Microwave Jackfruit Cashewnut Kheer

I was regular with the Microwave Easy Cooking event, started by Srivalli, for sometime. Then later on, my interest in event participation came down and did not bother to cook exclusively for the event. But I didnot want to miss this month's theme of celebrating fellow bloggers hosted by my namesake and dear friend. I had few recipes bookmarked in my mind. But could not get around making anything. When I had few jackfruit bulbs left from what was shared by my neigbour, I immedately decided to make this kheer.  I had tasted cooked jackfruit only with jaggery as sweetner. So I wasn't sure how the kheer with sugar is going to taste. I decided to go ahead. I adapted Priya's recipe. I replaced almond with cashew and used fresh jackfruit. The kheer is very simple gets done in 5 minutes in a microwave. 

You need

Fresh jackfruit bulb - 10 nos  (around 1/2 cup of chopped pieces)
Cashewnuts - 10 nos
Milk - 1 1/2 cup
Sugar - 3 tablespoon
Saffron & Cardamom Syrup - 1 tspn

Method

Soak cashewnuts in warm milk for 10 minutes. Else MW half cup of milk and cashew together for 1 minute. Leave it to cool. Blend cashew along with milk and jackfruit to a smooth puree. Add rest of the milk and sugar. Microwave for 4 minutes. Add saffron and cardamom syrup and mw for 30 seconds. If you like, you can serve it warm. I liked it chilled. It tastes like a pudding. Depending on the variety of jackfruit the kheer can turn very creamy and thick. You can adjust the amount of milk to suit your consistency. Also adjust the sugar according to the sweetness of the fruit.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies for T & T

When Curry Leaf announced Tasty Palettes for Zlamushka's T &T, I knew what to make, since her vegan lemon poppy seed cookies is in my bookmarked recipes for a long time. As soon as I saw the event announcement, I immediately noted the recipe and baked it.

Here is the recipe

All purpose flour - 1 cup

Poppy seeds - 1 1/2 tblspn

Arrow root powder - 1 1/2 tblspn

Nutmeg powder - A big pinch

Salt - a big pinch

Butter - 5 tblspn

Sugar - 1/3 cup

Lemon 1 tblspn

Lemon Zest - 1 tspn

Vanilla essence - 1 tspn

Water - 3 tblspn

I have used white poppy seeds and arrow root powder in place of cornflour. Suganya had made it vegan by using margarine and I used butter.

Method

Mix flour, poppy seeds, arrow root powder, nutmeg and salt.Cream together, butter, sugar, lemon juice, zest and vanilla essence. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Add water little by little to form the dough. Don't add 3 tblspn of water at one go.Pinch off a tablespoon of dough and shape in to a ball and slightly flatten it.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for 25 minutes or till the sides starts browning. The original
recipe said 18-20 minutes, mine took extra 5 minutes. The timings may vary according to your
oven settings. Suganya's has got a nice brown color. Mine remained mostly yellow except the sides which were slightly brown. Don't know if it has anything to do with the use of butter in place of margarine. It was definitely tasty.

The cookies were melt in the mouth kind with a tangy flavor. It gives a nice feeling to bite into the poppy seeds. Thanks Suganya, for a keeper recipe.

Cornflakes Mixture and Roasted Chickpeas - Snacks in MW

Cornflakes Mixture

Cornflakes mixture is my attempt to make a low fat version of the popular South Indian snack, Mixture. Mixure predominantly contains the omapodi and boondi, apart from poha, fried gram dal, peanuts. There isn't much of a recipe here. Just throw in what ever you have and as the name suggests you get a mixture.

Ingredients

Cornflakes - 2 cups

Beaten rice(avil/poha) - 1 cup

Puffed rice(murmura/mottapori) - 2 cups

Split roasted gram dal (dalia/porikadala)- 1/2 cup

Roasted peanut - 1/2 cup

Raisins - hand ful

Curry leaves

Fennel seeds/saunf- 1 teaspoon

Hing - few shakes

Salt

Red chilli powder - 1/2 tspn

Kitchen king masala powder -1/2 tspn

Turmeric - a pinch

Oil- 2 table spoon

Method
Heat oil in a MW safe bowl for 30 secs. Add saunf,curry leaves and raisins. MW for 30 seconds or untill the raisins puff up. Add hing, salt, red chilli powder,masala powder and mw for another 30 seconds. Add cornflakes and beaten rice and mw for 2 minutes. Since these takes more time to get roasted compared with the other ingredients. So we add that first. Both would have roasted well by now. Care to be taken that it doesn't get burnt. Adjust the timings according to your oven. Add rest of the ingredients and toss well that the masala gets coated uniformly. MW for 3 minutes. Toss them once in between. Leave one minute standing time. It will turn crisp. Store in airtight container and enjoy with your tea/coffee.

