Monday 26 December 2016

SIMPLE VANNILA CUPCAKE.



This is a very easy and Simple  vanilla  cup  cake  recipe.I  got  this  recipe  from  just  easy  recipes.com. Made some  slight  changes  to suit  my  little ones  sweet  tooth  craving. It's a  super  easy  and fail  proof recipe.I  have  even  used  this  recipe to make a   pressure  cooker vanilla  cake too  and  it  came  out  so well  and  everybody  liked  it  too. So it's a  good  recipe  for   baking  beginners  to  try. My  son  just  loved  it .




INGREDIENTS

All  purpose  flour/Maida - 1 1/2  cup
Sugar - 1  cup
Baking  powder - 2  tsp
Salt -1/2  tsp
Milk - 1/2  cup
Any flavorless  oil- 1/2cup
Eggs - 2
Vanilla  essence - 1 tsp



METHOD

1. Sift  dry ingredients  together  and  mix .

2. Add wet   Ingredients  to  dry  ingredients  and beat  well  until  smooth  and  creamy.

3.  Keep  muffin  tins  ready  lined  with  muffin   liners .

4.   Fill  up  to 3/4  th  of  each  cup .

5. Bake  for 15  minutes  at the  180  degrees.
The  baking  time  may  vary  according  to  various  ovens.




Thursday 15 December 2016



    WHOLE WHEAT PUMPKIN MUFFINS.


This is a very tasty   savoury  muffins. These too  is an  adaptation  from  the  blog cookieandkate. The  main change I  have  made is  that  of the sweetner .The original recipe uses honey but according to our knowledge honey cant be heated so  I used sugar.Here i used home made pumpkin puree.I made it by pureeing pressure cooked  pumpkin.To make the pumpkin puree I used almost 250 grams ripe pumpkin.Peel it and dice it.Pressure cook with little water for 3 or 4 whistles.Cool it,puree in a blender and use it.






INGREDIENTS
  • ⅓  cup coconut oil 
  • 1  cup sugar
  • 2 eggs, at room temperature
  • 1  cup pumpkin purée
  • ¼  cup milk 
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling on top
  • ½ teaspoon ground ginger
  • ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
  • ¼ teaspoon allspice or cloves
  • 1¾ cups whole wheat flour
  • ⅓ cup old-fashioned oats, plus more for sprinkling on top
Method
  1. Preheat oven to  180 degree C...and keep muffin tins ready lined with muffin liners.
  2. In a large bowl, beat the oil and sugar together with a whisk. Add eggs, and beat well. Mix in the pumpkin purée and milk, followed by the baking soda, vanilla extract, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice or cloves.
  3. Add the flour and oats to the bowl and mix with a large spoon, just until combined. If you’d like to add any additional mix-ins, like nuts, chocolate or dried fruit, fold them in now.
  4. Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cups. For these muffins, it’s ok to fill the cups a little higher than you normally would. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with a small amount of oats, followed by a sprinkle of cinnamon. Bake muffins for 20 to 23 minutes until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.Baking time may vary according to ovens.
  5. Place the muffin tin on a cooling rack. These muffins are delicate until they cool down . so it’s best to wait until they have cooled down to remove them from the tin. You might need to run a knife along the outer edge of the muffins to loosen them.

    EASIEST  WHOLE  WHEAT  VEGGIE  PIZZA.





  Pizza  is always a favourite  among  kids  as well as  grown  ups  so I  wanted  to try a healthy  version   of  it . I had a very nice cook book which I got as a compliment with my LG oven which is written by the wonderful  cooking expert Nita Mehta. This book is a great help for beginner bakers like me.In this book she had a recipe for pizza , but the base is store bought. But I wanted a whole wheat base.So I started searching on the biggest and easily available cook book Google..lol...My  search lead  me  again  to  cookieandkate. com.So  my  recipe here is a  fusion of  these two.

Ingredients
water  - 1 cup(very warm, almost too hot for comfort)

Sugar  - 1 tablespoon

Olive oil - 1 tablespoons

Instant yeast - 2¼ teaspoons

Salt - 1 teaspoon

whole wheat flour- 2  3/4cup

Parmesan cheese - 1/4cup

Green bel lpepper - 1/2  (sliced or  cubed ).

