Chocolate Soup With Cinamon Coated Apples

In one of my earlier post I had mentioned that I watch cooking programmes even if i don't understand the language.

I buy this French cooking Magazine every month even though I don't know french ( after watching a particular cooking programme in French.
I have started reading the ingridients, of course it will be written Oufes which i know mean eggs I will read that in my mind but I am sure if i read it loud nobody in this whole world will understand me, this goes to all the other ingridients which i have started learning )

So as I was saying i buy this magazine every month and this month I saw this wonderful dessert. So I went and harrased my hubby dear to translate the recipe for me and i must admitt it was worth harrasing him for translating as for chocolate lovers this is a realy fantastic dessert.
I am sending this to Sunita for her Think Spice ... think Cinamon event


To Bindya of In love with food for her event These are few of my favourite things

And also to Deepz from Letz Cook she is hosting the JFI Chocolate she is like me she love chocolates.

Well this is the first time I made a dish and I can send in for 3 events. In a way it came in handy as it is a busy time now and didn't had to cook for each event :-)))) I do love to prepare different things for these event but this week it is a real busy time.

This is the last post for this year so I would like to Wish all my friends in the blog world

HAPPY HOLIDAYS and Happy Newyear

See you all in 2008

Taking a break till the first week of January.
Surley will miss you all and will catch up with all your delicious post in January.
.

Few of the ingridientqs

Making the caramel

Frying aples with Cinamon

Divide the apples to the cups

Pouring the hot chocolate

Almost done

Ingridients
250 gm Chocolate atleast 67% cacco cut in small pieces
250 gm apples peeled and chopped in fine cubes
2 slices of spice bread ( I don't know if this is the correct translation, i will check it out and correct it ) cut them in cubes
2 Sticks of cinamon
1 tsp cinamon powder
30 gm butter
90 gm fine sugar
150 gm cream
Half Litre watrer

Method:
Melt the butter add the apples with the 20 gm of sugar and cinamon powder. Cook it for 3 minutes. The apples shopuld be still crispy noy cooked.

Now take a another pan. Heat the 40 gms of sugar and stir with a spoon. Add the cinamon sticks and let the sugar caramalize till it is having a dark colour. Add bit by bit the water.
Boil for 3 minutes.

Take the cinamon sticks out. Add the chocolate pieces and the caco powder.
Whisk very good and boil for one minute.
Whisk the cream with the rest of the sugar ill soft peaks. Keep it in the fridge. So it can be cold

Now take the serving bowls. Add the apple pieces. Then add the chocolate soup.
Add the cubes of bread and top with whipped cream.
Sprinkle a bit of cinamon powder and serve .

Caramel Tart & Click

The monthly event is there again and this time they have gone really NUTS about NUTS. You all can guess whom i am talking about. The famous duo from Jugalbandi.

They indeed are going nuts over nuts for this months click event.I have never seen so many ideas with nuts. Some of these ideas are wonderful just check it out here.

I thought I will make something with nuts and send them.So I made this Caramel Tart.
I got the recipe from Food Lover's Journey the only varitaion i made was adding few raisins and I used Pecan Nuts instead of Walnuts. I am glad I made them they were just Delicious.

Few of the ingridients

Pastry is ready

For the nut caramel

Delicious

Christmas Cake

Before I used to make christmas cake every year . I used to make the cake in the begning of october and after a month take it out and spoon brandy over it etc and keep it till christmas and always took it to my inlaws place.

But for the last years I didn't make anymore has during this time one is having so much food with all the parties I decided no more making christmas cake untill Isaw this cake in Mishmash place. All of you who have visited her place will agree that she makes wonderful cakes.

While reading her post and going through the ingridients I was felling really homsick.She had made the cake like my Mom make. She also used to caramalize the sugar when ever she made a cake.
So all my planning for not making christmas cake changed and AFAM this month is dry fruits which is hosted by Latha Narasimhan from The yum blog so i am sednig this to her for the event.

To be honest I think I have gained few kilos after i started blogging and participating in all these events .
Now who is talking about the weight when I have made this delicious cake.

