Steamed Cranberry Pudding

Steamed Cranberry Pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream

Too many events.......too many deadlines..........

Lovely Anna sent me a reminder about her Festive Food Fair. I came to know about it very late and I thought I wouldn’t be able to participate.

Well, I had some leftover cranberries from the Thanksgiving Day and was looking for ways to use it up. I chanced upon this wonderful cranberry pudding recipe which sounded very good to me for several reasons.

• I have never made this before, so I can learn a new recipe if it comes out good.
• This recipe calls for molasses! I have a big jar of molasses I bought last year for making gingerbread cookies. I add molasses to my oatmeal occasionally, other than that I didn't know where else to use it.
• Also, take a look at the ingredients. No butter, no sugar, no eggs!
• And I found out that it is very very festive here in America! That means I can send this to Anna's event.

I must say this is a cake-like pudding. Since it is steam cooked, it has the texture of a very moist cake. I steamed it in the pressure cooker. I understand from the Google pictures that this is traditionally made in a deep dish and hence the longer cooking time. The recipe suggests steaming it for 3 hours! Since I cooked in the pressure cooker, and didn't use a deep dish, it took only 25-30 minutes for me.

This recipe is all over internet and I cannot point to a single source. I also saw variations of this with white sugar and butter.

This is how I made it:

Take 1 1/2 cup flour in a mixing bowl. Reserve 2 tbsp of flour from it and add 1 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt to the rest. Combine it with a whisk. Now add 1/2 cup of molasses and 1/2 cup of hot water to this. Mix using the whisk until it is combined. Sprinkle the reserved flour over 2 cups of fresh cranberries. Toss it well and add it to the batter. Stir gently with a spoon and pour into a greased plate. Steam cook until done. You can test the doneness by doing a toothpick test. Let the pudding cool. Serve it at room temperature with your favorite dessert sauce or ice cream.

Since this recipe didn't have any eggs, butter, or sugar, I was skeptical about the result. But it turned out absolutely delicious and I just had to share. Next time I plan to make this in a deep dish, the traditional way.

Thank you Anna for letting me know about this event. I am glad I could participate.

Dessert Pizza

This was one of the summer holidays project(too late to post I know!). My daughter likes to cook and insisted that she wanted to do something in kitchen during her holidays. This is a kid friendly recipe, but they will need an adult's help in baking the crust.

I bought sugar cookie dough from Walmart. It should be easy to make it from scratch. I have yet to try that out. I let her spread the cookie dough on a round pan. Then I baked it at 325 degree F until done. It took around 25-30 minutes. The baking time varies depending on the type of your oven.

I made a cream cheese icing and she spread it on the cooled crust.

Then I chopped up the fruits and let her decorate the way she wanted.

It was a lot of fun, and the pizza tasted great.

Orzo with Shrimps & Broccoli

For my daughter's love of broccoli & shrimps!

My daughter loves shrimps & broccoli. So whenever she whines that she has nothing good to eat this is what I do- cook with shrimps and/or broccoli! This is one recipe I whipped up just for her, but we all loved it.

Orzo(Rice shaped pasta) - 1/2 cup
Oil/Butter - 1 tbsp
Onion/Shallots - 1 small, finely chopped
Garlic - 1 clove, minced
Shrimps - 1/2 cup, shelled and deveined
Sun-dried tomatoes - 2 tbsp
Lemon juice - 1 tsp
Fresh parsley leaves - 2 tbsp, finely chopped
Broccoli - 1/2 cup, cut into florets
Parmesan cheese for garnishing

Heat up oil in a pan add add chopped onion. Cook until the onion is translucent and add garlic. Cook for a minute. Add shrimp and salt. Cover and cook with occasional stirring until the shrimps are done. It will take 8-10 minutes depending on the size of the shrimps you use.

Add lemon juice and sun dried tomatoes. You can cook broccoli along with the shrimps, but I cooked broccoli in a separate pan with a little salted water and added it at the end. Add chopped parsley and turn off the stove.

In the meantime, cook orzo according to package directions. Drain orzo and add it to the shrimp-broccoli mixture. Stir well and cook for a minute on a medium-high flame. Serve hot sprinkled with parmesan cheese.

Garlic Pickle

Two things I love to do in my kitchen during winter are pickling and baking. Usually people pickle vegetables in summer and save it for winter. But in my house, pickles always have short life. We start eating it the very next day after picking and it would last only a few weeks maximum unless I hide it and deliberately forget about it. When there is pickle, we tend to eat it a lot. So I always make it mild and less spicy to avoid burning up ourselves by eating lots of spicy stuff. It is amazing how much a pickle can spice up our boring meals on cold lazy days.

Winter is around the corner...... so here is a pickle!

Garlic - 1 cup, peeled
Ginger - 1 tbsp, julienned
Green chillies - 4 to 6, cut into thin rounds
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Chilli powder - 3 tsp
Salt - to taste
Gingelly oil - 3 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1 1/2 tsp
Fenugreek seeds - 1 tsp
Vinegar - 1/2 cup or more to taste

Wash and drain the garlic. Steam cook the garlic for 3 minutes. Do not overcook. Let it cool.

