When growing up, one pot meat and rice dish was always Biryani and one pot vegetables and rice dish was Pulao or Bagara.   Back then, I did not acquire a taste for mutton and hence, it was always Chicken Biryani.  My aunts used to prepare Chicken Pulao but for some reason, it was never cooked at our home.  My understanding of the  difference between a Biryani and a Pulao is in its preparation.  Biryani is prepared by arranging the meat (raw or cooked) and partially cooked/boiled rice in layers and cooking them together on low flame, in an air tight pot.  Meat and rice is cooked in the juices released by the meats and the steam generated by cooking in an air tight container or a pot.  Pulao is prepared by cooking cooked meats or sautéed vegetables with rice (uncooked rice).    Both the dishes, Pulao and the Biryani  taste awesome, but being a Hyderabadi, if given a choice of Biryani and a Pulao, I would go for Biryani without any hesitation .

I used to cook Chicken Pulao a lot few years ago.  Lately, it is always Chicken Biryani.  Three weeks ago, when I was in no mood for elaborate cooking, I made this Pulao.  It came out well.  I cooked it in a rice cooker and did not have to keep an eye on it as it cooked.  In the past, I have baked the Pulao in the oven.  It has been so long that I don’t remember the cooking time and the oven temperature.  The list of ingredients is very long, but the preparation is very easy.  That day, we were so hungry that couldn’t wait to take a picture.  I took the picture after our lunch, with left over pulao .

Cooking Time: 45 minutes – 1 hour
Serves: 5-6

Print Recipe

• Chicken Mixture:
  • 3 ½ lbs Whole Chicken OR  2 ½ lbs or 1150 gms  cleaned Chicken
  • 3 tsp Chili Powder
  • Salt to Taste
  • 3/4 cup Oil (little less than 3/4 cup and more than ½ cups)
  • 1 large Onion
  • 1 ½ – 2 tbsp Ginger Garlic Paste
  • 3 tsp Coriander Powder
  • ½ tsp Turmeric Powder
  • 2 medium Tomatoes chopped or 1 ½ cups chopped Tomatoes
  • ¾ tbsp Garam Masala (12 Pepper Corns +12 Cloves + ½ tsp Cardamom Seeds + ½ tsp Saha Jeera)
• Rice:
  • 4 cups Rice washed and soaked for 15 – 30 minutes
  • ¼ cup Oil
  • 4 cardamom
  • 4 Cloves
  • 1” Cinnamon
  • ½ tsp Saha Jeera
  • 4-5 Bay Leaves
  • 1 Biryani Flower

1. Clean the chicken pieces, rub salt and chili powder to the pieces and marinate for at least 30 minutes. Can marinate it for 1-2 hours but no marination is also fine with this recipe. Since I am a marination freak, I marinated the chicken pieces for ½ hour.
2. In a wide pan, heat ¾ cups of oil, fry the onions until golden brown, add ginger garlic paste and sauté until raw smell of the ginger garlic paste is gone.
3. Add green chilies, coriander powder, turmeric and stir so that all the spices are mixed well.
4. Add tomatoes, give it a good stir, cover and cook until tomatoes are tender and mushy. About 2-3 minutes.
5. Meantime, wash rice and soak it in water.
6. Remove the cover, stir the curry mixture well and add chicken pieces. Mix well, cover and cook until chicken is tender. This should take about 8-10 minutes. Remove the cover and cook until most of the liquid is evaporated.


7. As the liquid in the chicken evaporates, we can do some multi tasking here. Take 6 cups of water in a rice cooker vessel and switch on the cooker so that water comes to boil. Can skip this step if you wish.
8. In another pan heat ¼ cups of oil, add cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, saha jeera, bay leaves and biryani flower. Once these are roasted, add soaked rice. Drain all the water and add the rice.
9. Saute the rice for 3-4 minutes until the rice changes color. Don’t saute it for too long either.


10. Add the rice to boiling water. By this time, the water will just start to boil. It is not necessary that water boil and this step (boiling of water) can also be skipped if wanted. If you skipped step 7, put rice in the rice cooker container and add 6 cups of water.
11. Add chicken mixture on top of the rice and garnish with cilantro, cover the vessel and cook until the rice is done, that is the rice cooker shuts off.


12. Let it sit for 10 minutes and mix it well.


13. Serve hot with raitha or salan.
14. I didn’t add lime to the pulao as I was going to serve it with salan, which is tangy in taste.

• Pulao can also be cooked in the oven. Follow the above mentioned procedure until step 9, skipping step 7. Preheat the oven to 400F. Spread rice in a rectangular baking dish, spread chicken mixture on top of rice and pour 5½ cups of water. Top it with cilantro, cover with an aluminum foil and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 375F and bake for another 20 minutes. Remove and mix the rice and bake it again for another 10-15 minutes or until rice is cooked. I have not baked pulao in along time and the baking time and oven temperatures are approximate numbers. Please use your discretion here.
• I normally add some chopped mint and I did not use it when I made pulao as I did not have any.  Can add chopped mint along with green chilies.
• Can substitute tomatoes with yogurt.

I am sending this over to Anita’s Kitchen for her first event, Annam Parbramha Swaroopam, ASP: Rice.

Sorakaya or Lauki or Bottle Gourd is a versatile vegetable.  You can prepare  any course of the meal with this gourd; fritters, chutney, stir fries, curries, gravies and dessert as well. I have already blogged sorakaya pachadi or bottle gourd chutney in the past. Today I am here with a pulusu, a tamarind based sour and tangy gravy. Some like it sweet, sour and tangy, and some like it sour and tangy. My version is a tangy gravy with a teeny bit of sweetness. One would barely get a sweet taste in my pulusu. Mr.U does not like sweet in his food, specially in curries and rice. He is not very fond of pulusu either but he does eat it once in a while and when ever I prepare pulusu, I avoid sugar.

Last month was my mother-in-law’s 2nd death anniversary according to the telugu calendar and we had a small ritual at home. It was on a weekday and I did not invite anyone for the ritual. It was just the two of us and a cousin who was off from work on that particular day. I was told by friends and family that on that day, I should cook something athamma (mother-in-law) loved. One of the items I made was Sorakaya Pulusu. I don’t make pulusu that often at home and that day I wanted to prepare it as I knew she liked pulusu and decided on sorakaya. Whenever I make pulusu, I taste it a few times to adjust the spice, salt and the tanginess. On this day, I could not do that as it would be offered as prasadam. It did turn out ok but needed a little bit of fixing. After the fixing, it was delicious and I stored it in the fridge and ate it for almost a week. Anyway, pulusu always tastes better the following day. I could not take pictures that day as I was a little busy with the preparations. I made it again couple of days ago, with love, in memory of my athama and  am sending it to Gourmet Affair: Served with Love.  I am also sending this to Priya for her Cooking with Seeds: Sesame Seeds event.

Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 5-7

Print Recipe

• ¼ cup Oil
• ½ medium Onion or ½ cup chopped Onion
• 4-6 Curry Leaves
• ½ tsp Fenugreek Powder
• ½ tsp Cumin (I did not use)
• 2-3 tsp Ginger Garlic Paste
• 1 medium size or 400 gm (approx.) Bottle Gourd cut into 3” pieces or desired size
• 1 ½ tbsp Onion Paste
• 2-3 tsp Coriander Powder
• 2  tsp Chili Powder (adjust according to your palate)
• ½ Turmeric Powder
• Salt to Taste
• 30 gm or 1/3 cup loosely packed Tamarind soaked in ½ cup of water
• 1 – 1 ½ tbsp Sesame Seeds powder (dry roasted Sesame seeds)
• 1  tsp Sugar

• 1-2 tsp Oil
• ½ medium Onion chopped or ½ cup chopped Onion
• ½ tsp Cumin
• ¼ tsp Fenugreek Powder
• ½ medium Tomato chopped (normally use vine ripe but today I used Roma)

• Prepare the onion paste by roasting onion, cumin and fenugreek powder in oil until onions are translucent and light golden color. This should take about 2-3 minutes. Add tomatoes and roast until tomatoes are soft and mushy. Cool the mixture and grind to fine paste. If required, add some water. I have a small wet grinder, which is perfect for grinding pastes and grinding chutneys in small quantities.
• Heat oil in a 3 qt pan and fry onions, curry leaves and fenugreek powder. I used 1/4 cup of oil but can use 1/3 cup oil too.  Athammma would have added 1/3 – ½ cup of oil.
• Once the onions are translucent, add bottle gourd pieces and ginger garlic paste and fry until bottle gourd are lightly fried, about 2-3 minutes.  I covered the pan  and fried the vegetable.  Some people either deep fry or shallow fry the vegetables but I skip that step and fry my veggies when making the gravy.
• Add coriander powder, chili powder, 1 tsp of salt, turmeric and the onion paste and stir well.  Cover and cook for another 2-3 minutes on medium high heat.  Make sure the vegetables don’t burn or add little water to prevent the masala and vegetables fro burning.
• Meantime, extract juice/pulp from the soaked tamarind.  Keep the pulp aside and add more water to the tamarind and squeeze the tamarind to extract as much pulp as possible.  I did this twice to extract all the pulp and used about 1 cup of water to extract the pulp, which excludes the ½ cup water I soaked the tamarind in.
• Add the tamarind pulp or juice to the cooking vegetables and salt to taste.  Remember we already added 1 tsp of salt to the mixture.  Check the consistency of the pulusu and add additional 1 – 1½ cups of water to get the required consistency.  At this point, the gravy should be a little water as we would be adding sesame powder later on, which would thicken the gravy and also simmering the gravy would make it thicker.
• Cover the pan and  bring the gravy to a boil.  This should take about 2-3 minutes.  Mix well, cover and boil it for  another 3-4 minutes.
• Add sesame seed powder and sugar.  Ssshhh, it is a secret!  don’t mention it to U. He doesn’t like sugar in his food.  Boil it for another 3-5 minutes or until the gourd is cooked.

• Please don’t go by cooking time when preparing my recipes. My friends and family who have cooked in my cooking range commented that my burners are big and food cooks faster on my stove! Please use your discretion and use the cooking time as a guideline when preparing food.
• Just as the spice level of chili powder depends on how fiery the chili is, level of tanginess of a tamarind varies from tree to tree. Tamarind from some trees are very sour and tangy  and tamarind from certain trees are very sweet. Please use the tamarind depending on how tangy  your tamarind. My tamarind is very sour and tangy.

This month, Madhuram of Eggless Cooking is hosting JFI and she chose ragi as the ingredient.  Ragi or Finger Millet is rich in nutrients and minerals.    I don’t use ragi in my cooking and gave up on participating. Then I remembered Ragi Java or cereal or Porridge that my maternal granny use to drink once in a while. I made it yesterday and I didn’t like it very much. Today I made it again, added some sugar to it and it was ok. It is tasteless just like oatmeal! By the way, although oatmeal is tasteless, that is my breakfast these days. I eat it at least twice or thrice a week and hopefully, I will get used to ragi java and make it part of my breakfast very soon I will let you know in a month or two, how I am doing with this.

Preparation:
In a bowl mix together 1 cup of water and 2 tbsp of ragi powder. Microwave it for 90 seconds.  Add 2 tsp of sugar or salt to taste, mix it well and make sure there are no lumps. Microwave it again for 55 – 60 seconds. It should become thick and the consistency is like custard or jello pudding before refrigeration.  Since java is little thick, can eat it with a spoon or drink it.  I prefer drinking it hot.  Once it cools, will have to eat it with a spoon.

This is Ina Garten’s cake.  I saw it couple of days ago on food network and wanted to try it. The reason I liked the recipe is that it doesn’t call for butter and uses only vegetable oil. I know oil is fat too but I rather use oil to butter! I have not come across a cake of Ina or Paula Dean that is not load with loads and tons of fat. Since this recipe has no butter, I wanted to try it and baked it  yesterday. I thought the cake was ok but U & his cousin liked it. If U likes it then it is not as bad as it tasted to me…

Source: Ina Garten of Food Network
Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Preparation: 5-10 minutes
Baking Time: 1 hour
Yields: 1 loaf

Print Recipe

• 1 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp kosher Salt
• 1 cup Plain whole-milk Non Fat Yogurt
• 1 1/3 cups Sugar, divided into 1 cup and 1/3 cup
• 3 extra-large Eggs
• 2 Lemons grated Zest or 2 teaspoons grated Lemon Zest
• 1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
• 1/3 cup freshly squeezed Lemon Juice

• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 2 tbsps freshly squeezed Lemon Juice

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan. Grease and flour the pan.
• Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl.
• In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla. In the show Ina used a whisk to mix the ingredients.  I used my  electric hand beater and the mixing process is so easy with it.
• Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Fold the vegetable oil into the batter, making sure it’s all incorporated.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 1 hour.  The recipe said 50 minutes but it took longer for me.  Check if the cake is done after 50 minutes as the oven temperatures vary from oven to oven.  To check a cake, insert a fork or a tooth pick in the center of the loaf and it should come out clean.
• Meanwhile, cook the 1/3 cup lemon juice and remaining 1/3 cup sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.
• When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan. While the cake is still warm, pour some of the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake.  Then put the cake bake in the loaf tin and poured the remaining lemon-sugar mixture over it and allow it to soak in. Cool.


Cake Soaking in Lemon Sugar Mixture

• I did not use the glaze but if interested, combine the confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice and pour over the cake.

This Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten’s Lemon Yogurt Cake is making its entry to Cakes and Cookies event at Sara’s Corner and to Think Spice: Think Vanilla.  Think Spice Think is a monthly event started by Sunita.

First thing I did today, on a Monday morning, is bake this little delectables. I had some bread sitting in my pantry for past ten days unopened. I wanted consume at least some of it before sending to the trash can. I was thinking of blogging these canapes for some time and thought I would do it today. So here I am with these Vegetable Cheese Canapes.    After the photo session, I sat down to watermark the pictures with a plate of these canapes by my side.  I used 3 slices of bread and they were all  gone, even before I watermarked the photos!  This is a quick and easy snack and it was my breakfast today.

Total Time: 25 minutes
Preparation: 15 minutes (excludes time to boil potato)
Baking Time: 8 minutes
Yields: 16
Print Recipe

• ½ medium sized potato boiled or ¼ cup mashed boiled potato
• ¼ cup chopped Beans
• ¼ cup chopped Carrots
• ½ small chopped Onion or ¼ cup chopped Onion
• 2 small chopped Green Chilies
• 1 ½ – 2 tsp crushed Garlic
• 2-3 tsp Oil (I used 3 tsp)
• Salt to Taste
• 4 Bread Slices (I used white bread)
• Butter to butter the slices
• ½ cup grated Cheese (I used mozzarella )

• Boil the potato and chop the vegetables.
• In a pan add onions, chilies, beans, carrots and cook for 2-3 minutes until onions are translucent.
• Add salt and mashed potato, mix and cook for another 3-5 minutes until beans & carrots are tender and potato is fried. Don’t forget to stir in between to avoid burning.
• Preheat the oven to 350 F.
• Remove the crust of the bread and butter them OR butter them and then remove the crust. I did the latter. Cut the bread slice into 4 square pieces.
• Line a baking sheet with a parchment paper. Place the bread slices or the canapes on the baking tray. Spread ½ – ¾ tsp of vegetable mixture on the canapes. Top them off with grated cheese. I used ¼ cup of cheese for 8 canapes, that is 2 slices of bread. Cheese lovers can be  liberal with cheese. I tried using less than that but didn’t like the taste. I think ¼ cup for 2 slices, 8 canapes, is an ideal amount of cheese.

