Happy New Year and Hershey's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Wish you all a very very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Hope everyone had a good start for the year 2014. We welcomed the New year in company of  very good friends and great food. I am really thankful for the wonderful year that passed by with lots and lots of good memories. My in-laws visited us and stayed with us for 4 months. The days when they were here passed in a jiffy with lots of travelling, visiting relatives ,friends and lots of fun. The little boy started his first school, the heart break of seeing him cry and hug me so that he does not have to go to school, our first beach visit in US, making sand castles and mud pies... Overall a wonderful year. Hope the year 2014 too brings in lot of happiness, prosperity and peace.

2013 saw me baking a lot. I utilized the huge oven to its fullest by baking for most of the occasions. I signed up for my son's class parties so that I could get a chance to try out different recipes that I had bookmarked. I love baking and the aroma that fills the entire house.  The house reminds me of the bakeries that I used to visit regularly during childhood.
I made this Chocolate chip cookie for my son's Christmas party and it was well received. This recipe was printed on the cover of Hershey's Chocolate Chips. I made a trail version before the actual party and my friends loved it. I followed the same recipe again and it was a hit - With crisp edges and soft and chewy center. I used milk chocolate as kids love the cookie sweet. Feel free to substitute with semi sweet chocolate chips or throw in few nuts and it will be a hit.

Here is what's needed:
1 cup or 2 sticks butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup Light brown sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Eggs
2-1/4 cups All purpose flour
1 tsp Baking soda
1/2 tsp Salt
2 cups Milk Chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Procedure:
1) Heat oven to 375 deg F.
2) Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in a large bowl until creamy. Add eggs, beat well.
3) Stir together flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually add to butter mixture, beating well until blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts in using.
4) Drop using an ice cream scoop or teaspoon onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 8-10 mins until lightly browned. cool slightly and transfer onto a cooling rack.

Tastes delicious when warm and served with cold milk. Enjoy

Bhadang ~ Tried and Tasted

Nupur's One hot Stove is one of the blogs that I love a lot. I love her simplified recipes. I have already tried pav bhaji from her blog and have been making it regularly now. This bhadang too is adapted from her blog. My family loves this a lot and I always have a container filled with delicious snack. When in mood for some quick snack in the evening I just add some chopped onions, chopped tomato, chopped coriander leaves and lemon juice as mentioned by Nupur. My little boy and my mother in law loves this snack a lot.
I have copied the same recipe with my changes marked in red.

Here's what we need:

6 cups puffed rice
4 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 cup peanuts
5-6 garlic cloves
8-10 curry leaves
1/4 cup raisins (I do not add this)
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp red chilli powder (I use 1/2 tsp as I use Everest tikha lal. I also add a tsp of paprika for the beautiful colour)

Procedure:
1.I powder salt and sugar in mixer in its smallest jar available. I prefer doing this because in he last step when we mix sugar and salt it coats the puffed rice nicely. Heat oil in a large pot. Add cumin and mustard seeds and let them pop.
2. Add peanuts, garlic, curry leaves and saute till the garlic is lightly browned.
3. Add salt, sugar, turmeric and chilli powder and saute for a few seconds.
4. Add the puffed rice and raisins and saute on low-medium heat, stirring often till all the puffed rice is coated. Turn off heat after 3-5 minutes.
Thank you so much Nupur For this wonderful snack.

Poha Chivda

I am huge fan of cookery shows and cookbooks. Whenever I find some recipe interesting I generally note it down. This is one such recipe that I saw in a regional cookery show called Bombaat Bhojana. This is a simple poha chivda recipe. I made slight changes as per our taste.

Here is what's needed:

6 cups Poha/Beaten rice (* Sun dry poha for a day to become crisp)

1/2 cup Kopra ( dried coconut) thinly sliced

1 cup unsalted Peanuts

1/2 cup Fried gram

2 tsp Jeera/Cumin seeds

2 tsp Mustard Seeds

8 dried Red chillies

6 sprigs of Curry leaves

1 tsp Turmeric powder/Haldi

3 tbsp powdered Sugar

2 tbsp powdered Fried gram

Salt to taste

Oil

Procedure:

1) Prepare seasoning by heating oil. Add mustard seeds, when they splutter add cumin seeds. When they sizzle add Kopra pieces and peanuts.