Roasted Chickpeas
This is inspired by Madhuram's post on oven roasted chickpeas. I like her 'My Notes' section. Took a note of what is mentioned there. But instead of oven, I tried it in MW. I felt with microwave oven, time taken could be less. Though I wasn't sure of the results, decided to go ahead. I got crunchy, fat free snack and took only 12 minutes.

Ingredients

Cooked chickpeas - 1 cup

Olive oil - 1 tspn

Red chilly powder

Fennel seeds

Salt

Few shakes of dried oregano and hing
Toss all the ingredients together in a microwave safe bowl. MW for 12 minutes. Keep tossing for every 3 minutes or so. Allow 2 minutes of standing time. If you keep for longer time, it tends to go hard. Adjust accordingly. It stays crunchy on storage too.

I am sending these two snacks to MEC-Savoury Snacks hosted by Priya, an event started by Srivalli.

and the roasted chickpeas to MBP-Snacks hosted by Ashwini, which originated at SpiceCafe

Dates Cookies and a Cake (Eggless)

Dates is a regular in my pantry. Though, I just like to eat it as it is, I sometimes chop them and add to my cup of cornflakes or salads. It also is made into milkshakes. Ever since I saw Shilpa's Eggless Dates Cake, I have baked it more than once. It is not only the most popular post in her blog, I think its one of the most tried out recipe in the blogosphere too. There isn't nothing much to go wrong in this cake. Even a beginner can make an attempt without any worries.

Ingredients
Dates - 100 gms /18 nos

Milk - 3/4 cup

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Maida - 1 cup

Oil - 1/2 cup

Baking soda - 1 tspn

Chopped cashew - 1 tblspn (optional)

Method
De seed the dates. Soak the dates in warm milk for an hour. This will make the dates soft and easier to grind. Depending on the type of dates you use, the soaking time can vary. Add sugar to the soaked dates mix and grind them to a fine paste. Add oil to the ground mixture and keep it aside.
Sift maida and baking soda. Slowly stir in the flour to liquid mixture. Add nuts and mix. Transfer to a greased tin and bake in a preheated oven at 190 C for 40 minutes or till a skewer inserted comes out clean.

My next recipe is a dates cookie tried from DK's blog. It was an instant hit. Do visit her blog for the step-by-step pics.

Ingredients

Maida/All purpose flour - 2 cups

Baking powder - 1 1/2 tspn

Butter -4 tblspn

Sugar - 1/4 cup

Chopped dates - 1/3 cup

Milk- 1/3 cup
Melted butter for glaze.

Method
Sift flour, salt and baking powder. Rub in butter to the flour mixture to resemble bread crumbs.
Mix in sugar and chopped dates. Make a well in the centre add milk. Knead to a soft dough. Adjust the quantity of milk since you may not need the full amount of milk. Knead the dough on a floured surface for few seconds. Roll into 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into circles or any desired shape. Brush with butter for glaze. (I forgot this part). Bake in a preheated oven at 220 C for 20 minutes or till it rises well and turns golden brown. It was very crisp with a soft inside.

These dates goodies are making to Sunshinemom's FIC-Brown

Cheese Garlic Biscuits -MBP

My bookmarked recipes folder is ever growing and my attempt to bring the number down is not showing any results. When you have so many wonderful cooks around, dishing out equally appealing dishes, I think the only way I can clear up my bookmarked folder will be to start a new one. So I get a false joy of clearing the folder. Though I know there is a new one growing at the other drive. When the theme for MBP was announced by Siri, I knew what I was going to make, since this recipe is bookmarked ever since Cham posted it in her blog. As she says, its easy to make. I replaced all purpose flour with wheat flour/atta, since AP was out of stock. May be I would have used half and half. Except for that, I have followed her recipe.

