5 Minute home-made pizza-Deliciozo!!

I love hosting dinners and lunches at home. The feeling of having your friends surround you, hearing stories about home, talking about home is just precious. Everytime we have friends over, I try to come up with atleast one new dish. Well, in a sense, apart from hubby dearest, they too become guinea pigs to some of my culinary adventures. Till a few weeks ago, we met up with our friends every weekend incessantly. Just like the soaring temperatures in the month of Kathiri (the hottest period in Summer in TamilNadu), our ‘eating-out’ expenses soared sky-high! So we decided to have them over for a weekend to work on a cultural event. As usual I decided to come up with something…I decided on the 5 minute home-made pizza slices as a evening snack. This was something I saw on Sandra Lee’s show.

Although I am not a major fan of making something out of processed food, I don’t mind it on such occasions as it reduces the time of preparation and allows more time to spend with friends. But sadly, our friends left soon after lunch that afternoon(after having been subjected to the horror of 3 meals at my hands!). So the following week, I decided to try the dish on my favorite (‘coz most of the times, the good man that he is rarely complains!) guinea pig…hubby dearest. His reaction was a smack of the lips and followed by a “Bellissimo!”.

Here goes the recipe for this easy-breezy, lip-smacking snack.

Pillsbury crescent roll-1 pack

Pasta sauce-1/2 cup

Black Olives, sliced – 3-4 nos

Roasted/Fresh red bell pepper-1 no

Mozzarella Cheese, grated-1/4 cup

salt-as per taste

red chilli flakes-as per taste

oil-1 tsp

Heat oven to 400F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper or just a dab of cooking spray. Thaw the crescent rolls as per instruction. Separate the individual rolls and lay them out on the baking sheet in their triangular shape. Spread a few drops of oil on the crust. Then spread a spoonful of the pasta sauce followed by the grated cheese. Lay the vegetables on the sauce. Sprinkle with salt.

Bake for 10-15 minutes or till the crust turn golden. Garnish with chilli flakes. Serve hot.

Pilsbury Reduced fat Crescent roll-$3.40, pasta sauce-$3.49, Part Skim shredded mozzarella cheese-$5.49, Expressions on your hubby's face after the first bite-Priceless 🙂

A Gujarati Tea Party in a Tamilian Home

Like I had mentioned in an earlier post, chats are a huge family favorite. So are gujarati snacks. In fact, the first “north Indian” snacks to ever enter our husehold when I was a kid, were Gujarati dishes-thanks to my wonderful Gujju neighbors. While we sent over idlis, sambaar(lentil soup with tamarind) and vada(lentil donuts), they sent over dhoklas(steamed semolina/chickpea cakes), pakora khadis(yogurt based curry with chickpea fritters) and undhiyu(mix of vegetables cooked in spices). And by the time chat shops started selling dhoklas and khandvis and my Gujju neighbors mastered the art of making sambaar and idlis(Oh yes…that is an art), I had fallen for these dishes hook, line and sinker! Till recently, I never tried making dhoklas at home due to a disastrous attempt years ago at home(when my mom was away 🙂 ) . But recently when my parents visited us and we had friends over, I mustered up my courage and tried my hand at sooji dhokla for tea. Of course, I did have a back up plan! But the dhoklas came out NEAT!! So then on, sooji and khaman dhoklas are a regular at home. Last evening I was craving for some khandvi and decided to try it out.  They weren’t bad either.

At my in-laws’ and parents’, tea is a tradition. At the strike of the clock, tea is served at both homes.  Since my husband and I aren’t too particular about evening tea except over the weekends, I try to make some snack to go with it to make it special.

Here goes the sooji dhokla  recipe:

semolina-1 cup

yogurt-1 cup

water-1 cup

turmeric-1/4 tsp

salt-3/4 tsp

Eno fruit salt-1 tsp

To garnish:

Oil-2 tsps

mustard seeds-1.5 tsps

green chillies(finely chopped)-2 nos

curry leaves-6-7 nos.

hing-1/4 tsp

cilantro-5 sprigs

fresh grated coconut/desiccated coconut-2-3 tsps

lemon juice – 2-3 tsps

sugar-2 tsps

water-2 tbsp

Mix the sooji with yogurt, water, salt and turmeric. Leave it to rest for 30-45 mins. Oil a flat bottomed dish. Fill adequate amount of water in a cooker or pan in which you want to steam the dhokla. Add the Eno fruit salt that allows the dhokla to rise and makes it spongy. Make sure you add this just before you pour the mixture into the dish to be steamed. If done earlier, the crust gets very hard. Steam the dhokla for 15 mins on medium flame. In the meantime, heat oil in a pan. Add the mustard seed, green chillies, hing and curry leaves.  Mix water with lemon juice and sugar.

