Miso-Sesame Baked Tofu

In this cookbook I have, there's this recipe on baked tofu that uses dark soy sauce, tamari, honey, ginger, garlic and toasted sesame oil as the marinade. Notice the little golden chunks of tofu below? Pretty, right?

Blueberry, Vanilla, and Bread Pudding

I had my first taste of blueberries today. We don't get blueberries around here - like ever, not because its winter. So, I'd bought a can of blueberries a couple of weeks back. Having heard about a friend gorging on wild berries in another part of the world, I just decided to bust open the can and have some. I was quite disappointed - the berries looked purple rather than blue, for one; and they were swimming in a sugar syrup and I just tasted sweetness rather than any real flavor from the berries. That's Rs 270 gone down the drain. I was so looking forward to making a spinach and blueberry salad later this week. So, the only sensible thing to do with these sugary babies is to make dessert and put the syrup to good use.

My blueberry and bread pudding turned out quite nice. Would be so much better had I had some fresh berries. But then again, if I had fresh berries, I wouldn't dream of cooking them.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Ever since I saw a sweet potato fries post on Foodgawker, I wanted to try my hands at making them at home. So, looking around on the Net, my version is an amalgam of this and this recipe. The original recipe is great, but adding garlic just makes a good thing even greater. I didn’t have garlic powder, so just used freshly minced garlic.

Sweet Potato Fries

Ingredients:

• 1 large sweet potato
• Teaspoon of rock salt
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon of paprika/chilli powder
• Handful of corn starch
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil

To make:

Preheat your oven at the highest temperature available for 10-15 minutes.

Peel the skin off the sweet potato and slice the potato into French fry-sized slivers.

Smash up or grate the garlic into very tiny pieces.

Combine the oil, garlic, chilli powder, and salt to make a batter.

Dip each potato chip into the batter, coating well.

Lay the chips on a baking tray.

Dust some corn starch on top.

Bake the potatoes for 25-30 minutes or until the potatoes are done.

 

What I Want Now: English Plum Pudding

Here's an absolutely gorgeous looking Christmas Cake photo/recipe:

(C) http://makinglifedelicious.com/

Mmmm...

What I Want Now: Zuccini Bread

Low fat zuccini bread recipe found on Holy Cow Vegan Recipes. Here's a preview:

(c) http://earthvegan.blogspot.com/

Looks delish, doesn't it?

Onion and Olive Crackers

My second attempt at baking in two days and this time I did have my hands in the flour-oil-water mixture to form a proper dough. Well, don't know about "proper" - Once again, my baking time is far more than the recommended baking time for crackers and such. I had them in the oven for at least an hour. Can someone suggest what I'm doing wrong? I'm just really paranoid about eating raw dough batter and so would tend to leave the baking tray in the oven even longer than necessary.

Anyway, they turned out looking very sexy...They'll go well with my Baba Ghanoush! :)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup wheat flour
• 1/4 -1/2 cup of olive oil
• 1/2 - 1 cup of warm water
• 2/3 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1/2 cup of fried onions
• 5-10 green olives, chopped up fine
• 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon of dry basil
• 1 teaspoon of sesame seeds (as garnish)

Prep work: Cut an onion lengthwise and fry till its a deep brown color. Do this a day before and place in refrigerator. They should be crunchy.

To make:

To the flour, add the oil and water (leave some in reserve). Along with the fried onions and cumin seeds. Add the chopped olives and the basil.

Form a sticky dough - Adjust the oil and water according to the consistency of the dough you are seeking.

Using a rolling pin or the palm of your hand, roll out the dough into a thin sheet (no more than 1/8th of an inch in height)

 Oil your baking tray and gently place the dough inside.

 With a knife coated in oil or dipped in water, gently cut the raw dough into thin slivers or the shape you desire.

Bake for 30-45 minutes or until golden brown. (Mine took more than an hour - thats my headache to figure out what I am doing wrong)

Savoury Semolina, Zuccini and Carrot Cake

Inspired by Anjum Anand's recipe posted on Arundati's blog, I decided it was time I used my oven for something other than heating cold stuff up. I've been way too hesitant to give baking a try - mainly because I hate the sensation of my hands in that wet, gooey dough. But this recipe doesn't call for any dough to be made. There is no flour or egg involved - Semolina (sooji) is used as the base.

The recipe does call for yoghurt, which I promptly omitted and added olive oil instead. Also, I added zuccini and carrots to my cake mix.

When I did try this yesterday, I couldnt find any baking soda/powder. I figured, how important could this one teaspoon of baking soda be, after all?! Ok, so my cake would take longer to bake, big deal! Turns out, its quite important. The bake time calls for 30-40 minutes of baking, but mine took about 1.15 hrs. Half way through the bake process, my brother came in and promptly showed me where the baking powder is kept at home. So, I added some baking powder on top of my still-baking cake. I still didnt get a nice brown "cakey" crust, and I added more turmeric than I would have liked, but it was still nice to eat when warm.

Savoury Semolina Vegetable Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 cup semolina
• 1 cup tepid water
• 2-3 tablespoons of olive/vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup peas
• 1 cup grated zuccini
• 1 carrot, grated
• 1 tsp each chilli powder, turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

For tempering:

• 1 tbsp oilive oil
• 1 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds

To make:

Mix all ingredients except the baking soda and the tempering ingredients.

Heat a small fry pan and add the tbsp of oil. When the oil is hot, add the mustard and cumin seeds. Turn off the flame when the seeds start to crackle.

Pour this mixture into your cake batter. Mix well.

Add the baking powder.

Pour the mixture into a baking tray and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Enjoy while still warm.  

Well, at least it wasn't a TOTAL disaster considering it was my first baking lesson.

How to Bake

Don't ask me - I havent the faintest clue. Though, I absolutely love the smell of baked goods and am really intrigued about making bread or a vegetable cake.

Here's an excellent and really comprehensive e-book on How To Bake I found today on tPB.