Back to buisness, as i was saying I was feeling homesick while seeing the cake in Mishmash blog but when I was making the cake I was more homesick.I well tell you why, while powdering the spices , the caramel water and mixing all the ingridients my whole kitchen ( well my small kitchen) was having the same smell like when my mom made her cakes.

If you would have come to my kitchen you would have seen me bending over the cake mixture and inhalling like a mad women .I put the cake into the oven and you all can guess what I did in seconds. Rang my Mom in India and told her that I made the same the christmas cake like she makes her cake and the whole place is smelling like when she made the wonderful cakes.

If you want to make the cake you can ger the recipie here
Normally when ever I make a cake I take the whole cake to my inlaws place but this time as it was this special kerala Christmas cake I kept half in my place for me to have to my heart and stomach content :-)

Dry fruits

Few of the other indridients

Ready for the oven

Enjoy

Weirdest Meme

I do agree with Latha Narasimhan from The Yum blog that it is really difficult to write something about oneself. She has tagged me for 7 Weirdest facts about me.
Well if she had tagged me for 7 bad habbits i would not even had to think , i will have a whole list of it :-)

So here it goes................
1. I love sweets. Doesn't matter want kind it is as long as it is sweet. I will hogg it but then after hogging the sweets I really really want to eat something spicy or salty.

2. I am snakeophobic..... i am so afraid of snakes, maybe because of seeing so many snakes in between the coconut trees and the mango tress back at home.
Don't know why i have been always afraid of snakes.
If there is a picture of snake in a magazine i will tear it away and then only read the book.
If I am watching a film and if a snake pop up in it i close my eyes and wait till my hubby or daughter says it is gone.

3 This one i think it is more of a bad habbit that weird.I bite my nails always,to the HORROR of my hubby and all the other family memebers.
This year for mothers day my daughter even bought for me a bitter tasting Nail Polish so that i would stop biting them.

4 From my point this is not at all a weird habbit but from my hubby this is.I watch almost all the cooking programmes they show in TV.
Sometimes I even watch cooking programmes ( not full programme) in languages that I don't understand, well that part I do think is weird ;-)))))))

5. When ever I am going out of the house, i go to the kitchen and check the 4 gas buttons to see if they are off. And then i go out of the kitchen and come back and look again just to be sure, This is something i do everytime when i go out. I would say it is like a obsession.

6. Same goes to the front door or the car door etc...... i double , triple check if they are really locked.

7. I have been sitting here and thinking for the last 20 minutes for a another weird habbit I have, and none comes to my mind , so I am going to leave this space here ........................................ blank and If i start a new weird habbit I will fill it up :-)))))

Now this part is easy, i just have to choose 7 people to do What Latha have asked me to do :-)))
I am tagging all these fellow blogers to do the same.

1. Asha from Aroma she has been gone for 2 weeks of holidays from here... was hoping to see her today but then she is taking a week more holiday as the cold monster have caught her too. so when she is back I will give her fingers some work :-)) and from what i know about her she is really honest so she will tell us all about her weird habbits. And i do hope they are really Juicy habbits.

2. Sig from Live to Eat she has been having such a wonderfull holiday in Spain for 2 weeks. And i would love to hear what all weird habbits she have. And i bet she have more than 7 :-)

3. Rosie from Rosie bakes a piece of cake If you see all the cakes she is making well they just look wonderful . If she is like the cakes she makes then I don't think she'll have any weird habbits, but never know everybody have their little secrets :-)

4. Meeso from My Humble Kitchen she is a real Roamantic person so you never know that she might tell us some secrets about weird Romantic things ;-))))))))

5. Sunita from Sunita's World do you all think that she will have any weird habbits, i doubt it. Her photograpy is excelent, her cooking is excelent, she is a fantastic wife and she is a excelent Mom to her 2 kids and if she have some weird habbit we will be able to read it in the post she is going to write :-)

6. Cynthia from Taste Like Home well i know one of her weird habbit. She is not a fan of Eggplants but every time when she goes for shopping she buy them, now is that weird or not :-))) so she might let us into her secret world of weird habbits.

7. I left my seventh habbit blank but still i am going to ask Dhanggit from Dhanggt's Kitchen, she is just back from the Alpes without breaking anything :-) and it seems she would like to samba in the grand carnival of Rio in Brazil. So maybe she will surprise us by telling all her weird habbits.

