Baked potato wedges

It was irresistible!!! and isn't it the same with all the potato lovers when it comes to potato wedges. I am generally not a big fan of potatoes but I love it in this form and chips and also know this is not something to be proud off too!. Being a weekend I thought of trying this, so that the whole family will enjoy it and as expected everyone loved it .
 

I generally remove the skin of the potatoes for my vegs, knowing that the dispute of eating with and without skin and the nutrition part never ends. For this recipe I did use the skin but I dumped the potatoes in salt water for few hours just to remove the impurities and also scrubbed the skin properly. And now it is time to get on to the recipe

Ingredients

Potatoes - 4-5 medium sized ones

Olive oil - 2 tbspn

Chilli flakes - 1 tbspn

Garlic crushed - few no.s ( as per your liking)

Pepper powder - half tspn - one tspn

Corn flour- 2 tspn

salt - as required

Method

As explained above clean the potatoes thoroughly and cut into quarters and keep aside.

Keep the water for boiling in the steamer and place the potatoes on the top rack and steam cook for around 10-15 minutes or until the potatoes becomes softly cooked and not over cooked.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius

Now throw in all the potatoes to the greased baking tray and add the other ingredients to it. Mix well, make sure that the pieces doesn't crumble.

Arrange the potatoes neatly in the tray and pace in the oven. Bake for around 10 - 15 minutes and then I toasted for another 5-7 minutes so that top and bottom gets a nice crunchy crust.

Remove the tray from oven, remove the wedges to a serving plate and start gobbling it hot!

Tips
You can substitute olive oil with garlic oil 

You can add/remove the seasoning as per you choice. You can add oregano, paprika, or any other seasoning of you choice
I might grate some cheese into it next time :)

Mango icecream

This is what I tried last summer , updating in my blog with the recipe

Ingredients
2 cups chilled milk
1 cup milk powder
1 cup sugar (readjust this quantity if using canned mango pulp)
1 cup fresh cream
1 cup mango pulp

Method

Set the thermostat of your freezer to an appropriately low temperature.

In a saucepan, mix together the mango pulp and two tablespoons of sugar. Boil for 8-10 minutes on a medium flame, stirring well. Then remove from the heat and let cool.

Churn the milk and remaining sugar for about four minutes in a blender (or with a hand mixer/ beater) till frothy. Add the milk powder to it and whip for two minutes more.
Add the mango puree to this milk and sugar mix, stirring well till blended.
Finally, add the fresh cream and churn the mixture for precisely two minutes -- if you churn it for longer after having added the fresh cream, the mixture will curdle.
Pour the mixture into an aluminium pot or vessel, as aluminium will help the icecream set quickly. Fix the lid on tightly, or cover the mouth of the pot with plastic wrap to avoid ice crystals forming in the icecream. Freeze for four hours.
Take the mixture out of the freezer after four hours, and whip it well once more, using a beater or blender. Freeze again for 3-4 hours. Once the icecream is firmly set, return the freezer's temperature to normal.

Baked Potato fingers

Ok tell me who doesnt like french fries? :) and when vacations are gng on kids tend to demand this and that and these days they expects /demands french fries as their evening snacks. But I am never comfortable with deep fried stuffs even for the kids , so I tried baking it a few days back .. but was not great and tried again , and yes it came out great and was quick too. If you have a steamer and an oven .. voila you get almost perfect french not fries! Here goes the recipe

Ingredients

Potatoes- as much as you like

Salt

Olive oil 

Method

Peel, wash potatoes,  thinly cut and keep aside.

Make your steamer ready by heating water in the bottom vessel.

Meanwhile switch on the oven for preheating to at  200 degrees Celsius

Spread the chopped potatoes in the steamer and steam for 5- 7 minutes. Make sure it doesn't get cooked completely.

Take the baking tray and throw in all the semi cooked/steamed thinly elongated potatoes into the baking tray. Add two tabespoons of olive oil and sprinkle salt too. Mix well with your hand so that all the potato peices gets coated with oil and spread it evenly.

Put the tray in the oven for baking and after some 5-10 minutes change the mode of the oven to grill , so that the top and bottom gets crisp!
Remove from the oven when it is slightly brown or tends to be crispy

Serve hot with ketchup

Your healthy so called french not fries is ready !

