Heartiest Christmas Wishes with Chocolate and Dates Cake (Eggless)

At the very outset my heartiest wishes to all who celebrates Christmas. Wish you a very merry and fun filled Christmas!

Whether you celebrate this festival or not, you can't miss the festivity in the air and of course good food is all a part of the festive spirit. As everybody, I can't miss the opportunity to indulge in something delicious and of course baking comes to my mind.

I made this cake for a small get together at a friend's place. I was received well by my friends and in fact my DH also gave a thumbs up to it even though he is not a very big dates fan. The taste of dates is very subtle and in this particular cake it helps to accentuate the chocolate flavour. This recipe actually comes from one of my friends. I have only experimented a little by adding cocoa to it. 

 

Without much ado let's hop to the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup minus 2 tbsp AP Flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

1/2 cup castor sugar

1/2 cup pitted dates(About 15-18 soaked in water for 2-3 hours or overnight).

1 tsp baking powder.

3/4 tsp baking soda.

1/4 cup melted butter.

1/4 cup water used for soaking dates.

1/2 cup milk.

Process:

1. Grease a 6'' square cake tin and preheat the oven at 180C.

2. Churn the dates along the water and milk to make a smooth paste.

3. Shift flour, baking powder, soda 2-3 times together so that it is well blended.

4. Cream in the sugar and butter till well incorporated and fluffy.

5. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients whisking all the time.

6. Whisk till the batter is smooth, around 2-3 minutes.

7. Pour into the pre greased tin and bake at 180 C for 20 mins and then lower the temperature to 160 C and bake for another 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

8. Let it rest in the tin for 5-10 mins before turning it on a wire rack to cool.

9. Cool completely and slice. Serve.

Thank you for stopping by! Merry Christmas! Cheers!

Saffron Almond Milk

I have never really loved drinking milk. I used have have it daily as a child but as soon as I left home for studies, I forgo the habit. I love milk based sweets, smoothies, shakes etc but plain milk has never been my choice. Of late, I started having a lot of problem with my skin. It would crack so often. Medicines, ointments didn't help much. It was then my mom said have milk and almonds everyday, it will be good for the skin and it will help build immunity against cold and blustery weather. And she would specifically stress on having 'milk' being very important for women.

I googled about it and found that many people had the same opinion. It is sometime now, I am doing that and believe me I am noticing the changes already.

In this cold weather, I need a hot comforting drink and this saffron and almond milk is perfect option. I know I should have given heed to my mother's advise early. But as the saying goes, 'Better late than never'. I will definitely stick to this habit from now on.

Here is how I make it.

Ingredients:

5 Almonds soaked for 1-2 hours or overnight and peeled.
1 cup milk
1 cardamom pod powdered.
Sugar to taste.
A few strands of Saffron

Process:

1. Blend the almonds with a little milk into a smooth paste.
2. Boil a cup of milk with cardamom and saffron added to it.
3. when it comes to boil add the almond paste and simmer for a minute. Add sugar to taste.
4. Cool the milk to your desired temperature and serve.

You can strain it first if you like. I do not strain it as I love the almonds bits and the cardamom residue actually settles at the bottom on their own.

 Enjoy this healthy drink with biscuits or indulge in some homemade cookies. Thank you for stopping by. Cheers!

#23 Teaser Tuesdays~ The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri

 "Mr. Jalal stared at the words. The brown print stood like dried blood against the yellow of the paper. He ran his fingers across the letters, half expecting the clotted ink to come off against his fingertips, red and rejuvenated."


Page: 85


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Share the title & author, too, so that others can add the book to their TBR Lists!

Do check out Lucky Library Picks on this blog.

Paneer Methi Malai ~ Restaurant Style!!

While updating the list of recipes here, I found that I have posted only 2 recipes of Indian curries. Now, that is really a shame as curries are an integral part of the Indian food. In fact, I have met so many people here who perceive Indian food to consist solely of hot and spicy curries. I know that would not be a very appropriate way to describe our Indian food, but none the less it is true that Indian food is famous world wide more for it curries. Don't you agree?

