Granola Bars | Any-time Crunchie Munchies

I haven’t tried store brought granola bars till date mainly because I am not happy with the picture covers or I am not sure on the taste of the combination of flavors. To me oats has to made into porridge, cornflakes has to be had with milk and honey has to be licked off the bottle. So it all drills down to me not buying granola bars.

When I came across this Granola bars recipe @ Sharmis passions, I had this tempting urge to make some mainly because I was in control of the recipe and secondly it seemed so simple and her pictures where so tempting… I halved her recipe as this was my first time but I am totally in love with the bars that I will be calling the original recipe next time.

Recipe adapted from Sharmis Passions
~*What U Need*~
Quick cooking oats – ½ cup
Cornflakes – 1/8 cup
Honey – ¼ cup
Butter – ½ tbsp
Sugar – ½ tbsp
Water – ½ tbsp
Vanilla essence – ¼ tsp (optional)

Nuts & Dry Fruits:
Almonds – 3 chopped finely
Walnut – 1 tbsp of broken pieces
Golden, black raisins and Dates – 1/8 cup

The combined volume of almonds, walnuts, golden and black raisins and dates should be ¼ cup

How I Made It:
Dry roast oats, cornflakes, nuts and dry fruits in a pan separately until a nutty flavor comes out. The oats should start browning slightly. Set aside
Add butter in a pan and heat till it melts. Add honey, sugar, vanilla essence and water and heat till the mixture starts bubbling up.
Now add the roasted oats, cornflakes and nuts mixture and combine well until the honey mixture evenly coats the oats-cornflakes-nuts mixture.
Keep a butter paper ready. Spread the mixture using a spoon to ¼ or ½ inch or desired thickness. Trim the sides to form a square or rectangle. Cover it with another butter paper and press them down gently.
Allow to cool for 5mins and then cut into bars. Store them in airtight container.

Serve with a cup of milk or as an any-time Crunchie Munchie !!! I am serving this as a breakfast energy bar along with a cup of milk & banana / oats porridge.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

Signs off!!! Have a great weekend !

Interested!!! Click to read more...

Strawberry Yogurt Parfait... it's crunchy too

At times, I feel the sudden urge to surprise the huss with some guilt free, romantic dessert. This happens once in a blue moon since most of the times, I experiment and he becomes the guinea-pig :). As I said my urge was at its peak when I had a box of fresh strawberries at hand. Romance and ideas played through my head and I came up with this yummy parfait. I would say that it is semi guilt-free as a few tbsps of sugar has been added but if you have greek yogurt in hand you can skip this. Since it includes oats, cornflakes and nuts, you get tat crunchy nuttiness which when combined with fluffy yogurt makes you want for more.

~What U Need*~
Hung curd - 1 cup
Strawberries - 10
Rolled Oats - 5 tbsp
Crushed Cornflakes - 5 tbsp
Honey - 1 tbsp
Nuts of ur choice - 2 tbsp
Sugar - 3 tbsp + 1 tbsp

How I Made it:
Chop the strawberries into thin slices. Sprinkle 1 tbsp sugar on them. Mix well and refrigerate for 1-2 hours. Powder 3 tbsp sugar, whisk this to the hung curd. Adjust sugar to taste. Refrigerate till use.
Dry roast the oats till brown and you get the nutty flavor. Add the crushed cornflakes and add honey to this. The honey will start to bubble, mix well. Cool down this mixture.
Mash the strawberries with the back of a spoon. Toast nuts of your choice and chop them coarsely.

In a tall glass, add 2 tbsp of yogurt followed by the mashed strawberry syrup and then the cornflakes-oats mixture and then the toasted nuts. Repeat till the rim of glass. Garnish with strawberry.

Serve chilled. U can even top it with some ice-cream.

Sending this to Cakes, Cookies and Desserts event held by Anjali Shukla @ Spice n Sugar Tales


So thats it Folks...
With Love,

Signs off!!!

Interested!!! Click to read more...

Chocolate coated Cornflakes and An award I would never forget!

