Showing posts with label my. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my. Show all posts
Monday, May 19, 2014
My experiments with baking a basic whole wheat bread Recipe inside
At the beginning of 2013, I asked for your feedback on my Facebook Page on the kind of things youd like to see on the blog this year and that Ill try and incorporate some of your recipe requests. And the one thing that was a popular demand was a healthy loaf of bread. So heres my attempt to share with you a detailed recipe for a sandwich loaf.
Ive tried baking whole wheat bread on several occasions. It has led to a variety of results- my househelp giving me puzzled looks on what that seemingly edible brick is doing on our counter top, me wondering if I should let it dry out in the sun to be used later as a weapon for self defense, my son making me swear that I will not sneak it inside his lunch box, me quietly disposing it in the main trash can of our community, so it can never be traced back to me. But yes, Ill say this one thing. I never gave up. I kept trying from a variety of sources - books, blogs, my own improvisations. Recently, I came across this recipe in the kitchn and there was so much confidence in the tone of that post, it almost felt like a friend had her hand on my shoulder and told me that "this will work!" and work it did.
Other breads you can bake - Cinnamon Rolls | Pesto Pull Apart Loaf
You can be rest assured that this bread is a 100% handmade. No food processors, Kitchen Aids, Bread Machines were involved in the making of this work of art. Oven, yes - I did use an oven :)
You may ask if this is Whole Wheat bread a 100% whole wheat? To be honest, this one has 50% all purpose flour (maida) and 50% whole wheat flour (atta) - so if you trust your Atta to be 100% wheat, you can be sure that this bread is 50% whole wheat. And that is quite healthy given that the soft, spongy, melt in your mouth sliced bread labeled as whole wheat available in supermarkets is definitely NOT even 50% wheat, or theyve added a ton of other ingredients to make it soft and fluffy. The goodness of this bread is once youve mastered this basic loaf, you can keep playing with it in terms of other ingredients added to it such as a variety of other whole grain flours, seeds, flavourings etc. But Id surely request you to try it just like it is if you are a first timer.
This makes 2 loaves of roughly 600 grams each
Ingredients
2 3/4 Cup Atta (whole wheat flour)
2 3/4 Cup Maida (all purpose flour)
2 tbsp flaxseed powder (optional)
1 tbsp salt
1 cup lukewarm water (very slightly warm) plus some more
2 tsp instant yeast or active dry yeast
1/3 Cup Liquid Jaggery or Honey
2 tbsp olive oil / vegetable oil / melted ghee
1 cup lukewarm milk
You also need two 9x5 loaf tins greased and kept aside.
Directions
THE FIRST STAGE - ROUGH DOUGH
In a small bowl, sprinkle yeast over 1 cup lukewarm water-stir with a spoon, cover and keep aside for 5 minutes, until it becomes slightly frothy.
In a large bowl, add the flours, flaxseed meal and salt, stir with a fork and keep aside.
In another bowl, mix all the liquids- liquid jaggery/honey, milk and oil with a fork and keep aside.
Once the yeast gets frothy, make the well in the flour and add the yeast-water and other liquids. Stir with a wooden spoon until all the liquids are absorbed by the flour and it sort of comes together.
Remove this onto a clean counter top or working surface and gently knead, adding up to 1/4 cup more water if this dough is too dry. Knead for 2-3 minutes until it all comes together to a rough ball. Cover this with a big bowl and let it rest for 20 minutes. This allows for the liquids to be well absorbed by the flour particles yielding a softer loaf at the end.
THE SECOND STAGE - KNEADING & PROVING
Once the dough has rested for 20 minutes, youll find this easier to handle. It has to be kneaded (here, you could use a Kitchen Aid or Food Processor) for 10-12 minutes. By kneading I mean-pushing the dough away from you and folding it back on itself towards you. Repeat this process for at least 10 minutes, youll the the dough getting progressively more elastic and soft. Once this is done, shape into a ball. Grease a huge bowl with oil, place the ball in this - cover with a fitting lid + tea towel and keep in the warmest area of your kitchen. You need to give the dough 1-2 hours for it to double in size and this totally depends on the weather conditions, which is why I cannot give you an exact time. If you wish you could keep the dough ball in a plastic transparent box, marking the level with a marker and then marking the level where you expect the doubled dough to reach, so you know that it has indeed doubled in volume.
