Sweet memories and savory baby corn snack

If I said I had fun on my India tip it would be an understatement. I didn't realize when the 2 weeks flew by. Adding to the short trip was a wedding to attend. We had loads of fun at the wedding. My cousin who was getting married had arranged for several fun evenings. Every evening was a party and the day times were endless trips to the temples or peoples houses. My daughter who was attending a wedding for the 1st time had a whale of a time. Here is a picture of her colorful mehndi hand.

Ofcourse I found time to read some of the latest (maybe not so latest anymore) - Chetan Bhagat books. The '2 States' was hilarious though slightly predictible.

After coming back, I have been so swamped that there is no time to click, post or blog hop. Ofcourse cooking/eating and surviving is still happening. Chinese baby corn is a quick recipe and goes well as a snack or a side dish. Enjoy this and have a safe and Happy New Year!

Ingredients

Baby corn - 1 packet

2-3 Green chili (optional)
4-5 grated garlic (or chopped into small pieces)

Salt to taste

1 table spoon of Oil
1 table spoon vinegar

1 table spoon soy sauce

1 table spoon chili sauce

How to

In a large bowl, mix the mushrooms, salt, corn starch, besan and ginger garlic paste and leave aside for 1/2 hr.

In a separate bowl, heat oil and deep fry the above mushrooms in slow fire and then keep aside.

In a pan, put oil and add the green chili and then the baby corn. Fry for about 10 min on low fire, until the baby corn is cooked through but still crunchy (taste it - that's the best way to figure out whether it is cooked enough or not). Add the garlic, sauces and salt and take off the stove.

Serve hot with chinese fried rice or noodles.

Vanishing act with the Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (Eggless)

All, thanks for the support for my disastrous day last week. Well my Nanny is back and life is back to normal. I am posting this sweet post to announce my short trip home. I am so excited - 2 weeks in India after full 2 years. I also have a cousin's marriage to attend too, so it is a super duper exciting time for me. This will be the 1st Indian marriage my daughter will attend and she is so excited, all plans being made about Mehndi and jewelery and dresses and lehngas. I wonder what all I have to worry about when it is her turn!

So to celebrate my shorting vanishing act from this blogoshere, here are these yummy vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. You can find the original recipe here. I got the recipe from the lid of the Oatmeal box and I have tried it several times. The key change to the original recipe is that I didn't use eggs and instead some milk and it still turned out yum. It was my son's idea to add the M&Ms. My son eats it hot off the oven.  My daughter who neither likes the raisins nor the oatmeal loves this cookie too...

Ingredients

1/2  cup (1 stick) butter at room temperature
3/4  cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2  cup granulated sugar
1  cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (atta)
2  teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
2  cups old fashioned Oats
1  cup of raisins
few M&Ms
1/2 cup milk

How To

Heat oven to 350°F.
In large bowl, mix butter and sugars well until creamy.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; mix well.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Add oats and raisins; mix well.
If the mixture is too stiff, add milk. I added about 1/2 cup milk.
Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake  10 - 12 minutes or until light golden brown.
Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; add the M&Ms if you want and bake for 1 extra minute.
Remove from oven and cool completely.

Enjoy the cookies hot off the oven with a nice cup of tea!

Comfort Food - Aloo Bharta with Curd Rice

It was one of the days when you feel you have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. I was already late to drop my daughter to school, when my Nanny said she was feeling really unwell and needed to take off. I called the backup care and there was no slot available. And of course I had back to back calls from 9 AM. Hubby had already left for work and was 2 hrs away, so there was no point asking him to come back. Frantically called back the daycare and pleaded and called the boss left him a message, then daycare guys call back and agree to take him in in. I quickly get my son ready and the nanny ready and drop them all off and attend few meetings, when I get a call from the daycare. They had beef in the menu, and so I had to get him something else for lunch. So I picked him, fed him lunch and when I  was dropping him off again, he throws up - on me! I guess you get the thread of the story - yes it pretty much  was a stressful day for me. Finally at 3, I have to leave to get home in time to pick up my daughter from school.

While kids played, the focus shifted to food and I needed some comfort food. I had food in the refrigerator from the weekend, but no that wouldn't work. I needed something different. So thats when I made this ultimate comfort food, Curd rice and Aloo Bharta (Mashed potatoes - I guess!)
You must be thinking that she is crazy to have clicked pictures when the day was so crazy. The pictures were taken earlier, when the day was not so crazy but the food was the same.

So enjoy the food and wish that I remember to get off the bed on the correct side next time...

