Homemade Peanut Butter

Cooking time: 5 minutes | Difficulty level: Easy

Brent loves peanut butter. So much that for 6 straight months, he ate PB&J sandwiches every workday for lunch before I came along and changed his life ;) We typically used to run out of a 16oz jar of Jif in a month, so I thought why not try to make it at home? I like making variations (see ideas in Helpful Hints section at the end of the recipe) and I get a kick out of making stuff at home. I can control the quality of ingredients used while avoiding all those unnecessary chemicals and preservatives and it takes barely 5 minutes to make! Hope you like this recipe. If you try any variations, do let me know in the comments section. Enjoy!

Homemade Peanut Butter

Mini Cupcakes with Natural Flavors

Cooking time: 20 minutes + 20 minutes baking time | Difficulty level: Medium | Makes: About 2 dozen

Love cakes but worried about the calories? These mini cupcakes are the perfect guilt-free snack to satisfy the sweet tooth, and the frosting uses natural flavoring!

Clockwise: Strawberry, blueberry, orange and lemon

Syrups / Jams

Cooking time: 15 minutes | Difficulty level: Easy

For a while I relied on store bought strawberry and blueberry syrups. But then I started getting sick of all that high fructose corn syrup in all the syrups, so my Mom gave me the recipe to make my own syrups / jams. It is super easy, super fun and so much healthier! Besides, it lets me get creative and make my own flavors (next up: Orange and Lemon).

Eggless White Cake with Frosting

Preparation time: 20 minutes + 40 minutes baking time, Difficulty level: Medium | Makes: About 25-20 servings

Recently, I started baking cakes. Since my mom makes the world's best and healthiest cakes (IMO), I thought it would be nice to explore that part a little too! Nevertheless, the first eggless cake I ever baked with my mom's recipe (yes, I had a hard time converting Indian measurements to U.S. measurements), for a group of 20-odd people it blew everyone's mind!

Ingredients:

The final product  frosted and yummy!

For the cake:

2 cups all purpose flour (maida)

200 gm (or 1 cup) butter

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

200 ml condensed milk 

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 flat tsp baking powder

1/2 cup milk (optional) 
 

For the frosting:

1 cup butter

2 cups confectioners sugar (or 10x powdered sugar)

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk (optional)

Method:

1. Grease a 9" round cake tin with butter and dust with flour so as to cover the inner surfaces completely. Put aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C)
3. Mix the flour and baking powder and sift it thrice in a 6" - 8" sieve.
4. In a mixing bowl, beat the sugar and butter till the butter mixes completely with sugar.
5. Add the condensed milk and vanilla extract to this mixture and beat until creamy.
6. Add the sifted flour+baking powder to this mixture spoon by spoon, running the mixer on low after every spoon to attain pulpy consistency
7. If needed, add milk till the batter reaches a liquid consistency (when dropped from the spoon it should fall like a pulp).
8. Pour this mixture in the cake pan and tap it on the ground to release any trapped air bubbles.
9. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until a knife of toothpick inserted comes out clean
10. Once the cake is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool on counter top for about 20 minutes
11. Separate the edges from the tin with a knife and transfer the cake to a cooling rack
12. Let it cool for 40-50 minutes before you start frosting.
13. For the frosting, sift the sugar once to avoid lumps formation.
14. Using a mixer, beat the butter, sugar, and vanilla extract until smooth.



Layered cake with strawberry and blueberry jams

15. If the mixture is thicker than you need, add some milk and beat till the desired consistency is attained. If it is too runny, you can thicken it by adding more sugar



Making the frosting

16. Using a palette knife (or the non-sharp edge of a regular knife), coat the cake with the frosting 

 

Helpful tips:

• Baking times can vary according to the size of your oven or the depth of the pan. It is advisable to check the cake for doneness after 25 minutes as described in step 9.
• Condensed milk will provide the moistness and binding agent that eggs would provide otherwise, but condensed milk also has its own sweetness. The batter should be tasted for desired sweetness before adding all the sugar.
• This recipe calls for the use of baking powder, which is often confused with baking soda.
• You can also make a layered cake by baking two cakes or slicing the cake horizontally in half and you can have a layer of frosting or jam in the middle  (as shown in the picture above)
• To keep the cake from drying while it is cooling, cover it with a cotton cloth

 

Pepper Chicken Wings

Preparation time: 20 minutes | Difficulty level: Easy

Come March Madness, I started splurging on chicken wings (what's a basketball game without wings?) and soon realized how bad it was for me when I stumbled upon the ingredients. Deep fried wings, 1/2 cup butter, all purpose flour, WHAT? So I decided to make up my own recipe for equally delicious chicken wings and it's surprising how easy they are to make and so much healthier! Time to enjoy some guilt-free wings :)

Flan or Caramel Custard Pudding

Cooking time: 15 minutes + 45 minutes baking time | Difficulty level: Easy

This sweet dish is a specialty of all Iranian restaurants in India. Not overly sweet, this dessert is a perfect treat to top off the kebabs, biryani or pretty much any food! For me, it is an all-time favorite treat even on an empty stomach.

Veg Manchurian

(For Chicken Manchurian, see Helpful Hints section at the bottom)
Cooking time: 20 min | Difficulty level: Easy
 

Ingredients:

2 cup shredded cabbage

2 cup grated carrots

1 large bell pepper (capsicum), chopped

1 cup green onions (spring onions), chopped

2 tbsp corn flour

1 large egg (for binding, optional)

1 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce

3-5 garlic cloves, crushed

3-4 green chillies, chopped 

2 tbsp tomato ketchup

2 tsp vinegar (optional)

1/2 tsp red chilli powder

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 cup water

salt to taste

oil for deep frying and sautéeing

Cilantro (coriander) for garnishing
(For Chicken Manchurian, substitute cabbage and carrots with 200 gm boneless chicken pieces)

Method:

1. Mix the carrots and cabbage. Leave a fistful of this mixture aside and make balls out of the remaining mixture, about 1 inch diameter, squeezing out as much water as possible.
2. In a mixing bowl, mix the corn flour and egg (optional). Add a pinch of salt and red chilli powder to the mixture. Add some water, spoon by spoon, mixing constantly to achieve the desired consistency of a batter.
3. Dip the balls in this mixture, covering them completely and deep fry in a wok or kadhai. Fry until light brown and then remove them on a tissue paper to drain off excess oil.
4. In a vessel, heat 2 tbsp oil. Sauté the garlic, green chillies, green onions, bell peppers and the shredded carrots and cabbage that we kept aside, for 2 minutes.
5. Add the soy sauce, vinegar and tomato ketchup and water. Mix 2 tsp corn flour in 1 tbsp water and add that to the sauce to thicken it. Keep stirring to avoid any lumps.
6. Add the black pepper and salt to taste.
7. When the sauce begins to boil, add the veg balls and simmer for 5 minutes.
8. Garnish with cilantro.

Serve hot with rice or noodles

 Helpful Tips:

• Wait till the end to add the salt as the soy sauce may make the sauce salty
• For chicken manchurian, in step 1, substitute the cabbage and carrots with boneless chicken pieces, ideally marinated with garlic paste
• Although it is wasteful to throw away so much oil used for deep-frying, avoid reusing it as this oil has carcinogenic free radicals and can be potentially harmful.
• For that restaurant taste, you can add a pinch of Ajinomoto (MSG) but it is advisable not to