Food for the crowd - Appetizers

Have you ever wondered the role of appetizer in a course of meal?
Appetizer - 

noun

noun: appetizer; plural noun: appetizers; noun: appetiser; plural noun: appetisers

a small dish of food or a drink taken before a meal or the main course of a meal to stimulate one's appetite.

 

Do we actually stick to this definition? Definitely not. If you ask me, the heaviest part of the meal calorie wise are desserts and appetizers. Not even the main course. I am talking about a regular Indian party food. I haven't been to other cuisines' elaborate meals, so can't talk about that.

 

The moment people talk about food in an Indian's party, discussion goes to different courses of the meal. What was for dessert? How many starters did they have? Roti or Naan? North Indian or South Indian? it goes on and on. Also, most of the people think a party isn't complete without having samosas or pakodas. Being a foody, I hate to see those two items in any party. And having cooked for big crowds so many times, I tell you the hardest course of the meal to prepare for a crowd is appetizer. If you stick to these deep fried staples that is.

 

So, how would you tackle the appetizer issue when cooking for a crowd?

1. Choose something very simple. It need not be an elaborate, deep fried food. Think of what you can make a day in advance and serve without losing the taste, flavor.

2. If you do want to serve some deep fried dish, make it few days in advance, cool and freeze. Day of the party, re fry them after thawing for few seconds. (Have you ever wondered how you can order different deep fried food in a restaurant and it comes to your table within 20 minutes? this is how)

3. Pick a chaat as appetizer. Buy most of the things made and mix with fresh cut veggies or make it yourself a week before. Bhel puri, Pani puri, Sev puri are all doable this way.

4. Try serving a light salad. 

5. Make two or three kinds of dip, salsa with corn chips or pita chips.

6. Make a light soup. Serve with bread croutons.

7. Make the samosa filling and use phyllo sheets to cover them. Freeze and the day of the party, bake.

8. Buy already made frozen appetizers and heat in the oven.

9. Even though sandwiches are kind of main course, make a nice chutney as the base, top the bread with the chutney, then with thinly sliced cucumbers, tomatoes and top it with either cheese and bread or just plain bread. Cut these into tiny triangles and add a toothpick to hold them together. These make great appetizers too.

10. Make steamed appetizers like dhokla or idlis. If making idlis, make them in a big pan and cut them into tiny pieces. Sprinkle some kind of spice powder like chutney powder or idli molagai powder mixed with some oil. Serve. 

 

Tips like these can go on and on. If any of you have any tips or ideas, please chime in.

Enjoy.

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Catering food - Dos and Don'ts

I have been living in U.S for 16 years now. Used to throw a lot of parties. I have never catered food from anyone till today. Some people might think it is because of the number of people. I have a record of cooking an elaborate meal for 80 people all by myself. So, number is not the issue, just my preference. When I say this, I have nothing against getting food from outside. But, having eaten catered food at lot of places has taught me few things about catered food. I am sharing those tips in case it helps anyone in planning their parties.

Dos and Don'ts in a nutshell:

1. Know what to expect. If you are getting food from a restaurant, make sure you have tasted your dishes. It might not be possible to taste all the dishes if you are getting from someone working from home. Rely on word of mouth.

2. Order as per the season. Avoid ordering food that goes bad very easily. It is best to avoid things that have coconut, mashed vegetables in hot weather.

3. Calculate the distance from where the food is coming. Food goes bad as early as 4 hours from the time it was made. If you plan to pick up the food a bit early, plan on refrigerating. Caterer starts cooking food at a certain time based on your time of pick up. Don't try to rush him/her and end up having to deal with the worry of food going bad.

4. Unless it is for a traditional, religious event, try mixing and matching types of food. Be creative.

5. Even though you are getting food catered, make something yourself. Something that is your signature dish and liked by all. There should always be a personal touch.

6. Don't order from a person just because they are cheaper. It definitely doesn't mean that more the price, better the quality. You need to know what is good and be willing to pay the price if it is good.

7. Set aside a budget. Stick to it. No need to get extravagant food and not enough of it. It is better to serve simple, well made food rather than serve exotic food that nobody wants to eat.

8. Make sure you as a host taste everything before you put it on the table for others. I have seen food having gone bad too many times and it is not nice to your guest to eat that and realize it has gone bad.

9. People enjoy food more when there aren't too many varieties. I lose all my appetite if I see arrays of trays. See if that makes sense to you.

10. When you get food delivered, if it comes in a warm box, make sure you remove the food trays and keep it in an airy room. Basement is actually the best place to keep the food in case there is time before serving. If the weather is warm, run your air conditioner or at least a fan.

11. It is always best to label your food. Lot of times, people won't know what it is and it helps if there is a label.

12. If possible, introduce a food that you have liked but is not known to most of your guests. It makes a nice topic of conversation while filling the plates.

Another tip not related to food.....

If the party is at home, trash pickup needs to be paid attention to also. With disposable plates and people not reusing the cups, plates, it gets full in no time. It helps to bring in the huge trash container inside if you can find bags to fit them with. What I do is line a collapsible laundry basket with multiple huge trash bags. Once it is full, just take out the top bag and tie it. It makes it very easy instead of looking for a bag and lining when the bag is full and there are people waiting to throw their plates.

If anyone benefits from this article, it was well worth of the time taken to write.

Have a nice weekend.

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Vanilla and Chocolate Instant Pudding Mix

When I go grocery shopping with my kid, one of the things she asks me to buy her are the pudding. My older one likes vanilla pudding and the younger one likes chocolate. Luckily, the pudding cups come in combination of these two flavors so, if I buy a pack of these, both are happy. I always wanted to make pudding at home since the store bought ones are pretty high in sugar. I have made them before but this one was the quickest way by making the mix. With this mix, you can make pudding in about 10 minutes. They are less sweeter than the store bought ones, so increase the sugar to your taste.

Adapted from various sources.
One Year Back - Strawberry Coconut Milk Shake
Two Years Back - Easiest Vanilla Cake, Cream Cheese Brioche
Three Years Back - Sweet Ricotta Loaf, Eggless Banana Chocolate Chip Bread


Vanilla Pudding Mix:
Ingredients:
Sugar - 1 cup
Corn Starch - 3/4 cup
Non fat dry milk powder - 3/4 cup
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Vanilla Bean - 2 whole (Or use vanilla extract about a tsp every time you make the pudding using half cup of dry mix)

Method:
Slit open the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds and disperse them in the sugar. Cut the vanilla bean in 2" and add it to the jar. Add the rest of the ingredients to the same jar. Make sure everything is mixed well. .  You will have to remove the vanilla bean (skin part) that you have cut and added while making the pudding. You can skip this if you are going to use vanilla extract while making the pudding.

To make the pudding:
For every 1/2 cup of mix, use 2 cups of milk. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, mix cold milk with the measured mix. Whisk to combine and keep it on the heat. Keep stirring continuously and bring it to a boil on moderately high heat. When it starts boiling, reduce the heat to simmer. Keep whisking till you see that the mixture is thickening and can coat the back of a spoon. Turn off the heat and serve after cooling for at least 15 minutes. Refrigerate the left overs and use.


Chocolate Pudding Mix:
Ingredients:
Sugar - 1 1/4 cups
Corn Starch - 1 cup
Non fat dry milk powder - 1 cup
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Cocoa - 3/4 cup

Method:
In a jar, combine all the ingredients together. Make sure they are mixed well.

To make the pudding:
For every 1/2 cup of mix, use 2 cups of milk. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, mix cold milk with the measured mix. Whisk to combine and keep it on the heat. Keep stirring continuously and bring it to a boil on moderately high heat. When it starts boiling, reduce the heat to simmer. Keep whisking till you see that the mixture is thickening and can coat the back of a spoon. Turn off the heat and serve after cooling for at least 15 minutes. Refrigerate the left overs and use.

