Eggless Christmas Cookies...

As Christmas is just round the corner, I wanted to share this colourful eggless cookie recipe which I had made 2 years back before having a blog. The Christmas tree cookie presentation idea was taken from Sandra Denneler. This is an excellent idea for decorating your table for Christmas parties. 

Ingredients

1/3 cup Powdered Sugar

Or 

1 cup Sugar Free Natura

1/3 cup Amul Butter

1 tbsp Curd

1/4 tsp Baking powder  

1 cup of All Purpose Flour and 1/3 cup of Almond powder

1 tsp Almond essence (or whatever essence you prefer)

2 Perk Chocolate bars

Melted Chocolate for sticking the cookies

6 different Food colours

1 cup Sugar (Displaying your Cookies)

Method

Beat the sugar with butter, curd and essence. Now combine all the dry ingredients together, and then gradually add them to the sugar-butter mixture. Split dough into 6 equal portions and keep a very small portion for the star.Add food coloring to each of the dough balls until desired color is achieved. Take 2 lime size portions from any of the coloured dough. Keep them on a plate. Similarly take another 2 portions from another colour dough. This portion has to be little smaller than the previous portions taken. Keep repeating. The portions keeps decreasing in size as we take different colour dough. The yellow colour dough can be cut into a star for the top. Flatten the dough balls. First place the bigger size cookies on the greased baking tray. Start with baking at 170 - 180 degrees for 3 minutes in a pre heated oven. Then remove the baking tray from the oven and add the next smaller size cookies, bake it for more 3 minutes. In the similar manner, keep adding the cookies and baking it for next 3 minutes. So the total time for baking will be 20 minutes.Cool of the cookies completely. Cut a full-sized perk  bar in half. Get the 2 halves together and stick it with melted chocolate. Take a plate. Add the sugar for display into the plate. Add melted chocolate on top edge of the perk bar to secure the bottom cookie. For more stable trees, keep adding melted chocolate in between each cookies layer as you stack them. Stack the largest cookie in the bottom, graduating to the smallest size on the top. Add the star cookie on top. Take the leftover dough and roll it into a sheet and with the help of a Christmas cookie cutters cut out different shapes and bake it at 180 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. Enjoy them during Christmas.

Chushi Pitha Kheer

Chushi Pitha is traditionally made during Paush Sankranti. This is a Bangladeshi sweet dish. There many types of Pitha made during this season with the new harvested rice and date jaggery which is made during this winter season. Chushi Pitha or Chutki Pitha or Chui Pitha has to be made in advance as the small rice dumplings are made first and then sun dried. It is time consuming to make them so the traditional method is becoming extinct. Now a days the dried rice dumplings are available in the market. 

Traditionally it is made with Gobindo bhog rice flour or Basmati Rice flour. The dough is made by cooking the flour in hot water and then kneading it well. A pinch of the dough is taken and then shaped. There are many traditional and faster ways of making it, but since I being a Prabasi Bangali (out of the state), I am not very acquainted with all the methods.  The dumplings are sun dried and it can be stored. These are used to make Chushi Pitha Kheer. To make the kheer date jaggery is used as it is the season for this jaggery. Milk is boiled and reduced and sugar and date jaggery is added to the milk, it stirred till the sugar and jaggery is dissolved. The dumplings are fried in ghee and added into the milk and cooked till the milk has slightly thickened. 

Here I have mixed the flour and salt together and add hot water to the flour. I have mixed it and microwaved it for 30 seconds. Then kneaded it in to a dough... 

For the Chushi Pitha

Ingredients

1/2 cup + 1 tsp Rice Flour ( Gobindo bhog RiceFlour / Basmati  Rice Flour )

Salt to taste

Hot water as required

Method

Take bowl.  Mix 1/2 cup flour and salt. Add little hot water at a time and mix it till it forms a wet dough. Microwave the dough for 30 seconds. Let cool down a bit. Knead it well for 5 minutes.  Cover the dough and keep it for 5 minutes. Sprinkle some flour on a platform. Take a small pinch of the dough and roll it into a ball. Keep it on a platform and with the help of the heel of the palm,  gently roll it from the edge and make it into a oblong shape. Then turn the dough and using the heel of the palm, roll it from the edge. It is pointy at the edges and thick in the centre. Follow the same process to make the other dumplings. Sprinkle some flour on them and sun dry. These can be stored in a jar and kept until Chushi pitha payesh is made out of it.

Chushi Pitha Kheer

Ingredients

3/4 cup Chushi pitha

1 1/2 liters Milk

3/4 cup Date plam Jaggery grated

3 tbsp Sugar or more as required

1/4 tsp Cardomom powder

Pinch of Salt

Few Raisins

Few Broken Cashewnuts

1 tbsp Ghee

Method

Take a heavy bottom pot. Let the milk simmer, stir it occasionally.  Meanwhile take a pan. Add ghee and stir fry the Chushi pitha till light brown in colour. Keep it aside. As 1/4 cup of the  milk reduces, add the sugar, cardamom powder, salt, jaggery, raisins and cashwenuts. Stirring the milk occasionally, dissolve the jaggery. Add the chushi pitha and keep stirring it as it should not form a lump. As the milk thickens, switch off the flame and let it cool. If you feel that the chushi pitha has absorbed the milk, then please add some more milk and stir it.