Canapes ready to baked

• Bake them in 350 F oven for 8 minutes or until the cheese melts on the canapes. If you have any excess cheese on the baking sheet, that should turn golden brown. Well, if one is sloppy as I was today, there will be lot of cheese on the baking sheet Oven temperatures vary from oven to oven. Check on the canapes 5-6 minutes into baking.  Serve hot.

• I used potato, bean and carrots for the spread. Can add bell peppers, corn, spring onions or any  vegetable.
• I did not use any spices today when preparing the spread. I used amchur or dry mango powder for a tangy taste in the past. Can try adding some chat masala for a different flavor. Use your imagination and play around with the spices for a different flavor.

This is my entry to Sunday Snacks: Cheese, hosted by Mirch Masala.

Few months into blogging, I started writing a post about cooking experiments gone south. At that point, I had at least two experiments to write about. Soon after I started drafting that post, I became an inactive blogger and completely forgot about it. Last month when Malar of Kitchen Tantra asked us to share our kitchen mishaps with her, thats when I remembered this post. That is when I decided to complete this post and if I don’t do it now, I think I will never finish it.

I am not an expert cook but I can confidently say I cook decent and edible food. No cook is perfect and even professional chefs have their share of disasters and mishaps in the kitchen, and I am no exception. When I first came to US after marriage, I had many burnt pots and pan and I still do have some, once in a while. The last time I burnt my pot was 3-4 weeks ago. I was boiling chopped bottle gourd to freeze it for later cooking. I put the pot on medium high flame and went back to my desktop to work on something. I completely forgot about it. Since I was just boiling the vegetable, I didn’t switch on the vent either.  At least the vent noise would have reminded me of the pot on the stove!  Half an hour later, I smelt something burning and thats when I realized I had a pot of vegetables boiling on the stove. The bottle gourd pieces at the bottom of the pot were charred black and stuck to the pan. I soaked the pan all night and scrubbed it hard to clean the burnt pan. This is how it looks after 4-5 washes…

You can imagine how burnt this pot was when this disaster happened This pot requires one more scrubbing with comet!

I have one 1 quart pot which I use extensively to warm dals and shorvas, and boil pigeon peas and lilva beans. This poor thing has the worst fate of all the pots and pans in my kitchen. Since this is the smallest pot, I use it very often to boil and reheat food. Obviously, the quantity I cook in this pot is small and my cooking burners are too big for this pot. You can image the state of this poor little guy! It always has burnt marks all around and in it.  I once used this pot to deep fry mirchi bhajji and fortunately, there was no fire in the kitchen!

Coming to the food disasters, I have a few pictures to share. This past year, since I wasn’t an active blogger, I have not noted down any disasters that I had in the kitchen. Here are a few pictures that look terrific  and tasted terrible.

I tried coconut~kobbari karijalu back in Jun or July of 2008, for AFAM: Coconut. I spent more than an hour preparing these karijalu. I hand wove the karijalu, which was time-consuming. I took step by step pictures as I made them and they looked perfect until I tasted them.

I should say those were rocks, not karijalu; they were hard, brittle and difficult to bite. After that, I never again attempted making karijalu. Both U and I are not very fond of traditional Indian snacks, and did not even bother to figure out why and what went wrong. I was not going to make them anyway. So why bother.

Then there is this Pongal and Pachi Pulusu.  I made this 8-9 months ago, according to the date stamp in the photo.  Pongal is prepared by cooking rice and mong dal together in some ghee/clarified butter along with some spices.  Pachi pulusu is raw tamarind juice tempered with spices and red chilies.  White rice, dal and pachi pulusu is an awesome combination.  Since pongal is made with  rice and dal, it complements pachi pulusu.  As I made this a long time ago, I don’t remember what went wrong with this preparation.  I either made pongal very spicy and added too much ghee , OR made pachi pulusu very sour or very sweet, OR both pongal and pulusu turned out bad.  Obviously it was not up to the par to put it on the blog and I don’t even have a draft for this recipe.

Few weeks ago, I made mushroom biryani for the first time. I love mushrooms and love biryani as well! So, how could I go wrong with mushroom biryani? One friday afternoon, I experimented with it. As soon as made it, I took pictures and sat down to eat. I was very hungry and it was almost 2 pm and it tasted ok. I had some left over and put it in the fridge. Next day, I asked my cousin over for lunch, who is a vegetarian on Saturdays, and I didn’t bother to check on the food as I had this biryani. I re-heated the food and gave it to her. Rest of us had chicken biryani. Towards the end of my meal, I tasted some mushroom biryani and you would not believe me, rice was hard and dry. Poor thing, my cousin didn’t say a word and ate it. I was very embarrassed. Looking at the picture, you would say I am lying or I have gourmet taste buds. But believe me, I have a witness to vouch for me here! I am not giving up on this biryani yet. I am gonna try it again and share the recipe with you all very soon.

Then there is this dessert I tried out from a very popular blog.  I have a very bad habit of not sticking to the recipe.  I think I am an expert cook and tweak the recipes a little bit here and there.  This time, I tweaked it a little too much and the result was awful.  The recipe called for gelatin sheets and I substituted it with gelatin powder.  I think I used too much gelatin and the dessert was very firm.  I also messed up the syrup and it tasted bad.

This Thanksgiving, I made Chocolate Mousse.  This time I didn’t tweak the recipe at all and followed it exactly as it was given.  The only change I made was freezing mousse, when the recipe called for refrigeration for few hours.  I did not have few hour on hand, instead froze it for about an hour.  The result was a disaster.  Mousse was hard, more like hard chocolate and no texture of a mousse what so ever.  Surprisingly, U finished his bowl of mousse with ease where as I struggled to finish it.  Don’t ask me about my niece and nephew!  It was a torture for them.  They worked on it for almost an hour and eventually gave up on it.

Oh, I almost forgot the worst food that I cooked in recent times, broccoli rabe. This was 3 months ago when U’s aunt visited us. This stir fry went straight from the cooking range to garbage can. The taste was awful; pungent, bitter and a weird smell. At least my other disasters that I mentioned here were edible;  but this one takes the prize for the worst food I ever cooked in recent times. I don’t even want to attempt cooking this vegetable again!

I think I was successful in recollecting quite a few disasters.  When I resumed drafting this post, I could hardly think of 3 incidents and managed to come up with  seven.  I enjoyed doing this post and I think I should do this more often, perhaps once a year? Every december, along with “Best of”, I ought to do “Worst of” as well.  That will  be fun.

The moral of this post for novice and newbie cooks is, don’t be intimidate by the art of cooking.  Everyone has gone thru this face and you are no exception.  Get into your kitchen and whip up a concoction and who knows, that might be your most cherished recipe.

It feels like just yesterday when I was munching on last month’s snow flecked brownies, which were helplessly sitting on my dining table for 2 weeks, waiting for me to finish them and it is already time for the next bake. Unlike last couple of bakes, I baked this month’s Sweet & Simple Bake when I had guests over. So, this month my cranberry pecan white chocolate cookies disappeared in a day. Once we started eating, none of us could stop ourself. I liked these cookies better than the oatmeal chocolate cookies we baked back in march.

I followed the Cranberry Pecan White Chocolate Cookies recipe exactly as given. I had to bake them in 2 batched and the first batch I baked for 13 – 14 minutes, which were crisp and burnt. The second batched I baked for 12 minutes and were little soft, exactly how I like them.