Whole wheat flour - 1 cup

Sugar - 1 tspn

Baking powder - 1 1/2 tspn

Baking soda - 1/4 tspn

Butter - 1/4 cup

Grated cheese - 1/2 cup

Garlic - 2 cloves, finely chopped

Buttermilk - 3/4 cup

Preheat the oven at 230 C
In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Cut the butter into flour to resemble crumbs. Add the garlic and cheese and stir in buttermilk to form a dough.Either roll to 1 inch thick dough with some flour and cut into any desired shape, else drop spoon full of the dough onto a cookie sheet.
Bake for 15 minutes or until top is brown.

P.S
I was in a hurry while mixing the ingredients that I forgot to add the baking powder. So mine did not rise well. It had a crisp crust but inside tasted like garlic bread. Later I popped them in MW for a minute and it was crisp in the inside too. Now I have a reason to bake it again.

Raisin Stuffed Apples for MBP

When Aparna announced MBP, I knew what I wanted to make. So for this month's MBP, no patroling done. Ever since Uma posted raisin stuffed apples, I wanted to make it. I tried with one apple. Even though I reduced the cooking time(3 minutes) since its only one and she had used 3, it slightly got over cooked. But it was tasty. I almost followed her recipe to T. Only change I made was, I added powdered sugar and cardamom powder in place of cinnamon. Do visit Uma's post for the detailed recipe with step-by-step pics

This goes to the MBP-Fruit Fare, hosted by Aparna, which is the brainchild of Coffee

Honey Muffins

The title Healthy honey cake caught my attention when I was glancing through TOI. When I saw Roma's Honey cake recipe, the first thing I noticed the absence of eggs in the list. That got me interested. Added to that, the ingredients were all healthy. So went straight to the kitchen tried it.

I followed her recipe with few variations

• I used jaggery instead of brown sugar. In spite of increasing by another tablespoon, I found the muffins to be very less sweet.


• Added 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg powder. That gave a unique flavor to the muffins.

Every one loved the muffins. For those who found the sweet to be too less, I served honey. Next time, I will increase both jaggery and honey quantities.

This healthy muffins goes to Aparna, who is the host of the month for the Think Spice, originally started by Sunitha.

Wheat rava idly from Vcuisine

I was familiar with rava idly but not out of wheat rava. When I saw Viji akka's post on Wheat rava idly, I decided the menu for Sunday breakfast. Usually, Sunday breakfast is puttu/kadala. If for some reasons, I am not making it, then the other option is gothumba rava upuma. So, the same ingredients ( i also add veggies to the upma ), but cooked differently. The addition of crushed pepper corns gives a nice flavor to the idlis. Needless to say, all liked this idli version. I followed Viji akka's recipe to the T except one substituion.I am giving the recipe for the benefit of non-readers of Vcuisine (since it is private) and also for my future referance.

For the batter

Slightly roasted wheat rava (Godumbai Rava) - 2 cups

Urad dal powder - 2 tblspn

Salt

Water - 1 1/2 cups

Baking soda - 1/2 tspn

If you don't have urad dal powder handy, soak 2 tblspn of dal for 30 minutes or so and grind to a smooth paste. Mix urad dal powder in 1/2 cup water without forming any lumps. Add the remaining water and stir in the wheat rava and salt. Mix well and ferment it for 6 hrs or leave it overnight.

Seasoning

oil+ghee - 2 tbspn

grated ginger - 1 tspn

hing powder - 1/2 tspn

coarsely crusheed pepper corns and jeera - 1 tspn

curry leaves

Veggies that can be used - Peas (fresh ones tastes good), diced carrot, capsicum, fresh maize. I used only fresh peas and carrot.

Before preparing the idlis, do the seasoning.

Take a skillet and add oil+ghee. Add the seasoning as given. Finally add the chopped veggies and cook for a minute.

Stir the seasoned veggies to the idli batter. Add 1/2 tspn of baking soda to the batter. (The original recipe says Eno fruit salt)

Spoon the batter into greased idli moulds. Steam cook for 10-15 mts. Serve with any chutney of your choice.

Tomato Ginger Thokku

I adapted tomato ginger thokku also from Viji akka's recipe. Since I was lazy to extract the juice from ginger, I grinded blanched tomatoes along with chopped ginger and proceeded with her recipe

Take a skillet and do the seasoning. Add sesame oil. Add mustard , curry leaves, hing powder. Add the tomato-ginger puree and cook for 3 minutes. Then add the spices - 1/2 tspn of red chilly powder, fenugreek and mustard powder each. Continue cooking till oil starts floating. Yes its really an easy spicy thokku.