Roasted Strawberries

by

A super easy recipe for oven roasted strawberries, that are great as toppings for ice cream, panna cotta, yogurt, pancakes, waffles, cakes and more.

Roasted Strawberries

Growing up I was always fascinated with strawberries. It was not something that was easily available fresh, and mostly available either in jam or ice cream form, that too the synthetic kind. Its not that India wasn’t producing strawberries, but the Indian palate had not taken to the sour taste of this bright red colored fruit, hence the fresh kinds were limited to supply to a few regions. Luckily now, fresh strawberries are easily available good part of the year, and without breaking your bank.

This year I plan to grow some strawberries, my unfortunate brown thumb permitting of course. I also do plan a herb garden, but let us see how all of it goes!

Coming to today’s recipe of roasted strawberries, its a super easy and delicious way to use strawberries, besides straight up eating them. I stumbled upon the recipe on Deeba’s site years ago and since then have used these roasted strawberries in tonnes of my dessert recipes. Roasted strawberries have made way as a topping on my panna cotta recipe here, in strawberry ice cream here and even in cakes. In each dessert they have been a hit, and so thought it is only fair that they get a post of their own.

The last time I made these roasted strawberries, I added a bit of orange blossom water too and love the combination. You can choose to omit it if you don’t have any on hand, or try a squeeze of orange juice instead. Adjust the sugar in the recipe according to how sweet or tart your strawberries are. Hope you get to try the recipe and in case you do, let me know how you used them. Comment here or tag me on your creations on instagram or facebook.

Read More →

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

by

A delicious, rich and moist chocolate zucchini cake made even more healthy with whole wheat and applesauce. No one will guess it has vegetables in it!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I bought some zucchini the other day to use in a side of grilled vegetables, but instead I ended up ordering in, leaving the zucchini sitting in the refrigerator. I had been itching to bake a cake and decided to re-strategize and used the zucchini to make a chocolate zucchini cake instead, and I am glad I did.

I know I have been super silent here. My last post was last year July, which says a lot. From posting 2-3 times a week, to posting 8-10 times a year is a giant step down. When I started this blog, it was a place for me to share my recipes along with snippets of my life. Since a lot was happening in my life that I particularly did not want to share on a public platform, the blog mostly became a space for my recipes. When I took up photography professionally, time in the kitchen testing recipes was replaced by time tending to client work, and hence the hiatus the blog. I tried to still post 2-3 times a month but last couple of months have been super busy. I have now moved to Delhi, and between shoots and edits don’t get much time to do personal blog stuff. I keep saying I want to change that but as a freelancer its tough to say no to new job opportunities, which leaves no time for a hobby (in this case, testing recipes, writing about them on the blog). I am grateful for the opportunities that come, but I feel sad that the thing that started it all- this blog, has now become a neglected space.

I do miss my time in the kitchen experimenting, learning from failures and then rejoicing at successes. One such success is this Chocolate Zucchini Cake and since I posted it on my instagram and facebook, I have had lots of requests for the recipe. With some free time on hand, decided its high time I get myself out of the hiatus and here I am with the recipe for this Chocolate Zucchini cake.

The recipe is adapted from allrecipes.com . My variations included subbing half the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour, cutting the sugar by half, and replacing half the oil called for with apple butter. I would like to make a note of the apple butter here- it was homemade and I think it is the secret ingredient here. The apple butter recipe is a slow cooker recipe that I adapted from here. I added less sugar than the original recipe, instead I added some red wine to the apple butter, and a star anise which really did bring a nice liquorish taste to the apple sauce. You could use any homemade apple butter, or you could just use oil. If using only oil, I would suggest use a total of 1 1/4 cup. It should be enough for the recipe.

I served the chocolate zucchini cake with a drizzle of caramel sauce. The cake is seriously addictive, and it got over in no time. No one will ever be able to guess it has a vegetable in it!

I hope you get to try this chocolate zucchini cake recipe  and if you do please do share your results with me on instagram or facebook or leave a comment here. 

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Read More →

Watermelon Feta Salad

by

This refreshing watermelon feta salad is easy and quick to make and will soon become your summer favorite.

Watermelon, feta and mint salad
Hello, hello, are you guys still here or have you left thinking no one is ever going to post?

I know, I know! This space has been pretty quiet and I take full responsibility. I guess, thanks to instagram all my “blogging” happens on that platform and thanks to full time photography I don’t get much time in the kitchen to recipe test except when its for clients. I am hoping though that in the coming months that might change and I can refocus on the blog again. I really want to. I enjoyed testing and creating recipes for myself to put on the blog and I miss that. I have been occasionally revisiting old posts though and editing those with better pictures as well as putting a print friendly recipe option in the blog post. If you have been following me on instagram or Facebook, you would know when I update those old posts like I did when I recently remade the chocolate and vanilla five layer cake (which now I am dreaming about) and edited the post with a recent picture.

Watermelon, feta and mint salad

These days, all my cooking and baking is mostly quick recipes like this watermelon feta salad.

This watermelon feta salad is such a great summer salad. The sweetness from the watermelon, the saltiness from the feta and the freshness of the mint make the pairing an absolute delight.  I have made the salad some 100 times, but have never thought it needs to be posted on the blog because there really isn’t a recipe as such for making it. You cut some watermelon, crumble some feta and mint, add salt pepper and a dressing and voila!

There are endless variations that one can try with the watermelon feta salad. Sometimes I add the balsamic vinegar and lemon juice as a dressing, sometimes I skip it. Sometimes I add walnuts and blueberries, other times pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries. Sometimes I add onions and flaked almond, sometimes I leave those out. You could choose to add lemon zest, pomegranate, cucumber or basil too. Whatever you add, do try the salad out and comment with your variations.

Read More →