Owl Cupcakes and A month long marathon!

My weight bothers me a lot. It bothers my family even more. I am the only one from both my parent’s side as well my husband’s, who is almost clinically obese (just a few decimals away).

I start every single day with a resolution to control what I eat. And every single night I tell myself,”from tomorrow for sure!”

In short, I am not very proud of myself in this matter.

But, the feeling is totally different when you set about something and you meet your goal successfully. The goal for April was to blog continuously for thirty days as part of Blogging Marathon. And all of us did that, successfully.

I have thirty recipes for the month of april and I am as proud as a peacock showing off. Congratulations to everyone who participated and completed this task. And a special thanks to Valli for setting about doable themes, unending patience and putting all the effort to keep the group motivated. In fact, we are actually taking her support and enthusiasm as granted by now :-)

Check out the Blogging Marathon page to know who and all participated.

For me, personally, this 30 day marathon wasn’t that scary, because by April, I had about 35 recipes in my drafts section. So i was done even before BM started! Except for very few recipes (for matching the theme), I hardly made anything specific for BM 27.

And these recipes accumulate over a period of months. Like this post, for instance. I had to skip a BM for some reason, though the posts were done. It was for a Kids Delight theme of Cooking From storybook (hosted by Archana).

I had made an easy to make Owl cupcakes from Winnie the Pooh theme, a pancake from the book Eddie likes to Eat and a stuffed Empanada recipe (basically bread) from the book Little Red Hen.

I posted the pancake recipe a couple of days back. The bread recipe got posted long time back, but the owl cupcakes are still there in the drafts section. Hubby told it doesn’t resemble an owl in any possible way, so I was hesitant.

Anyway, I had ready-made cupcakes for the base. Oreo or any chocolate cream biscuit for eyes and chocolate chips for eyeballs and nose.

The above picture of glasses and cookie cutters and bowls are from a shopping spree at currimbhoys Adyar branch. The entire stuff cost me about 1000/- rupees (20 USD, approx.) and I had about 15 single items to show for it.

Anyway, let me close the last post of BM 27 on a big note : Thank You Everyone!

Eggless Peanut Butter Gems Cookies

In yesterday’s post about chocolate chip cookies, I mentioned that I could bake only six cookies at a time as it spread a lot. So after a couple of batches, I decided to improve things a bit.

A little bit of searching landed me with a few treasures – two small packets of gems chocolate (Indian version of M&M), half empty bottle of peanut butter and some oats.

I mixed all this into the choco chip cookie batter (it was more batter like than a dough) till I got a reasonably stiff batter, again not a dough, but not a soft dough anymore. And baked them in tablespoonfuls again.

The results were outstanding. I loved these polka dot cookies the best! It had peanut butter, choco chips and gems in it. Baking with peanut butter is something beyond description!

The gems disappeared in the batter for the first batch. From the second batch onwards, I picked them out of the batter and pressed on top of the cookie. For improved looks, you know :D.

This recipe is off to Blogging Marathon 27. Check out the Blogging Marathonpage for more details.

Ingredients:

• Chocolate chip cookie dough, halved
• Two small packets (or more)of Gems, M&M or any other chocolate
• Peanut Butter: 1/2 cup
• Oats (I used Quaker) : 3/4 cup

Method:

1. Make the chocolate chip cookie dough as per the recipe. It will be a soft, but thick, cake like batter.
2. Add the peanut butter and oats to the prepared dough. Note that you can add a bit more or cut a little less of the oats to the dough to get a stiffer consistency.
3. Drop by heaped tablespoons in a baking tray lined with butter paper.
4. Bake in a preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, until the edges turn brown a bit.

Eggless Chocolate Chips Cookies

Its fine when your flops are limited to your kitchen. It’s highly embarrassing if it happens at someone else’s kitchen.

Someone I know needed help with baking and I told them that I bake a lot. I should have stopped there, but went on boasting about my baking skills till they were looking at me with reverence. I was their Nigella Lawson, the baking goddess.

The next day, I noted down my all time favorite Best Brownies recipe and a basic yellow cake recipe and went to their place. The batter was made, the brownie was put in the oven, the sweet aroma filled the house. Took out the brownie and sliced it and tasted it.

It was THE worst cake I had ever made! Even my first dry cake wasn’t this bad, I tell you!! Well, red faced I proceeded with the yellow cake recipe. And it came out brown. Really brown!

