Events Awards Interview

Up, Close and Personal

10:30 AM

Do you believe in God? I do. I have faith in him for the minutest thing in my life and with his grace I never forget to count my blessings. I believe if we are true to ourselves God would always be there to help us. Remember this post where I talked about the terrible condition of my garden and cribbed about how we don’t get anyone to clean the mess? Then that weekend (next day) only a person came with a shovel asking if he could clean the garden. 
He brought couple of his friends later and cleaned all the weeds within an hour. I asked those guys to come regularly on weekends to help me with the gardening but they said they came here for construction work and will go back very soon. So still am without a gardener but hubby has promised to help in preparing the flowerbeds. Now am happy and preparing to sow seeds for the next season.
On a happy note here are some garden pictures, not much as most of the pictures are lost with my last laptop.

Also yesterday Jay of the beautiful and inspiring blog Tasty Appetite tagged me with 8 questions for 8 food bloggers. This interview is described as a rolling interview by Anthony at Flavorful World Food and drink Blog  to get to know our fellow food lovers and giving  new comers  to our respective sites a chance to see what makes us tick . Thanks Jay for thinking and passing it over to me. I find it very interactive and interesting.
Here are the answers to the questions that Jay asked:
  1. What are your favorite regional cuisines or specific foods?
Well being a Bengali I love our cuisine but also like to experiment with different recipes from the world.
Other favourites would be the mouth watering delicacies of Kerala and China.
  1. If you could have any four people, from any where at your place for dinner, who would they be? 
I would invite only one person, Sachin Tendulkar and then will instruct the security gourd not to let anybody else in for the rest of the evening.
  1. What made you decide to start your site?
A few things like the praise that our family always get for the food Maa or dida cook. I wanted to share the recipes and preserve it through an online journal for the next generation. Also being a part of this beautiful world of blogging fascinates me a lot.
  1. Give your Top 4 Food blogs that inspire you the most?
   1. Deeba’s Passionate about baking
   2. Suma’s Cakes and more
   3. Soma’s Ecurry
   4. Pree’s Preeoccupied

  1. How would you describe your site to new readers?
I believe cooking is all about passion. If they get that passion in my recipes, pictures and blog my work is done.
  1. What's the best and worst thing about being a food blogger?
Best thing is being a part of this world where peers pat your back for good work, readers try out and appreciate your recipe and Husband gets complement for the hard work that you put in (that’s Bad!!!)
Worst thing is the plagiarism…Food blogging is lot of work, which some people don’t understand and steal without blinking.
Niece 'R': A flower from my elder brother's Garden. 
  1. If you could just banish any one food, from the earth, what would it be?
It’s a Lentil called khesari (don’t know the English name). Studies show that this increases the possibility of cancer but still poor people in rural Bengal are  eating this as it is cheap compared to any other protein. Shame on us.

  1. What's the one super power you wish you had?
Anything that can stretch the day with a couple of more hours and can give little more sleep in my son’s eyes. Am tired of running and cleaning after him.

With this am also tagging some of my favourite bloggers whose life and blog fascinates me
  1. Indrani of Appayan
  2. Anjali of Anna Parabramha
  3. Preeti of Ising cake
  4. Pree of Preeoccupied
  5. Deepa of Hamari Rasoi
  6. Soomo of Oriya food
  7. Satrupa of food for thought
  8. Aipi of US Masala
I loved the questions that Jay framed so opt for this for my chosen set of bloggers. 

Switch on the best in you my Dearies...

Cakes cookies n savory goodies

Baked Savory Onion crackers or Nippatu

10:34 AM


I guess this is the most famous cracker recipe in the Indian Food blog circuit. The original recipe was shared by Supriya of Redchillies, which went straight to Soma’s kitchen. Somehow Sharmila spotted it there. Immedieately she made them and tempted me enough with her gorgeous pictures to enter the kitchen with all the necessary ingredients. Uff that’s a long chain, (almost like Arusuvai) linked with one single recipe.

But you might think, whats so great about these that so many people cant stop making and baking and praising them? Well the answer would be please try it yourself…especially if you are a fan of onion pakoras. Even if you hate onion pakoras like me you would find these little disk from heaven absolutely delicious. It tastes even better just out of the oven…all that onion-y flavour merged with the heat from green chillies and the freshness of coriander leaves…is simply sensational. This has become very famous among friends also. Some of them even come straight to the kitchen asking for more. We generally eat these with roasted tomato and coconut chutney but tastes great even with ketchup. 

