This month’s Sweet & Simple Bake is Snow Flecked Brownies.  I am a chocoholic and ever since I saw the bake for this month, I was eager to bake it.  However, I was preoccupied with other stuff and could not bake it until this afternoon.  Even today, when I woke up this morning, I was not sure if I could bake these and hence,  decided to skip this month’s bake.  That decision did not last too long.  Me skipping chocolate?  No way….  I rushed to the store, picked up all the required ingredients and here I am with these lovely, yummicious brownies… And for me, anything made of chocolate is always yummicious .  I followed the recipe given here, except for the chocolate.  I could only find 300 gms of dark chocolate, so I substituted the other 75 gms with bitter chocolate.  Also, I did not dust my brownies with icing sugar, so I guess my brownies are not snow flecked…

Preparation: 15 – 20 minutes
Baking Time: 25 minutes
Yields: 3 ½ dozens
Source: Maria of S&S Bakes

• 375g best quality dark chocolate 300g dark Chocolate + 75g bitter Chocolate
• 375g unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
• 6 eggs (large)
• 350g caster sugar (superfine)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 225g plain flour
• 250g white chocolate buttons or chips, or white chocolate chopped into chunks (or your own choice of chocolate) I used white chocolate chips
• 2 tsp icing sugar, for dusting I didn’t dust my brownies

• Tin measuring approx 33cm x 23cm x 5.5cm
• Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/350F.
• Line the sides and base of a 33 x 23 x 5.5com baking tin with foil or baking parchment.
• Melt the butter and dark chocolate together in a large heavy based pan.
• In a bowl or wide mouthed large measuring jug, beat the eggs together with the caster sugar and vanilla extract.
• Allow the chocolate mixture to cool a little, then add the egg and sugar mixture and beat well. Fold in the flour and salt. Then stir in the white chocolate buttons or choped white chocolate. Beat to combine then scrape and pour the brownie mixture into the prepared tin.
• Bake for 25 minutes, You can see when the brownies are ready because the top dries to a slightly paler brown speckle, while the middle remains dark, dense and gooey. Even with such a big batch you do need to keep checking on it: the difference between gungey brownies and dry ones is only a few minutes. Remember, too, that they will continue to cook as they cool.
• To serve, cut into squares while still warm and pile up on a large plate, sprinkling with icing sugar pushed with a teaspoon through a small sieve. I did not dust my brownies with icing sugar.

• Adding some nuts to the brownies would be delicious too. It struck me after  popping the brownies into the oven. May be some walnuts and/or pecans to the batter along with white chocolate would make these brownies even more yummy.

It is the beginning of the month and time for yet another Sweet & Simple Bake.  This time is White Chocolate and Orange Cookies.  I followed the recipe as given and presenting you chocolate orange cookies right out of the oven.  I made them this evening.

The Original Recipe is here and I followed it exactly as given, with no substitutions what so ever.

Baking Time: 8-10 minutes
Yields: 3 Dozens (varies on the size)

• 115g unsalted butter, softened
• 200g caster sugar (superfine)
• 1 egg
• Grated zest of 1 orange (2 to 3 tsp)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 200g plain flour
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ¼ baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 225g white chocolate chips (milk or dark chocolate)

• Preheat the oven to 190oC/170oC fan oven/375oF/Gas mark 5.
• Beat the butter and sugar. Add the egg, orange zest and vanilla extract.Sift together the dry ingredients.
• Stir the dry ingredients and chocolate chips into the butter mixture and combine.
• Roll into balls. Use your fingers to flatten onto a non-stick baking sheet 5cm/2in apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool for five minutes and transfer to a cooling rack.
• When cool, store in an airtight container for up to four to five days.

Nine months ago, when I went to India, mom had made this lime juice pickle/chutney. She use to prepare it very often when we were growing up had not made it in recent years. Usually amma makes it in small quantities as it is so easy and can be prepared whenever required, as limes are available year round. Yes, it i not lime pickle but lime juice pickle. This pickle is made with lime juice and no lime pieces, unlike the regular lime pickle. I brought some pickle back with me and it was sitting in the fridge for almost 8 months until 5 weeks ago. I ate it once in a while and U never touched. Last month, we were again on this eating healthy binge, which usually lasts only a few weeks. So during this binge, oatmeal was our breakfast, brown rice took over white rice, grilled fish and meats with steamed vegetables made it to our dining table everyday. Sadly, this binge only lasted 2 weeks as we had visitors and stopped out healthy diet binge.