Later I spotted that I had missed adding the eggs to the brownie batter and about the brown yellow cake, I have no clue what went wrong.

Luckily, they have a great sense of humour and we all laughed it off and with kids in preteens, everything got over finally. It was a relief that it didn’t end up in dust bin! It was that bad, I tell you…

Anyway, my boasting has stopped since then and I am very much back to earth now.

Now, the recipe here is a flop wrto the texture, it spread too much and turned out to be too thin and tested my patience a bit. But it was really tasty and chewy and had chocolate chips in it. So its fine, I guess. Chocolate chips make everything better in life, even failed brownies and brown colored yellow cakes!

Recipe Source: Jeena’s Kitchen

Ingredients:

• Butter    :  100g ( 1/2 Cup)
• Light brown sugar : 6 tbsp (75 gm)
• Flour     :      3/4 cup
• Chocolate chips : 1/2 cup
• Baking powder : 1 tsp
• Milk            :  2 tbsp
• Golden syrup (or honey)  : 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a baking tray with butter paper.
2. Cream sugar and butter till light in a big bowl. Add the milk, golden syrup and beat well. I used a hand mixer for all this.
3. Once its all incorporated, add the flour and chocolate chips. The resulting dough will be soft, more like a cake batter and a stiff cookie dough.
4. In the baking tray, add the dough in tablespoons with enough space for it to spread. I could bake only 6 cookies in a batch.
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes. When the edges are golden, remove and let it sit on the tray for a minute or two. Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container.

This recipe is off to Blogging Marathon 27. Check out the Blogging Marathon page to know more about a lot of fun, lot of recipes and lot of themes.

This was one of the cookies that I had packed for the BM 25 Meet.

Basic Cupcakes

You can read about my son’s language skills here in this post. He chose to keep quiet than to talk in Tamil (his mother tongue). He started speaking fluently only at the age of 3.5 – 4 after he started going to school full day. But that too only in English.

Someone asked him recently what his mother tongue was and he replied that its English. I was too shocked to reply and when I discovered my voice, I reminded him that he speaks in Tamil to his both set of grand parents.

He replied: “I know tamil only enough to talk with them”.

Though there is a small nagging worry that his Tamil is bad, I am more relieved that the kid is communicating in some language at least!

Anyway…Bhagus, my two-year old niece, talks only in Tamil. Now that kiddo is there, he speaks to her in a mix of Tamil and English. He asks her to “Food chappidu” (Eat your food) and ”You vilayadu”(You play with me), when he is talking with her.

But this took the price.

Kiddo (in phone to me): ”Bhagus is always killing me.”

Me:”Errr….killing you?”

Kiddo: “Yaah..Now mama is also killing me.”

At that point, my brother took the receiver from him and clarified “Bhagus is pinching him” (Tamil word for pinch is killu).

Now let me pinch myself when I send this post to Blogging Marathon 27, a month-long marathon for April. You can hear more stories from other participants here at the Blogging Marathon page.

Recipe Source: Simple Vanilla Cupcakes

Makes: 16, depending on the size

Ingredients:

• All Purpose Flour                 :              2 cups  +  2 tbsp
• Baking powder                      :              2 tsp
• Salt                                          :              1/4 tsp
• Sugar                                       :              3/4 cup
• Butter                                      :              1/2 cup (softened)
• Eggs                                         :              2
• Milk                                         :              1 cup
• Vanilla                                    :               2 tsp
• Add ons                                  :              1/2 cup (choco chips, berries (I used dried cranberries), raisins – optional)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Line cupcake liners in a muffin pan.
2. Cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and then the vanilla essence.
3. In another bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. Add this to the creamed butter, alternating with milk.
4. Coat the berries (if using) with the 2 tbsp flour set aside initially. Add this to the cake batter and mix till everything is incorporated.
5. Fill the liners 3/4th full and bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes free of batter when inserted in the middle.

This recipe is off to Swathi’s Favorite Recipes. This month’s host is Pallavi and the theme is Bookmarked Recipes.

Basic Pancakes

My niece has taken after me. She looks exactly like me when I was her age – real curly hair, chubby cheeks , rosy lips and has an unreserved love for water. She doesn’t mind taking bath 100 times a day and loves ‘pimming’ (swimming) pool the best.