I baked it many a times at home and yes like some of you I also have twisted the recipe a little bit. Baked this batch when my father was here. When I served this with his evening tea he could not stop eating and finally when I had to stop him he said that these crackers should come with the tag line ‘no one can eat just one!’ very true to believe just bake a batch for yourself and join me when I say “ummmm, these are good”

Before I get into the recipe here is a quick reminder of the ongoing Arusuvai Friendship Chain. The pass-it-on ingredient game has already started. HERE is the link for all of you who wants to participate.

Nippatu

Ingredients:
Flour: ½ cup
Whole wheat flour: 1 cup
Onions: 2 (medium)
Green chillies: 2
Curd: 2 tbsp
Olive oil: 4 tbsp
Baking powder: 1/3 tsp
Soda-bi-carb: a pinch
Seasame seeds: 11/2 tsp
Sugar: 1/3 tsp
Salt

Method:
Slice the onion very fine in half moon shape. Chop the chillies as fine as possible.

Mix flours, salt, sugar, baking powder, soda, sesame seeds, chillies and half of the chopped onions in a big bowl. Add the curd and oil. Mix and make a dough (if required add water. Do this very carefully by adding a spoonful everytime).
The dough would be thick. Knead for a couple of minutes. Cover and keep aside for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven at 170 C and line a baking tray with greased foil.

Pinch small balls from the dough and place on the foil. Flatten with the back of a bowl. Poke a few holes with fork. You can also roll it out as a thin sheet and cut round disks with cookies cutters.

Bake for 30 minutes or till the sides turn light golden brown.

The marvelous savory low fat snack is ready enjoy with any chutney or sauce of your choice.

A Homemaker’s Note:
The original recipe calls for butter and all-purpose flour. But I twisted it to make mine a little healthier so that I can keep on munching on these J without guilt.

You can experiment with the flavour. Sharmila has added kasuri methi. I once flavoured it with oregano and also used red chili flakes instead of green chillies.


Events:
1. Champa's Bake off.

tags:
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Cakes cookies n savory goodies

Tomato Tart with Homemade Shortcrust Pastry

12:33 PM


If I say these tomatoes are from my own garden most of you will praise me for the good work…but am deeply ashamed to write even the word ‘my garden’. If you come to my home right now you will see a big bad mess in the front yard. The garden which I used to be proud over is now a mini jungle. The continuous rain in the past few months (or almost the whole year) has played havoc and most of the plants have withered. The tomato and brinjal plants which were giving me enormous produce the whole year have rotten. But the fact is I cant blame only rain as due to some problems in the past month I also could not take proper care of them. We don’t have any gardener and don’t even know where to find one (blame on my limited knowledge of the local language). Add to that a supremely active baby, who will come running after me if I try to do any work there, the scariest part is his TLC...trust me he even tries to hug the plants and kisses the flowers with a loud 'hamma'.

But as everyone says animals and plants are the most generous living beings...inspite of all our ignorance they are still giving us bounty of vegetables. The single cherry tomato bush (nobody believes its one plant) is giving me atleast 12-15 fruits almost everyday. There's still a lot of malabar spinach, radish and ladies finger in the garden. We have stopped buying spring onions and spinach as there's more than we three can actually eat. But they are nestled in a jungle of weeds...you will have to go and look for them.

I made this tart on the Seventh day (Saptomi) of puja as a snack with coffee before going for the pandal hopping. Hubby simply loved eating this and so our friends. I followed the recipe shown by Rachel Allen on 'Bake'. I found this show very helpful and planning to buy this book as well. This pie crust is also homemade and trust me when I say it tastes better than its shop bought counterparts. Very crumbly and soft.

