This recipe was created at one of the sleep overs my nieces and nephews had at our home. They always expect me to make them something exotic when they come to stay. Usually I have it all planned as they always are very excited to know what I would make for them. It was almost midnight when they wanted something awesome for dessert. It was summer and I did not want to turn on the oven and get the kitchen hot, so I suggested some cool toppings to go with their ice cream. We had some figs from Trader Joe's and we decided to make something elegant with them. It is not a traditional caramel recipe, but I thought it turned out to be a great hit with the kids. I made them again yesterday and enjoyed them with cottage cheese.

Gadgets:

Saute Pan

Spatula

Cutting Board

Knife

Measuring Spoons

Ingredients:

Butter - 2 tbsps

Brown Sugar - 2 tbsps

Fresh Black Figs - 1 pound cut into four quarters

Fresh Cream or 2% milk - 1/4 cup

Preparation:

1. Heat the sauté pan and add butter. As the butter starts to melt, add brown sugar and mix well. As the butter and sugar comes together, add fresh cream and give it a toss. Add the figs and mix. Allow it to soak some of this butter and sugar. Remove from heat ( make sure not to over cook the fig, just enough to get it lightly warmed up) and serve it over ice cream, cottage cheese, rice pudding etc. 

Sometimes when I shop at Indian stores and find some rare vegetables that my Amma used to make in India, I get super excited. This week I found some very fresh flat beans at the local Indian store.  I decided to make poriyal/ curry out of it for dinner. The flat beans cooks very fast but prepping it takes some time. Otherwise it is just like cooking any regular south Indian vegetable. Had avaarakai curry with sambar and it was yum.

Gadgets:

Cutting Board
Knife
Saute Pan
Spatula
Colander

Ingredients:

Flat Beans/ Avaarakai - 1 pound
Oil - 1 tbsp
Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp
Udad Dal - 1 tsp
Dry Chillies - 2
Coconut - 1/2 cup
Salt
Curry Leaves - a few

Preparation:

1. Nip the edges of the flat beans. When you nip you will see that a string peals from both the sides of the flat beans, Remove that as they will make the vegetable cook faster. Cut the beans finely, add to colander and give it a good rinse.

2. Heat the sauté pan with oil. Add mustard seeds, let it pop and then add udad dal and dry chillies. When the udad dal gets golden brown, add the flat beans and give it a good toss. Cover and cook for a few mites.

3. Add salt and cook for another 5 minutes covered, It will become very tender. Add the coconut and curry leaves and give it a mix.

4. Serve it as a side dish with any meal. 

For Varalakshmi Nombu, I was rushed for time and could not make the regular medhu vadai for prasadham, instead I made the rice flour vadai. I had to make two portions of the recipe as it disappeared very fast. Usually I make it for an afternoon tea and add onions to it, but since it is for prasadham I made it without onions. It tastes delicious and has a crunchy texture when it is hot off the stove. When it cools down, it is still a little crisp and delicious. A simple and gluten free vadai to make anytime. 

Gadgets:

Frying Pan
Slotted Spatula
Measuring Spoons and Cups
Cutting Board
Knife
Bowl

Ingredients:

Rice Flour - 1 cup
Salt
Asafoetida Powder - 1/4 tsp
Ginger Grated - 1 tsp
Curry Leaves - a few
Cilantro Chopped - 2 tbsp
Green Chillies - 2 finely chopped
Yogurt - 2 tbsp
Oil - 2 tsp plus 1 cup for frying the vadai
Water - Enough to form firm dough

Preparation:

1. Heat the oil in the frying pan on medium high heat. Mix all the dry ingredients together and add curry leaves, cilantro and ginger to it. Mix well and add two tsp of oil to it.

2. Add yogurt and give it a mix. Add water a little at a time and bring the mix together to form a dough.

3. Make quarter cent balls and flatten it and make a hole in the center. Fry the vadai's and serve it with chutney or ketchup.

