Happy New Year and all that...

Every year, I am kind of tongue tied at New Year. All I can think of is "Groan, the holiday season is over. Kohl's is no longer open until midnight, there is no valid reason to switch on the fairy lights every evening and I have to go back and finish all the work I had pushed aside to be done 'after the holidays'." You can see that trend in last year's post and in the year before when I had actually thought I should keep shut and not blog much anymore. Thankfully, I woke out of that. I love to be here, to blog and I have also realized that it is okay to do it at my own pace. I have been blogging for 6 years now and I don't even have 500 posts to boast about but I think I have kind of found the balance so that is fine.

I do not have any resolutions for the next year or any looking back to the last and this sign is what I will try to live my life by every day (though I have no clue what citi pond is).

This other picture that I took in the city last week kind of reflects what I expect every year or rather day to be. I hope it is tall and glamorous with shiny windows and hanging verandahs but I also know that it can just be chipped walls and cracked window panes. In that case I at least want it to be happy, bright and colorful.

 

Hope your and mine New Year is filled with color, brightness, good health, happiness.

Here is a recap of recipes from each month of this year that was most liked by someone or the other(read myself, family, friends, readers, spammers).

January -- Pati Shapta

February -- Peyaajkoli Maach and Methi Begun

March -- Niramish Alu dom and this

April -- Ilish Maacher Tauk and T's Eggless Tiramisu

May -- Paneer Korma and Tel Koi

June -- Green Beans Bhorta and Chicken in Mint, Coriander and coconut gravy

July -- Potol Posto and Roshun Murgi

August -- Ahona's Methi Machchi and A's Saturday Night Mutton Biriyani

September -- Ma-in-law's Robibarer Mangshor Jhol

October -- Sondesh

November -- Chicken Keema Chop and Cranberry relish

December -- Chocolate Sheet Cake

See you again in a few days. There are some exciting recipes like a Thai fish and a wonderful cake baked by friend T that I want to share. Till then happy everything

PW's Chocolate Sheet Cake-- ooyey gooey

The last few days I have been reeling under a sense of  helplessness. As have been many others. A school in Connecticut, a bus in Delhi, different situations, different countries and the same loathsome, monstrous nature of the human rearing its head. Being in a position where I can do little except e-mailing the principal of my daughters' school or voicing my opinion in certain online places, the helpless feeling has been gnawing my innards. I question my existence, my inability to do something to better the situations and all I have been feeling is immense sadness. Every time I have tried to sit down to write something here, words have seemed inadequate and meaningless.

However when you are a parent, you learn to have faith, to hope, to look forward and then make a cake for the one who turned nine. You also learn that cooking and using a lot of butter helps in that direction. Now husband-man says that it is the banana which has the chemicals to make you happy but I think it is butter aided with loads of sugar which actually does the trick.

In the last 21 days of my attempt to make more inglish-vinglish recipes, I have bought and used as much butter as I would have probably done in a whole hunk of a year. I have never really been a very "butter" kind of person. Those creamy sticks do not turn me on and except for a lick of  Amul butter here or a smear on my toast, I choose to stay away from them. Of course if I had chosen salads instead of cookies and brownies, the butter story would be different. But then what is inglish-vinglish if not an ooey gooey chocolate cake or a buttery cookie? For everything else there is alu posto.

Now many of you who read me know that I not the best of bakers, nor am I the worst of bakers. I mean I was worst, but not anymore. I have mastered enough control on my ADD to stick to 1 Cup of AP flour if the recipe says "1 Cup of AP Flour". Earlier I would have translated it to 1/2 Cup of Wheat Flour plus 1/4th Cup of Flaxseed Flour and then skipped the baking soda.

But I still have enough fear of beating butter and sugar to creamy or egg whites to stiff peaks. I try to avoid any recipe that asks for egg whites to be separated and dutch processed cocoa to be bought. Well, I also try to blame my incompetency to the absence of  a shiny Kitchen Aid but guess no one has fallen for that yet.

Last week I baked this Chocolate sheet cake from Pioneer Woman.And I tell you it  is the easiest and best chocolate cake I have ever made. It has loads of butter but not a single step that instructs you to beat butter and sugar. Easily my kind of cake. It is also really, really, really good. And that frosting on it is to die for. Being a sheet cake it is not that thick and makes 20 to 30 squares depending on which size you cut it. I think it is the best cake you can take to a party or potluck.