Source: Sweet & Simple Bakes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Baking Time: 12 minutes
Yields: 3 dozen

Printable Recipe

• 150g Plain Flour
• ½ tsp Baking Soda (The recipe called for baking powder and I misread it as baking soda)
• ½ tsp Salt
• 75g Rolled Oats (Old fashioned)
• 125g Soft Butter
• 75g Dark Brown Sugar
• 100g Superfine Sugar
• 1 Large Egg
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 75g Dried Cranberries
• 50g roughly chopped Pecans
• 150g White Chocolate Chips

• Preheat the oven to 180oC/ 350°F/gas mark 4.
• Measure out the flour, baking soda, salt and rolled oats into a bowl.
• Put the butter and sugars into another bowl and beat together until creamy.  I used my hand electric mixer and then beat in the egg and vanilla.
• Beat in the flour, baking powder, salt and oat mixture and then fold in the cranberries, chopped pecans and chocolate chips.
• Roll tablespoonfuls of dough into a ball with your hands, and flatten it a little and then place them on an aluminium lined baking sheet.  I used 3 baking sheets but had t bake them in 2 batches, as my oven could take in only 2 sheets at a time.
• Bake them of  for 12 minutes.  When ready, the cookies will be tinged a pale gold, but be too soft to lift immediately off the tray, so leave the tray on a cool surface and let them harden for about 5 minutes. Remove with a spatula to cool fully on a wire rack.  Oven temperatures vary from oven to oven. So don’t go with baking time.

I wish my fellow S&S Bakers a very Happy New Year! I am suppose to post this bake on 2nd January but going ahead and posting it 2 days early as I will be away for the next 3-4 days. I won’t be posting any anything for at least 4-5 days.

Have fun and Wish you all a Happy New Year!

This year my blog has taken a back seat due to my traveling and various other reasons. I did not have any recipes or posts for three months this year and only one recipe in the month of November.  Looking at these statistics, I wasn’t sure if I should even do a post on retrospective of 2009.  Then again, it is always nice to look back and put things in perspective.  Hence here I am, looking back on 2009.

Looking back, I posted a total of 29 posts this year and none in January, August and September. I started blogging in May of 2008 and I posted a total of 55 posts last year vs 29 this year.

No matter how busy I was, I made it a point to participate in sweet and simple bakes.  So, I was a regular baker at Sweet & Simple Bakes and baked:
Oatmeal & Chocolate Cookies in April
Vanilla Cup Cakes in May
Chocolate Orange Drizzle Loaf Cake in July
St. Clements Drizzle Cake in October
White Chocolate Orange Cookies in November
Snow Flecked Brownies in December
Cranberry Pecan White Chocolate Cookies also in December. I should post this recipe on 2nd January but since I will be away, I will posted it tomorrow itself, before I get away for the long weekend.

Of all the bakes, Cup cakes, Chocolate Orange Drizzle Loaf Cake, White Chocolate Orange Cookies, Snow Flecked Brownies and Cranberry Pecan White Chocolate Cookies were the best. I think I listed pretty much all the bakes…. What can I say, I have a sweet tooth!   Although I loved the cup cakes, I had to bake them thrice to get them perfect.

This year I cooked green chard for the first time and loved it. I had no intentions of blogging it but the result was so good that I could not resist. I took the picture of the stir fry with left over Green Chard from previous night’s dinner and blogged about the recipe. Since then, I cooked this stir fry numerous times.

I also prepared Vegetable Dum Biryani for the first time and everyone loved it. Earlier this month, I promised to make some chicken biryani for U’s colleagues and there was one colleague who is a vegetarian. Since I was making biryani, I wanted to make some biryani for him too. I never made vege dum biryani before and followed the chicken biryani recipe. I substituted chicken with vegetables. I cooked a small quantity the day before the Biryani day and it turned out good. Hence I followed the same recipe and made it for U’s vegetarian Colleague. He loved it. I made it again when I had a few vegetarian girl friends over to my place and they loved it as well.

As I was looking back at all the posts I did this year, I noticed that most of the pictures I posted this year were lot better than the ones from previous year. I still use the same old Sony camera and I started using Picasa to water mark and edit my pictures. Most of my pictures look much better than what they used to when I initially started blogging. The only editing I do is crop, straighten and watermark the photos. The best picture this year is the Cranberry Pecan White Chocolate Cookies.

As I say bye bye to 2009 and welcome 2010, I hope to be a regular blogger next year.  I Wish you all a Happy  and  Prosperous New Year!

I am sending this post to Srivalli’s Best of 2009 Event.

Biryani is one of my favorite one pot meals. I usually make non-veg biryani and when it comes to vegetable biryani, it is always Vegetable Pulao or Vegetable Bagara. For some reason, I am obsessed with kaccha (raw) biryani, where the meats & rice are cooked together in layers. I wanted to replicate the same process for vegetables. Recently, I tried cooking kaccha vegetable biryani and it turned out pretty good. I cooked the biryani by arranging raw vegetables and partly cooked rice in layers.

One of the exquisite ingredients of biryani is saffron which gives the rice a distinct aroma and flavor.  This month, DK is hosting JFI and the ingredient is Saffron. What better recipe to send her than this vegetable dum biryani to celebrate this wonderful ingredient.  Jhiva For Ingredient (JFI) is an event started by Indira.

Don’t be intimidated by the long list of ingredients and the lengthy preparation. It is not as difficult as it appears to be. A well cooked biryani is when the meat or the vegetables are tender and the rice is completely cooked. The key here is boiling of the rice. Rice should not be over cooked or under cooked. This is one step when extra attention is required during the preparation and how long the rice is boiled determines the texture of the biryani.

Total Time: 1 hr 15 minutes
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 – 35 minutes
Serves: 2

Printable Recipe here

• ½ cup Oil
• 1 Small Onion Sliced
• ¼ tsp Saffron (few strands)
• ½ cup Milk
• Marinade
  • 1 large Potato diced into 16 pieces
  • 15 strings of Green Beans cut into 1 ½” pieces
  • 1 large Carrot pealed and cut into 1 ½” strips
  • ¼ cup Green Peas
  • 6-8 Green Chilies slit vertically
  • 1 small Tomato Pureed or ¼ – 1/3 cup Tomato Puree
  • ½ cup Cilantro chopped
  • ¼ cup chopped Mint
  • 2 tsp Ginger Garlic Paste
  • 1 tsp Coriander Powder
  • Pinch of Turmeric
  • Salt to taste
  • 3 tbsp or ¼ cup Yogurt
  • Garam Masala OR ½ tsp store bought garam masala
    • 4 Cardamoms
    • 4 Cloves
    • 4 Black Pepper Corns
    • ¼ tsp Caraway Seeds or Saha Jeera
    • ¼” Cinnamon
• Cooking Rice
  • 2 cups Rice
  • 4 Cloves
  • 4 Cardamoms
  • ½ tsp Saha Jeera
  • 2-3 Bay Leaves
  • 1 Biryani Flower
  • ½ tsp Ginger Garlic Paste
  • 1-2 tbsp salt

• Wash Rice and soak it for ½ hour.
• Meantime, cut the vegetables. Prepare garam masala powder by grinding together all the ingredients listed under Garam Masala. Grind tomato to a paste. It doesn’t have to be fine paste. Mix all the ingredients together listed under marinade.
• In a 2 quart pot, bring water to a boil.
• Meantime, continue with the preparation. Heat oil in a pan and fry the onions until golden brown.
• Once water boils, add all the ingredients listed under cooking rice, except rice. Give it a good stir. Drain the rice from water and add it to boiling water. Give it a good stir.
• Let it boil until rice starts rolling over. One good boil is enough. This should take about 3 minutes.
• Drain the rice and keep aside ½ a cup of boiled water aside of later use.
• Arrange vegetables and rice in layers.  In a 2 qt pot, add some oil and arrange the marinated vegetables at the bottom of the pot.  Use the same oil that was used to fry the onions.

• Layer half of the cooked rice on top of the vegetables and sprinkle ½ of the remaining oil and ½ of the saffron milk.

