“Chemically speaking, chocolate really is the world’s perfect food.”
Michael Levine
Sublime, sweet, seductive … words that can win over the most of us. Bittersweet chocolate paired with sweet scents of orange zest, topped with strawberries in a Digestive biscuit crust – eggless too. I think this might well be a dessert than can please one and all, chocolate lovers that is and tempt the non-lovers too! A Rich Bittersweet Chocolate Orange Strawberry Tart – festive and indulgent for the holiday season!! I made this special tart for Macy’s mBlog Recipe Showcase for which I was invited to share a favourite holiday recipe, with a story alongside. I have an old ‘Digestive biscuit connect’ which I shall share in a bit, though too late for the showcase. Life got the better of me, it’s been busier than usual, and I missed the deadline. Just back from a short ‘happy’ vacation to Tokyo, courtesy Mr PAB who was going there on work and gladly took me along! ’twas like a dream … a bit of which I shall attempt to share soon. In the meantime, this tart is served up here for you dear readers!! It was DELICIOUS and indulgent good! Digestive biscuis have been on my list of favourite biscuits forever, and my first choice always for biscuit bases for tarts and cheesecakes.There was a time, many moons ago, when working with an airline meant regular trips to London. That in turn meant bags full of delicious goodies including Digestives and Chocolate Digestives. The regular ones were my Mums favourite, though at the time I was quite partial to Walkers Shortbread too. Flight crew who flew overhead New Delhi from London to HKG would often radio in to chat while we manned station ops in the wee hours of the night, and would ask for ‘biscuit wishlists’ as they would stopover in Delhi on the way back. One particular flight crew, who I nicknamed Capt HobNob, made sure he always left a big parcel of HobNobs for me! Those were delicious days, post BOAC ones!!A few years later, shortbread ‘butter alarms‘, carbon footprints and locavore choices came along; an inherent consciousness crept in! Age does that to you I guess! I got ‘food educated‘ and sadly learnt that shortbread was delicious but oh-so-butter laden. My first choice then on were digestive biscuit. IMHO, they make me the perfect pie/tart crust as I don’t have the time to make graham crackers from scratch! I have used Digestives in Chocolate Quark Mousse Tartlets, Strawberry Chocolate Yogurt Mousse, No Bake Strawberry Quark Cheesecake, Apple Brown Sugar Meringue Pies, No Bake Upside Down Mango Quark Cheese PieWhat can I say about this beautiful tart … it was just too good to be true {if I may say so myself}. I have kept it eggless as a lot of local readers, being vegetarian, ask me for eggless desserts and bakes. Keeping them in mind, with the holiday season here, time for entertaining, guests, food & fun, I put this tart together. I also kept in mind easily available and mostly ‘there in the pantry‘ ingredients!I love the pairing of chocolate, orange and strawberry. Use a deep, rich, good quality chocolate here. Of course I was rather unsure when I cut it as I didn’t know if it would set well. Luckily for me, the proportions were good and the balance of the filling and tart shell just right. The taste?Délicieux!!
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This recipe is on its way to IndiBloggers food contest …
As I go I wanted to share a little something; two places where PAB has recently been featured. One was in the November issue of Harper’s BazaarIndia {was thrilled to see lovely Meeta, Pamela and Mallika there too}, the article on food bloggers called “The Web Culinaries“,and the other a press feature at Lx World, ‘Cakes to Bake‘.
Don’t miss a post Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India
“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.”
