Tag: Nuts

Brown Rice Salad

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Brown Rice Salad 1

I am always on the look out to use up leftovers, they serve as healthy office lunches options for the next day.

I am trying to slowly move away from the lure of white rice and incorporate more of brown rice and other grains. The new year saw me stocking up on pearl barley, buck wheat, farro and chia seeds. These happen to be ingredients I have always had at eateries, they have not been a part of my pantry.

So here’s to being hopeful that I use them up this year. Sharing the recipe for a simple salad made with leftover brown rice.

Takes 5 minutes to assemble

Ingredients
2 cups cooked brown rice
2 tomatoes thinly sliced
1 cucumber thinly sliced in halfs
1/4 cup kalamata olives coarsely chopped
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes coarsely chopped
1 tsp sumac powder
1/2 tsp mixed dried herbs
Juice of 2 lemons
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp finely chopped mint leaves (optional)
4 sundried tomatoes coarsely chopped (optional)
6 pre-soaked almonds coarsely chopped
Salt to taste

In a mixing bowl, add all the vegetables and rice. Toss them together.

Juice 2 lemons, add sumac powder, dried herbs, salt, olive oil and whisk it together.

Pour this vinaigrette over the rice mixture and toss it well. Garnish the almonds and mint over the salad.

Refrigerate for half an hour or more and relish the salad.

Brown Rice Salad

Until next time, keep it healthy and happy cooking!

Kaju Peda – Cashew Truffles

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It’s the eighth day of Chaitra Navratri today. Navratri is a festival of nine nights, “Nav” means nine and “Ratri” means night.
The beginning of spring and the beginning of autumn are considered to be important junctions of climatic and solar influences hence it is observed as an auspicious period of worship for Hindus.
During this period, people fast and do not eat non-vegeterian food and avoid onions and garlic. We ended our fast today with prayers in the morning and made the ‘bhog’ i.e. offerings of poori, Semolina Halwa and Kale Chane.
 
I have featured here a recipe for Kaju peda, it’s a traditional Indian cashew nut fudge recipe. It’s very simple to assemble and easy to make as well. I made this for Diwali last and again on Gudi Padwa.
Gudi Padwa is celebrated on the first day of Navratris and marks the start of a Marati new year.  Gudi Padwa is mainly celebrated in the Indian state of Maharashtra where I was brought up.
Cashew Pedas
 
Makes Approximately: 20 pedas
 
Ingredients
200 grams cashew nuts
2 tsp clarified butter / ghee
1/2 to 3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp cardamom powder
Few tsp of full fat milk
Slivered Pistachios to garnish (optional)
Soak the cashews in warm water for 2-3 hours. Once the cashews are soft, drain them and blend with very little water in a blender.
Pulse the cashews until they are creamy.
Cashew Mixture
In a thick bottom wok on low heat, heat ghee and add the cashew mixture. I usually oil the wok so that the cashew mixture does not stick to the wok.
Add powdered sugar, cardamom powder and full fat milk to this mixture and keep blending it well until the sugar dissolves.
Cooking
After a few minutes, the mixture will start leaving the sides of the wok. Turn off the heat at this point.
Cooling the Mixture
Let the mixture cool until it is ok to handle the mixture. Make bite sized balls from the cashew mixture. Let me show you my attempt previously around Diwali which I was not quite happy with.
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Result this time, the difference just adding 2-3 tsp of milk to the mixture so that it does not dry out. Also I did grease my palms well and hence you see the sheen on the peda this time around. Win!
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Press down a pistachio sliver in the cashew ball and roll it well.
You can also use silver vark easily available in Al Adil stores to add a nice festive touch to the pedas.
I will bring you some Navratri recipes over this week before it’s too late. Happy Cooking! 🙂

Eggless Chocolate Walnut Brownies

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Weekends usually mean having family over for lunch or in evening for snacks and some drinks. I have a dear brother-in-law staying here in Dubai for the last 6 years. He helped us settle in when me and husband were newbies around here and is our only close family out here.

He got married a few days back and I’m currently in New Delhi, visiting home for his wedding. He came over to discuss his last minute anxieties and we were happy to share his joy. To celebrate this occasion, I decided to bake some brownies, who doesn’t like a chocolate chip brownie served with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. A late post but as they say it’s better late than never!

I’m posting this today on my Mum-in-law’s birthday.

