Walnut and hazelnut wholewheat brownies

Its been sometime that I have not baked cake/brownie, the reason being I am becoming a little averse when it comes to adding the raising agents in the bakes. I am sure a person who loves baking cannot have such expectations but seriously speaking I hold back my selves from it. As it is there are a lot of unwanted things going into ours and ours kids body, so why more , got to wait and see as to how long it goes :)
You would have noticed that I love baking cookies, reason being we can bake cookies with min or no raising agents. But when last week when my son pleaded me to bake something I just couldn't say no to him and I started googling and found this wonderful recipe. I did give some slight  modifications but totally worth it. This recipe is worth saving with or without the changes, as the original recipe says it the best ever brownies..So here it goes

Ingredients

Butter - 185 gms
Cooking chocolate - 185 gms
Whole wheat flour +cocoa powder (3 tbspn)- 1 cup
100 gms - white chocolate bits
Half cup of hazelnuts and walnuts - coarsely chopped.
Vanilla essence - 1 tspn
Eggs- 3 
Sugar - 3/4 cup

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and prepare a wide square pan and keep aside.
Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler, once melted keep the mixture aside and let it cool.
Sieve the flour and cocoa and keep aside in the sieve.
Break the eggs and add in the sugar (powdered) and beat until soft and fluffy for around 5-7 mins. Add vanilla essence.
Gradually add the cooled chocolate-butter mixture and stir slowly with a spatula, making sure that you don't break the air in the beaten eggs.
Now gradually sift the flour-cocoa mixture into the batter and slowly fold in the batter using a spatula.
Finally add the white chocolate bits and the nuts bits and fold in again.
Now pour the batter in the pan, spread it out evenly and bake in the preheated oven for about 30-40 mins or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
I bet this brownies are yum!!!

Baked bitter gourd crispies

Now this is something I am making very regularly these days for the only bitter gourd lover in my family who is my dear husband. I like to make something simple, consuming less time yet tasty with it. So once I tried baking  and it turned out good and there was no looking back since then. This recipe has turned to be his favorite way of having his bitter gourd. Another good thing about the recipe is once you place the tray in the oven, you can move on to the rest of the cooking you ought to do in the kitchen.

I promise I will click a pic next time I make, yea I make it very often these days and following is the recipe for the same

Ingredients
Bitter gourd - 250gms
Red chilli powder - 1/2 tspns
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tspns
Salt - as required
Olive oil - to drizzle
Curry leaves - 2 sprigs
Green chillis- as required

Method
Preheat the oven ( OTG) at 200 degrees.
Wash, slit and remove the seeds of the bitter-gourd and slice it thin.
Throw the cut bitter-gourd in the baking tray and add the rest of the ingredients, mix well and spread it evenly in the tray.
Now place the tray in the middle rack and bake for about 15-20 mins or until you see the gourd shrinks but doesn't get burnt. 
Now  turn the knob to grill mode and grill for another 5-10 mins, making sure that you don't burn the gourd, to be on a safer side you may remove the tray and mix and spread the gourds. Remove the tray once done. Enjoy it hot with rice, or with rotis having a gravy by the side. My dear husband enjoys it with rice as well as roti. So its your take :)

Foxtail milltet rava dosa

It was another working day morning when I dint have anything ready for making breakfast. All I could do was soaking this and that previous night to grind it the next morning, make batter and spread dosas. I was quite positive about the results and yes it was up to my expectations.
I had bought organic foxtail millet rava and made upma with that the other day, it was just good enough so thought of trying dosas with the same. Hence this creation and following is the recipe.

Ingredients
Foxtail millet rava - 1 cup
Urad dal  - 1/2 cup
Med thick brown poha- 1/2 cup

Method
Wash and soak the dal and poha together for 5-6 hours or over night.
Soak the rava separately for 5-6 hours or over night.
After soaking  grind the dal and poha together and rava separately and then mix well.
Add sufficient amount of water to get the consistency of dosa batter. This batter does not need fermentation.
Once the batter is ready, heat the tawa and spread dosas as usual.
Best served with coconut chutney or any side dish of you choice. 
Enjoy!

