Stove top Mac & Cheese

When I need cheese, I need cheese and I need the good one and when I mean good cheese, I usually mean cheddar cheese. Something about cheddar makes you want more and more. My son is a great sucker for mac and cheese and I make this atleast once every two weeks for the sake of him and me. Although I have tried the baked version, the ease of this stove top version always makes me to attempt the later every time.

~*What U Need*~ Elbow pasta - 1/2 a pack Whole milk 3/4 cup Flour -1 tbsp Sharp cheddar cheese - 1 1/2 cups Salt, pepper Pinch of chilli powder How I Made it: Cook the pasta as per package instructions. Warm 1/2 cup of milk. Whisk together the remaining milk and flour until there are no lumps in a separate bowl. When the milk begins to steam, whisk in the flour mixture. Whisk until it begins to thicken, about 3 to 4 minutes. Gradually whisk in the cheese. Season well and cook till the the cheese has completely melted, add the pasta. Coat the pasta completely in cheese sauce. Serve immediately.

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Cutout Sugar Cookies | Christmas Cookies

Pappu's holidays have officially started. Last thursday was the last day of school and now its Christmas break. Its fun on one hand cos we can sleep in late, have fun playing but the thing is he gets bored easily. His attention span is so little and engaging him needs stamina. I have some stuff planned for us like baking cookies (!!!duh), puzzle time, sensory play and threading pasta. So lets see how everything is going to work out. Coming to these cookies, these make perfect kids activity and holiday gift cookies. Kids can help in making the dough, cutting out the shapes and then decorating it as they want to. Since I made these for a volunteer event at pappu's school, I didn't decorate them as it was planned for kids' activity. But if you are planning to decorate them then use royal icing.

~*What U Need*~ Prep time: 30 mins; Cook time: 10 mins; Serves - 2 dozen All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups Baking powder - 1/4 tsp Salt - 1/8 tsp Unsalted butter - 6 tbsp Sugar - 1/2 cup Eggs - 1 Pure vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp How I Made it: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. In a large bowl or the bowl of your standing mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and continue to whisk till fully combined for about 1 minute. In a bowl, whisk the flour, salt and baking powder and mix it into the egg mixture until its all combined. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for about an hour. Take the dough out of the fridge and allow to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. Roll out on a floured surface to about 1/4 inch thick, cut out any design with your your cookie cutter and place them on your lined baking sheet. Bake for about 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly golden around the edges and allow them to cool completely.

Decorate as desired with royal icing.

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Three Pepper Casserole | Tomato & pepper Casserole | Easy kids Lunchbox Recipes

It was a big day for us, today. Another milestone in our lives; another day to be marked in the calendar. Today we enrolled our son into preschool and he starts school from Thursday. All these changes are really making us emotional. Well there are lots to take in, right from look he is already ready for school to how is he gonna adjust to the new environment to is he gonna be okay without me. But that needs to be done has to be done at the right time. So wish me luck everyone for all that is happening right now.

A few days back, I got an email from Indusladies about their Kids lunch box recipe book event announcement asking me if I would like to participate. With everything going on, the concept fitted the bill just right and I sent out an okay e-mail right away. And this is what I came up with. Kids love anything with cheese and that layer of melty stringy cheese will definitely ooohhh your kids to take a mouthful and more...

~*What U Need*~ Cooked rice - 2 cups Red, yellow, orange peppers - 1 cup, chopped Crushed tomatoes - 1/2 cup Garlic - 2, chopped Onion - 1, medium, chopped Olive oil - 1 tbsp Salt, pepper - to taste Italian seasoning - 1 tsp Mozzarella cheese - 1 cup How I Made it: Heat oil in a saucepan. Add the garlic and saute for a minute followed by the onions. Saute till brown. Add the peppers and saute for 2 mins. Add the tomatoes and combine together. Season with salt, pepper and italian seasoning. Transfer to a greased loaf pan and top with loads of grated cheese. Preheat oven to 350F. Bake the casserole for 25-30 mins or until the cheese is melty and bubbly.

Serve warm!!!