Tomato Tart
(makes one 7” tart and 1 small tartlet)

Ingredients:
Shortcrust Pastry
Flour: 1 cup
Butter: 5 tbsp (chilled)
Pepper powder: ¼ tsp
Egg:1/2 to 1
Salt

Filling:
Eggs: 2
Milk: 2 tbsp
Cream: 4 tbsp
Grated Parmesan cheese: 4 tbsp
Zest of 1 lemon
Salt
Pepper
Tomato: 3 medium
New potato: 2 medium (boiled and sliced in medium thick pieces)
chopped olives: handful
Dried oregano
chilli flakes

Method:
First make the shortcrust pastry dough. For this sift the flour, salt, pepper powder in a big bowl.
To this add the chilled and cubed butter. With your fingertip start rubbing the butter and flour softly to make it coarse bread crumb like. This is a very important step to make the pastry flaky as when the pastry would be baked the butter will melt leaving small air pockets to give it a light texture..Dont use your hand or put too much pressure as that will melt the butter.
Break the egg and whip it to make smooth. Start adding little at a time just to bring the dough together. The moisture should be just enough to gather it. Take this in a cling film, pat it flat (3/4” or so), wrap and chill in fridge for atleast an hour.

Once you are ready to bake preheat the oven at 170 C.

Take out the dough. Spread the cling film on a clean work surface and place the dough on it. Cover with another big piece of cling film. Roll the dough out in a circle. Once done remove the upper cling film layer. With the help of the bottom cling film hold the rolled sheet in hand and place on the tart case. Line it properly and remove the excess by pressing gently on the edges.

Pour kidney or any other beans in the lined case and blind bake for 15-20 minutes till the pastry fills dry to touch. Remove the beans and bake for another couple of minutes .

The Filling:
While the pastry case is baking prepare the filling. Start by beating the eggs till smooth (I added the leftover egg from the dough to this as well). Mix in the milk and the cream. Beat and mix in the grated cheese and lemon zest. Season with salt and pepper and keep aside.

Once the pastry case is baked line the bottom with sliced potato. Pour the egg-cream batter. Place the sliced tomatoes on top. Sprikle chopped olives, oregano and chilli flakes. Bake for 35-40 minutes or till the top is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Serve after 10-15 minutes with Coffee.

Ahomemaker's Note:
Rachel has a great spinach and goat's cheese tart recipe Here.

The pastry can be baked a day before in advance and chilled. 

To get a perfect shape  make sure to fill the lined case with beans till the edge.



Events:
1. Champa's Bake off.



Tags:
Tart, pie, shortcrust pastry, never fail shortcrust pastry recipe, best ever tart case recipe, savory pie, egg in tart, spicy tart, perfect pastry recipe,  peppery tart, lemony tart, salted tart dough, basic tart dough recipe, bake, oregano, italian, rustic italian, easy tart, chilli flake and tomato, olive and tomato, how to make shortcrust pastry at home, step by step pastry recipe, easiest pastry dough, how to line tartcase, egg and cream, peppery egg.

Fish and Seafood

Tom Yum Goong (Hot n Sour Thai Prawn Soup)

4:15 AM

Lately the weather in Bangalore has become very cold, which I never experienced in my 4 years stay here. Being a winter lover am not complaining at all though. I like to experience each and every season in its full glory…hot and humid summer with Ampora sharbat (Raw Mango drink) to quench the thirst, hot out of the wok Pakodas to enjoy monsoon and colourful winter clothes and warm bowl of soup to beat wintry evenings. For me winter is all about spending the days outside soaking the sun and enjoying the nippy evenings curling under the duvet with a hot cup of coffee and good books. And that’s what I planned to do this weekend. But along with the routine weekly veggie shopping, the baby’s vaccination was also due.

We wanted to wrap up all outside works before evening to come back and watch the latest Bollywood fliks. But by the time we managed to reach the market it was already 5. The place was too crowded with a long que at the billing section. The veggies were almost finished and we almost had to fight for those last packets of mushrooms or bunch of celery. But the highlight of the veggie shopping this weekend is we got fresh herbs like Oregano, Basil and Lemongrass, which I never got to cook with. So grabbed the opportunity and settled for a quick warming soup with our favourite cellophane noodles.

Tom yum soup is most probably the most famous dish of Thailand. It’s a very light and flavourful soup made with freshest of ingredients. Like all Asian dishes this also is characterized by its very balanced hot and sour taste. The base is made with stock to which fresh Prawns, chickens and mushrooms are added. This has no oil but is flavoured with freshest of herbs like galangal, lemongrass, coriander roots, kaffir lime leaves and chilli pepper. There are various versions of this soup like Tom Yum goong (with prawns), Tom yum kai (with chicken) and tom yum pa (with fish), tom yum po taek (with seafoods) ot tom yum nam khon where coconut milk is also added to the broth.