Rajgira idlis

I have used Rajgira flour in making cookies and bread, but this time I really wanted to avoid all the sugar and butter which goes along with it while baking and use it in our daily food category. Hence tried making idlis with it and most of you would agree with me if I say most of the kids loves idlis. Its a best way to sneak in nutritious stuffs into their body. And as expected it did slide away smoothly into their palates and tummy. So here is the recipe for the same

Ingredients 

Urad dal - 1 cup

Idli rava- 2 cups

Rajgira flour- 1 cup

Method

Soak the dal for about 4-5 hours. Grind the dal in the grinder till it becomes smooth and fluffy. Meanwhile soak the rava in 2 cups of warm water for sometime till it absorbs the water. Mix the ground dal with the rava and rajgira flour and mix well adding more water to reach the consistency of the usual  idli batter. Close the vessel and let it ferment overnight , add salt to the batter , make idlis as usual. Serve hot with chutney or any side dishes of you choice. It doesnt taste much different from usual idlis and healthy too !

Want to know about Rajgira flour? check this wiki link :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaranth_grain

Banana, mango and vanilla frozen yoghurt

Banana, mango and vanilla frozen yoghurt 

Was watching Dona Hay's fast , fresh and simple few months back and she was making this smoothie, it was so simple and looked tasty too . Had thought of making this when the mangoes arrive. And to my surprise my dear husband reminded me about this recipe when he saw the mangoes in the fruits bowl! Without much delay I made it and its so so simple to make and is tasty too. So here goes the simple recipe

• 2 bananas, peeled and chopped
• 3 mangoes, peeled and chopped
• 3/4 cup yoghurt/curd
• Vanilla essence ( I used vanilla pods )

Place the banana and mango in an airtight container and freeze for 4 hours or until frozen. Place the banana, mango, essence/scrapes of vanilla pod and yoghurt in a food processor and process until smooth.  

• Make sure that you take good bananas,  preferably sweet robustas
• Make sure that you select the fine mangoes too , avoid the ones which you think will have thick fibres.
•  If not serving straight away, return to an airtight container and freeze. Allow to soften for 5 minutes before serving. You could scoop into ice-cream cones to serve.
• You can change the ratio of the mangoes and bananas to you preference. 
• Optionally you can sugar too

 

 

Chocolate eclairs

My son has been behind me to make this chocolate eclairs ever since I bought the book Sanjeev Kappor's cakes and bakes, but have been prolonging due to some or the other reasons and finally I decided to make it today. I just started to make the puffs for the eclairs and it started disappearing quickly and I really saved the second batch of puffs to make the eclairs and voila that was also disappeared in minutes.Yes it is surely irresistable with the fresh cream fillling and the chocolate coating.

Following is the recipe

Pastry

3/4 cup Whole wheat flour

a pinch of salt.

75 gms butter

3 eggs , beaten

Filling

1 cup fresh cream whipped with 3 tbspns of powdered sugar

Chocolate icing

50 gms dark chocolate

25 gms unsalted butter

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius

Sfit flour with salt. Place the butter and one cup of water in a non stick pan and stir over low heat until the butter melts. Add in the flour and stir along till you see that the flour has come together into a ball and started coming out of the pan. Remove from the pan and place the mixture in a bowl. Add in the beaten egg one by one and mix well to the mixture until the dough becomes smooth and soft. You can either spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a wide nozzle and squeeze in a greased baking tray or simply scoop the mixture with a spoon in a baking tray in a line or in a shape of sausage.

Bake in the oven till the mixture puffs up and browns on the top, remove and slit open one side of the puff to let the steam open to prevent the eclair from being soggy ( mine became soggy tho') it doesnt matter if it is soggy too.. will tell you the secret why later.

For the filling whip the cream in a bowl until it is just thick enough. I used fresh cream , hence it was not thick , but again doesnt matter :)

Also temper the chocolate in the meanwhile.

Fill the eclairs with the whipped cream using a small nozzle piping bag ,. Dip one side of the eclair in the tempered chocolate and leave the eclairs on the wire rack until the icing sets. Once the chocolate sets the sogginess of the eclairs disappears and the chocolate holds the eclairs fine!

If you want to taste it please do it soon, else you might not get even one if you have kids at home. Experience speaks!

Sweet neer dosa

Sweet neer dosa

Saw a discussion of neer dosa in a foodie group recently and I was all tempted to try it after a long time.  I dint have the patience to make the dosa and an accompanying side dish to go with it for a weekend breakfast and  made it sweet, yes my family love anything sweet for breakfast, specially me :). Ok , so here goes the recipe for it.

Ingredients

Dosa rice- 1 1/2 cups

Grated coconut- 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups

Jaggery - 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup ( depending on the sweetness you prefer)

Water- 2 cups

Cardomom powder - a pinch

Method

Soak the rice overnight. 

