CARROT CAKE WITH ORANGE ICING

This weekend was awesome , I had entered into a Cooking Trance..... :P . Like I told my exams has just got over , and I don't go out too much the best entertainment for me is COOKING. Both Saturday and Sunday I had tried several new recipes and it was the best time also surprisingly none of them turned into a total disaster :D .  Some months back in my fav. channel "TLC" I saw one of my fav. chef "Rachel Allen" bake a Carrot Cake. She made it seem so easy and it looked wonderful and since then I had decided to try this cake but somehow it didn't turn into reality till last Saturday :) . So sharing the carrot cake recipe its not totally like hers cause I didn't have a lot of the ingredients so you can say its my version of Carrot Cake. The best part of this is when I shared the cake with some of my friends they liked it so much that they even parceled a few :) . Sharing the dish with Fudge Ripple - Tuesday Night Supper Club Link Up No 30 , Blessed With Grace - Tempt My Tummy Tuesday , All The Small Stuff - Tuesday's At Table  and Mom's Crazy Cooking - THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS

FOR CARROT CAKE
Grated Carrot	3 cups
Eggs	2 large
Brown Sugar	2 cup
Caster sugar	1 cups
Flour	2 cup
Vanilla essence	2 teaspoon
Cinnamon Powder	1 teaspoon
Salt	A pinch of it
Baking Powder	1 teaspoon
Baking Soda	1/2 teaspoon
Oil	2 tablespoons
Butter	2 tablespoons

FOR ORANGE ICING
Cheese Cream	1/2 cup
Butter	2 tablespoon
Orange zest	Half tablespoon
Orange Juice	2 tablespoon
Icing Sugar	2 cups

    CARROT CAKE:-

1. Whisk together eggs , vanilla essence , brown sugar and caster sugar. Whisk till the sugar mix properly and also the mixture turns a pale and fluffy.
2. Add the egg mixture add the flour,baking powder , baking soda , cinnamon powder and salt to the food processor and start mixing. The mixture will not be very smooth but its fine.
3. To the food processor add the carrot , oil and butter and start mixing till it gets smooth.
4. Coat a baking bowl with little oil and add the cake mixture to the baking bowl.
5. Bake the cake in microwave for 12 min at 100 degree. After the time is up using the back of the spoon insert it into the cake at the center and pull up. If its clean then the cake is done else bake it for some more time and check again. 
6. Remove it and then let it cool.

ORANGE ICEING:-

1. Mix together butter, cheese cream , orange zest , orange juice and icing sugar till it appears to be glowing and look like cake icing (It will a little running icing , actually I like it way I didn't want it to be heavy).
2. Pour the icing on the cake evenly with a spatula and refrigerate for half an hour as we don't want it to be very thick.

The Carrot Cake with Orange Icing is ready for the bite :) .

POTATO , EGG & CHICKEN SALAD

Yesterday was the last day for my exams for this semester , so since morning I was all excited thinking that this is it after this paper I would not need to study for 1 month at least :D  . I had gone to the examination center at ten in the morning thats when I learned that the server was down so we had to wait. And so I waited and waited , finally I had my exam at 4:30 in the evening....... all my excitement had died down by then and I was tired and hungry   :( .  I was so tired that I didn't feel like getting down and packing food coz then getting a transportation to my house would be another big struggle , so cooking something at home seemed to be a better option.  People you know me would right-away tell you that I enjoy having good salads. And I make one every weekend , don't really know why I have not posted any of my salad ideas so far but as the saying goes better late then never, so sharing with you the Potato & Egg Salad I had this Friday after all the waiting. I have shared the salad with Favorite Things Friday - No. 13 hosted by Kristi , FoodTripFriday#100 in Food Trip Friday  and  Fun w/ Food Friday Linky Party in Paisley Passions

FOR THE SALAD
Potatoes	4 numbers medium sized
Eggs	2 large eggs
Onion	1 medium sized
Vinegar	1 tablespoon
White Pepper	1 teaspoon
Salt	As per taste

