Mango and Coconut Scone

Now that we are well into spring, the grocery stories are overflowing with fresh fruit and vegetables. I picked up some assorted fruits and my mind was on baking.

Cakes, muffins or scones?

Scones are undoubtedly one of my favorite snack.  While I frequently bake cherry or cranberry scones, I have never baked mango scones. This seemed to be the perfect time to experiment with baking a mango scone.

I have a standard healthy recipe for scones I use. and here is the version adapted for a mango scone.

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 stick  butter (or add more for a flaky scone)
1 cup buttermilk
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cardamon powder
1 mango, peeled and diced
1/2 cup + a little more coconut flakes
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder,cardamon powder,  and salt. Use a pastry blender to cut in the cold butter or use your hands to mix in. Add buttermilk and mix in. Fold in diced mango and coconut flakes and pecans and mix gently into a ball.

Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough into a  circle and 1/2 in thick slab and cut into triangles or scoop 1-2 tbsp onto a baking pan lined with parchment paper.  Brush with some melted butter and sugar crystals (optional). Bake for 10-12 minutes. Makes about 12 scones.

Enjoy a warm scone with some butter or jam or as is with a nice cuppa tea or coffee. Or Glaze with some mango flavored icing for a sweeter scone.

If not ready to eat, you can  freeze the scones in a freezer bag. When ready to eat remove from freezer and let it return to room temperature or pop it in a microwave for 10-15 seconds and it is ready to eat!

Note: I tend to use less sugar and less butter. For a sweeter and more flaky scone adjust sugar and butter to suit your personal preference.

Cranberry Poha

Revamping an old recipe with new ingredients

Ingredients:

1 cup poha
1/2 onion sliced thin
1 small potato cut into small pieces
1 jalapeno sliced
1-2 tsp oil
1 tbsp channa dal
1 tbsp urad dal
1 tsp mustard seeds
1-2 dry red chilli
1/2 cup cranberries
a handful of cashews or peanuts
few curry leaves
salt to taste

In a pan, heat the oil. Add channa dal, urad dal, red chilli,  cashews or peanuts (or both), and mustard seeds and fry till lightly golden. Add curry leaves and jalapeno and fry for a few seconds. Add onion, and potato and fry on medium low mixing as necessary to prevent sticking, until onion are translucent and golden and potatoes crispy. Rinse and process the cranberries in a food processor until chopped fine. Add to the pan and fry for a few seconds.

Meanwhile rinse poha in some cold water. Don’t leave it in too long, or it will get soft and mushy. Rinse, and squeeze out the water and add to the pan above. Mix well. Season with salt and leave for 1-2 minutes.

Serve warm with a cup of tea.

Honey and Sriracha Roasted Brussels Sprouts

I ate at BJ’s for the first time, while I was visiting Daytona Beach recently. I shared some Roasted Brussels Sprouts with a fellow student and they were so good, I wanted to try to make them,  the first chance I got. Here’s my variation of this side dish.

Ingredients:

1 lb Brussels Sprouts, rinsed and sliced in half
1 tbsp Olive Oil
salt and fresh ground pepper to season

Dressing:

2 tbsp sriracha
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp lime juice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees,

Rinse and slice the Brussels Sprouts. Drizzle some olive oil, season with salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Roast the Brussels Sprouts for 45 minutes to an hour.

Meanwhile mix the dressing ingredients in a bowl.

Drizzle the dressing before serving. I think BJ’s also deep fries the roasted Brussels Sprouts briefly before serving, which I didn’t do.

Sweet and Sour Ginger Chutney

Raw ginger has a very pungent flavor. It needs to be tempered with tamarind juice and jaggery (or brown sugar) to make it palatable.

This is my first attempt to make this chutney. Contrary to the Sweet and Sour Ginger Pickle, I posted a few weeks ago, this one is easy, short lived and goes well with vada. It is a very typical Andhra dish that is served during events such as weddings, funerals and other events. It is very often served with plain vada. Not to say  it can’t be served with other vada types.

