Spiced Apple and Cinnamon Oats Muffins.....blogpost after a long gap!!

Hi Everyone!!

I am sorry that I have been Missing in Action for quite some time now. I am guilty of not feeding my blog since the last two months. 

Actually me and my husband decided to take the big plunge... No, we are not getting married again.... We decided to move to The United States ....lock, stock and Barrel.

When my husband was offered a new project in Houston, it was a real difficult decision to make for us...it was so hard to make up our minds as we were leaving a lot behind. It's not easy to uproot yourself totally, throw away everything that you have lovingly built and collected over the last 20 years, move away from the only life you knew, leave behind your loved ones and family and move to a totally alien country, where you arrived with just two suitcases in hand and literally start everything from scratch. We just didn't know what to expect. Back in India, we had a plush comfortable life, everybody's routine was set and we thought we had reached a stage of life where you had seen everything, done everything, achieved enough to make you satisfied and content.

Then this gauntlet of a new project was thrown at us. Perplexing as it might have been, we thought to ourselves, "Why not? Let's take this offer as a new adventure, what better opportunity will we ever have in our life to give our kids some international exposure, a chance at a new life!! This opportunity was given to us in a platter so let's grab it with both our hands!! 

And secretly, I too have always nurtured a dream,  hoping someday to be able to do a baking course from the prestigious CIA (culinary Institute of America), though it might seem really really far fetched right now but I do feel a step closer to it. 

To cut the story short, we landed in Houston a month and a half back with literally nothing but just two suitcases each. I won't say things were easy at the start. It was challenging right from renting a house to buying a car and then collecting things for the house especially as all you are doing in the beginning is converting from dollars to rupees and gasping at how expensive everything seemed. Especially when you knew that those very things you were buying, you had literally thrown away/given away at the price of peanuts. 

You can imagine throwing away 20 years worth of life back home and building your house brick by brick all over again. Things that we had taken for granted back home, which didn't hold value to you out there, suddenly held a lot more value in your eyes (like my maids!! How I miss them here and the subji wallah who used to drop the vegetables home and the society grocery shop...everything was so easily available and just a phone call away). It's been a big adjustment for all of us but in a nice kind of way. In a month and a half we have settled down comfortably and enjoying the American way of life. There are many anecdotes about my transition from India to U.S which I would love to share with you and believe me there is so much to share, but I think I will be documenting my new adventures in a separate blog.

The absolute worst thing that could have happened to me was that my laptop died on me...it is just refusing to respond. Initially I thought it must be the battery problem but even after replacing the battery, it is still unresponsive. It's absolutely horrifying as with everyone else so busy, hubby with his new job and kiddo with his school, keeping busy with my food blog was what I had backed on, looked forward to, so you can imagine how heart wrecking it is for me not to be able to post anything on my blog. 

But then I thought enough is enough. For how long do I sit idle waiting for the laptop to get repaired/replaced. I had to do something about it. I have decided to experiment a bit and write my posts on my iPad and copy-paste, download the pic from google web album. I know I won't be able to post too many pictures as I plan to post two pictures and copy paste my written post in between, that way ican have a picture in the top and another at the bottom. Don't be too alarmed if the posts are a little blotchy, there might be a few errors as I have to copy paste the post in entirely one go. Somehow 'Blogger' on my iPad only allows me to edit my posts in the beginning and end of the post. I just don't know how to get to the middle portion if I have to edit. If anyone has successfully used 'Blogger' on their iPad for posting on their blog, please guide me how to go about it. Inspite all efforts I am totally clueless.

So here goes, fingers crossed, my first experimental post on my blog from my iPad after a long absence. Wish me all the best!!

I made a batch of these spiced apple cinnamon muffins with oats for my sweet 84 year old neighbour. It's incredible how he manages the complete household himself - the cooking, washing, cleaning in addition to the shopping and looking after his wife who has completely lost her eyesight. Hats off to him!! And with all this too, a more cheerful soul I have yet to meet. Full of life he always greets you with a smile whenever he sees you outside. Thinking it would be a good way to get to know my neighbours better, last week, I went across to his house with a batch of these muffins. He called back later to say how much he enjoyed them. I hope you too enjoy them.

They are so so scrumptious, full of the warm spicy flavour of cinnamon and delicious crisp apple bits, it's hard to keep your hands off them, honestly!!

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour (+ 2 teaspoons for coating apples)

Oats- 1/2 cup (I used 1 pkt of Quakers cinnamon and spice flavoured oats but you can add plain oats too)

1½ teaspoons baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (+ ½ teaspoon for coating apples)

2 cups diced apples

1/4 cup oil

2 tsp honey

1 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

½ cup milk

For the Topping:

½ cup butter, melted

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup ground cinnamon

Method

Preheat oven to 375º F. Spray muffin tins with bakers spray or coat well with shortening or butter and flour, making sure to discard any excess flour from the tins after coating.