Now this is a very simple recipe. Damn simple that even your kiddo can do it under your surveillance. You would have caught a glimpse of these in my 4-in-1 chocolate cup cakes. This can be used as a kids-evening-snack or can be used for decorating or as a munch-on snack or as a shoot-up energy source. Shoot-up energy source!!! That sounds ridiculous rite. Come on guys, u have chocolate in it. Wat else do you need to boost up your energy. For me even the word chocolate makes me jumpy on my feet.

I got this idea when I had some extra melted chocolate and luckily when my eyes fell on the cornflakes jar both at the same time.
Indulging in a handful of crunchy chocolate-y snack from time to time without any guilt is needy at times for all-the-time-on-the-toes beings like me.

~*What U Need*~
Any flavored cornflakes - a handful
Melted milk / dark chocolate - 1/4 cup
Vanilla essence - 1/4 tsp

How I Made it:
Melt the chocolate bar using double boiler method / microwave at high @ intervals of 15 secs.
Pour this in a wide heat resistant bowl. Immediately add in the cornflakes and with a spatula gently fold in so that the cornflakes are fully / semi coated. Spread this in a butter paper and chill for 1 hr / till the chocolate solidifies.
Gently scrap from the butter paper and use for decorating or store in an air-tight container in the fridge to be used later.

My Notes:
U can use milk or dark chocolate. However I preferred the milk chocolate the most as it was sweet and went well with crunchiness of the cornflakes.
I have come across recipes in which this mixture is dropped as balls / truffle like. You can go for that too.
Drop the dipped cornflakes into clusters, cool it. Melt some white chocolate in a double boiler, put it in a zip-lock bag and pipe this in a zigzag motion on top of the clusters, sprinkle some colored sugar balls and viola!!! U have Chocolate-cornflaky truffles in hand.
Now that you have different flavors of cornflakes coming out, experiment with them. I have been eyeing the strawberry one for a long time. Would love the color and taste as well.

Now to the award. This is not "just another award" but a very special one from my blog friend Laxmi. When Laxmi commented on one of my posts telling that I have an award waiting @ her space, little did I know that she had made my day. I went to her space expecting another lovely blog award but to my surprise she had written, composed and made an award for individual bloggers. I was awed by the pain and time she had put in to make special awards for each of us. She had given me the "Innovative blogger award" and had written some beautiful words on my blog. Thanks a lot Laxmi. U rock dear!!! *Hugs to U*
I am really happy to have made some sweet friends thro' blogging. Thanks u guys...

These were the sweet words that she had put up for me!

Check out her blog SamayalDiary for some yummy recipes!

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

Signs off!!!

Interested!!! Click to read more...

4 in 1 Choco-Cup-Cakes | Happy Friendship Day

Its friendship week fever everywhere and my outlook in-box has been overflowing with friendship chain e-mails for the past one week. E-mails wishing this understanding relationship to last for eternity, messages wishing good health and ever-lasting happiness to friends and kinsmen are in abundance. The season has come to an end and Friendship day is being celebrated today. So first and foremost, Happy Friendship day to all my blog friends !!!

When I was in college, me and my friends used to gather in our college cafeteria, have a small celebration with the then-available-pocket-money (that would be not exceeding Rs.10 per head) and then share the friendship bands with one another. Lovable days those were. We even had a sentiment that ppl who didn't remove the bands for more number of days where the ones with true friendship and so we would have it tied around our wrists for weeks together. But today, friends have scattered all around the world and friendship has gone down to yearly meet-ups, text messages and e-mails. Days when we joined hands to celebrate friendship day have gone by and we have moved on to update the FB status with Friendship day wishes.

Though I don't meet up with my friends often, Mr.A makes it a point that he meets his friends atleast once every month and on friendship day its a must. I envy boys in this matter. They liven up their relationships by meeting often. So when they put on a plan to meet up on friendship day, I made some chocolate delicacies for the entire lot. A simple yet chocolate filled happiness.