Special Note:
Lot of countries do not have commercially available instant pudding mix. Many cake recipes that use box mixes ask for the pudding mix. I want to experiment those recipes using this mix. But if any of you try it before I do, please let me know.

Enjoy.

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Ten Bagel or Sandwich spreads

When I started writing this blog almost 4 years ago, I had no idea what it would lead to. I didn't know what kind of work was involved in maintaining it either. My thought was "I make something new almost all the time. All I have to do is take a picture, write the recipe. How big a task is this?" I forgot that with a full time job, two kids and a house to maintain topped with few other hobbies I have, it won't be easy. But, I did put in lot of effort in the beginning posting every day or every other day. Not any more.

Why? you may ask. I started writing this blog as a stress buster. I have found other stress busters that work equally or maybe even better. So, obviously this blog is kind of neglected. But, I thank those who visit regularly to read my ramblings.

Most of the people eat Bagel with cream cheese and some people like flavored ones. You cannot find many flavored ones in the store, so I make my own. Plus they are cheaper and you can control the ingredients. Obviously I cannot make all these ten at one shot and take pictures and post it (who will eat all the bagels) so here is a list with ingredients and all you have to do is mix it up well. Let your imagination and palate drive you. You can create many more.

1. Chinese style Cream Cheese Spread:
Ingredients to mix and use:
Cream Cheese - 1 8 Oz block softened
Brown Sugar - 2 TBSP
Hot sauce like Sriracha - 1/2 tsp (1 tsp for spicy version)
Soy Sauce - 1 tsp
Rice Vinegar - 1 TBSP
Salt - to taste
Cilantro - 1 TBSP chopped very fine (optional)
This is great on a sesame topped bagel in particular but goes well on plain bagels too.

2. Strawberry Cream Cheese:
Ingredients to mix and use:
Cream Cheese - 1 8 Oz block softened
Strawberry Preserve - 1/4 cup

3. Pesto Cream Cheese topping:
Ingredients to mix and use:
Cream Cheese - 1 8 Oz block softened
Home made or prepared pesto of your choice - 3 TBSP (try to drain oil if using the store bought)

4. Mint and Garlic Cream Cheese topping:
Ingredients to mix and use:
Cream Cheese - 1 8 Oz block softened
Mint leaves - Chopped very fine 2 TBSP
Garlic - minced 1 TBSP

5. Jam/Jelly Cream Cheese swirl:
Ingredients to mix and use:
Cream Cheese - 1 8 Oz block softened
Any Jam or Jelly - up to 1/4 cup
But do not mix too much so the swirls are still present.

6. Jalapeno Cream Cheese Spread:
Ingredients to mix and use:
Cream Cheese - 1 8 Oz block softened
Drained Jalapeno slices - 2 - 3 TBSP or per taste chopped very fine
Salt - to taste

7. Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream Cheese spread:
Ingredients to mix and use:
Cream Cheese - 1 8 Oz block softened
Smooth Peanut Butter - 1/4 cup
Chocolate Syrup - 2 - 3 TBSP
Extra: Slice banana and place them on the top of the spread on the bagel. Yummy.

8. Dill Pickled Cream Cheese spread:
Ingredients to mix and use:
Cream Cheese - 1 8 Oz block softened
Drained Dill pickle - Chopped fine 3 TBSP
Black Pepper - to taste
Salt - to taste

9. Chive or Scallion Cream Cheese Spread:
Ingredients to mix and use:
Cream Cheese - 1 8 Oz block softened
Chives or Scallions - chopped very fine 4 TBSP
Salt - to taste
Black Pepper - to taste

10. Lime and Green Chillies Cream Cheese Spread:
Ingredients to mix and use:
Cream Cheese - 1 8 Oz block softened
Green Chillies - Chopped fine 3 - 4 based on your palate
Salt - to taste
Lime zest - 2 tsp
Lime Juice - from half a lime
Cilantro - chopped fine 2 TBSP (optional)

Enjoy.

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How to calculate the calories of a recipe...

Disclaimer: I am not a health professional. All the information given in this post is my understanding.

For some time, whenever I posted a baking recipe, I made it a habit of calculating the calorie content of that recipe, how much per serving and all. Trust me when I say this, it is quite a bit of work to calculate and make a neat looking table and adding it to the post. I got lazy, got bored so stopped doing it. One of my blogger friend's usual question about a baking recipe is the calories. Good for her since it shows how cautious she is about what goes in her body. So, here is a general idea of how I calculate. Beware, it doesn't give you nutritional details. Something might be 100 calories, but it is alright if it is good for you. Calories' information should not be compromised with the nutrients' information.

So, when you look at the recipe, take each ingredient which has calories. The only item that you don't have to add the calories of is that of water. Everything else has calories. Calories of salt can be omitted while using a very small quantity. Major culprits are butter/oil/fat, sugar, flour and eggs if using.

Let's take an example of one of the recipe I have posted:
This is the recipe of Carrot buns that I had posted long time back here.
Ingredients:
Whole Wheat Flour - 2 1/2 cups
Warm Water - 3/4 Cup
Sugar - 1 TBSP
Salt - 1 tsp
Green chillies - 5 chopped fine (optional or about 1 TBSP red pepper flakes)
Cilantro - Chopped 3 TBSP (optional)
Instant yeast - 2 1/4 tsp
Olive Oil - 2 TBSP
Grated carrots - 1 cup (I used the medium grater and measured without packing the cup)

For this, the calorie calculation would go like this - (remember, this is approximate)

If you made 16 rolls out of the same dough, you would be looking at 1354.5/16 calories per roll. As you see if it not rocket science. At the same time, if you replaced whole wheat flour with all purpose flour, the calories is not going to increase astronomically. But you lose the benefit of nutrients that are in whole wheat flour. Same goes with olive oil. You can use butter there and the calories will remain same. It is 120 calories per TBSP of any oil or fat, but if you go deeper into the percentage of saturated fat, unsaturated fat, you will see the difference. Bottom line, don't just go by the calories. Based on per roll, or per slice, you can calculate how many per servings.

I have used many sources online for getting information on calories. Google for any ingredient's calorie value, you should be able to get the information. I have couple of cookbooks/baking books who have this information that I use sometimes.

Enjoy.

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15 minute Pumpkin Puree

My kids went for a birthday party recently and brought pumpkin as part of their goody bags. Party was at the pumpkin patch and they got to pick a pumpkin and decorate with stickers and pompoms and bring it home. I have been trying to convince them to let me use it before it goes bad and today, they agreed to let me make a puree and use that puree to make them some baked goodie. When I decided to make puree out of the two pumpkins, it was already late and I didn't have the time to turn the oven on and bake them for 50 - 60 minutes. So, I made the puree in two ways and both are quicker than the oven baking method.

Pressure cooker method:
Place the cleaned pumpkin quartered in a pan and place the pan in the pressure cooker. Do not add any water into the pan which has pumpkin in it. Pressure cook for one whistle. When the pressure comes down, open the pressure cooker and scoop out the flesh and mash. There will be some of the juice released from pumpkin in the pan. Don't add it to the puree. It will mess up the consistency and hence the result of baked product. This took 15 minutes without counting the cooling time and the time taken to clean the pumpkin.

Microwave method:
Take a shallow microwaveable dish. Place the cleaned, quartered pumpkin in it. Cover with saran wrap tightly. Microwave for 10 minutes or till it is very soft. My microwave is not very powerful and it took 10 minutes in it. Let it cool a bit so that it is easy to handle. Scoop the flesh and mash. This takes about 10 - 12 minutes without counting the time taken for cleaning of pumpkin.

