Roasted Almond Biscotti

Sometimes baking alone is solace. It’s so much fun because the kitchen is closed, daily chores wrapped up and the entire house is fast asleep enjoying their deep slumber. And then you creep tiny footsteps into your kitchen knowing you'll venture into your little space with absolutely no snooping. It’s all your time, your space and just the you that you know. I enjoy that little 'me' time I get when I am there, putting together flour, sugar and nuts amass into a sweet smelling dough that bakes into a heavenly bite, lifting my weary moods. So what if it means sacrificing a bit on sleep, in the end it’s all rewarding.

So when my past two weekends went chock-o-block with work at office taking priority, this is exactly what I did. With deadlines to meet, I carried home quite a lot of the load, lost track of time, almost to a sense I had no time to blog or surf the net, cater to personal time and space for family which I so much love to balance. These are times when mid night baking comes handy, even if that means baking simple cookies or a quick cake that helps me vent the fatigue off the mind with some physical activity like baking that I love doing. These almond biscotti were a result of one such midnight baking attempt.

In the past few days, despite the urge to bake, I’ve not really baked much. I realize I posted a recipe for an eggless chocolate cake hardly a fortnight ago, but yet seems like ages since I baked. So these almond biscotti were the perfect excuse. Inspired again by BBC GoodFood, these biscotti were tweaked to be eggless replacing the same with milk powder and milk. The resulting biscotti is delicious dunked in tea. If you know how Indian Rusk tastes like and are missing them, then these little treats can be your answer to them.

Roasted Almond Biscotti

INGREDIENTS

70 g whole almonds, toasted and chopped coarsely
1 tbsp. oil (optional)
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
Pinch of salt
130g all-purpose flour
75g granulated white sugar
35 g milk powder
35 ml milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. In a small bowl lightly beat the oil, milk and vanilla extract together and set aside. In another bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, milk powder and salt. Gradually add the milk vanilla mixture and beat until a dough begins to come together. Add in the almonds and knead the dough gently. Lightly flour the surface and roll the dough into a log 15 cm long and 5 - 6 cm wide. Transfer to a baking tray and bake for 30 mins. Remove from oven and cool for 10 mins. Cut into slices 1-1.5 cm thick diagonally and arrange evenly on baking tray. Bake on each side for 10 mins or until they are golden. Remove from oven and cool.

Notes:

* Using oil is optional, but recommended since this recipe is eggless.
* Baking soda helps the dough in rising and makes up for the lack of egg.

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Lasooni Dal with Paanch Phoran

Somewhere in the beginning of this year I made a silent resolution to post more savories than desserts as my collection of desserts in my content repertoire had shamefully grown than any other category. Time and again I kept reminding myself about readers being aghast about the paramount number of desserts I had on my blog, as if I had convinced them to believe that this is all we had daily. I had many mailing for basic recipes, as basic as making butter and ghee at home, more savouries for breakfast and tea time snacks, etc., while I had desserts brimming to my blog, something which was unintentional, but in course just unpremeditated.

One of my colleague recently insisted I post recipe on basics of homemade curd, ghee and paneer when it came as a surprise to her on learning that we could make them all at home. From the time I can remember, I grew up seeing my mom skim off the cream from milk and freezing them for days to churn them into a good batch of butter or make ghee, ferment liters of milk overnight to make curd every single day without fail and weigh down blocks of paneer on those odd days when the milk separated temperamentally. I never considered them to be recipes in the first place, forget the thought of even considering worth posting, since it came to me quite inherently by instincts and not something I ever learnt to make. I mean, did someone give you lessons on how to boil milk? It was as synonymous to that.

I don’t think I can come to a phase soon where I can post such basics here. Instead I would love to bring some of my favorite dishes on this table, those much appreciated recipes that are hearty and simple, and are regular in my kitchen. One such being this Lasooni Dal aka Garlic Dal that’s been my long time favorite. I keep it simple because it reminds me of my collage days when I lived single in a rented accommodation and cooked basic meals with simple ingredients and modest flavors for my sustenance. I managed to pull it through quite easily. A simple garlic dal, a quick stir fry of veggies made an utmost delicious Sunday meal along with the humble rice.

An east Indian twist to the dal here is with the tadka or tempering of Bengali spices. Paanch phoran is a blend of five (paanch) spices that is a unique Bengali spice mix made by mixing equal quantities of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, nigella seeds and fenugreek seeds and storing it in an air tight container. I generally keep a ready mix of these spices in a container for my use on demand. Its used to season many dishes and lends a lovely aroma to a dish when tempered. Do hope you love it too.

