Apple crumble

Never tried this one before. Well, we had a lot of apples at home and many were rotting.

So I decided to make Apple crumble. I got this recipie from food network , Dave Leiberman and turned out well. It was a rainy day and got my son involved in making this dessert. The changes I did was halved the original recipie, used royal gala instead of granny smith and added some granola plus oats. Of course I forgot to half the amount of butter, oh boy it of course tasted so well with lots of butter.

Ingredients

Filling:

4 large Golden Delicious apples ( i used 2 red apples)

1/4 cup sugar
1 lemon, juiced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Topping:

1 cup walnuts or pecans, roughly chopped
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch fine salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold butter, cut into small pieces

Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.
Peel, core, and slice apples into 1/4-inch slices. Place apples in a large mixing bowl and toss with sugar, lemon juice, flour, and cinnamon. Pour into a lightly greased 9 by 13-inch baking dish, and spread out into an even layer. Set aside.
In another large bowl, mix together the nuts, flour, oats, sugar, cinnamon, and salt for the topping. Using a pastry cutter or your fingers, gently work in the cold butter until pea-sized lumps are formed.
Top apples evenly with mixture and bake until apples are bubbly and topping is golden brown, about 45 minutes, rotating once halfway through cooking.
Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream.

Eggless Walnut and Date cake

I got this recepie from Aayi's recepie and added my little twist to it.

Ingredients:18 dates(Khajoor)3/4 cup milk 1cup sugar1 cup all purpose flour or maida 1/2 cup oil1 tea spn baking soda1 tbl spn cashews, walnuts dried pineapple chunks, shredded coconut
Method:Soak the dates in warm milk for 20 mts. Add sugar and grind them to a smooth paste along with the milk in which it is soaked in. Add oil and mix.Sieve together flour and baking soda. Add the flour one table spoon at a time and mix slowly. Add the nuts and mix.

Preheat the oven at 350F. Bake the cake in a greased oven proof dish for 35-40min (or till a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean).

Basil

I bought a packet of basil from our local farmers market and did'nt know how to use them. I loved the fragrance and was desparate to use it in my cooking. Unfortunately my husband is not a fan of trying new things or the smell of basil.

Just to give you some facts, basil is widely used in Italian cooking. It is called "Ocimum basilicum". the smell reminds me of our good old "Tulsi" which is called Ocimum tenuiflorum. Apparently it tulsi is also called holy basil.

So i finally madea basil coconut chutney and basil thogayal. Boy, let me tell you it was super delish.

I will post my recipie for these two.

Basil chutney

basil leaves a hand ful

coconut 2 tbsp

tamarind paste 1tsp

green chilli 4

grind all the above and add salt to taste. Season it with mustard seeds and urad dhal. chutney is ready. serve for idli or dosa.

Basil thogayal

basil leaves 1/4 cup

urad dhal 2 tbsp

red chillies 2

perungayam a pinch

tamarind paste 1 tsp

In a pan, fry urad dhal and red chilli with litle oil till golden brown. the nadd the basil leaves and fry them as you would do for pudhina thogayal. let it cool and grind all the ingredients with salt and perungayam. in thogayal consistency. It tastes goodwith rice, bread and chapathi.