Finger Sandwich - Avocado & Strawberry

I am fond of the concept of an English tea party. Sipping tea with scones and finger sandwiches in a relaxed environment is such a treat.  I like finger sandwiches as they are very simple to put together. It is obvious that the bread and ingredients need to be fresh and tasty to enjoy these delicacies.

 I attended a fund raising event with the theme of English tea party couple of years back and had lots of fun.  About 10-15 tables were arranged by volunteer's who brought tea sets and plates from their own collection. Everything looked so darn pretty. Here are two pictures from the party:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

At one point, I was the following the "how to cook perfect..........." series on the guardian and found how to cook perfect chocolate chip cookies. It took me a while but finally got a chance to make them.  Here is the link in the guardian that describes different aspects in great detail. Cookies are stress free baking for me both in terms of time and preparation.

The perfect chocolate chip cookie was easy recipe to follow and thanks to the weighting scale it is easy to measure as well.

Ingredients:
120 gm unsalted butter (original recipes calls for salted butter but i didn't have salted butter )
75 gm light brown sugar
75 gm granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
240 gm all purpose flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
170 gm dark chocolate, chopped
sea salt flakes

1. Using a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar until well combined on a medium speed. Add egg and vanilla extract and beat well.
2. Sift together flour and bicarbonate of soda and slowly fold in to the above mixture until everything comes together.  Use a lower speed on the stand mixer. Fold in the chocolate pieces with spatula and bring everything together.
3. Wrap the dough in a plastic sheet and keep it inside the freezer for 1/2 hour or keep it refrigerated overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 350 C.
5. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Make about 14 golf size balls using the dough and keep them at a distance on the baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes until golden. Make sure they are not brown.
6. Sprinkle one tray with salt and allow them to cool for couple of minutes on the sheet and then move them to cooking racks.

Enjoy the cookies.

Baked Apple Chips

Vendor's at the farmers market in Santa Barbara often sell baked apple chips and persimmon chips. However, those are not a very common in Ventura's Farmer market. After seeing a post about apple chips on The Italian Dish blog, I decided to bake them. I absolutely adore The Italian Dish blog and have tried many recipes from the blog. In fact it is my "go-to" blog for italian recipes.

Recipe:

Ingredients:
1 large apple
2 tablespoon brown sugar
3/4 tablespoon cinnamon (I used less cinnamon than suggested by The Italian Dish)


- Preheat oven to 225 F
- Slice apple into thin slices (as thin as possible 15-20 slices per apple)
- Lightly coat the apple slices on both the sides with the sugar and cinnamon mixture
- Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the apple slices on the baking sheet
- Bake for an hour
- After an hour, flip the slices and bake for another hour
- Remove from oven and cool them for some time and store in airtight container.

Variations:
- Make these chips with any fruit e.g. pear, persimmon etc.
- Eliminate brown sugar and cinnamon for a plain apple chips taste

Avocado Open Sandwich/Toast

Avocado has become an essential ingredient of my diet now (2-3 per week) and I feel very good eating it considering its mono-saturated fat content.  My love affair with avocados first started with Guacamole. When we moved to California, it become part of my weekday salads. Soon, I was eating it for weekend brunches with omelets. Then I found this great recipe about avocado toasts which I started enjoying for weekday breakfast.  You can call it avocado open sandwich or avocado bruschetta.  Here is my version of this recipe.

Ingredients:
2 slices of  multi-grain or whole wheat or sourdough bread
1 medium size ripe avocado (chunky pieces)
3 teaspoon extravirgin olive oil (or more based on taste)
1 clove of garlic
 salt to taste (~1/4 -1/2 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon sumac (for sourness)
1 teaspoon red chilli flakes

- Toast two slices of bread in a toaster
-  Rub the garlic clove on each slice and apply about 1/2 teaspoon oil on each slice
-  Place chunky pieces of half of the avocado on each bread slice
- In a small bowl, mix 2 teaspoon oil, salt, and chilli flakes (or you can directly sprinkle them on the avocado as well)
-Drizzle the mixture over the bread slices
- Sprinkle sumac over the slices

Enjoy this super yummy toast. Sometime when I am in hurry, I use garlic flavored olive or avocado oil and avoid garlic clove.

Almond tart with caramel filling and shortbread crust

This is yet another egg less yummy tart particularly good in fall or spring as the base is like a rich shortbread. This won the Food52 contest for "your best late winter tart". Other than caramel making (which I am kind of getting comfortable with after many many failures in the past), I would say it is quite easy to put together.  If it is not already clear from my last three posts, I love baking tarts and trying out different flavors.