Jim Davis
India is pretty much pumpkin country, the yellow and rather mellow squash that you will find around every nook and corner all year through, a vegetable I looked at rather disdainfully until I made my first Praline Pumpkin Pie 2 years ago. The lad nudges me this time every year to remind me he l♥ves it! This one is for him – a Perfect Pumpkin Pie.Mentally conditioned by food blogs, lovely pumpkin posts painting the net in a orange hue, I eagerly await fall. It makes me look at the pumpkin in wonder, a rather underestimated veggie, yet one that holds a lot of promise. The beautiful flavour of the pumpkin soup I shared with Jamie in London holds a special connect. It was the company, the atmosphere, the euphoria of that first time we all met. Somewhere in the middle of all this, the humble pumpkin got an even more elevated status in my life!I made soup last year, and for some silly reason it never got blogged. This pumpkin pie is the result of inspiration out of the blue. I saw a mail in my inbox saying ‘If you had two extra hours in a day, how would you spend it?‘ … and I thought, hmmm, I wonder!An extra 2 hours for the obsessed baker in me is like an impossible dream. My life seems to run choc-a-bloc morning to night, balancing the fine act of racing through laundry, trying to feed a blog, a brood, a pooch, snatching a few harassed moments to take photographs while the dog is now tall enough to get to table tops {… CUTE as a button too}, grocery {sigh}…and then emails of course!That thought stayed in my mind while I ran the laundry that morning, and teased me while I went to the vegetable vendor, our fabulous sabziwala. Someone was buying pumpkin and the fellow cut a nice bright one for her. That was my cue!Give me 2 extra hours and watch me bake with joy, bake something to fill home with autumnal aromas, pumpkin gently roasting {of course you can buy it canned as well in the rest of the world, but we know no luxuriesof the sort in India!}. Much from scratch with this too, I have never had tomatoes or pumpkin out of a can here. I have read though that fresh roasted pumpkin beats the canned one hands down. Got an extra hour?Roast some!
I always have tins of condensed milk on hand after having indulged in this absolutely addictive Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream from Perfect Scoop. You need less than an hour to make it, need resolve to keep away from the freezer, and finally 10 minutes to polish it off. But if you can grab those two extra hours, then I recommend you head for pie! The verdict was delicious! The terrible teen screwed up her nose and said “Ewwwwwww …. pumpkin!!,” and then predictably went on to ravenously demolish the slice, and ask for another. There was something about it!! The boy lapped it up … it was his on request after all!!This is a pie right for fall. The filling … silky, smooth and spicy! The crust just right, not too crisp, yet offers a handsome bite, gently teasing the palette with beautiful pistachio flavours and a pleasing texture. I wish I could offer you a slice…it was that good, and it went FAST!
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And since I had so much extra time, I shot some pictures of out CUTE Coco … she was ‘all eyes’!! Oh to have those extra two hours more often!
Don’t miss a post
Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India
“Without garlic I simply would not care to live.”
Louis Diat
It continues to be a busy month, where blogging seems to get to the back burner even though it rules my mind 24 X 7. In the midst of this, it’s time for the SRC, an event that I am committed to; a deadline that cannot be missed! So here on fast track is a beautiful and delicious Creamy Roasted Red Bell Pepper Dip from my assigned secret blog – Sweet Beginnings… a blog about sweet, sugary treats, and home cooked meals.
The Secret Recipe Club, the brainchild of Amanda of Amanda’s Cookin’. The idea behind the club – Each month you are “assigned” a participating food blogger to make a recipe from. It’s a secret, so don’t tell them you are making something from their blog! Click on the link if you want to join the fun!!
Of late, the festival season has piled loads of sweet stuff upon our delighted palettes. So I explored Jaidas blog for savoury stuff, and happily, I found plenty! Loads of wonderful seafood, fish, chicken; posts tagged with inspiration of all sorts – Asian, vegetarian, What’s Baking, appetizers and then this wonderful creamy bell pepper dip which she served with a grilled chicken ‘sammich’.The grilled chicken sammich sounded just wonderful and I think what made it really stand out was this creamy red pepper sauce the talented girl created for a recipe swap. Of the sauce she says, ” The sauce is super-delish and also goes great with burgers…you should try it ASAP!” I did and it was yum!Festival season, school holiday on every other day for one reason or another, a wedding in the family, the hub BUSY at work … and me dog tired like never before. Yet I snatched a moment yesterday to make crackers as the kids were feeling deprived that their Mama doesn’t seem to bake that much any more.These are crisp easy breezy crackers from a Mark Bittman recipe that I adapted to include some whole wheat flour. It’s a wonderful basic recipe that is takes well to any flavour you might like. I used garlic and dried herbs, and next time might do sesame, or sea salt with black pepper, poppy seeds … or maybe the bagel spice I used on these Same Day New York Bagels. The creamy roasted red bell pepper dip {sauce} is just what I wanted as a pairing for these crackers. Vibrant and delicious, I loved the way Jaida added cream cheese to it! I used a local substitute {cheese spread} and skipped the mayo as the dieting diva was dancing on my head!It still was every bit delicious as it looks. Simple and addictive, its a great sauce/dip for burgers, sandwiches, crackers, fresh veggies, crudites and possibly even wraps! I adapted the recipe a bit, and I’m glad I got inspired to follow Jaida’s basic creation.Add some balsamic or go with the mayonnaise, and do make sure you add the cream cheese … then sit back and enjoy! My kids loved these to bits. Crisp whole wheat crackers and finger licking good creamy roasted red bell pepper dip … healthy and addictive!
