Pumpkin cranberry muffins

I am on my maternity leave at present. My parents were here for the first 2 months with the baby and it has now been close to a month of three of us managing by ourselves. While there have been rare days with the baby fussing and crying and dishes pilling up in the sink; in general we are managing great - spending majority of the time cuddling and playing with our little girl, eating very simple home-made food everyday, resting whenever we can and housekeeping and cleaning as time permits. 

Life is setting into a rhythm. I make fresh dinner daily and the leftover dinner serves as my lunch the next day - works great for me as I get to spend the whole morning with my little bundle without worrying about lunch logistics. My little girl naps in the afternoon.  After her nap I take her out to a stroll nearby; then we come home, she plays in her baby gym while I take a quick coffee break (gotta have caffeine!). Then we play together some more; spend time in the backyard counting guavas and playing peek-a-boo :) After another quick nap, its time for making dinner! We got a wonderful rocker chair as a gift from a friend and it has proven so very useful! I place my little girl in the rocker in kitchen and start working away preparing dinner. I keep talking to her about every little thing I am doing like asking her what to make, chopping veggies, sauteing etc.. I am pretty sure she cares not much about our dinner menu or the recipe, but neverthless she keeps looking at me trying to babble away making conversation as I cook... its our together time making food memories -- and needless to say it makes preparing dinner time just that much extra special for me :)

Anyway, coming back to today's recipe! I had some leftover pumpkin puree in a can which I wanted to use up one day. I was thinking of making my usual pumpkin kheer but instead thought why not make some pumpkin muffins - they would serve great as my coffee snack for next few days. Thus a little Googling later, this recipe came about. Its mostly a derivation of the banana muffin recipe I had posted earlier. The muffins were awesome - and I'll be sure to make them again next fall when fresh pumpkins are in season.

Chocolate covered strawberry bride & groom & other treats!

Valentine's day is just around the corner and to a foodie like me that means chocolates, chocolates and more chocolates! I love how everywhere around this time one starts seeing the bouquets of beautiful roses, various chocolate treats and all sorts of beautifully wrapped gifts.

Strawberries and chocolates are two of my most favorite things so its only logical that chocolate covered strawberries happen to be on the menu whenever I am in the mood for making something cutsie without a whole lot of effort. With plump fresh strawberries and white and dark chocolates, your imagination is the only limit when it comes to making designs for strawberry chocolates but here are some of my all time favorites (and something I have blogged previously here) which sort of differ from the usual chocolate covered berries.

These chocolate bride and groom are the perfect treats if you are in the mood for a more delicately worked strawberry designs and perhaps a perfect gift for a dear friend's bridal shower :) Instructions are here

If bride and groom are not on the menu then you can always try one of these free-fall designs which are equally delicious. Really your imagination is the only limit! Instructions are here

Happy Valentine's day everyone! May the year ahead bring lots of love, peace and well wishes for everyone near n dear to your hearts :)

20-minute lime-orange cookies

Wow, can't believe it has been so long since I last posted over here! For the past few months I have been a blog lurker, drooling over all the scrumptious recipes which have been making the rounds. Continuing to post was always on my mind but somehow or other different priorities took over. Never mind though, I suppose better late than never!

There really is no excuse for being absent for so long - however time flies by so quickly! It seemed only so recently that I heard I was expecting and needless to say life's priorities took over and now I am a proud mommy of a month and half old cutie pie who is entertaining us all throughout the days and nights :)

So many things change so unexpectedly with a little baby and the life as you knew before changes so utterly and completely - but you know what the best part is, every time she looks at you and smiles or holds your finger with her little fingers, you know for sure you won't be treading these moments for anything else!

I am still learning the tips and tricks of being a new mommy and juggling work, life and mommyhood (so feel free to share your tips in comments!) but one of the first few things I learnt is to go for easy, clutter-free lifestyle. Long gone are the slow simmering, 2-3 hr recipes which used to entice me so much (atleast for now!) and in its place are the quick cooking, fresh and healthy meals which can be put together from start to finish in 20-30 minutes and require very everyday ingredients.

One such recipe is this quick cooking easy lime cookies from Anjum's new Indian. These cookies are very easy, they cook up in ~20mins, are made from all pantry ingredients and are very forgiving. Best of all these are the cookies to go to when an afternoon sweet craving strikes to a largely empty cookie cabinet to go with a simmering pot of afternoon tea or coffee.

Original recipe called for adding lime zest to the cookies. I modified this by adding equal parts lime and orange zest so technically these should be lime-orange cookies.