Serving: 20 small pieces

Ingredients:

Shortbread Crust:
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup confectioners sugar (preferably buy confectioner's sugar which are sold in plastic bags)
1 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoon (3/4 cup) unsalted butter (cold, chopped in small cubes)
zest of one orange (or two tangerines)
~ 3 tablespoon fresh orange juice

Filling:
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 orange blossom honey/blue agave
1 cup extra heavy whipping cream
3 cups sliced almonds (toasted, I used 8oz pack of sliced almonds from Trader Joe's)
 2 teaspoon fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon fresh orange juice + 1 tea spoon warm water for brushing the tart base

Procedure:

1) Line a 9.5 inch tart pan with a parchment paper
2) In a stand mixer, pulse flour, confectioner sugar, salt, butter, orange zest. Slowly add one tablespoon of orange juice at a time and pulse again. You will need about 3 tablespoon of juice to bring everything together in form of a ball. Pulse slightly and carefully until the mixture starts to form a ball.
3) With your hands, spread the dough in the tart pan and on the side of the pan working with you palm and fingers
4) Chill the pan for  1 to 4 hours ( 1 hour minimum)
5) Heat the oven to 375 degree F
6) In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, add superfine sugar, brown sugar, honey, two teaspoon orange juice and mix everything gently.  Turn the heat to medium low and allow the mixture to melt while stirring gently.  Cook for 5-7 minutes until the mixture darkens and caramelizes. Make sure you don't over cook (burnt taste) or under cook (not a liquid form and you can still see crystals)
7) Add heavy cream and increase heat to medium. Cook the mixture for another 8-10 minutes until it thickens. Most of the time mixture will be boiling so decrease the heat setting little bit if the mixture wants to come out of the pan :)
8) Mix one teaspoon orange juice and one teaspoon warm water, apply this mixture to the chilled tart base with a brush
9) Stir in sliced almonds into the caramel mixture and spread the mixture into the chilled tart pan.
10) Bake for 30 minutes and lower the temperature to 350 F and continue baking for another 15 minutes
11) Remove from oven and let is cool completely and serve with whipped cream or as is. Make sure to cut a very small slice as a small slice goes a long way for this tart.
12) If you end up storing some in refrigerator, warm the slice for 10 seconds in microwave or for 1-2 minutes in oven at 350 F.

Easy and Tasty Egg less Peach Tart

Tarts are one of my favorite desserts comprising of layers of deliciousness with crusty base, smooth filling and a distinctive topping. Endless combinations exist which closely change seasons in terms of filling and toppings.

Peaches are in full swing at farmer's market now. I wanted to try this recipe that I had bookmarked for a while waiting for peaches to show up in the farmer's market. Tasty peaches make all the difference in this tart.  It is an eggless tart  and is quite easy to put together because of the minimal ingredients it contains.

Ingredients:
(Adapted from the winning recipe for "your best peach pie or tart" in Food52 contest)

Crust:
3/4 cup spelt flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour (or u can use 1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour and omit spelt flour)
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tea spoon salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup olive oil (extravirgin or light olive oil)
1/2 tea spoon almond extract
2 table spoon milk

Filling:
3 peaches
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 table spoon cold unsalted butter (pea size pieces)
1/4 tea spoon salt
2 table spoon all purpose flour

- Mix all the dry ingredients for crust  (flour, sugar, and salt) and all the liquid ingredients (oil, almond extract, milk) separately. Combine them together while mixing slightly and not overworking the dough
- Grease a 9.5 inch tart pan or 10 inch tart pan (line with a parchment paper if you don't want to sctrach the bottom of the pan)
- Transfer the crust mixture to tart pan and spread it evenly and firmly with your plam and fingers throughout the pan and along the sides (no rolling required for this crust)
-Preheat oven to 425 F
- Now cut 1/2 inch pieces of peach and arrange them in circle from outside to inside and in the middle while covering maximum area on the crust
- For the filling, mix sugar, butter, salt, all purpose flour with your fingers until crumbly and sprinkle over the peaches evenly
- Bake for 35 minutes to 40 minutes based on your oven settings
- Carefully remove from oven and at this point you will see a lot of bubbles in the pan and let it rest for half an hour.
- Slice and eat :) . This tastes great when slightly warm so in case you endup referigerating the tart (if you are fortunate enough to have any left) warm a slice in microwave for 15 seconds before eating it (you can serve it with whipped cream or eat without it)
- Enjoy this fresh and light treat.

Molten Lava Chocolate Cake

 S loves chocolate more than I do and he picks chocolate based desserts or pure chocolate over any other dessert! He enjoyed drinking a glass full of molten chocolate (so called hot chocolate) from Bent spoon in Princeton and finished a pack of twenty baking chocolate, Scharffen Berger, without me even getting a chance to bake something from it.

So I always had some motivation to make desserts out of chocolate which do not take too much effort like chocolate coated strawberries. To increase this simplistic list, I started sharpening my baking weapons (oven, pans, chocolates) specifically to make molten lava cake.

Serving size: 8 small ramekin cups

Ingredients:
13 tablespoon unsalted butter
6.4 oz chocolate Scharffen Berger (65% dark)
4 large eggs
6.5 tablespoon sugar
pinch of salt
3 teaspoon all purpose flour

Garnish
18-20 pieces of raspberry (or small pieces of tangerines/oranges)
1/4-1/2 cup confectioner sugar or cocoa powder

Sauce
1/2 cup raspberry jam (or orange jam if using oranges for garnish)

Procedure
- Preheat oven to 425 F
- Melt butter and chocolate pieces into a cup in microwave for 30 to 60 seconds
- Mix together to get a liquid mixture and let is cool slightly
- Beat eggs, sugar and salt until sugar dissolves in the egg mixture
- Combine egg mixture with chocolate mixture
- Add flour to the mixture and stir gently
- Grease small ramekins and divide the mixture equally into eight ramekins
- Bake for about 8-10 minutes until sides are firm and center is soft and when top part starts to crack
- Invert onto a plate.
- Combine sugar (or cocoa powder) and raspberry/orange and decorate the inverted cake with few pieces
- Melt raspberry/orange jam in a small pan and serve on side to be poured on the cake

Enjoy!

