Bread Upma

At times, I am this over ambitious person when it comes to meal planning for the week.  And I miserably fail every time when it comes to breakfast. Most of the times, my Plan A would be some elaborate menu which outright-ly screams ‘FAILURE’. But knowing me better, I keep my Plan B, Plan C… Plan Z ready with Plan B – having a loaf of bread handy so I can make a quick toast or a sandwich. But more often than not, I will be forced to Plan Z almost every day – fruits! Come on, I told you I am a total failure with breakfasts. And then I get those angry glares from the bread loaf making me as guilty as possible.

Enough of failure stories. It’s time to brag a success story! It was one of those ‘The bread glares till I die of guilt’ days. And I knew how exactly to deal with them. I made this Bread Upma for evening snacks that used up the entire loaf. Yes, finally done with them all at once and they can never be happier as they cannot be any tastier.

It came out absolutely delicious if I can say so myself. Husband and I loved every bite of it. Give this recipe a try and I am sure you will not be disappointed.

Ingredients:

1. Bread - I used one loaf of bread completely. You can use as much as you want.

2. Mustard Seeds - 1/2 tsp

3. Urad Dhal - 1 tsp

4. Channa Dhal - 1 tsp

5. Onion - 1 large

6. Tomato - 2 medium

7. Ginger Garlic Paste - 1/2 tsp

8. Sambar Powder - 1 tsp (Homemade Recipe here)
9. Red Chilli Powder - 1/2 tsp (adjust to taste)

10. Coriander Powder - 1/2 tsp

11 Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp

12. Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp

13. Salt - as required

14. Oil/Ghee 

15. Lemon juice- optional

16. Cilantro - for garnish

Preparation:

1. Cut bread slices to squares or roughly tear them to smaller pieces.

2. Slice onions lengthwise.

3. Chop the tomatoes roughly.

4. Heat some oil/ghee in a pan and roast the pieces of bread to golden brown.

5. Transfer the roasted bread pieces to a plate.

Method:

1. Heat some oil/ghee in a pan.

2. Add mustard seeds and allow it to splutter.

3. Add Channa Dhal and give it a 30 seconds head start.

4. Add Urad Dhal and fry the lentils until golden brown.

5. Add Onions and fry until transparent.

6. Add Ginger Garlic paste and saute for 30 seconds until the raw smell goes.

7. Add the chopped tomatoes, turmeric powder, sambar powder, red chilli powder, coriander powder, garam masala, salt  and give it  a good mix.

8. Cook the tomatoes until soft and all the masala is absorbed.

9. Toss the roasted bread pieces and mix well to make sure the masala is evenly coated on all the bread pieces. 

10. Squeeze some lemon juice and garnish with cilantro.

11. Serve Hot.

Tips:

The ingredients listed are just to give you the basic idea. You can adjust it to your taste.

Removing the brown ends of the bread is optional although I removed it

Eggless French Toast

You all know that every kid loves a little snack. If you feed them with yummy and tasty snack they will love it.. One such snack is this eggless french toast. 

I tried this recipe for the first time when I had to baby sit a couple of kids who are vegetarian and they don't even add eggs to their food. This fresh toast was tasty, looked like a regular french toast and easy to prepare with 5 ingredients available in your pantry. 

The kids adoration for the toast was out of the world. It made my day looking at their smiley faces. ;-) .. My husband loves french toast and when I told him over the phone about this eggless french toast, he couldn't believe his ears.... I was waiting for him to come back home to make him this french toast. When he had the toast, he was enjoying and relished with praise. 

You will enjoy this sweet version of eggless french toast. I will soon post the savory version. Here you go with the simple & easy to prepare recipe :)

                           

Ingredients 

• Bread - 6 (I used white bread)
• Milk - 1/2cup
• Vanilla custard powder - 2tsp 
• Sugar - 2tsp 
• Butter - as needed 

Method 

• In a pan boil milk in medium flame. 
• Take the warm milk in a wide bowl. Add sugar and vanilla custard powder. Mix well.
• Heat a pan with butter. Dip both sides of the bread in milk. 

                           

• Toast both sides of the bread on a pan until golden brown color. Add more butter if it's sticky.
• Hot eggless french toast is ready to be served with maple syrup and a bowl of fruit for breakfast. 

                                 

Tip

• If you don't have custard powder, replace it with cornflour and vanilla essence which will also give same taste.
• You can sprinkle cinnamon while serving. 
• You can also make with wheat bread.
• While dipping the bread slices in milk do not let it stand for long time otherwise it would become mushy.    

Check out our french-toast post.

   

Braided Nutella Star Bread

Back to back Nutella recipes on blog is enough to prove that how much I'm obsessed with Nutella!! I tried Nutella only after moving to the US, I know I was living under a very large rock all these years!! But I'm totally compensating for all those years I missed eating this deliciousness..
If you know me well, you know that I bake cake very often, just like that for no occasion or celebration whatsoever.. When I told my mom that I'm baking 'bread' for H's birthday, she was like 'bake a cake for his birthday, save the bread experiment for some other day' But I was sure H would like this more than a cake on his birthday, cake is too mainstream anyway!

