Kheera-Tamatar Raita/Yogurt with Cucumber and Tomato

This is adapted from Cooking the Indian Way, page 41.

1 medium tomato
1 medium cucumber, peeled
2 cups plain yogurt (preferably not non-fat)
1 small onion (Vidalia is best), finely chopped
3 Tbsp chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) or parsley
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
dash of cayenne pepper (optional)

Cut tomato in half and remove seeds. Chop into small pieces. Chop cucumber into small pieces (optional: remove seeds first by cutting lengthwise and scraping them out with a spoon). Combine all ingredients. Chill at least one hour before serving.

Better Butter

This recipe is from my friend Anne. She thinks she got it from Mollie Katzen, but I haven't seen it the cookbooks of hers that I've read. CORRECTION (4/09): Anne remembers now that the recipe was from Laurel Robertson, of Laurel's Kitchen cookbook fame.

Butter is about 80% fat. The rest is water, salt, and some milk solids. "Better Butter" is spreadable, like margarine. It has the same 80% fat, but half of it is from canola oil, which is unsaturated and cholesterol free. So this natural spread doesn't have added trans fats either.

A few of my children don't like "Better Butter" plain on bread (they'd rather eat margarine!), but even they have no problem when I use it for grilled sandwiches, cooking, or topping vegetables. This is a VERY SOFT spread (no trans, remember?), so it stays in the fridge until the last minute; it can get soupy if left out for more than 15 minutes.

Better Butter

1 pound butter, softened

2 cups canola oil

1/4 cup dry milk powder

1/4 cup (scant) water

1 tsp salt

1 tsp liquid lecithin (from a health food store)

Mix in food processor until creamy and thoroughly mixed. Pour into container(s) and refrigerate. It liquefies at room temperature, but resolidifies in the fridge. Yield: about 6 cups

Notes:

• I could not find liquid lecithin, so ended up with granules. I combine the lecithin, salt, water, and milk powder in a little dish and let it sit (usually in the fridge) while the butter is softening. Stir to make sure lecithin and salt are dissolved before adding to the food processor.
• I find it easiest to put the butter in the food processor to soften--one less dish to clean!
• I use salted butter. The additional salt in the recipe, along with the water and milk powder, is there to mimic the composition of butter.
• I used to pour the BB into one or two plastic containers, but it's a lot to keep together. At WalMart I found a set of three Anchor Hocking glass containers (2 cups each) with plastic lids that hold one batch perfectly, and now there's no need to label, either. Everyone knows these hold the BB. A small touch, but it makes life nicer here. :-)
• This might sound like a lot of project just to make spreadable butter, but there is hardly any active time involved. And as far as hunting for the lecithin (it's an emulsifier, keeping the oil and water blended together), we're still using the first little container Len got more than a year ago.