One of the biggest jobs I have after any big festivals is to finish all the fruits, vegetables, coconuts before they go bad. We bought a big batch of coconuts and fruits for the Ganapathi festival this year. While I am still working on coconuts, bananas needed immediate attention. V kept reminding me to make something with them, since they were a little bit overripe and no one likes over ripe bananas.
The first thing that came to my mind was making eggless carrot almond muffins . They were one of the best muffins I ever baked. But then I wanted to make something chocolaty. So I modified them to make these super delicious cupcakes – they were little bit dense compared to any cakes with eggs, but still delicious. Ishaan loved eating the icing while I was making it :).
Ingredients: 1 and 1/2 cups ripe bananas 1 cup all purpose flour 1 cup sugar 1 cup almond flour/meal 1 tea spn baking powder 1 tea spn vanilla extract 1/2 cup oil 1/4 cup cocoa powder
Method: Preheat the oven at 350F for 10mins. Take bananas and oil in a bowl and mix them till both are well mixed. Add sugar and mix well. Now add baking powder, vanilla and mix. Add flour, cocoa powder and almond meal, a little at a time mixing all the time. Line the muffin tin with muffin cups. Fill the batter to 3/4th of the cup. Bake at 350F for about 20mins or till done.
PS: you can make almond meal at home. Blanch some almonds and peel them. Spread on a clean cloth to dry. Then powder them. when I make it at home, I like to leave the skin on. I just powder the whole almonds. This time I used store bought almond meal.
Chocolate Icing: 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate morsels 2 tbl spns butter 2 tbl spns confectioners sugar 1 tea spn vanilla extract
Method: Take chocolate morsels and butter in a microwave safe dish microwave them for 1 min. Then add sugar and vanilla extract. Mix very well till everything is mixed. Cool the cupcakes to room temperature and frost them with chocolate icing.
Makes about 14 medium sized cupcakes Preparation time : 40mins
Method:
It looks like ages ago when I was working for a IT company in Bangalore!. Anyone who has ever worked in IT industry knows how busy and stressful life can get. During those days, my friends and I loved to take long lunch break together. I looked forward to this time as most of my friends were great cooks. We loved talking about food, exchanged recipes. This is one such recipe I got from my friend Sandhya. She even wrote it down on a piece of paper for me. I have prepared this so many times since then.
Fried onions give a sweetish taste to this chicken. The dish gets done so fast, only time consuming part being marinating the chicken. I usually cut and fry onions when chicken is marinating. I use tender breast pieces, so that only 10-15 mins marination is enough. I love that this dish does not have too many ingredients and tastes amazing.
Ingredients: 1 lb (0.45 kg approx) chicken cut into strips 2 cups chopped onion A pinch turmeric 5 green chillies 7-8 strands (along with thick stems) coriander leaves 2 tea spn chopped ginger 2 tea spn chopped garlic 1 tbl spn soy sauce Oil/ghee Salt
Method: Make a paste on green chillies, garlic, ginger, coriander leaves. Apply to chicken and leave aside. If you are using tender chicken breasts, 10-15mins marination in enough. Otherwise leave it aside for atleast 30mins. Heat ghee or oil and fry onions till they are brownish. To help the onions cook down faster, add a little salt. Add the chicken, turmeric, salt and let it cook. When chicken is half done, add soy sauce, mix well. Let the chicken cook completely. Serve hot as a side dish with chapatis or as a starter. Goes well with curd rice too.
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 15mins (plus marination time)
Pictorial:
