Blueberry Cornmeal Cake

Berries are in season now and I usually buy whatever it is that’s on sale in my grocery store. Last week, I picked up 2 pints of blueberries. After leaving them sitting in the refrigerator for almost a week, I finally decided to make a blueberry crumb cake using a recipe I’d come across in a magazine.
Now, I’ve never been one to follow any given recipe exactly- I usually just take the general idea and go from there. This time too it was no different. I started out by making a couple of minor changes to the original recipe. By the time I was done though, I’d tweaked the recipe to such an extent that it looked nothing like the original- what started out as a recipe for a blueberry crumb cake ended up becoming one for a blueberry cornmeal cake! But it turned out pretty well, and so I wanted to document it for myself.

Here's what I used-

Dry ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup fine white cornmeal
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
A pinch of salt

Wet ingredients:
2 eggs
½ cup sour cream (I used light)
¼ cup oil
1 cup brown sugar (use more for a sweeter cake)
Juice of 1 lemon
Zest of one lemon
1 pint fresh blueberries

Method:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a foil-lined round pan/baking dish with oil.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, oil, sour cream, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest until smooth.

Add flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; whisk gently to combine.

Toss in the blueberries (reserve a few for topping the batter) and mix gently.
Pour the batter into the pan; sprinkle the remaining blueberries on top.

Bake until the cake is cooked and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30-35 minutes. Cool, cut in wedges, and serve.

Lemon Rice

It has been a while since I posted a South Indian dish here. Here’s something simple and quick that I made for dinner yesterday.

Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked basmati (or any other long-grain) rice
2 Tbsp oil (gingelly/sesame oil would be ideal here)
1 tsp chana dal
1 tsp urad dal
1 tsp mustard seeds
2-3 red chillies
A pinch of asafoetida
½ tsp turmeric powder
3-4 green chillies, minced
4-5 curry leaves
½ onion, finely chopped
¾ tsp ginger paste
A good handful of coriander leaves, chopped up
½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (I used 2 large and juicy lemons)
Salt
Sugar

Method:
Cook the rice. (I always use the microwave for this.)

Meanwhile, heat oil in a large pan. Add chana dal, urad dal, mustard seeds, red chillies asafoetida, turmeric powder, green chillies, and curry leaves. Next add the onions, ginger paste, and salt. Cook till the onions soften.

Add the hot rice and mix well. Turn off the heat; add lemon juice to the rice. Add a touch of sugar too if you so desire. Keep for at least 30 minutes before serving to allow the rice to absorb the lemon juice and all of the other flavors.

I normally use rice that has been left over from the previous day to make preparations like tomato rice, tamarind rice, ghee rice, etc. In the case of lemon rice though, I have found that it tastes best when the rice used is fresh and steaming hot.

Strawberry Jam

Despite the fact that strawberries are available year round here and we buy them regularly, I really don't do much with them when I bring them home. Usually, they end up in some kind of a milkshake or smoothie, or I make some kind of a dessert using them.

In my previous post I'd mentioned that we'd gone strawberry picking. We came back home with more strawberries than I knew what to do with. We enjoyed some as is, then had some more with balsamic syrup (which by the way is the best way to enjoy strawberries, in my opinion), and then I made this.

By this point I was down to 2 cups of strawberries and was looking to make something that I'd never tried before. I decided that it was time to give jam-making a shot. While searching for recipes, I came across many simple ones for making jam before I finally discovered Zainab's recipe, which was by far, the easiest of them all. I also found Mandira's adaptation of the original version. And so, with the help of these two recipes, I set out to make my own jam for the first time ever last week.

Ingredients:
2 cups strawberries, hulled and quartered
3/4 cup brown sugar (adjust according to sweetness of berries)
3 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
¼ tsp powdered cloves
A pinch of salt

Method:
Place the quartered strawberries in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring often. Crush the larger pieces of fruit. Skim any foam that rises to the top if necessary.

As soon as it starts to boil, add the brown sugar, lemon juice, clove powder and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens (it took me about 30-35 minutes).

Allow the jam to cool to room temperature, spoon into a clean jar (2 cups of strawberries gave me just enough jam to fill the small jar you see in the picture above) wipe the rim with a clean cloth or paper towel, and seal with lid. Store in the refrigerator. It will keep for at least a week.

Sterilizing the jars is required for long-term storage; I did not do it since I did not expect the jam to last more than a week. To preserve the jam longer, sterilize, pack and seal in canning jars according to the manufacturer's instructions. You can find some guidelines here if you are interested.

Nothing beats the feeling of making your own jam. And because I’d made my own jam, H and I had a breakfast of bread, butter and homemade jam for dinner that night!
Making jam was so incredibly easy that I'm wondering why I hadn't tried it before.

This goes to the Happy Cook for her event, Strawberry Feast.

Strawberry Crisp

H and I went strawberry picking over the weekend at one of the pick-your-own farms in our area, and returned home with nearly 3 quarts of sweet, red and juicy strawberries. Once back home, I set about cleaning the strawberries and gathering the ingredients required to make a crisp, a baked fruit dessert with a sweet, crunchy topping- one of the easiest ways to enjoy fresh fruit.



I adapted a recipe I came across on Kristin’s The Kitchen Sink Recipes.