• Layer the remaining rice and sprinkle remaining oil, milk and ½ cup of boiled water.

• Cover the pot with 2 sheets of aluminum foil and cover it with the lid. Carefully fold the foil and seal it around the lid so that steam doesn’t escape when cooking the rice. Also, put a heavy pan or a motor pesto or a heavy object on top of the lid to stop the steam from escaping.
• Cook for 8-10 minutes on high until steam escapes for the foil seal.  Reduce the heat to low  and cook for another 25 minutes.
• Open the pot after 10 minutes and mix it well so that the vegetables and rice are properly mixed.
• Serve hot with raita or any gravy of your choice.

• The cooking times are based on my gas cooking range. When preparing the recipe for the first time, don’t go just by the cooking times I mentioned and use your discretion.
• If you feel vegetables or the rice is under cooked, cover and cook it on low flame for few more minutes and if required, sprinkle some water before cooking it.

I am sending this recipe to DK and also to Srilekha for her EFM:Variety Rice Series.

If you like this recipe, you may also like these:
Hyderabad Chicken Biryani
Hyderabad Mutton Biryani
Shrimp Biryani
Egg Dum Biryani

This month’s Sweet & Simple Bake is Snow Flecked Brownies.  I am a chocoholic and ever since I saw the bake for this month, I was eager to bake it.  However, I was preoccupied with other stuff and could not bake it until this afternoon.  Even today, when I woke up this morning, I was not sure if I could bake these and hence,  decided to skip this month’s bake.  That decision did not last too long.  Me skipping chocolate?  No way….  I rushed to the store, picked up all the required ingredients and here I am with these lovely, yummicious brownies… And for me, anything made of chocolate is always yummicious .  I followed the recipe given here, except for the chocolate.  I could only find 300 gms of dark chocolate, so I substituted the other 75 gms with bittersweet chocolate.  Also, I did not dust my brownies with icing sugar, so I guess my brownies are not snow flecked…

Preparation: 15 – 20 minutes
Baking Time: 25 minutes
Yields: 3 ½ dozens
Source: Maria of S&S Bakes

Printable Recipe

• 375g best quality dark chocolate 300g dark Chocolate + 75g bittersweet Chocolate
• 375g unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
• 6 eggs (large)
• 350g caster sugar (superfine)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 225g plain flour
• 250g white chocolate buttons or chips, or white chocolate chopped into chunks (or your own choice of chocolate) I used white chocolate chips
• 2 tsp icing sugar, for dusting I didn’t dust my brownies

• Tin measuring approx 33cm x 23cm x 5.5cm
• Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/350F.
• Line the sides and base of a 33 x 23 x 5.5com baking tin with foil or baking parchment.
• Melt the butter and dark chocolate together in a large heavy based pan.
• In a bowl or wide mouthed large measuring jug, beat the eggs together with the caster sugar and vanilla extract.
• Allow the chocolate mixture to cool a little, then add the egg and sugar mixture and beat well. Fold in the flour and salt. Then stir in the white chocolate buttons or choped white chocolate. Beat to combine then scrape and pour the brownie mixture into the prepared tin.
• Bake for 25 minutes, You can see when the brownies are ready because the top dries to a slightly paler brown speckle, while the middle remains dark, dense and gooey. Even with such a big batch you do need to keep checking on it: the difference between gungey brownies and dry ones is only a few minutes. Remember, too, that they will continue to cook as they cool.
• To serve, cut into squares while still warm and pile up on a large plate, sprinkling with icing sugar pushed with a teaspoon through a small sieve. I did not dust my brownies with icing sugar.

• Adding some nuts to the brownies would be delicious too. It occurred to me after  popping the brownies into the oven. May be some walnuts and/or pecans to the batter along with white chocolate would make these brownies even more yummy.

It is the beginning of the month and time for yet another Sweet & Simple Bake.  This time is White Chocolate and Orange Cookies.  I followed the recipe as given and presenting you chocolate orange cookies right out of the oven.  I made them this evening.

The Original Recipe is here and I followed it exactly as given, with no substitutions what so ever.

Baking Time: 8-10 minutes
Yields: 3 Dozens (varies on the size)
Printable Recipe

• 115g unsalted butter, softened
• 200g caster sugar (superfine)
• 1 egg
• Grated zest of 1 orange (2 to 3 tsp)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 200g plain flour
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ¼ baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 225g white chocolate chips (milk or dark chocolate)

• Preheat the oven to 190 C/170 C fan oven/375 F/Gas mark 5.
• Beat the butter and sugar. Add the egg, orange zest and vanilla extract.Sift together the dry ingredients.
• Stir the dry ingredients and chocolate chips into the butter mixture and combine.
• Roll into balls. Use your fingers to flatten onto a non-stick baking sheet 5cm/2in apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool for five minutes and transfer to a cooling rack.
• When cool, store in an airtight container for up to four to five days.

Hello, everyone! I have been stranger to the blogosphere lately… I was in India for 5 weeks and got back end of August. Since then, I was a little busy with guests and also a bit lazy to blog….

Today I am here with this month’s (month of September) Sweet & Simple Bake: St Clements Drizzle Cake. I followed the recipe as given Maria.  This was delicious with sweet and tangy lemon orange juice drizzle.  However, my fruit juice didn’t soak all the way down to the cake and part of the cake that did not soaked tasted like a regular vanilla cake, which was yummy too.  I might have simmered my juices for too long and made it too think that it could not go all the way down the cake pan.  The other mistake I made was not lining the loaf tin.  I had to turn over the loaf pan to remove the cake and all the juice syrup stuck to the plate.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day yet, that is the most neglect meal in my house.  U skips his breakfast most of the time and I munch on whatever I find in the fridge or the pantry and eat an early lunch.  Whenever he eats breakfast at home, I make roties with chicken shorva or tomato shorva, upma or murmuras.  When he doesn’t, I eat whatever is around.  I eat anything that is easy to fix and does not require much time to prepare. My breakfast varies depending on my mood from junk food such as cookies and chips to pulihora from left over rice from last night dinner or to healthy food such as sprouts, nuts and oatmeal.

Divya asked us all to show her our breakfast and I am showing two varieties of breakfast which are very easy to fix.  One is may favorite and the other is not so appetizing but very easy to prepare.  Since I am very lazy person when it comes to fixing food for myself, I don’t even mind eating oatmeal, despite its tastelessness.

Breakfast #1: Sweet Corn Kernels

Printable Recipe

How I made it:

• In a microwave safe bowl, I took some frozen sweet corn and microwave it for 1½ minutes.
• To corn, I added pinch of pepper, pinch of chili powder, ½ – 1 tsp of garlic paste or crushed garlic, 2 tbsp of desi ghee (homemade clarified butter) and salt to taste.
• Stirred everything and microwave it for another ½ – 1 minute.
• Removed form the microwave, stirred it again.  It was ready to eat.

• I did not measure the ingredients and all the measures given are approximate.
• Normally I use pepper, salt and butter. When I made this a week ago, I was in mood to pamper myself and wanted a spicy and flavory breakfast. So I added some chili powder and garlic. Also, I have some homemade ghee I brought from India. Since I was using homemade ghee, I indulged myself with 2 tbsp of ghee. Normally I just use 1 – 2 tsp of butter.

Breakfast # 2: Instant Oatmeal

I use instant oatmeal packets and follow the instructions on it. These packets come in various flavors and I find them a little sweet, specially the fruit flavors. So, I prefer the regular or unflavored oatmeal. I follow the instructions on the package. It is a healthy, quick and fast breakfast to fix in jiffy.

• In a microwave safe I bowl took ½ – 2/3 cups of milk. I usually use water but can use milk also. Emptied  the contents of the oatmeal packet into the bowl and heated it in the microwave for 1½ – 2 minutes. Removed it from the microwave, added a pinch of salt and stirred well. Instant oatmeal was ready to eat.
• I added just a pinch of salt when I last had it for breakfast and sometimes, I also add little bit of lime pickle to make it more palatable.

