Gastronomical Delights

Apple Pie with Cream 

Writing on this blog after so long! Had almost even forgotten it existed until yesterday when I was thinking of posting all those dessert pictures I collected in my recent trip and remembered of this baby :)

Strawberry Pie 

I have been mostly a Nationalist and I strongly believed/believe (not sure now😁 ) that there is no comparison to Indian sweets. I would always champion Jalebis, Halwa, Rabri, Gulab Jamun and all sorts of Bengali sweets and so many more. While I do crave for pastries and chocolates once in a while, I am not a big fan.

Baits in the Window of a Bakery

Churros with Cinnamon Sugar

However, to my surprise, in the trip to Netherlands and Belgium I developed a strong liking for them! The cafes and bakeries showcasing such colourful assortment of sweet little baits were hard to ignore. Since I was on a holiday I allowed my temptations to go full swing and plunged in these sinful delights.

Raspberry Pie with Hot Chocolate

More Temptations

Next step now is to create some of these beauties at home :) Very soon...

Noodles Salad Thai Style

Today I was badly craving 'Phad Thai' but did not have all the ingredients, so decided to make a salad style, with whatever was available. Checked my fridge and found tofu, carrots and cauliflower. From my garden I picked some fresh coriander and spring onions. Added a few other assorted ingredients and a delicious noodles salad was ready! It turned out really nice and we relished it with mixed berry juice.

Ingredients: 1 cup boiled noodles, 1 tsp chopped garlic, 1 cup assorted veggies (I had only carrots and cauliflower but beans, capsicum, broccoli or any other veggies could be used) cut length wise, 1/2 cup cut tofu/paneer, 1/2 cup well roasted and crushed peanuts, 1 tbsp tamarind pulp, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1 tbsp lime juice, 2 tbsp olive oil, salt and chilli flakes as per taste, fresh coriander and spring onion leaves for garnishing.

Method: Heat 1 tbsp oil, fry garlic and add the vegetables, stir fry for a couple of minutes, add tofu and mix, add tamarind pulp, sugar, salt, chilli flakes and mix well. Turn off the fire. Add noodles, half peanuts, lime juice, half coriander and spring onion leaves, remaining olive oil and toss well. Leave it aside for 15 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Before serving heat in the microwave for 2 minutes and garnish with remaining coriander and spring onion leaves, and peanuts. Dig in!

Friendship Cake

Neeti & Ritu: I am a little lazy! This story should have come on Friendship Day ideally but then we do not need special days to remember our friends! And Ritu, reconnecting with you after so long pepped me up to write this.

Some of my fondest memories of cooking are with Neeti. we were in college and used to spend almost all time together. either i was at her place or she at mine. our parents too had given up on us. whenever we were night staying at each other's place it was a nightmare for that mom. we used to hijack the kitchen and cook whatever our heart desired. our cooking expeditions generally started around midnight when all others had slept and lasted the entire night. 

mostly we used to bake cakes, vegetable pulav, vegetable soups and cookies. 

listening to vividh bharti and akashvani dilli, giggling over day's events, bitching about other girls and dreaming of a bright future, we used to cook to our heart's content and then finish everything so as not to leave any traces for mom to discover in the morning. after that we used to be so full that we HAD to go for a morning walk.

one night we baked a cake and decided to share it with our friend Ritu. Ritu was our other partner in crime and life could not have been complete without her. 3 of us together have often sent our parents' BP high ;) we realized we couldn't eat this cake without her and decided to fetch her to my place so the 3 of us could eat it together. 
4 in the morning we jumped gates(so not to make any noise) and walked 3 kms to Ritu's place. again jumped gates at her place and knocked on her bedroom door (thankfully her room was in the front of house so there was no need to wake others up). she woke up and when she saw us, she was furious because we had disturbed her sleep. and then she asked us so sweetly to get the cake to her place if we were keen to share it with her. she would not walk to my place!!!
and Neeti and I did not even blink! we again walked back 3 kms to my place, jumped gates, picked up the cake, jumped gates again, walked another 3 kms (haff haff haff...) and shared the cake with Ritu. after walking 12 kilometers our appetite had returned too. 
that cake tasted SO delicious. i do not have the picture but i will share the recipe:

Ingredients:

All purpose flour: 1 cup

Milkmaid tin: 1(400gms)

Butter: 1/2 cup

Baking powder: 2 tsp

Baking soda: 1 tsp

Vanilla essence: 1 tsp

Salt: 1 pinch

Water as required

Mix flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add vanilla essence, butter and milk maid and beat as much as you can. Neeti and i used to take turns beating the cake. Add water if it is too thick. Transfer mixture to a buttered dish and bake for 40 minutes at 180 degree celsius. YUMMY! You can add cocoa powder to make a chocolate cake or any other flavour that you like. Instead of water and soda you can also use coke/limca. It is a fool-proof recipe and comes out great every time.

Just last week I spoke to Lata Bhaabhi and it delighted me no end when she shared she still bakes that cake! Thanks Bhaabhi!

