Eggless White Bread

I have baked bread before, but has never come right. So this is the first time it has come soft, spongy, aromatic, with a great crust. Yeah I am boasting. But I am happy with the way this has turned out! I hear myself saying cut the crap and get down to business..

I always use brown bread (whole wheat bread) for our breakfast. So I have tried twice with atta to make the bread. They were good but heavy. Not fluffy enough. But this time, I said to myself, let me try first with Maida(APF) once I get the basics correct, I will graduate to Whole wheat bread. Next I am planning for half APF and half Atta. There is nothing new I have added in this one. But learnt few things. I saw in Vicky goes Veg in NDTV Good Times. In that he mentioned while proving yeast, sugar is added as it is the food for yeast to thrive. So I fed them enough food :-)

APF 2 1/2 cups
Sugar 2 tbls
Instant dry yeast  2 tbls
Olive Oil 4 tbls
Salt as required
Milk 1/3 cup
Curd 1/3 cup
Baking soda - a generous pinch
Herbs if needed

1. Warm milk and add Yeast, Sugar, 1 tbls of Oil, 1 tbls of Flour. Mix well.
2. Let it for 15 mins for the Yeast to prove.
3. Once the Yeast mixture is fluffy, add Curd and Baking soda to it.
4. Pour the Yeast mixture and 2 tbls of Oil to the APF and knead for 10 mins into a soft dough.
5. Coat the rest 1 tbls of Oil over the dough and keep it in a big vessel, so that it will have space to double.
6. Cover with a moist kitchen napkin.
7. After an hour, the dough will be doubled.
8. Coat the loaf tin with oil and shape the dough into a log and place it inside.
9. Alternately you can roll them into a balls make buns.
10 Again let it to double in the tin.
11. Give milk wash on the top.
12. Preheat the oven to 200 deg Celsius and bake the bread for 30 or 35 mins or until the crust browns.
13. Spongy bread is ready!

Note:
I sprinked basil on top of the dough after milk wash as it would enhance the aroma of the bread.
I smothered the bread with butter once it was out of the oven. It increased the taste!

Eggless Butterless Choco Brownie

I have made this many times, but have not got it better than this. It was simply yummy, soft and butterless! And absolutely moist!

Dry ingredients:

APF/Maida - 1 cup

Cocoa powder - 1/2 cup

Sugar 1/2 cup

Baking soda 1/2 teaspoon

Wet Ingredients:

Curd 1/2 cup

Milk  1/3 cup

Melted dark chocolate 1/2 cup

vanilla essence 1 tbls

Preheat the oven to 180 deg Celcius.

Coat the baking tin completely with ghee(however you prefer to do it) and dust it with APF. Turn the tin upside down and pat to remove excess flour. Make sure it is coated well on all sides.

Melt Dark chocolate in a double boiler.

Sift Maida, Cocoa Powder, Baking soda and keep aside.

Cream Curd , Milk and Sugar with the help of hand mixer till sugar dissolves. Add the Vanilla essence to it.

Now add the sifted powders to the creamed mixture and fold them until they are mixed well.  Finally add the melted chocolate. Bake in the oven for 30 mins or until the tooth pick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack for 30 mins. Remove the brownie from the tin. Slice it, top it with some whipped fresh cream and serve!

Notes: To melt chocolate, in a vessel pour a cup of water. Keep another vessel on top of the first vessel. The second vessel should not touch the water in the first vessel. The chocolate should melt just from the vapour of the boiling water in the first vessel.

Palak Paneer

Palak Paneer is a favourite of my DH and DD. It is yummy and creamy with loads of goodness in it.

I served it with three grain roti made of Wheat(1 cup), Ragi(1/3 cup) and Maize flour(1/3 cup). Though this roti is not as tasty as the wheat version it is quite healthy.

Serves 3

Palak 1 bunch- washed chopped

Tomato 2 nos

Onion 2 nos

Paneer cubed 15 pieces

Ginger 1 inch piece

Garlic 8 pods

Green chilly 1/2 (increase if you want the heat to be more)

Oil 2 tbls

Butter 1/2 tbls

Cumin seeds 1/2 tbls

Fennel seeds 1/2 tbls

Powders

Coriander 1 tbls

Garam masala 3/4 tbls

Salt as required

Sugar 1 tbls

Heat butter in the pan and cook the palak. It gets shrinked and gets cooked  in its juice.  Once cooled, grind into the paste with the juice.

Blanch tomatoes, grind and filter. 

Grind onion, garlic, ginger and green chilly together.

