DAY 51 : C'MON JUGGIE LETS GET HEALTHY

I Love travelling, sometimes feel that I may have been A GYPSY I MY PAST LIFE !!!....

And a new place is always bliss and if its a city that i have been to often then I'm happier than ever because i just fit in like it was yesterday...

Well frankly from the time i got interested in the process of cooking and all it entails...(because before i was only interested in eating), i now love visiting the fresh produce markets and love buying all kinds of ingredients and making something out of it...

At the moment I'm in Frisco, Texas and keep going grocery shopping with my sis...i love it...And am so happy every time i find some thing yummy in the market...

And frankly from the time i have reached her place I have been devouring all her dark chocolate and she has been devouring Hagen-daz coffee flavoured ice-cream and my bro-in law...the cool guy who is magic with kids, food, cleaning and family....well he has been providing me with all the sinful (and according to me necessary evils of life) portions that i promise myself every morning that im not touching ...EVER...

So as Juggie and me were shopping i found "SILKEN TOFU"'...now this to me is just awesome because i simply love tofu... (that reminds me i really need to go to Bangkok on holiday ) and most of the times , what i have picked up back home ...has been anything but silken...

So I told Juggie that ....this is it we are eating healthy and that's that...so picked up ...

Silken Tofu 1 packet
Cherry tomatoes ...that still had the stalks on them..

Orange and Yellow peppers ..
Crispy snow peas..
Asparagus ..that was tall slender and soooo fresh
Broccoli ..that my sis immediately said ...I'm not eating that...
Courgette.....My bro-in-law was like...that's just too many vegetables..
Prawns ...to pacify the meat eating ALBUQUERQUE family
Chicken stock 250 ml
Oyster sauce 3 tbsp
Soy sauce 1 tbsp
Garlic...3 ..thinly sliced
Ginger ...about an inch big..
Salt to taste

I cut the asparagus , broccoli's and courgettes and kept , them aside.....about a small bowl each..

Then power boiled the vegetables for less than a minute separately...except the peppers..and kept them aside.....

In a pan add a table spoon of vegetable oil and warm it slightly , to this add the garlic and saute it a lovely crispy brown,add the stock and bring to a slight boil, add the ginger ...

To this boiling liquid add the soy and a tablespoon of the oyster sauce..let it simmer for 30 seconds ..

Then add the prawns ..shut it for a minute and a half and let it cook..

Then add all your vegetables except the peppers, and add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce and give it a little stir...close the dish to retain all the aroma....

In another pan add a tea-spoon of butter and a little vegetable oil and very lightly toss the Silken Tofu in it...

Add the tofu to the cooked vegetables and add the peppers now so that it has a lovely crunch...my tofu was so soft that it all broke into bits...

Also you can make this dish with chili oil and add those beautiful birds-eye chilli's if you like it spicy...

You are done...spoon this hot aromatic prawn , tofu and garlic infused vegetables into your bowl and just go for it...you can also have it with just boiled rice or boiled egg noodles...but avoid it if you trying to go for the healthy option ...

It was crunchy and lightly flavoured and was just right , if your looking for something light and healthy and something that does not put you to sleep...

I went shopping post this....PURE BLISS ...

I call this dish of mine, "COME ON JUGGIE LET'S GET HEALTHY"...

So here just for you a lovely aromatic bowl of pure healthy energy, only from "Maria's Kitchen"

DAY 50 : ALLELUIA CHOC-MUFFINS

For the longest part of my life , in fact for as long as I can remember the one constant love in my life has been chocolate, I devour chocolate when I’m happy, excited, sad, mad, bad, crazy,
hungry, starving, weeping, before sleeping...well I hope you getting the drift..
So I felt that there is no better way to start this column with Hindustan times, but with the
love of my life.....

So I decided to try a whole bunch of new recipes so that I could get you one that is really delicious and easy..
So you can just imagine how many different recipes I tried and God I baked and tasted and my help at home ...poor guys ate every muffin I baked ...

My man-Friday Vijay, is someone who now understands what I do completely and gives me precise feed-back..Well after 5 different trials ,got this which I made for my choir and I made about 80 pieces and got nothing back...

So here goes

200 gms good quality cooking chocolate

115 gms Amul butter

150 ml water, room temperature

275 gms brown sugar or brown sugar or organic sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

4 eggs separated

175 ml sour cream

350 gms flour2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp soda bi-carbonate

On a very low flame mix the chocolate and butter along with the water,so that the butter and chocolate melt and a pouring consistency of the mix is formed....

Beat the egg whites till stiff peaks are formed and keep in a cool dry place..

Beat the yellow of the eggs with vanilla essence and keep aside..

To the flour add the baking powder and the soda bi-carbonate , sieve
it all together and keep aside..Now to the chocolate-butter and water mix, add the sugar and beat with a hand mixer on low..
Add the egg yolk and continue beating...
Now keep the beater aside and with a spatula add the sour cream and fold it into the above mix...

When the sour cream is fully incorporated add the flour by folding it in...

Now after the flour ,very delicately fold in the egg whites making sure
that it stays fluffy...and do not beat or mix vigorously ...
You are done...

This batter makes two 8 inch cakes or then about 80 bite size muffins..

If you making cakes bake it at 150 degrees for exactly 40 minutes and if you making bite-size muffins then bake it at 150 degrees for 18-20minutes...

