Boring Disclaimer. Marbled Chocolate-Banana Bread with Peanut Butter Frosting.

After almost a decade of their existence, I've realised the purpose of blogs. To be foist-fully heard.

No, I'm serious. I can text it, Status Update it and yell it along with the best of them, but I won't be heard as much as if I post it along with pictures of "deelishus!" food.

I'm so thoroughly grateful and happy to have people in my life who offer to send me cookies from across the seas and soup from across the streets. And to the people who make curious/concerned phone calls at the increasingly skyrocketing Bangalore-to-Madras rates. You're all very cool. Very occasionally.

Disclaimers aren't as cool, though. They are pesky, annoying and I almost always check "Agree to all terms and conditions" without reading them. You might want to read this bit.. You can doze off and pretend you have. I almost always do. Here goes.

Kindly take everything I say with a pinch of salt (make it Fleur de Sel, if you can lay your hands on some). I never, ever speak as a medical practitioner in this site. Butter and dark chocolate do not cancel each other out. My 8-year-old sister can tell you that. As a doctor who sees hoards of people with a plethora of lifestyle diseases, whose origins are almost always in the refrigerator, I know I have a responsibility. Which I hope I fulfill within the confines of my Outpatient Department and the people who call me for the purpose of medical advice.

On this blog? I'm your average twenty-four-year-old. I care equally about shockingly-blue skinny jeans and the fibrofatty plaques on  arterial walls. I blissfully lie to myself that Frozen-Yogurt is healthy. I touch the petri-dishes that handle-bars on the local trains are, without the fact even registering in. I regularly extol the virtues of raw cookie dough (the kind with eggs in it).

Sometimes I do not know if I'm typing out on a sordid Blogger text box or performing theatrics at The Globe. That's just me. I'm sorry. It's nearly impossible for me to completely cut the medicine out of it. I might tell you to add in flax seeds or talk about how crucial Calcium is.

But, please, please take caricature-ish verses on Butter with a pinch handful of salt. Call me during working hours, and I'll ask you to stay off both.

Not here. Of course, if it falls under the ambiguous umbrella of Healthy, I'll tag it.

I've spoken enough for my generation and the next. We'll head on to the Recipe of the Day.

Banana Bread. You can never have enough recipes for it.

This loaf has less calories than your average nut-studded, brown-butter-filled loaf. It has chocolate in it, though. Taste (and calorie count) is heightened by the addition of creamy, slightly salty Peanut Butter Frosting. That's all I'm saying.

Latha (tamil-muslim-word for big sister)'s little helper enjoys the cake of our labour!

Marbled Banana Bread:
(recipe source for bread: Post Punk Kitchen)


Ingredients:

1 cup mashed over-ripe banana
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoons neutral vegetable oil (canola, sunflower)
1/3 cup milk (make it almond to go Vegan!)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
6 tablespoons boiling water, divided

Peanut Butter Frosting:
1/4 cup peanut butter (Creamy/crunchy are both fine)
2 tbsps milk
1 tbsp butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
a pinch of salt.
Method:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Mash bananas (3 or so), until you get a cup's worth.

Beat in the sugar, oil, vanilla and milk until you get a smooth mix.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and salt until combined. Fold it into your banana-egg mix gently. It's OK if there are tiny streaks of flour. Do NOT overmix.

Measure out one cup's worth of batter in a separate bowl and keep both portions aside.

In a small cup, mix together 3 tbsps cocoa powder and 3 tbsps boiling water until it forms a homogeneous mix. Add this cocoa to the cup's worth of banana bread batter and fold with a fork until it's combined.

To the remaining plain banana bread batter, add 3 tbsps of boiling water and mix with fork until combined.

You now have your batter duo.

 Layer one batter over one corner of the greased loaf tin.

Add the chocolate-filled batter to the other half.

Swirl it around carefully with a blunt bread knife. Over mixing defeats the purpose of a marbled bread!

Bake for around 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Slice and frost with the Peanut Butter frosting while still warm.

Peanut butter frosting comprises of all the ingredients blitzed together in a blender. Thin out with more milk or sweeten/thicken it with more powdered sugar. It really is that simple!

Enjoy with a cup of tea/coffee.

Or just attack the frosting, then the bittersweet chocolate portion and then the scented banana portion.

Laatha's little helper is always right. When it comes to food.

French Toast: Middle Eastern or Mediterranean?

I've been baking cookies. You know, trying out the bazillion "Best Choc-Chip Cookies Ever!" recipes floating around the food blogosphere. I've succumbed to all the tricks and tactics of the trade: adding an extra egg yolk, using cake flour, stuffing it with chunks of chocolate, refrigerating cookie dough for 36 hours, resisting eating raw cookie dough for the 24+ hours. The whole nine and a freaking half yards.

