Rose Drink... and Germany Wins, Waka Waka eh eh!

What an exciting game it was...the german fans just went crazy. The sounds of victory were everywhere - horns blowing, people shouting, vuvuzelas blowing. Germany won 4:1 against England.


I cheered and shouted and shouted and cheered some more - the result is a bad throat...but what the heck, We Won!!!! Now, another big game is on next Saturday, Germany vs Argentina.

For the last few days, I have been continuously humming the official FIFA World Cup song. Its so catchy and peppy. I loved the video as well, especially the little girl in blue, towards the end of the video. She is simply the best in the whole video, so cute and innocent and her expressions are to die for :-) You can have a look here.




The meaning and the history behind the song "Waka Waka" can be found here.

On the food front, I made a very quick and easy drink. Its a favourite summer drink at my place. When I was a kid, I would often visit my native place Rajasthan during the summers. And Rajasthan Summers are really harsh, so to beat the heat, mom would make this quick drink, which we all loved. 

Ingredients

150 grams - rose petal spread (gulkand) for more details see here

1 litre - water

250 ml - sparkling water

sugar if required

Method

1. Mix well the gulkand and the water in a jar. Let it chill in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours. Mix the liquid once again and strain with the help of a sieve. 
2. Fill 3/4 th of the glass with gulkand water and then pour some sparkling water into the glass.
3. Serve immediately. 

Sparkling water is optional. The drink tastes good without the sparkling water as well. If you want a low sweet drink, add a half glass gulkand water and half glass sparkling water.

Serves  5 

Not only does this drink look good and taste good, it is also very healthy for the tummy during summer.

Enjoy!

Strawberry Ginger Crêpes

The Sun is shining, its pleasantly warm, the clouds are gone. Its finally summer. And Germany qualifies for the next round of the Football World Cup :-) Lovely!

As I promised in my last post, here is a strawberry recipe which makes a delicious dessert or an equally delicious breakfast. 

I love strawberries in any form and anything that contains strawberries as well. A couple of times a year we go picking fresh strawberries - and then we practically eat, drink and sleep strawberries. Well, if the weather remains so, we should do it in the next couple of weeks or so, and then I should have more strawberry recipes for you. 

The inspiration for this recipe comes from Soma's (of ecurry) Crêpe recipe here.

Ingredients

1/2 cup - all purpose flour

1/8 tsp - salt

1/4 tsp - sugar

1/8 tsp - dried ginger powder (saunth)

1 tbsp - sunflower oil

1 tbsp - low fat yogurt

2/3 milk - low fat milk

For the filling

7-8 pieces - strawberries, sliced

1 tsp - strawberry marmalade

1/4 tsp - lemon rind

1 tsp - crystallised ginger, chopped

1 1/2 tsp - sugar (more or less)

1/3 cup - water

To decorate

castor sugar to dust 

caramelised lemon slice ( add 1 tsp sugar in a pan and let it melt, add the lemon slices and cook on both sides for half a minute per side.) (optional)

Method

For the filling

1. Add all the ingredients of the filling (except strawberries) in a pan and cook for 3-4 minutes on a medium heat.
2. Add the sliced strawberries and cook for half a minute and remove from the heat.

For the Crêpes

1. Mix the flour, salt, ginger powder and sugar in a bowl and in an another bowl, mix together the yogurt, milk and oil.
2. Add the liquid mix to the flour mixture and beat well until the batter is smooth.
3. Cover the jar with a cling-film and place it in the refrigerator for half an hour.
4. Heat a pan and grease it slightly. Pour approx 2 1/2 tbsp of the batter and swirl until the pan is evenly coated with the batter.
5. Cook the crêpe on a medium heat until the bottom is slightly brown. Gently flip over and cook again for a minute.
6. Transfer the crêpe on the plate. Fold and top or stuff the crêpes with the filling.
7. Dust the castor sugar and serve immediately. 

Makes  3

These crêpes were absolutely devoured by us and disappeared in minutes. 

Sending this too Sizzling Summer Contest. 

Enjoy and have a lovely weekend!

Caramelised Cherry Rice

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Our weekend was, well, nothing special. The start to the weekend was bad - Germany lost in the World Cup to Serbia, which was quite a shocker and the weather here is equally bad, it's been raining forever now and seems that Sun is somewhere lost in those dark grey clouds. 10 Degrees in the middle of June is slightly (!) irregular.