Ingredients:

2-4 in of ginger stalk, peeled and chopped
1/2-2/3 cup tamarind sauce
3-4 tbsp brown sugar or 1-2 cubes jaggary

Tempering:

1 tbsp oil
1 tsp urad dal
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1-2 dry red chillies
dash of tumeric
dash of asaphoetida
a few curry leaves

I previously provided a recipe for the Sweet and Sour Ginger Pickle that can last months and years. Contrary to that, this is a short lived recipe, that is quick to make and lasts up to a week.

Add the chopped ginger to a blender, along with tamarind juice and jaggery and blend till smooth. Adjust tamarind juice and sugar to personal preference. Transfer to a bowl. Season with salt.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a pan. Add turmeric, asaphoetida, urad dal, mustard seeds, cumin seeds and dry red chilli. Fry till lightly golden. Add some curry leaves and leave for another minute.

Transfer to the bowl containing the ginger paste. Mix well. Adjust tamarind juice, sweetness, and salt.

Serve with some fresh vada!

Note: You can make a roasted sesame chutney, by replacing the ginger with roasted sesame which is another traditional chutney that is served at events.

Baked Vada

Give me a good rainy day, especially during the summer monsoon season, and the best snack my mother would make was any one of these deep fried favorites: Bajji, Vada, or Pakodi.

While I love to cook, I am less enthusiastic of making anything that remotely feels unhealthy such as deep fried food. Don’t get me wrong, I do love my french fries with my vegeburger or that occasional onion rings.

While I wondered about it, I never tried to bake my bajjis or vadas, so I was recently happy to see that it does work and you can bake them. Here’s how I made mine!

Ingredients:

2/3 cup channa dal
1 tbsp brown rice flour
1-2 dry red chilies
1-2 jalapeno
a handful of chopped cilantro
1/4 onion chopped
1 inch piece of ginger
salt to taste

Soak the channa dal in water for 3-4 hours. It’s okay if it is more than 24 hours 🙂

Rinse, and set aside a handful of the channa dal. Transfer the rest to the food processor or blender. Add jalapeno, dry red chilli and ginger and process smoothly. It might be necessary to add 1-2 tbsp water. Don’t make it runny.

Add chopped onions, chopped cilantro, set-aside channa dal , and season with salt.

Meanwhile pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

Grease a baking pan generously with oil. Take 1-2 tbsp of batter and scoop out onto the baking pan as if baking cookies.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove the baking pan, flip the vada and transfer back to the oven and continue baking for another 15-20 minutes.

Serve warm with some sweet and sour chutney such as ginger or any chutney for that matter.

It is also good when eaten with ketchup or spicy Maggi  sauce  :-)

Enjoy with a hot cuppa tea on a rainy or snowy day!

Whole Wheat Pita with Cheese and Garlic

This is a nice snack or a meal if you are not too hungry. I used whole wheat pita pockets with some tomato sauce and sliced pickled jalapeno.

Go here for the original recipe….

Ingredients:
1 whole wheat pita pocket
some mozzarella cheese
1-2 garlic cloves sliced
1 tsp butter
a few red pepper flakes
1-2 tbsp tomato sauce to dip or stuff (optional)
1-2 tsp pickled jalapeno to stuff (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Slather pita bread with some butter. Top with minced garlic. Sprinkle some mozzarella cheese generously and bake for 5 minutes.

Switch to broil and place the the pita bread in the top row and broil on low for 1-2 minutes. Sprinkle with some red pepper flakes.

Enjoy warm with some fresh tomato sauce and pickled jalapeno!

Mango Custard

The custard we used to make at home is different in consistency from the normal thicker ones I have seen. It is a simple and delicious recipe that is not only very quick to make but healthy as well.