Being said all this now am confused which name to call mine as mine is a hybrid between Tom yum goong and tom yum nam khon. I adapted the recipe from here and then added few spoonfuls of coconut milk…that made this flavour packed soup just perfect with a rounded taste. All in all a very fulfilling, satisfying and warming soup to curl up on the couch to catch your favourite telly show even after a long day at work.

Here is the recipe:

Tom Yum Goong (Hot n Sour Thai Prawn soup)
(serves 2)

Ingredients:
Prawns: 8; cleaned and devained (I used fresh water prawn)
Button Mushrooms: 8 medium
Tomato: 1 big or 2 small
Carrot: 1

Herbs:
Ginger: 1” piece
Lemongrass: 3 stalks
Small onion: 4/5
Coriander roots: 2 roots
Lemon rind: of 1 lemon
Lemon: 1
Dry red chillies: 3-4
Green chillies: 2
Coriander leaves: handful
Salt

Stock cube: 2 (I used Maggi)
Coconut milk: 4 tbsp
Oil: ½ tsp (generally prawns are used raw in this dish but we don’t like it so used this tiny amount of oil to lightly fry our prawns)
Turmeric: a pinch

Method:
For this dish the preparation takes more time than cooking. So lets first prepare the prawn by deveining it. Remove the legs and the shell as well. Wash and keep aside. Rub a pinch of turmeric and salt to the prawn and lightly fry with the oil (probably a minute).

Peel and cut the carrot in juliennes, the mushrooms in big chunks lengthwise and the tomatoes in 6 to 8 pieces lengthwise.

Remove the outer layer of the lemongrass, slice the stalk and smash in a mortar and pestle. Remove the skin of the small onions and smash in a mortar and pestle. Do the same with coriander roots and ginger.

Dry roast the red chillies and with a little lemon juice and salt make a fine paste.

In a bog pan or heavy bottomed bowl heat 5 cups of water. Add the stock cubes to this and bring this to a boil. Now one by one add all the herbs like smashed ginger, shallots, green chillies, lemon rind, lemon grass and coriander roots. Cover and simmer for 6-7 minutes till the water becomes fragrant.

Now add the prawns (along with the oil), mushrooms, tomatoes and little bit of salt.

Cover and again let it cook for 4-5 minutes. By the end of it the prawns would be cooked and would turn pink. Add the carrot juliennes and mix well.

Decrease the heat to lowest and add the coconut milk. Mix and finally add the seasoning very little at a time. Lemon juice, chilli paste and salt. The taste should be very balanced with the sweetness of the coconut milk balancing out the sourness of the lime juice and the heat of the chillies.

Finally sprinkle chopped coriander leaves and serve Hot with a wedge of lemon.

We boiled some cellophane noodles to make our soup more filling.


A Homemaker's note:
I have made this several times and it tastes equally good without the prawns. To be true I prefer the taste more without the prawns.


I have also been showered with these awards. Thanks friends for remembering me.
award+3.jpg (320×195)
Thanks Biny
Thanks Satrupa and Indrani.
Thanks Sulagna


Tags:
Thai soup, Thai food, Thai curry, Thai prawn soup, Thai hot and sour curry, lemon grass in soup, thai herbs, prawn soup, shrimp soup, sweet n sour clear soup, coriander soup, broth, tomato and vegetable clear soup, best Thai soup, Asian soup, Perfect prawn soup. best ever thai soup, coconut milk soup, fish sauce, soup for dinner, filling soup, cellophane noodle soup, hot and tangy asian soup recipe.galangal, kaffir lime.