Walnut-Cranberry Muffins

i recently discovered the route to feed Nakshat healthy breakfast without fuss, and it came in the form of MUFFINS!

every morning we would fight over almonds and walnuts and then during the day i would insist that he eat some flax seeds and yoghurt...to no avail obviously :-(
yesterday i thought why not i put all these things together in one package and finish the chik-chik jhik-jhik once in for all. so i combined a cup of whole wheat flour, 2 tbsp of wheat bran, 2 tbsps flax seeds powder, half a cup of roasted and chopped almonds and walnuts, half a cup of cranberries, half a cup of demererra sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, a pinch of salt, 1/2 cup yoghurt, 2 tbsp butter and 1 tsp of vanilla essence all together (ofcourse, first i mixed the dry ingredients and nuts and then poured in the wet ones) and mixed it well till it was uniform.

poured it into the individual cups in the muffin tray (brushed with olive oil) and baked at 180degree celsius in the oven for 20 minutes. 12 delicious muffins were ready and Nakshat gobbled two up with hot chocolate for the breakfast this morning without me having to raise an eyebrow :-)

 next time i am going to add some oats too!

Cooking in a Solar Cooker

it is awesome waking up in the morning amidst greenery, chirping of birds and pure oxygen to breathe at Tapovan. and of course the best part is fresh vegetables everyday. to add to this truly beautiful routine, my mom brought me a solar cooker!

yes, it means cooking in a vessel which operates through sun light. not only do i save on gas and electricity, the food is so very simple to make and tastes delicious. i have been boiling my dals, potatoes and barley in the solar cooker ever since mom got it. we also tried making aloo-gobhi in the solar cooker and it came out pretty decent. but the best thing to make is the kheer. no more waiting for hours on the slow burner for the kheer to cook. just add milk and rice and put it in the solar cooker and forget, creamy delicious kheer is ready by the evening. and mom also made 'gud wale chawal' (rice made with jaggery) in the solar cooker. what was so cumbersome on the gas has become a treat with solar cooking.

Here is how to make gud wale chawal in the solar cooker:

you need one cup rice, one cup grated gud, 2 cups of water, 1 tbsp coarsely grounded saunf and 2 tbsp pure desi ghee. wash rice, mix all the ingredients, transfer to the solar cooking vessel and forget it! if you do it around 930am when the sun is shining brightly, it would take approximately 2 hrs. depending on the season, in summers it takes less time and during winters more, it should take anything from 2 to 4 hrs to cook to perfection. take out the vessel from the solar cooker and enjoy hot gur wale chawal with extra dollops of ghee, curd or spicy potato curry. if serving as a sweet dish, garnish with fried/roasted nuts/dry fruits.

Chenna Poda: Cottage Cheese Cake

this recipe is inspired by Niranjan. a couple of weeks back he spoke so much about this dish that i got tempted too. and then as luck would have it, i chanced upon the recipe and picture while surfing and i was then determined to try it. yesterday Niranjan and Abhijeet had come over and i thought it was the perfect time to give it a try. and we did and the result was absolutely delicious! i could not believe one could make a cake out of chenna (fresh paneer/cottage cheese) and that it could taste so good. this is one of the finest sweet dishes that i have come across lately. how come i had never heard of it before? this dish is from orissa and a hot favourite of Jagannath Puri. and so healthy as compared to many of the other white flour based or fried desserts.

ingredients: fresh chenna made from 3 litres of cow's milk (use vinegar to curdle the milk), 3/4the tsp baking powder, 25gms sooji (semolina), 125 gms sugar, 1/2 tsp chhoti elaichi powder (cardamom).

method: mix all ingredients together and mash well with hands till the mixture is absolutely smooth. take a baking dish and rub some cow ghee on it. line it with a butter paper or better with the dry pattal leaves(the leaves in which we are served chaats or food at temple). now transfer the entire chenna mixture in the bowl and bake it on 200 degrees celsius for exactly an hour. insert a toothpick to check if it is done. if the toothpick comes out clean it is ready. if not then bake some more. now turn it over in a plate and let it cool completely before slicing (well we could not! we ate it while it was still warm) the texture is unbelievably very much like a cake.

if you would like it to be brown from outside like a proper cake, caramelize a little sugar in the baking dish before pouring in the mixture. if you like you can also add some raisins and cashews to the mixture.

go ahead try it and enjoy a yummy dessert. btw i forgot to take the picture so i have picked this one from the net. Shivi wanted me to post this right away so... :D

Paneer & Cheese Roll

this one is for you Anu! a quick snack for the kids. Nakshat loves it and i hope Ruben should like it too. it can be eaten by itself with his favourite dip or can be used as a filling for sandwich or roll. i generally roll it in a parantha with some onion and coriander chutney for his tiffin and it never comes back!

all you need to do is bind together: grated paneer(cottage cheese), grated cheese(the more the yummier but less than the quantity of paneer you take), fresh green coriander, salt, fresh bread slices crumbled after soaking in water or bread crumbs, a little rawa depending on the overall quantity of mixture (roughly 1 tsp for 200gms of paneer)

mix well, form desired shape and deep fry. you could even do all the preparation the night before and keep rolls in fridge to fry them fresh early in the morning.