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 :)!

OTT (Over the top Chocolate Cake) with tons of chocolate filling & frosting and toasted almonds for a crunch!

Recently, for a a friend's hubby's Birthday I asked her what should I bake him and she replied " An OTT (over the top) Chocolate Cake".

I was pondering over it for about a week about how should I make a chocolate cake with different layers so that it didn't taste too sweet and you could differentiate the layers of chocolate and the difference in the chocolate so it didn't taste like a sludge of brown layers...

I chose to do a chocolate yogurt layer as the yogurt gives it an extra moistness and I didn't want the cake to be too dry (which sponge cakes usually are). I did a Chocolate Buttercream filling with Hershey's Chocolate for the filling and brushed the layers with a mixture of cocoa powder, sugar and water so that the cake layers became even more moist. The frosting was the toughest - I wanted it to enhance the taste of the chocolate cake and so I used mascarpone cheese and about half a box of store bought Pillsbury Dark Chocolate frosting (yeah, I was getting a bit tired with all the baking since I am still recovering) - whirred it all together and used it to the frost the cake. It was perfect and slightly tangy and not overpoweringly sweet. Now I wanted to add some nuttiness to the cake to enhance the flavors of the chocolate and suddenly hit upon the idea of toasted almonds. I just toasted them in the pan with a bit of olive oil and whirred some of them in the grinder to have coarse almonds to add on the frosting... their saltiness totally enhanced the cake and everyone said it took the cake to a totally different level.

I tried to make a small cake and a big cake but I am not sure if you can differentiate the layers in my pictures. I also made five cupcakes with some leftover batter I had and decorated it with the chocolate buttercream frosting for the kids... a total hit!

Recipe with exact measurements to follow soon. For now, please enjoy the pictures... which I could give you a picture of the slice... but the cake just melted into the mouth...

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!