Chocolate Oats Smoothie

Smoothie is the 'in-thing' nowadays.The perfect pick-me-up drink in the morning.You can either make it the healthy way or go indulgent. 

Smoothie has a milkshake consistency and has many many variations.Basic smoothie has milk as its base.Some have crushed ice,frozen fruit,fresh fruit,yogurt,ice cream,soy milk and the list goes on.The health conscious people sweeten it with honey,for kids its with different flavors of ice creams.

Here is a very healthy smoothie with oats.

Chocolate Oats Smoothie

Ingredients:

Instant Oats - 1/2 cup
Milk- 1 cup
Drinking Chocolate/Cocoa Powder- 2 tbsp
Honey- 3 tbsp

Method:

1.Soak the oats in milk for five minutes.
2.In a blender,take the soaked oats,cocoa powder/chocolate powder,honey and beat till well blended.
3.Pour in a tumbler and serve chilled.

Chocolate Oats Smoothie

Sprinkle with some mini-chocolate chips.Enjoy your mornings...

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Zebra Cake

We had been to the Zoo few days back. I would not know why,the Zebra really caught my fancy . I thought I should bake a cookie with stripes, but then I came across a Zebra cake recipe.
So, why not bake a 'Zebra Cake'.
This cake looks similar to a marble cake, but with perfect stripes. For a marble cake, we would pour the plain cake batter and the chocolate cake batter in the cake tin and then use a fork or a skewer to make patterns. But for a Zebra pattern cake, we need to alternatively pour the different colour cake batter on top of the other. A very simple technique, the cake is a perfect beauty.

Zebra Cake

Ingredients:

All purpose Flour-2 1/2 cups
Sugar- 1 1/4 cup
Salt-1 tsp
Baking Powder-2 1/4 tsp
Cocoa Powder- 4 tbsp
Milk- 1 cup+1 /4 cup
Oil- 3/4 cup
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Eggs - 4



Method:
1.Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees celcius. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl.
2.Beat the eggs well.
3.Combine the sugar,oil,1 cup of milk,vanilla extract and the beaten eggs in another bowl with the help of a electric hand mixer or a stand mixer.
4.Add the dry ingredients little by little to the oil-egg mixture.
5.Divide this cake batter into two halves.
6.Take one portion of the cake batter and add cocoa powder to it. Now you would notice that the batter has become stiff, just add 1/4 cup ( or less )of milk to it to bring it back to the same consistency. 
7.Prepare a cake tin and line with parchment paper.
8.In the cake tin, pour a ladle of the plain cake batter and then pour the chocolate cake batter right in the centre . See pic below ...

9.Repeat  this procedure ,but alternatively pouring the different colour cake batter.

10.Bake for 35 to 40 minutes in a 170 degrees centigrade.
11.Cool on a wire rack.


Everyone at home was so fascinated by the cake , I did not have the opportunity to click a picture of a sliced cake. There was nothing left  :)


Note: Just to jazz it further, I have used a tooth pick and drawn a line across all the circles. This patter would appear only on top of the cake.

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Vegetable Cutlet ( India Coffee House Style )

You might be wondering why another 'cutlet' recipe ,where there are so many recipes and variations of the same on the Internet.But this one is comes from our very own South India's famous chain of restaurants 'India Coffee House' which use to make good and brisk business in the 1980s era.My husband would fondly remember the cutlet he would have with his family when he was a kid during their family outings.

For me, India Coffee House was about their famous coffee and the dosas, idlis and wadais.But the cutlet/tikki was the crowing glory..LOL.I decided to replicate the same and the cutlet was indeed the Indian Coffee House style,and our very own loyal customer aka my hubby approved it.

Vegetable Cutlet/Vegetable Tikki

Ingredients:

Potatoes(Boiled and mashed)- 2
Carrot and Beetroot(grated)- 1 cup
Onion(finely chopped)- 1
Red Chilly Powder- 1 tsp
Jeera/Cumin Powder- 1 tsp
Lemon Juice- 1 tsp
Bread crumbs-1/2 cup+ 3 tbsp
Salt to taste
Oil for shallow frying

Method:

1.In a wok/kadai, heat 1 tsp of oil and sauté the finely chopped onions till golden brown.
2.Add the red chilly powder , cumin powder and cook further for two more minutes.
3.Now add the grated carrot and beetroot mixture and cook till the carrot and beetroot mixture has no moisture.
4.Remove from fire and allow it to cool.
5.Add the mashed potato mixture, salt to taste, 3 tbsp of bread crumbs and lemon juice. Mix well and make equal sized flat balls.

6. Coat the flattened balls with the remaining bread crumbs.

7.Take a flat griddle and shallow fry the cutlet/tikkis on either side with few teaspoons of oil or just until they are browned well.

8.Serve hot with thinly sliced onions and lemon wedges.

Note:
We are not adding amchur powder/dry mango powder as this is a South Indian version of a vegetable tikki.


 

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