Pizza sauce( home made or store bought) -2/3 cup

Mozerella cheese shredded -2cups

Onion cubed - 1

Tomatoes cubed or  sliced thinly - 1 

Oregano-for sprinkling

Pepper powder- for sprinkling

Salt-for sprinkling

Fresh basil - for garnishing.


Method
  1. Preheat oven to 220degrees Celsius .Keep two greased baking pans ready.
  2. Whisk water, sugar, oil and yeast in a liquid measuring cup or small bowl. Allow yeast to proof for 5 minutes. 
  3.    Mix wheat  flour, Parmesan, and salt  until combined,then  slowly pour in the water mixture and combine well until a shaggy ball forms.
  4. Dump the dough onto a floured work surface and quickly knead dough a few times until it comes together. Halve the dough.
  5. On a floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll dough into two rounds about 11 inches in diameter. For best results, roll the dough out about as thin as reasonably possible. Aim for even thickness rather than a perfectly round shape. Transfer dough to a baking pan .  Brush the outer 1-inch of the dough with a light coating of olive oil.
  6. Add pizza sauce of your choice on top of the base leaving the edges.Arrange some vegetables and sprinkle some salt and pepper over it. Sprinkle with cheese and some oregano.Arrange a few more veggies on top.
  7. Bake  until the crust and cheese are lightly golden, rotating halfway, about 10 minutes for cheese only pizza and 12 minutes for pizza with additional toppings. Sprinkle with smoked sea salt and/or fresh basil and serve.



Note:we can  either  use  raw or  sauteed  veggie  toppings .We  can  lightly  brush  the  base  with  olive  oil  before spreading  pizza  sauce.I  used home made pizza sauce.Will share it later.My  veggie  pizza  took 13  minutes  to  get  done,baking  time  may  vary  according  to  ovens.

Home made pizza sauce

Cook 4  tomatoes with little water and cool it  and puree it.
Microwave tomato puree,1 tablespoon olive oil,1 teaspoon garlic paste,2 tablespoon tomato kech up,1 tsp  oregano,1/2 tsp salt and pepper for 2 1/2 minutes.OR you can saute all these except tomato puree and mix it with puree  later.







Sunday 4 December 2016

Healthy steamed chocolate banana muffins

Healthy steamed chocolate banana  muffins

I was  searching  for  alternate baking methods  and stumbled  upon  steaming  cakes. So I  decided to give it a try  as I  have  tried  pressure  cooker method , so  many  times  successfully.In  pressure  cooker  method  we  can  use  either  pressure  cooker  oor any  heavy  bottomed   vessel  for  baking , aluminum  preferably.
And  we  put  sand  or salt   inside  to prevent  burning  of  the  vessel,I  have  tried without  salt  also. Both  are  ok  but  it's   better  to  take  off  your  vessel  unless it's old   by   spreading  salt oin one   inch  thickness. Once I  tried  pressure  cooker  method  with  water  also  and  the  cake  raised  well, but  the  only  problem   was   vapor  falling  on  the  top . So  this time I   decided  to cover  loosely with a  soft  thin  cotton  cloth  to prevent  this  and  to  use my  iddly   steamer.  The  advantage  of steaming  compared  to  baking  in pressure  cooker  is , cooking  time  can  be  reduced.So  here  we  go.I  used  the  whole  wheat chocolate   Ragi banana  muffin  recipe  in  my  blog, the  only change I  made  was  used  only  whole  wheat as I was  out  of  Ragi so I used 13/4   cup         whole  wheat  and  increased  the  amount  of   cocoa  powder  to 3   tablespoons  to  make  it  more   chocolatey. The   link  to
Recipe is here 



so here I  am explaining the method  only. Here I   used  my iddli  steamer and I had an additional  round plate  which can be used  to steam food by placing it over the water just like idly moulds . So I used it  here.

