Eleanor and Park

I recently read this book and after a long time I found a book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

It’s a love story between two high school students and is a delight to read! What makes it so different – it feels real. The hero and heroine are far from perfect or handsome or ideal and so are their families; but they’re lovable characters.

Pita and falafel sandwich

Hubby and I love falafel sandwich! Now that we were experimenting with international cuisine, we decided to try our favorite – falafels. It seemed somewhat easier because it is similar to the vadas that we make.

We used the recipe from here; we didn’t really stick to the recipe to a T. Just used what we had on hand. Parsely and cilantro were missing in our kitchen so they got dropped from our recipe. However I’m happy to report that these were the most delicious falafels we’ve ever had! So much so that we think we’re spoilt now and will not be able to eat falafels made by others . For the sandwich, we used readymade hummus (next time we intend to make that too!), cherry tomatoes, cucumber, onion and sesame seed paste (tahini). For tahini, I did a very home made version. Just ground some toasted sesame seeds to a paste and added some olive oil and lemon.

Not all is hunky dory in the Kitchen Land!

If you thought that blogs were always about bragging about your beautiful house, delicious food and the perfect family, you’re so wrong I thought I would post a not so successful attempt at making Ethiopian food. What you see above is Injera (the ethiopian bread), the cabbage and potato veggie and I forget what they call the lentils. This may not be the authentic Ethiopian food at a restaurant, but it certainly tasted delicious to our taste buds. I guess because we worked hard at it! Not to forget all the fun we had trying to cook a new cuisine. We’ll probably get a more reliable source for the recipes when we try again.

Trying to cook this food, reminded us once again that not everything is so easy that you would get it right the first time. So it is more important to enjoy the process than be hung up on the end results!

Quick and Easy appetizer: Muffin/cupcake pizza

I’d bookmarked this recipe on Pinterest. So when I needed to make an appetizer for a big gathering I figured that this would be it! It’s really easy, hardly takes any time and was a crowd pleaser!! I know how many recipes can claim all three of those!

Ingredients:

• Pillsbury Grands Jr Golden Layers – 3 cans
• Shredded cheddar cheese – around 1/2 cup
• finely chopped onions – according to taste
• finely chopped chillies – according to taste
• tomato kethcup
• chopped basil for garnish

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Mix cheese, onion and chillies. I say onion and chillies according to taste because I just winged it. So go by your instincts. I used approximately 1/4 cup onion and 1-2 tbsp chillies.
3. Separate the layers of Grands. Line the bottom of each cupcake liner with a layer. I didn’t have enough muffin/cupcake pans to accommodate all. So I’d use the pan to line the cupcake liners and then put them on a baking sheet. It helped while lining that the liners were in the cupcake pan.
4. Spread ketchup on each muffin using a spoon.
5. Spread the mixture on the top.
6. Bake in the oven for around 15 minutes. Every oven is different so you should keep an eye.
7. Garnish each muffin with chopped basil and you’re done!

Shortbread cookies with jam

I was on the hunt for some simple butter cookies when I found these. They came out quite good; although a little more buttery than I would like. I liked the simplicity of recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling: jam of your choice (I’d some home-made mixed berry jam)

Method:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Combine butter, sugar and almond extract in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Reduce speed to low; add flour.
2. Beat until well mixed.
3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
4. Make indentation in center of each cookie with thumb (edges may crack slightly).
5. Fill each indentation with about 1/4 teaspoon jam.
6. Bake for 14 to 18 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Let stand 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire cooling rack.

Note: I’d to bake much longer than 18 minutes, I would say close to 30 minutes. To get the correct timing, keep looking at the bottom of the cookies. It needs to be light brownish. Otherwise it may remain under-baked. Thanks to my DH we made sure they were baked properly!

Peanut butter

Peanut butter is a staple in our pantry and so when I read in my food processor’s manual that I could make nut butters I thought why not try making peanut butter! It’s funny that I’d my old FP for more than years and all I did was chopped vegetables and knead dough. Now that I got a new bigger one, I’d to read the manual to make sure that I was utilizing my appliance to the fullest extent! And what do you know – it can solve all problems (except world hunger!). It can make nut butters, it can cut (french-style) beans, knead pizza dough and you name it.

Coming back to the point, you need peanuts and a food processor. If your peanuts are not salted then some salt too. You need roasted peanuts for this, I didn’t have dry roasted ones – which seem to be the recommended thing – so I just used what I had. I used the full bag and it gave me one jar of butter.

This is how it looked in the FP

and finally…

It’s fun, easy and so satisfying to make your own peanut butter!

P.S. Hubby noticed that this peanut butter was easy to spread as compared to the one that we get from the store. I’m guessing this could be because of the oil used to roast the peanuts. I’ll let you know how it goes when I use the dry roasted peanuts.

Activity in the garden