Instant barley- coconut dosa

By now you all would have noticed that I am experimenting on dosas  and I am loving it. I like few things about dosas, first of all any ingredients can be used, second you just have to take care of the measurement and have a picture of the taste of the dosa in mind, yes it is possible. Third point is dosas are very versatile and can be combined with any side dish and above all my kids just love dosas. So this morning it was barley and coconut dosas.

Ingredients
Barley - 1 cup
Dosa rice ( I used organic) - 1 cup
Grated coconut- 1/2 cup

Method
Soak the barley rice  and dosa rice over night.
Grind the rices together to a smooth batter.
Then grind the fresh coconut and add it to the rice batter.
Add enough water and salt and spread thin dosas.
You don't need to keep the batter for fermentation.
You may not be able to spread this dosa with the ladle so instead add more water, make the batter thin and just pour the ladle full of batter in the tawa and let it spread on its own and cook.
Serve it hot with your choice of accompaniment.
Enjoy!

Finger millet - oats dosa ( Instant raagi-oats dosa)

These days I am not planning the breakfast for the next day, just not happening.  So last night with whatever grocery left in my kitchen I thought of soaking some urad dal and then thought of making raagi - oats dosa for the next day. I experimented and it turned out good and yes I got a pat on my back from my family :)

Ingredients
Urad dal- 1/2 cup
Ragi flour - 1 cup
Oats - 1 cup

Method 
Soak urad dal for 4-5 hours or overnight.
Grind dal and oats separately to a fine paste.
Add the ragi flour in this batter and add more water to make it thin, to the consistency of a normal dosa batter. 
You may keep the batter aside for 10-15 mins for the minimum fermentation that can happen in that time. I did this and the result was good :)
Add salt to the batter and spread dosas as usual
I served this dosa with coconut- shallots- red chilli- tamarind chutney and the verdict was 'yum'
Try and enjoy!

Whole wheat- puffed rajgira cookies sweetened with jaggery syrup

This is a cookie recipe which is easy, healthy and can be stored for few days and can be sent as snacks for school going kids. Following is the recipe for the same

Ingredients
Rajgira (puffed) - 1/3 cup
Atta - 1 1/3 cup
Butter- 1/2 cup
Jaggery syrup - 1/2 cup
Hazelnuts - crushed- 1/4 cup
Baking powder - 1/8 tspn

Method
Mix everything and knead softly and make a soft dough. Make small balls and place in a greased baking tray.

Preheat the oven for ten minutes at 150 degrees celsius, place the cookie tray in the top rack and bake for around 8-10 minutes, when you feel that the bottom of the cookies are baked slowly shift the mode of the OTG to grill mode and grill for another 5-8 minutes..make sure that the top and bottom should not get dark brown , it should be just golden brown.

Remove the tray from the oven and remove each cookie carefully ( it would be soft ) from the tray using a flat spatula and let cool till it turn crispy and then store in airtight jar.

Enjoy!

Rice- coconut and oats dosa

Rice- coconut and oats dosa

Before getting into the post I confess that I have been not updating my experiments lately and also in this post you will not find any picture. I may click a pic next time when I do this recipe. I made this dosa  this morning and my family loved it, so thought of archiving it before I forget it and promise that I will upload a pic soon.

Following is the recipe

Ingredients 

Dosa rice( I use organic)- 1.5 cups

Grated coconut - 1/2 - 3/4 cup

Oats - 3/4 cup

This is an instant dosa which means you can make the batter and carry on making it too , there is not need of any fermentation.

Method

Soak the rice for couple for hours.

Grind the rice, coconut and oats separately to a fine paste.

Mix everything and add sufficient water to make the batter thin. If you are good at making neer dosa or love it, you may add more water.

Add salt to the batter and keep it ready.

Turn on the tava and spread dosas as usual.

Its healthy, slightly sweet and yum and can be accompanied with any spicy curries, chutnies or even with jam or honey and even ghee and sugar :)

Enjoy!