Cake Pops

I have never made a fancy dessert like this in such a short time and found this to be the best option of turning your disastrous cake into a complete new avatar (form & look). If you have a left-over cake, making these beauties will definitely be something new in both look and taste. These gorgeous bites can be a favorite to kids and adults too. Cake pops can be a show-stopper for your parties or get-togethers especially when the Christmas and New Year eves are around. You don’t need to worry of cutting / slicing, serving, or cleaning the dessert served plates as the guests can just pick them up and enjoy the deliciousness.

A cake pop is a form of cake styled as lollipop. Usually, cake crumbs are mixed with frosting or melted chocolate, and formed into small balls, attached to lollipop sticks, and then coated with frosting or melted chocolate and then sprinkles (decorations) are added. I was having my leftover dates-cake, which I have used for making these babies, moreover I have used leftover condensed milk to mix in the crumble instead of frosting or chocolate. Instead of fancy decorations, I just used desiccated coconut (for sprinkling), which was sitting in my kitchen cabinet. You can use your creative mind and the ingredients you have handy and the outcome will definitely turn out fancy.

Masala Vada ~ Lentil Fritters

Masala Vada is a crispy, spicy tea time snack. This typical Indian snack is sure to make your tea time a special one with that someone so special. Though this is drenched in oil to make it crispy, one can take a chance to pamper oneself in a while. As an alternate means, these can be baked as well to avoid using oil.

Try making this vada during the week-end when you and your beloved ones have a free time with no or less serious work in hand, as these may make you feel full. I am sure you’ll remember this snack for quite a while.

Eggless Tutti Frutti Biscuits - Hyderabad's Famous Bakery Style Cookies

Christmas is around and what better way to celebrate than making a batch of these colorful goodies.  These eggless cookies are favorite to most of the Hyderabadi’s, as these are similar to Karachi Bakery fruit biscuits. Easy to whip-in and quick to bake, these cookies with small bits of candied fruit make them pretty and tastes yum. This is such an easy recipe that even beginners in baking can try their hands on it.

Stir Fried Boiled Egg

Stir Fried Egg is a simple preparation made using hard boiled eggs. This recipe calls for a very minimal ingredients and can be made in jiffy. This is a regular home style dish which goes excellently well with rice or roti.

Sugar-less & Butter-less Dates Cake

Many of us these days are aware that most recipes made of all purpose flour involve ingredients that are bound to contain excess calories and lead to putting up those extra pounds, which does more harm than good. But not many of us can resist from having large bites of them. When you really cannot resist the urge, here is a safer bet. Sugar-less, butter-less, dates cake……yes, believe in your vision, you are reading it right J

With the festive time (Christmas and New Year) around, all the bakeries offer a varied variety of them. WAIT before you buy and indulge in them. Imagine a cake being made without butter and sugar, which are THE ingredients resulting in the voluminous calories, yet retaining the taste suiting your taste buds. When a cake like this can be made at home, do you really have to buy outside? Remember, you are going for the special offer of buying free extra calories too.

Andhra Gongura Pappu ~ Lentils Cooked with Red Sorrel Leaves

Gongura is known and grown for its edible leaves, which are sour in taste. These leaves are so versatile that when cooked with meat or lentils turns out heavenly. Some of the variations are gongura-mamsam (lamb meat), gongura-royyalu (shrimp). The most popular one however is gongura pachadi (pickle), which is a must with a meal in the Guntur region of Andhra Pradesh. These leaves come in two colors of the stem, green and red. The red stemmed is sourer and thus tastes best for these preparations. I have used red stemmed sorrel leaves / erra gongura for today’s recipe. Try this dal variant, I am sure, you will not leave your fingers licked.

Curry Leaf Rice

Curry leaf is a must in any South-Indian dish. These leaves are so aromatic and add a special flavor to every dish. Curry leaf not only acts as a flavoring agent but also has lot of nutritional values. Packed with carbohydrates, fiber, calcium, phosphorous, iron, magnesium, copper, minerals and vitamins like nicotinic acid and vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin E, antioxidants, plant sterols, amino acids, glycosides and flavonoids, curry leaves help your heart function better, fights infections and can enliven your hair and skin with vitality. 

In Ayurvedic medicine, curry leaves are believed to have several medicinal properties such as anti-diabetic, antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic and hepato-protective (capability to protect liver from damage) properties. The roots are used for treating body aches and the bark is used for snake bite relief.

Inspite of all these health benefits, we often have a tendency to pick away the leaves from our curries/dishes and miss all those medicinal properties. Now, I am sharing this dish from which we cannot pick the leaves away and get all the benefits.

Mint Rasam

Weather is chilling all around. These days we enjoy having warm soups, comforting dals and tangy rasam. Recently prepared mint rasam which became the show-stopper of our lunch menu. It is great remedy for cold and cough. This is a thin tamarind stew flavored with fresh mint leaves served as accompaniment with hot steamed rice.

Banana Coffee Loaf

Whenever hubby gets bananas, I just wait for them to over-ripe. You know why? Yeah, this is the secret to bring out the best banana loaf. The more they ripen the sweeter (natural) and better is the cake. On the day of baking this loaf, your house gets so aromatic that you feel as if you are in a fancy bakery.

This super moist loaf which is packed with banana flavor is easy to assemble, quick-to-whip-in the ingredients, which are easily available in your kitchen pantry. Moreover, you are going to use the bananas (over-ripened) which you may not like to eat. You may throw in some of your favorite nuts / chocolate chips to add a delicious crunch. It cannot get easier or tastier than this J