Moving to wordpress

I have decided to move to wordpress.

I absolutely love blogger but some things have compelled me to move over to wordpress:

1. Widgets: You can't beat wordpress in term of how easy they make it to widgetize your blog.

2. Monitoring stats: who needs feedburner when you can monitor your stats right off the dashboard?

3. More formatting tools: there are so many formatting tools on wordpress like the strike through, underline, copying from word with formatting etc etc.

4. Easier to attach multimedia: Its super easy to attach images and multimedia with user friendly buttons.

5. Permalink: the page permalink gets displayed as soon as I create a new post. That makes it so easy to link up if needed.

6. Pages: OMG I LOVE this feature. You can add separate pages like about, FAQ and you don't need to get into the complications of editing you web page html to get people to get the right blog post on clicking the buttons! LOVE IT.

7. Easier post HTML editing: I always have a problem on blogger when I try to add my own HTML. I tend to forget to close the tags and that's a pain... scanning through the entire document to get there. But no such prob with wp.. you can use the "close tags" option.

8. Polls: I know that even blogger allows you to add polls but the wordpress polls option is waaayy easier and better to operate.

9. Recent activity: The dashboard displays all your recent activity which is so cool.

10. Easy publishing settings: This is another really cool feature. you can easily set you publishing settings like invisible, draft, scheduled. Its much easier when its in a drop down.

11. Easy switching from one blog to another: If you have multiple blogs, you can easily switchover with a drop down menu.

12. Move around tools: You can easily move around any tools around your dashboard just the way you want it. You can even remove any tools that you don't care about. you can enlarge, and shrink the size of your tool boxes.

13. Brief page: you can set up a brief home page where readers can read the first few lines of each post and in case they want to read more they can do so by clicking on it. Though I wouldn't want to do this myself, its nice to know that such a feature exists.

14. Smileys: OK so I use a lot of them. when I exported my blog onto wordpress I found them all emoted! woo hoo :D (see, wont happen here!!)

14. Selecting categories: It's easier to select categories on wordpress by just placing a check mark on the ones you want for the current post. Easy right?

15. Hyperlinking: When hyperlinking on wordpress you can even decide if you want the URL to open in a new page, or the same page etc. It's nice to know that I am allowed decide that.

16. My messed up blog name!: My blogger url is

http://gourmandindemand.blogspot.com but my blog name is one of a grind. WHY the confusion? so I decided to register my new blog as

http://oneofagrind.wordpress.com

So as you can see, I'm moving this blog over to wordpress because it gives me more control over my blogging which is great. I still love blogger but sometimes you've just got to move to something in which you perceive superior value and that's exactly what I see in wordpress. I am a die hard fan of Google and all google services- google search, gmail, chrome, earth, docs and everything else. But wordpress is just the better blogging platform. (gosh look at me getting all senti!!)

I decided that this is a good time to do it becasue this blog is kind of new.

Thanks for following my blog! Please subscribe to my NEW blog @ wordpress http://oneofagrind.wordpress.com ! thanks cya on wp!

oh and btw you can still email me at oneofagrind@gmail.com :D

Almond Green Tea Cupcakes from Baked

As I had mentioned in my last post, I bought two new books one of them being "Baked: New Frontiers in baking"

I was dying to try out something from that book and here I am! I made the almond and green tea cupcakes (page 76)

I always feel that baking cakes/cupcakes is something you should save for when you have a crowd. It's fun when you can watch other people enjoy what you have cooked. So I got the perfect chance. I catered :P for my mothers tea party. Well a party would be an exaggeration, it was more like a little gossip over tea.

Anyways I made the cupcakes and OMG they were fab!



I followed the recipe to the tee and its a good thing I did.

The frosting was a dream.. green tea powder made like a pastry cream first and then ends up as butter cream frosting.. the guests were guessing what went in it.. 'pistachios' is where the guessing stopped.




Lets zoom in to see the frosting... mmmm

I still have a bit of the frosting in my refrigerator and I have discovered the pleasures of licking bits of it off my fingers.

Two new cookbooks!

I love ordering books online. It always feels like my birthday again! happily opening gifts, even though I know what they are.

I ordered two books online:

Book No 1:

Ben and Jerry's homemade ice-cream and dessert book!! wow you can't go wrong when its written by Ben and Jerry themselves! Its kind of an old book since its first print came out in 1987, but who cares! its still gr8.




