Are you sick and tired of having the same breakfast over and over? Well, I am. My hunt for a new breakfast started a few weeks ago. Last Wednesday, I finally came up with a dish – oats coffee pudding. I love oats and hence I tried a pudding with it. Coffee is something that is unavoidable in the morning, so I added a few dashes of ground coffee to the pudding. It tasted great and the aroma of coffee from the pudding was so refreshing! I also added sweetened flaked coconut while making the pudding. Enjoyed the bite of the coconut as well.The best part was this pudding can be prepared the night before and chilled. In the morning, two things you have to do would be take the pudding out of the refrigerator and grab a spoon. And you could dig into the pudding.

Now, there is no rule enforced that this could be eaten only for breakfast. Anytime you feel like treating yourself you could have it. I actually made a whole lot of this pudding the night before and couldn’t resist sneaking a bit after my dinner.

Make it healthy by using skim milk and fat free condensed milk. Isn’t this the kind of breakfast you would love to have every morning?

Oats Coffee Pudding:

Ingredients:

• Instant Oats- 1 cup
• Skim milk- 1 cup
• Condensed milk, fat free- 1 cup
• Instant ground coffee, your favorite brand- 4 teaspoon
• Sweetened flaked coconut (optional)- 2 tbsp
• Agar agar strands (china grass), cut small- 1/4 cup
• Water to melt the agar agar- 1/2 cup

Preparation:

• In a small pan, add agar agar strands and water, heat it and let the strands melt in water stirring occasionally.
• Strain the melted agar agar and keep aside.
• Don’t keep the melted agar agar for over 5 minutes as it will solidify soon.
• Combine the oats and skim milk in a saucepan and cook it over medium heat.
• When the oats is cooked, add the condensed milk and combine well.
• Taste it, if you need more sugar add more of the condensed milk.
• Add the sweetened flaked coconut and give it a stir.

• Add the ground coffee to the mixture and combine well.
• Finally add the melted agar-agar and combine everything well.
• Remove from the flame and pour to pudding bowls.
• When it has cooled down, keep it in the refrigerator and chill it.
• You could have this after an hour when it is completely set.
• Make this ahead of time and enjoy for breakfast or anytime you prefer.

Tips:

• You could use gelatin instead of agar agar.
• You could also add raisins and nuts.

I make lime pies often, how can I not make this as this is my hubby’s favorite dessert…

For this month’s food meetup, I had made lemon pie for dessert and this turned out to be a huge hit. Usually, I make this with ready-made pie crust, so I just have to make the filling which could be made in just a matter of seconds. After just 15 minutes of baking, lime pie comes out of the oven most deliciously. Isn’t this the one dessert you could make even on days of extreme laziness? May be not during extreme laziness, but of course on days with mild laziness and extreme sweet craving.

I am so lucky that this dessert is my hubby’s favorite and he didn’t fall for anything which called for hours and hours of mixing and baking.

Couple of days before the meetup, I had searched for desserts that I could make easily and at the same time that would impress my foodie friends. And I stumbled upon a recipe for lime pie at Martha Stewart’s website. The moment I read the recipe I made up my mind to make that with few atlerations. I used lemons instead of limes. The crust was made with ground pistachios and Graham-Cracker crumbs. I loved the addition of pistachios while making the crust and the light green color the crust had made this a perfect dessert for St. Paddy’s day themed meetup.

I’ve made few alterations to the original recipe.

Lemon pie with Pistachio Graham-Cracker crust

Ingredients

For making the crust:

• Pistachios, shelled- 2/3 cup
• Graham-Cracker crumbs- 1 cup
• Butter, unsalted, melted, cooled- 4 tbsp (1/2 stick)
• Sugar- 1/4 cup
• Lemon zest, grated- 1 tbsp

For Filling:

• Egg yolks- 3
• Condensed milk, sweetened- 1 can (14 ounces) + 1/2 can (7 ounces)
• Lemon juice, freshly squeezed- 1/4 cup

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Brush an 8-inch square baking dish with 1 tbsp melted butter.
• Line bottom with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on two sides.

Making the crust:

• In a grinder, ground the pistachios and keep aside.

