Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Ingredients :
Whole wheat bread - 2 slices
2 cheese slices
A little chopped onion
Pepper to taste
Chopped bell peppers
Butter about 1 tbsp
1 small green chilly finely chopped - adjust as per taste

How I made it :
1. Butter the bread.
2. Place a cheese slice on each slice of bread
3. Sprinkle some pepper. There is no need of salt as the processed cheddar cheese slices are already quite salty.
4. Sprinkle onions, green chillies and coloured bell peppers.
5. Grill in sandwich maker and voila hot, crispy sandwich is ready.

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Grilled Chicken in Peach Barbeque Sauce

I have been eyeing this recipe ever since I kept aside a few peaches whilst making the peach upside down cake. Also, with the advent of the masterchef series, I feel like exploring various cuisines more than ever. We had a similar dish with Mango at the new restaurant Mangrove in Kalyan Nagar but the icing on the cake is when your husband tells you that your version is much better than the one at the restaurant.

Recipe adapted from http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/06/grilled-chicken-with-peach-bbq-sauce.

Ingredients for 2:
2 chicken breasts
For the sauce :
1/2 tsp soya sauce
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup tomato ketchup
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 peach halves leftover from the can
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
For the glazed carrots :
2 carrots - sliced lengthwise into thin strips
1tbsp butter
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

How I made it :
Preparing the chicken breasts :
Apply salt and pepper on the chicken breasts and leave aside.

Sauce :
Heat the ingredients for the sauce in a pan. Bring to boil and simmer for about 10 minutes till the peaches are melting away or the ladle easily passes through them. Cool and grind to a smooth paste.

Glazed Carrots :
Buzz the carrot strips with salt in the microwave for 2.5 minutes on high. Heat butter in a skillet and add the carrots. Stir till the carrots are well covered. Season with pepper

Grilling Chicken :

Once the sauce is ready, smear 1/2 of it over the breasts. Leave this aside for about 20 minutes.
Then comes the task of grilling for which I used our electric sandwich toaster/griller. Turn it on till the plate gets warm. Place the chicken breast, drizzle a bit of oil and close. Cook for about 2 minutes and then turn it. Apply some more sauce and cook for about 5 minutes and give it another turn once you start seeing tiny bits of brown.


Serve with herbed rice and/or mashed potatoes with the extra sauce at hand.

I did have a little hard time cleaning up the sandwich toaster/griller but it was well worth it. Do try and let me know :) 

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Whole wheat thin crust pizza with mushroom and coloured bell pepper toppings

This weekend I have been baking away like crazy. I baked a peach upside down cake, karela crisps and PIZZAAAAA. The cake turned out a bit too sweet. Lesson learnt - go with your gut and do not blindly follow a recipe. The peaches were poached in sugar syrup and I felt it would be better to reduce the quantity of sugar in the cake but since the cake had fresh ginger too, I thought that it required the sweetness.  Anyways, will master that the next time. Here's how I made the pizza....

Ingredients For 4 Medium Sized Thin Crust Pizzas:
For Pizza Base : 
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup maida/all purpose flour
1.5 tsp yeast
A pinch of sugar
1tsp salt
1 cup lukewarm water
1tbsp+1 tbsp oil

For toppings :
12 mushrooms - sliced
Coloured bell pepper - Sliced into rounds
Cheese - ideally mozzarella but I used cheddar as I had that at hand

For tomato sauce :
3 medium tomatoes
1 small onion
5 cloves of garlic
4 red chillies
1tsp pepper
1tbsp oil
Tomato ketchup - optional
salt to taste

How I made it :
Pizza Base :
1. Dissolve sugar in 1 cup warm water and add the yeast. Leave aside for 10 minutes.
2. Mix together salt, wheat flour, maida and 1 tbsp oil.
3. Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the yeast water.
4. Flour your kitchen top, roll out the flour and make a smooth dough.
5. Place this back in the bowl and cover with cling wrap and leave it in a warm place for 1 hour or until it rises. Since I made this in the evening, I left mine inside the car which was parked in the sun.

Tomato Sauce :
1. Heat oil in the pan.
2. Add the crushed garlic, red chillies, pepper and sliced onions.
3. Once the onions get translucent, add the tomatoes chopped.
4. Cover and cook till tomatoes dissolve when mixed. Turn off heat and rest. I had added some tomato ketchup mixed with a little water to help the tomatoes cook well.