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“I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”
Steve Jobs
It’s been a sad last week. Think apple and think Steve Jobs, a man whose vision and brilliance silently and beautifully changed the way we look at things. He brought beauty into our everyday lives, gave ‘A is for apple’ a new meaning, i-tuning our very existence.With his passing away, the world lost an icon, a genius who became an inspiration and a daily connect to millions across the world. I long to get a Mac one day to add to the rest of my i-stuff. RIP Steve Jobs … these simple Bite Sized Apple Pies are a tribute to your brilliance!Apple seems to be ruling my thoughts of late. A few days ago I received a fabulous new cookbook, a book intriguingly called ‘The Apple Lover’s Cookbook‘ by Amy Traverso. I was the lucky winner at a giveaway sponsored by Pam & Kristy @ Three Many Cooks, and Kristy was sweet enough to mail it to me from the US. Gracias!! This is a book made of ‘apple dreams‘, quite the perfect book for Fall. For me, autumn means mainly apples and the book is bursting with apple ideas. Boomarked to make are Apple Chips with Spiced Yogurt Dip, Apple Clafoutis, Squash & Apple Gratin, Oatmeal Apple Pancakes, Baked Apple Oatmeal Pudding, Buttermilk Apple Buckle, Williamsburg Wrapples, Apple Brownies, Quick Bread-and-Butter Apple Pickles, Classic Applesauce. Who would have thought there could be a book deliciously dedicated to this wonderful fruit, a fruit Amy aptly refers to as the fruit of the future.
It’s the Secret Recipe Club time of the month again, another month that threatens to get over even before it begins. The kids are home for an autumn break, the pup on the threshold of doggie terrible teens and a wedding in the family are quite an explosive and happening combination. To add to it, our entire region has been hit by unprecedented power cuts that leave us ‘powerless‘ for almost 6-8 hours a day.
The Secret Recipe Club is the brainchild of Amanda of Amanda’s Cookin’.The idea behind the club – Each month you are “assigned” a participating food blogger to make a recipe from. It’s a secret, so don’t tell them you are making something from their blog! Click on the link if you want to join!!
Sometimes it’s difficult to keep up, and my post is a day late even though I managed to bake these pies in 2 batches 2 days ago when I scrabbled for my assigned secret site – Mrs Happy Home Maker. With a name like that, happiness for the home maker in me was guaranteed. Since I had apple on my mind, I narrowed my search to just that. To my delight the lovely lady Crystal loves apples too! I was short on time and done in by power-cuts, so these Bite Sized Apple Pies seemed perfect! Of them Crystal says, “These apple pies come in a tiny package, but they have a BIG flavor. Only 5 ingredients & you can have them ready to gobble up in 30 minutes too, and that’s probably my favorite part. It’s like apple pie on demand.”CUTE is the word. You must look at the Happy Homemakers post as she guides you through wrapping these up as ‘mummies‘! I did a ‘roll’ up to save time as my pastry wasn’t so well behaved given the warmish weather. The filling is adapted from Williamsburg Wrapples from the Apple Lover’s Cookbook. Once baked, these pies were delicious and gone in a heartbeat; the best little bites I’ve made in a while. {I used the left over pastry trimmings to make Pinktober ribbons for a few pies}. Simpler if you have refrigerated pie crust on hand, but simple even if you decide {or have to, as in my case} make your own. An absolute joy to make, delightful as they came out of the oven, they filled the house with warm fall flavours. The pastry stayed crisp even after the bites cooled down, and were a huge hit. With a drizzle of unsweetened cream, or without, we enjoyed them loads. Must thank the very talented and fun Crystal, the face behind Mrs Happy Homemaker for these pies on demand. So glad I met you via the SRC!Crystal writes a real fun blog, full of exciting new ideas like ‘Making’ you crave Mondays’ and ‘Crazy Cooking Challenges’. She tempts you to delve deep into her blog with her energy and step by step pictures.
