Tuna salad

If you have any love for anything tuna; tuna salad, tuna sandwich, cats, then this recipe is for you, however if you do not favour tuna nearly as much, then stick around still for the visual appeal.

This isn’t a born again, recherché, renaissance time tuna salad recipe. Nothing fancy or fantastical to it, except that it’s quick, easy and exceedingly delicious for something that takes mere moments to come as one.

In fact so easy that I didn’t even click a list of ingredients, because I didn’t think it’d be featured on this blog, but the straightforward easiness of this recipe had me lunging for the nearest camera, and thusly it finds itself here.

One does need a can of tuna for this. It kind of gives a rather cat food vibe but we know how magical this oddity tends to be. Just regular tuna packed in water not oil.

2 eggs finely chopped.

Into a bowl, finely chopped onion, celery and eggs.

and contents of tuna can

with some mayonnaise and good whole grain mustard, for the effects and flavour

good squeeze of a sprightly lemon

with a pinch of salt and a smattering of black pepper

give it a good mix until everything is incorporated and here we have our no frill tuna salad, which is perfect as it is, but if you want to make a meal out of it then there are a lot of options to dabble with..

For example mix it with some cooked pasta or sandwich between bread,

or spread generously on a toast

beginning with a large leafy portion of lettuce.

a layer of tomatoes

blanketed with our tuna salad.

taking which a little by further by gilding the lily. This is freshly grated parmesan

sprinkled generously and baked at 200°C for 5-7 minutes

Lunch as lunch should be.

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Ingredients

1 Tuna can : 120 gms

Boiled eggs: 2

Onion: one small or half

Celery: 1 stick or 2 tbsps

Mayonnaise: 1 tbsp

Whole grain mustard: 2 tsp

Salt: to taste

Pepper: 1/2 tsp

lemon juice: 1/2 tsp

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To make into an open faced sandwich

toasted bread: 1 slice

lettuce leaves :2 in nos

Tomato sliced: 2-3

Parmesan: 2 tsps

Recipe instructions: chop finely the onion, celery and boiled eggs. Mix together with tuna, mayonnaise, mustard,lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Tuna salad is ready to eat.

To make into an open tuna salad sandwich: Toast a slice or piece of bread. Layer with lettuce leaves, thinly sliced tomatoes. Spread the tuna salad mixture and finally top with parmesan cheese or cheese of your choice. Bake into an oven at 200°C for not more than 5-7 minutes, until the cheese begins to melt and the salad is warmed through.

Enjoy.

Apple Cobbler Crumble

What what? a cobbler and a crumble together? Yes indeed.. for why just have a cobbler when you can also have a crumble and vice versa.

This idea happened not because I was feeling very inventive, well maybe I was.. I was greedy and the fat juicy apples sitting in front of me asked me how they’d like to be cooked.. now I’m just hallucinating. Actually I initially wanted to make a crumble but midway I started making a cobbler and then came back to crumble.. I’m confused that ways. But seriously, once you’ve had this divinity, you’d probably end up making this all the time.

Out of habit I always make a lot of crumble topping and freeze it for instant crumbles, so of course I had the crumble ready.. you never know there might be a surplus of fruits and you’d want to top them with crumble.. Be prepared in life I say.

Okay, so this is how I went with it..

I know, I know.. I couldn’t resist another picture of the gorgeousness that was this crumble cobbler or vice versa.. yes it’s an ice cream atop that.. Yes it’s winters, and yes its French vanilla ice cream.. thank you.

These are 3 apples. Peeled, cored and sliced. Use whichever ones you want. In your baking dish try to pile them evenly.. I did say TRY !!

Sprinkle some sugar. I used about 3 tablespoons of granulated white sugar

Sprinkle some cinnamon.. you can be a bit more generous.. I couldn’t because le huzbend don’t like no cinnamon very much (cry a little)

Set the apples aside and start with the crumble topping. I have flour and salt (mixed), sugar, baking powder, butter, egg and vanilla.

Sift together the dry ingredients and in a separate bowl melt the butter, add the vanilla, and bet in the egg.. so basically a bowl of dry ingredients and a bowl of wet ingredients.

