Baking Partners

I am a newbie when it comes to baking. There are so many things that go wrong. Some that i get right. But i have not really been able to bake like i am able to cook. In the sense that  need i to read each and every line of the recipe, get the measures exactly right and yet sometimes it turns out to be not so great. Hence the need to try and practise and get a hang of baking things to perfection. So when my friend mentioned the Baking partners group, i thought, why not! Learning by sharing is the best way to learn. So here i am, signing up for it. Read on to know more about it.

Baking Partners: A new Baking Group

A group of home bakers helping each other to achieve perfection.

Baking a home made Baking a homemade bread, cake or cookies will give the best outcome. However in order to achieve the best results, a perfect recipe and right techniques are required.

We are a small group of home baker friends, who love and want to learn more about the nook and corners of baking.  We are planning to try out recipes from books/magazines and cooking shows.  Every member gets a chance to present their choice of recipe and share important points with the rest of the group.

Main purpose of this group is to learn the techniques, critic the procedure if there are ways to improve, and to eat a delicious food.

Rules are simple, we will choose one recipe and send it out to the group by 16th of every month and the reveal date will be 15th of the next month. On that day we will blog about it. A linky tool will be open during that time and each member can link their post.

First month we are going to do a recipe, 2nd and 3rd month will be a theme and the 4th month we will be back at a recipe. By doing in between recipes, we will able to learn more.

All enthusiastic bloggers interested in baking are welcome, please email Swathi  at favoriterecipes12@gmail.com.

We will appreciate the use of logo or worded link that will help to spread the word.  A bunch of thanks to Tina for designing this beautiful logo

If you   want to make it a gluten or vegan free diet, you can do those modifications also.

Baking a homemade bread, cake or cookies will give the best outcome. However in order to achieve the best results, a perfect recipe and right techniques are required.

We are a small group of home baker friends, who love and want to learn more about the nook and corners of baking.  We are planning to try out recipes from books/magazines and cooking shows.  Every member gets a chance to present their choice of recipe and share important points with the rest of the group.

Main purpose of this group is to learn the techniques, critic the procedure if there are ways to improve, and to eat a delicious food.

Rules are simple, we will choose one recipe and send it out to the group by 16th of every month and the reveal date will be 15th of the next month. On that day we will blog about it. A linky tool will be open during that time and each member can link their post.

First month we are going to do a recipe, 2nd and 3rd month will be a theme and the 4th month we will be back at a recipe. By doing in between recipes, we will able to learn more.

All enthusiastic bloggers interested in baking are welcome, please email me   at favoriterecipes12@gmail.com.

We will appreciate the use of logo or worded link that will help to spread the word.  A bunch of thanks to Tina for designing this beautiful logo

If you   want to make it a gluten or vegan free diet, you can do those modifications also.

Baking Partners are

1.    Reeni (Cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice)

2.    Julie Erivum Puliyumm

3.    Tina  ( Pinay in Texas Cooking Corner)

4.    Priya (Priya's Versatile Recipes)  

5.    Suja ( Kitchen Corner Try It)

6.    Archana  ( Tangy Minds)

7.    Reshmi  ( EasY Cook)

8.    Prathibha ( Cook Ezee)  

9.    Priya R ( Cook Like Priya)

10.  Sweatha ( Tasty Curry leaf)

11.  Vidhya (  A Portion to Share)

12.  Usha Rao ( My Spicy Kitchen)

13.  Divya Prakash( Divya’s Culinary Journey)

14.  Swasthi Blank ( Swasthi The Health Freak)

15.  Sanoli Ghosh ( Sanoli’s Kitchen)

16.  Pam Capone ( Live Ranch Delux)

17.  Mirellie( Gourmet Global Creations)

18.  Joythi( This and That of food and life)

19.  Reshwani( Daily Cuppa)

20.  Peachy  (Peach Kitchen)

21.  Anjua  (Simple Baking)

22.   Aparna  Mis(S) adventures of 3 cookies)

And

23. Swathi ( Zesty South Indian Kitchen)        Creator and Owner

Tomato soup

On a rainy day, when the stomach starts growling, what better comfort food than a bowl of warm and spicy soup? And what is the easiest and the most familiar soup in the world? Of course, it is the tomato soup. For ages, we have been eating rasam with rice during winter. Every time someone at home is down with fever, amma makes rasam with pepper and garlic which guarantees instant relief! The soup is just another way of making the rasam and drinking it.
To make tomato soup for two, you would need:

Ripe tomatoes- 4 large
Onion- 1
Garlic- a few pods
Salt and pepper to taste
Oregano for seasoning
Butter

In a pan, melt a tablespoon of butter (The health conscious may replace it with olive oil). Roughly chop the onions and add it into the pan. Add the peeled garlic pods to it. Fry until it turns golden brown.
Cool the mixture and blend it along with tomatoes into a smooth paste. We did not strain it cause that would mean losing the pulp.
Now add the mixture into the frying pan. Add a cup of water, salt and pepper and bring to a boil.
Boil it until the raw smell of tomato goes away. Add a little diluted cornflour if the consistency is runny. Boil again.
Turn off the heat. Garnish with oregano and read croutons and serve hot.

