Two old recipes revisited

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From Arizona to Delhi to Allahabad to Agra to Chandigarh, celebrating birthdays, parent’s anniversary, a friend’s bachelorette, cousin’s engagement and a new year I am again back to Allahabad and am staying put here for the next ten days. Post that I travel to Kolkata, Lucknow, Jaipur, another visit to Delhi and Chandigarh and a short visit to Jim Corbett National Park for one of my friends’ wedding. This trip has been very busy, and a lot of time has been spent in trains traveling from one city to the other. the trains, thanks to the fog setting in the northern parts of India, have been getting delayed, extending the time spent with the Indian Railways to even more and increasing the frustration that comes along with delays in your schedule. But now I am home, at my parents. 🙂

Being in India has made me lazy and though I have tried a little cooking/baking here and there, there has not been much going on in the novice housewife’s kitchen. And I miss it. I like to be occupied, feel busy, else my mind is a devil’s workshop. Now that I have a kitchen at my disposal (even if it’s for a few days), hopefully the mind will get some rest and some baking can be done.

To me, baking has always been therapeutic, my kind of meditation. Even when the results are not so perfect, the whole process of sifting, mixing, kneading or beating calms my mind. In those moments I forget everything else, forget the issues I might be facing, the small conversations that have pinched me and just let go. Seeing the butter turn pale from a golden yellow when beaten with sugar is an accomplishment for me. The smell of a cake baking lifts my mood instantly and a bite into a warm fresh out of the oven cake just sends me to another world.

And that is what I plan to do the next few days. Bake. Cook. Experiment. And blog. So while I am gearing for the prep of my mom’s birthday cake, I thought to share two recipes that I revisited over the last few months. I will leave you with these for now, with the promise that I will be back soon.

One is the Chauhan family favorite Triple Layer Chocolate Mousse Cake. That’s the first thing my brother and his wife request when they meet me. That’s the first thing my mom asks me to make for dessert if she is calling someone over. The name says it all- three layers of chocolate goodness- a fudgy, flourless cake topped with a dark chocolate mousse layer and finished off with a white chocolate mousse topping. For the recipe, either click here or on the picture.

The other is a favorite of many- Butter Chicken.

I have slightly revised the recipe that I had earlier and now I am pretty satisfied with the results I get. In fact I like them a lot. The addition of roasted red bell pepper is what makes this dish special. Again for the recipe, either click here or click on the picture.

Boozy Tiramisu shots

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If you think I had forgotten you, you think wrong. Somehow life has been real busy and my laptop and hence the blog has not been able to get the time I usually have for it. But, I could not NOT post my last post for 2012.

2012 came with many firsts. I completed my first ever triathlon. The blog got its own domain name. I went gluten free for a month, raw for a week. Tried out several new recipes. Things changed for the better for two of my best friends. Travelled to New York, Allahabad, Taj Mahal and of course Delhi. Certain things became clearer, and I hope 2013 brings clarity in the other things that yet confuse me. 2012 was a year of ups and downs, but then that’s how life is and 2013 should also have its share- but here’s hoping the ups more than make up for the downs that come.

We had a gathering yesterday at my in-laws place for lunch. I had planned to make a warm apple cake and tiramisu for dessert, but since our train got delayed by 12 hours and I had managed to catch a cold during my trip, I dropped the original plan and adapted it to make tiramisu shots instead (recipe adapted from here).

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Rough Puff Pastry

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Since the world doesn’t seem like it’s ending today, and since the in-laws are at work and the husband is at the dentist, I figured its the best time to sit on the computer and post something on the blog that has been neglected for far too long now. Its been almost two weeks since my last blog post, but with my current schedule of traveling, socializing and erratic net connections, I just haven’t been able to find enough time to devote to the blog.

Today, too, its going to be a quick post. Kind of befitting the recipe that I plan to share. I have, in the past, shared a recipe for homemade puff pastry. And also made mille feuilles and aloo puffs with homemade puff pastry. But, sometimes certain situations arise where your mom invites some guests over and swears there’s store bought puff pastry in the refrigerator and asks you to make the mushroom tarts you constantly rave about, only to see that the puff pastry she so confidently had said sits in the refrigerater is actually a packet of phyllo dough. The phyllo dough is then used to make some channa dal cocktail samosas by one of the three cooks in the house leaving you, the blogger (who your mom has, of course, bragged about to the guests), to think of an alternative way to shine. True story.

Its situations like these that this rough puff pastry comes to your rescue. And you will be pleasantly surprised by the flakiness you can achieve in just a matter of few hours, as opposed to the waiting and turning and folding of actual puff pastry that takes two days to get the desired result. Of course if you want to be all professional about it, the real deal puff pastry is the way to go. But if you are short on time this rough puff pastry recipe is the ticket.

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