To brighten up our mood and to bring some colour to the weekend, I decided to make this Caramelised Cherry Rice. Its a fruity take somewhere between on the very traditional Indian "kheer" and the German "Milchreis" with a few calories less. And, a good way to use leftover rice too :-)

The fruit stalls are currently overflowing with cherries and strawberries now. I love the bright colours and these are two of my very favourite fruits and I never get enough of them. A strawberry rich recipe follows soon...

Ingredients

1/3 cup - low fat milk

1 cup - boiled rice

3 tbsp - condensed milk, sweetened

1/4 tsp - cardamom powder

2 tbsp - brown sugar (to sprinkle)

sugar if required

For the Compote

1 cup - cherries, pitted 

1 tbsp - vanilla sugar (more or less)

Method

For the Compote

1. Place the cherries and the vanilla sugar in a pan and cook on a medium heat, stirring continously until the cherry softens. Let it cool.

For the rice

1. Place the rice, milk, condensed milk and cardamom powder in a pan and cook until the milk evaporates. Let it cool.
2. Add the cherries in a serving bowl/remekins/glass, add the rice and let it chill in the refrigerator for an hour.
3. Sprinkle the brown sugar on the top of the rice and spread evenly.
4. Using a torch, melt the sugar and form a crispy top and serve.
5. If you dont have a torch then place the ramekins in a preheated oven until the sugar  melts. 

Serves 2

Sending this to Sizzling Summer contest.

Enjoy!

Looking forward to the exciting game on wednesday (Germany vs Ghana) and keeping my fingers crossed :-)

Aufwiedersehen

Baby Peppers with Pesto Noodles.

The football fever is on full swing...with the World Cup starting, there was more action on the TV than in the kitchen - so nothing too elaborate happened on the cooking front. I am not an expert, nor do I play, but I really enjoy watching the game.

But a good football game without good food is unthinkable (actually, anything is unthinkable without good food!) - and since pasta is one of our fixtures for weekends, I tried this variation with a little more colour to it.

Ingredients

3 - baby peppers, washed, dried and cut into halves

1 tbsp - olive oil

1/4 tsp - dried italian herbs

1/4 tsp - black pepper powder

salt to taste

For the Filling

1/3 cup - mini noodles, boiled

1 tbsp - cashew and walnuts, roughly broken

2 1/2 tbsp - basil pesto

25 gram - feta cheese, crumbled

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree C. Place the baby peppers in a baking tray, sprinkle the oil, herbs, salt and pepper on it and place the tray in the preheated oven and bake until almost done (approx 25  minutes)
2. Mix the ingredients of the filling in a bowl and keep aside.
3. Remove the peppers from the oven, add the filling and return the baking tray back in the oven and bake for 5 minutes.
4. Serve hot. 

Enjoy!

Grilled Vegetables by him!

My contribution to this recipe is just the photography...the rest was taken care of  by my dear hubby.

Grilled Vegetables is one dish we have been having pretty often in times recent, especially on the weekends. Its simple, quick to make, very healthy and delicious too. Sometimes we gratin it with cheese, sometimes without and the choice of vegetables depend on what's seasonal, fresh and available in the pantry :-) 

This goes to His Cooking Event at Indian Khana. Thanks a lot for hosting such a fun event. I enjoyed it :-)

Ingredients

1 - carrot, scraped and chopped

1 - zucchini, chopped

1 - eggplant medium size, chopped

2 - potatoes, chopped

1 - tomato, chopped

2 - green chillies, finely chopped (more or less)

2 1/2 tbsp - ginger, finely chopped

1 - red pepper small, deseeded and chopped

1 - onion, chopped

1/4 cup - brocolli

4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

1 1/2 tsp - dried italian herbs (more or less)

1/8 tsp - citric acid

a generous sprinkling of olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

100 grams - cheddar cheese, grated

50 grams - parmesan cheese, grated

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degree C.
2. Mix together the cut vegetables, olive oil and the spices in a baking dish. Sprinkle the cheese on the top.
3. Place the baking tray in the center of the oven and bake for approx 20 minutes. Toss them a couple of times in between. 
4. Serve hot.

The colours are a treat for the eyes and add to the appeal of the dish...as the Germans say "Das Auge isst mit" - the eyes eat also, loosely translated :-) 

Together with organic whole wheat bread, the dish is a complete meal. 

Enjoy!

Chocolate Delight

Hope you all had a nice weekend. We had a great one, with perfect warm weather and some good food.

The dessert I made this weekend has a lot of fond memories attached to it...this was the first recipe I ever made or shall I say, my cooking experience started with this recipe.

