Eggless Fruit & Nut Cake

Bake-a-thon 2015: Day 6
Bake of the Day: Fruit & Nut Cake without Eggs
We are just 12 short days away from Christmas and I'm sure everyone is in full gear with holiday decorating, shopping and baking. We just put our Christmas tree up yesterday and the decoration is still work-in-progress. My 3 year old is very excited about Christmas and has been actively helping me in decorating the house :-)

This fruit & nut cake reminds me of Britannia snack cake with little specks of tutti fruity in it. I have made this cake about half a dozen times already and it has been quite a hit every time I make it. Recipe is from Nisha Madhulika's site. Recipe needs just a few basic baking ingredients and a few minutes of stirring, voila you have a delicious cake in less than an hour.

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Spinach Artichoke Lasagna Rolls and Chocolate Risotto.... and a GIVEAWAY!

Can't believe holiday season is almost upon us and I'm very happy to be a part of Colavita and Perugina 'Join our Italian holiday Table' campaign this year. They sent me a large variety of their products including olive oils, crushed tomatoes, marinara sauce, artichokes hearts, olives, lasagna, arborio rice and some absolutely delicious Perugina chocolates. One of you lucky readers will also receive the same amazing products -- scroll down to the end of the post for more details of the giveaway.

Colavita is a family owned company and they have been importing and distributing Colavita Extra Virgin Olive Oil for over 30 years. Colavita Extra Virgin Olive Oil is recognized as the #1 Italian brand in the US and has earned awards from renowned cooking publications such as Fine Cooking and Cook’s Illustrated and general-interest magazines like Men’s Health. Perugina is Italy’s most renowned chocolate maker and Baci are Perugina’s most famous confection. Baci (which means “kisses” in Italian) are perfect as an ingredient in recipes, as a daily indulgence or as a gift for a loved one.

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Eggplant with Yogurt sauce (Dahi Baingan)

Blogging Marathon# 57: Week 1/ Day 3

Theme: Eggplant Dishes from here

Dish: Dahi Baingan

After 2 International eggplant dishes (Imam Biyildi and Eggplant Parmesan), I made an Indian dish for the final day. It was really tough picking dishes from Valli's list because I have already posted some of them on the blog and there are quite a few that I really wanted to try.

This is supposed to be Dahi Baingan from the list. This dish is made in Orissa and West Bengal. But this recipe is not the traditional way of preparing it. From what I have seen, traditionally eggplants are marinated in spices and deep fried, then cooked in a yogurt sauce.

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Shahi Mixed Vegetable & Paneer Curry

I made this creamy and colorful mixed vegetable curry to go with the Khamiri rotis. 'Shahi' literally means regal or royal, so any dish with that in the name means it's going to be rich and flavorful.

This shahi vegetable curry is great to make for parties or when you have company. Like most other Indian gravy curries, this curry tastes even better as it sits. So make it ahead of time and warm slightly when ready to serve.

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No-Bake Nutella Cheesecake

Blogging Marathon# 55: Week 2/ Day 3

Theme: Nutella Galore

Dish: No-Bake Nutella Cheesecake

Here's another lip smacking dessert using Nutella, a no-bake cheesecake. I usually plan the dishes to make for the marathon, well ahead of time. But for this week except for the muffins I made for the first day, I had nothing planned for the next 2 days. I was able to make the s'mores based on my son's tv show, but I was clueless as to what to make for today.
Clueless because there are sooooooo many dishes that can be made with Nutella and I'm sure every single one would taste amazing. I was very tempted to make Valli's Nutella mousse in chocolate cups, but was too lazy to make the chocolate part.

Then I saw this no-bake Nutella cheesecake on Pinterest and made it right away to make sure I don't change my mind :-) Original recipe used frozen whipped topping, but I didn't want to wait for the whipped topping to thaw, so I whipped fresh cream and folded it into the nutella-creamcheese mixture.

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Vegetarian Tamales with Spinach, Corn and Cheese Filling

Blogging Marathon# 54: Week 3/ Day 2

Theme: Kid's Delight -- Cooking from Kid's Books/ TV shows

Dish: Tamales with Spinach, Corn & Cheese Filling 

For the second day of BM# 54 under 'Kid's Delight: Cooking from story books/ TV shows', I made Tamales. I asked my son to give me ideas for this week's theme and he said he watched a TV show where they made tamales and he wanted me to try them too.
Tamales have been on my to-make list for a very very long time. I asked my blog buddy Mir to buy me some corn husks and the sweet heart she is, she brought me a big bag of corn husks that I finally got to use today.

Tamales are made with masa harina, a traditional flour used to make corn tortillas and other Mexican dishes. The flour is made from dried masa, a dough made specially from treated corn. If you want to know more about masa harina, read this. The masa dough encases the filling and the whole tamale is wrapped in a corn husk or a banana leave and either steamed or boiled.