We often make rotis for lunch or dinner and it always comes in circle shape. My daughter gets excited when I make her triangle roti's and so I was wondering about a square roti. Looks like there is such a roti that already existed and people make them often. They stuff the rotis sometimes with eggs, veggies or sprinkle sugar or spicy powders and make them. They resemble the triangle roti and has many layers of dough in each bite which adds a different texture and taste to the roti. For lunch today, I made square rotis for my daughter and enjoyed them with stuffed eggplant an mutter paneer.

Gadgets:

Rolling Pin
Iron Griddle
Spatula
Board
Measuring Spoon

Ingredients:

Prepared Roti Dough - 2 lemon size balls
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Whole Wheat Flour - a few Tbsps for making rotis

Preparation:

1. Take one portion of the dough and dab in a little bit of the whole wheat flour. Start to roll out the dough to 5 inch circle . Spread some ghee just enough to cover the roti roughly.

2. Fold the edges from two opposite side. Make sure that the folds touch each other. You will have a rectangle shape. Fold the other two sides to form a square.

3. Dab some flour and roll our the roti so that you maintain the square shape.

4. Place the rolled roti on the heated tava and cook on both sides. Remove from heat and spread some ghee and serve them hot.

It feels so awesome to blog after all these months. Today, my daughter wanted to have a tea party and invited her cousins over. Since my nephew has allergies, we had to make something special that he would enjoy at the tea party. His favorite cookies are the ones made from all natural cookie mix from Cherrybrook Kitchen (you can find at Target). My daughter made this cookie and I decided to document it. The cookie was good for being allergy free and had the nutty flavor from ghee. Next time you have a party and need to provide gluten free cookies, please give this one a try. Super easy to prepare and tastes delicious.

Gadgets:

Bowl
Measuring Cups and Spoons
Baking Sheet lined with Parchment Paper or Foil
Whisk
Spatula

Ingredients:

All Natural Cherrybrook Kitchen Brand Sugar Cookie Mix - 1 box
Rice Mix - 1/4 Cup
Vanilla Essence - 2 1/2 tsp
Warm Melted Ghee/ Earth Balance Dairy Free Butter - 1/2 cup

Preparation:

1. Set the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a bowl, measure out the liquid and mix well with a whisk.

3. Add the cookie mix and bring the dough together with a spatula.

4. Make a square and cut them into cubes.

5. Take each portion and make a ball and lightly flatten them and place on the lined baking sheet.

6. Bake for  12 to 15 minutes or until the corners are lightly browned. Remove from sheet allow to cool and store in an air tight container.

Back to blogging after a while. Just got a first hand experience of having my blog being hacked. It was crazy. Initially I had no clue as to what was happening to the blog. After great thought I decided to log into the admin page and to figure out what was happening. For some reason one post got over 50,000 visitors in a day and that was odd to start with. If you see this happening to your posts keep an eye on it, remove the post for sometime and maybe that will help.Also changing your pass word is what really matters to protect your computer and your blog. I contacted google and I do not know if they fixed it for me or something magical happened, my blog was fine yesterday.

Anyways, I made this sandesh to celebrate the comeback of my blog. It is such a relief I must add to be able to share what I love creating. The recipe is from my family folder, my aunt Saroja manni gave it to me 6 years ago and I found it when I was looking through my recipes. A simple sweet very special to me and super easy to make. For all those milk sweet lovers, here is one Bengali sweet for you to prepare. 

Gadgets:

Frying Pan
Spatula
Measuring Cups and Spoons
Grater

Ingredients:

Freshly Prepared Paneer - 1 cup
Sugar - 3 tbsps
Cardamom - 3 pods powdered
Saffron - a generous Pinch
Pistachios - a few

Preparation:

1. Heat the stove to medium heat. Add fresh paneer, sugar and mix well. Allow it to cook for 10 minutes until all the liquid and wetness disappears.

2. Add saffron and cardamom powder and mix well.

3. Allow to cool, using your palms take a small portion of the sandesh and roll it within your palms, until they form a smooth ball. Press it into mini tart mold to form shapes.

4. Grate pistachios and place them in the fridge in an air tight container for the sandesh to set before serving.