This recipe is a must try for all the bakers/Nutella lovers/instagrammers/food bloggers.. Its not that complicated as it seems.. If I can do it, even a monkey can do it!!*SMUG LOOK* Also its a  tear-n-share bread, you'll not have heart to tear up this pretty thing but that gooey-ooey Nutella will make you wanna rip the bread and stuff your face with it.. I swear!
Ingredients

1. All-purpose flour - 450 grams(3 1/2 cups) plus some extra for sprinkling
2. Sugar- 1/2 cup
3. Active Dry Yeast- 1 envelope( 2 1/4 tsp)
4. Unsalted butter(melted) - 2 tbsp
5. Milk- 3/4th cup
6. Egg yolks- 2 ( save the egg whites for later to be used as egg wash)
7. Vegetable oil- 2 tsp
8. Nutella/ any chocolate spread- 1 cup
9. a pinch of salt  

Ok first things first,

•  Keep the eggs and butter out of fridge. We need them to be at room temperature.
• Separate egg yolks from egg whites.
• Warm the milk to 80-100* F , add yeast and 1 tbsp sugar and dissolve all the ingredients. Keep it aside.
• Sieve the flour into a large bowl. Add sugar and salt to it. theses are the dry ingredients.

METHOD

• Add yeast mixture, melted butter, egg yolks to the bowl with dry ingredients. Mix well with a fork just until well combined.
• Now with your hands, knead the dough for about 10 mins or until it forms a smooth dough.
• Coat the dough and bowl evenly with oil. Cover the bowl with cling wrap or damp cloth and leave it in a warm place for 40 mins-1 hour.
• Dough would have doubled in size, take it onto a lightly floured surface, knead it just once and divide it into 4 equal parts.
• Now take 1 ball of dough, stretch it out using a rolling pin into a 10 inch big circle. slide this rolled dough into a baking paper/aluminium foil.
• Take a plate/round cake tin and make a impression on the rolled dough. Cover the marked area with Nutella with a butter knife.
• Roll another ball of dough and place it over the 1st one and mark it with the plate and spread the Nutella only in the marked area.
• Repeat the process for the 3 rd ball too.
• For the last layer, put it over the 3 rd layer and mark it with the plate and with the help of knife cut out the excess dough so that we'll have a perfect round one
• Place a cup in the center of the dough-circle. Divide it into quarters all the way through the dough. 

Then each quarter into 4 equal parts. Now you'll have 16 equal segments.

• Now take a segment and twist it twice around very delicately. And the piece next to it, twist twice in the OPPOSITE direction. Press together the ends of the segments. Repeat the process with the rest.

                                        

• You'll end up with this beautiful braided bread. Slide it slowly into a baking tray. Cover it with a damp cloth and let it rest for 20 mins. You'll see a beautifully risen braided dough.
• Pre-heat the oven to 350 F/180 C. 
• Brush the braided dough with egg whites(egg wash).

•  Pop it into the oven for 15-20 mins. Keep an eye on it after 15 mins to make sure it wouldn't go too dark. Cool it completely.

TIPS

• Remember the excess dough which we scraped off, Yes don't throw it!! I made this out of it

Follow the last part of this video if you want to learn the braiding style for this bread.

• You can use your Kitchenaid for kneading the dough.

If you have any doubts/questions, you can ask me here. I'll try my best to help you out. 

As usual if you try this, I would love to see your creation, so please let me know by tagging me on Instagram/Facebook

Limking this post to: 
hearth n soul blog hop

Rusk/Bread Laddu

This is one of the sweets I prepared for Diwali this year and turned out to be a hit. 

So, I told you guys about my brainstorming session with the members of my pantry. I found this huge box of rusk and I was just one step away from trashing it since we are not a big fan of rusk.. If you're wondering why did I even get it , No I didn't buy it.. I got it as a freebie for spending 50$ at the Indian grocery store(Yup, they're sweet like that).

So, I thought why not pulse/shred it in blender and use it as bread crumbs? After pulsing (is that even a  word? who cares..u know what I meant), it looked(texture wise) like dry roasted semolina/rava. How about a yummlicious  laddu out of it? 

Yes Please!

I'm thinking of making some truffles out of the remaining rusk crumbs, you'll be the 1st one to know, hope it turns out good.

You can make the same laddu with bread too since that is more likely a staple at everyone's pantry than rusk. I'll give you the recipe for that too.

The appearance & taste was more like rava laddu to the ones who din't know its made out of rusk. For me, it tasted like a yummy mass of bread+ghee+sugar+cardamom studded with cashews & raisins which is totes awesome..

INGREDIENTS

rusk - 5-7 slices 

sugar - 3/4th cup

grated coconut(I used frozen) - 1/4th cup

ghee - 3 tsp

cardamom powder - a pinch

cashew nuts & raisins  - 10

milk(optional) - 2 tsp

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Roll-ups

 My husband & I regularly go to the park across the street, watch the sunset  & sometimes I carry snacks with me to munch on. Going to that park is favorite part of my day for various reasons.
1. I love to breathe in summer air 
2. I love watching the sunset, every sunset is beautiful! 
3. I love to see the happy, smiling faces 

I love summer evenings. I want summer forevvvver. OK may be Summer and Fall

So, one such day I was waiting for my husband to arrive from work and was wondering what do I do for snack today. I had some Bread.......
and I had cream cheese frosting.....
and I had GOOGLE to help me out. Hence the idea Cream cheese roll-ups. 
It's actually not at all difficult- Really! You'll thank me later. We are using ready-made cream cheese frosting for filling  & bread instead of pastry. 

Does it look delicious? It is, Trust me!
Crispy n cinnamon-y on the outside, soft n gooey on the inside which showers your taste buds with cream cheese. Sounds good to you? here's how we do it....

Vegetable Cheese Rolls

Hello Everyone! I was planning to post kid friendly snacks for a long time. When I got this idea of making vegetable rolls with cheese,  luckily I had some bread slices left. Most of the kids love cheese, so I decided to add veggies to it and make it healthier.This snack can be served with a glass of milk or fresh juice.The recipe is very easy to make. Now here you go with the making of rolls....