Our Own Kitchen

Ingredients:
Biscuits (i used digestive marie) - 120 gm
Melted butter - 60 gm
Powdered sugar - 1 tsp
Cream cheese - 400gm
Sour cream - 200 gm
Fresh cream - 150 gm
Vanilla essence - 2 tsp
Lemon extract - 2 tsp
Corn flour - 1 tbsp
Granulates sugar - 120 gm
Topping
Dried Cranberry - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 2 tsp
Method:
Line the bottom of the cheese cake pan (cake pan with detachable bottom) with parchment paper and grease the side of the pan. Cover the outside of the pan with aluminium foil to avoid water seeping inside.
Crumble biscuits into coarse powder, add melted butter and sugar. Mix everything nicely. Pour the biscuit mixture in the cake pan. Press it nicely. I used a cup to press the biscuit powder firmly.
In a large bowl add cream cheese and sugar mix it nicely with hand mixer, the end product should be creamy, next add sour cream, blend and cream it, finally add vanilla essence, lemon extract, and corn flour. Combine everything and cream it smooth.
I couldn't find cream cheese and sour cream in any grocery store nearby so i made it myself. I followed "YummyTummyAarthi"s recipes.
Pour the smooth and creamy cake mixture over the biscuit bottom. Spread it nicely, shake the pan nicely to avoid air bubbles.
Now preheat oven to 200°C, add water to cookie tray and place the cake pan over it. Now bake the cake at 200°C for half an hour and 180°C for another half an hour. Remember timing vary slightly with different Ovens and OTGs. Let the cake sit in the oven for another hour after baking. Nicely baked cake turn light brown colour on top. If you are not sure whether the cake is done, insert tooth pick carefully, if the toothpick comes out clean then the cake is baked fine.
Refrigerate the cake overnight, i kept it for more than 12 hours. 
In a pan, add dried cranberries(you can try any other berries), sugar and 1/2 cup water. Let it boil for 10 minutes in low flame till the cranberries become squishy, let it cool down a bit, sieve the cranberry. You will get thick sauce and this is our tasty topping.
Spread the cranberry sauce over the cake evenly, cake is ready to serve. 
Cheese cake was amazing, tasted really good even better than the store bought one (my boys verdict)

Ingredients:
Tamarind - 1 big lemon size
Curry leaves - 10
Red chillies - 4
Green Chillies - 4
Channa dal - 1 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Hing - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
Roasted peanuts - 1/2 cup
Cooked rice - 4 to 5 cups
Gingelly oil - 4 tbsp
Salt as required
To grind:
Coriander seeds - 1 tsp
Channa dal - 1 tsp
Urad dal - 1tsp
Red chillies - 3 or 4
Sesame seeds - 1 tsp
Fenugreek seeds - 1 tsp
Method:
Soak tamarind in 1 1/2 cups of water for 2 hours.
Dry roast all the ingredients one by one and powder everything together.(Note: Each ingredients require different level of roasting.  Coriander seeds should turn little brown with nice aroma, channa dal and urad dal should be roasted till golden brown, sesame seeds and fenugreek seeds should start popping when roasted. If you don't have coriander seeds, use coriander powder only during the grinding process, no need to roast.)
Extract tamarind water from tamarind.
In a large kadai or pan, heat 2 tbsp of gingelly oil, add curry leaves, saute for 10 seconds, add channa dal and urad dal, saute till it turns brown, now add red chillies, slitted green chillies, peanuts, turmeric powder, hing and finally tamarind water.
When the tamarind water starts to boil add salt and half of ground powder. Close the pan with the lid. Cook the sauce till it reaches paste like consistency, it takes about 15 to 20 minutes. Check in-between if the sauce is done.
Now in a separate pan, spread the cooked rice(i cook rice with salt), add the sauce, rest of the ground powder, 1 tbsp of gingelly oil. Mix everything nicely till rice is coated with the tamarind sauce.
Tamarind rice is ready to serve, it taste better with papad.
Note: I used non-stick cookware to avoid burning of sauce.