Mix in the dry ingredients into the wet one or vice versa. and mix till all’s well mixed. It’ll be a thickish batter. If your batter doesn’t get to a dropping consistency then add 1 tablespoon of milk.

Spoon the batter over the apples.

I spooned over the batter in 9 uneven albeit somewhat pretty dollops. Don’t laugh.

Here’s another close up..

Here’s the crumble part. I added a bit of rolled oats to the crumble. As I said I had this crumble ready in the freezer for any passing fruit might need it..

Now sprinkle the crumble over the exposed apple parts. Honestly I didn’t mean for it to sound dirty. Sprinkle the crumble over the non cobbler parts and bake @ 180℃ for 20-25 minutes.

the baked result.. Let it cool a bit. Cut a generous slice, top with vanilla ice cream and please eat it already..

Le another picture.. ok no more.. Enjoy !!!

Ingredients & Recipe

3 Apples

2 tbsp granulated sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon powder

For the cobbler

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp butter melted

1 egg

1/2 tbsp vanilla

For the crumble

1 cup flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup almond flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup cold butter cut into cubes

2 tbsp rolled oats.

Recipe

Peel core and slice the apples and line into your baking tray. Try to make them even.

Sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon and set aside.

For the cobbler, mix all the dry ingredients into a bowl. In a separate bowl mix the melted cooled butter with the vanilla and egg and mix.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and form a batter. If the batter is too thick add in 1 tbsp of milk. Spoon the batter over the apples.

For the crumble sift together the flour,sugar, almond flour and baking powder. Cut the cold cubes of butter. You can either use a food processor, pastry cutter or simply your fingers. Once your mixture reaches a porridge like consistency add in the oats. Let there be clumps of butter since these will brown and give your crumble a burnished look.

Sprinkle this crumble mixture over the apples which do not have any cobbler on them. Make sure your apples are mostly covered with either cobbler batter or crumble mixture.

Freeze the remaining crumble mixture and use them as and when needed..

Bake 180℃ for 20-25 minutes.

Coffee chocolate cupcake

Dark, crumbly and sinful. These cupcakes, which can be easily turned into a cake if you increase the recipe are one of my favourites. Not too sweet, gorgeously dark with a strong hint of coffee. The best way to curl up and read a book while scarfing down an entire batch.

The thing is that I usually make cupcakes, since I’m only baking for 2 people, and I hate the sight of cakes or food just transferring from table to fridge. This is a recipe for a cake, which I adapted to make into cupcakes. I made 8 of these, and you can easily decrease or increase the ingredients to suit your needs.

This is what the innards of this astounding cupcake look like. No comments on the size of the bite though.. see- moist and crumbly and oh my god WOW !!

Ingredients

110 gms flour

4 tbsp sugar

1 egg

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp buttermilk

150 mls hot coffee ( I used instant coffee)

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp cocoa powder

4 tbsp veg oil.

For this recipe, you need a bowl an a whisk. if you so wish you can use a mixer, but really this is all you need.

Sift in all the dry ingredients together. Gradually add in the egg, vanilla, oil and yogurt and mix well. Now gently tip in the hot coffee, all the while mixing you batter. The resulting batter will be liquidy and this is actually what gives it the springiness.

Bake at 170℃ for about 20-25 mins.

These cupcakes are a wonder. So easy, so tasty and so very dark and moist.

Enjoy !!

Smashed potatoes for the lazy…

As an old habit, I usually boil and keep a couple of potatoes in the refrigerator. firstly its easy to conjure up any dish and secondly it gives me this satisfied feeling that at any given time I have readily available food I can eat, since I’m in love with potatoes and need just another excuse to put them in hot oil.. yum..

this recipe is not much heavy on the calories though, and is perfect when you’re really watching what you eat and for the times you don’t want to go through the trouble of cooking up something fantastic.

