Rice cooker

Never thought a rice cooker will make my life easy! The Aroma rice cooker, available on amazon.com, with its saute and simmer function lets you do so much more. A delightful surprise. Soups, stews, stirfries, and of course, our parboiled rice. Which by the way is not pre-cooked rice.

a lentil-based beef stew with vegetables that I made in this cooker. A so-called curry from our parts.

French toast

Basic and the best! and with a little custard sauce! Decadent. And this custard sauce was an accident. Tried one ice cream recipe, one for the custard-style ice cream which used a lot of half and half and no milk. The ice cream was kind of dense and too overpowering to my taste, will add milk next time.

But I put it in the fridge and and it turned out to be this out of this world custard sauce.(obviously!)

Cooking in my new carbon steel wok

yes, it does taste better when cooked in this wok. Take the trouble to season the wok till it's blue, and you are all set for a wonderful delicious adventure. the Szechwan fried beef, I found so similar to the way my mom and grandmother made their special Nazrani fried beef. The zoodles and shrimp fried rice turned out so delicious in the wok. got the wok from amazon.com.

shrimp fried rice

Szechwan fried beef

zoodles and shrimp fried rice - ultimate comfort food

kerala beef fried rice

broccoli-beef

seasoned wok

Apple Fritters

Tasty! This is like our Pazham unda. And if we tweak this all purpose flour batter a little, like, say, add a little rava or rice flour or both, it gets even better. And the more the apple, it tastes even better. Of course you can mix in a banana too.😀great with tea or coffee 

Ice cream!

Ice cream in my wonderful new Cuisinart Ice cream maker. tastes so fresh and delicate! nothing can beat homemade ice cream! and this machine makes it all so easy!

Cuisinart ICE- 21 1.5 qt. ice cream maker

Biscotti

Like our rusk, this Italian staple is fabulous with tea, coffee, and milk. I hear the traditional way is to dunk it in wine. Endless possibilities. Experiment with the timing, especially, the time it takes for the second bake.

Otherwise easy to follow recipes online.

With raisins

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Puff pastry heaven!

This holiday season it  has been a puff pastry invasion in my kitchen. I have made puff pastry from scratch a while ago, when I made chicken vol-au-vents and sausage rolls during my Betty Neals phase. but this time I used store-bought for the various sweet and savory snacks. And it made it all so convenient. Youtube has a few expert videos for easy recipes using puff pastry, so does the websites. And then there is puffpastry.com by Pepperidge farm, the maker of the commonly available pastry sheets and shells. This versatile pastry lends itself to making any number of  flavors and forms.

Kerala egg puffs

Kerala egg puffs

with beef and potato filling

Palmiers

raspberry-cream cheese- white chocolate filling

creamy mushroom filled shells, beef tomato and onion and gruyere tartlets

apricot pinwheels

strudel bites with strawberry -cream cheese- white chocolate filling