FOR SALAD DRESSING
Cream	1/2 cup
Butter	Half tablespoon
Mayonnaise	2 tablespoon
Red Chilli Powder	Half teaspoon
Dried Parsley	1 tablespoon
Black Pepper	1 tablespoon
Salt	As per taste

FOR CHICKEN TOPPINGS
Chicken breast	1 slice
Soya Sauce	1 teaspoon
Tomato Sauce	1 tablespoon
Red Chilli Powder	1 teaspoon
Black Pepper	1 tablespoon
Salt	As per taste

    SALAD:-

1. In a large pan , boil water add salt and vinegar and potatoes and cook till the potatoes are soften.
2. In another pan , boil water with some salt and hard boil the eggs.
3. Chop the onions as finely as possible. Cut the potatoes and eggs in small size cubes
4. In a large bowl place all the main ingredients and add the salt and white pepper. Keep it for at times.

SALAD DRESSING:-

1. In a bowl , place butter, cream , mayonnaise , red chilli powder , dried parsley , salt and pepper. Mix them thoroughly till it forms a smooth paste.
2. Spread the dressing on the salad mixture and mix it properly and let it stand for 10 min.

CHICKEN TOPPING:-

1. Cut the chicken breast into thin strips.
2. Marinate the strips with soya sauce , tomato sauce , red chilli powder , black pepper and salt and keep it for 30 min.
3. Heat a bit of oil in a pan , and fry the marinated chicken strips till they are golden on all sides.

To serve , place the salad in a bowl and top it with the fried chicken strips. I felt great after having the salad. Hope you do too  :)  .

EGG LESS STRAWBERRY CAKE

Yesterday evening I suddenly remembered that the month has almost come to an end and till now I have not made anything with strawberry :( . Actually thinking of joining the Veggie Fruit Month event hosted by Priya and Pari  and as the fruit for this month is "STRAWBERRY" so I had to make something. So while returning from office I bought some strawberries. Then the important question arose.......what will I make with it. As I already planned for some parathas for dinner so I thought of making some desserts, and since I love to eat cakes after dinner so I decided to make a cake. Hence the Egg less Strawberry Cake was formed. I had shared the dish with Slighlty Indulgent Tuesday; 2/22/11 hosted by AMY , Tuesday Night Supper Club--link up no. 29 in Fudge Ripple  and  Tempt My Tummy Tuesday: Skillet Phyllo Pot Pie hosted by Lisa

FOR STRAWBERRY CAKE
Strawberry	150 grms
Cream	1/2 cup
Milk	1/2 cup
Sugar	1 cup
Flour	1 cup
Baking Powder	1 teaspoon
Baking Soda	1/2 teaspoon
Oil	2 tablespoons
Butter	2 tablespoons

FOR CAKE ICING
Cream	1/2 cup
Butter	2 tablespoon
Icing Sugar	2 cups

       STRAWBERRY CAKE:-

1. Blend together the strawberries, cream and milk till everything is smooth.
2. Add sugar to the mixture and blend it again till smooth.
3. Mix flour,baking powder and baking soda separately in a large bowl.
4. Melt the butter. Add the butter and oil to the strawberry mixture in the blender and mix throughly.
5. Add the strawberry mixture to the flour mixture and fold them till its smooth. This helps in making the cake fluffy and light.
6. Coat the baking bowl with slight oil and then add the batter in the baking dish.
7. Bake the mixture in the oven for 20 min at 210 degree celcius.
8. Remove it and then let it cool.

CAKE ICEING:-

1. Mix together butter, cream , icing sugar till it appears to be glowing and look like cake icing.
2. Spread the icing on the cake evenly with a spatula and refrigerate for 1 hour.

The Strawberry Cake id ready for the bite :) .

