YaaaHoooooo - My First Muffins !!

Dear Foodies,

( Click on the photo to enlarge )

I was sick and tired of sitting in front of the computer screen all day y'day and decided to make some muffins last night. I had laid my eyes on Saffron Hut's Banana Nut muffins and knew that I had to try them. The best part of the recipe was it dint call for eggs and Saffron assured us that the muffins turned out just as fluffy as any other. I avoid eggs as much as possible as I cant take their smell/texture. So this recipe was just perfect for me. But well.....I had also read Vaishali's Jam-in-the-hole muffins and could not resist making use of this idea.

And so a trip a to the grocery store followed, bought some banana's and along came a box of hard-to-resist strawberry's and raspberry's and no points for guessing where they ended up :-)

I am not going to add the recipe here as I hardly changed anything of significance in the original. I used a little more than 1 1/2 cups of flour and so I added some milk to get the desired dough consistency. I first half-filled the muffin cups and put in a dollop of jam in a few and a few others got the berry's. I was a bit over-confident with my batter and filled the muffin cups just 3/4 expecting them to explode out of the cups !! Well they thought otherwise & dint puff out as much ... as you can see. But they were nice and fluffy, so next time (which is tonight :D) I will probably fill them nearly upto the top so I can get the muffins to raise over the cups' edge. And also I should probably grease the paper cups a bit or add a lil more butter to the dough, as the muffins stuck to the cup at the base.

Well the other thing I did while making them was take a lot of photos, so instead of the recipe I am going to put in the pictures :-) and see if you can spot any of my soft toys :D

Muffin cups ready to take in the batter

Half full cups with the jam/berrys

The filling covered with some more batter and ready for the oven

Hot out of the oven :-) You can see the jam oozing out of a few.

Muffins ready to dig your teeth into :-)

Loads of hugs and Thank yous to Saffron and Vaishali for their recipes and ideas :-) This is a muffin recipe I am going to treasure.

I am going to parcel a few off to Anthony's Curry Mela and Nandita's Weekend Breakfast Blogging :-)

Lime-Ginger Rasam

Dear Foodies,


I'm back after vanishing for quite sometime and I guess this is going to go on until I get out of school ! :-( I havent been taking any pictures of the food I am cooking either and so I have been nagging my mother more than ever to send me photos and recipes :-)

Here is a wonderful rasam recipe from her.This rasam is refreshingly different from the rest, it does not call for any tamarind or rasam powder. Yes...NO rasam powder needed :-). So when you get bored of the sambar/pulusu/usual rasam recipes that use tamarind as the base, then do give this one a try. It is also one of my favourite rasams and soo all the more hype ;-)

Ingredients:

for rasam:

• 2 nos - Ripe Tomatoes, halved

• 4 nos - Green Chillies

• 2 nos - 1 inch piece of crushed Ginger

• 1 no - Lime or 2 Tbsp lime juice

• 1 sprig - Curry Leaves

• 1/2 cup - Coriander leaves
  

• 1 cup - Toor dal, boiled and mashed

• Salt to taste

for seasoning:

• 1 tsp - ghee

• 1 tsp - Mustard seeds

• 1 tsp - Jeera/Cumin seeds

Procedure:

1. Boil one cup of toor dal and mash it well once cooked.
2. In a vessel, add 3 cups of water and toss all the rasam ingredients except the dal and lime juice and curry leaves( i.e tomatoes, crushed ginger,coriander, chillies and salt)
3. Bring the rasam to a boil, the tomatoes would have lost shape by this time.
4. Add in the cooked dal now and mix well to get rid of lumps and bring the rasam to a boil again. You could add a lil rasam powder now if you want.
5. In a separate pan, heat the ghee and add in the mustard seeds and jeera and a few curry leaves. Once the seeds start popping add it to the rasam.Also add in the juice of one lime or its equivalent.
6. Serve hot with rice or enjoy it as a soup :-)

And now this hot rasam is off to Anthony's Curry Mela

A Meme...for Me ME

I am thinking about : Tweetyyyy...the best ever cartoon character !!

I said : isnt tweety cuteee...!!

I want to : fill my bedroom with soft toys of all kinds..!!

I wish : I could get a life size Teddy :-)

I regret : not having a big enough apt to store my soft toys ;-) .....soon my room mates and I will have to find a new apt to live in :D

I hear : the radio playing songs ...non stop

I am : crazy about soft toys and anything that has chocolate and/or coffee

I dance : very very rarely....the party more often than not ends before I can convince myself to shake a leg .. :D

I sing : along with the song currently playing

I cry : at the slightest change/raise of tone of the ppl close to me !! And I have also been a expert in shedding crocodile tears when fighting with my brother :D

I am not : good at maintaining house accounts !!

I dream of : having a room filled with soft toys and owning a complete Enid Blyton book collection

I am with my hands: typing all the time or trying to whip up good food :-)

I write : with a pen pencil most of the time...I prefer them over pens..

I laugh : whenever I can ...with the side effect of making the others around me laugh too !

I confuse : myself and others ...and have gained some expertise there too :D

I value : my soft toys the mostttttttttt ..hehe

I need : more ...more ...and many more soft toys...

Well I did better put up the theme of this meme to be Me...Me and My Soft Toys ....!! ( and I hope everyone reading it got the hint and know what to send me )

RJ-The Ring Leader (My latest buy)

Thank you Annita for tagging me on this Meme :-) And now for me to tag someone with this Meme, its going to be Anita of A Mad Tea Party and Anthony of Anthony's Kitchen from the food blogosphere. I would also like to share it with my friends Aravind and Jaya

A Simple Dish - Aloo Fry

Dear Foodies,


When its raining, and I'm in no mood to cook, and looking for something simple and comforting to eat potatoes come to the rescue. Some aloo fry with steaming rasam or sambar is just heavenly. If you have the patience to make pulka's, there's nothing better.

Infact the first breakfast that I remember eating with relish was chapati and aloo fry. My mother had packed it for one of my Saturday tiffin boxes when in school. Saturdays are generally half days at school and we are back home at 1 with a lil 15 break at around 10. And to eat before I go to school was something I avoided. I just could'nt get myself to eat anything at 8 in the morning. But on that day, I saw chapati's and aloo fry in the tiffin box when I was placing it in the bag and they vanished even before I left home !!


Now to the recipe, it could'nt get any easier !! I use red potatoes or the white/pale yellow colored ones. I just hate the other huge brownish ones that we get at the stores. They are lumpy and dont taste very good either.


Ingredients:

• 5 -6 nos - Red potatoes

• 1 tbsp - Cummin seeds

• 2 tbsp - Red Chilli powder

• 1 tbsp - Urad dal

• 1 tbsp - Channa dal

• 4 tbsp - Oil
  

• Salt to taste

Procedure:

1. Wash the potatoes in running water and peel them if you think it necessary. Cut them into small pieces, roughly 1/2 -1 inch. As you cut them, place the pieces in some salt water so that they dont discolor.
2. Heat 3 tbsp of oil in a wide pan. Add the cummin seeds and the dals. I add them for some crunch, so you can change the quantity according to your liking.
3. Once the dals turn a slight reddish color drain and toss in the cut potatoes and salt. Cover with a lid and cook. Stir every few minutes to see that the potatoes dont get burnt/charred. You can add extra oil if needed.
4. When the pieces are cooked i.e they feel soft when held, add in the chilli powdernd mix well.
   
5. Serve hot with rice or chapati's and enjoy your meal :-)