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!

Dorie's Salted Butter Break-Ups

Ever since I have set my eyes on these cookies on Purplefoodie's blog I haven't been able to keep my mind off these. I have been dreaming about these with my eyes open and sometimes I feel I can just taste them but haven't had the chance to make them!

Now, I have to usually get books shipped to India which becomes way to expensive and so I don't know a lot of cookbooks that I would love to - I have added Dorie's Around the French Table to it obviously... also, with her recipes you don't seem to go wrong and they somehow come together perfectly and all the ingredients complement each other to form some of the tastiest of treats!

Now, like I mentioned I have read the recipes a couple of times but haven't been able to get my hands on "fleur de sel" and have been on the look out for it for a long time... I thought that it would have added the extra bit of zing to my recipe but since I haven't been able to find it - I had to settle for baking it with regular salt and they were I must say scrumptious and once you started eating them you couldn't put them down!

It was a weekend and I hadn't been able to get much sleep as my toddler who is still sleeping with us kept kicking me all night and I could hear some loud blaring truck horns on the road (yeah, thats what you get for living face the Gurgaon-Faridabad highway). So I got up at around 4am to make the dough and at about 6am to bake it. By the time my help was in making my morning coffee the house was smelling full of scrumptious (yes, I am using it again to describe these) biscuits and my son literally followed his nose to the kitchen.

Once you get your hands on this recipe - you should go give it a try and not even think about waiting for any extra days or leaving it on the backburner... all the ingredients are most definitely going to be in your pantry - tea time will be a treat, your kids will love it and coffee breaks will be a delight. So go ahead and try it.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour (I added 1/2 cup whole wheat flour)
2/3 cup castor sugar
9 tbsp cold butter
3-5 tbsp cold water
2 tsp salt (I didn't have fleur de sel) and more for sprinkling

Glaze:
Egg yolk with water - but i used fresh cream

Recipe:
Put the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl and give it a quick mix.

Add the butter and start rubbing it in the dry ingredients till it forms coarse pieces - pea sized and bigger is fine.

Now add some cold water and start getting the dough together to form a ball. (I had a very soft dough even after chilling - maybe coz I did it with my hands). Wrap the dough in plastic and let it chill for an hour.

 Preheat the oven to 350F/ 170C.

Remove the dough and roll it out with a rolling pin into a rectangle. She has recommended putting a criss cross pattern with your fork on it but mine was too soft to get a pattern - so I just put a glaze. Also I rolled it in two of my fluted pastry tins so it got a nice pattern around the edges which was later hardly seen.

I then baked it in the oven for about 40 minutes and they were more golden than they should have been - I guess I should have pulled them out a little earlier.

I liked mine really crisp but they were buttery and soft inside and I cut them into triangles and they were perfect with my morning cuppa and a magazine on a lazy Sunday morning...

Crepes, a regular on my breakfast table

A little time back I did a post on Crepes (click, for recipe), a great simple dish to put together whether you want a chic dessert or want to given in to a special craving or want to cook something special for your loved one. I didn't seem to get pics on my camera...so they are some on my phone that I haven't been able to transfer yet! But, these seem to have been a regular on my table nowadays. I like them with fruit and honey and fruit of the season as usual is "Strawberry" - am sooo sure you are tired of being snowed down in a pile of strawberries from my blog but they seem to have become my weakness (umm, after Chocolate, ofcourse!).

I would have loved to drizzle this with some icing sugar and chocolate sauce and added a hint of strawberry jam inside the crepes to sweeten the slightly tart strawberries but as you see I have decided to keep it simple... no maple syrup also - only Honey!

Now, a little while back I chanced upon a brilliant blog called What's For Lunch Honey and I have been wanting to participate in the Monthly Mingle forever... it is a great event and gets hosted by a different blogger each time! It helps you meet new bloggers and brings to you a variety of new recipes to feast your eyes on. This month's mingle is being hosted by Maison Cupcake and this blog is a must visit too. Now, when I looked at the Think Pink theme - I was left wondering about what is something that I haven't already created with strawberries this month and I had something like a writer's block and couldn't think of something very innovative. Also, my son seemed to be in a mood of pancakes and I have been trying to be on a so called health trip so thought about re-creating these crepes and they made a perfect Sunday brunch!

Oat Scones with Strawberries

The heat has set in and the temperatures are soaring in Bombay and Delhi both. Feel like eating something sweet but light and dreamy without the calories (ofcourse!) 'coz summer clothes do not hide pounds! I saw an Oats and Maple Syrup scones recipe on the SmittenKitchen page and ever since then I haven't been able to think about baking anything else... there is something about healthy food that has me obsessed but the 160gms of butter used in this recipe doesn't make it very healthy! Ever since I have been a child hooked on to Enid Blyton books - I have always dreamed of munching on scones for tea like the Secret Seven or Famous Five. When I went to London with my parents I kept looking for scones. Little did I know that one day I could actually be able to bake them in my kitchen and without much running around with simple ingredients on hand. If you have ever read Nigella's recipes, she always like to use cream of tartar to add an extra lightness to her scones but for the life of me I have no idea about how to get my hands on it in Gurgaon!

Anyways, I was hooked on to the idea of baking the scones but was almost out of maple sugar and didn't want it too sweet so googled a few recipes and came across one very nice one from www.marthastewart.com - a mish mash of both recipes is what I am going to present here and it tastes mighty good except my lil toddler didn't seem to like it (Not sweet enough, Mom!). With the hubby away - I have about 8-9 scones to eat my way through and am enjoying each and every bite I must say :)!!!!!

I had this done and in the oven in about 15 minutes and it was great way to start the day knowing that the hubby is away for the week. I am hoping they last in the fridge and don't taste too stale tomorrow but I have been warned...

You can serve these with clotted cream, whipped cream, jam or butter or have as is with just a sprinkling of powdered sugar. How do you like your scones?????

Ingredients:
13/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oats
1 heaped tablespoon baking powder
1 heaped tablespoon caster sugar
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup cold butter cut into cubes

Recipe:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Mix the dry ingredients together. Now you can add the butter to the dry mixture and rub it with your hands till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs or you can pulse it together - apparently both work equally well.
Then add the milk to this mixture and work it together into a dough softly.

Now, I divided the dough into two equal halves and brought it together. In one 1/2 of the dough I added some chopped strawberries that brought a lovely sweet and tart flavor to the scones. The other ones I left as is.

You can be fussy and cut it out with a a round pastry cutter or shape the dough into a large rectangle or square and then just cut it into traingles... that worked for me! Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes after giving the tops of the scones a quick wash of milk, cream or egg whites.

I must say with a cup of coffee, my breakfast was divine. And with a sprinkle of icing sugar and some jam it was a lovely after lunch treat!

Now I am sending my entry to the Oats Recipe Event - though my scones are not 100% oats - you can look up the event at http://myeasytocookrecipes.blogspot.com/2011/03/oats-recipes.html

Am back...

As promised I am back with my pictures...

The first one I have updated is the Gondh and Atta Ladoos, especially for my users who are not Indians who may have never seen what is a ladoo - hope you decide to try it. The process is laborious but really worth it.

I shall try uploading more pics over the weekend... and the one above is one of my cakes that didn't ice and photograph well but it was over by morning so all the night pics don't look that great!