Chocolate Chunk & Walnut Cookies - a very easy one bowl cookie

Notice, how all my recipes call for "1 Bowl" nowadays. With the temperature hitting 44C in Delhi all I can think of, are ways to stay as far away from the kitchen as possible. I even know people who have air-conditioning in their kitchens 'coz most mom's ending up spending a huge part of their day in the kitchen!

Anywhooo, I wanted to do something quick and with oats, maybe a little bit more nutty - what is your favorite combo for cookies?

I have been hooked onto Ootmeal cookies since I studied in the US. I remember all and any event always had huge cookie platters laid out and Oatmeal Raisin, Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip Cookies were just always available to snack on around college. That is when I discovered S'mores... but more on that later.

I got up from a bad dream of having missed some Comp. Sci paper...

It's a blessing how food seems to solve all problems in my life.

Bad Dream = Nice Big Cookie with my Coffee Milk Shake. Big Ouch-y / Boo Boo to the toddler = A l'il bit of Chocolate love. Bad day at work for the hub = YUM-O Grilled Chicken legs for dinner.


Does food manage to solve all your problems too? Then these cookies are a must bake - for the borken heart, for the bad job interview, for the extra 10 minutes on the treadmill, for the toddler who has been naughty - this cookie can bring an instant smile to anyone's face.


Ingredients:
11/2 Cup all purpose flour
3 cups oats
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter


Add-ons
1/2 cup walnuts - toasted
1/2 cup chocolate chunks from your favorite chocolate
1/2 cup peanut butter


Method:
Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer. Add the eggs one by one and cream till light and fluffy. Add vanilla essence. Now take a rubber spatula and mix in the flour first and then the oats, slowly.


I did 2 versions - and divided the dough into half in 2 bowls. To one bowl I added chocolate chunks and walnuts (quartered or smaller). And to one bowl I added peanut butter.


 I scooped 1 tablespoon of dough per cookie and baked them in a pre-heated oven at 179 degrees for 10 minutes. You remove them while they look slightly soft to get chewy cookies and cook them for another 2 minutes if you want them crisp.


This is my 99th post... so excited and am hoping to arrange some kind of give-away on the 100th post! 

Wordless Wednesday: Treats that I take orders on...

The Secret Recipe Club - Perfect MANGO Pound Cake

I found a really great blog and a great pound cake recipe thanks to Amanda's Cookin who is a hosting a fabulous event called The Secret Recipe Club. You are allotted a blog once a month and you can choose to make anything from it in "Secret". Then on a given day and time all the bloggers from The Secret Recipe Club put up a blog post that reveals the recipe and blogger they have blogged about. Since, it is not revealed till the particular day - it is all a big secret till the big D-day and everyone is looking forward to seeing who blogged about whom and which of their recipes were featured!

The blog I was given is Once A Month Mom - a great concept blog that talks about cooking once a month in bulk and freezing food so that you can provide your family, especially your kids, fresh food to eat - it helps you to save money and eat more healthily. They have a a whole lot of ideas going on there so you must go on and have a peep.

Now, they were a lot of wonderful recipes out there but the one that caught my eye was of a Perfect Pound Cake... and how could I make it perfect by adding my own inputs to it - was a very last minute Mango-ey twist in the tale.

When I read the recipe one night I thought I had hit jackpot and I had all the ingredients to put it together but realized I was missing condensed milk - one of it's important ingredient and then a few nail biting moments followed to a very gorgeous, moist and flavorful Mango Pound Cake.

Kelly @ OAMM got this recipe from Jun-Blog and the beautiful pound cake was served with luscious strawberries...