SOYA BIRYANI WITH VEGETABLES

It was Monday a new week had started and along with that loads of works :) . Its was  very hot in the morning and by evening we had experienced the first rain of the year. It was raining cats and dogs but everyone seems to be enjoying the rain and so was I. I just love the smell of the land after the first rain..... :)  I also love to see the rain through the window with some pakoda and ginger tea....... somehow it feels just awesome :D . For dinner , if its raining, I love to have khichdi with pickle and brijal fry . Yesterday being a Monday , is the day of the week when I fast and eat vegetarian dishes only, so while I was in office I had already made up my mind to prepare khichdi for dinner. When I reached home and saw all the vegetables I had at home....my plans had changed. Inspite of being tired and hungry I still decided to make spinach rice with vegetable and crunchy brinjal fry.  I had got everything prepared and suddenly the electricity went off....I generally happens here when there is heavy rain , so I thought of waiting for some time. Finally after one hour of patience , I started preparing the dish under the flickering candle light. I hate to do anything in the dark but it was an experience......not a very good one really :) . I have shared the dish with Midnight Maniac Meatless Mondays {No.21} hosted by Rebecca , Meatless Mondays in My Sweet and Savory , Just another Meatless Monday #48 in Hey What's For Dinner Mom

Rice	2 cups
Potatoes	2 medium sized
Carrot	2 medium sized
Spinach	2 bunches
Soya Nuggets	2 cups
Red Chilli Powder	1 teaspoon
Cherry tomatoes	1 cup
Green Chilly	3 numbers
Onion	1 medium sized
Garlic	5-6 cloves
Refined Oil	Half cup
Salt	As per taste

1. Soak the rice in water for 5-10 min. This allows the rice to cook faster.
2. Soak the soya nuggets in water till they soften. Then squeeze out the water for each of the nuggets. 
3. Cut the potatoes and onions in cubes , the carrots in julienne. 
4. Makes a smooth paste of spinach with the garlic.
5. Heat oil in a wok , add half teaspoon red chilli powder in the oil and then add the soya nuggets and fry till they are brown on all sides, remove and set aside.
6. In the wok, add oil and fry the vegetables. I fried the vegetable separately because I wanted then to keep their color intact.
7. Heat oil in a cooker, and add the rice and salt. After stirring for 5 min add the spinach puree to the cooker and cook till the water evaporates and the spinach no longer smells raw, at this point just beware that the rice does not stick in the bottom.
8. And cherry tomatoes and the fried vegetables to the rice and mix them properly.
9. Add some water and pressure cook the rice. The dish is ready to be served. It tastes awesome with Crunchy Brinjal Fry , the crunchy brinjal fry was prepared the same way as the Crunchy Fish Fry :)

BUTTERY GARLIC NOODLES & CHICKEN TAIPE

Knowing me you will be aware that I just don't like to cook on Friday's. I enjoy cooking every single day mainly on weekends where I can try some new dishes :) . But on Fridays I just want to parcel some food , enjoy 2-3 movies and relax , but this Friday was different SADLY :'( . I reached home and ordered food from my favorite Chinese restaurant but they said they were super packed so they can send food only after 2 hours :( . I was hungry after the hectic day in office and I had done my shopping so I had everything at hand and it made no sense to wait for so long. Since it was Chinese in my head so I thought of trying some new Chinese recipe :)  Some time back I had read that butter has been recent added in the Chinese dishes, suddenly I remembered that in one small resturant some 3-4 years back I had a buttery noodle. I was determined to try to make noodles with butter some time soon and what better than this Friday :)  When I started my college, I had a very kind hearted friend "Barsha" who would very often treat me to different resturants during that time I had a Chinese chicken dish called "Chicken Taipai". So with my buttery noodles I decided to try making this chicken dish but since I was not aware of the recipe and I don't wanna hurt any sentiments so I called mine "CHICKEN TAIPE"

FOR BUTTERY GARLIC NOODLES
Noodles	150 gm
Eggs	2 numbers
Onion	1 medium sized
Sugar	Half teasoon
Garlic	5-6 cloves
Green Chillies	2 numbers
Red Chilly Powder	1and half teaspoon
Butter	2 sticks
Salt	A pinch