Assembling the pizza :
1. Preheat oven to 200 degree C.
2. Cut the pizza dough into 4 balls.
3. Take one ball, flour the kitchen top and roll out the ball into any shape of your choice.
4. Spread the tomato sauce on the rolled out dough.
5. Sprinkle toppings of your choice and broken pieces of cheese.
6. Bake in oven for 25 minutes.

My pizzas got a nice crust on the corners and were soft towards the centre. The next time I may try baking the base separately before spreading on the tomato sauce to try to achieve a crusty pizza.

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Strawberry CheseCake

I remember making a no bake cheese cake from a recipe book printed by the Round Table group in Bangalore. It used Panneer/cottage cheese, milk maid and fresh cream. I somehow could not remember the recipe. So I browsed through some no bake cheesecake recipes and took a little bit of that and a little bit of this and out came a really good cheese cake. Take my word for it, it is the best cheesecake that I've made so far.

Ingredients :
1. 1 and 1/2 tubs of britannia cream cheese - about 275g
2. 1 tub of Nestle Strawberry Yoghurt
3. 1 tub of fresh strawberries
4. 200g of sugar + 2 tbsp
5. 200 ml of fresh cream
6. 1tbsp gelatin
7. 100 ml boiling water in which to dissolve the gelatin
8. 1 large packet of marie biscuits
9. 125 g of unsalted butter melted.

How to make :
1. Line your tray(in which you want to set the cake) with cling wrap such that the cling wrap is now your non-stick base.
2. Crumble the marie biscuits.
3. Add the melted butter to the biscuits.
4. Push this mixture to the botton of your tray and layer it evenly. Keep in the fridge to set.
5. Cream together the cream cheese and 200g of sugar. Try not to beat too much - I used the pulse option in my food processor.
6. Dissolve the gelatin in the boiling hot water by stirring. You could use the microwave on low power too to speed the process.
7. Add the strawberry yoghurt, fresh cream and gelatin to the cream cheese mixture and beat till creamy and smooth. Again, don't beat too much.
8. Get the tray out of the fridge. Pour the cream mixture over and put it back in the fridge to set. It needs about 4 hours to set.
9. Beat the fresh strawberries with the 2tbsp sugar (add more if you like) into a rough pulp.
10. Spread the above pulp on top of the cake when set. Garnish with fresh strawberries and serve. Do take out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before serving to soften the lower layer and ease your job in cutting.

I had made this for my hubby's birthday and therefore tried to pipe the pulp onto the cake but failed at the cone. I don't have a piping bag. I therefore used a toothpick and FREEHAND.

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Vegetable Fried Rice with scrambled egg

I love Fried Rice. I remember waiting to get home to eat mom's fried rice. Well, I went to a day cum boarding school so I was served lunch in school. Hence, I had to wait to get home to have the fried rice before dinner.
Well, to my mom for being a very good cook, here goes my version of the fried rice.

Ingredients :
1. 2 cups of cooked rice - best cooked the previous day. If making fresh, make sure you let it cool completely     and then do the rest.
2. 1 1/2 cups of vegetables - finely chopped carrots/beans/cauliflower/corn
3. 1/2 cup finely chopped capsicum
4. 1 medium onion finely chopped
5. 1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
6. 1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger
7. 2 tbsp soya sauce
8. 1 tbsp oyster sauce
9. 1 tsp vinegar
10. 1 tsp pepper
11. 2 tbsp oil
12. 1 egg scrambled - do the scrambling separately in a different pan
13. salt to taste - be careful if you've salted the rice while cooking and do remember that soya sauce is salty too

How to make :
1. In a wok/kadai/pan, pour in the oil. Before the oil warms up, put in the garlic and ginger. Fry them till them brown.
2. Add the onions and fry till translucent.
3. Add the vegetables. Remember to do all of this on high heat. Hence, do have all ingredients on hand.
4. Once the veggies are almost cooked, add the capsicum. Add salt - be careful about the amount.
5. Fry for 30 seconds. Add the sauces one after the other, taking care not to let any of them burn.
6. Add the rice. Mix everything together.  Add the egg and sprinkle the pepper on the top.

Note :
1. You can skip the oyster sauce. Use 1 more tbsp of soya sauce instead.
2. You could use 5 bulbs of spring onion instead of an onion. Use the green part as a garnish.