Anyways, during those 2 weeks, one day I mixed this lime pickle with my oatmeal and U wanted to try it too. Amma told me to temper this pickle before eating but since I was the only one eating it, I did not bother. U liked the fact that it has zero oil in it and tasted it. He fell in love with it and finished the pickle in a week.. There was very little, may be little less than 2 cups of pickle… nonetheless, he finished it in a week and ate it as a side dish with every meal. More than the taste, he liked the fact that this pickle did not have any oil in it

I got the recipe from amma and made it again. The first time it was ok and we finished it too and couple of days ago I made it again and it came out better than the first try.

• List 1
  • 6 Limes juiced or 1 Cup Lime Juice
  • 1 tsp dry roasted Fenugreek seeds powder
  • 1 ½ tsp Mustard Seed Powder
  • 2 ½ tbsp Salt (adjust to taste & I used Mortin Iodized Salt)
  • ¼ tsp Turmeric powder
• List 2
  • 2 ½ tbsp Chili Powder (adjust to taste)
  • 1 ½ tbsp dry roasted Sesame Seed powder
• Tempering
  • Oil
  • Cumin
  • Mustard
  • Dry Chilies
  • Curry Leaves

• Mix the ingredients listed under list 1. Mix all the spices well so that there are no lumps in the lime juice. Let the spices and juice mixture ferment or sit for 3-4 days at room temperature. I only left it for a day.
• On day 2, (mom said 4th or 5th day) mix the second list of ingredients to the juice mixture.


• I was not going to temper the pickle but as I was going to take pictures for the blog, I tempered it In a pan take some oil and temper it with the ingredients listed for tempering.  I was out of curry leaves and did not use it today.
• It can be served with rice, upma and makes tasteless oatmeal flavorful and eatable…
• Stays good for at least 10 days at room temperature.  However, I refrigerated it after a week.

I am sending this over to Ammaji’s Recipes, who is hosting her first blog event, Spicy Fiery Chutneys. What would be a better entry than this Lime Juice Pickle.  I also sending it to Pickles & Chutneys at Mom’s Recipes

Hello, everyone! I have been stranger to the blogosphere lately… I was in India for 5 weeks and got back end of August. Since then, I was a little busy with guests and also a bit lazy to blog….

Today I am here with this month’s (month of September) Sweet & Simple Bake: St Clements Drizzle Cake. I followed the recipe as given Maria.  This was delicious with sweet and tangy lemon orange juice drizzle.  However, my fruit juice didn’t soak all the way down to the cake and part of the cake that did not soaked tasted like a regular vanilla cake, which was yummy too.  I might have simmered my juices for too long and made it too think that it could not go all the way down the cake pan.  The other mistake I made was not lining the loaf tin.  I had to turn over the loaf pan to remove the cake and all the juice syrup stuck to the plate.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day yet, that is the most neglect meal in my house.  U skips his breakfast most of the time and I munch on whatever I find in the fridge or the pantry and eat an early lunch.  Whenever he eats breakfast at home, I make roties with chicken shorva or tomato shorva, upma or murmuras.  When he doesn’t, I eat whatever is around.  I eat anything that is easy to fix and does not require much time to prepare. My breakfast varies depending on my mood from junk food such as cookies and chips to pulihora from left over rice from last night dinner or to healthy food such as sprouts, nuts and oatmeal.

Divya asked us all to show her our breakfast and I am showing two varieties of breakfast which are very easy to fix.  One is may favorite and the other is not so appetizing but very easy to prepare.  Since I am very lazy person when it comes to fixing food for myself, I don’t even mind eating oatmeal, despite its tastelessness.

Breakfast #1: Sweet Corn Kernels

How I made it:

• In a microwave safe bowl, I took some frozen sweet corn and microwave it for 1½ minutes.
• To corn, I added pinch of pepper, pinch of chili powder, ½ – 1 tsp of garlic paste or crushed garlic, 2 tbsp of desi ghee (homemade clarified butter) and salt to taste.
• Stirred everything and microwave it for another ½ – 1 minute.
• Removed form the microwave, stirred it again.  It was ready to eat.

