MILLIONAIRE'S SHORTBREAD BARS...for 800,000 hits!

So, this little space of mine crossed 800,000 hits and I want to celebrate it with something sweet,something simple yet something simply delicious. If it has chocolate in it, it's an added bonus!I have a special liking towards shortbreads,especially these Ultimate Shortbreads! I love the fact that they are super easy to bake and it tastes like a piece of heaven! These 3 tier bars are another version of my favourite shortbreads and they are an instant hit whenever and wherever I have served them.It's quite a complicated looking one but trust me, you can pull it off in less than 30 mins (cooking time)!

Now that we both (Jobin & myself) are back to our regular routine,we are enjoying looking at our new home from different angles,keeping things straight , moving the furniture a bit that side just to see if it looks better being closer to the wall, we painted together. Oh yes, we painted 2 walls in our condo, together. One in our bedroom and one in our living room. The bedroom has an olive green paint with white bold stripes and the living room one has a nice ocean blue colour. I hope to stencil my kitchen wall, very soon. I have a pot of mint growing steadily even now and it keeps me company while I roll the chapathi's for Jobin, for his lunch.I always thought I never had a green thumb but the truth is every living plant need some water, every now and then ;-)

This recipe has been mentioned here before but I thought it needed more attention just like my Chocolate Biscuit Pudding, as it is something you all should try, atleast once in a lifetime. OK, so what if you are on a diet? Atleast, make this for someone else so that you can experience what I experienced when I cut into the layers. It's such a monochormatically (?) perfect dessert/snack which is equally heavy on the stomach as it has quite a lot of  butter in it :-) Hmmm, that reminds me of the days in Kannur when there was a butter shortage and I how I used to miss baking then! :-)

MILLIONAIRE'S SHORTBREAD BARS
Ingredients
Base:
120g butter
60g sugar
175 g flour

Pre-heat oven to 350F/180C and line an 8x8inch square tin with foil with some extra foil hanging over the sides.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.Add the flour and mix to form a dough.Pat the dough into the tin and prick with the tines of a fork.Bake for 20 mins or until pale golden brown in colour. Keep it aside.

Caramel filling:
120 g butter
60g sugar
2 tbsp caramel syrup (melt some sugar till golden brown)
200ml condensed milk

On medium high,boil all the ingredients together till it starts to leave the sides of the pan. Pour over the baked base.

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Melt and pour 150 g of dark chocolate over the caramel layer. Let it set in the fridge till the chocolate firms up. Cut into bars and enjoy!

I demonstrated these bars for a class of mine in Kannur, a month ago and all of them loved it. Go on, try this immensely satisfying goodie and let me know how you liked them! This is perfect for birthday parties, lunch boxes or even as a midnight snack, which is what I would chose this to be :-)

ULLI THEEYAL / PEARL ONIONS IN TANGY ROASTED COCONUT SAUCE

Till I was in 5th standard, Perappan  & Peramma (Amma's elder sister)used to live just 100 m away from our school which in simple words meant, I get to eat piping hot lunch everyday! Their youngest daughter, Prinu ,who was in 10th then would wait for me with her friend, Fairooz by the school gate, after the lunch bell. We three would walk together talking , actually they would be talking and I would be listening to the big girl's talks. As we approached their house,I could tell what we were having for lunch because it used to smell so good! If it was fish fry then it's easy to tell :-)

Peramma makes the most awesome sauce fish fry (esp.Sardines/Mathi/Chala)! She had this little pan, maybe a 6 inch fry pan which had some dents and no handle. She used that only for fish fry and I used to tell her I wanted that pan when she was planning to throw it away because I believed that that pan gave the fish fry some extra taste. I think and still thinks, it did!

So fish fry was a regular at their house and another thing was a regular too! A Theeyal! It could be a 'pavakka'/bittergourd theeyal or someother theeyal. If that was there, I wouldn't even need a fish fry because the theeyal was delicious on it's own! I would finish up my rice and curry very soon and lick my fingers and every last bit of the curry left on the plate.Then I would go wash my hands (without soap!) and wait for Prinu to wash her's so that we can go to her room and tie our plaits once again :-) Peramma used to tie our plaits after lunch. I had just shoulder length hair (even now!) and Prinu had a little more longer hair. So,the two things I envied in her then, was the length of her hair and height. I used to stand on my toes to reach her height and I used to bend my head back so that my hair touched my waist! :-)
On our way back to school, I would cover my nose with my right palm and smell it, so that I could get the 'Theeyal' smell, till it lasted! Now you know why I didn't wash my hands with soap :-)

