Z for Zebra Cake!

I am a relatively new cook and surfing food blogs has become my latest pass time. There are so many ideas out there.. it mind boggling!! During this blog cruising, I came along Passionate About Baking. Its one helluva blog, I have to say. More than the content, the pictures pop out straight away. There is a lot I need to learn about food photography. And the cakes... ooooooh cakes Deeba makes. Hey that rhymes!! It makes you want to eat them right from the pictures. She is an awesome photographer ( I would be blind to say otherwise ) and a great baker. There are some more recipes there that I am definitely going to try like Roasted Garlic Focaccia and  Kathci Biryani


Anyways, I was looking around for some simple yet different cake to bake for my husband's birthday. Google.....links......and blogs later, I came upon this zebra cake. Its a regular cake, just different looking! Perfect for S.... he likes the old fashioned home baked cakes. And the stripes would definitely interest my kids.

LocknLock ceramic cookware and Pizza... awesomeness with a pop of color!!!

 Its time...to test second set of items from lock and  lock. It is ceramic pan's turn this time. I received a 7 cup 

Cookplus Ceramic Sauce Pan and 10.2 inch Cookplus Ceramic Frying Pan.

The better part,  it has non-toxic, eco-friendly coating (ZERO PFOA i.e PFOA is  not included  in manufacturing process of coating liquid). I can see the question marks and head scratching... well almost. PFOA is a man made material thats used to bond non-stick coating to utensils. This can get harmful when the coating starts peeling off and is absorbed in the food from the cookware. Read more about it here.  Now the best part, it's yellow!!!! It brings a pop of color in the kitchen, amongst boring black nonstick and shiny stainless steel cookware. More colors for ceramic cookwares are available on LocknLock website.

When I received them, I immediately had to use them. It was pizza night... so they were perfect for making sauce and topping for the pizza. And they were...easily sauted mushroom and chicken without having to worry all the time that it would stick.

Lock n Lock knife...Watch out!!

Lock Knives are most important tool in  any kitchen, in my opinion. If its not sharp, it easily makes a cook's life miserable. And I was on my way there!  I was looking to replace my current knives, but no ways was ready to spend a fortune on it. Lock n Lock every weekday has some items on huge discounts during its Happy Hour Sales Event. And these knives were on  it last week for $9.99. I promptly ordered 2 sets and they were delivered y'day.

Simple and delicious complete meal !!

Guilty pleasure.. what is that? I dont know and I dont care to know at the moment. Baked vegetable can't be guilty pleasure! It has all colors of vegetables full of vitamins and essential nutrients and cheese - excellent source of calcium, protein and phosphorus. Nope its just not that. And such an easy dinner to fix. 30 minutes from start to finish..now I am sounding like Rachel Ray !!

Today my meal consisted of vegetables in Béchamel sauce and scrumptious mushroom-spinach toast. What is this Béchamel sauce? .. you ask. Oh its just a fancy French name for white sauce....it just sounds way cooler. This sauce is made of  flour-butter roux. I can almost hear you... now what the heck is roux!!! Well another French name for flour cooked in butter. I tell you, these French cooks make even simple stuff sound so fancy and scrumptillious. Along with baked vegetable, I made mushroom-spinach cheesy toast that was a breeze to make. Simple yet delicious.  I'll get on with business now, I am sure you're itching to do it too.

Green maange more.....Methi thepla/paratha

Fenugreek plant can be used in variety of forms - fresh leaves, dried leaves ( kasoori methi ) and its seeds as a spice. And every form gives a distinct flavor to the dish. I regularly use it to make potato curry or mustard seed curry. It also has a lot of medicinal value and is thought to be useful in common cold, arthritis and helpful to lactating mothers. Because of the health benefits, fernugreek seeds are already available as capsules in health stores.

Enough of gyan...lets get to business. Simply put.. I love methi paratha. This is one of the items that I remember from my childhood that I absolutely loved. Methi leaves are quite bitter, but still manage to taste absolutely delicious in parathas. I like it in theplas too... its a gujurati snack....sort of crispy paratha that is especially good for travelling. Now comes my twist to this delicious snack... I added some pureed spinach to it. Why? because I had some left over from spinach raita I had made for lunch. And you know me..... I like not to waste ;-) Me...... responsible? ..... naaah!

Ok no more rambling.. I will get to process straight away.

Goodies Galore.. Lock n Lock supporter program

Yesterday, I received this big box of items from  Lock n lock. I had submitted my blog for their event and got selected. Why? Because so far, all the items from LocknLock I have used has been a hit in my household. Right from sauce bottle (which I use for storing oil ) to leak proof jug to borosillicate round containers ( I have been using this to store my rasgullas ) and others. On my recent trip to India, I saw how useful they were in storing food items in hot and humid Indian climate. I was really impressed.  Moisture stayed out of grains and lentils, freshness remained in nuts and ants stayed out of sugar and jaggery. So here is a product I believed in and wanted to promote by sharing my experience with it.

Paanch Ratan health ke liye....

Daal...Lentil.. Pulses..call it by any name. Its nutrition in yummy form. At one time, I hated eating it and my mom used to lament every time I removed it from my plate. I did give her some grief growing up and can relate to it now since it's my turn to face the music : -)  Dals have very high levels of protein and are excellent source of iron, folate, vitamin B and dietary fibers. There are many varieties but most common ones are right there on the plate

So today I am going to share one recipe from my favorite cookbook Prashad - Cooking with Indian Masters.

I had been wanting to try out Punj Rattni Dal  for long time, in fact every time I opened this book.. I used to think "oh I havent tried this yet, must get to it soon". Soon came much later!

I'll list out the ingredients and the procedure as is and mention wherever I made changes.