FOR CHICKEN TAIPE
Chicken Breast	200 gm
Garlic	2 cloves
Onion	1 medium sized
Tomato puree	Quater cup
Green chilli sauce	Half tablespoon
Schezwan Sauce	1 tablespoon
Soya Sauce	1 teaspoon
Red Chilly Powder	Half teaspoon
Flour	1 tablespoon
Sugar	1/2 teaspoon
Salt	As per taste

    BUTTERY GARLIC NOODLES  :-

1. Boil the noodles in a pot of water with little salt and oil. The oil is very important as it prevents the noddles from sticking.
2. Drain the softened noodles and immediately pour cold water so that the noodles don't cook further else it will get all mushy.
3. Heat a bit of butter in a wok, add the eggs and fry them and set aside.
4. Heat the rest of the butter in the wok, add the mined garlic and let it fry for 2-3 min. 
5. Add finely chopped onion and green chilly to the wok and fry it for sometime. Then add the noodles and fry for 3 min. 
6. Add salt,sugar and red chilly powder to the noodle and cook for some more time. And serve hot.

      CHICKEN TAIPE  :-

1. Cut the chicken into strips. Marinate them with salt, pepper, soya sauce , red chilly powder and flour and leave it for 15 min.
2. Heat oil in a wok , and fry the chicken strips till they are golden on all sides. And remove it
3. To the same wok, add chopped onion and minced garlic and fry.
4. When done add, tomato puree, green chilli sauce, schezwan sauce and soya sauce and when the strong smell is removed add the chicken pieces and fry till each piece is properly coated.
5. Serve it with the buttery garlic noodle.

HEAVILY STUFFED PARATHA

And finally its Thursday:) . I just love Thursday nights as it keeps reminding me that its just one more day of office and then WEEKEND.......yahoo..!!!! :D . Frankly I have even started planning for my weekends. But Thursdays mean one more thing , refrigerator is almost empty so need to go shopping on Friday..... :)  Today when I reached home , I saw that I have 2-potatoes , 1-carrot , 2-eggs , 1-tomatoes , 2-onions and 3-green chilly , believe me that too much then most of the days :D  so I decided to try and making something that would use all of them so that nothing is wasted and tomorrow I can do some fresh shopping. Hence the Stuffed Paratha seemed to be the best option , I called it Heavily Stuffed cause I have added 4 different stuffings :) . And yeah wanted to share one more joke........even the flour and oil is all over now :D . I would share the recipe for Spicy Tomato Chutney later lets start with "Heavily Stuffed Paratha"

Wheat Flour	2 cups
Potatoes	2 medium sized
Carrot	1 large number
Eggs	2 medium sized
Green Chilly	2 numbers
Onion	1 medium sized
Butter	1 tablespoon
Refined Oil	Half cup
Salt	As per taste

1. Boil the potatoes and carrots together till they both softens.
2. Hard boil the eggs.
3. In a bowl , mash together the cooked potatoes , carrots and the eggs with salt and butter. Mix all the ingredients throughly and set aside.
4. In another bowl , knead together flour ,little salt and butter using warm water till it form a smooth mixture and leave it for 5 min.
5. Make small balls of the kneaded flour and stuff the mashed vegetable filling into the flour and turn it into a stuffed ball.
6. Using a rolling pin flatten the stuffed balls in circular shapes , keep dusting the board with flour to prevent the dough from sticking.
7. Heat a pan , and place the flatten stuffed dough into the pan over medium heat and let it cook for 1 min on both the sides.
8. Then drizzle some oil on the open side of the partially cooked dough and turn it over and drizzle some oil on the other side and fry till both the side turn golden brown.
9. Serve it hot.

The Parathas can be had with pickle or curd or chutney. I enjoyed it with Spicy Tomato Chutney.