Breakfast Parfait almost from Nanihal

Like many kids, I went with my mom to my Nanihal/Nanera (Maternal grandmother's house) during summer vacations.  I played with other kids without any time restriction and got pampered by zillions of Aunts, Uncles and Grandparents. Like everyone's Nani (Grandmother), my Nani pampered us by cooking delicious food. Her cooking style was very simple. Yet she made the best moong daal (lentil) I have ever had and perhaps the reason that moong daal is by far my favorite daal till date. She cooked the lentils on a Chulha (Stove) in a dekchi (vessel) using coal without pressure cooker and cooking gas in 1-2 hours.  She is no longer with us but her lovely memories will always remain with us.  Here is a picture of the Haveli where my maternal grandparents used to live.  The place where I have spent countless hours/days/months full of fun during summer vacations.

Zucchini Pancakes with Sweet Tomato Chutney and Greek Yogurt

These little savory pancakes are rare. Rare because pancakes do not ring a "healthy" bell that often.  These little angels are as healthy and delicious as it can get for breakfast.  Alternate pieces with greek yogurt and sweet tomato chutney (or tomato ketchup) give the right satisfaction.  The satisfaction that you need on a weekend morning after having morning tea. The morning that really wants you to get out of your comfortable bed and help you plan your day. These little angels provide the energy exactly for that.

Surprise breakfast: Dukkah, honey glazed onion polenta and chocolate cake

Somehow weekends have been pretty hectic for the last couple of months and I didn't get much time to have a relaxing breakfast. Either we had to rush somewhere or high carb breakfast choice was on the plate!! To surprise Sid (or perhaps treat myself!), I woke up much earlier than my usual Sunday mornings to have the following on the table:

(1) Griddled polenta with caramalized onions, honey and goat cheese [winner of Food 52 contest for category " Polenta"]
(2) Dukkah (Egyptian mix of nuts and spices) with boiled eggs! Recently I learnt about it at the amazing blog Chocolate and Zucchini. I replaced chestnuts with walnuts in the recipe. Later on we also enjoyed dukkah in a more traditional way with olive oil and bread)
(3) Simple chocolate cake! [winner of Food 52 contest for the category "Best Chocolate Cake"]. I used instant coffee in this recipe.

All are easy to make and taste really good. Highly recommended!!!

Baked oatmeal

As promised, I am here with a post on Baked oatmeal. Picky I am with what I eat. Perhaps like everyone else, I enjoy certain things cooked in a particular style otherwise they are avoided using my best possible behavior :)  Oatmeal falls in such a category. I never enjoyed oatmeal in its default form - served in hot milk- despite knowing its endless benefits.  A Bed & Breakfast place named Pomaika'i "Lucky" Farm at Big Island (Hawaii) served baked oatmeal which I throughly enjoyed.  Naturally, upon return to mainland, I began my hunt for baked oatmeal recipes.  After much needed browsing on internet and an experiment in my Kitchen,  here I present the recipe to you fellow readers.

Red and geen salad - Christmas special from Sid

This winter salad is about bold tastes and vibrant colors. Roasted beets and pomegranate seeds are red and make the bulk of the salad. The green comes from the strong herbs: lime basil, mint, cilantro, arugula and green onions. Soft mild crumbled feta provides texture, contrast and balances sweetness of pomegranate; could be replaced with goat cheese. Roasted pecan and walnuts provide the crunch. Anjana suggested a sour lime and orange dressing, which was almost perfect.

Pecan Tart

Tarts are wonderful desserts and almost always I would pick a tart over a cake for dessert:) Joy of tart making is both in the pastry and the filling. Once you have your numbers right for the pastry, the whole new world of fillings open up to make fruit tart, chocolate tart, pecan tarts, cheese tart... the list is endless.

The flexible "Signature" Sandwich

This post is a research proposal for the most flexible "signature" sandwich highlighting its flexibility with respect to the ingredients and amazing taste :)

Frozen banana

Summer is almost here and so are light colors and frozen desserts! How about a frozen Hawaiian banana adapted from a recipe by Clementine Paddleford (1898-1967) - the first journalist in American history who truly defined the American food. A jewel who brought freshness of food to the newspapers which were primarily sources of politics at that time.

Postdoc Salad

In princeton U. cafeteria, salad bar use to sell salad with title: Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD salad where one could choose 2, 3, 5 ingredients, respectively. The postdoc salad is our own extension of the series with 7 or more ingredients and its eaten quite frequently for lunch during weekdays. Make sure that individual ingredients taste good for a superb salad!