Homemade quickie Banana cake

Ingredients :

Self-raising flour - 1 cup

Castor sugar - 1 cup

Baking powder - 1 tsp

Eggs - 2

Butter - 100 gms

Fresh Bananas - 2, pureed thickly

Vanilla Essence - 2 tsp

How:

Melt the butter in the microwave on medium-high for 1 minute. Whisk it together when warm and mix the sugar into it. Break eggs into this mix and whisk together very very well until well blended. Now add the banana puree to this and mix together. This is the forming of the batter.

Add the baking powder to the flour and mix. Now add this to the wet batter, in parts so that it does not form any lumps. Mix the whole batter very well now, it needs to be well constituted.

Invert a tea-saucer on your microwave turntable. Grease a microwave deep dish with a bit of oil/butter. Now pour the batter into this deep dish. Place the dish on top of the saucer that you have inverted on the turn-table, and microwave on high for about 6 minutes. Stop, and insert a fork into it - if the fork comes out clean, your cake is done. Else you need to bake it again for a minute or two.

Tip : While the cake is baking, don't ever leave it alone, keep an eye on the smell and go by your instinct. Enjoy!!

I baked it for my mother's birthday early in Sep this year and it was such a grand success!! Try it and I guarantee you the same!

Yummmmmmmmy Garlic Bread

Tried my hand at Garlic bread and it was splendid !

I happened to have several slices of leftover old bread and had just bought a small box of ready peeled garlic cloves. I didn't expect a fantastic result; but the result was delicious. I made it as a tea-time snack today, we were ravenous and wolfed it down !! I forgot to click a pic though :-)

[Image courtesy: leboncroissant.com]

My recipe

Bread: I used slices of regular sandwich bread [6 slices] which I halved horizontally. The one used commercially is the french bread [baguette]

For the garlic spread:

Crushed garlic [I used a garlic press, and about 5 cloves]. You can alter the quantity as per your preference

1.5 tbsp of butter

1.5 tbsp of low fat cheese spread / mayonnaise

salt to taste

a bit of white pepper if you want the spice

Method:

1. Halve the slices of sandwich bread.

2. Spread the garlic mixture on each piece. Now heat a tawa and place 2 pieces at a time with the garlic side up. Once the bottom of the slice is warmed, flip over and wait for a minute or so till it is well browned

Serve with ketchup! :D Happy eating !!

Egg fried Rice :-)

You're right !! I'm on a cooking spree and making my fave dishes this week :D Presenting - my version of the egg fried rice!!

Ingredients:

Basmati Rice - 1 cup

Veggies needed: Spring onions, Baby corn, Peas, carrots [use all, or choose any combination]

2 Eggs [whisked well]

Soya sauce

Tomato puree/paste [the readymade one available in supermarkets is fine]

White pepper

Salt to taste

Method:

Cook the rice al-dente and toss in a bit of oil and fry well till the colour turns mild brown. In another wok, pour a bit of oil and toss in the white part [scallions] of the spring onions and stir until it turns brown. Now add in the egg mixture and wait till the eggs get scrambled. Mix well. Now add the green leaves of the spring onions and the baby corn. Mix really well and add a bit of tomato paste and a bit of soya sauce. Add salt to taste, and a a bit of white pepper for the spice. Stir thoroughly and keep the flame medium-high so that the ingredients get roasted in the heat; and to get the slightly-burnt taste. Now toss in this veggie+egg mixture into the fried rice and mix together really well, on a medium-flame for 3-4 minutes. Done !!

Chinna Chinna padham veythu, kannaa nee vaa :-)

Right from when the festive season kicked off, I had dreamed of building this pandal for my darling Krishna for this year's festival. I am delighted that my decorative efforts paid off :-)

Enjoy these pics from Janmashtami at our home here in Abu Dhabi, this year of 2010

Everything turned out JUST how I had expected it to. Even the eats for neivedhyam tasted perfect, just the way I had imagined it would. Special thanks to Savithri for her mom's Nei Appam recipe, and to my precious Jaya chitthi for her microwave therattipaal recipe.

Egg Noodles + Veg Manchurian ~ maketh a yummilicious meal !

Recipe for my microwavable brownies :) [Courtesy: Sanjeev Kapoor's Microwave Cookbook]

Ingredients:
100 gm cooking chocolate
100 gm butter
1 cup maida [all purpose flour] + 1 tsp of baking powder. mix the maida+bkg powder and set aside.
1 cup castor sugar
2 eggs
1 small bowl of finely chopped nuts [i used almonds, u can use pecans or walnuts also]
Method:
Grease a microwave deep dish completely [including sides] and set aside. Melt the chocolate and the butter together in a microwavable glass bowl on HIGH for 2 mins. Whisk it together nicely with the castor sugar [the trick is to add the sugar in parts]. Break the eggs and whisk it into this mixture. Add the nuts at this stage.Now mix in the maida+baking powder which you have set aside. Combine it in parts and not put it all together. By now you probably have a gooey chocolatey mixture. Fold this into the greased microwave deep dish. Place a saucer [tea cup saucer] upside down on the microwave turn-table.
Place the deep dish over this and microwave on HIGH for 7 mins. The mixture will nicely rise and release the warm baking aromas :P
Remove and let it cool at room temperature for abt 10 mins. cut into squares and serve [preferably with vanilla icecream :P]

IMPORTANT: No matter what don't ever refrigerate the brownies as they'll turn stone hard and not soften even if you microwave them later.