It may sound clichéd, I really hate stating the obvious, but it is insane how quickly a year can fly by. I can’t believe that it’s time an entire year has gone by and we are close to its end. With hardly two days to go we will soon bid a bye to it. I hope you had a great time holidaying this Christmas with your family and friends. In a retrospect to the year 2012, it has been a fantastic one in all aspects that it pains parting away from it. It seems soon, too soon and I can’t come to terms in accepting that we are close to its finale. On a positive note, I am looking forward to the brighter prospects of 2013. My daughter is growing bigger and niftier with every passing day. The coming year she will turn 2 and may be step her first foot into schooling. She’s a quick learner and I am sure she will make waves in years to come.

To retrospect the year, the earlier part of the year has been quite eventful on personal and professional front. Firstly, I switched my job from what was right next door to travelling for hours in distance, yet I am in a sense of great satisfaction, getting what I expected out of my job. Then, as my daughter turned one this March, she moved out from her infant phase to being a high energy, active toddler which has been quite a welcome progress. That reasons why I have been quite lenient in blogging this year, despite taking time off in late evenings to keep my blog going. Strangely, I realized that I have been better than the last year where I had just about 37 posts and this year I crossed 40+ posts. Somewhere in February, I took a huge step when I moved out of blogspot to my own domain, but that was a wise decision, because I still love cooking, sharing, writing, clicking and blogging and all that’s associated with it! Sadly I missed out on many invites to media and blogger events that kept flooding my mailbox. But I realize I cannot stuff myself more than what I can take. So that’s okay.

This time of the year is when most people take a sabbatical, planning week long holidays or partying. What are your plans? The spirits are high, mood is warm and light and one inevitably tunes to being merry as the magical charm of New year steeps in. Hope you too enjoy these festive days with your families and friends and welcome the New Year with new hopes, dreams and loads of prosperity. In absolute desire to bid adieu to this year, here’s a quick pasta dish, Fusilli in Cheese Sauce I’m sharing with you. It’s nothing different than the traditional mac and cheese we’ve grown up eating. But yet, I would never want to replace the macaroni with any other kinds of pasta if I am making these. I always stock macaroni, but on odd days like this one, I ran out of macaroni and went ahead with fusilli. Here I did use fusilli, so I call it as Fusilli in Cheese Sauce, since Mac and Cheese, is Mac and Cheese and nothing else!

Fusilli in Cheese Sauce

INGREDIENTS

500 ml regular milk
1 onion, peeled and quartered
1 garlic clove
1 bay leaf
200 g macaroni (1 pack)
1 tbsp. butter
4 tbsp. plain flour (30gm)
125 g cheddar cheese, grated

DIRECTIONS

Cook the fusilli pasta in rolling boiling water with salt till its al dente. This will take about 10 mins or so. Drain out the water and then run the pasta under cold water to stop the pasta from cooking further. This also helps in keeping the pasta separate. Add a dash of olive oil, toss well and set aside.

Cut onion into quarters. In a milk pan, heat the milk along with onion, garlic and bay leaf until almost boiling. Remove from the heat, leave covered to infuse for 10 mins, then strain. Reserve the onion and garlic and use them as paste in other gravy dishes.

In a wide mouthed pan, melt butter. Add flour and cook stirring constantly for about a min on medium low heat. This is called as roux and is the base for thickeners. Pour the warm infused milk into the roux until smooth. Simmer for few mins, stirring often, until the sauce has thickened. The sauce is done when its thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Check by running your finger through the sauce on a spoon and it should leave a trail. Remove the pan from the heat, then add the cheddar cheese. Then stir until the cheese has melted. Season well with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

Last week I baked my Christmas Fruit cake inspired from the English traditions of Nigella’s book How to be a Domestic Goddess. They turned out to be phenomenally good that they did not survive till the Christmas eve. Barely had I baked the cake and done with shooting them in a hurry, they were sliced while still warm and sent off to my family and friends. While a part of the cake went along with my hubby dear on an extended work related trip, other quarters were packed off and gifted to my family to be relished during the holiday season. The remains of the cake that stayed with me did not last longer either as I sought an instant gratification in the mere few slices I relished for my supper.

