Granola Bars - another healthy snack to make and store

The summer has set in and it is hot beyond belief already - what happened to the slight cool wind that was blowing last week???? The l'il one doesn't understand why the weather has turned so hostile and he has to stay in during the day? Also, the appetite has suddenly shrunk and all he wants to do is sip on liquids and munch on something light. He is isn't much of a fruit fan so have been thinking of various ways to get some fruit into his diet but making sure the snack / food is wholesome (using whole wheat, puffed rice and oats) and these is a "YUMMY" element to it otherwise, it doesn't get eaten! Made some fresh mangoes and cream lollies, strawberry and yogurt mousse but those posts are for another day!

My love affair with Granola started way back in 2000 when I went to study in the US. I put on the freshmen 15 (more like 25) in the first year and the latter years were always spent in combating this weight gain. I wasn't a drinker or a big fan of pizzas but when dinner was done and over with at 800pm and there were long hours of programming looking up at you, one needed some carbs to survive the night! In the day we would snack on high carb cafeteria food - either loaded potatoes, pasta, cheeze grilled, donuts and the works, also there was unlimited soda (Gosh, never in my life had I been allowed more than a glass), also the lovely sugary cereals (I could have lived on Lucky Charms) - you're getting the drift. Once I realized what hit me I had to start putting in the appropriate measures and putting the rights stops to make sure I went down from a size 8 and never reached that weight again!

Healthy wholesome food became my mantra - granola bars, whole wheat bread, pita with veggies and lean meats, no soda and a little help from Slim Fast too...  yes very desperate measures. But when I got myself a job and was living on my own my eating habits just improved and it was always home cooked meals for me and the weight started shedding on its own!

Anyway's, wayy off the topic I am - so I thought I would do some oat cookies since he had give up those a while back with some fruit (figs, dates, strawberries) and some nuts and chocolate chips??? But, then I didn't want to add flour to my recipe and neither did I want to spend an hour for making something in this heat ( = no beating butter, sugar, eggs, making dough, cooling dough, shaping dough). yet, I needed something he could carry down with him when he goes to the park in the day or place in his snack box when he starts school... and then it dawned to me why not make his some granola bars and cut them into bite size pieces for him?

I first raided my pantry to see what I had on hand? Then the internet to look up some recipes - Granola Bars need - Grains (Oats), Dried Fruit (Figs, Dates, cranberry), Nuts, Liquid to Bind (Oil, Honey, Butter, Egg) and you are good to put it all together! Phew, I thought I would just put it together with whatever I had and if the recipe turned out fine and got "APPROVED" then would do a re-run of it later. So, it turns out I had not dried fruits but read on to what I had and how it turned out...

So here goes

Ingredients:
2 cups quick cooking oats (recipes usually call for old- fashioned oats but I didn't have any)
1/2 cup roasted almonds coarsely chopped
1/2 cup roasted walnuts coarsely chopped
1/2 cup chopped strawberries
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup oil
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup strawberry jam
3/4 cup brown sugar

Recipe:
Roast the almonds and walnuts and coarsely chop in a mixie. Preheat the oven to 177F.

Put the oats, chopped almonds and walnuts together. Then added the chopped and dried fresh strawberries (you can use any dry food - I just had none on hand). Sprinkled the sugar on top and mixed it well.

I then added the oil - first 1/4cup and then another 1/4 cup and saw that it wasn't binding enough and it wasn't fruity enough. Now, most bars have honey, which is a taste I don't like. Also, golden syrup, glucose or maple syrup were options but then I wanted to heighten the taste of the strawberries so in went all the strawberry preserves I had and I just mixed it all together.

Yum, it tasted fine now and had just the right tang to it! I put it in a rectangle baking dish and then sprinkled the chocolate chips on top (the yummy factor to entice the toddler) and baked it at 177F for 25 degrees.

Cut it into rectangle and bite sized pieces for the toddler and enjoy. But, let me warn you, the mother may enjoy the healthy treat more than the child!

Puff Pastry Samosa's...

2011 has been a roller coaster already and it's only March! Just before New Year's I had a severe back problem and was again ill in Jan. Feb saw me down with typhoid and currently I am in Bombay dealing with the loss of a grandparent... also, Japan is dealing with a great loss and we don't even know the extent of this as yet.