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Ingredients
Serves : 4
Prep Time : 10 minutes
Baking Time : 28-30 minutes

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/3 walnuts chopped coarsely + 2tsp to garnish
1/3 cup of canola oil
1 cup of milk
1 tsp of vinegar
1/2 tsp coffee powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
Handful of chocolate chips to garnish
A pinch of salt

Pre heat the oven at 180 degrees Celcius.

Sieve the flour, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt.

Mix the milk at room temperature with coffee powder and vinegar and set aside

Mix the caster sugar to the dry ingredients.

Mix the oil and vanilla extract to the milk mixture.

Add the flour mixture and the milk mixture together and blend well.

Add chopped walnuts to this and fold the mixture gently.

Pour the batter to a well greased pound cake pan and top it with chopped walnuts and chocolate chips.

Batter

Bake for 25-30 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

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Cool the brownies completely before cutting them in neat squares.

Brownies
Serve with a dollop of vanilla ice cream and cut strawberries.

Brownies 2

The brownies will stay well up to 3 days.

Homemade Granola Bars

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Thou shall be more regular with the blog! I usually keep repeating this to myself but never get around to clearing the drafts in my folder. Nonetheless here I am, if you are someone who enjoys a good breakfast then read on.

It’s one of the most blissful feelings waking up early on weekday and fixing yourself a good hearty meal just when life takes over. An empty stomach growling on a busy work day in the middle of a business meeting is never a good call.

I’m not much of a morning person but having a steaming hot cup of masala chai followed by breakfast definitely helps me begin the day beautifully.

It’s actually an indulgence for some but for me it’s a necessity. I never ever skip a breakfast.

I usually like savory in my breakfast so most mornings consist a sandwich, toasted brown bread layered with peanut butter or labneh and topped up with tomatoes, carrots, cucumber and some crumbled feta or cheese.

Other days I like a hearty poha or upma but it’s a task to make them and means dedicating 20 minutes in the morning for this. Then there was a phase where all I would want to eat was granola bars so I loaded the pantry with some oats and honey crunchy granola bars.

After spending a fortune on store bought artificially sweetened and calorie heavy variety, I decided to bake some at home. I baked some chewy granola bars fews weeks back and some more over the last fortnight for Mum-in-law to take them home.

I personally love them to be crunchy however since mum-in-law was in town, I decided to make them chewy so that she can eat them easily.

Granola Square

Prep Time : 10 minutes
Ready in 20 minutes

Ingredients

3 cups organic oats
1/2 cup chopped mixed nuts (I used walnuts and cashews, the ratio was 70:30)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup cranberries
1/2 cup almond meal
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup date syrup
2 tsp brown sugar (skip if you want them to be less sweet)
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
A pinch of sea salt

Pre-heat oven at 175 degrees Celcius.

Toast the Oats slightly, it gives them a good crunch. You could toast them in the oven for 3-5 minutes or just dry roast in a wok.

Granola

Mix oats, chopped nuts, raisins, almond meal and cranberries really well in a big mixing bowl.

Granola Mix 2

On low heat, add oil, sugar, peanut butter, honey and date syrup in a saucepan and keep stirring it so that it does not stick to the bottom of the same.

Sugar Syrup

Take off heat once all the ingredients have blended well, add vanilla essence and mix well.

Pour the hot mixture over the oats mixture and with the help of a spatula mix them well.

Scrap the mixture from sides of the bowl and let it rest for a few minutes.

Grease a baking tray and layer the oats mixture on the same. Bake for 20 minutes and voila you are saying good bye to hungry mornings!

My first attempt at this was not that great and I wasn’t happy with the shape for the granola bars since I tried them in a 9 inch cake mould. I just couldn’t find my baking tray.

So there you see chunky bits of granola however this time around I spend some time on doing my prep right. I used a baking tray and dumped the mixture on the same.

With help of greased spatula I spread the mixture and had a thin layer on to the tray. You can even grease your fingertips and flatten the mixture on the surface.

Let the mixture cool down for a while before you cut them in neat squares. Store in an airtight container, they will stay well for a 7-10 days.

Granola Bars
The sides which were uneven at my end were crumbled and used as granola later on. I simply topped them with yoghurt and fresh diced kiwis and strawberries! Win 😀

In the next few posts, I would be bringing you my experiences from my recent and the very first trip to Paris and Amsterdam. Till then, happy cooking 🙂

Besan Halwa

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Besan Halwa1

It’s the first day of Diwali today and every Indian household is preparing to kickstart the festivities in a gala way. This year it’s our first Diwali outside India, every year we fly down to home to celebrate it with friends and family. However this year around Mum-in-law decided to come and visit us.