Book No 2:

OMG I LURVE this BOOK!!

It's called "Baked: New frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito"
Wow! these guys have a cafe in NYC and they serve these delectable delights! Oh how I would LOVE to visit their cafe!!



I cant wait to try something out from both the books! ahh I am so happy!probably happier than what was on my birthday.

Sugarcane and tofu pops

This is remotely like the cake pops I did last time but this was fabulous!!

This is originally a Vietnamese which uses chicken and a lot of Asian sauces but I used soy and vegetables and my own spice combination to flavor. Whats really cool about it is the use of sugarcane as sticks.. you are not supposed to eat them! it just adds flavor to the dish and also serves as a stick to hold I suppose you could call it a vegan variation of a chicken lollipop/wings/drumstick.

What you need:

¾ cup of tofu, mashed (store bought or homemade)
½ cup of mixed not too watery vegetables (peas, carrot, potato,corn etc; finely chopped)
1 onion finely chopped
1 green chili finely chopped
1 flake of garlic, chopped
1 tsp Coriander finely chopped
Salt as per taste
around 15 sticks of fresh sugarcane around 3 inches long each
2 tsp of corn flour
4 tbs of rice flour to coat
oil for deep frying

What to do:

1. Stir fry the vegetables for a minute and place in mixing bowl.
2. mash tofu and add to vegetables. Add cornflour and form into small balls.
3. Coat around each sugarcane stick dip in rice flour
4. Deep fry on medium till golden brown
5 Drain on paper towels, serve with ketchup




I know, I know.. its not the best picture.. but u get the idea.




Lets zoom in shall we?

Messing around with a chocolate cake

I got inspired by Bakerella's cake pops and tried my own variation.

Unfortunately I am not as artistic as she is and neither do I have the patience to cut shape and frost those tiny cupcakes I did something simpler.

I took some store bought chocolate cake and added the frosting to it. Mashed it about (eww, couldn't help but feel gross since there was just too much unavoidable cake touching and mashing)

I added some orange colored fondant in the center and sandwiched two equal sized cake portions and sealed the sides to form a ball.

When sliced it looked nice. But tasted kind of like a semi cooked cake even though I knew it was a cooked cake and the mushiness was on account of the frosting and mashing. Anyways I had fun.




Did not expect too much luck on Friday the 13th anyways

I love aniseed

I love aniseed.

Dry or fresh its just so wonderful. A mouth freshener, a recipe invigorating agent! and the lovely color. Green happens to be my favorite color and aniseed is without a doubt my favorite seed.

Aniseed is excellent to use in a marinate, I like using it with a little roasted cumin. You get a nice blend of a sharp mildly pungent flavor and a fresh zesty flavor.

When it comes to aniseed as a sweet, I love those little aniseed balls you get at candy stores but sugar coated aniseed happens to top my list, because unlike an aniseed ball you get to crunch and munch many aniseed not just one that is located inside the aniseed ball.



So I dedicate this blog post to the lovely green seed that brings freshness in my day and more importantly my breath. :P

Daring Bakers Challenge: Chocolate Valentino, flourless chocolate cake

This is my second challenge although it should have been my fourth :( I could not do the previous two cause I had NO time.. but i made sure I had time for this one! it was soooo simple! and really good!

I made just the cake.. it was too sweet and was perfect by itself.

The February Challenge comes from Wendy at wmpesblog (Arizona) and Dharm at Dad - Baker and Chef (Malaysia).


It called for just three ingredients:

-chocolate
-eggs
-butter

Surprisingly it did look like a cake..more like a really rich brownie.
I made them in muffin tins and that too didn't fill up the tin too much.




Gooey and dense just like a brownie





Yet soft and spongy like a cake!

I really enjoyed making these :D Thanks again DBers!

Chocolate pancakes with hot fig sauce

Some days just call for decadence.

I felt heady and I gave in.. somewhat.

What you need:

(for the pancakes)
¾ cup of plain/ whole flour
2 tbs coco powder
1 egg
½ cup milk
¼ cup water
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
3 tsp sugar/ substitute/ honey
a pinch of salt

(for the sauce)
6 fresh figs, finely chopped
2 tbs honey
1 tsp butter
1 stick of cinnamon
¼ cup water

(for decadence)
1 tbs nutella (optional: only for the ultimate hedonist)

What to do:

(Pancakes)
1. Mix all the ingredients to form a smooth batter. Add more milk if using whole wheat flour. Basically just make a smooth not too runny batter. Stir vigorously to prevent forming lumps.