I did intend to post that recipe here today. Hardly had I seen off my husband, an urgency brought me the woes of travel with my little one and I was left in the dark to post no Fruit cake for Christmas here. The camera and the card which hosted all those treasured photographs of my cake stayed back home, miles away from where I am currently. But then lady luck played the Santa’s charm when I discovered that my post for homemade vanilla extract would be apt as Christmas gifts for your family and friends. Oh yes, for sure I made some gorgeous vanilla extract last month, scraping off all those seeds and freshness off the vanilla pods, dunked them into a bottle of vodka to permeate and mature into that million buck extract.

A couple of years ago, on our getaway trips to Munnar and Kodai, I had seen vanilla pods on sale at dirt cheap prices of Rs. 10 a pod. I hadn’t bothered stocking them then, because the vanilla essence at 20 bucks lasted for years and seemed worthy. It’s only after I got a few bottles of pure vanilla extract from Munnar, did I sense the bliss of using pure, fresh and natural extract. Making mine at home is not just easy, but indeed satisfying.

Homemade Vanilla Extract

INGREDIENTS:

5-6 Vanilla Beans
1 Bottle of Vodka, but you can also use Rum or Brandy too

DIRECTIONS:

Using a knife, split the bean into half. Scrape the vanilla beans into the bottle of vodka. Alternatively, use them into desserts, like puddings, custards and ice creams. Scrape off as much flesh as you can from the bean. Don't discard the skin. Instead place the entire bean into the bottle. Place about 4-5 vanilla beans pieces in each bottle for an intense flavoured vanilla extract. Close bottle and store in a cool, dry place for at least 2 months. Give the bottle a vigorous shake every week or so.

Now that’s what I call a realm of goodness in a bottle! Bottle them, label them and they'll make good for gifting this season!

I have great memories of playing wonderful set of indoor games with my long lost girlfriend A at her place. My sister and I would spend hours at her place frisking her most coveted collection of Barbies, boards and darts. Apart from being my dad’s boss’ only daughter she had an envious collection of indoor games and dolls to her kitty. Our office bungalows, where we lived then, lined adjacent and we would catch up either at her place or ours, our cartons laden with games of Scrabble, Ludo, Cards, Brainvita, Business and loads more.

We played endlessly in her company, often changing our games to bring around till boredom. In between these games, her mom, Mrs. B, stylish and chic, would elegantly bring in supplies of food and drink from her indulgent kitchen. It was a wonderfully evocative scene that blended food with imagination and made playing indoor games fun and inspiring, something that I foresee for my daughter too in future.

The moment we stepped in, her home wafted strong aromas sarson ka tel (mustard oil) which was traditional to their cuisine. Even today when I cook in Kachchi Ghani I am taken back to those luxurious evenings we spent at her place playing games in her bedroom, while blends of mystic aromas wafted through their kitchen enveloping the entire house with its essence till they pecked our nostrils and let our taste buds salivating. The Bengalis that they were, she often dished out hot pakoras, Beguni, Jhal Muri and more cooked in mustard oil, much to kids delight. She was an admirable cook exposed well to world cuisine and made various other non traditional dishes, many which inspired my mom too.

And like every Bengali, they too had huge fetish for fish and Mishţi (sweets). She doled out sweets and snacks effortlessly. Potlucks and birthday parties vouched these for proofs. Her puddings held a testimony to that. Not surprising we had never heard of clafoutis before, but strangely when I made this (inspired by Nigella's book, How to be a Domestic Goddess gifted by my hubby on Mother's Day!) and took a bite into this, it reminded me of puds Mrs. B used to dish out. Quite similar, just that they had no fancy names, but plain pudding. Dense, fudgy, not so cakelike, just a simple pudding. A cake sans the rising power from baking powder or soda. Call it a Clafoutis or whatever you like, this deep, dark chocolaty, intensely pudding kinds, is just right for the merry season of Christmas.

Double Chocolate Clafoutis

Inspired by Nigella's book, How to be a Domestic Goddess

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
2 eggs
4 tbsp. granulated white sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Handful of dark chocolate chunks

DIRECTIONS

Whisk together the cream, eggs and vanilla extract. Sift all of the dry ingredients together and and add this the wet ingredients. Whisk well to make a smooth batter. Pour the batter into ramekins or ceramic dishes and throw couple of chocolate chunks into the batter. Bake at 180 deg C for 20 minutes or until the clafoutis is golden brown around the edges. Serve hot with a dusting of powdered sugar.