Lasooni Dal with Paanch Phoran

INGREDIENTS

1 cup masoor dal
1 tbsp. channa dal
1 tsp. turmeric powder
2 tomatoes, chopped

For Paanch Phoran tadka:

1 tsp. oil
5-6 garlic cloves, crushed using mortar pestle
1 tsp. paanch phoran (a tsp. each of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, nigella seeds and fenugreek seeds)
1 tsp. asafoetida / hing
1 tsp. red chilli powder
2-3 whole red chillies

DIRECTIONS

Wash one cup of masoor dal along with the channa dal with couple of changes of water. Pressure cook the washed dal along with turmeric powder, chopped tomatoes and 2 ½ cups of water. Cook on 3-4 whistles till the dal is mushy and soft. Transfer the cooked dal to a wide mouthed utensil and add sufficient water to bring it to a soupy consistency. The consistency depends on how thick or thin you prefer. Keep it thick if you want to pair it with rotis and breads, and thinner if served with rice. Add salt to taste and bring the dal to a rolling boil. Turn off the flame and prepare the tempering.

To temper, heat a wok with a spoonful of oil. As the oil heats up, add the crushed garlic and fry for a couple of seconds. As they turn translucent and fragrant, add in the paanch phoran mix and allow it to splutter briefly. Quickly add in the whole red chillies and fry for seconds. Turn off the flame and add in the red chilli powder, followed by asafoetida to the tempering. Add this to prepare dal and cover. Serve hot with rice or rotis.

Notes:

* I’ve used masoor dal with channa dal here. Channa dal gives texture while masoor dal gives volume to this dish.
* You may use the same recipe with tuvar dal or moong dal instead.
* Skip the red chilli powder to reduce the heat.
* Asafoetida / hing aids in digestion and has a unique heady flavor, hence highly recommended.

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Basic Eggless Chocolate Cake

I wonder what would have come of me if those several inspirational blogs (not food alone) around the web didn’t exist. Things wouldn’t have been so stimulating. Ideas novel and fresh, drawing verves to my relentless motivation and fueling enthusiasm to my ever fretful blogger’s mind. There are many I hop on, read through, admire and pass over. Then there are some that etch me to a point that I desire going back to them time and again. That element of ingenuity, a sense of magnetism, their charismatic aura draws me to them and leaves me awestruck every time I’m there. I applaud them for several aspects that speak uniquely for themselves; some for their splendid writing, others for their stupendous photography, some for their beautiful styling, some for being able to connect with common perceptions, many others for their superb repertoire of stories, food, recipes and travel. If I had to jot down the list of these influential blogs, I would end up running them in pages and not justify the right due to many unexplored too. So I stay put to that for now.

Apart from regular cooking and baking, these blogs that have paved way to my influences in photography too. Indeed, my foray into food photography came through this blog. Ever since I have been living the life of a food blogger, being behind a camera has become quite instinctive. Though being a creative person myself, exploring the depths of photography came to me only with time. I always loved styling and even on a personal level, looking neat and stylish is something I enjoy. I admire folks who carry off themselves well. My perspective for food is not any different.

I am no pro with photography and have come to terms with the fact that I can’t digest photoshop with ease. I love that I am still a home cook, do blogging and photography as a hobby, yet, I would love to master the intricacies and techniques involved in a good photography. My personal woes have been my limitations with time, while setting up a table for styling has been yet another constraint, so doing all of that and waiting for the perfect lighting to shoot photographs becomes one of my greatest challenge.

Well, it’s no excuse I know, neither it helps lamenting. But then blog hopping gives me a whole lot of inspiration. I dance happy feet when I come across sites where the photographs are moody, lighting imperfect, but the food shots as decadent as ever. This Sunday morning I spent time doing just that. I gazed at them, gawked in contemplation, soaked in every bit of their moody darkness. It’s time I kicked off my comfort zone of shooting bright buoyant shots and hover over to some dull moody snaps till I get over them. So here they come, at least for an attempt.

Although there isn’t much fancy to flaunt about this chocolate loaf, since it’s essentially a basic eggless chocolate cake that was baked in a loaf tin to break the monotony of a Saturday noon’s tea break, I will certainly emphasize on the couple of hours I slogged (read enjoyed) to get some lovely moody shots of these slices. On the bright sunny afternoon, before lunch I set this cake in my oven to be baked for our tea time snack. An hour later, our home smelt like heaven of heady chocolaty aromas gracing my kitchen. My daughter’s sharp wits sensed the cake being baked and we fed her some warm bites as she wailed for more of them. Not surprising enough, one among the first words that my daughter learnt to say was a cake! Yes, witty I said! The husband and daughter snapped away with their share of slices for the zillion photographs that followed of the remaining few, mostly underexposed to deliberation. I had no forethought to post the recipe here, after all its just a basic eggless chocolate cake. The clicks though made me happy and I thought this made a good beginning.

Basic Eggless Chocolate Cake

INGREDIENTS

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 cup thick Curd/yogurt
1 cup vanilla sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup butter

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C for 10 mins. Grease a butter paper and layer it in the loaf pan.