2. Spread on a nonstick pan and cook on a low heat and cover while cooking. Cook on both sides till brown(er) and well done.

(Sauce)
3. In a saucepan, on a low heat, put all the ingredients for the sauce and simmer for 10 minutes till sauce is thick.

(Assemble)
4. You can either fill the sauce into the pancake and roll it up or sandwich the sauce between layers of pancakes, like I did. Top with nutella, if you want more.

GUEST BLOGGER

My sister is always surprising me with her wonderful desserts, actually, I get a preview when tantalizing smells emanate from the kitchen (also because of the sounds of the rebuke she gets from mommy for disrupting her kitchen!) so its not really a surprise, but I always anticipate the finished product. This little item which she conjured (and i say conjured because she made it in 20 minutes with scraps for ingredients!) was quick to make and QUICKER to finish. the biscuit base had some oats, walnut powder, butter and some other items (I only recall the crunching sounds which were made by this crisp, light (?) and taste bud pleasuring base)...oh ya! it had everything but biscuits!!
but what really got me going was the gooey from the inside and crisp from the outside filling which was made from butter, chocolate (er....this chocolate was the remnants of a big slab...it actually had some of my teeth imprints on it), coco powder to intensify the flavour (laa dee dah!), and an egg, yolk first followed by the white (i dont get why they are separated to eventually meet!) anyway, all this was put into the oven and baked for sometime (which felt like eternity people!) and, excuse the cliche, VOILA..... sintitilating chocolate tarty-thingie (hey i just do the eating!)
wanna know more about this sweet tooth's narcotic? ask the chef....I'm just a junkie.

Mulberries and smoothies

I remember that silly rhyme we would sing as kids, round and round the mulberry tree. The fruit is not silly though.

It resembles a blackberry but has these tentacle like thingies all over (forgive me for not knowing the scientific word, this is a food blog)

I bought some of these but really didn't know what to do with it. I remember Patrick Star (of Spongebob Squarepants) once say: "when in doubt, pinkie out!" (that REALLY did not help)

SO I created a new one "when in doubt, blender out!"

I made a dee-licious smoothie with the mulberries and strangely a larger quantity of other stuff.

What you need:

¼ cup mulberries
½ cup diced papaya
1 cup cold milk
honey to flavor (honey is perfect as a sweetener for this recipe)

What to do:

1.Blend all, preferably with some ice
2.Slowly sip and enjoy the flavor. And keep your pinkie out. Its Friday the 13th!




My beautiful mulberries.




My even more beautiful mulberry smoothie.

Homemade Pasta

I love pasta.

First of all carbs, cheese and meat make me a very happy person :)

Second of all I lurve Italian food. For some reason it really goes well with my palette.

If that wasn't enough if it is... ahem made fresh and with wholewheat flour?? what more do I want in life? :D

I made this from scratch, by hand, without any machine or anything.

What you need:

3 cups of wholewheat flour
2 tbs EVOO (for those who don't know/love Rachel Ray, evoo stands for extra virgin olive oil)
2 eggs
Salt as per taste
just a drop of water for kneading (only if needed)
lots of water for cooking


What to do:

1. Mix all the ingredients except for the water and knead for a good 15 minutes to form a reasonably firm dough. If the dough is too firm add a little water (do not over do it)

2. Roll out thinly. Cut into any shape you want.

3. Spread out the pasta onto trays and leave to dry for 2 hours.

3. In a large saucepan heat a lot of water till boiling add salt if wanted. Drop the pasta into the bubbling water and cook for no more than 3-5 minutes. Overcooking will ruin the pasta.

4. Drain pasta and use as desired.

Be sure to consume the pasta within two days. Since it's fresh and preservative free, it doesn't keep well for long.




my pasta, drying




The cooked, drained pasta; still steamy.




What I did with my pasta :)

I hate curled parsley!!!!

What is a person supposed to do with curled parsley? first of all let me tell you I am a coriander person. Coriander is soft, easy to chop and has a milder flavor

But Ugh curled parsley? its so tough it never integrates with anything I make. It always sticks out like a sore stalk or just gets stuck in you teeth. Eventually you simply chew it like a cow or place it in the corner of your plate while no one is watching.

It costs quite a buck when you buy it in those fancy gourmet packs and rots so fast in your refrigerator! why oh why do people use curled parsley?

