Choco Cashew Nut Brownie

Well, Well, Well..............look what we have here. A recipe which brings smiles to faces either kid or an adult. Brownie in itself is such a mouth-watering desert we all craved for in our life at some point or another. And a brownie witch chocolate and cashews is a combination made in heaven.
I for one cannot resist this sinful desert even when I am on healthy diet come what may. (You heard it right :P). So let me start with the preparations for this delicious finger-licking good, crusty on the outside and gooey inside brownie.

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup Choco powder
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tbsp baking soda
pinch of salt
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 tbsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup choco chips
1/2 cup cashew nuts (roughly grinded)

Recipe:

1. Take a baking pan, oil the sides and keep it aside.
2. Pre-heat oven at 350 F
3. Take 2 tbsp all purpose flour and mix choco chips and cashew nuts in it.
4. Add all the dry ingredients in a bowl, mix them well.
5. Add egg,vanilla essence, cooking oil to it and mix.
6. Add buttermilk to this mixture and mix everything well without any lumps.
7. Pour this mixture in baking pan and put it in oven for 35 minutes.
8. Take toothpick test(insert the tooth pick in center), if comes clean means cake is ready, else bake it for another 5-10min as per required.
9. Once done, take it out of oven and let it cool.
10. Server with ice-cream.

Spicy Chickpeas or Chole

If you want to have something spicy, this is what you should have. A perfect blend of spice and taste, to satisfy the spice-maniac(don't know if this is even a word but that is what I prefer to call people like me :D) craving of yours.
Difficulty level for this dish is medium. This is all time fav of almost everyone I came across till date. You can have this with chapatti, naan or rice with onion salad on the sides.

Ingredients:

6 handfuls Chick peas : (2 handful/person - this is what my mom taught me :) )
1 large onion - finely chopped
4 medium-sized tomatoes - finely chopped
1 tbsp black tea leaves(chai patti)
3-4 cloves of garlic - finely chopped
1 piece of ginger - finely chopped
3-4 green peppers - finely chopped
1 tbsp oil

Spices:

Salt
Sugar
2 Dalchini
5-6 cloves
8-9 black pepper
2 bay leaves
2 dry red pepper
1 tbs zeera
1/4 tbs haldi
1/2 tbs ground red pepper
1 tbs Garam Masala
11/2 tbs Anardana Powder(Roast anardana and grind it)

Garnish:

Coriander
finely chopped onion
lemon slice

Recipe:

1. Soak chick peas overnight with 1 tbsp black tea leaves.
2. Boil it next morning alongwith black tea leaves(black tea leaves give it that dark color which you get in restaurants)

3. Heat oil in a pan. Add garlic,ginger and green peppers to it. Once they start turning golden brown, add sugar.
4. Add dalchini,cloves,black pepper,bay leaves,dry red pepper and zeera. After a minute, add onion and saute until onions are translucent in color.
5. Add tomatoes to this mixture and cook until oil starts separating from it.
6. Add haldi,ground red pepper,garam masala and anardana powder to it. Let it cook for another 5 min. Keep stirring as it has tendency to stick to the bottom of the pan and may burn.

7. Add boiled chick peas to it.
8. Cover the pan and let the mixture boil for another 15-20 min. Depending on how thick gravy you want.
9. Server hot with onion and lemon.

Gujiya

Well what to say about this sweet dish. This is a must-have in Indian households during the time of festival of colors Holi. Its an Indian tradition to serve these when a guest arrives at your house during holi time. There are so many of these once the festival gets over that you can eat it for rest of the week :).

It take a little bit of time to make these, but once you have the end result in your hand you will forget about how much effort you had put. These are mouth-watering, tasty and worth-making sweets which will have your guests ask for some more. So here's my version of how to make these delicious sweet which we call "Gujiyas".


Ingredients:

For cover:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp Semolina flour
1 tbsp oil

For Filling:
Khoya
Milk
Sugar
Cardomom powder
Almonds/kishmish

For coating:
2 cup sugar
1 cup water

1. Add all the ingredients for outer cover and make it in a dough with help of water.
2. Heat a pan, add khoya and cook it until golden brown. Add milk(not too much though).
3. When khoya starts to absorb milk add sugar, let it cook and dry.
4. Add rest of the ingredients.
5. Let the material cool down before start filling.
6. Add sugar and water in a bowl and get it to boil. Once it comes to a boil, take it off the flame and let it cool.
7. Divide the dough into small size portions. Roll it and fill it with the filling.
8. While closing, thr is a special kind of instrument we get in india. But since I didn't have that, I put little water coating on the edges and closed gujiya's while folding it.
9. Fry them on med/high heat oil.
10. Once golden brown in color, take it out and cover it with sugar syrup.
11. Add pistachios on top for decoration.

Tomato Carrot Soup

I believe in eating healthy evening snack and what better than a heartwarming tomato soup. It is quite chilling here in bay area since past week, so thought of having a wholesome warm snack, which can help me get through this week. And what better way than a hot spicy tomato soup.
This is an easy to make and tasty recipe which you can have on the go. You can keep this soup up to 2-3 days in the refrigerator and have it as a breakfast/evening snack. Please enjoy!!!!

Ingredients:
7-8 baby carrots
6-7 tomatoes
6-7 thin slices of ginger.
Cooking oil

Recipe:
Add oil in a pan and heat it on medium high. Add carrots and ginger first. When they are half cooked add tomatoes and cover it. Let the tomatoes cook to thick gravy like consistency. Once cooked, let it cool for 5-10 min. Blend the mixture and strain it so that there will be no tomato skin left behind. (It feels bad when you are having soup).
 Add the blended mixture again in the pan, and add chicken/vegetable stock according to the consistency u like. Add salt and black pepper. Let it simmer for 10 min. Add voila you get your tomato soup ready. (If you like coconut you can add coconut milk too in the end)