I am a big fan of cooking channels. I used to watch Food Network for hours before Ishaan was born. Then a time came when I didn’t have a single moment to sit infront of TV, so we decided to cancel cable. Then, around last year, I found out this amazing channel CreateTV . It has some of the best cooking and art shows, somethings I really love. The cooking shows are very simple and without any of the extra glamour/hype of Food Network. I watch it when I find any free time.
Few days back, I was watching the show Joanne Weir’s Cooking Confidence . She showed how to preserve lemons and then prepared hummus with it. It looked really interesting, but I wasn’t going to buy/make preserved lemons for this one dish – I may try that in future when I want to make something else with them. Instead of that, I thought it is a great way to use up some lemon pickle . I prepared a HUGE batch of this pickle last year and I want to use it soon to make some space in my pantry. I did not remember the exact hummus recipe, I prepare it with whatever I remembered. This has been a huge hit in my parties recently.
I serve it with either some crackers or vegetables like cucumber or carrots. Last time when a lot of it remained, I just mixed it with wheat flour to make hummus chapatis, yummm!.
Ingredients: 1 cup chickpeas 3-4 pieces lemon pickle 1/2 tea spn red chilli flakes (optional) 1 tbl spn tahini or 1 tbl spn white sesame seeds 1/2 tea spn cumin seeds 1-2 tbl spn lemon juice 1 tea spn chopped garlic Olive oil Capers (optional) Salt
Method: Soak chickpeas in water for 5-6 hrs or overnight. Cook them in pressure cooker. (You can just use canned chickpeas. Rinse them out well before using. I prefer soaking and cooking them at home). Roast sesame seeds and cumin seeds. Grind together chickpeas, sesame seeds (if using tahini, directly use it here), lemon pickle, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, chilli flakes, salt (be careful while using salt because lemon pickle already has a lot of salt). If needed, use olive oil while grinding. Take the paste in a bowl. Spread some olive oil and capers on top. Serve.
Preparation time : 25min (if cooking chickpeas at home).
Which child does not like M&Ms ( Gems )? I loved these as a kid and still love them – although, I cannot stand the ones with peanut butter!. Ishaan became a fan when both set of grandparents pampered him with Gems, he continued his love for these chocolaty goodness after coming back. My parents sent some more with my brother last week. He gets some after his swimming class these days.
I have been thinking about this cake for a long time. I thought kids would love it. I did not want the cake to be too chocolaty. So I chose a basic yellow cake recipe which my family loves. The cake became a huge hit. Since many of you who saw the cake on FB asked for the recipe, here it is.
I wanted to make a chocolaty filling/icing to cover the cake. A simple chocolate frosting would have done the job, but buttercream gives such a nice finishing. So I prepared the following chocolate buttercream, it was not as sweet as buttercream because of the amount of cocoa used.
Ingredients for chocolate buttercream : 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter 3 cups confectioner’s sugar 1 cup unsweetened cocoa 1 tea spn vanilla extract 1/2 cup (approx) milk
Method: Keep the butter at room temperature for few hours, so it becomes soft(not melted). Mix butter, sugar, cocoa, vanilla extract. Keep adding milk in small quantities until you get required consistency.
How to put all together Bake the cake . Cut it horizontally. Spread a thick layer of chocolate buttercream. Then spread some chocolate chips – just for some added crunch. Keep the other layer. Cover the cake with chocolate buttercream and decorate as needed. Spread the M&Ms on top.
