Vanilla pudding and berries

Want to make an impressive dessert without much hard work - Try the combination of instant vanilla pudding and mixed berries.

The basic ingredients for the berry tart (above) would be 1. frozen pie shells (bake them in the oven as per instruction takes about 10 -12 minutes), 2. Instant vanilla pudding and 3. Mixed berries. Pour the vanilla pudding in the pie shell and allow the pudding to set. Top it with whipped cream, berries etc. For extra shine on the berries, apply sugar syrup on them.

For a lazy girl like me who doesnt want to bake - try arranging "Nilla Vanilla wafers" in a tall glass/bowl and pour in the vanilla pudding and decorate with berries. Chocolate pudding can also be used - These desserts are a snap to make and delicious too.

Chocolate on 1st

Am I crazy or what! Tea and chocolate! Yeek - was my first reaction - But thinking about it - I love chocolate cookies and cakes with Tea, then why not spice up chocolate with tea! I was bold enough to try the combination - Trust me I loved this pudding! I used "TAZO" spiced black tea to flavor up the chocolate pudding. There are many other flavored teas out there that I plan to combine with chocolate pudding. Btw, aren't the cups cute :)

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 cup milk chocolate chips (Ghiradelli)
1 1/2 cups milk. Boil the milk and spice it up with tea (ie dip in tea bags to infuse milk with the tea flavors)
2 tablespoons powdered sugar (more might be needed-depends on taste)
1/2 cup eggs or equivalent egg substitute

Melt chocolate chips in the microwave according to the instruction on the packet (it took me about 30 seconds on high power and 60 seconds on medium power on microwave). Add the tea spiced milk. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with sugar and gradually whisk in the chocolate and milk mixture.

A useful tip I follow from Food network - whenever mixing warm/hot milk to room temperature eggs, do it slowly, else eggs will scramble and you wouldn't get smooth mixture. So add few tbsp of milk intially and whisk the mixture. This will allow the eggs to stabilize to the temperature of the warm milk.

Pour the egg + chocolate milk mixture into ramekins or cups and place in a deep dish. Pour warm water into the baking dish around the ramekins/cups until the water reaches the edge of the ramekins/cups. In a preheated 325F oven, bake the pudding for about 50–60 minutes, or until a fork inserted into the pudding comes out clean. Serve warm or chilled Tea spiced chocolate pudding with a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla yogurt and sprinkle of cinnamon/nutmeg.

Tea and Chocolate are few of my favorite and the combo would be ideal to send to the bindiya's event "These are a few of my favourite things"

Instant Badam Barfi

Badam (almonds) and Kaju (cashew) barfi are amongst my favorite Indian sweets. I tried many times to make this in my kitchen and it was a disaster. The reasons for the disaster - I couldnt wait long enough for the milk and sugar to solidify or didnt grind the nuts properly. I almost gave up on making barfi at home until I noticed the instant barfi recipe in "Neelam Batra's" 1000 Indian recipes book at my friends place. It sounded super easy and I had to try it. The results were good - the consistency/texture of the barfi was perfect though in the taste department I think it falls a little below the original barfi recipe. I tweaked the amount of sugar and milk powder reported in the original recipe. Also, the "how to" doesnt include any use of butter/ghee - without the butter the mix is too dry to have barfi texture. For all the instant recipe lovers, here we go

Ingredients (makes about 15 barfis):
1. 1.5 cups roasted almonds - ground into fine powder
2. 3/4 cup powdered sugar or use splenda
3. 1/2 cup instant dry milk powder (available in the cake aisle in grocery stores)
4. lots of ghee or butter(about 4-5 tbsp)

Combine ingredients 1-3 (dry ingredients) and add 2 tbsp of ghee and water until the dry mix forms a dough (like a chapathi/roti dough). Knead the dough with the rest of the ghee. The dough can be rolled onto a flat surface and cut into the traditional diamond shape pieces or as shown above rolled into balls and pressed down with dry fruits (raisins or cherries). Infact as I write this, I think even a chocolate filling in the middle of the barfi will taste wonderful! I haven't used the silver leaves for garnish - which could make this instant dessert look even more pretty.

