Coconut Macaroons

Yesterday I suddenly remembered that I had saved a recipe for Coconut Macaroons (biscuits) somewhere last year. I had found it after I baked a fruit cake for Christmas and had some shredded coconut left. So I decided to find it and bake it. It turned out really well, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside :) 

Its a very easy and simple recipe. If you've read my previous blogs you'll realise I bake or cook that which requires minimum ingredients and steps. Not becos I am lazy, its becos I have a little son running around. He can do some serious damage if left unattended for a long time. So I tend to simplify recipes to suit my time constraint.

Ingredients:

• Shredded sweetened coconut (dry)- 1 1/3 cups
• Granulated sugar - 1/3 cup 
• All-purpose flour - 2 tablespoons 
• Egg whites – 2
• Vanilla extract – 1/2 teaspoon

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
• In a bowl, combine coconut and flour.
• In another bowl, whisk together the egg whites, sugar and vanilla.
• With a spoon or spatula, mix in the coconut-flour mixture to the egg mixture. It will be dense mixture. Now your ready to bake.
• On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, scoop the mixture with a spoon and place it 1 inch apart. I used a 1 tablespoon rounded measuring spoon. 
• Bake until golden brown, must be for 15-18 minutes, based on the oven. Let macaroons cool. When hot it will not be crispy on the outside.

Tip: Once cooled, transfer to an air-tight container. Or it will loose its crispiness.

For the love of Biriyani

I Love Biriyani, any kind, veg or non-veg :) well, who does not? It’s one of those universally loved food. My love affair with biriyani has been lifelong thanks to my mom. My mom is a great cook, her awesome biriyani are always a great hit with everyone. And when I got married, I found out my mother-in-law makes great biriyani too. Both my mother and MIL make awesome biryani with just a pressure cooker. I kind of don’t attempt making biriyani when either of them is around. I make biriyani too with a pressure cooker or the automatic rice cooker; they taste good, like homemade, nothing to brag about or feature until now :). LOL. Thanks to my new friend Subha who shared a recipe with me recently and was totally thrilled to see how simple it was. Every time I googled for dum biriyani, it called for huge vessels with lid that are oven safe (which I don't have) and then the double work of cooking the gravy separate and the rice separate, layering it. Phew! Just reading it I would give up. Cos for me biriyani is a one pot cooking thing, easy and simple. 

Well back to the feature biriyani, The Chicken dum biriyani. You can find the recipe in the link. I just made very little changes to the recipe. I added the whole spices (the cloves, cinnamon sticks etc.) and black jeera (caraway seeds) to the rice while cooking; I saw this in another video. I also did not add whole black pepper corns, cumin powder or seeds and garam masala in the chicken marinade. Instead I added some biriyani masala I had at home. Used red food coloring dissolved in water instead if saffron. I did not have fried onions too, so I sautéed some thin slices (grated) onions till dark brown and used them.

Comfort food - The Indian way

When it’s raining heavily and the day seems to almost turn into night, all I can think of is warm comfort foods :) . So when it started raining cats and dogs couple of days ago, I found the perfect opportunity to try an Indian comfort food recipe, which I accidentally came across.  It’s an Indian chaat called Matar Chat, made from dry peas. Here’s the recipe I followed, it’s super simple and yummy. It’s a great combination of flavors. I love chaats. The only change I made was use green dried peas instead of yellow dried peas. The taste was unbeatable, its one fool-proof dish that would make your taste buds dance, did I mention that I love chaats :) LOL. Well, one tip I’ll give you is to add the dry ingredients while the peas are really hot, and then just let it sit for some time so that they can soak up all the flavors. 