There is not much to these recipes, they are more of comfort food. Make sure you add enough salt and don't burn the seasonings and it tastes good...

Ingredients for the Aloo Bharta (Mashed potatoes)
2-3 large potatoes boiled with the skin
2-3 green chillies chopped finely
1 large onion chopped
spoonful of punch phutan
1 tea spoon of mustard oil
Salt to taste

How To
Peel the skin of the potatoes and mash well.
Take the oil in a pan and heat well. (use regular oil if you like. I like mine in mustard oil)
Add the panch phutan and chillies and onions. Mix well.
Add the potatoes and the salt and mix well.

Serve hot with cold yogurt rice - yum!

Ingredients for the curd rice
1 cup of Cooked rice
1/2 cup yogurt
1/4 inch of ginger - grated
few green chilies
1 tea spoon of oil
handful of curry leaves
1 tea spoon of mustard seeds
Salt to taste

How To
Beat the yogurt with salt and then mix well with rice.
Take a small pan. Heat oil in it. Add mustard seed, curry leaves, green chillies and grated ginger.

Pour on the rice and serve!

Enjoy my comfort food and tell me about yours....

Lau Pachadi

When I was growing up, there were quite a few vegetables that I ran from. Lau (or Bottle Gourd) was on the top of the list. Then I had radish and green papaya and plantain and bitter gourd. Over the years I have developed a taste for most of the vegetables. But I still can't eat Lau or karela (bitter gourd). Of course my mom has ways of sneaking in these vegetables into my mouth and this preperation is one of them. She made this when she was here and I ate it heartily until she said it was made of Lau... Too late I had already said it was yummy!

And while I dislike Lau, my husband loves it. So we have quite a few preparations of Lau at home. This lau pachadi is a quick win for both of us.

Ingredients
Lau peeled and then grated - about 2 cups
1 cup of yogurt
1 tea spoon of mustard seeds
2-3 green chilies
handful of curry leaves
1 inch of ginger grated
salt to taste
1 tea spoon of oil


How To
Take the bottle gourd peel the skin and grate it to get about 2 cups.
Take a pan and heat oil in it. Once the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds, green chilies, grated ginger and the curry leaves.
Mix well and add the bottle gourd and salt and cover and cook for 7-8 minutes until the water from the lau evaporates.
Take off the heat, add the yogurt and some water and serve.

This goes well with rice and lasts well in the refrigerator.

Kancha Kadali bhaja or plantain fry

Plantain Fry or Kancha (unripe) Kadali bhaja in Oriya is one more in the back to basics series like the 'Muga Lau Dalma'. Again it is super easy to prepare and can be done very easily within 1/2 hr and with very less ingredients. The key here is not too over cook the plantain, else you have a nice mashed plantain dish.

Plantain is a dish that you need to develop taste for. As a kid I ate it in disguised forms like in cutlets. But slowly over time I have started enjoying it.

Ingredients
2-3 Green Plantain cut into round slices
Red chillies
Punch Phutan
Salt to taste
1 tea spoon of Turmeric powder
1 table spoon of Oil

How To
Boil the plantain in a water and salt and turmeric powder for 10 minutes. Keep an eye, so that plantain is nearly cooked through. This process helps make the cooking faster and allows the dish to use less oil.
Throw the extra water out or use in curries, it has loads of vitamins.
Take another pan. Heat oil in it. Once the oil is hot, add red chillies and punch phutan and the plantains.
Fry for 2-3 minutes to brown the edges and you are done!

Isn't this a life saver in terms of time ? If you don't like plantain, you can cook potatoes in the same way too - uses much less oil.

On another note, the picture in the background is a Patachitra painting from Orissa. These painting are done on special cloth called "Pata" and usually depict Krishna leelas and other folk stories.

Mung Lau Dalma

After Mom is gone, I am cooking the basics over the weekend and eating through the week. This Mund Daal Dalma is my husband's favorite Dalma. He takes this for lunch atleast once on most weeks. I am not a big fan of Mung Daal or Lau or Lauki... But fried Mung dal changes the flavor of mung and becomes palatable for me too...

Sending this to Think Spice : Think Coriander seeds event , hosted this time at Priya’s easy N  tasty recipes, originated at  Sunita’s World! 




