Life's unexpected turn!

Hi all! I know I've not been around since last August. And my hands are trembling while typing up this post today. A lot of unexpected events have taken place since last year and my mind has been all over the place. My dad at 65 yrs of age was diagnosed with one of the worst disease known to mankind, brain tumor and that too an aggressive high grade tumor, Glioblastoma Grade IV multiforme. After all the ups and downs and being in denial, we as a family had somehow come to accept this unfortunate event. After 11 months of struggle, my father passed away two months back. I can't imagine writing about this but it helps with the healing process. I miss him a lot but I know he's in a better place. Hopefully through this post I can also help raise a little awareness about this kind of brain tumor, which unfortunately has no cure and the little cure that is available - chemotherapy and radiation is of no help. Little has been done to cure this terrible disease inspite of the advancements in science. Through this I have also become a mother to an almost 3 month old girl who keeps me super busy. But I have had the time to bake and churn ice creams but I have somehow lost interest in taking pictures. I believe this blog was about me and my passion and everything has pretty much come to a standstill. I need to gather the courage to do that in the midst of this loss and an addition of a new member to our family and this post is to request my fellow bloggers for their guidance on returning back to blogging. That is what I need some motivation and help in getting back on the blogging scene.

Also, I will get some recipes together of homemade banana icecream and salted caramel icecream.

Raspberry ripple ice cream...

I have fond memories of growing up eating raspberry ripple ice cream. The sweetness of the vanilla infused with the tartness of raspberries...ah! Heavenly! So to keep my memories alive, I had to make myself a quart of ripple ice cream. I know that's a lot, but with the heat wave that swept in for all of last week, this was a wonderful treat! Didn't take too many pictures of the ice cream, however, you'll see it in another post of mine soon. I used up the ice cream with another treat that I grew up eating - Swiss rolls! Watch out for that post...

Ingredients:

2  cups heavy cream

1 cup whole milk (next I'm trying a low fat version)

2 tbsp vanilla extract or seeds from vanilla bean (I'm a little more generous with this and I added the latter, makes a lot of difference)
2/3 cup sugar

Directions:
Combine cream, milk, sugar and vanilla in a saucepan and heat until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Pour into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator overnight before making it in an ice cream maker.

Raspberry Sauce:

2 cups of fresh or frozen raspberries

2 tsp of Grand Marnier liqueur

1 tsp of vanilla

2 tbsp water

4 tbsp agave syrup

Combine water, berries and syrup in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat, stirring until the syrup melts and the mixture comes to a boil.

Lower heat slightly and continue to cook the sauce for about 5 minutes. Stir occasionally.
Stir in the 2 tablespoons of bourbon and vanilla and remove from heat.
Transfer to an airtight container and store in the refrigerator.

Now you can pull out the mixture for the ice cream and freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Once ready, put a layer of ice cream at the bottom and then swirl the raspberry sauce on top. Repeat this step till all of the ice cream has been transferred, leave a little bit of the syrup for later. Store in an air tight container and freeze for an additional 2 hours.

Triple berry cobbler

I love berries, their tartness combined with a slight sweetness and the fact that they are loaded with vitamins and antioxidants. This pushed me to come up with a healthy cobbler recipe in spite of the fact that I am trying to stay away from the oven in this heat. You can either eat it cold or serve it hot with a nicely flavored vanilla bean ice cream. And it's healthy enough to be had for breakfast, for those with a sweet tooth! Apologize for the blurry pictures...

Triple berry cobbler
(adapted from Eating well)

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
• 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup reduced-fat milk
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean split lengthwise or vanilla bean extract
• 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen triple berries (blueberries, raspberries and marionberries) (this can be replaced by any berry or fruit such as peach/plum) 

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add milk, sugar and vanilla; stir to combine.
3. Add oil to the batter and stir to combine. Pour the batter into the pan. Spoon  the berries evenly over the batter.
4. I used a small terracotta pan, just liked the rustic feel of it. But any pan can be used in it's place. Place the pan in the oven and bake until the top of the cobbler is browned and the batter around the fruit is completely set, 50 minutes to 1 hour. Remove to a wire rack to cool for at least 15 minutes. Serve warm.

Farfalle with roasted eggplant in arugula basil pesto sauce

Hola! Sorry about the long title of the post, but I have to share this wonderful easy to make pasta recipe.

Saute onions. Once cooked, add chopped chinese eggplant (sorry no pictures available) to it and cook it till it all caramelizes. Add salt and pepper to taste, nothing fancy. The key to this recipe is the pesto sauce that you'll find below.

