Cinnamon Creamy Biscuits

This is one of those recipes that are conceived when you work with what you have. You go to your kitchen, look around, and pick up a few things based on a vague idea and end up with something delightful. I think this could be a good exercise once in a while for optimizing your creative output. You never know what loveliness you come up with.

As I was saying, I had not given this recipe much of a thought. I simply went to the kitchen because I was bored of studying and wanted to eat something, something 'good'.The only problem was that I did not want to spend too much time on thinking or cooking because I wanted to get back to my studies. So I decided not to cook anything and settled on having cream biscuits, but as luck would have it, we were out of those. But now I absolutely wanted to have cream biscuits! After a couple of minutes of cribbing to my mom about it while she paid no attention whatsoever, I remembered I had some fresh whipped cream sitting in my fridge. A slow grin appeared on my face. I am sure you've guessed what I was thinking.

Cinnamon Creamy Biscuits

I went to my pantry and fetched a pack of sweet and salty biscuits. I had decided the flavor of my cream, cinnamon, my favorite; no brainstorming there, and a few other ingredients. In the end it turned out to be a '5 ingredient' recipe which satisfied me enough to resume my studies happily.

This could be a quick fix party snack and hold on, could it also be used as a dessert? May be, not sure, but it is as delightful as it can get! I hope you enjoy these.

This recipe will make 5-6 Cinnamon Creamy Biscuits

Be sure to check out the tips section at the end of the post.

Ingredients:
Sweet n salty biscuits- 10-12 nos (I used Krack Jack)
Sweetened fresh whipped cream- 3-4 tbsp
Vanilla extract- 1 tbsp
Cinnamon powder- 1 tsp
Chocolate sauce for drizzling

Recipe:

Add vanilla extract and cinnamon powder to cream and stir well to mix uniformly. You might want to start by adding smaller quantities of vanilla and cinnamon and adjust according to your taste. I added these to my cream until both flavors were balanced and well pronounced in the filling, though cinnamon took the higher stand.

Then spoon some of this cinnamon cream on a biscuit. Place another biscuit on top of it like a sandwich. Repeat with all other biscuits. If your biscuits are slightly broken on the edges, don't worry. Those taste better!

Drizzle some chocolate sauce and enjoy.

Cinnamon Creamy Biscuits

Tips:
I ate a couple of these as soon as I made them, put the remaining in a container and kept it in the freezer out of  fear that the cream would melt and make the biscuits soggy. I reached for them the next day and found that the cream had set really well and tasted better.
Lastly, drizzle chocolate sauce just before you are about to have these. Chilling with chocolate sauce drizzled upon these sandwiches will make them stick to one another.

Sukhi Masala Arbi

We all trust our moms, don't we? But what if one day when you are grown up and your grandmom tells you that your mom used to make you eat something in the name of something else when you were a kid? Yep! My mom used to pass off Arbi (Taro root) as potatoes to me all the time. When confronted, my mom said that she only did that because I was a fussy eater and wanted potatoes for every meal. Well, O.K. mom, but I still don't think it was fair. Poor me. God knows how much arbi I ate in the name of potatoes. I wish I was a smarter kid to see through her trick. That's the past and now I am not a kid and she cannot pull off such tricks on me anymore and I will eat only what I like, which is pretty much everything these days. Yeah, the exclusive potato days are over.

Talking about arbi now, it is a very healthy, fibrous vegetable that is tasty and easy to cook. In this post I will be sharing a recipe for dry arbi, but it is equally delicious cooked in yogurt gravy. I will also share with you my nani's recipe for arbi kebabs very soon.

Sukhi Masala Arbi

In my opinion, the star ingredient of this recipe is 'dried mango powder'. It adds a subtle sour flavor to our dish and sort of gives it a finish. So make sure you don't skip on it.

A quick tip before we begin: Arbi can get very sticky while cooking. So you want to avoid water as much as you can if you are going for a dry version. What I do is that I wash arbi a couple of hours ahead of cooking so it is dried thoroughly before peeling and cutting.

Ingredients:

Arbi- 1/2 kg
Cumin seeds- 1/2 tsp
Dried red chilly- 1 nos
Turmeric powder- 1/2- 3/4 tsp
Coriander powder- 2-3 tsp
Garam masala powder- 3/4 tsp
Red chilly powder- 1-2 tsp (adjust to taste)
Dried Mango powder- 2 tbsp
Salt to taste
Oil- 3-4 tbsp

Sukhi Masala Arbi

Recipe:

Peel and cut arbi lengthwise in about 1/4 inch thick pieces. The point is, don't slice them too thin. Think fries!

Heat oil in a pan. Add cumin seeds. Break dried red chilly in half and add.

When tempered, add arbi and give a stir to coat with oil.

Cover and cook for 15-20 minutes on low flame with occasional stirring.