Melt the jaggery in two cups of water , sieve it and leave it overnight. ( I did this step in the night b'coz it cools down by morning)

Next day morning grind the rice in the grinder  along with the grated coconut, adding the jaggery water in between and grind the batter to a  fine paste. Add the remaining jaggery water and remove the batter from the grinder. Add extra water to make the batter thin. It should be much thinner than the usual dosa batter

To the batter add a pinch of cardamom powder and salt. Mix well

Heat a non stick pan to high heat and then pour a laddle full of batter to the pan and rotate the pan to spread the batter evenly. Close the pan with a lid and remove the dosa when it is cooked. You can fold the dosa and remove it from the pan.

Serve these thin lacy sweet dosas hot!!

Summer drink II

I really dont know what to name this drink , mostly it would be summer drink II :) Its nothing but mixed fruit juice

Ingredients
Oranges- 2
Apple- 1
Med sized cucumber- 1
Med sized lemon- 1
Salt/ sugar- to your taste
Ginger jam - 1/4 tspn

Method
Remove the juice of the oranges and strain in the large sieve
Blend the apples with the lemon juice and cucumber and mix with the orange juice.
Add salt or sugar to your taste and garnish with either ginger chips or quarter tspn of ginger jam and serve.


Enjoy ! :)
 

Coconut choco-chip cookies

Coconut choco-chip cookies

Ingredients

Whole wheat flour- 1 1/2 cup

Fresh grated coconut- 1 1/2 cup

Sugar- 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup

Butter- 1/2 cup

Baking powder- 1/3 tspn

Vanilla essence - 1/2 tspn

Salt - a pinch

Choco chips- 3/4 cup

Method 

Mix all the above ingredients to a soft mixture, the wetness of the grated coconut and butter would be enough to help the mixture come together to form a soft dough.Throw in the choco chips and gently swirl in the dough. Scoop out smal balls and roll it between your palms and place in a greased baking tray and flatten the balls slightly. Repeat the same for the rest of the dough. 

Bake in a preheated oven at 150 degrees celsius for about 10-12 minutes until the top and bottom of the cookies turns brown.

Remove the cookies from the baking tray and let it cool in a wire rack.

Store in airtight containers when cool.

My way of baking cookies in the OTG is as follows

Preheat the oven in bake mode and place the baking tray in the top rack, bake the cookies for some 4-6 minutes or till u feel the bottom would have cooked and then shift it to grill mode so that the top gets cooked and browned for another 5-6 minutes. 

You might get this here

Some gourmet places in Bangalore where you get some unusual grocery stuffs, termed as gourmet stuffs as well 

• Hazel Nuts : MK Retail, Brown tree
• Vanilla beans : Namdhari
• Foxtail Millet : MK Retail
• Sama Rice : MK Retail

Hot cross buns ( whole wheat - wheat bran - amaranth flour )

      Been wanting to bake these buns, and I have little tutti frutti also handy at home.  I am not OK with using white flour and hence gave a twist to the tale. Though it look longer for the dough to proof up, the buns was good enough. I had lost all hopes when I saw dough taking so long to rise, but why not when I experimented it a way too much :) !! but the wait was all worth it !!

Without much delay will share the twisted recipe of mine and it is here.....

 Ingredients :

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup wheat bran

1/2 cup rajgira flour ( amaranth flour)

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour ( maida)

15 gms dry instant yeast

3 tbspns sugar

1 1/4 cup - 1 1/2 cup lukewarm milk

2 tbspns butter

1/2 cup tutti frutti

Glaze 

2 tbspn sugar

Method

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. In a small bowl dissolve the yeast and sugar in lukewarm water and set aside to form a froth, preferably for 15 minutes. Add the yeast mixture to the flour and mix. Add the luke warm milk, a little at a time, till all of it is incorporated into the dough. Add the butter and knead till soft and smooth. Cover with a damp cloth and set aside till it doubles in size ( took over night for me ).

Preheat the oven to 240 degrees Celsius and grease a baking tray.

Knock back the dough and add the tutti frutti. Shae into round buns, marking a cross on the to with knife. Place on a baking tray and set aside to rise for another 15 minutes. Bake for ten minutes  till well risen and golden brown. Remove from the oven.

TO make the glaze, mix sugar with water and heat gently till sugar dossolves and brush the bums with the glaze immediately on taking them out of the oven.

Original source : Sanjeev kapoor's cakes and bakes