Boil pasta according to directions (I don't follow them, I just throw pasta into boiling water with a pinch of salt and pepper and some olive oil). Drain once cooked.

Chop some arugula leaves and basil from my garden. You're always welcome here!

Make pesto sauce with arugula, basil, 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese, 4 pods of garlic, walnuts (this is not you're usual pesto sauce recipe, they use pine nuts instead). Give it a good pulse and see how wonderfully creamy and green it is. Love it, you can use this as a dip as well.

Tada, now mix the pasta with the onions and eggplant mixture. And then ad the pesto sauce to it, you'll realize that you don't need a lot. And garnish it with an arugula stem with flowers, not mandatory.

Cinnamon Spiced Churros

Yes, I know I'm on a roll making Spanish/Mexican inspired cuisines. Actually, I'm on a roll posting recipes that I absolutely enjoyed on my travel so far! This time it's the famous churros (they literally roll they're R's)! These are absolutely delightful and we enjoyed them during our stay in Madrid, Spain. Although we had them with dark hot chocolate, it was heavenly to dip them in the chocolate. But yes, this time it's cinnamon spiced churros as I like to call them, but hold on I will be posting a recipe of chocolate con churros soon.

I promise I didn't know they had to be fried, from which I suffered a slight setback, but then I went ahead and made them. It's not like I have fried foods everyday. They were amazing and homemade (atleast you can trust the oil that you would be using for frying!!).

Here's the recipe:
(Inspired and adapted by a recipe from Mark Bittman)

Yield: Lots (I actually froze half the batter)
Time 30 minutes

Summary
If you use a broad pan, with about three inches of oil, you can fry all of this batter in one batch; but that\'s a lot of oil. Better to use a standard three- or four-quart pot and fry in batches. Once the strips are gloriously brown, turn them in a sugar-cinnamon mixture and serve hot. The preferred accompaniment is good hot chocolate -- and, yes, you dip.
Ingredients
·         Canola oil for frying (you can use any kind of oil, no not olive oil. Please!)
·         1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
·         1 teaspoon cinnamon
·         1/2 cup or 1 stick butter
·         1/4 teaspoon salt
·         1 cup all-purpose flour
·         3 eggs
Method
·         1. Add enough oil to a large saucepan or deep skillet to come to a depth of at least 2 inches; heat to about 350 degrees. Mix 1/2 cup sugar and the cinnamon together on a large plate.
·         2. Combine remaining sugar, butter, salt and 1 cup water in a saucepan over high heat, and bring to a boil. Turn heat to low, and add flour, all at once. Stir constantly until mixture forms a ball, about 30 seconds. Remove from heat, and beat eggs one at a time into mixture, stirring until smooth after each addition.
·         3. Spoon dough into a pastry bag with a large star tip (or simply drop spoons full of batter into oil). Press strips of dough about 4 inches long into hot oil. Cook as many as will fit comfortably at once, turning as they brown, 5 to 10 minutes each.
·         4. Remove churros from oil, and drain on paper towels, then immediately roll them in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Serve hot or warm.

Tortilla de Patatas (Spanish omelette)

Tortilla de patatas (Potatoes omelette). We first tried this in a tapas bar in Granada, Spain. It was refreshing, I have to admit the potatoes really blended well with the eggs. And we had it as a sandwich with a nice refreshing tomato mayonnaise sauce. It was yummy and hence worth a try! Hope you all enjoy this easy recipe!

Ingredients:

Serves around 4 people

3 eggs mixed in with chicken/vegetable stock

1 large onion, finely chopped up

1 potato, either shred it into long pieces like what I did or into nice thin rounds (the latter is better)

Salt and pepper to taste

Cilantro for garnishing

Low fat mayonnaise and ketchup sauce for dipping

Saute the potatoes on low flame till it loses it's starchiness and starts to brown a little

Beat in eggs and chicken stock and to that, add salt and pepper

Add in the onions and cook till they brown slightly

Beat the eggs and stock mixture!

Let the tortilla cook on both sides just like a regular omelette. Fear not, it'll turn out fine and will be edible!

A few pictures from my vegetable and herb garden, something that has kept me busy the last couple of  weeks and explains me missing out on the blogging.

See I got distracted a bit, these little babies of mine do make me forget everything else. Anyways, another picture of the tortilla de patatas garnished with fresh cilantro. Enjoy it for breakfast, lunch or dinner! 

Cinco de Mayo celebrations at home!

A little too delayed for this post, but I've been busy around the house and garden after work, that I'm trying to make time...excuses, excuses! Believe me, I'll post pictures of what I've been upto lately.