“There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October”
Nathaniel Hawthorne
HAPPY OCTOBER! Seems meaningless to even ask how we got to October so quick. Bat an eyelid and the month is gone. I associate October with Pinktober, a month laced in PINK to signify ‘Breast Cancer Awareness‘. I’ve tried to post pink in October year after year, at least a couple of posts, so am excited to begin October 2011 in a rather PINK way with this delicious low fat Plum Frozen Yogurt.It’s a result of the dieting diva suddenly kicking straight back into dieting mode after lying low for a month! That gave me reason enough to reach out for the last of the late summer stone fruit I had frozen in the beginning of September. The colour that the fruit offer when combined with dairy makes my heart sing PINK!!
A fitting way to begin October, and a rather refreshing delicious one too. If you still have late summer fruit hanging around, grab them, stone them, slice the fruit and freeze them. This is where the thermomix kicks in. It loves making ice creams and frozen yogurt out of frozen fruit. Just a matter of minutes and this addictive pink treat was done.The addition of vanilla sugar and kirsch give it that special flavour. It’s a refreshing and beautifully coloured low fat frozen treat; a nice end to preserved excess fruit of summer. I added kirsch in there thanks to a tip from Monsieur Lebovitzs kirsch post to use it to enhance flavours when using stone fruit. Just a tbsp is enough to lend this fro yo a special flavour, and keep it from freezing rock hard.You can see that summer is leaving us as the frozen yogurt didn’t immediately disappear into puddles this time. We are experiencing cool and pleasant mornings and evenings; the days aren’t too bad either. I love this time of the year. Its comfortable and enjoyable. The garden is buzzing with butterflies, bees, dragonflies and the flower beds look happy. I just got the gardener to sow herb seeds and had him pot chrysanthemum cuttings. Yes, the weather is great, and the pooch is happy. Coco spends her days chasing butterflies in the garden all day long. She even got stung by a bee, the poor thing!
“Looks like you could use an extra hand.”
American Pie
We’re already trotting through the second week of September, the days are whizzing by! Just when I thought I’d done the SRC for the month, a Plum Almond Ginger Summer Fruit, I found a reminder in my inbox. Whoa we’re into the next month, a race against time as always, yet this club is fun! I made delicious Apple Strawberry Basil Hand Pies that I picked & adapted from Beantown Baker, my secret blog for September.
The idea behind the club – Each month you are “assigned” a participating food blogger to make a recipe from. It’s a secret, so don’t tell them you are making something from their blog! Click on the link if you want to join the fun!!
Jen @ Beantown Baker lives in Boston with her hubby and two cats. She works as an engineer by day, and is baker by night when she gets home and enjoys spending her free time in the kitchen. She loves all desserts and has a huge to-bake list. Her hubby serves as her number one taste tester and her lucky coworkers and friends get to enjoy baked goods on a regular basis. It was wonderful to explore her blog as we seem to have so much in common, beginning with a ‘love for baking’! It was like a treasure chest, I flitted from one post to another, so much to do and so little time! I thought I’d bake these utterly delicious looking Strawberry Peach Basil Bars but sadly the stone fruit season has drawn to an end. Then I chanced upon these Strawberry Hand Pies …YES!! I’ve been charmed by hand pies forever but have never got down to making these sweetly delicious sorts! They reminded me of pop tarts! I went with whatever fruit I had on hand… apples and frozen strawberries. In a last minute moment of inspiration, I threw in some fresh basil! YUM! I also tried a few different shapes, including a roll up and a lattice!They turned out to be delicious, though I think I rolled the dough a tad too thin. As Jen says, “The pastry dough is VERY easy to work with. And quite tasty.” I kept my pies vegetarian and gave the pastry a low fat cream wash, followed with a sprinkling of vanilla sugar. Hand pies are convenient food, great grub on the go and and can be sweet or savoury. Almost every culture has a version of their own, mostly baked.
