Geometrical Dosas

An interesting start to the morning where Chellu dressed herself in a dupatta for blouse and a dupatta for skirt and got to work in the kitchen for making besan ka dosas. As usual she experiments with various shapes.

Pear boat

We read the book" How to make an apple pie and see the world" recently. Chellu loves that book for that the fact that it deals with food and recipes. She read through the apple pie recipe at the end of the book and was immediately in the kitchen. She was anyways wanting to cook something since morning  and finally seized the opportunity irrespective of whether i was interested or not. And funnily she also chose a recipe that didn't require my presence whatsoever.

She made the boat all by herself. It has pear for the main body, apple for the mast and some dates lollipops for some decor. 

Jowari Roti Spring Rolls

Chellu tired these on the same day of the potato fries. She was so pleased with herself over the fries that she wanted to work more on the potatoes. So she requested me to boil the potatoes in the cooker from where she took over.

She looked around to see what was in the kitchen. Jowari rotis were made for dinner and immediately her light-bulb went on! She made a yummy , really yummy spicy potato filling and filled ii like a spring roll filling in the roti. She then cut the roti into pieces and sauteed it in a little oil with tadkas of mustard seeds urad dal and jeera.

She is getting very confident about doing tadkas these days!

Potato fries

Chellu tried this all by herself and the end result was absolutely yummy! she cut the potatoes herself and spcied it by really well. Did the sauteing and everything by herself too!

Shortbread Spirals

Another one of those recipes from a kid's recipe book that Chellu has been behind me for many days. In the recent past we have had quite some disappointments with baking especially cakes and muffins from the book and so I've been quite hesitant to try any recipe from the same. Finally after her many attempts I got convinced to give it a try again. I'm always amazed at how failures don't seem to bother kids..they want to keep trying again and again cause its the process that they are so interested in as against the results. Chellu's determination brought in much success with this one . The end result has been amazing! An it sort of looks like bhakarwadi!

And in today's cooking we also did quite a bit of maths with understanding ratios, estimating time w.r.t chilling the dough and baking. She read the entire recipe and also thanks to her we googled and  found out more about what's caster sugar. She had also done an inventory check of the items needed and made a shopping list of what's needed.

Baking with Zoya and Hema

A few months back Hema came in to show us how to bake cookies and gave us the simplest recipe : 1 part butter, 2 parts sugar , 3 parts whole wheat flour.
The girls had the loveliest time kneading the dough and using cookie cutters to make various shapes. And then they also decorated it with sugar granules and gems. Thanks to Hema , we has repeated this recipe over and over again and have gifted it to close friends and family. And always very happy with the results!

I've always noticed that simple recipes cooked with a lot of love and enthusiasm can be the best things to gift and share with your loved ones. And its easiest with kids !

Shruthkirti attempts Rasgulla at home

The craze for Rasgulla started a few months back. Don't know where she came to know of the dish but she got obsessed with it. Went on youtube, selected a recipe. And much to our surprise selected a hindi version with English captions on it. Dutifully ( For a good 1 & 1/2 hrs) wrote the recipe by pausing at each and every line. This was during the phase of crazy writing where she was writing something or the other every day,mostly love letters to her mom & dad.
Since then she has been behind me to make Rasgullas at home and somehow in my head that seemed a frightening proposition. I have all sorts of conditioning in my head about what can be made at home and what can't..probably because I have always tasted these dishes only at marriages or parties or restaurants. Never seen anyone in my family cook some of this stuff at home. And now Chellu is slowly breaking this conditioning ..and is started with baking - cakes, muffins, BREAD!! and now the latest is Rasgulla.. I kept putting it off till a few days back she sat with me and patiently explained to me that it is not as hard as it looks . The look is her eyes finally broke my fear and laziness and I decided to make her wish come true.

Yesterday we kicked off the process. Bought some milk since that's one ingredient that's no longer available anymore in our house. We watched the recipe on youtube again and it seemed really easy. We set off to do it and Chellu was the one who did most of the tasks. I supervised and helped her a bit.The part I contributed the most was making the dough soft. She also took over the gas part of the cooking for most of the time. She would also go and check out the recipe video from time to time to ascertain that we were on the right track.  The Rasgullas came out fantastic and once again I'm all in admiration of this child who is so driven with her passion to cook. When she is cooking she is a diffn child. Her whole being glows in her enthusiasm. It is during such times that  I experience true learning with her. When body, mind and soul are in tune. I am always amazed at how she starts something out of her pure interest and covers all the ground in research to make it to happen.

Here are the pictures.

Squeezing lemons

Filtering the "chenna"

Squeezing out all the water to make the perfect chenna 

Washing the chenna with water to get rid of lemon's sourness

Kneading the chenna to make it soft

Preparation of sugar syrup

Making Rasgulla balls

Boiling the chenna balls in sugar syrup

Very happy !

Yummy Rasgullas ready to be refrigerated!

Experiments with atta or wheat dough : Banana Choco Mousse

Shruthkirti went through a phase of being obsessed with cooking with dough. She would try all sorts of combinations and put it in the microwave to see how it comes out.

Today we attempt Banana Choco cake:
1 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup gud
 1/2 cup butter
4 bananas
1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

She proceeded to put it in the microwave. But it turned out to be a mousse instead of a cake. She was happy though with the results. Gave it a shape and decorates it with colored sugar crystals. 

Shruthkirti attempts her first gas cooked subji.

On this day's morning the first thing Chellu wanted to do was to make her own subji. She gets up and declares her agenda for the day - " I want to make my own subji!:"

She proceeded to chop the veggies: tomatoes, beans, red & white  pumpkin. And she carefully did the tadka  and cooked the veggies till they were done.

And then served it with some lemon pieces to up the tanginess.

Karadayaa Nombu cooking

Shruthkirti helps me with great care for the Kaaradayaa nombu cooking. Diligently made adais and decorates it with sugar balls! when I told her that she needs to have a hair bath to help me make the prasad she immediately agreed! Kutti madi maami!

Festivals are one of the best ways to include children in adult activities.And cooking always scores number one in that sense in our family. Making the prasadam together brings a great .sense of family togetherness and joy .After all isn't that why festivals are celebrated in the first place?

Chocolate sauce

Shruthkirti experiments with making chocolate sauce or drinking chocolate.
Mixed choco powder, vanilla essence and jaggery. And enjoyed it! :))

She seems to love to make sauces of all sorts. Probably quenches her need for implementation and is also very easy to make. No gas cooking or mommy's help needed.