We call her a ‘cyclone’ cos all we can see after she has been to a place (say dining table or telephone table) is scattered stuff all around. She goes to the dining table first, does a good job there and then proceeds to the next place.

What I found most funny was her throwing something down and then looking at me and saying “Aiyyo!”. She makes the perfect “Oh oh” sound at the accurate places, mostly after she drops something she is not meant to.

Bhagus has a problem with sharing her stuff if she is not in a good mood. She went to the extend of holding and carrying an air filled baby chair (light weight stuff) over her head for almost an hour when another kid visited them :-))

My parents love all of her antiques and their eyes brighten up when they talk about Bhagus. I couldn’t spent much time with her this time, yet I can’t help smile when I think of her!

So now that my son is there at her place (he is with my brother in Bangalore), I wonder what and all she is holding up her head!!

Recipe Source: Basic Pancakes

Serves: 2-3

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour : 1 cup
• Baking powder : 1 tbsp
• Sugar : 2 tbsp
• Salt : 1/2 tsp
• Milk : 1 cup
• Egg : 1, beaten
• Butter : 3 tbsp

Method:

1. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together. Whisk to combine.
2. Add milk, beaten egg, butter. Whisk till no dry lumps remain.
3. Heat a tawa/pan. When its hot, add a teaspoon of butter. Add 1/4 cup of the pancake batter. Let it cook until bubbles appear on top and there is not much of moisture left. Turn over and cook the other side.
4. Make pancakes with the rest of the batter. Stack and pour honey on top and serve hot. Yumm!!

Note: These are basic pancakes. You can add mashed fruits/berries to the batter for a different version.

This recipe is off to Blogging Marathon 27, a monthly marathon for April. Check out the Blogging Marathon page for more details. Also sending this to Swathi’s Favorite Recipes for this month’s theme of Bookmarked Recipes, hosted by Pallavi.

Manga Chammandi – A thick Chutney with Mango & Coconut

 

Summer is here and mangoes have started entering the kitchen in a small, but definite way.  In a matter of weeks, it will be mangoes all around (or may be it’s already there, I don’t venture out in the sun to find out!).

This is a chammandi, a very thick version of chutney – though not exactly the same. This will not pair with any of the tiffin items, its to be served with rice almost like a pickle. Its like thogayal of Tamil Nadu.

Its one of the simple comfort foods.

For train travels, these mostly get packed in ‘vaatiya ela’. Ie, in banana leaves wilted so that it won’t tear when you pack food. This is usually done by keeping the leaf like a lid on top of the cooked rice bowl or any hot surface. The heat will change the leaves’ color and you will find it bending without tearing.

The aroma of the food packed like that is so wonderful, it takes the taste to a whole new level!

The chammadi featured here was made specially for my mother by my father’s friend’s wife. Amma tells me that it tastes absolutely wonderful when uncle’s wife makes it. And I totally agree with her now.

Check out other participants’ contribution for the day here at the Blogging Marathon Page.

Recipe Source: Appa’s friend

Serves:    3-4 

Ingredients:

• Raw Mango     :       1
• Coconut           :       1 cup
• Small onions  :      8-10, peeled
• Green Chilli    :     1
• Red Chilli Powder :  1/2 tsp (need to add after taste test)
• Curry leaves    :    1-2
• Salt

Method:

1. Wash, peel and dice the mango. Discard the seed.
2. Grind everything in a mixie jar without adding water. If it doesn’t blend, add water in tablespoons and stop adding once it’s ground properly and has come together. It shouldn’t be a very smooth watery paste.
3. Check the taste. Depending on the sourness of mango, you might have to add a bit more of salt or chilli powder or couple more onions.
4. Serve as a pickle like side with rice or mix with rice as a podi.

Note:

This is a very basic recipe and it varies from house to house. Some add only red chillies for grind, some add a mix of both red and green chillies. Sometimes a pinch of jeera or a piece of ginger is also added while grinding.

You can substitute a tsp of tamarind for mango. It will be a simple onion chammandi then.

Ragi Koozh / Kezhvaragu Koozh/ Finger Millet Porridge

My son, after his short stint with swimming lessons last year, stays away from swimming pools. He won’t even go near the pool at any cost.

It was not surprising that on a day out, my kid was on the trampoline. All.the.time.

He was there from morning 11 till evening 5, when it was time to return. All the other kids were in the pool, even two-year old ones.

