Dinner rolls don’t get any better when they are homemade…

I love baking, however baking breads, rolls etc isn’t my thing as something or the other would go wrong while making them. So I usually depend on store bought rolls and breads, the easiest and the safest way. However, last week I somehow got the urge for baking dinner rolls from scratch. I had no other choice but bake it. I didn’t have any family recipes for making dinner rolls, so obviously had to surf the internet and bumped into a good recipe at Martha Stewart’s website. I immediately started making it, it was quite easy to make. Only thing I had to do was knead the dough for 5-10 minutes. Then I had to keep the dough aside for 3 hours to let it rise. Baked it for 20 minutes, I felt so impatient and just wanted the rolls to come out of the oven to have a bite of it. I even couldn’t wait for it to cool down, I greedily tore one of the hot rolls and put it in my mouth. I did burn my mouth but when I chewed down the soft rolls which tasted better than the store bought ones, I totally forgot about the burn and I was seen in the ninth cloud.

One of the best dinner rolls I’ve ever tasted and it’s fresh and homemade. So, what are you waiting for? Get in to your kitchen and have fun kneading and baking!

Homemade Dinner Rolls:

Makes: 13

Ingredients:

• Warm water- 1/8 cup
• Active dry yeast- 1 packet, 1/4 ounce each
• Warm milk, skim or whole- 3/4 cup
• Unsalted butter, melted- 1/4 cup (half of a stick) and more for greasing the pans.
• Sugar- 1/8 cup
• Salt- 1tsp
• Eggs- 2; 1 for making the dough and 1 for egg wash
• All purpose flour- 3 1/4 cups and more for work surface for kneading

Preparation:

• In a small bowl, place the warm water and sprinkle the yeast over it. Let stand for 5 minutes.
• In a large bowl, whisk together milk, melted butter, sugar, salt and 1 egg.
• Whisk in the yeast into the above mixture.
• Add 3 1/4 cups of all purpose flour, one cup at a time and combine using a wooden spoon, until it gets soft.
• Flour a wooden board or any work surface and place the dough on it.
• Knead the dough until it gets smooth and elastic, for about 5-10 minutes.
• Grease the inside of a large bowl with butter, place the dough into the bowl.

Not one scoop, two scoops, but many scoops of homemade mango ice cream you can devour and none is going to stop you…

Whenever I get the craving for mango ice cream, I rush to the nearby Indian restaurant. I still don’t understand why is it hard to find mango flavor in most of the Ice cream store. They have all kinds of flavors but mango. For me, mango and strawberry are my all time favorite ice cream flavors. Mango is one such fruit I had eaten a lot while growing up, this is because this particular fruit is immensely found in my home town, Kerala. Mango trees are found in the backyard of almost all houses there. My grandparents backyard is packed with mango trees, they have varieties of mangoes each named differently, I can’t remember the names at this moment. I have had pretty much all of them and it was amazing how each variety tasted differently from others. Besides making desserts, smoothies, lassi with mangoes, we even make savory dishes with them. Both the raw and ripe fruit can be used for making different dishes.

When I visited my cousin last month, after the sumptuous dinner, she opened her dessert suspense, it was my favorite mango ice cream. I couldn’t believe it was homemade as it tasted just like restaurant style. When she started saying about the ingredients it had and the preparation method, I was even more stunned. All these years I had thought that making an ice cream in my kitchen is beyond my expertise, as it needed ice cream maker and other super ingredients. Hence I never cared to even peep into that section. So for me, ice cream means Haagen-dazs, in fact any brand would work for me as long as I get the ice cream taste. But after the successful attempt at making homemade mango ice cream, I don’t think I will ever have to rush to any restaurants or store if I get the craving, I can make it in my own kitchen with all confidence and I get to devour not one scoops but many scoop of ice cream.

This recipe is inspired from Show Me the Curry. This is the quickest and the easiest ice cream you could ever make. And the recipe calls for easily available ingredients.

Ingredients:

• Mango pulp- 30 oz can
• Sweetened Condensed milk- 14 oz can
• Whipped topping- 7-8 oz ( I used Kraft, Cool Whip)
• Fresh Mango diced- 1 cup (optional)

Preparation:

• Combine mango pulp, condensed milk and whipping cream using a whisk until evenly incorporated.

• Pour the mixture into a glass dish or bowl, close with its lid.

• Freeze it for 2 hours ( Initial freezing)
• After 2 hours of chilling, take this out and put the diced mangoes into the mixture and combine everything with a spoon.
• Again freeze it for another 4-5 hours or until it sets completely.

• Voila, mango ice cream is ready, you could scoop this in your favorite cones or in a bowl, top with whipping cream, nuts of your choice, garnish with diced mangoes.

Tips:

• For healthy version, use fat free condensed milk.
• You can keep this in the freezer overnight, so that you can avoid peeping into the freezer every now and then, checking whether it is ready to gobble
• This is a Make-Ahead Party Dessert.

Sipping a cup of homemade herbal coffee…

If I have a cup of this homemade herbal coffee, I would shy away from any other branded coffee in the market. I have been feeling dizzy and inactive for the last couple of days, only one thing that is keeping me up and running is this homemade herbal coffee. As soon as I take a sip of this, I feel my dead senses are charged and back to life. I must say I had forgotten about this coffee for so many years, and now I feel as if  I found my long lost companion.

My mom and my grandma used to make this all the time. Whenever I fell sick, my mom made sure to brew this and a single cup of this coffee had done instant wonders to me, all of a sudden I would feel uplifted. I am embarrassed to say that I totally forgot about this, which had done so much good to me during my lousy days. It was yesterday, when I was looking for a way to get rid of my headache, my eyes caught on the box of jaggery in the pantry( you would be wondering why am I looking in the pantry for headache remedy:  I always look for natural remedies before I even think of taking a Tylenol and most of the time it works for me)I was reminded of this long lost companion. What a perfect timing! I got what I needed and without even wasting a single second, I started brewing this coffee. I took out almost all the spices from my pantry: cardamom, cloves, dry ginger, whole pepper seeds, along with cumin seeds, coriander seeds. As soon as the  spice rich water started to boil, I put few leaves of basil in to it. I can’t really put in to words, the aroma that developed while brewing this coffee. It penetrated into me and the soreness I was feeling on my head literally vanished. I sat on the couch and with each sipping I cherished those times I had with this coffee.

Today, I brewed this coffee again and thought of sharing this aromatic homemade herbal coffee with everyone.

You could have this coffee any day, especially on days you are feeling low. On a rainy cold day, this coffee would be a good companion.

Ingredients:

• Water-2 cups
• Jaggery or palm sugar- 2 triangles, as shown in the picture or depending upon how sweet you want.
• Whole Cardamom, smashed with the back of the spoon-2
• Whole cloves-2
• Dry Ginger powder- 1tsp
• Whole black pepper or Pepper powder- 1tsp or depending upon your spice level
• Cumin seeds, smashed or ground cumin- 1/2 tsp
• Coriander seeds, smashed( optional)-1/2 tsp
• Basil or Tulsi leaves- 4-5
• Instant coffee- 1 1/2 tsp

Brewing method:

1. In a pot, put all the ingredients in to the water except coffee and boil, let the jaggery dissolve completely  in water.
2. When the water starts to boil, put the instant coffee powder and stir it,  remove from the flame and cover the pot with the lid.
3. Strain the coffee into a coffee mug and have it while it is pipping hot. Smell the aroma of the coffee, this would help to open your senses.

Tips:

• You could adjust the spice and sweet level depending upon your needs.