Eggless Fig cookies- using fresh figs

I think it gets little difficult to get back to blogging after a break, however short it is. I was out of station for the
first half of December. And before I realise, the New Year will be here. Time surely flies. Few days with my family was very relaxing. Enjoyed to the hilt, especially the shopping with my sister. Only two of us went and shopped till both of us could not carry any more.

I wanted to make this post just before I left, but couldn't. After the jam with fresh figs, my next was to bake with them. On searching the net, I came across various baking recipes and decided to go for the Italian fig cookies recipe. Do drop by the site to see the orginal recipe and the ingredient substitutions given. I have made few changes to the recipe. Here it is

You need

• All purpose flour/Maida - 1 cup
• Wheat flour/Atta - 1 cup
• Sugar - 1 cup
• Oil - 1/2 cup
• Milk- 1/3 cup
• Baking soda - 1 tspn
• Baking powder - 1 tspn
• Salt - 1/2 tspn
• Powdered cloves - 1/2 tspn
• Fresh figs, chopped - 1 cup
• Almonds, chopped - 1/2 cup

  

Method

Cream oil and sugar. Add milk to it.

Sieve both flours, salt, baking soda, baking powder into a bowl. Fold in the dry ingredients into the wet mix.  Mix in the figs and nuts.  

Drop tablespoonfuls to a greased cookie sheet. Don't get tempted to spread the dough. It spread on its own. Leave enough space for it to spread.

Bake at 175 C for 25 minutes, till the top turns golden brown. This measurement yields 24 nos. The cookies with fresh figs had a crisp crust with a moist inside.   I cannot say about the shelf life beyond three days, since it was all gone by then.

The Tagging Chain!!

 After finishing my actual exams for my course, I was in for a surprise.  Nithu had tagged me in a fun questionnaire "I'm Tagged". We can form our own questions if we want to, but I found most the questions very logical and I did not find any reason to eliminate them. So I have answered those questions. I have made slight changes to a few questions but they are not much different from the original questions.

Shobha and Shanavi's Questions :


1. Are you a vegetarian, or have you thought about being one?
-Yes, I am a vegetarian.

2. Who inspired you to cook or bake?
-My Mom and My Grandma!!

3. How do you celebrate a favorite holiday of your choice?
-We have a family lunch together and play fun games.

4. Do you prefer to celebrate New Year's Eve with friends and/or family, or prefer to ring in the New Year quietly, and privately, at home?
-I celebrate New year's eve and New Year with my family because I want all of us to remain bonded together on the auspicious start of a new and a prosperous year!!

5. If someone were to ask you to bring dessert to a party, what would you bring? Store bought, or homemade, and if you were to make homemade, what would you make?
-I take great pleasure in cooking for people myself. I rarely get food from outside. If I were to prepare a dessert by myself, I would love to make Gaajar ka Halwa or Rava Kesari! These two are my all time favorite sweets!!

6. How will you celebrate your next birthday?
-The day would start by visiting the temple and a quiet dinner with my Husband!!If I were with my family, we would all go out for dinner!!

7. Do you have a New Year's resolution-and will you be sticking to it?
-I always make a resolution to be a better person all the time.We learn from our mistakes and I would not want to repeat any of them.

Gayathri's Questions :

1. What is your take on organic food , is it a big deal for you ?
-Organic food is considered to be more health and I prefer going with it as much as I can.

2. Do you time your breakfast,lunch & dinner or eat when you are hungry ?
-I stick to specific times for food of-late and I never skip breakfast!!

3. What is your inspiration to write a food blog ?
-Cooking has been my passion since long. I have always wanted to write a cook-book as I wanted a neat printed version of all my recipes. But one day when I was watching the movie Julie and Julia, the entire concept of blogging got introduced to me and thats how I landed here!!

4. How do you get new ideas for recipes?
- I like to keep our traditional food very alive. I try to fuse our traditional cooking with a lot of veggies available here and create a new fusion cuisine. In the end, it is just a trial and error method that will create a brand new dish!!

5. Name three ingredients you consciously avoid or eliminate even when the recipe calls for it ?
-Eggs, Aji-no-moto and any dairy product (cheese/yogurt) that has animal by-products like rennet/gelatin.

6. Name three things you have to use in most recipes ?
-Butter/Oil, Cumin seeds and Cilantro.

7. How important is eating meals together as a family to you?
-Eating meals together is the only way of getting together everyday. Each one gets so busy with work and studies nowadays that the age-old concept of eating together is fading away.As far as I am concerned, I need to make sure that the family eats together at least one meal a day.

8. You do not like a particular dish at your favorite restaurant, what will you do?
-We hardly go out to restaurants to eat. But if we do go to some place and the food is bad, I would leave comments on their feed-back form or approach the restaurant manager to give him my feedback and to ensure that they serve good quality food !

Now to all the others that I am going to tag!! You can answer any set of questions or you can
pick any question from both the set and can form your own set of questions. The choice is completely yours. Please do pass on this tagging chain and keep it going!!

1. Priya Sreeram
2. Priya
3. Raji
4. Kurinji
5. Divya Vikram
6. Vibaa Sridharan
7. Preetha
8. Pushpa
9. Sayantani
10. Siri
11. Subhashini
12. Shivani

Vegetable Pulav

Vegetable Pulav is a very easy rice dish. It can be made with a lot of vegetables and the choice of vegetables is totally personal. I like to make it very colorful and vibrant using green peas, carrots and kidney beans. This is a very simple dish and mildly spiced. It tastes best served with Raita made out of cucumber, onions and curd.

Ingredients:

Cooked Basmati Rice - 1 1/2 cups
Butter - 2 Tbsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Cinnamon stick - 1" stick
Cloves - a few
Bay leaves - 2-3
Star Anise - 2
Mace - 2-3
Black Peppercorns - A Few
Frozen/ Fresh green peas and carrots - 1 cup
Butter beans / Kidney beans - 1 cup
Salt - To Taste


Method:

• Take 2 Tbsp of butter in a pan and allow it to melt.

• To this add cumin seeds,cinnamon sticks,cloves, star anise, cloves, mace, bay leaves and black peppercorns.

• Allow all these dry spices to roast in the butter for 3-5 minutes. Then add 1 cup of green peas and carrots and add salt to taste. Cook  for 5-7 minutes.

• Add the kidney beans/ butter beans and allow it to cook for 5 more minutes.

• Once the vegetables are cooked, add them into the bowl of cooked Basmati rice.

• Mix the vegetables well with the cooked rice. Serve hot!