Turkish Toast

We made a trip to Turkey few years back and food was certainly one of the main highlights of the trip. I was so excited about the food that after I got back, I threw a house warming party with all food Turkish.

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.

Cardamom, Pistachio and Saffron Pound Cake

Preparing brunch is one of my favorite things as there are no set rules. I usually try pound cakes of different types. While browsing through recipes, I stumbled upon a pound cake by Suvir Saran. Originally this was a pistachio pound cake with Lebanese origin which he tweaked a little by adding cardamom.  While reading the recipe, I was convinced that adding saffron might also add to the taste. Soon, I tried this on a Saturday morning and it was delicious. You have to try this flavorful cake!

Recipe:
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cardamom powder (freshly ground for best results)
1/4 teaspoon salt

One and half sticks unsalted butter at room temperature (12 tablespoon butter)
1 cup brown sugar

3 large eggs (room temperature)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk
1/4-1/2 teaspoon crushed saffron

1 cup roasted pistachios

- Preheat oven to 350 F
- Grind one cup of roasted (unsalted) pistachios ( I usually get mine from Trader Joe's). Make sure you do not over grind them.
- In a stand mixer or in a big bowl, cream butter and sugar together
- In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and vanilla extract
- Slowly mix butter mixture and the egg mixture
- Slightly warm 1/4 cup of milk and add crushed saffron and let it sit for 2-3 minutes and then add this to the remaining 1/4 cup milk.
- In a separate bowl mix all purpose flour, baking powder, ground cardamom and salt
- Add half of the flour mixture to the butter/egg mixture and then add half of the milk and mix together
- Add remaining flour mixture and milk and mix everything to make sure that the batter is free of  lumps
- Add pistachios into the mixture and mix very gently
- Now grease a 8x4 pan and transfer the batter to the pan
- Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean
- Let is cool in the pan for ten minutes and then on a cooking rack for another 20 minutes
- Enjoy this flavorful Lebanese pound cake with an Indian and Persian touch!

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.

Stuffed French Toast

Quiz: What happens when a wife goes out of town to attend a conference and the husband wants to have a quick homemade bite using only the ingredients inside the fridge?

Apple Cake

I own a dozen or so books on cooking/baking. Some are gifted, some I bought, and others have interesting stories behind them. One such book in the later category is Walter C. Black School cookbook. People used to donate books at our Princeton apartment common room to share with other people for various reasons. Once I found this cooking/baking (spiral binding form) book which had a collection of very simple recipes by a community. I just loved the simplicity of recipes in this book which has about three recipes on a A8 (1/2 of A4) size page with 12pt font. Isn't it amazing ?

Eggless Prune Cake

To diversify my baking portfolio, I wanted to learn how to bake an eggless cake :) I read about the "cake fever" which was spread by the eggless date cake in aayi's recipe. I looked into my refrigerator and found prunes instead of dates, so decided to try eggless prune cake with little modifications. Overall, it is an easy, tasty, and refreshing cake which I make quite frequently especially because of the 15 min preparation time.

Scones

Many would agree that most of the food that is just taken out of the oven tastes thousand times better than when it sits on the counter for two hours or more but scones taste billion times better when they are just taken out of the oven.

Popovers

I ate popovers for the first time at the Popover cafe in NYC with some berry butter. Its interesting that popovers are really puffed up when you are about to take them out of the oven but its kind of difficult to maintain that status even for a minute. Need to figure that out!!! Perhaps popover pan can solve the problem.

Croissant - The little Chef

Princeton has a small pastry shop called "The Little Chef". Many would agree that this is probably one of the best pastry shop for croissant, scones and many other delicacies which I don't even know names of.

Potato Anna - Julia Child's recipe

My love for Potatoes and browsing on "Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child" got me excited about Potato Anna. They were amazing!