicy Chilly
Fruit Cake
Raaga at The Singing Chef
Mango Kheer
Asha at Aroma Hope
Dried Fruit and Nut Cake
Suganya at Tasty Palettes
Fig Tapenade
Laurie from Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska
Khajoor Niblets (recipe follows)
Jigyasa and Prathibha at Pritya
Ingredients
500 gms seedless dates; 1 tin condensed milk (400 ml); 100 gms cashewnuts; 100 gms almonds; 100 gms dessicated coconut
Method
- Chop the dates into fine bits.
- Toss them with the rest of the ingredients into a thick-bottomed wok. On a low flame, stir the mixture for 6-8 minutes. As the mixture begins to leave the sides of the pan, switch off the flame. Allow to cool for 15 minutes.
- Grease your palms with a little ghee (clarified butter or oil) and roll the mixture into thick long pieces – 1 inch thick and 5-7 inches long. Coat them lightly with dessicated coconut so that they do not stick to each other.
- Freeze them for 20 minutes and then chop them with a sharp knife into bite sized pieces. (Freezing them helps to retain the shape while chopping. Use a sharp knife so it may cut through the cashews and almonds.)
Dry Fruit Truffles
Aparna at My Diverse Kitchen
We wrap this round up with Coffee and Dried Currants Cake from our side.
Thanks to all those who participated.
Whoa! So many healthy recipes, they all look great. Good job L!:)
We had snow yesterday, no school for kids. And it’s going to snow again tomorrow! YAY!!
Lovely collection!
yup, i was not sure if my Banana Pancakes with Walnut Mascarpone would fit the dry fruit category, so did not send it in. i guess i should have, anyway will put it here for the collection:
http://asdearassalt.blogspot.com/2007/12/skinny-banana-pancakes-with-walnut.html
This whole page will be referred, re-referred for days to come. Thanks for coming back from your hiatus and posting this roundup for us 🙂
thank u lakshmi for joining my recipes. it’s very fabulous collection.
This is an absolute Dry Fruits Haven! More reasons to have dry fruits in our pantry! Thats a wonderful theme and thanks a lot Laks and Lathamma for giving all of us this oppurtunity to try and also to ‘savour’ the round up! 🙂
Lovely round up !! so many varities 🙂
lovely recipes. there is so much variety. great job. thanks
Awesome roundup Latha/Lakshmi:) glad you guys are back!:)
Just no words to say lady …..What a variety ..Great job with the round up
This page is bookmarked and I second Suganya.:)
Thanks for a lovely round-up of delicious treats!
so many lovely dishes…great job lax..hope we will see you ladies back in action?
Thanks for all the hard work, ladies!..
Truly Awesome collection!
that’s a lot of nuts!! lovely round up. hope i have half the spread for afam jan 🙂 see u there!
Thanks Lakshmi for the round up. Lovely dishes and we get many ideas through events. Viji
great round-up ladies! thnks for hosting the event…
What a super collection of dry fruit recipes! Thanks for hosting this and putting it all togeter.
Wonderful collection of delicious recipes of dry fruits.
Thankyou for hosting the event.
Wow! So many healthy recipes! Thank you for hosting the event.
WOW – what a great post and well done to all who entered !!
Rosie x
thank you for this great effort, dear lakshmi and latha.
wow…That’s a nice round-up with many mouthwatering treats. Too bad that I couldn’t be a part of it. Hope to make it some other time.
Thanks 🙂 lovely round up. Now I have so much more to do with my dry fruits.
beautiful! dried fruts ar every nutritive! but i heard we should not mix them with fresh fruit..
Very Creative entries for this Round-up! Kudos to you on another wonderful post!
Missed this as we were in india. Now our Kitchen is being remodeled. So perhaps in April, I can start participating in your Round-ups. Yaay!
Thanks Lakshmi for including me.A fabulous array of recipes to be tried and a great job too
Lakshmi,
Had sent you an entry too but it seemsto have got left out. Do I send you the link again?
Hi Aparna, I found the entry on your blog and I’ve added it. I couldn’t locate it in our inbox though. Thanks for informing.
Thanks for including my truffles.
I am so out of it these days! If I had realised, I could have sent in my fruit cake! darn! Love the round – up will definitely be coming back for ideas.
Wonderful round up! So many goodies to bake and eat! 🙂
lovely recipes.. im drooling over them. dont feel like leaving ur blog..
Thank you for another magnificent post. Where else could anybody get that type of information in such a perfect way of writing? I have a presentation next week, and I am on the look for such information.
Great Information, Thanks for Sharing
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