Forty Plus Fruity

OUR Birthday Season has begun ...April-May-June!

:: Blueberry-Sweet Lime-Mint Cake::

::Citrus surprise with a hint of cinnamon!::

:: For us, May-Borns! :: 

:: Mango-Coconut Cream Cake for the April boy! ::

:: Virgin Pinacolada Cake for the June Teenager :: 

:: Happy 9th Birthday to Mango-fan Abhiir! ::

Mother's Recipe #9

Home Baked Biscuits

For my older son, back when he was four, his grandmother(my mother) was no less than Mary Poppins or Fraulein Maria from the Sound of Music, who used to carry a magical bag full of limitless possibilities, when she came to spend the summer vacations with us in Abu Dhabi. She baked these with my son, as a summer activity suggested by the nursery, back in those days. She would knead the dough with magical expertise, opening the doors towards baking for me, erasing all my starting troubles. I made these using finger millet flour along with the traditional whole wheat flour. I used jaggery and some olive oil to balance the sugar and butter respectively. A pinch of cocoa powder to finger millet flour gives the cookies an irresistible dark chocolate colour for the MUD part  in the cookies!

Ingredients : (Amounts are given from experience and intuition ;)

• Whole Wheat Flour  - 1/2 bowl

• Ragi flour (finger millet) - 1 and 1/2 bowls

• Butter - 1/4 slab

• Olive oil - 3 tablespoons

• Jaggery - 1/2 bowl

• Cinnamon (powdered) - 1/2 teaspoon

• Vanilla essence - 1/4 teaspoon

• Baking powder - 1/2 teaspoon

• Soda bicarb - 1/2 teaspoon

• Cocoa powder - 1 teaspoon

• Mixed nuts (powdered) - 2 to 4 teaspoons

• Warm milk/ warm water - as needed to knead the dough.

Freestyle Method : 

1. Mix the flours, baking powder, soda bicarb and cocoa to a large mixing bowl.

2. Add jaggery, cinnamon, nuts and vanilla essence.

3. Add butter chunks and olive oil.

4. Knead roughly until the butter chunks melt.

5. Add warm water or warm milk and knead firmly into a ball.

6. Refrigerate for a few hours to let the dough rest.

7. Roll into sheets of roughly 5mm thickness 

8. Cut to any size and shape. If you do not have a cookie cutter, use the lid of any jar to cut perfect circular shapes.

9. Use a fork to make patterns if you wish. 

10. Preheat the oven for 2 minutes at 230 degrees. Then bake for 20 minutes at 230 degrees.

11. Let them cool down to get the golden crunchy bite!

#mothersrecipes #handcraftedwithlove #homebakedcookies #grandmumslove 

:: Mud Cookies ;) ::

:: Finished in minutes! ::

:: 3rd batch was perfectly golden :: 

Mother's Recipe #6

:: Mixed Vegetable Cutlets ::

Mother's Recipe #5

Tomato Saar

As a child, I remember being confused between tomato “Soup” and tomato “Saar”. I always wanted to have a thick creamy cheesy tomato soup but my mother used to make a thin spicy tangy tomato drink , with flavours of garlic and coconut, which I later came to know as “tomato saar”. I realised recently, its consistency is similar to rasam, but without the dal water and rasam masala. Must admit, this time I liked the Saar more than the soup!

Ingredients :

• Tomatoes - 4 - medium sized
• Grated coconut - ½ cup
• Garlic cloves - 3-4
• Dry red chilies - 3-4
• Curry Leaves - 5-6
• Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
• Cumin seeds -1/2 teaspoon
• Asafoetida - 1/4 teaspoon
• Dry mango powder - 1/4 teaspoon
• Oil
• Salt

Freestyle Method :

1. Blanch four medium sized tomatoes for 10 minutes in boiling water. Keep aside in cold water for a while and peel off the skin.
2. Let them cool down. Then blend them into a smooth puree.
3. Grind the grated coconut, 3 red chilies, cumin seeds and garlic in a separate blender jar.
4. In a pan, heat some oil for tempering. Add mustard seeds, then one dry red chilly, asafoetida and curry leaves and wait for it to sizzle and crackle.
5. Add the coconut chili garlic paste to the pan. Sauté until the garlic loses its rawness.
6. Add the tomato puree and some leftover water from the blanching of the tomatoes to let it simmer for a few minutes. Season with salt and dry mango powder. If required, pour through a sieve to get a smooth thin shiny consistency.
7. Garnish with fresh coriander.

