Egg & Cheese Stuffed Paratha

No mood to cook a full meal? But something tasty... Thats me since a last few days.. the winter laziness and preparing to host some guests next week.. I am just not cooking a full meal.. And resorting to my good old fav CHEESE & EGG PARATHA..

I recall as a kiddo I used to wait eagerly for saturdays as mom used to make us egg parathas for brunch.. I am sure each one of us would have such cute memories from childhood and food that we had then and miss now... I don miss the paratha thou but miss it being made by mom :))

This might be the easiest recipe of a paratha and I assure you that you would love it .. and your kids would hog on it...

Wheat Flour - 1.5 cups

Salt - to taste

Oil - 2 teaspoon

Water

Eggs

Cheese (grated)

Milk

Black Pepper - to taste

Red Chilli Powder - to taste

Oil/ Ghee (for frying)

Combine the first three ingredients (flour, salt, oil) to form a dough by adding required water. Knead the dough well and refrigerate for a while in a air-tight container.

In a small bowl, whisk an egg with 1 teaspoon milk, cheese, a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper.

Take a lemon size balls out of the dough and flatten it with a roller. Sprinkle little oil and a pinch of red pepper over the paratha. Gather this make into a ball with your hands and gently roll out a paratha again.

Heat a tava on a medium flame. Place the paratha on the tava and apply a little oil/ghee. Flip it over and apply a little oil/ ghee again. As the paratha swells, make a small slit with a knife and pour the whisked egg mixture over the paratha (the egg should fall inside the slit and over the paratha as well) Cook well from both sides.

Hot Egg & Cheese Paratha is ready to serve. Goes perfect with tomato ketchup :))

Indian Cooking Challenge: Thekua (Indian Biscuit)

Indian Cooking Challenge: A great initiative by Srivalli of  Spice your life. Every month all members prepare a traditional Indian dish from different states and post it sharing their experience while exploring the recipe. Though I joined in last month but owing to my travelling I couldn't participate.. But here is my experience with this month's recipe.


This month's challenge recipe was Thekua, an Indian Biscuit from the state of Bihar, commonly called Khajur.. I remember hogging on to it while I was a kid, never imagining that in future I would ever be making it myself.


Thekua is a tea-time snack made of wheat flour & jaggery/sugar.. they could be either deep fried or baked.. can be stored for upto a month in an airtight container. Since it was my first attempt with biscuits, I decided to stick to smaller portions:


Whole Meal Flour (Or Wheat Flour) - 1 cup
Sugar - 3 Tablespoons - powdered
Dry Coconut - 3 Tablespoons
Cardamom Powder - a pinch (I used freshly grounded powder from cardamom seeds)
Sooji - 3 Tablespoons
Ghee  - 3-4 Tablespoons (for kneading)
Water
Ghee - for frying


Mix the flour, dry coconut, sooji, cardamom powder & powdered sugar in a bowl. Add ghee and rub the mixture with your fingers till it gets becomes crumbly (texture like bread crumbs)

Slowly sprinkle little water to make a stiff dough. The dough needs to be very stiff enough (like a big lump)

Leave it for 10 mins. Then take small portions of it and shape them round (like cookies) with greasy hands. I did not have a cookie cutter or an impression mould so I used my hands :) 

Heat ghee in a pan and fry the cookies.  The oil should be moderately hot so that the cookie is cooked well from inside too. Fry till golden brown & crisp. I wanted to try baking as well thus, I baked half the biscuits. Preheat the oven at 350 F and line cookies in a greased tin. 5 mins of baking and cookies were ready :) 

Goes perfect with tea :)

 

A big thanks to my frend Leena for helping me with the recipe.

Pleased to link this recipe to Anu's Cooking with Spices - Cardamom

Healthy Breakfast - ABC Smoothie

Since I started blogging, have got into this habit of randomly reading recipes posted by my fellow bloggers and ofcourse book-marking a few in the process as well.  While browsing I came across Kristin's Banana-Cocoa Smoothie ... was just too too tempted to try it immediately and so I did :) .. a few changes in the recipe and I could tweek it perfectly to my taste.. Loved it .. to the extent that I had 2 glasses of it :))

I used Almonds, Banana & Chocolate for my Smoothie .. naming it ABC SMOOTHIE.. Before we begin the process, chill 2 empty glasses in the refrigerator for serving the smoothie.

All we need is:

Banana - 1

Yogurt/ Curd - 1/2 cup

Milk - 3/4 cup

Cocoa Powder - 1 Tablespoon

Nutella Choc Spread - 1 teaspoon (Choc-lovers could pop in a big dallop ;))

Almonds - 5

Banana Slices & Chocolate Sauce - for garnish

Ice Cubes - few (optional)

Combine all the above ingredients in a blender. Pour into chilled glasses and garnish with banana slices & chocolate sauce.

Pleased to link this recipe to Priya's event Bookmarked Recipes - Every Tuesday

Choc-Vanilla Cake (Marble Cake)

I am usually a lil apprehensive with cakes.. I just feel that my cakes aren't always good-looking.. and mostly settle in for muffins.. but owing to a new cake tin n the urge to try "marbling", I tried the CHOC-VANILLA CAKE :)


This cake happened in an experimental mood... one of those days when you feel like having something sweet but not wholly chocolatee... Also, I thought of trying "marbling" .. don't think I was very successful with it but it surely tasted awesome ;) .. If you have comments about marbling.. pls pls do mention them.. I want it to look better next time..

Sorry... couldn't click this one well :(

 Ingredients
Self Raising Flour - 1.5 cups (White Flour + 1 teaspoon of Baking Powder can be used alternatively)
Eggs - 4
Refined Oil - 1 cup
Powdered Sugar - 1 cup
Cocoa Powder - 2 Tablespoons
Vanilla Essence - 1 teaspoon
Milk - 2 teaspoons (if required)
Chocolate Syrup & Chocolate Chips - For Garnish

Cooking
1. Pre-heat the oven; 350 degree F

2. In a bowl, mix refined oil & sugar together. We could use an egg-beater for the same.

3. While beating the mixture, keep adding the flour and eggs slowly until all the ingredients blend well. Once done, pour half the batter into a seperate bowl.

4. Add vanilla essence to the first half of the batter and mix well.

5. Add cocoa powder & milk to the other half of the batter and mix well.

6. Take a baking tin and brush it with oil. Spoon batters into the prepared pan in 2 layers, alternating spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate like a checkerboard. To create marbling, run a table knife through the batters in a swirling motion.

7. Bake, rotating the pan halfway through, until a cake tester comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. Transfer pan to a rack to cool 10 minutes.

8. Once cool, transfer the cake on a plate and garnish with choclate syrup and chocolate chips.

Our cake is ready to serve :))