Observation:
Pressure cooker method will yield you darker pumpkin puree. Microwave method will give you light colored pumpkin puree.

Notes:
I have a manual baby food maker which is great for this. Few fibers left will be separated and you get very nice puree. You can either use a potato masher or food processor if making a lot of the puree. I measure one cup and place in ziploc bags and freeze for future use. They are good in the freezer for about 3 months.

Enjoy.

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O Olive Oil - Product Review

Have you ever had an experience of tasting a better product than what you believed to be the best all your life? I just had that experience. I have tasted, tried many olive oils. Many types, many brands. But none of them, I repeat none of them matched the taste and smell of the Olive Oil sent to me by O Olive Oil. I was given this opportunity by erecipecards. Thanks Dave and O Olive Oil. It was a pleasure to try these two products. By the way, if you already do not know, erecipecards was started by Dave as a collection of food pictures and posts. If you are a food blogger, you should try submitting your work to his site. If you are a food enthusiast, you should visit the site to get lot of ideas and recipes.

Coming to the point of this post, I was shipped Roasted Garlic O Olive Oil and White Balsamic vinegar. When I opened the bottle of olive oil, all I could smell was the perfectly balanced combination of garlic and extra virgin olive oil. These oils are not infused. They are cold pressed which makes their oil not lose its taste and flavor but just enhance it with the added flavoring components. And I was so impressed by the taste and smell of it that when I read they slow roast the garlic for 48 hours, my feeling was it is well worth it. My taste testing of Roasted Garlic O Olive oil was very simple. I bought italian bread and used the oil to dip and taste. Trust me when I say this, I could have eaten the whole loaf with it. It was that awesome. No, I am not even exaggerating a bit. I can see many uses of this kind of cold pressed oil. Use it in salad dressing, for making pesto, dips, pour over grilled veggies or noodles. It has limitless use.

Second bottle that I got was White Balsamic vinegar. I made a salad dressing out of it which will be my next post with the recipe. You can find many recipes and many kinds of Olive Oil on the O Olive Oil website.

Coolest thing is the best Olive Oil that I have tasted did not come from far off land. It was grown locally in California. And I wouldn't be happy if I didn't mention the packaging of the bottle was awesome. Not just the looks but the functionality of the cap is really cool. Perfect for preserving the flavors. Watch out for my post on a dressing made with both these products soon.

Enjoy.

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Sambar Powder / Huli Pudi

In my opinion, Sambar powder/Huli Pudi came into existence because of women starting to work in India. My mother never made this powder. She always roasted and ground the spices and lentils with coconut and made sambar using it. But I did see my aunts making this powder since they were working women and they had to cook and leave the house early in the morning. There was no concept of eating left overs or cooking at the night time and using it the next day in either my home or my relatives' homes. To be honest, I was very surprised when my in-laws didn't mind eating the left overs. After having started my life as the main cook and having a full time job, I do feel this powder saves a lot of time during the week days. So, I keep it handy. Let me warn you though. The recipe varies from one person to another widely. Some people put a lot of other spices but I like to keep them simple. After all, there should be something different between sambar and bisibelebhath or Vangibhath. If you use all the spices here, then those dishes don't make any sense flavor wise.

One Year Back - How to make Garam Masala
Two Years Back - Magic of Cake Mix
Ingredients: 
Chana dal / bengal gram dal / Dehusked split chickpeas - 1 1/2 cups
Coriander seeds / Dhaniya - 3/4 cup
Red chillies - 60 - 70 (approximately 2 cups loosely packed and yes it is not too much)
Fenugreek - 1 TBSP
Cumin - 1 TBSP
Cinnamon - 3 - 4 1" pieces
Oil - 1 TBSP
Optional - dry coconut gratings about 1 cup (I don't add it most of the times)

Method:
Roast all the ingredients on medium flame except dry coconut gratings if using. Keep stirring to make sure the whole mixture gets toasted evenly. When they are golden and nice aroma comes, turn off the heat. Powder when cool with dry coconut gratings if using. Store in an air tight container and use within 3 months. For longer storage, store in a freezer safe container in the freezer. Use about 2 - 3 TBSP of powder or as per taste for every cup of toor dal to make sambar.

Notes:
You get better color if you use part Byadagi chillies which give a bright red color.

Enjoy.

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Science of Baking - Cookie Baking

I am not an active blogger. An active blogger is not just one who posts regularly. An active blogger is the one who is active in the blogging community. make friends on social media networks, visit other blogs, comment, post messages on facebook, tweet posts etc. My real life responsibilities do not let me spend a lot of time on these things, so I just create stuff, post about it and leave the rest to you all to find it and read. If you are interested that is. Since I am not an active blogger, I do not get much feedback from others either. Fair enough. But when I wrote 'Science of Baking - Cake Baking' post, the response was very positive. I thank you all for taking time to read and say nice words. That post's response encouraged me to write this post as well. I hope you all find it useful or amusing at least.

What is a Cookie?
Cookie can be a dessert or a snack that is small enough to be one per serving or two per serving. It can be puffy or crunchy. It could be a drop cookie, rolled cookie, shaped cookie or a bar cookie. Did you know most of the drop cookies can be baked as bar cookies? You just need to know what size pan to use. Rolled cookies can be converted as bar cookies too. Same is not true to convert drop cookie dough into something that can be rolled.

Ingredients of a cookie:
If you try to understand the science, you will see that you can convert any cookie recipe into a cake recipe and vice versa. Yes, I am not kidding. Basic ingredients in a cookie is the same as a cake - Flour, Sugar, fat like butter, oil, shortening or margarine, eggs or egg substitutes, leavening agents like baking soda, baking powder, salt, flavorings. When I say you can convert a cake recipe into a cookie recipe, leave out the liquid part, reduce the number of eggs, alter the amount of fat and leavening agent. You have a perfect drop cookie recipe. I will not go into details of the ingredients since I have already covered it in the Cake Baking post.

Mixing:
Most of the cookie recipes call for creaming butter with sugar unless it is a cookie recipe based on oil or melted butter. Usually the steps is to cream butter and sugar or sugars (when both brown sugar and white sugar are used), followed by beating the egg into the creamed mixture. You then add the dry ingredients and beat for few seconds, fold in the additions like nuts or chocolate chips.  Make sure you don't over mix than what is needed. Over mixing will also make the gluten in the flour to develop which can make the end product hard. Whenever you are dealing with oil or liquid fat, it is very important to fold the dry ingredients instead of beating with the electric mixer. This makes sure there is no gluten development.

How does the cookie baking work:
Cookie dough is almost all the time thick enough to be scooped. Thicker the batter, puffier the cookies. Or colder the dough, puffier the cookies. That is the reason for some of the cookie recipes calling for chilling the dough. Most of the cookies are baked for only 10 - 12 minutes at 350 or 375 F. I have come across very few recipes which call for baking them at lower temperatures. This applies particularly to short breads which do not have any leavening agents at all (traditional ones have just butter and sugar). Because of baking such small amounts of dough in mounds, it forms the crust fast and gets cooked pretty fast.



Best pan to use for cookie baking:
Always use shiny aluminum cookie sheets for baking. Line them with parchment paper to prevent them from sticking, over browning on the bottom. Remember that if a cookie baked directly on the cookie sheet takes 10 minutes to bake, it takes at least 12 minutes on the cookie sheet that is lined with parchment paper. If you bake the cookie on a non-stick baking sheet, make sure you check them 2 minutes early. Unless you are using a convection oven, always and always rotate the pan while baking cookies. Even if you are baking only one sheet. That ensures even baking of all the cookies. Make sure you space the dough as per the recipe instructions. Otherwise, when they spread, they will join each other and it won't be pretty.