Ingredients:
Potato - 4
Corn flour - 2 tbsp
Bread slices - 4
Salt as required
Oregano and chilli flakes (according to your taste and completely optional)
Method:
Boil potatoes, grate it and mash it with fork.
In a large bowl, take the mashed potatoes, add corn flour, salt, oregano and chilli flakes. Dip bread slices in water, squeeze excess water and add it to potato mix. Mix everything nicely and cool it for half an hour.
Now you need a drinking straw and soup spoon. For the perfect round shape flatten the dough and cut with the cookie cutter or any round shaped cups, or you can just make small balls from the dough and shape it round just like vada.
Now use straw to make eyes and spoon for the smile. After making all the smileys, cool it for another half an hour. 
Heat oil and fry the smileys till it turn golden brown.
Serve hot with any sauce. 

Ingredients:
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Rava/ Semolina - 1/4 cup
Red chilli powder - 11/2 tsp or according to your taste
Salt as required
Hot melted ghee - 1 tbsp
Sesame seeds - 1 tsp
Oil for frying
Method:
Mix wheat flour, rava, red chilli powder, salt and sesame seeds nicely. Add hot ghee and start kneading by adding water little by little to form soft dough.
Rest the dough for 10 minutes.
Now make balls from the dough, flatten it with rolling pin and cut it into desired shapes.
While flattening the dough you should take care not to make it too thin or thick. (Little thicker than the papad, if that helps.)
Drop the cut pieces in the hot oil, fry it in low flame. (Chips should be fried only in the hot oil, otherwise it might consume more oil than necessary so wait till the oil is boiling hot).
Serve the chips hot or store it in airtight container. 

Ingredients:
Corn kernel - 1 cup
Large potato - 1
Rice flour - 1/4 cup
Maida/ All purpose flour - 1/4 cup
Gram flour - 1/4 cup
Green chilli - 2
Onion - 1
Chopped coriander leaves - 1/2 cup
Salt as required
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Chaat masala - 1/2 tsp
Oil for frying
Method:
Boil corn kernels for 2 minutes along with salt and coarsely grind it.
Boil potato, peel it and mash it nicely. Chop onion and green chillies finely.
In a large bowl, add ground corn, mashed potato, onion and chilli pieces, rice flour, maida, salt, chilli powder, gram flour, coriander leaves, cumin powder and chaat masala, mix it nicely to form a dough. You might need little water to form a firm dough.
Make small balls from the dough, flatten it in your palms and fry it in oil.
Serve it hot with sauce.
***If you have cookie cutter, shape the dough into your desired shape before frying***

Ingredients:
Milk - 1 cup
Sugar  - 1/2 cup
Thick coconut milk - 1 cup
Finely chopped apple -1/4 cup
Medium size banana smashed - 1
Dates - 8
Raisins - 10
Cashews- 10
Apricot - 4 slices
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Method:
In a small cup of hot milk, soak 4 dates for 1/2 hour, later grind it into thick paste.
Boil milk and add sugar, mix it well and let it cool nicely.
Cut dates and apricots into small pieces.
Roast cashews and raisins in ghee.
In a big bowl add coconut milk, boiled milk and sugar, chopped apple, smashed banana, ground dates paste, cut apricots and dates, and roasted cashews and raisins.
Fruit payasam is ready in few minutes without much cooking. 
You can serve this immediately or serve it cool.

This is the easiest recipe and my kids favourite. It requires minimum ingredients to make.
Ingredients:
Pori/Puffed rice - 5 cups
Elachi/cardamom powder - a pinch
Jaggery/ achu vellam - 1 cup
Water - 1 cup
Ghee - 1 tsp
Method:
Heat jaggery with water till it is completely dissolved. Filter jaggery water from impurities.
Take a heavy bottomed pan, heat jaggery water, elachi powder and ghee till you get one-string consistency thick syrup.
One string consistency is when you one drop of jaggery syrup in water, it forms a ball.
Now the syrup is ready, add pori immediately and mix it nicely with the syrup. The pori should be coated nicely with the jaggery.
Apply some ghee on your hand, start preparing small tight balls while the pori is warm. 
I made about 15 pori urundais. 

