Crispy and easy waffle recipe!

To make waffles the way the actual American grand mothers make, I had to pick up the recipe NOT from famous food blogs, but from personal blogs created by foodie lovers who actually live there and make it every weekend. Authentic recipes are passed along generations and no five star hotel can match this taste.

Recipes are as much about procedure as much about the ingredients and the portions.I picked up this recipe from a very good blog in Pinterest and tried it, sharing the same here.

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 2 cups

Milk - 1 and 3/4 cup

Eggs - 2

Baking Powder - 1 tablespoon

Sugar - 2 tablespoons

Butter - 2 tablespoons

Salt - A pinch

Procedure

Beat the 2 eggs separately until really fluffy and light.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Fold the dry ingredients into the egg, whisking continuously, followed by the milk and finally, the butter. Mix till all ingredients come together forming a thick batter. Let this rest for 5 minutes.  At the same time, heat the waffle iron coating with a spray of butter or cooking oil. Let the iron heat up for 5 minutes.

Pour the waffle batter onto the iron, spreading it evenly. Follow the instructions as per the manufacturer. The waffle should look crispy golden brown and it is ready to eat.

I found this to be as good as the one with yeast as well. But this one turned out to be just perfect.

Hawaiian style piña colada smoothie!

hey peeps! I am back with a recipe post today after a long time. I just hit upon this really kick-ass Piña colada smoothie! I love pineapples in all forms and it is one of favourite tropical fruits. And this smoothie simply kick started my Sunday on a good high on pineapples.

For this recipe, you can just use pineapples with coconut milk OR add a dash of banana to this mixture if you would prefer. I added bananas and it kind of evened out the strong tangy taste of pineapple, but you could totally do this without the bananas as well.

For this recipe, I made fresh coconut milk and used it with chilling or storing because I feel that refrigerating spoils the taste.

Now here goes the recipe:

IngredientS

- 2 cups of pineapple chunks
- 1 cup of coconut milk
- 1/2 to 1 cup of diced banana
- 2 table spoons of honey OR sugar as needed

Blend all the ingredients together along with ice and serve chilled.

Mud Cake in A Mug!

Well it has been a long time since I posted a recipe. In some random search for easy recipes I hit up on this yummy Mud cake recipe that could be made in a mug.

Recipe:
Approx. Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

4 Tablespoons of All purpose flour
2 tablespoons of cocoa-powder
6 tablespoons of granulated Sugar
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1/2 tea spoon of salt
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon of vinegar
4 tablespoons of water


Pick a microwave safe mug and grease the sides with enough oil. Put the first 5 ingredients into the mug and mix really well. Make 2 depressions and pour in the vinegar and oil into each of these depressions. Mix thoroughly. Cover the top with water.

Pre-heat Microwave oven and bake for about 15 minutes. Once the corners start to give away from the sides of the cup, remove it and invert the cup upside down onto a plate. The center of the cake remains molten and wet. Delicious and quick mud cake is now ready.

Street food sometimes beats Fine dining restaurants in taste and here is why!

I have paraded many restaurants based on the high five ratings on Zomato and social media. Barring a few good ones that got their due ratings, most other restaurants and outlets had highly over-rated stars. Not only did such visits burnt a big hole in my pocket, they did not leave my tongue wagging for more. I have kind of shunned social media recommendations for dining out and strictly go by what similar minded foodies recommend in blogs OR food sites....

I also find street food OR rather these non fuzzy food outlets with absolutely no spend on digital OR social media marketing attracting more repeat customers. And the taste is also very unique and not easily repeatable...

Here is what I have found as top reasons why street food is more authentic than fine dining restaurants:

1. The Chef and the owners are deep rooted into the cuisine and the Nativity of the place that they represent the food from. They are very passionate about recreating the experience of what they once at from their mother's kitchen. They rely less on technology - and more on actual manual labor and effort in creating the food. Even now in our native, a electrical mixer is avoided and the hand grinder is preferred in making every chutney OR spice varieties.

2. Every native cuisine has a few techniques that are to be adhered to bring out an unique taste. After all, cooking is a culmination of many chemical reactions and missing out one step and doing it later can completely alter the taste. And so with the quantity as well. This is where our local Chefs from the native have some secret, undocumented techniques that they adopt in their day to day cooking. No recipe book OR a culinary degree can teach this essential need in cooking.

3. The sourcing...which is the most important part of cooking. The small vendors have a well connected eco-system of local suppliers which bring them near native ingredients in their cooking combined with almost no refrigeration and freezing of food. This totally brings out the freshness in the food which is completely lost out in fine dining restaurants.

We also see this trend among diners, where the search for best street food continues as fervently as ever. Television Programmes that exactly meet this demand such as Highway On My Plate and Street food around the world rock on TRP ratings and provide us great insights as well. This is what we need to eat - Authentic, Local, Tasty and Affordable Food.