He was jumping all day long, yet he didn’t seem tired. So unlike his home avatar, where he goes “I am so tired”, the minute I ask him to do some work.

Kids….and the less said about the dad, the better!

Anyway, after that hot day out, I decided that I will never venture out in summer for outings! Don’t know how long I will hold on to that, but if I do go out next time, I am going to make a batch of this koozhu(porridge) and go.

Ragi koozh is something new to me, it’s farmers’ food. It’s cooling and tasted so nice to me. The taste may not appeal initially to everyone, it’s almost like switching from white bread to whole wheat bread. But give it a try, chances are you won’t regret it.

Check out what other participants are doing for BM 27, a month-long marathon at the Blogging Marathon Page.

Recipe Source: Gayathri’s Cook Spot

Serves: 5-6

Ingredients:

• Ragi Flour       :           1 cup
• Cooked rice    :            1/2 cup
• Salt
• Water

To serve:

• Buttermilk
• Pearl onions
• Pickle of your choice

Method:

1. Mix ragi flour, cooked rice (I mashed it a bit with my hands) and salt to about half a cup water to get a thick batter of idli batter consistency. You might have to adjust the amount of water to get it right.
2. Set aside and let it ferment for a minimum of four hours or preferably overnight.
3.  The batter would have foamed up a little the next morning. Mix it. Measure out this batter. It was about 1.5 cups for me. Bring the same amount of water to a boil and add this batter to it.
4. Stir now and then and stir continuously once it starts to thicken.
5. Stir, stir, stir till it all comes together – for about 20-30 minutes. It was about 40 minutes for me, but I had help. So it wasnt my arms that was aching :D. The koozh shouldnt be sticky when you touch it.
6. Take off the heat and let it rest for 4-5 hours, if possible.
7. To serve : To make one cup of koozh, add 3/4th of the prepared koozh and fill the rest with buttermilk or water or a combination of both. Mix and add chopped pearl onions to it. Serve with any pickle of your choice.

Note: Instead of using cooked rice, you can use uncooked raw rice. You should wash and grind the rice and add it to the boiling water along with the ragi batter. You can refer here for the recipe and step by step pictures.

This needs to be cooked at least for a minimum of 20 minutes, apparently uncooked ragi might give you a stomach ache.

This is an age-old traditional recipe. I don’t know whether I got it correctly or not. I liked this koozh and would welcome suggestions/corrections if there are any!

Gongura Pachadi

 

The bell rang, I opened the door. A small girl was holding a bouquet. The bouquet was hiding her face. She gave it to me.

What she was holding a bunch of gongura leaves, not a bouquet.

I smiled, and I thanked her. It was my neighbour’s daughter. My neighbour had sent across this bunch they had picked up from a shop.

I was making this pachadi for the first time and didn’t know what to expect. Let me tell you this - the leaves are tangy. Really really tangy. And I loved it! The pachadi tasted better the next day and it was the star of the meal.

I have been hunting for these leaves ever since and have never seen it around. It’s available all year through (as is the case with almost all vegetables now), but its best in summer.

Check out what others are doing for the month long marathon at the Blogging Marathon page.

Recipe source: Cooking 4 All Seasons

Ingredients:

• Gongura leaves             :        a bunch, washed and cleaned
• Green Chillies               :         6-8 (or more depending on the sourness of leaves)
• Salt

For tempering

• Red chillies                 :          3-4
• Mustard seeds            :          1 tsp
• Urad dal                       :          1 tsp
• Onion                           :          1 small chopped
• Hing                             :          a pinch
• Garlic cloves               :           2-3
• Oil                                :          2 – 3 tbsp

Method:

1. Wash and clean the leaves. Pluck the leaves and discard the stems. Let the leaves drain in a colander.
2. In a kadai, heat about one tbsp of oil and saute the leaves and the green chilies till they change color completely and are soft. Keep aside. You can also cook this by adding half a cup of water and letting it boil.
3. Once its cool, grind this to a coarse paste with salt. Do a taste test and add more salt if needed. If the leaves are really tangy, then you need to increase the spice level.
4. In a kadai, add another tbsp oil and once its hot, add the hing, mustard seeds, urad dal. Once it crackles, add the chopped onion, garlic and red chilies. Saute till brown, Add the ground gongura leaves to this and saute for 5 minutes.
5. You can serve this as a pickle or mix with rice like a podi. Tastes good both ways.

