Gooey Chocolate Cookie and Merry Christmas

This is the recipe of food network chef Paula Deen and I followed the exact way it says and this one is really wonderful dessert. My boy is not a frosting lover but he loves chocolate cake and this one is for him the way he likes the chocolate cake and to add more, its gooey which also he likes. When I first said just the name of the recipe to him, he was full of excitement and he could not wait and he wanted me to make it immediately. The recipe goes like we got mix all the ingredients and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hrs for make it little harder and in that 3 hrs my boy would have opened the fridge and checked on the dough for nearly 20 times, telling me its harden enough to bake …hmmm he loves chocolate soo much. For me nothing can make me happier than watching my kids enjoying the food what I prepare and I got that happiness in this recipe. Just two days it’s all finished not a single speck is left and now he wants more and started asking me to bake again.

Ingredients
Chocolate cake mix – 1 packet (use any kind of chocolate cake)
Cream Cheese – 1 packet / 8 oz
Butter – 1 stick (room temperature)
Vanilla essence – 1tsp
Egg – 1
Powdered sugar – 1 cup

Method
Mix cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl using a hand mixer or power mixer.
Add the egg and vanilla essence and mix.
Add the whole packet of chocolate cake mix and mix and this will hard dough and don’t add any of water or milk to it.
Refrigerate this mixture for 2 to 3 hrs.
Pre-heat oven to 350*F
Once the dough is harden enough, roll them to small balls and coat them with the powdered sugar and place in the cookie sheet and bake them for 10 mins in the oven.
That’s it the tasty and yummy gooey chocolate cookie is ready. It will be harder outside and gooey inside. Enjoy!!

                                       Happy Holiday to all !!!

Priya from http://recipes-priya.blogspot.com/ has passed on this award to me and I would like to share this with all my fellow bloggers, please everyone collect it.

Spicy Orange Chicken

Everyone who lives in America should be familiar with this Chinese-American orange chicken commonly found at Chinese fast food restaurants. What makes this dish so special is the combination of orange flavor and the sweetness. I choose to make this orange chicken in my kitchen for its flavor but I made it more spicy with little sweetness  and this is the Indo-Chinese-American version  of orange chicken. For the orange flavor I replaced orange peel (zest) for orange juice just for no reason and I felt juice is better than zest and if you wish, you could very well use the orange peel and remember that you have to soak the zest in water for half an hour before using it. The both spiciness and sweetness made this dish really awesome so please don’t consider adding sugar or brown sugar as optional, I would say it is the secret ingredient which adds more flavor and taste to the dish.

Ingredient
For marinating
Boneless Chicken – 1lb
Ginger garlic paste – 1 tsp
Soy sauce – 1tsp
Vinegar – 1tsp
Cornstarch – 1 tsp
Salt and pepper to taste

Other Ingredients
Carrot and Bell pepper – 1 cup
Onion – ½ of one chopped
Ginger Chopped – 1 tsp
Garlic Chopped – 2tsp
Orange juice – 1/3 Cup
Ketchup – 1tsp
Chili Garlic sauce – 2 tsp (add according to your taste)
Brown Sugar to taste
Soy Sauce – 2 tsp
Vinegar – 1tsp
Cornstarch – 1tsp mix with water
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil - 2 tsp
Oil to deep fry the chicken

Method
Marinate the chicken with the ingredients under 'for marinating' and keep refrigerated for minimum 1 hr and deep fry in oil and transfer to the kitchen towel to drain the excess oil.
Heat oil in a non-stick pan or wok and garlic and ginger and fry till aromatic and add onion and all the veggies and fry for few mins and add the orange juice with little water and add the chili garlic sauce and soy sauce and salt and pepper and cook for 5 mins. Add the brown sugar and ketchup and mix and add the chicken pieces and cook if you want the gravy to be thick add the cornstarch water or just to your desired consistency. Enjoy with white rice or fried rice.

Note: Increase or decrease the amount brown sugar depending on the sweetness you need.

