No Bake Cheese Cake with Berries and Cherries

Happy New Year to you.  May your life be filled with love and laughter in 2014.  As the Irish proverb says” laughter is the brightest where food is best.”  So may your kitchen be filled with wonderful aromas and may your table have lip smacking flavorful dishes.  Thank you for reading my blog.  Your loyalty inspires me to be a better cook and better writer every time.

As it is said, life is short eat a good dessert.  Here is a recipe of Cheese cake with berries and cherries to sweeten your mouth.  This is a luscious no bake cheesecake which is very easy to make.  Mostly people use cherries as topping but I tried to be little creative and used strawberries, cranberries and cherries which give it a unique flavor.

Some cooks like to buy a ready made graham cracker crust pie plate but I prefer to make my crust with Marie light biscuits.  I generally bake it for five seven minutes to give it a crusty base but if you want to omit baking all together, you may prepare the pie plate as per the recipe and then put in the freezer for 10 minutes.  

Ingredients:

12 to 14 Marie light biscuits, 1 ½  tbsp olive oil,  1 can of condensed milk,  1 tsp of lemon juice,1 package(8 oz) of cream cheese at room temperature, 12  fresh strawberries,  ½ cup of pickled or fresh pitted cherries, ¼ cup of dry or frozen cranberries, 2 tsp of sugar

Method: 

Break biscuits with your hand and then powder them in a mixer.  Take out the powder in a bowl, add oil and mix well.  Take a pie plate and put this mixture on the pie plate by pressing it with your hand.  Bake it in 180 degree C (300 degree F) for 8 -10 minutes.  Keep it aside for cooling.
Beat cream cheese until fluffy in a large bowl.  Gradually beat in sweetened condensed Pour into crust, chill for 4 hrs or until set.  Top it with cherries and berries.
Take fresh strawberries put these in a pan, put 2 tbsp of water and 1 tsp of sugar and cook for two minutes so that strawberries turn soft but do not change their shape.
Take out 8 strawberries with a spoon and put them on a paper towel so that water drains out. Decorate these on the chilled pie.
Crush other 4 strawberries along with cranberries, and 1 tsp of sugar in the same pan.  Bring it to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 8 minutes so that all the water evaporates.  Cool for 15 minutes and spread over in the middle of the chilled pie.
Decorate with pitted cherries.
Put in the freezer again so that fruits set well.  Take out of the freezer only a few minutes before eating as it melts fast.  Enjoy.

Eggless Oatmeal and Wheat Flour Cookies

Oatmeal and wheat flour cookies are wholesome yummy cookies which can satisfy the craving for a dessert after any meal.  My oatmeal cookies generally disappear from the plate within a few minutes.  Other day I decided to bring some big change in this recipe of oatmeal and wheat flour cookies by eliminating eggs completely for our daughter’s sake.  She is always looking for baking recipes minus the eggs as her mother in law does not eat eggs.    

The real test of the success of this experiment came when the first cookie went between  the teeth of my husband.  He is a big time connoisseur of eggs and baked good with eggs.  His “Wow” seemed like I had won the Oscars.  Now in our house oatmeal cookies are baked without eggs as they come out to be chewy and soft.  These cookies are very easy to make if you have a food processor.  I put everything in the food processor except the wheat flour which I mix with wooden spatula.

Ingredients:

1 cup canola or any cooking oil, 1 cup white sugar(powdered), 1 cup brown sugar, 1 ½  tsp vanilla extract, 12 tbsp milk, 2 cups oats (powdered), 2 cups wheat flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 cup roasted and chopped almonds, ¾ cup raisins.

Method:
In a food processor beat oil, sugars, vanilla extract, milk until smooth and creamy.
Put baking soda, baking powder and oatmeal into this mix and pulse it so it gets well blended.
Take it out of the food processor into a regular bowl and put wheat flour little by little by mixing with a strong wooden spatula.
When it gets well mixed add chopped almonds and raisins.  Mix will look like a dough.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (200 degree C).
Make small balls of the dough and keep them half to one inch apart on a greased cookie sheet.
Bake them for 15-18 minutes for chewy and soft cookies.

Oats and Wheat Crackers

On a wintry evening what warms your palate is a hot cup of soup with some home made healthy crackers. You might ask in this day and age when crackers are easily available in the market, why make your own crackers?.  These crackers made of oats, wheat flour and sesame seeds do not have any preservatives and they taste absolutely delicious.  In fact, once you start eating these it is very hard to stop yourself.

Ingredients:

1 ½  cups wheat flour, 1 ½ cups Oats(powdered), 2 tbsp cooking oil, 1 ¼ tbsp butter, ¼ cup sesame seeds, 1 tsp garlic salt, ½ tsp baking powder, ½ cup or less water for kneading.

Method:

In a bowl mix wheat flour, oats, baking powder, salt, sesame seeds and garlic salt.
Add oil and melted butter and make crumbs with your fingers.  Then use water little by little to form firm dough.  Cover it and keep it aside for half hour.
Divide the dough into four five balls.  Roll each ball into a thin chapatti and cut into squares. Place these on a greased baking sheet.
Preheat oven to 350 degree F and bake for 15-18 minutes or until light brown.