I am linking this to the kids lunchbox event @ Indusladies

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Easy Homemade Bounty Cups | Easy Gifting Ideas

Christmas is nearing and its time to send out gifts to your loved ones. What to send is one question that keeps popping up everytime I think about the gifting part. Though there are a whole lot of bookmarked recipes out there (on that note, its been a long time since I even visited my bookmarked folder), I keep on searching for new recipes, bookmarking them on-the-go. Rather than new I would say easy. Off late, I am becoming too lazy busy to even step into the kitchen. Thanks to the weather. Though it is scorching between 10 to 5, once the sun goes down, the weather is perfect to crawl into the coziness of my sofa (ofcourse with the kid) with a cup of steaming coffee and after that its play, play and more play with the kid. So when I planned to send some Christmas gifts to my in-laws, I was literally scratching my head in loss of recipes.

I first thought of making chocolate fudge and as I went through the recipes, was put off by all that heating, cooling and mixing. As I sat there, I remembered the dessicated coconut tat has been lying around for quite sometime and thought of making something with that. Browsed for a few recipes and was hooked to the homemade bounty bars out there. Now I am not a patient lady girl like them and so messing up my hands with all that dipping into chocolate was not even accounted for. Ok there is this fork, but believe me I am so clumsy to use the fork. I don't even eat my noodles with fork and don't ask me with what I do. That was when I remembered my cup shaped chocolate mould that I purchased long back (after lots of discussions, read heated, with the huss. yeah and I forget to mention tat there are already some 5 unused chocolate moulds and two of them silicon moulds). So thought of putting them into use and these beauties were wat I got. I got to send only a few to my in-laws as half was finished by amma. BTW she is a die-hard fan of anything coconut and Bounty tops the list :).
These are easy-to-make gifts and anyone lazy like me out there its just your recipe for the season.

~*What U Need*~ Dessicated coconut - 2 cups Condensed milk - 1/2 can Coconut oil - 1 tbsp(optinal) Dark chocolate - 200 gm

How I made it:
In a mixing bowl add coconut, condensed milk and coconut oil and mix till it forms a sticky dough. Grease your hands and make small balls out of it (depends on the chocolate mould that you will be using). Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Take your chocolate mould (I used cup shaped mould). Drop a spoonful of melted chocolate, place a coconut ball in the middle. Spoon chocolate and fill the mould. Refrigerate till set, 2 or 3 hours.

Homemade bounty ready!!! Makes a perfect gift for the season. You can either wrap it in colored foil or place them in a gift box.

** My Notes:
** Adding coconut oil is purely optional but that gives an intense coconut-y flavor to the filling
** You can use milk chocolate for the outer covering too but dark chocolate works the best

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No-bake Nutty Dates Chocolate Balls / Laddoos | Healthy in every bite

Next in series is this easy peesy Dates laddoos which I made for Diwali. I wanted to add something healthy to the sweet gifts that I gave out to neighbors and friends and thats when I tried this healthy no-cook, no-bake and fuss-free recipe. It has no specific recipe and you can be as creative as you can, adding stuff as you go about the process and all you need is only your blender. How cool is that. And by creative, I say chuck in anything that you think would give some flavor like some tutti frutti or dark chocolate chips (when you knead)... Why not try adding some roasted, salted peanuts... worth a try na??? And wat more... you can get ideas from your kids and you will love spending time with them in the kitchen.. oh they give you the bizzarest of the bizarre combination. (come on, don't worry about the cleaning part, enjoying quality time is what matters.)

It was a winner with the seniors and they loved the fact that it had no sugar added to it... A couple of whizzes in the blender and you have a winner recipe.
This is not a festive recipe but can be made anytime... Chill them and cut them into bars and you have a perfect energy bar to boost up your day. A laddoo in your kid's daily snack dubba and you have no worries that your kids are not having their quintessential daily nutrients. Tweak the recipe as per your needs, as per the nutrients you want to incorporate.

~*What U Need*~ Pitted Dates - 1/2 cup Walnuts - 8 to 10 Drinking chocolate - 1 tbsp Digestive biscuits - 2 Dessicated coconut - to roll

How I Made it:
Add dates into your blender and run till chopped coarsely. Add the drinking chocolate and give it a pulse. Next add the walnuts and run the blender till you get a coarse but well blended mixture.

Remove into a wide bowl. Chop the digestive biscuits, add this to the dates mixture and knead till incorporated. Pinch small balls, roll them between your palms, and then in dessicated coconut or cocoa powder.

Chill and serve.

** My Notes:
** You can skip the cocoa powder and replace it with dessicated coconut.
** You can replace the walnuts with nuts of your choice.
** You can also the toast the nuts to add an extra crunch.
** You can roll them in cocoa powder or chopped nuts too.
** You can also dip them in melted chocolate. Kids will love it.