Ingredients:
1/4 gallon whole or 2% milk
1/4 cup mango custard mix
1/2 cup sugar
assorted fruit chopped/sliced (I used banana, mango, pineapple, orange and strawberries)

In a pan, bring the milk to a boil. Add sugar and let it dissolve. Next in a small bowl take some milk and add the custard mix and mix well. Add to the pan and boil for another 5-10 minutes. Remove from flame and cool. Add sliced fruits and chill before serving. Can add a cherry on top before serving.

Fly me to the moon…

Christmas is the time that almost everyone bakes cookies. There are thousands of recipes out there of people’s favorite cookies.

I was not a cookie maker.That is until I got these nifty airplane cookies cutters.

So once a year, I get all excited to bake cookies for the holidays. The  last few days I scoured the web for the best Christmas cookie recipe to use. I thought I had found the perfect sugar cookie recipe until on D-day I saw this Orange and Spice English biscuit recipe and all was forgotten. Yes I am a sucker for orange!

This year I decided to make two different cookies: one the Orange and Spice biscuit and the other a Cardamon Crescent cookie. The moment I saw the Cardamon crescent cookies  I was reminded of the Chand biscuit that we loved to eat from the sweet shop at the street corner as children. Chand means moon and they were the most delicious crescent biscuits I ever ate.

My first attempt at the Cardamon crescent cookies ended up with these. They were delicious to taste but did not resemble any where like the cookies in the recipe I was following. I decided to cut back on the butter and used a teaspoon of milk to get the dough to the correct consistency to make the crescents.This time I had better luck at the crescent shapes.

I am very happy with my choice of cookies this year. Check out the recipes on the original site:

Orange and Spice Airplane Biscuits adapted from Frugal Feeding’s Christmas Spice Biscuits
Crescent Cardamon Cookies adapted from Bonapetit.

Bon Appetit!

Healthy Instant Whole Wheat Dosa

Continuing my healthy dosa series this is another variation that is faster than the Brown Rice Buttermilk Pancake Dosa I posted a while ago. Typically these are made with white flour (or maida).

Ingredients:
1 cup brown rice flour (usually white rice flour is used)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (usually white all purpose flour or maida is used)
3/4 cup yogurt
salt to taste
some water
some chopped onion (optional)
some chopped (cilantro)
some chopped jalapeno (optional)

Mix the  brown rice flour, whole wheat flour, salt, yogurt and water. The consistency should be sufficient to make a dosa or crepe. Set aside for 30 minutes.

When ready to make the dosa, heat a flat pan. Grease lightly with oil or cooking spray.

Spread out 2-3 tbsp of dosa batter into a thin crepe. Sprinkle some onion, cilantro and jalapeno. Add 1-2 tsp oil and cook till lightly golden. Flip and cook with some oil as needed.

Serve hot stand-alone or with some pickle (coconut, tomato or ginger)

Tis’ the Season

…for holiday parties

When I saw this Date Bread, I fell in love with it. It looked delicious and I knew I wanted to try it the next opportunity I had. So far my office mates have been generous. Each time I have taken in my experiments with baking, they have appreciated my efforts. And best of all the office party was here.

I followed this recipe to a T but skipped one step. The outcome was still excellent and my coworkers liked it. But if you want to try it I suggest you don’t skip the step. It was tasty with just the right amount of sweetness, but the final texture I thought was slightly lacking due to the missed step. There is a reason why I missed the step: since I  used egg beaters and I couldn’t separate the egg whites from the yokes and I hoped it wouldn’t matter.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup boiling water
1 cup pitted chopped dates
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 egg
a little powdered sugar for dusting

Add boiling water to a bowl. Add dates and baking soda and set aside. In a large bowl mix flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl whisk together brown sugar and egg (if you can split the egg, use the yoke here). Mix in the flour mix and the pecans and mix well. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold into the flour mix. Combine and mix well.

Grease a 9×5 loaf pan and pour in the batter. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F and bake for 30-40 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a rack. Dust lightly with powdered sugar before serving.