Cioccolata Calda - Italian Hot Chocolate

Real Mothers don't eat quiche;

they don't have time to make it. 

Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils 

Are probably in the sandbox.

Real Mothers often have sticky floors, 

Filthy ovens and happy kids.

Real Mothers know that dried play dough

doesn't come out of carpets. 

Real Mothers don't want to know what

The vacuum just sucked up...

Real Mothers sometimes ask, 'Why me?'

And get their answer with a little

Voice that says, 'Because I love you best...'

Happy Mothers Day! 

Moms, treat yourself to some decadent Italian Hot Chocolate today - you deserve it. 

I made this today as requested by my son: 

Italian Hot Chocolate or Cioccolata Calda 

From the recipe at Bell'alimento

100g good quality chocolate with 70% cocoa or higher, roughly chopped

1.5 cups whole milk

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tsp cornstarch

Heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium heat till bubbles form on the sides. Add in the sugar at this point and stir until dissolved.

In a small cup, mix the cornstarch with a few tablespoons of the warm milk and return the mixture to the saucepan, stirring for 2-3 minutes till the milk thickens a little. 

Turn heat to low & add in the chopped chocolate. Stir, remove from heat and continue to stir until the chocolate is dissolved. 

Pour into cups and consume immediately. 

Date Bars

I've been trying to write a blog post all week. Then stopping, deleting what I wrote or abandoning it altogether. And coming back to it later, only to repeat the entire cycle.

To be perfectly honest with you, I haven't much to say. I've had a lot of worrisome stuff on my mind these past several days. Initially I was going to throw in a funny story about my kids and a pair of Goldfish called 'Sparky' and 'Dolphin'. But I'm just not inspired enough today to tell that story. Maybe later. 

 

For now, here's a recipe for Date Bars that will fill your kitchen with an irresistible, buttery, toffee-like smell. Go on, you know you want to try them out.

Date Bars

1 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 stick butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1 cup self-raising flour

1/2 cup, roughly chopped dates

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease the bottom only of an 8" x 11" dish.

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in the vanilla extract and egg. 

Fold in the flour and mix well. Add chopped dates and nuts, if using. 

Pour into prepared baking dish. Bake 30 - 35 minutes. 

Let cool completely before cutting into bars. 

Broccoli Chicken Cups

To be completely honest with you, I haven't really been able to get my act together since I moved exactly a month ago. 

I had thought of several new things to try out in my kitchen and then blog about, but time just seems to get away from me these days. I'm back in school after a 3-month break and am now trying to work on my non-existent time-management skills. 

Even simple tasks are over-whelming lately & so the thought of having people over really throws me over the edge. Although I love the whole process of entertaining, I find it nerve-wracking. Especially because I belong to the school of thought that "more is less". So I am very capable of adding last-minute things to the Smorgasbord and making DH run to the grocery store at the last minute for some essential ingredient for an unplanned-for addition to my menu. 

And so I am that person standing over the stove, stirring a pot of something or the other while throwing orders at the rest of my petrified family to run around fetching things for me seconds before our guests arrive. 

We had a replay of all of the above this past weekend because it was a people-filled one both days. I had a huge assignment due (for school) right before the weekend started so, much to my disappointment, out of the ten things I had planned to make; I could only manage a few (read 7 - why are you surprised? didn't I say, 'more is less'? ).  

These Broccoli Chicken Cups were one of several appetizers made (but the only ones photographed) and our friends loved them so much that they took along all the leftover ones home with them. I managed to sneak away just two - so I could take a photo of them in the morning! 

The recipe is adapted from Taste of Home. 

Broccoli Chicken Cups

2.5 cups roasted chicken, shredded

1 can (10 3/4 oz) reduced-fat, reduced-sodium condensed cream of chicken soup

1 cup chopped fresh broccoli

2 small tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1 small carrot, grated

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 garlic clove, minced

1 - 1.5 tsp freshly crushed black pepper

12 frozen low-fat puff pastry squares

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375F.

In a large bowl combine all the ingredients except the Parmesan cheese. 

Gently press puff pastry squares into muffin cups coated with cooking spray.

Spoon chicken mixture into pastry cups. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. 

Bake 25-30 minutes. Serve warm.

 

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.