Ingredients
1 cup Mung Daal
1/2 of a lau - chopped into small pieces (about 2 cups)
Salt to taste
1 table spoon of Oil for tempering
1 tea spoon of cumin seeds

2 tablespoon of coriander powder

2-3 red chillies

1 tea spoon of Turmeric powder

How To

Dry roast the Mung Dal in a pan until it changes color to light orange (and gives a nice aroma). Makes sure it doesn't turn completely orange or brown, else you have to start again.

Clean the Mung daal and soak the Dal for few hours (2 should do) in water.

Take a large pan and add oil. Once it gets hot, add red chillies and coriander seeds.

Once the seeds splutter, add the daal and chopped lauki and add the double the quantity of water.

Add salt and turmeric powder and any chili powder that you need, mix well and let it cook for 25-30 min.

After that open the cover, add coriander powder and cook on high heat for about 10-15 min until the water evaporates and the daal thickens.

Usually it takes 40 minutes to get this done and then eat it fresh with rice or pack in your lunch box for next day.

Simple salad with kidney beans

I hope you all had a happy diwali... We had a great time and made full use of it being on the weekend. In the evening, while I was blog hopping in my Happy Diwali mood, I had a dhamaka of a different kind. I got some spyware on my laptop, inspite of having Mcafee as the anti-virus software. I have tried quite a few things, but now the laptop is unusable. So before I can restage the laptop, my blog hopping will be minimal. Anyone has any tips on how to prevent such spyware attacks in the future? Did you face such problems earlier? What did you do? Please give any suggestions....

Now coming to my salad, this is inspired by our chef in the cafeteria. He served this salad on flat bread and a bed of mixed greens. It was amazingly good... Though I do have the recipe of the flat, I am still to try it out. So this is my version of his salad. You have to like either red kidney beans or goat cheese or both to like this salad. I am not a big fan of red kidney beans, but I still loved the salad enough to try it at home and my husband loves it now...

This chili is for Divya who is hosting JFI-Rajma, event created By Mahanandi.

Ingredients

1 can of Red Kidney Beans - drained and washed several times in cold water
2-3 handful of goat cheese crumbled
1 handful of basil leaves (I used cilantro at home)
10-12 red cherry tomatoes - chopped
few olives chopped (I had none at home)
salt to taste
peper to taste

How To
Warm the red kidney beans in the microwave for 1 or 2 minutes to get it slightly warm. (The cafeteria chef put this salad on the flat bread and baked it for 5 minutes).
Add the goat cheese, basil leaves and cherry tomatoes and olives and toss well.
Serve with salt and pepper sprinkled on the top...

Happy Diwali with Magaja Ladoo

Happy Diwali and have a great year ahead.

Magaja Ladoo is one super duper easy sweet. It is loaded with calories and the goodnedd of wheat. This is also offered in the Jaganath temple, Puri as a bhog.

I have very sweet memories of making this with my grandma. She makes it really well and would packs loads of it for my hostel days. I used to try making it with her and most of it would break and I would happily eat the crumbs.

When I called Mom last week at home, she gave me a list of sweets that she had already made. When she mentioned Magaja Ladoo, I quickly took down the recipe and here it goes...

These magaja ladoos go to to CFK-Wheat guest hosted by Sireesha, event started by Sharmi , Sanghi's FIL-Ghee and Sireesha's Sweet Series and to Purva's Diwali Dhamaka

Ingredients

1 cup wheat flour (atta)

1/2 cup ghee

1/2 cup sugar

2 cardamom ground

4 cloves ground

How To

Take a big pan and heat it. Add the atta and keep frying at low fire for about 10 minutes. Once the atta starts changing color and starts smelling wonderful, add the ghee and mix well. Then add the sugar and mix well and put the stove off. Add the cardamom and cloves mixture and let it cool.

Before the mixture is completely cooled down, makes round balls and store in an air-tight container. I made about 15 small balls with these measurements.

Can't get the balls to form, just scoop in a spoon and eat. It tastes wonderful, but then with so much of ghee and sugar what's not to like about it....

Awards Time and Meme tag

I am thrilled to receive this  beautiful award from my blogger friends Sushma, Prasu, Shubha , Aysha, VS. Friends check out their blogs, amazing recipes and clicks...
Sushma, Prasu, Shubha, VS - Thank you so much for passing on this award. This award goes with a fun meme, which has to be passed on to 6 of your favourite blogs and which has to be answered with only one word.






