How to make Sous Vide Strawberry Cheesecake Jars | Easy Cheesecake Pots Recipe

For long, I have stayed away from baking desserts or breads that require me to take that additional step of caution, such as wrapping cake tins with foil, or placing ramekins in a water bath or creating steam to bake crisp crusted breads. For this reason, I haven't made cheesecakes in a while. I love them and seeing the small bites of the silky sweet cheesy treats, especially during the Christmas Eve holiday parties always brings joy and smile to my face.

Making cheesecakes at home aren't tricky anymore, especially after discovering a new alternative to cook them to perfection. Making these Strawberry Cheesecake Pots in my new KitchenBoss Sous Vide Cooker to celebrate the daughter's birthday earlier this week on Monday was such an absolute delight! The cheesecake was cooked to perfection and most of the job was done unattended. I love desserts in jars, and making sous vide way has got to be my new favorite. It cooks unattended, there's no overcooking, results are perfect because the temperature is regulated, I love serving individual portions and the longer life because of the sealed mason containers - these are good enough reasons for me to love sous vide. I've been experimenting with quite a few recipes the sous vide way and I've been able to ferment a big jar of yogurt and dosa batter successfully! Loving the ease of using my new KitchenBoss Sous Vide Cooker, hence will be using it more often.

For the uninitiated, Sous vide means “under vacuum” in French. This technique has been long used by restaurant chefs to slow cook the food in a water bath for longer time at a precisely regulated temperature, which makes food more succulent and retains the flavors. And now KitchenBoss has made access to this gadget so much easier by bringing this to our homes.

I have a giveaway going on my Instagram handle so I can introduce to the world of Sous Vide cooking too! Yes, it's a KitchenBoss Sous Vide Cooker Newest Model (G320) Giveaway!

KitchenBoss has generously agreed to select one of you to receive their newest Sous Vide Cooker (G320) for free and learn about their feedback! If you’re interested, you could participate now by following these steps:

1. Like the post and leave a comment.
2. Follow @kitchenboss_official and @vegbowl on IG On March 26, 5:00 pm (PST)

KitchenBoss will randomly select and tag the lucky audience in a comment underneath this post and he/she is going to receive a direct message from @Kitchenboss_official on IG on how to proceed. This giveaway is open to USA only. But if you know of your relatives and friends who reside in the US or have a US shipping address, you are free to participate too.

Sous Vide Strawberry Cheesecake Pots

INGREDIENTS

For the base
8 Lotus cookies
1 ½ tbsp melted butter

For the filling

226 gm cream cheese (I used 1 pack of Philadelphia Cream Cheese)
1/3 cup condensed Milk (I used Nestle Milkmaid)
1/4 cup thick Greek yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

For the cookie base, pulse the Lotus cookies and butter in a food processor until it forms a coarse mixture. Take 2 tbsp of this mixture and press them to the bottom of 4 mini mason jars. Keep the jars in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. Meanwhile proceed to make the cheesecake filling.

In a bowl whisk the cream cheese until smooth. Next add condensed milk, yogurt and vanilla extract. Whisk till well blended. Divide the prepared cheese batter into the 4 mason jars that was layered with biscuit butter. Leave about 1 1/2 inches of room at the top of each jar for the cheesecake to expand slightly during the cooking process. Tap the jar against the counter top gently to remove any air bubbles and smooth out the top with a spatula. Cover the jars with lids and seal it just enough to close, but do not tighten them.

Cook the cheesecakes:

Place the sous vide cooker in a pot of water and set it to temperature of 194 deg F at 1 hour. Once the water has come to the set temperature, place the jars in the water and cook for an hour. Once coked, remove the jars carefully and allow them to cool. For the best tasting cheesecake, refrigerate the jars for atleast 4 hours or overnight to allow them to set well before serving.

Make the strawberry topping: Finely blend 6 strawberries with 1 cup water and 1/2 tsp agar agar powder. Pour it into a pan and cook on medium heat till it comes to a rolling boil stirring well continuously. Turn off the heat and allow to cool slightly. Pour over the prepared cheesecakes till it fill up to 1/2 inch in height. Place the pots in the refrigerator for the topping to set well.