~*What U Need*~
Dark chocolate bar - as needed
Chocolate Ganache
Perfect Chocolate Cake
Colored Sprinkles / Chocolate Coated Cornflakes
Mini muffin liners

How I Made it:
To know how I made the perfect chocolate cake and chocolate ganache, click here. I used the same recipe.
Crumble the chocolate cake, pour few tablespoons of chocolate ganache over it and mix well. Now, how much cake and ganache u need is totally up to you and your sweet-tooth ;)
Melt the chocolate bar using double boiler method or microwave in high @ intervals of 15 sec till the chocolate completely melts. Now pour 2 tablespoons of molten chocolate into the muffin liners and using a pastry brush, coat the walls of the liners evenly. Pour out the extra chocolate. Freeze these liners for 2-3 hrs / till the chocolate has solidified. Once done, take them out and peel off the muffin liners. Freeze till use.

Take out the chocolate cups, fill it with desired amount of chocolate-ganache cake, top it off with a generous spoon of chocolate ganache, garnish with colored sugar balls / sprinkles / chocolate-coated-cornflakes (recipe coming soon) and chill it for half an hour and then serve. The crunchiness of the nearly tempered chocolate together with the rich cake and ganache is a feeling to die for.

Its not over yet. I have a small compliment to give away to all my dear blog friends on this lovely day. A token to your love and friendship. A small award. Do grab this (hope everyone would do it) and pass it around to all your dear ones to keep the love going around.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

Signs off!!!

Interested!!! Click to read more...

Appy Nutty / Cornflaky Milkshake

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. We follow this phrase every day. Our daily fruit box will have one apple, some nuts and 5-6 dates each. Days when we skip having this, we make plain apple milkshakes. I love having the milkshakes rather than chewing on the apples and so mostly skip the fruit box wanted-ly. Adding nuts / cornflakes was A’s idea and we found the combination to be rich and filling. We first tried adding nuts to the milkshake and the next time when we made this, we added cornflakes. Both were equally good, however I preferred the latter.

~*What U Need*~
Red delicious Apple – 2
Walnuts, Badam, Pista / Cornflakes – a handful
Milk – 2 cups
Ice cubes – as needed
Sugar – 2 tbsp
Water – if needed

How I made it:
Peel the skin and core the seeds of the apple. Cut into pieces and drop into blender.
Add the milk, nuts(/cornflakes), sugar and ice cubes and water if needed.
Blend well till you get a smooth mixture. Tit-bits of nuts is okay.

Serve chilled.

Notes:
You can replace the nuts with plain cornflakes to get a crunchy smoothie or you can add both.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

Signs off!!!

Interested!!! Click to read more...

KFC Style Crispy Chicken

Ever since I saw the chicken popcorn from Taste of Pearl city, I wanted to give it a go. Mainly because this dish is hubby's favorite. Whenever we go to KFC, this is a must in our order list... He literally drools over it.
I didn't know that they could be made at home until I saw this recipe. And it was yummy, crispy in the out and juicy in the middle.

I did the frying version and made it a bit spicy too...

~*What U need*~
Boneless chicken- 1/4 kg
Ginger garlic paste- 1 tsp
Chilli powder- 1/4 tsp
Garam masala- 1/2 tsp
Pepper powder- 1/2 tsp
Plain corn flakes- 50 g
Plain flour Lemon juice- 1/2 tbsp
Egg- 1
Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
Salt to taste
Oil for frying

How I Made It:
Clean the chicken well and drain excess water. Cut them into small pieces.
Mix the chicken with ginger garlic paste, chilli, pepper, garam masala, lemon juice and salt and marinate for atleast 1 hour.
Crush the corn flakes using your finger tips.
Beat the egg with turmeric powder and little bit of salt.
Dip the chicken pieces in flour and coat evenly. Dust of the excess flour.
Dip the flour coated chicken in egg and then roll them in cornflakes.
Repeat with all the chicken pieces. Refrigerate the cornflakes coated chicken for 1 hour.

Heat oil in a pan, shallow fry the chicken pieces until they look golden brown color.
Serve warm. We had this as a starter with chicken briyani

Interested!!! Click to read more...