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.

Vegetable Manchurian

Fried rice with low fat Vegetable Manchurian is a treat for me. I dont deep fry the manchurian balls but they will be still yummy. I usually make more balls than I require for the dish so that I can have them like a cutlet with sauce.

To make the Manchurian Balls:

Cabbage, Carrot, Beans, Cauliflower – Shredded – All together 2 cups

Corn flour – 2 spoons

Ginger garlic paste - ½ spoon

Oil, salt as required

Manchurian Gravy

Spring onion – 1 bunch

Garlic – 5 pods finely chopped

Ginger – 1 inch finely chopped

Capsicum, carrot, cabbage – All together 1 cup

Fine Oats powder – 1 ½ spoons

Soya sauce – 2 spoons

Tomato sauce - 2 spoons

Chilly – 1 no

Cook the vegetables mentioned for Manchurian balls with ginger garlic paste. Add required amount of salt. Once cooked cool them, add corn flour and mix. After Refrigerating for about an hour take the mixture out, make balls out of it. Flatten them and toast them in the tawa with oil till they become crispy and golden brown.

Keep them aside

In a pan add the vegetables for Gravy, ginger, garlic, chilly and salt in 1 ½ cups of water. The vegetables should be half done, crispy and should not be cooked completely. Add the sauces, oats powder and half of the chopped spring onion. I used oats powder to make the gravy thick. Corn flour can also be used. Bring it to a boil. Just when you are about to serve add the Manchurian balls in the gravy and add the Spring onions over it.

Stuffed Naan

I love stuffed naan. But what we get in restaurants are made out of Maida. When I saw the post for Wheat stuffed naan from Jayasree-Kailas Kitchen. I bookmarked immediately. It came out very well and couldnt even smell anything different. The naan were soft and tasted yummy. Thanks Jayasree for the recipe.

Paper Mountains for Golu

I always wanted a mountain in my Golu for Navarathri. As we are in flats, we dont get so much mud to create a big mountain. Last time I used a basket and covered it with mud so that I dont require huge amount of mud. So this time I created this paper mountain. I wanted them to look natural with the rugged look.

I made two types of mountains a simple one with painted steps and a gopuram on top of it. Another on with road and a holiday home on top of it.

All you need to make these are:

Newspaper - lots and lots of them

Fevicol

cello tape

tissue paper

Colours and Brush to paint the mountain

Roll the news paper lengthwise(along the longer side of it) and rotate it forming a circle(like a mosquito coil, but tightly). The coil with larger diameter forms the base. Stick the open end of the paper using the cello tape. Make another coil of paper but less in diameter than the base. Keep it over the base and stick it with the base. Repeat until you reach the top of the mountain. Stick the tissue paper all over to cover the newspaper. Dry it over night and paint in brown. Stick some grasses made out of paper. Draw the steps. Mountain is ready.

Tomato 'Anu' biata!

We had Tomato Arrabiata in a nearby restaurant and thought of trying it out. Here is my attempt to reproduce it in my kitchen. I have seen Arrabiata sauce in Nilgris, but I made it with the pizza sauce I had. Well it was not exactly Arrabiata but Anubiata!

Durrum Spaghetti - as required

Fun foods Pizza sauce - 2 tbsp

Pasta seasoning - 1 tbsp

Onion - 1 chopped

Garlic 7 or 8 pods chopped

Vegetables - 1 cup

(Carrot, cabbage - julienned), beans, cauliflower(parboiled in salt water), capsicum

Paneer - just 2 small cubes

Milk - 1/2 cup

Corn flour - 1 tbsp

Oil 1 tbspn

Salt as required

Boil 1 litre of water and add the spaghetti and salt as required. Cook till it is done, strain the water. In a kadai heat the oil, fry the onions, add carrot, beans and fry for couple of minutes then add the cabbage and cauliflower. Add 2 spoons of pizza sauce and keep frying. In the mixie blend together paneer, milk and add corn flour to it(This was not there in the spagetti we had, I wanted paneer in that). Add this and chopped garlic to the veggies. Add salt. Once the vegetables are just done, add the cooked spaghetti and the pasta seasoning. I dint add oil to the cooked spaghetti as we do for noodles as they were not sticking together. Toss for around 2 mins. Finally add the capsicum and remove from fire.