Sending this to Fast & Quick Healthy dishes held at Life with Spices from Priya's Versatile Recipes

...and Show me ur hits @ Divya's Culinary journey originally started by Sangeetha from Spicy treats

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Malabar kaipola

Hope all my US friends who were in the path of 'Hurricane sandy' safe and sound. If it was Sandy for US, it was 'Nilam' for Chennai. Though the code was low for 'Nilam' people were asked to take cover and evacuate from low lying areas due to the high wind speeds. Hope everyone recovers soon from both the disasters and my prayers for all the deceased.
Coming back to the recipe, I saw this in Fitfortaste and was instantly hooked to it. The recipe calls for ripe nendrampazhams which is not easy to get in Chennai and though got does not have the authentic taste (the taste from Kerala).

Whenever amma and appa comes from native, they bring us loads of these bananas as both of us love em and also they stay good for atleast a week. So this time when I got these beautiful bananas from my hometown, I let some of them to go ripe and more ripe just to try this. Final word, this recipe is a winner and makes for a perfect filling morning breakfast with some toast and cold milk.

Adapted from Fitfortaste ~*What U Need*~ Ripe Nendra pazham/plantains - 2, chopped Eggs - 1 Sugar - 1 tbsp Broken Cashewnuts - 1 tbsp Raisins - 1 tbsp Cardamom powder - a pinch Coconut grated - 2 tbsp Milk - 1 tbsp Ghee - 2 + 2 tsp

How I Made it:
Heat 2 tsp ghee in a nonstick pan, add the chopped plantains and saute till golden say 2 mins. Add sugar and saute until sugar melts completely. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat egg. Add milk and beat well. Add cashews and raisins to the banana and mix well. Add the egg mixture to this, followed by the grated coconut and mix.

Heat a frying pan on low flame, add 2 tsp ghee and swirl. Pour the mixture and cook for 10 mins. Flip and cook for 5 mins. Remove and cut into pieces.

Serve with tea!!!

** My Notes:
** Adding milk gives a subtle fluffiness. You can ignore this also.
** The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup sugar but I added only 1 tbsp sugar as my bananas were way too ripe and also I preferred them less sweet.

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Simple 'Single Serve' Biscuit Pudding | Digestive Biscuits in a Chocolate Custard Pool

Hi guys, hope you are having a great weekend... I have one question to ask you guys. How many have you eaten or are eating the age old Milk Bikis biscuits dumped in milk till they are soft even today? All my childhood days I have had biscuits like this only just like a toddler does. Even today whenever I have cookies, if I have some milk by the side, then the cookie automatically gets a dip in the milk. Nothing can beat this way of eating biscuits.

This dessert has been inspired from that way of eating biscuits. I replaced the milk with a simple chocolate custard and substituted digestive biscuits in place of milk bikis. This is something similar to the biscuit pudding sans the multiple layering and dipping in coffee decotion ~ a simpler version of the biscuit pudding. You can use any kinda biscuits but I preferred Digestive cos they get soaked up real quick.

I made a single serving since only I like to eat biscuits dunked in milk. 'A' has an aversion to this habit of mine. I don't know how he grew up as a kid without eating biscuits like this. But this quantity given here can serve two. If you are too selfish put everything in a single bowl and have it just for yourself or split it between two bowls.

~*What U Need*~ Serves - 2 Cocoa Powder - 2 tbsp Corn flour - 1 1/2 tbsp Milk - 1 cup Sugar - 1 1/2 tbsp Digestive biscuits - 4 Cocoa powder - to dust Chocolate vermicelli White chocolate

How I Made it:
Lets prepare the custard first. Mix cocoa powder and corn flour with 2 tbsp milk without forming lumps. Set this aside.

Heat milk and sugar in a pan until boiled and sugar dissolves. Add the cornflour + cocoa mixture and keep stirring till smooth and thick, around 2-3 mins. Allow to cool.

In a serving glass, add 1 layer of the chocolate custard, sprinkle cocoa powder, place a biscuit, spoon some more custard on top and sprinkle with cocoa powder. Repeat layers till desired finishing with the custard.

Dust cocoa powder, sprinkle chocolate strands and grate some white chocolate on top. Refrigerate for 4-5 hours.

Serve chilled.

** My Notes:
**This amount gives a tad bit of bitterness which I preferred. But decrease the cocoa powder content to 1 1/2 tbsp if you prefer it sweeter.
** You can also add 1/2 tsp vanilla essence to the custard.

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