Category Archives: Easy Recipes

All Posts, Desserts, Easy Recipes

Gluten Free French Apple Cake

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Corner House used to have French Apple Cake with ice cream on its menu, my absolute favourite for years, and bizarrely enough a menu item that absolutely no one else I know has ever heard of or tried. It’s almost as if I access Corner House in some other parallel universe, haha.

Ever since I went gluten free, I miss good cakes. I have a friend that makes me lovely plum cakes and brownies, but you know, CAKES. I miss them, and I missed this one the most. And then I chanced upon Nutty Yogi Baking Flour and decided to make one and voila, it was soooooo good! (PS: I am NOT promoting them or being paid for this, come on, this website is not that popular hahaha).

French Apple Cake

Ingredients:

50gm butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup sugar mixed with 1/2 tsp cinnamon and a pinch cardamom pd
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1.5 cups flour whisked with 1 tbsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp baking soda
3 apples, peeled, cored (2 chopped, 1 sliced)
Milk, probably 1/2 cup

Procedure:

  • Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
  • Grease a 8-9 inch pan and layer the sliced apples on the bottom.
  • Mix butter and sugar together until creamy.
  • Add eggs, vanilla essence and beat until fluffy.
    It might seem to curdle, that’s ok, add a spoon of flour in that case and continue whisking.
  • Fold in the flour, mix milk until it is a batter consistency.
  • Toss in the chopped apples, pour into prepared pan.
  • Bake for 40 till an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Serving Suggestion:

I like to serve this hot with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.

To make salted caramel sauce, melt 1/4 cup sugar until it starts turning light brown, add 2 tbsp butter, let it melt and combine, Add a heaped tablespoon of (room temperature) heavy cream while continuously stirring and boil for about a minute. Add 1/4 tsp salt and serve.

All Posts, Easy Recipes, Sides

Fresh turmeric, carrot instant pickle

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Turmeric root has a peppery, slightly bitter flavour. It has been part of traditional herbal medicine for thousands of years, recommended by practitioners as a remedy for many ailments. Chewing the fresh turmeric root has many positive effects on your health.

Curcumin in turmeric has natural anti-inflammatory properties. It reduces the activity of enzymes involved in inflammatory conditions that include arthritis and gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome and ulcerative colitis.

It is important to remember that it could interact with some medications, such as blood thinners, drugs that lower stomach acid and diabetes medicines.

Ingredients:

½ cup thin strips of peeled turmeric (julienne)
¾ cup thin strips of peeled carrot
Salt to taste
1 tsp split mustard seeds (rye kuriya)
1 tbsp lemon juice

Instruction:

Mix all the ingredients and serve with rice or chapatis.

All Posts, Desserts, Easy Recipes

Banana Bread

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Anyone who’s eaten banana breads knows how addictive these are. And as if they aren’t good enough already, try making a French toast out of them! This recipe is as easy as it gets, all you need to do is throw the ingredients together, mix and bake it. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

¾ cup jaggery  (or 2/3 cup brown sugar)
¼ cup refined oil (optional: makes the cake more moist)
1 egg
2 mashed bananas
2 tbsp milk
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup raisins, chopped walnuts or chocolate chips (optional)
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
A pinch of nutmeg powder
A pinch of salt

Method:
  • Preheat oven to 180°C and grease a 7’x3′ loaf tin with butter.
  • Whisk all ingredients together until smooth
  • Bake for 40-60 min until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
All Posts, Easy Recipes, Salads

Warm Potato Salad

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While I love the cold German potato salads, the heart craves something warm on winter nights. This salad, filling and warm, can be an entire dinner by itself. Add some roasted cod or mackerel for extra zing.