So lets look at the ingredients...everything that you'd usually be stocked in on - my changes are added in italics
Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter - reduced the quantity to 1/2 salted butter & 1/4 canola oil
11/3 cup all purpose flour
3/4tsp baking powder - I think I only added 1/2 tsp
1/4 tsp cinnamon - omitted
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt - omitted
3/4 cup organic condensed milk - substituted with 3/4 cup fresh mango puree sweetened with a couple of tablespoons of sugar since my mangoes weren't too sweet
3 large eggs

Method:
If you want the original recipe you can follow it here

My recipe is a bit different
I whisked the butter and then added the sugar and vanilla and beat it with an electric beater. I added the eggs to this and whisked till everything was creamy.
I added the all purpose flour and mixed it together with a whisk till it just came together. I then added the mango puree with a very light hand. I wanted to create swirls and do a two toned cake but my cake batter and mango were almost a similar golden-orange hue.
I baked it in a pre-heated oven an 179C for 50 minutes and I didn't turn it out of the pan immediately after it came out of the oven so the whole cake seemed to sink a bit.

I had a couple of tablespoons of mango puree remaining so I added some icing sugar in it and created a glaze for the cake. It was lapped up before I could chop up some fresh mangoes to serve it with.

Few observations:

It tasted better after it cooled down and have been refrigerated. It was as moist and didn't dry out. It was not too sweet and if you want to make it really really sweet - I would increase the sugar from 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup. I would also leave out 1 egg and bake this with 2 eggs 'coz I found the taste slightly egg-y but no-one else seemed to complain!

Go to Breakfast - Rava Uttapam - Savory Pancake

This is the easiest breakfast I've ever made, it is my son's absolute favorite since he was a 1 year old and now it's my hubby's favorite too. Anytime, I am out of breakfast ideas in the morning or I didn't feed the family a good dinner or I need to see a bright cheery smile on their face 'coz they have had a bad night - I just put this one together!

It never requires planning in my kitchen 'coz it requires only TWO Ingredients - yeah, you got that right!
Rava - Cream of Wheat or Semolina flour & Ordinary Yogurt - I think you can make this with all rice flour too but I haven't tried it. For my international users, when I lived in the US, I used to buy some groceries online at Patel Brothers - but I don't know if they ship to the UK.

Perfect for bachelors and for a meal you want to put together when you are alone and don't want to cook something elaborate.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Rava - Cream of Wheat
1/2 cup ordinary yogurt - any kind - it just shouldn't be sweet
1-2 teaspoons oil - optional
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 onion & tomato finely chopped - optional
finely chopped coriander for garnishing - optional


Method:
Mix the rava and yogurt together to form a batter. It should have the consistency of pancake batter - so add a couple of tablespoons of water to this to make the batter easily spreadable. Add the salt and the oil. Mix and let rest for 20 mins on the counter.

You can use this immediately but I've noticed - letting it sit makes it taste better.

Heat a skillet you use for making pancakes or dosas. Pour a ladlefull of batter and spread a bit. Add the chopped onions, tomatoes and coriander. You can also sprinkle some sort of spice at this time - I sprinkle some finely ground paprika or sambhar powder. Add 1-2 teaspoons of oil around the edges for cooking.

Let it cook for a couple of minutes on one side and then flip. All in all, this takes longer to cook than a pancake but if you're cooking it for more than 10 minutes you're going to get a burnt pancake!
Cook for another couple of minutes, till the batter looks set.

This is a very forgiving recipe, it tastes great even without all the veggies - just plain or with a little grated cheese.

Garnish with coriander (or without) and enjoy!

Tips:
I've started adding oil to the batter as I noticed it slips of the skillet easily and is very moist.
You can add some chopped capsicum, grated carrots and grated cheese to this too while cooking.
If you're making this for the first time, it may not come of the skillet easily but just wipe the skillet with a wet cloth and try it again...

Just realized I wanted to send it as an entry to Breakfast Mela hosted by the very talented Srivalli at Cooking 4 All Seasons so re-posting it.

My very FIRST WORDLESS WEDNESDAY - just wanted to share with everyone that the summer vacations are here and this is what's on my mind... (ahem not very wordless I must say)