Stuffed Green Chilies or mirapakaya kura is one of my favorites.  However, I do not make it as much as I would love to.  Mr. U is not very fond of it.  I can not say he does not like it either. It depends on his mood.  I don’t like it when he does not eat what I cook, so I usually avoid cooking stuff, which I know he might not eat.   Today I made Mirapakaya kura for lunch and he saw me taking pictures before we ate.  During our lunch, he asked if I made it for the blog.  I denied and said I made it because I like and it is one of my favorites.  He refused to believe me and asked why don’t make it very often if I like this kura so much and it only takes 10 minutes to cook it?  He does have a point there but he doesn’t understand that cooking is not fun when I know I would be the  only one eating it.

I made it this green chilies curry today to send it to Cardamon for her JFI: Chilies, started by Indira, and to Padmajha’s Think Spice: Sesame, started by Sunitha.

Total Time: 20 – 25 minutes
Preparation Time: 10 minutes (excludes the time required to prepare the powders)
Cooking Time: 10 -12 minutes
Serves: 2

• 2 tbsp Oil
• ½ – ¾ cup chopped Onions
• 2 tsp Ginger Garlic Paste (can substitute garlic paste for ginger garlic)
• 1½ – 2 tsp Coriander Powder
• ½ tsp Turmeric Powder
• 1 tsp Chili Powder
• Salt to Taste
• 10 Long Green Chilies (can use Long Hot Peppers)
• 2 tbsp Milk
• Stuffing:
  • 2 tbsp Dry Roasted Sesame Seed Powder
  • 1 – 1½ tsp Coconut Powder (opt)
  • Pinch of Salt

• Wash the chilies and make a slit them vertically. Carefully remove the seeds from inside using either fork or a spoon. I used my fingers. I feel that is the easiest way to seed the chilies.  Mind you, if you use fingers, wash hands immediately to avoid the burning sensation.  I did not remove all the seeds, just a few to reduce the heat of the chilies.
• Lightly fill the chilies with the stuffing. Do not stuff the chilies with the stuffing. About ¼ – ½ tsp of stuffing per chili should suffice. There will be some left over stuffing, which will be used later. Cut the chilies horizontally into two pieces. I was not going to cut them into two, but when cooking them, I realized it is easy to mix if the chilies were smaller.
• Heat oil in a pan and fry the onions until translucent.
• Add ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute or two until the rawness of the paste is gone.
• Add coriander, turmeric, chili powder and salt and mix well.
• Add the chilies saute them until the spices coat the chilies. Add milk and mix it. Cover the cook on medium to medium high flame for 3-5 minutes until the chilies are cooked and tender. Mix it in between to ensure that the chilies and the mixture/masala does not burn.
• Remove the cover, add the left over stuffing mixture and cook for another 2-4 minutes.
• Remove from heat and serve with rice.

This month’s or rather for the month of June, featured blog on Tried & Tasted (T&T) was Meena’s blog, Hooked on Heat.  She has a very good collection of recipes and I bookmarked couple of recipes.  One recipe that I could not wait to try was Spicy Pepper Mushrooms.  I love mushrooms and was eager to taste it and I was not diappointed at all.

This is the third time in a week that I cooked these delicious Spicy Pepper Mushrooms.  I just loved it.  Mr. U is not a big mushrooms person but when I made it the first time, he liked how it looked and he also liked the taste of it.  The first couple of times I made this recipe, I could not take any pictures. Before I realized, I missed the deadline for the event as well. But KC, who hosted T&T for the month of June is accepting late entries until she posts the roundup.  So last evening, I rushed to the store and bought some mushrroms and made it again.  Thank you Meena for this lovely recipe and thanks to KC for choosing and featuring Hooked on Heat,  for this/last month’s Tried & Tasted event.

Tried and Taste, T&T, is an event started by Zlamushka.  KC of Kits Chow hosted it for the month of June.  The featured blog was Hooked on Heat and the recipe I Tried & Tasted is Beat the Heat: Spicy Pepper Mushrooms.  I followed her recipe as given with minor changes.  Again, here is Meena’s recipe for Spicy Pepper Mushroom.  I will also list her recipe here and strike out and list the all the ingredients that I substituted, in italic and in bold.

Total Time: 15 – 20 minutes
Preparation Time: 5 – 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 2

• 2 cups mushrooms, sliced 10 oz pack of Mushrooms, sliced or 3 cups of sliced Mushrooms
• 1 medium-sized Onion
• 1 tbsp each of ginger and garlic, finely chopped 2 tbsp of Ginger Garlic paste
• 2-3 green chillies, finely chopped 5 Green Chilies chopped or 1 tbsp of chopped Green Chilies
• 2 tbsp Green Onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp soy sauce Tamari Sauce (I did not have soya sauce)
• 1 tsp Black Pepper
• Salt, to taste
• 1 tbsp light cooking oil, 1 tsp pur sesame oil, 2 tbsp cooking oil (I used 2 tbsp of Olive Oil instead)

• Peal the mushrooms; Remove the stem from the cap and remove the membrane on the cap. One could skip this step. I usually peel the mushrooms before cooking.
• Heat oil in a pan and saute chilies and ginger garlic paste, for about a minute or two.
• Add the onions and fry till light brown.
• Add the mushrooms and mix well. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for 2-3 minutes until the mushrooms are tender.
• Remove the cover and cook until the water evaporates. This should take a minute or 2.
• Add salt, pepper and soya sauce and cook for another minute.
• Garnish with green onions.
• Meena suggested serving it with fried rice or noodles.  I served it with plain white rice.

This months Sweet & Simple Bakes is Chocolate Orange Drizzle Loaf Cake.  I was afraid I might not be able to bake it before the deadline tonight.  It came out very well and since I was running out of time, I cut the cake and took some clicks before the chocolate could set.  I followed the recipe given here.  The only change I made is I used the zest of 1 large orange and the juice of 1/2 orange.  My oranges were very big, so used half the required quantity.  Also, I used semi sweet chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate, as I had these in my pantry.  Maria & Rosie, thanks for this delicious bake.

Last friday, May the 15th, MySpciyKitchen turned one.  I had planned something special for the day but, I could not do it.  Last few days I was a little busy with visitors , getting our visas for our vacation next month and also recovering from a fever.   I will update my other blog venting about my visa ordeal very soon.

Coming to todays recipe, I have been thinking of cooking the collard greens, kale and the chards Indian style for sometime.  Two days ago, as I was walking back from the UK consulate, I found a farmers market.  During spring and summers, one can find  many farmers markets and street vegetable venders all over the city.  I was unaware of this particulat farmers market as I do not walk down that side of the city, although it is not very far from where I live.  They had many fresh herbs and green vegetables and could not resist buying at least one vegetable from them.  Since I was thinking of trying out collard greens, kale and chards for a long time, I picked up a bunch of green chards, thinking it was kale.  I also looked at the chards and decided on kale for that day. When I got home, I realized I bought green chards instead of kale. The thing is, I can not differentiate these leafy vegetables and I look at the tag to know which one is which and some how I read the wrong label.

I had no intention on sharing the recipe with you all that day so I just went ahead and cooked it with out paying much attention to the measures of the ingredients I used.  Usually when I cook, I don’t measure the ingredients and go with approximate measures.  However, when I intend to blog about it or prepare an item for the blog, I make sure I measure the ingredients.  On this day, as I was not going to blog this recipe, I did not measure the ingredients.  Once I tasted it, I had to share it with you all.  I prepared it as I usually cook spinach stir fry and the chards tasted just like spinach and I loved it. If one likes spinach, I think they would love the chards too.