In zeal of year end celebrations, it’s the piquancy of winter season that makes the last leg of the year very commemorative. We live in a country that swears by warm, sunny weather through most part the year, so when December welcomes you with gusty cold winds you yearn for, you can’t ask for something better! Apt for the season, it’s cold these days and the days are shorter. A bit of lethargy sneaks in as we snuggle deeper into the comfort of our quilt, unwilling to wake up to the bite of cold. As the alarm clock ticks itself to the wakeup call, I indolently push it to snooze only to catch up with couple of more minutes of my siesta. Not that my deep slumber holds on to me, but my head is dizzy to wake and I am half woken by the clock’s ring. On the fore, if sleep hovers itself, in the background, my mind is at unrest fighting away fears of waking up late and missing my office bus. Sleepy mind at unrest, that’s what cold winters can do to you.

Pulling off myself on the 2nd or 3rd ring of alarm, the floor is pitch cold as I hastily search for my slippers in the muffled rays of dawn that penetrates my room. Outside its cold and dark and as the first rays of amber sunshine begin to warm the sky, I drag my feet to the main door in sleepy eyes to reach out to the pack of milk that is door delivered by the milk man, as early as 4 in the morning. A splash of cold water on my face freshens me out of my slumber like a refreshing mint in a foul mouth. Before my man and my baby wake up, the milk is boiled, tea is made, while priorities race through my mind as I gear to organize for the day ahead. A quick round of discussion over a cup of tea with my hubby helps clear my thought process. But then that’s a daily facet.

There are some things other than the mundane that perk up our lives. If cold rainy winters can be dull and gloomy, I like to see the blessed part of it too. December brings about several comforting thoughts to my mind, about winter, the nip in air, waking up to be caressed by misty chill mornings, vibrancy of bounty fresh produce our markets will boast of, Christmas holiday baking, New year partying, which gives me good enough reasons to feel peppy about. Like the sight of first seasonal peas in the market or the Christmas tree in its glittery décor that has been put up in the nearby mall, year-end sales catching up at fast pace, obvious that we are chasing the last lap of the year that will soon be gone.

True to December, our markets are flooding with fresh produce of green leafy vegetables, cauliflowers, assortment of apples, juicy Nagpur oranges and bright pink strawberries. We are seeing first signs of fresh peas in the pod and I’m eagerly looking forward for more of litchis and figs. We are bringing apples, melons and pears in bulk. With Christmas which is hardly couple of weeks to go, I am pinning hopes to make use of all that bulk my refrigerator is currently stocked with, make time for some bakes that will keep my kitchen warm and cosy, roiling out dishes from the freshest of produce my markets have to offer. Food can be emotive in many ways!

I have already made a start with these breakfast muffins that make it perfect for the season. Healthy, flavoursome and quite festive too. Packed with health from fresh fruits, goodness from wheat, bran and cornmeal, crunch from nuts and eggless to boast, these will make a perfect beginning to my year end baking marathon.

Breakfast Muffins

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup wheat flour
2 tbsp. cornmeal
1 tbsp. rolled oats, powdered
1 tsbp. coconut flakes (I've used frozen one here)
1 tbsp. wheat bran
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup oil
2 tsp. baking powder
2 bananas (I've used yelakki bananas here)
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup apple, cored and finely chopped
1/4 cup pears, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp. cinnamon powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp. chopped cashews
1 tbsp. raisins

DIRECTIONS

Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C. Line the muffin tins with paper cups and set aside.

Blend the bananas along with milk, vanilla and dark brown sugar. Add the oil and vanilla extract and pulse again. Transfer to a bowl and set this aside. This becomes the base of our wet ingredients.

In a separate mixing bowl, mix all the dry flours, like all purpose flour, wheat flour, cornmeal, rolled oats, coconut flakes, wheat bran together along with baking powder and cinnamon powder. Add in the chopped fresh fruits, cashews and the raisins and toss well. Make a well briefly and add in the wet ingredients to these dry ingredients. Fold the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Spoon into muffin tins, almost to the tops of the rims.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool in pans for 10 minutes then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Note:

The cup measurements mentioned here are standard Indian tea cups.

Cornmeal does have quite a distinctive flavour which may not be in favour of everyone's palate. So skip it, instead substitute with equal amount of wheat flour or all purpose flour. The batter will be slightly thicker than the regular cake batter.