Bread Baking Babes Buddies - Hamburger Buns

Thank you thank you to all the Babes and now our Buddies that joined me in baking the bread I chose for July, Hamburger Buns from Williams Sonoma.  I am so happy that you enjoyed them so much.  It's definitely a recipe I will make again.

girlichef

Bread Experience

Judy's Gross Eats

My apology to Rita at Soep Kipje, I can't get a photo of her delicious buns to download.

A Messy Kitchen

Thanks again Ladies! Y'all are the best looking Bread Baking Buddies I've ever seen!

(If I missed anyone, a million apologies. Please email me again. If you are a late comer, let me know and I'll add you too!)

THENKUZHAL | MURUKKU - STEP BY STEP RECIPE

 

Mostly we all make thenkuzhal for diwali or some special occasions. I love this murukku since my childhood days.I used to do all the pre preparatory works like buying rice and dal , grinding it in flour mill etc..I sit with my mom & paati when they make this for diwali especially for the last batch of murukku .. She makes half cooked murukku( we call it "arai vekkaadu" in tamil) . I love this murukku more than the crispy ones. I eat it hot immediately after taking out from the oil.Even today , my MIL made this specially for me..How sweet !! .I saw so many thenkuzhal recipes in web with different proportions of rice and urad dal . I want to share my version.I tried to take step by step pics for beginners. I really admire our fellow bloggers who blog recipes with step by step pics for each and every post. They have so much of patience and skill to do this. I really don't have both .For sweets and savouries step by step presentation is most essential i feel. Hope this post helps beginners. Feel free to leave ur comments about my presentation.I will improve in my further posts. Now coming to my version..

INGREDIENTS

Raw rice / Maavu arisi – 1 kg or  5 cups Round white urad dal – 3/4 cup Fried gram dal / pottukadalai – 1 handful Butter – 4 tbsp or 100 gms Asafetida / hing – 1/2 tsp Jeera / cumin seeds or Black sesame seeds – 2 tbsp Salt & water – As needed. Cooking oil – for deep frying..

"""PLEASE HAVE A LOOK AT THE "POINTS TO REMEMBER" BEFORE STARTING.."""

METHOD

Heat a kadai and dry roast urad dal slightly without changing its colour. Roast till nice aroma comes from urad dal. Switch off the flame and add the fried gram dal. Now mix the rice, roasted urad dal and fried gram dal. Grind in flour mill or powder it in mixie. If u use mixie to grind the mixture, please don't forget to sieve the flour. Flour should be very fine in texture. Add salt , melted butter, hing , jeera or sesame seeds and water to make a non sticky dough. Take the murukku press and mould with one whole. Fill the dough and set aside.Heat the oil in a broad kadai and and press the murukku in circular motion directly in oil or press the murukku in a polythene sheet or in the back of ladle separately and then drop in hot oil. This way u get a nice shape. After u press the murukku , please stand a few feet away from the kadai.Sometimes , very rarely murukku may burst like seedai . If it doesn't burst, then proceed. Cook for sometime.Flip and cook for some more time till the hiss sound and bubbles ceases . Do it in medium flame.Adjust the flame whenever needed. Remove and drain in a paper towel..Store in an air tight container after it cools down. Don't forget to try the half cooked murukku in the last batch. For this after u drop the murukku in oil , just flip immediately and remove in 10 secs.. Eat it hot !! White colored , crispy thenkuzhal is ready to enjoy !!

Points to remember

When u make murukku in large quantities , make the dough in batches to avoid the dough from drying.Also cover the dough with a damp cloth or a lid while cooking murukku. This helps in getting white colored murukku for all the batches. Otherwise color may vary for the last batches. We have added fried gram dal and butter to get the crispness & white color . But usually fried gram dal is not added in thenkuzhal.Its purely optional. Adding too much of butter makes the murukku look oily and becomes soggy very soon.Shelf life gets reduced. Adding more urad dal flour or too much of roasting the urad dal results in dark colored murukku.So make sure u roast the urad dal without changing the color.. If u use store bought rice flour and urad dal flour , the ratio would be 6:1.No need to roast the urad dal flour if it is ready made. The murukku flour should be very fine in texture otherwise it may burst while cooking. So i always sieve the flour for safer side Use enough oil for deep frying. Add more oil after few batches if necessary. Drop or press the murukku only when the oil becomes hot. U can find this by dropping a pinch of flour. It raises up quickly.This is the correct heating point. Do not let the oil fume. Always keep the flame in medium for even cooking. Instead of pressing in oil directly , u can try pressing it in the back of ladle greased with oil or greased polythene sheets. This way u'll get nice shape..  After cooking when u break the murukku , u can c a hole in the middle of the murukku like  funnel. This denotes the murukku is perfect !!

Can u see the hole  . Catch u in my next post. Bye. Have a gr8 weekend

Technorati Tags: Thenkuzhal murukku,white Murukku,Diwali snacks,Murukku step by step pics,thenkuzhal recipe with step by step pics.Tips to get white thenkuzhal.

Is Hunger a Taboo Subject?