THE THIRD STAGE - MINI REST
Once the dough has doubled, with a sharp knife divide it into two equal parts. Do NOT be rough with this and punch any air out. Gently shape each half into a ball and keep aside to rest for 10 minutes. This will make the final shaping easier.
THE FOURTH STAGE - SHAPING LOAVES
After 10 minute rest in the previous stage, follow the shaping procedure for each ball. Gently push out into a rectangle and go ahead with the step-by-step shaping instructions given here. I followed them to the tee each time and they worked perfectly. The end result should be a taut dome shaped top of each loaf. And I cannot emphasize enough to do the shaping with light, gentle hands so that you dont push any air out of the loaves. Place the shaped loaves into two 9x5 loaf tins. You could brush water on the loaves and sprinkle any whole grains or seeds on the top to give it a more gourmet look - for eg: whole oats, millets, sesame seeds, or sift 1 tsp of all purpose flour over the top.
THE FIFTH STAGE - PROVING THE LOAVES
Cover the tins with a tea towel and keep in a warm place until the dough rises to the edge of the tin. If you are impatient with this stage and put it into the oven prematurely (which I have done many times and suffered), you will not have well risen loaves, because this bread will only puff mildly in the oven, maximum rise is before it goes into the oven. This takes around 40 mins-1 hour, like I said, do not rush this stage. The middle of this stage is when you turn on the oven to preheat at 220 Celsius / 450 F and let the oven heat at this temp until the loaves rise outside to final level.
THE SIXTH STAGE - BAKING THE LOAVES
When the loaves have risen to just above the tins, brush them with some water. Using a sharp bread knife, make an incision along the length of the loaf. This not only makes the bread look good, but also helps it rise well. Reduce the oven temperature to 190 Celsius / 375 F and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the top is nice and golden brown.
THE SEVENTH STAGE - COOLING
Turn out the loaves from the tins. If you have greased the tins well, you wont have problems with this. Turn them upside down on a cooling rack and keep them covered with a breathable cloth like a muslin or so. You could leave them like this overnight or at least aim for an hour or so. During this stage, the bread continues to cook inside and it becomes easier to slice the following morning. If you try to slice the bread as soon as it is out of the oven, consider all your effort wasted, because the inside of the loaf WILL be wet and you will be disappointed with the result. Loaves HAVE to be cooled fully before trying to slice them. If you want to experience the joy of breaking into warm bread just out of the oven, reserve it for the small dinner rolls.
THE EIGHTH STAGE - SLICING
Youve been patient - allowed the loaf to cool overnight. You will now be rewarded with sweet smelling, delicious bread slices for breakfast. Place the bread on a chopping board and with a sharp bread knife, slice it as thick or thin as you want.
Tips
- I get started with the process at around 5/6 pm in the evening & it gets baked by 9/10 pm or so, then let it cool overnight before slicing them in the morning. This process works well for me.
- The original recipe says 8-10 mins of kneading in food processor (second stage), so make sure you knead at least for 10-15 mins when you are kneading manually. And following the push away-bring back technique for kneading.
- If you dont have loaf tins, looks for bread shaping instructions that show you how to shape a free form loaf like focaccia or a dome shaped loaf. The proving and baking times have to be adjusted accordingly. Just make sure that during the final proving, the shaped dough rises really well before putting into the oven.
- Dont be afraid to make two loaves at one go, unless of course your oven will only take one tin at a time, in which case, halve all the ingredients and proceed accordingly. Do note that proving times may be less after the second stage.
