French Baguettes

Wakey wakey and Bakey Bakey. I baked these amazing french baguettes the other day. I was surprised at how well they turned out! Every time I look at the pictures I took that day, I start imagining myself as a ten year old little girl wearing a cute dress, riding her cruiser bike around in a french looking town and delivering these delicious baguettes to everyone from her basket!

To bake these I followed this  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/French-Baguettes/Detail.aspx .

Roll out the dough..

Make a roll of the rolled out dough

Let it rise and bake.

Voila!

Shubham thought I got them from the local Harris Teeter :P, yay Me!

Advertisement

For the Love of Ricotta!

I was obsessed with Ricotta cheese for a while, and it showed. I swear it was easier to spot it on my body than in my cooking! Who cares! I openly confess— YES! Ricotta, you are sinful, I have sinned, and I cannot have enough of you. Although, I have to declare that I am still in love with Desi Ghee and always will be.

To get back to my obsession with Ricotta, I put it in everything for a while — from banana walnut pancakes with brown sugar,to lemon drop cookies,to pineapple orange cake, to mango souffle! Ricotta imparted a heavenly, light, and fluffy texture to everything it went into… including my thighs. During the Ricotta ages – I also lacked the discipline to click a picture of the deliciousness before digging in. I blame it all on the Ricotta, you can too!

Fluffy and airy banana walnut pancake

So, I have decided to quit cold turkey. No more ricotta in my house now… for sometime :p

Carrot Ginger Soup

I loved this soup it is so easy, so quick, and sooooo good! I hadn’t been feeling very well lately…was coughing all night. So, my mother asked me to have a lot of ginger, turmeric and cloves. These herbs are amazing and I am already feeling better. My body was begging me to give it more ginger. Ginger has a lot of health benefits. Indian moms instill that in you, i.e, health benefits of herbs and spices. They always concoct some home remedy for any small problem you have.  So, I missed my mom a lot when I accidentally came across this show by James Wong. The show is all about home remedies and is called – Grow your own drugs.

I confess, even though my mom and my mom-in-law coaxed me to quickly mix a few kitchen ingredients and make a remedy that makes me feel better, I wasn’t motivated enough to get out of bed and do all the work. But, when I was lazily flipping channels and came across this show,  I took it as a sign – “Ketki, you must now get out of bed and make your own medicine”, said a voice in the back of my head.   Therefore, I made this soup and the soup made me feel so much better that I went ahead and made the poppy seeds thingy as well (the one that my mom-in-law suggested).

I followed this recipe for the soup and it turned out to be very healthy and hearty. I am definitely gonna make it again.

Paneer stuffed biscuit!

I had been aching to bake since the breadsticks turned out so good. That was a long time ago, I baked them yesterday:) and I was honestly aching to bake! I dreamt about all these baked goodies in the little sleep that I got. Bear claw, biscuits, pizzas, cakes, cheesecakes, cupcakes…you name it and I wanted it.
Anyway I had been thinking about trying empanadas or calzones but I really don’t like frying… So I thought of giving my absolute favorite southern food- ‘the biscuit’, a North Indian twist and satisfy all my cravings at once. Brilliant 😀

How did I do that?

I made the dough for normal buttermilk biscuits set the oven to 400 F. I then let the dough sit, the oven preheat and in the meantime I made my filling : diced paneer, scallions, cilantro, Thai chili pepper, red pepper, tomato paste, salt, sugar and a pinch of garam masala. I took one egg, made the egg wash and used the rest in the filling.
Press the dough flat on a tiny dusted cast iron skillet layer on the filling cover with a layer of flat dough, secure the circumference by pressing all around. Brush the top with egg wash. Make three tiny slits at the top and bake for 12 minutes! That’s it, And don’t forget to serve with bacon:)

Breadsticks

I baked breadsticks today! The inspiration was the bread flour counting the days if its shelf life on my flour shelf and of course Olive Garden:p I wanted to recreate the unlimited garlic breadsticks they give you with lunch or dinner. Since I am a novice and no culinary genius I obviously went on to thee Internet and searched for breadsticks! Duh! Found this recipe tried it and loved it!

You should try too:)

Baby Bella Sandwiches

Yum! That’s what I had for lunch today.

I want to apologize to everybody for not posting anything for more than a month. I am deeply sorry. I did not do so because my husband had a surgery and then there were a series of complications so we were in and out of the hospital all these days. The good news is that he has recovered, and started going back to work today, so I figured I should start posting on WordPress again! So here I am 🙂

The other good thing that happened in the last two months was that we got to watch so much of travel channel! I love Andrew Zimmern and Adam Richman. I ate a spicy octopus salad the other day, I was always adventurous about my food but I discovered that I have this shellfish allergy :(.  I wonder if I should just eat ’em crustaceans and pop a Benadryl later!

Last night I was watching a show called Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, and it featured a great place in Boston which is famous for its hand-crafted sandwiches – Cutty’s. I got inspired by their love for sandwiches and decided to make a great sandwich for lunch today.

What I used:

White and Wheat Swirl Bread

Fat free Cheese

Baby Portobella Mushrooms

Spinach

Romaine Lettuce

Roma Tomatoes

Shallots

Garlic

Olive Oil

Vinegar

Honey Mustard

Smart Balance Butter

Italian Seasoning

Salt

Freshly Ground Black Pepper

What I did:

I sautéed the garlic, shallot, sliced mushroom and washed spinach in olive oil. Then I added vinegar, italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Once this mixture was ready, I assembled the sandwich with the bread, tomatoes, cheese and honey mustard.

It was delicious, couldn’t wait to eat it, hence the half eaten picture ;).

Fruitsicle

I have to work very hard to eat fruits. I really have to cajole myself! But, when it comes to buying fruits, its just the opposite… I think ooh they are so good for me I should buy them, once I buy them I will have no choice but to eat’em, so smart, Right?  As you must have guessed, No, that never happens.

So, I end up with a lot of uneaten fruit lying around.. and it stays there until it starts shriveling. Thats when I realize I shouldn’t waste it, I should do something with it.  That ‘something’ just cannot be eating though! Since by the time I come to this realization, its not fresh anymore… doesn’t appeal to me at all. I buy them because they look attractive but I use them out of pity. Shame on me?

In order to save the fruit, I start coming up with ideas of what I can do with it… under the high pressure of making its life fruitful ;). This time around I came up with this :

Adios!

 

Foodography

Foodography.

White Chocolate Orange Mousse

 What’s needed:

Instant white chocolate pudding mix.

Cool Whip (whipped cream will do too).

Orange.

Milk.

What’s to be done:

Well, if you are lucky enough, you will find this recipe on the back of your pudding mix packet, like I did ;)! But, incase that doesn’t happen you need to whip the whole contents of the packet with 2 cups of cold milk for 2 minutes.

Now beat in 1 1/2 cups of whipped cream.

Fold in 1 teaspoon of Orange Zest! I cannot think about orange zest without smiling :).

Refrigerate for 2 hours and Voila.. You get this:

 

For a healthy version, you can get fat free and sugar free options for the mix, cream and milk.