Sieve all-purpose flour along with cocoa powder twice and keep aside. Cream the vanilla sugar and curd until sugar completely dissolves. Add baking powder, baking soda to the creamed mixture and mix well. Leave aside for 5 mins and till bubbles appear on the mixture. Now add in softened butter and beat well. Next slowly add all-purpose flour in portions at a time and blend with wet ingredients. Beat well till creamy and thick.

Pour the batter to the loaf tin and bake in the pre-heated oven for 10 minutes at 200 degrees. Then reduce the temperature to 180 deg. C and bake it further for 30-35 mins. Check using a fork inserted into the center of the cake. It should come out clean. Allow the cake to cool down for 10 mins, then invert and remove the butter paper. Slice them and enjoy with a cup of milk, tea or coffee.

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Baby Spinach, Apple & Walnut Salad with Raw Mango Dressing

The western world has been calling that the spring has sprung in, oh though finally. But for us here in Bangalore, even calling the beckoning summer as summertime is nothing short of an understatement. With the mercury touching an all high of 38-40 degrees C by the day, and not getting any better by the nights, adding the woes of humidity in air, our sweat glands at their mechanical best, what feels like is an hour’s workout at gym even in our fan-sped, well ventilated, curtain drawn indoors. The whirling fans do no good, neither the chill of cold icy water and ice creams right out of the fridge. The much esteemed task of domestic grind has taken a swift backseat and I rather enjoy the lethargy of laying lazily like a couch potato, gazing endlessly at the spinning fan, as and when time and my toddler permit. Honestly, I’ve never known what Bangalore summers are like, because of all those glorious 14 years spent here, Bangalore never had a summer, or the real scorching Indian summers that I am talking about. But finally, they come.

Heck this summer, the rising temperatures and its woes that creeps in several uncanny thoughts in fists of laziness.

Pleasant as the weathers used to be, once upon a time, the drastic weather change, the tangential increase in vehicular pollution, the infiltrating population, depleting water tables, the perpetually increasing carbon footprint and the reducing green covers that we’ve always been famous for (well, some day that may remain just a history) have been a few direct promoters to the current state of weather affairs. I am cynical to the educated crowd in craze of the luring mall culture, the fast food takeaways amounting to corpus non degradable wastes, the lazy bums who need a car for singles and the little consideration they care for the exhausting fossil fuels, those loosers who fail to carry a bag along because they can do away with the plastic ones at dirt cheap price of few rupees, all at the cost of our environment. Equally pathetic have been our rainwater harvesting and waste management techniques, a rare to find garbage segregation, or may I say none at all. I am not against these odd commons, but urge being responsibly mindful.

My husband and me have been making constant attempts to create an awareness, more often being ridiculed to be annoying than anything. Like, we plunge into awkward situations when a guest visits us and looks around for a waste bin to discard rubbish. We persuade them to hand it over to us, so we can discard them appropriately. We don’t blurt out why, but will be more than glad if they handed it over to us for disposal. Then there are some smart chaps who insist they’ll throw, because they’ve been taught to be mannered. So we accompany them, fingering them to the right bin. Amused to a point we don’t get it, they often burst into fits of laughter on learning we do effective 'waste management'. Many can’t see why, because they assert that in the end all goes to a single landfill, which isn’t entirely true. It gets hard on us to explain, but we try. We’ve come to a point where we’ve stopped giving answers to many, because they deliberately argue. So we silently follow the practice between ourselves.

Then on another anecdote, we were on an overnight train along with big group of families travelling collectively, our co-passengers for this journey. The head of that group, a physics professor to a college picked up casual conversations with us as we exchanged smiles, little talks and shared food with him and his family. And like it usually happens with most Indian families on a train journey, exchange of home cooked food becomes the pot-boilers to fuel conversations and controversies, this journey wasn’t any different. What although was nastily upsetting was that all through the course of this journey, this learned gentleman, his wife and their grown up teens, callously flung stuffs off the train window; the food, peels, plastics and all that at regular intervals. In midst of our talks, deliberating them to refrain from doing so, and giving them a dose of science behind the whys in idioms that the professor’s nasty brain could understand, couple of more garbage flew out in seconds! At the heights of it, well at the end of our meal, we pulled out our home-brought reusable polythene covers to pump in the wastes and dispose off sensibly later. As we were about to shove them into our bags, this smart gentleman in his wrecked wits grabbed our wastes and flung them off the windows, leaving us painfully distressed! Between his naughty grins, the supposedly science professor told us bluntly that all we had spoken were noble to preach and not to follow in reality. So we were in loss of words.

Awareness is elementary. But then, that’s not where the issue is. Most of us know consciously the value of nature and the repercussions we may face if we continue to exploit the resources this way. My uneducated house help is equally aware that wasting water is sinful since she purchases tankers of them for her survival. I wonder if she’s cautious at her place to care for every little drop that she pays for. Yet, when at work, it seems easier to let the tap flowing while cleaning vessels, because it saves her time and energy, and it costs no penny. Likewise, despite our several attempts to convey waste segregation messages within our apartment association, we’ve been least successful in getting most of the cultured folks in our vicinity to even make a beginning.

