My New Kitchen

Seriously: who paints the ceiling of a galley kitchen black? What were the ex-tenants thinking?!

I know this is not a food-related post, but it has to do with where I cook so I figured it was worth posting. 

This space is really posing some huge challenges for me. Having always lived in smaller homes, except for one huge house we lived in for a short while, I'm very good at maximizing and creating space. But ten days later, I'm still standing at the entrance to this kitchen and throwing my hands up in the air wondering how I'm going to make it work for me. 

It is beyond tiny. And that black ceiling is killing me. So are the black counter-tops.

I don't really have the option to get it re-painted  before next year  (and no way can I do away with those counter tops) because I doubt that the landlord will appreciate another issue added to my very long list of  changes needed/things fixed. Already the maintenance guy tries to either run the other way or disappear into the cracks on the sidewalk each time he sees me approaching. 

So how do I make it brighter and bigger, people? I need to do something less drastic than sawing my way through the wall to make the window bigger. Believe me: I  have to practically sit on my hands in order to stop myself from doing that!

Shahi Tukray : A Pakistani/Indian Bread Pudding

This post can alternatively be titled "how not to make friends and influence people". 

I mentioned that I moved last week, right? On my third day in the new neighborhood I found myself invited to a tea party (later in the week) at the house of the neighbor who lives across the street from me. It was awfully sweet of her to invite me in an effort to introduce me to a small group of Sout-East Asian (read Pakistani & Indian) ladies from the neighborhood. I was told it was a pot-luck but I was not obliged to bring anything because I have my hands full, not to mention my luck running completely down the drain with my oven and refrigerator going kaput the moment we moved in, as well as various plumbing-related disasters (more on those horror stories later). 

I wanted to take something along anyway. But baking was out of the question. However, by some stroke of luck my refrigerator came to life a day before the party, so I figured I could manage to cook some kind of dessert on the stove. And I thought: Shahi Tukray. It's a wonderful Pakistani dessert; one that I really enjoy making and consuming, and I can't think of many Pakistanis or Indians who don't love it as well as I do.  

It was a brilliant idea (according to myself) . . . but then I decided to reduce the amount of sugar to almost 1/4th of what I generally use. Some evil voice in my head whispered that I ought to make it less sweet. And so I ruined the dessert. Which I discovered too late: at the party. 

These things happen. You have to take them in your stride.

But you just don't want them happening when you're meeting a group of strangers for the first time in your life. 

Talk about Social-Suicide: torture their taste buds; ruin your social status forever. 

If you never hear neighborhood-related pot-luck stories from me ever again, you will know why. 

On to the recipe, in it's unaltered form. 

One warning before I proceed: any Indian/Pakistani dish (either savory or sweet) beginning with the word 'Shahi' (which means Royal) is bound to be decadent and super-rich; full of cream or sugar or fat or nuts or all four combined. 

If none of that is for you, turn around now and stop reading this post. 

Shahi Tukray

4-6 slices of white bread, crusts removed and cut into triangles

1 litre milk (it doesn't matter if you use low-fat, it won't alter the carb/fat content of this dessert)

6-8 cardamom pods, split open

1/2 - 3/4 cup sugar 

1 cup powdered milk

A couple of tablespoons of Ghee (Clarified Butter) for frying

Chopped pistachios/almonds for garnish

Fry the bread triangles in ghee till both sides are golden brown. 

I prefer to spread a very thin layer of ghee on both sides of the bread and place it in a hot, un-greased pan. I like to believe that I'm using less ghee that way. 

The ghee can be substituted with butter if you can't find it, but don't try to substitute it with margarine because it will taste awful.  

Once the bread is fried, arrange it in a dish any way that you like. I cut mine into smaller triangles this time and so I randomly layered them on top of each other. 

Place the milk, cardamom, sugar and powdered milk in a heavy-based pan. Mix well and simmer on medium-low heat, stirring every now and then,  till the sugar has dissolved and the milk mixture has slightly reduced (About 45 mins - 1 hour).

Remove from heat, spoon the hot milk all over the bread triangles; making sure all of them are covered. 

Let cool for 10 mins before covering with cling-film. Refrigerate at least 6 hours or overnight before serving. 

Garnish with chopped pistachios or almonds (or both). Serve. 

Split Level Pudding: Baking with Dorie

This week's Baking With Dorie challenge was selected by Susi of Susi's Kochen und Backen. She chose Split Level Pudding which is a vanilla pudding that has been layered over ganache.  

I have never made pudding from scratch before, and I honestly expected something to go horribly wrong. Amongst many other doom-filled scenarios; I envisioned myself whisking away at a lumpy, stubborn mess that would refuse to relent. Or a slippery, slimy one that wouldn't set up after hours of refrigeration.

But my pudding was almost perfect. I am saying 'almost' only because, for the Ganache layer, I used Lindt's dark chocolate with 70% cocoa and somehow, the bitterness from the chocolate really stood out and didn't blend well with the flavor of the pudding itself.  

But that being said, this pudding does taste dreamy. Had I used semi-sweet chocolate chips instead; the pudding might have tasted even better.  

It is a little labor intensive because you first make the pudding in a saucepan and then blend it in a food-processor, returning to the saucepan yet again to cook the pudding till it thickens. Dorie recommends processing it one last time to ensure a uniformly smooth texture.

And the texture is smooth, though it firms up a little after refrigeration. The ganache layer didn't harden at all while the pudding was cooling in the fridge (I had assumed that it would), but you do have to work at digging it out. 

I still can't believe I made this wonderful pudding and am secretly very impressed with myself! I would make this again & again with other variations suggested by Dorie Greenspan and a twist that I've thought of myself. 

