Cooking Learning 04

Blogging Marathon #68 Week 5 Day 5 Theme: Desserts Dish: Skillet Peach Blueberry Cake Today is the last day of this month's Cooking Carnival. For this last week I have been posting desserts and this one is the last of the series. I shot this recipe a few weeks back, but was unsure if it would make it to the Marathon. While we enjoyed part of this skillet cake for breakfast, snack and dessert; I was not completely convinced if this qualifies as dessert. But over the last couple of weeks, I have been craving for this fruity cake post dinner, and decided IT IS a dessert. For folks who disagree, you may choose to enjoy it for breakfast.  I made this recipe in the week that I visited the Farmer's Market on Sunday and got home a big bag of peaches, two boxes of berries and extra large eggs. By Tuesday, we were bored of both fruits and the expiry of the eggs was fast approaching. So I searched everywhere for a recipe that would help me finish almost everything at once! I chanced on t...

Blogging Marathon #68 Week 5 Day 4 Theme: Desserts Dish: Cantaloupe Sorbet We are almost at the end of the month with the Cooking Carnival. Today is the last but one dish. I am posting desserts this week and this happens to be the simplest dessert to make and the shortest recipe on my blog! Actually when I read about fruit sorbets on various websites, the simplicity is what drew me towards them. So I am posting a Cantaloupe Sorbet today. Cantaloupes are easily available in my region all year round, and they are surprisingly sweet all the time! So I made the sorbet using it. Many people refer to it as muskmelon too. And in my mother tongue Gujarati, we call it sakkarteti. If you cannot get, use any melon you like. The same can also be made from peaches. It tastes super yummy! The recipe calls only for two ingredients; a melon and honey. Though the recipe needs some planning in terms of freezing the fruit for a few hours, it can be made in under 10 minutes. The result was great and w...

Blogging Marathon #68 Week 5 Day 3 Theme: Desserts Dish: Honey Toast After fruit salad and carrot cake, here is another dessert. This one had been on my to make list since the first time I had it! An Asian friend of ours took us to a place that serves Shaved Ice and Honey Toast. Little did I know I would get so addicted to both of them. To describe Honey Toast; it is a brick of bread with small pieces of bread inside, all the bread is slathered with honey or condensed milk, baked and topped with toppings of your choice.  If the description did not tempt you, the pictures in this post will definitely do it! When we had it there for the first time, we clicked pictures and sent it to family and friends in India. Since then, every time we have them visiting us, we HAVE to go to enjoy this dessert. And it is so huge that we generally share one amongst 3-4 people.  So since a long time we have been meaning to make it at home. As it is so filling, I made it from brunch on Sunday. Bet...

It has been a long time since I started bread. I started off with pizza (that is the easiest as you do not have to worry too much about rising etc :0). Then it went to a little complex breads like pita bread, pumpkin bread and tons of stuffed rolls. But out of all the breads, I had a fancy for perfectly straight edged sandwich bread. I saw a lot of loaf pans but most had angular sides. Finally I found what I was looking for and made this bread several times. Last weekend I made another loaf and it was simply fabulous.  I used all purpose flour then and now it is time to make a whole wheat bread this weekend. I got some vital gluten a while back and now I am in love with how it transforms the wheat bread to perfect sponge! Lately I did a lot of baking with whole wheat, the recipes will be up once I know for sure how to go about it!  Apart from sandwich, I made this loaf for something even better. For those who are familiar with Asian places serving the Honey Toast, I made ...

Potatoes is one of the most versatile ingredients that can be made in multiple ways. Whether it is in a curry or in a snack, potato makes everything a little more tasty! For a while I have been meaning to make this appetizer or snack called potato stacks. Finally I made them today and poting them right away! The ingredients required for this dish are simply potatoes, olive oil and seasoning of choice. I used a simple mixture of garlic powder, oregano and salt for seasoning. If you like, adding fresh herbs is a great idea too. To make the dish one needs to slice potatoes into equal size slices. While most slicers work for it, I used my new Briefton's latest device. The entire thing is pretty neat. It comes with a plastic holder at the bottom to catch all the slices. And the best part is that the device can chop, slice, dice and blend. There are different blades, one each for slice, julienne, grate and finely chop. There are two sets of blades to chop and puree. Plus, the chopping or...

Blogging Marathon #68 Week 5 Day 2 Theme: Desserts Dish: Carrot Cake with Carrot Caviar  After an Indian dessert yesterday, today it is time for a family favorite recipe that I tweaked a little. Carrot cake, a cake full of shredded carrot is one of our favorite cakes. While we generally enjoy it as a breakfast or evening tea time snack, seldom do we frost it with cream cheese or cream.  This time around, I went one step further and converted it to a dessert by adding some carrot jelly, vanilla ice cream and carrot caviar. I have been meaning to make the caviar since a long time. Finally I made it for this recipe. The entire dessert has three parts; the cake itself, the caviar and the ice cream. I bought the ice cream and made the remaining two components.  For the cake, there are few ingredients. While the ingredients and method looks just like any other cake, the proportions are really important here. This is because of the massive amount of carrot used in the recipe. As...