- I buy liquid jaggery from here (Bangalore) but you can mix some crushed jaggery to water, let it liquify on low heat and keep aside to use in recipe or use honey instead. This provides a mild natural sweetness to the loaf and also the brilliant colour without using any additives or artificial colouring agents.
Lastly, bread making is an exercise in patience. You have to allow the bread to pass through each stage and it depends on a lot of factors. You cannot rush through. You may think- WHOA this takes 3-4 hours, but most of it is inactive time, it only requires your passing attention for a few minutes at a time. Its good to keep a little notepad or keep track of the times on your phone, so you dont miss the time windows for kneading, resting, proving etc. A bit of precision and a lot of patience goes a long way in baking that perfect loaf of bread. Dont let the number of steps or the huge number of words written to explain the process overwhelm you. Its quite simple actually. Try it and let me know how it turned out!
Thursday, May 1, 2014
My Cookery Show for Makkal Tv demonstrating how to make Salsa Picado Chicken Quesadilla and Tiramisu
Hello friends here is my next cooking show for Makkal Tv program Inippu Kaaram. Im showing makkal tv viewers on how to make Tiramisu Italian Dessert, Salsa Picado Mexican Dip and Chicken Quesadilla Mexican Entrée.
Click on the below image or link to view my cookery show telecasted on 13/July/2012
http://www.istream.com/tv/watch/133868/Inippu-Kaaram-EP-64-Complete
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Announcing my other blog and the Aunt inspired soup series
Heartfelt thanks to your warm, kind and soothing words. I do feel glad I shared my feelings with my blog sisters - you are a wonderful bunch of people. And now I keep my promise of sharing with you my positivity blog - Ive called it The Feel Good Blog. Every little thing that makes me feel good, everything Im grateful for will go in here. Its just two posts old, so you havent missed too much. Please bookmark this site and I would love you to share with me all things that make you smile. Its my little endeavor to share happiness and the feel-good feeling that we can all do with.
So much for my health conscious cooking, I wonder why I was so step-motherly to soups until now. Its just like when you never get down to doing something, its so out of your mind anyway. My soup reminder came when I was at my moms place for a while. My mom gave me the gossip that Aunt G has been making soup each evening at 6 - and each day its a new soup, something like Soup of the Day in those nice little cafes. This was enough to spike my interest. And when she said yesterdays Soup of the Day was Cucumber soup, I told her lets go, check on Aunt G now!
My moms sister and my granny live a couple of buildings away, and it goes without saying that when Im there, I drop by my aunts house in the evenings to catch up on whats happening (whats cooking rather). Shes one of the most innovative cooks in the family and shes always upto something interesting in the kitchen. At least most the times, lets say! So that evening, it was a tomato-carrot-lentil soup. OK, so I stole the lentil idea for my soup from her, but hey mine is a more exotic combination. See below.
By the way, if you end up trying my recipe below, please tell me if you didnt go WOW on seeing the colour of the soup, when it came out of the blender! Do NOT forget.
Just to show you the colour - Yeah I know the photo is terrible, but blame it on the lack of practise, the steam and the shaky hand.Soup of the Day - 1
Category - Soup, Quick dinner, No fat
Time to table - Under 20 minutes
Serves - One greedy person
Ingredients
1 cup packed spinach leaves, washed thoroughly
1 medium beet, peeled and cubed
1 small carrot, cubed
1/2 cup cooked yellow lentils (tur dal)
1 medium tomato, quartered
Seasonings - see below
Directions
- In a pan, place 1/2 cup water. Bring to a boil, throw in the beets and carrots. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, till the veggies are nearly tender. Then add in the spinach leaves and tomatoes, covering and cooking for another 2-3 minutes.
- Drain the veggies and let cool. Reserve the drained liquid.
- In a blender, puree the tender veggies, cooked lentils till very smooth.
- Remove this in the same pan with the reserved liquid, add some water to thin out the soup if you wish. Bring to a simmer.