Now ladies you are in no obligation to do this. Do if you have time. Beeing the holiday season i know most of you are really busy.

Melting Moments Cookies

Susan from Food Blogga is hosting this wonderful event called Eat Christmas Cookies.

She is posting directly the posts in her page , you should go and check it out aparently she said cookies are flying in fast from all over the WORLD. Every other day i go and check the updates and it is wonderful to see al the different cookies she have got for this event.

It is like there is not end to the variety of cookies everybody is making.This is my contribution for her event.
This is my contribution for her event.
They are called melting moments. I have no idea why they are called like this.
But if you eat these cookies they are just melt in your mouth :-))))

Few ingridients

Making tje cookie paste

For making the butter cream

Ready to eaat ;-)))

250 gm Butter, room temperature
100 gm Powder sugar
1 tsp Lime zest
2 Egg yolk
300 gm Flour
3 tbsp Raspberry jam
Powder sugar to sprinkle

Butter Cream
80 gm sugar
1 tbsp water
1 egg white
80 gm butter

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°c.Grease the baking tray with butter.In a bowl add the butter, sugar and lime zest and mix it till light and fluffy.

Add the egg yolk and mix well.Now add the flour and using a woodden spoon mix everything till you get a smooth paste.
Put the paste in a pipping bag fitted with a 8mm nozzle. Pipe out in star shapes leaving space between each.Bake for 10 -12 minutes.Leave them to cool on a wire rack.For the butter cream.Melt on a low fire 60 gm og sugar with 1 tbsp water in a pan. Stir now and then.

Now turn the fire to high and cook for 3 minutes without stirring. Take care there is not cyrstal form is appearing.Beat the egg whtes stiff with the rest of the sugar. Keep of beating and pour the sugar syrup in a thin beam, keep on beating the mixture till it is cold. Add the butter .

Divide the cookies in a set from two. Spread jam on the smooth side of the cookie. And the butter cream on the other bunch of the cookies.
Press the buttercream and the jam side together and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Duck in Orange Sauce

Normally for Christmas it is TURKEY time every where.
But if you ask my daughter what she would like to have as main course, she'll tell me that she would love to have orange duck. Actually if i ask her for any kind of festivities what she would like to have in the list she always add this dish.I am not a fan of duck meat.
But my hubby and daughter loves this dish so i make them for special occasions.

Anna from Morsel & Musing is hosting Festive food fair in honour of all the festivals which is going around in this period and I have to admit there is a lot of events going on the blog world that I tell to myself i can't keep up with them :-)

Most of the ingridients

Rest of the things

Sugar and vinegar

Ingridients.
2 Duck breast
150 g sugar
1/2 glass vinegar
6 oranges
1 small glass grand-marnier
100g butter
2 onions
2 carotts
1 garlic clove
1 thyme sprig
2 bay leaves
1/2 litre white wine
1 tablespoon tomato paste
salt, pepper.

Blanch the zest of three oranges.

Heat in a heavy pan the 50 gm butter and add the minced onions, sliced carotts, whole unpeeled garlic clove, thyme and bay leaves. Lightly caramalize everything.
Add then the wine and 1 tablespoon tomato paste.
Cover and cook for 45 minutes after boiling started.
When finished strain the sauce.
Heat a another pan and add the sugar and white vinegar cook until the caramel turns a golden brown.
When golden blond, add the sauce previously made.

Add the banched zest of 3 oranges, along with their juice and the grand-marnier.
Slice the 3 remaining oranges. They'll be used for decoration.
Whisk the juice, season and keep warm.
In the mean time heat a non stick pan and add the rest of the butter and fry the duck breast each side 5 minutes. Putut on a service dish decorated with the orange slices.
Pour the sauce over it and serve with potato crouquettes.

Indian Masala Chai Mix

When i make Indian Masala Chai , i do with fresh ingridients like ginger, cinamon etc....... the idea of the event was that we make something which we can keep under the christmas tree as a present and fresh Chai that u can't do can we :-)

This i made for zlamushka's event A spoonful of Christmas and the deadline is tommorow , so i had to hurry up in making this.