General formula for a Cookie:
Remember there are tons of recipes which adhere to this and there are even more which do not. This does not work for low fat cookie recipes either.
Usually for every cup of flour, there will be 1/2 cup - 2/3 of sugar, 4 - 6 TBSP of fat, 2 TBSP of egg per cup of flour (1 egg for every 2 cups of flour) in most of the cookie recipes. Leavening agent will be around  1/4  tsp baking soda for every cup of flour. If the recipe calls for baking powder, it will be around 1 tsp per cup of flour. Remember that baking soda is much stronger than baking powder. Each tsp of baking powder has 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp cream of tartar and 1/2 tsp corn starch. Depending on if the recipe is for crunchier cookie or puffier, there could be some liquid present or it could have more number of eggs to facilitate spreading.

Please remember that it is just a guideline and there are too many recipes that do not stick to this rule. Particularly eggless cookies and vegan cookies have an entirely different way of working that is hard to generalize. You can look at various cookie recipes on this blog here.

Enjoy.

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Party Menu Planning

I grew up seeing my mother and grand mother cook for 15 people on a daily basis. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks were always homemade. It was cheaper to make it at home than buy then. It is the same even now if you don't count the hours of effort. My mother and grand mother could do it because they never worked outside the house. Their main work was to run the house, raise kids, cook, clean and be housewives. Can we do the same now? Yes and No. 'Yes' if you are a great planner and if you don't mind few days of hard work. 'No' if you are one of those last minute people and you cannot survive without 8 hours of sleep every night.

This post is like a guide to those who are busy, but still want to entertain guests with homemade food. Remember, this post is if and only if you fall into the first category where you are alright working few extra hours.

You might wonder why this post? As I have said before, I have nothing against getting food from the restaurants or a caterer. At the end of the day, they have to make a living too. I just don't prefer to feed my guests that kind of food. That's all. It could be a simple food, but homemade will always be better. If you are an alright cook that is. Recently, I went to a party at a friend's place. Food was delivered from a pretty well known restaurant in town. All the trays of food were in the hot box that the restaurant sends food in. Since we took out the trays of food after few hours, the food settled and fat started floating. While arranging the trays on the table, we were shocked to see so much oil and started to skim out the fat/oil. Believe it or not we skimmed about 3 cups of fat/oil from 4 trays of food. After seeing this and throwing the oil out, I lost all my appetite. In another place when the food was catered by a caterer, food had already gone bad. I understand that it was summer and the dish had coconut in it. But if you are eating it at 12 noon, if it was made in the morning, it wouldn't go bad that easily. Another instance was when we ate Curd Rice which had no curd in it. Only sour cream. Sour cream is good for many things, but is a definite no-no when it comes to making curd rice.

So, here is my take on making simple party menu with not too many hours of cooking. I have written about the party planning tips that has guidelines of menu planning. But this is an entirely different approach. Or call it semi-homemade. No, I am not trying to promote Sandra Lee here. In fact I don't even like her.

As we all know, party food has the following courses. Appetizer, Main course which includes side dishes, Dessert. This is mainly for Indian food/parties. I don't know much about other cuisines to write about party planning.

Appetizer Options:
Usually number of appetizers served is typically two, but even three will be fine.

Chips and Salsa. Buy the chips and make this easy Salsa.
Pita chips and dips. You can buy the pita bread and  toast or buy the ready pita chips and make any of these dips the previous day. Green Peas and Ricotta dip/spread, Roasted Red Pepper and Cheese dip, Hummus or any other easy dip/spread. (Check out the recipe section) Most of these dips involve throwing either frozen veggies or the jar/can contents into a food processor with few additions. It takes less than 5 minutes to make these if you use canned beans or veggies.

Want to feed healthy salads? Buy a bag of spring mix, baby spinach, arugula, chop few romaine hearts, cucumbers. Add some grape/cherry tomatoes and toss them. Buy a bottle of italian dressing and ranch dressing (go for low fat if that is your thing) and keep it on the table. You can buy pre washed, pre cut salad mixes so that it is a breeze for you to put them in a big bowl and be done with it. Have more time, make them yourself. I have the recipes in the salads/soups section.

Main Course:
Usually the main course is rotis/chapathis with two side dishes, one or two kinds of rice dishes.

Get rotis/chapathis made by someone. You will save a lot of time there. For the side dishes, make one that is legume/bean based. Example: Tadka dal, Chana Masala, Dal Makhani etc.
For the other side dish, use most of the cut vegetables and a simple masala base like Vegetable kurma or saagu. Or make the stir fry using a vegetable that is easy to cut. Or, hire someone to cut the vegetables.

Or skip the rotis and go for a dish like Paav Bhaji with store bought rolls/buns.You just have to make bhaji in that case.

Or make two side dishes and get pocket-less whole wheat pita bread. Heat them up in the oven before serving. Easy as a piece of cake.

Or make a big pot of veggies with broken wheat or quinoa or whole wheat pasta.

Rice dishes are the easier ones to tackle. You can make any kind of rice as long as the flavors are good and are not repetitive. Don't make pulav and fried rice for the same party. Check out the various rice dishes if you are interested.

Dessert:
This one is the easiest to tackle since most desserts stay fine for at least a week when refrigerated. Go for the easy ones that you know how to make. Or get them from the store. You could buy a fruit platter as one of the desserts. Good quality chocolate makes a good and easy choice. Ice cream with some fruits is a good one too. Possibilities are endless.

This is just a guideline to show that it is indeed not very hard to feed homemade food in parties. Remember one thing - barter system works very well here. You help someone, you can ask them to help you. But, if you take help and not do anything, you cannot count on receiving help again. All relations are two way path. I have few friends who help with stuff and some who do not. I reciprocate the same way.

Good luck cooking up a storm!!

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Chai tea Masala (Spice mix for tea)

There are many kinds of recipes. Some easy, some very difficult and some very easy but worth noting it down.This is one such recipe. Adapted from the recipe of a very good friend's mother who is no more. If you see how easy and good this one is, you will never pay money to buy the masala tea bags or the masala mix for the tea. Trust me when I tell you this, if you brew loose tea and use this spice mix, sweeten with sugar and add enough milk to it, you will not miss the taste of expensive 'Chai Latte' from any cafe. This one is more authentic and if you feel some spice is overpowering to your taste buds, you can always alter them to suit your taste.

One year back - No Knead Whole Wheat Bread
Two years back - Green Mango Rice, Stuffed Potato Bun
Ingredients: (Makes about scant 1/2 cup)
Powdered Cinnamon - 2 TBSP
Dried powdered Ginger - 2 TBSP
Powdered Cloves - 1 TBSP
Powdered Cardamom - 2 TBSP

Powdered Black Pepper - 1/2 TBSP (Yes, it adds lot of flavor)

Method:
Mix all the ingredients well and keep in an airtight container.Use within 3 months. To make tea, brew tea (I prefer loose tea and not the tea bags) and add a generous pinch for each cup of tea. Sweeten and add milk as required. I usually boil one cup of water add 1 tsp or a little more loose tea, boil, add a generous pinch of this masala powder, 1 1/2 tsp sugar, about 3 - 4 TBSP of milk per cup of tea. Remember that when you boil the water in a saucepan, some get evaporated. Strain and serve. If you want to enhance the ginger flavor, you could add about 1/2 tsp of grated fresh ginger to the water while boiling.

Enjoy.