Vazhakka Pulissery

Summer is officially here, till now what we had been just prelim rounds. You feel as if you will just melt away if you are in the sun. If you are in the house, you feel stuffy and sweat a lot.

A whole lot of cooling recipes will be included in the daily cooking. Our fridge is loaded with ready-made squashes, curd in a hundred small bowls and lots of buttermilk.

Yogurt features a lot in summer cuisine. A mor – kuzhambu (or pulissery as its known in Kerala) is one way of using up excess yogurt. You can add a whole lot of varieties of vegetables to it, I have used raw bananas here. You can use slightly ripe bananas, ripe mangoes, yam, ash gourd, pumpkins or a combination of these.

Check out the recipes from other participants for this month’s 30 day marathon in the Blogging Marathon page.

Serves : 2-3

Ingredients:

• Raw bananas (or vegetables of your choice)  :         2 cups, diced
• Yogurt                                                                    :          1.5 cups
• Turmeric Powder                                                 :         1/4 tsp
• Salt

To grind:

• Coconut grated                                    : 1/2 cup
• Green Chilies                                       :  2
• Jeera                                                      :  1/2 tsp

For tempering:

• Oil                                                         :   1-2 tsp
• Mustard seeds                                    :   1 tsp
• Fenugreek seeds                                :    1 tsp
• Red chilies                                           :     2
• Curry leaves                                        :    5-6

Method:

1. In a pan, add the diced banana pieces. Add water till the vegetables submerge, turmeric powder and salt. Cook until vazhakka is soft when touched. Don’t over cook, though.
2. Grind the coconut with chilies and jeera. Once the vegetable is cooked, add this paste to it and bring it to a boil. Cook for 2-3 minutes. You may have to add water if there isn’t enough in the pan.
3. In the same mixie jar, blend the yogurt for a few seconds. You can do this in a bowl too using a ‘mathu’ or whisk. Basically you need to break the yogurt so that no lumps remain.
4. Add this to the boiling curry and let it cook for a minute in low heat until it reaches the boiling point. You will have to stir to avoid the yogurt from splitting/curdling.
5. Take the pan off the heat once it reaches boiling point. Even if the pan sits in the hot stove, yogurt might split.
6. In a small tadka pan, heat the oil and add the red chilies and mustard seeds. Once the seeds crackle, add the fenugreek seeds and curry leaves. Once it turns brown, take off the heat and add to the pulissery.
7. Serve with rice and a side dish.

Aloo Gobi Mattar – Cauliflower with peas and potatoes

I was looking for ways to use up the single cauliflower that was left in the fridge. A little bit more rustling through the freezer and some peas too showed up to be used. Added some potatoes which were shouting ‘pick me up please’ and made an easy curry for dinner.

Dumped the left over in the fridge and served with dosas the next morning. Surprisingly, it paired very well with dosas and I loved that combination than with chapatis..It was almost like a gobi masala dosa.

So relish this curry made with winter vegetables (though its available through out the year now a days!) and check out what others are serving for this month long marathon.

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:

• Cauliflower florets            :          2 cups
• Diced potatoes                  :           2 cups
• Green peas                         :           1 cup
• Onion                                  :           2 big
• Tomatoes                           :            3 big
• Ginger garlic paste          :             1 tsp
• Coriander powder           :            1 tsp
• Chili powder                    :             1 tsp
• Garam Masala                 :             1/2 tsp
• Salt
• Oil
• Turmeric powder           :             1/4 tsp

Method:

1. In a microwave safe bowl (or in a pan), add the roughly chopped onions and tomatoes and ginger garlic paste with a spoon of oil. MW high for 3-4 minutes until everything is cooked. Let it cool and then grind it to a paste, keep aside.
2. Steam the cleaned cauliflower florets, diced potatoes and green peas for about 7 minutes or until its cooked, yet firm.
3. In a kadai, add one tbsp of oil. Add half a tsp jeera seeds and once it splutters add the onion-tomato paste. Once it starts to boil, add the chili, coriander powders and salt. Mix.
4. Add the cooked vegetables and two cups of water. Let it come to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and let it simmer for 5 minutes. You may have to add more water if you want a gravy curry.
5. Do a taste test, adjust seasonings. Add garam masala and coriander leaves. Give a final stir and cook for 2 more minutes. Serve hot with rotis.