• I did not measure the ingredients and all the measures given are approximate.
• Normally I use pepper, salt and butter. When I made this a week ago, I was in mood to pamper myself and wanted a spicy and flavory breakfast. So I added some chili powder and garlic. Also, I have some homemade ghee I brought from India. Since I was using homemade ghee, I indulged myself with 2 tbsp of ghee. Normally I just use 1 – 2 tsp of butter.

Breakfast # 2: Instant Oatmeal

I use instant oatmeal packets and follow the instructions on it. These packets come in various flavors and I find them a little sweet, specially the fruit flavors. So, I prefer the regular or unflavored oatmeal. I follow the instructions on the package. It is a healthy, quick and fast breakfast to fix in jiffy.

• In a microwave safe I bowl took ½ – 2/3 cups of milk. I usually use milk but can use water also. Emptied  the contents of the oatmeal packet into the bowl and heated it in the microwave for 1½ – 2 minutes. Removed it from the microwave, added a pinch of salt and stirred well. Instant oatmeal was ready to eat.
• I added just a pinch of salt when I last had it for breakfast and sometimes, I also add little bit of lime pickle to make it more palatable.

Stuffed Green Chilies or mirapakaya kura is one of my favorites.  However, I do not make it as much as I would love to.  Mr. U is not very fond of it.  I can not say he does not like it either. It depends on his mood.  I don’t like it when he does not eat what I cook, so I usually avoid cooking stuff, which I know he might not eat.   Today I made Mirapakaya kura for lunch and he saw me taking pictures before we ate.  During our lunch, he asked if I made it for the blog.  I denied and said I made it because I like and it is one of my favorites.  He refused to believe me and asked why don’t make it very often if I like this kura so much and it only takes 10 minutes to cook it?  He does have a point there but he doesn’t understand that cooking is not fun when I know I would be the  only one eating it.

I made it this green chilies curry today to send it to Cardamon for her JFI: Chilies, started by Indira, and to Padmajha’s Think Spice: Sesame, started by Sunitha.

Total Time: 20 – 25 minutes
Preparation Time: 10 minutes (excludes the time required to prepare the powders)
Cooking Time: 10 -12 minutes
Serves: 2

• 2 tbsp Oil
• ½ – ¾ cup chopped Onions
• 2 tsp Ginger Garlic Paste (can substitute garlic paste for ginger garlic)
• 1½ – 2 tsp Coriander Powder
• ½ tsp Turmeric Powder
• 1 tsp Chili Powder
• Salt to Taste
• 10 Long Green Chilies (can use Long Hot Peppers)
• 2 tbsp Milk
• Stuffing:
  • 2 tbsp Dry Roasted Sesame Seed Powder
  • 1 – 1½ tsp Coconut Powder (opt)
  • Pinch of Salt

• Wash the chilies and make a slit them vertically. Carefully remove the seeds from inside using either fork or a spoon. I used my fingers. I feel that is the easiest way to seed the chilies.  Mind you, if you use fingers, wash hands immediately to avoid the burning sensation.  I did not remove all the seeds, just a few to reduce the heat of the chilies.
• Lightly fill the chilies with the stuffing. Do not stuff the chilies with the stuffing. About ¼ – ½ tsp of stuffing per chili should suffice. There will be some left over stuffing, which will be used later. Cut the chilies horizontally into two pieces. I was not going to cut them into two, but when cooking them, I realized it is easy to mix if the chilies were smaller.
• Heat oil in a pan and fry the onions until translucent.
• Add ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute or two until the rawness of the paste is gone.
• Add coriander, turmeric, chili powder and salt and mix well.
• Add the chilies saute them until the spices coat the chilies. Add milk and mix it. Cover the cook on medium to medium high flame for 3-5 minutes until the chilies are cooked and tender. Mix it in between to ensure that the chilies and the mixture/masala does not burn.
• Remove the cover, add the left over stuffing mixture and cook for another 2-4 minutes.
• Remove from heat and serve with rice.