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Science of Baking - Cake Baking

This marks my 700th post. I know many other bloggers celebrate the anniversary, mile stones, but not me. When I realized that it is a big one, I thought hard what to post. A dessert recipe perhaps? Then thought against it. There are tons of recipes floating around the internet.  Then I thought about what people look for in my blog. I still don't know the answer to it, but I think many people like the Basics page I have put up. Correct me if I am wrong.

Anyways, I thought why not start this post as a beginning for 'Science of Baking'. If you have a recipe, you have a recipe. You know the science behind something, you have a technique. Technique is what is needed to make recipes, adapt a recipe to suit your taste and be a successful baker.  Understanding how ingredients work together when handled in certain ways and under the heat of the oven is very crucial to any baking. In simple words, every one can paint the wall if they want to. But, unless you know how to do prep work, and how to pick what type of paint, tools you need, you can't really do a nice job.

What is a good cake?
One which is moist, has a very delicate crumb texture and is sweet but not overly sweet like fudge. Some cakes are dense. Some are airy, but all have to be moist. A dry cake is not something anyone wants to eat.When the cake is delicate, it should not be crumbly at the same time. If you have a crumbly cake, that means when you slice it, you get a dessert sand, which again is not very appealing.

Ingredients for a cake -
Flour, Sugar, fat like butter, oil, shortening or margarine, eggs or egg substitutes, leavening agents like baking soda, baking powder, salt, flavorings, liquid like coffee, buttermilk, milk, yogurt etc.

Flour:
Usually the type of flour used in cake baking is all purpose flour or cake flour. Yes, you could replace it with whole wheat pastry flour but let me tell you, it is expensive. If you replace it with whole wheat flour, the cake becomes dense. You could however replace half the flour with whole wheat flour without much difference in texture. There are recipes which do not have flour. But almost all of them have either cocoa to replace part of flour or nut flours to replace flour. Flour is what makes the cake structure. Flour is what holds the sugar, butter and binders so that it is a solid dessert.

Sugar:
Sugar or honey or maple syrup, brown sugar are the sweeteners used in cake. They not only add the sweetness, but also moistness to the end product. Sugar being an emulsifier when creamed with butter can create air pockets which constitute towards spongy texture of the cake.

Butter/Oil/Shortening/Margarine:
Fat is what gives the moistness to the cake along with sugar. A fat free cake will not have a nice texture even when you replaced the fat with applesauce or some other fruit puree. It will be dense. Fat when combined with sugar can hold in air in the form of pockets which makes a cake have a spongy texture. You might ask what happens when you use oil since there is no creaming involved. Those recipes are treated more like muffin or bread recipes where you just mix the dry and wet together. Due to the mixing, it still can make the cake spongy, but a butter cake is definitely more spongier than the oil based cake. Oil based cakes win on one strong point. They are moist. Because when you use oil, it is 100 %  fat. When you use butter, it is only 80 % fat.

Eggs:
Eggs do many things in a cake recipe. They can be binders, they can give the moistness/richness and they can give volume too. There are recipes like sponge cake recipe which have very less butter but many eggs. Most of the cake recipes where there are lot of eggs and less butter is involved, it calls for beating eggs with sugar until double in volume. Eggs give volume also in these cases. Then there are cakes which have only egg whites like angel food cake. Angel food cake is a fat free cake and that probably is the reason for using it as an ingredient in many desserts. Then there are chiffon cake recipes which have very few egg yolks but egg whites do give volume here. I cannot generalize the way egg substitutes work. Most of them are for binding the remaining ingredients except for tofu which adds up to the volume of the cake.

Leavening agents like Baking Soda, Baking Powder:
These are required to make the batter produce carbon dioxide which rise the batter making tiny pockets. And when the batter is cooked, this air is trapped among these pockets giving the spongy texture for the cake. There are recipes which do not have any leavening agents at all. Example is the traditional pound cake. Leavening is done by eggs and the creaming of butter and sugar in such recipes.

Liquids:
These can be to flavor the cake or to act as the acid to react with baking soda. There are recipes which are rich in fat and eggs that do not call for any liquid. Liquid from the eggs is good enough to make the batter for such cakes.

Salt, flavorings:
A pinch of salt brings out the flavors beautifully even in a dessert. Flavorings are well flavorings. Think of them as perfumes.

Mixing:
Mixing the batter to the correct level is very crucial in any cake baking. Creaming butter with sugar is one of the main things in many cake recipes which have butter or margarine or shortening for fat part. Over mixing will create too many air pockets there by spoiling the texture of the cake. This also results in creating a higher dome that will make shorter cake when you tort. Under mixing will make the cake dense. In my experience, it is hard to under mix than over mixing. Make sure you don't over mix than what is needed. Over mixing will also make the gluten in the flour to develop which can make the end product hard. Whenever you are dealing with oil or liquid fat, it is very important to fold the dry ingredients instead of beating with the electric mixer. This makes sure there is no gluten development.

How does the cake baking work:
You make the batter which is a thick liquid, pour it into the cake pan and place in the preheated oven. After the baking time, you have  a solid cake. How does that happen? You either fill either half full or 2/3 full. But the resulting product is a full height cake with a dome (unless you used bake even strips). Half of the end product is air. Air trapped between the flour, sugar, fat makes the batter rise. Batter stops to rise once it is cooked. That is the reason for getting the dome. Batter cooks first on the bottom and sides where it is touching the pan sides that transfer heat faster. So, they stop rising at certain point, whereas the middle batter cooks slowly and rises more creating a dome. That is the same reason for the thick crust on the bottom and sides of the cake. When you use bake even strips, you are trying to slow down the cooking of the batter at the edges so it rises evenly. And that is the reason for checking the doneness of the cake by inserting a toothpick in the center and not at the edge. If the center is cooked, the whole thing is cooked.

General formula for a cake:
If you are a cake baking enthusiast, you should read the 'Cake Bible' from Rose. She explains this part so well. I am not going by any particular recipe, but a general thumb rule. Remember there are tons of recipes which adhere to this and there are even more which do not.
Usually for every cup of flour, there will be 2/3 cup of sugar, 1/3 cup of fat, 1/4 cup of egg (or 1 large)  in most of the cake recipes. Leavening agent will be around  1 1/2 tsp baking powder for every cup of flour. If the recipe calls for baking soda, it will be closer to 3/4 tsp per 2 cups of flour. Remember that baking soda is much stronger than baking powder. Each tsp of baking powder has 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp cream of tartar and 1/2 tsp corn starch. Depending on how thick the mixture of fat, flour, sugar make, there is addition of milk or other kinds of liquid to get the batter consistency. Leavening agents need liquid to work. That usually varies from one recipe to other and constitutes for thin batter or thick batter.

Please remember that it is just a guideline and there are too many recipes that do not stick to this rule. Particularly eggless cakes and vegan cakes have an entirely different way of working that is hard to generalize. You can look at various cake recipes on this blog here.

Coming to the interesting part - Did you like this post? Do you think it is a good idea for me to write about Science of baking of various other baked goodies? Or you would just like a recipe and not bother with how it works? Let me know.

Enjoy.

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Brownie Mix

Companies have made quite a bit of money by selling 'mix'es for everything. Let it be cake mix or the instant mashed potato mix. Brownie mix is no different either. It is so cheap to make it by yourself and is pretty easy too. This makes me wonder why people buy them.

