Choco Chip Cookies

Wifey's bakes in progress...trying out choco chip cookies today..

Saw through many recipes on the net, but finalized on the one posted by Raks Kitchen

Ingredients:
Maida- 1 cup
Choco chip- about handful.
Sugar- Powdered 6 tbsp
Unsalted Butter- 1/4 cup in original recipe, I put almost 1/2 a cup.
Baking soda- 1/4 tsp
Baking powder- 1/2 tsp
Milk- 1 tblsp
Vanilla essence- 1/2 tsp

Method:
Preheat the microwave at 180C.
Sieve together Maida, Baking Powder and Baking Soda in a bowl. 
In another bowl mix butter, sugar, vanilla essence. 
Once this mixture is ready add in the chocochip and the maida mixture and mix it into a dough. 
Add the milk at this stage to help you with mixing.
Make small balls of this dough and place on the baking tray and flatten it out.
Bake in Microwave Convection model at 180C for 20mins. 
Check your cookies between 15-18 mins, just in case yours gets done(golden) faster.
Let it on the tray for a while and cool it on wire rack.

yyaayy, I was worried that the extra butter I had added might make my cookie soft. But no...it looks perfectly done. 
My daughter telling me I should have added cocoa powder also into the dough :-) The love for chocolate is endless...

Peanut Butter Cookies

Since I was excited about the success with the outcome of Nankathais, I thought I could try one more and I ended up preparing Peanut Butter Cookies for my kids. In comparison I would prefer the nankathai because of the ghee flavour it has, but I would say as a standalone this also is amazing.

I used the Eggless recipe from Gayathri's Blog. Gayathri's recipe had peanuts roasted and put in. The lazy me decided I would do without it and used the Crunchy peanut butter instead and I ended up baking the cookies for 30 mins!!

Ingredients: Maida-3/4 cup
Butter-1/4 cup Crunchy Peanut Butter-3/4 cup+1 tbsp Light Brown Sugar-1/2 cup Baking Powder-1/2 tsp Milk-1/8 cup
Method: 1. In a bowl mix together flour, baking powder. 2. In another bowl mix together butter, peanut butter and brown sugar until soft. 3. Add milk and beat. 4. Add the flour mixture and mix well 5. Cover the dough and refrigerate it for 30 minutes. The dough will become firmer and it will be very easy to shape the cookies. 6. Preheat microwave at 160C. 7. Pinch out small lemon sized balls out of the dough, roll it and place it on the tray. Arrange the balls leaving atleast 1" gap giving the cookies place to spread. 8. With a fork, press the ball into flat round cookie shape and get a criss cross pattern. 9. Bake in Convection mode for 30 minutes at 160C 10. Remove from oven and let it sit on counter until the cookies are firm. Incase you feel that cookies are not getting firm, bake for another 2-3 mins. 15. Carefully remove the cookies from the tray and transfer to a wire rack. Allow it to cool completely.

Nankathai

I am just done with preparing Nankathai. Referred to DivyasCookbook and followed her steps. Now am waiting for it to cool for it to be tried. I prepared mine in Microwave Convection.

Ingredients:
Maida/ All purpose Flour- 1 Cup
Sugar- Powdered- 1/2 Cup
Ghee- 1/2 Cup
Cardamom/ Elaichi- 1/2 tsp
Baking Powder- 1/2 tsp

Method:
Melt the ghee and mix the powdered sugar and cardamom into it. Sieve the maida & baking powder into the ghee mixture and mix well into a dough. 
Keep the dough aside for an hour.
Preheat the Microwave oven at 160C. 
Make small balls of the dough and flatten it with your hand on the microwave tray.
Now, set the Convection mode to 160C and bake for 23-25mins. 
Check the nankathai at 20mins to see if its cooking well. I took out mine at 24 mins.
The cracks on the nankathai tell you that its done.

I just gave a piece of nankathai to my son and he says its like cotton biscuit :-). Husband's saying its yummeeeee

Sweet n Spicy Pan roasted Pumpkin

I had a small piece of pumpkin left with me after I was done with the cake. Decided to quickly cook up something with it. 

