Fancy Bread Cones

A great recipe to make in a jiffy.

Ingredients:
Bread slices, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, chopped cucumber, tomatoes, mustard, two boiled eggs, salt, pepper

Instructions:
1. Cut the corners of the bread slices and flatten them with a  rolling pin.
2. Shape the slices into cones. Press the corners together to keep them firmly intact.
3. In a separate bowl, mash the boiled eggs (eggs should be boiled and kept to cool)
4. Add the Cream Cheese and mustard to it and mix well.
5. Fold in the cucumber and tomato into the mixture.
6. Season with salt and pepper
6. Fill cones with this cheese egg salad mixture.

Decorate as desired.Serve immediately .
This would have tasted even better if   I had baked the bread cones  cooled and then filled  them with the cream cheese mixture. But no one had the patience to wait for an extra five minutes

Flatten slice of bread and make a cone 

Coconut Almond Bars

Recently when my eldest visited us from Dubai, I made her a sweet made from scratch to take back home. Since the ingredients were available in my pantry there was no need to rush to the store.  This is my very own creation and I am glad it turned out well.

Ingredients
2 cups freshly grated coconut
1 cup almond powder
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoon water
1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
2 tablespoon sliced almond
A drop each of almond essense, vanilla essense and rose water
1/2 teaspoon cardomom powder
A drop of food colouring (according to your preferences)

Method
Lightly butter a cookie tray and set aside
In a pan, add the water and sugar and let it boil slowly till it turns into a syrup.
Add the coconut, cardomom powder, almond essense and vanilla essense and cook for a few minutes
Next add the almond powder and keep stirring
Add a drop  of food coloring for colour and mix well
Add the condensed milk and almond slices
Continue stirring until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan.
Pour the mixture into the greased tray
Cover with cling film and smoothen it with a rolling pin
Allow to cool
Cut into squares and refrigerate until firm.          

DAIRY FREE AND GLUTEN FREE PANCAKE AND MUFFINS

Pancakes are ideal for breakfast and the children love it very much. Despite it being a messy task, I love making it. It's funny but quite true that it's almost as though the utensils used are more than the ingredients itself. By the time I wash the dirty pile of utensils and settle down to eat the pancakes, I'm exhausted. But then the other day to my greatest surprise, I found a very unique kitchen hack on youtube. It shows how to make pancakes using only a bottle and a funnel. All you have to do is pour the pancake ingredients one by one into the bottle through the funnel. Tightly close the lid and shake the bottle vigorously till you get everything into a batter consistency. Then heat a non stick crepe pan and make your pancakes.

We recently discovered that our second daughter is gluten sensitive - along with being lactose intolerant. I had to do a lot of research through the internet so that I would know what type of meal I could prepare for her. I experimented with all sorts of flours and milks but nothing seemed to work. It was not until today that, as a first attempt, I tried my hands on corn meal. And I am happy to state that it came out quite well. I used the bottle technique to make pancake batter with cornflour.
In addition to her lactose and gluten intolerances, she had also been avoiding eggs as it caused her abdominal discomfort and bloating. However, through my online findings, I have read that eating egg as it is can cause those problems but incorporating with other ingredients may alleviate it. So I decided to add them as well into the pancake batter. And thank God, she did not experience any side effects.
I also made a syrup with jaggery: made using a sweet substance from palm trees.

Ingredients for cornflour pancake
1 cup corn flour
1 cup almond milk
salt to taste
1/2 tsp baking soda and I added a little water to make it a batter consistency

Method
I used the bottle technique as mentioned above.


Blue berry Muffins  were made using the corn flour pancake recipe .

Fruit Salad

Apart from being lactose intolerant, one of my daughters has gluten sensitivity so I have to carefully plan what I make for her. A few days ago, we bought some fresh fruits from the super market and it had been in the fridge ever since. I hadn't touched them because we went out of town for a couple of days. Personally I'm not a dessert person but coming back to a fridge full of fruits, I decided to do a fruit salad. Fruit salad is a combination of different fruits chopped into pieces and with a squeeze of lemon juice served chilled or served with whipped cream or ice cream. I love to eat my bowl of fruit salad just as it is without any accompaniment. It's an ideal dessert for the summer. I had a couple of mangoes, kiwi fruits, pears, apples, plums, mandarins and a medium sized papaya.My daughter was full of smiles when she figured out that she could enjoy the bowl of fruit salad without any guilty feelings.

Instructions
Wash and peel whatever fruits you have in your refrigerator
Cut into small bite size pieces (best if it's cut into the same size)
Toss them into a glass bowl
Squeeze in juice of a lemon
Chill for 2-3 hours so that  the fruits get well blended with its own juices
Serve into individual dessert cups and enjoy

My daughter and I ate it without any guilt

How to make cake made from cake mix taste like home made

One thing I am sure to find in my pantry is a box of cake mix. The reason I buy extras is whenever my children get hungry for home made cake, I just have to grab a box from the pantry, add or switch ingredients and make my own twist to it and la voila, my children are happy to eat an almost homemade cake. All I do to tranform the store purchased mix  into home made one is to play with the cake mix and try to enhance the look and flavour so that it gives a more home-baked taste. Here are some things I add to replace the ingredients to be used as per instructions  in the box; I substitute milk or orange juice for water. I add half a cup of mashed bananas to a vanilla or yellow cake mix to get  a taste of banana cake. Sometimes,just before placing the cake mix batter into the oven I  add chocolate chips to get a shiny finish and throw in some crushed walnuts or pecans to bite into.once it's done,the aroma fills the whole house inviting everyone into the kitchen.

Here I have made a pineapple upside down cake with a pound cake micx

My son helping me with the batter

To this strawberry cake mix I added choco chips.It tasted great