• In a large bowl combine the ground pistachios, Graham-cracker crumbs, sugar and lemon zest.
• Using a hand mixer, blend the melted butter to the crumbs and combine well.

• Press the mixture into the bottom and 1-inch up sides on the baking dish.

• Bake until lightly browned, 8-12 minutes and cool the crust for 30 minutes.

• You could even make the crust in a food processor.

Making the filling:

• In a large bowl, whisk together egg yolks and condensed milk.

• Add freshly squeezed lemon juice and combine until smooth.

• Pour filling into the cooled crust and spread evenly.

• Bake until set, about 15 minutes.
• Let cool down and chill it in the refrigerator for at least an hour before serving.

• While serving, cut into squares or any shape of your choice.

• For an extra flavor, you could even serve lemon pie topped with whipped cream.

Tips:

• You could make this with limes, use lime zest and lime juice.
• Use freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice for the best taste.
• If you like to have your pie with strong lime or lemon flavor, then go ahead and add 1/2 cup of freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice.
• Health freaks: use fat-free condensed milk and low-fat Graham-cracker crumbs.

Yay, this is the 100th post of Cooking with Thas, let me sweeten up this post with Carrot Halwa…

Among the root vegetables, I admire carrots the most. Probably, this is the only root vegetable I don’t have to always worry about cooking or baking to perfection. Just a well washed raw carrot packed with Vitamin A makes a good snack. I wasn’t aware until recently that there are different varieties of carrots, ranging from the common orange, red, yellow, purple, white and black carrots. Oh ya, even black carrots! Even though they belong to the same family, they were originated from different countries and each of them offers different health benefits.

When grocery shopping, first thing I always pick is a bag of regular carrots and a bag of baby carrots. I have never seen any one of the carrots going wasted from my kitchen. Baby carrots, a healthy snack to munch on whenever I get the sweet craving and the regular carrots which is thrown blindly into almost any cooking pot. They will be seen in Soups, Stews, Stir fry, Salads, Fried rice, Desserts, Cakes, Smoothies, Milkshakes etc basically carrots are all over…

Last weekend, I turned my carrots into a mouth watering halwa. Carrot halwa is the most famous dessert in North India. Making carrot halwa in your kitchen is very simple and when you make it you have the control over pouring of ghee. You can decide how sweet and how much ghee your carrot halwa should have.

Here is my version of Carrot halwa, I’ve tried to reduce the amount of ghee and condensed milk. There is absolutely no precise amount while adding these, you could pour according to your desire, of course keep tasting it.

Carrot Halwa

Ingredients:

• Carrot, grated- 2 cups

• Milk- 1 cup
• Sugar- 2 tbsp
• Condensed milk, fat free- 4 tbsp, or according to your needs
• Ghee- 4 tbsp, or according to your needs.
• Cardamom powder- 1/4 tsp
• Roasted Almonds- 2tbsp
• Roasted Pistachios- 1tbsp
• Roasted Raisins- 1tbsp

Preparation:

• Roast almonds, pistachios, raisins in 2 tsp ghee and keep aside.

• In a wide non-stick pan, cook carrot along with the milk and sugar over medium heat until the raw smell of carrot goes away and it turns tender.

• When the carrot has cooked well and the milk almost evaporated, add the condensed milk and stir constantly.

• When it starts to thicken, add ghee little by little and continue to stir to avoid sticking to the bottom.

• Add cardamom powder and combine with the carrots.
• When you have added all the ghee and when the carrots start to turn light golden brown, add the roasted almonds, pistachios and raisins.

• Combine everything well and transfer the halwa to a dessert bowl.
• Press the top layer of the halwa with the back of a spoon to make it even and let cool down for sometime.

• When it has cooled down, run a sharp knife through the sides of the halwa to loosen up the sides, cover the bowl with a dessert plate and turn upside down, gently shake the bowl, set halwa would fall on the plate.

• Serve warm or you could even chill it in the refrigerator which makes it even more tastier.

Tips:

• Add condensed milk and ghee according to your needs.
• You could also add a pinch of Saffron soaked in 1 tbsp of milk to the halwa for nice aroma and color.
• You could even use baby carrots, if so you need to be careful while adding the condensed milk or sugar, as baby carrots are already sweet.