Crunchy Orange Muffin Cookies

Today I wanted to try my new mini muffin pan with some muffins…but I really didn’t want to bake any muffins either. Does that sound crazy….I am a bit in experimenting my kitchen. So came up with recipe where I can taste baked ingredients both as a muffin and as a cookie.

May be the idea sounds crazy but the result was way good.

(Note: you can store the batter for about a week in the fridge and use it as and when u want. These cookies/muffins stay fresh for about a week or more)

Ingredients:

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1 cup All-purpose flour

2 cups sliced Almonds, finely chopped

7 tbps butter, melted

1/3 cup of Orange juice (preferably freshly squeezed)

1 ¼ cup Sugar

Method:

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1. Mix all the ingredients and refrigerate this batter this for about 1 hour.

2. Preheat oven to 375F. 

3. Pour this batter in mini muffin pan and bake it for about 15-20 mins or until it turns golden brown.

4. It is crunchy on the outside and soft in the inside.

5. Enjoy the double taste of a muffin and a cookie in one recipe.

Eggplant Masala Curry

I got this big eggplant from a farm produce. I didn’t know that these eggplant stem would have thorn in it. Before Shoj could warn me about this, I did get a small poke. May be this eggplant was greeting me.

I wanted to try another recipe with this, but the end product turned out to be this curry. You know, this is how we learn from mistakes and experiments in our kitchen, until and unless we have good results. So I can take this experiment as a good result, as the curry turned out to be good.

Ingredients:

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1 large Eggplant washed and cut into cubes and put it in a bowl of salted water.

1 medium Onion chopped

2 medium Tomatoes chopped

1 sprig Curry leaves

2 tsp Sambar powder (I use the sambar powder that my mom prepare on her own)

(Note: will update this blog with mom’s sambar powder recipe)

½ tsp Turmeric powder

1 tbsp Tamarind pulp

Salt to taste

1 cup water

½ tsp Mustard seeds

¼ tsp Fenugreek seeds

¼ tsp Asafoetida

¼ tsp Garlic powder/ 2 pods of fresh garlic chopped

1 tbsp Oil

Method:

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1. In a pan add oil, when the oil is hot add mustard seeds, when they start to sputter add fenugreek seeds, curry leaves and asafetida.

2. Add onions, fresh garlic/garlic powder, eggplant, salt, turmeric powder. 

3. Cover and cook until eggplant is ¾ cooked. Add the tomatoes and sambar powder stir well and cook for another 2 mins covered on medium flame.

4. Add the tamarind pulp and water and bring to boil without lid.

Make sure that all the ingredients are cooked well.

5. Serve hot with steamed rice or this recipe goes well with biriyani too.

VENTHAYA MANGAI PICKLE

This is one of the most favourite pickles for me. The season for raw mango as well as Mangoes has gone. But still I can get some Kerala raw Mangoes here which is sweet and fleshy. When I have seen them last week in a famous Indian Super market, I immediately grabbed them and the next day, I have made this venthaya mangai pickle. I prepared with 4 mangoes but it didn’t even last for a week. My family members finished it within a few days!

வெந்தய மாங்காய் ஊறுகாய்

Ingredients:

Raw mango- 2
Fenugreek seeds- 1 tsp
Chilli powder- 2 tsp
Turmeric powder- half sp
Salt to taste
Gingelly oil- half cup
Asafetida- a small marble size
Mustard seeds-1 tsp

Procedure:

Cut the mangoes in to small cubes.
In a tsp of oil, fry the asafetida and fenugreek seeds separately to golden brown.
When cooled, grind them to a fine powder.
Heat a pan and pour the oil.
Add the mustard seeds and when they splutter add the magoes with the turmeric powder and salt and fry them on slow fire for 5 minutes.
Then add the chilli powder and cook for 5 minutes.
Then add the fried powder and cook again for a few seconds.
Now venthaya mangai pickle is ready.
This goes well with Thayir sadham and sambar sadham.