Saturday, August 07, 2010

Mom's berry & cream cheese cake

BLUEBERRY CREAM CHEESE CAKE
(COPYRIGHT CARDAMOM KITCHEN LLC 2010)

Serves 12-16

INGREDIENTS

For cake:

For blueberry topping:
1 pound fresh blueberries
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup water

For cream cheese frosting:
1/2 cup heavy cream, chilled
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
4 ounces of cream cheese

INSTRUCTIONS

Place mixing bowl in the refrigerator.

Preheat over to 350 degrees.

Prepare yellow cake in 8-inch baking pan or oven safe glass dish. Cool on wire rack.

Combine blueberries and sugar in a sauce pan. Add water. Bring to a boil on high, stirring now and again. Lower heat and simmer until juice thickens, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Cool.

Combine heavy cream and 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar in chilled mixing bowl. Beat until cream forms soft peaks, about 10 minutes.

Beat cream cheese in another mixing bowl. Carefully fold whipped cream into cream cheese.

Spread cream cheese frosting on cake. Top with blueberry sauce.







Vegetable Stuffed Wheat Naan

First let me say a BIG THANK YOU, to all my readers and friends who took time to watch the cookery show on TV or the  video I shared through face book/mail. I was overwhelmed seeing the comments. These are moments which I will always cherish. Now on to the recipe. I have made Naan with all purpose flour/maida before. Later I have tried with half and half of maida and wheat flour. This time I made with whole purpose flour only. I could not feel any difference in taste. It was very soft. To make it a complete meal on its own, tried stuffing some sauteed and slightly spiced veggies too. With a cup of home made curd and a dash of pickle, a sumptuous meal is ready.  





You need

For the dough
  • Wheat flour - 2 cups
  •  Oil - 1 tblspn
  • Salt- 1/2 tspn
  • Instant yeast - 1 tspn
  • Lukewarm water to prepare the dough

For the stuffing
  • Crumbled paneer-1/2 cup
  • Onion- 1 nos, finely chopped
  • Carrot - 1 nos, grated
  • Green chilly - 1 no, finely chopped
  • Kasuri methi - 1 tblspn
  • Chili powder - 1/2 tspn
  • Salt to taste
  • Kitchen king masala - 1 tspn
  • Oil - 1 tblspn


 Method


Dough
Mix all the ingredients mentioned for dough, except water. Add enough water to make a soft dough. Leave the dough to double. Punch down and leave for a second rise. If you are not using instant yeast, prove the yeast in warm water and sugar and then add.


For stuffing

  
Heat oil in a kadai. Add green chilly and chopped onions. Saute till onion is transparent.
Add grated carrot, crumbled paneer, red chilly powder and salt. Saute for 2-3 minutes.
Add kasuri methi and garam masala. Mix well and leave it to cool.
Adjust the green chilli and red chilli powder to suit your spice levels. You can omit the green chilly altogether if you don't want to bite into the chllies, especially if you will be serving the kids.  I like it, so have added.




To prepare naan

   
Divide the dough into five portions. Shape each portions into balls. Take one and roll it into a 2 inch circle. Place 2 tablespoons of the filling on the centre. Gather the edges and shape into a ball again. Carefully roll into oval shaped rotis. Pull the naan on one side to get a tear shape.

   
Heat a tawa. Apply water on one side of the naan, preferable the down side, while you rolled it. Stick the naan on to the hot tawa. Show the tawa upside down over the flame. Keep moving it to ensure even cooking. When it is fully cooked, the naan will fall off easily. Alternatively you can cook directly on the tawa as we do with rotis.  With the 2 cups of flour, I got 5 naans.

This will make a good lunch box option, since it stays soft for a long time. This can be baked in an oven too. But I haven't tried it, since I find the stove top method easy.


 Note: Make sure the tawa is hot while sticking the naan.




Friday, August 06, 2010

GAINING THOSE BROWNIE POINTS

This Story Came out as an article in Friday - Weekly Magazine that comes with Gulf News Newspaper @ UAE. My Hubby took efforts to type this and mail me. Thanks Vaasu!!!

The Story
Image Courtesy : WWW

The husband has really done it now. The man has lost seven kgs in four weeks.
I would never try to take personal credit for the husband's success, but I might mention that I had talked to him recently (several hundred times actually) about heart attack risks.
I talked to him about the danger of packing on weight around the middle, about the fact that he works outside a lot sweating in the heat and humidity, lugging heavy equipment, and about the fat contnent of ice cream and cheese.
Was it was my nagging that motivated him? No. He decided to knock off some weight before his high school reunion.
You want to know how he did it, right? Well, for a small weekly fee, a special weight-loss supplement called El Placebo, and a DVD of me carping about weight loss, just send a blank cheque and I'll tell you.
Just kidding, I'll tell you right now: He's a man. That's how he lost weight - men lose weight more easily than women. A man thinks, "I'm going to lose weight now," and two kgs drop to the floor.
A woman thinks, "I'm going to lose weight now," and her phone rings. She is asked to make brownies for a social function and dutifully agrees to do so.
She goes into the kitchen, mixes up brownie batter and licks the beater, hoping that no one is watching. She pours the batter into the pan and wipes the spatula clean with her finger, which goes directly into her mouth. She is about to wash the mixing bowl, but sees traces of batter clinging to the slides. Waste not, want not.

Thirty-five minutes later, she takes the brownies out of the oven. They look good, but they would look even better iced. She mixes up that fabulous recipe for chocolate icing which is printed on the back of a cocoa can. She has no choice but to repeatedly test the frosting for consistency.She ices the brownies and thinks what they could really use are some chopped nuts. And toasted coconut. She tests the nuts for freshness and coconut for toastedness.
The brownies look nice in the pan but she decides they would look superb on a platter. She cuts them into serving portions, gathering excess iced brownie with each drag of the knife. This brownie excess is dpeosited on a small plate for someone else to enjoy, but she devours it herself within seconds.
And then disaster strikes. Two brownies break on their way out of the pan. Since the brownies are broken, each piece is no smaller than a regular serving, meaning the calories are smaller, too, so she eats those as well.
The next morning the woman steps on the scale and screams, "Men! They have it so easy!" And that is how the husband lost weight - because he is a man and not a woman.
I refuse to believe it had anything to do with the fact that he cut out all eating between meals, ate smaller portion sizes, reduced the many glasses of milk he dran each day and eliminated all desserts with the exception of 45 calorie frozen fruit bars.
Believe whatever you want. Just dont ask me to make brownies. GAINING THOSE BROWNIE POINTS - sounding off in this Friday.
Story Ends:
This is from my Hubby  "Sorry Priya, I know that it is difficult to lose weight being in the kitchen, this article reinforces that. All the Very best."

Being in the Kitchen, It is a bit tough to stay on your diet, but it isn't impossible. Saying that, i haven't checked my weight for the past 2 months :) I m a bit scared!!!!!