I am hoping the rest of the year goes by peacefully and we see a lot of cheerfulness and happiness comes everyone's way to make 2011 an year to remember!

I am posting a simple recipe for you without any pictures... will be back in another week with some recipes and pics for you.

Filling:

3-4 medium boiled potatoes
1/2 cup peas
Masala: Salt, Red Chilli Powder, Dhania Powder (Coriander) or any All Spice Mix (for my expat or foreign reader's)
1 tablespoon oil

For the pastry:
I used ready made Puff Pastry which is available at Modern Bazaar - Gurgaon & Delhi

Recipe:
Saute the potatoes in the oil and then add the peas. Add all the masalas / spices and about 2-3 tablespoons of water - cover the pan and let it simmer till the peas are cooked. Taste the filling - it should be saltier than usual so that it doesn't taste less salty inside the puff pastry. (Variations: You can added grated beetroot or grated carrots to the Potato filling to make it healtheir. You can also make this filling with Cottage cheese - just use your imagination and ingredients in the pantry - it is supposed to be a throw it together kinda recipe for people who have puff pastry sitting in their freezer)

Roll out the puff pastry about 1/4inch thin and cut out medium sized circles. Add about  1 tablespoon filling and close the puff pastry over the filling to form a semi-circle. Seal with a fork and brush with cream, milk or egg white to get a nice brown glaze.

Now put it into the oven for 20-30 mins at 200 C and your have yummy snack ready to serve while your guests are sipping their tea or lemonade. This melt in your mouth flaky pastry is very hard to turn down.

These can also be made in advance and stored in the fridge or freezer in an air tight box.

A lovely recipe to bring a smile on your friends faces...

Bombay Bhel Puri - perfect for that chaat craving?

Who doesn't get the odd chaat cravings, especially when you're away from home! Bhel puri has always been one of my favorite fast foods and whenever I am visiting my parents I am a regular at my favorite chaat haunts. I have tried and tired really hard I must say to find (in Gurgaon & Delhi) the BHEL PURI that I used to eat while walking down from Nariman Point to Chruchgate Station or near Mitihibai College or in the by-lanes of Santacruz (any Mumbaitie would be familiar) with these places... ohh, how I would give anything to go back to the old times for a day...

Recovering from typhoid, I have been craving food at all times and satisfying those hunger pangs is causing me to put on some weight. So, I was looking for a healthy option to munch on through the day and something versatile enough to not get bored of. I thought of all the street food that I have been really craving and bhel puri always tops my list!!! So hear is the recipe...

Ingredients:
3 cups puffed rice / murmure
1 cup peanuts
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup roasted gram /chana lentil
1/2 cup find sev (they look like small dried yellow rice noodles made of gram flour)
a pinch of turmeric / haldi powder
olive oil for sauteing
salt, pepper, chaat masala and red chilli powder to taste

Saute the puffed rice in a tablespoon of oil in a large wok and keep stirring it continuously till lightly browned. Add a bit of turmeric and salt and saute some more. Leave in a bowl to cool. In the same wok, add 1/2 a tablespoon of olive oil and the peanuts and saute them till lightly browned. If not salted, add salt and then add to the bowl in which the puffed rice is cooling. Now add the 1/2 cups almonds and saute them in the oil till nicely toasted and after sauteed crush some of them with a rolling pin and add to the bowl. When all the ingredients of the bowl are cool enough add the roasted gram lentil and sev and store in a clean air-tight jar.

This can be eaten as is or you can take it up a notch by removing the quantity you want to eat in a bowl. Add some spices as per your taste - chaat masala, red chilli powder and a teeny bit of salt. To this I added finely diced onions and tomatoes and some finely chopped coriander. You can also add some seeds of pomegranate or chopped peaches (which I didn't have at hand) to give it a slightly sweet touch which will be missing as we are not adding any sweet tamarind sauce to this dish. Since, I haven't added any chutneys / sauces in the dish, it makes this street food extra healthy and the fruits and veggies added to it would give us an extra boost!

This is also my entry to "Eat Fast Food, Not Fat Food" - I hope they like it!