Recipe Notes

Use only thick Greek style yogurt or hung yogurt for this recipe. Homemade yogurt will have to be strained through cheesecloth overnight till it's water is drained out and it's thick for use.
You can top the Cheesecake with any fruit compote of your choice. It goes well with fresh fruits, berries and a dollop of whipped cream too.
You can also make these cheesecake pots the traditional way in a preheated oven, placing the mason jars / ramekins in a water bath and baking them for an hour. The lack of eggs here really helps and is not missed, yet the cheesecake is moist and decadent.

Vegan Crepe Recipe with Strawberry Coconut Cream.

Vegan Crepes 👆🏼 for your Valentine's Day. Are you looking out for an inspiration to make your Valentine's Day morning better? Or may be a dessert if you don't wish to bake? I have just the right recipe for you. A quick and easy Breakfast Crepe that's eggless and vegan and you can make and serve them under few minutes to please your Valentine 🥰. Crepes are versatile. They can be served as breakfast, main course or even desserts! This recipe I have for you is very adaptable to a savory version and you can serve it with any accompaniment of your choice. Stir fried mushrooms with spinach is my favorite! Think of it as an instant dosa. Slather some Mango Jam or stuff it with Indian styled Stir-Fried Potatoes.

Vegan Crepes

INGREDIENTS

1 cup all-purpose flour (can be replaced with whole wheat flour for healthier version, but the taste will differ)
1 1/2 cups unsweetened milk of your choice
2 tbsp neutral flavored oil
1/4 tsp salt

DIRECTIONS

Blend all the ingredients in a high speed blender until smooth. Allow it to rest for 20 mins. Heat a griddle pan and drop a small laddle of batter on it. Swirl it gently from the center to the edges to form thin crepes (similar to dosa). Cook for a minute on medium low heat. The sides will lift off easily when cooked. Carefully remove and serve it on a plate. Top with Strawberry Coconut Cream (recipe below), sliced strawberries, bananas and drizzle of maple syrup.

Strawberry Coconut Cream

INGREDIENTS

1/2 can full-fat coconut milk, refrigerated for 24 hours
2 tbsp. strawberry jam (homemade or store-bought)
1 tsp. vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

Beat the cold coconut cream on medium speed for 4-5 minutes. The cream should become light and fluffy. Add in the strawberry jam and vanilla extract, and beat until incorporated. Adjust the jam to your taste and sweetness. Serve immediately along with the crepes.

How to make Cinnamon Rolls with Cooked Frosting | Easy Cinnamon Rolls Recipe

With Christmas around the corner and less than 4 days to go before you can sing Hallelujah, the Lord has come, I thought I'll peep in to help you with a lovely classic breakfast for your family to wake up to this Christmas morning. Its typically Western, hearty and sweet to call your morning off to a good start, supple enough that you may want to lay your head on it and snooze again, gives you the comfort of your bestie's company, and is the festive sorts that you can set up on table for your guests to dessert on.

For the longest time, I've had aversion to cinnamon in all things sweet. Let me not even get to the whys of it, for all I know, cinnamon in my arena existed best in the legion of savories, given the exception for a good Christmas fruit cake where it favorably unites with clove, cardamom and other spices, veiled in a way that it does not hit your senses directly and ruin the flavor. But, here it comes finally, the world coveted Cinnamon rolls looming right out of my kitchen to yours. I’m close to being a convert, convincingly not a cinnamon-dessert-hater anymore. These don’t look a lot like the traditional rolls. I mean they are not enormous in size to consume your palm, certainly not the perfect looking rolls that stand flawlessly edged shoulder to shoulder giving them a clean rip, nor do they bask in the sugary coated frosting that sinks into every groove merrily.

