Happy NewYear

Wishing family, friends and fellow bloggers A Very Happy NewYear!

నూతన సంవత్సర శుభాకాంక్షలు

Panettone Trifle

• If you watch Food Network regularly, then you might have heard about Panettone. All the Italian chefs in that channel rave about this bread from time to time. According to them this bread is very popular during Christmas and involves lot of labor in making. Panettone can be eaten just like that or can be used in bread pudding, French toast and in trifle to name some.

• I heard its an expensive bread, so never even bothered or tempted to buy it. But recently in our local Walgreen’s i happend to see some tiny mini panettones selling for a buck! I was like, let me just buy and taste this so much talked about bread. The one i bought had candid fruit and raisins in it.When tasted,I felt there was nothing different or anything special about this bread.It had the sweetness of a muffin, but more dense and firm bread.This is just my opinion!

• Recently i saw Giada making a trifle out of it. She used mascarpone cheese and coffee liqueur in her trifle. I replaced those with whipping cream and coffee.

Recipe:

(for two)

Mini Panettone ( cut to small cubes)

Bittersweet/ semi sweet chocolate chips- 1/4th cup

Powderes sugar- 1 tsp

Whipping cream- about 1 cup

Black coffee- 10 tsps

chocolate shavings for garnish

• Take chocolate chips in a microwaveable bowl and cook for 30 seconds. Remove mix it with a spatula. Then add the sugar and two teaspoons of coffee and mix. Then slowly fold in the whipping cream.Taste the mixture, if you feel its very chocolaty then add more whipping cream. Same with the sugar, you can add if you want more. For me, since i used semi sweet chocolate chips even 1 tsp of sugar was little too sweet.

• Now take two glasses put few panettone pieces in the bottom, add two tsps of coffee on panettone (make sure you drizzle the coffee on most of the pieces). Now add little bit of chocolate mixture , then cover with whipping cream. Now repeat another layer with panettone, coffee, then chocolate mixture. Now cover the glasses with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator. Let stand overnight.
• An hour before you serve, leave it on the counter top. It helps the panettone to come to room temperature. If not panettone and chocolate mixture will be thick and hard in texture.

• Right before serving, top it of with a dollop of whipping cream and some chocolate shavings.

(For chocolate shavings: Take a vegetable peeler and peel the chocolate like you would peel a carrot)

• I really loved the trifle, it was a very good treat for a chocolate lover like me. To my surprise Ven who is not a chocolate lover, also loved it! Its a keeper.But next time i may just do the trifle with my trusted companion pound cake!

Panettone Trifle is my entry to JFI Chocolate hosted by lovely Deepz

Recipe adapted from Giada of Everyday Italian.

• Note: Its important that the trifle sits for few hours before serving. If not the ingredients wouldn’t mingle and the taste wouldn’t be the same!

Panettone - Italian Bread

Panettone

 

A slice of panettone with a cup of milk

Merry Christmas

                                     

Wishing Family, Friends and Fellow bloggers a Very Happy Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

Rava laddoo

For the past few weeks, the food blogs, magazines and not to mention the food channel is being showered with sweet aroma of baking. Its been a lot of fun to see very interesting and unique breads, cookies and cakes being baked. After moving to states, I have always loved this time of the year. People are so into shopping, cooking and having some quality time with their family.

So, with all this spirit i decided to make an healthier version of oat meal cookies. I found this recipe in the net which had no butter or oil in it. I was little skeptical, but anyway went a head with the recipe. The outcome turned out to be bad, because of no moisture the cookies burned and crumbled. Though they tasted good, I had to discard most of them as they burned.

I didnt want to give up, so started browsing again for an healthier version of the cookie. But i couldn’t find any. So, i thought let me lean on my fellow bloggers for some help. So, my dear readers, can you help me out with an healthier version of oatmeal cookie - with less:sugar, flour and butter. Thanks in advance!

To be on safe side, I decided to lean towards our own Indian sweets. An all time favourite of my husband: Rava Laddoo.

Recipe:

Rava (semolina)- 1 cup
Coconut -1/2 (grated)
Sugar - 1/2 to 3/4th cup (adjust acc to your taste)
Ghee- 1/4th cup or as desired
milk- few teaspoons
Cardamom- 3 (Powdered)
Few cashews and raisins

Procedure:

Using a mixer make fine powder of the sugar.

In a pan put some ghee and fry the rava till light brown and nice aroma comes. Keep it on the side.

In the same pan add few more teaspoons of ghee and fry the freshly grated coconut till it turns pale brown.

Remove the coconut, add a tea spoon of ghee and fry the cashews and raisins till golden brown.

Now mix the rava, coconut, powdered sugar, cardamom powder, ghee, bit of warm milk, cashews and raisins. Try forming a laddoo with your palms. If the mixture is dry, add some more milk. That will work.



NOTE: Sugar and ghee can be adjusted according to your taste. Taste the laddoo for sweetness before making balls. And add accordingly, using powdered sugar makes it easy to incorporate with rava easily.

Patties with leftover Pongal

One of the best breakfasts of a South Indian house hold is Pongal. It tastes best when eaten hot. But when it sits for few hours, pongal tends to become thick. I feel that leftover pongal can be really boring to eat at times.

My mom used the leftover pongal to make patties. We used to have the pongal patties as a snack after school.

Its a very simple recipe which takes hardly ten minutes to make.

Recipe:

About 2 cups of pongal
Rice flour- 3 tablespoons
Green chillies (chopped)- 3
Onion (chopped)- 1/2
few coriander leaves
Salt and pepper

In a plate take 2 tbsps of rice flour, little bit of salt and pepper. Mix and keep it on the side.

In a vessel mix the pongal with a tablespoon of rice flour, green chillies, onion, coriander and salt. Make medium size patties with it. It might be little sticky. Now dust both sides of the patties with the rice flour, salt and pepper mixture.

In a pan put few teaspoons of oil and fry the patties about 3 minutes on each side. It should have a nice crispy texture on the top. But it will be still soft inside.

Serve immediately with coriander chutney.



Note: While frying, you need to put a good amount of oil.