Glass Painting- 2

Glass Painting is not a difficult one, provided you have a good design and and you are able to get rid of the bubbles while painting.

It is not new to me. I did my first painting almost 2 years back. But never framed it. I had wrapped it with a paper and kept it in the loft. Now I have all the worlds time, I thought of framing it. OMG, the paper was sticking to the paint and I couldnt remove it at all. Now I learnt one important lesson about Glass Painting : You should never wrap it with paper and should use only cloth! Lessons learnt the hard way.

I had some left over paints and now that I painted the bottles, I started thinking of a complete painting. Finalized the design and here is my first framed Glass Painting.

Kuzhi Paniyaaram

I am using Kuzhi Paniyaara kal or chatti extensively for making Potato or colacasia(seppan kizhangu) fry. I also use it for shallow frying the appams(not the chettinad aappam). It has been long since I made the paniyaaram. So here it goes...

I made Kuzhi paniyaaram with Onion sambar and tomato chutney.

Par boiled rice(puzhungal arisi) 1 cup

normal rice- I dont know how to call it! (pacharisi) 1 cup

Urad dhall - 1/2 cup

Cooking soda - a Pinch

Curd - 1/4 cup

Salt as required

Chillies as required

Onion 1 big finely chopped

Carrot - 1 grated

Ginger- 1 inch piece finely chopped

Coconut pieces - 1 cup finely chopped

Oil for shallow frying the paniyaarams

Soak the rice for 2 hours and dhall for an hour. Grind them along with chilles, consistency same as idly batter. Let it ferment for a night. I ground the batter in the morning and used them for the dinner. Just while making the paniyaarams add the curd, chopped onions, ginger, carrot, coconut pieces and the pinch of cooking soda. Mix well. Heat the paniyaara chatti, pour just 2 drops of oil, yes, you heard it right. This is more than enough if you are using the non stick version of the kadai.

Pour the batter only till half of the kuzhi or pit. Wait till small pores appear on the surface of the batter. Use the spatula or spoon to turn the paniyaaram and let it get cooked on the other side also. Spongy Paniyaaram is ready!

There is a variation to this traditional paniyaaram. Grind some coriander and mint leaves along with chillies and add to one part of the above said batter. This will give you beautiful green paniyaarams. Make a pulp of a tomato, cook it for some 2 minutes along with some garam masala, chilly powder, turmeric and ginger garlic paste. Add it to the batter. This will give you orange paniyaarams. I have tried these, trust me they will look lovely and taste great!

Stuffed Bread

When going through Chitvish recipes in Indus ladies. I happened to see this one. Made slight variation to suit my taste. I became too greedy and added all the vegetables I could lay my hands on from the fridge and tried it today for dinner! It tasted very very nice.

Bread:

Multi grain atta - 1 cup

Maida - 1 cups
Salt - as required
Sugar - 2 tsp
Olive oil (recipe called for refined oil or ghee) - 2 tbsp
Milk & water - ¼ cup each
Dry yeast - 1 tbsp

Dissolve yeast in warm mixture of milk & water stir well leave for 10 mins. Take atta + Maida + Sugar + Salt + Olive oil and make a very soft elastic dough and wait for 1.5 hours to double

Filling:

Grated Paneer - 1/4 cup
Finely chopped tomatoes - 2

Finely chopped Onion - 1

Green chillies - as required

Sliced Garlic pods - 10 nos
Jeera - for Tempering
Finely chopped Coriander leaves - as required
Carrot and cabbage shredded - 1 cup

Boiled mashed Potato - 1

Boiled Green peas - 1/4 cup

Sweet corn kernels - 1/4 cup

Olive Oil - 1 tbsp

Heat pan and add oil. Add the jeera to it then add onion and green chillies.
Add the tomatoes and fry for 3 minutes. Now add Carrot, cabbage, mashed potatoes, peas, sweet corn, Salt. Fry till the mixture becomes dry. Add grated panner, garam masala and coriander leaves.