So you know what my post is going to be. Not Chocolate chip cookies. Had enough of them  for a while.

Middle-Eastern French toast.

I'm sorry for the build-up. Please go do some cardio+crunches(20 reps, 3 sets), and I'll have about six batches of Chocolate Chip Cookies prettily ready for you in a couple of days!

Middle-Eastern French Toast was the result of a happy accident. By that, I mean I overheard my 8-year-old sister instructing mum on how she wanted her french toast. It could also mean that I stole a slice of her French toast (and swooned) as I'd rather my metabolism went for a toss than eat Ragi Kazhi for breakfast. P.S.: It isn't a frou-frou thing. I like Kazhi, just not the ones made with Calcium-enriched Diabetic food.

Sumi had this brilliant idea of adding pinches and pinches of saffron strands to the French toast egg mix... she probably thought it'd make it taste like kheer or sheer korma.



She isn't at the age where she understands how much each milligram costs... and if I tell her that mind-altering drugs cost less, I'd be killed by mum for a) "spoiling your sister and making her exactly like you" b) even if it's been two years since I graduated Medical school, Mum chooses to believe that her 24-year-old daughter has no clue about the existence of "drugs" or where babies come from; simply because unmarried girls mustn't know/speak of "these things".
I'll spare you the lengthy diatribe this post is evolving into... and teach you how to make Middle-Eastern french toast.

It's easy, you'll know how to make it already (I use the base recipe from i am baker). To go along with it, I suggest a simple, luxurious dry-fruit milk we make only (justifiably) in the month of Ramadan.

Middle-Eastern French Toast:

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1/2 cup + 2 tbsps milk
2 tbsp sugar
a pinch of salt
3/4 tsp rosewater
7-8 strands of Saffron
5-6 slices bread


Method:

Heat the 2 tbsp milk until it's boiling. Add the saffron strands to it and squeeze the extract out of it. Keep aside the saffron to infuse in the milk until cool.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, milk (both the plain and saffron-soaked), sugar, salt and rosewater.

Silly me forgot to do the saffron-infusion before hand. You must, though!

Heat an non-stick pan or griddle. Add a pat of butter or ghee.

Dip a slice of bread into the milk mix. Do not let it soak too much, as there won't be enough egg-milk mix for the rest of the bread.

Cook the dipped bread on medium-low, about 2 minutes on each side.

Do NOT use skim milk and wholewheat bread. Please.

Take it out and serve hot with Saffron honey and butter!

A dusting of confectioners' sugar is pretty handy when you're out of honey.



Could not resist a couple of bites fresh off the griddle, pre-photo session!



Dry-fruit milk:

Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk.
5-6 walnuts
4-5 almonds
4-5 unsalted pistachios
5 raisins or a couple of chopped up dates
a pinch of saffron
1 tbsp sugar (or more, per your liking. Remember, dates are sweet!)

Method:

Feel free to use and hold off on the dry fruits of your choice!

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap/lid, and refrigerate overnight (minimum7 hours).

You can eat it by itself or with the french toast!

Suddenly can't wait for Ramadan. For more reasons than one.

Crepes/Breakfast in bed.

Even if you've been reading the blog for only a couple of weeks now, or if you have the pleasure of knowing me in real life (modesty, begone!), you know I'm a big fan of food Breakfast.

However, on weekdays, even managing to throw down a Nature Valley bar (um, no) and a glass of milk (plain milk=hell, NO) is a luxury and a half. And nobody wakes up in time for breakfast on weekends. So what is the point of all these breakfast recipes, you might ask.

I'll tell you.
If you've ever been stone-broke, and you're obligated/bullied/coerced into giving someone a surprise, nothing beats Breakfast in Bed^(Trademarked). There's something decadent about waking up to a steaming mug of English Breakfast, Spanish omelettes and a stack of pancakes drenched in syrup. With a random roadside flower to top it all off.

Whether it's for the cousin who begs you for "fancy breakfast" in exchange for unlimited access to her Body Shop's Coconut Lip Butter. Or for the mum who gets off kitchen duty for just one day in the week. Especially if you're a guy, cooking for a girl (note: even if you can't cook very well, throw in some chocolate and it'll go from unedible to amazing).

Today, you can see how I made traditional French crepes. You will need a crepe pan for this, but you can totally make it in a saucepan/dosa tawa that isn't totally flat.

Use these crepes as blank templates, like you would with bread or brownies. Spread them with Nutella, serve with whipping cream, honey, whatever suits the pampered-person-of-the-day's fancy. You can even use them as savoury crepes, filling them with cheddar, sausages or even for Asian seafood rolls!