Here is the meme part:
1. Where is your cell phone: in my purse
2. Your hair: Black
3. Your mother: U
4. Your father: D
5. Your favorite food: Goat Biryani
6. Your dream last night: Can't remember, its time for todays' dreams...
7. Your favorite drink: Hot chocolate
8. Your dream/goal: Retire at 40!
9. What room are you in: Bedroom
10. Your hobby: blogging, reading
11. Your fear: cats
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years: India
13. Where were you last night: Home
14. Something you aren’t: Punctual
15. Muffins: Eggless ones baked at home are my favorite
16. Wish list item: trip on Palace on Wheels
17. Where did you grow up: Orissa
18. Last thing you did: Put my little one to sleep
19. What are you wearing: Pj's
20. Your TV: Off
21. Your pets: None, but would love to get a dog
22. Your friends:Many
23. Your life: Hectic/Chaotic
24. Your mood: Blissful
25. Missing someone: Mom
26. Vehicle: Maxima
27. Something you’re not wearing: Makeup
28. Your favorite store: Kohls
29. Your favorite color: Blue
30. When was the last time you laughed: just hours ago.
31. Last time you cried: Wasnt this week
32. Your best friend: N
33. One place that I go over and over: grocery store
34. One person who emails me regularly: My cousins
35. Favorite place to eat: Mings at Edison, NJ


And the award goes to all my talented blogger friends.

Also I received the following awards from Raje:

Thanks Raje....

And the following awards come from Indrani and Babli:

 

Thanks to you all for thinking of me and showering me with awards. You are the inspiration for this blog and these mid night posts... I would like to share all these awards with all my blogger friends

See you all soon.

Besara

My mom left for India last week. Usually she cooks a whole refrigerator full of food before she leaves. But this time, 4 days before she left, the refrigerator stopped cooling. So most things she cooked had to be finished off the same day. The only dish she happily made in a large quantity was this Besara. She was sure that it wouldn't go bad that easily and it did last us 4 days inspite of the refrigerator not really working for most of those days. Besara is another typical oriya dish made with mustard paste. You can make different kids of besara and I love the one with fish too which I will post some other time. This one is the typical veggie besara. Besara has the mild mustard flavor  and a little tanginess from the dried mangoes and the heat from the green chillies...

Ushnish this post is made especially on your request!

Ingredients

Vegetables for boiling

1 cup of cleaned/peeled red potatoes - diced
1/4 cup beans cut into small pieces
1/2 cup plantain - cut into long pieces
1/4 cup raddish cut into long pieces
1 cup of Eggplant - cut into small pieces
few florets of cauliflower
1-2 large tomatoes cut into long slices

Salt to taste
1 tea spoon turmeric powder
1-2 green chillies
1 table spoon of Mustard Oil for tempering
1 tea spoon of mustard seeds
handful curry leaves
1-2 Dried Mango pieces (Ambula) [Optional]
sprig of coriander leaves [optional]
handful of Badi [Optional]

For the mustard paste

1 tea spoon Mustard seeds
1/4 tea spoon Cummin seeds
1-2 green chillies (to taste)
2-3 cloves of garlic

How To

Soak the mustard seeds, cummin seeds in water for 1/2 hour. Grind the mustard seeds, cummin seeds with the green chillies and garlic. Add 2-3 table spoon of water and leave it aside for  1/2 hr or you keep it in the refrigerator and you can use for about a week. Some of my friends have tried this with store bought mustard paste and swear it tastes as good. I have never tried it, but you could try it...

Soak the dried mangoes in a little cup of water for 1 hour.

Boil all the vegetables with salt, turmeric powder and little water.

Heat a pan. Ad the mustard oil. Once the oil is hot, add green chillies and curry leaves and add the vegetables and the mustard paste. Add some water and dried mangoes and let the curry boil for few minutes.

Adjust salt and garnish with coriander leaves if you like...

Serve with Fried crushed Badi at the time of serving....

Some other mustard based recipes are : Mushroom Rayee and Vegetable Patua

Kumar Purnima festival

The Kumar Purnima festival of Orissa is celebrated on the full moon day in the month of Aswina.

In some parts of the state, girls fast all day and eat after doing puja to the Moon. The custom says that praying to the Moon gets you as handsome a husband as the Moon. Most girls wait for an early glimpse of the moon and the earlier you do the puja the younger and handsomer the husband.

My mother-in-law reminds me every year to do this puja for my daughter. While my Mom was not so stringent about it and I didn't really do it most years (well it helped to be away in hostel too), I try doing it for my daughter. So no fasting for her, just the puja.... Hmmm I didn't even get to do it early enough - but atleast these are my attempts at teaching her some of our customs.

The bhoga is usually done with Paneer and banana mashed together and made into balls. I added some honey and crushed cardamom powder...

