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In Mexico these turnovers are also called Empanaditas.  This is a Mexican Appetizer.  I found this recipe in Better Homes and Gardens’ “Off the Shelf Baking” book.  The original recipe did not have a vegetarian filling.  So I decided to use black beans instead.  Added benefit, more fiber and protein than the original version.  My husband suggested to use soy granules, but what can be more Mexican than black beans?  I think I will try his suggestion the next time. Read the rest of this entry »

As long as there is Parents magazine, I will not have any problem finding easy baking recipes.  This is one such simple and tasty recipe.  I tried it for the first time yesterday with one zuchini.  It was crispy on the outside and tender inside.  Zucchini being a soft vegetable, when it cooks, the inside is not as firm as the potato fries. It tastes similar to the South Indian appetizer Bhaji, which has a crunchy exterior and soft/mushy inside. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Ugadi to all of you!

I have wanted to try baking spring rolls for a long time now.  While in Canada, I saw an episode in Food TV where the host was preparing baked spring rolls using phyllo pastry sheets.  I remembered the procedure, but forgot the temperature and time it has to be baked.  I searched for the recipe in Canada’s Food TV website but could not find it.  Then I found it here.  I got spring roll pastry from the Indian store.  I checked the ingredients and it doesn’t have eggs.

Filling:
1. Shred cabbage and carrots, slice scallions finely.  You can also add thinly sliced green peppers.
2. In a frying pan add a tablespoon of oil and saute all the vegetables, add salt, soy sauce and pepper powder.
3. Let it cool.

Procedure:
1. Thaw the spring roll pastry as per the instructions in the package.
2. Carefully remove a sheet and spray with non stick spray on both the sides.  (I don’t know whether spraying on both the sides is necessary, but I did it anyway.)
3. Keep the filling in the bottom and wrap it as you would wrap a tortilla.
4. Grease the baking sheet and place the wrapped spring rolls and bake it at 350F for 30-35 minutes or until they are golden brown.
5. I also flipped the rolls after 15 minutes and flipped them back again after 30 minutes.

The spring rolls were very crispy and tasty.  Everybody loved it, especially my son had 2 of them at one go.  You would never deep fry your spring rolls again, once you taste this.

My Notes:
1. The sheets have to be removed very carefully, because they are fragile and tend to tear easily.  A couple of mine tore but I was able to wrap them anyway and the filling did not come out.  The author of the recipe has clearly explained how to remove the sheets in the “Reviews” section of her post, but I did not go through it at first.  I saw it after putting the rolls in the oven.  Next time I’ll surely follow her tips. 

Variations:
1. I think we can make potato puffs with these wrappers instead of using the puff pastry sheets which are very high in fat content.
2. As I have mentioned earlier, baked spring rolls can be made with phyllo pastry sheets also, but I have not tried it.

I bought a packet of soy beans and was searching for recipes in the internet and came across this recipe. It’s simply soaking the beans overnight and roasting in the oven for 25-30 minutes.  As soon as I saw this recipe, I wanted to try the same procedure with some other beans also.  I had green mung beans in hand.  So I soaked 1/2 cup of each beans separately with lots of water and a teaspoon of salt.  Next day morning I washed the beans, drained the water and added some more salt and pepper powder and kept it for another 2 hours.  I first tried the soy beans, did exactly what was mentioned in the recipe.  I had to roast it for 25-30 minutes to get the desired crunch.  As mentioned in the recipe, be careful at the end because it tends to get burnt during the last few minutes.

My Notes:
Roasting green mung beans was easier when compared to soy beans.  The roasting time was very less; around 10-15 min is enough.  Personally I liked roasted mung beans.  But one word of caution, this has to be consumed on the same day itself, the next day it becomes very hard to bite.  The soy beans was good even after 2 days.

Variations:
1. You can add any seasonings you want, cayenne pepper, garlic salt, etc.
2. I think this method will work for chick peas (garbanzo beans), green peas also.  In that case you can have a healthy mixture of beans for snacking, which is rich in fiber and proteins.

I don’t know whether I can call this dish a bun, but it was inspired by Shilpa’s Spicy Stuffed Potato Buns. Maybe we can also name it as Stuffed Pizza, Indian Style. It’s very simple to make and is delicious. I wanted to try Shilpa’s recipe, but I doubted whether I could handle the yeast action and stickiness. I know I have to take a daring step to bake breads and buns. But I’m gonna postpone it for later. Suddenly an idea flashed, why not try baking it using refrigerated pizza dough. Last week I got two of those, one of which I used for the Twirly Whirly Pizza. I had another recipe in mind for the 2nd packet, but I wanted to try this one.  

Stage 1:
Pre-heat the oven at 400F (200C).

Stage 2:
Prepare any type of stuffing you want. I cooked Shilpa’s onion masala.