I would probably rechristen these as cinnamon pull apart rolls; owing to the pans I had and the amount of dough I made, they ended up this way. But they are cinnamon rolls essentially, so let's stick to that. They don’t snatch away the authenticity from the traditional ones. They smell great in and out of the oven, are near identical in their recipe, forgiving the eggs in the dough. They sat squishing in an eight inch round baking pan, my ideal dish to bake a nice chocolate cake in, but this time around they doubled up as my bread pan too, saving me gracefully from sunken cockeyed bread had I baked them in my ten inch dish instead. They nudged for space as they puffed up on their second sitting, and, by the time they were out they looked glorious in their golden crevices and sugar burnt hunches, flattering into characteristic pull apart rolls that need to be forked by the thumb and forefinger to tear them apart from their siblings. There’s a fun thing to it, to tear it apart in submission in an imperfect way and dunk it in milk over giggles and laughters with our little girl while tapping our feet to the melodies of Christmas jingles. That’s when you know you are up for a good start to a holiday season.

The frosting is purely optional. As for a daily bread, I would stay away from frosting these. They are sweet on their own and make a wonderfully perfect Sunday breakfast with a slather of some salted butter, or cream cheese and coffee by the side. But we are in a holiday season, and that calls for some adornment on the table to give it a festive ring. I have a clean, less sweeter old fashioned cooked vanilla frosting recipe that works really well for me. Since the bread is sweet by nature, a lighter frosting like this one is pleasing to our tastes. Unlike the traditional frosting where you mix milk to confectioners’ sugar till you get a desired consistency, this one is far better version that gives me a similar thick pour-able consistency, albeit far less sweeter than the original version. Give it a try, may be you'll fall for these too.

Cinnamon Rolls with Cooked Vanilla Frosting

INGREDIENTS

For Cinnamon Rolls:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup milk (I used full fat milk)
1/4 cup butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1 tsp. active dry yeast (or rapid rise)

For the Cinnamon Sugar Filling:

1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tbsp. cinnamon powder
2 tbsp. melted butter

For the Cooked Vanilla Frosting:

1 cup full fat milk
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/3 cup coconut sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

DIRECTIONS

Heat the milk and butter in a large sauce pan till the butter has melted into the milk. Remove from heat and add in the sugar. Stir well and allow it cool down to lukewarm. The milk should be tepid enough to activate the yeast, but not too hot, else will kill the yeast.

Transfer the warm milk to a large mixing bowl and sprinkle yeast into it. Let it sit for 10 minutes, so that the yeast can feed on the sugar and froth.

Next, add flour starting with 1/2 cup at a time and stirring well as you go. Once it forms a loose batter, add the next half cup of flour and stir well. This will help activate the gluten in the dough and yield soft supple dough, resulting in a good, fluffy bread. Continue using all of the flour and stir well with each addition till it comes together to form a sticky dough. Knead it for a minute or two till its soft and supple.

Place the dough in an oiled deep dish and cover it with a dish cloth. Let it rise in a warm place for about 2 hours. By this time the dough should double in size.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. I use the clean kitchen counter top that provides me ample space to work my dough on. Using a flour dusted rolling pin, roll the dough into a thin long rectangle. Brush it generously with melted butter. Prepare a mix of sugar and cinnamon powder and sprinkle it generously all over the dough.

Starting at the longer edge side, roll up the dough as tight as you can till forms a long log. To avoid opening up, place the seam side down. Using a cleaned knife dipped in flour, cut the log into slices of 1.5 inch each. Butter a 8x8-inch round baking tin. Place the rolls into the buttered tin, next to each other. Brush the rolls with some melted butter. Set aside to rise again for 45 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake the rolls for 25-30 minutes or until the bread is golden brown in color. If the top of the bread seems to change color sooner, while the underside still seems uncooked, cover the top with an aluminium foil and continue to bake till done.

Remove from oven and allow it to cool completely. Frost as desired.

For the frosting, combine milk and flour in a saucepan. Cook over medium low heat, stirring constantly, for about 3-5 minutes. The mixture should thicken and come to a boil. Add in sugar and stir well. Boil till the mixture coats the back of a wooden spatula, i.e. of custard consistency. Turn off the heat. Stir in vanilla essence. Cool completely. Before serving, whisk the frosting really well and swirl using a spoon on the cinnamon rolls.

