Apple Cakes

Apple cake made it to all the holiday parties hosted at our place this year. I found it on SmittenKitchen and was totally smitten by it. Tried it on Thanks giving, then again for another party and in mini cup cake form for the New years.



This is one of those recipies that would not go wrong however you mix them as long as the proportions are correct.

I adjusted the proportions to my pan size.
For 9" circular pan used
3 apples, I used Gala
1 tbs cinnamon
5 tbs sugar

1.5 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup orange juice
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs

Method as described in SmittenKitchen

Smell of cinnamon and sugar hmmmmmm....

Raining blue berries

Blue berries are in season. I have used blue berries in pancake's, waffle's, buckle, muffin's, salad's and cobbler. Then it was my daughter who came up with the idea of adding blue berries to cookies. Actually it was not a bad idea. So just turned the oatmeal raisin cookie to oatmeal blue berry cookies.



Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp powdered cinnamon
1-1/2 cups oats
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp honey
1/2 cup blue berries
Preheat oven to 350C.
First mix all dry ingredients. Cream butter and sugar then add egg and honey. Mix thoroughly. Slowly stir in the dry ingredients followed by blue berries. Spoon cookie dough to the cookie sheet leaving enough space for cookies to melt. Bake for about 8 to 10 mins. The cookies should be of chewy consistency and not crispy. Cool them on a cooling rack.

Another blue berry dish!
Blue Berry Cobbler, great with ice cream.


Similar posts:
Strawberry Bread
PB & J Muffin
Blue Berry Buckle

Homemade Pizza

Its only after you try making a dish you realize how simple it is. I used to make pizza with frozen Naan. This time wanted to try making the dough at home. Few weeks ago NY Times had a series on healthier pizzas. For the dough I used whole wheat flour as specified in the NY Times recipe.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough Ingredients:

2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, plus additional for brushing the pizza crusts
1 1/4 cups stone ground whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional if necessary for kneading
1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Involving my daughter in creating the topping for pizza was all the more fun. For our pizza we used Italian sausage, tomato, green bell pepper, olives, red onions, some italian herb seasoning and mozzarella cheese.

Stuffed Pita Pockets

Stuffed pita pockets is a quick and easy crowd pleasing appetizer. Also a great dish for kids lunch box. The stuffing can be anything...its up to your imagination. I had stuffed the pita pockets in the below photo with sauteed veggies (onion, coriander leaves, orange bell pepper, green onions, tomato, cucumber) and fried paneer (feta cheese can be used for a Mediterranean taste). Before stuffing the veggies I warmed the pitas in the oven for few minutes and then rubbed the inside of pita halves with hummus.

Indo Chinese Fried Rice

I was so bad at preparing fried rice, all my variety rices would end up like biryani. Not anymore! I have finally mastered the art of fried rice. While in India we used to have ketchup as condiment for any Chinese food.

The key to good fried rice is high heat, quick cooking of vegetables and right dash of green chili, soy and tomato sauce.



Ingredients:
- Finely chopped onions, cabbage, carrot, beans, green bell pepper, cooked peas (whole), ginger, garlic,
- pepper and salt to taste,
- scrambled eggs (2 eggs)
- cooked chicken small cubes or seasoned and cooked shrimp,
- vinegar, tomato sauce, green chili sauce, soy sauce (all sauces 1 tsp)
- 1.5 cups cooked rice.

Yummy Blueberry Buckle

Wow! this was really amazing and I'm so proud of the results.

Recipe from SimplyRecipes





Similar posts:
Strawberry Bread
PB & J Muffin
Strawberry Muffin

Baked Chicken Pasta

Another one dish dinner.

Ingredients -
cooked pasta/onions/garlic/tomatoes/zucchini/cooked chicken/basil/salt/pepper/mozzarella & parmesan cheese

In a skillet cook onions and garlic. When the onions turn translucent add zucchini followed by cooked chicken and tomatoes. Add salt and pepper. When the veggies are cooked (browned) mix in cooked pasta. Transfer the pasta and veggies to a baking dish and layer with parmesan and mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until bubbly.

Berry Muffins

Two days old strawberries were lying untouched in the fruit basket with no one showing interest to consume. Any withered berries and bananas can be used for making muffins. I got this recipe from Joy Of Baking. One thing I liked about this particular recipe is it did not need any butter so with no much planning and prep work the muffins were ready in few minutes.

The ingredients are all-purpose flour/granulated white sugar/baking powder/baking soda/salt/zest of orange/egg/buttermilk/canola oil/vanilla extract/strawberries

The procedure is like any other muffin mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately and then mix them together or in other words fold them with no lumps and towards the end add the berries and fold.



Adopted the same recipe for Blueberry Muffins. The result was awesome.

Similar posts:
Strawberry Bread
PB & J Muffin

Sunday night dinner

Sunday nights are the lazy nights. Kottu paratha is something no one would say 'no' to and a neat quick fix dinner. It can be categorized as a sumptuous street food.
The other day while watching Anthony Boudain's show on travel channel came to know Kottu paratha is very popular in Sri Lanka. I always thought its origin was Tamil Nadu.

Experiments with shrimp

Shrimp is a new entry to my cooking adventures. I knew only to make shrimp theeyal which of course was a disaster always. After seeing so many great mouth watering recipes on Mishmash I have started trying to cook shrimp and all the attempts have really turned out good.

For the recipes check out Mishmash.

Prawns with raw mango

Chemmeen Olathiyathu

Strawberry bread

This week we met some old friends after a long time. I took strawberry bread along for the dinner. The texture of the bread is almost like cake but since the amount of sugar is less it is nice to have it along with ice cream.

I took the recipie from Joy Of Baking

The leftover bread was a nice snack with evening tea.

Another pefect one for winter

This year we had so much snow...I've not seen anything like this in last 10 years.

For this minestrone soup I just grabbed whatever I had in the refrigerator...carrot, celery, onion, green beans, tomatoes and some white beans. Cooked all veggies in chicken broth and served minestrone with some toast.

Hot steamy spicey kappa with fish curry

What more do you need on a cold snowy evening.....

Cooking with my daughter

These are few fun goodies we did this christmas hols.

PB & J Muffins

Peanut Butter and Jam Muffin is a very quick breakfast with readily available ingredients. The total time to cook was only 10 min prep and 15 Min's baking. This is another substitute to peanut butter jelly sandwich.

Ingredients:

1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1 large egg
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup jelly or preserve
1/6 cup veg. oil

For topping: sugar

Sift flour with salt and baking soda. To this sifted flour add egg, milk, sugar, peanut butter and oil. Fold gently till moist. Do not beat!!. Scoop the folded mix to muffin cups and top it with jelly and sugar. Bake at 375F for 15 mins if using mini muffin cups, for regular size muffins bake for 20 mins.

Roast chicken for Thanksgiving

This was my second attempt at roasting a full chicken. The first time it turned out little dry, so this time I marinated for long with lots of orange juice and spices.

In the hurry to get the roast out to dinner did not take good photos after the roasting.

For this I really don't have the exact measure of all ingredients I used.

Ingredients:

Garlic, ginger, sage, cloves, fennel seeds, cinnamon, pepper, red pepper and sea salt. Mixed all the above in orange juice and marinated for 3 hrs.

In addition to the above I also stuffed chicken with egg and potato masala curry. Then added few vegges like zucchini, red onion, baby potatos, orange slices for roasting.