Happy Purnima everyone!

Macha Ghanta and Happy Dusshera

 In Orissa, we celebrate Dusshera with a lot of fan fare. There are lots of pandals setup with Durga mata in different poses and each pandal tries to outdo the other one in size and grandeur. In most households, the celebrations starts from the 6th or 7th day of Navratri and ends with a big feast on Dusshera day. In my grandma's house everyone fasts on Asthami day and then has a grand feast in the evening after puja. Fish is offered as offering and is a must on that day.

Macha Ghanta is a typical Oriya dish again. While I don't think it is a main dish for asthami, it is one of the fish dishes made on that day. Ghanta in oriya means 'mixed' and each specific ghanta has a typical set of vegetables to be added. Macha ghanta has the additional fish pieces in it. In Orissa mom makes it with the head of the fish - oh it is delicious...

Ingredients
Fried fish - few pieces
1 large onion - thinly sliced
1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
1-2 pieces - bay leaves
1-2 cardamom
1 big cinamon stick
2-3 tablespoon of Oil
Salt to taste
1 tea spoon of turmeric powder
1 tea spoon of chili powder
1 tea spoon of garam masala
1 handful of channa dal (washed and soaked for 4-5 hours)

Vegetables of your choice (what works well is mentioned below)
1 large potato diced
few string beans - cut into small pieces
1/4th of a large white radish
1 egg plant - diced
1-2 tomatoes (optional)
few pieces of red pumpkin or white pumpkin



How To
Heat Oil in a Pan and add a large Bay Leaf, cardamom, cinnamon stick.

Add the thinly sliced onions and fry till the onion turns golden brown. Add ginger-garlic paste and turmeric powder and chili powder and mix well for 2-3 minutes and then add the vegetables and the Dal. In this process you don't have to cook the ginger-garlic paste through completely, since it gets cooked with the vegetables.

Cover and cook the vegetables until cooked through. Add any tomatoes if you like and the garam masala and then the fried fish. Mix well. Adjust seasoning and serve hot with rice and salad.

Also if you want, you can make the vegetarian version where you don't add the fish. That's the version my Mom had. Since you add fried fish at the end, you can easily make both the vegetarian and non-vegetarian version at the same time...

In Orissa it is usually made with fried head of the fish and tastes awesome. It is a regular in Oriya weddings too...

Happy Dusshera everyone.

Yin and Yang kadhi

Well, no I didn't make a special Chinese version of the kadhi. But we make 2 versions of the kadhis at home, especially if my mom or MIL is around. I like mine with vegetables, is that the Oriya version (?) - not sure, while my hubby likes the ones with the pakoras. The kids love the pakoras version too. So usually if I am cooking, I go with the majority vote. Knowing my love for the vegetable version, my mom made both versions.

The yin is the healthy version and the yang is the not-so healthy version of dahi kadhi. Both are alike, mine has boiled vegetables added to the sour yogurt curry, while the other favorite has deep fried pakoras added to it. So if you want to choose the healthy one - you know what to try!

Ingredients

For the gravy

Yogurt - 1 cup

2 cups water

Besan - 1 tablespoon

Turmeric powder - pinch

Chili powder - 1 tea spoon

Salt to taste

For seasoning

Oil - 1 tea spoon

Panch Phutan - 1 table spoon

Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Couple of whole red chilies

Garam Masala - 1/2 tea spoon (optional)

For Pakoras
Besan - 1/2 cup
Baking powder - 1 big pinch
Chili powder - 1 tea spoon
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying

For Boiled vegetables
1 small egg plant sliced lengthwise
few small pearl onions
few Okras
Add any other vegetables you fancy (these are what I like in my kadhi)
Salt to taste

How To

Take the curd and beat well.

Add water and salt and besan and turmeric powder and chili powder. Mix well until there are no lumps left.

Take a pan and add oil for seasonings.

Once the oil gets hot, add the punch phutan and the curry leaves and whole red chilies. Add the seasonings to the curd gravy above. Add some garam masala if you want and mix well and keep aside. Also boil the gravy if you want a thicker consistency.

Take a pan; boil the vegetables with salt and turmeric powder. Keep an eye on it, that it doesn't get overcooked. Usually we add the okra 1/2 way through when the vegetables are cooked. Add the vegetables to 1/2 the yogurt mixture and boil again with the yogurt gravy.

For the pakoras, mix the besan and baking powder and chili powder and salt with water. Make sure the consistency of the besan paste is thick.