Hand pies are semilunar-shaped pastries with either a sweet or savory filling, formed by placing a dollop of filling onto a circular piece of biscuit-style dough and then folding it over and crimping it shut. They may be baked, fried or deep-fried.
English Cornish pasties are said the most famous in this category, and go back to the 1800’s when miners wives would freshly bake shortcrust pastry with a beef filling, and pop the pies wrapped in a towel or newspaper into the miners pockets. Miners would hold the pies with the crimped edges, their hands dirty with arsenic and coal etc, eat the pie and throw away the crimped edge. Many countries have popular versions of hand pies. India has the addictive samosa, a savoury patty, deep fried and absolutely delicious. Traditionally with a stuffing of potatoes, peas {and sometimes cottage cheese and raisins}, the filling is wrapped in a triangle of pastry and deep fried. We munched through cartloads of these in school, college and while I was working. I have a Chicken Mince Cocktail Samosa posted here which makes for great cocktail / party snacks. Other versions include the Spanish empanada, the Italian calzone & Jamaican patties. Have you heard of any others? OK we have more … Malaysian curry puffs {thank you Jehanne@ The Cooking Doctor}, Indian gujiya {thank you Fahad @ Simply Fahad-istic}.
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Recipe: Apple Strawberry Basil Hand Pies
Summary: Delicious and comforting hand pies, charming bites somewhat like pop tarts. Dough from Alton Brown, filling from Dinner and Dessert, originally from Smitten Kitchen – makes about 15. Adapted from Beantown Baker
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 45 minutes Ingredients:
Pastry Dough
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
75gm unsalted butter, chilled
3/4 cup milk
Juice of 1/2 lime
Filling
3-4 apples, peeled, cored, diced small
1 cup frozen strawberries, chopped fine in processor
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
Handful of fresh basil, chiffonaded
Glaze
2 tbsp low fat cream { or an egg wash of 1 egg mixed with 1 to 2 teaspoons water}
1 sachet vanilla sugar
Method:
Make the Filling
Toss all ingredients well in a big bowl, and keep aside.
Make the Pastry Dough
In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Pulse for a few seconds and then pour into a large mixing bowl.
Add the shortening and knead it into the flour with your hands until it is crumbly.
Add the milk all at once and mix in with a spatula until it begins to come together.
Lightly flour your hands and the countertop and turn the dough out onto the countertop. Knead the dough ball, folding over 10 to 20 times. {Thermomix: Add flour, baking powder and salt to TM bowl. Run on Speed 6/5 seconds. Add remaining ingredients and run on Speed 6/ 7 seconds. Turn to knead and run for 1 minute.}
Using a rolling pin roll the dough to 1/3 to 1/2-inch thickness, then cut into rounds using a 2 1/4-inch ring. Roll each round as thinly as possible or to 5 to 6 inches in diameter.
Spoon 1 to 2 tablespoons of filling onto the dough, brush the edges of half of the dough lightly with the cream / egg wash, fold over and seal the edges together with the tines of a fork, dipping it into flour as needed. Gently press down to flatten and evenly distribute the filling and snip or cut 3 slits in the top of the pie.
Brush a little bit of cream / egg wash on the outside of the pie and sprinkle with vanilla sugar.
To bake pies, preheat the oven to 180C. Place finished pies onto a lined cookie sheet and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Serve warm {after about 20 minutes as the filling can be very hot} or at room temperature. We liked them chilled too with a drizzle of unsweetened low fat cream as dessert!