How to make Healthy Raw Brownies | Easy Raw Brownie Recipe

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough. - Oprah Winfrey

Its Thanksgiving tomorrow and under five weeks, we'll be well into Christmas, my favorite time of the year when all else goes still and only food and festivities shall prevail. I am excited and am so looking forward to it. As for now, there isn't a grand event of celebration lined up for tomorrow, but, we'll take joy in the holiday to follow, time for togetherness and bonding over relaxed morning, lazying noon and a slow evening. Hurray to no work, no deadlines, no meetings for a day. We'll wake up late in the bed, follow a laid back routine and lavish a little on a good homemade breakfast. The day calls for my time in kitchen, where get to I play with pots and pans, may be tossing up some flour, butter and sugary goodness into a ton of fruits to come up with something worthy for Christmas. A cake is in store, a Christmas fruit cake that I can hopefully talk about in posts to come. We'll have our family at the table, the three of us, savoring lunch in an austere way, which in itself is a small celebration to do on a weekday - bringing in tit-bits of our weekend-ness, in a little modish way.

Meanwhile, I have these super healthy brownie treats for you to feature on your Thanksgiving table. I made them this summer, though they don't pertain to any seasons. They are treats you can make year round. No seasons attached. You can make them for your Thanksgiving dessert menu or keep them handy to treat your guests over a cup of coffee or just carry them on your hiking trip to give you adrenaline boost. There's no sugar in them, no butter whatsoever, no flour, no guilt too. And no no! I am not on diet if you ask so. But I thought I should be a little considerate and save you from splurging way too much before the year end celebrations kick in. There's a lot awaiting there, Christmas on its way, New Year dinner to follow, so you may want to treat yourself slowly and sanely before getting there. These little treats don't steal away the joy of splurging, mind you. They are delicious as is in small bites or you can make them in a wonderful no-bake pie base with fancy toppings. Hope these make your Thanksgiving table a little more glamorous.

Raw Brownies

Prep Time: 5 mins | Pulse Time: 10 mins + 2 hrs refrigeration | Yield: 12 pieces

INGREDIENTS

2 cups of medjool dates
1/2 cup of roasted almonds
1/2 cup of raw walnuts
3 tablespoons of raw cacao powder
2 tablespoons of maple syrup

DIRECTIONS

Blend the almonds and walnuts in a food processor until they form a crumbly mixture. Then add the dates and blend again till dates are pureed. Next add the cacao and maple syrup and blend again. The mixture will come together in form of a dough. If its wet to handle, add in some walnuts and pulse again.

Place the mixture into a baking tray. Refrigerate for two hours or freeze for one hour so that it sets well. Cut into slices and serve. Store in an air tight container and keep them refridgerated for freshness.

How to make Peach Puff Pastry Tart | Easy Peach Puff Pastry Tart Recipe

July has been a wonderful month bringing bounty produce and tons of inspiration to my kitchen. Its a month when all things living bud and bloom to glory. Foliage brim to lush greenness, healthy and flourishing. Weeds crawl themselves on to every inch of wilderness. Flowers burst into frenetic bloom. Markets bustle with vegetable produce in vividness and abundance. Fruits and berries make their way into our lives beyond what we could ask for. There's burst of color and splash of summer everywhere. July pampers you. It makes you feel luxuriant.

Summers here have been all high and at times 94 deg F (34 deg C) feels like 105 F (40 deg C). Yet, I am so much a tropical girl that I make best friends with summer and its givings. There is no moment left to slip away in rambling about heat. Instead we go farm-foraging for fruits with bags and baskets. At nearly the end of berry season, peaches and melons are here to replace them on stands.

In less than a week, the daughter and I are heading back home, to India. Over two weeks ago, our little girl stopped her school here to resume the one she goes back home. She gets a small break before she gets back to track on another routine in India. As we've just begun bag packing, I shudder to think how quickly these three months have flown by, insanely quick, like a flash of lightening. While I'm thankfully lucky to be on a break from work and make a trip here the second time, it feels so unreal that its time to leave D's nest and fly back to another nest far away in another continent. Again, we leave in hopes and prayers for sooner family union.