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Curry Puffs/ Veg Puffs (made with Puff Pastry)

Blogging Marathon# 53: Week 2/ Day 2

Theme: Movie Night Snacks

Dish: Curry Puffs/ Veg Puffs

Curry puffs or veg puffs used to be my favorite bakery item during school and college days. Egg puff was also ordered very frequently. After coming to the US, I learnt that they can be easily made at home using frozen puff pastry.

So for Day 2 of 'Movie night snacks', I made us some curry puffs and served them with good old ketchup :-) We watched a movie too while eating the snack, but now I don't remember the name of the movie. I used to have real good memory and knowledge of films when I was in India. But now, all the movies seem the same and I get confused between the actors. Also we've lost patience and interest in watching the long Indian movies. So most of the movie, read songs and fights, are seen in fast forward.

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Noodley Pudding (Siwayan/ Semya Custard pudding) for Blog Anniversary

Month of May flew by really, really fast. It was quite a busy month jam packed with a lot of fun and food -- celebrated my birthday, Mother's day, met some blog buddies, took a painting class along with couple of friends, planted a raised bed garden and caught up with family and friends. I wish all months are this way -- even though it went fast, a lot of things have happened and most of the time is accounted for unlike some months were absolutely nothing happens in the whole entire month.

Along with the other happy incidents, my blog completed 9 years and entered into it's 10th year of blogging. I don't think I even knew what I was doing or what I wanted to do with the blog 9 years ago when I started it. This space was my way of documenting my recipes, never thought I would last this long. Being a stay at home mom for the last 3 years, the blog has become my main hobby -- it gives me something else to think about other than the mundane everyday chores.

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Perfect Chocolate Cake

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 26

Bake of the Day: Perfect Chocolate Cake

It's the final day of the month long mega marathon and I wanted to end it on a sweet note. I made this perfect chocolate cake for my husband's birthday, but the pictures I took looked awful, so I made it again couple of days back.

When I started planning for the marathon, I listed about 40~45 recipes that I wanted to try. I wanted to bake dishes that I've never made before like meringues, panettone, flat breads and so on. But when actual reality set in, the list got shorter and the dishes got simpler. I am happy with the baked dishes I posted in the marathon and hopefully I'll get to the dishes I had on my list along with the long list of bookmarks from my fellow marathoners.

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Sweet Ragi Dosa (Sweet Finger Millet Crepes)

Blogging Marathon# 50: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes

Dish: Sweet Ragi Dosa from Suganya's recipe here.

For the final day of 'Bookmarked recipes -- Ragi', I made these sweet ragi dosa from Suganya's blog. I made these few years ago and have been wanting to make them again for a while. It took me all this while to make these yummy dosas again.

Ragi flour has a nutty, earthy taste and the combination of ragi and jaggery is a definite hit. These sweet dosas are flavored with a hint of ground cardamom making these taste more like a dessert. They tasted like crepes to me and I almost felt like drizzling chocolate syrup on top, but controlled myself and drizzled some ghee, sprinkled some chopped walnuts on top instead.

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Spicy Vegetable Sandwich (Masala VeggieToast)

Blogging Marathon# 49: Week 2/ Day 1

Theme: Cooking for 1

Dish: Masala Toast

Being a South Indian, eating bread for a meal used to be a blasphemy some decade years ago. But then things and my thoughts changed when I came to the States and it was then I realized anything that fills your stomach can be eaten at any time of the day.

During my graduate studies, I was in Tampa for 3 months for internship and I shared an apartment with 2 American interns. This was still within a year of my stay in US and I wasn't completely used to the American food. I used to slave away in the kitchen cooking my rice, dal and curry (I didn't have a pressure cooker, so cooking used to take for ever). My American roomies on the other hand kept the fridge stocked with their cold cuts, cheese etc. and they used to be in and out of the kitchen with their sandwiches in no time. That was my first step towards sandwiches.

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Makhani Paneer Biryani

Blogging Marathon# 48: Week 3/ Day 3

Theme: Biryani of different Styles

Dish: Makhani Paneer Biryani

Here's a delicious biryani made with paneer for all paneer and biryani fans. Paneer is cooked with tomatoes, spices and some cream to make a lip smacking curry that is layered with basmati rice and then baked off (or cooked on dum) for an awesome tasting biryani that is sure to wow anyone.

I had more than a gallon of 1% milk that needed to be used up real fast, so I made paneer flavored with cumin seeds, ground coriander, chili flakes and kasuri methi. Now that I had that in the fridge, I was looking for recipes to use it and found the recipe for Makhani Paneer biryani here. It sounded like the perfect dish to make with my homemade flavored paneer.

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