Peanut Butter Muffin

                                                 Peanut Butter Muffin:

My sister who never favour chocolate in her indulgence, has recently developed taste for snickers. On poking, she told me that it’s the peanut flavour which is irresistible for her.

This rakshabandhan I challenged myself to prepare a whole menu based on peanut flavour. I made, Indonesian Paneer Satay, Penne pasta in pesto sauce (walnuts were replaced by peanut), Garlic bread and peanut butter Muffins. That day, I saw delight on her face.

Here is the recipe for peanut butter muffin

You need:

2 cups of refined flour

1 cup of brown sugar, powdered

1 cup peanut butter

2 medium eggs

3-4 drops of vanilla essence

Half tsf baking powder

10ml of milk

Here you go:

In a bowl, beat eggs, sugar, peanut butter and vanilla essence. Sieve flour and baking powder into the mixture. Whisk gently with roll and cut technique. Add milk to adjust consistency. It should not be too thick or flowy.

Transfer the mixture in silicon shells. I made 6 muffins from the above quantity. Make sure you fill only three quarters of moulds with batter. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for over 15min.

Unmould and serve best with cinnamon coffee.

Potato wedges with Cheddar Cheese

Potato wedges with Cheddar Cheese

A quick recipe, great for starter or tea time.

since its a quick one, am keeping my notes short and coming to recipe directly:

All I need:

Potato wedges : Frozen 1 kg ( one can make fresh potato wedges, cut raw potatoes in wedge shape and deep fry in vegetable oil till golden brown)

onion: 1 big ( peel and chop transversely to make onion rings)

Cheddar cheese : 200gms Or as per your cheese cravings

salt, pepper, oregano powder, italian seasoning.

Recipe:

Bake the frozen wedges in oven as per packet instructions. spread onion rings evenly over them. add the seasoning. mix well with fingers. add grated cheese. bake for 10 min at 180*C .

My friends dont let me serve in dishes.. they just directly gorge it from baking tray. hope you have the same experience too.

CHOCOLATE OAT MEAL COOKIE

CHOCOLATE  OAT MEAL COOKIE

It’s  raining  outside and am seating at my window sill with my brew coffee and chocolate oat meal cookie which I baked half an hour ago. Though it’s a perfect weather for writing down some poetry, for a change I started writing down the recipe of cookies as the smell coming out of my oven from the second batch of cookies is making me  go o la la J

What does one crave for, good food, good weather and good company. At the moment I have two.

Anyways, here is my recipe for the chocolate oat meal cookies

You need:

Butter 100gm salted

Powdered sugar 150 gm

Eggs 2

Refined flour 200gm

Oat meal 100gm

Baking powder 1tsf

Chocolate 100gm melted.

Here you go:

In a bowl, beat egg, sugar, butter. Add flour, oatmeal, chocolate. Add baking powder. Grease the baking dish, make small balls of batter and tap gently to give shape of cookie.

In a preheated oven of 300’C bake for 15 min. till the edges go brown.

You know what to do next...

Injouy. J

Molten Chocolate Cake II Choco Lava

Molten Chocolate Cake 

 Choco Lava

The name itself is tempting, steaming hot molten chocolate coming out in the very first bite of the freshly baked cake. Ah!

I learnt this recipe from my senior teacher Dr Anita Verma. She bakes it often for her kids. And I told to myself that am a kid at heart too, lets cherish myself.

Here goes the recipe:

You need:

Chocolate and lots of extra dark chocolate 50gms J

Coco powder 50gms

Refined flour 100gm

Butter 5ogm

Powdered sugar 100gm

1 egg

Baking powder : quarter tsf

Recipe: in a blender, mix butter, sugar, egg, coco powder till frothy. Add sieved flour and baking soda to the mixture. Fold well. Pour the mixture into silicon moulds. Chop the chocolate into cubes of 1inch size. Put a cube in each silicon mould in the mixture. Make sure, the mixture covers the cube from all sides and there is enough space in the moulds for cake to rise.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 20 min. Serve hot.

Handva

I always get fascinated by the variety of farsans (snacks) savored in Gujarati families. The names are endless, khakhara, handava, khandvi, dhokla, patra etc. and lemme tell you, they all taste unique and awsome.

The curiosity is in the process which is widely in use, these days because of diet awareness and increasing tendencies of obesity among Indians. they use the steam process for the preparation of variety of snacks like dhokla, patra.
Although the snacks are quite healthy and rich in proteins. but, the heavy tempering full of cotton seed oil ruins the charm of low calorie snacks. not to forget that tempering obviously increases the flavor of snacks.

Today I tried Handva (handvo) in my kitchen. I tried making it low calorie (being a diet conscious).
its a very healthy hearty recipe full of proteins and give a fuller effect on satiety. people sometime replace it with the meals. In some gujarati thali, its a part of platter.

Here goes the recipe:
Ingredients:

1 cups rice 

1/2 cup toovar (arhar) dal

1/4 cup urad dal (split black lentils)

1/4 cup moong dal (split green gram)

1/4 cup chana dal (split Bengal gram)

1 cup sour curds

2 1/2 cups grated bottle gourd (doodhi / lauki) other vegetables like carrots, potato can be used.

4 tbsp oil

1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp soda- bi-carb

1 tbsp sugar(optional, for contrast)

1 tsp chilli powder

1/2 tsp turmeric powder (haldi)

3 tbsp green chilli-ginger paste

salt to taste

for tempering optional: 2tsf oil, hing(asafoetida), mustard seeds, sesame seeds, chopped green chilli, chopped coriander.

soak the rice and pulses for few hours. grind them in mixer. add sour curd and ferment for 3hrs (in summers,time for fermentation can be reduced). add the rest of ingredients in the batter. 
spread the batter in a baking dish. bake it on 180.C in preheated oven for 30-40min untill the crust becomes golden brown. 

after that, tempering can be done, in a pan, heat oil, add hing, mustard seeds, sesame seeds, green chillies. heat it untill the seeds start crackling.
another option is, that tempering can be mixed in the batter itself before baking 
garnish with coriander. serve with imli chutney.

Muffins

My sweet tooth is an all time problem for my knees. But one has to suffer at the cost of another. Well am glad to announce that we finally bought a beater, blender cum chopper. Thanks to Vishwa for generous part payment. On a usual day, I am hardly awake past 10 pm. But the new gadget was tempting me to try the long lorn muffins, and so, at 11 pm that night, I finally decided to try my hand at the muffins with the newly purchased, opened the first time whisker. Haash!

The recipe is quite easy and quick. In a bowl, take 2 eggs, 100 gm powdered sugar, 50gm salted butter (Amul utterly butterly delicious!) and few drops of vanilla essence. It’s a shame we don’t have vanilla pods available in neighbourhood. Well, whisk it properly until it’s frothy. Add 100 gm refined flour, 1tsf baking powder and 1/4^thtsf baking soda (Yes! I use both egg and baking powder) sieving into the mixture. Whisk again. Pour the mixture in different shape silicon moulds. Bake in preheated oven at 120C for 20-25 minutes. The smell itself is sufficient to know when it’s done, though the best out there have their ways to check the muffin. Poke the knife in the middle. If it comes out clean, it’s done! But my experiment animal (Vishwa J) has his own way to check it. He will cut a wedge shape part of it over knife. If it doesn’t crumbles down, then its perfectly done. Huh! I say, “bade log! bade log!”

Time to enjoy the feast!!