It’s really special having her around. She is working with me on spring cleaning the house, having the lights decorated in the small balcony, making sweets and savories, shopping for new clothes and jewellery. It’s like we have a Santa in the house way before Christmas.

Today is a very auspicious day for Hindus, it’s called Dhan Teras. We offer our prayers to Goddess of wealth – Laxmi for success, prosperity and peace. It’s a traditional custom to buy jewellery or utensils for good luck.

Rangoli

Rangoli is made at the entrance of the house welcoming the Goddess. Rangoli is hand made designs using colored powders and flowers. Deeyas (oil lamps) are used to enhance the decoration and also lighted as a traditional way to welcome the festival. Deepawali or Diwali is also known as a festival of lights.

Besan Halwa

I’d be featuring some of the family favaorites in the coming days, starting with Besan Halwa. You can also read about Sooji (Semolina) Halwa and Rava Nariyal Laddoos (Semolina & Coconut Balls) I posted last year.

Prep Time : 5 minutes
Cooking Time : 25 mins
Serves : 6 persons

Ingredients

1 cup besan (chickpea flour)
1 cup sugar
3 cups water
1 tsp eliachi powder
3/4 cup ghee (clarified butter)
1/2 cup mix chopped nuts

In a saucepan, heat water on medium heat and add sugar and crushed cardamoms. Adding the elaichi to the sugar syrup makes it fragrant and allows the sugar to blend in the cardamom flavors.
In a thick bottom kadai (wok), heat ghee and add besan. Please ensure that you keep stirring the besan so that the mixture does not have any lumps.
The color you are looking for is a pale golden and do not let the besan brown or stick to the bottom. While roasting the besan in the ghee, it gives out a very nice aroma. It is usually is good after 5-7 minutes.

Add the coarsely chopped nuts,  I used cashews, almonds and pistachios.

In a different pan, heat some ghee and add the raisins and let them bloom a bit. Add the raisins to the mixture.

Now add the sugar syrup to the mixture. Be careful with this step and ensure that the burner is on low heat since the syrup will start to bubble and will sprinkle all over.

Blend in all of the mixture with the sugar syrup evenly and keep folding the mixture so that it does not stick to the bottom of the saucepan.

After a few minutes, you will see the mixture thicken and almost start leaving the sides. Take it off the heat and transfer it in a bowl and garnish with some more chopped nuts.

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On this sweet note, here’s wishing you and your family a Happy Diwali! I hope the festival of lights illuminate your lives with happiness and contentment 🙂

Chocolate Truffles

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I work at a fun company and any commercialized festivals or days get celebrated with quite a gusto. With half of the team who loves to eat, our lunch conversations are discussions about where we dined last night or which is the new place we should order office lunch from.

The Gifts

On Valentine’s Day this year, we had our version of Secret Santa and I got gifted a cookbook by a dear colleague. My love for cooking and cookbooks is well known in my co-workers. My subscriptions of BBC Good Food, BBC Housekeeping and Ahlan Gourmet land at my work place every month.

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I got gifted the “The Golden Book of Cooking” I love this since it stays true to the classics and the recipes have not been played around with.

I promised my colleague I would make him a sweet treat from the book and hence the truffles. I have adapted this easy to make and more easier to devour them. So one evening post work, we settled with our coffee mugs with Burj Khalifa (Yep! Flaunting)  as a backdrop and relished these bite sized treats.

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100 grams Lindt Milk Chocolate
100 grams Lindt Intense Mint Chocolate
200 ml Ellie & Verve Full Fat Cream
2 tsp unsalted butter

To Decorate:
1/4 cup Hersey’s unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup Desiccated Coconut
1/4 cup Chopped Almonds / Flakes
1/4 cup Pistachio Slivers

In a saucepan, heat cream over medium heat and bring it a simmer.

On a double boiler, melt both the chocolates. You may want to coarsely chop the chocolate bars or simply break them with  fingers.

Once the chocolate is melted, add butter and cream mixture and blend well.

Adding butter to the mixture gives a nice sheen to the mixture. Take the mixture off heat and refrigerate overnight or for a minimum of 3 hours.

Use a melon ball scoop to make small balls. Grease your hands well with butter and shape the balls.