FISH KALIA

Time is a very big factor for me........I just dont get time to get everything done.And most of the time the only thing that suffers is my blog. I feel so sad about it but its like helpless :).  Anyways since today I have some time so decided to share a very simple fish dish that I made this weekend. Every two to three weeks I like to eat fish. The sad story is since I go very late for shopping most of the time I get only Rohu, not sure about its English's name but some forums said that to be known as "Greas Crap Fish" .  There are several different ways we can cook this fish. This recipe is generally very common in all bengali houses. Its called "Fish Kalia" , but why is it called so or what it symbolizes again no idea all I know is I like this dish :D

Fish	4 pieces
Turmeric Powder	1and half tablespoon
Red Chilli Powder	2 tablespoon
Cumin Powder	Half tablespoon
Green Chilly	2 numbers
Onion	1 medium sized
Ginger Paste	Half teaspoon
Garlic Paste	3-4 cloves
Tomato	2 medium sized
Lemon	1 piece
Yogurt	50 grams
Whole Red chilli	2 numbers
Cumin Seeds	Half tablespoon
Mustard Oil	Half cup
Salt	As per taste

1. Marinate the fish pieces with half spoon turmeric powder , 1 tablespoon red chilli powder, lemon juice , salt and 1 tablespoon oil. Leave it for 10 min.
2. Meanwhile, grind together the onion , garlic , ginger and green chilli.
3. Heat oil in a pan , and fry the marinated fish pieces till it turn brown on both sides. Then remove it in a plate.
4. Heat oil in the pan again, add the cumin seeds , whole red chilli and bay leaf wait till the cumin seeds splutter.
5. Add the wet paste and salt to the oil and cook till the oil separates out.
6. In the meanwhile , boil water in a bowl and blanch the 2 tomatoes in it. Then remove the skin of the tomatoes and whisk it into a puree.
7. Add the tomato puree to the onion paste in the pan and mix it well. To this add the tumeric powder , cumin powder , red chilli powder and cook till the oil again separates out. 
8. Whisk the yogurt till smooth and add this to the pan again. And cook for 5 min more.
9. Add the fried fish pieces to the pan and add 1 cup of warm water and cook till the extra water evaporates and the fish seems softer.
10. The Fish Kalia is ready to serve.

The dish goes very well with steamed white rice.

ORANGEY CHICKEN

This last week was really hectic for me....with increase in workload and exams I could not do the thing that gave me real happiness "COOKING and BLOGGING" :D , all complains apart I am back now .. I love eating Chicken and since my childhood we have a rule in my house "Chicken every sunday!!!!" and I still follow the rule :) . When I was a kid my uncle would say that if I ate so much of chicken then soon I would dislike it well it didnt happen till now ;)  My mom would always experiment with chicken dishes and non have ever failed :) . I too enjoy following her footsteps. So today's recipe is also an experiment and turns out that chicken and orange make a pretty good combination :) and forms a good appetizer ....

Chicken Drumsticks	4 pieces
Orange	1 large
Dried Parsley	1 teapoon
Flour	1 cup
Red Chilli Powder	1 teaspoons
Black Pepper Powder	Half teaspoon
Ginger Paste	Half teaspoon
Garlic Paste	Half teaspoon
Lemon	1 piece
Honey	1 tablespoon
Oil	2 tablespoons
Salt	As per taste

1. Make small slits all around the chicken pieces so that the chicken get cooked properly from inside as well.
2. Marinate the chicken drumsticks with the ginger paste , garlic paste, half a lemon juice , salt , red chilli powder ,black pepper powder , a bit of orange zest  and a few drops of orange juice for 30 min.
3. Take the flour in a plate and cover each of the chicken pieces with the flour.
4. Heat oil in a pan and add the pieces and fry for 3 min only . Then place the pieces in the microwave for 12 min at 80 degree. The pieces need to be turned from side to side at regular intervals.
5. In the mean time, in a pan add the rest of the orange juice , a few more orange zest , half a lemon juice , salt and black pepper and cook it over medium heat. 
6. As the orange mixture starts evaporating add the honey stirring constantly. Let the mixture cook over medium heat till it forms a glaze.
7. Place the cooked chicken pieces in the orange glaze and coat it on all sides. 
8. Remove the glazed chicken pieces on a piece and pour the rest of the glaze on the chicken piece.
9. The Orangey Chicken is ready to serve.