• Oil
• 1 small Onion chopped
• 5-6 Green Chilies cut (adjust to taste)
• 1 ½ – 2 tsp Garlic paste/crushed
• ½ tsp Chili powder (adjust to taste)
• ½ tsp Turmeric
• Salt to Taste
• 1 bunch Green Chard chopped

• Heat oil in a pan and saute the onions until translucent.
• Add garlic and chilies and saute for a minute.
• Add turmeric, chili powder and salt and stir well. Add chopped chards and stir well until all the spices and chards and mixed well.
• Cover and cook until chard is cooked. This should take about 5 minutes. Use your discretion here. I did not check the time.
• Remove the cover and fry for few minutes and serve hot with rice or chapatis.

• This was my first time cooking the green chard at home so I chopped and threw away most of the woody white stalk/stem of this leafy vegetable. I used the small, tender stalk that was close to to the leaf. This stalk/stem after cooking tasted like celery and I think I might use more of the stalk next time prepare it, as long as it is tender.
• When preparing this vegetable, keep in mind that just like spinach, even the chard yields very little once cooked.

I am sending this green chard to SWC: Greens and to FIC: Favourite.  SWC is started by Lakshmi of Taste of Mysore and FIC by Harini of Sunshinemom

Phew… this time it took me 3 tries to get it right. This month, the Sweet & Simple Bake is Rosie’s Vanilla Cup Cake.  I usually don’t have any problem with the sweet & simple bakes recipes, but this time it was an all different story.   All three times, the cup cakes tasted greet.. the only problem was getting the perfect shape.  Culprit for my disasters, or should I say not so perfect cup cakes (in shape) is my muffin pan.  I have a 6 hole pan and this recipe yields 12 cup cakes.  So, I cleverly decided to use the 6 hole pan and my 12 hole mini muffin pan.  I assumed 12 mini hole pan requires equal amount of cake mixture as the 6 hole pan.  Oooh boy,  wasI  wrong.

The first time I baked the cup cakes, I forget to get the mini cup cake liners and I used the medium  cup cake liners.  That messed up every thing and also I over filled the batter/dough in the 6 hole pan.  When the cakes came out of the oven, my cup cakes tin looked like pancake pan…  But the cakes were delicious.  So, I decided to bake them again for perfect cupcakes, with correct cup liners for my mini cake pan.

Are these cupcakes or pancakes?

The second time, I was certain I would get perfect cakes.  But no luck again.  I again over filled my pans, both the 6 cup muffin pan and the mini muffin pan.  Yet again, when I removed the pans from the oven, I had pancakes…  Then I realized that my assumption that 12 mini cupcakes would  require same amount of dough as the 6 regular cupcakes was wrong.  In fact, it requires less dough.

When I baked them again today, I used 2 ramekins and 2 small heart shaped  pans also, and got the perfect shape.  No more pancakes…  Altogether, I had 6 regular cupcakes, 12 mini cup cakes, 2 cups cakes in a ramekin and 2 heart shaped cakes.

The cakes were so good that I ate most of the cakes myself, even though the shapes were not so  perfect (cup cakes first 2 bakes). I must have put on at least 2 lbs this month, eating so many cup cakes…  I did not have time to prepare the icing and decorate the cup cakes and hope Rosie would accept my entry.  Rosie has the recipe for the cup cakes and the icing on Sweet & Simple Bakes.  These cakes are moist, spongy and yum yum that one can’t stop eating them.  Thanks Rosie for this recipe.

Update:
I could not see those cupcakes without any decoration. So went ahead and decorated half of the cup cakes and the heart shaped cake. Can find the recipe for the icing here.

Love those cupcakes. Are they tempting? Those are as delicious as they look… I am finding it very difficult to resist eating them…

This is an archived post, which I am reposting to send it to EC for her What’s You Favorite – Side Dish.  I was thinking of changing the picture for this recipe for a long time and this was perfect  time to do so.  When I made it this time I add some chopped red bell pepper to make the curry colorful and some green peas.

Total time: 30 minutes
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Serves: 3-4

• 1 ½ – 2 tbsp Oil
• ½ Fenugreek Powder (opt)
• 1 Small Onion chopped
• 1 tsp Ginger Garlic Paste
• 3 Green chillies slit
• 1 ½ tsp Coriander Powder
• ½ tsp Turmeric Powder
• 1 tsp Chili Powder (adjust to taste)
• Salt to taste
• 10 oz Mushrooms peeled and diced
• 1 Green Bell Pepper diced
• 1 small Red Bell Pepper diced
• ¼ Green Peas (opt)
• 1 Medium sized Tomato diced

• In a pan heat oil, add fenugreek powder, onions and saute until translucent.
• Add ginger garlic paste and chilies and stir cook for 2 minutes.
• Add coriander powder, turmeric, chili powder and salt. Cook for a minute
• Add mushrooms, cover and cook for 5 minutes or until mushrooms are semi-tender.
• Add bell peppers, peas and tomatoes cook until peppers and tomatoes are soft and completely cooked.
• Garnish with cilantro and serve with rice or roties.

I followed the recipe on the packet of Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies.  The recipe called for semi sweet chips but I used combination of semi sweet chocolate chips and white chocolate chips.  I made ½ the recipe that was on the packet.

Total Time: 25 minutes
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Baking Time: 8-10 minutes
Yields: 2 – 2½ Dozens (This is an approximate count. I did not count)

• 1 1/8 cup flour
• ½ tsp baking pwd
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup butter (I used I can’t believe it is not butter (ICBINB))
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar + ½ tbsp (½ of ¾ cup)
• 1/3 cup brown sugar + ½ tbsp (½ of ¾ cup)
• 1 egg
• ½ tsp vanilla
• ½ cup semi sweet chocolate chips (ghiradella)
• ½ cup white chocolate chips
• ½ - ¾ cup pecans (I used ½ c, after baking first batch I felt it was too chocolaty so added another ¼ cup for the second batch and it was too nutty.)

• Preheat oven to 375 F. Line the cookie sheet with an aluminium foil. This makes cleaning easy.
• Sift flour, baking powder & salt together.
• Beat ICBINB, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract until ICBINB (I can’t believe its not butter) is creamy.
• Add egg and beat well until it is well incorporated.
• Continue beating the mixture and gradually add the flour.
• Stir in the chips and the nuts.
• On a baking or cookie sheet, drop a spoonful of dough and bake for 8-9 minutes. The cookies will be soft. For more crispy cookies, bake for another 2-3 minutes.

I am sending these cookies to Poornima For the Love of Chocolate!! and also to EFM:Cookies.

I am back with another cucumber treat from Tarla Dalal, Cucumber Yogurt Rice. I don’t like plain yogurt rice and don’t eat it everyday, which is very uncommon for a south indian. Whenever I am on a guilt trip that I am not getting enough calcium from my diet, I make cucumber raita, spinach raita, tomato yogurt chutney or any chutney or salad that has yogurt in it. This is my only source of calcium rich food. When I saw Cucmber yogurt rice, I was curious to try it, as it is another calcium recipe for me and it seemed like a variation of Daddhojanam, Flavored Yogurt Rice.

I usually have the tendency of tinkering with recipes when I make them and it ends up in a disaster. So this time I stuck to the recipe and used all the ingredients listed in the recipe and made some adjusts to the measurements (bad habits die hard, no matter how hard I try ). Rice was tasty and is very easy to prepare. However, the next time I make it, I would add few more ingredients to the tempering to make the rice more flavorful, such as mustard seeds, chopped ginger and may be little bit of butter.

