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This would be first entry into Jai& Bee's photography event!

Miraculous Metal

Love blogging and bringing the aroma to my kitchen, new-found passion-baking!
With plethora of baked goodies to choose from, I have selected these bake wares and asst. bake wares :D for my very first entry to enigmatic couple who never cease to put us bloggers in awe with their charismatic blog, Jugalbandi.

Baking to me is an art, a way to relax and the watch the end product vanish!! Hence have chosen the muffin tray, whisk,beater,spring-form which reflects my passion, if it were not for these Miraculous Metals, there would not have been the yummy goodies!!! I am in love with these, totally!

Camera : JVC mini DV, model GR-D270AS.

Toast Sandwiches(Potato Filling)

Toast Sandwiches are greatly demanded as my Mil makes them super-tasty!
Simple aloo filling, toasting them and smearing with butter, dipped in tomato sauce = yummmm!
It goes as a brunch, being very filling and tasty!

Ingredients :
12 slices (normal toast) bread
4 boiled medium potatoes
1 medium tomato
2 cloves big garlic minced
1/2 tsp rai (mustard seeds)
1/2 tsp jeera(cumin seeds)
1/2 tsp haldi (Turmeric pwdr)
1 tsp red chili powder
salt to taste
Butter (salted - 1/4 tsp each slice)-OPTIONAL
Tomato ketchup/sauce

Method :

For filling :
In a big bowl, mash the potatoes add haldi, mirchi powder and salt. In a kadhai, heat a tsp of cooking oil, splutter rai, crackle mustard, add the minced garlic, saute till light brown, add the tomatoes, cook for upto 3 minutes. Add the mashed potatoes to it, mix well for around 2 minutes, put off the flame cover the lid.

Prepare for toasting :
Put on the electric toaster. Take a slice of bread, spread the filling evenly place another slice. Prepare such two pieces, place on toaster, before closing the toaster lid, spread little softened salted butter(skip butter-it would still taste as delicious! ) Close the toaster, once the green light flashes, open, and serve hot with sauce. Repeat the process till you are full! :D


I have no photos of the filling.

This post is being ushered by me to my very very first event, being hosted at Sia's - "Ode to Potatoes"

Finally after contemplating, I could make it to an event, before the deadline!!!!! I looooooveeee anything with POTATOES!

Udid-Maidya Polo / Dosa with Maida N Udad Batter

I have always liked it when Amma made this lovely dosa. It involves two main ingredients, Maida (all purpose flour) and Udad (black gram -split). I had totally forgotten about this, till I saw lovely Seema's post on it, memories flooded back! Me and my brother used to hold competition in having more, poor amma used to just pace from kitchen to living room balancing the hot dosas, the coconut chutney she made was out of this world.
Also when amma used to ask us of our choice for breakfast, I would always ask for this polo!!

Thankyou Seema, for posting this dosa.

These dosas need 5 hours soaking time, no fermentation and is cooked on one side only.


Ingredients :
1 cup udad daal
3 cups maida
Salt
Water
Oil

Method :
Soak udad daal for 3 hours and grind to a paste, the consistency should be that of thick sauce.

In a big bowl, whisk 3 cups maida with double quantity of water till its lump-free, refrigerate for 4 hours. The water will stand clear on top of settled maida post 4 hours.

Discard the water carefully, add to it, the udad daal paste till uniformly combined. Add salt, check if it has dosa consistency. Add water, only if needed.

Heat a non-stick tava, spread a ladle full of batter, cover and cook on a medium flame.
Needs to be cooked one side. ( In the abv pic, by default, I cooked on other side too! )

Raw Mango Chutney :
1 small raw mango-deseeded,skinned n chopped to small pcs- equal or more coconut,two green chillies, 1/2 inch ginger, salt-ground together with half qty water..season wt rai,curry leaves in coconut oil preferably!!
(To turn it to curry, take the ground mango,add double the volume of beaten curds, then season, add a red chili or two in seasoning, this goes with rice! -its simply called maanga-moru kutaan)


Serve it with chutney of your choice. ( I served with mango chutney and sambhaar).