To mix and keep in a jar:
(Sift all of the following ingredients except for optional additions together and place in the jar. If adding the nuts or chocolate chips, do it at the end into the jar and shake few times)
All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Natural Cocoa - 1/3 cup
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Baking Powder - 1/4 tsp
Optional additions - 1/2 cups chopped nuts or about 1 cup chocolate chips or toffee bits (I have added 3/4 cup of mini chocolate chips here)

Ingredients to be added at the time of baking:
Butter - 1/2 cup or 1 stick melted and cooled to room temperature
Eggs - 2 large or its equivalent egg replacer
Vanilla - 1 tsp

Instructions to accompany the jar:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease a 9 X 9 or 8" square pan with butter and flour. Or line with parchment paper and butter the parchment. Set aside. Melt 1 stick butter. Let it cool to room temperature. To that, add 2 large eggs and whisk very well. Add vanilla and whisk. Dump the contents of the jar to it and stir with a spoon till smooth batter is made. Do not over mix. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 20 - 25 minutes. Brownies are done when they slightly pull away from the sides and the center looks set. Toothpick test for brownies need to be done in a different way. Insert a toothpick 2" from the edge of the pan. If it comes out with very few crumbs, brownies are done. They set as they cool. Cool in the pan completely and cut when completely cool.

Notes:
You could scrape about 1/2 of a vanilla bean into the mix so that the person who is baking need not add vanilla. Or you could add a small jar of vanilla extract along with the brownie mix as part of the gift.

Enjoy.

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Flavored Oatmeal Variations

Do you eat Oatmeal for breakfast everyday or few days a week?
Are you one of those who can just cook it and eat with few walnuts without any other flavor additions? If yes, I 'bow' to you. Because, that is one hard job for me to do.
Do you like to buy those flavored instant oatmeal packets? If yes, this post might interest you.

Which is good for us? Rolled oats or Quick cooking oats?
If I say both are almost similar, would you believe me? Calories wise, serving size wise they are same. Rolled oats need a little longer to cook compared to quick cooking oats. Quick cooking oats are finely cut rolled oats which have been toasted to make it cook even faster. That's all. Rolled oats have a little more fiber than quick cooking oats. But apart from that, there isn't much of a difference nutrition wise.

You need microwave oven at least to cook rolled oats. Whereas quick cooking oats can be cooked by just pouring boiling water on it. I know the pack says to cook for 1 minute in microwave, but if you have access to very hot water (like the coffee makers give for tea), you can cook quick cooking oats. Just pour very hot water on the quick cooking oats and let it sit for few minutes. It will be ready to eat.

Now the question is why am I writing this post?
Mainly because I don't like those flavored packets for two reasons. First reason is: they are loaded with sugar. Secondly because they are way too expensive. So, I solved the problem by making my own. I actually put them in individual ziploc bags (snack size) so that I can take them to work and make it there. When I am home, I make it with rolled oats in the microwave. Here is my way of getting different flavors.

Using rolled oats using microwave:

1. Apple Spice: 
Rolled Oats - 1/2 cup
Apples - 1/2 an apple chopped
Cinnamon - 1/4 tsp
Cloves - 1/8 tsp
Nutmeg and all spice powders - a pinch each
Sugar - 1 - 2 tsp

2. Banana Nut: 
Rolled Oats - 1/2 cup
Bananas - 1/2 a banana (or 1 if you love bananas) sliced
Cinnamon - 1/4 tsp
Brown Sugar - 1 - 2 tsp
Walnuts - 2 TBSP


3. Raisins, dates and walnuts: 
Rolled Oats - 1/2 cup
Raisins - 2 TBSP
Dates - 2 TBSP chopped


4. Cranberry, Almond: 
Rolled Oats - 1/2 cup
Sweetened dried cranberries - 2 TBSP
Sliced almonds - 2 TBSP
Sugar - 1 tsp (optional)

5. Pear Honey: 
Rolled Oats - 1/2 cup
Pears - 1/2 a pear chopped
Black pepper powder - 1/4 tsp (Ya, no typo here. They taste great)
Honey - 1 - 2 tsp

6. Cherries:
Rolled Oats - 1/2 cup
Dried cherries - 1/4 cup
Sugar - 2 tsp or about 1 TBSP of cherry preserve


7. Blueberries:
Rolled Oats - 1/2 cup
Blue berries - 1/3 cup (fresh or dried 3 TBSP)
Sugar - 2 tsp


8. Apricots and Cashews:
Rolled Oats - 1/2 cup
Apricots - Chopped 3 TBSP
Cashews - broken 2 TBSP

9. Maple Brown Sugar:
Rolled Oats - 1/2 cup
Maple sugar or maple syrup - 2 tsp - 1 TBSP

10.Strawberry and Cream:
Rolled Oats - 1/2 cup
Chopped fresh strawberries - 1/3 cup
Sugar - 1 - 2 tsp or 1 TBSP strawberry preserve
Increase milk to 1/2 cup

Method: 
Take rolled oats in  a bowl. Add the spices if using, dried fruits and nuts and 1 cup water to it and microwave on high for 2 - 3 minutes. Take it out, stir milk (about 1/4 cup) and the fresh fruit if using.

Using Quick cooking Oats:
You can use the same method but by microwaving only 1 minute or by pouring really hot water on the oatmeal if using Quick Cooking Oats.

Notes:
This is just my favorite flavors. Using these guidelines, you can come up with your favorites. As long as you have time to use fresh fruits or have lot of dried fruits on hand, you have a lot of possible combinations that you can come up with.

Enjoy.

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Homemade Cake Mix

I sometimes wish I were born in 18th century. I would have missed the internet and technology for sure, but there was a very nice balance for a family at that time. Men went outside and worked and brought home the money and women managed the house and raised the kids. At least in a perfect family situation.
Now that everyone (well, almost) is running to make a living, there is 'rushing' everywhere. Someone made big bucks out of this situation and started the trend of ready mixes. Name it and you have a ready mix for that. Betty crocker sure made a ton of money by starting this concept though. This is at least one step better than 'heat and eat' concept. Don't you agree?

People prefer to bake cakes using cake mixes for a reason. It is very hard to fail when you use them. Reason? Perfect proportions and good leavening agents. They are bad for one reason. Usage of shortening. They do use shortening that has quite a bit of transfat in them. But they rank high in moistness. It is because they combine shortening and oil. All oil based cakes are moist whereas the butter based cakes aren't.
I usually don't bake cakes using mixes. But, my pantry always has one yellow cake mix, one chocolate cake mix. That is because I make blondies and brownies out of them when I am pressed for time and I need them. This post has been long due. One of the readers asked about what to do when a recipe calls for a cake mix and she cannot get cake mixes where she lives. That prompted me to write this post. You will have to come back later in the week when I make a cake out of this mix.

One year back - Coconut Chocolate Rolls/Buns
Two years back - Mango Mini Muffins
Ingredients for the Yellow cake mix:
All purpose flour - 2 1/2 cups (11 Oz) - lightly spooned and measured
Sugar - 1 2/3 cups (12.2 Oz)
Baking Powder - 1 TBSP
Salt - 3/4 tsp
Shortening - 1/2 cup (3.5 Oz) or Cold butter (1 stick - 4 Oz)

To mix the batter:
All of the above cake mix
3 large eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup milk or buttermilk or yogurt
2 tsp Vanilla extract (Or 1 tsp vanilla + 1 tsp almond extract)


Method:
Take all the ingredients mentioned in the 'ingredients for the cake mix' in a large food processor bowl. Run the machine until the mixture resembles coarse meal and all the shortening or butter has been worked in. You could try and use a pastry blender, but you really have to work the butter or shortening well so that this recipe works. Store in an air tight container and use within 3 months. You can store it in freezer or refrigerator to keep it fresh.
If using butter instead of shortening, you will have to store it in refrigerator or freezer.

