Blueberry Chia Jam

Blogging Marathon# 55: Week 3/ Day 3

Theme: Kid's Delight -- Healthy Breakfasts

Dish: Blueberry Chia Jam

Bread and jam is such an universally accepted and appealing breakfast. I guess this is the most easiest and the most convenient to have on a busy morning. Add a nut butter like peanut or cashew or almond butter to that toast and you have yourself a filling and delicious breakfast that keeps you going till lunch time.

For today's 'Kid friendly Healthy Breakfast', I made an easy and nutritious Blueberry Chia jam. I bought chia seeds on a whim from Trader Joe's, but I haven't used it much yet except in smoothies.

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Strawberry Jam (using Pectin)

With the last batch of strawberries we got from the farm, I made this Strawberry jam. I had some Pomona's Universal Pectin and I used the recipe from the instruction manual to make this jam. I bought a box of this few years ago and I've made jams using this pectin before and it always worked well for me.

Some people prefer not to add pectin, but I find adding it makes the jam hold its shape better. If you prefer not to use pectin, then feel free to leave it out. Almost all fruits have some level of natural pectin in them that will help them set to make a somewhat firm to very firm jam. Here's a good article to read more on this.

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Eggless Berry Cake (with Sour Cream) -- Peppa Pig Fondant Cake

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 19

Bake of the Day: Celebration Cakes -- Eggless Berry Cake (with Sour Cream)
After my son's birthday cakes (Cookie cake & Dulche de Leche cake), I made this eggless berry cake for my niece. I was volunteering to bake cakes left and right, so I can bake new cakes for the marathon. I think some of my friends & family were even creeped out on how obsessed I was to bring a cake to the party -- poor people ;-)

I asked my niece what flavored cake she wants -- she wasn't really worried about the flavor, she just wanted a princess cake that was pink. So I accepted the challenge and even found a recipe and instructions on making a nice Barbie princess cake. Initially it seemed easy enough to make but as I kept thinking about it seemed like a daunting task, so I changed my mind and decided on making this Peppa Pig cake instead because she is a big fan of Peppa. Good that I didn't promise her a princess cake in the first place. She was definitely excited to see Peppa on the cake.

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Mango Jam (with Pectin)

It is officially the end of end of mango season. I was lucky enough to taste the final mangoes of the season in India. My mom and I ran to the market in the middle of a hot day as soon as we heard there're mangoes in the market. My daughter and I totally enjoyed the sweet Banganapalli mangoes, while the self proclaimed mango phobic person (my son) looked at us like we were crazy. It's been good 14 years that I ate a good Andhra mango.

I was excited to see some mangoes on our recent visit to the local Indian grocery and bought a whole crate out of sheer excitement, only to find that most of them had dark spots on them. They tasted super sweet and juicy, but the dark spots started to grow bigger by the day. With my husband travelling, I couldn't possibly eat all of them, so decided to make a jam with the rest of them -- this way at least we can preserve and relish the mangoes longer.

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Rose Raspberry Macarons

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mothers out there. 

Hope all of you are having a fabulous Mother's day and are being pampered by your kids. I wish my mom was here :-( One of my dear friends has a Mother's day picnic today and that is where we are going to spend our time and have lots of delicious food and loads of fun.
My family has become fans of Macarons after I made tried them for the first time couple of months ago. My son's love actually started after his favorite characters in Pokemon ate macarons and he keeps asking for different flavored ones.

We bought 3 tiny macarons from a local specialty bakery and spent about $4 on them. After tasting them, the whole family agreed that they tasted just like my homemade ones, so why spend so much on them when I can probably make them for much less at home?

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Eggless Chocolate Cake with Jam for a Celebration

May is a month of celebration in my real home and also in my virtual home. It happens to be my birthday month (yup.. I'm a tough Taurean :-) ) and of course there's Mother's day celebrations. It is also my blog anniversary month -- Cook's Hideout has completed 7 years of blogging. 