2) When the peanuts turn golden add torn red chilli, fried gram, curry leaves. Fry well. Add haldi.

3) Keeping the flame on medium add Poha. Mix well. Add fried gram powder. Mix well. Add salt and sugar. Mix and turn off the flame. Cover and let it cool. Store in a clean dried air tight container.

* If you are unable to sun dry it then you can add poha and fry it on low flame until crispy.

Serving Suggestions:

This can be serve on its own. You can add grated coconut at the time of serving or add chopped onions, coriander leaves and grated coconut at the time of serving.

Diwali Special

I am sure everyone must have enjoyed a lot this Diwali. I wanted to make this post right before Diwali but due to some issue with connectivity and lack of time I was unable to do so. Anyways my warm wishes to everyone.

We had a good time this Diwali. Visiting friends, bursting fire crackers everything made it so special.

Thanks to the wonderful bloggers I tried my hand at making Chakkuli's (Murukku), Sev etc. It seemed so simple and tasty that I will not have to look out for store brought one's here after.

From Surpiya's Home spices blog I tried Kashi halwa (Wintermelon/Ash gourd halwa) and Chakkuli. Both were a big hit. Thank you Supriya :). I made Sev using Chakali blog. I have bookmarked a lot of dishes from this site. Do visit the sites for the original recipe. Sorry for the poor picture of halwa as we clicked it at the last moment before leaving for the party :)

Murmura Upma

After a long gap it feels great to be back to the place I belong to.. to my very own Food blog.. I have decided not to take any more breaks and be active here. I have learnt a lot of recipes during my stay back here and wish to share them all with you. For now it is simple Murmura upma that can be fixed in jiffy. I learnt this from a very good friend of mine in Shanghai, Swapna. This can be a breakfast item or a quick evening snack.
Ingredients:
4 cups Murmura
1 medium sized Onion chopped
2 green Chillies slit
1/4 tsp Turmeric powder
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
Oil
Salt to taste
Coriander leaves chopped finely for garnishing
Procedure:
1) Keep the murmura in a big vessel. Heat a kadhai with little oil. Add mustard seeds. When they splutter add in the onions and fry until done. Add turmeric powder and salt.
2) Pour little water over the murmura and squeeze it all and add the Murmura quickly. Make sure not to add too much water as it will make the murmura soggy. Mix well. Garnish with corriander leaves and serve hot.

Crispy Onion Pakoda ~ a winter treat!

The weather last week had suddenly turned bad and it started raining all through the day. The temperature too came down to 2 C and we both were craving for some spicy snack to enjoy with a hot cup of coffee. 

Here is what's needed:

2 big Onions sliced

1 tsp Coriander seeds roasted slightly and crushed coarsely

1 small bunch of Coriander leaves chopped fine

2 tbsp Rice flour

Chickpea flour (Besan) as needed

Salt and Chilli powder to taste

Oil to deep fry

Procedure:

1) In a vessel add onions, crushed coriander seeds, chopped coriander leaves, salt and chilli powder. Mix well with hand.

2) Add rice flour and chickpea flour (add enough to cover all the pieces of Onion). Mix well. Keep it for five minutes. When salt is added onions release its juice. Use the same to make the batter. If needed you can add little water so as to cover the onions with flour evenly. The mixture should not turn watery but should be semi-dry.

3) Heat oil. Do not bring it to smoking hot. Drop in spoonful of batter and fry till golden and crispy on medium flame.

Serve hot with a cup of tea or coffee.

Khandvi

Khandvi a Gujrathi snack made with Chickpea flour. I had first tasted this when I was in school but after that I never tasted it nor remembered it. It was when I was roaming through the Blogosphere that I remembered this. Hubby dear was not supposed to be back until midnight due to some work at office so I utilised this time to try this dish out. I found the recipe at Asha's Aroma. I trust her because her recipes never fail :) Thanks Asha for this wonderful recipe. 

The taste was really good but I spread the batter slightly thicker than I should have done. I did not get the bright yellow colour as I added very little Turmeric powder. Mine was moderately spiced so I did not add Red chilli's to seasoning. Check out Asha's recipe here. 

This dish was really easy to make and is ready in minutes. Thanks Asha for the step by step pictures and suggestions. I am going to make them often :)