Add all powdered spices except mango powder.

Mix well, cover and let cook for another 5-10 minutes with spices.

Turn off the flame.

Now add dried mango powder and mix well.

Serve hot with naan/ parathas or have it as it is!

Taro root recipe

Stay tuned for Arbi Kebab and many more recipes or follow by email or add me on Google +

The Birthday Cake

What is it about a birthday cake that makes it so special?

 Let's do a little exercise, and I am not talking about the one you have to do after eating the cake. Yeah, talk about pros and cons! But anyway, for this exercise, close your eyes and think about a birthday cake. What do you see? Do you see your favorite, tempting cake? Yes, probably. But is it just the cake? When you think of a birthday cake, you see yourself, happy, surrounded by smiling and laughing people, friends and family with party hats, and you see yourself holding the knife, ready to blow out the candles, making a wish and wishing it to come true. Yup! You see your own birthday. At least I do. That's what makes a birthday cake so special. It is a maker of beautiful loving memories, an agent of your day.

It was my birthday yesterday. You guessed it! That's the precursor of this post and I am all about having a rule that mandates having at least one birthday cake.

Sure it's great to be surprised with a birthday cake at midnight by your friends, or at work by your colleagues or just ordering a cake for yourself from your favorite bakery, but baking your own birthday cake isn't too shabby either. And don't be afraid if you are a newbie at baking, just like me. So what if you screw up a couple of cakes and your cake gets finally ready only minutes before you are supposed to be cutting it. If anything, you should be getting a pat, or even two at the back for being such brave risk takers on your own birthday.

Here's what my 'final' cake looked like. For a baker who is not perfect, well, not yet anyway, this was a lovely looking birthday cake that tasted good.

Vanilla Cake

And the best part is the fun my cousins, Nidhi and Amrita, and I had screwing up and baking cakes throughout the day. It was like a festival. My mother was more worried than me about my cake. I had initially decided to make a mango-butterscotch cake. But after two trials, adjusting the batter consistency and everything we thought could have been wrong that the cake wouldn't bake through properly, we gave it up. Although I must say that we tasted the God-knows-what's-wrong mango-butterscotch cakes and they tasted yum!
Then we decided to make my tried and tested vanilla cake recipe so I at least had a cake to cut in the evening. And thank god it turned good.

I am not sharing the recipe of vanilla cake in this post because, like I said, I am not a perfect baker and anything I post in this blog quite simply has to be perfect. I wrote this post just because I wanted to share my initial attempts at baking with you all and make a memory of my birthday.

I hope to see you soon with improved baking and that won't take me another birthday, I promise.

Pomegranate Sandwich

Pomegranate in a sandwich. Oh wow!
That's what I said to myself when I saw pomegranate and bread in my fridge. The best part about pomegranate is that when bitten into, the seeds flood your mouth with their juices and to me it is a much loved sensation.
If I ever got dentures, it would be so I could have pomegranates!

Pomegranate Sandwich

In this sandwich spread, I have added cucumber to add extra crunch and to just even out the flavors.

Ingredients: 

This recipe makes 2 sandwiches.

Sandwich bread slices- 4
Pomegranate seeds- 4-5 tbsp
Cucumber, diced- 2 tbsp
Mayonnaise- 2-3 tbsp
Processed cheese, grated- 2 tbsp
Salt and pepper for seasoning

Procedure:

In a small bowl, mix together pomegranate seeds, cucumber, mayonnaise, cheese and season with salt and pepper.

Your sandwich spread is ready.

Pomegranate Sandwich Spread

Divide and apply the spread on two bread slices. Place other two slices on top of each.

Remove crust and cut diagonally ( or in any way you like).

Enjoy with evening tea.

Banana Chips

Banana chips are all the rage these days in my home. These super tasty crispies are a delight to cook, eat and serve. An excitement fills me up while making these, probably because I anticipate the crunch and flavor of this soon-to-be-mine chips. These require no preparation, and I mean it! A cool, instant entree for unannounced guests or as a movie snack! Munch on them with (or without) your favorite dip and have a good time.

Banana Chips

I did not plan this post. It so happened that my mom bought some raw bananas from the farmer's market. She intended to prepare a raw banana curry but I snatched and staked my claim as soon as I saw them. My mom, wide eyed, exclaimed, "At least give me a few for the curry!" I clutched my bananas close to me, turned, and proceeded to secure their place in the fridge.

I used a chip slicer to slice the bananas into thin slices. I hope you can see how thinly sliced these chips are in this picture.

Ingredients:

Raw banana- 1/2 kg
Oil for frying
Salt and pepper for seasoning

Yeah! That's it.

Procedure:

Heat enough oil for deep frying in a thick bottomed wok.

Peel a banana and slice it thinly.

Do not peel and slice all bananas at once. They turn black quickly. Take only one banana for each batch or two if your wok is large enough to accomodate without crowding.

