Rajasthani Ghevar with Kesar Rabdi

It was Divya of You too Can Cook Indian Food who is the hosting the South North Challenge (SNC).  And in SNC this month the South Team was challenged to prepare the Rajasthani Ghevar with Rabdi.  I think I am the last in the group to post it.

The recipe for Rajasthani Mini Ghevar is from Desi Fiesta.  She has given a detailed instruction on how to cook the Ghevars.  There is also a nice video by Nisha Madhulika on how to cook Ghevars which will be helpful.

And so here is my Rajasthani Ghevar with Kesar Radi.  It was very tasty and delicious. I want to put down the recipe on my own but for now please refer to DesiFiesta for the recipe.

Also sending it to the Sweet Luv - CJ#4 hosted by Cooks Joy

Herb, Cheese and Veggie Pull Apart Bread

I am baking a bread today after a very long time.  Even though I like baking and making my own breads, somehow kept running away from baking breads for quite somewhile now.  So from this new year I have decided to bake as much as possible, atleast for this year. And to my luck Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen started Bread Baking event for this year. So I wanted to participate in it and sent a request to her yesterday. She was very grateful to let me participate. But since this month is already on going to end, so she wanted me to post it immediately.

And here I am baking this months Bread, that is, The Pull Apart Bread. I have followed the same recipe she gave us. Except that for the filling I added some veggies. Thats it.

I was so excited about baking a bread after a long time that I totally forgot I didn't have a Bread load tin or the normal rectangle high raised tin. So I looked and looked for sometime all my baking tins and then decided to bake it in this oven proof glass dish. And that is why my bread got flattened because it took spread and took the shape of the container during the second proofing.

For the Dough: 

1/2 cup warm milk

1 tsp sugar

2 tsp active dry yeast

2 3/4 to 3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

25gm butter, soft at room temperature

3/4 to 1 tsp garlic paste (I used 1 t.sp Garlic Powder)

3/4 cup milk (+ a couple of tbsp to brush over the bread)

For the Filling:

15 to 20gm melted butter

2 tsp dried Italian mixed herbs

1 medium onion finely chopped

1 medium carrot grated

1/2 cup olives chopped

Crushed pepper/ red chilli flakes to taste

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

1/4 cup grated mozzarella cheese

Method:

1. As almost always, I used my food processor but you may knead the dough by hand.
2. In a small bowl, dissolve the sugar and the yeast in the 1/2 cup of warm milk. Keep aside for about 5 minutes till the yeast mixture bubbles up.
3. Put 2 3/4 cup of flour, salt, softened butter, and garlic paste in the food processor bowl (or a large bowl) and pulse a couple of times to mix. Then add the yeast mixture and the 3/4 cup of milk and knead till you have a soft, smooth and elastic/ pliable dough which is not sticky. Add a little extra flour if your dough is sticking,but only just as much as is necessary.
4. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a well-oiled bowl, turning the dough to coat it completely with oil. Cover and let it rise for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until almost double in volume.
5. Dust your work surface lightly with flour. Deflate the dough, shape it into a square and roll the dough out into a larger square that is about 12’ by 12”. Brush the surface of the square with the melted butter.
6. Evenly sprinkle the herbs, pepper/ chilli flakes, the veggies and then the grated cheese. Use a rolling pin to very lightly press the topping into the dough to ensure the topping doesn’t fall off when you are stacking the strips.
7. Using a pizza cutter, slice the dough from top to bottom into 6 long and even strips – they do nothave to be perfect. Lay each strip on top of the next, with the topping facing upwards, until you have a stack of the strips.
8. You can put the 2 strips cut from the sides in the middle of the stack so it looks neater. Using a pastry scraper or a sharp knife, cut straight down through the stack dividing it into 6 equal pieces (6 square stacks).
9. Grease and lightly flour a 9” by 4” (or 5”) loaf tin. Butter and lightly flour a 9 x 5 loaf pan. Layer the square slices, cut sides down into the loaf tin. I didn't have a loaf pan and so baked it in a glass dish.
10. Cover the loaf tin dough with a towel and allow the dough to rise for an hour. 
11. Preheat the oven a 180C.
12. Lightly brush some milk over the top of the loaf.
13. Bake the dough at 180C (350F) for about 30 to 40 minutes until it is done and the top is goldenbrown. It took me 60 minutes to bake, maybe because of the glass dish.

Baking Partners: A new Baking Group

Baking Partners: A new Baking Group

A group of home bakers helping each other to achieve perfection.

Baking a home made Baking a homemade bread, cake or cookies will give the best outcome. However in order to achieve the best results, a perfect recipe and right techniques are required.

We are a small group of home baker friends, who love and want to learn more about the nook and corners of baking.  We are planning to try out recipes from books/magazines and cooking shows.  Every member gets a chance to present their choice of recipe and share important points with the rest of the group.

Main purpose of this group is to learn the techniques, critic the procedure if there are ways to improve, and to eat a delicious food.

Rules are simple, we will choose one recipe and send it out to the group by 16th of every month and the reveal date will be 15th of the next month. On that day we will blog about it. A linky tool will be open during that time and each member can link their post.

First month we are going to do a recipe, 2nd and 3rd month will be a theme and the 4th month we will be back at a recipe. By doing in between recipes, we will able to learn more.

All enthusiastic bloggers interested in baking are welcome, please email Swathi  of Zesty South Indian Kitchen  at favoriterecipes12@gmail.com.