Stage 3:
Flour the work area and unroll the dough. Also flour a rolling pin and roll the dough once to reduce the thickness of the dough. Be very careful to maintain the rectangular shape, otherwise you will be having a hard time like me. (See My Notes section)

Stage 4:
Take a medium size round shape cookie cutter and cut circles from the dough.

Stage 5:
Place a spoonful of the masala on one circle and close it with another. Do likewise for the remaining also.

Stage 6:
Place all the stuffed buns on a greased pan, brush the buns with oil and bake it for 20 min or until the tops are golden brown. Enjoy it with a cup of hot tea!

My Notes:

1. When I unrolled the pizza dough there was a hole in the middle of the rectangle, so I just cut out 2 circles and then made the mistake of kneading the dough into one big ball, thinking that it will be easy to handle. I thought that I can just pinch small balls of dough, roll them and cut out perfect circles. What was I thinking? I pinched a golf ball size of dough and started rolling it, but I was not able to roll them into proper shape at all. I lost my patience and just wanted to get my hands off the dough. Now you can understand why 5 out of the 6 buns are in some odd shapes like amoeba. So try to maintain the rectangular shape of the dough and quickly cut as many circles as possible.

2. As I say always, try with 1 bun first. By this you can get an idea of the baking time, thickness of the dough etc.

3. I set the oven at 400F, because Shilpa’s recipe calls for that temperature for the spicy potato buns. I think 425 F should also work fine.

4. The buns were not soft and fluffy as you would imagine a bun to be (I guess it’s either the pizza dough or I should have made the circles thinner), but it was very very tasty. Give it a try. Don’t get mislead by the shapes.

Since I’m also new to baking, I want to try very simple recipes only. This is one such cookie recipe. So if I can do it, anybody can do it. I’m stressing this point because I know how I used to think that “baking” and “difficult” were synonyms. So don’t hesitate to bake, just start with this recipe. You need not prepare a big shopping list to get the ingredients. Your pantry is not complete without these basic items. There is no creaming of butter and sugar, you don’t need any electric mixer. It’s as easy as kneading dough for rotis. Click here for the recipe.

My Notes:

1. I scaled down the entire recipe to half the original quantity. So I took 1 cup of all purpose flour, 1 tbspn cumin etc.
2. I added 1/4 tspn pepper powder. That’s the only addition I made, otherwise I just followed the recipe.
3. Once you form a ball of dough and roll it, it looks kind of flaky.
4. The recipe calls for baking at 180 C, so if you are in US you may want to bake it at 350 F for about 25 min.
5. I got around 20 cookies. It was a bit spicy for my family, so I would just reduce the amount of pepper and not totally omit it. It was a nice crunchy tea time snack. Each cookie had 2 layers. I have not captured this properly in my picture, but if you watch carefully Sunita’s picture of the cookies you can get an idea.

Stage 1:

In a mixing bowl combine all the dry ingredients and oil except milk.

 Stage 2:

Add the milk and knead the mixture.

 Stage 3:

Roll the dough, cut into desired shape and place it on a prepared baking tray.

 Stage 4:

 Bake it in a pre-heated oven at 350F for 20-25 minutes.

This recipe comes from Sunita, who is yet another inspiration for me. I think she is an “Ace of Pastries”. The coriander rosti is both simple and delicious. You can find her recipe here.

When I first came across this recipe I thought she had skipped some of the ingredients, so ignored it and went further. I went back once again and checked the comments section to see if I could gather some information. Then only I was assured that the recipe really required only 3 ingredients. Baking can’t get any simple!

Potato Rosti:

Baking it for the first time, I tried it with 1 large potato. Peel the potato, cut into 4 parts and microwave for 4 minutes. Cool it and grate it. I divided the grated potatoes into 2 parts. For the first batch I simply followed her recipe, mixed half of the grated potatoes, coriander, salt and pepper. Baked it for 40 min at 400F. It was very crispy and tasty. It’s a very healthy snack without oil. I think that depending upon your taste you can also reduce the baking time to 35 min, so you may not feel that the bottom is burnt. I got 8 rostis for this quantity. It was good by itself, we also had some ketchup with it.

Zucchini Rosti:

I always like to give a twist to a recipe by adding some other ingredient(s). I think it’s fun to experiment. Moreover with a toddler around, I have to do a lot of sneaking vegetables. I don’t know why I chose zucchini, but as soon as I thought about making some modification, zucchini just flashed in my mind. 

I used the other half of the grated potato, 1 medium zucchini (grated), coriander, salt and pepper to taste. Dropped spoonful of the mixture on a greased baking sheet and baked it for 40 min at 400F. These rostis were very green in color and the top was not fully cooked as in the previous case. So I set the oven to broil mode for another 2 minutes. I got another 10 rostis. The taste was very good but this one was not as crispy as the potato rostis. Either I should have reduced the quantity of zucchini or should have baked it for some more time. Anyway I was very happy because my son just loved it.