This is a healthy snack, you can make it in large and store in an airtight container. This last for days when refrigerated. 
Ingredients:
Oats - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1/4 cup
Milk powder - 1/2 cup
Cashew - 1/2 cup
Raisin - 1/2 cup
Pitted dates - 1/2 cup
Almond - 1/2 cup
Pistachios - 1/2 cup
Walnut - 1/2 cup
Honey - 1/2 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Method:
Roast oats slightly. Except honey and water, blend everything in the blender. Coarsely grind it.
Add honey to the ground ingredients, blend it well. Finally add water little-by-little till the mixture becomes gluey. Add water as required, no need to add the whole 1/2 cup.  
Preheat oven to 200 degree celsius, pour the mixture in the greased baking pan and bake for 20 minutes.
Let it cool and cut it into pieces. Store the energy bar in an airtight container. Munch it whenever you have a craving. This provides immediate energy, better than junk foods.

Ingredients:
Paneer - 200gm
Potato Medium size - 3
Green chillies - 3
Coriander leaves - 1/2 cup
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Chilli powder-  1 tsp
Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Garam masala - 1/2 tsp
Onion - 1
Tomato -1
Salt as required
Oil - 2 tsp (since i air-fried, i required oil only for brushing)
Method:
Boil, peel and smash(or grate) potatoes. Scramble paneer. Take paneer, potatoes, chopped green chilli, 1/4 cup of coriander leaves, required salt in a bowl. Mix everything nicely. Make small balls.
Fry paneer balls in hot oil in low flame till it becomes light brown. You can even bake or air-fry the paneer balls to make it healthier. I air-fried the balls.
Chop onions into small pieces, grind tomato into thick paste.
Heat a tsp of oil in a pan, add cumin seeds, saute for 10 seconds, add onion and saute till it becomes transparent. Add tomato puree, saute for a minute, add chilli powder, coriander powder, garam masala, turmeric powder and salt. Add 1/2 cup water. Let it mix and cook for 5 minutes, till the gravy thickens. Finally drop the balls, coat it with gravy, don't over-mix since the balls tend to break. Garnish with coriander leaves. 
Serve hot with roti.

Ingredients:
High quality bitter-sweet chocolate - 115 gm
Butter - 115 gm
Sugar - 170 gm
Eggs - 3
Cocoa powder - 50 gm
Method:
Melt chocolate and butter using double-boiler method, its lot more safer than microwave. Let it cool a bit.
Meanwhile beat eggs and sugar together till it form foam, then add cocoa powder, blend nicely.
Add egg mixture in the chocolate-butter mixture and whisk nicely to blend all ingredients.
Preheat oven to 180°C ,grease a baking pan and pour the cake batter, bake it for 25 to 30 minutes till a thin crust is formed on top of the cake.
Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool before serving. 
You can dust sugar, cocoa powder or anything you desire.

Ingredients:
Cashew - 1 cup
Chilli powder - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp or as required
Honey - 1 tbsp
Olive oil or vegetable oil - 1 tsp
Method:
Heat oil in a pan (preferably non-stick), add cashews and roast till it turns slight brown. Use low flame while cooking as cashews burn quickly. 
Add chilli powder and salt, give nice toss to the cashews until it is evenly coated.
Finally add honey, give nice stir and remove cashews from heat.
Serve it with hot coffee. This is a nice evening snack on a cold day. 