Organic, vegan, low fat, paper thin PIZZA!

I hope you die hard sloppy-joe lovers don't hate me for desecrating the full fat, soft, cheesy, deep pan pizza.

All my experiments generally start with a craving and this time it was pizza. I created something that is remotely close to a pizza as we know it but is still technically a pizza.

It was delicious in an organic, vegan, low fat way and it was a fun eat.



What you need: (for two large pizzas)

(For the base)
2 cups wholewheat/ grain flour
5 gm fresh yeast
1 tsp EVOO
salt
water

(For the topping)
1 cup grated firm tofu (buy it or make you own)
¼ cup shredded cabbage
¼ cup sliced mushroom
2 tbs peas
¼ cup chopped bell pepper
1 red onion finely chopped
2 flakes finely garlic chopped
1 green chilli chopped
EVOO to saute
Oregano and salt to taste

(For the sauce)
2 tbs barbeque sauce
¼ cup tomato ketchup
¼ cup tomato puree/paste
fresh basil leaves, torn
2 tbs water

What to do:

(Base)
1. Mix all ingredients for the base and work into smooth dough. Leave to rise in a drought free place.

(Topping)
2. Heat evoo in a wok. Stir fry vegetables starting with garlic, chillies and onions then adding the rest (except for the tofu). Add salt and oregano as per taste. Stir fry for only about a minute.

(Sauce)
3. In the same wok add the ingredients for the sauce and simmer for a minute.

(Assemble)
4. Punch out the risen dough and roll out till paper thin. Top with sauce, then vegetables and sprinkle the grated tofu all over. Bake in a 180°C preheated oven for 20 minutes then reduce heat to 100°C and bake for 20 minutes more till the base is crisp.

Homemade Strawberry and Plum Pop-tarts

Shaheen @ The purple foodie made these wonderful strawberry pop-tarts a couple of days back and I just had to make them! Unfortunately for me, I had no strawberry jam, but I did have some plum preserve which  used as a substitute.

It was a real winner!! perfect perfect! the other big change I made was use whole flour instead of plain flour.

mmmmm

I had a bit of an oozing problem though... the filling just kept oozing out.. but thats OK.. just took a while to clean up my baking sheet :P 

I love the Strawberry :D

Thanks for sharing this one Shaheen :)

Reduced fat apple filled bread

I concocted this one. The thing was that I wanted to make something like an apple pie or a tart but I had just bought some fresh yeast that I didn't want to waste and I also wanted to avoid all the calories that go into a tart!

So I settled for apple filled bread.

What you need:

2 med sized dessert apples
2 cups of wholewheat flour
2 sticks of cinnamon
¾ cup sugar/ sugar substitute as per taste(if using sugar substitute, add 1/4 cup water along with it)
a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
10 gm of fresh yeast
1 tbs butter
1/4 tsp salt
Water for kneading.

What to do:

(For the filling)
1. Peel, core and finely chop the apples. Place on low in a heavy saucepan add 3/4 of the sugar/ substitute, cinnamon and simmer for 15-20 minutes till mixture is thick and sauce like. Add half the butter into the slightly cooled sauce.

(For the bread)
2. Mash the yeast in water and combine it with the flour, salt; remaining sugar and butter. While adding plenty of water, work with dough for 15 minutes till elastic. Keep aside in a drought free place to rise for 40 minutes.

3. After the dough is double its size, punch it and work for another 10 minutes.

4. On a floured surface roll out the dough to a 1/4 inch thickness and cut edges of dough to make a rectangle. Cut smaller rectangles from the same.

5. Preheat the oven to 100C. Place a spoonful of the apple filling at the base of each rectangle. Roll and seal edges. Let it rise for another 15 minutes.

6. Bake for an hour till browned outside and soft inside.

Frozen Yogurt

I have this archaic ice cream maker that I bought a really long time ago and never really used it. It's quite lousy as I learned soon after I started making my frozen yogurt..Never mind that it never really froze in the machine, my freezer came to the rescue and the result was FAB.

It was really simple and a lot of fun. I would do it again but maybe with a new ice-cream maker.



What you need: (serves: as much as you want)

A really creamy variety of yogurt or yogurt that has been hung in a cheesecloth for 4-6 hours
Vanilla extract/essence
Powdered sugar

What to do:

1. Beat the yogurt with the sugar and vanilla
2. Freeze as per ice cream maker manufacturers instructions.