Spicy Cheddar Scones

Too many desserts have gone by without something spicy and savory. So, in the birthday spirit of a good friend, I prepared these savory scones that I adapted from here.

 Ingredients:

1. 2 cups all-purpose flour
2. 1 tablespoon baking powder
3. 1 teaspoon salt
4. 1.5 teaspoons chilli powder
5. 1 teaspoon pav-bhaaji masala powder (optional)
6. 1 stick cold butter, cut into pieces
7. 1/2 cup buttermilk
8. 2 tablespoons flax-seed whisked in 6 tablespoons lukewarm water
9. 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese 

 Preparation:

1. Mix the dry ingredients together - the flour, baking powder, salt, chilli powder, and pav-bhaaji powder.
2. Work the butter into the dry ingredients. Use a fork, or your fingers to mash and mix the butter into the flour until the butter is the size of peas.
3. Slightly whip together the buttermilk and flax-seed mixture. Add it to the above mixture and gently fold everything together until the dough comes together. 
4. Finally, add the cheese and gently mix. 
5. Empty the dough onto a floured board and knead it a couple of times to pull it together. 
6. Pat the dough evenly into almost 3/4 inch thickness. With a blunt knife, cut the dough into triangles (or use a cookie-cutter to cut into rounds). 
7. Arrange the pieces on an oiled baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes on a preheated 400 F oven until the scones are brown around the edges.

Serve with ketchup and some tea/coffee.

Nutella Mug Cake

Anand finished his first half-marathon today! He was so disciplined about the training and enthusiastically counted down the days. And, of course, he has shed even more weight. Those who see him would have no idea that his wife does feed him. 

To commemorate his strenuous accomplishment and to re-fatten him up a little, I thought I would bake this 5-minute chocolate mug cake. I came across this recently and immediately noted it down. It sounded simple and easy, and it seemed like a good idea to bake a couple of small mug-cakes to nibble on for a day or two. So, I tried it today and it turned into a gigantic, souffle-like chocolate lava that set in mid-eruption. Hmm, and I thought this would be a "small" treat. The cake rises quite a bit, so grab the biggest mug on hand.

But, this is still a great recipe! I recommend it.  It's super easy to make, and the cake turned out to be super moist and super chocolatey. It took exactly 3 minutes on my microwave to bake this cake. It really is a 5 minute cake! One thing that I should mention (just common baking lesson) - mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, then slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Do not over-mix.

Of course, in our case, two overflowing mug-cakes didn't really help with my motivation to make a simple and small dessert. I would advise dividing the batter (that's needed to prepare 1 mug-cake) into 2 mugs and baking them for one and a half minutes each.

Chocolate Tres Leches Cake

It's no secret that Anand loves chocolates. So, to celebrate his milestones and achievements, I have been trying different variations of chocolate-based desserts. I gave him a few options for his recent achievement, and he picked this one - a chocolate tres leches cake. A Tres Leches cake is a South-American cake that is made with three types of milk (tres leches) - condensed milk, evaporated milk, and whole milk/cream. After a bit of research, I followed the recipe from here. The recipe is pretty accurate and reliable - if you faithfully follow every step and reserve a whole day to get this cake ready.

This cake has an ice-cream like custard sandwiched between two layers of rich chocolate cake. Putting together the entire cake is a bit time-consuming. It's not really labor intensive as the individual steps are mostly easy and straightforward. But, time was a major battle for me because the custard in the middle took forever to complete - the milk and cream had to be heated up and cooled, then mixed with lots of egg-yolks, then baked for 50 minutes, then cooled at room temperature for some time, then cooled in the freezer for sometime, then transferred to a plastic-wrapped plate and frozen for 4 hours. Then, it is assembled between the cooled chocolate cake layers. A creamy rum sauce is poured over it and again chilled for 2 hours. So, I was scrambling for bits and pieces of time to get this done, and as fate always has it, everything something had to go wrong! For one, the trusty oven mysteriously turned itself off in the middle of baking the chocolate cake that was rising beautifully. My dim-witted brain took 35 minutes to figure out something was wrong with the oven after pondering hard over why the cake took so long to bake... it took three times as long to get this delicious cake to finally bake - which meant, more frantic scrambling of time. This is the day when I also get to hear of parties and visitors and deadlines within the next 12 hours. Wait, there's more. As I transfer the custard onto the plate, part of it falls off the plate, almost ruining 2 1/2 hours of work. I try to think quick, pull the broken/fallen custard into a mass, wrap it in plastic and freeze it at the highest setting, periodically shaping it to resemble a nice disc. 

Anyway, after all the frustration with the custard, I wasn't wowed by the final product. The custard doesn't seem worth the effort. I would recommend skipping it. But then, my personal goof-ups could have been the reason for the sub-par custard.The chocolate cake is pretty delicious, though - but then, it isn't a tres leches cake without the custard. Well, maybe the sauce that's soaked into the chocolate cake would make up for it. 

Finally, I macerated some berries in a couple of teaspoons of sugar and Grand Marnier for an hour, and topped them on the finished cake. 

P.S: Thank you so much Sindhu, for the many lovely pictures of the cake!