The key is to first make friends with your oven….. And once you establish a good friendship..well the benefits are awesome...
If you do no find sour cream please use dahi ...it comes out as delicious....

So i made bite-sized muffins and I loved them and my official taster
Zeke , with his mouth stuffed with the muffin gave me the "wow"expression ...These muffins turn out really soft and melt in your mouth...

I then waited for them to cool and decorated them with a chocolate butter cream icing ....
I love these babies...they fit correctly in your mouth ,as they are not too big and so you really don’t mind having about 4 ...
And then what i do is get up really early the next morning and go for a 40 minute run on our uneven , traffic infested ,dog chasing Mumbai streets ..ha ha ha
But you don’t have to believe every thing I write here, what I want you
to do is , go and bake this ...and then please do write in and give me your feed back..
As for me I’m a happy bunny, , I call these my "ALLELUIA CHOC-MUFFINS"because that’s what you want to sing straight after eating them...
So here just for all of you straight from "Maria's Kitchen’, fresh, soft and melt in your mouth ''ALLELUIA CHOC-MUFFINS" with love from me to you....

DAY 49 : PRETTY IN PINK....

And today on the 2nd May 2011, my little Zene Zoe finally turned 4..
We'll the reason I'm saying "finally' is because we have been celebrating her birthday since April as she is born in May and everyone is on holidays..
So 13th April the school party,25th April the family party , 30th April, her God-Mother threw her a birthday party in Dallas and today finally we sang ''Happy Birthday " to her on her real birthday...made her this pink cake in the shape of number 4 on it ...and she beamed from ear to ear as her brothers Zeke, Kyle and Cruz sang to her and clapped for her...they all then sank their teeth into this plain sponge cake with a strawberry butter-cream icing..
I make this cake at home all the time whenever Arshad has a meeting and there is nothing at all and I'm stuck ..I just put my ingredients together and ABRA-KA-DABRA-KAZAM !!!!
The softest and spongiest cake that you just want to keep biting into is sitting quietly in your oven !!!!

INGREDIENTS
Flour: 100gms
Milk powder : 50 gms
Castor sugar :120 gms
Butter : 150 gms
Eggs : 3
Salt : a pinch
Vanilla essence a few drops
Baking powder : 1/2 tsp
Milk : 50 ml

Sieve salt, baking powder, salt and milk powder together..
Cream the butter and the sugar very well together..
Fold in the flour and adjust the consistency with milk...
Pour the mix into a 6 inch greased tray and bake for 45 minutes at 150 degrees...

Its actually that simple and my sisters kitchen has this lovely aroma wafting through...

My sister Juliet who is 2 years younger than me .... lives in Dallas and has the most beautiful house and lovely boys Kyle and Cruz , and the most wonderful husband Raj....who is great with the kids, the house, computers, cooking , cleaning,entertaining the kids and he also works.....
Well Julu n me were pregnant together...actually she always got pregnant 1st and i think it's contagious because i was pregnant soon after...both the times...
Zene Zoe is Julu's God-child..and is as feisty as her god mother and is used to having her own way like her mother, she is charming like her Dada and has him wrapped around her little fingers..
I think girls come with their own special manual that the boys don't really get...
Because Zene says the most amazing things and has her Dad's sense of humour...
Like this one time when she was not well, I asked her how she was feeling and she said,"My fever is gone" then she smiled looked up at me and said "down to play", we'll coming from a 3 year old i thought that was wicked...
I think Zene is incredible ....but then I'm her mum and i guess all mum's feel that way about their kid's...
But she really is the sweetest, and she just holds my face in her hands and looks into my eyes and says's "mama i love you "..
Sometimes she just gives me a hug when I'm feeling blue ...like she just knows ...and when we go to sleep she hugs my face onto her little chest and gives me little kisses......sometimes i feel like I'm her little girl...she makes me feel protected , loved, warm , peaceful , beautiful and incredibly lucky that i have her...That's my little Zene Zoe in a nut shell...
And her tantrums are world class and adorable....she gets upset and then just walks out of the room and goes and sits on her bed with her cute face in her hands...she chucks thing's (that's not good at all, but i do that too)...she has a sad walk..which is this slow drag ....and its basically slow because she wants us to run after her and pick her up and kiss her and hug her , and then sometimes she just stands behind a wall and shows us her little finger.....because she is upset about something....
Oh! God, I can just keep talking about Zene...
You know I love my babies and the whole experience of getting pregnant ,getting fat ,then struggling to loose weight , the hair loss, the skin changing , my nails breaking, my gorgeous clothes not fitting, my shoe size increasing, not sleeping ...i even love each and every little stretch marks ( thank-fully very few of those ) ...kids are the most perfect part of a relationship.......
So this pink cake is for my little Zene Zoe...
it's like her soft, yet firm and easy ..only if you follow the instructions and the best quality ingredients...Girls are high maintenance ...but that you already know ...ha ha ha
I just pray to God to keep that vibrant smile on her face forever and may she always stay safe mentally, spiritually, physically and emotionally...and that smile , that million dollar smile intact...
GOD BLESS U MY ZENE POOIEE...
And for all of you this soft and simple "PRETTY IN PINK" cake made with lotsa love and incredible patience only from "Maria's Kitchen"......