Blogging years seem to me like dog years. There are a quite a few blogs that were active at one time, but are no longer virtually alive. I feel like a veteran among many new and upcoming food bloggers. I have to thank my family for their support and patience without whom I wouldn't have been blogging for so long. I was telling my mom the other day that I cook and eat well even when I'm alone because of my blog. 

Big thanks to Valli, the master mind behind Blogging marathon and all my fellow marathoners for their infectious enthusiasm.

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Pistachio Sandwich Cookies

Blogging Marathon# 27: Week 1/ Day 7
Theme: Occasions/ Goodies to Blog buddies
Dish: Pistachio Sandwich Cookies

When blog buddies meet there is going to be food to eat, food to talk about and food to take home. So after our lunch at I wrote about here, I sent my buddies home with some of my homemade goodies. These pistachio sandwich cookies were one among them.

I love slice and bake icebox cookie recipes. What that means is the dough is made into a log and chilled in the ice box for 4 hours (or up to 3 days, it can even to frozen) and then sliced and baked. I don't like rolling the dough and cutting the cookie using cookie cutters. It seems to too time consuming and messy. I actually have a whole box of cookie cutters that I have never used until now. Maybe when my daughter grows a little older, I can learn with her :-)

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Strawberry-Arugula Salad with Fruity Jam Dressing

I'm a huge fan of food related shows and competitions on TV. I used to watch a ton of cooking shows before, but with the kiddo taking over the TV and the busy work-life schedule, I don't get to watch my favorite cooking shows anymore. But any chance I get, Food Network & Cooking Channel are the channels I spend most time watching. 

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Nutella & Strawberry Jam Bread Pudding

Today is the day after Christmas, last day of our 3 day long weekend and I woke up really late this morning. If it was like any other weekend I would have skipped breakfast and went straight to lunch, but as I said it is the last day of our 3 day looong weekend and I wanted to make something special for breakfast.

I had this bread pudding in my mind, but I wanted to make it without the croissants and make it (very very) little healthy. I had whole grain white bread on hand and I used this recipe with nutella and strawberry jam to make the bread pudding. 

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Peach-Mango Jam with Vanilla

What do you do when there are only 2 adults (and one kid who doesn’t eat fruit AT ALL) and crate full of peaches and mangoes to eat before they go down south into the garbage. First thing I would do is to bring some sense into the people who are buying these excessive fruit. But come on who can resist those sweet smelling mangoes in Indian grocery – one fruit is definitely not enough and the next best (cheapest) is the crate with a dozen of them, I picked up the latter. Also peaches had a $2 coupon at BJs, so they came home too.

After eating the fruit for a week, I started thinking of options of consuming them in bulk. Some of the peaches went into this yummy summer soda that I made for the BBQ – very summery and refreshing. With the rest of the peaches I made this peach-mango jam and added some ground vanilla as flavoring. I still have a couple more mangoes that I’m planning to make mango lassi with – don’t want to end the summer without enjoying an ice cold lassi.

Traditionally whole vanilla beans are used to flavor the jam, but I used pulverized vanilla (ground vanilla??) instead. I added pectin to the jam to get a more jam like consistency. I also used a hand blender to make a smooth jam instead of chunky.

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Soda Bread Scones

I don’t make elaborate breakfasts. Breakfast to me is something quick and easy, nothing fancy and not more than one dish to clean (which happens to be the dish I ate in). But this weekend, I made an exception and decided to make something special for us.

I made some Soda Bread Scones and we had them with some vegan butter and homemade mango-raspberry jam. I found the recipe in Vegetarian times magazine. It has vegan with no-fat what-so-ever and is quick and easy to make too.

Recipe adapted from Vegetarian Times
Ingredients:
Whole wheat flour – 2½ cups
Baking soda – ½ tsp
Ground Cinnamon – 1tsp
Salt – ½ tsp
Soy milk – ¾ cup (and a little more if needed)
Maple syrup – 3tbsp
Raisins – ¾ cup
Raw sugar like turbinado – 8tsp (optional) (I used demerera sugar)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 450°F. Spray baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray.
  
• In a large bowl, whisk in flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.
  
• In a measuring cup, mix in soy milk, maple syrup and raisins.
  
