Nellikai/Indian Gooseberry/Amla thokku

One of my first memories of my mother telling me to eat a particular food that is "very good for me" is Amla/nellikkai/Indian gooseberry. She used to insist that I at least give it a chance since it has good medicinal values. Now after so many years I find myself repeating the same thing to my daughter, albeit, with more evidence from scientific research. My favourite way to eat these otherwise tart, some what astringent and sweet all at the same time is in the form of thokku/pickle. Of course, Anjalie likes it too but I take out her "thokku" before I add chilli powder and keep it mild for her. For the benefits of these gooseberries please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllanthus_emblica

You will need:
Nellikkai/amla/Indian gooseberries- 10 nos
2 tbsp sesame oil/cooking oil
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp fenugreek/methi/vendayam seeds powder
1/8 tsp asfoetida
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp of red chilli powder (adjust to taste and omit for children)
10 curry leaves
salt to taste

Akkara adisil

First of all, my sweet Pongal wishes to everyone who celebrates Pongal (the Tamil harvest festival)! En Iniya Pongal nal vazhthukkal! The Tamil winter solstice month, Marghazhi (Dec-Jan), is one of the wonderfully busiest month in Triplicane, where I grew up in Chennai. Music festivals, dance recitals, upanyasams and other art-forms are celebrated in full glory. I have such fond memories of these special times that, even though I live away, I make special effort to celebrate the Tamil winter solstice in my own way. The end of the Tamil winter solstice is marked by the harvest festival, Pongal which usually is for 4-5 days and, in it's own right, one of the best times of the year in Chennai for me. Like most Indian festivals, the winter solstice month and Pongal festival days mean extra special food cooked at home. At home, my folks usually make Akkara adisil on koodaravalli (27th day of the winter solstice) and sakkarai pongal (sweet pongal) on the Pongal festival day. Both dishes are similar with a small variation. Akkara adisil can be made with rice and varieties of dal, while, sakkarai pongal is made only with moong dal (yellow lentils). I personally prefer the mixed dal flavour in akkara adisil. Akkara adisil is beleived to be one of the traditional and ancient food recipe since it is mentioned in the works of Tamil saint Andaal (believed to have lived around 3102 BC). This does seem to be her favourite dish since it comes up in more than one of her literary works. She first claims, in Thiruppavai, that

Home-baked Ciabatta

First of all, a very Happy New year to you all! Hope you had wonderful holiday season. Our holidays were so fantastic that I nearly did not want it to end. Much worse, after eating so much calorie-rich food for the holidays, we did not want to cook or eat again for another few years! But it never quite works like that and we were hungry again quite soon. So we decided to stick to simple food and sandwiches for the next couple of weeks. So that is one of the reasons I did not get much to write about in here. But today I got to try Ciabatta bread -which by the way is my favourite kind of bread. Personally, I love the crusty outside, extra-soft inside with those varying sizes of beautiful holes. I could it with pretty much anything, although, I tend to favour savoury food. With Anjalie wanting to help with the kneading of the bread I decided to try baking Ciabatta together with her. We are very pleased with how it has come out, which according to her is "perfect!" I did not need any further praise tbh, but, even my hubby who usually does not care for crusty breads said he enjoyed it and wants this exact same recipe repeated often. So I am one very pleased lady here. I have followed the measurements etc from BBC's Paul Hollywood continental recipes. Link here. But I just followed my own method that suits both Anjalie & my schedule.




You will need:
400 g white bread flour
300 ml water
1 tsp salt
2 tsp yeast
30 ml olive oil

Christmas cup cakes/ fairy cakes

Christmas, although a busy time of the year, is absolutely the most wonderful time for us all to spend some quality time together. Since, Anjalie & I love our cooking-time together, we usually have a whole lot of baking to do. This year, Anjalie wanted to give her friends some cupcakes/fairy cakes at her nursery. Today was the last day at the nursery, so, we did some baking last evening and, although Anjalie did not stay at the nursery, we just dropped the cakes off and wished everyone Happy Holidays. We did have a busy day preparing for Christmas Eve dinner. But it was fun too. These cupcakes were decorated by Anjalie with some help from me and can be great fun to do with children.

You will need:

cupcakes/fairy cakes (you can use store bought mix or follow the recipe here)

You will need frosting/icing (I used Betty crocker chocolate icing. For recipe to make from scratch see here)

Royal icing/fondant/ready to roll icing - various colours like green, red, yellow, pink, white etc

coloured sugar (optional)

water

small pastry brush

Bake your cakes following the recipe. Allow to cool down completely.

One nice thing for me is that Anjalie loves every bit of the cake making - even the cleaning :)





Roll out the fondant/royal icing, cut out circles in various colours and cut out the shapes (like Christmas tree, holly leaves, snow flakes etc) needed to put together.

You can use cookie cutters or sugar craft kits.

Frost the cake with chocolate icing/frosting. Next add on the layer of fondant circles and using water (with a pastry brush), stick the rest of the shapes together. Here is one with holly.