I second the fact that the reckless rate at which we are speeding up technologically is alarming. I feel like a perpetrator myself on several occasions. The cell phone era that we can’t do without, every ring, every call I make alarms me of their signal posts towering sky high at couple of foot steps and their carcinogenic radiations that we have to live with. Those Bluetooth, wireless, infra-reds and microwaves have become an indispensable part of our lives that we’ll be severely hampered without. The humongous bore wells being dug every single day, the failing rains and battling water problems in city that have made the bare essentials a commodity of sale, a free right the nature gave us, but with a responsibility that we’ve failed severely at.

The truth is I feel so unprepared for the future I see for my daughter. I see myself swinging on odd ends of balances. Blame it on motherhood, aging or the PMS, but I’ve been thinking a lot for a long time, of the ugly carbon footprint, my daughter, her future and all of that. I am left with cold nerves and numb feet of what holds in couple of decades from now. And if our Hindu discourses said we are in the kali yuga, I can’t help but reflect how right they were in their predictions. They did foresee what devastation human intelligence and greed could do. It’s only a hope we came together collectively and did our bit. For the environment. To save the future. And to let the future generation live. For our children and for theirs to come. And for our own old age.

All said with heavy thoughts, I wouldn’t want to leave you without a recipe of this salad that's apt for this summer, a recipe that’s simple and least complicated as my contemplations are. I leave you with a hope that you’ll ponder. And be the one who’ll resort to a positive change that will prolong the deleterious impact, hopefully. Hope you have a great weekend!

Baby Spinach, Apple & Walnut Salad with Raw Mango Dressing

INGREDIENTS

A bunch of baby spinach (from our home garden)
1 cucumber, cut to thin slices
1 Apple sliced to thin wedges
Couple of walnuts

For the Raw Mango Dressing:

1/2 cup grated raw mango
1 tbsp. oil
1 tsp. mustard seeds
1 tsp. turmeric powder
1 tsp. red chilli powder
Salt to taste

DIRECTIONS

Layer the cucumbers, followed by the apple slices and the baby spinach. Strew a couple of walnuts.

In a pan, heat the vegetable oil along with the mustard seeds. As the seeds begin to splutter, add the grated raw mango along with turmeric powder and sauté till it wilts and cooks through. This will take a couple of minutes. Add the red chilli powder and salt to taste. If you plan to store this dressing for a couple of days, then use more oil to cook mangoes. The oil needs to coat and cover them well. This simple mango chutney goes very well with rice and rotis.

Toss the salad with this prepared mango dressing or serve as a side along with this relish.

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Mum’s Cheat Vegetable Huli

In the small town where I grew up majorly, life was simple, time had a hold and things were slow. I had a blissful childhood in safe shelter of love, care and freedom. It was indeed the small town charm that made life simple and modest in a community replete of love and affection from all in the neighbourhood. Life there had an advantage and as kids, we majorly enjoyed the proximity of our school to home, which brought us the perks of walking down home during the lunch time. As the clock stuck 12:30 PM, the school bells would ring for lunch time that spanned over an hour, which meant we had ample time to walk home, relish hot, home cooked food, watch our favourite comedy series that we were hooked to (oh yes, we were hooked to Hum Paanch back them, to an extent that I could have given exams on it and topped them!) and get back to school on time for the noon classes.

Every afternoon as the school bell rang for lunch time, we would walk back home midst the humid summer heat, soaking sweat in the navy blue pinafores that we wore for our uniform. Plonking ourselves under the comfort of fans and beating the blazing heat with tall glasses of chilled water, mum in all ears would serve us steaming hot rice, topped with either tove, saaru or huli and dollops of ghee on some days or tamblis with stir fried vegetables on other days. Happalas (paapads) and salivating homemade uppinakais (pickles) were a ritualistic part of our menu and always stayed on the table. And then there were spicy sandiges for days when tamblis featured on her menu. Mum was a strict believer in healthy, nutritious food and she ensured that the food she cooked with love balanced in taste, health and nutrition very well.

Our meals always ended with fruits for desserts. She would coax us to eat lots of vegetables and fruits as she does even today. She had a reasoning for what was cooked and she believed in them firmly. Like when green are cooked, she would top them with freshly squeezed lime, because the vitamin C in lime aids in the digestion of iron in greens. Similarly, if a gravy was cooked with red chillies for the heat, the stir fry would then be cooked with green chillies, or vice versa to kill the monotony of flavours. Fresh vegetables and greens were a part of our daily diet, either in form of stir fries, or in huli, else in tamblis. And she loved organic food. Rustic vegetables like banana stems and flowers, drumsticks, raw jackfruits, gujje, basale soppu and doddapatre (brahmi) leaves that grow abundantly in wild during monsoons, produces that do not require intensive care, manure or added pesticides made up her favourites. On several other days, she broke the regime of traditional South Indian cooking with her delightful North Indian delicacies. On odd occasions, dessert during mid-week was in treat for us too. I was fortunate to have enjoyed the liberty of coming home to relish fresh home cooked meals for my lunches. It meant a lot – fresh, healthy, clean and nutritious. That was probably why I enjoyed food thoroughly even as a child, because it was simple, fresh and tasty.