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Strawberry Oats Cake

It is strawberry season here and I just dunno why but I picked up a pack of strawberries while we grocery shopping this weekend. When I found a tiny amount of oats remaining in a jar, I knew that I had to make the strawberry oats cake that I had seen on Aparna and Greeshma's blog - here. I was just hoping that I had the right amount of oats. Gingerly I opened up my laptop and found the recipe which is actually from this site. I was happy to see that it required just 1/2 a cup of oats. Since, it is just two of us, I usually make cakes with a cup of flour so I had to just halve the ingredients and 1/4 cup of oats is all that was needed.

As you all do know me by now, I just had to put in a twist or two.

Ingredients:
1. 1 cup of whole wheat flour
2. 1/4 cup of quaker quick coooking oats
3. 1 teaspoon of baking powder
4. 1 whole nestle strawberry yoghurt

5. chopped walnuts
6. A pinch of salt

7. 1 egg ( the original recipe indicates the use of a ripe banana which was, in my case, amidst gastronomical juices today)
8. 1/2 cup of sugar
9. 1/4 cup of honey
10. 1/2 to 3/4 cup of strawberries chopped (The cake was very moist due to the number of strawberries that I had put in. This reflects a modified moderate amount)
11. 1/4 cup oil
12. 2 tbsp of milk - can avoid if the batter is smooth

How I made it :
1. Sieve together the salt, baking powder, atta. Add the oats and walnuts.
2. Beat the egg with sugar, honey, oil.
3. Once the mixture is creamy, add the yoghurt and the dry mixture of step 1. Fold in the ingredients.
4. Add the strawberries. Mix softly. Add the milk if the batter is too thick and lumpy.
5. Bake for 45 minutes in a pre-heated oven for 45 minutes at 180 degree C.

This cake is quite moist and therefore can't be kept for more than a day.

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Beetroot halwa

I know most of my readers would not have opened up this post seeing the word "beetroot". If you've made it till here, I salute you for that. Beetroot is one good veggie for us. But that is not the reason I chose to make the halwa out of it.

Well, Hubby and I visited "Lumiere - The organic restaurant" on Christmas 2011. They have a very lovely place with great ambience. Fortunately, it was one restaurant that I've finally found in Bangalore that is not crowded on a holiday. I think it is attributed to the fact that most people misunderstand "organic" for "vegetarian". Ironically though, their board does have a picture of a prawn :) Check out their website here. Well, as a welcome drink, we were served a pinkish liquid. I assumed it was due to the root that is dissolved in the water by Mallus. One taste and I knew I was wrong, we were given a beetroot with lemon juice. It was really good. Hence, this week while grocery shopping, I picket up a few beetroots to try out this simple juice that was detailed out to us by the ever helpful waiter. However, I was still wondering what I would do with the beetroot pulp that would remain once I had extracted some juice. One moment I thought I'd make something like a tikki but with the success of the carrot halwa, I just knew what to do with the pulp. So here's how I made the beetroot halwa. I did not have milkmaid on hand this time so skipped it.

Ingredients :
1. 4 medium sized beetroots grated or blitzed in the food processor
2. 300 ml of milk
3. 60g of khova
4. 1 tablespoon of sugar
5. 3 tbsp ghee
6. 1 elaichi

How I made it :
1.  Heat up the pressure cooker. Pour in the ghee.
2. Add the elaichi. Once it is aromatic, add the beetroot. Fry for 2 minutes.
3. Add the milk. Close the cooker and boil till 5-6 whistles.
4. Once the pressure releases, cook on sim, add the khova and keep stirring frequently till all the milk is absorbed.
5. Add the sugar.
6. Turn off heat  once sugar dissolves.
7. Garnish with chopped dry fruits and serve. I dumped a handful of cashews and almonds in the microwave for about 1 minute. Once they had cooled, I chopped them. This makes them more crunchy.

Hubby certified that the beetroot halwa was more tasty than the carrot halwa. I guess it is just that since it was my second attempt, I got a better hang of it.

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Carrot halwa

Off late, due to the increase in percentage being taken by the food coupon companies, many biggies in the supermarket business have stopped accepting coupons. I was very worked up when I found a bundle of coupons for 4000 rupees lying in the back of my hubby's cupboard. Yesterday, while going for a walk, I found that a small department store near my place accepts the coupons. Hence, hubby and I went on a shopping spree :) I found really good delhi carrots as well as khova. Hence, I decided to make carrot halwa.