Now, when I look back, it feel so funny to realise that I am 5'10" tall...3 " more than Prinu but my hair is still shorter than hers. She lives in Kenya and the last time I saw her was before our wedding. Peramma still makes the best theeyal and fish fry. When I was home this time, I asked Amma to make a Theeyal for me and she said she will but ,Peramma's is still the best :-) Yesterday,when I spoke to Amma, I asked her for the recipe because for the last 2 days I so badly wanted to have Theeyal and therefore thought of trying it at home and compare the taste of mine with Peramma's. The method of cooking was exchanged and I made a mental note of it. After we hung up, I went straight to the kicthen and started cooking.I knew it's a simple recipe and all I wanted was that exact taste,like the original.

ULLI THEEYAL
My own recipe

Ingredients:
1c pearl onions/kunjulli/chommanulli
5 green chilies/serrano
11/2 c freshly grated coconut
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp red chili powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
Salt
Tamarind, lime size soaked in 1/2 c water.
Water

Method:
Cook the pearl onions, green chilies & salt in 1 cup water till the onions are soft .I don't chop the onions, I use them as whole.
In another wide pan, on medium heat, fry the grated coconut till they turn dark brown in colour. This decides the colour of the curry. Make sure you don't burn it but it should be dark brown. Take it off the flame and add the spices. Keep mixing for a minute or two so that the spices don't burn from the heat of the coconut and the pan.Let it cool.
Grind the roasted coconut to a smooth paste with just enough water to aid in the process.
Add the ground coconut to the pearl onions and cook till it boils.
Extract the pulp from the tamarind and add it to the curry.Check for salt.
Let the curry boil to a consistency you like. I like it thick.This curry will thicken as it cools. You will see a thin layer of oil floating on top, which comes from the coconut that was used.I would say, that's the way a perfect Theeyal would look like :-)

* We don't temper anything to pour over this curry but if you want you can temper some mustard, dry red chillies and onions in coconut oil and pour over.

I'm so happy that it tasted just like the original. When I say original here,I am not saying it's the original recipe for a theeyal but it's the taste I grew up with. Do try this with Pavakka but when you do that you will have to add more tamarind to compensate for the bitterness of the gourd.This is just too perfect with a bowl of hot Kanji/Gruel and Motta porichathu/Indian Omlette.This is my comfort meal :-)

I just hung up my daily call home and when we were talking Amma asked me,'So did you make the Theeyal?' and I said,'Yes! Nallathayirunnu!' . How can I say otherwise when I'm gobbling up a childhood favourite curry of mine like soup! :-)

We are back to our regular routine now, so you should be seeing some activity here, more often! :-)

GIVEAWAY(S) !! CAKE, COOKIES & some more!

Those of you who have been reading this blog of mine, for a while, will clearly know my favourite month of any year! It's December! Even though we are just in November and when people are gearing up for Thankgiving, I'm waiting for the day after Thanksgiving so that the FM stations starts playing Christmas Carols 24/7 ! I am waiting for it to snow when I listen to 'I'm dreaming of a White Christmas' since I've always pictured Christmas to be full of snow on evergreens and sloping roofs of houses. Cannot blame me, blame the Christmas cards we get in India ;-)

Anyway, I'm back ,after almost a one month break. So much happened in between. I got back to Minneapolis on 19th October and the very next day we got the keys to our own Condo in Downtown Minneapolis :-) Then the remaining days of October was busy spent packing up, teaching a class of 25 at the same place where I taught before I left for India in July & finally moving to our new place on 28th October. From 28th till yesterday, it was just unpacking and days without internet. I must say, I never missed being online, catching up with my friends because I was so busy planning where to place our new furniture, crockery etc in our brand new home! The only thing that was giving me company was F.R.I.E.N.D.S. I love that show! I really wish they ran forever! :)

Now, let's get back to the topic, shall we? Well, some of you have baked it at home beofre and I have baked it many many times including last month for a Magazine shoot. That's the best thing to bake during Christmas.Any guesses what that thing could be? No? It's my Christmas Fruit cake, people! Yes, I am giving away a 6 inch Ria-baked Christmas Fruit Cake for ONE lucky reader of mine! Don't forget to make a claim for it because I can honestly say, that's the best Fruit Cake you will ever ever eat! My Amma, a hater of Fruit Cakes claims it to be the best :-) So that's going to be Giveaway no.1 :-)