(For 4-5 servings)
Ingredients:
4 cups/1 quart strawberries, hulled and quartered
¼ cup sugar (adjust according to sweetness of strawberries)
Juice of a lemon
3 Tbsp cornstarch
A pinch of salt

For the topping:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup rolled oats
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ -3/4 tsp cinnamon
5 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted (plus more for greasing the baking dish)
A pinch of salt

Method:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter one 8x8-inch baking dish and set aside.

In a bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, oats, chopped walnuts, and cinnamon. Add the melted butter and mix well (I used my hands here) until the mixture begins to hold together.

Place strawberries in a bowl; add sugar, lemon juice, and cornstarch (I used some Brown and Polson custard powder I had since I did not have any cornstarch) and toss well to combine. Place in the buttered baking dish and sprinkle the topping over the surface evenly. (I had about 3-4 Tbsp of topping remaining after using it for this crisp so I refrigerated the rest.)

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the fruit juices are bubbling around the edges of the dish.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

I'm sending this across to the Happy Cook for her event, Strawberry Feast.

Cheese Crackers

A stack of crackers

I’ve been wanting to try my hand at crackers for a while now and I finally got around to making some yesterday. I had some Gouda cheese left over from a recipe that I’d tried a few days back. I decided to make some cheese crackers. All I needed was a good recipe. As always, I turned to the Internet for help and was inspired by what I saw in a couple of places.

Ingredients:
(For 20 small and 10 medium crackers)
2 tightly packed cups of freshly grated Gouda cheese (I used this)
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp unsalted butter (cold), cut up into small pieces
Salt
Pepper
Approximately 3 Tbsp cold buttermilk

Method:
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with foil. (I started out using parchment paper for baking the crackers, but halfway through the process, it started to smell like something was starting to burn inside the oven, so I replaced the parchment paper with aluminium foil. I don’t know if the parchment paper that I used was of poor quality.)

Put flour, salt, pepper, shredded cheese and butter in bowl of a food processor. Pulse until flour, butter, and cheese are combined. Add buttermilk and continue to pulse, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Keep adding buttermilk, 1 teaspoon at a time, until the mixture comes together to form a dough.

Divide the dough into as many balls as you want to make crackers (many small ones or a few bigger ones), place on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake till golden brown.

I was making the crackers in 2 batches, so I divided the dough into 2 portions: I used one portion to make small crackers (I got 20 crackers from this) and the other to make bigger, slightly chewier ones (the yield here was 10 crackers).

For the first batch, I rolled out the dough between sheets of parchment paper and then poked the surface several times with a fork. I then used a drinking glass with a small diameter (since I do not have cookie cutters) to make about two dozen small discs.
For the second batch of crackers, I made small 1-inch balls of the dough, placed them on parchment paper, and then flattened the balls with my hand (you could use the bottom of a drinking glass instead to get uniform thickness). I then pricked each circle several times with a fork.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 12-20 minutes (depending on size and thickness of cracker) until very lightly browned around the edges. Remove to a wire rack and cool.



Cheese crackers for My Favorite Things: Cheese.

Strawberry and Apricot Shake

Blend together strawberries, a handful of apricots, honey, milk, yogurt, and a splash of vanilla extract for flavor. Chill. Serve.

I'm sending this across to the Happy Cook for her event, Strawberry Feast.

Eggplant Caponata Bruschetta

I made a caponata of sorts a few weeks back using the small purple brinjals (Indian eggplants) that I’d purchased from the store.

Caponata is a Sicilian dish made from eggplants, tomatoes, olives, celery and capers, cooked in olive oil and flavored with vinegar and sugar. It is basically a sweet and sour cooked vegetable stew that is traditionally served as an appetizer with crackers or is accompanied by fresh crusty Italian bread.

Having made these bruschettas just the day before, I had Italian bread and mozzarella cheese left over. I decided to go for eggplant caponata bruschettas this time. I just toasted a few slices of the Italian bread and topped it with some mozzarella cheese and the caponata mixture.
Here are my ingredients for this recipe, listed in the order in which they’ve been used.

For the caponata:
(Adapted from Giada DiLaurentiis’ recipe)
Ingredients:
2 –3 Tbsp olive oil
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp red pepper flakes
½ large onion, sliced
5-7 yellow peppers, chopped (I used Vlasic pepper rings along with a little bit of the liquid that the peppers came in)
5-6 small Indian brinjals or 1 large eggplant, cubed
1 tsp oregano
Salt
Pepper
2 tsp sugar
¼ cup + 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

Method:
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, sliced onions and sauté. Add the chopped pepper rings followed by the eggplant cubes and cook until they soften. Add oregano and season with salt and pepper. Add the vinegar and sugar. Mix well. Simmer over medium-low heat until the flavors blend and the mixture thickens, stirring often.

For the bruschetta:
Ingredients:
A loaf of Italian bread, sliced 1-inch thick
Fresh mozzarella, sliced ¼ inch thick
1 garlic clove
Salt

Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
On a baking sheet lined with foil, line up the bread slices. Toast in oven for about 5 minutes or until light golden brown. Working quickly, rub the garlic clove on each slice and then place a piece of mozzarella cheese on top. Sprinkle a little salt on each slice. Place bread back in oven and melt cheese slightly. Remove from oven and spread one tablespoon of eggplant caponata on each piece. Serve warm.