But. They taste pretty great the French way, hot off the griddle with a squirt of lemon juice and a dusting of powdered sugar. Yum.

Believe in breakfast. Eat it. I do, since it's the closest I get to being a champion of any sort.

French Crepes:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup flour
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/8 teaspoon salt
zest of half a lemon/orange
1 tablespoon butter (melted)
Method:

Mix everything in a bowl.

Chubby two-year-old hands are best for mixing.

Do not overbeat, as you'll get gluggy crepes.

Heat a crepe/non-stick pan over medium. Add a pat of butter.

Spread it around with a tissue.

Pour in 1/4 cup of the crepe batter.

Immediately swirl so that the batter spreads over the entire circumference of the pan.

Cook for around 2 minutes.

Add some butter along the edges so it'll be easy to flip it.

Flip it over (I used a spatula). Cook for another minute.

Tip it onto the serving plate.

If you're adding any type of filling, don't flip it.

Instead add in the filling on the uncooked side and fold the cooked sides over the filling.

Use whatever is fresh and in season.

Mahableshwar strawberries and Malta oranges are yummy.

Simply chop up a cup of strawberries and soak them in 2 tbsps orange juice and 1 tbsp white sugar.

Serve with greek yogurt, cream cheese or whipped cream. Sweetened, of course.

Add bananas, peanut butter, honey, whatever your tastebuds adore.

Maintain a minute of mournful silence (for the absence of Nutella. Goshdarnit) and dig in!

Bon appetit, mes amours!

Minced Meat Pizza/Breakfast-AND-Dinner of Champions.

I love pizza. I love breakfast.

Scratch that. I love good pizza and great breakfast.

Idli and filter coffee, frittatta and fruit, pancakes and espresso. Great breakfast.

Homemade pizza dough, bursting with three types of cheese, a rich tomato sauce and chunks of meat. Goooood pizza.

So, today, after all the dessert, Vegan and miscellaneous girlie food, I thought I'd post a recipe for minced-meat (kheema) pizza. You can use any ground meat, but the cooking time will vary depending on whether it's chicken, lamb or beef.

This recipe also does not require you to make a separate sauce or break the bank (non-existent in my case) on an expensive bottle of Ragu/pizza sauce. It's a stew on its own, which can be eaten with naan or Pav bread or over some Penne tossed with olive oil. It's versatile, one pot and man-approved. Win-win-win situation for us all.

And whether you want to top it with an egg is completely up to you. Some would love the yolk oozing over the beef and creating a hearty breakfast pizza (does the intro make sense now?) But make sure the people you're cooking for can take eggs, meat, cheese and bread in one go.

For a flavour boost, I'd suggest you used either stock cubes or packaged stock or if you can lay your hands on some, rehydrate porcini mushrooms in the hot stock. Yum.


Minced Meat "Breakfast" Pizza:

Ingredients:

Ground/minced meat - 400 grams (I used beef)
1 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
8 cloves garlic, minced
400 grams tomatoes, pureed*
4 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1 tbsp red chilli sauce
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 vegetable/beef bouillon cube
1/4 cup water
Dried oregano and basil-1 tbsp each.
Salt-to taste

To assemble:

1 onion, cut into thin slices
1 orange/red pepper, cut into thin slices
Tomato ketchup, mustard- to spread
Olive oil, for greasing
Egg-1 per pizza

*Tomato puree to be made in the mixie after boiling the tomatoes for around a minute, skinning them, deseeding them and removing excess water.

Method:

In a big pan, heat the olive oil on medium-high
.

Add in the minced meat after the pan has completely heated up. The meat should sizzle when it hits the pan.

Saute the meat for around 2 minutes, after which you can drain the excess fat.

Add in the onion and garlic. Saute over medium heat until the meat has browned and the onions have lightly browned.

Reconstitute the stock cube in 1/4 cup boiling water. Add it into the meat mix and cook until the water evaporates.

Add in the tomato puree, salt, ketchup, red chilli powder, pepper and sauce. Give it a good mix. Let it cook down on low heat. At this point, you can taste and see if your meat needs any extra seasoning.

Sprinkle in the dried herbs after the mixture has cooked downed.

To assemble:


I do not approve and wouldn't ever use this type of a pastry-ish white pizza base if I had my way.


Spread the pizza base with olive oil.

Coat it with 1 tsp tomato ketchup + 1/2 tsp mustard.

Add a portion of the meat.

Strew on the onion, bell pepper and cheese.

Bake in a preheated oven at 225 C for around 8 minutes.

Take it out, break an egg over the pizza (if desired) and bake for another 5 minutes. If you're not adding the egg, just bake until your cheese is gooey and the edges are browned.