Tomato Saar can be eaten with rice as a light meal. In that case, the sieving process can be skipped. But I prefer to have it as a warm but fresh summer drink just like rasam, giving a subtle sour spiced satisfaction!

Lemon & Mint

Happy Birthday to YOU, Happy Birthday to ME!

Its nice to celebrate two birthdays in the same month, in the same house, just a week(and some years) apart! This is my summery 'Lemon and Mint' Cake, bathed in olive oil and showered with fresh orange juice and the zest of two full lemons (that are now sitting naked in my fridge, lol)

#handcraftedwithlove #twotaureans #egglesscakes #maybirthdays 

:: Lemon & Mint Cake ::

Mother's Recipe #4

Sheer Khurma/ 

Shevaya Kheer/ 

Semiya Payasam 

(Vermicelli Pudding)

This month, I thought of trying another simple dish, my mother used to make often on festive days - Shevaya Kheer. With the flavour of Vishu lingering from the week before, I thought why not Semiya Payasam! But then because of the Eid context last week, I finalized my plan on making Sheer Khurma.

These three dishes are pretty much the same thing, just with different consistencies of milk. While Sheer Khurma has a thick rich and creamy form, Shevaya Kheer has slightly more but thinner milk and Semiya Payasam has a lot more milk giving it a pourable consistency. Ingredients are all the same. Just a dash of the local cultural touch makes the difference.

In fact I remember my mother saying, “Lets make Sheer Khurma” for that one Eid holiday we used to get back when I was in India. She used to tell me that it's just a thicker version of the Shevaya Kheer, but sounds a lot more “royal”! Hence it seemed perfect for Eid-Ul-Fitr.

Ingredients :

• Milk - 1 litre (thick, full fat)
• Vermicelli/ Semiya - 1 cup
• Dates - 3-4
• Nuts (Almonds and Cashews) - 5-6 each
• Raisins - a handful
• Cardamom - 3
• Sugar/ Jaggery - about 2 tablespoons
• Ghee - 2-3 teaspoons
• Rose water - ½ teaspoon

Freestyle Method :

• On a hot pan, roast the dates and raisins with ghee and keep aside when aromatic and marinated.
• In the same pan, roast the vermicelli, crushed cardamom and finely chopped nuts until golden brown.
• Add milk + the dates and raisins mixture to the same pan.
• Let the vermicelli cook in the boiling milk. Keep stirring so that the vermicelli does not stick to the bottom of the pan. Let the milk thicken.
• Add sugar/ jaggery and rose water. Continue stirring.
• Turn off the heat when the vermicelli looks thick and wormy and the raisins are juicy and plump.
• Let it cool and garnish with more nuts.
• When warm, it can be eaten as breakfast and when cold, it can be served for dessert.

Of course, a themed plating is a must! After watching too many episodes of my favourite MasterChef Australia, I keep serving those fancy plates of food, telling my family about how I'm more into “Sophisticated Flavours” ;)

But secretly, later on, I added a lot more milk and more sugar to the Sheer Khurma and served it as Payasam to my very very sweet “payasam people” from the south ;)

Mother's Recipe #3

Egg Fried Rice

This recipe is not a trial but a pure dedication. I have made this dish about a thousand times till date…probably once a week for the past twenty years for myself and for my boys! This is the simplest recipe, but this one deserves the first place in my heart. This is the first dish my mother actually taught me, the first that I made as a teenager. This is a survival dish for those super hungry times, in the middle of school projects, vacations, architectural submissions and of course has been my '5 am bento box saviour recipe' for years!

I am sure all my best friends from school must be remembering my mother’s famous egg fried rice in my steel tiffin box. My vegetarian friend, who secretly started eating eggs, was because of this egg fried rice!!!