The first year I participated in the Hunger Challenge, one of my commenters basically said that anyone who was hungry in this country was lazy. I was also told by a blogger that she wouldn't participate in the Challenge because it was her personal goal to support organic farmers and the Hunger Challenge just encouraged support of an already broken food system. In subsequent years I have heard that hunger is a bigger issue in other parts of the world, and that childhood obesity is the real problem we should be focused on.

The goal of the Hunger Campaign is to raise awareness about hunger in the San Francisco Bay Area. Participants in the Challenge live on the same budget a food stamp recipient would receive, a paltry $4.72 a day. But somehow, I find many people I tell about the Challenge don't want to hear about that. They'd rather focus on something else. All those other issues - politics, sustainable food systems, organics, world hunger and even childhood obesity get way more attention in the media than local hunger. Yes. I said local hunger.

Here in San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Food Bank, 197,000 people struggle to feed themselves and their families. In Marin, just over 40,000 people - or 16% of the population - face the same problem. 
I find it shocking that in a community as rich as ours (San Francisco and Marin), 237,000 people live at or below 185% of the federal poverty line ($33,873 per year for a family of three). While children or families may be eligible for aid at that level, even with assistance it can be very challenging to provide enough food to consistently nourish themselves.

Won't you think about what you can do help alleviate hunger in your community?

GET INVOLVED!

♥ Take the Hunger Challenge yourself. Sign up here.

♥ Read blogs by people taking the Hunger Challenge. There's a blogroll here.

♥ Follow the Hunger Challengers on Twitter. There's a listing here, or search for the hashtag #HungerChallenge.

♥ Learn more about the San Francisco Food Bank - and make a donation. For every $1 donated the food bank can supply hungry people with $6 worth of food!

♥ Follow the San Francisco Food Bank on Twitter or visit their Facebook page to see how they're fighting hunger every day.

DO NOT REPRINT WITHOUT PERMISSION! ©2011 Cooking with Amy. All rights reserved. This material may NOT be published, rewritten or redistributed without permission. If you are reading this post somewhere other than Cooking with Amy, the Oyster Local blog or Gather.com, then the site where you found this post is illegally publishing copyrighted material.

Grocery Shop X 3 and cookbooks

I sometimes remember to take photos, but then I never have time to post them.

Yesterday we went for groceries:

Milk, pop, tortilla chips,salad, a piece of flank steak rolled with cheese and spinach (had it for dinner last night and it was very nice), grapes, strawberries, lunch meat, tomatos, sour cream, yogurt, bread, onions, cheese, mayo, salsa, coffee, kiwi, broccoli.  This store tells you on the receipt how much you have saved.  We saved $15.21, and I have a $5 coupon, so we saved over 20 bucks.  Not too shabby.

This is last weeks shop:

Milk, tomato juice, pop, bread, bananas, 2 bags of noodles, lunch meat, salad, kiwis, bell peppers, bbq sauce, strawberries, carrots, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, juice, broccoli and potatos.

And the week before:

Which is hard to remember. Rice, spinach, some terrible terrible veggie chips, yogurt, waffles, soup, green onions, salad, romaine, apples.

I made this for dinner Friday night, chicken stir fried with spinach from Mark Bittmans How to Cook Everything.  I have been cooking a lot from it lately and enjoying it.  I'd like to do a round up of all that I have made from it, but I'll have to see if I can remember what I've made and if I actually took any photos.

Toast stuffed with chicken recipe

Photo: Toast stuffed with chicken recipe

The Arabic Food Recipes kitchen (The Home of Delicious Arabic Food Recipes) invites you to try Toast stuffed with chicken Recipe. Enjoy the Arabic Cuisine and  learn how to make Toast stuffed with chicken.

Ingredients

Slices of fresh toast
Skinned and boneless pieces of chicken
Slices of fried chopped onion
Sumac
Dry thyme
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Normal flour
Whisked eggs
Bread crumbs
Frying oil

Method

• Cut edges from the toast (can be used in making of bread crumbs). Press them.
• Slice the chicken in thin slices and mix with onion. Add sumac, thyme, olive. Season the filling with salt and pepper.
• Put a suitable amount of the filling on one edge of the toast, roll it to take the shape of a finger, and then press it.
• Roll on the flour and dip it in the whisked egg. Roll it in bread crumbs. Make sure it is covered either with flour or bread crumbs.
• Put in the refrigerator for an hour to stiffen. (They could be put in plastic bags and kept in the freezer to be used later.
• Fry in preheated oil until it becomes brown. Put on kitchen towel paper to absorb excess oil.

More Arabic Food Recipes: 

Cumin pancake with hummus
Red Pepper Hummus with Toasted Pita Triangles
Grilled Veggie Hummus Wrap
Middle Eastern Platter
Harissa lamb & houmous flatbreads
Falafel & halloumi stacks

Save and share Toast stuffed with chicken recipe

Want to share this recipe with your family and friends? Click the button below to send them an email or save this to your favorite social network.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/sBff/~3/W00JT_esjhI/coming-soon-crazy-cobblers-and-secret.html

These incredibly tasty mini peach cobblers feature ingredients that will shock and amaze.

Get ready to experience the magic of last minute, mayonnaise-based steak sauces.