This month’s or rather for the month of June, featured blog on Tried & Tasted (T&T) was Meena’s blog, Hooked on Heat.  She has a very good collection of recipes and I bookmarked couple of recipes.  One recipe that I could not wait to try was Spicy Pepper Mushrooms.  I love mushrooms and was eager to taste it and I was not diappointed at all.

This is the third time in a week that I cooked these delicious Spicy Pepper Mushrooms.  I just loved it.  Mr. U is not a big mushrooms person but when I made it the first time, he liked how it looked and he also liked the taste of it.  The first couple of times I made this recipe, I could not take any pictures. Before I realized, I missed the deadline for the event as well. But KC, who hosted T&T for the month of June is accepting late entries until she posts the roundup.  So last evening, I rushed to the store and bought some mushrroms and made it again.  Thank you Meena for this lovely recipe and thanks to KC for choosing and featuring Hooked on Heat,  for this/last month’s Tried & Tasted event.

Tried and Taste, T&T, is an event started by Zlamushka.  KC of Kits Chow hosted it for the month of June.  The featured blog was Hooked on Heat and the recipe I Tried & Tasted is Beat the Heat: Spicy Pepper Mushrooms.  I followed her recipe as given with minor changes.  Again, here is Meena’s recipe for Spicy Pepper Mushroom.  I will also list her recipe here and strike out and list the all the ingredients that I substituted, in italic and in bold.

Total Time: 15 – 20 minutes
Preparation Time: 5 – 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 2

• 2 cups mushrooms, sliced 10 oz pack of Mushrooms, sliced or 3 cups of sliced Mushrooms
• 1 medium-sized Onion
• 1 tbsp each of ginger and garlic, finely chopped 2 tbsp of Ginger Garlic paste
• 2-3 green chillies, finely chopped 5 Green Chilies chopped or 1 tbsp of chopped Green Chilies
• 2 tbsp Green Onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp soy sauce Tamari Sauce (I did not have soya sauce)
• 1 tsp Black Pepper
• Salt, to taste
• 1 tbsp light cooking oil, 1 tsp pur sesame oil, 2 tbsp cooking oil (I used 2 tbsp of Olive Oil instead)

• Peal the mushrooms; Remove the stem from the cap and remove the membrane on the cap. One could skip this step. I usually peel the mushrooms before cooking.
• Heat oil in a pan and saute chilies and ginger garlic paste, for about a minute or two.
• Add the onions and fry till light brown.
• Add the mushrooms and mix well. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for 2-3 minutes until the mushrooms are tender.
• Remove the cover and cook until the water evaporates. This should take a minute or 2.
• Add salt, pepper and soya sauce and cook for another minute.
• Garnish with green onions.
• Meena suggested serving it with fried rice or noodles.  I served it with plain white rice.

This months Sweet & Simple Bakes is Chocolate Orange Drizzle Loaf Cake.  I was afraid I might not be able to bake it before the deadline tonight.  It came out very well and since I was running out of time, I cut the cake and took some clicks before the chocolate could set.  I followed the recipe given here.  The only change I made is I used the zest of 1 large orange and the juice of 1/2 orange.  My oranges were very big, so used half the required quantity.  Also, I used semi sweet chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate, as I had these in my pantry.  Maria & Rosie, thanks for this delicious bake.

I got back from my vacation last Monday.  I had a great time in London.  I watched lot of cricket and explored London, when I was not at a match.  One day, I took a day trip to Stratford upon Avon, birth place of William Shakespeare.  Part of that tour was William Shakespeare’s birth home and also Anne Hathaway’s Cottage.  Anne Hathaway was William Shakespeare’s wife and I liked her cottage very much. In fact, I liked it more than that of Shakespeare’s birth home.  Anne Hathaway cottage is very beautiful with a beautiful english garden.  The roof of the cottage was redone recently and the interiors of the cottage are preserved as it was during the Hathaway’s.  The garden has many beautiful flowers and vegetables.

Today I am not sharing a recipe with you all,  but am sharing some beautiful pictures of Anne Hathaway’s vegetable garden.  I have a few pictures of my London trip on my other blog which I posted while on vacation.  I have not updated that blog since I got back.

Cabbage

Hello everyone…. I am on vacation right now in London and will not be posting any recipes for another 10 days.  I am having a great time here.  I will be back in New York next week and until then chao…