Sweet Potato Fries

Sweet potato fries make a great side dish or snack and are a nice change from the traditional French fries. I've been making these a lot lately and I use different combinations of herbs and spices every time I make a batch. I've used red pepper flakes and dried thyme here but they also taste great with a mixture of cayenne pepper, roasted cumin powder and dried rosemary. Chaat masala works well too.

Ingredients:

• 3 medium sweet potatoes
• 2-3 Tbsp olive oil
• Garlic powder
• Red pepper flakes
• Dried thyme
• Salt
• Pepper

Method:

Preheat the oven to 425 F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place it in the oven for at least 10 minutes while the it heats up- this helps the fries get a little crisp while baking.

Cut the sweet potatoes into ½- inch thick sticks. Toss with olive oil, red pepper flakes, dried thyme, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

Arrange the sticks in a single layer on the foil-lined sheet and make sure you don't crowd them, or they will steam rather than bake.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, turning the fries over halfway through. Serve warm. These fries will not get crispy like regular fries. They're a little crunchy and brown on the outside but are soft on the inside.

Wordless Wednesday

Mushroom And Spinach Strata

This strata is a great one-dish meal that can be made ahead of time. It can be assembled the previous night itself and just popped into the oven the next morning in time for breakfast or brunch. I’ve made this a couple of times now since I first heard of it a few years back.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cubed bread
• 1 cup cheese ((I used a mixture of Parmesan and Cheddar this time)
• 1-2 Tbsp oil
• 1 cup scallions
• 2-3 garlic cloves, crushed
• Red pepper flakes
• Salt
• Pepper
• 8 oz mushrooms, chopped
• 3 cups spinach, chopped

For the custard:

• 4 eggs
• 1 ½ cups milk
• Salt
• Pepper

Method:

Grease your baking dish of choice. I used 2 small baking dishes here, but an 8 x 8-inch baking dish would also work just fine. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Cube some leftover bread. Italian bread would be perfect for this but use whatever you have. I used 4 slices of leftover sandwich bread that I toasted first.

In a skillet, add the oil and sauté the scallions. Add the crushed garlic, a pinch of red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.

To this add the chopped mushrooms and cook till the water evaporates.

Next, add the chopped spinach. Cook till the spinach wilts down and the mixture is almost dry.

In a bowl, beat together the eggs, milk, salt and pepper.

Layer the bread cubes at the bottom of the baking dish. Pour half the custard over it. Press down the bread with the back of a spoon if required so that it soaks up the custard well. Sprinkle half the cheese over this.

Stir the cooked vegetable mixture into the rest of the custard and then add to the layers in the baking dish. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until the top forms a nice golden brown crust. Serve hot.

Christmas Fruitcake

I made my very first fruitcake, in time for Christmas, a few days back. After going through a lot of recipes, I finally picked one that I saw on Edible Garden. I have made many changes to the original recipe since I did not have many of the ingredients on hand and I’d decided that I’d only work with what I had. Despite all the additions and substitutions I had to make, the cake turned out to be fantastic.

* I started by preparing the caramel. Melt ½ cup sugar in a pan slowly until it turns clear, smooth and dark brown; this recipe requires a dark brown caramel and it took me 5-7 minutes to get to this stage. Turn off the heat and add ¼ cup water carefully to the caramelized sugar to thin it out a bit. Stir and set aside. (See here for tips for making the perfect caramel.)

*Next, preheat the oven to 350 F and grease your baking dish of choice. I used my 9" springform pan.

*In a large bowl, mix together these dry ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ¼ tsp powdered cloves
• ¼ tsp powdered cardamom
• ¼ tsp ginger powder
• ¼ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp nutmeg, freshly grated
• 1 tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt

*In another bowl, cream together the following:

• 1 cup sugar
• 6 Tbsp butter + 4 Tbsp oil (I did not have enough butter and that is the only reason I used a combination of butter & oil.)
• 3 eggs
• 2 Tbsp orange marmalade
• 2 tsp rum extract

*Combine the dry and wet ingredients together and then stir in the caramel. Mix well.

*Add a cup of dried fruit and ½- ¾ cup of chopped nuts to the batter .I used a combination of dried figs, cranberries, golden raisins and cashews. (I first tossed it all together in 2-3 tsp of flour to prevent everything from sinking to the bottom of the cake while it baked.) Mix well.

*Transfer the batter to the cake pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Wordless Wednesday

From Your Kitchen To Mine #7

Here are a few recipes I've tried out from other blogs recently with minor substitutions and tweaks:


Apple Thokku from Akshayapaatram

The only change I made was to use green chillies instead of red chilllies.

Aloo Tikki from Oh Taste 'n' See

Nan Khatai from Show Me The Curry

My dough spread out a lot while baking resulting in very flat nan khatais even though I followed the recipe very closely from start to finish. They tasted fine, though.

Pepper Rasam from Rak's Kitchen

Bread Upma from Rak's Kitchen

To make the dish more filling, I added a couple of eggs towards the end, and mixed the whole thing together.

Microwave Dhokla from One Hot Stove

Bisibelabath from Mriganayani

I used my old and trusted pressure cooker for making this and my meal was ready in less than 30 minutes. I substituted the white rice in the recipe with brown rice.

Strawberry Buttermilk Cake

Strawberries are available year-round at all grocery stores, but the local strawberry season has been brief and is nearing its end. I've been trying to do as much as possible with these sweet and juicy berries before I'm forced to buy the tasteless ones off the supermarket shelves.

Recently, I was looking for a recipe where I could do something different with strawberries, but after going through a whole lot of recipes on the Internet, I finally decided to just tweak a Martha Stewart recipe that I'd tried a few months back.

I used buttermilk in my cake after I saw this. I always have buttermilk in my fridge and I’d just bought strawberries a few days back.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt
• 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar (set aside 2 tsp for sprinkling over the berries)
• 1 egg
• ½ cup buttermilk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 10-12 strawberries, finely chopped
• 6-10 strawberries, quartered
• 1/4 cup white chocolate morsels

Method:

Preheat the oven to 375 F and grease your baking dish of choice. I used my 9" springform pan for this.

In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, beat together the egg, softened butter, sugar, buttermilk, and vanilla extract. Stir in the flour mixture in small batches and mix well after each addition.

Add the chopped strawberries (I tossed the fruit pieces in some flour first to prevent them from all sinking to the bottom of the batter) and chocolate chip morsels and mix well.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan. Arrange the sliced strawberries on top of batter, cut sides down, and sprinkle the remaining sugar over the strawberries.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. The insides of my cake were done in 45 minutes but the surface looked uncooked, so I carefully broiled it for 5 minutes.

Slice and serve.