Keema Paratha

Oh my goodness!!! All these days I never knew that the keema paratha would taste so delicious. I have heard of people making keema paratha but I didn’t show any interest in it because as I said earlier lamb or goat meat is not my family’s favorite so never took a chance to try before and I don’t know how I ended up doing it and really tasted excellent and I regret now for not trying all these days. I usually make curry with keema for chapatti and as usual I planned to prepare that but all of a sudden I just thought why not stuff this time and still had a fear whether the stuffing is ooze out as keema is not a very smooth compared to potato stuffing but some how I gave a try and really came out good like without oozing out. I am posting the way I prepared the keema stuffing but you can also prepare the keema the way you like but only thing you should remember is it should be completely dry or else the stuffing’s would make the dough too soggy and it would tear while rolling and all the stuffing’s will ooze out and that would be a total messy. Here is the recipe for keema paratha.

Ingredients
Keema/minced meat – 1 lb
Onion – 1 finely chopped
Tomato – 1 finely chopped
Ginger garlic paste – 2 tsp
Coriander powder – 2 tsp
Chili powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Garam masala – 1 tsp
Cumin Powder – 1tsp
Oil – 2 tsp
Salt to taste
Chapatti dough

Method
Heat oil in a non-stick pan and onion and sauté till tender and add the tomato and fry for few mins and add the ginger garlic paste and fry and add the minced meat and mix well and add the all the dry powders and add little water and close and cooked until its done and still cook with open lid until its completely dry and note minced meat can cook fast.
Take a small size dough and roll to a small round and place a table spoon full of keema in the middle and bring all the ends together and close and roll with care to a paratha and cook in a heated griddle on both side with little oil or ghee. This would taste great by itself or eat with curd and enjoy!!

Crispy Oven fried Chicken

Every one like crispy and fried chicken but this crispy oven fried chicken is delicious and much healthier version than the traditional deep-fried one. This heart healthy fried chicken is quite easy to prepare and tastes better and kids would love to eat and we can too eat as many with guilt free. This dish takes absolutely no oil other than the non-stick cooking spray I sprayed over the chicken. Since this is the healthier version I even removed the skin, which contains more fat, and still it will be crispy and fabulous. You can use any part of the chicken you like and I used chicken drumstick, that’s my boy’s favorite. This chicken would be crispy outside and juicy inside.

Ingredients
Chicken drumstick – 4
Ginger garlic paste – 1 tsp
Chili powder – 1 and 1/2 tsp
Lemon juice – 1 tsp
Honey – 1 tsp
Panko Japanese style breadcrumbs – 1 cup
Egg – 1
All purpose flour – 2 tsp
Parmesan cheese – 2 tsp (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Non-stick cooking spray

Method
Remove the skin from the chicken and soak in a bowl of water adding ½ tsp of chili powder, salt and lemon juice and refrigerate for at least minimum 3 hrs.
Preheat oven to 350*F
In a bowl beat egg and mix with it ginger garlic paste, ½ tsp chili powder, flour, honey and salt.
In a plate mix the panko breadcrumbs with Parmesan cheese and ½ tsp of chili powder.
Drop the chicken in the egg mix and coat well and dip in the breadcrumbs and evenly coat the chicken with it and place in a cookie sheet after spraying the non-stick spray.
Repeat this for all the chicken pieces and spray the cooking spray on the chicken and cook in the oven for 40 mins. Enjoy the healthier crispy oven fired chicken.

Fun with Poori

I know what you are thinking, what kind of fun I would have had with poori, you are right I didn’t have any fun it was my kids you had fun with poori the reason was the shapes of the poori. My boy likes different kinds of shapes even for dosa, usually he prefers Sponge bob and Patrick shape (two characters from Sponge bob cartoon) and that one I never found any difficult in doing but he asks for different shape in poori too, its quite not easy to make but some how I do it but not to perfection and my boy starts complaining and its always tough for me whenever I make poori. And now he eats poori with lots of fun and happy for me too and this happened after I bought the cookie cutter and using it for making different shapes with poori and my kids having lots of fun while eating poori. So if you have kids who likes or prefer eating like that and even if you don’t have any intension of making cookie its worth buying them and you can see to yourself how happy they would be to eat a dinosaur or any shape in that matter. In the picture you can see the few shapes I made or I was asked to make with the cookie cutter.

