Seafood Coconut Pulao (Pilaf)
Coconut palms line the sea shore, the countless lagoons and backwaters and populate the landscape of Kerala like a mammoth standing army. Is it any wonder then that the bounty they yield complements the delicious gifts that the sea bestows on this rich land. Seafood and coconuts – a match made in foodie heaven – inspired me to develop a pulao recipe that is as easy as it is delicious.
Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Crunch Brownies
Lately, all my online food haunts seem to be inundated with big, brown, fudgy squares, beckoning at every click. Overdosing on all the brownie porn induced a chronic craving within me. I needed an urgent brownie fix. I even dreamed of brownies – plain, marbled, glazed, layered, filled with nuts….. But waiting, shopping for ingredients, delaying was not an option. A new jar of peanut butter in my kitchen cupboard caught my eye. Peanut Butter Crunch Brownies it would be. Chocolate and peanut butter – sweet and savoury – gooey and crunchy, nothing wrong with that. I got to work. They could be in my mouth in 30 minutes. No time to waste.
Guest Post – Raw Espresso Brownies
Your morning mug is not the only use for your coffee; you can incorporate ground coffee into many different sweet and savoury dishes. Steak rub, desserts and even stews, coffee can perk up the flavour of pretty much anything. A single roasted coffee bean has more than 800 aroma compounds and it can be matched with foods from avocado to pork.
Guest Post – Mexican Lasagna with Spinach, Mushroom, and Caramelized Onion
Sara Kayser and I must have exchanged more than 20 emails and a bunch of likes on Instagram and now she feels like an old friend. She has been generous enough to share her recipe for a Mexican-style lasagna that’s sure to feed friends and family. She blogs at theravenoushousewife.com, a blog that focuses on family-style and budget-friendly recipes. She’s partial to cooking pasta and baking cookies and is into all things food, bike riding, and trashy reality TV.
Have you ever successfully made authentic enchiladas? I’ve tried it before, and my tortillas always ended up breaking. I tried to prevent it by rolling them ahead of time and storing them with a damp paper towel, but that didn’t work. I even tried laying a few tortillas flat on top of the enchiladas before adding the sauce because I didn’t like the idea of pouring sauce directly on the filling. But even that did not keep the corn tortillas from breaking? The key, I learnt, is to fry the tortillas, soak them in the sauce before adding the filling. But that to me is just too much work.
Mom’s Rice Cooker Mutton Keema Pulao (Goat Mince Pilaf)
Mom makes a mean mutton keema pulao. She’s fast, unfussy and does not follow recipes. Her repertoire of pulaos (pilafs) and biryanis is extensive yet each every single one is cooked from memory backed-up by instinct. On my last visit, as I watched her put together her mutton keema pulao, I felt a strong urge to share the recipe. Busy moms everywhere could use this tried and tested rice cooker recipe to whip up a special meal without spending hours in the kitchen.
Aam Panna (Green Mango Cooler)
March was a month of crashing mangoes. In the short burst of spring the air was filled with the sticky scent of mango blossoms. Within a few weeks the same branches are bent low with fruit, eager to shed their weight. Temperatures climb higher every day and we yearn for cold, liquid comfort for our parched throats. Happily, the bounty of sour, raw green mangoes is perfect for making big jugs of tangy, salty-sweet aam (mango) panna, a traditional, much-loved summer drink.
Eggless Gluten-Free Ragi (Finger Millet) And Date Cake
“Mom it tastes like Christmas”, said my 15-year-old taking his first bite of the millet cake. My experiments with millet recipes haven’t always been received with the same enthusiasm. Happily and hopefully, all that is about to change with this cake. I’m inclined more and more to bake with gluten-free flours, always seeking recipes where millet, nut and other healthier flours can replace regular flour. Many a millet recipe has gotten me excited, often ending in mediocre to disastrous results, but this one I can definitely put on my encore list.
Guest Post – Gluten-Free Caramel Apple Cake
Rose Zellmer wrote to me that she was keen to do a guest post on my blog. She recounts her food adventures on www.gimmetasty.com and aims to spread happiness through food.Her idea of doing a gluten-free cake sounded delicious and healthy and so here it is for all you cake lovers. She has included a small informative note on making your own gluten-free flour mix. Happy reading!
Living in a tropical country, apples are expensive. So it is special when they are available. My Gluten-Free Caramel Apple Cake, is highly anticipated by friends and family because it is not often that they have such a treat. I seldom make Gluten-Free Cakes but if I am expecting guests that I know can’t consume gluten, I make sure to have something that they can enjoy as well. I have used flax seeds as binders in the cake since there is no gluten.
Guest Post – 5 Fruits and Vegetables You Can Add To Bread
I’m excited to announce the very first guest post on the blog. Joe Hughes, aka the Village Baker, is an expert in techniques suited to home cooking, and especially baking. His website, http://village-bakery.com provides the latest home-style cooking news, techniques, tricks, and recipes. I hope his article proves handy to all you bread bakers out there. Happy baking!
A few additions of veggies and fruits can go a long way in adding additional taste to your food.
You can learn to make bread rise faster in your bread machine to accelerate the baking process, too. The great news is that you can start baking healthy veggies into your bread to make it healthier and tastier.
Cappuccino Cheesecake With Salted Walnut Praline
A stash of pistachios, and a windfall of walnuts from faraway Tehran had me rubbing my hands in glee as I got ready to bake a birthday cake for my husband’s birthday. I had a rich, smooth, somewhat adult, cappuccino cheesecake in mind but I also wanted to use the newly-arrived nuts in the cake. A salted walnut praline seemed like the perfect crunchy crown for the creamy, java-infused cheesecake.