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Toss together diced apples and 2 teaspoons of flour to coat apples in a separate bowl. Set aside.

Beat sugar and eggs till creamy and light in colour, about 4-5 minutes.

Gently fold in the sifted flour and oats. Mix in the vanilla essence, oil and milk.

Fold in apples.

Stir until just combined. Fold in diced apples and scoop mixture into prepared muffin tins, filling about ⅔ to ¾ full. Bake until a toothpick or skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

Prepare topping for muffins while the muffins are baking by melting the butter and allowing to cool slightly. Pour butter into a separate bowl sized easy for dipping tops of muffins. Mix together granulated sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl and set aside.

Once muffins have baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly in the muffin tin. Then, remove each muffin and dip first into the melted butter and then into the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place onto a plate to finish cooling.

                          

Healthy Snacking With Smart Eats and.....Strawberry and Lemon Chai Muffins

Trying to select healthy snacks for my growing teens, which would also in turn meet the approval of their taste buds, has been a challenge for me for quite some time. When hunger strikes, mostly during the 'in-between' meal times, their favorite choice is to reach out for a piece of cake or some savory snack,  which obviously, as a mother does not leave me too thrilled. 

A few days back, a post on facebook caught my attention, where Sangeeta Khanna, a blogger friend had a few sample boxes of Smarteats up for review. Sangeeta also happens to be the advisory nutritionist for Smarteats and has developed quite a few snacks for them. Sangeeta has a research background in microbial biotechnology and is a nutrition consultant and trainer who develops nutritious recipes and also works on personalized diet plans for people with specific health conditions. You can read up more about her healthy recipes on her blog Healthfood desivideshi. Knowing she was on their nutrition team, further assured me that whatever will be delivered at my doorsteps would be 100% genuine and healthy as professed. 

I further explored their website and was happy to read that according to them the "snacks had no artificial flavor/fragrance or coloring, no preservatives, no transfat, low added sugar, and balanced calories". Perfect!! Exactly what I was looking for.

The box arrived with a sampler of five snacks which were neatly packed, some of them in reusable vaccum sealed packets. Apart from its neat packaging what I really liked was that behind each packet the nutritional information of each snack was printed. This is a big help for those who are watching their calories.

As the snacks were meant to encourage healthy snacking in my kids, I asked them to taste the snacks and share their opinions on what they thought about each one of them. 

The first packet we opened was the Fruity Granola Bar which came in a packed 100 gms packet. The Granola bar had a combination of various dried fruits like apples, peaches and grapes as part of its ingredients. It also consisted of oats, almonds and coconut powder to lend it a powerful punch of vitamins and minerals. 

While my daughter wasn't very happy as she found a strong coconutty after taste and my son found it so-so and graded it 3 out of 5, but this snack really worked for me. I loved the soft and chewy texture and found the crunchy bites of the mixed fruits really filling and satisfying. I think it makes a great munch snack to keep those in between hunger pangs at bay.

The second snack we tasted were the Parsely Pepper Crackers. Made mainly with wholewheat, parsely and pepper this was my daughters favorite  While my son wasn't too keen on them, I found the taste good but a bit on the drier side - maybe that is because of the wholewheat. I think they would make a great healthy snack served with a nice cottage cheese or a yogurt dip.

Next on list was the whole wheat Walnut Brownie Biscotti. Soft and crumbly it was delicious with the perfect combination of chocolates and walnuts to satisfy your chocolate cravings. I found it perfect to have with your tea, coffee or with a cup of milk.

 Undoubtedly, it got a big thumbs up from all of us. 

The Tangy Sweet Roasted Mixture was roasted and a healthy mix of chana(gram),  peas and sugar coated puffed rice. We all liked it except for the fact that it had a slight sweet taste to it. I prefer my mixtures to be a little spicy and chatpata but for those of you who don't mind a little tango of sweet and salt, go for it.

Saved the best for the last - Very berry Strawberry.  These were dried pieces of candied fruits bursting with tangy strawberry flavor. We all loved it, especially my son who just could not stop popping them one after another. 

After tasting them, I immediately thought of baking strawberry muffins with them (recipe down below). Searching their site, I was happy to find more candied fruit in exciting flavors like peach, pineapple, plums, apricots,mango, orange grapes and amla. Christmas just around the corner, these would be just perfect to add to your cakes and desserts. 

A big thumbs up again from all us.