Banana nut muffins

Let me just say its so nice to be back - cooking, eating and of-course blogging! After many months of craziness I am basking in happiness at getting back my weekends, all the lost sleep and the desire to spend hours and hours planning and cooking something not-everyday. I know I have missed all the action in the past few months, but I definitely plan to get back in the saddle as soon as possible. Thanks to all of you blogger-buddies who left messages and encouraged me to continue to keep posting; you guys are the best :)

Today is a holiday in US and for a lazy brunch I made these banana nut muffins. These muffins are very similar to the banana bread recipe I had posted earlier. They are toasted and crunchy on the outside while still very moist inside. The original recipe called for 1/3C butter and 3/4C sugar; I reduced butter to 2Tbsp and sugar to 1/2C because I like my muffins very lightly sweetened, but you can increase to 3/4C if you like it better that way. As always I love anything baked with banana and walnuts so if you are anything like me, I am sure you will absolutely LOVE these muffins. 

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you all a very happy holidays and a wonderful new year ahead!

Here is an edible fruit tree I had made last year, hope you enjoy it too... have a safe festive season.

Check here for instructions of how to make this edible fruit tree.

Celery root soup (Celeriac soup)

Have you ever cooked with a celery root or a celeriac before? It resembles the shape of misshapen turnip with beards growing here and there. At first glance to be frank it is not very appealing, particularly when seated next to the rows and rows of beautiful pink perfect red carrots of the season; but since I had heard so much about the delicate celery like flavors of these root vegetables, I could not pass up the chance to pick one up in the farmer's market yesterday.

Celeriac is a root vegetable in celery family. For a long time I thought celeriac is the root bulb of celery but that is not quite the case! The stalks and leaves attached to a celeriac are _not_ actually celery; I was planning to use them up in my soup but a bit of Googling told me that they may not be edible so I skipped them and used regular celery instead. In texture celeriac is simlar to the Mexican Jicama with a dominant celery flavor with a slight bit of sweetness like an apple!

Preparing celery root is very easy. First you chop off the celerish stalks attached to the root and then run the root through running water for a few minutes making sure to remove as much dirt as you can. Then using your knife peel of the outer skin as shown in the image below. You can then chop off the celery root into bite sized pieces. The celeriac is fantastic raw in salads or roasted with a bit of rosemary, salt & pepper or pureed in a soup. For my first attempt I decided to go with a simple but absolutely delicious celery-celeriac soup!

Celeriac is in season for a short duration and its not found that easily in supermarkets either, so if you get a chance to try this root vegetable, definitely go for it, I am sure you will love it!

Couscous with roasted butternut squash and dried cranberries

I don't know about you but I have always been a side-dish kind of person. What do I mean by that; well, for one, I usually relish the side-dish just as much as I like the main-dish! Infact, I have been known to be making meals out of side-dishes.. one pot quinoa salad for a quick lunch, smashed yams with a drizzle of honey for desert, soup as the main-course for dinner.. well, you get the idea. Needless to say, whenever I am invited to a Thanksgiving dinner, I am perfectly happy bringing a side-dish. Nothing screams fall to me like this dish with roasted, camelized butternut squash and dried cranberries with couscous!

The dish is wide open to variations and experimentations. I tried it with orange flavored dried cranberries from Trader Joe's and loved the orangy after-taste it gave. Occasionally I also add pumpkin seeds or pistachios for a crunch at times. As for the herbs, I suspect fried torn sage leaves would pair really well with the squash but I haven't tried it myself. I usually add the chives or the oregano from garden and its wonderful! If you are unsure what to bring to Thanksgiving and have been slated with a side-dish, give this a try, I guarantee you won't regret having to bring a side ;)

Buttermilk pancakes

Pancakes is the ultimate lazy Sunday morning breakfast for me. I get up late (hey, daylight savings ended!) then spend another half an hour gazing over my morning cuppa mindlessly peeking at my friends' posts on Facebook while watching the rains drizzle outside on a gloomy Sunday morning. After an hour or so my tummy rumbles in protest which is when I go to the kitchen and start randomly opening and closing cupboards and refrigerator until I see an about to expire buttermilk carton that I used last week to make some very tasty whole-wheat pumpkin muffins. Buttermilk is not a regular ingredient in my pantry so finding it on Sunday morning meant this was a sign... to make some buttermilk pancakes.

This is a recipe I followed from Joy of Baking. I usually prefer banana pancakes but having buttermilk at hand I decided to give buttermilk pancakes a try instead. The pancakes were moist and fluffy and had a slightly tangy taste of the buttermilk. You can easily substitute buttermilk with regular milk for regular pancakes and add fruits such as blueberries, slices bananas for an extra edge! Serve with a pat of butter and a drizzle of maple syrup... what else do you need other than perhaps a pot of coffee and your favorite newspaper to make for a perfect Sunday morning.