Few observations:
1. The nuts (pistachios, almonds or cashews) must be ground to a fine powder for the barfi to have perfect texture.
2. The barfi will dry out if ghee or butter is not added. I havent tried it but heavy whipping cream/condensed milk could be added instead of water

Banana and Cinnamon

The question I had after looking at Sunita's "Think Spice - cinnamon" event "Which is the dessert I repeat often and cannot do without cinnamon in that". The answer was there besides me in a plate - Baked banana with cinnamon. I make two versions of "banana and cinnamon" combination so often because they are very satisfying and low calorie at the same time. Both the dishes take less than 10 minutes to make. The baked or caramelized bananas wouldn't taste the same without the subtle rooty cinnamony flavor on the background.


Version 1: Baked Banana with Brown Sugar and Cinnamon


Ingredients:
1. One banana - slit midway twice into four pieces
2. Brown sugar - 2 tbsp. I use splenda brown sugar
3. Cinnamon powder - 2 tsp

Mix brown sugar and cinnamon powder in a bowl. Preheat oven to 275F. Place the bananas on a baking sheet,and smother them with butter. I usually use PAM butter spray. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture onto the bananas and bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until the brown sugar has melted. Sprinkle some Oats or nuts and enjoy it with low fat vanilla yogurt.


Version 2: Cinnamon caramelized bananas in orange syrup


Ingredients:
1. One banana - slit midway twice into four pieces
2. Brown sugar - 2 tbsp
3. Cinnamon powder - 2 tsp
4. Orange juice - 3 tbsp + orange rind - 2 tsp. Lemon can also be used.
5. Persimmon or dates or strawberries - 3-4 tbsp chopped (optional)
6. Pistachios - roasted and roughly chopped
7. Butter/Smart balance - 1/2 tbsp

In a pan heat butter, brown sugar and cinnamon powder until the sugar melts. Add the bananas, persimmons and orange rind and juice. Coat the bananas with the syrup while cooking and turn them over. Cook until the bananas soften, about 5 minutes. Serve with chopped pistachios and cream or yogurt. Drizzle the left over syrup on the cream or yogurt.

Chocolate treats...

As kids and even now - me and my sister love the "Cadbury Dairy Milk" Chocolates, especially the fruit and nut variety. I couldnt stop myself from buying this chocolate from an Indian store here in the US - only to notice the bad quality - I dont want to go into details-its too bad. So whenever I crave for chocolates, I buy the bars at whole foods or the GHIRADELLI variety and mold it as I want. Generally I mix the chocolate with all things I like - nuts, dry fruits etc. The recipe shown here tastes very much like the fruit and nut cadbury - its so very easy to make as well.

Ingredients (makes about 15 chunks):
1. 1/2 cup roasted almonds - chopped coarsely
2. 1/2 cup roasted hazelnuts - chopped coarsely
3. 1/2 cup rice crispies (kellogs or other variety you like)
4. 1/4 cup dried bing cherries finely chopped
5. 1 tbsp of unsweetened coconut flakes
Sixth and the main ingredients - 1 cup semisweet + 1 cup white chocolate chips (GHIRADELLI). This mix has the taste closest to the cadbury dairy milk.

1-5 Ingredients are available in cake section of the grocery store. Be sure to buy good quality nuts - it definetly makes a lot of difference to the flavor.

- Combine ingredients 1 to 5 in a bowl before melting the chocolate.
- Combine the white and semisweet chocolate chips in a bowl and heat in microwave at medium power for 30 seconds. Mix the chocolate and heat for 30 seconds again. The chocolate should be smooth by now - else heat in 15 second increments.
- Have to be quick in this step else the chocolate will start to harden. Combine the nuts and all your favourite things to the chocolate mix. and spoon them onto a plate or aluminium/baking sheet to cool down for 1 hour or so to make tasty wonderful chocolate fruit and nut crisps.

The crisps would be a wonderful Christmas gift as well. I am sending these favorite chocolaty delights to my sister. OH! And the recipe will also go to JFI Chocolate.

