When my children were growing up, I frequently made chaklis and other deep fried dishes. After they moved out to go to college, I hardly made any deep fried dishes. Sometimes we buy ready made munchies to eat with evening tea. At Kumta, we get chaklies of many different varieties. One of our favorite is Spinach chakli. When we were visiting Shilpa and her family in March, we thought of trying to make these at home. They came out so well and tasty. I made a big batch of chaklis before leaving for India.
Ingredients: 4 cups (approx) or 1/2 lb baby spinach 2 tbl spns urad dal 4 cups rice flour 1 tea spn white sesame seeds 2 tbl spn (approx) water 6 tbl spn butter 1 tea spn cumin seeds Oil Salt
Method: Roast urad dal till it is brownish. Make a smooth powder. Grind spinach with minimum amount of water(approx 2 tbl spns) to a smooth paste. Now mix the paste with all other ingredients(except oil) to a dough. Make chaklis using the chakli press. Deep fry chaklis. Store in a air tight container.
PS: First time we tried, we used more butter. Everyone loved the texture and taste but they were breaking very easily. Next time we tried, we used less butter and they were harder but still very good. So use between 1/4 cup(4 tbl spn) to 1/2 cup(8tbl spn) butter based on your liking.
My 4 year old is having his summer holidays. That means continuously trying to find something to keep him busy. Sometimes when I run out of things to do, he gets some TV time. Few days back when he was watching Daniel Tiger , where the tiger makes a banana bread. So the child wanted banana bread. I waited for few days till I had some over-ripe bananas which are hard to eat. So I baked this for him.
Now, I am not sure why this is called Banana bread. When I read wiki , banana bread had the same characteristics as a cake, only thing was it was baked in a bread loaf pan. Anyway, I decided to use both names here.
From many days, I wanted to bake something that uses honey instead of sugar. Also, to make it a little healthy, I thought of using all wheat flour (I used chapati atta). It was not overly sweet, but was absolutely delicious.
Ingredients: 1 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup honey 1/4 cup oil 2 big cup over-ripe mashed banana (1 cup after mashing) 1 tea spn vanilla extract 1 tea spn baking soda 1/4 cup sliced almonds 1 tea spn butter and little flour for greasing the pan
Method: Preheat the oven at 350F for 10mins. Grease a bread loaf pan with butter, sprinkle and spread flour. Keep aside. Sieve together flour and soda. Mash the bananas and add honey, milk, oil, vanilla extract. Beat well till everything is mixed. Now add flour a little by little mixing all the time. The batter is very runny, but it will bake beautifully. Spread half the almonds in the bottom of the prepared pan. Now pour the batter, spread remaining almonds on top. Bake in the preheated over at 350F for about 30-40 mins till a knife/toothepick inserted comes out clean. Remove from the pan once it cools down a bit. Tastes great warm or cold.
Makes about 8 pieces Preparation time : 50mins
