cooking utensils

Cooking is an artistic way of combining nutrition with flavor, taste and appeal. Such a master piece can be created every day almost every meal when the gadgets are right. Some recipes tastes their best when cooked in a special utensil. Lot of you would heard about the taste of every individual human who cook the same recipe in 100 different ways. Utensils plays an important role not only in cooking enhancement but also food safety, as well as safeguard against diseases.

There are variety of vessels available in the market which creates confusion to the buyer, when most of short list the variety by price very few go by the aesthetics. at least some of us once in a while will think    which is safe to use and which carries most nutrition in food.

Iron /cast iron vessels:

Earthen ware / clay pots:

china ware

silverware

hardanodised vessels

non-stick

copper vessels

glassware

aluminium tins

stainless steel

plastic containers

Race car (macqueen) cake

It's been a long time in the cake journey for its more than one year now I baked & decorated a cake. This was Sriram's fifth birthday and all that he wanted was a lightning McQueen which is a one year old request. With two kids its pretty tough to do all that i wish to complete in a day. It took a lot of determination for me to venture in to this cake, but was a big hit in the school and among all the kids. when i placed the cake on the small center table all i could hear was a big "oh" a cake ... first, then a car cake....  celebrating birthday at school is the first time and different experience for him. He was very upset the previous day that we did not call our friends for a party, but I promised him to make his day more fun and special at school which he didn't realise until experienced.

As usual a chocolate cake with white frosting for the stage to place the lightning McQueen.
the white frosting is a pure butter cream frosting. the recipes for chocolate cake and butter cream frosting has been published earlier.

Shell pasta with mixed veg sauce

1 pack shell pasta

baby corn - 4 pieces chopped.

mushroom- finely chopped 1/2 cup

paneer / cottage cheese / tofu - cubed 1/2 cup

peas - 1/4 cup

onion - sliced 1/2 cup

tomatoes -1- finely diced 

carrot - 1- diced

beans - 1/2 cup chopped

cabbage - 1/4 cup shredded

capsicum/ bell pepper any color - 1/2 sliced

jalapeno 1 - sliced

olives - 3 tbsp chopped

white radish - 1 chopped

potato -1 chopped

green chilly 2 slivered

oil - 2 tbsp

salt to taste

pepper to taste

cream 2 tbsp

tomato puree/ soup powder 1 cup

cheese- cheddar / Romano any variety - 1cup - shredded

mint - few leaves.

You can use all the vegetables or few of choice.

Prepare pasta according to package direction , drain and reserve the water. Rinse pasta immediately in cold water keep aside.

For the sauce fry onion, mushroom , vegetables one by one add tomato last. Then add the tomato puree along with pasta water, pepper powder and salt. Now do a taste test & let it boil until the vegetables are cooked & crispy. Add cream & serve hot over pasta topped with cheese, fried/fresh cabbage, mint leaves. Enjoy this pasta which is rich in nutrition at least once a week.

Mango syrup

Syrup is simply sugar in water. Easy to make mango syrup is also easy to use in various recipes like eggless mango cake, mango milk soda, mango multi-layer sweet, mango juice etc. All you need is the 3 key ingredients sugar,water & fruit pulp to make any fruit syrup.

ingredients

1 cup mango pulp - dice and grind the mango in a mixer and filter through a strainer to seperate the fiber.
13/4th cup sugar
1 1/4 cup water

First boil water add sugar & let it melt. After simmer for 10 mins to make a syrup. Now add mango pulp to the sugar syrup give it a boil. Cool down the syrup save it a container for immediate use or later.
This syrup is w/o preservatives so can be stored for a month or so. If you have lots of pulp then make syrup in batches of 2 ltrs each with 1 pinch sodium bicarbonate & 1/2 tsp citric acid / 2 ltrs. This can be stored for up to 6 months. If the syrup is not in consistency give a whip in the mixer.

mango juice -  add 1/4 cup syrup to 3/4 cup cool water to get 1 cup mango juice serve immediately. This mixed juice will not stay for more than a day or two.

Alternatively you can also freeze the pulp directly and store it in a glass box in freezer.

Attn: Avoid using plastic bottles & containers for storage in freezer , fridge, microwave or oven.
Extreme hot or cold with plastic will react to give out dioxin in food which creates cancer mainly breast cancer in women.

Pearl

Pearl is a gemstone popularly called as muthu in tamil & moti in hindi, despite how its called pearl takes a special place in a women's heart through out the world. Pearl also finds an exquiste place in both traditional Indian jewellery & most modern western jewellery design. Such a pearl comes in variety of shapes, sizes and colors to appeal. Not only for appeal it has such mystical powers that enhances the energy level for the wearer. But that has to be experienced by self to understand. Also like every gemstone even pearl has to be cleansed from time to time to get its full energy. Pearl can be basically divided in to natural or wild pearl and cultured pearl. Unlike other gemstones occurrence of pearl is a fascinating story, since it is made by an animal.

Natural or wild pearl: Wild pearl means occurring naturally in the stomach of an oyster.

Cultured pearl: the pearls composition is kept in the oysters stomach for maturation by man is a cultured one.

on such a case both natural as well as cultured are true pearls to the meaning pure ones what are available in the market as jewellery.

Yet another variety available is called paasi which are the fake pearls used as artificial jewellery, dress making etc. They are made out of plastic and coated with a shiny paint. Most of the fake ones over a period will start losing its paint. Secondly they are weightless, unless otherwise made with weight to fake the original pearls.