With time as I grew up to being a mother myself, I realized that care and affection towards healthy food comes by instinct for your family. It means nurturing the tradition of cooking healthy, wholesome meals that can balance in taste and nutrition. Someone reading this blog may probably think that the recipes, mainly desserts shared here are all what we eat. But truth to be told, we do not eat banana breads every day, nor do we have tea cakes every evening. There’s a lot more healthier we eat than I can share here. But I don’t feature them here, least I dread this space would become tad boring.

Like I said, we grew up eating huli, that is quite traditional to our cuisine. I don’t make huli often because I never attempted to make a good one that tastes like what my mum or grandmom make. While in my teens, mum would often chuckle saying “A good Havyaka bride is known by the Huli she makes!” If I had to go by that saying, I would never fit that bill! One of the reasons why I featured this recipe here is because the version I share today is much simpler, the cheat kinds as taught by my mum.

Huli is a traditional Havyaka dish from the famed Mangalore-Udupi region, made from lentils, cooked often with vegetables, roasted spices and ground liberally with coconut and tamarind, balancing off the tang with a hint of jaggery. It’s the balance of spices, coconut and tamarind that make up a good huli, an art that takes years to master. While there are several names (also called Kodhel) and different versions of it, this particular version of huli tastes so close to the traditional one I've grown up eating, that my dad, an avid huli lover and a good cook by himself, believed that I went through the laborious task of roasting and grinding all the spices, while mum and me chuckle on sheepishly. Devoid of all that hassle, hence quicker and easier too, it’s flavoursome and delicious served fresh with steaming hot rice.

Mum’s Cheat Vegetable Huli

Recipe adapted by mum

INGREDIENTS

1 cup mixed vegetables (raw bananas, brinjals, pumpkin, mangalore cucumber)
½ cup split pigeon peas / tuvar dal ( togari bele as in kannada)
1 tsp. turmeric powder
Salt to taste

For the Huli arpa, grind to paste:

½ cup grated fresh coconut
½ cup tamarind pulp / lime sized tamarind ball
1 tbsp. sāmbhar powder
1 tbsp. jaggery

To temper:

1 tsp. mustard seeds
2-3 whole red chillies
1 tsp. asafoetida
1 sprig of curry leaves
1 tsp. coconut oil

DIRECTIONS

Wash thoroughly and pressure cook the split pigeon peas / togari bele along with turmeric and 2 cups of water on 4-5 whistles. For 1 measure of the dal I use approximately 3 measures of water. In a separate pan, cook the vegetables with 1 cup of water and salt to taste till they are cooked and just tender. While the vegetables are getting cooked and the pressure cooker is cooling down, prepare the masala paste (called as huli arpa in kannada) by grinding fresh grated coconut with tamarind pulp (lime sized tamarind kernel cleaned and soaked in ½ cup warm water for 10-15 minutes), sāmbhar powder and jaggery, adding water little by little, if required, till its smooth and comes to chutney consistency.

Using a wooden ladle, mash the cooked split pigeon peas / togari bele to a paste. To this add the ground masala paste / huli arpa along with vegetables, and their broth and bring it to a rolling boil. Add sufficient water to bring it to a consistency of your preference. Adjust salt to taste.

Temper by heating some oil in a small wok. As it heats up, add mustard seeds, followed by whole red chillies, torn curry leaves and asafoetida / hing. Fry for a minute, turn off the flame and quickly add it to the prepare huli while hot. Serve hot with steamed rice.

Notes:

Tempering with coconut oil is optional, but highly recommended as it gives an authentic and traditional taste to this dish. You may use vegetable oil instead of coconut oil. Alternatively, use clarified butter / ghee for a richer taste.

I’ve used mixed vegetables here. However you may use these vegetables individually. Traditionally, for weddings and festive meals, mangalore cucumber is the most common vegetable used in this kind of kai huli.

Vegetables that go well with huli are raw bananas, brinjals, pumpkin, mangalore cucumber, yam, bottle gourd.

The colour of this dish hugely depends on the kind of chillies being used in the sāmbhar powder. Typically, byaadgi chillies will give you deep reddish brown hints while guntur chillies render more spice and less colour.

While we call this as huli in Havyaka cuisine, it is also popular by the name of kodhel in some of the sects/communities of coastal Karnataka, especially among the Tulu speaking Brahmins.