Remove the dhokla from the cooker and let it cool for a few minutes. Cover the dish with the plate on which you want to serve and turn it over. Cut it up into smaller piece. Pour the lemon juice mixture followed by the tadka over the dhokla. Garnish with the coconut and curry leaves. And there you have it a warm summery yellow semolina cake topped with the lovely white coconut and some beautiful green cilantro.

Serve with some hot mint chutney.

The summery Sooji dhokla basking in the Spring Sun!

The left over ENO comes handy after you have had a spicy, heavy meal too! 😉

Khandvi

Drool-worthy Khandvi

To make these yummy khandvis, you need:

Besan(chickpea flour)-1 cup

yogurt-1 cup

water-1 cup

turmeric-1/4 tsp

hing(asafoetida)-1 pinch

salt to taste

Aluminum foil

For the tadka:

Oil-1 tsp

mustard seeds-1 tsp

chopped green chillies-1 no

curry leaves-5-6 nos.

powdered/grated coconut-2 tbsps

cilantro-4 sprigs

In a heavy bottomed pan, mix the besan, turmeric, hing, salt, yogurt and water. Cook on medium heat till the mixture coagulates and it gets hard to stir. Roll out the aluminum foil. Spread the besan mixture thinly with a spatula or a flat edged knife on the foil. Cut it across in long strips. Allow it to rest for 5 minutes.

Heat oil in a pan. Add the mustard seeds, green chillies, curry leaves and hing.

Now lift up one edge on the besan mixture from the foil and start rolling it. Repeat it for the rest of the mixture.(Note: Spread the mixture when hot). Put the tadka and garnish with coconut and cilantro. Sit down and savor the moment of true પ્રસન્નતા(that’s happiness for you)

Gingernut cookies

My earliest memory of baking cookies was when I was 8. My mom had just bought a new oven. It was this little thing that looked like a sandwich maker but had a grilling tray, a baking tray and a waffle tray. Although I never saw my mom making waffles or grilling anything on it, she had a fair share of baking cookies and cakes. I guess my love ishtory with baking started then. When I could lay my hands on my own oven, I knew it was time to reopen my saga with baking. Throw in some of Giada’s baked treats and Ina Garten’s great baked stuff into my fascination with baking, I was busy baking cookies and bars every weekend.

My first few attempts left some of my friends puzzled (well, they didn’t know what they were tasting but couldn’t ask me either!). But I was in no mood to give up. Now I can proudly say that not only do my cookies look like cookies(I had an unfortunate incident when my dad asked me if they were Pakoras..boohoo!), they also taste so! Whoohoo (I just love hearing Homer Simpson say that)!

The past weekend, my husband and I were enjoying a quiet and lazy weekend at home when he suddenly started talking about the little cookies he once tasted in Chennai at a little bakery in Mylapore. He said they were still warm and had a strong ginger flavor and that he had never tasted anything like that again. With nothing left at home (read norukku theeni-snacks) to eat and my stomach starting to rumble on hearing about warm cookies, I decided to open my little “Baking” book and find something similar. I stumbled upon the gingernuts recipe and modified it as per the ingredients available in the pantry. They turned out to be quite good and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the patio with a cup of hot tea and some warm gingernut cookie. Now, thats what I call Purrrfect!

To make 30 delicious cookies:

Maida/ All purpose flour-2 cups

Baking soda-1/2 tsp

Fresh ground ginger-2 tbsps or ginger powder/sukku podi-1 tbsp

Pumpkin pie spice-1/2 tsp or Nutmeg powder+cinnamon powder-1/4 tsp

Soft unsalted butter-1/2 cup

Powdered sugar-1.25 cups

Boiling water-a little less than 1/4 cup

Honey-1 tbsp

Sift the dry ingredients(flour, baking soda, pumpkin spice and ginger-if using powdered ginger) together. Add the sugar and rub in the butter into the mixtures till it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Dissolve the honey in the boiling water. Add this syrup to the flours and make a smooth dough.

Preheat oven to 350 degree F.

Line a cookie sheet with baking paper. Place small heaps of the mixture on the sheet using two teaspoons (I just used a little kuzhi karandi) and flatten using the teaspoon. Bake for 20 minutes. Repeat the procedure.

They taste great upto 4 days if stored in an airtight container. I think they make good digestives too because of the ginger in them.

After a heavy Indian (read SPPICYY) lunch, these cookies will help the poor little stomachs.