These three months of vacation time have been wonderful. We witnessed the onset of spring and the way they silently slipped into summers, bringing with them the best of everything we love - the sunshine, the beaches, the road trips, the camping, the late evening partying, the farm foraging, berry picking, the evening walks at parks, the book hunting at the library, the lazying by the porch, the summer cooking, and lots more we did together. Instead of rumbling how much we will miss D and the moments we spent here with him, I leave you with this simple peach puff pastry tart that speaks bounty of summer - golden summery ochre with velvety skin and a delicate sweet aroma. Its so easy that you would be ashamed as put them together and shove them to the oven. Ofcourse that doesn't account for making puff pasty at home. But if you have them handy, you get away with assembling this in under 10 mins and another 20 min to bake, which is the oven's job!

Simple Peach Puff Pastry Tart

INGREDIENTS

1 sheet homemade / frozen puff pastry
2 medium peaches
1 tbsp. of brown sugar (adjust according to the sweetness of your peaches)
2-3 tbsp. milk, to brush
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
Few pecans and mini chocolate chips to scatter

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 420 degrees F. Carefully roll / cut the puff pastry into strip of 4" x 8" inch. Cut the peaches in half and remove the pit. Slice peaches carefully into 1/4 inch. Arrange the peaches on the puff pastry overlapping each other. Sprinkle the peaches with brown sugar, pecans and mini chocolate chips. Brush the edges of the puff pastry with milk (alternative to egg) and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the edges are a deep golden brown. Serve warm, preferably with a dollop of whipped cream or ice cream.

I was ruminating over a conversation with an old associate I have known for over three years now and the fact he knew I blogged. That happened a few months ago. It was one of those familiar moments I have encountered when someone says, 'Aah, so you blog and you make food look good? Okay. Let's see, cook us something and let us say'. I get awfully nervous to a point of quivering knees and nervous breakdown. Neither it puts me into shoes of comfort, nor do I blush. I hate being judged. Its the kind of casual statement made to assume that you are a professional at the best. All bars are raised and expectations set too high. It's hard to satisfy such tastes, where preconceived bias swamps the confidence in me. It could turn anyone into cold feet. It's like a stab on your back testing your skills to restraint the blow, bridling any creativity you want to execute. Not really. I have bad days in my kitchen and I am no perfect for sure.

But little moments of joy come from those folks, unknowing to my penchant for cooking or being irrespective of the fact I blog or not, appreciate my food. For someone who does not know I blog, I post recipes, and yet appreciates that I have cooked good food, that's when you'll see me smile ear to ear. That moment of truth is really a winning moment for me. Honestly, I wish to create memories of food that can be remembered and revived by virtue.

You'll see this often that I don't spill out the fact to many that I blog. A lot of my close friends don't know I have a space out here. And with the ones who happen to know I do, more accidentally or through word of mouth and query about my passion in cooking or blogging in amusement, I wish to bury my face down in my hands and run away miles in embarrassment. Its such a strange awkwardness and I wonder if this has happened to any of you. Most readers whom I know are the ones whom I have never met personally, whom I have never known and strangely I feel the most comfortable posting here for them. Be it musings, my photographs or recipes, there is no prejudice what so ever. That for me is the most comforting factor. I wonder if I would ever be able to write and share so much here if my own folks were so regular at reading my blog. Thankfully I know they are not. That, for me is a consolation in many ways.

That brings me to this Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies here. A recipe that's strangely simple and unprejudiced. You throw in the said measures of all goodness and you have chocolate-y orange aromas wafting within minutes, it's zest leaving you in an all high. So true to the fact, the matrimony of orange and chocolate cannot go wrong. Sometimes you get the most out of the unexpected and that's what these Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies promise to do. Not just you, to your biased friends too!

Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup non-dairy margarine (can be replaced with vegetable oil)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 cup orange juice
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (dairy-free for vegan)
Zest from 2 oranges

DIRECTIONS

Beat the margarine along with both the sugars (brown and white) till it's light and fluffy. Next, add in the vanilla extract. Add the flour and salt, mix well. Dissolve baking soda in orange juice and add to mixture immediately. Stir with a wooden spoon and bring the entire mixture to form a lightly wet dough. Next add in the chocolate chips and stir them in. Drop by tablespoonful on to an un-greased cookie tray. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 10 minutes. Don't over bake!