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Masala Shavige Uppittu

Delhi was fun! A whole lot of fun! We are back after having a fabulous time there and it’s taken a week to unpack and settled down to routine like usual. I stayed away from blogging on Veg bowl for a while, didn’t blog hop either, nor did I check my mails. I did no business with my laptop, since I needed an intentional short break away from home chores and the daily grind at work, and this family function was just the perfect excuse. The engagement ceremonies went off smoothly and we had a real good time meeting family and friends, chatting, partying through nights, hitting the paranthewali gallis, shop-till-drop on Delhi streets, city sightseeing and needless to say, a hell lot of indulgence in food! We fit in a day’s trip to Agra and Fatehpur Sikri and loved going back to live history with the city. Beautiful indeed.

We came back with lovely memories and tons of photographs to be cherished. I am yet to sort them out, and while they run in thousands, I am clueless where to make a beginning!

Although being away was exciting to break the monotony of the day-to-day routine, it’s a warm, comforting feeling to be back home, and tuck ourselves into the bliss of home cooked food. We dined out mostly while in Delhi and Agra, on the oh-so-common butter parathas and cream laden heavy North Indian delicacies, that were delicious and sinfully good for our occasional indulgences, but far from the simple home cooked meals that we began craving at the end of our trip.

Back home this shavige uppittu was a humble, yet delightful breakfast dish we relished. Nothing fancy, but a simple upma that’s dotted with vegetables and flavoured with green chillies, lime and coriander herbs for the garnish. Served with milk and fruits by the side for the morning, this was the perfect way to revive the comfort of our home-made breakfast.

Well, this makes a great tea-time snack too.

Masala Shavige Uppittu / Masala Semiya Upma

INGREDIENTS

100 g rice semiya (called shavige, as in kannada)
2 tsp. oil
1 tsp. mustard seeds
5-6 curry leaves, torn
8-10 cashew halves (can also substitute peanuts)
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, diced to small pieces
3-4 beans, finely sliced
2 green chillies, chopped
A pinch of turmeric
Juice from ½ lime
1 tsp. sugar (optional, but highly recommended)
Salt to taste
Coriander leaves to garnish

DIRECTIONS

Cook the rice shavige in plenty of boiling water. When it’s al dente, switch off the flame and drain off the water completely. Shock the cooked shavige by running it under cold/tap water for a few seconds. Drain the water off completely and add a tsp. of oil, salt to taste, sugar, turmeric powder to the prepared shavige, toss lightly and keep aside.

In a wok / kadhai, heat a tsp. of oil and add in the mustard seeds. As they begin to pop, add the cashew-nuts and fry them till they brown lightly. Next add the chopped onions and fry till they turn translucent. Add the chopped carrots and beans and fry till they are just done. Add in the green chillies and curry leaves and fry further for a minute. Toss in the cooked shavige to this and stir well. Cook further for another 4-5 minutes. Adjust salt to taste. Turn off the heat and add in a dash of lime juice. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot as is or with a chutney of your choice.

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Garlic Spaghetti in Basil Almond Pesto

I’ll be silent for a week or so. We are off to Delhi for a short vacation. My dear brother in law is soon getting hitched for a lifetime. He'll be getting engaged in a couple of days, so we’ll have big fat engagement ceremonies to be a part of, several families to meet and great, some partying, rasta shopping too and, of course lots of good food to relish.

We've been eagerly looking forward to the roka ceremony, followed by a series of colourful and interesting occasions like shagan and chunni chadhana, so you can imagine how excited the entire family is. After weeks of crazy wardrobe shopping, we have our bags ready, all filled to brim, begging space for more to accommodate. It’s been a crazy week as you can see!

But before I leave, I have this simple recipe for Spaghetti Aglio e Olio, aka Garlic Spaghetti along with a dozen photographs for you to feast. I'll have this auto-post while I'm away enjoying the ceremonies, so I hope that makes up for my absence.

The recipe is so simple that even a novice cook cannot go wrong with this one. I stirred in some homemade Basil Almond Pesto and these were delicious! My little one scraped the bowl clean, licking every bit of the pasta and the sauce. The husband loved the simple, yet fiercely spiced garlicky spaghetti and considered to be made too often. In all the recipe was a clean winner.

Garlic Spaghetti - Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

250 gms spaghetti
4-5 cloves chopped garlic
1-2 tsp. crushed red chilli flakes
1/4 cup olive oil
A bunch of freshly chopped basil
Grated parmesan cheese

In a large pot with boiling salted water cook the spaghetti pasta until al dente. Drain and drizzle a quick dash of olive oil. Meanwhile, place a large skillet over low heat and sauté chopped garlic, basil, and red chilli flakes with olive oil. I used dried whole red chillies and chopped them finely. Sauté till the garlic turns golden in colour. Toss pasta with garlic mixture and butter. Top it with a generous grating of parmesan cheese. Serve hot with a pesto of your choice.

