Chocolate Heaven!!!

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I’ve had great fun today, making chocolate covered, double dipped strawberries!!!
OMG! Lush!!!
Recently I went to a birthday gathering, and my niece had produced these huge, plump, juicy mouthfuls if delight… And you couldn’t stop at one, oh no, one would never be enough!!!
So it just had to be done!!!
And if you eat enough you get one of your five a day too, isn’t that right???
Well, I need to taste one, to make sure it’s ok…

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Oh yes! That definitely hit the spot!!!

(And, yes, I know, it’ll probably hit my waistline soon too!!)

But I Smile Anyway...

Proper Punjabi Style Sunday Lunch!

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Usually my Mother In Law (MIL) is round, we regularly have this… But since they’ve been away, we missed em…
What are they?
Stuffed Aloo Valey Parathe with spiced tea!
Basically, potato stuffed chapattis, that are lightly fried, with yoghurt, an maybe a knob of butter and pickle!
Washed down with true Indian masala Chair would be better, but I didn’t have time so I used my cheat, Cardamom spiced tea bags!
I made em myself… They’re not perfect, but they’re my attempt!!

But I Smile Anyway...

Vats of Food!

Well, no, there aren’t quite vats of food happening today!

Usually on Vaisakhi my Mother in Law (MIL) would be busy making a large saucepan of something savoury and delicious, and a huge pan of Kheer, rice pudding. There would probably be pakoras (bhajis)or samosas too… but they aren’t around at the moment, and, in fact it is just me, the kids and Sonu Singh who are at home at the moment!

So, it’s almost pointless making these things (that’s if I could!)

I am going to attempt to make Khichdi today instead, as I am attempting a type of detox that my Pops recommended, a natural colonic if you like!

I’ve had castor oil this morning.. YUCK! It should help me cleanse myself internally, then when that has worked its magic, I am to eat lightly, veg soup, at lunch, maybe and then khichdi, at dinner time

Khichdi is a very basic food, people call in Bamaar Dha Khana, food for the sick! It is easily digestible, and wholesome, basically a porridge like dish made from rice, yellow and orange split lentils, and nothing else apart from water, some cumin, salt and pepper, and a knob of butter!
All you need is a medium sized bowl for the lentil measuring, like the ones in my picture. I use one and guess the measurements… Nothing too exact!

Ingredients
1/2 bowl basmati rice
1/4 bowl orange split lentils
1/4 bowl yellow split lentils
1 level tspn cumin seeds
Generous knob of butter
Salt and black pepper to season
Boiling water, approx 1.5 litres

What to do

1) Wash through the rice and lentils.
2) Dry roast the cumin seeds in the bottom of your pan.
3) When you can smell the cumin, drain the lentils and rice and add.
4) Pour in boiling water.
5) Add knob of butter.
6) Season to taste with salt and pepper.
7) Put on low heat and simmer for 45mins to an hour, stirring regularly.
8) When most of the liquid is gone, and it is of ‘just wetter than porridge’ consistency, switch off the flame and allow to rest.

And ENJOY!

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And maybe I’ll lose a few of those stray lbs that decided to creep on last week too!

Napoli sauce!

  

It’s been a while now, a Hubby Dearest asks me to make a ciabbata sandwich with Chicken escalopes, some mushrooms, cheese and napoli sauce.

Napoli sauce? What is it? Never heard of it! So I have done some research, and basically it’s an Italian tomato sauce, pretty much like what I would make for a pizza topping, or basic pasta sauce. Anywho, I found a recipe  here and followed it, adding a little sugar as I didn’t get the ‘special tinned ones they recommended!

It’s simmering away as we type/read! 

…bubble bubble, toil and trouble…

Looking good so far! 

So what did I use?

Half a finely chopped onion

2 cloves minced garlic

1 tbspn red peppers finely chopped

1 veg stock cube

One 400g tin chopped tomatoes

Half tbspn tomato pure

Half tspn oregano, dried

Half tspn dried basil

Half tspn dried parsley

Pepper to season

1 tspn sugar

  1. Fry onions in a little olive oil til golden brown then add peppers and garlic
  2. Cook until you can smell the garlic
  3. Add the tomato purée and cook off for 1 minute
  4. Add everything else, stir and simmer on low heat for about 45 minutes
  5. Stir through half tbspn Olive oil and allow to cool
  6. Store, and enjoy whenever!

Cooked, reduced, cooling ready for jarring amd using whenever we want!

It looks good, and tasted pretty yum too! 

Ready to be stored for use whenever

Top with a little olive oil, store in the fridge and use within a month! 

I found it quite strong initially so I added another small can of tomatoes and there’s the new improved version!

  

And here’s the Chicken Escalope Ciabatta sandwich he was asking for, complete with mushrooms n cheese!
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Baking bread!

  

The kids have been asking me for ages to bake bread at home.. And recently they gave been relishing the fresh bread I buy from the supermarket…

Ok so here goes!

We need

500g bread flour

1.5 tsp. salt

1 tspn sugar

15g softened butter or 15ml vegetable oil

Sachet of yeast.

About 300ml water 1 part boiling 2 parts cold

(I used Allinsons flour and yeast)

  1. Put flour in a bowl and add salt
  2. Stir in yeast and sugar
  3. Slowly add water to create a soft dough
  4. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead of around 10 minutes until smooth and elastic
  5. Shape dough, or put in a tin, cover and place somewhere warm for around 45 minutes until doubles in size
  6. Preheat oven to 230 degrees Celsius
  7. Place dough in oven for 15 minutes
  8. Reduce temperature to 200 degrees Celsius and bake for further 15-20 minutes, until bread has risen and is go.den brown, and sounds hollow when tapped underneath.
  9. Turn out and cool on a wire rack
  10. ENJOY!

My ingredients

Turning the dough out, ready to knead

  

Dough kneaded

  

Shaped and ready to prove

 

45 mins later

In the oven

 

Here’s our bread!

 

And it tastes not bad too! Pretty good for our first attempt!

   

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