Ingredients

1/2 kg carrots grated

1/2 litre milk

100g khova

1/4 cup milkmaid

3 tablespoons sugar

1 elaichi powdered/smashed

3 tablespoons ghee

Dry fruits to garnish

How to make :

1. Heat the ghee in a pressure cooker. Add the carrots. Fry the carrots for about 3 minutes. 

2. Add enough milk to cover the carrots. 

3. Pressure cook on high for 5 whistles. 

4. Once the pressure releases, add the remaining milk and keep stirring. Add the elaichi.

5. After about 8 minutes, add the milkmaid and the khova. Continue stirring. Use a glove to protect your hands from the steam while stirring.

6. This takes sometime. You will need to keep stirring to ensure that it does not stick to the bottom. Once you feel that the halwa has absorbed all the milk, add the sugar.

7. Turn off heat once sugar dissolves.

This was the first time that I tried making carrot halwa and it was truly delicious.

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Vendakka Kara Kuzhambu/South Indian Ladies Finger/Okra curry

For a long time I have been trying to master kara kuzhambu. Every time my friend Anitha would bring the same in her lunch box, I would say to myself "Now, this is one dish I need to master.". My aunt's maid in Coimbatore used to make really good Kara Kuzhambu/Vatha Kuzhambu. I miss that. Finally, today after viewing this link, and with a few modifications of my own, voila, I got the perfect kara kuzhambu. It was truly delicious certified by Pras as well as Latha, the owner of the house which we've rented. Latha is an excellent cook and she too, like me, keeps experimenting and trying out new dishes. We keep sharing our recipes and food :) I did borrow some tips that she had given me for this yummy kara kuzhambu.

This curry has the sweetness of the fennel seeds, the bitterness of the methi/fenugreek and the sourness of the tamarind - get the proportion right and you won't stop licking those fingers.

Ingredients
Ladies finger/okra - 20 cut into 1 inch sized pieces
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp fenugreek/methi seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
3 tbsp oil
1 medium sized onion chopped
1 tomato chopped
1 and 1/2 cups of tamarind juice (soak a lemon sized tamarind ball in hot water and extract the juice)
2 tbsp sambar powder
1 red chilly
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
Salt to taste
Water as needed
1 country tomato (optional)
1/2 tsp garam masala powder

To grind into a fine paste after dry roasting:
10 shallots or 1 small sized onion chopped
5 cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
3/4 tsp coriander seeds/powder - I did not have seeds to directly used powder at hand
1/2 cup of grated coconut
4 red chillies (adjust as per spiciness desired)

Steps to get that yummy kara kuzhambu:
1. Dry roast the ingredients which need to be ground into a paste. This takes some time and should be done on low heat until the coconut starts to brown. This adds to the colour of the dish. Cool and grind to a fine paste. Add water as needed. If you are one of those who do not like fenugreek seeds, please add them after about 5 minutes of roasting and powder along with the rest. I prefer adding them to the tadka.
2. Heat one tbsp of oil. Fry the okra pieces till you can see them beginning to brown and keep aside. Do this with care so as not to break the okra pieces.
3. Heat the other 2 tbsps of oil. Add the mustard and fenugreek seeds(Skip this if you've added it to step 1). Let the mustard splutter. Add the red chilly and fennel seeds.
4. Add the onions and fry till translucent.
5. Add the tomato and fry till cooked and mushy.
6. Add the paste and fry for about 5 minutes on sim.
7. Add turmeric powder, chilly powder and sambar powder.
8. Add in the tamarind juice and boil away - may be for about 15 minutes.
9. By this time the fat should've separated - you can see small rounds of oil floating on top. Add salt, the okra, garam masala powder. Adjust consistency. Add a little more water.If you do have the country tomato, chop it into 4 quarters and drop them in - this gives it a more restaurant look. Boil for 5 minutes and voila - it is ready.

I served it with hot rice and popadams.

Tips :
1. Wash the okra and wipe them dry with a cloth or tissue. Lesser the water on them, the lesser the sliminess while cooking, meaning easier cooking.
2. The longer this cooks the better.
3. You could replace okra with drumstick/brinjal/garlic.
4. Since this dish contains coconut, it may get less spicy, so I suggest not reducing the red chillies.
5. The basic trick is to get the tamarind to sambar powder ratio right. That makes all the difference. Keep adding sambar powder a little by little to the tamarind water and keep tasting, you will hit the G spot.