Heat oil, add these pakoras and deep fry them.

Add the pakoras to the yogurt mixture just before serving, no boiling here...

Serve the kadhi warm or cold.

Fleeting summer fruits - Watermelon

I love summer - especially here in US where it is a mere 2 months with bursts of rain in between. It also reminds me of the summer vacations in India. Growing up I loved the long summer vacations lazing around at my grandma's house. She had huge mangoes, custard apple, lichi and guava trees and we cousins would have a feast on different fruits everyday. Oh I wish for those days... Mango was a high-light of the season. Well mangoes are gone here... But we still do get watermelon. Between cousins, a huge water melon would vanish in seconds...

Now a days when I get watermelon, sometimes it goes bad and gets thrown out. I love eating it, but there is barely any time to enjoy this simple delight. Also I feel its fun to have it with friends/family, with the juice rolling down ones hand.... My kids are not big watermelon fans, but I religiously bring it and try it on them every year... I am sure they will develop some taste for it sometime.

This watermelon juice was a favorite in summer for the adults. While we chomped on the full melon, the elders sipped elegantly on this simple juice.

Both these simple juice and sorbet are going to " Soup N Juice "event hosted by Sreesha of Mom's Recipes.

How To

There is not much to the recipe, cut some water melon flesh, add some sugar or honey and a little salt and lemon juice and there you have it. Serve cold with crushed ice...

Watermelon Sorbet

This sorbet is nothing but frozen watermelon balls. This reminds me of those hot summer days when we used to quietly eat ice cubes while our moms were napping or busy chatting...

How To

Take some water melon pulp, sugar and freeze for an hour. Break it up with your fork and refreeze for an hour again. Scoop out with your ice cream scooper and serve in a tall glass or in a plate (as I did...) It tastes yum either way! Slurp it down before it melts and drink it if it does....

Awards time

I have recieved few awards from friends.

The 1st one is the participation award from Shanthi for participating in her State's Special event. Thanks a lot Shanthi. It means a lot to me. It was a nice event to participate in and showcase different cusines from different states.





Hema has showered me with the following awards. Thanks a lot for thinking of me. The lovely awards and the encouraging comments keep me going. So here is the list of awards






Scrumptious Blog Award





Yum Yum Blog Award


One Lovely Blog Award



Beautiful Site Award



Inspiration Award

Brilliante Weblog Award

A Giant Bear Hug Award

Best Blog Darts Award


I would like to pass these awards to all my blogger friends. You all have been true inspiration to me....

I am happy to receive the Honest Scrap award from Padma. Thank you so much for your encouragement.

1. I love to sleep.
2. I work diligently, given any task I take it seriously.
3. I love good food decorated nicely. I will try anything well presented.
4. I love shopping, window shopping more so...
5. I love chatpata food...
6. I love fresh herbs - mint, cilantro...
7. I love the food channel.
8. I love get togethers, I just sit and watch the fun around me.
9. I am a very quiet person and it takes me a long time to open up and make friends
10. I am trying to teach honesty to my 8 year old daughter. Any help/tips on that will be a life saver.

I would like to pass this award to all my blogger friends.

Eggless Blueberry muffins

Parita this muffin is inspired by your blueberry muffins! When I saw her muffins, I knew I had to try it. What attracted me to the recipe was the egg less, low fat healthy version of this muffin. Mine is not low fat really, since I can't seem to enjoy muffins made in Oil. So I replaced the Oil with butter and made some minor tweaks to her recipe... The muffins came out really well. They were a little dense, but still much better than the blueberry muffins from the store. My kids had fun time packing in the blueberries into the batter and we ended up putting more blueberries than intended into the batter. That made the muffins even more flavorful... Its a simple one and takes about 20 minutes to put together, including the time for a 3 year old trying to help...

Ingredients
1 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup of oats
1/2 cut of whole wheat flour
pinch of salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1/2 cup of butter (melted to room temperature)
1 and 1/2 cup fresh blueberries

How To:

Preheat the oven to 375F, line 12 muffin molds with paper liners.
Mix the wheat flour and baking powder and salt and oats by hand.
In a separate bowl mix butter (at room temperature), sugar, milk.
Slowly add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and mix carefully.
Fold in the blueberries.
Spoon the batter into the muffin pans, filling up to 3/4 full. Bake them for 20-25 min, until tooth pick inserted comes out clean.



We all sat down and enjoyed it warm off the oven. And the rest of the muffins were gone the next day by the time I was back from work...