Ingredients

boiled potato – any kind actually

salt to taste

Italian seasoning

pepper

garlic salt

1 tbsp olive oil or any vegetable oil

– without peeling off the skins of your potato cut them into thickish slices, not very big but not too thin either. they should be smashable.

on the oven tray, spread the olive oil/vegetable oil using a pastry brush and thats all the oil we need.. (see healthy & tasty)

taking your potato pieces and laying them carefully at least a few inches apart from each other just smash them. You can use a potato masher, I used a big fat spoon. My potato masher was yet to be washed… too much work.

once you have them smashed, just sprinkle on some garlic salt, pepper, seasoning, salt and put the tray into the oven and under the broiler for around 15-20 minutes (depending upon your oven ) at 220℃.

that’s actually it.. once done just pull it out and Enjoy !!!

Chinese Moon Cakes..

we were strolling through Walmart the other day, since that being the only place in our current residing Chinese city where we could buy and read some labels on foodstuff.. we stumbled across these pretty packages dotted all over.

On closer inspection we found out that these were meant as gifts for the ‘Mid Autumn Festival’

Not knowing much of anything about this, and I mistaking it for a box of chocolates since it had the words ‘Switzerland ‘ written on the box with a pretty chocolate on one side, we decided to buy it and test them.

Only after reaching home did I read ‘Chinese Moon Cakes’ written all over it. Too late and too curious.. I unwrapped it to find the prettiest teeny tiny boxes, and withing it such beautiful, delicate and intricate looking cakes that I didn’t have the heart to bite through them.

Having not the slightest idea what they would taste like, I was blown away from the first bit I took. It was soft but dense, the flavours within it were unbelievable. I think I had bitten into the apricot flavour. It was subtle tasting, mildly sweet and addictive. WE finished off most of them, until right now that I bit into the green tea flavour and I knew this being the last had to make its way here.

Its elegant, beautiful and oh so pretty. In case anyone visits China sometime this year around, I’d definitely recommend these tiny treats..

Eggplant mash

A delight on your table, a wonderful treat for family and friends and easy as a breeze to cook up.Though a traditionally Indian dish, it can be altered anyway to suit your palate.

I have done the most basic version and yet it’s wonderful aroma wafted throughout the entire house making it impossible to concentrate on the calorie burning I had been promising myself at the gym. Not too heavy on the calories either. It’s a very simple recipe infused with deep flavors.

Easily eaten with bread of your choice or just plain as it is.

Eggplant Mash (baingan bharta)

One big onion finely chopped

One big juicy tomato finely chopped

2-3 garlic cloves finely grated

ginger (half the amount of garlic) finely grated

1 eggplant/brinjal roasted-skin removed and mashed (you can either do it in your oven or on a gas top. I did it on a gas top. )

cumin seeds – big pinch

3/4 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp garam masala

1/4 tsp cinnamon powder

2 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp red chilli powder (on your taste actually)- i like it spicy but my husband likes it mild.

salt to taste

2-3 tbsp water.

1 tbsp vegetable oil.

Assemble your chopped ingredients

In your favourite cooking utensil, it could be a wok/deep pan.. anything convenient, put in the oil on medium heat, and once its hot enough add in the cumin seeds. Once they start to splutter, tip in the onion, ginger , garlic and mix well.

saute to the point that it changes its color to a nice brown, this is the time to add in the turmeric powder, and keep browning. Take care that it doesn’t burn, at which point add in the water.

around 8 minutes of this and you’d have a beautiful, fragrant brown mixture. destroying the monotony, add in the tomatoes and give them the same treatment till the tomatoes completely mix into the onion mixture.

once its all cooked through its time to add in the spices- mix in your garam masala, cinnamon powder, coriander powder, chilli powder and salt and mix thoroughly to combine. use some more water in case its drying out.

once its all cooked through add in the eggplant and mash in into the mixture. Just work it through to make sure that its evenly distributed throughout.

I usually keep on tasting it in between to check the salt and the flavour. you can of course vary the content of the salt and chillies according to your like.

all that’s left is to put in the water and cover it with a lid and let it cook for a few minutes or until the water evaporates a bit.

Eat it hot, garnish with a few coriander leaves, and just smell your house.. it’s Heaven !!!

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