A tasty breakfast indeed!!!

Dry Fruits Bars & Amazing Info on Fruits/Veggies !

Crisp on outside n Semi-moist inside !!!
Deeba's post here - Bar Cookie with the statement 'snack box for kids' had me get-set-go on this, the moment I read it! I prepared this beauty, going per her directions, except the crasins were missing, I went ahead with artificially sweetened cherries which worked fine with these dry fruits!

My plans to pass couple of these to few friends flopped! Why...as hubby was gobbling down in dozens and kids too went fast on it!! A keeper recipe! Thanks Deeba for going through 'The Colossal Cookie Cookbook' and sharing with all of us, they're over!!

Ingredients :
100 gms / 1 stick softened butter
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup maida/ all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1/4 cup almond powder
1/2 cup pistachios chopped
1/2 cup raisins golden
1/2 cup craisins ( I used-artificially sweetened cherry)
1 tbspn powdered sugar for dusting

Method :

Preheat oven to 180 C. Line a 8 x 8 " pan with 2" depth and allow the parchment to hang out.
(A rectangular swiss roll tin works fine, the extra sheet is left so that post baking its picked out holding this and passed on to a wire rack for cooling)

Sift maida, baking powder,salt and keep aside. Beat butter and sugar till it forms a fluffy mixture.

Add eggs one by one allow to combine with the mixture. Add the vanilla essence.

Fold in very gently with spatula, the flour and last 4 ingredients - ie almond powder,pistachios, golden raisins and craisins.

Pour this sticky mixture into the prepared tin, with a flat spatula even it out. (The leveling is done to ensure unform baking and gives out neat pieces once cooled)

Bake from 20 - 25 mins till the surface is golden brown, prick a pick and check for doneness inside, it has to come out clean. ( Mine took 21 minutes @ 180 C )

Take the tin out of oven, leave for 10 minutes, then hold the lining paper, lift it out of the tin, cool on rack.

Once completely cooled :
1. Upturn it carefully and take off the parchment paper, place on a flat surface or work area.
2. Use a serrated knife and slowly -carefully cut to desired shape (square/rectangle etc )
3. Dust powdered sugar on the top of the cut bars with strainer or sieve.





Store ( in airtight cookie jars -yup one and half jar get filled up), if nobody is around...if people are around , don't bother with storage! :D






I recieved this lovely mail from a dear friend, thought of sharing it here!! Please go through it carefully...its amazingly informative!!!

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God is so creative even when it comes to food!

Just in case you did not know this… this is absolutely amazing for sure.. and makes a lot of sense when you think about it…

This starts out not sounding interesting but read past the first paragraph and you will be amazed!

You are what you eat, so eat well.

A stupendous insight of civilizations past has now been confirmed by today's investigative, nutritional sciences. They have shown that what was once called 'The Doctrine of Signatures' was astoundingly correct. It now contends that every whole food has a pattern that resembles a body organ or physiological function and that this pattern acts as a signal or sign as to the benefit the food provides the eater.

Here is just a short list of examples of Whole Food Signatures.

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye...and science shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and funct ion of the eyes.





A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart is red and has four chambers. All of the research shows tomatoes are indeed pure heart and blood food.




Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows that grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.






A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds are on the nut just like the neo-cortex. We now know that walnuts help develop over 3 dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.



Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exac tly like the human kidneys.





Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet the body pulls it from the bones, making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.




Eggplant, Avocadoes and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats 1 avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? .... It takes exactly 9 months to grow an avocado fro m blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).





Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the motility of male sperm and increase the numbers of sperm as well to overcome male sterility.




Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.






Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries.



Grapefruits, Oranges , and other citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.





Onions look like body cells. Today's research shows that onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.



'The news isn't that fruits and vegetables are good for you, it's that they are so good for you, they can save your life.'

(PS : I have no proof of authenticity of the info, its a forward which was interesting hence I shared it here)
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Buttermilk-Rava Dosa - A Quick One!

