Cornmeal Cake

I made this for my son who loves cakes. I want to satisfy him at the same time want to sure what he takes should be good for health. I heard that cornflour is nutritious and the result is cornmeal cake.. simple, delicious and healthy. Corn meal is rich in vitamin B. There are different types of cornmeal available. Corn meal and corn flour (which we get in indian stores) are same only difference cornmeal is little course in texture and cornflour is finely grounded. I prefer stone grounded yellow cornmeal for this recipe.

(cornflour cake)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup olive oil, plus more for the pan
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar, plus 1/4 cup for the topping
1/2 cup orange juice
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Brush bottom and sides of an 6-inch loaf pan with oil. You can use a round pan.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together oil, egg, 1/2 cup sugar, and orange juice until smooth. Add flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt; whisk gently to combine.
3. Pour batter into prepared pan; sprinkle top evenly with remaining 1/4 cup sugar (topping will be thick). Bake until cake begins to pull away from sides of pan and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 35-40 minutes.
4. Cornmeal cake is ready to taste.

Arvi fry(chema dumpala vepudu)

When i was kid i never liked it. My mother used to prepare as a curry with tamarind paste and i always says no..i don't like it, i won't eat. After marriage and eating routine foods like dal,caulilower,capsicum etc for over a year, i happened to see arvi at indian stores in newjersey and immediately i bought them forgetting my childhood days. I tried the same recipe my mother used to make and to my surprise i liked it. What a change time will bring.. right. Now whenever i see fresh arvi i always buy them. Even in american stores we can find them as taro, scientific name is Colocasia but i found a slight difference, the indians ones are thick in texture i mean when you cut you can see some milky liquid on your knife as opposite to the ones we find in american stores which are dry. Though i like the indian ones you can try with both. Be careful to select the arvi because some are kept for so many days that they have hard lumps and you lose the taste.

Ingredients:
Chema Dumpalu(Arvi)-4
about 2-3 green chillies
1 tbsp daniya powder

(Traditional andhra lunch today: Rice,TomaoPickle, Mango dal and arvi fry)

Preparation: For fry i prefer to select long arvi roots because its easy to make slices. Cut arvi into half and boil till it becomes soft enought to remove the outer skin. If its too much soft its difficult to cut properly. The tip is if you have time put the boiled arvi pieces in the refirigerator for sometime then cut into small slices. Remove the skin and cut into thin slices. Now a days we almost stopped fried items as it is not a healthy food. But here because the root is already cooked you need not do much frying just toss in oil for 2-3 minutes on moderate flame until all the pieces are firm and light golden color in color. Now add Green chillies,Curry leaves,Salt and redchilli powder. Let it stay for a minute for somemore time and finally add 1 tbsp dhaniya powder. Goes as side dish for dal.

Lets start with sweet

When the thought of blogging came to my mind, immediate question is where to start. I decided to go with food blog the reason being is that cooking is a creative art where immediate results can be seen and there is a lot of scope to learn. When i started cooking after marriage i depended a lot on internet for recipies usually in text format not having any idea of how it looks like after completed. But thanks to food blogs where our mouths are watered seeing the photos of recipies and i also want to contribute my share.

Bread Pudding:
Iam very fond of sweets be it khova, laddu anything i will be there first to eat. Now a days I got bored with eating traditional sweets so want to try new and this is the result. There are many different types of bread puddings like bread and butter pudding,bread and apple pudding etc, but this the traditional one. For good results use french loaf bread because it is not smooth as traditional white bread. Here i used white bread because i want to get rid of bread in my refrigerator.

(bread pudding with vanilla icecream)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
3 tbsp melted unsalted butter
1/2 tbsp ground cinammon
1/4 tbsp salt
8 slices of crustless white bread cut into pieces
Handful of raisins

Preparation: I like baking because the only thing we have to concern is about measurements then everything is taken care by oven. Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk first 6 ingredients, then add bread pieces and raisins and gently mix. Don't overmix. Butter any approriate baking dish here i used 9 inch round cake pan and pour the batter into the dish. Sprinkle the top with additional ground cinammon. Bake for 30 minutes or longer until top is in golden yellow color and is set in the center. Bread pudding can be eat hot otherwise chilled it to use as dessert accompanied with icecream.

Hello to the Cooking World

After seeing numerous food blogs, thinking whether can i do it or not, Finally iam in. I can say iam not a great cook. I also falls into the category of many people who thinks that "anyway i have to do after marriage why hurry now" kind of attitude. But now iam married, blessed with a son i came to know why many enjoys cooking. Here in US having plenty of time, meeting people with different cultures makes me to try out new recipies. Although some are disasters they all add up to my experience. I like cooking having less ingredients and especially those found in everyday kitchen with minimal time and effort. So lets see how this goes. :-)