Best. Brownies. Ever.

I proudly say that I don't like sweets that much, I have a 'meat' tooth if you will. :)

My urge of eating sweet can be satisfied by just a piece of cake or couple of rich Gulab Jamuns or a steamy cup of hot chocolate. Sometimes simply by baking cookies or whipping Shrikhand, I'm over my will of actually eating it. Last Wednesday was no different. I came across this Brownie recipe on Pinterest which said "most delicious brownies you will ever taste" and being a recipe nazi, I had to test it. :P And believe you me, they were the best Brownies I'd ever had.

The recipe is simple and quick and had lot of room to creativity. So here it is,

Ingredients:

Dry:

Sugar: ½ cup [I like them less sweet, you can go wild]

Flour: ½ cup [I used all purpose and whole wheat mix]

Baking powder: pinch

Salt: pinch

Cocoa powder: 1/3 cup

Wet:

Vegetable oil : ½ cup [or melted butter]

Eggs : 2 big

Vanilla extract : 4-5 drops

Optional:

Chopped walnuts or almonds [I used] or pistachios

MnMs 

White choco chips

Macadamia nuts

Line baking pan with baking sheet. I didn’t have it, so I used aluminum foil. Did not make a difference.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix oil, sugar, vanilla extract and eggs. Beat them till it forms foamy mixture.

Add in flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Mix well. Beat for a minute or two.

Stir in optional items. [you can also spread them on top of batter, your wish]

Pour into baking pan and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Let the brownies cool down. When you reach this stage when they are wearing nerd glasses, dig in!!

This time for a change, I had couple of pieces of the sweet I baked myself. Couriered rest to darling sister! Lets see how she likes them.

Vegetarian chili

My first encounter with Chili was during Superbowl 2008. Office cafe was serving Super Bowl special food; nachos, tacos, baby back ribs and chicken wings! When I bought nachos, the server asked if I wanted 'some' chili with it. In my thought bubble I said, "I learned british English in India and we say chillies, not some chili." But being a sweet person I am (:P) I replied, "Sure!" And he poured this thick soup like mixture of beans and meat and veggies and sauce on my nachos. When I tasted it, I was instantly a fan of this recipe. Its a perfect blend of meat, broth, cooked veggies, beans, tomatoes and spices! Each spoonful bursts with flavor.

Over the years I learned that you can make chicken chili [just to respect the gau mata :P] as well as vegetarian chili. I also learned that its a distant cousin of our beloved Paav-Bhaji when it comes to going creative with use of veggies. So today I made this vegeterian chilli with what all things I had in my fridge!

Ingredients:

Rajma ie. Red Kidney beans : 1/4 cup, soaked overnight, then cooked completely
Toor daal and split chana daal : 1/3 cup, soaked for 4 hours [you can use any lentils basically]
1 big onion : Finely chopped
2 big tomatoes : Finely chopped
1 cup frozen mix veggies : this is the step where you can go creative, go wild, empty your fridge
1 can veggie broth or chicken broth
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels
8-10 baby carrots
1 small potato : chopped
1 spoon Ginger Garlic paste
2 Bay leaves
4-5 cloves
2 spoons chili powder
Salt to taste
Oil

Saute onions, ginger garlic paste in 2 spoons oil, add cloves and bay leaves. When onions become translucent, add tomatoes and chili powder.
Let it cook for 5 mins, then add veggies, corn kernels, carrots and potatoes.
After all vegetables are coated with spices, add broth, beans and lentils. Add some water if needed.
Add salt to taste and some more chili powder if you like. :)
Let it simmer for 30-45 minutes till it looks like the picture above! Or till all veggies are overcooked.
If you want to fasten the process, just throw everything in pressure cooker and let it whistle 4-5 times and you are done!!


It can go very well with Tortilla chips or even with rice or chapati. You can have it as soup as well OR make some Guacamole and you got yourself Taco night!

Love,
Priyanka

A girl and her heart shaped cookie cutter!

I'm not so crazy about Valentine's day. Not in a cheesy way, like, every day is a valentine's day with my darling husband; but in a calm and collected way, like, meh. :P

This time I found this awesome cookie cutter package for just $2.99 at local Christmas tree shop. And it was first-encounter-with-scissors all over again. The phrase comes from incident in my childhood. Mum got a new pair of scissors and asked me and my sis not to touch it. And as any other child would do, we did not touch it, till mum went out. It was Sunday afternoon, we had the entire house for ourselves and of course the 'forbidden' pair of scissors. Long story short, we tested that scissors on everything including newspapers, cookbooks, curtains and my little sister's hair. Lets say that mum wasn't..... so..... happy.... when she got home.

Since I'm all grown up now(!), I of course didn't do any destructive thing with the cookie cutter, but I made everything heart-shaped till my hearts content. So presenting heart shaped Sugar cookies, tea-light holders, car hanging and chapati!! [There were many other things, but not so presentable. :P]

Love,
Priyanka

Perfect Biryani!