Coconut Rice Pudding

Recently, my sister-in-law made some pretty awesome cupcakes that were flavored with pistachios, cardamom and rosewater! I often use saffron and cardamom in my desserts (especially a ton of cardamom!), but I had never used rose-water, especially in combination with pistachios and saffron and cardamom. So, I was inspired to recreate those flavors with a simple rice-pudding. This rice pudding is thickened with unsweetened coconut milk and flavored with plenty of Indian and Middle-Eastern spices - cardamom, saffron, pistachios and rose water.

Ingredients (serves 4-6):

1. 2 cups raw rice
2. 16 ounces unsweetened coconut milk (2 cans)
3. 1/2 cup chopped toasted pistachios
4. 1 teaspoon cardamom powder
5. 2 teaspoons rose water
6. a pinch of saffron
7. 1/4 cup sugar (or up to 1/2 cup for extra sweetness)
8. 1/2 - 1 cup hot milk (as needed to dilute the pudding)
9. pinch of salt

Preparation:

1. Cook the rice with 5 cups of water until it is soft. Fluff the rice with a fork. 
2. Transfer the cooked rice to a medium sauce-pan and add the coconut milk and sugar. Heat the pudding over low-medium heat, stirring frequently to mix the rice and coconut milk. Heat for about 20 minutes.
3. Next, add the cardamom powder, saffron and pinch of salt and mix well. Simmer on low heat for another 10 minutes.
4. Remove from heat and add 1/2 cup of hot milk (more or less) to dilute the pudding a little because it thickens at room temperature. 
5. Garnish with chopped pistachios and rose water. Mix well.

Serve! Keep some warm milk at hand before serving, because the pudding does thicken over time. 

Gypsy Soup

This is yet another hardy and healthy (and spicy) vegetable soup that is adapted from the Moosewood Cookbook.

The soup brims with lots of vegetables and beans, and is spiced with lots of spices - not the hot kind, the flavorful kind.

Ingredients:

1. 2 tablespoons olive oil
2. 2 medium-sized onions, chopped
3. 4 cloves of garlic, minced
4. 2 ripe tomatoes, diced
5. 4 celery stalks, diced
6. 4 medium-sized potatoes, diced (or use 1 sweet potato)
7. 1 bell-pepper, diced (preferably the red/yellow/orange one; the green pepper is a little bitter here)
8. 1 tablespoon tomato paste
9. 1.5 teaspoons salt
10. 2 teaspoons paprika
11. 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
12. 1.5 teaspoons cinnamon powder
13. 1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
14. 1 teaspoon nutmeg powder
15. 1 teaspoon all-spice powder
16. 1 bay leaf
17. 5 cups of water / vegetable broth
18. 1 cup of cooked black beans
19. 1 cup of cooked black-eyed beans
20. 1 teaspoon basil, gently cut

Preparation: 

1. Heat the olive oil in a big sauce-pan or dutch oven. Saute the onions and garlic until the onions turn translucent. 
2. Add celery and potato, and saute on medium-heat for 5-10 minutes.
3. Add salt, paprika, turmeric powder, cinnamon powder, cumin powder, nutmeg, and all-spice powder and saute for a couple of minutes to coat the veggies. Add the tomato paste and stir well with the vegetables for another couple of minutes.
4. Add the bay leaf, 5 cups of water (or as needed to cook the veggies). Cover and cook for 15 minutes on medium-heat.
5. Then, add the diced pepper, tomatoes, and the beans. Add more water if required. Cover and cook for another 10 minutes or until all the vegetables are done. Taste and adjust seasonings.
6. Finally, add the basil, cover and simmer on low-heat for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and serve. 

Curried Vegetable Chowder

Chowder is a class of soups and stews that's creamy. The soups are are heavily thickened with either milk or cream (or both). 

The vegetable chowder that I make is adapted from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook. It's one of my all time favorite cookbooks. This chowder is a low-fat version with plenty of vegetables, and of course, Indian spices. Usually, most vegetarian chowders have mushroom in them. But we are not a fan of mushrooms, so this chowder doesn't contain any.

Ingredients:

1. 2 tablespoons olive oil
2. 2 medium-sized onions, finely chopped
3. 6 cloves of garlic, minced
4. 1 teaspoon crushed oregano / omam seeds
5. 1 potato, diced
6. 3 celery stalks, diced
7. 3 carrots, diced
8. 3 heads of broccoli (the florets)
9. 1 small head of cauliflower (the florets)
10. 2 zucchinis, diced
11. 2 cups corn kernels
12. 2 teaspoon kitchen-king masala / curry powder (optional)
13. 2 teaspoons chopped chives
14. 2 teaspoons Italian basil, gently cut
15. 2 teaspoons salt
16. 2.5 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
17. 3 cups water
18. 4 cups low-fat milk

Preparation:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large sauce-pan or dutch oven. Add the crushed oregano to the oil. Saute the onions until they turn translucent. Add half the garlic and saute 30 seconds. 
2. Add the potato, celery, carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower, along with salt. Stir together on medium heat for 5-10 minutes.
3. Add zucchini and corn, sprinkle the freshly ground black pepper and curry powder/masala powder, and saute for another 10 minutes on medium heat. 
4. Add the water, cover and cook for about 15 minutes. Check if all the vegetables are cooked. If not, cook until they are done.
5. Separately heat the low-fat milk until it just boils. 
6. Add the heated milk to the cooked vegetables. Stir well. Add the remaining garlic and the basil and let everything simmer on low-heat for 10 minutes.

Before serving, sprinkle the chives as a garnish.