Put Oil in the pan. Add Cumin and Fennel seeds to splutter. Add the Onion mixture and fry. Once the mixture is cooked, add the tomato mix and cook until the raw smell in tomato goes off. Add the powders and mix well. Add the palak paste and add a cup of water. Bring to a boil. Add the paneer. After 2 mins remove from fire and serve with roti.

Carrot Soup

After a very long gap, I am again hooked to blogging. This is a diet recipe. But adding cream will enhance the taste of the soup.

Serves 3
Carrot 3-4 Medium peeled and diced
Onion 1 chopped into two
Garlic 6 or 7 pods
Black Pepper 1/2 table spoon
Tomato 1 (No need to chop)
Salt as required
Dried Basil 1/2 tea spoon

Put all the above ingredients except salt and basil in the pressure cooker with enough water and let it cook for 5 whistles. Once cooled, remove the skin of the tomato and whirl the cooked ingredients in the blender. Add enough salt, 2 cups of water and bring it to boil. Season with basil and serve!

Notes:
* I prefer whole black pepper over the powder as it gives good flavour and heat. Otherwise you can use pepper powder
* It would be easy to remove the skin of the tomato when we cook it whole in the cooker. 
* I have added potato once before for the thick starchy texture. It was also very tasty. If you care for the potato you can add one peeled and diced in the cooker along with other ingredients.

Top for Pattu Pavadai

These Pavadais I've stitched for my DD. 

Summer Dresses 2013

These are the summer dresses I've made for my DD. Most of them are simple and serviceable. Rather than going for designs, I prefer comfortability.

Most of them are stitched from the left over salwar materials of my dresses. Only for the Black Blue and Pink dress I've bought material. My daughter is 7 Years and 120cms, one metre of cloth is sufficient for stitching these dresses.

Lasagna

It was raining badly yesterday thanks to Jall cyclone and we had to stay indoors all day. With so much of time, we thought of having something special for dinner and zeroed on Lasagna. Lasagna is our favorite Italian food. When I searched for recipes, I got this from Tarla dalal's Facebook discussion board. I altered it to suit to our taste and the ingredients available with me. It is an elaborate process but it was worth it!

Red tomato sauce:

Tomatoes - 4

Onion - 1

Salt - as required

Garlic pods - 10

Chilly powder - as required

Sugar - 1 spoon

Italian seasoning - 1 spoon(contains thyme, oregano, basil)

Prepare a puree with blanched tomatoes and onion. Add salt, chilli powder and sugar and cook in medium flame till the sauce is almost thick. Add the chopped garlic pods. Cook for another 5 mins. Finally add the italian seasoning and switch off the stove.

White/Bechamel Sauce:

APF - 2 spoons

Milk - 2 cups

Salt - as required

Pepper powder - as required

Mozzarella cheese - about 1/4 cup( recipe asked for Fresh cream)

Butter - 2 spoons

Over low flame melt the butter and add the flour. Simply cook it for 2 mins. Add 2 cups of milk to it and continue stirring for about another 2 mins. Add the salt and pepper. The milk will start to thicken. Add the mozzarella cheese to it and cook for another minute.

Filling:

Carrot, Beans, Sweet corn, cabbage(vegetables as preferred) - Boiled about 3 cups

Crumbled paneer - 1 cup

Onion - 2 chopped finely

Salt - as required

pepper powder as required

Kitchen king masala - 1/2 spoon

Add 1 spoon of oil in a frying pan, add the onions and fry till cooked. Add the vegetables and continue frying. Add the Salt, Pepper powder, Kitchen king masala. Now add Panneer to it and cook for 2 mins.

Lasagna sheets:

APF - 1 cup

Cold butter - 1 Spoon

Salt - as required

Water

Oil - 1 spoon

Knead the above ingredients into the consistency of poori dough. Take about a lemon size dough and roll it like a thin chappathi. Cut into broad square pieces. Boil about 1.5 litres of water with a spoon of oil in a wide vessel. Put the thin broad pieces in the boiling water and cook for 1 minute. Take care to put only 4 pieces at a time so that they dont overlap each other in the water. Take the strips out and strain them.

Final Assembly:

I used a circle cake pan. Spread the lasagna sheet first without leaving any space. Apply the tomato sauce on the sheets. Now layer with the vegetable filling. Apply the white sauce over the vegetable layer. Now again layer with the lasagna sheet, tomato sauce, Vegetable filling and finally white sauce. Shred some mozzarella cheese and bake in a preheated oven at 200 deg for 20 mins.

There is a layer of spinach but we couldnt get out and buy it so just left it. This layer is after the tomato sauce.