On the whole the snacks were hugely satisfying and would make a great option for a quick healthy snack and that too delivered right at your doorstep. The great thing is that not only is there is a vast selection to choose from but you can also give them special instruction as per your requirements. Now that you have seen how healthy can be tasty too, go ahead and order yourself a box full of healthy goodness.
For further information you can read the Smarteats website.

Munching on the yummy dried strawberries, I decided to try making muffins with them. To balance the sweet flavor of the strawberries, I thought of adding some reduced lemon tea to the mixture. Pardon my adding the butter, (I am usually good and bake my cakes with canola oil) which deviates from my above post of healthy snacking but it was just a temptation I could not resist. The end result were soft, moist, buttery-flavored, delicious muffins with little bites of chewy strawberries. They were so so good - maybe the best I have tried out so far!!

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
150 gms flour
2 tsp baking powder
100 gms sugar
1/4 cup reduced lemon flavored tea 
100 gms butter
3 eggs
100 gms dried strawberries, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp lemon juice

.

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

For the Lemon chai- boil half a cup of water, put in one lemon flavored teabag and reduce till the water in the pan is halved. Keep aside.

Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla essence with an electric mixture for  7-8 minutes until well combined.
Slowly beat in the eggs one at a time
Sieve together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Add the dry ingredients slowly to the creamed mixture along with the reduced lemon tea mixture and lemon juice.
Fold in the chopped strawberries.
Spoon the muffin mixtures into prepared muffin tins, filling each to just over the half way mark.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20 - 25 minutes or until well risen and golden brown.
Cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pans.

Chicken Ham and Peppy Tomato Oats Muffins and a meet-up with Chef Vikas Khanna

“All the effort in the world won't matter if you're not inspired.” 

                                                                 ― Chuck Palahniuk

Good food, amazing conversation and great inspiration!! 

Every time I go for a bloggers meet, I come back enriched with so much more. Apart from having a fantastic time, these meets also provide a great learning experience, which I rate beyond comparison. It is wonderful to meet up with like minded bloggers from all walks of life, who are so committed and share the same interests as yours. Exchanging ideas and experiences with them helps hugely in providing you with the inspiration to push yourself to try your limits and to constantly better yourself, helping one to grow as a blogger and most importantly as a person.

Because of these very reasons, I was really excited when last week, I received an invite to attend an event organised by ‘Saffola Masala Oats’ at Blue frog, Mehrauli. The invite, which was couriered to each one of us personally, came as a surprise, in the shape of a cute little yellow box with a tinda, brinjal and karela nestled inside the box, with a catch line emphasizing the theme of the event, “ Health ya taste which side do you sway most of the time?”  The chief attraction, of course was meeting  the Michelin star Indian Chef Vikas Khanna who would also be cooking for us to demonstrate  how healthy can be tasty too.

photo courtesy Sangeeta Khanna

The event started with Chef Vikas Khanna showing us a demo of how a boring vegetable like tinda can be turned into something exotic and tasty. His method of stuffing the tindas and later poaching it, certainly grabbed my attention and the thought which immediately ran across my mind was, “Wow!! what a great way to feed tindas to my kids and hubby!!” Talking of tindas,  there’s another story, which goes back 18 years, apparently which is the main reason why my husband detests tindas so much. As the story goes, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I had strong cravings (which is not unusual in pregnant women) for having tindas and only tindas and  according to him we had ‘ tinda subji’ day in and day out!!  (though I personally feel, there is a bit of exaggeration here and he is just using this as a cover-up for his childhood dislike of tindas).  And the onslaught was so much for his senses that the poor guy totally swore off tindas, unless of course compelled under dire circumstances!!  So here, seeing chef Vikas cook tindas in such an interesting way, inspired me totally, making me see a ray of hope to convert and win over the ‘tinda haters’ in my house.

Later on, he also showed how to make a simple crostini with bell peppers and peppy tomato oats  topping. We did not get to taste any of the dishes made by the chef but by the ‘oohs’ and the ‘aahs’ in the crowd, definitely indicated they were a great hit and appealed to the health conscious amongst us. The event was also dotted with various competitions where the bloggers got to show their talent by cooking innovative dishes with the boring baingan and the much under-rated oats.

 The participants in the contest came up with some really innovative  ideas and  made upma with oats, croquets and even an oats pizza base.  The winners got to take home wonderful prizes like the kindle (jealous!) and all participants got a personally autographed wooden chopping board by chef Vikas khanna (even more jealous!).

And of course, we too did not come home empty handed. All the attendees got a huge basket, full of Saffola masala oats and the Vikas Khannas recipe book ‘Khanna-Sutra’.