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Christmas Fruit Cake recipe

It is Christmas season and how could I not bake a cake? I just had to. I had already tried out the fruit cake recipe from http://www.joyofbaking.com/FruitCake.html 3 weeks ago and it was delicious. So I just had to make it again. I had some palm sugar this time - bought it from the Lumiere organic store near Marathahalli, so I decided to use it. I was a bit hesitant as I've never used palm sugar before. Jaggery in cakes and tea - yes.. but Palm Sugar - NO.. Anyways, I decided to go ahead. Those of you who know me, do know by now that always the recipe will have some twist.

This makes a very large cake.

Ingredients :
1. 3/4 cup of whole wheat flour - for a healthy twist
2. 1/4 cup of maida
3. 1 cup of rum
4. 1.5 cups of chopped apricots, dates(not the dried ones), figs and raisins
5. 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
6. 1/2 cup of palm sugar - you could also use jaggery, see note below
7. 1/2 cup of almonds - ground to a flour - I powdered these with the palm sugar
8. 2 eggs
9. 1/4 cup of milk
10. 110 g of unsalted Butter (softened)
11. 12 almonds for decorating
12. 1 tsp baking powder
13. A pinch of salt
14. Zest of one lemon
15. Juice of one orange

How I made it :
1.  Soak the chopped dried fruits in the rum overnight for best results. 30 minutes will also do.
2. Preheat the oven to 160 degree C
3. Prepare the cake tin by oiling and dusting it with maida
4. Beat/cream together the powdered sugar, powdered almonds and butter.
5. Add the eggs, beating well after each addition.
6. To this add the rum along with the soaked dried fruit and walnuts.
7. Also add the orange juice and lemon zest.
8. In another bowl, mix together the maida, whole wheat flour, salt and baking powder. Pass this through a sieve to incorporate some air.
9. Mix the dry and wet ingredients in both the bowls.
10. Add milk to make the batter smooth.
11. Pour the batter into the cake tin. Decorate with almonds on the top and put into the hot oven.
12. Bake for about 40 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 140 degree C and bake for another 30-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Note : If using jaggery, dissolve the jaggery in as little water as possible and pass through a sieve to get rid of impurities.

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Strawberry Smoothie

Strawberries all around... I can't get enough of strawberries, they remind me of my childhood in Ooty where these yummy, red, juicy berries grew in our garden. Unfortunately, with the rapid urbanization of the area around my house, the drains do not hold up :( This totally affected the area where our strawberries used to grow. Hmm, well they are history now.

Anyways, the street vendor tempted me into buying the last box of strawberries and immediately I was thinking "SMOOTHIE".

Ingredients for 2 glasses of smoothie :
1. 12 strawberries
2. 1/4 cup fresh cream
3. 3 tbsp honey - adjust as per sweetness desired
4. 1 tsp flax seeds - for the Omega 3 - can be omitted
5. 1.5 cups of milk
6. 1/4 cup of water

Method :
Blitz the ingredients together in a juicer and serve :)

I could not get any really WOW pictures but the smoothie was truly WOW

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Eggless Strawberry Pancakes

Well, it is holidays now and I get really lazy, more so that it is quite cold this year in Bangalore. I woke up and Pras was like "I want some breakfast!!" I had hardly any ingredients on hand to make a healthy breakfast, not even eggs!! I went to open up the fridge and I saw "STRAWBERRIES". Out they came and pancakes were on my mind. Quickly, as almost always, I went to one of my favorite blogs and adapted the recipe from Eggless Blueberry Pancakes by Nags.I also had some condensed milk handy. So I served the pancakes with the condensed milk.

Ingredients  to make 3 pancakes :
1/3 cup maida
1/2 tsp baking powder
Sugar - 1 tbsp as the original recipe. Use more if not serving with maple syrup or sweetened condensed milk
A pinch of salt
2 tsp olive oil
A little under 1/2 cup of milk
A handful or more of strawberries
2 tbsp nutella ( optional)
2 tbsp butter/oil

Method :
Mix together the maida, baking powder, sugar, salt, olive oil, nutella and milk to form a smooth batter. Chop the strawberries.
Heat up a tawa. Smear the butter. Pour on some of the batter on the hot tawa. Once the bubbles start appearing, sprinkle some of the chopped strawberries over the batter. Cover it for about 30 seconds. Make sure the heat is on low. Take off the cover and flip the pancake. Cook until golden brown on the other side. Take off pan and serve with sweetened condensed milk.

This is ready in minutes and is eggless. Do give it a try. It was truly yummy with the condensed milk ;)

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