The recipe can be found on Pages 384-385 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours. Or on Susi's blog. If you would like to join the challenge, please email me at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have you bake along with us.

Blogging Break

I am finally moving today!

Catching a break now while I watch the movers spin their magic and condense our entire life into a bunch of boxes.

I have activated Blogger Mobile but it doesn't publish my posts, even though they show up as published. I'm hoping to get my internet connection back up and running by Monday so I can post the 2nd BWD (Baking With Dorie) Challenge on time. This week we're making Dorie's Split Level Pudding. I can't wait to see the other participating blogger's posts.

But for now, I'm going back to my herbal tea . . ;-) 

 

Oven-Roasted Garlic

 

Roasted Garlic has a very mellow taste and is so versatile: spread it on bread; mix it into dips, soups, mashed potatoes or pastas.

I normally eat it as a spread with toasted bread. It's simply divine.

Today I added it into spaghetti for a simple and delicious meal for myself. I'll show you how to roast garlic & you can decide for yourself what you want to do with yours.

Cinnamon Danish Toast with Yogurt Cheese

Yogurt is one of my favorite foods. I can eat it for breakfast or as a snack at any time during the day.

Some time back I came across a book called 101 Things to do with Yogurt. I had to buy it knowing what a versatile food yogurt is and was eager to learn how to use it as a base for or as a healthy substitute in recipes. 

It was hard to decide what to make first out of the book; Cinnamon Danish Toast sounded like a good start. It required me to make Yogurt Cheese to begin with and so I made a small batch over the weekend. And I made the Cinnamon Danish Toast for breakfast this morning. 

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking:

Garlic, Chickpea and Spinach Soup

 

I should call this 'clean out your fridge and pantry soup'. But it would be unfair to belittle a bowl of warm comfort such as this. 

It's late-winter in my part of the world now; it's no longer chilly and so there is no justification for craving steaming soups. Except that I needed some comfort; and I wanted to throw together a quick and sustainable lunch for myself and the kids. 

 

This garlic flavored creamy soup is uncomplicated & satisfying. Some things in life should just be simple, don't you think?

How to Make a Cupcake Bouquet

 

Ever wondered how to make one of these? 

It's extremely simple and I'll show you how. 

What you need: 

- a planter

- a styrofoam ball or blocks of styrofoam

- wooden skewers

- green crepe paper

- a couple of baked and decorated cupcakes

Here's what you do: 

- fit the styrofoam ball or blocks of styrofoam into the planter. Make sure it's a snug fit. Cover completely with green crepe paper. 

- depending on how big you want the bouquet to be, poke wooden skewers through the styrofoam to cover the surface. For this bouquet I used 11.

- In order to assess how many cupcakes and skewers I would need, I did a mock-arrangement with my cupcake liners before poking the skewers in.

- Don't use very moist cupcakes for this - the ones with yellow sprinkles that I used were quite moist and it was very hard to keep them from falling apart. The skewers would just break them in two.

 

- Now all you need to do is fit your cupcakes over the skewers. You can frost/decorate them either before or after you're done assembling the bouquet. 

That is it - it is that simple!

I made that bouquet a long time back, it was the first time that I had ever made a cupcake bouquet & I still have the planter because I picked all the cupcakes off it & didn't allow anyone to eat them. 

Why? 

Because I had frosted the cupcakes petal pink (to match the pink ribbon) and I used shortening instead of butter because it was a warm day; the bouquet was mostly for display and so I didn't want to risk the butter-based frosting slipping off. 

Before I even got to the bake-sale, just minutes after I had frosted the cupcakes,they turned from pink to this alarming shade of fuchsia! Strange, huh? I don't know what happened; maybe the shortening was no good or there was something wrong with the food color. I couldn't tell. And I couldn't risk letting anyone eat a cupcake and getting sick. 

However, it was so much fun to make this bouquet. It's a perfect gift - I can't think of anyone who wouldn't love to receive one of these for a birthday or anniversary.

Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie

Did I mention that I'm moving? 

I've been knee-deep in chaos the past several days; telling myself off for my pack-rat tendencies. I used to be able to justify it, but there's nothing like a move to make you face your shortcomings.

While I try to sort, minimize, containerize and finally move; I'll keep up with blogging by posting simple recipes that don't require a lot of time to fix. I don't have time for any serious cooking or baking till at least the end of this month, but I do want to keep blogging so as not to break the momentum or get sidetracked. 

I thought I'd catch a break today and made myself a Banana Smoothie. I never did actually get to it because our cookie-monster-in-residence a.k.a my daughter got to it first. All I had time for was a few quick photos:  (yes, the child with the chocolate-smeared face and shirt belongs to me)

 

 
 

  

Banana Smoothie

(all ingredients are approximate since I didn't measure)

2 medium bananas, sliced

1 cup milk

1/4 cup low-fat yogurt 

1 tbsp peanut butter

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp wheatgerm

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Place everything in a blender and process till smooth and frothy. 

 

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins - Baking With Dorie

This is the first thing that my baking buddy Susi and I have baked out of Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home To Yours, for our Baking with Dorie Challenge .

When I was starting out, I thought about halving this recipe because I wasn't sure anybody at my house would care for anything lemon-flavored. I was pleasantly surprised when no one turned them away and my kids even asked for more. 

The poppy seeds add an interesting crunch to these subtly flavored muffins. Topped with the tart lemon glaze, they're simply wonderful. As usual, Dorie Greenspan does not disappoint.

The only variation I made to this recipe is that I used white poppy seeds because those are the ones that I had on hand. Aesthetically, they don't do much for the muffins because they aren't visible. I sprinkled some on the top of my muffins before baking them just so that they would show up for the photos. Before using, I did verify through research online that they would not make any difference to the flavor of this recipe because that is the last thing I wanted.