Even my children’s friends have begun to love it, sharing it from their lunch boxes. My only regret remains, that because of his egg allergy, my husband has never got to taste this recipe. I always tell him, one day, the aroma of my egg recipes will help him get rid of his allergy!

Ingredients : (Serves two extra hungry children)

• 2 -3 Eggs
• ½ Onion
• Cumin seeds/ Cumin powder - 1/2 teaspoon (Personally I like cumin seeds more than powder. But for some finicky boys, I add the powder, because they have some complaints about jeera rice, that “the seeds keep coming in the way of each tasty bite!” )
• Curry leaves - 6-7 (Better if freshly picked from the garden)
• Green chilly - 1
• Turmeric powder - ¼ teaspoon
• Ghee - 1 teaspoon
• Oil (groundnut/ olive/ sunflower) - 1 teaspoon
• Cooked Rice - 2 bowls (leftover rice works perfectly)
• Goda masala (Indian spice mix - optional)
• Fresh coriander for garnish
• Juice of ½ a lemon.
• Salt
• Black Pepper

Freestyle Method :

• Heat the oil in the pan. Add curry leaves, cumin seeds and green chilly. Let them dance in the oil. Add sliced onion. Let him join in the oiled dance until tired and transparent ;)
• Add cumin powder (if you're not using cumin seeds) and turmeric powder. Toss until uniformly coated on the onion.
• Break two eggs. Let them settle for a while and then toss them into a scrambled form. Wait until the eggs are cooked perfectly.
• Add cooked rice and mix. Add ghee, salt, pepper.
• Add that magical touch of the goda masala spice mix and let its aroma get infused with each grain of the rice.                                                                                                                       *Every year, my mother used to give me a jar of her special homemade goda masala mix. It adds that magical touch to absolutely any dish. I have only about a quarter jar of that masala still left with me. I am using it sparingly, as I have never found that exact mix in any shop even in India. It was her special secret recipe, which I have been trying to crack. Somewhere deep inside, I'm scared, what'll happen if that spice jar gets over? It's the last of my mother’s creations that I am holding onto like a child. That masala has pushed me into trying new dishes. I hope I can recreate the magic of that jar one day!
• Garnish the rice with the juice of ½ a lemon and some freshly chopped coriander. No dish is complete without this lemon-coriander duo!
• Fill it in the bento box/ tiffin box after letting the steam settle. Otherwise eat it up right away ;)

Cooking Time - less than 10 minutes (Rice should be cooked beforehand and cooled)

#mothersrecipe3  #eggfriedrice  #bentoboxrecipes  #tiffinbox 

Mother's Recipe #2

Finger Millet + Fresh Fruit Cake

This recipe is carried forward from my great grandmother, to my mother and now to me. This cake is not really a fancy dish, but a humble, no fuss, eggless sweet dish, made from the less used flours in the house, combined with seasonal fruits to add a much required freshness. The egg is replaced by yogurt. Hence the cake has a nice balance of sweet and tangy flavours. Cakes in those days were generally steamed in a double boiler as opposed to baking in ovens. Perhaps this method keeps the cake more moist.

My mother and my great grandmother used to make it with semolina + jowar/ sorghum flour with yogurt and fresh mango. I decided to add my own touch by using ragi/finger millet flour, which is rich in iron. I have used fresh strawberries for the “Valentine’s day” context ;)

Ingredients -

• Ragi/ finger millet flour - 1 and 1/2 cups
• Multipurpose flour/ Maida or Semolina - ½ cup
• Fresh fruit (strawberries) - 1/2 cup finely chopped fruit + 1 cup roughly chopped fruit for mashing into the batter.
• Butter - 1/3rd slab
• Baking powder and Soda Bicarb - 1 teaspoon each
• Sugar - ½ cup
• Jaggery - ½ cup
• Yogurt - 2 tablespoons
• Milk - ¼ litre
• Ghee - for greasing the baking tray
• Almonds/walnuts - about 6 Nos, if you like nuts.
• Fresh Cream - just a dollop.