Ingredients:
1. Pumpkin - 8-10 thin cut slices
2. Garlic paste 1/2 tsp or 1 tsp depending on your taste
3. Olive oil/ any cooking oil- 2 tsp
4. Chilli Powder
5. Sugar- 1/2 tsp
6. Salt- as per taste

Procedure:
I cut the pumpkin into small thin slices, added a tea spoon of cooking oil..olive oil would work better I think. Put the garlic paste & Salt into it and mixed it till all the pumpkin pieces were coated with garlic flavored oil.
Heat the pan and spread the pumpkin slices on the pan. Turn over when one side is done. The slices will tend to get soft and turn into golden brown when they are fully cooked. Now add the chilli powder and Sugar on your pumkin slices and roast both sides once more and remove from fire. 
The dish is ready to serve..It could serve as a good side snack with your meal. You could also add a dash of lemon juice incase you like your food to be tangy.

Husband loved the taste of this...daughter said she wanted the same done with potatoes and my son came back asking for a few more pieces.

Eggless Pumpkin Cake

I had a small pumpkin lying at home and didnt find my mum-in-law too interested in touching it :-P, so decided I pick some recipe from the net and try it at home. So this is what I did...I picked up this cake recipe from Gayathri's cook spot and went exactly as per her measures except that I did not add Pumpkin seeds to decorate the cake and...I baked my cake in Microwave instead of an OTG.

 

I missed clicking a pic before I ran the knife through my cake

Ingredients:
Grated Pumpkin-1 1/2cup  
Maida-2cups  
Butter-1/2cup
Curd-1/2cup  
Milk-1 1/4cup  
Baking Powder-2tsp
Baking Soda-1tsp  
Sugar-3/4cup  
Vanilla Essence-2tsp
 
Procedure:  
1. Beat butter until soft and creamy.  
2. Add the granulated sugar and beat again
3. Add curd, vanilla essence and milk and mix well.
4. Mix flour with baking powder and baking soda.  
5. Add this to the butter mixture and mix it slowly until fully mixed
6. Add the grated pumpkin and mix it.
7. Pour it in a greased and dusted tray.
8. Preheated oven (180C) and use Microwave+Convention mode, set it at 180C and bake for about 12 mins. Check the cake at 10mins to ensure everything is right. Pass a knife and check to see if it comes out clean. You could keep for another minute or two incase the cake is still moist.  
9. Slice it and serve.

When I started with the preparation my daughter had a face that said she didnt like the idea of having pumpkin in a cake, but once she had tasted it, she came back asking for more. The Cake did not have the usual Golden crust on top, but was a nice spongy one.

Sandwich-Thousand Island Dressing

My brother thought we had bought this from outside. He said it tasted like a professional had prepared. :-)

 

Ingredients:
Sandwich Bread-  1 Packet
Carrot- Grated- 2 Large red color
Cucumber- 1 deskinned and Thinly sliced
Thousand Island dressing Mayonnaise
Butter
Salt & Pepper to taste

Method:
Take the grated carrot, put about 3 spoons of mayonnaise. You could add more depending on your taste. I added just enough for it to be spread on the bread easily.
Apply butter on all bread slices on one side and keep it ready for making the sandwich. 
Put the above carrot mixture on the buttered side of bread. Arrange 4-5 thin slices of cucumber on top of this mix. sprinkle salt & pepper and put the next slice of bread with buttered side facing down. Press it a little so that your sandwich sticks together. Now cut out the edges and slice up your sandwich to whichever shape/ size you wish to serve and you are done.

Monaco Biscuit with Topping

The original recipe on Khana Khazana website, submitted by Divya had a lot of ingredients to be added. Am sure it would have tasted good, but I went with what I had in my kitchen and I must say I got appreciated for what I created...

 

Ingredients:
Monaco Salt Biscuit- 1 Packet
Hung Curd- 1 Cup (Hang the curd overnight in a thin cloth so that the water drains out)
Cheese- 2-3 large tbsp (I used the Amul cheese  with chilli flakes)
Mayonnaise- 2  large tbsp (I used 1000 Island dressing)
Italian Seasoning- Approx 2 tsp
Salt to taste

For Garnishing:
Few leaves of Coriander
Finely chopped Tomato

Method:
Put all ingredients(keep the ingredients of garnishing aside) in a bowl and beat it till a smooth mixture is formed. Since this was meant for the kids, I did not add extra spice or additional veggies, else you could add more chilli flakes/ Pepper powder, finely chopped capsicum or any other veggie according to your taste. 

Arrange the biscuit in a plate, put a small spoon of the above mixture on the biscuit. Decorate it with a sprig of coriander leaf & a piece of tomato just before your guests arrive. And the biscuit is ready to be eaten.