Ingredients:
350 gm new potatoes
2 eggs, hard boiled
1 tsp mixed herbs
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp cream
1 tbsp finely chopped chives or spring onions
Salt, pepper

Method:

  • Cut the new potatoes in half and boil them until done. Optionally, toss the boiled potatoes in olive oil and herbs, and bake them for 10 min to dry out the water
  • Mix the oil, mayonnaise, and cream as the potatoes are cooking, and season with herbs, salt and pepper.
  • Toss the potatoes and chopped eggs with the sauce.
  • Garnish with chives and serve immediately while still warm.
  • Serve with garlic bread
All Posts, Desserts, Easy Recipes

Chakka Varattiyathu / Jackfruit Jam

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In Bangalore, one is lucky – one can buy just a few pieces of ripe, juicy jackfruit from roadside fruit-stalls. This is not a luxury people have in many other places, where one has to settle for buying a whole jackfruit usually to the tune of 10-15kg. One ends up with like a 100 or so pods of jackfruit and to the uninitiated, this can seem like a nightmare. It did seem like one to me when due a twist in life I ended up with a 10 kilo jackfruit, and I was feeling fed up even before starting to eat it, just by thinking of all the days I’d have to spend eating jackfruit in various forms.

What saved me was this – also called chakka varati, jackfruit halva, jam or whatever you might want to call it. Such a flexible item, this can be used in a variety of dishes and extends the life of the jackfruit so that you’re not pressured to finish everything up within a couple of days. This is pretty amazing to eat even as it is, even more so when it is freshly cooked.

Ingredients

5 cups ripe jackfruit pods, deseeded
1 cup grated jaggery
4 tbsp ghee

Instructions

  • Grind the jackfruit into a coarse paste.
  • Heat ghee in a pan and when hot, add the ground jackfruit.
  • When the jackfruit is almost cooked, add the jaggery. Traditionally, the jaggery is heated with a tablespoon of water until it melts, and then strained and poured into the paste so that any impurities in the jaggery and filtered out. This can also be done.
  • Cook until a jam-like consistency is reached and it leaves the sides of the pan easily.
  • When refrigerated, It will keep easily for a month.

Note: You might want to vary the quantity of the jaggery depending on the sweetness of the jackfruit.

 

Easy Recipes, Sides

Mango murabba

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Some of the mangoes from our back yard tree fell down when there was a heavy rain. They were half ripe mangoes, some had cracks. We were thinking hard how to utilize them. My husband decided that murabba was a good idea and he did some search on the net. And came up with this idea. The result was delicious.

Four

Ingredients

1 kg half ripe mangoes skinned, poked with a fork all over and cut into pieces.

1 kg sugar

Instructions

Mix the mango pieces with sugar and keep aside for an hour for the mangoes to leave water.

One

Two

Keep on slow fire and keep stirring.

When the mango pieces turn slightly translucent, remove from fire.

Three

Cool and bottle.

Five

It goes very well with either rotis or steamed rice.

 

 

 

All Posts, Easy Recipes

Scones

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Scones are the easiest English teatime treat. A scone is a single-serving cake or quick bread. They are usually made of wheat, barley or oatmeal, with baking powder as a leavening agent. Ever since I enjoyed it in England, I bake it once in a while at home.

Ingredients

250 gm refined flour – for 12 scones
2 tsps baking powder
A pinch of salt
2 tsps powdered sugar
20 gms of butter cut into pieces
75 ml of milk
50 ml of water

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 220 degrees.
  • Sieve all the dry ingredients.
  • Rub butter into the flour with a fork.

scone

  • Mix in milk and water, and lightly knead on a floured surface
  • Pat out to 2 cm thick round.

Scones1

  • Cut out with a floured scone cutter.
  • Place scones on a lightly oiled tray.

Scones2

  • Brush the surface with some extra milk.
  • Bake at 220 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.

Scones3

  • Serve with cream and jam.

scones

All Posts, Desserts, Easy Recipes

Simple Fruit Salad

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This is one of my favorite items in summer. Appetites usually drop during hot summers, and it only makes sense to allow the quantities on your plates to fall as well, because the digestive fire is much weaker during the summer.

I have this one either for breakfasts or dinners quite often in summer. It is quite nutritious, with a variety of fruits and nuts. The milk adds protein, and the honey adds magic. The mango and banana are important, especially if mangoes are available. All the other fruits are optional.