The Garlic Spaghetti is delicious as is, but makes for a great meal if served with a salad and fresh pesto sauce of your choice. Simply toss the prepared Garlic Spaghetti in Basil Almond Pesto and serve warm or at room temperature.

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Fresh Basil and Cucumber Sandwich

Sunday morning we made a picnic to the nearby animal farm. The little one had been excited about it all through the Saturday as she played and constantly babbled the names of the animals she was supposed to pay visit to. Frisking through her set of animal toys, she managed to identify most of them by names, and we bribed her to take her out for that feat.

We left early on Sunday. The morning I woke up and quickly toasted these sandwiches for the munch. A slather of butter for the richness, few onions and cucumber slices for the base, some fresh basil that I plucked off from the budding plant for flavour, some grated cheese to top it and some herbs paired with fresh crackled pepper to finish, as simple and quick it can be. Shouldn't that how a picnic be? Quick and stress free.

We shoved the picnic basket with these sandwiches and fruits, the rug, paper plates, sauce sachets, napkins and water bottles into the back-seat of the car, put on our sunglasses and drove off to the farm.

It was fun as we saw her enjoy the company of turkeys, rabbits, donkeys, horse, goats and hens. She fed the goats some fresh peas and beans and loved the company of emus. As we munched on these fresh basil and cucumber sandwiches, she fed and shared her little bites to the rabbits too. I’m sure they loved it. In turn she devoured these happily, animating the little bunnies and teaching them how to eat. By the end, she made several babbling conversations and had almost made best friends with them.

Incidentally, on our drive back home, she managed to identify a faded white plastic rabbit thrash bin along a road side and she screamed in joy pronouncing “mama, labbit, labbit!”. Almost like she was united with her long lost friend! A day worthy that was ought to be.

Fresh Basil and Cucumber Sandwich

INGREDIENTS

Couple of slices of whole wheat bread
Butter, to slather over
Couple of leaves of fresh basil, torn
Thin slices of cucumber
Thin rings of onions
Grated cheddar cheese
Fresh crackled pepper
A dash of Italian dried herbs

DIRECTIONS

Pre-heat the toaster / grill / sandwich maker for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, place 2 slices of bread on a chopping board. Trim the edges and slather butter generously on either sides of these slices. On one of the bread slice, place couple of onion rings, followed by torn basil leaves. Top them with 2-3 cucumber slices, placing them side by side. Top them with more torn basil leaves, some freshly grated cheddar cheese and freshly crackled pepper. Sprinkle a dash of Italian dried herbs. Top it with the second slice. Press down gently and place it in the toaster / sandwich maker. Prepare the following sandwiches the similar way. Toast till they are golden brown and serve hot with tomato ketchup or chutney of your choice.

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Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I am not giving up baking with dark chocolate, but certainly you’ll see them reducing a bit in this space. You know well that all this while I have been using Morde Dark Chocolate in my bakes. While I have nothing against them and do love the fact that they are cheap (say 200 bucks for 500 gms), I’m increasingly aware that it comes at a cost that’s detrimental to our health. Stripped of all the cocoa butter and replaced with hydrogenated vegetable fats, including trans fats, it took me some determination for my daughter’s sake to give up on Morde or Selbourne and move to a better brand.

A while ago I asked my Bangalore buddies on FB if there was an alternative to it, since Cadbury’s Bournville was way too expensive for baking, but I got no satisfactory answers. What if there was a baking disaster? I would care not to lose night’s sleep over wasting couple of bars of bournville in my failed baking attempts! Does anyone have an answer please???

I love dark chocolates and biting into them makes me sensational. It evokes my happy moods.

I gambled into some cookie cravings this week while the weather wasn't so nice and chill as I would have loved it to be. For the first time I experimented with a bar of Cadbury’s Bournville dark chocolate and used them in baking like this Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies, least they fail, the less guiltier I feel about my failing attempt or the expensive bars. They are still too expensive for baking, but till I look for an alternative I may go with these. I baked these cookies for our evening tea and they turned out delicious our evening bites.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Adapted from the Big Book of Baking

INGREDIENTS

88 gm plain flour
62 gm soft salted butter
42 gm brown sugar
28 gm white sugar
1/2 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. baking powder
62 gm chocolate chunks

DIRECTIONS

Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C. Lightly grease the baking trays.

Place all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat them till well combined. Please a teaspoonful of the dough on the prepared tray, giving sufficient space between them to allow spreading while cooking.

Bake in a pre-heated oven for 10-12 minutes, or till the cookies are golden brown. Once done, transfer the cookies carefully to a cooling rack and cool them completely.

Notes:

* To adapt to a vegan version, replace egg with equal amount of flax meal paste. Use vegan dark chocolate and replace salted butter with a vegan butter substitute.