Stuffed Brinjal Curry

This is an Andra's popular dish and its called "Gutti Vankaya Currry" and every one seems have their own version for this recipe. Each of my friends use different ingredients for the same recipe, I dunno which of it is the traditional, any way what every one do in common is grind all the ingredients and stuff to the brinjal..ha ha. I follow the way we used to cook this dish for many years at home and I am sticking to it and every one loves that way, may be some day I might also try my other friend’s version too. Whenever I see the small brinjal in the Indian store, I make sure to get as I love this stuffed brinjal a lot, for past one month I couldn’t go to Indian store, my hubby who goes never brings this small brinjal, he gets only the big one and this time I was very specific to get the small one and as he did, here I am with the recipe of my favorite dish.

Ingredients

Small Brinjal - 8

Sesame Seeds - 2 tsp

Onion - half of one full onion , chopped

Tomato - 1 medium chopped

Cinnamon - 1/2" stick

Garlic - 4 cloves

Coconut - 2tsp

Whole red chili - 3

Coriander Powder - 2 tsp

Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp

Tamarind Paste - 3/4 tsp ( I used the tamarind concentrate)

Jaggery - 1 tsp

Curry Leaves - 5

Oil - 3 tsp

Salt to taste

Method

Dry roast the sesame seeds until it turn golden color and set aside. Fry onion, garlic, red chili, cinnamon, tomato and coconut in a pan with 1tsp of oil until onion and tomato become soft. Grind this along with sesame seeds, and other ingredients other than oil to a smooth paste.

Cut the stem of the all the brinjal and retain the crown, make a '+' cut on the other end of brinjal and dont make it into two halves just a slit is fine. Stuff the grinded masala into the each brinjals.

Heat oil in a skillet and place the brinjal in the skillet and cook until you see wrinkles on them. Now pour the remaining masalas and cook covered until the gravy thickens. Serve hot with rice and Enjoy!!!!

Elephant Yam/Senai kizhangu Vada

Elephant yam or senai kizhangu or suran in hindi is one great veggie which tastes awesome but yam just reminds me of the strong itching they causes after cutting them and all these days I never had courage to cook them in my kitchen, but applying the coconut oil in hands would avoid the itchiness still I couldn’t and at last somehow I gathered some courage and cooked it but I didn’t apply oil, I used latex glove and it was far better than oil and it worked wonderfully , no itch at all, thank god.
Making vada using yam is the best recipe I could think of with yam, it is so tasty and whoever tastes this would easily mistake them to a lamb keema vada and is its true is tastes exactly like that. Usually I have seen people making curry or porial with yam/suran and I think this recipe would be different and interesting to you all.
Always remember to take all kind of precaution before chopping to avoid the itchiness, it would be great if you get frozen yam at your Indian store, better use that and you can avoid the itchiness I guess, never used one. Here is the recipe for elephant yam vada,

Ingredients
Elephant Yam Grated – 2 Cups (wear glove or rub coconut oil in hands)
Roasted gram – ¼ Cup
Green chilies – 3
Ginger – ½”
Garlic – 5 cloves
Onion – half of one chopped
Cloves – 3
Cinnamon – ½”
Coconut – 2 tsp
Fennel seed – 1 tsp
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Cilantro
Breadcrumbs – 3 tsp (optional)
Salt to taste
Oil to deep fry

Method
Grind all the ingredients other than elephant yam and breadcrumbs to a coarse paste and mix with the grated yam and note that if your yam is little watery after grating, just squeeze out the water and mix with the grinded paste and if is still not thick enough or when you fry and if it is too oily add the breadcrumbs and fry it, that also adds more crispiness to vada. Make small flat round with it and deep fry in oil until it is brown on both side and transfer to the kitchen paper to drain the excess oil. Enjoy it!!!

