Eggless vanilla custard with chopped fruits

If each one of us were faced with this question ‘Pick your favourite course of a meal?’, I am sure each one of us would come up with a different thing. My answer would definitely be ‘desserts’. The degree of sweet-madness is so high that sometimes when no dessert is available, I satisfy my incurable sweet tooth with one spoon of sugar or honey or in many cases even Bournvita! I am sure there are a few good-hearted souls out there who do relate to this.

Unsurprisingly, some 70% of my bookmarked recipes also comprise sweet dishes. I have vowed to try out as many of them as possible at my own comfortable pace. Here is a recipe of one of those easy-to-make hearty desserts from my interminable list of bookmarks. This basic recipe of eggless vanilla custard goes very well with any kind of chopped fruits when served chilled and is great with cake when served warm. I prepared this custard, chilled it for about two hours, added it to a bowl of chopped fruits, drizzled some honey over it and added some chopped nuts for a healthy yet wholesome dessert. You could also experiment with various colours and flavours.

Ingredients (serves four)

Milk: 2 cups
Corn starch / Corn flour: 2 tbsp
Sugar: 5 tbsp or more or less to taste
Fruits of choice: chopped
Honey: few tbsp to drizzle on top
Nuts (chopped): according to taste
Vanilla essence: ¾ tsp

Method:

Heat about one and a half cups of milk in a vessel and bring it to a boil.
To the remaining half a cup of milk, add cornstarch and mix well to avoid lumps.
Now add this cornstarch-milk mixture to the milk vessel.
Keep the flame on simmer and keep stirring constantly so that no lumps are formed and there is no sticking and scraping business.
When the mixture comes to a boil, add the sugar and let it boil again.
Let it thicken a bit more.
Take the vessel off the flame and add the vanilla essence and stir well.
Cool this mixture. It will thicken further on cooling. (If you dont want it too thick, you need to reduce the quantity of cornstarch.)

Once it reaches room temperature, chill in the fridge for 2 – 3 hours.
Chop the fruits and assemble them in serving cups.
Pour the custard mixture over it.

Drizzle some honey over it.
Garnish with nuts and serve chilled.
Enjoy!

Since this recipe is from a bookmark, this eggless vanilla custard with chopped fruits goes to ‘Bookmarked Recipes – Every Tuesday’ event by Priya Mitharwal.

Oatmeal Date Raisin Peda

I see a little irony here. This is my first participation in this marathon food blogging event ‘Sugar High Fridays’ and my entry for this event has no sugar or its sweet cousins in any direct form. Nevertheless, it is sweet because of all the dates and raisins it is loaded with. Hence, this oatmeal-date-raisin peda rightfully qualifies to be a part of this great event ‘Sugar High Fridays – Bite Size Desserts’ hosted by Aparna, one of my favourite bloggers.

This peda is adapted from Sharmi’s Fudge. Truly it is a cinch – right from start to finish. I felt these pedas are nothing but a fudgy younger brother of oatmeal breakfast bars, probably with a smaller shelf life. It takes no more than 20 minutes to put together. If you are looking for a dessert that would leave your mouth sweet, though not cloyingly so, and that is not loaded with too many calories, this is the thing for you.

Ingredients (Yields 14 medium size pedas)

Instant Oats (Quaker): ¾ cup
Peanuts (roasted and skin removed): ½ cup
Almonds (raw, chopped into tiny pieces): ¼ cup
Dates (chopped fine): 15 Nos
Raisins: ¼ cup
Cardamom: ¼ tsp
Ghee (to grease hands while making the pedas): 2 – 3 tsp
Water: About ¼ cup

Method:

Dry roast the oatmeal for about 3 – 5 minutes. Let it cool for a while.
Make a fine oatmeal powder out of it and keep aside.
Grind the almonds and peanuts coarsely with the cardamom. Keep aside.
Grind the dates and the raisins along with ¼ cup water to obtain a tight paste. (You could also use milk to make the paste, but, would reduce the shelf life of the sweet greatly. So, I used water.)
Mix the oatmeal powder and nut powder together.
Add the date-raisin paste to little by little and make small lemon sized balls using greased palms.
Now flatten the balls slightly and add a chopped almond in the middle for decoration.
A very healthy dessert is ready to be relished.

Bread Chaat

When I was newly married, I used to bombard my mom with phone calls mostly concerning some recipe or the other. She reciprocated enthusiastically by not only wholeheartedly transfering her cooking knowledge over the telephone, but also went a step further by watching recipes shown on the television, meticulously taking notes and then dutifully handing them over to me. This bread chaat is again from her kitty. This recipe is a breeze to put together and is sure to please anybody on any given evening.

Ingredients (Serves one):

Bread slices (white or brown, crust removed): 2 Nos
Milk: 4 - 5 tsps
Onion / Mint / Corriander / Tomato chutney: 2 - 3 tbsp
Sev or Boondi: 1/4 cup
Tomatoes / Onions/ Cucumber/ Corriander (finely chopped): 1 tbsp each
Thick chilled curd (mixed with a pinch of salt and 1 tsp sugar): 1/2 cup
Chaat masala - to taste
Chilli powder - to taste
Rock salt - to taste
Jeera powder - to taste

Method:

Take the serving plate and start assembling the chaat one by one. Start with the crust-removed bread.
Smear chutney all over it. It can be any leftover chutney which has been used for idli, dosa, etc. If no chutney is available, just grind together 1/2 of a tomato, a fistful of corriander, a little piece of a green chilli and some salt together and pour all over the first slice of bread.
Close using the other slice like a sandwich.
Pour few tsps of milk over it. (I am really unsure why the milk is added, but it is given in the recipe. So, I unquestioningly did it).
Pour the curd all over the bread slice generously.
Now add the sev and the finely chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and corriander.i
Now sprinkle all the masalas to suit your taste.
Serve!


Since this recipe is from a bookmark, this plate of bread chaat goes to ‘Bookmarked Recipes – Every Tuesday’ event by Priya Mitharwal.