Ham and Cheese Crepes

I have been super busy the past two months. Just completed a very big and very important project in life that will serve as a retirement cushion. So pretty stoked! But what that necessarily entailed, was me not having time for the small pleasures in life – like cooking something exciting and blogging about it. The co-resident plays football every Saturday morning and comes home ravenously hungry. I got up early today and decided to make a decadent breakfast for him, to make up for all the days in the past few weeks that he has had to eat Maggi noodles! A ham and cheese crepe is a very nice way of saying thank you don’t you think?

Cinnamon Sugar Muffins

Some things in life are simple. 1+1=2, beach + margarita = holiday and cinnamon + sugar = awesomeness! When I chanced upon this recipe, I was skeptical. The ingredient list was small. The process was easy. And the final product seemed very basic. But the more I kept thinking about the muffin that’s going to be coated with cinnamon sugar, the more I wanted to make it. The story goes back a couple of years – in a mall in Bangkok. (It’s nothing like the Hangover II, so get your mind out of the gutter!). Now BKK is a shopper’s paradise. I landed and checked myself into a hotel which was bang opposite one their biggest malls – yes, I had my priorities in order! The city is hot as hell, so it’s very thoughtful of the government to connect malls to other malls via air-conditioned pathways. The end result being, you feel you are in the biggest mall on the planet!

My daily routine consisted of getting up early, grabbing a quick brekkie at the hotel café and waiting till the mall opened at 10 AM. As soon as the first store opened it’s shutters, I was in shopping mode! Like a ninja on a mission, I went from store to store and floor to floor – looking, comparing, bargaining and buying. The only break I took was a loo break and a lunch break. Ok, so I’m crazy! Luggiing my loot around (I used a big suitcase with wheels :P), I finally saw it. A pretty little bakery done up in pink and dark brown – like candy and chocolate. I was inexplicably drawn towards it - I completely empathize with Hansel and Gretel! There were rows and rows of all the goodies you could imagine – doughnuts, layer cakes, cupcakes, pastries, tarts, truffles and I could go on! I put as many things I could on the tray along with a sugar bun that also made its way there. I sat down to enjoy my sugar coma inducing meal. And you know what the surprise package was?  – The tiny little perfect sugar coated butter bun! I have dreams about it some days (no kidding!).

So the climax is simple. The sugar coated muffin = my substitute for the sugar coated bun. And I’m currently patting my stomach with a Looney smile plastered across my face. Enough said.

Strawberries and Banana Breakfast Smoothie

My fridge is filled with boxes and boxes of Strawberries. Yes, tis the season to be jolly …again! I’ve raved about my strawberry love many times before so you already know I’m crazy about the little suckers. And I always stock up whenever they come around. Apart from eating them dunked in hot chocolate fudge or enjoying them with the traditional fresh cream I also like to make a mean smoothie out of it. Besides, I just bought a nice Morphy Richards blender this month … so I need to puree and blend! I call this my breakfast smoothie because it gives me the necessary kick to start the day. Yes, I need a kick… I am NOT a morning person. Come to think of it, I’m not a night owl either. I’m a nine-to-fiver! Unfortunately those kinds of jobs are hard to come by and even if they do, it will involve sucking up to someone in a government office! Now that I’m done ranting about the lack of optimal timed employment, I come back to the smoothie. It’s yummy, it’s easy, it’s healthy and it’s in season. It’s a complete breakfast, so you can give your Masala Dosa a break today!

Mango Lassi and Opportunism

Mango season is almost getting over and I am downing mangoes by the dozens! There’s a frantic need for me to consume as much as I can before I walk out one day and realize the mangoes are gone (for this year at least!). Now Frooti (it’s the largest selling mango drink in India) will have you believe that you can have fresh mango juice throughout the year… but we all know anything that’s stretched to make it live out of season is, well… bullshit. Opportunism is defined as the practice of taking advantage of circumstances with little regard for consequences. So my need to hoard in season, is justified I think! However, this drive to consume more mangoes than I possibly should, has some very visible repercussions – a couple of extra kilos! (Luckily a flowy summer top will hide most of the abnormalities :P). I digress as usual, but the point of this whole post was to tell you eat as many mangoes as you can before it’s too late!

Strawberry Griddle Cakes for a Fancy Breakfast

Yes, I know it’s another recipe with strawberries back to back. But I have so many in my fridge that I need to use them and use them in innovative ways! (lest the co-resident realize my evil plan of ‘waste to wealth’). I have a supermarket weakness. If something looks fresh, is in season and the store has a buy one get one free offer – I’m hooked. Rest assured, I will be carting loads of it back home! Come on now, who doesn’t like a good bargain? Thankfully Strawberries are such accommodating fruit that you can pair them with almost anything and achieve success. Now coming to Griddle cakes. First of all, don’t let the name take you on a wild goose chase. Another name for a frying pan is a griddle and griddle cakes are nothing but pancakes that are just a little firmer. So you can call them Strawberry pancakes if you please… but I much prefer the fancier sounding name. (Fools the co-resident into thinking he’s getting something radical to chew on!) I served the Griddle cakes with some strawberries in wine instead of the routine ‘drizzle the pancake syrup on’. And since that means I’m having wine for breakfast, it automatically becomes a fancy brekkie! (Ok, so I have low expectations…Sue me!)