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Whole Wheat Banana Bran Loaf

Four years up with blogging on Veg Bowl and it almost feels unreal. Why? Because I admit I never thought I would take up blogging seriously. I began blogging more than five years ago. Before writing on Veg bowl, I blogged privately on a personal space which was limited to few of my family and friends. The huge inspiration came when I accidently stepped on a couple of family blogs and took hours to read through them. I was awestruck, and almost felt one with them. I thought it was a great idea to maintain a diary of memories that could be cherished later in life. I jotted down reminiscences of our travel, our family gatherings, weekly happenings, musings, and a bit more. But my blogging on it was quite temperamental. I spent a year on that, though not so passionately and unfolded Veg Bowl in parallel to jot down recipes I created eagerly in my little kitchen, penning down the recipes that were appreciated by my family and friends and posting pictures of dishes that came out of my kitchen.

Much before I got into mainstream blogging on Veg Bowl, I hadn’t explored my skills in food photography. I realized where my passions lay as I gained more readers and many friends through VB, and that was even before I existed on Facebook. My blogging on Veg bowl got more consistent than my personal blog and I lost interest in the other space with time. Somehow I wondered if VB would see the same fate soon, but it didn’t. There was a joy to learn, to connect with like-minded bloggers, to explore and do a lot in cooking and photography. Somewhere I believe that my interest in this blog was linked to this urge to learn photography.

Down the lane 4 years now, I still feel there’s a scope to learn and explore. I still enjoy the art of blogging that’s so creative and therapeutic. I have grown older and matured to better from where I started. On the flip side, I am not a social networking bee yet, and that explains why I am never so active on Facebook. But I love your emails and genuinely go through your comments. I am not on twitter yet, neither on instagram or googleplus or any other networking sites and pardon me on that. After a lot of persuasion, I finally have a VB like page on FB, but I’m not serious about it. Clichéd I know, but I don’t fit well into the whole concept of social networking well. Somehow it leads me to believe that social networking has become a wide spread web syndrome, with most of us hooking our precious time into the web mesh. We are so busy socializing and connecting on FB that we will miss out on living those beautiful moments of our life that can be cherished later. There are times I feel guilty while I’m busy blogging, because I should probably use that time to cater to my daughter and not miss watching her grow.

Yet with all that said, I do not intend to give up blogging in the near future. Because this space has given me a lot more than I expected. Like it keeps me active and thinking all the time. What began with just a food and photography site has grown to share a lot on my personal front apart from just recipes. VB was not meant to be a commercial blog, that’s why I choose to keep it clutter free, clean and minimal as possible. I vent out here, I speak a lot of my mind, share fond memories close to my heart, unleash the joy of cooking and creativity, and I love to part away with my most loved recipes and photographs with you all. That means a lot to me since it keeps me going, and connects with you all.

For the joy of completing 4 successful years of blogging and for more to come, I am celebrating this day with this Whole Wheat Banana Bran Loaf. Coincidently, it’s my daughter’s birthday today. What can be a greater joy than this? As I see her geared up to celebrate her big day this evening, I baked this easy and delicious, yet an all healthy loaf last evening so that we could wake up to treat her with a quick bite of this loaf and wish her good luck, the best of health and bounty happiness in life she deserves. Time is fleeting by unbelievably fast. From a new born baby to infancy and now a swift intelligent toddler that she is, she turned two today. Happy Birthday to both my sweethearts! Life cannot be better without you!

Whole Wheat Banana Bran Loaf

INGREDIENTS

1 ½ cup whole wheat flour (150 gm.)
1 tbsp. wheat bran
1/3rd cup vegetable oil (35 gm.)
2 very ripe bananas (60 gm.)
½ cup milk (40 ml.) {replace with vegan milk of your choice for a vegan version}
2/3rd cup organic dark jaggery (60 gm.)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cardamom powder

DIRECTIONS

Prepare a 8 inch pan by greasing and lining it with baking paper. Pre-heat the oven at 180 degrees C.

Pulse the bananas along with milk and jaggery in a food processor. Next add in the vegetable oil and blitz again. In a separate clean bowl, sift the whole wheat flour twice. Add baking soda, wheat bran and cardamom powder to this. Make a well and pour in the wet ingredients. Stir well till combined. The batter will be thicker than regular cake batter, but not stiff. At this stage you may add in nuts if preferred. Finally pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees C.

Note:

* Jaggery has a typical rustic and earthy sweet flavour that’s customary to South Indian cooking. Hence pairing it with bananas and cardamom powder brings out a traditional aroma to this cake.
* I’ve used high quality organic jaggery here. The local jaggery available generally contains high amounts of impurities. Hence to remove the sediments, soak the jaggery in milk, dissolve it and strain it through. Alternatively, use brown sugar if jaggery is not available.
* To make a vegan version, replace milk with any vegan milk of your choice.
* Wheat flour and wheat bran bring out a nutty flavor to this cake, although you may replace them with plain flour altogether.

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