Ingredients:
Fleshy fish - 400gms
Boiled potato - 1
Onion - 1
Chopped coriander leaves - 1/4 cup
Green chilli - 1
Chilli powder - 3/4 tsp
Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Bread crumbs - 1/2 cup
Salt as required
Method:
Boil fish with salt and turmeric, peel the skin and mash it nicely.
In a bowl, add mashed fish, mashed potato, chopped onion, coriander leaves, chopped chilli, ginger-garlic paste, chilli  powder and salt.
Mix everything nicely. Make small balls, flatten it to form patti. 
Coat patti nicely with bread crumbs.
Heat 1 tsp oil in a non-stick tawa, arrange the patties, flip and cook on both sides, remove the patti when it turns brown.
Serve hot with sauce or chutney.

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour/ maida - 2 cups
• Sugar - 2 tbsp
• Salt - pinch
• Tutty-fruity - 1/4 cup
• Butter - 4 tsp
• Active dry yeast - 11/2 tsp
• Milk - 1/2 cup
• Water - 1/2 cup

Method:

• Cooking bun is really easy, don't worry about the shape if you are trying for the first time.
• Heat water, it should be lukewarm, preferably 95 degrees Fahrenheit to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, as this temperature is very important for yeast fermentation. Now add yeast to the warm water and set it aside for 10 minutes.
• Meanwhile, mix flour and sugar in a large bowl, make a dent in the middle of the flour and add salt and the fermented yeast water.
• Knead the dough, add milk little by little to the dough while kneading, dough might become little sticky, no problem! move the dough to the working space and knead it well, this gives nice elasticity.
• Place the dough in a bowl dusted with little flour and cover it with muslin cloth and let it rest for an hour.
• Dough would have increased in size, remove the dough and knead little to remove all the air, flatten the dough, smear butter all over and sprinkle tutty-fruity, fold and knead the dough again.
• Shape the dough into a log shape, cut it into small pieces, shape it into smooth balls, and place all the balls in the greased baking pan. Keep this aside for another one hour.
• Now you can see that the balls are little risen and full, bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 12 to 15 minutes until the top of the bun becomes little golden brown.
• Immediately after removing the bun from the oven, brush the top with butter to soften the crust.
• Let it cool and enjoy your sweet bun.

Millets are very healthy and easily digestible. Its very good to include millets in our daily foods. There are many varieties of millet available, i have tried idli/dosa with samai(little millet), kudiraivali(barnyard) and varagu(kodo). 



Ingredients:

• Samai rice - 4 cups
• Urad dal - 1 cup
• Left over rice/cooked rice - 1/4 cup or poha - 3 tsp

Method:

• Soak rice and dal separately in water for 4 to 5 hours. 
• Grind dal first followed by rice. Add cooked rice while grinding samai. 
• If you are using poha, soak it along with samai.
• Let it ferment for 8 hours or overnight.
• Add salt to the fermented batter

Idli

• Grease idli plates and pour ladleful of batter in each hole of the plates.
• Steam it for 10 minutes. Serve hot with chutney and sambar.

Dosa

• Heat dosa pan and grease it, skip the grease part for non-stick pans.
• Pour ladleful of batter on the pan and spread it in circle. Flip and cook on both sides.
• Serve it hot with chutney or sambar.

Notes:
You can even try mixed millets, for example 1 cup samai, 2 cups varugu and 1 cup kudiraivali.

Ingredients:

• Cauliflower - 1 head
• Egg - 1
• Cheese - 200 gm
• Oregano mix - 2 tsp
• Chilli flakes - 1 tsp
• Pepper powder - 1/2 tsp
• Salt - pinch

Method:

• Cut cauliflower into florets and drop it in a big bowl of hot water. Let it rest for 2 minutes and then remove it.
• Coarse ground the florets, its better if you use food processor. Don't smash the florets completely.
• Microwave the ground cauliflower for 10 minutes and then squeeze excess water from the cauliflower. You can do this by hanging the cauliflower in the clean kitchen towel for 5 minutes.
• Transfer cauliflower to a large bowl and add egg, 100 gm grated cheese, oregano, chilli flakes, pepper, and salt. Mix everything nicely for 5 minutes so that everything blends well.
• Transfer cauliflower mix to the baking sheet lined with parchment paper or aluminium foil, flatten it into rectangular shape of about 1/4 inches. 
• Bake it for 20 to 25 minutes at 180 degree Celsius in a preheated oven. Take it out and spread the remaining cheese, bake for 5 more minutes and cut it into breadsticks.
• Serve breadsticks with sauce. This is the delicious alternative to the regular flour breadsticks.

