Tiramisu

Hmmmm Tiramisu...even telling it out makes my mouth water. Yummmmm!!!!! From the time i came to the US post marriage my favorite restaurant has always been "Olive Garden". The unlimited breadsticks and the minestrone soup are more than enough to fill up your stomach that i hardly have the space to eat the entrée ordered.By default the dessert that i order is always Tiramisu. I love the dessert so much that i decided to try making it at home. So on a fine weekend i left my daughter with her dad (telling my hubby it was dad-daughter bonding time) and decided to try it out.

There are people who would do the whole Tiramisu from scratch but with a 8 month old i do not have too much time on my hands , so i normally buy the necessary ingredients.

I have two recipes i follow - one with eggs and one without.  Today i will give out the one without eggs. This is easy to make and if you are gonna have friends over for dinner , then you can make it in the morning and push it into the refrigerator to chill. Its ready to serve in time for dinner :).

So what exactly is a Tiramisu??? The below is a source from my best friend the Wiki :)

             Tiramisu (Italian: Tiramisù; Venetian: Tiramesù " [tirameˈsu]) is one of the most popular Italian cakes. It is made of savoiardi (otherwise known as lady finger biscuits) dipped in espresso or strong coffee or rum, layered with a whipped mixture of egg yolks, mascarpone cheese, and sugar, and topped with cocoa.

          The original recipe called for the following ingredients: savoiardi biscuits, eggs, sugar, mascarpone, cocoa powder, honey, and carbonated water.In the original recipe, there was no liquor as the cake was originally aimed at children and the elderly, and the original shape was round. The phrase tirami su literally means "pick me up" or "pull me up" in reference to the effects of the sugar and espresso.

Please bear with the photo for now as i am still practicing on the aspects of these photos. Will put up a better one soon :)

The source for my recipe is from the Betty Crocker Website which you can see here.

Prep Time : 30 mins

Total time : 4h 30 mins ( 4hrs to refrigerate)

Servings : Depends on how big or small a piece one cuts :)

Ingredients :

8oz softened Mascarpone cheese or cream cheese if one does not have Mascarapone ( leave the cheese out at room temp , if not microwave it for a min)

4oz powdered sugar

2tbsp light rum

8oz heavy whipping cream

1 package ladyfingers (some would say 12 would do , but i use all 24 from the package. I buy it from Trader's Joe as these are of better quality)

4oz  prepared espresso or strong coffee ( should be chilled)

4tsps baking cocoa

Chocolate shavings for serving

Preparation :

1. In a large vessel (comfortable  for you to beat in) beat the mascarpone ( or cream cheese) and sugar on medium speed.

2. Add in the rum and beat all together.

3. In a separate bowl beat the whipping cream till you see stiff peaks being formed.

4.Now mix both the mixtures together and beat them together (only on medium speed).

5.Slightly dip the ladyfinger's in the espresso ( dip it very lightly as otherwise they will turn soggy) and in any pan of your wish ( i used a 8*8*2 square pan) arrange the ladyfingers horizontally ( i used 12 on each layer).

6.Spread half of the cheese mixture evenly over the ladyfingers and sprinkle cocoa powder on top.

7.Now once again on top of the cocoa arrange another layer of espresso dipped ladyfingers , spread the remaining cheese mixture , sprinkle cocoa powder.

8.Wrap up the pan in foil or plastic wrap and allow it to refrigerate for 4 hrs.

9. When you want to serve remove the pan , cut slices , drizzle chocolate shavings and your Tiramisu is ready to eat.

Note: Please remember to leave it covered in the refrigerator.

Samosas

It was a rainy Saturday evening and it bugged me that we had to stay indoors and that too on a weekend. Especially having an 8 month old and not taking her out was something i definitely hated. After enjoying the awesome weather in California , NJ was definitely a no-no to me. But my hubby's job demanded the move and here i am. 

I have always loved samosas from my childhood and there has never been a day when i have asked for it and my dad said "NO" :). I wanted to make it but i kept thinking that its a tedious process and did not want to get involved in it. But this rainy evening increased my craving for samosas with hot Chai and so i decided let me try my hands on it. So there i was blog hunting. I searched a couple of blogs and came up with a combination for the filling that would satisfy my taste buds :).

So what exactly is a Samosa ???? This is in case anyone who is not Indian chances upon my blog :).

Samosa generally consists of a fried or baked triangular shell with a savory filling which may include spiced potatoes, onion, peas, coriander, andlentils. The size and shape of a samosa as well as the consistency of the patty used can vary considerably, although it is mostly triangular. Samosas are often served with imli chutney or curd.

Ingredients :

For the shell :

1cup all purpose flour

salt to taste

little oil

water ( enough to knead the dough)

ajwain is generally added to the dough but i don't prefer it .

oil for frying

For the filling :

2 medium sized potatoes - boiled and crumbled

1/2 cup boiled green peas 

1 small sized onion

1tsp ginger garlic paste

2 green chillis

1/2 tsp red chilli powder ( you may skip the chillis and increase this to 1 tsp)

a pinch of turmeric

1/4 tsp garam masala

salt to taste

chopped corainder leaves

1/4 tsp cumin seeds.

ghee for frying ( i always add ghee , but this can be substituted with oil)

So how do we go about it?????

