Granola Bars - Deliciously Healthy

In order to keep up with my new year resolutions and do away with the excess of granola packets, I tried making healthy granola bars last weekend. Although granola makes a great breakfast in terms of time it needs to be prepared. But after consuming it number of times, it has become almost tasteless to me. So, I decided on giving tasteless granola a twist by combining them with dates. Those who like the taste of dates will love this recipe.

Granola bars are chewy, crunchy and crispy with not too much of sweetness. They make a great afternoon snack for the untimely hunger pangs. And when you are devouring a good book on the cozy couch, you can have them to save yourself from getting up and breaking the continuity. Being an avid reader myself, I hate getting up to make anything specially when I am on the verge of reading a good book.

I was a bit finicky when I was making them being my first time. But the bars came out to be good. The flavor of the dates gave them just the proper sweetness and the lemon juice the perfect tanginess. And both granola and dates combination made the granola bars rich in fibre, natural sugar and nutrition.The main thing to keep in mind is the time of baking. Otherwise you can refrigerate them too, if you don't want to bake them.


Ingredients

1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup pitted dates
1/2 cup dried and roughly chopped raisins, walnuts, cranberries and almonds
(or 1 cup granola)

Method

* In a pan boil the dates with a little amount of water.
* Remove from heat and let it cool.
* Then blend it into a blender to form a thick paste.
* Melt butter in a pan.
* Add lime juice and honey followed by oats, dried fruits and chopped nuts(basically the granola)
* Saute for few minutes and add the date paste. Mix well.
* In a greased baking tray, place the mixture and smoothen out the top using an oiled knife.
* Bake for just about 15-20 minutes in a preheated oven at 180°C.
* Cool it into a refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes.
* Once the mixture sets, cut it into small bars ans store them in an air tight container.

Off To A Great Start - Happy 101 Award

Gera of Sweet Foods brightened my January with a Happy 101 Award. Thanks a lot !! I think that was a great start for a new year.

Accepting the award I have added the Happy 101 picture. Further as part of the Award Acceptance, I must do the following too.

List 10 things that make me happy -

1)  Reading novels
2)  Delicious Desserts
3)  Watching movies
4)  Weekend offs
5)  Showing off my culinary skills
6)  Shopping (from clothes to veggies)
7)  Blogging
8)   .................
9)   .................
10) .................

Rest of the rules -

Tagging 10 bloggers who brighten my day.
Giving a link to their blogs
Notify the award receivers (will do sometime today)
Award recipients need to link back to the sender's(my) blog.

In no-particular order, 10 bloggers who can brighten up my day:

1. Lubna of Yummy Food  
2. Parita of Parita's Kitchen  
3. Muskan Sadhna of A2Z Vegetarian Cuisine
4. Freddy of Palachinka       
5. Srivalli of Cooking 4 All Seasons 
6. Deepa of Food Lyrics
7. Anncoo of Anncoo's Hobby
8. Nupur of Randomness
9. ................
10................

Apple Cinnamon Cake - Sinfully Fresh

From chocolate cakes to truffles, Irish to plain vanilla, strawberry, cakes and pastries are a delight for everyone. But at times these cakes become too much of a sin. Still they are hard to resist. And since I am new to baking, every now and then craving for a warm piece of cake arises. Most of the times, I have to run to the nearmost bakery and only after having a piece of cake or pastry that the craving subsides. Its just that I am lucky, the bakery is just fabulous.

Although, this weekend shedding my laziness finally I made a cake. The recipe is somewhat similar to apple oatmeal muffins but with a few changes, adapted from a cookery show. Cookery shows come second in my list of things addicted to. First being the cookbooks, which I have already mentioned. Every time I get to watch a show, I scribble the recipe in my diary, just to use it at some point of time. Finally its turn came.

