Saturday 31 October 2009

A few reposts and awards

Hi all of you. I should start with a sorry, as because of  poor health, I am not able to read your beautiful posts very regularly these days. I pray and hope that I recover fast as It’s quite irritating not to feel energetic. Hopefully I will catch up soon…
I have been showered with a few awards by few of my blogger friends and I wanted to send entries to few of the events, so am here…
My dear friend Palidor has passed me this.
Rohini has passed me these awards


My new blogger friend Sanjana has passed me these awards

Aysha has passed me these ..
Kanchan has passed me
yumpp[1]





My Little space has passed me a friendship button

Thanks a lot all of you, I am once again humbled.
I am passing these two awards yumpp[1]           to Saju , Yasmeen, Padma, Pavani, Preeti  Kashyap and Padmajha. Kindly pick up your awards and enjoy.
                                                                                                                                                      

I want to repost a few recipes for some of the ongoing events
1. Rajma Rasmisa for JFI: Rajma hosted by Dil seP1000154
2. Paneer Kaju Pasanda ,Garbanzo and Paneer Curry  and Cheesy Bread rolls for Say Cheese hosted at Sara’s Corner
P1000526-1 P1000583 P1000175
3.  Healthy Wheat Chocolates for CFK: Wheat hosted by Kidz Delight
P1000457
4. Maavinkayi Chutney and Gongura Pachadi for Spicy Fiery Chutneys Hosted by Srivalli
P1000107
P1010158

Monday 26 October 2009

Creamy BottleGourd Curry and my goodie bag from London

clip_image002[5]
Hi All! Today my parents returned back from a vacation in UK. They and my SIL got me a bag of goodies, which I would love to show you and I definitely want to use them sooooon. The best goodie is obviously a book by Peter Reinhart. Thanks so much G and P. This is my Bhai-Dooj gift from my brother. The other two small books are sent by brother’s neighbour Mrs.Gwyn, who came to know from G that I am into food blogging. She gave it to her to pass them to me. Thanks so much Gwyn aunty and thanks so much G to actually pass them to me.Wink
clip_image002[7]
clip_image002[9]
When they reached home it was lunch time and I had cooked Bottle Gourd. Ya, bottlegourd again……my father and bottlegourd have some strange connection…I am always left with this vegetable to cook whenever he visits, so this time again I had this challenge of feeding him the vegetable, without him making a fuss.
I am writing the conversation we had after they reached home.
Father- Make some tea for me and  give me something to eat.
Me- You want snacks to eat or shall I serve you food.
Father- What have you cooked?
Me- Bottle gourd
Father- Then I will have snacks only.
Me- Taste it once, it’s good.
Father- No!
Mother- I will have some bottle gourd curry with roti.
I served  the curry and roti to my Mom and some snacks and tea to my father. My mom agrees that the curry was very tasty and insists on my father to taste it. He tastes it unwillingly and has a smile on his face and takes my mother’s plate and starts eating. I serve my Mom again.
Father- Very tasty, you have managed to hide the bottle gourd. How have you cooked this?
In fact during the dinner also he could not stop praising the curry. In his words he could not believe that Bottle gourd can be cooked so tasty…smile_regular
So this tasty curry which I have used to deceive Bottle gourd, is enriched with lots of coriander powder, some cream and cooked in a mix of oil and clarified butter….why will it taste bad? Right!!! And the best part is it’s very original.
So here I go with the recipe…
Ingredients
Bottle gourd about a kg  peeled and finely chopped
3 onions roughly chopped
3 tomatoes
200ml low fat cream
4 garlic pods
5-6 tbsp coriander powder
1 1/2 tsp red chili pwd
salt to taste
clarified butter+oil mix for cooking
1 strand of curry leaves chopped
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
a pinch of garam masala
Method
Heat oil and clarified butter add mustard, fenugreek seeds and then curry leaves.
Grind coarsely together the onions,tomatoes and garlic, put this in the oil mix. Cook it till the oil separates. Now add the salt, coriander pwd and red chili pwd.
Add the bottle gourd and cook till half done. Now add the cream and cook completely. Add a little water to bring it to a  thinner gravy consistency. Put the garam masala, mix and serve with hot rice/paratha/roti.
clip_image002


Sending this to Think Spice-Think Coriander seeds hosted by Priya at Priya’s easy n tasty recipe and is the brain child of Sunita Bhuyan


Saturday 24 October 2009

Triple Choco Berry Brownies for “Taste and Create”

clip_image002

Hi all!
 Taste&Create event started by Nicole of ForTheLoveOfFood. This month for the ‘taste  and create event’ Nicole had paired me with Dragon Musings. She is a mother of three children and involves her kids into cooking with her. Her ‘thursdays with kids’ are worth giving a look.