We all have an aunt who makes world class besan laddoos. There is no comparison to mom's puranpoli or mother-in-law's fish fry. Dad's amateur daal-rice is my most fav comfort food. And how Mr. Husband is famous for his mouth watering tandoori chicken! I always wanted to have my signature dish. I cook everything, from daily roti sabji to lobster. But never heard something like "No one can make as awesome blah blah as Priyanka does!" It made the cook in me really sad for years! *melodrama*

Mr. Husband craves for my khichadi rice and aloo-paratha and pizza. But I didn't want to be associated with such not-so-fancy recipes. Finally, after months of trial and error, I've found 'the one' ! Presenting Priyanka's version of 'Dum Biryani'!!

When it comes to biryani, Mr. husband and I never kid! We never compromise with taste, flavours or "meat to rice" ratio. We like the perfect blend of Pakistani/peshavari style and Hyderabady style. After finalizing the recipe, I made it thrice with chicken and it was perfect!!

Some rules:

- No ingredient is optional!! You cannot say that you completed the jigsaw puzzle with one missing piece. :)

- There is no substitute for ghee, fried onions and white basmati rice. (don't even look at low fat, low carb stuff)

- Meat and rice should be equal in quantity. (again, not optional. you want taste? make it fully loaded)


Thanks to my mother-in-law, I have huge aluminum cooking pot - made just for Biryani. If you don't have a huge pot, factorize the recipe accordingly.

Prep:

Rice: Wash and Soak 3 cups of basmati rice in warm water.

chicken : Clean, wash, cut 2 lbs of chicken. Pat it dry. Marinate it with 1 cup yogurt, ginger-garlic paste, chili powder, lemon juice, garam masala, coriander-cumin powder, turmeric powder

Now we need to let the rice soak and let the chicken marinate for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile do the chopping business. By the end of 20 minutes, you should have:

- 2 cups of shopped white onion

- 2 cups of chopped tomatoes

- 1/2 cup chopped fresh coriander
- 1 inch ginger julienned

- 1/2 cup mint leaves chopped

- 2 green chilies chopped

Take 2 spoonfuls of whole garam masala (cloves, paper corns, cumin seeds, cardamom, cinnamon etc) in a cheesecloth and tie it to make a small packet. I used the metal tea infuser which came with my steel tea pot.

Soak pinch of saffron in 2 spoon milk.

Cooking:

Rice:

- Keep 6-8 cups of water for boiling in large pot.

- Add salt, a tablespoon of oil and 2-3 bay leaves to it.

- Add the garam masala packet and soaked (and drained) rice.

- Let the rice cook. Give a gentle stir in between.

Chicken:

- In biryani pot, take 1/2 cup cooking oil.
- Sauté 1/2 spoon of whole garam masala, then chopped onions, chilies and finally tomatoes. 
- Once they leave oil, add spoon full of chili powder, chili powder, garam masala, coriander-cumin powder, turmeric powder each. This step depends on how much heat you can take! :)
- Now add the marinated chicken with the yogurt sauce. Cover and let the chicken cook for 15-20 mins (or 3/4th done)
- Stir in-between. Don't let it burn.

Biryani:

- Now the main part. Rice should be 3/4 cooked by now. Give a good stir to the chicken, and add drained-cooked rice on top of the chicken.

- Cover the chicken completely with rice.

- Then put a layer of chopped fresh coriander, ginger slices, chopped mint leaves and generous amount of fried onion.

- Add 2 tea spoons of ghee at four different places in the pot. Also add saffron milk.

- Cover the biryani and let it cook for another 25-30 mins on medium flame.

 

Dum:

- The traditional dum is done by sealing the biryani pot with roti dough. If you have the dough handy, you can certainly do that. But it gets kinda messy at the end.

- My version involves covering the pot with cold water socked hand towel as seen in the picture, and putting weight on it. I used my empty pressure cooker as a weight. Worked like a charm!!

 

After 25-30 minutes (or after the house is filled with biryani aroma and you cannot control yourself anymore) turn the flame off and let the biryani sit for another 20 mins. You can work on your self control mechanism here. Much more helpful than meditation!!

Once you get used to the recipe, you’ll save time by doing things simultaneously. Though it takes little longer time than usual dinner, and involves many small little steps, trust me, it’s all worth it! The end result, perfect biryani!!

Love,

Priyanka

I feel safe!

This came to my mind while getting ready for bed last night. Final check on the kitchen, locked the main door, set next day's alarm and finally came to bed. Why do I feel so secure in this house? Is it because I trust the lock? the building security? or 911? No. I feel safe because of the person I share this house with.


When I was little, I felt safe in my house because of my parents. My sister and I knew that our dad could take care of any trouble that might come and mom will be able to sooth us in any imaginable bad thing. The love, the warmth, the feeling of security was there in that house because of mom and dad. When I moved out for college, I lived in Hostel. It was the safest place in town. But never I slept like I used to in my home.