Cakes cookies n savory goodies

Baked Masala Peanuts and Pumpkin Seeds and Arusuvai Friendship Chain

6:49 AM

It was the Durga Puja time when the package carrying Bharathy's mystery ingredient arrived at my doorstep, but I was not present at home. My cousin sister just moved to town the week before and I went to help her with the unpacking. With two super mischievous toddlers at tow, it was way more difficult than I thought. We were totally drained and were almost shouting after the kids when Hubby called up to say a courier has come for me. With the entire running around my mind was blank and I felt totally clueless. Who could it be? was my first thought and Hubby replied Bharathy. That made me coming to the real world and I exclaimed with joy 'Arusuvai'. It must have been a pretty hard exclamation as when I look up saw sis, bro-in-law and even the two brats looking at me in utter awe. But I wasn’t ashamed a bit and didnt even try to explain what it is all about. As I was pretty sure that non bloggers wouldn’t understand its importance. Just informed Hubby not to open it till I reach home...I wanted to experience and savor every moment of having the package by myself.
That evening when the exhausted us reached home the baby was already asleep and after putting him to the bed I hurriedly reached for the packet. As I thought it came with a lot of goodies, the mystery ingredient and a beautiful handmade card by Bharathy herself. It made me feel special to be a part of a chain that I always wanted to be...for me it was like reaching the end of a full circle. We were exhausted so thought of taking the pictures in the morning. but God did I know what a mistake that was. By the time I opened my eyes, the baby was already up and almost finished the chocolates by himself (with a little help from his father). Am so sorry I cannot show you all the things she sent and below is what I managed to save and click. (Still now when I was editing this picture he was yelling 'thocolate thocolate').

My mystery ingredient was Pumpkin seeds. And with a look at it I instantly knew what to cook with this. I had bookmarked this recipe from Jugalbandi long back. The time was apt as my father who is a big fan of masala peanuts was coming during Diwali. So baked masala pumpkin seeds it was for me. I almost followed their recipe with a little bit of change in the seasoning and it came out delicious. A guilt free snacks, which has become our family (does that count friends too?) favourite and I have already made it twice since then.

I have tweaked the recipe a little bit and added a spoonful of olive oil to make it crunchy and a little less hard. This stays good for a couple of weeks if stored well in an airtight container.

Before I talk about the recipe here is a quick reminder for Arusuvai Friendship chain. This is a very famous Food blog friendship event, which am sure most of you have known. For those who are new HERE is the link of the Arusuvai Post.

 Arusuvai is a friendship chain among food bloggers where one person sends a mystery ingredient to the other to cook with it. The receiver then carries the chain by sending another package with a food ingredient to another friend. That way it not only brings friends together but also gives an opportunity to learn and taste various cuisines. Lathamma of the famour ‘Yum blog’ created this beautiful chain and later Bharathy and Srivalli carried on the good work by coordinating the whole process. This year we have again united to celebrate this unique friendship with Arusuvai Friendship chain. Bharathy has started the Chain by sending the ingredient to me and I am going to send packages full of hope and mystery ingredient to another 2 bloggers very soon. We need all of you to come up and join hands. Have you become a part yet? Please check THIS, THIS or THIS for more information.  

Now the recipe

Baked masala peanuts and pumpkin seeds

Ingredients:
Pumpkin seeds: 1 cup
Gram flour: 11/2 cups
Rice flour: 2 tbsp
Olive oil: 1/2 tsp
Soda-bi-carb: pinch

Seasoning:
Chilli powder: ½ tsp
Carom seeds (ajwain); 1/3 tsp
Chat masala: ½ tsp
Salt

Take same amount of ingredients for a cup of peanuts as well.

Method:
Dry roast the peanuts and seeds for a few minutes. Take out and spread on a paper.

Mix the gram flour, rice flour, soda and the entire seasoning ingredient in a bowl.

With the half of the gram flour mixture make a smooth paste by adding little water. The batter would be thick and lump free.

Mix this to the pumpkin seeds and mix to coat well.

Now start sprinkling the dry flour-spice mixture to it. The seeds would be coated with dry flour.

Spread the coated seeds on an oven proof tray (I lined mine with silver foil to make my cleaning work less messy). Try to break the lumps as much as possible, which wont be too easy.

Bake for 10 minutes at a preheated oven of 200 C.

Mine was done at the end of it, if required bake it for another 4-5 minutes till they turn golden brown and crisp.

Take out on a plate and let it cool.

Repeat with another batch of peanuts.

Store in airtight container. Tastes amazingly good with evening tea or coffee.


Tags:
Snacks, what to do with peanuts, best low calorie nuts, gram flour, rice flour, chickpea flour, pumpkin seeds, no oil snacks, Baked crispies, baked nuts, low oil nuts, calorie free snacks, events, food blog event, crispy nuts, baked savory nuts, nut crackers, gram flour coated nuts, flour coated seeds, savory pumpkin seeds, crispy pumpkin seeds, seasoned snacks, spicy nuts, spicy crispy pumpkin seeds, roasted peanuts, toasted spicy peanuts, best low calorie snack.

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