We kept a large portion of the cake cut in squares in the refrigerator and ate it over 5 days. I would warm mine to make the frosting ooze. BS , LS and the Dad like the cake cold though. If you have not soaked your dry fruits in rum (like me), give this cake a chance. Chances are Santa might just fall for it.

What you Need For the Chocolate Sheet Cake

AP Flour -- 2 cup
Sugar -- 2 cup
Salt -- 1/4tsp

Cocoa -- 4 tbsp heaped
Butter -- 2 sticks (1 stick Butter=8 tbsp=1/2 cup=4oz=113gm)
Boiling Water -- 1 cup

Buttermilk -- 1/2 cup
Eggs -- 2 whole beaten
Baking Soda -- 1 tsp
Vanilla -- 1tsp

Note: If you do not have buttermilk, the original recipe suggests you make your own. Here is how --
Mix 1 tbsp of vinegar or lime juice with 1 cup of whole Milk. Let it sit until it curdles about 8-10 minutes

What you Need for Frosting

Pecans --  1/2 cup Finely Chopped
Butter -- 1-3/4th stick
Cocoa -- 4 tbsp
Milk -- 6 tbsp
Vanilla -- 1 tsp
Powdered Sugar -- 1 cup less than 1 pound
Semi-sweet chocolate chip -- 1/4th cup

Baked it in a 18 x 13 sheet cake pan

How I Did It

In a wide mouthed mixing bowl, add 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of sugar, and 1/4tsp salt. See, no sieve or anything. Cool isn't it.

In a saucepan, melt 2 sticks of butter. To it add 4 heaped tbsp cocoa. Stir together.

While butter is melting, start boiling a little more than 1 cup of water. Once you have mixed the butter+cocoa, add to it 1 cup of boiling water. Allow the whole mixture to boil for 30 seconds, then turn off heat. Pour over flour mixture, and stir. Mix so that the flour mixture mixes uniformly with the coco mixture.

In a measuring cup, pour 1/2cup buttermilk. To it add 2 beaten eggs,  1 tsp baking soda, and 1 tsp vanilla. Stir buttermilk mixture into flour+chocolate mixture. Pour into sheet cake pan(18 x 13) and bake at 350-degrees for 20 minutes.

Make Frosting

While cake is baking, make the frosting/icing. I started around 10 mins after the cake went in the oven.

Chop pecans finely. Melt 1 whole stick + 3/4th of another stick of butter in a saucepan. Add 4 tbsp cocoa. Add the chocolate chips. Stir to combine, then turn off heat. Add 6 tbsp milk, 1 tsp vanilla.
Now add the sugar. Now this cake is pretty sweet so I went less on the sugar in frosting. I used about 1&1/2 cup less than 1 lb of confectioners sugar. You can adjust this according to your taste. The original recipe asks for 1/2 cup less than 1 lb sugar. Mix uniformly to make a ooyey gooey chocolate frosting. Add the pecans and mix again.

Once the cake is done, take it out and pour frosting over warm cake.


You can eat the cake warm or cold. We liked it both ways.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies -- thick chewy cookie byte

This holiday season I have decided to take a resolution. Yes, it is better to have a resolution for just one month than the dreaded life long one in January. This way I can always concentrate on better stuff in January, like the chocolate covered cupcakes.

So I have resolved to cook more inglish kind of dishes this month. Now inglish does not necessarily mean English; it can be Italian or Moroccan or anything but Bengali. Inglish as in stuff my Grandmother had never heard of and would probably refuse to eat otherwise, stuff my Mother might have heard but never been interested to try them at home, stuff I have heard, probably tasted, some not tasted but never been too enthu to try them out at home.

But all that is going to change for I have had enough of being the "Bong Mom" and cooking or at least blogging about more or less "Bong Food". Six or some uncountable years ago when I started this blog I couldn't cook a charchari from a labra. I couldn't make an ossobuco or pasta carbonara either. But true to my family roots and some crap about passing on my Bengali legacy to my daughters, I went the charchari route. And now see what has happened ? Every person from Madhyamgram to Mangalore and Patuli to Patna is cooking Beef Burgenoff (or maybe stroganoff) and Mushroom Risotto with a flourish and baking perfect pots of de la creme or something. And what am I doing ? Cooking bandhakopir ghonto and still trying to figure out how or why a dessert spoon is different from regular spoon. See what a disgrace I am to my Mother, the poor thing who not only sent me to a inglish school but spent a good part of her life to get me the perfect bloomers for phys ed ? Instead of apple crumble I write posts on kopir datar charchari. And it is not that my finesse in those stuff is exemplary or something and can be compared to anyone's grandmother.