Time taken: 10 min
Serves 2-4

Ingredients

1 ripe mango, chopped
1 big, or 2 small bananas
½ apple, chopped
½ cup grapes
½ cup pomegranate seeds
2 tbsp raisins
2 tbsp chopped almonds
2 tbsp chopped cashew nuts
2 tbsp chopped dates or dried figs
2 tbsp honey
½ cup milk or 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream

Instructions

Chop the mango, apple and banana.

I like my fruit salad mushy, so at this stage I usually mix mango and banana with milk and squish it up a bit with my fingers. Skip this step if you are using ice cream.

Mix all the fruits and dry fruits along with milk and honey.

Add a dash of cardamom powder for extra zing.

Serve cold.

All Posts, Easy Recipes, Mains, Sides

Thai Red Curry

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Serve with brown rice for a healthy meal

It was during my visit to Thailand many, many years ago, that I fell in love with Thai curry. We ate it everyday, and when I got back to India, I figured a way to make it. We didn’t get curry pastes in those days, OR the recipes online, and I had to manage with substitutes.

And then it became popular and Thai restaurants sprung up all over the city. My favorite Thai curries have been at the Nobel House in Jayanagar 4th block, and in Yo China!. Making it at home is also very simple, so you don’t have to spend a lot of money every time you have a craving. I make it with whatever I have at home. So if you’re missing a few vegetables in the list, just increase the quantity of the others.

If you have a lemon bush at home, add those leaves to the curry, it adds magic. If you don’t, well, just sow the seeds of the next lemon you cut, and you’ll have a little bush in no time 😉 trust me, it’s worth it!

Time taken: 20 min
Serves: 4

Ingredients

1 cup sliced halved zucchini
½ cup sliced halved carrots
1 cup broccoli florets
½ cup halved baby corn
1 cup sliced button mushrooms
½ cup red bell pepper chopped in squares
½ cup water chestnuts (optional)
a handful of kafir lime, lemongrass & Thai basil leaves (optional)

1 can (14 oz/ 400gm) or 2 cups coconut milk
1 tbsp Thai red curry paste
1 tbsp corn flour
1 tbsp chopped galangal (substitute: ginger)
1 tbsp chopped garlic
2 tbsp sesame oil
Salt to taste, a pinch of sugar

Method

Heat the oil and sauté the galangal/ginger and garlic for a minute.

Throw the vegetables in, in the order of time required for cooking. So that means the carrots go in first, the baby corn, zucchini and bell pepper after a couple of minutes, then broccoli and water chestnuts, and lastly mushrooms and leaves. Cover and cook until nearly done, 3-5 minutes.

Mix the cornflour, ¼ cup coconut milk, Thai curry paste and add it to the vegetables.

Add the rest of the coconut milk, salt and sugar. Bring to a boil, take off the heat and serve.

Variation

For Thai chicken or prawn curry, substitute broccoli, baby corn and mushrooms with ½ kg prawns or skinless, boneless chicken. Also add 1 tbsp fish sauce along with the curry paste.

All Posts, Easy Recipes, Mains, Sides

Olan (Pumpkin & Black Eyed Peas Curry)

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Olan: A creamy, light, healthy curry
Olan: A creamy, light, healthy curry

It is quite easy to get me to like a dish. Just add coconut milk! I couldn’t stop eating this the first time I tasted it. And now it is the same story every time I make it.

This is another of those super healthy AND super tasty dishes. One may wonder where the taste even comes from, because there are barely any spices here. But make it once, and you’re hooked!

Traditionally, ginger is not added, but it is an addition I love.

Time taken: 25 min (Overnight soaking required)
Serves 2

Ingredients

1 cup lobhiya / van payaru or black eyed peas
1 cup cubed elavan/ ash gourd/ white pumpkin
2 green chilies
1 cup coconut milk
2 tsp ginger (optional)
2 sprigs curry leaves
1 tbsp coconut oil
Salt to taste

Method

Soak the lobhiya in enough water overnight, at least 8-9 hours.

Pressure cook the lobhiya for 8 min, or open cook until done.

Cook the pumpkin with a little water, salt, green chilies and ginger.

When done, add the lobhiya and coconut milk. Bring to a boil and simmer until it reaches the desired consistency. Check for salt.

Heat the coconut oil, add the curry leaves and pour it over the dish. Serve with rice.