Method
1.Prepare  batter .
2.Switch  on  stove  and  keep steamer with   water and lid    on it in  high   flame  for 5  minutes
3.Keep  the  muffin  liners  inside  muffin  moulds or small paper  tea cups and fill  up  to 3/4  th  of  muffin  cups.
4.Reduce the flame to low and Keep  the  muffin  moulds  inside  the  steamer and  and cover loosely with a cotton cloth over the muffins without touching the batter and be careful to keep the cloths endings away from fire  ,cover with lid and steam  for 15 to 20  minutes  or  until done or a tooth  pick inserted  comes  out clean.




Your  steamed chocolate  banana    muffins  are  ready  now.....don't forget to remove muffin liners before eating...lol... healthy  and  yummy.


Thursday 6 October 2016

MANGO PINEAPPLE SMOOTHIE

This is a yummy smoothie and this is the only smoothie approved my very picky son who is a banana hater too.So I had to find one banana free smoothie and got this one and its delicious too.

Ingredients
Mango or mango juice - 1/2 cup
Orange juice - 1/2 cup( probably from 2 oranges)
Pineapple chunks- 1/2 cup
Honey/sugar- 1 tablespoon

Method
Blend all the ingredients till smooth...Its ready to drink now.

CREAMY AVOCADO SMOOTHIE






I wanted to taste and use that buttery fruit with green peel .So recently I bought few avocados and I was too eager to taste . I tasted it for first time a few years back when one of my colleague brought it to our work place as she had avocado tree at her  home,and for now I don't remember the taste at all so I was in a little hurry. Just the next day after buying I checked the fruit and it seemed ripe to me so with all my enthusiasm I cut it open and made a smoothie...but for my shock it tasted bitter and all enthusiasm died ..Then I Google why my avocados tasted bitter.Here comes the  truth..unripe avocados tastes bitter.so always use very ripe avocados.Ripe avocados are usually very dark in outer side and softer to touch ,when we press a dent will form.Another important thing is better to avoid scooping out those green part much closer to the peel.So from the search I got an information that you can fasten the ripening of avocados by placing it near fruits which produce ethylene on ripening like bananas,Apple or pineapple.So I kept it along with bananas and was ripened by two days.So I tried again and this time it came out super delicious.This recipe was inspired from food network.com.In the original recipe they calls for two ripe avocados.As we increase the amount avocados the creaminess will increase,but I prefer less creamier so I adapted it to my taste.

Ingredients

Milk - 1 cup
Sweetened condensed milk - 1/2 cup
Ripe avocado- 1/2 of an avocado

Method
Blend everything together until smooth.Very  delicious avocado smoothie ready.Tastes best when served chilled.But we prefer not chilled ,to avoid a  sore throat..lol.


Saturday 1 October 2016

Home made Peanut Butter


Mumma and kids at my home just love peanut butter and its useful in mumm's new found passion baking ,deserts and smoothies.So I wanted to try home made Peanut Butter...My search lead me to several online recipes and I adapted it according to my convenience.Now we don't have to buy those costly jars in the super market.If you want more can double  the recipe too.




Ingredients

Dry roasted and deskinned peanut- 1 cup
Vegetable oil - 3 tablespoons
 Honey or sugar-  1 tablespoons

Method

Blend the dry roasted and deskinned peanuts in a food processor or mixer .Then add oil spoon by spoon and pulse in between.Finally add honey and blend once again..Yummy peanut butter is ready now.You can keep it in the fridge for  a couple of weeks.

Thursday 29 September 2016

Spinach Banana smoothie

  It's a green smoothie with few simple ingredients and ofcourse good for those weight watchers even though am not ,I still like the taste of it .Me and my little girl liked it much.you can adjust the amount of spinach according to you taste for 2 cups to 4 cups.



Method

Spinach loosely packed - 4 cups
Bananas- 2
Yoghurt-3/4 cup
Honey/ sugar - 1 tablespoons
Vanilla - a dash

 Ingredients

Blend spinach first then add banana,yoghurt and blend then add a dash of vanilla and honey and blend to smooth.



BEST HEALTHY  BANANA  BREAD.

     It's my hubby who introduced me to the banana bread and asked me to bake one.But he wanted a whole wheat version and my search lead me to the blog cookieandkate.com.There I found a wonderful banana bread recipe with whole wheat.The only change I made was in the sweetener as we  don't prefer baking with honey at our home as its not good to heat it according to our knowledge.So I substituted it with sugar and it came out perfect and tasty.I have already made it more than a dozen of times now and have tried different variations .Here is the best one.


