I CHOOSE

I used to wake up and look for you I used to look for you to go to sleep I used to ask so many questions to you I used to look up to find only you Now that we are apart I realize, I realize That you were my world You were my rising hour You were my whole shire You were my ring of desire You were my sun, moon and star Now that we are apart I realize, I realize that you were my world It scares me, how much I loved It scares me, this discontinued world It scares me, all this empty time It scares me, how will I live Now that we are apart I realize, I realize That you were my world And there was nothing else Now that we are apart I'm scared to lose But I can go on without you I just choose not to.

Palak Paneer

A classic Punjabi dish that is perfect for the ongoing winters. Its so yummy, even the most difficult kid will want to eat it with his meal. Ladies, it will keep our bones healthy and strong. Are you counting the calories because it's a Punjabi dish? Fear not, this is a low cal dish, so you can eat as much as you want! What's the dish you ask, it's none other than Palak Paneer :)

I kid you not, it is very easy to prepare. You can easily prepare the whole meal within an hour. This one hour also includes the time to cook rice or roti to go with the curry. Agreed, one hour might seem a little too much for a working woman. But can you turn it down when its the weekend and you ladies have little room in your schedule, and want something delicious and yet easy on the pocket meal. It's even better than your restaurant version of it which by the way will have way more calories than you want! Try this once and I bet you will make it second time.

Ingredients you need,
4 small bunches of fresh spinach
Green chilies
Fresh ginger - 1/2 inch
fresh garlic cloves - 4
full cream milk - 1/4 cup
garam masala - 1 teaspoon
salt
jaggery/sugar - 1 teaspoon
fresh lemon juice
1 small packet of paneer (cottege cheese) cubes
veg oil - 2 teaspoons
1 litre of boiling water
1 litre of ice cold water

How to make: 

Make sure you wash at least 3 times rotating the with clean water to get rid of soil particles. Drain the excess water from spinach leaves. Have the both hot and cold water pots ready side by side. Spinach takes only 2-3 minutes to wilt so keep a close eye on the clock. First, immerse the spinach leaves on hot water and put pressure on them with a spoon till all the leaves are submerged in water. As soon as the spinach starts looking wilted transfer it immediately to cold water pot. Put pressure on the leaves again to make sure all the leaves are under the water. Leave the spinach in the cold water for 4-5 minutes. This process will stop spinach from overcooking and green will not turn to brown.

Next drain the water and transfer the spinach to a mixer bowl. Throw in the peeled ginger, garlic cloves, green chilies according to your taste. Grind till you get a smooth paste and keep aside. Do not add water while you are making the puree. Now cut the cottage cheese in cubes of 1 inch. Each person should get 5 cheese cubes, so adjust your cutting measurements accordingly. Store the excess cheese in a plastic cover for next use in refrigerator. 

Heat a pan over medium heat, put two teaspoons of vegetable oil and fry the cheese cubes till they are golden brown. transfer them to a small bowl and keep aside. Use the same pan with the remaining oil to cook the spinach in. Once gain heat the oil, put some jeera. While jeera is still sizzling pour the spinach puree into the pan. Put the remaining ingredients lemon juice, jaggery and garam masala. Add 1/4 cup of full cream milk and let the curry cook for a few minutes. Switch off the stove. Mix in the paneer/cheese cubes in the curry and serve hot with either rice or roti.

Starbuck's Pumpkin bread

What a wonderful way to kick start your day with the mouth watering Starbucks style pumpkin bread. Delicious, yummy and healthy too! Of course with a less burden on your wallet. What more can anybody ask for? Shopping frequently at Starbucks can be quite expensive. Why not lessen your expense at the coffee shop and spend that money else where and get that bang for the buck.

I do not own an oven now so I had improvise with what I have. I was pondering over baking on stove top since few months. When I couldn't contain my curiosity any longer I simply had to try it. I will give you directions on how to bake the bread in 3 different ways. First method, conventional, i.e your oven. Next more unconventional methods with microwave and stove top. It's definitely possible with few sacrifices albeit small ones. We will discuss about the sacrifices part later. For now lets cut straight to the recipe board! 

Ingredients you need:

All purpose flour/Atta (read healthy) 1 cup

1 cup pumpkin puree

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil/clarified butter

1/2 cup sugar

pumpkin seeds for the garnish

1 teaspoon all spice powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Prepare the batter: Sift all the dry ingredients together and keep aside.  Separate the egg whites and yolks and whisk the egg whites till soft peak is forming. Add pumpkin puree and oil to the yolks and whisk. Now combine the flour and pumpkin puree to form a smooth glossy batter. Fold in the whisked egg whites slowly with spatula. T
he batter is ready.

Baking in oven:

Pre-heat your oven to standard cake baking settings. Smear oil to your baking bowl and pour the mixture in it. Sprinkle pumpkin seeds on top. Put the batter in the lower rack of your oven. Let it bake for 15 mins. Switch off your oven after 15 minutes but do not open for a while. Let your bread cool down in the oven. Wallah! your bread is ready.