Heat up gingelly oil and add mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds(Alternatively you may roast and powder the fenugreek seeds and mustard seeds and add it to the pickle). Once the mustard seeds are spluttered, and the fenugreek seeds turn brown color, add ginger, curry leaves, and green chillies. Stir for a minute and add garlic. Stir and fry on a medium high flame for 2-3 minutes. Do not brown the garlic. Add chilli powder and salt. Turn off the stove. Keep it covered. When it is cold, add vinegar and store in a glass jar.

I used Kashmiri chilli powder. If you use any other hot variety chilli powder, you may need to adjust it to your taste.

Time for a game?

Pomegranate peels & Fried onions! Thank you all for guessing.

Blueberry Muffins

Butter at room temperature - 1/4 cup
Egg - 1
Sugar - 1/2 cup
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/8 tsp
Milk - 1/4 cup
Vanilla - 1/2 tsp
Blueberies - 1 cup, fresh or frozen

Preheat the oven to 375 degree F.

Take blueberries in a bowl. Sprinkle with some flour and toss to coat.

Cream butter and sugar together until it is nice and smooth. Add egg and whisk to incorporate. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together and add it to the sugar-butter-egg mixture. Add milk and mix everything together with a wooden spoon. Add vanilla. Add the blueberries and gently stir to incorporate. Pour into muffin tins and bake 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted at the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool on wire racks. This recipe makes 6 medium size muffins, but you can easily double or triple it.

This is for Nandita's WBB # 7 Baking for Breakfast

Lemon Squares

For my husband's love of tangy desserts!

Yes! He loves tangy desserts, especially when the recipe calls for a lemon. This recipe calls for 2 lemons and it is indeed very lemony. The crust is almost like a shortbread with a sweet lemony custard-like filling on top! The best way to enjoy this is to take small bites of it and eat slowly. It has a strong flavor of lemon and you might not enjoy it if you try to stuff your mouth with a big piece of it.

To make the crust:

Unsalted butter - 1 stick/half cup, at room temperature
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Salt - 1/8 tsp
Powdered sugar - 1/4 cup

Cream butter and sugar together using a whisk or an electric hand mixer. Add flour and salt and mix using a spoon. Line a baking dish with parchament paper and spread the flour mix evenly on the dish. Bake 20-25 minutes at 350 degree F. Remove from the oven and let it cool.

To make the lemon filling:

Sugar - 1 cup
Eggs - 2
Lemon - 2
All purpose flour - 2 tbsp

Zest the lemon using a zester and keep aside. Extract the lemon juice and keep aside. Beat sugar and eggs together using a hand mixer until it is creamy and smooth. Add lemon juice, lemon zest, and flour. Stir to combine. Pour it over the baked crust and bake it for 20-30 minutes or until the filling is set(in a 350 degree oven).
Remove from the oven and let it cool. Cut into squares. Generously sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Recipe source: joyofbaking.com

Kappa Vevichathu/Simple Tapioca

This is a simple kappa/tapioca preparation. Many people I know, prepare tapioca with a coconut mixture added to it. I like that, but I prefer to eat kappa with coconut fish curry. So, in order to avoid having coconut in both, I make kappa this way and serve it with coconut fish curry. Definitely a comfort food!

Boil water in a big pot. Peel and wash 2 or 3 medium sized kappa. Cut into small pieces. Wash it several times and drain in a colander. Add it to the boiling water. Add salt. Cook until tender. Drain the water.

For seasoning,
Oil - 3 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 2 sprigs
Finely chopped onion - 1 small
Crushed red pepper - to taste

Heat oil in a frying pan and add mustard seeds. Let it splutter. Add onion, curry leaves, and crushed red pepper. Cook until the onion is golden brown. Add it to the tapioca and mix well. Serve with fish curry.

This is how I made the fish curry:

Fish, cut into small cubes - about 2 cup(I used 3 slices of King fish this time)

Heat up oil and add 1/4 tsp of fenugreek seeds. When they change color, add the following:

Red onion, finely chopped - 1, small (or use shallots)
Garlic, crushed - 2,3 cloves
Ginger, minced - 1 tbsp
Green chillies - 3 to 4 (or more)
Curry leaves - a coupld of sprigs

Stir and cook for a couple of minutes. Do not brown.

Now add chilli powder and turmeric powder. (to your taste, more chilli powder and less turmeric powder)

Cook for a minute and add fish. Cover and cook for one minute on medium flame. Open the lid and turn the fish pieces. Cover and cook for another minute.

Add salt and kudampuli. (Soak 1-2 pieces of kudampuli in warm water and wash it before adding to the curry)

Add 2 cups of thick coconut milk. (depending on how much sauce you want. If you prefer to have less sauce, add less coconut milk. I would add less coconut milk if the curry is for rice, and more if it is for appam, puttu etc. )

Bring it to a boil. Lower the flame, and cook with the lid ajar until the fish is cooked well. Stir occasionally to prevent the coconut milk from curdling.



Dear Inji has a wonderful pictorial here on how to peel kappa, and instructions on how to choose good kappa etc.