Ingredients

Whole wheat flour/ atta- 1 3/4 cup
Eggs - 2
Oil-1/3 cup
Sugar- 1 cup
Baking soda- 1 tsp
Ground cinnamon- 1 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Banana mashed - 1 cup or from 2 big bananas
Add ins- raisins,Choco chips or nuts as you like -1/2 cup
Milk - 1/4 cup
Vanilla - 1 tsp


Method

Add oil and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat well and add the eggs and beat well ,now add  mashed banana  and mix then add vanilla ,salt ,cinnamon and baking soda and whisk well.

To the above mixture now add flour and combine just enough to get wet ,small lumps are ok and now add add ins and mix.

Pour the batter in to a 9* 5 loaf pan and sprinkle on top with a little cinnamon.

Bake at 180 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.the baking time may vary according to each oven.

 Cool it in the pan for 10 minutes and remove on to wire rack and cool completely and have it with hot tea or coffee.

You can refrigerate it for 2 or 3 days and freeze for more than a week and  reheat by popping in to a microwave for few seconds or minutes.

Yummy and healthy banana bread....

Omelette Muffins

 Once I was searching on savory muffins and  my search ended up in omelette muffins.I found two different recipes and mine a  fusion of these two.so following is my version of omelette muffins.I like them warm with tomato ketchup.You can refrigerate them for 2 or 3 days or can freeze for more than a week and thaw by reheating in a microwave for few seconds or minutes.One of the recipe calls for jalapeno peppers and since I didn't have them I used ooty chilly.Also the recipe says cheddar cheese but only mozzarella was three in my fridge so I used it.you can follow use veggie as raw chopped ones or sauteed ones.Especially if adding onions its good to sauteed them. And top  the muffins with some more cheese.



Ingredients

Eggs - 6
Milk - 1/4 cup
Shredded or grated cheese - 1/4 cup
Spinach cleaned - half a bunch
Green bell pepper chopped - 1/2
Red or yellow bell pepper- 1/2
Ooty chilly deseeded and chopped - 1
Salt- 1/8 th tsp
Pepper powder-1/8 tsp


Method

Preheat over at 180 degrees

Grease your muffin tins or tray with oil or cooking spray

Beat the egg  and milk together.

Add salt and pepper and chopped veggies and grated cheese and combine well.

Pour up to 3/4 th of muffin cup..each cup should have equal portion of egg and veggies.

If you want can top with grated cheese.

Bake at 180 degrees for 20 to 23 minutes..or until the center becomes firm and no more runny.

Cool them slightly and have it with ketchup or as you like.
 Just ready to go in to the oven.
 Warm  out of oven.
Have it  slightly warm with ketchup or mayonnaise or whatever sauce you like.

Mango carrot smoothie

 Me and my little girl has fallen in love with smoothies..whatever veggie or fruit comes in my way nowadays is turning in to a smoothie.This is a mango carrot smoothie.All smoothies tastes best when all ingredients are chilled.But we prefer them in normal temperature .And it tastes better if uses full fat yogurt.Can add sweetener according to your taste.




 Ingredients

Ripe mango  peeled and cut in to cubes- 1
Apple juice - 1/2 cup
Carrot juice - 1/2 cup
Yoghurt- 3/4 cup
Honey/ sugar- 1 tablespoons

Method
 blend all ingredients in a blender till smooth and  enjoy you smoothie



Saturday 10 September 2016

Healthy Green smoothie

I adapted this yummy kids friendly smoothie  from super healthy kids.com.Its  really nutritious and yummy,so thought will share here..Really great for those picky eaters who don't wanna chew that fruits and veggies..A good quick breakfast or snack too.I made little changes to suit my little ones taste buds and also according to the availability of ingredients in our place.

Ingredients
Spinach - 1 cup loosely packed
Robusta banana- 1 big or 2 small
Pine apple cubes - 1 cup
Orange juice from - 2 oranges
Mango cubes- 1/2  or 1 cup or Tang mango powder - 2 tsp

Method
1.In a blender blend orange juice and spinach,then add pineapple cubes and mango powder or mango
and finally add sliced bananas and blend to smooth. And enjoy immediately with a straw..