Back to my ol' love dosas! This one is from a colleague from ex-Mumbai office. She is a gujarati girl and this is her mom's recipe. I love these dosas for their flavour- buttermilk n rava combo!

Ingredients :
1 1/2 cups fine rava(Semolina)
2 tbspn maida (all purpose flour)
1 cup labaan (i.e buttermilk)
1 medium onion
1 inch ginger
2 green chillies
3-4 stalks of fresh coriander leaves
Salt
1 tsp sugar / grated jaggery
Pinch of Hing (Asafoetida)
Water

Method :
In a big bowl, combine rava, maida, salt,sugar, hing with buttermilk, whisk till its lump free.(Keeping this aside gets standing time for the batter.) In a food processor, pulse the onions, ginger, chillies and coriander leaves till finely done or fine chop with a knife. Add to the batter. Add water to get dosa batter consistency, if required. Leave for ten minutes covered.
Heat the dosa griddle, pour and spread one ladle full, cook on both sides till done.

Serve with chutney of your choice!


A glass of chai , kaapi or health drink goes well with this breakfast, mine goes with a glass of plain hot milk!!!

Cinnamon Rolls

I had tasted these lovely buns with fresh cinnamon flavour when I was new to Kuwait!
I absolutely loved these yummy tasteful and mildly sweet bread!

I was googling on 'How to' on baking when I came across this beautiful video on making cinnamon rolls...I just could not ignore it! The link is here. I followed the recipe as is.

URL - below.
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-cinnamon-rolls

After reading and re-reading the directions, yesterday I finally made these yummy rolls!
The link explains better on how to go about and for a first timer like me, these turned out great!
They can be eaten hot out of oven or frozen too. I gobbled 3 of these huge rolls the moment they were out of oven! They tasted heavenly!

If you love cinnamon in any form, then this is a must try recipe!!

The bread part was moist and fluffy, the sides and crust crispy and the top part was crunchy due to the egg wash and the bottom of roll had mild sweet flavour as bit of sugar cinnamon paste settled around making it heavenly in each bite!!

Notes : (These are for my reference next time!)

* 500 gms maida works fine.

* Once the dough has risen, punch it back to a ball only when ready to roll out else it starts rising again. Punch out all the air from the dough to make it roll well!

* Made the egg wash minus flour, with one egg and two tbspn of milk beaten well. It gives a nice crunch to the top part of the roll.

* Bake time - my oven - 190C @ 18 mins/ 12 pcs.




Yum yum cinnamon rolls for breakfast with a cup of hot coffee, very filling!!!

Awards Night!!!! (Thankyou dear friends!) Part - II

Sandhya passed me this lovely flattering award, but I guess my blog is still far from the word 'E'!
I thank you , Sandhya for being kind and passing me this one! Blog-booster I can say!


I am passing it on to some lovely bloggers I rate in 'E'


Shilpa of Aayis Recipes and Asha of Foodies Hope are leagues ahead E+++++!!! Once I create that award I shall pass it on to you both!!

Meera (Enjoy Indian Food) you truly have exccccelled dear! 2 posts a day, traditional, authentic, from regions in and around India, I feel proud to have comeacross your blog (I trust you to forget 'the scolding' it was said with lots of affection for you!! You put me in AWE!

Maya (All About Konkan) Authentic Konkan dishes, enthu baker-like me!! Deserves an E for excellent way of cooking and posting lovely dishes!


Sia (Monsoon Spice) Lovely website with lots on cooking and also she shares technical aspects of many a things including blogs which has turned out x-tremely helpful to bloggers like me!

Indo Sun God (Daily Musings) Traditional dishes, her own innovation with greens, legumes and grains makes her excel in her style of cooking ...

Seema (My Randap-Everyday cooking) Has a lovely blog, authentic recipes, I have tried few so far!! You are excelleent in my view!


Zlamushka ( Burnt Mouth) (An E++ blog with lot of healthy recipes innovatively dished out! Thanks Zla!)


Yet another humble bow for this award, and passing on to these lovely bloggers who have been nice and excelled in their own rights!!
Thanks for your support and boosting blog morale!!