I am going to give this as a present for my Mother in law, she likes the Indian spice tea and she buys the ready made one we get in the shops.
So i thought why not make this for her which will be far far better than the shop bought one ( I hope).

I made them yesterday I will have to keep it for atleast a week or two before giving it to her , by then all the spices would have really blended well with the tea leaves.

Tea and the spices

Mix everything

Ready to deliver :-)

Indridients.
150 gm tea
Ginger few slices or according to your taste ( i cut the giner in thin slices and dried them in the oven for 20 minutes in a very low heat and left in the oven for a day.)
Ginger powder 1 tsp
Cinamon few sticks crushed
Cardamom 10 crushed
Cloves 4

I mixed all the ingridients and botteled it.I will write a remark here after tasting the tea. ( I will have to taste it before i give it as a present)

Updated the recipe on December 1st. I added few peper balls crushe the tip whic Rina gave me and Bee from Jugalbandi said she add fennel seeds so i added 1 tsp slightly crushed fennel seed to the mix. Thanks both of you for the tip.

Sambar

Sambar

Linda from Out of the garden is hosting the JFI Toor dal.
She had written that we can post even our older posts so if you have not send anything for her you can check you older post and send it in .

I thought i will make sambar for her as when ever i make dosa at home i make sambar too, but then i've to add drumsticks in it as my daughter and hubby loves drumsticks in sambar.

This is the way my sister makes a sambar she cooks the vegetables with the sambar powder. Lot of my indian vegetarian recipes are from her as she cooks delicious vegetarian dishes.
Back at home we had almost everyday dal.My mom used to make lot of different dishes with dal.

Vegetables....

Ingridients.
Toor dal 100 gms
1 tsp turmeric
Vegetables 250 gm ( i used beans, drumsticks, onions etc...)
Tamarind size of a lime.
Add warm water and make a pasteSambar powder 3 tbspSalt to taste

To temper:
Mustard seeds 1 tsp
Whole dry red chillies
Curry leaves few
Oil 2 tbsp.

Cook toor dal with the turmeric.
Cook the vegetables seperate with the sambar powder and salt .
When the vegetables are 3/4 cooked add the tamarind paste.
Add the cooked dal ( add more water if u need) Cook for few more minutes.

Heat in a small pan the oil and add the mustard seeds, when it pops add the rest of the tempering things fry for few seconds and pour it to the dal mixture , mix well.
Serve with rice or dosa etc.

Date,ricotta and polenta cake

This is what was written in my cooking book from the women's weekley.
This is a perfect cake to serve at the end of a italian meal or with a cup of expresso , when friends drop in by late afternoon.
Well i didn't had both, no italian dinner or friends who dropped by late afternoon but still the cake was good.
I am sending this to Chandrika from Akshay Patra , she is hosting this months AFAM event Dates.

Ingridients....

Everything into a bog bowl :-)

Mixing


Adding the dates, nuts etc...

Spread half the cake mixture into the pan

Delicious ricotta filling with the orange rind...

Covering the remain cake mixture

Finished baking.

Ingridients.
1 cup /160gm finely chopped seeded dates
1/3 cup / 80 ml Orange Liqueur
1/2 cup / roasted and finley chopped walnuts
2 cups / 300 gm selfraising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup /110 gm polenta
1 cup / 220 gm sugar
1 1/4 cup / 250 gm ricotta cheese
125 gm butter melted
3/4 cup / 180 ml water

Ricotta Filling
1 1/4 cup / 250 gm ricotta cheese
2 tbsp ornage liqueur
2 tbsp icing sugar
1 tbsp finley grated ornage rind

Method:
Preheat the oven 180°c. Greast deep 20cm round cake pan, line base and side with baking paper.
Combine and dates and liqueur in a small bowl and leave it for 15 minutes

Combine flour, baking powder, polenta, sugar, cheese, butter and the water in large bowl, beat on low speed with a electric mixer until just combined.
Beat on in medium speed untill the mixture change to a lighter colour then , using a wooden spoon stir in nuts and undrained date mixture.
Spread half of the cake mixture into the prepared pan, using a spartrula, spread ricotta filling over the pan mixture and then cover with remaining cake mixture.
Bake in a moderatley slow over for 1 hour.
Cool in a wire rack and serve the cake sprinkled with icing sugar optional