Cooking Is Easy

Puff pastry recipe : Homemade puff pastry in 15 minutes, can you believe that??  Bakery style  Puff pastry is so easy to make at home that you will never buy greasy bakery puffs. The best thing about this puff pastry recipe is that; it does not need any refrigeration (chilling the dough) or any other so called difficult method, you may see when you google for "puff pastry" Easy puff pastry can be made with the most basic ingredients and in under 15 minutes. Back in the 80's amma started making puffs at home; which my two brothers and myself used to enjoy a lot. She mostly used to make this for special occasions; like when a friend dropped in or when we long for something bakery style. Fast-forward to 2014; my daughter, Nidhi loves puffs and I have been asking amma to teach me how to make and somehow things did not work out when I last visited her. Right now she is visiting us here in Calicut and I coaxed and buttered her to show me how to make puffs. The

Kentucky butter cake recipe ; Kentucky butter cake with butter sauce is a moist cake with lots of buttery flavor. Always a crowd pleaser and a winner. The cake has the texture of a pound cake and so very butterly moist and perfect for Christmas baking. The best thing about this cake is you can add rum instead of the vanilla essence/extract in the cake and in the butter sauce and call it Kentucky Rum Cake ; and would be a super hit with adults. Since, I made this for my kids I avoided them; but during Christmas time I do bake Rum Cake. A word about my opinion about the cake; the cake is sweet and for me the butter sauce makes it overly sweet; but since my kids love the added butter sweet flavor, I use them. But personally, I like the cake without the butter sauce as the cake is perfect in every sense. I usually make this cake in my sheet pan; but sometimes use bundt pan; my pan is a bit smaller to hold this cake batter; so I do pour 1/4 of the batter into another cake pan

Bhatura Recipe : Bhatura or Bhature is one of the most popular Punjabi recipe and is served with chole; thus the term "chole-bhature". This whole wheat bhatura does not need any proofing time and it can be made in just under 30 minutes; if you have boiled potatoes. Yes, boiled potatoes are the secret ingredient that makes this an easy and quick bhatura . I had shared quick bhatura some eons ago   which many of you tried and was happy about it; since I wanted to make it as healthy as possible; I simply tried it with whole wheat flour and it tastes as good and my kids loved it! Food processor is my life saver for these kind of quick and easy recipes, but you can also make these without them, just boil the potatoes and grate them or mash them into the wheat flour and roll into a dough, lastly add half a tbsp of oil and roll into a smooth dough. I am sharing, how I make bhatura with my food processor. Step by step method: Yields: 10 Boil potatoes in a pressu

Egg curry recipe, how to make egg curry with step by step pictures. Egg curry or ande curry is one of the easiest side dish you can whip up in under 30 minutes. Egg curry is a perfect side dish with roti, bread, or even hot rice. Egg curry is always a life saver for me when I have unexpected guests; a few days back I got a call from Homey, two of his friends are coming along with him and to get dinner ready ASAP! well, as usual I'd feel faint! .. while trying to "focus" as to what is available in my pantry and fridge.....and yes, they would be empty! no frozen meat or fish in the freezer too. Eggs! egg curry and roti ...and raita, salad...perfect! I know this happens to us most of the time and eggs are always life savers....thankfully when someone visits us, my cookie jar would be empty, my fridge would look so clean because it is empty....I just dont understand the logic behind this...I mean when my fridge is full and my cookie jar is filled...I'd long

Veg fried rice recipe  is an easy and quick Indo-Chinese  rice recipe, nothing fancy, but simple and can be made with the most available ingredients. It has lots n lots of vegetables in it and you can experiment with them too, like adding mushrooms, fresh peas etc. Veg fried rice is one meal where I add vegetables when my kids are super fussy. Not to mention the use of left over plain basmati rice, I used to have some cooked white basmati rice as a standby in my fridge....as I can whip up a batch of fried rice in 10 minutes, sometimes for the school lunch or to bribe them....well, the possibilities are endless. Celery is something which is not available in this part of the world; adding chopped celery enhances the taste and flavor and definitely gives it a hand on authentic Chinese flavor, so if you can grab a bunch of them, add them in and make it all Chinese. Since, spring onions are available here, I love to use them and yes, it does give in a nice flavor. Step by step v

Nankhatai recipe ; Nankhatai is also known as Indian cookies or Indian shortbread cookies . These snowwhite  eggless cookies are a popular tea time snack.  During my childhood, nancuts (as we used to call these cookies) was "the only homemade cookie" and a great-aunt always used to bring them for us kids during Christmas time. This recipe has been in my family for years and you will be amazed at the simplicity with which it can be made. Back in the 60s and 70s Dalda/Crisco ruled the world India. Most cakes and cookies were made with shortening, moms loved to use them! Lets talk a bit about making these snowwhite cookies; Nancut's are eggless and I dont remember them being made with butter or ghee , at least in my family that includes (grand moms, great- grandmoms, aunts and great-aunts). During Christmas, I have fond memories of the women folk in the family making these cookies and we kids also dive in to help; sugar was powdered in the ammikal (stone g

Bharwan karela recipe : Bharwan karela or s tuffed karela or stuffed bitter gourd is a traditional Indian recipe. Karela or bitter gourd is not a favorite vegetable for many because of its bitter taste, but my hubby loves it so much that each time I make; he will just gorge on it. Some days back; I got some organic karela (bitter gourd) from a friend's backyard and they were tender and tiny and perfect for stuffing. Since I belong to the group of people who do not favor any bitter taste food; I made for Homey with just three tender organic bitter gourd. It is said that if you scrape off the tinges on the bitter gourd it may not be that bitter; so, I just lightly ran my knife up and down very very gently. My MIL says that sprinkling some salt over it might also help in combating the bitter taste, so I also do that. Since these were very tender ones, not much water oozed out of the salted karela....but if you are making with large karela (sliced into two or three) I have