Mix the all purpose flour with salt and oil. To this add water slowly to make a dough. Do not add to much water as then the dough would not be firm and that makes it difficult to knead.

Sprinkle some water slighlty on the mixed dough and leave it covered for 30 mins.

In the meantime , add ghee in a pan. Add cumin seeds and when this splutters add onion and green chillies. Fry onion till it turns translucent. To this add g&g paste and fry till the raw odor is gone.

Now add the cooked peas and  fry for a min or two. To this add the crumbled potatoes and mix all together. Fry for a min.

Now add the dry powders and salt and fry for a few mins. Add the chopped coriander leaves and remove.

Make small sized balls of the dough. Roll it flat as you would roll a chappati. Cut the rolled out dough into 2 halves.

Take one half and form a cone out of it.Seal the point where the two ends meet. Hold the cone between your fingers and add the filling. Wet your finger and run it along the end and seal the cone.

Add enough oil in a kadai or pan and fry the samsosas. Remove once they turn golden.

Hot samosas are now ready to serve with tomato ketchup , green chutney or any other combination you may like. 

I had my garma garam samosas with tomato ketchup and cup of hot chai :)

Banana Almond Cake

Hey to all my friends out there !!!!!

So this is going to be my first post on a recipe i just tried out. I wanted to post another recipe but then this turned out awesome that i wanted to post this :)

There were 2 reasons that i wanted to bake a cake. One was that my daughter is completing 8 months tomorrow and the other reason was that i had too many ripe bananas sitting at home. I knew that if i did not put it into proper use it would end in the trash can. I do not have a multitude of recipes in hand as i am still an amateur cook and so i went blog hunting. I wanted something simple so that i could also surprise my hubby. The reason behind it is that every time i bake i make sure my hubby is nearby so that he can help me out for every small thing :) and he keeps telling me " if i do all the things , i think i can bake the cake myself" :)

The original recipe was from the blog Mahanandi and the link is here . I made a whole lot of changes and the end result was the Banana Almond Cake :).

To all the other fellow bloggers  - i am still an amateur and please excuse any errors on my side. The photo that i took is not that excellent , but i guess for a first attempt it is not too bad :). So do bear with me.

Ingredients :

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup chopped almonds ( or any nuts that u have at home)

1/2 cup milk

1 ripe banana - mashed

1 tsp Vanilla extract

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsps ghee or oil

1/2 tsp salt

How to go about it :

 Preheat the oven at 350F

 In a bowl mix all the dry ingredients together ( flour , sugar , nuts , baking powder)

 In another bowl add the bananas , vanilla extract , ghee / oil . Whisk them all together ( i used an electric mixer on medium speed). To this add half of the dry ingredient mixture along with the milk. Beat again on medium speed. Add the balance of the dry ingredients and beat the whole mixture on medium speed.

Remember not to beat the mixture too much as then it would start to crack when you bake.

Grease a baking pan and pour the batter into the pan. Bake at 350F for anywhere between 30 to 40 mins. 

To know if you the cake is baked and ready , insert a toothpick in the cake. If the toothpick comes out clean , your cake is ready.

I had it with a dollop of ice -cream and chocolate sauce and loved it :). Iam sure this will also go well with kids .

Enjoy the cake and do let me know how well it turned out :)

Also let me know your opinion on my blog.

Back to blogging after a real long long time

Hello Everyone,

I know its been a very long duration since i blogged. My daughter , moving to a new state , getting adapted to the weather and to top it all a game addiction.... oh man , all these kept me away from my blog. I would not regret anything , but of course i do regret getting addicted to games on Facebook :P. So i finally decided today that i would slow down and slowly quit the games too. 

My daughter turns 8 months with this month end . Now i do have some time to come back to my blog and so here i am. 

I am going to begin it with cooking this time as having a baby made me realize i would soon need to start on ways to make my daughter eat and that too with totally innovative ways. My hubby keeps telling me these days that i keep trying something new or the other now when i have a baby and am busy rather than when i had all the time in the world before my daughter:). Does he not sound a tiny weeny bit jealous and don't i love it !!!!!!!!!!

OK i am going to end this post now and will be back later :)

Have a good day everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to Baby Ananya!!!!

I have had a number of friends telling me to drop by and leave a few words in the blog when time permits. But then with the arrival of my daughter , we also had to move from coast to coast and so my schedule was hectic.

Anyways this post is to inform all my friends in the blogging community that the latest addition to my family is my baby daughter Ananya. She was born on July 31st , 2009. Both me and my daughter narrowly missed sharing the same birthdate [:(].

Ananya means "unique" and deciding the name was the biggest decision that me and my husband had :).

My daughter has completed 2 months now and i have decided to find the time and come back blogging :). Iam also going to add my mom's recipes to my blogs. Since shes been here with me , i have learnt her recipes and intend to share those too . The reason behind this being that post marriage my hubby thought me whatever cooking i do these days. So my moms cooking has tempted me to add her recipes to my blog.

So iam gonna be back regularly (hopefully , have my fingers crossed)!!!!!!!

Ciao for now!!!!!