Sprinkle on extra chilli flakes, hot sauce and oregano.

Dig in! And I mean it literally.

P.S. To the good people of Blogger. It's chiLLi, not chili, where I live. Annoyance.

Wholewheat Orange Ricotta Scones/Dessert for Breakfast!

I'm a dessert snob. Dessert has to be dessert. Seriously.

I'm not saying that I need a pint of expensive gelato with visible vanilla bean flecks. A sliver of cheesecake, a spoonful (or ten) of Nutella, honey-swirled Greek yogurt: qualifies for dessert. Half an apple isn't. Not even if you sprinkle cinnamon on it.

For the longest time, the only healthy component in any of my desserts happened to be Oats. In cookies, crumble, fudge... the other components being only butter, sugar and maida (AP flour). And chocolate.
The sad part being, this wasn't the best scenario in a household where the prime eaters are a diabetic-with-a-sweet-tooth-and-no-self-control (Dad) and the-girl-who-had-a-root-canal-at-the-age-of-five (Sums).

Dad has his own definition of dessert as well. Cinnamon rolls made with wholewheat flour, Phirni made with Splenda and Slim milk, he does not deign to eat. Trust me, I've tried. As for Sumi, she adds extra butter when I'm not looking. Who are these people?

So when I came across another one of those "healthy dessert" recipes, I didn't ever think it'd make the cut/blog. I made it from milk that had curdled in the cruel Madras heat! How can a recipe from odds-and-ends taste remotely good, right?

Wrong.

These Orange Ricotta scones are fantastic. Crisp like a biscuit on the outside and light-fluffy-airy on the inside.

They can be manipulated with whole-wheat flour and sugar-substitutes; nobody would know the difference. I'd suggest that the sugar that you use for sprinkling over the scones, pre-baking, is either raw/demerara/turbinado or the coarse/granulated sugar that is given out by the Tamilnadu Government's Ration-kadai. It'll add a nice bit of crunch and luxurious sweetness to a simple breakfast pastry.

Everybody (including Dad, whose version was a leetle bit toned down) enjoyed it. Even Sumi ate a couple... she recommends you dunk it in condensed milk or honey or both.

One more thing I'd have to insist on is you make them and eat them instantly. These do not keep (keep well, at least). I always freeze my shaped scone dough in Ziploc bags, so I can take out and bake it at my wish and whimsy. It's almost a party trick, when you make a smashing smoothie out of frozen, over-ripe bananas and a plateful of freshly baked Chocolate-chip cookies and present it to a guest within five minutes of their unexpected arrival. So don't let anybody tell you it's weird to stock your deep freezer.

We'll get to making these scones now? I've liberally adapted the recipe from this site, subbing out all the "fancy" ingredients for healthier options and methods suited to the Indian kitchen. They're easy-peasy, but also equally easy-peasy to go wrong. After many attempts, I'm leaking out the secret on these babies. Pay attention, my lovelies.

Wholewheat Orange Ricotta scones:

Ingredients:

1 cup wholewheat flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
zest of half an orange
3/4 cup fresh chenna (paneer) or whole ricotta cheese
1/4 cup butter (cold)
1/2 cup milk + 1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp orange juice
1/4 tsp vanilla essence

For sprinkling
1 egg, lightly beaten (I skipped this)
1 tbsp raw/demerara/turbinado sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Centigrade, 400 degrees Farenheit. Line a baking tray with greased foil or baking paper.

In a bowl, rub the orange zest into the sugar, releasing all the flavour and colour into it. Add into it the white flour, wholewheat flour, sugar, baking powder, baking powder and salt. Give it a stir and set aside.

Use a grater/microplaner to grate the cold butter into the flour mix. Combine the flour and the butter (use your sterilised thumb and fingers!) until the mixture resembles coarse sand. There should be a few clumps.

Combine the milk and paneer(curdled milk)/ricotta.

For a richer scone, use whole milk or half-and-half!

Add the milk mix to the scone dough and combine with fingers until it is a granular mix.

Add in the vanilla and orange juice and stir gently.

Turn the dough out onto a clean workspace that has already been dusted with flour. Pat the dough into a circle.

Don't pummel it too much, or the pastry will be gummy.

Cut it into 8 triangles. You can flash-freeze and store these in an airtight freezer bag/box for a few weeks.

If you're making them right away:

Brush the tops of the individual scones with the beaten egg or milk (I used milk). Sprinkle the sugar over it.

Bake for around 15-20 minutes, until the craggy exterior is all golden brown.

Eat hot! And you know what else is better than Dessert? Dessert for breakfast!

With a mug of Cafe au Lait and the Sunday tabloids. It's my version of living the high life.