Strawberry Griddle Cakes with Strawberries steeped in Wine

Prep time: 30 mins + cooling time

Serves: 4

What you need:

125 gms self raising Flour

1 pinch Cinnamon and Salt

½ tsp Baking Powder

30 gms Castor Sugar

1 Egg

1 Lemon, juice of

125 ml Milk

150 gms fresh Strawberries, diced

Salted Butter

For the Strawberries in Wine:

200ml Rose Wine

1 tsp Vanilla essence

50 gms Castor Sugar

200 gms fresh Strawberries, sliced

What to do:

To make the Strawberries in Wine: Heat the wine and sugar in a large pan until the sugar dissolves. Bring the liquid to a boil toss in the strawberries, take off the heat. Add the vanilla essence, cover the pan and set aside for the fruit to steep in the liquid until cool.

To make the griddle cakes: Sift the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Stir in the sugar. Make a well in the center and tip in the egg, milk and lemon juice to make a batter. Add the diced strawberries to the mix. Mix well till small bubbles appear on the surface of the batter.

Heat a non stick frying pan and add a little salted butter. Add spoonfuls of the batter to the pan to make small thick pancakes. Cook on medium heat until bubbles start to appear on the surface of the griddle cakes – about 2 or 3 mins. Flip and continue to cook for another 2-3 mins. Repeat with the rest. Serve warm with the wine steeped strawberries.

Note: If cooking in batches, keep the cooked ones warm in a low oven while you finish the rest.

Strawberry Milkshake and My 100th Post

It’s my 100^th post today. I can’t believe I had enough material to go this far (apparently I do!) Bloggers say that lasting the 2 years is the biggest challenge. You need to be interested in what you blog about and let’s face it, people need to be interested in what you write about. You might say that you give a rat’s ass about what people think…but that’s not true. You need an audience to appreciate art. (Ok, in my case … the art of blabbering!) If nothing else, I have at least 100 failsafe recipes that I can always fall back on! I’ve also come to realize that I care as much,  (if not more) about my pictures that accompany each blog post. So the journey for me has been about taking baby steps to produce pics that I am proud of. (Here’s the link to my first post and picture. (Click Here) No, am not ashamed, it’s a learning curve right?) :P

Talking of learning curves, was I going to put up some insurmountable culinary challenge as my 100^th post? Hell No! Most of the inspiring recipes for me are ones that you look at and decide instantly, “I can make that …tonight or right now”. It’s recipes that look simple and delicious and goad you into thinking that you can create them with a flourish of your hand. So here’s the Strawberry Smoothie recipe. No fuss, all Love!

P.S. Thanks for stopping by…

Strawberry Smoothie

Prep time: 10 mins

Serves: 2

What you need:

200 gms fresh Strawberries

400 ml of Milk, cold

2 scoops of Vanilla Ice Cream

2 Tbsp of Sugar

What to do:

Take the green tops off the strawberries (he he he!), Wash them under running water. Toss them in a blender with the Sugar and whir around for 3 mins till you get a lovely red puree. Now Add the ice cream in and blend for 1 min. Finish by adding the milk in and run the blender for 2 more mins till you get a nice and frothy mix. Check for sweetness. (you can add more sugar if you want at this point – what are you like carzy??)

Pour into a tall glass and enjoy making a milk mustache!

I love this pic below... Something about it makes me feel like I'm floating on a cloud :)

Potato and Sausage Soup with Pesto

I resisted for a whole month. I did. Honest. Everyone says I make too many dishes with pesto in it. But…. I love Pesto! And how could I not start the New Year with another way to use the glorious green?! This time I added it to a soup. And not just any soup – the quintessential soup for the manly man. The meat and potatoes soup! It’s technically a main course, but since it’s eaten out of a soup bowl (albeit a rather large one) we’ll still call it soup. As with all things creamy and filled with carbs and meat – this is a hearty one. Meditate on the word – Hearty. It dosen’t just mean ‘filling’, it means something that will make you all loving and giving once you’ve eaten it. Seriously, have you ever seen someone deprived of Carbohydrates? Bitchy bitchy. But not with this soup … all the nastiness just melts into the bowl. Don’t believe me? Try wolfing down a bowl of this and go take a look in the mirror. Did you see the contented smile plastered across your face? There. (Atleast you’ll be an epitome of goodness till dinnertime.) Saving the world darling, that’s what I do best …

Potato and Sausage Soup with Pesto

Prep time: 10 mins

Cooking time: 40 mins

Serves: 4 as main course

What you need:

4 large Sausages (I used Chicken franks)

3-4 Tbsp Pesto (click here for recipe or use store-bought Pesto)

4 large/ 450 gms Potatoes

3 Onions, chopped

2 Tbsp Olive Oil

2 Tbsp Butter

2 ½ cups Chicken Stock

2 ½ cups Milk

100 gms dried Pasta (macaroni/ conchigliette/ spirali – any small shape)

2/3 cup Cream

Parsley, chopped – to garnish

What to do:

Par Boil and keep aside – potatoes and sausages. Peel and chop the potatoes into bite sized pieces. Chop the sausages as well – I prefer franks as they hold their shape in the soup. Heat olive oil and butter in a pan and fry the chopped onions for 4 mins, till cooked but not coloured. Add the stock and milk to the pan, bring to the boil. Toss in the potatoes and sausages and simmer for 12-15 minutes. Meanwhile cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet and drain and keep aside. Blend in the cream into the simmering stock and simmer for 5 mins. Add the parsley and pesto (I like 4 Tbsp for a nice pesto hit) and combine well. Check seasoning and then adjust for taste with salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Fold in the cooked pasta and heat through for 2-3 mins.

Transfer the soup to individual serving bowls and serve with some freshly grated parmesan and garlic bread.