P .S. Some times due to the jaggery the milk curdles. So in that case if you are not sure of the jaggery, it is better to melt the jaggery with little water and then add it to the milk. 

Posto - Narkel - Dhonepata Ar Tiler Bora / Poppy seeds - Coconut - Coriander leaves and Sesame seed Fritters....

Narkle Postor Bora is a delicacy from Bengal. It is a side dish served with hot dal and rice. My Ma use to prepare this dish adding coriander leaves and sesame seeds into it mostly on a vegetarian day and I use to enjoy it with Korair (Urid) Dal and Aloo Posto. Usually the poppy seeds are ground into a paste and then mixed with the other ingredients. Today I have ground the poppy seeds into a powder and mixed it with the other ingredients. 

Ingredients 

1/2 cup Poppy seeds powdered 

1/3 cup desiccated Coconut or fresh grated Coconut 

2 tbsp White Sesame seeds

3 tbsp Rice flour 

Salt to taste 

2 Green Chillies chopped 

1/3 cup Coriander Leaves chopped 

Oil for shallow frying 

Method

Take a mixing bowl and add all the above ingredients except oil. Add just enough water to make a dough. Divide the dough into lime size equal portion. Take a portion and make a ball and flatten it. Repeated the process for other portions too. Heat oil in a fry pan. Place the fritters in the pan and fry it on medium low heat till brown on both the sides. Serve it hot with rice and dal. 

Hotchpotch Sandwich Casserole

This scrumptious dish is excellent for breakfast or dinner time served with a hot bowl of soup. This is an experiment in my kitchen. Here I have not added fruits as I did not have any, but usually slices of pineapple or papaya or strawberry goes very well. You can add any vegetables with leftover keema or any types of cold cuts... I have used home made sweet potato whole wheat bread here. For eggetarian cooked soya keema or cooked rajma beans and paneer can go well with the other ingredients mentioned in the recipe...

Ingredients

1 Bread Loaf cut into medium slices

1 medium size Potato sliced and par boiled

2 Tomatoes sliced

2 Onions sliced

1 small size Zucchini sliced

6 Chicken Salami

1 Canned Tuna

3 Cheese sliced

1/2 cup Green Leafy purée ( Handful Coriander leaves + Spinach leaves + 3 Garlic cloves + Salt to taste )

3 Eggs

1/4 cup Butter melted

Method

Take a baking dish. Grease the base with butter. Arrange the bread slices at the base. Take the green leafy purée and mix it with the melted butter. In a bowl break the eggs and mix the green leafy mixture with eggs. Pour 1/2 of the green leafy and egg mixture on the bread slices. Arrange the sliced tomatoes, zucchini, onions, chicken salama and  potatoes in the baking dish one after the other. Spread the canned tuna over the vegetables. Arrange the cheese slices. Cover up the cheese slices with the bread slices. Pour the remaining mixture of green leafy purée and egg. Bake it for 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 degrees. Remove it from the oven and let it stand for 10 minutes before cutting and serving it.

Sweet Potato Cheesy Masala Bread ....

Since I had no time for the 2nd proofing and then baking the bread, I kept the dough in the fridge overnight and followed the rest of the process in the morning. The taste of the bread was good and the smell of the yeast was quite strong. 

Ingredients 

2 Sweet Potatoes boiled and mashed

2 cups Whole Wheat flour

2 cups All Purpose flour 

Salt to taste 

1 tsp Curry powder

2 tbsp Sugar 

2 tbsp Dry Yeast 

1 cup grated Cheese 

1/2 cup + more Lukewarm water as required for kneading

2 tbsp Oil 

For brushing 2 tbsp Milk and 1 tbsp Butter

Method 

Mix yeast, sugar and 1/2 cup lukewarm water in a cup. Keep it aside to rise. Mix the flour, salt and curry powder together. Add the yeast water, cheese and mashed potato to the flour together and mix it. . Add remaining water little at a time and start kneading. Add a tbsp of oil and continue kneading for 10 minutes. Take a small portion of the dough and do a stretch test. Apply oil on the dough. Cover and keep the dough aside for an hour for it to rise and then in the fridge overnight. In the morning remove the dough from the fridge and keep it out till it comes back to the room temperature. Lightly sprinkle some flour on the platform. Take the dough and knead it for 2 minutes. Divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Take 2 bread tins and grease them with oil. Shape the dough and place the dough into the greased bread tin. Repeat the same with the other dough. Cover and keep the bread to rise. Brush with milk and butter mix. Bake it at 180 degrees celcius for 20 minutes in a preheated oven. In between the baking after 10 minutes remove the bread and brush it with remaining milk and butter and continue baking. 

Remove it from the oven and let it cool before unmoulding. Let it cool for some more time before slicing.