To bake the cake:
Grease and flour two 8" round pans or one 13 X 9 " pan. Preheat the oven to 350 F (325 in case of dark non stick pan or glass pans). Beat the cake mix that you have made, oil, milk or yogurt for one minute using an electric mixer or beat about 100 strokes if doing by hand. Add eggs one at a time and continue to beat at least 30 seconds after each addition. Add the extracts and continue beating for 10 seconds. Pour into the prepared pan and tap the pan to remove air bubbles. Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Variations:

Chocolate Cake mix:
All purpose flour - 1 3/4 cups  - lightly spooned and measured
Unsweetened natural Cocoa - 3/4 cup
Sugar - 1 2/3 cups (12.2 Oz)
Baking Powder - 1 TBSP
Salt - 3/4 tsp
Shortening - 1/2 cup (3.5 Oz) or Cold butter (1 stick - 4 Oz)

To make the batter:
All of the cake mix
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup Vegetable oil
1 3/4 cups milk or buttermilk (Or replace part of the liquid with brewed coffee)

Spice Cake Mix:
Use the yellow cake mix recipe and add 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cloves, 1/4 tsp ginger, 1/8 tsp nutmeg to the dry mix.

White Cake Mix:
Same as yellow cake mix but while making the cake, instead of 3 large eggs, use 4 large egg whites.


Enjoy.

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Pancake and Waffle Mix

Did you know that I have been blogging for the past two years now? I started blogging regularly from last week of October 2009. Before that, there was only one post on this blog since July 2009. This is the longest I have stuck to a hobby. Many a times people ask why I blog. To be honest, I really don't know the answer to that question. I do know that it is a stress reliever for me and the satisfaction one gets from a positive feedback is priceless. So, I write this blog for those who might want to read and get some ideas of their own or to get some inspiration.

Coming to this 'mix', when I started making pancakes for my kid, I had the belief that Bisquick mix pancakes are the ultimate ones. I went and bought a box promptly. Followed the directions and made pancakes. They were good, I am not complaining. But do you know how bad they are for you? That is because of the shortening they use which is loaded with trans fat. The moment I read the whole thing, I dumped the box and went in search of a recipe. I have made many pancakes and waffles using many different recipes. But when I tend to get busy, this is the mix I like to have on hand. I specially mix it up and keep in the refrigerator when I am expecting company. When everyone visits, there are about 10 kids in the house and some adults like pancakes too. It can be made very quickly and easily if you have these in your refrigerator. I do not use shortening anymore. I use butter, but feel free to use 0 trans fat crisco if you wish. Or you could mix up only dry ingredients and use oil while mixing the batter - See Notes for that.

One year back -  Toasted Quinoa - One pot meal, Vegan Pumpkin Snack Cake
Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 12 cups (See Notes)
Baking Soda - 1 TBSP
Baking Powder - 2 TBSP
Salt - 1 TBSP
Sugar - 1/4 Cup
Butter or Shortening - 1 1/2 Cups (See Notes)

Method for making the mix:
Mix all the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter or shortening till the mixture resembles coarse meal. I prefer using my food processor for this, but a plain pastry blender works too. Store in an air tight container at room temperature for 3 months if you used shortening. If you used butter, keep it in an airtight container in the refrigerator and use within 3 months.

To make pancakes:
Pancake mix - 2 cups
Eggs - 2 large or equivalent (like flax egg or ener-G)
Buttermilk or sour milk - 1 3/4 cups

Method:
Mix all the ingredients mentioned above. Do not overmix. Few lumps here and there are good. Let it sit for couple of minutes and then start making pancakes.

To make Waffles:
Pancake mix - 2 cups
Egg - 1 or egg replacement.
Milk - 2 cups
Oil - 1/4 cup

Method:
Mix all and let the batter sit for few minutes. Make waffles as per the instructions from waffle iron's manufacturer. To get fluffier waffles, beat the egg white separately and fold with the rest of the ingredients. Of course it is not possible if you used egg substitute.

Notes:
You can mix up flours as per your needs. Use whole wheat flour but in that case, you will need more liquid than what is mentioned. You can use part whole wheat, barley, rye, buckwheat but just make sure you keep 60 % of the flour as one with gluten. You could add flavorings of your choice if you want like vanilla or cinnamon etc. Note that the liquid might have to be adjusted depending on how the flour was measured. Couple of TBSP more or less might be needed to get the right consistency depending on type of flour and how it was measured.

If you want to use oil instead and want to mix up all the dry ingredients and use oil when you are mixing the batter. Use 1/4 cup Oil for every two cups of mix while making the pancakes. Increase the buttermilk to 2 cups if needed. Increase the oil by 1/4 cup in case of waffles.

Enjoy.

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Granola Formula

I have been making granola for almost 6 years now. When I made granola for the first time, I used a recipe from some web site. Then I started altering the ingredients to suit my taste. Every time I made it, the taste was different yet very nice if I may say so. Reason being, you cannot really go wrong with granola. It is oats, dried fruits, nuts, sweetener and oil and optional flavorings. Mix and spread on a cookie sheet and bake for an hour or so at low temperature. It is so easy to make it at home that I wonder why it costs so much when bought from a store.

When I started posting the recipes of 'baking mix', there was a request for a granola recipe that can be tailored to suit different taste buds. Here it is.
As I said earlier, it has the following components -

Oats - I prefer old fashioned rolled oats, but quick cooking oats work too.
Nuts and seeds - cashews, almonds, pecans, walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, Shredded coconut etc.
Dried fruits - Chopped dates, chopped apricots, raisins, dried cranberries, dried figs, etc.
Oil - Prefer canola oil.
Sweetener - Honey, Maple Syrup, Agave nectar, Corn syrup (Has to be liquid See Notes)
Flavorings - cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, vanilla or any spice of your choice

Formula for Granola - 
Oats - 4 cups
Nuts - 3 cups (If using seeds, include that in this)
Sweetener - 2/3 cups
Oil - 1/3 cups
Dried Fruits - 1  - 1 1/2 cups
Flavorings - 1 - 2 tsp (optional)


Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a large baking sheet with rim with aluminum foil. Mix oats, nuts in a bowl. Mix the sweetener of your choice with oil and flavorings in another and stir them together. Spread on the baking sheet so that it lays in one layer. Couple of small clusters are fine. Bake for 1 hour stirring every 15 minutes. When completely done and is at room temperature, add the dried fruits and mix well. When completely cool, store in an air tight container for a week or two.

Now, there could be people who want to eat granola but are allergic to nuts. Then all you have to do is increase the oats and omit nuts. Do not do that for dried fruits. You can omit it, but don't try to increase the oats. Basically, whatever you are mixing and baking should have the ratio of 7 parts dry ingredients to 1 part liquid (oil + sweetener). If you are working on low sugar formula, by all means use only 1/4 cup sweetener, but add enough fruit juice or apple sauce to get one cup including oil so that you can mix the ingredients properly and bake. Remember that when you use fruit juice or applesauce, granola will be chewy rather than crunchy.

Notes:
The reason you cannot use sugar or brown sugar is because of not being able to mix and coat the dry ingredients with sugar. You can always make a syrup from the sugar and use it. I have not tried it so cannot say how it will work. I however, have tried mixing part liquid sweetener with part brown sugar and that method works too. If you are using the dry sweetener as part of the recipe, warm up the oil, liquid sweetener and sugar or brown sugar together to dissolve all the sugar and then mix with the dry ingredients.

Enjoy.

