A quick and easy video recipe for blueberry mojito – a twist on the classic cocktail.

Blueberry mojito- a quick and easy cocktail recipe, perfect for summer entertaining

It’s the weekend, and I have a cocktail recipe for you. A Blueberry Mojito recipe. I have posted about it earlier (about 5 years back), but that one was from a Mojito mix. Today I want to share the from scratch version.

I love a good mojito. Pina coladas and mojitos are generally my drink of choice. If not that then I like vodka, with a little orange juice, dash of sprite, some green chilli, lemon and salt- my version of a screwdriver. But mostly my poison is a Mojito. I find them refreshing. I tried this blueberry mojito for the first time when I was in Morenci and had my Friday coffee group over for brunch. It was a hit. Even my friend who isnt big on mint, liked it. This is the perfect summer cocktail- blueberries, mint, lemon- its got it all. And it’s super easy.

I also make these blueberry mint ice cubes, that are this pretty color and add so much fun to the cocktail. They take ten seconds to put together, and take the presentation up a notch.

This is the second video, my friend, Anubhav , helped me shoot. You can check the first one – panna cotta with roasted peaches and toasted oat crumble here. Hope you like our effort, let me know what you think in the comments.

Here’s the video and the recipe. Hope you get to try these blueberry mojitos. Have a happy weekend!

Blueberry Mojito from Shumaila Chauhan on Vimeo.

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From scratch sweet pull apart monkey bread made with whole wheat challah dough and a generous topping of cinnamon sugar.

Monkey Bread Challah

Remember the braided whole wheat challah loaf I shared few posts back. Since the recipe yields two loaves, I decided to play with shapes and ended up making this Monkey Bread Challah with the other half of the dough. The challah dough recipe is wonderful and add some cinnamon sugar and butter to the dough, the results are a buttery billowy pull apart sweet bread.

I adapted the recipe from the Hot Bread Kitchen cookbook. If you love baking breads, its a cookbook you will love to have on your book shelf.

Monkey Bread Challah

This was the first time I was working with challah bread and I loved it. It is one of my new favorite breads to bake. The best part is the dough makes enough for two loaves. With one loaf you can go the traditional braided challah way and with the other you can experiment and make something sweet. That ways you get the best of both worlds- one savory loaf and one sweet loaf.

It doesn’t hurt that it is part whole wheat too 🙂

Monkey Bread Challah

I have a few recipes lined up for the coming weeks. I know it is Tuesday and generally I post on Garam Masala Tuesdays but as you can see I haven’t been as regular with them as I used to be. I don’t cook much Indian these days since my parents have a great cook who makes amazing Indian food. But when I posted the insta stories on Seviyaan (vermicelli) burfi, I got a few requests to start GMT again. So once I have a few Indian recipes lined up, I will start posting on GMT again.

Let me know if there is a particular recipe you would like me to try and share.

For now enjoy this whole wheat monkey bread challah recipe.

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Rich, tender scones loaded with cheese and bacon. These are perfect for Sunday brunch or you could even serve these with soup or salad for dinner.

Bacon and Cheddar scones
I love scones. Some people call them biscuits. Some people insist scones are not biscuits. Whatever you want to call them, I just want to say I love them.

I have posted about scones (and even biscuits) before. This Sarabeth buttermilk biscuit recipe is one of my favorites. Everyone who has tried the cranberry and cinnamon scones has loved it. There is a video also on the blog on how to make scones. While I love a sweet scone, I have been wanting to make a savory bacon scone for a while now. So last Sunday, I decided to add bacon and cheese to my scones and they turned out even better than what I expected.

Bacon and Cheddar scones

The recipe for these bacon and cheese scones is adapted from kingarthurflour.com . The original recipe has chives in it and while I would have loved to add them, I did not have any on hand so skipped that ingredient out. We just planted some chives in our garden, so hopefully soon that will not be a problem for future bakes of these bacon and cheddar scones. I did add a few fresh herbs from the garden though. Another change that I made was that I did half whole wheat, and half all purpose flour. It worked well, and I love the slightly healthier touch (only slightly because bacon and cheese kind of offset the healthiness that the whole wheat flour brings). The third change I made was decreasing the amount of baking powder called for. I have mentioned it earlier on the blog that I feel whenever I add 1 tbsp of baking powder to a recipe that calls for 2 cups of flour, there is always this slightly bitter taste in the baked product. Probably its the kind of baking powder that I use. So now whenever I bake I make sure not to use more than 1 tsp of baking powder per cup of flour and I have made that adjustment in this recipe too. Also, always sift your dry ingredients. Baking powder and baking soda tend to lump and if you don’t sift you will get lumps in your baked product which leave a bitter after taste. Remember, always sift!

To make life simpler, you can make the dough and shape the scones a day in advance. Keep them on a parchment lined baking tray covered with saran wrap/ clingfilm in the freezer. The next day when you are ready to bake them, just remove the tray from the freezer and let sit on your kitchen counter at room temperature while you preheat the oven. Bake and have warm freshly baked scones first thing in the morning without dirtying the kitchen sink. There is no reason why you should not be making these. You can also serve these scones with a soup or salad and make it a meal.

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