 

Milkshake Madness - Creamy oreo goodness!

Hey there! Its been a while since I blogged and today's blog is about a super simple recipe. I am not the one who cooks intense food. My patience threshold is so poor that whatever I cook has to get done in max 30 minutes. Anything that takes more time ends up looking like anything but food!

That said, making milkshakes [OR for that matter anything sweet - Desserts] is my favorite hobby. My hunt for tasty and quirky milkshakes continues and this time I tried OREO cookies milkshake.
Sooper Simple to make and tasting outright delicious, is this awesome shake!

Here goes the recipe for the milkshake:

Ingredients

1. 6 Oreo cookies chocolate filled. Apart from this, Keep 4-6 cookies for decorations. Keep them crumbled/Powdered OR as it is.

2. 2 cups vanilla ice cream

3. 1 cup of milk

4. Optional  1/2 cup of sugar - I avoided the sugar because Oreo and Vanilla ice cream already had a lot of sugar

5. 4 tablespoons of chocolate sauce

6. 2 spoons Peanut Butter - Optional. Makes the milkshake more creamier and gives it a nutty flavor

6. Sweetened Whipped cream - vanilla flavored

Grind all ingredients in the blender except the whipped cream. Pour into a tall glass till it fills to 3/4th. Above this level, fill with whipped cream. On top of the whipped cream, Place 2 Oreo cookies OR spread crumbled Oreo Cookies on top of the whipped cream. Serve chilled. Enjoy!

Can farm to fork truly succeed in India?

The farm to Fork Concept has been trending for a very long time now. Farm to fork, very simply put, is the concept of producing food consumables that are locally grown, processed, stored and used in food preparation and delivery. The reason this concept has become very popular is because of the number ONE paramter that drives the success of food industry. Food Safety.  Farm to fork implies that the food is locally sourced, garden fresh with no artificial preservatives being added in the process and hence is purest to consume.  Food prepared using this concept is much safer to consume in comparison to food prepared using processed, preserved ingredients that we normally find in restaurants. Because the ingredients are sourced almost everyday and not stored, the food is expensive as well.

Indian metros have seen the greatest surge in eating out patterns in the last 3 years, with an increase of nearly 60% in QSRs and an increase of 30% in fine dining eating out.  Little however is known that, unless a restaurant openly declares otherwise, the use of MSG, Aritifical sweeteners, Synthetic transfats, High fructose corn syrup, food preservatives are all way common ingredients in their food. These, however,  have been declared as the worst food ingredients to consume. Hence it is not only natural but it is a must that we consume Farm to Fork Food.

In USA, one of the greatest success stories of this concept, the Chipotle food chain had to shutdown nearly 30 of its units across USA because of customer complaints of food borne diseases after eating there. If this can happen in a country where the food regulations, food safety and penalty are so high, then what about Indian food chains that promote this concept?

In India, customer sentiments about food safety is quite relaxed - we do not shy away from eating at street vendors that do not follow any safety norms whatsoever. We are more towards taste and prize than we are towards safety.

With this kind of customer preference and with a very lax service providers base in food supply chain, I would say we are far away from Farm To Fork Concept succeeding in India. We need some trendsetters who can establish a successful way of accomplishing this in India. And then we eat raw greens directly. For this we need to work closely with farmers and some genuine food operators. Until then, Vada Pav Should do.
 

Quirkly Milkshake in less than 5 minutes!

I was browsing Pinterest casually today, as I always do to keep in check with food trends and innovative cooking.

I hit upon Milkshakes and Smoothies, which is my all time favorite topic to browse, along with desserts and sweets.

The timing could not have been perfect. I bumped upon some really good milkshake ideas and what was best about picking it from Pinterest was that the decorations and accompaniments made the dessert so tempting and also quirky.

Here is a milkshake that I tried and it tasted absoultey YUM! Enjoy it at your home during this hot Summer!

1. 6 Large Table spoons of Nutella [More nutella if the consistency should be thicker]
2. 6 large Table spoons of Praline Ice-cream [Usually Vanilla ice-cream is suggested, but this is what I had]
3. 4 Cups of Milk
4. A shot of Vodka [Optional]

Blend all the ingredients with a hand blender till the contents become frothy! Serve it Chilled!

Any recipe would end here. But what I learnt is that professional cooks go that extra mile to make what they create more visually appealing and the creativity comes as much in plating [in this case should we call it glassing?!] as much as it goes into making of the food.

So to follow the same, I took a glass and coated the rim with Hersheys chocolate sauce and dipped the rim in some chocolate raisins and the result was fantabulous!

And the best part is this can be done in less than 5 minutes.