- Serve into a large soup bowl. Season with lots of pepper, pinch of salt and some lemon zest (and a dot of Amul butter too)
Nutrition notes
- My aunt likes to add some milk in the end to most soups, to give them a creamy taste and also to get an interesting colour. However I am against mixing dairy with green leafy vegetables as it makes iron absorption difficult.
- The lentils gave a nice body and an different dimension of mellowed out taste to the soup. You can use any leftover cooked lentils, or anything youve reserved in the freezer.
- In my opinion, lemon zest gives a nice flavour when beets are used, as they give a sharp edge to the metallic taste of beets and spinach.
- A trial proved that people who start their meal with a low cal soup, ended up consuming 20% less in the entire meal. This kind of reduced food (calorie) intake over a period of time, can help reduce weight or maintain lost weight. This is actually true in my case. I had this soup for dinner with two slices of whole wheat bread, toasted, and I had no appetite to eat any more.
Friday, March 14, 2014
On My Kitchen Table Biscuits Haggis Mojitos and Cleaners!
English Tea Time Treats (E-Book)
Sarah James is a home baker just like you and me, and she has created an e-book of her recipes which you can buy through Amazon. Its called English Tea Time Treats and there are lots of good recipes in there, including some that I havent see elsewhere, like Nelson Slice, a bread pudding sandwiched between two layers of flaky pastry. Ive now made the Oat Biscuits twice and Mr Farmer took some into his work and they were very popular, they taste a bit like Hobnobs.
Its a very simple recipe using ingredients that are likely to be in your store cupboard and it is also very versatile, you can add different spices or dried fruits to the biscuit mix. I filled my biscuit tin with these cookies and they are ideal with a cup of tea of coffee. Sarah recommends crushing the Oat Biscuits to make cheesecake bases and I can see how they would really work like that.
English Tea Time Treats is available as a download to Kindle for £2.59 which is very good value for money. Follow Sarah on Twitter @SarahJames456
Sarah James provided me with a copy of English Tea Time Treats, I was not paid for this review and all opinions are my own.
Macsween Haggis
Macsween of Edinburgh, a third generation family company, has been at the forefront of haggis and black pudding making for 60 years. They have a clutch of foodie prizes for their products and in the past 10 years have made significant strides in improving and systematising the way they manage their environmental impacts.
Sunday morning breakfast is usually a bacon roll. Today I topped this with a slice of Macsween black pudding to my roll and a slice of Macsween vegetarian haggis to Mr Farmers roll as he doesnt like black pudding. I did microwave the slices, but then put them briefly under the grill to crisp them up a bit. The Black Pudding was superb, the seasoning is really well balanced and it had a rich flavour which went very well with the bacon. Mr Farmer enjoyed the Macsween Vegetarian Haggis, we have had Veggie Haggis before and found it bland and unappealing, this was a big improvement.
I would definitely buy these Microwavable packs again, 60 seconds for the Haggis and 90 seconds for the Black Pudding - now that is fast food!
Macsween Haggis is available at all major supermarkets and costs around £1.49 per pack.
I was supplied with the Macsween products shown in the first photograph, I was not paid for this post and all opinions are my own.
Feel Good Non-Alcoholic Cocktails - Mojito
Feel Good Mojito has a really grown up taste, not too sweet, a lovely slightly sparkling citrus drink with a hint of mint. Ive had pre-mixed Mojito before and it always tastes of toothpaste to me, too much artificial mint flavour. Not the Feel Good brand, it is made with 100% Natural Ingredients, 60% fruit juice grape, lime, sparkling water & fruit extracts, natural mint flavours, natural stabiliser; fruit pectin. And would you believe it - ITS ONE OF YOUR FIVE A DAY!!!
For anyone planning a party, I would recommend you get some of this for those who dont or cant drink alcohol, it tastes like a proper drink, so they wont feel left out.
I did not receive this product from the manufacturer, Ive bought several bottles of this Mojito Cocktail with my own money, my opinions are still my own though!