Here we have made a few - Christmas trees, angels, snow flakes, holly and Santa. Anjalie needed a lot of help for Santa (naturally). But the rest she did them mostly on her own. If anything, you can simply sprinkle with coloured sugar too.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas cookies/biscuits - Stained glass and chocolate-vanilla

Last year, for Christmas, Anjalie & I made Spritz cookies. This year we both wanted to try out her new baking set that she got as a birthday present. It includes a whisk, baking sheet, rolling pin and cookie cutters (shaped like tea pot, flower and a heart) - all in perfect sizes for her. She was really looking forward to rolling out and cutting the cookies. So I decided to go with simple sugar cookies and slightly modify them to make it festive for Christmas. I used to regularly make sugar cookies using Wilton sugar cookie recipe while we lived in the USA. Once we moved to the UK, I had trouble making these cookies following the same recipe. This was due to the difference in the flour. The flour in the UK is finer and cannot take the amount of butter asked for in the Wilton cookie recipe. This led to the cookies expanding a lot while baking (despite chilling and/or freezing)- leading to a blob! After trying to increase the amount of flour, a couple of times with disastrous results, I eventually found a recipe that works perfectly here in the UK- by reducing the amount of butter. I have simply jazzed up this basic recipe for Christmas using candies and milk chocolates. I am really pleased with the results. It wowed our friends and family who said it looked and tasted great and Anjalie & I had a fantastic time baking the cookies together! So, without further ado, here is the recipe...

Christmas alphabet cookies

With Christmas break nearing, my now 4 yr old, Anjalie is really excited about making cookies and cakes with me. Last week during our morning walk to her nursery we had a conversation which started about her discussing her starting school in the new year. She, naturally, was excited about it and said she wanted to practice her alphabets. Somehow, it soon turned to Christmas and she wanted to make cookies and cupcakes with me. So this weekend, we made cookies and practised writing alphabets all in in one go! We wrote Christmas with our batter and made Christmas ornaments cookies with sprinkled coloured sugar for a festive touch. You can experiment with your favourite shapes too. Children will especially have a great time with this. Depending on the flour, the piping out of the dough is quite easy for a child to do. But if you find that it is harder then add a tbsp or two of melted butter to make it easier.

Birthday cake (Peppa pig)

Tomorrow is Anjalie's fourth birthday party. Part of me is still amazed thinking "has it been that long?!" This year she asked for a Peppa Pig cake. Well, you can never have too much Peppa Pig (at least in our home). Last year, she was totally engrossed in Thomas Tank Engine and asked for "Choo-choo train". At least, she keeps me busy, lol! Along with Peppa Pig her next favourite TV show is number jacks. So I thought to combine the two together for her cake. I really do enjoy making these for her. This time around I actually managed to take a few pictures of the making process. So here they are..

You will need:
one round 9 inch cake (of your favourite flavour)
Chocolate frosting/buttercream icing or any of your favourite icing.
Fondant/royal icing:
Grass green  - 1 kg
Lincoln green/bottle green - 200 gm
Red - 200 gm
Chocolate - 100 gm
Yellow - 200 gm
Blue - 100 gm
white - 100 gm
Black - 25 gm
Pale pink/Flesh - 100 gm
Edible glue/water - as needed
Edible Tylose powder - 2 tbsp

Grandma's Trinidadian style chicken pot roast

While, visiting family is wonderful on many levels from enriching our lives and helping with recharging ourselves, I also find that it provides excellent opportunities for learning new (for me anyway) family recipes. This time while we were on vacation, enjoying our visit with our family, I watched and learned how my MIL makes her (ever popular with Anjalie) pot roast chicken. I am indeed very pleased that it is Anjalie's favourite. The recipe involves simple ingredients and the method is so very easy and quick to make. While my MIL made the food, all I had to do was click away the pics for my step-by-step recipe to share with you all. So here it is just as she made it...

You will need:
2 lbs chicken pieces (with bones) - cleaned & washed.
salt & black pepper to taste
1 tbsp tomato puree/ketchup
1 tsp low-sodium soya sauce
1 small pimento (mild ones for children) chillies
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp cilantro/coriander leaves chopped
2 stalks salad onions/chives
2 cups of water

Oven grilled lemon-garlic fish/quorn fillets (in foil packets)

Fish/Quorn fillet features around 2 times in a week in our home. Mainly because, Anjalie enjoys fish very much and also because it is very healthy. On days when I am in a hurry to multi-task oven baked/grilled fish is just perfect to put together a healthy dinner/lunch with roast potatoes and a quick salad. 

Chicken/Quorn garlic-lemon Goujons

These are excellent finger/party food that will please kids and adults alike. They are easy to make as well which is a big plus for me at least. Combined with their favourite dip these are bound to be a huge hit with children. I serve these with salad/steamed veggies like broccoli to make a balanced dinner/lunch meal for toddlers and add a serving of mash to make a filling meal for adults or older children. I tend to make these in two different ways: on rare occasions I deep fry them; regularly I shallow fry them and then bake them the rest of the way until cooked in the oven. Naturally, the oven baked one is the healthier option.

You will need:
400g mini chicken/quorn fillets (You can cut regular chicken breasts into strips)
1 tsp garlic paste + 2 tbsp lemon
salt & black pepper to taste.
35g plain flour
1 large egg, beaten
100g fresh breadcrumbs
3 tbsp vegetable oil for shallow frying or enough oil to deep fry (if not baking)