Apple - Banana Cake

What do you do when you have over ripe bananas, not fit to eat?  - You bake a Banana cake.  Or at least that’s when I bake them.  I had a recipe that used apple sauce and yogurt (curd) instead of too much butter, but like I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I lost all my recipes when we moved.  So I thought why not bake an apple - banana cake, hoping my son who hates fruits will somehow get some fruits into him. A part of me thought I was a genius to have come up with the idea of an apple-banana cake :D, but there were hundreds of recipes online for it. As usual, I didn’t have to look beyond 2 links. I found an easy and simple one, here is the recipe for the apple-banana cake.  I just made some changes to it.   Well, did my son eat it? – Nope :(

Actual recipe	Changes made
2 cups white sugar	1.5 cups brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon	1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups all-purpose flour	1 cup all-purpose flour + 1 cup whole wheat flour
4 cups grated apple	3 cups grated apple
2 tsp baking soda	1.5 tsp baking soda

The 1st Birthday!

My baby boy turned 1 on June 5th, 2012. We wanted to have a party, to celebrate and praise God for this huge blessing He has showered upon us.

 I was inspired by my talented sister-in-law Rebekah to make her famous Martha Stewart pom poms as decorations. I first saw the pom poms on my baby shower, which my SIL and close friends Kezia and Sarah threw for me. They are so simple and pretty. I had bought a Birthday banner, and used it to pull the colors from and made these colorful pom poms :) Simple, pretty and cheap ;)

The Party in a  snapshot.

Quick and easy Chicken

I've realized that my brain works best when in a hurry :) Here's a really quick and easy chicken recipe I made on the fly this Sunday. I did not have the time to chop onion or tomatoes so I just threw in some ginger garlic paste, salt, chili powder, a spoon of yogurt (curd) for some body and a dash of lime juice stirred in the chicken and let it cook. And the result was a super tasty chicken. 

Here's what you need

• Oil - 2 tsp
• Chicken desired amount (I used boneless)
• Ginger garlic paste - 2tsp
• salt to taste
• Chili powder to taste
• Chicken masala - 1tsp if available
• Yogurt/curd - 1 tsp
• Juice of half lime (optional - for a tangy taste)

Method:

• Heat oil in a large pan (larger the pan, faster the cooking time). When hot add the ginger garlic paste, salt, chili powder, chicken masala and stir.
• Add chicken and keep stirring till all pieces are covered in the mixture. Add yogurt and stir.
• Add a splash of water and close the pan. Let it cook. 
• Open add the lime juice stir and close. Add a bit more water if the dish dries up before the chicken is cooked.
• If you need gravy just add more water and cook to the desired consistency. If you like it dry like in the picture, just let it cook without the lid till the water evaporates and dries up.

It goes really well with rice and sambar :) Or make it as a gravy and enjoy with rotis. 

Chewy Brownies...

This is one of the best and simple recipes I found after a long time for a brownie. I decided to bake some brownies as I had some left over cocoa powder from baking a cake on Easter. I then realized I had lost all my recipes while moving,  not that I missed my brownie recipe, my brownies were more like brownie-cakes,  they were soft, not dense nor chewy, but it did taste good. So I started searching the internet for an easy brownie recipe within minimum ingredients and steps and luckily my search was just 2 clicks away. The Chewiest Brownies from allrecipes.com. The secret to Chewy brownies - no baking powder or soda, why didn't I think of that! They only ingredient I added were some chopped walnuts.

Meat Ball Wrap/ Roll

Every one loves a good wrap, and I'm one of them. I've made quite a few variety of them for one day trips that's we've been on. They are easy and relatively healthy. I usually make chicken wraps with Tortillas or left over Chapathis (rotis), cooked chicken or rotisserie chicken bought from the store and any veggies in my fridge. I'm all about  improvising and using things at hand and now you know the reason behind my 'Meat ball wrap' :) I didn't have any chicken left. We bought some Swedish meat balls the other day from Ikea and its been sitting in the freezer for quite sometime, so I decided to use it to make the wrap. 

Here's what you need.