• Stir the soy milk mixture into the flour mixture until soft dough is formed. Add more milk if needed.
  
• Transfer to a floured surface and shape into 8” round. Cut the round into 8 wedges.
  
• Transfer to prepared baking sheet; and sprinkle each wedge with 1 tsp of sugar, if using. Bake 20 minutes or until browned.
  

These breakfast beauties are off to Vaishali’s IAVW: Britain and to Madhuram’s Whole Grain Baking event. Soymilk can be substituted with buttermilk to make non-vegan scones.

Notes: Leftover scones can be wrapped in aluminum foil and kept in the refrigerator for upto 3 days. Microwave for about 30secs and enjoy the scone while still warm.

Mango-Raspberry Jam: I made this jam when we had an abundance of mangoes and raspberries and I had no clue what to do with both the fruit before they go bad. Then I decided to make a jam with both and I’m glad I did. I got a total of 4 medium size bottles of jam that we have been enjoying thoroughly ever since. I bought sugar with pectin from Sweden and I used in this jam.

Method:

• Microwave chopped Mango and Raspberry until almost cooked, about 6-8 minutes. I microwaved Mango for about 5 minutes before adding the raspberries.
• Add the fruits to a saucepan along with Sugar. Cook until sugar melts and starts to thicken, about 25-30 minutes.
• Store in a air-tight jar in the refrigerator. I sterilize my jars following DK's canning 101 tutorial to the T.
  

Strawberry Jam

My husband is a big Costco and BJ’s fan. I like buying milk, salt, spices, nuts, bread that are definitely much cheaper (although in bulk). But I don’t like buying fruits and vegetables there. To me buying 20lbs bag of potatoes, 5 lbs of apples and 3 dozen eggs is almost putting money down the drain. The reason being we are just 2 people at home eating and how many months or years are you going to feed on the same bag of potatoes and apples? Apparently that’s not what my husband thinks; he says we still spend less based on per lb or per unit price. Well this is a very hot issue that is still under discussion and no outcome has come out of it yet.

Coming back to my Strawberry jam, we bought 4 lbs box of strawberries and I had to use them up before they start going bad. I found the recipe in my “Five-a-Day Fruit & Vegetable Cookbook”and it turned out pretty good.Very easy to make with few ingredients and tastes fabulous.

Ingredients:
Strawberries – 4 cups
Sugar – 2 cups
Lemon – 1

Method:

• The night before you want to make the jam, clean the strawberries with a damp paper towel and remove the stems. You can leave them whole if they are small, otherwise cut them into 2 or 4 depending on the size of the berry. Make sure that the berries are completely dry before you do anything.
• Take the berries in a non reactive bowl, glass being an excellent choice. Add sugar, cover and let sit overnight.

• In the morning, transfer the berries and their juices to a large heavy bottomed pan. Add the juice of 1 lemon, mix well (preferably with a wooden spoon) and heat the mixture on medium-low flame with occasional stirring. Sugar will slowly dissolve and the berries will start to fall apart. The mixture needs to be cooked till it reaches jam consistency*.

• Cool the jam completely and transfer into sterilized bottle**. Will store in a cool dry place for almost a year.

* How do you know you reached the right consistency? Book has 2 suggestions, none of which worked for me. First one is to check the temperature of the mixture with a sugar thermometer and when it reads 212ºF it is ready (I don’t own a sugar thermometer and have no intentions of buying one). Second method is to chill a saucer, put a drop of the berry mixture on it, and chill it again for 3 minute. When you try to push the drop it should from ripples (ahhhh.. what?? I didn’t know if chilling should be done in the freezer or in the refrigerator).

So that’s when I had to make an urgent call to my mom, who has jam making experience and she gave me a better idea (that really worked for me). Put a drop of the mixture on a small plate and try to move it around. If it starts flowing then the jam is not ready yet. If it resists movement and doesn’t move, then it is ready; remove from heat immediately. It took about 30-35 minutes for the jam to come together.

**To sterilize jars: Wash in hot soapy water, then rinse thoroughly and drain. Place the jars on a baking sheet and dry in a warm oven for 15-20 minutes.