 Easy Sugar Cookies


         This is a tasty and easy sugar cookies recipe .I got it from Google only long ago so l don't remember the site.But it always came out good and tasty.My kids just devoured them and its always my luck that I get a few for icing ,especially in the December seasons...They are perfect for any occasions like Christmas or birthday parties,make them in any shape and do some creative icing...kids will be super happy.



Ingredients

All purpose flour - 2 cups
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Butter - 1/2 cup
Sugar powdered - 1 cup
Egg - 1 lightly beaten
Milk - 2 tablespoons
Vanilla - 1/ 2 tsp


1 Preheat oven at 180  degree celsius
2. Cream butter and   sugar well and then add egg,vanilla and a 1 teaspoon of milk mix well .Now add flour and combine well and form a ball like chappathy dough..if its not coming together can add more milk.But always add teaspoon by teaspoon ,otherwise you will end up adding more flour...
3. Refrigerate the dough  for one hour
4 .After one hour take the dough out and flatten using a rolling pin in 1/ 4 inch width 4.Cut out cookies using a cookie cutter and place them in a cookie tray lined with baking sheets.
5.Bake for 10 minutes or until the cookies are done..(usually between 10 to 12 minutes)..Baking time varies according to oven.
6.cool the cookies and glaze them with icing or just store them in air tight container

Easy cookie icing in the future post..


GGREEN CHUTNEY/CORIANDER CHUTNEY.


This is my family's favorite chutney.My kids just love it.It's my son who named it Green
Chutney.Actually It's a combination of onion tomato and coriander leaves. It goes well with iddlly and dosa.

Ingredients

Onions chopped -4
Tomato chopped - 2
Coriander leaves - 1 or 2 handfuls
Green chilly -1 or 2
Salt -according to taste
Oil - 1 tablespoon

Method

1.Heat oil in a skillet and saute onions and green chilly add salt also .After the onions then add tomatoes to it and saute for few minutes then add coriander leaves and saute for a minute and switch off the flame.
2.Allow the mixture to cool and ground to a fine paste in a blender.
3.If you want can temper with oil,mustard,curry leaves and dry red chillies,and pour over the Chutney.



PhotoPhotoPhoto
9/10/16
3 Photos - View album

Friday 22 July 2016

Fingermillet/ragi banana choclate Muffin

FINGERMILLET/RAGI BANANA CHOCOLATE MUFFINS.



 A healthy and tasty dessert  prepared  for  my  kids,  who  just loves  muffins  and  chocolate.As a mom I  wanted  to take a healthy  turn   on  it. Another matter  of  concern  is  my  little Man is a  banana  hater too so I  wanted  to  hide  the   banana  flavour  as  much  possible. Thus I  decided  to  make  some  changes  to the  healthy banana  bread  recipe.I  used partly Fingermillet  or Ragi  and  partly  whole  wheat  and   added  cocoa.


Ingredients

Fingermillet/ragi -3/4 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Cocoa powder - 2 tblsp
Baking soda- 1 tsp
Banana mashed - 1 cup( 3 or 2 1/2 bananas)
Powdered sugar- 11/4 cup
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Powdered cinnammon - 1/2 tsp
Add ins like raisins, choclate chips- 1/2 cup
Oil - 1/3 cup
Egg-1
Milk or water -1/4 cup
Vannilla essence - 1 tsp




Method
   1 .sieve Fingermillet, whole wheat and Cocoa together and keep aside.
  2. Cream oil and sugar welland add eggs, mashed bananas , milk and mix well.
   3.To the above mixture add baking soda , vannilla, salt, cinnnammon and mix well.
   4.Slowly add in siev3d flour to the above m7xture , mix slowly, just flour to get wet, now add the add ins like raisins and mix in slowly, avoid over mixing

Baking

Preheat oven
Bake at 180 degrees  for 13 to 15 minutes for bigger Muffins and 8 to 10 minutes for mini Muffins
Check the doneness using tooth pick, inserting a tooth pick  in the center and
if it comes out clean, its done.The baking time may vary according to different ovens