Streusel Topped Pumpkin pie

I made this pumpkin pie for our thanksgiving feast, first of all I had no intension of celebrating thanksgiving but my son said we should have a special meal on thanksgiving day but I tried to convince him that its not our tradition but he replied once we are here in US, we got to follow their tradition too and I had nothing to say rather than agreeing with him and that’s how I ended up making a special feast on thanksgiving day but I refused to make turkey and substituted with smaller bird chicken and made it the Indian tandoor way and I also made mashed potato, gravy, baked an Italian bun and steam cooked plain sweet peas and one food that really stood out is the pumpkin pie.
This the best pumpkin pie I have ever tasted (I haven’t tasted any before), I made this for the first time and I got the recipe from the ehow.com website and once again I say baking is always easy and comes out good if follow the exact measurement and it that case this recipe was a great success. My hubby loved it and he almost licked his spoon. Streusel is a kind of crumb topping made with some nuts that goes on top of the pumpkin pie, which gives a wonderful twist to the taste.

Ingredients
Pumpkin Puree – 1 can
Sweetened condensed milk – 1 can
Pie Crust – 1
Egg – 2
Ground Cinnamon – 1 tsp
Ground Nutmeg – 1 tsp
Salt – ½ tsp

For streusel topping
Brown Sugar – ¼ Cup
All purpose flour – 2 tsp
Walnut or pecan – ½ Cup chopped
Butter – 2 tbsp
Ground Cinnamon – 1tsp

Method
Pre-heat Oven to 425*F
Separate yolk and white.
In a large mixing bowl, combine pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, eggs yolk, spices, and salt and blend well.
In a separate bowl, beat well the egg white until you get a stiff peak and fold the egg white into the pumpkin mixture. Pour the mixture into the pie crust and place the crust on the cookie pan and bake in the oven for 15 mins.
For streusel topping, combine brown sugar, flour, walnut or pecan, cinnamon and butter, note that butter should be used directly from fridge not melted, use your hands to mash the butter and mix with all ingredients.
After pie is baked for 15 mins, reduce the oven temp to 350*F .
Top the pie with the streusel and bake in the oven again for 40 mins.
Cool for 1 hour and refrigerate for 3 hours before serving, serve with whipped cream.

Kanchipuram Idli

I have no idea why it is called by this name, might be popular in kanchipuram? I know  kanchipuram is only famous for temples and silk saree but idli?? I really don't know. The only time I had this idli is at my sisters place and I never ever got a chance to have after that and this idli is totally different from the regular one, first by its shape they use a different mould for that and to my surprise my sister has got that and the second is little spice like pepper and cumin is added to the batter.
One day just a thought of this idli flashed my mind and remembered my sister and immediately I got the recipe from her and here I am posting the recipe of this idli, which I relished. I was told this idli stays good for couple of days and best food during traveling. Coconut chutney is the best combo for this but my boy doesn’t like that so I made tomato chutney and it was really awesome, I will soon post the recipe for tomato chutney. Now here is the recipe for kanchipuram idli…

Ingredients
Raw rice – 1 Cup
Idli Rice – 1 Cup
Urad dhal – 1 cup
Curd /Yogurt – ½ Cup
Black Pepper – 1 tsp
Cumin Seed/Jeera – 1tsp
Ginger – 1”
Curry leaves – 4
Salt to taste

Method
Soak rice and urad dhal separately for 3 hours and grind them separately and note that rice need not be too smooth, little coarse is good for this recipe and add salt and mix them and set to ferment for 8 hrs.
When you are ready to make idli, grind together the pepper, cumin, ginger, curry leaves and add to the idli batter along with the curd and mix well and make like the regular idli and enjoy with the chutney of your choice.