Strawberry Oats Cake

A lazy weekday. A holiday on account of Shivaratri. Nothing much to do. We decided that it was time to put our oven to use. Fresh from a repair, it was crying to be used for some baking.

Did not have to look far for a recipe. Mahanandi had featured a Strawberry-Oats cake a while ago. Off we went to the neighboring supermarket. Stocked up on the ingredients. Cut the quantity of the ingredients from the original recipe to half. Replaced peanut oil with refined oil and set out to mix out first cake batter.

And well, like all first times, we were clumsy, unsure at times and messy. But we took the plunge, put the cake in at 180 degrees and prayed to God that it should turn out good. The cake plate got wiped clean. You can guess how it turned out! :) Thanks Indira for the recipe!

Carrot+Corn side dish!

All of us have been busy lately and did not have time to experiment in cooking! This weekend

when they both went out for a trip leaving me alone at home, I felt like trying something new!

When I looked in fridge, I found only carrot and corn.

What else can you do with carrot and corn other than the regular grate carrot & fry it with corn side?

Hmmm, I thought for a while and then decided to add some milk too and try! :-)

Ingredients (Serves only 1 person!! ):

1 Medium sized carrot cut into long pieces

1 Cup sweet corn

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

1 Cup milk

Pinch of turmeric

Pinch of garam masala

Pinch of red chili powder

Salt for taste

1 spoon cumin seeds

2 spoons of oil/ghee

1/2 spook sugar

Boil the carrots in little water until they are half coked. Add milk to this and cook the carrot fuly.

Heat the ghee in a pan, add cumin seeds, onion and fry for a minute. Add corn and fry till it is cooked. Add turmeric, garam masala, chili powder, sugar & salt and keep for another minute. You don't need sugar if the carrots are sweet. Add the carrots and milk and you are done! :-)

Tastes really good with Phulkas :-)

Gobi Masala

Everytime we got gobi home, we would end up making aloo gobi. There was another familiar way of making gobi but it always so happened that we did not have the necessary ingredients for it. This time, after finding the gobi of the optimum size, we made sure that we picked up all the other raw materials for the gobi masala recipe.

You would need:
One medium sized cauliflower- cut into florets.
One Onion- finely chopped
One tomato- finely chopped
Turmeric
Jaggery and salt to taste
Coriander, for garnising
Ghee

For paste:

Cinnamon- one stick
Moggu- One
A fistful of cashewnuts
Jeera, pepper, poppy seeds- one teaspoon each
Red chillies- three to four
Tamarind paste- half teaspoon
Coconut- grated- three tablespoons

Boil cauliflower in salt and turmeric. Close and keep it aside.
Soak the poppy seeds for ten minutes in water.
Grind the paste ingredients into a fine paste.
In a pan, add ghee.
Fry the onions till they turn pink. Now add tomatoes and fry until it becomes mushy.
Add the ground paste and fry until the raw smell in it goes.
Now add some water to obtain gravy consistency.
Add in the cauliflower and add salt to taste.
Jaggery can be added if you like the gravy a little sweet.
Now let all the ingredients come together well by frying it for a few minutes.
Garnish with coriander and serve hot with chapathis/ phulkas

Carrot Halwa: For our sweet tooth

So yes, we do prepare sweets also once in a while ;). And what easier sweet than the good old gajar ka halwa? There was ice cream in the freezer that was waiting to be eaten. And almost one kilo of carrots in the vegetable box. And two perpetually hungry people with really sweet tooth (can i say teeth? cause one tooth does not do justice to our liking of sweets :) )
Anyway, to make carrot halwa for two people,

Two large carrots, grated well
Milk , about 200 ml
ghee, 3 tablespoons
Sugar, 6 tablespoons
cashewnuts, a handful

In a cooker, add the grated carrot along with the milk and cook it until two-three whistles. After the pressure is released, stir the carrot on low flame until the milk gets condensed. Now add to it sugar and ghee and keep stirring it until the halwa gets a glazed look.
Roast the cashewnuts in ghee and garnish the halwa with it. Bisi bisi halwa with Ice cream. Sinful pleasure!

Pasta Exotica!

For starters, there may not be anything exotic about this pasta for people familiar with Italian food. Just that, we visited the local grocer and found that he had a batch of broccoli, red and yellow bell peppers and parsley and celery, all of which come under exotic vegetables category for us cause its not everyday that we buy and cook them.

So when we spotted the vegetables, we picked them all up and the only recipe that came to mind to put all of them to use was, well, our almost staple food- pasta!

Ingredients:

Red and yellow bell peppers- chopped into inch sized pieces
Broccoli - 1 medium sized, split into florets
Garlic- A few pods, finely chopped
Parsley- One small bunch, finely chopped
Pasta of your choice- cooked Al Dente
Milk- one cup
Cheese- two heaped tablespoons
Olive oil- two spoonfuls
Salt and pepper to taste.

Method:

In some olive oil, toss in the chopped garlic and fry for a minute. Add the chopped peppers and fry until they are tender. In parallel, boil the broccoli in water until it is cooked and add it to he peppers. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Now, in a pan, add the cooked pasta, milk, some salt and a spoonful of sugar and bring it to a boil. Stir in the cheese. Now add the cooked vegetables into the pasta and toss it well. Garnish with chopped parsley and serve it hot!