Just plain ordinary, everyday.

But let me also tell you. The entire thing is not my fault alone. Now that I look around, I see grandmothers in Malda were apparently making tarts and vanilla bean cookies at the time mine was merely stirring a Paayesh. No wonder I have no heirloom recipe for such delicacies and am forced to write sentimental posts about Ilish Maacher Tauk. Chhayh !!!

So enough of all that ghyyant-charchari-jhaal-jhol-ombol for December. Ossobuco here I come. Wait, that is too much of a leap for me. For now we will take baby steps with cookies. So oatmeal raisin cookies here I come. And since I have no hand-me-down recipe for such I am following exactly what Smitten Kitchen has.

The larger part of Saturday, I spent making cookies which failed miserably batch after batch. That story I will tell you in the next post. It was this batch of oatmeal raisin cookies which saved us and led to the source of the problem. The wrong oven. As in our new toaster oven which due to its newness or something was blaring off heat at 400F when we set the temp at 350F. No doubt the cookies crumbled or rather burned. The oatmeal raisin cookies being larger in number were baked in the larger, regular oven and that seemed to solve all our troubles.

Though I must say here that we had many self-doubts while beating the butter and sugar, while mixing the flour with the butter and sugar, while adding the oats at which point I asked the husband-man to come and lend his expert hand and also Alton Brown-esque knowledge. He said something about the dough not having enough elasticity.

Loads of crap.

They made pretty good, golden colored oatmeal cookies. They were thick and chewy. They did not taste as good as a Pepperidge Farm Soft-baked oatmeal raisin cookies but then I am partial to soft-baked cookies and I have not grown up with oatmeal cookies to compare against. Given that this recipe was from Smitten Kitchen and looked like hers , I am sure this is how oatmeal cookies should be. BigSis loved and ate many. LS merely liked and used them to draw imperfect circles.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Original Recipe

AP Flour -- 3/4th Cup
Baking Soda -- 1/2 tsp
Salt -- 1/4th tsp

Quaker Oats -- 1&1/2 cup

Butter -- 1 stick (at room temperature. This is important)
Egg -- 1 large (at room temp)
Brown Sugar -- 1/3 Cup
Regular White Sugar -- 1/3 Cup
Vanilla Extract -- 1 tsp

Raisins -- 1/2 cup
* I added about 1/4th cup of chocolate chips though the recipe did not ask for it


1. In a bowl whisk together the AP Flour, baking soda and salt.

2. In a wide mouthed bowl cream together the butter and sugar. I used my hand mixer for this which I am not very prone to use. Once the butter and sugar have come together to a creamy consistency and tastes smooth and sweet add the egg. Now beat again until you get a smooth end result.

3. To the wet ingredients aka butter+sugar+egg, add the flour mix gradually. I mixed with a rubber spatula until the flour blended into the buttery goodness

4. By this time the dough was pretty tight and it seemed impossible for 1& 1/2 cup of oat to mix into it. But voila !!! As you mix the oat in with the spatula it does all go in. Be patient. Stir in the raisins next. And the chocolate chips if using.

5.Chill the dough for half hour.

6. Pre-heat oven to 350F. Meanwhile scoop out portions of dough on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Don't crowd them and give them enough space, for those blobs will expand.

7. Bake them for 10-12 minutes. Now this time will totally depend on your oven. In my larger regular oven by 12 minutes the cookies started having a golden edge. However in my new toaster oven, by 8-9 minutes the edges were getting burned.

8. Take out the cookies when the edges are golden but the center is still a tad soft. As Smitten Kitchen's Deb says, let them remain on the hot cookie sheet for 5 mins. Only after that cool them in a rack.

These oatmeal raisin cookies were thick, chewy, very oatmeal-y. The two adults and the almost 9 year old loved it. The four year old was more in love with the baking process than the cookie itself.