Happy Birthdays - featuring two cakes - Strawberry Yogurt & Cream Cheesecake and Chocolate & Strawberry Cake

I wanted to do something fuss free for my birthday as my energy levels seem really down nowadays... and I can't even drink a cappuccino outside but I didn't want this to dampen my spirits and I still wanted it to have some excitement. I want to thank all my friends who took the time out to come over for my lunch party... made me feel special and the icing on my cake was my husband, who was out of town, walking into the house quietly to surprise my toddler and me. Oh, how perfect can some days get!!!!

So, coming back to my cake, I wanted something with strawberries and chocolate to bring out the goodness of fresh berries you always need to have some fresh cream or mascarpone... after a lot of thinking I thought I will make a No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake for myself. I had some hung yogurt lying in the fridge, to that I added half its quantity of low fat cream and about 200 grams strawberries and pureed it all together. Added some agar-agar to set it and just poured it over a base of crushed chocolate biscuits that had been setting in the freezer. And yes, that's it. The small tiny sliver in the left hand side corner of the collage is the only pic I managed to get of the cake but he at least got a piece of my Birthday cake :)!

For the kids I made my "Most sinful Chocolate Muffins" sans the chocolate chips. I had some leftover buttercream frosting and made some mascarpone and chocolate frosting... and used it to frost the cupcakes for all the kiddies... I think they enjoyed it as they aren't any cupcakes left and they aren't any pics of it!

Another cake that you will see featured in this post is my friend Preeti's birthday cake, which was a day after mine. Her kids wanted some totally chocolate but I know she prefers something lighter - so I wanted to incorporate some fruit in the cake. I made a vanilla buttercream frosting and used it and some strawberry pie filling to sandwich two chocolate yogurt sponge cakes! A chocolate mascarpone icing on top with fresh strawberries and toasted almonds around the sides to hide all the imperfections... I still have to get feedback on this one and hope it is fine!

We also had some snackies & lunch which I am going to leave for a later post - please email me if you need exact measurement for any recipes and you can contact me if in Delhi or Gurgaon to place any orders :)!

Ottelonghi's Olive Oil Crackers - healthy snacks options for the munchies!

Like I mentioned earlier, this is the year of event participation for me, especially since I can't venture out too much nowadays - all I can think of our healthy and fun things to bake and eat and send out to all the special people out there who have helped me while I was under the weather.

I came across a very unique event at Torview - it is a blog with wonderful recipes ranging from breads, pilaf's, baked goods to savory snacks all adpated to fit the Islamic dietary restrictions and full of wonderful pictures. As the logo mentions below mentions it is all about cooking something Brown... everything I cook in my Indian household is kinda brown... our curries are reddish brown, the roti's or Indian bread we eat is light brown, we eat a lot of whole wheat bread sandwiches - all brown and consume a lot of chocolate cake & cookies... so the choice was tough.

I needed  something different yet healthy with less oil so that I could feast on it myself... I have a pretty limited diet currently and was not allowed to eat even chips till a week back. I was really craving some healthy crackers when I came across the Ottelonghi Olive Oil Crackers on Passionate About Baking but I had to put a healthy twist to them to make them brown! They are made with all purpose flour but I used half wheat flour to make them.

The ingredients are simple and always readily available in your pantry I am sure...

250g all purpose flour (I used 125g all purpose flour and 125g whole wheat flour)
115ml water
25ml olive oil
1tsp baking powder
1/2tsp salt & pepper
Toppings - as per your liking - I used flax seeds, cayene pepper, oregano seasoning

Brings the dough together by kneading together the flour, water and oil. Intuitively, one feels more the flour the drier the dough shall be but I realized this by making a small blunder... I found my dough really sticky and added a bit of extra flour to it and it seemed to get stickier as I kneaded it. Adding a bit of oil to it saved it and bought it all together once again.

Rest it in the fridge for an hour. Then make 25 balls and roll them out in tongue shapes as mentioned in the cookbook (which I would love to own) or roll it out and cut it with a pastry cutter as mentioned by Deeba. I made them into different shapes as you can see but all of mine didn't come out too crsip. I would roll out the dough as thin as possible and and I had to bake it for almost 12 minutes unlike the 6 minutes mentioned. Remember to sprinkle your toppings and brush it with olive oil before baking!

Kid's Delight (Recreating Restaurant Food) - YUM- O Everyday Chocolate Snack Cake

I have long been wanting to participate in various Blog Events but something or other is always happening in my life and I am very bad with deadlines... so this year I have made a resolution to participate in as many interesting ones as possible.

