Banana Bread

With the influx of overripe bananas in my fruit bowl, I set out to bake a healthy banana bread.

This one is a really easy recipe and can be finished within an hour from start to finish (by finish I mean eating the last crumb).

It is a bread recipe but its more like a cake, only mildly sweet.

I have made this over and over again since the most memorable of them all was for our trip to Berlin when I forgot to add the quitessential ingredient from the recipe---the bananas. Must say it is a forgiving recipe and even that turned out quite good.


Wet ingredients:

2 over-ripe bananas mashed
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon milk,
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)
Nuts and raisins (optional)


Dry Ingredients:

1½ cup plain flour
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt

Mix the wet ingredients and dry ingredients separately. The add the dry ingredients in the wet ingredients and pour into a well greased bread tin.

Bake in a preheated oven for 30 minutes or till done.

Punjabi Samosa

Banofee Pie

Semolina delight

Thats what I call it. When I was a kid, I was invited to an Aunt's house who had made this. I loved it instantly and probably scoffed off a whole lot of it. i never thought that one day I would make it myself. It might not be the exact same possibly because the aunt had steamed it rather than baked it but I cant be bothered to go through the whole steaming process as it would take just too much time. Baking is very easy and quick. The best bit about the cake is that it can get whipped up in minutes with ingredients readily available at home at all times.

I finally found the recipe on a fellow blogger's site. Here is the recipe: http://annaparabrahma.blogspot.com/2006/12/shravani-cake.html.

The only thing I changed is replaced saffron with cardamom and added a bit more sugar.

A bit fancier than sheera?..whot say!

Spanish Feast

Squid Ink Paella (Paella Negro), Olives, Garlic prawns and a few glasses of sangria.

Baked Patra ni Macchi

I love parsi food. This recipe is inspired by Patra ni Macchi but is really my way of finishing off leftover Coriander Chuntney.

2 Salmon fillets

for the chutney
One bunch Coriander
handful of dessicated coconut
green chillies
1 clove garlic
Jaggery
salt
jeera powder
Lemon

Rub the salmon with lemon and salt and keep aside.

Gring all the other ingredients for the chutney.

Rub the chutney into the salmon and bake in a preheated over for 20 minutes.

Oven baked Tandoori Chicken-It couldnt have been this easy

This is my version of tandoori chicken without oil.

I used Chicken Breast and drun sticks. Cut slits into the chicken pieces lengthwise. Rub salt and lime into the pieces and keep aside for at least 15 minutes.

Meanwhile grind the onion, ginger, garlic and chilly into a thick paste. Add to this red chilly powder, coriander powder, garam masala, jeera powder and yogurt.

Rub this mixture into the chicken. Cover with cling film and marinate for a few hours (or overnigh) in the fridge.

Preheat the oven. Pick out the chicken (retain the leftover paste to use during baking)and place in a foil covered baking pan and bake for 15 minutes. Brush the chicken with leftover paste from time to time. Brush with oil if required (I do not bother at all).

Broil for 10 minutes turing sides after 5 minutes.

The chicken can be served with onion slices and lemon.

Simple Coffee Chocolate Cake

This one was an improvisation of a cake my mother in law's sister makes.
'Maasi' bakes brilliant cakes and that too without an oven. As I came home from office one friday evening I sniffed out this aroma of fresh baking from the windows of one of my neighbours.

Next morning, completely motivated, I set out to bake my version of Maasi's cake.
The batter quantity wouldnt have fit onto my 8 inch cake tin so I divided it between two 8 inch tins. It was my hubby who came up with this brilliant idea of adding instant coffee and chocolate to one of them and whoa the coffee cake was born.

Ingredients

1 cup butter
1.25 cups of sugar
1.5 cups of Plain Flour
4 eggs
1 tspn Vanilla essence

Additions
Cooking Milk Chocolate (cut into tiny chunks)
1 Tsp instant Coffee mixed in 1 tbsp hot water

Preheat the oven. Beat the sugar and butter till it is mixed well. Add an egg and a little flour alternately beating all the time. Add baking powder and beat a bit. Finally add vanilla essence coffee and choclate and beat for some time.

Pour into two 8 inch pans and bake at 150 degrees celcius for 45 minutes.

Psst: Spread chocolate spread on top of both cakes and place one on top of the other.
If you are not a chocolate or coffee lover then avoid these and just add walnuts and raisins instead.

Blueberry Streusel Cake

One of the sites I visit often by way of internet 'window shopping' is Joy of Baking. This site has a treasure of cake recipes.

It was hubby's birthday and I was on the look out for a cake recipe.
I picked the Blueberry Coffee Cake (http://www.joyofbaking.com/BlueberryCake.html) only because there was a pack of blueberries in my freezer.
I followed the recipe from start to scratch and the only thing I would change is the amount of butter in the streusel. I feel using half the suggested quantity next time would make this cake a bit lighter.

The author suggested the use of fresh blueberries and had I followed the advice, a few of the blueberries wouldnt have decide to settle at the bottom.

Either way it turned out well.

Thai Green Curry

Most satisfying making my own green curry paste. Though it sounds like a long difficult recipe the fact is that it isnt. The list of ingredients is quite big and thats all there is to it..

Here is my version of the veggie one:

For the green curry paste:
dry roast and blend-
pinch of turmeric
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp aniseeds (or fennel)

Chop and add to the above-
2 stalks of lemon grass (or 2.5 tbsp from a bottle)
10 big cloves garlic
1 bunch of coriander (stem/ leaves and roots)
15 leaves of thai basil (I used regular basil)
3 inches galangal (or regular ginger)
a few kaffir lime leaves (I used lime zest)
2 shallots (or 1 small onion)
This can be prepared in advance and refrigerated.

The Veggies
Thinly slice and stir fry in a bit of oil (vegetable/ coconut)-
tofu
mangetout
bean sprouts
carrot
french beans
bamboo shoots
peppers (red/ green)

Add the curry paste to the veggies and saute for a bit
Add 1 can of coconut milk and simmer then add jaggery, salt, fish sauce.

Serve hot with rice..

Mackerel Recheado

Here is a good recipe. This is probably the only way I would eat mackerel. The hot chilly and vinegar partners perfectly with the very strong flavour of fish.

Recipe courtesy: http://superfood.blog-city.com/mackerel_recheado_another_mackerel_barbeque_recipe.htm (for the original)

I omitted the fresh red chilly only because I didnt have any. Added lesser cloves and grilled it in the oven. I served with Lemon, onions slices and steamed basmati rice.

Yummy...