When oil is hot enough, put banana slices into the oil one by one. This ensures that individual slices do not stick to each other. We do not want that happening as that hinders cooking and compromises the crisp.

Deep fry till slices turn light golden in color.

Let cool.

Season with salt and pepper.

Banana Chips

Roasted Cauliflower Spaghetti in Indian Basil Pesto

I was first introduced to pasta a few years back when my mentors took me and my friend out for a lunch on our last day of internship to Jugheads, Mumbai. It was love at first bite. For a while I associated pasta with tomato sauce, broccoli and zucchini. Later however, as I became acquainted with pasta variations, I started experimenting on my own. One great thing about pasta is that it can adapted effortlessly to various combinations and delightful flavors. This spaghetti recipe in this post is one such adaptation with Indian basil pesto.

Roasted Cauliflower Spaghetti in Indian Basil Pesto

Pesto is traditionally made with basil. In this pesto recipe I decided to make use of Indian basil. Indian basil has a stronger flavor than Italian basil, tastes great nevertheless. 

Indian Basil

For a few weeks I had been lusting after these homemade sun dried cherry tomatoes and decided to use them as base for my pesto. I used a local variety of cherry tomatoes, which are much smaller than the regular cherry tomatoes and herbed them with dried oregano and basil.

Sun Dried Tomatoes

Now, these tomatoes were totally dried, so I soaked them in olive oil for about 6 hours. You can use the canned sun dried tomatoes. I added a dried red chilly and soaked it with the tomatoes.

Ingredients:

Spaghetti- 250 gm

Cauliflower florets-300 gm

Clove- 3-4 nos

Olive oil- 3 tbsp

Salt and pepper for seasoning

For pesto

Sun dried tomatoes- 1/2 cup

Basil leaves- 1 cup, loosely packed

Cloves- 2

Dried red chilly- 1

Olive oil- 3 tbsp

Salt for seasoning

Let's begin by making our pesto.

Assemble all ingredients for pesto. As I mentioned I had soaked my sun dried tomatoes in olive oil, I drained them before using them.

Place all ingredients except salt in your food processor and grind to a paste. I ground it a bit coarse but you can make it a smooth paste. Season with salt and your pesto is ready.

Pesto

Now that our pesto is ready, let's get on with spaghetti.

Bring water to boil in a wok and cook spaghetti according to package instructions. Drain, and drizzle with some olive oil to keep spaghetti from sticking to each other and keep aside.

Heat olive oil in a pan till it's very hot but not smoking.

Add cauliflower florets and cook on high flame till they start to brown. About 3-4 minutes. Keep stirring at 20 second intervals while cooking so they don't burn. Cover and cook on low flame for another 5 minutes.

Add pesto and mix.

Toss spaghetti in and gently mix. 

Season with salt and pepper.

Cover and keep on low flame for a couple of minutes so it gets nice and warm. 

I topped mine with a handful of basil leaves and a few sun dried tomatoes.

Roasted Cauliflower Spaghetti in Indian Basil Pesto

Masala Stuffed Okra

If someone asked me to write an essay on Okra on a silly dare, I would secretly thank my stars and gladly indulge whilst only pretending to ridicule the challenge so people don't think I am some crazy Okraphiliac (I wonder if that's a thing). I would probably begin with, "Fair Okra! I loveth thee so.." (Studying literarure is really getting into my head) and go on to include the names of countless friends who equally love Okra (aka other probable Okraphiliacs) and end with thanking the Lord for making Okra available almost through out the year so we don't have to pine away in separation!

Ok! I agree! Fair amount of exaggeration involved. But in my defence, I was trying to make a point.

Truly, Okra/ Lady's Finger/ Bhindi is a much loved vegetable of most Indians (few who do not like it, I do not know how they live with themselves). It is prepared in a variety of manners, stir fry with onions, curried, fried or stuffed like this recipe here in this post. 

Masala Stuffed Okra

I especially like these stuffed Okra. My roommate in Gurgaon would always keep asking me to prepare this at least once a week. Yea! We love it!

So let's get on with the recipe, shall we?

Ingredients:

1/2 kg okra

1 tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp red chilly powder

3-4 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp garam masala powder

1 tsp amchur (dried mango) powder

1 tsp anardana (pomegranate seed) powder

salt to taste

Oil

Recipe:

Wash and dry okra thoroughly. Try to use smaller sized Okra for this recipe.

Make a deep slit along the length of each okra with a knife.

Mix all powdered ingredients and salt together.

Stuff okra with this powder mix.

Heat enough oil in pan. Add stuffed okra to the pan and mix to coat evenly with oil.

Cook uncovered on medium flame for 15-20 minutes stirring occasionally. The okra will start turning darker in color as it cooks.

Serve as side dish with chapatis or parathas.