Nutella Chocolate Truffles -- oodles of delight

If you close your eyes and take a deep breath, you can feel the warm fuzzy feeling of the holidays, warm, gooey, rich, chocolatey like Nutella. If you are out in the mall you can feel the last minute crazy holiday shopping. Both ways you feel the warmth of the season and you need that because it is so darn cold out there that you would want to hibernate.

Christmas always holds a special place in my heart, a convent school does that to you. You spend winter holidays copying red poinsettias and waxing candles from glossy gilted Christmas picture cards and impose those works of art unto gullible relatives, you insist your parents bake or at least get a cake on Christmas because it is Jesus' birthday, you think "Silent Night" is the most melodious thing on earth and you wish you could hang up a stocking.

I appreciate Christmas all the more now, it is at least something to look forward to till Spring makes its arrival. Imagine cold dark winters without a single house with twinkling fairy lights in your neighborhood , how dull would that be. I like it better because I don't have much shopping to do, I can relax and just bask in the holiday feeling.

To light up your cold days, I have something special today. Guess what ? Nutella and Chocolate Truffles. If someone would have told me last week that I would make chocolate truffles I would have muttered "in your dreams". I always thought truffles or anything that sounds as "ruffles" is mighty hard. Right ? Absolutely wrong. These Nutella Chocolate Truffles are so easy that a 8 year old could make it. This absolute gorgeous recipe is from Sunita's Nutella and Dark Chocolate Truffles. I blindly followed her recipe and because S loves decorating sprinkles I used those instead of using nuts etc. to roll the truffles in. I rolled some in cocoa powder though. These were a big surprise for S and she couldn't believe I made them at home. Thanks Sunita.

These make great holiday gifts for the kiddos and their play dates and their Moms and Dads and grandparents and....

I am sending this off to Cham@Spiceclub for her MEC event which was originally started by Srivalli. This also goes to Sugar High Friday -- Holiday Edition @Cherrapeno

Happy Holidays



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Nutella and Chocolate Truffles

What You Need

400 gms of nutella
100 gms of dark chocolate
4tblsp of honey
1 tblsp of ghee ( clarified butter)

How I Did It

In a microwave safe bowl, place all the nutella, dark chocolate, honey and ghee.

Microwave the mixture till the chocolate melts. In my microwave it took about 2 and 1/2 mins at full power

Remove the bowl from the microwave. With a spoon, stir the mixture vigorously till smooth. Magically the mixture will slowly start transforming to a dough. Shape it into a lump, place it again in the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill till the mixture is firm enough to roll into balls. I chilled the dough for about 40 mins.

While rolling, work fast and with your hand make balls by rolling between your palms like you would do for say Coconut Laddoos. Wet your palms to avoid chocolate sticking to the palm.If the mixture begins to feel too soft, chill a little more. Place the balls in mini muffin cups.

If you are rolling the balls in cocoa powder or rolling in sprinkles, do so and chill again before serving. For other ideas see Sunita's recipe.

Take out from the refrigerator a minute before serving to soften it a wee bit.

Roti etc.

S is not too fond of Roti or as we say Ruti. The only way she likes Roti is an Roti Omlette or Roti rolled around meatballs. Roti with veggies is an Oh No !!

Inspired by Indosungod's version I made an Indianized Quesadilla for her. This time it was an Oh Yes !!!

Though I had made this beet-carrot sabzi which I used as a filling you can try with any other kind of dry veggie dish you have

What I Did was this:

Make a Beet Carrot sabzi like this, minus the green chillis. This time I added half a potato to it because S loves potatoes and also added a squeeze of lime juice to the cooked veggies. The lime juice balanced out the sweetness of the beet very nicely

I had home made roti/Chapati. You can also use tortillas.

Place the sabzi as a filling for the roti, sprinkle some shredded cheese, cut in half, and put in the oven for the cheese to melt. You can do it on the stove top on a griddle too. Butter the lightly crisped top of the roti

This made for a lovely dinner yesterday. Indo says these also make great lunch box items. So try it.

Macaroni, Macaroni in a Cup

Why is there so much discussion about Princess Tianna's skin color ? Do kids even care about such things in an animated character ? If so wouldn't they break their head about how Arthur looks and what a garish purple Barney is ?

I have little patience with Disney princesses though I think Snow White is cute and has a pretty hair do.

All I want to tell those girls, the princesses I mean, is

"Whatever your skin color, body weight and height might be, can you develop a new purpose in life other than kissing a prince, or kissing anyone for that matter ? Can you do something else like maybe saving the planet or jumping around roofs a la Spiderman ? If you think all that is too hard, that is fine, let your hair down and lead a normal princess life, help Dad rule the kingdom, go study, do whatever but do not spend all your time kissing and dancing and waiting for that god damn prince."

For a long time S loved macaroni and cheese. She wouldn't eat the authentic macaroni & cheese and so would never eat it outside home. The way she liked it was very very simple. Just cook elbow macaroni according to package directions --> put drained macaroni in a microwave safe bowl --> add enough cheese + little milk --> microwave till cheese melts --> DONE.

Gradually she moved on but still liked pasta. Pasta tossed in a little garlicky olive oil with some veggies were a favorite. Then her love was the penne in a sun-dried tomato sauce. Elbows were however no longer sought as much.

After a long time I brought home a box of elbow macaroni last week. Main intention was to introduce A to macaroni. I also got a can of organic red kidney beans. Why not combine the two I thought and so it was Macaroni with red kidney beans. S wasn't too excited to see it, but at the end she loved it enough to take for a school lunch.

I particularly thought this made a very wholesome meal with the carb, the protein, the fiber all coming together in one simple, hassle free dish.

With the remaining Pasta, I made mini Pasta Cups as done by Soma@ecurry. Mine didn't look half as cute as hers but I thought they make real cute finger foods for little ones, perfect for the 3-4 year old. Its another thing that grownups in my home loved it too. See I knew you could never guess.


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Macaroni with Kidney Beans

Boil elbow macaroni according to package directions. Drain the starch in cold water and toss in olive oil

Heat some butter or olive oil in a frying pan

Add finely chopped onion and fry til onion is soft. Add finely sliced carrots or as I did S's favorite, french cut beans.

Add some canned red kidney beans(rinsed in running water) and saute for a couple of minutes

Add tomato puree or tomato ketchup and kind of mash up the kidney beans

Add the macaroni and combine

Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle a little nutmeg powder and mix well

Now sprinkle fair amount of shredded cheese on top. Put in the microwave for about 15 secs or so to melt the cheese

Serve immediately. If packing for school lunch do not melt cheese, instead use grated cheese.

Mini Pasta Cups

To make the mini Pasta Cups, combine some of the above pasta with flour and mix.

Grease lightly muffin pans or silicone cups

Spoon the pasta into the cups and put some shredded cheese on top

Bake at 375 F for 10 mins or so till cheese melts

Eat warm