Hmmm, now since it's gonna be Christmas time and we all since atleast some of us love Gingerbread Man, I'm giving away a dozen of  Ria-baked Gingerbread Man, yes with full decor on them to another ONE lucky reader of mine. That's Giveaway no.2 :-)

                                                        (Photo courtesy -Anu Menon)
So a few months back, Anu and I were chatting away on Twitter and as we discussed life and other things, she asked me if she could join me in my monthly giveaways (which I have not been doing for a while!).I was so happy about the offer and I instantly agreed! As you all know, I am a big fan of everything handmade and all things homemade! Anu knew that and therefore offered me an IPad Crochet cover which she stitched to be given away for my dear readers! How cool is that? Very cool! So that's going to be the Giveaway no. 3 :-)

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For entering the giveaway :
1. Tell me your best memories of Christmas or even the month of December! Is it your wedding anniversary? Is it your birthday? My Grandmother's birthday was on December 25 th! :) Whatever it is, tell me...don't worry, your chances of winning the above mentioned 3 things does NOT depend on the length of your stories, but definitely it's content :) So write away!

2. Like my page on Facebook  and leave another comment saying so, which gives you an extra chance to win! :-) [ I have to get something cleared out here after reading a comment below.This is just for pure fun, this option! You can totally skip it. I had double thoughts while putting this up but went again just to see how many of you actually do that! If it were for me, I wouldn't like a page just because I want to win a cake or a cookie but only if I really like that page's extension on Facebook. For me, in many cases, I never realised that my favourite blogs had a page on Facebook until they mentioned it on their blogs mostly during giveaways! It did help me at many instances because I get to interact with the author directly over their pages on FB :-)So please decide how you want things to be :-)No hard feelings and no way are you gonna lose your chance to win something I am giving away! I am doing this for you and it will always always always be for you, I am not expecting anything in return :-) This is not a camouflage to get more followers :-)  I did think of taking off this option after reading the comment but decided not to do so because I didn't want to sit back and pretend as if I never wrote a thing like that! I hate pretense! :-)]

3. Now,tell me, what would you really like to win! I have to pick 3 winners and I'm  hoping that it would help me :-)

This giveaway is only for the US residents (rather for an address in US, so you can win it for a cousin, friend or even a pet!)  :-) This giveaway ends on December 10th.

ALL THE BEST!

MIXED FRUIT SWISS ROLL...for 3 years of Blogging!

Please don't go away reading the title,pretty please!I promise you ,there will not be any speeches given on this special day. Even then, I do have to say that I'm very happy about it and I owe a big thanks to you , dear readers! I haven't been participating in any group baking that I used to for the last 2 months,  I promise you, I shall return to it very soon! :-)

Jam rolls/ Swiss rolls has been something which my aunts used to bake. We never rolled anything  sweet at home except for these yummilicious Coffee Cream Wheel .This was the time when I never quite liked anything with jam in it, so I stayed away from any such rolls. Later, when my taste buds developed I had a liking towards all these jammy treats especially My Favourite Jam Tarts  , Jam Filled Cookies and also Bakewell Tart .

When I think of it , all the veggies that I disliked when young is my favourite, now! Bittergourd was something I disliked terribly and I love it with all my heart,now! Have you observed such stuff about yourselves? I bet there are plenty for you to tell me! :-)

MIXED FRUIT SWISS ROLL
Ingredients:
3 eggs
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c -1 tbsp flour
1 tbsp cornflour
5 tbsp mixed fruit jam, stirred well

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180C and line a 9x13 inch/ swiss roll tin.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs & sugar for 12 mins, non stop.Add the vanilla and beat for another 1 minute.Add the dry ingredients and fold it in.Pour into a prepared tin and bake for 10-15 mins or until the top is golden and is springy to touch.Pull it out of the oven and unmould it onto a tea towel sprinkled with sugar.Roll it away from you, along with the towel. Hold it there for 10-15 second.Open the roll and let it cool completely.Spread the jam and roll once again.
Slice and serve!

Verdict: I have lost the number of times I have used this basic sponge recipe given to me by Amma. It's so versatile.You can roll it, layer it,mould it or better still, eat it plain! This roll was very very soft and we really liked it!

FROSTED OREO COOKIE CAKE SLICES ...delicious!

Are you all Oreo lovers? I bet many of you just shook your head and said, No! I was one among you all till I tasted the ones we get in US. It is very delicious and just cannot be compared with the ones we get in India. I have no idea how can you make it so tasteless, it really taste like chalk to me, not that I've eaten chalk before, you know,just for you to get an idea! :)

I baked this cake 2 months ago and it was photographed with an intention of making an appearance here which it never did until today. It's a very basic cake recipe where in the cookie crumbs are added. When I took a bite of it, I thought to myself that it would have been 1000 times better if I had made with the REAL Oreos, the ones which tastes like a piece of heaven in your mouth. I love the double stuff! Nevertheless this cake and the yummy icing tasted fabulous!

Look at how grainy the cake is! I absolutely loved the colour the cookies gave to the cake and the icing. I got this recipe from Amma's twin sister Daisy a.k.a Daisy Mummy . She got it from someone whom I've never met so cannot give you the exact source of it. Now you must be wondering why do I go in detail to tell you the source of each recipe. It's just because I've been taught to give credit where and when it's due ;) I always write the name of the person from whom I got a recipe, next to the recipe. It's a habit that I cultivated from a very long time, even before these food blogs came into existence! :)

FROSTED OREO COOKIE CAKE SLICES 
Ingredients:
For the cake:
1/2 c butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp Vanilla
1 1/2 c flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 c milk
7 Oreo's crushed with hands

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180C and line a 9x9 inch square tin.

Sift together the flour & baking powder.
In a large bowl, beat together the butter, sugar till creamy. Add the eggs and Vanilla and beat till fluffy.Add the dry ingredients and milk alternately ,starting and ending with flour. Fold in the crushed cookies.Pour this batter into the prepared tin and bake for 25-30 mins or till done.

For the Oreo butter frosting:
1 c sugar, powdered
1 c butter
4 Oreos, crushed with hands

Method:
In a small bowl, beat together sugar and butter till fluffy and pale. Stir in the cookie crumbs and spread it evenly over the cake. Cover the sides too, if you'd like .

Verdict: A very good cake with an equally good easy icing! Try it, dear Oreo lovers and be Oreo happy!

So as I mentioned in my previous post , there was a Cook-Out with me, planned by the YWCA,Kannur. It was  a fund raising event and I am so happy that I could contribute. There were 51 attendees for my class (my biggest number till date!) and I was very happy to cook for all of them!! :)  This time around, Amma was my assistant! :-D

Menu: Mini Cheese Pasta Rolls ,Easy Rice Roti's,Murgh Methi Malai ,Coffee-Chocolate Triangle Cake  & Vanilla Pannacotta with Pomegranate Sauce .

Tomorrow would be my last session of classes in Kannur and I am ending it on a sweet note with a luscious Cheesecake,layered and filled Shortbreads,some Scones and a creamy Pudding with a fruit sauce! A reader of mine, Maya, will be joining us tomorrow to learn from me :) I sincerely hope she finds what she came looking for :)

MEDIA MENTION & A COOK OUT!

Ibelieve that a photograph can speak volumes more than words do. Do you agree? Even if you don't,please agree this time as I am quite lazy to type out today :) You would have read about it here before  and it was always been a dream of mine to be featured on Vanitha as that was one magazine I grew up reading, even though it was Amma who subscribed for it :)

This article appeared on the current issue of Vanitha and I was so excited about it. Amma saw it first and she soaked it all in before Appan could see or else they both would have been having a tug of war with the magazine. Later Appan decided to surprise me and he shuffled up the pages. But it was long before I woke up. They both waited thinking I would come down soon and since that didn't happen,Appan decided to come up and wake me :-)

He just whispered something to me and I ran downstairs to see it! :) It was such a happy day for Amma and myself as we both were featured in it along with our recipes.All our phones have been ringing non-stop for the last 3 days with relatives and friends ringing up to congratulate us.Our family friend and fellow food blogger,Rinku Naveen , surprised me with her Kalathappam that evening. She came home and rang up to tell me that she is waiting outside :) It is one of my  favourite tea time snack.

As you can see above, there's a Cookery Class hosted by yours truly arranged by the YWCA ,Kannur on 3 October.These posters have been stuck on walls here and it's so funny when people recognise you after that!  I have no idea how many people are going to be there but I know one thing for sure, you will get to see a snap of my class :-) The menu has been fixed and sent to the organisers. So, now all I have to do is go take the class :-)

Have a good weekend!