It was an afternoon filled with fun, laughter and of course great food. The highlight of the event was of course meeting with chef Vikas Khanna. Right from the start of the show to the end, he was the true star of the show, winning us all over with his smiling countenance, twinkling eyes and a down to earth attitude. Despite of being such a famous personality, one found him so grounded and still so deeply connected to his roots. It was touching to hear him talk fondly about his childhood days in Amristrar, where he grew up in a large family and his grandmothers traditional home cooking, which was inspirational in his becoming a chef. One thing that he talked about struck a chord with me is that how one doesn’t need cookery books to cook, but the recipes should come from one’s heart!! So true!! I couldn’t agree with him more. It was nice to see how he made it a point to connect with each and every blogger in the audience personally, young and old alike, not once getting ruffled, by the constant request for autographs and pictures with him.  His comic one liners in his desi-amristari lingo kept us in splits throughout the event keeping the ambience light and captivating our attention throughout the show.

I feel lucky to get this great opportunity to have met a such a wonderful human being and a humble  personality like him. 

Thanks Saffola Masala Oats  for such a well organised event. I really enjoyed it and look forward to many more such events.

Back home totally inspired after meeting with the chef and armed with a basketful (literally) of masala oats, I too decided to put on my thinking cap and came up with these “Chicken Ham and Peppy Tomato Oats Muffins” using one of the many flavors of masala oats in the basket gifted to us. I must say they turned out pretty delicious. They were light with a slight hint of tomato flavour. The chicken ham, though was a bit of a disappointment as it was slightly bland. Maybe next time, I will go in for bacon for a little stronger flavor. 

Here's the recipe for you to try:-

Chicken Ham and  Peppy Tomato Oats  Muffins

Ingredients

100 gms chicken ham, finely chopped

1 small packet Saffola peppy tomato oats (40 gms)

2 eggs

¼ cup mozzarella cheese, grated

150 gms flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 cup milk

100 gms margarine melted

2 tsp Keya’s garlic bread seasoning

Method
Preheat oven to 180 C.

Sift the flour with the baking powder in a large bowl.

Add tomato flavored oats, cheese and stir to combine.

Make a well in the center.

Combine milk, egg, melted margarine and pour the mixture in the center of the flour.

Using a large metal spoon, stir until just combined, careful not to over mix.

Spoon mixture into muffin pan until ¾ full.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the skewers inserted in the center comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the pan for a minute.

Serve warm.

Cheese and Sausage Muffin

                              
Tired of making sweet muffins?? Try making these savory Cheese and Sausage Muffins which are really easy to make and the ingredients are totally flexible. 
But this is not what I had originally set out to make!! With 2 packets of mushrooms lying in the fridge, I  was desperately thinking of ways where I could use them to make something different, as I was quite bored of using them (and the kids of eating them) in the same old way added to the baked vegetables, stir fried veggies, curries, pastas and soups. Searching the net, I came across this interesting recipe of  Mushroom and Bacon muffin which not only looked quite easy but seemed promising too. My excitement ( happens whenever I am trying out a new recipe)  was quickly turned to disappointment on finding out that I had run out of bacon. Not feeling enthusiastic enough to go trekking to the market in the heat just to get bacon, I decided to substitute the bacon for sausages that I could see lying in the freezer. Of course, its totally another story that after putting away the batch of muffins in the oven to bake, I realized I had forgotten to put in the very ingredient, which was the reason for my making this recipe in the first place. Yes, you guessed it right!! Silly me, I forgot to add the mushroom to my muffins (I had kept them aside to add in the very end).
Nevertheless, the muffins were  delicious - light, full of flavor and served with the mushroom pasta (Stupidly, I forgot to add the mushrooms in the muffins and they finally ended up in the pasta), they disappeared in no time. Make sure that you make a couple extra - you can have them for breakfast and also they make a healthy snack for your child's lunchboxes. 
.                           
Ingredients
2 eggs
2 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

2/3 cup milk

200 gms sausages, cut into small pieces

2 tsp chives

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2  tsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese (I used Amul Cheese)

80 gms butter melted

50 gms grated mozzarella cheese for the topping

Method

Preheat oven to 200C and lightly grease a muffin tray.

In a large bowl combine the flour, salt, sugar, pepper, baking powder, garlic powder, chives, cheese, and chopped sausages.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs for 2-3 minutes. Add in the milk and the melted butter.
Add this mixture to the sausage mixture till just combined.
Spoon batter into prepared muffin tray filling them two-thirds full.
Top with chopped sausages and grated mozzarella cheese.
Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes till cooked through and golden brown or until a toothpick inserted into the muffin comes out clean.
Cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Once cool, loosen the edges and turn out the muffins.
Serve warm.