My neighbour had passed on this recipe to me and I still remember that after making this dessert, I was jumping around with joy, and with pride in my eyes I served this to my family and cousins... it was like a big achievement for me :-)

All these sweet memories were refreshed when I made this dessert. I did change the recipe a bit, though, to match the development of my taste buds since then and also trying to avoid too many calories :-)

Ingredients

50 gram - dark chocolate (I used one with 80% cocoa solids), melted and slightly cooled

2 tbsp - honey (more or less)

2 tbsp - powdered milk

1 1/2 tbsp - hazelnuts, finely crushed

4 pieces - leibniz whole wheat biscuits ( or any other biscuits), roughly broken

2 handfuls of mini marshmallows

Method

1. Add honey, powdered milk, hazelnuts to the melted chocolate and mix well.
2. Add the biscuits and marshmallows to the chocolate mixture and mix lightly.
3. Spoon the mixture in the greased moulds/bowls and let it chill in the refrigerator for approx 2 hrs.
4. I served the set chocolate in paper cups to make them look more inviting :-)

Serves 2

Hope you like this chocolate delight as much as we did!

Enjoy!

Stuffed Sago Tikkis

The weather in our neck of the woods has been quite unimpressive for this time of the year. The temperatures have gone down, with lots of rain and no sunshine. But, the good news is, the weather forecast for the weekend is good, warm and sunny...so we are really looking forward to the weekend!

Today was a holiday here in Germany and, as I told you earlier about the weather, we preferred to stay at home. I have noticed that we eat a lot more during holidays as on normal days...Is it just us? or do you also indulge more on holidays?

Fritters go really well with the rainy weather, but certainly not with me :-) (Frying is a very rare phenomenon in my kitchen). I decided to make these stuffed sago tikkis (of course not fried) 

Ingredients

1/4 cup - sago (sabudana), soaked in 1 cup of water for 3-4 hrs

2 - potatoes, boiled and grated

1 - green chilli (more or less)

2 inch - ginger, grated

2 tbsp - coriander leaves, chopped

salt to taste

oil to grease the pan

For the filling

1 - carrot medium size, grated

8-10 pieces - raisins

1/4 tsp - red chilli flakes (more or less)

salt to taste

1 cup - low fat milk for crumbled cottage cheese, see the recipe here

Method

1. Remove excess water from the sago.
2. Add the sago, grated potatoes, green chilli, ginger, salt and coriander leaves in a bowl and mix well.
3. In another bowl, add the grated carrots, raisins, crumbled cottage cheese, red chilli flakes and salt and mix well.
4. Take a portion of potato-sago mix in damp palms, flatten them slightly. Place a little filling in the center and close in the edges to enclose the stuffing. Press gently. 
5. Heat a non stick pan, grease it with a little oil and pan fry the tikkis from both the sides until golden brown.
6. Serve hot with coriander chutney. (I had some of the filling leftover so used them to make parathas.)

We enjoyed the rain with these stuffed tikkis and a cuppa ginger tea :-) Hope you like them too. 

Enjoy!

Crumbled Cottage Cheese Spinach Curry!

When I was a child I would never touch Spinach. With a lot of hard work done by my mom on me, I started eating it and now I love it :-)

My husband and I tried a curry similar to this one in an Indian restaurant in Frankfurt, and loved it. The very next day, I tried a variation on the curry at home and since then it features quite regularly on our dining table. Its a very simple and easy to make dish and delicious too.

This recipe goes to Preeti's  Green Gourmet Event. 

Ingredients

2 cup - spinach, shredded 

1/2 cup - onion, chopped

1/2 cup - yellow bell pepper

1 - green chilli, finely chopped (more or less)

1 tsp - ginger, thinly sliced

4 tbsp - low fat milk/cream

2 tsp - sunflower oil

1/4 tsp - cumin seeds

1 /4 tsp - cinnamon powder

1/4 tsp - clove powder

1/4 tsp - cardamom powder

salt to taste

a generous pinch of sugar

2 tbsp - tomato, chopped (to garnish)

For the crumbled cottage cheese

2 cup - low fat milk (For the recipe, please follow the link here)

Method

1. Blanch the spinach in salted boiling water for 2 minutes. Refresh in chilled water and squeeze out excess water.
2. Heat oil in a non stick pan, add cumin seeds and when the seeds start to splutter add the green chillies, onions and bell pepper and cook for a minute. 
3. Add the blanched spinach, crumbled cottage cheese and cook again for a minute stirring lightly. Add the spices and the milk/cream and cook again for a minute.
4. Garnish with finely chopped tomatoes and serve hot. 

Enjoy!