Enjoy with a cup of soup or any  vegetable dip.

Lemongrass : antidote to common cold

Last month I had this feeling that I am about to have cough and cold.  I did not want to take any strong allopathy medicine so I picked up a few leaves of lemongrass from my kitchen garden, crushed them and boiled these along with the tea leaves.  Took this concoction in the evening and next morning I was almost well.  Lemongrass sure is a magical plant.

 
Lemongrass is also known as 'fever grass' and has been used for centuries for treating fever in India. Also used as food seasoning in Africa, India and the Seychelles, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Its main constituent, citrol, has strong cleansing, antiseptic qualities and is used for deodorizing footwear and clothing.
Lemon grass is a long thick grass with leaves at the top and a solid portion several inches long at the root end. The lower portion is sliced or pounded and used in cooking. As a spice, fresh lemon grass is preferred for its vibrant flavor, but is also sold in dried form. The dried spice is available in several forms: chopped in slices, cut and sifted, powdered, or as oil can be extracted from the plant.

Lemon grass is a perennial, aromatic, tall grass with rhizomes and densely tufted fibrous roots.  The blades of the grass are about 90 cms long and 0.5 cm wide. Lemon grass contains an essential oil. This oil is sherry colored with a pungent taste and lemon-like odor with citral as the principal constituent. The contents of this oil vary with the age of the grass. Fresh lemon grass contains an essential oil, which has substantial amount of citral. Dry herb yields 0.4 per cent essential oil containing 72.3 per cent citral.

Lemongrass belongs to grass family poaceae. It is a tall perennial grass that is grown in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. Lemongrass also known as Citronella Grass or Fever Grass is a tall perennial grass belonging to the Africa and Old Eurasian countries. It is a widely used herb in Asian (particularly Thai, Lao, Khmer and Vietnamese and Caribbean) cooking. The grass has a lemony flavor.

The botanical name of Lemon Grass is Cymbopogan and it belongs to the family of Poaceae.  Its leaves are used and it originated in Africa-Eurasia.

Lemon grass oil, used as a pesticide and preservative, is put on the ancient palm-leaf manuscripts found in India as a preservative. It is used at the Oriental Research Institute Mysore, the French Institute of Pondicherry, the Association for the Preservation of the Saint Thomas Christian Heritage in Kerala, and many other manuscript collections in India. The lemon grass oil also injects natural fluidity into the brittle palm leaves, and the hydrophobic nature of the oil keeps the manuscripts dry so that the text is not lost to decay due to humidity.

Lemon grass is used in addition to tea, as an antidote to coughs, colds, etc. It has medicinal properties and is used extensively in Ayurveda.  It has powerful pain relieving properties.  It helps in the muscle spasms by relaxing the muscles thereby leading to the reduction of pain related symptoms.  Another benefit of this grass is for improvement in the blood circulation.  As an antifungal and antibacterial lemongrass inhibits bacteria and yeast growth.  Some sources suggest that lemongrass has anti depressant properties and is thus beneficial for nervous and stress related conditions.

There are many different uses for lemongrass. Some people use it to relieve nausea, the common cold, and even high blood pressure. In artificial lemon flavoring, lemongrass is commonly used.

Lemon grass is a very scented herb to add to a bath.  It makes your bed well scented when put under a pillow.

Lemon grass has not just medicinal but culinary uses too.  It is widely used in Asian cuisine in soups, curries, poultry, seafood and beef.  In some cuisines lemon grass powder is used as a taste enhancer.

Leftover Chapatti turned into Noodles

Do you ever wonder what to do with the leftover chapattis (rotis)?   We all face this problem sometime or the other.  This recipe is for you if you dislike wasting any food.

Other day I made noodles from the leftover chapattis, sauteed some vegetables, added some spices and a very tasty and incredibly interesting dish was ready.

Fold leftover chapattis and wrap them in the aluminum foil and put them in the refrigerator overnight.  Next day take these out, take a sharp knife and cut the folded chapattis into very thin noodles. Take a deep pan or wok and roast these thin noodles for a couple of minutes.  Keep these aside in a bowl.  For other ingredients and method read here:

Ingredients:

3 leftover chapattis, 1 cup of washes and shredded cabbage, 1 cup green, yellow and red peppers cut into small pieces, ½ cup onion chopped julienne, ½ cup carrots cut into small pieces, ½ cup boiled peas, 1 tsp soy sauce, 1 tsp chives, 1 tsp  brown mustard seeds, 1 tbsp cooking oil, salt to taste.

(You may add vegetables like spring onions, broccoli, and beans etc)

Method:

Heat oil in a wok or deep pan, put mustard seeds.  When they stop spluttering add chives and onions.  Saute these for a couple of minutes and add cabbage, peppers, carrots, peas and any other vegetables you wish to. Toss the vegetables and add soy sauce.  Mix it well.  Now add coriander powder and salt.  At the end add your already roasted chapatti noodles to the vegetable mix.  Toss it again and serve hot.  If you want to add a hot punch to it, put some hot and spicy sauce.