While exploring her blog I landed on these Brownies. The recipe asked for strawberries which I replaced with Cranberries, all the other ingredients were available with me, so I headed for these brownies. One can check the original recipe here.

This is the first time I was experimenting with brownies. I had been wanting to make the brownies for quite some time and have been collecting various recipes. Thanks to  Dragon Musings, for making me dare these sweeties which are S’s favourite.

I completely agree to what Dragon Musings says about the brownies, in her words… “I have the most kick-ass brownies recipe in the world. It gets better the longer you leave it, which is great incentive not to eat the whole batch all at once,(though if you taste them still warm and squishy fresh from the oven (ok, half an hour cooled, so you don't burn yourself on the chocolate bits) you'll find it hard to believe they get better.) and it's so easy to change the recipe around to make different flavors”
Thanks a lot Dragon Musings for such a wonderful recipe. The brownie was crumbly externally and nicely gooey and chewy inside. The only problem I faced was that we had  a power cut during the process of baking, so I lost the track of the baking time, so brownies had a little darker shade than the normal brownies but they tasted awesome…. Smile

While I write this post S is working in the office completely unaware of  what is waiting for him at home….Will surprise him in the evening with these and some Vanilla ice cream, then will let you know his reaction….

I found the procedure quite simple, and to make it further simple I am providing the step by step recipe

Ingredients for the Brownie
185gms (6 oz butter)
185gms dark chocolate broken into small pieces
3 eggs at room temperature
1 1/4 cups caster sugar (I used ground sugar)
2/3 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 tbsp vanilla essence
3/4  cup dried cranberries cut into pieces
1/2 cup raisins

Method
P1010344

Preheat the oven at 180C. Place butter and Chocolate in a metal bowl over a pot of simmering water, melt and stir in until smooth. Cool it.

P1010345

Sift the flour and cocoa together.
P1010346

Keep the raisins, chocolate chips  and cranberries ready.

P1010349
P1010350 
Place the eggs and sugar in a bowl and beat it with a whisk or an electric beater till light and creamy. Add the vanilla essence.
P1010351
P1010354

Fold through the chocolate and butter mixture.
P1010355
P1010356

Mix the sifted flour and combine.
P1010358

Add Cranberries, raisins and chocolate chips, mix.
P1010359

Pour in a 9 inch square pan and bake for 35-40 mins. Check with a toothpick, if it comes out clean, the brownie is done.
clip_image002[5]

Cool and cut. Serve it with Vanilla Ice cream.

Thursday 22 October 2009

Potato and Rice Crispies


clip_image002[4]
I had wanted to make a new version of Chakali for the Diwali  and that’s why  I decided on Potato. Unfortunately for me, the rice flour that I had bought was not of a very good quality and was breaking away while I was trying to make the round swirls. The frustrated and exhausted me decided to make small finger shaped crispies. These became easy to make and turned out ‘too good to resist’ in taste. They were extremely crispy and absorbed very less oil. These vanish very fast once served so one needs to make them in bulk.
It needs minimum ingredients and yields maximum satisfaction. In case your rice flour is of good quality one can make the round shape…else just make finger shape crispies and deep fry them.
Ingredients
2 katori/vati rice flour
1/2 katori/vati boiled and finely grated potato
1/2 katori/vati butter or clarified butter
1 tsp red chili powder
1/2 tsp ajwain/ova/carom seeds
1/4 tsp asafetida
1 tsp cumin powder
salt to taste
oil for deep frying
Method
P1010283
P1010284 
Ensure that the potato is completely mashed else it will create a problem while making the crispies and will get stuck in the instrument. Mix all the ingredients. With the help of lukewarm water make a dough of toothpaste like consistency. Divide the dough into 3 equal parts.

P1010286
P1010287
Heat oil on  a medium flame. Apply oil to the Chakali yantra and using the chakali making section of the instrument, make finger shaped crispies directly into the oil. The oil should be hot enough, so when the crispies are put into it they come to the surface immediately. Fry them  in medium-low heat till lightly golden brown in color. Do not fry in very hot oil else the crispies will not be cooked from inside.
Cool and store them in an air tight container.
clip_image002[8]

Sending this to  Diwali Dhamaka hosted by Purva

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails