Fruit loaf

Waking up to the aroma of a freshly baking bread in the morning is just too good to describe......

Well, I bought this breadmaker Breville Ultimate Baker's Oven this week to make my own breads. The 2Bs doctor has advised us to avoid any kind of packaged and processed food for their asthma. I tried the first bread yesterday - plain wholemeal bread. Which turned out quite good for a first timer.

Well, today I tried fruit loaf. Changed a few things from the recipe in the manual that came with the bread maker since I wanted to avoid bread flour. I used the same recipe as the the wholemeal bread but instead of the 100% wholemeal flour, I mixed half and half of WHolemeal and plain flour and added cinnamom and dry fruits to it, but baked it not on the wholemeal bread but on the 'sweet bread' setting. Came out wonderful !

This recipe is for 750gm loaf and the ingredients to be added in the same order. Since the measurements can be different in different countries, please refer to these measurements for all my breadmaker's recipies as it is adjusted to Australian and NZ standard cups ( 1teaspoon:5ml, 1 tablespoon: 20ml, 1 Cup: 250ml)

Water: 295ml

Oil ( sunflower/canola/olive) 1and half Australian tablespoons

Salt: 1 1/2 teaspoon

Sugar: 2 1/2 tablespoons

Wholemeal flour: 1 1/2 cups

Plain flour: 1 1/2 cups

Milk powder: 2 Tablespoon

Edmonds surebake yeast: 1 1/4 teaspoon

Cinnamon powder: 1 teaspoon

Put the breadmaker on 'sweet' setting.

Take the loaf out when the breadmaker beeps. Let it cool completely before cutting it in slices.

aloo paratha

I made this for the lunch box yesterday.



Boiled four potatoes. Peeled. Chopped roughly. In pan, took very little ( 2 tsp) oil, added little jeera and rai. Then added 1 finely chopped onion. When the onion turned golden brown, added the potatoes, red chilli pdr, turmeric pdr, salt, I didn't have coriander in the fridge, but it tastes good if you chop some coriander and put in it. I didn't add green chillies either as the 2B's wouldn't be able to eat it otherwise add those too. fry for a minute or two and then mash it nicely and let it cool in a bowl. Kneed a real soft dough from 2cups wheat flour. Make it as soft as you can roll. That't the trick if you don't want the potatoes mix to come out of the paratha while rolling and also to ensure even distribution. I learnt it too late ( very recently) so wanted to share it. Otherwise my aloo parathas looked really horrible !


Now took a small part of the dough to make a ball. Pressed it to make it flat and kept pressing around the corners to make it slightly bigger. now took the same amount of aloo mix and placed it in the centre. brought all the sides together and close it properly.





Placed it upside sown and started rolling it lightly. Placed it on a hot tawa and shallow fried both the sides till golden.





I cut it in half on the tawa itself if I am putting it in the lunch box. Just roll it once they are slightly cold and put it in the box. And offcourse add some butter on top of the parathas.

Puran Poli

Though I never used to have a sweet tooth ( which I have develped recently, thanks to my husband's love for sweets), I had always loved this puran poli that my masi used to make for us whenever she visited us in Hyderabad. Even though I couldnt eat more than one cos of its sweetness, but it was one of my favourite. My last meal before Bubbly was born was also puran poli but bubbly doesnt like it much.

Anyway, untill recently it looked too complicated for me to even try cooking it, but I have now learnt to make it otherwise it would mean never to have it again.

You will need:

1 cup wheat flour

1 cup standard flour ( maida )

pinch of salt

for filling:

1 cup chana dal

1 cup jaggery

1/2 tsp cardomom pwdr.

method:

soak chana daal for an hour and then pressure cook it with little water. Add Jaggery in it and stir it untill most of the water is soaked. add cardomom powder and let it cool.

Mix wheat flour, standard flour and salt and kneed a very soft dough with water and keep aside for 1/2 an hour.

make small balls of dough and pat them to flatten them a little and put equal quantity of chana daal mixture on it and close the sides. Roll it out but it should be slightly thick. you can make it as thin as you like but personally I like it if its a bit thickish.

Put it on a hot tawa and cook it on both sides till golden and apply ghee generously.

You can eat it hot off the stove with some achar.