We will appreciate the use of logo or worded link that will help to spread the word.  A bunch of thanks to Tina for designing this beautiful logo

If you   want to make it a gluten or vegan free diet, you can do those modifications also.

Tried and Tasted Revamped

Dear Friends as I had already mentioned in my posts in my Facebook Page for the past few weeks I have been in an effort to revamp my long forgotten event "Tried and Tasted". What is it about? The event is all about bookmarked recipes. 

There are 1000s and 1000s food blogs and food websites. Each and every site is unique in its own kind. Many recipes are new, some of them old, some of them are presented in a tongue tickling style, some of them have drooling photographs of food, some traditional, some are dedicated to their loving mother, many national and international recipes. 

Many a times it happens that I start somewhere searching for a recipe or maybe going through someones new post. And from there keep continuing, jumping from one blog to another fully immersed in the recipes, beautiful photographs and so on. And after the end of about 1 hour, I would have bookmarked 100s of recipes. And not only are these recipes bookmarked but several times also "Tried and Tasted". 

And many a times it happens that we start liking recipes of some particular blog, for many reasons. Firstly because we Tried a recipe from this blog and the 1st time itself we would received a great round of applause from our family members. Sometimes because we like their way of instructions, sometimes because of their tongue tickling photos and so on. So then we start frequenting this blog, try out many recipes from this particular blog. And so this is the whole idea behind this event. 

The event "Tried & Tasted" (T&T) is all about appreciating our fellow blogger for their hard work. And how can we honour them for their work? Best way is to try their recipes and letting them know that their recipe had been of great success to us by showcasing their recipes in our blog. And by doing this we will not only appreciate them but also confirm that their recipes are worth it.

"Tried & Tasted" (T&T) is a monthly event started by Zlamushka of SpicyKitchen and was taken over by me. Every month recipes from one particular blog will be "Tried and Tasted". 

Tried and Tasted was going on successfully for quiet sometime but then because of lack of time I couldn't conduct it for sometime in between. And now since I am able to find some time for me and my blogs and the event "Tried and Tasted", I would like to get it back going again. So with all your support I started back the event again this month.

This month the event is hosted by the very famous Priya of Priya's Versatile Kitchen. And she has chosen another beautiful blog which needs no introduction to many of us. Its Sharmis Passion which has many beautiful photos, healthy recipes, many eggless recipes and step wise instructions. 

So go ahead folks, prepare as many dishes as you want from Sharmis Passion this month, post it in your blog and link it back to Priya's Versatile Kitchen. For more details about how to link back please refer to her post. Use of logo is appreciated since it helps to spread word about the event. So please I request you all to use the logo.

So here is the host line up for the event.

Dec'12 : Priya of Priya's Versatile Kitchen - Sharmis Passion

Round up

Jan'13 : Sowmya of Nivedhanams - RAKS KITCHEN
                     
Round up

Feb'13 : By Lakshmi Venkatesh(Me) at Classic Chettinad Kitchen - Chettinad Cuisine




Mar'13 : Sona of Spill The Spices

                         
Apr'13 : Madhuri of Satya's Cooking Experiments

May'13 : Rafeeda of A Big Sweet Tooth


Jun'13 :


Jul'13 :


Aug'13 :

Sep'13 :


Oct'13 :


Nov'13 :


Dec'13 :

I request all my friend bloggers who are interested in hosting the event in the future to leave me a message here as a comment or you can also send me an email with subject "T&T" to venkateshlakshmi7(at)gmail(dot)com. Otherwise you can also leave a message in my Kitchen Chronicles facebook page. 



January - 2013

This month it is Sowmya of Nivedhanams who is hosting the T&T event. And RAKS KITCHEN is the blog being Tried and Tasted. For more information on the event please visit Nivedhanams. Please send in your entries and make the event a success.

Veg Fried Rice

Veg Fried Rice is very common in our house. Simple and Fast. All you need to have in hands are some veggies like Carrot, Beans, Peas, Corn, Cabbage etc. And it is ready in a jiffy. Many a times I prepare this for my children's and hubby's lunch box.

Ingredients

Rice - 1 cup
Onion - 1 medium size (chopped)

Veggies of your choice - 1/2 cup ( Grated Carrot, Finely choped beans, boiled peas and corn, shredded cabbage, small cauliflower florets etc)

Green Chillies - 2 to 3 (slit into half)

Salt to taste

White Pepper Powder - 1/2 t.sp (optional)

Spring Onion Greens - a handful

Oil

Method

Wash and cook the rice till it is 90 percent done. Add about 1 tb.sp of oil and some salt to the rice while cooking. Transfer it to another vessel and allow it to cool. Heat a fry pan, pour some oil in it. When the oil is hot toss in the onions and green chillies. When the onion becomes translucent add in the veggies and saute it till the veggies are almost done. Add salt while sauting. When the veggies are almost done add the white pepper powder and mix well. Then add the cooked rice and mix well. Cover and cook on low flame, stirring in between for about 2 to 3 minutes. In the end add the spring onion greens and mix well. Serve hot with Papad and  Raitas.





Here I have skipped green chillies and added Tobasco Sauce and hence the orange colour.

Godhumai Halwa / Wheat Halwa

Easy, traditional and tasty Godhumai Halwa / Wheat Halwa.

For  recipe please visit my other blog Classic Chettinad Kitchen - Wheat Halwa