Freestyle Method -

• Take one bowl for the dry ingredients. Sieve all the flours. Add powdered sugar and powdered jaggery into the bowl. Add baking powder and soda bicarb.
• Into another bowl - (the wet bowl) - add butter, roughly chopped strawberries and yogurt. Mix well.
• Add the dry mix to the wet mix . Stir firmly with a spatula adding milk as required. Then blend with a hand mixer till a dosa-batter consistency is achieved.
• Add finely chopped fruit and nuts towards the end. No mixing after this process.
• Grease the baking tray with a few drops of ghee. Pour the magical potion into the tray. With ragi flour, the batter gets a nice light brown “chocolatey” colour, without the cocoa! That's a victory! The boys think it's chocolate cake ;) I understood the whole point of using the less used flours in such dishes. No one can pinpoint our underlying healthy intentions!
• Preheat the oven for 10 minutes at 200 degrees.
• Bake the cake for 40 minutes.
• Take the toothpick test to see if you need another 5 minutes of baking or not!

Finally, I coated the cake with some fresh cream and thinly sliced strawberries to give a chic makeover to this rustic recipe from the villages of the western coast of India, where my great grandmother used to live.

My mother was a great cook and a quick learner, who became the favourite student of my great grandmother. I have become the student now! Everyone says, my personality is a combination of my mother's and my great grandmother's.  Thus these recipes have found a way of reaching out again, this time through me!

#yearofthemillet #milletcake 

:: Finger Millet + Fresh Fruit Cake::

Mother's Recipe #1

Cilantro Bites

My mother would have been 65 today. To continue a celebration of her heavenly birthdays here on earth, today I open the chapter to my mother's recipes to be tried out this year.

My sister and I often talk about what we miss the most from our mother. It’s the food she cooked so effortlessly! As a little girl, I used to sit in my mother’s lap and take a close look at her hands. Her hands always told me stories of garlic and coriander! Her fingers had some magic…of knowing how much of any ingredient goes into a recipe. She never followed any recipe books or cooking shows. Whatever she cooked used to be something learnt from her mother and later from my great grandmother, with a touch of her own innovation.

I used to help her in the kitchen. She would say, “Let me do my quick freestyle cooking. You can finish the dish with your artistic plating.” We made a great team!

I want to keep her legacy alive, to seek her blessings in what I do and to pass on her recipes to the next generation, so that my boys continue to remember her through food. Hence as a part of my new year resolutions, I have decided to recreate twelve of my mother’s simple recipes, one for each month.

I begin this month with one of her favourites and mine - “Cilantro Bites" or "Kothimbir Wadi”. This is a savoury snack made with coriander/cilantro, gram flour and sesame seeds. The hero ingredient here is coriander, which is generally used  as a garnish in most dishes.

Ingredients: (Amounts are from experience and intuition :)

• Coriander – 1 full fresh bunch
• Gram flour - 2-3 tablespoons per batch
• Ginger - one blob
• Garlic - 4-5 cloves
• Peanuts - a handful
• Green chilly - 2 maybe
• Sesame seeds - 2 teaspoons
• Turmeric - 1/2 teaspoon
• Coriander powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Asafetida - 1/4 teaspoon
• Salt - less is more!

Freestyle method :

• Wash the fresh coriander under running water and chop it finely. Avoid thick stems.
• Mix sieved gram flour and water to form a smooth batter of dosa consistency and add the chopped coriander to it.
• Roast the peanuts and sesame seeds separately on a dry pan on the side.
• Grind a mixture of ginger, garlic, green chilly and the roasted peanuts.
• Add the mixture to the batter along with coriander powder, turmeric, asafetida and the roasted sesame seeds.
• Mix well to an uttappam consistency.
• Steam it on a double boiler for about 20minutes.
• Allow the coriander “cake” to cool.
• Cut into bite sized squares. Alternatively, it can be rolled into cylinders for steaming and then cut into round pieces.
• Pan fry until golden brown.
• Optionally, season with curry leaves, grated coconut.
• Keep one batch aside for that neat 'MasterChef- style plating' and the perfect Instagram shot.
• Allow the other batch to be gobbled up in minutes by the boys!