Let it cool for some time.

Followed the procedure to make the braided bread as in the original recipe. Recipe asked to keep in a closed cupboard. Didnt know where to keep. So kept it inside the OTG, of course when switched off. It rained today and the temperature was a bit low so thought it would be safe there as the dough also needs warm place to raise. After an hour brushed it with warm milk. I had kept the dough for 4 hours. Prepared the dough by 4pm. Made the braided bread by 5.30pm and baked the bread by 8pm.
Preheat oven to 220 deg celcius and bake for 20 minutes or till brown.

Oats Almond cookies

This is a low fat cookie I baked almost a month back. I followed the recipe from a little bit more religiously. I didnt have oats flour, so just ground the quick cooking oats and neither bothered to sift as the recipe asks and additionally I added the raisins.

It was a guilt free cookie. Never tasted different from any other cookie with loads of butter and sugar!

I totally forgot to take a snap of the cookie to post here till I packed the last cookie in DH's snack box. Didnt have time in the morning to move it to a plate and didnt bothered abt the angles or anything. Just clicked it!

Vanilla cup cake

I am brave enuf to blog about my screwups now!

I cannot really say it a screw up but it was not upto the mark! Of course edible and already gobbled. Only last few pieces left..

This is the first time I am baking muffins. This can be an excuse as I am a first timer for muffins.

Most of the remakes are not working out in tamil cinema! Exactly same thing happened to me. The original recipe was from Jayasree of Kailas Kitchen. The end product was looking heavenly with chocolate chips and wonderful shape. She has even done a coffee version of that. Mine looked famished. But the taste was good, I am emphasizing again.

Not much changes made. I dint have chocolate chips, so substituted with tutti fruity. I just made half of the measurement just to be on the safer side.

Now time for you to have a look at it:

Can you guess why I have cut the muffin into four?? It got blasted on the top!

There were 4 splits on the top of it.. so i had cut it to make it visually pleasing.

Glass Painting

It is appropriate to call it bottle painting!

Painted these Heritage flavoured milk bottles with Glass colors. Initially intended for money plants now it has the colored bubbles!

Ganesha Wall hanging

Yet another art work using chalk powder..

This time a wall hanging.

The base is a card board from calendar. The wavy effect, outline, Jewellery and designs in the dress for Ganesha has been given by Chalk powder + Fevicol dough. Used Acrylic Pearl metallic colors and some kundan stones.

Chalk powder Jewellery

This is the first work I completed using the chalk powder. I made this for DD for one of her silk pavadai.

In this piece, the pendant, earrings and the golden beads in the necklace are made of chalk powder. I mixed the chalk powder and Fevicol in a consistency of Chapathi dough to be shaped. Made balls from the dough and inserted a thin stick for making holes on it for beading with the gear wire. Shaped the pendant and the earrings. Once dried, coloured with Fevicryl pearl metallic golden colour and let it for dry. Applied blue paper glitters for the pendant and the earrings. Had some age old blue beads with me. Alternated that with the golden beads and attached the pendant!

Decoration with Chalk Powder

I requested DH to to buy ceramic powder for making ceramic jewellery from the hardware shop but he ended up buying chalk powder. I didnt know anything to make from that. But once I bought it I googled day and night, (yes its true) to make use of it. You know its such a costly thing! Costs Rs.14 per kg :-)

Sad that not many used chalk powder extensively. So I replaced the ceramic powder art works with chalk powder and started my expedition and here is my first work(First conceived but finished last)!

It is a candle holder bought some 3 years back without much use.. Stuck DD's photo and decorated with the flowers made from a mixture of chalk powder and Fevicol MR.

Shaped the mixture(should be like chapathi dough) into flowers and leaves. Used Fevicryl pearl acrylic colors to color them and stuck it on the candle stand with Fevi qwik.