Baking Escapade #9: Date and Fig Ravioli

Tuesday was a day that S and I spent the way most of us love to spend time…..shopping…………..not just anywhere, but in my beloved gallis of general bazaar or king james street in Secunderabad…..its a veritable treasure trove and you can find just about anything you are looking for……..S is the proud owner of a brand new OTG and what better way to celebrate than to trudge half across town to buy baking supplies?? So off we went buying cake tins, muffin pans, icing guns, cookie cutters and everything else that took her fancy in the baking supplies shop…… the excitement is just so contagious ….. and the next day I found myself poring over my cookie book…..at the back of my mind I was looking for something that I could send in as my entry for AFAM, this month it is dates and I actually had no idea what to do…..the book on hand has 300 assorted cookie recipes…and as luck would have it…just one with dates….. Fig and Date Ravioli….i reversed the quantities of figs and dates as this is my entry to AFAM, this month calls for dates and is hosted by Chandrika of Akshayapatra…….I looked up the dictionary which describes Ravioli as a “small circular or square cases of dough with savory fillings” …. The recipe didn’t looked too scary and so last afternoon I set myself up in my kitchen….. those of you who have been reading my baking escapades know by now that the afternoons are my time of choice for baking…because if it ends in a flop show, I have enough of time to junk the evidence and fumigate the kitchen!!

The ravioli, called for short crust pastry which I had no idea what it was, so I decided to make the basic cookie dough with very little sugar as a substitute…..I need’nt have feared, today when I looked online, I discovered that short crust pastry was the same thing minus the sugar!! If sugar is added to the mixture it becomes a sweet crust pastry…..read more on this here….. The ravioli turned out beautifully, far above my expectations and I literally had to plead with K to leave some for the photograph….ofcourse he attempted to guilt trip me with the “you are always cooking for the blog these days” look….but I managed to get a few shots…I must add a disclaimer that they don’t do justice to either the way the ravioli looked or tasted…. It was a crisp biscuit case with a nice mildly sweet-nutty stuffing…..this will be added to my festive repertoire for sure…..

this too like the pinwheels is being sent off to Susan of the Food blogga who has this fabulous round up for christmas cookies. i’ve already made a few selections to make up for christmas….she’s updating the entries as she receives them, so be sure to check it out here.

 

 

P’s Chole

Every once in a while, you discover something that surprises you and makes you so happy that you walk around the whole day like a giddy drunk person, with a smile that refuses to go away plastered over the face……like a movie you were dying to watch a few years / months ago appears on TV on the day you are home alone with “absolutely nothing to do”, a call from someone who has been reading your blog…a real call that says nice things about you….the top you were screaming out of fits miraculously and you “haven’t done anything to lose weight”…..i could go on and on and am sure you’d mind…but you get the drift??

So forever I have tried to make chole and rajma and sometimes it turns out better than the last….. K doesn’t like any of the above mentioned….so I cant rely on his feedback either when I venture into this area….and then came diwali and P my neighbor / friend…actually more friend…neighbor is incidental….sent us a bowl of the “most awesome chole” she’d made for diwali…..K just walloped it and I was amazed…since this doesn’t happen very often and I was anyways on the lookout for “the recipe” I bugged her with my book in tow a few days later and as she wrestled to put her toddler to bed, I extracted the recipe out of her….. The usual “some onions, a little ginger garlic” was met with “how many onions?? Big, medium or small…… how much Ginger-garlic? Chopped or whole or paste” such are the ways of food bloggers…can’t help!!

I made the chole on Sunday with puris (yes I know I have been deep frying all the way to heavy hip hell) but some things in life are just meant to be…I don’t think I would be posting this so enthusiastically if I’d had the chole with say bread….it turned out great….and here I am with the recipe…..kind courtesy P. and the puris did puff up, but lost shall we say steam by the time i got down to taking the pictures!! the recipe is as narrated so may seem long drawn….once the masalas are on hand its actually very simple….and yes i did walk around the whole day like a giddy drunk person, with a smile that refuses to go away plastered over my face…

this goes to Anjali’s Chole Mela (thanks Srivalli for telling me) and to Easy crafts for the Powerless Cooking Event.