Total Time: 40 minutes
Preparation Time: 30 minutes (For cooking and cooling of rice)
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 2

• 1 cup Uncooked Rice cooked and cooled (the measuring cup that comes with the rice cooker)
• ¾ cup Cucumber peeled and cut into small pieces
• ½ – ¾ cup Grated Carrots
• 2 ½ - 3 cups Yogurt (I used homemade yogurt)
• ¼ cup Cilantro
• Tempering
  • 2 tbsp Oil
  • 1 red Dry Chili
  • 4-6 Curry Leaves
  • 1 tsp jeera
  • 1 tbsp Urad Dal
  • ½ tsp Hing
  • 4 Green Chilies chopped

• Mix yogurt, carrots, cucumber, cilantro, salt and rice.
• In a pan take oil and add all the tempering ingredients.
• Mix it with yogurt rice.
• Garnish with some cilantro and grated carrot.
• Serve immediately. Refrigerate rice immediately as yogurt becomes sour at room temperature.

• To make it more flavorful try add mustard seeds, chopped or grated ginger and little bit butter when tempering.

Sahaja of SpicyRasam asked for a Single Serving Recipe and Trupti is hosting Cooking for Kids: Rice started my Sharmi of Neivadyam.  I am sending this recipe to Sahaja and Trupti for their events.

This recipe is from Tarla Dalal. When I say the recipe, the list of ingredients raised by eyebrow, melon and cucumber! Since I like cucumbers, I wanted to try it. The recipe called for musk melon or cantaloupe and I used watermelon instead.  It tasted just like watermelon juice. Last 3-4 days, it felt like summer out here although summer is 2 months away and this cooler was exactly what we needed. It is indeed a good summer cooler.

Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 2

• 2 cups Watermelon pieces
• 1 cup Cucumber peeled & diced
• Pinch of Black Pepper

• Blend all the ingredients in a blender.
• Strain the mixture thru a strainer.
• Add some ice cubes to a serving glass and pour the juice.

• When I made it yesterday, I was in a mood to have watermelon with pepper. One could substitute pepper with sugar OR could skip both the pepper and sugar altogether.
• Use more watermelon for sweeter juice or cooler.

I am sending this over to Refreshing Drinks for Summer.

I am also sending this refreshing drink to Ashwini, who is hosting AFAM: Melons, started by Maheswari.

Onion Egg Curry or Ulligadda Ukkera, as it is called in telugu, is a very quick and delicious curry that can be prepared in 15 minutes. Telugu is a dialect of Andhra Pradesh, a southern state of India. Ulligadda in telugu is onion and Ukkera is referred to a curry or a stir fry. This curry always reminds me off my maternal grandma’s village. Every summer when we visited the village, avva used to make it very often. Avva was my grandmother’s cook and a housekeeper. She didn’t have any specific responsibilities. She was everywhere doing everything from cooking, cleaning, making beds and even bathing us when we were very little. There were other maids and servants to help avva, but she was everywhere doing all the daily chores in the house. Avva was more of a family member. I do remember the days when we even used to sleep next to her when we were very young. She was there when my mom, aunts and uncles were born, she was also there when we (my cousins and I) were born and she was also their when my cousins had their babies.

Besides being a good care taker of the family, she was a very good cook. She made delicious onion egg curry. I do cook onion egg curry, but the curry that avva made was mind blowing. It was probably the village atmosphere, home grown onions and country eggs, and the love and affection that avva put it in, while preparing the curry. I am sending this recipe to Village Special Recipes hosted by Shama. I am also sending it to Sudeshna, who is celebrating her blog’s first birthday with Event for Eggs.

Total Time: 30 minutes
Preparation: 15 minutes (to boil eggs)
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Serves: 2-3

• 2 – 2 ½ tbsp Oil
• 3-4 Curry Leaves
• 1 ½ tsp Ginger Garlic Paste
• 2 large Onions Sliced
• 3 Green Chilies slit vertically and cut into half
• 2 tsp Coriander Powder
• ½ tsp Turmeric
• 1 ½ tsp Chili Powder (adjust to taste)
• Salt to Taste
• 6 Eggs boiled and peeled
• 1 tsp Sesame Seed Powder (opt)
• 1 tsp Dry Coconut Powder (opt, I didn’t use it)
• Cilantro to garnish

• Piecer the eggs with a fork or make slits on the egg, with out cutting it.
• In a pan heat oil, add curry leaves, ginger garlic paste and saute for few seconds.
• Add Onion and saute until onions are translucent. This should take about 2-3 minutes.
• Add green chilies, coriander powder, turmeric, chili powder and salt and stir well until all the spices are mixed well.
• Add eggs and mix well. Cover and cook for few minutes until onions are well cooked. Remove the cover, add sesame seed powder and/or coconut powder if using.
• Fry for few more minutes, turn off the heat and transfer to a serving dish.
• Garnish with cilantro and serve hot with rice.

For the month of April, Lisa’s Kitchen is the featured blog for Tried & Tasted event, started by Zlamushka.  Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen is hosting it this month.  Lisa has an array of Indian vegetarian recipes on her blog.  I usually cook Indian food at home and hence tried her Black & Yellow Chickpeas in a Sweet & Spicy Sauce.

I followed her recipe with a few changes.  I substituted Red Kidney Beans with Red Cow Peas, as I did not have any kidney beans in my pantry.  I used 8-10 green chilies and ½ tsp of chili powder  to satisfy my palate.   I pressured cooked the beans for 5 whistles as it is faster to cook in a pressure cook.  My Urad and cow peas were a over cooked and mushy, and chickpeas were cooked to perfection.  Next time I prepare it, I will pressure cook the beans for only 4 whistles and if required,  I will either pressure cook for another whistle or cook the beans on the stove top until the beans are cooked.

I served my Chickpeas in a Sweet & Spicy Sauce with rice.  It would be a nice side dish to serve with roties and parathas too.

This is a quick and easy recipe that even a 10 year old can prepare.  I made it using instant Jello pudding mix.  I am not a big fan of jello instant pudding but, it is very easy when one needs to prepare a dessert in a jiffy, or when one is craving for a dessert and no patience to spend too much time in the kitchen.

Preparation Time: 5 – 10 minutes
Serves: 4

• 1 Packet Instant Pistachio Pudding Mix
• 2 cups 2% Milk
• 8 – 10 Strawberries chopped (depends on the size of the berry) and  4 more for garnish

• Wash and chop strawberries to small pieces.
• In a bowl add the pudding mix, 2 cups of milk and beat with an electric beater for 1-2 minutes.  OR use a whisk to beat the milk and pudding mix until it thickens.  I followed the instructions on the pudding mix box to prepare this pudding.
• In a serving bowl, add a layer of pudding, a layer of chopped strawberries, a layer of pudding and another layer of chopped strawberries.  Finally, top it of with another layer of pudding.  So I had 3 layers of pudding and 2 layers of chopped  strawberries.  I served my pudding in a 7 oz juice glasses.
• For garnish, slicing the strawberry vertically without cutting it all the way to the top.  Then spread the slices apart, like a fine.  Place it on the top of the pudding and chill it.
• Serve it chilled.

• My strawberries were not very sweet. So I added some whipped cream, Fat Free Cool Whip, on the top of the pudding. I don’t have it in the photos. After the photo session, when I tasted it, I felt the pudding need more sweet. I could not add sugar to it at that point, as I had already put the pudding in serving bowls.
• When I make it the next time, I would either add some sugar to chopped strawberries before arranging the pudding in serving bowls OR add some whipped cream to the strawberries.  Whipped cream sounds more yum yum than sugar…

How was it? Well, first of all, I am not a big fan of jello instant pudding. Saying that, it was edible and it satisfied my sweet craving for the day. And I ate two glasses yesterday, U ate one and I have one more in the fridge, which I might dig into little late. Unless some one wants to self invite themselves to my home and grab it before I do..

May be I will send that glass to Food in Color (FIC): Red and Green hosted by Neha and started by Harini of Tongue Ticklers.

I am also sending this to mela queen, lovely Srivalli, who is celebrating her blog’s second birthday with a Mithai Mela. Wish you a Happy Second Birthday, cookin4allseasons!