Then I moved again for my job, and again for another assignment. Came to US, discovered new places, met new people. I was all grown up and could take care of myself. The feeling of independence helped me sleep calmly at nights, but again, wasn't the same as my home.

And now, I'm married. Two years completed already. In the new relationship, managing each other’s moods, finding balances between our likes and dislikes, trying our best to keep each other happy, discovering the world with colorful love-full glasses, I never actually took a moment and thought where this relationship has taken me. I'm the same independent person. Moreover I'm able to take care of one more person now. But do I still feel the strange alertness every night?

Not anymore. Days and months passed by and I never realized when we made this apartment our 'home'. Though we are of same age, though we both miss our childhood homes, though we are equally mature yet equally naive, we gave each other something that we didn’t even realize. A sense of peace, stability and of course security. I sleep like a baby at nights knowing he is there to protect me and he sleeps peacefully on my account.


Guess, my mom dad too were not as strong as I thought. But the fact that they both were there for us, was enough for us to feel safe. Thank you Vishal for giving me my long missed childhood home back!

The guest

Mr.Husband and I have our own little imperfect world! Where we get up when we want, sleep at our own times, make our own breakfasts, go to work together, spend our free time doing things we like, he doesn't disturb my reading and I don't disturb his video games, we cook proper food less often and don't mind take outs, we clean our house way too much and give each other his/her own space!

 

This doesn't mean we don't like hosting party or having guests. We love having people over and cooking for them. But these people are always (and always) the people we like. So what happens when you have unwanted house guest? I don't think there is an English word which will explain that. The reason for this post is the special house guest we had last week.


I tried so hard to make this person feel at home that I used to get exhausted by the time I got to work. My parents visited us last month. I never made them breakfast in bed or 3 meals a day but I did all that for this person. I compromised with dirty kitchen and messy house. And after all that, this person left without even saying thank you. I hate hate hate such crazy and manner less people. I know I've never written hate post on my blog, but oh well, I had to write this one.

When that person finally left, Mr.Husband started laughing on all the experiences we had in that week. We are ok now and glad that we got our home back. I was so full of emotions when this person left, that I wrote a poem!! 
  
The Guest

Call her an acquaintance, not even a friend
She is very peculiar, say, a different kind of blend.

We always welcomed her, of course with other fun company
But having her spend a week with us, was nothing but uncanny

She won’t say a word, not a single word, even if you pour your heart
She’ll stare in despair, with void on her face, and will not even thwart

We like our castle clean and our cookhouse trim
But all I see is clutter and muddle and a face, that is grim


We see food in the sink and wet towels on the floor
AC on high power and open front door

No reading, no TV, she doesn’t do much
No talking, no thinking, looks bored as such

She talked in tone of complain, we think she hates us
And suddenly insisted return, after all this ruckus

Since she’s gone to her own land now, maybe to her own kind
The castle is suddenly happy n clean and obviously we don’t mind!

What is the take-away of this week, what lesson did we learn
you don’t value your own someone, until you meet worse one


PST 6:24 8:7:12

Idea!

Sometimes, when you see something cool and innovative, do you feel that ‘you had thought about it first!!” oh this happens to me a lot. I’m not lying, I can swear on all my shoes (oh yeah, that’s a big thing for me), but I had an idea about online pin board couple of years back. While exploring the world of web, I used to think that there has to be one place where I can keep all my favorite links! Your web browser ‘Favorites’ is not enough!

What did I do about it? Well, nothing. I waited for someone else to do that and here came Pinterest! Its an online pinboard! Stats show that its competing with social media big shots like facebook and twitter. Now if I go out and say that ‘you know, I had this online pinboard idea first’ you’ll say ‘oh yeah’ . So instead I signed-in to Pinterest and started pinning! And man I love it!! I’ve created my own boards and pinned a L.O.T of things I want to do/see/create/remember and what not!

Obviously its not free from common social media site drawbacks. Such as some stranger stalking you online and ‘LIKE’ing everything you do on web or some people pouring over emotions on a picture of a kitten or someone just sharing everything about their personal life..seriously, everything.. But since Pinterest invitation is on request, the other nonsense is controlled. All you get is organized listings of all awesome things on web ready for you to pin on your own board! If you are like me, who loves pretty, organized, user friendly sites, you should checkout Pinterest for sure!

You’ll say Pinterest has been there for a while, so why am I writing this today? Because today, one of my friends introduced me to his site, and I thought, ‘Man I had thought about this first!!’ Turns out it’s not the person who thinks about it first, but the person who actually ‘does’ it matters! So what we (actually I, not worthy of using honorary plural form today) learned from this? “Waste is the idea which was not implemented!!!” Or as Mr. Twain says,

“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”
Mark Twain