Ingredients:

• Soya chunks - 1 cup
• Salt as required
• Chilli powder - 1 tsp
• Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Olive oil - 3 tsp

Methods:

• Boil 2 cups of water with salt and add soya chunks to it, reduce heat to low. Soya chunks doubles its size.
• Remove soya chunks from water and run cold water over it for 2 minutes. Squeeze light and drain water from chunks.
• In a wide bowl, add chilli powder, cumin seeds and olive oil, mix it nicely, add the chunks and give a nice stir so that everything is coated well.
• Preheat oven, line a baking tray with aluminum foil or parchment paper, scatter chunks over it. Bake it high for 10 to 15 minutes.
• This is a tasty snack and very easy to make.
• You can even add chilli flakes, oregano mix or any other spices of your choice.

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour - 1 cup
• Unsalted Butter (room temperature) - 80 gm
• Powdered sugar - 1/3 cup
• Tutti frutti - 1/2 cup
• Cinnamon powder - 1/2 tsp
• Elachi powder - 1/2 tsp
• Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Method:

• With electric beater, beat sugar and butter till it becomes soft and glossy.
• Now add cinnamon powder, elachi powder and vanilla extract, beat it once.
• Slowly, add flour to the butter mixture and blend everything well.
• Finally fold tutti frutti to the cookie dough.
• Don't knead the dough, just shape it like a log and wrap it with cling film.

• Refrigerate the log-shaped cookie dough for an hour.
• Cut the log into half inches slices. 

• Preheat the oven at 180 degrees.
• Arrange the cookies in the baking tray with one inch apart as the cookie expands little bit.

• Bake it for 15 minutes, let it rest for 10 minutes after baking, store it in the airtight container.
• This taste best with coffee, enjoy your evening.

This is very easy to prepare and kids will definitely love it.

Ingredients:

• Carrots (peeled and chopped) - 1 cup
• Butter cubes of 1 cm - 10
• Water - 1/2 cup
• Brown sugar - 1 tsp
• Salt - pinch
• Lemon - 1 tsp
• Chopped Parsley - 1/4 cup
• Olive oil - 2 tsp

Method:

• In a pan, heat olive oil, toss carrots for 2 minutes then add rest of the ingredients except parsley. 
• Cover the pan and cook over low heat for about 20 - 25 minutes until water evaporates and carrot is cooked tender. 
• Finally stir in parsley and serve hot.
• This is quick, easy and very tasty.

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour - 175 gm
• Brown sugar or cane sugar - 175 gm
• Sunflower oil - 170 ml
• Grated Carrot - 175 gm
• eggs - 2
• Baking powder - 3.5 gm
• Cinnamon powder - 2.5 gm
• Tutti frutti - 30gm
• Ginger paste - 2.5 gm
• Baking soda - 2.5 gm
• Vanilla essence - 2.5 ml

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grease the baking pan.
• In a large pan, take the oil, sugar and egg, beat it nicely with electric beater. Add vanilla essence and beat once. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger and cinnamon powder. Slowly fold flour mixture to the egg mixture. Finally add carrots and tutti frutti, fold it nicely.
• Pour the cake mixture in the cake tin and bake it for 35 minutes. Use a tooth pick to check when it is done. The cake slightly bounces when you touch in the middle which shows it is well baked.
• Let the cake cool, slice it and enjoy this tasty, spongy and healthy cake.