March has been an interesting month and full of events that seem such fun. Also, I get to read and ogle at yummy pics from various gorgeous blogs. The event, Kid's Delight is usually hosted at Srivalli's Blog ( a very interesting blog with tons of informations ranging from parenting to kid's recipes, recipes for bachelor's and daibetic's) but this time is being guest hosted by Versatile Vegetarian Kitchen - a beautiful blog full of vegetarian delights. The brief was simple to re-create a restaurant or store recipe that is your kid's favorite.

My toddler is crazzzzyyyy about chocolate cake and cannot resist a store bought or bakery cupcake or slice of chocolate cake. It becomes a little hazardous for me to take him everywhere 'coz we can see one of his 'terrible two' tantrums underway...  So this is going to definitely become my snack box favorite.

I am usually a bake from scratch kinda person, but I have been down with typhoid and just recovering... energy levels are low - so I wanted something that I could put together in under 30 minutes (including baking time). I had a box of Pillsbury Rich Choco Cake Mix sitting in my pantry. So I just followed the instructions to  T with my own little substitutions to make it healthy.

The box read - Add 1/4 cup oil, 3/4 cup water and 2 eggs to the cake mix. I did this recipe two ways and both ways was a winner...

1 Box Rich Choco Cake Mix
1/4 cup olive Oil
3/4 cup home-made yogurt (1/2 cup yogurt + 1/4 cup water)
1 egg (I also made this by omitting the egg and adding 1/4tsp of baking soda)

I just mixed together everything using a fork and popped it into a loaf pan. It called for baking in a square or round 8-inch pan for 20-25 minutes at 170 but my cake was very dense and required at least 45 minutes at 175.

The result was a very light and healthy chocolate cake. It didn't taste even slight sour 'coz of the yogurt and I carry a slice whenever I have to go anywhere near a bakery or cake shop and my toddler is too busy chomping on this instead of asking for any other treats.

Hope your kids enjoy this as much!

Easy Strawberry Dessert...

And yet another strawberry filled dessert! Well, I bought all these strawberries and couldn't eat them 'coz I got diagnosed with Typhoid - so I am on a strict diet of  various types of rice preparations, Bottle gourd ('Lauki'), Round gourd ('Tinda') and lots of fluids. Needless to say I don't have any taste in my mouth and all I dream is about able to eat some YUMMM - O food. Not allowed to step out of the house my daily dose of television consists of Rachel Allen, Nigella Lawson and Masterchef US and all the other lovely blogs that keep updating their websites regularly.

My son has been a bit upset seeing me lying down for most parts of the day and so he has been kept company by his dad (who managed to be by my side for most of my down days), grandparents, friends. One such friend of ours has been really helping us out with the baby and sent over some yummy Mutton Biryani for my hubby (the recipe and pics of which I am going to be featuring soon...) - so as a thank you gesture, the minute my fever vanished and I could get back on my feet I whipped together the easiest strawberry dessert I could. I had to use the yummy strawberry and couldn't let it go waste.

 I have very rough estimations to give for this dessert, as I didn't taste it and didn't measure anything - but everyone said it tasted great so I am assuming it was good!

Start with about 250 grams of strawberries - wash and slice them finely.

Take about 1 cup of whipping cream and whip well. Add icing sugar and about 100 grams strawberries and whip it into the cream. Don't over puree the strawberries so you can taste chunks of the fruit in it.

Now take 3/4 cup of water, mix some sugar and chocolate powder in it and make a thick paste. Dip the lady fingers in it and line the bottom of your bowl or dessert glasses (I made it for my friends, hubby and toddler... I think I used about 8-10 lady fingers). Then cover the lady fingers with the chopped strawberries. Douse this with any leftover chocolate - sugar- water mixture. Now add the whipped cream mixture over this and decorate with cut strawberries, lady fingers and chocolate powder. Leave in the fridge to chill and enjoy!

I completely forgot that I wanted to send this as my entry to "Cooking with Fruits" event to the Tastebuds blog  http://tastebuds1.blogspot.com/2011/01/cooking-with-fruits-event.html that I came across online. It is a lovely blog with lots of interesting recipes and kitchen tips!