A small note - use a microwave safe dish for melting the chocolate. The first time I tried melting chocolate it was a disaster, I was also new to the whole "microwave" thing. I used a plastic dish that was microwave safe but still the chocolate (hershely's kisses) burnt. I was over greedy and used 4 minutes timer and didnt check the chocolate This was almost 5 years go. Now the disaster incidents have become sort of rare. So please keep an eye on the chocolate and no more than 30 seconds heating of chocolate in the microwave at a time

Weekend Dessert - tomato coconut halwa

This weekend is a little special - The semester has come to an end, so its a time to celebrate. So I made this easy halwa treat. The tomatoes add tangy flavor to the halwa. Have some tomatoes around in the kitchen? Try this recipe.

Ingredients (Serves 4)
Butter - 2tbsp ( I used "smart balance" butter instead)
Tomatoes - 3 (Boil and puree. Drain out all the seeds and skin)
Coconut - 1/2 cup (shredded)
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Cardamom powder (elaichi) - 1/4 tsp

In a non-stick pan heat butter and add tomato juice, coconut, elaichi powder and sugar and allow the mixture to boil. Keep stirring every few minutes. After about 20 minutes - the mixture will thicken and get to the halwa consistency. Garnish with toasted cashew nuts. The water in which the tomatoes are boiled can be used to make soups etc.

Tomatoes are antioxidant power houses. This recipe would be appropriate for Cates' Antioxidants rich food event.

Have a wonderful and relaxing weekend everyone!

Thai sticky coconut rice with mango

Thai is one of my favorite cuisines - and this particular dessert is very easy to make. It is similar to "kheer" in Indian cuisine with a different texture due to the sticky sweet rice used in this dish. Sticky rice is served with mango,egg custard generally.

The sweet sticky rice is available at the grocery stores. It is a short and fat grain rice and when cooked, as the name suggests, the rice is "STICKY" and has amazingly good absorbing nature. So anything you put into the rice when its warm will be absorbed into the rice. I used coconut milk here that is traditionally used, but I guess we can add vanilla milk or badam milk etc.

Whats needed (serving for 4) -
1 cup sticky rice - cooked with 2 cups of water
1 cup coconut milk
5-6tbsp of sugar (adjust sugar based on you sweet levels)
pinch of salt


The procedure is very easy too - In a pan heat coconut milk, sugar and salt - until it starts to bubble. Add this mixture to the hot sweet sticky rice (cooked) and mix. The coconut milk is absorbed by the rice. Serve it with mango pieces - totally delicious and easy dessert.

Angel food cake with mixed berries in a trifle dish

This is the easiest and the most prettiest dessert that will give a "WOW" expression from everyone - looking at it and also tasting it.

First - you have to make angel food cake. It can also be bought at stores. But i used the betty croker mix. Just follow the instructions on the box. I made two square pans cake with the mix. My trifle dish was round and i dont have round baking dishes at home - so just adjusted with the square ones - but it didnt matter in the end. Allow the cakes to cool down for atleast an hour. and then using a serrated knife to slice each cake midway into two halves. As the name suggests - The crunchy crust and the soft, super spongy cake all by istelf is heavenly.


Ingredients required:
2 cup strawberries sliced
1 cup raspberries
1 cup blueberries
1 cup black berries
1/2cup water
1/2 cup sugar
vanilla extract
Frozen Dessert whipped topping - Thaw this one in the refrigerator for 4 hours before use.

In a pan, put a tbsp of butter and put in all the berries. After a minute add the sugar and water. Allow the mixture to bubble a bit and the berries soften and then add vanilla/strawberry extract. I added a tbsp of corn starch mixed with water to thicken this syrup - so that it ends up with a spreadable jam like consistency.

Now for the decoration - be as creative as you can - any decoration will be good

First layer - I put in one layer of angel food cake, spread the mixed berries spread and also used some fresh berries on this layer,

Second layer - layer of cake with whipped cream spread

Third layer - cake with mixed berries spread and fresh berries

Fourth and top layer - put in the cake and add a heavy dose of whipped cream so that the it reaches the top of the trifle dish and then decorate the top with fresh berries. I also added few mint leaves for garnish.

Cover the dish and place in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours before serving.