Bake it in microwave:

Now lets discuss the sacrifices part for those who want to bake the bread in microwave. Fear not, you will only be sacrificing on the shape front. Your pumpkin bread will look more like a tiny cake rather than bread. Follow these simple steps to bake the bread in the microwave. Your baking bowl should be round and flat at the bottom like a miniature cake tin. Put a small inverted bowl in the microwave, then place your batter container on the inverted bowl. Keep a small bowl of water beside the batter container, this helps in maintaining moisture. Bake for few minutes and you are done. Faster than baking in the oven. Sprinkle some pumpkin seeds. Serve hot or cold, it's delicious either way.

Stick with me, the crazier one is coming!

Baking on stove top:

Yes it does sound crazy, isn't it? But it definitely possible. Do try this method when you are up for some culinary adventure. Lets start with it. Lightly spray/oil the pan and pour the batter and keep aside. Light your stove and keep a flat bottomed colander upside down on the stove. Then keep two interconnected forks in V shape on top of the colander. They should be able to withstand the weight of the batter container. Put your steel batter container on top of these forks. Finally cover with a large container big enough to cover the 2/3rd of colander. Keep your stove on high for the first five minute. Bake for 10 more minutes on medium heat after that. Your bread is ready. :)

French Toast With a Twist

The most luxurious food, the french toast. Nothing lifts my mood like a fresh hot french toast on a Sunday morning. Most people may think that french toast originated in France. Not true. In fact it's the Romans who made the french toast that is loved even today. French people devised a method to use stale bread in order to avoid it being wasted. They called it "pain perdu" meaning stale bread. French people usually soaked the stale bread in water and baked it again to make it edible.

Lets move onto our recipe from the history session. This is a regular french bread with few tweaks and a orange sauce instead of old fashioned honey or maple syrup as a topping. This sweet and slightly tangy sauce will sure bring a burst in your mouth.

Ingredients for the toast

stale bread 1 lb

milk 1 cup

2 eggs

sugar 

nutmeg powder 1/2 teaspoon

cinnamon powder 1 teaspoon

a pinch of 

salt

butter to toast

Ingredients for the sauce

2 oranges

2 teaspoons of honey

I always make the sauce first, because the combination of hot toast and sauce at room temperature is more yummy besides we do not want to burn our mouths with hot sauce.  The sauce is very simple to prepare. You just have to boil the orange juice with little bit of pulp till it thickens. The pulp will help thicken the sauce easily while adding some texture to it. Remove it from the stove once thickened. Honey will lose its flavor and vitality if it becomes too hot or boils so we will add it once our orange syrup cools down to room temp. Mix honey and orange syrup together. Our orange sauce is ready. So simple and easy eh?

 Now for the toast whisk the eggs in a bowl. Add milk sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and pinch of salt to whisked eggs and whisk again till the sugar is dissolved. Milk should be slightly cold, this will make the french toast much fluffier. Before we begin making toasts, we will first put a dollop of the egg mixture onto the pan. This will help in two ways. One to know the temp of the pan and the other it's sweetness. Once the egg mixture is set remove it from the pan and taste it for sweetness. Add more sugar if you need. Once the pan is hot enough we will begin making toasts. Pat some butter onto the pan. Soak the slice of bread on each side for 10 secs in the egg mixture. Put the slice of mixture on the pan and increase the heat. topple it onto the other side till both sides are golden brown. Continue till you finish all the bread slices.

Serve immediately and enjoy.

Som tam Thai salad (green papaya salad)

It is one of those recipes you can leave out the ingredients that you don't have and it will still taste yummy. Like always i did not measure how much ingredient went into the salad so you will have to eyeball the measurements according to your taste.

So simple and so delicious. Its sweet, its sour, its hot, its crunchy and its chilled. A perfect salad for those summer evenings.

Ingredients:
1 medium sized green papaya
1 medium sized tomato
1 lemon
jaggery
few green chilies
garlic
raw ginger
salt
roasted peanuts
dark soy sauce/fish sauce (optional)

We want to serve a chilled salad so first we will make the papaya julienne and keep it aside. Cut the tomato in half and remove the seeds and juice, then cut it into small pieces. Mix the papaya and tomato and store the mixture in the fridge. Making those julienne takes a long time for non professional chef like me but hey, practice makes us perfect!

Next up is our salad dressing. Traditionally the ingredients are pound with a mallet to tenderize them and to make them release their juice. But we will make use of the mixer to make up for the time that we spent making papaya julienne. Ground together few chilies, few garlic cloves, ginger, salt and equal amounts of lemon juice and jaggery in the mixer. Scrape the paste to a small bowl. Add soy sauce or fish sauce if you want to. Our salad dressing is ready.

The best way to serve this salad is dressing it just before serving. This way the papaya will not get soggy and lose its crunch.

Pour the dressing over the papaya and tomato mixture. Drizzle some lightly crushed roasted peanuts over the salad. Mix and serve.