Lately, the weather has been freezing cold. But after the whole lot of effort of making the apple cake, when I took the first bite of the warm cake, I felt devine and much more fresh. The cold had made me really lazy to the extent of guilty of neglecting my blog. From a past few days, I was really feeling bad. So, I am back with a lovely delcious cake. Take my advice and have it fresh from oven. A warm cake is an indulgence worth taking. And with a dolop of chilled icecream or fresh scoop of cream cheese icing, the fun becomes much more joyful. s

Ingredients

For Cake

2-3 apples (peeled & chopped)
1 cup flour
1 cup butter
1 cup superfine sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp cinnamon powder

For Icing

1cup cream cheese
pinch of roasted cardamom powder
1/2 cup whipped cream

Method

* Whisk sugar and butter together for few minutes.
* Then fold in the flour followed by eggs, honey and cinnamon powder.
* Finally add apples and mix properly.
* Pour the prepared batter into a buttered baking pan.
* Bake for about half an hour at 170C
* Meanwhile prepare the icing by whipping all the ingredients together
* When the cake is baked, let it cool.
* At the time of serving spread the icing over the cake and serve.

My Super Seven - Cookbooks To Look For In 2010

Reading has always been my passion. Since my growing years from Noddy to Nancy Drew then moving on to Jeffery Archer, Dan Brown, Mario Puzo, Chetan Bhagat, Shivani & countless more, I just don't remember how many books I have devoured till now. Still the passion has no bounds. But since when I started my food blog, my interest has moved a little from fiction to cookbooks. For me a cookbook is not just a recipe book but a collectible, which I can show off. Here is a list of my super seven which I am hoping to get my hands on, this year in 2010.

1) Cook In Boots - By Ravinder Bhogol, an Indian-origin food writer and stylist. Has won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for the UK`s Best First Cookbook

2) The Emperor’s Table by Salma Husain a resplendent collection of dishes from the imperial Mughal past

3) ChefMD's Big Book of Culinary Medicine by John La Puma, Rebecca Powell Marx. A Food Lover's Road Map to: Losing Weight, Preventing Disease, Getting Really Healthy

4) The Ultimate Low Fat Indian Cookbook by Shehzad Husain and Manisha Kanani: This dieter’s dream-come-true is a jugalbandi by the two authors, a Pakistani and an Uganda-born Indian.

5) Healthy Indian in Minutes by Monisha Bharadwaj: Provides mouth-watering glimpses of the diversity and subtlety and gentleness of our cuisine with gorgeous photographs.

6) Princely Legacy Hyderabadi Cuisine by Pratibha Karan. A must have cookbook on Hyderabadi cuisine.

7) Cooking For All Seasons by Jasleen Dhamija. Its an old one but evergreen, a must for everyone with wonderful recipes made using seasonal veggies and fruits.

My Mantra for 2010 is to eat healthy and cook healthy !!

2009 My Year In Food - A Retrospective

Over the past few days, I have been enjoying dinner parties, entertaining surprise guests and shopping to my heart's content in the year end sales. You can say I was having quite an enjoyable end to the year and a great start of a brand new year. All of a sudden it dawned on me that already the new year has started and I am way behind in retrospection. Still as 2009 was a special year for me, I had to. After all I had started my first blog and finally discovered the enriching experience of various flavors and aromas in this very year.Not just that, I even got so many new friends with whom I could share my passion for cooking and learn from theirs.

To start one of my favorite desserts from the year gone was Mango Pudding, all credits to my darling husband. Then the outcome of one of my early baking experiences, Chocolate Plum Cake. For me desserts come before anything else. So much that, if I could then I would have made the five course dining menu always start with something sweet. Fried rice is one of my favorite creations of all time being so quick and so much fun to make. From drinks section I would choose Masala Lemonade, a superb heat buster for summers.

As 2009 turned out to be superb, I have a strong inkling that 2010 will bring with it many more yummy creations from my kitchen to yours! To start the new year, here are some of my resolutions for the ongoing food journey.

- More of baking

- Some cookbook reviews

- Lots of recipes from different cuisines

Happy New Year 2010

Wishing all my foodie friends A Very Happy & Prosperous New Year. I wish all of you more of cooking, more learning of new recipes & more food blogging. So overall a wonderfull food season ahead. For me I wish to cook better each day and my journey of dicovering exotic tastes, flavors & aromas may be something very fulfilling.