Coat the chocolate balls with descicated coconut, cocoa powder, almonds, pistachios, sprinkles or even with drinking chocolate.

Refrigerate the truffles for some time so that it acquires a nice form. This mixture gave me about 22 truffles to be precise.

The truffles would stay well for 3 days if refrigerated. You can also make them in batches and give this as favors to guests after dinner.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

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I love having cookies and biscuits, blame it on me being an avid tea drinker. I love my morning tea and then again in the evenings and just when feeling under weather. I make myself a nice cuppa of steaming hot ginger tea or masala chai as they say.

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The chai masala can be easily bought from any groceries selling Indian food. Here in Dubai, you can find nice homely and fragrant chai masala at Al Adil, they have branches across UAE. However I have a time tested chai masala recipe used in my household. I will share the same in the blog soon!

Cookies can be quite filling when busy mornings leave you with no room to fix breakfast. A cup of tea, a couple of cookies and the morning is sorted. I love double chocolate chip, coconut orange blossom water and oatmeal honey cookies. This time however I was in mood for something healthy.

Oats are a healthy option to feed on. Now I am someone who is fond of having breakfast the traditional way so give me parathas, poha, upma, idli, wada sambhar and you see me grinning. Eating muesli or cereal is never my idea for breakfast. When me and S got married, difference in breakfast options came to the forefront. He insisted that I start eating healthy but I was too adamant to give up my butter laden parathas with a side of pickle.

Cooking breakfast every morning while struggling to get out for work, seems a task in itself and hence cookies with a side of peanut butter toast is a staple go-to breakfast option on most of the crazy weekdays.

So this recipe for oatmeal cookies seemed like the easy way out to incorporate healthy options and give up the store bought flour laden cookies and biscuits.

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Adapted from Joy of Baking website
2 sticks / 200 grams unsalted butter
200 grams light brown sugar
1/3 cup regular white sugar
2  eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200 grams all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
250 grams old-fashioned rolled oats
100 grams dark raisins
50 grams coarsely chopped walnuts
a handful of dried cranberries

When baking goodies, prep time is crucial. Start with having all the ingredients assembled so that you don’t have to keep looking for them once you get started.

So I start with removing the butter from the fridge and bringing it to room temperature.

Preheat the oven oven to 180 degrees Celcius and line the baking sheet  with parchment paper. You could buy store bought ready to use parchment paper sheets, Lakeland has some good options.

I use parchment paper rolls bought from Waitrose which I cut individually for every batch of cookies. They are quite economical and just need 2 minutes to cut in the size you need. Also keeps reminding me of my craft lessons at school *chuckles*

In a big bowl, beat butter using the hand mixer for 1 minute until nice and creamy. I usually use Lurpak or Elle & Vire brand unsalted butter. You could also use salted butter, if that’s what you’d use, omit the salt in the recipe.

Now, add the brown sugar and white sugar to the butter. I use Whitworth’s light brown sugar and SIS brand for the white granulated sugar. I would love to use the dark brown sugar next time since it gives a rich brown color to the cookie batter.

Beat until sugar gets mixed well and the mixture does not appear grainy. It usually takes 3minutes for the mixture to look fluffy.

Add one egg at a time to the mixture and beat well maybe for 1 minute each.  I use Omega 3 large or medium eggs.

You can add the vanilla extract at this point and let it blend together with the batter.

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In a different bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and whisk it well so that the baking soda is mixed with the entire dry ingredients.

The original recipe called for cinnamon however I did not have the same handy and hence skipped it completely from the recipe.

Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and mix well with a spatula.

Add oats walnuts, raisins and cranberries to the mixture and combine everything together. While walnuts give the cookies a nice crunch, raisins and cranberries give a nice sweet and soggy feel to them. It is a beautiful contrast in textures.

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Now take a small ice cream scoop and take the cookie batter. You can dab the cookie ball slightly and flatten them with your fingertips, Make sure to keep adequate space between two cookies allowing them to bake well.

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Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. The corners will be soft but the center for the cookie will be soft and chewy, If you want them crisp increase the flour in the recipe and bake for 2-3 minutes more.

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Remove from oven and let the cookies cool a few minutes on the baking sheet. Store them in an airtight container, they stay well for 10 days. This is when they do not get polished off!

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I love how my kitchen smells heavenly while these cookies are baked. Until my next post, happy food memories ahead!