Of the festival of lights

Growing up in a cross cultural, dual religious family was confusing at best….. for my father, any festival meant it was a holiday, to be spent with his favourite book, with a rare afternoon nap thrown in and pesty visitors in the evenings he had no interest socializing with…..for amma who tried her best to interpret what a hindu festival had to be, diwali meant new clothes, crackers and some festive food sans the rituals and religious bits….ofcourse Christmas was a different ball game…she was on home turf….for us kids, we wondered if we were hindu or Christian, why we had new clothes and crackers, but no pooja’s and if we were doing some stuff for both festivals, it wasn’t like what the others were doing…we were’nt going the whole hog!!

Whew…..thank god for growing up, for logic, maturity and sense that sometimes only age brings you…..its been long decided that any day could be festive if I chose so, …that festive food is interesting and a great way to make jaws drop with the “don’t tell me you made this!!” look, diyas with urlis look sexy and that non noisy crackers could be fun and beautiful but also terrible for cough….last year we were in coimbatore, with K on work and me tagging along…so we went to my classmates home and were part of their festivities…the year before that K was working so late that we didn’t even get to eat dinner together, this year with all the chocolate making for other people’s diwali, I got sucked in to the festive spirit and one trip to shilparamam the crafts village in Hyderabad, made me fall in love with the urlis that had diyas…this meant that I would for sure light up on diwali day and two days later too just because they looked good…. Festivals or any day for that matter should be about having fun, anyway you chose to…

clockwise (l-r): Semiya payasam, ribbon pakodi, home made chocolates, namak pare, kaaju laddu

I cooked up a storm, with puri and aloo (didn’t have time to take a picture) and sweets and savouries …I made namak pare and ribbon pakodi, kaaju katli which was a big flop and I converted it to laddus…with K teasing me all the while…saying… “hmm kaaju halwa…nice.. I’ll get myself a bowl and a spoon to eat it” …. But Appa came to my defense….he said that kaaju, sugar and ghee would taste pretty awesome whatever the outcome…. He was right… and semiya paayasam….

this goes to JFS, Jhiva is the brainchild of Indira, this month hosted with the festive theme by the wonderful Vee of Past, present and me who graciously accepted the entry though i’d missed the date….. and the fabulously talented Meeta of What’s for Lunch Honey the hostess of Monthly Mingle, this time the theme being Traditional Feasts

so happy diwali everyone…i hope we all had a lovely and safe time….

life’s back to normal…and the jahangiri recipe as promised

Just as I desperately wanted the nightmare to end….it did…. Amma got better….i got the better of all the chocolate orders…. K missed me so much he’s imposed strict working hours so we can spend more time at home…… can a girl ask for anything more?? Just seeing amma back to her normal self sent my spirits (err…no not the liquid kind) soaring….. She’s back in Bangalore and regales me with tales of her granddaughter….what they’ve been up to and all the “tricks” she’s been showing her grand mother….. Especially how she can expertly hunt for chappals and put them into her mouth!! I sent a big batch of my handmade chocolates and my brother thought they were worthy of their own brand and told me that I needed to think seriously about doing something on a permanent basis…. I believe the latest fan of my chocolates is my 10 month old niece who has been walloping them with glee……..I sure like to see her in the act…possibly take some pictures and make her my poster girl??

So now that the pieces of my mind have reached a state of normalcy and hopefully peace of mind, I spent the first hour of the morning trawling all my favourite blogs and lapping up the stuff on show….i also finally get to post the recipe for jahangiri’s ……

This recipe is from amma’s close friends….. it is a sister duo living in Chennai…. A couple of the most interesting people one can come across in life…..they’re so full of joie de vivre… show the world how a full and interesting life is led …both in their 80’s they still pursue their intellectual callings…having achieved the highest success and recognition in their chosen fields, are busy with assignments…and are testimony to the adage “a healthy mind in a healthy body” ……… the fact that they have a jahangiri recipe is testament to what they extract from life!!