:: Cilantro Bites ::

Heart(BEET)

:: Beetroot + Cinnamon Cake with a hint of chocolate ::

:: Happy 12th Birthday Ary ::

"OLD" Memories

My birthdays would always be in the middle of school vacations. Every summer, on those balmy days of mid-May, I remember spending entire afternoons in my garden in Pune, playing endlessly on the backyard swing, with my pet cat “Whitey” and her kitten “Diana” for company. My sister used to be around, sitting on the steps of the kitchen door that led to the garden, reading her big fat novels, eating crispy snacks made by my mum.

This scene from my childhood home is my most fond memory of my vacation - birthdays.

Today, my terrace garden in Abu Dhabi, my pergola swing and my little cat Rumi, help me recreate this scene from childhood and continue to make me quietly happy. I get ready to embrace the new “old”, bringing back old memories and weaving them into this new phase of life, celebrating forty years in this life.

And as I turn the page from the book of life to a new chapter, I am happy to shout out that the manuscript for my second poetry book has been accepted by a publishing house in the UAE. If all goes well, my book will be published by this yearend, to gently touch many hearts and evoke myriad emotions. (Hopefully more than my first book – Quiet Happiness, published around my 30th birthday in 2012.)

The three most important men in my life refashioned my childhood scene and invited me to our terrace “restaurant”. Head Chef- husband drafted and crafted a special 3 course set menu for me. Rumi, who is almost a year old now, lovingly played her part, sat in a basket, posing as a gift and later waited with me, stretching out at the table for each course to arrive, while the two little men provided live entertainment, as DJ Ary and dancer Aby.

As we moved from the delightful entrée, then to a wholehearted main course to the beautifully plated dessert, the warm evening melted into a pleasant night. The paper lamps on the pergola danced with the breeze and the garden plants swayed in chorus, joining in the celebration. The click of the wine glasses marked my new beginning.

The last decade was a journey into and through motherhood, becoming the mother to two active boys. Maybe the next ten years will be a time to unwind and look back at how they have grown. I have decided to make a list in my mind of the things I am most grateful for at this moment in life and a “To-Do Better” list for the next ten years.

For now, let me keep replaying these little loving gestures, thoughts and memories, to be collected with a lot of care, first in my mind and then documented on these pages, to preserve for a lifetime.

:: Happy 40th Birthday to me :) :: 

:: The Menu ::

:: Party Setting ::

:: Entree ::

:: Main ::

:: Dessert ::

:: Decor ::

TENtastic

:: Birthday Buddies ::

:: My Double Digit Cake for Mr. TEN ::

:: Carrot Cinnamon for 0 and Naughty Nutty Chocoloaf for 1::

A 38-Step Journey

I woke up early this morning,

only to live my moment in the sun.
I wore "outside clothes",
put on my watch, earrings and sunglasses,
everything that I have not used
for the past month and a half...
I let down my untamed tresses,
otherwise secured in a usual bun,
as they are scared of falling off!
All this, in celebration
of my 38 step journey...
with my tea and cake...
from the kitchen to my terrace!

#coronadiaries #lockdownbirthday #quarantinecrafts

:: On a deeper note, my 38-step journey talks about how, in these unprecedented times, the importance of everything around us has changed... We have come to appreciate simple things in life. We have started doing many activities which we never had the time for. 

How those 38 steps from the kitchen to the terrace ---from a 'busy, worried working mother' mind frame to a relaxed, grounded, grateful one, can be enough to make up a quiet enjoyable celebration, as I count 38 years of life going by... ::

:: Handcrafted Chocolate -Walnut Cake with a nutty crust ::

:: Cant keep their hands off! ::

Food for the Soul

:: Veggie Rice with Salad ::

:: Mum-Made Mini Pizzas (Before) ::

:: Mum-Made Mini Pizzas (After) ::

Mango Mood

:: Mango Sticky Rice--- with an Indian Twist!::

'Egg'spress your Love!

:: Happy Valentine's Day! ::

:: I started out making a double omelette for the boys this morning...and it turned out to be heart-shaped! Well, what can I say! Just Happy Valentine's day :)

Verry Berry

:: Date and Blueberry Muffins ::

Chocolate-Orange Cake

:: Best for Last ::

:: For my Eight year old Big Boy! ::

:: Setting the Mood! ::