Baingan Raita - Grilled Eggplant in Yoghurt Sauce

Ingredients: 1 can Grilled Eggplant, or you can do you it over gas flame or in the oven 2 onions, chopped 8 cloves garlic, minced green hot peppers, chopped (as many as you desire) 1 Sliced red pepper salt, as per taste a pinch of sugar black pepper powder Good pinch turmeric 1 rounded tsp cumin powder 1 tsp coriander powder / handful chopped coriander leaves yogurt (I think about 1-2 cups) Method: Fry the chopped onions, till translucent (not golden brown). Add in the garlic and green peppers, and sautee for a few minutes. Add the sugar, salt, garam masala, the grilled eggplant, mix and turn off the heat after 5 minutes. Cool it completely and stir in the beaten yogurt. That’s it, serve at room temperature. Garnish with chopped cilantro and chopped green hot peppers (without the seeds if you dont want it hot). This is good as a side dish to complement Indian food, or as a dip with crackers.

World Peace Cookies Recipe

World Peace Cookies Recipe
Recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours, metric measurements from Deb Perelman’s Smitten Kitchen
Makes about 36 cookies
Ingredients:

1¼ cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (30 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons or 150 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3cup (120 grams) (packed) light brown sugar
¼ cup (50 grams) sugar
½ teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 ounces (150 grams) bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous ¾ up store-bought mini chocolate chips

Method:

Make the cookie dough: Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.

Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour. Drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don’t be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1½ inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

Getting ready to bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Working with a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you’re cutting them — don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about one inch between them.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won’t look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

Serving: The cookies can be eaten when they are warm or at room temperature — Doris prefers them at room temperature, when the textural difference between the crumbly cookie and the chocolate bits is greatest — and are best suited to cold milk or hot coffee.

Storing: Packed airtight, cookies will keep at room temperature for up to 3 days; they can be frozen for up to 2 months. They can also be frozen in log form for months, and can be sliced and baked directly from the freezer, adding a few minutes to the baking time.

Tips: If you find it difficult to shape the dough into a log, do it between a piece of parchment paper. To avoid very crumbly cookie dough when slicing, ensure that the butter is soft at room temperature before mixing, the chocolate chunks are small and the dough cold but not freezing. Let it rest on the counter for 5 to 15 minutes after being removed from the fridge or freezer. To avoid spreading cookies, chill the tray of sliced cookie dough for 5 to 10 minutes before baking. If the log breaks while cutting, just rearrange the crumbs and press them together again to form a round cookie.

Matcha Almond Cookies Recipe

Matcha Almond Cookies Recipe

Yield 24 cookies | Prep Time: 15 minutes | Bake Time: 14-16 minutes

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup packed powdered sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon matcha powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sliced almonds, lightly chopped

Method:

Sift together the all purpose flour, matcha powder and salt.

With an electric mixer at medium speed, cream the butter and powdered sugar until fluffy.

Lower the mixer speed. Add in sifted ingredients 1 tablespoon at a time until dough is formed.

Add in the sliced almond in 3 batches and stop the mixer immediately once all combined.

Remove the dough and place on a 22 inches long plastic wrap. Roll the dough into a 1 1/2 inches thick log. Wrap the log with the plastic wrap and freeze for 30 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 325 degree Fahrenheit. Line two baking sheets with parchment papers.

Remove the dough from the freezer. Use a sharp knife and cut the dough 1/4 inch thick each. Arrange the cookie dough on the baking pan 2 inches apart.

Bake them for 14-16 minutes on the middle rack. Remove the cookies to wire rack to cool completely before storing in air tight containers.

Cook’s Notes:

1. If using salted butter stick, omit the salt in the ingredients.
2. Culinary quality matcha powder can be found at Japanese grocery stores.
3. To convert to metric measurement, please use the conversion tool.

Toddler walnut cookies

My daughter loves making these biscuits, though hers tend to be on the very large side at the moment.....

Ingredients makes about 15 biscuits
220 g (8 oz) spelt flour or superfine whole meal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
100 g (4oz) ground walnuts
100 ml (4 fl oz) raw honey, warmed
100 ml (4 fl oz) walnut oil or sunflower oil

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas 6
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together
3. Add the wet ingredients and mix to form a dough
4. Form the mixture into small balls, place on a baking tray giving each one space to spread, and flatten with a fork
5. Bake for 5 minutes
6. Cool biscuits on a wire rack

Tip: you can replace the walnuts with almonds, hazelnuts, brazil nuts or any other suitable nut. I've also tried sunflower seeds.

Banana Yoghurt Cake

Ingredients:
2 small or 1 large ripe bananas
1/2 cup natural yoghurt
1/2 cup unhydrogenated margarine (I use sunflower oil instead)
1 large organic egg
22gg (8 oz) spelt flour
1/3 cup fructose (I use honey instead)
3 teaspoons baking powder
a dusting of icing sugar (optional)

Method:
1.  Preheat oven to 180 C/350 F / Gas 4.
2.  Combine the banana, yoghurt, margarine, egg, and fructose in a food processor until smooth.  Add flour and baking soda.  Pulse till mixed through.
3.  Scrape the mixture into a well-greased loaf tin.
4.  Bake for 45 ins to 1 hour until cooked through.
5.  Put on a wire rack to cool and sprinkle with icing sugar before serving.

Tip:  For toddlers, allow them to spoon into cup cake cases, and add toppings as desired before or after baking as appropriate (e.g. marshmallows, raspberries)

Banana pancakes

Ingredients:
200g plain or SR flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda  (or if SR flour 1 tsp baking soda)
50 g sunflower oil
2 medium eggs
300g milk plus a little more
2-3 ripe bananas (depending on how banana-y desired)

1.  Put all the ingredients in the TM bowl.  Mix 20 seconds / Speed 6.  The mixture should be the consistency of double cream.  If it's too thick, add a little more milk and mix again.

2. Heat pan to right heat at low-medium flame.  Add a little oil - use kitchen towel to wipe over whole of pan, and mop up excess.  Pour to make pancakes of desired size.  Turn when bubbles have just stopped forming.

Tip:  Serve with strawberries, blueberries, maple syrup, nectarines, oranges etc - whatever fruits are in season.  Also works with savoury toppings - e.g. goats cheese, salami..

Easy Peasy Waffles

From this link

Ingredients

15 g sugar
60 g butter (90g butter if using semi-skimmed milk)
400 g milk
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla or maple syrup
1 pinch salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
250 g SR flour

Preparation

1.

Mill sugar on speed 9 for 3 seconds
Add butter to TMX bowl and melt for 1 minute at 90° on soft speed
Add milk, vanilla/syrup and eggs to TMX bowl and beat for 10 seconds on speed 4.
Add remaining ingredients and mix for 10 seconds on speed 6
Cook as per your waffle maker instructions. Enjoy!