On scanning my drafts, I found that a few curry recipes were lying dormant. So, here I am with one of our favorite curry of all time- Paneer Methi Malai. As I have already professed earlier here in different posts, we are a paneer loving family and every other weekend DH would pester me to prepare a weekend special paneer curry. Even when we go for dinner at restaurants, a paneer curry is a must and I think this must be the case with most Indian vegetarian families.

Lets hop to the recipe now:

Ingredients: (Click here for the printable version of the recipe)

2-3 tbsp oil
¼ cup chopped onion.
2 medium tomatoes, chopped

2 tbsp tomato paste
1 garlic clove, grated
2 tbsp kasoori methi
200 gm paneer (Store bought) cubed and put them in hot water till needed.

2 cloves

Small piece cinnamon stick

2 bay leaves

1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
2 green cardamom pounded
pinch of asafoetida
Handful chopped fresh cilantro leaves

2-3 tbsp fresh cream.

Salt to taste.

Water as needed.

Serves 4

Process:

1. Heat oil in a pan. Add asafoetida, cloves, bay leaves, cinnamon stick, cardamom and cumin seeds and let it cook for a few seconds. Add garlic and onions. Saute them on medium heat until onions are slightly brown, stirring every couple of minutes.

2. Blanch tomatoes by adding them to very hot water and peel off the skin. Chop them into pieces. Add the chopped tomatoes, tomato paste and add all the spices except kasoori methi and garam masala and continue cooking on medium heat onions and tomatoes mixture start leaving the sides of the pan leaving oil on the sides.

3. Now take the gravy off heat and churn it in a blender into a smooth paste. Take out all the whole spices before grinding. Put it back to the pan. Add water to get the desired consistency and cook for another couple of minutes.

4. Now add the paneer cubes and stir. Add the kasoori methi, garam masala and stir. Cook for a few minutes and then add cream and stir.

5. Add handful of coriander and use some of it to garnish.

 

Goes well with Naan, Roti or Parathas. Enjoy!

Thank you for stopping by. Cheers!

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

A look at my to read list 2011 and I realized that I had not touched the Twilight Series after reading the first novel of the series sometime early this year, which by the way I really enjoyed. I felt it was just right to pick up the next in series right away and I did.

The story in New Moon starts from where it ended in Twilight. Bella is back to Forks after being rescued from the clutches of the evil vampire- James, by Edward and company. Life goes on fine until Bella's birthday. Give it to her all known, characteristic clumsiness, she has a paper cut and blood trickles out of her finger at a birthday bash at Edward's home, in the full company of his vampire family. As what can be well guessed, Edward jumps off to protect Bella from being prey to any hungry vampire. It it this incident that makes Edward realize that things can't go this way forever and that he is risking Bella's life every moment he is with her. The whole of the Cullen's family decides to leave Forks and find a new dwelling. Edward leaves Bella and asks her to move forward in life. From there on Bella is inconsolable, melodramatic and sulky. In trying to bring her life to normalcy she renews her friendship with Jacob Black. Things in Bella's life gets complicated when something happens to Jacob, a transformation, that makes him the eternal enemy of the vampire clan. Still, all is until Edward is out of picture. But how long can he be out of Bella's life?

I think I have given enough of the story line, but still I can assure you that there is much more to the story. I liked the book in parts. I was really loosing my patience after reading some 50 odd pages. Bella was depressed, sulking all the time and living her life as a lifeless zombie. She constantly talked about THAT hole in her heart, that was not healing and was constantly getting worse with time. She had recurring nightmares that truly established that something is not quite right about her. I was almost getting irritated, the way she behaved, until the author added the new twist of Jacob Black to the story. I found Jacob's character very warm and like-able. Bella herself describes him as one cheerful person who spreads smiles and warmth. In fact Bella's character in this part struck me as selfish at times. Of course, she was using Jacob to diminish her own sorrow and I wonder if she would be there when Jacob needs her. The high point for me in this part was the friendship of Bella and Jacob. But as is known that 'Bella and Edward' are the couple and in the next part of the series, I am sure the author is going to come up with something to portray him as a bad character which I am not really looking forward to. Having said that, I must add that I will definitely read the rest of the series for I find the whole premise of the novel fascinating. I did not think that a vampire - human love story could hold my interest this long. Even though there are things that seem very predictable, the author has given finer details that makes it an interesting read.