Breathease
I used the Window and Glass Cleaner on the kitchen window and the bathroom mirror, it was a good cleaner and the smell was fresh and sweet, a bit like baby powder! As I have mainly wooden work surfaces in the kitchen, which I dont like to use spray cleaners on, I took the multi-surface cleaner into the bathroom.
Our bathroom is very small, built under the stairs, in a house not originally designed for an inside bathroom, which means that fumes from cleaners get stuck in the room and particularly in the shower when Im cleaning it. I really liked the multi-surface cleaner, it did the job just as well as other cleaners and, just like the window and glass cleaner, had a pleasant scent with no choking effects.
Overall, I was impressed and the products which are also supported by asthma UK.
I was supplied with these two cleaning products, I was not paid for this review and all opinions are my own.
Thank you for joining me at the Kitchen Table.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
My Humble Petition
(Parental warning- this post is rated PG 13)
Dear Wise and Merciful Goddess,
There have been so many gruesome failures (or quasi-semi-successes not worth sharing) in my tiny blue tiled cocina of late that I am perilously close to throwing in the towel and crying, WTF? I am spending days (yes, days!) feeling hollow from hunger because I can't find anything in the cruel pantry to eat. Especially for breakfast. And brunch. And snacks.
I can usually rustle up a tasty dinner built around potatoes or rice with a piece of fish or the one sausage I can eat. But truth be told- as you may already know in your omniscient all-knowingness- I am missing eggs and cheese like crazy this week. Dear Divine One, what I wouldn't give for one of my pasta frittatas. Or a sizzling tray of nachos. Or- Oy!- a hot and cozy slice of my roasted vegetable kugel.
With limited sources of protein to pick from- beef, pork and some fish- I am stymied at breakfast. Not to mention mid-day. And late afternoon snacks! I mean, seriously. Who wants to eat fish three times a day as my brisk and steely Nurse Practitioner (transplanted from coastal Maine, duh) advised?
And if might gently and sweetly ask, is it really wise to eat beef every day- even if it's grass fed and organic and roaming the range with Tommy Lee Jones and all that good stuff? I kinda doubt it. Not at my overheated pesky age.
As you well know, I'm no spring chicken.
Which I'm also allergic to. Here's the thing. Without my brown rice and beans, my peanut butter on rice cakes, my grabs of almonds and cashews, protein powder smoothies, and hummus? And those fast and fabulous grilled quesadillas? I am, quite frankly, more than slightly askew. Not to mention, cranky. And some days- like today, for instance? Yours in devotion is frustrated and gloomy and frankly, wicked pissed and hungry.
And I'm not going to lie about it.
Read more + get the recipe >> I can usually rustle up a tasty dinner built around potatoes or rice with a piece of fish or the one sausage I can eat. But truth be told- as you may already know in your omniscient all-knowingness- I am missing eggs and cheese like crazy this week. Dear Divine One, what I wouldn't give for one of my pasta frittatas. Or a sizzling tray of nachos. Or- Oy!- a hot and cozy slice of my roasted vegetable kugel.
With limited sources of protein to pick from- beef, pork and some fish- I am stymied at breakfast. Not to mention mid-day. And late afternoon snacks! I mean, seriously. Who wants to eat fish three times a day as my brisk and steely Nurse Practitioner (transplanted from coastal Maine, duh) advised?
And if might gently and sweetly ask, is it really wise to eat beef every day- even if it's grass fed and organic and roaming the range with Tommy Lee Jones and all that good stuff? I kinda doubt it. Not at my overheated pesky age.
As you well know, I'm no spring chicken.
Which I'm also allergic to. Here's the thing. Without my brown rice and beans, my peanut butter on rice cakes, my grabs of almonds and cashews, protein powder smoothies, and hummus? And those fast and fabulous grilled quesadillas? I am, quite frankly, more than slightly askew. Not to mention, cranky. And some days- like today, for instance? Yours in devotion is frustrated and gloomy and frankly, wicked pissed and hungry.
And I'm not going to lie about it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)