• Tortillas or Chapathis [You can use ready made Chapathis too]
• Meat balls / Chicken
• Mayonnaise - as required
• Capsicum - Chopped (Julienne)
• Cabbage -  Chopped (Julienne)
• Mushrooms (optional) 
• Chili garlic sauce/ hot sauce  
• Cheese
• Oil - 2 -Teaspoon 
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 garlic clove chapped - If using plain hot sauce.

Steps

1. Saute the chopped cabbage, capsicum and/or mushrooms in the oil with the Chili garlic sauce.

2. Add a splash of water to the above, close and cook for a few mins

3. Cook the meat balls according to package instructions and chop them.

4. Assemble : Spread mayo on the wrap, place the cooked veggies on it, then the chopped meat balls, shed some cheese on them. Squirt some ketchup on it. Done!

Use a parchment paper/ plastic wrap/ or clean newspaper or magazine page and wrap the rolls. It will keep everything in place and make it easy to eat too.

Here is a picture of a Chicken wrap that I made in 2009 for a one day trip we went on. This one has lots of fresh uncooked veggies, I tried to remake a shawarma. 

Mac n Caulieese

Healthy and quick  alternate to Mac n Cheese

I know the name is Cheesy :) but true to the name, the recipe has cauliflower substituted instead of the loads n loads of cream and cheese you add. I came up with this after getting inspiration from watching a show featuring a book called 'Hungry girl', the author talked about replacing carbs with loads of veggies to increase portion size, that way even when your dieting your eating your stomach's full without increasing the calories, smart isn't it? She gave an example of adding cooked cauliflower florets to a small portion of mac n cheese.

 So, I started my search for a healthy version of making mac n cheese so I can add cauliflower in it. I was looking for a recipe which also didn't call for lots of ingredients. I like to cook with ingredients readily available in my pantry, certain ingredients are like one-off gadgets that you rarely use, I hate buying stuff like those as they rot in my fridge after one use.  None of the recipes I found on the internet made that possible, they needed sour cream or heavy cream this and that. So I gave up and told myself I'll do it my way, and lo and behold I was surprised with my creation :) and my husband loved it. 

Here's a list of what you need. Don't worry if you don't have all the veggies mentioned, use what you have. Traditional mac n cheese does not have any, so don't worry, the reason for adding so many veggies is to decrease the amount of pasta (macaroni) and make people eat veggies.

• Pasta (macaroni) - as required, I use one handful for each person + 1 extra handful
• Cauliflower - Half cut into florets
• 1 Onion - finely chopped
• 4 cloves of Garlic - finely chopped
• 1 Carrots - diced into small cubes
• 1 Capsicum / Green Peppers -   - diced into small cubes
• 5-6 Mushrooms - Halfed
• Chili sauce -  as preferred 
• Salt - as preferred 
• Pepper - as preferred 
• 1Table spoon oil
• Grated cheese -  as preferred (quantity n type, I used mozzarella) 

Don't worry, I did  not leave any ingredients behind, there is no need for flour, butter, cream or milk, the cauliflower is gonna be the white sauce! 

Steps:

1. Cook the cauliflower: place cauliflower it in a microwave safe dish, fill 1/4th of the dish with water, add salt. Cover and pop it in the microwave for 10 mins. 

2. In a large vessel bring water to boil, add salt generously then add pasta and cook till tender. While the pasta cooks, heat another pan, add oil and saute the onions and garlic. When the onions changes color, add the chili sauce, little salt and the veggies and stir well.  Add 1/4th cup of water n let the veggies cook.

3. Drain the cooked cauliflower and puree it in a blender/mixer grinder using the water it was cooked in. Add to the veggies, still on stove. Mix well, add pepper as desired. Salt if required.

4. Drain the cooked pasta and add them to the veggies and cauliflower mixture. Turn heat off.

5. Transfer to a oven safe dish. Top with grated cheese and broil on high till the cheese melts and turns light brown. Keep an eye, you don't wanna burn them. And your done.

Enjoy! :)

I took the end product picture in the morning while packing them as  lunch for my hubby.  I made the dish last night for dinner.