Back to the post:

As always, I have these craving for chipotle burrito bowl and often I don't need an excuse to eat one. However, it was Cinco de Mayo last thursday and I was looking forward to have my bowl. Fortunately, yes fortunately, I didn't have one because I decided to make everything at home and as they claim their food is 'healthy and organically grown'. I decided to say mine was 'homemade and healthy. I don't have the best pictures of the different pieces/items that go into the burrito bowl, but here's what the result looked like and it wasn't too bad. I guess it's bye bye chipotle for me from now onwards.

Guacamole

Fajitas

Home-made salsa

Corn

Chicken

Black beans (not refried)

Cilantro-line rice

Bowl 1

Bowl 2

Can't seem to fit it in a bowl, use a plate instead!

Sorry, no pictures of the strawberry mint iced tea that I served. The mint used was from my kitchen garden. Will post recipe of that soon!

Birthday cake for my bff!

White cake with strawberry frosting. Hydrangea flowers decorations on top and adorned with edible pearls on the side!

Cheesecake recipe

Yum!! I like certain kinds of cheesecake, especially the ones that have a nice caffeine kick to it. So to prepare for a get together, I decided to bake a nice cheesecake. I have no problems saying that I won't ever have to visit cheesecake factory to grab a bite of their cheesecakes. Like them a lot, but if a similar kind can be made at home, then why bother. Unless of course I'm busy and tied, because it took me a good half day in making the cheesecake. Nevertheless, it was a fun process indeed. A lot of research went into preparing the pan, the water bath and also understanding the science behind the process of baking cheesecakes. Yeah right, for the last one!! ;)

Here's the recipe for a yummy cheesecake:

For the crust:
1 9-ounce box of chocolate wafer cookies or Goya chocolate wafers
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted
For the filling:
1 1/2 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon instant coffee powder
12 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs

Make crust: Preheat oven to 350°F. Wrap outside of 9-inch-diameter springform pan with 2 3/4-inch-high sides with double thickness of foil. Spray bottom of pan with vegetable oil spray. Finely grind wafer cookies in the processor. Add room temperature butter and process until blended. Press mixture onto bottom (not sides) of prepared pan. Refrigerate while preparing filling.

Make filling: Combine cream and coffee powder in medium saucepan. Stir over medium heat until coffee powder dissolves. Reduce heat to low. Add chocolate; whisk until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth. Cool 10 minutes.
Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until well blended. Beat in cornstarch. Add sour cream and vanilla; beat well. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Whisk 1 cup cheese mixture into chocolate mixture. Return chocolate mixture to remaining cheese mixture; whisk until smooth.
Pour batter into crust. Place springform pan in a large baking pan. Add enough hot water to baking pan, atleast reaching the mid-section of the springform pan. Bake cheesecake until softly set and slightly puffed around edges, about 1 hour. Turn off oven. Let cake stand in oven 45 minutes. Transfer springform pan to rack and cool. Cover; chill cake overnight.

Kalakand burfi (ricotta cheese sweet)

This recipe is courtesy showmethecurry.com. I made my own variation - excluded the rose essence and included more chopped almonds and pistachios.

Time: 18 min
Prep Time: 5 min
Setting Time: 1 hr
Makes: 20 pcs (approx)

Ingredients:
Ricotta Cheese – 15 oz
Condensed Milk – 14 oz
Rose Water – 1/4 – 1/2 tsp (or 2-3 drops of Rose Essence)
Cardamom Powder – 1/4 tsp
Chopped Pistachios – 1/2 tbsp
Chopped almonds – 1/2 tbsp

Method:
1. In a microwave safe square or rectangle dish, mix the Ricotta Cheese and the Condensed Milk well.
2. Mash down all the lumps with a help of a whisk.
3. Cook in the microwave for 5 minutes uncovered.
4. Take out and mix well. Make sure that you loosen the edges.
5. Back in the microwave 3 more minutes, uncovered.
6. Take out and mix.
7. Microwave for 2 minutes, covered. Take out and mix.
8. Microwave for 2 minutes,cross covered, take out and mix.
9. Microwave for another 6 minutes, uncovered taking out and stirring every 2 minutes.
10.Once done, mix well.
11. Add in the Powdered Cardamom and Rose Syrup/Rose Essence and mix well again.
12. Press down and flatten the mixture.
13. Sprinkle chopped Pistachios and Almonds on top and press them down to help them stick.
14. Cover and allow to set either in the refrigerator for an hour or on the counter-top for a few hours.
15. Cut into desired shape and serve.