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Basic Muffin Mix

I do not really know how many of you read my blog for baking recipes. But if you are one of those who do it for the baking recipes, this post might interest you.  I have a knack for simplifying things. Be it at work or at home. And I do believe in coming up with a plan for doing everything in an order. That makes it not only easy, but quick too. I started measuring and keeping the dry ingredients in a ziploc bag and mixing it with wet ingredients to bake 5 years back when I was pregnant and on bed rest. I was allowed not more than 20 - 30 minutes of standing at a time. This planning made sure my kid had something fresh to take to day care every day. I do not know if this seems like a good idea for you since you have to use the ziploc bag or container and label them. You also have to use up the mix before the baking powder or baking soda that you have used in the mix expires.

Here is the first of the basic mix that you can create to suit your busy life or to give as a gift. If you have these mixes handy in ziploc bags, it is very easy to mix and bake early in the morning to serve as breakfast.

Ingredients to be mixed in the jar:
All purpose flour - 1 3/4 cups
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Baking Powder - 2 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp


To mix before baking:
Egg -1 (Or equivalent egg replacer like flax egg or ener-G replacer)
Milk - 3/4 cup (Or any fruit juice to flavor the muffin)
Oil - 1/3 cup

Instructions to be written on a card to accompany the jar:
Preheat the oven to 400 F. Grease a muffin pan with vegetable oil spray or line with paper liners. In a bowl, whisk together 3/4 cup milk (or fruit juice), 1/3 cup oil and 1 large egg or egg substitute. Dump the contents of the jar into the liquid and stir to combine. Fill the muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake fro 20 - 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Makes about 8 - 10 standard sized muffins.

Variations:
Add about a cup of chocolate chips or chopped nuts or 1 cup of chopped fruits or 1 cup of dried fruits to the batter and bake. Use 1 cup APF, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup wheat germ for a part whole wheat mufifn mix. If you add chocolate chips or nuts or fruits, you will get about 12 muffins.

Enjoy.

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Baking Mix as Gifts

My neighbors and I were chit chatting outside while kids played together. One of my neighbors loves pumpkin. She loves it so much that she gets her share of pumpkin latte in the season. So, I gave her one small jar of the 'Pecan Pumpkin Butter' I made the other day. Then she started talking about her having bought 'Libby's Pumpkin Bread Mix' from the store and she is going to make it when she has company. Topic came to me using that (she has eaten my pumpkin bread and loves it) and I said I prefer to bake from scratch. That is when I decided to write this post.  If you want me to write about how to make different mixes and give you the details of using it, leave a comment. I will try to cover some of the basic mix recipes before holiday season starts.

I am sure you will have read the ingredients section on any cake mix or brownie mix. But there are lot of people who think cake mixes are almost a miracle (like my neighbor). You get perfect results almost every time. I still haven't met a person who can fail to make a decent cake using a cake mix. Reason? Ingredients and the ratio. These baking mixes are a result of extensive research and experiment.

Many people like to give 'brownie in a jar' or 'cookie in a jar' as gifts. You might consider doing the same too. With the way economy is going, I am sure everyone is on a budget and would love to give gifts that don't hurt their budget. This is one great way of achieving that. If you still want to add a small gift, get a whisk, spatula or a nice pan, pair of mittens or couple of kitchen towels. When you add one of these inexpensive gifts to a jar of baking mix that you made with the instructions of how to use it, it makes a great gift. Of course these work if you are giving gifts to people who love to bake and not for everyone.

If you are thinking why I am writing this when you already know these, answer is to share with you a basic tip about personalizing your baking mix. You don't have to follow a brownie in a jar recipe. You can use one of your favorite and convert it into a mix. It does have some limitations though. Limitations are the fat part of the recipe should be either melted butter, oil or shortening. Since creaming of butter and sugar doesn't work with this idea, those recipes have to be first converted to use liquid fat or to use shortening.

Let's take the example of the 'Pumpkin Bread' and let's convert my pumpkin bread into a 'Pumpkin Bread Mix'.
This is what the ingredients list for my pumpkin bread. I am going to make it as a mix and make two 9 X 5 loaves.
Ingredients: (Copied from the original post)
Pumpking - 1 cup (I used canned)
Whole Wheat flour - 1 cup
All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
Corn starch - 1/4 cup (or more all purpose flour)
Sugar - 1 cup
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 3/4 tsp
Oil - 1/2 cup (I have used half applesauce before and it comes out fine)
Water - 1/3 cup
Flax meal - 2 TBSP
Warm water to mix with flax meal - 6 TBSP
Ground cinnamon - 1 tsp
Ground Ginger - 1 tsp
Ground Cloves - 1/2 tsp
Ground Nutmeg - 1/8 tsp
Ground All spice - 1/4 tsp
Ground Cardamom - 1/8 tsp

Mix: 
Double all the dry ingredients. Mix all the dry ingredients together well. Place in a fancy jar or a bag. Tie with a ribbon and add a 15 Oz can of pumpkin puree and the note with following details:
"Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease two 9 X 5 loaf pans with vegetable oil spray. Mix in a bowl, the pumpkin puree with 2/3 cup of water, 1 cup of oil and 4 eggs (or 4 flax eggs for vegan version). Beat well.  Add the contents of the jar and stir to combine. Pour into the prepared pans and bake for 60 - 70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean."

Viola, you made a pumpkin bread mix. How easy was that? It cost about 8 dollars for the same mix and you can make it for less than 2 dollars.

Enjoy and do let me know if this topic interests you. Do you have a recipe that you want to convert as a baking mix this season?

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Pecan Pumpkin Butter

About 6 years back, my husband brought home a basket of goodies from work during thanksgiving. It had few goodies along with a bottle of organic pumpkin butter. I didn't know what to do with it for quite some time. I tried baking with it using it in place of peanut butter and it was quite good. That was when I was introduced to fruit butters. Having made nut butters, and having made Apple butter, making a combination of fruit and nut butter wasn't hard. Question is why did I think of this? I saw someone (don't remember who it was) announcing a giveaway of Pecan Pumpkin butter jar. I have no clue what are the ingredients of that ready made fruit butter except for of course pumpkin and pecans. I came up with this which, not only is great on toast or some graham crackers, but makes wonderful gifts during holiday season.

One year back - No Knead Savory Buns, Sourdough Banana Aebleskiver
Ingredients:
Pumpkin - One 15 Oz can (Or home made puree 2 cups)
Pecans - generous 1/2 cup
Apple juice - 1/2 cup (Or use orange juice)
Maple Syrup - 1/4 cup
Brown Sugar or turbinado sugar - 1/4 - 1/2 cup (depending on how sweet you like it)
Cinnamon powder - 1/4 tsp
Nutmeg - two pinches
Clove powder - 1/8 tsp
Ginger powder - 1/8 tsp
All Spice powder - 1/8 tsp

Method:
In a skillet, toast pecans for few minutes until nice aroma comes. Take it out and set aside. In a saucepan, heat pumpkin puree, apple juice, maple syrup. Use a whisk to constantly whisk it. Add all the spice powders to it and let it simmer for about 10 minutes whisking constantly. It will splutter quite a bit. Keep it on medium or low heat and continue to stir frequently.
Take toasted pecans in a blender or a food processor. Add 1/4 cup of brown sugar or turbinado sugar to it and pulse till it is a smooth powder. Towards the end, it will start clumping. Turn off the blender and add it to the saucepan. Whisk vigorously to break all the lumps and mix them well. Keep it on low heat until it struggles to splutter or it doesn't splutter easily. Mixture will be creamy, not too thick. Check for the sugar level and add more if required. I actually used the entire 1/2 cup since I wanted it to be a little sweeter. Turn off the heat. When cool, store in a clean dry jar and refrigerate or freeze. I do not know much about canning, but if you are into canning, you could can them and use it as gifts for holidays. The spice level of this was perfect but you can vary to your needs. This one was so good that my kid ate it calling 'Pumpkin Jam' as is.

Enjoy.

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