Show Me Your Muffin - Roundup

Need Muffin or Cupcake recipe ideas?

Check out all these delicious muffin/cupcake entries i received for Show me Your Muffin event, with banana muffins topping the list! I received the maximum number of banana muffins. Needless to say, it is everybody's favorite. Thank you friends, for sending in all your delicious entries!

Priya - Eggless Orange Poppyseeds Muffin
Krithika - Eggless Bottlegourd muffins


Priya - Eggless Lemon Poppyseeds Muffin
Priya - Vegan Kiwi & Cornmeal Muffins


Shylaja - Wheat flour banana muffins
Priya - Vegan pineapple Muffins


Sumi - Sweet Potato Muffins
Shylaja - Whole wheat oats and dates muffin


Sravani - Papaya muffins
Sumi - Apple Cinnamon Muffins


Denny - Flax Banana Muffin
Veena - Eggless mango Muffins


Radhika - Mom's Sweet Muffins
Vidhya - Upside down double apple muffin


Radhika - Banana Nut Muffins
Sravani - Crunchy Banana Muffins


Meghna - Mango Macadamia Muffin
Vimitha - Chunky Chocolate Cupcakes


Gayathri - Eggless chocolate cupcakes
Gayathri - Eggless spiced nutty muffins


Deeksha - Orange Muffins

Ambreen - Tangerine Butterfly Cupcakes

K - Mini Rotelle Pasta Muffins
Rekha - Apple Pecan Muffins

Raks - Eggless Banana Walnut Muffins
Ambreen - Pineapple Coconut Muffin
Ambreen - Almond Cupcakes

Sojo - Vanilla Cocoa Pound Cake
Vimitha - Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Krithi - Mango Cupcakes

Krithi - Mocha Chocolate Muffins

Kalyani - Eggless Oats Banana Muffins
RS - Strawberry muffins


Richa - Savory Corn Muffins
Prathima Rao - Banana muffins

Gayathri - Eggless banana muffins
Gayathri - Eggless peanut butter cupcakes

Cooking Foodie - Banana Walnut Chocolate Chip Muffin
Jayashree - Eggless Mango Banana muffins

Divya Vikram - Eggless Banana Walnut Muffin
Neetu - Orange Muffins

Thanks again, for all your entries!

Iyengar bakery Khara Biscuit for ICC

Iyengar Bakery Khara Biscuits was the recipe featured for this month's Indian Cooking Challenge. Though, I haven't tasted/tried making these biscuits/cookies, these were so easy to make and tasted delicious too. I made them this evening along with our evening coffee and they made a great accompaniment to the coffee. We loved the Indian touch to the cookies, because of the addition of green chillies and coriander and no eggs and baking soda which are regular ingredients in any cookie!

Ingredients

Maida/All purpose Flour - 2 cups/250 gms

Butter - 1/3 cup at room temperature

Green chilly - 1 minced or finely chopped

Sugar - 4 teaspoons

Salt - 1 teaspoon

Cilantro/Coriander leaves - a few sprigs

Yogurt/curd - 3 tablespoons

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour and salt together. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Also add the yogurt and mix together until incorporated.

Slowly add the flour-salt mixture to the wet ingredients and knead well until everything comes together.

Also add the chopped chilly and coriander leaves along with the dough while kneading.

Roll the dough into 1/4th inch thickness and cut using cookie cutters into desired shapes. I flattened the cookies slightly with a fork to make impressions.

Bake for about 20 minutes until it turns  golden brown in color. The cookies might be soft when you remove them from the oven in 20 minutes. But they crisp up when they cool down.

Cool on a wire rack and store them in airtight containers.

Serve along with coffee or tea!

Pavakkai Fry/ Bittergourd fry

Bittergourd/Pavakkai is one of the most hated vegetables. I had an aversion towards the bitter veggie for long, but knowing its nutritional benefits, I knew I had to make it at home. I made this crispy version and it tasted great as a side dish with rice and dal and also with curd rice. I made it the simple way as I usually make other vegetable stir fries. I added some grated coconut towards the end to mitigate the bitterness of the bitter gourd.

Ingredients
Bittergourd / Pavakkai - 2 medium sized ones
Onion - 1 small sized
Oil - 1 tablespoon
Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon
Urad dal - 1 teaspoon
Curry leaves - a few
Chilli powder - 1 teaspoon
Turmeric powder - 1 teaspoon
Grated coconut - 2 tablespoons

Directions

• Wash the bittergourd and slice it finely.
• In a kadai, heat the oil and do the tempering with the mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves and add the sliced onions. 
• Once they turn translucent, add the sliced bittergourd and saute for a minute. Add the turmeric powder, chilli powder and salt to taste and mix well. 
• Sprinkle some water and cover for about two minutes and cook until the bittergourd turns soft. Remove the lid and fry for a few minutes and until it turns crispy. 
• Add the grated coconut and saute for a minute until everything combines together.

Serve warm along with rice and dal.

Cajun Guacamole

I received a pack of delicious and ripe California Avocadoes as part of the Foodbuzz Featured Publisher Program and I made this delicious dip to go with some tortilla chips. I usually make the regular guacamole, but I wanted to spice it up a little bit. So I made this guacamole with a Cajun touch. It turned out delicious and spicy and was a perfect evening snack. I served this with some wholegrain flax seed tortilla chips from TJ's.

The recipe is so simple and can be whipped up in minutes.

Ingredients
Fresh California Avocados - 2
Tomatoes - 1 small sized finely chopped
Red onion - 1/4 cup finely chopped
Garlic - 2 cloves finely minced
Fresh lemon juice - 1 tablespoon
Fresh cilantro for garnish
Cayenne Pepper - 1/2 teaspoon
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Peel the avocados and remove the seed. Coarsely mash the avocados.

Add all the ingredients and mix well. Garnish with cilantro leaves. Serve immediately. The avocados oxidize quickly and turn black.

Serve as a dip with any appetizer. Also tastes great in sandwiches.

Sending this to Quick and Easy Recipe Mela.

Simple Strawberry Jam

When I grabbed a fresh box of delicious and juicy strawberries from the farmer's market, I immediately wanted to make strawberry jam. It has been a long while since we got jams and preserves from the grocery stores. We were just out of our cranberry jam and this batch of strawberry jam replenished our jam stock.

I just made a small batch since this was the first time I tried my hand in making jam with strawberries. But this has been our favorite so far. The best part of making jams at home is that you could actually control the amount of sugar that goes in. The sugar can also be replaced with other natural sweeteners like honey, agave nectar etc. to make it less in calories and diabetic friendly.

This jam uses just three ingredients - strawberries, lemon juice and sugar and requires no pectin.

Ingredients
Strawberries sliced finely - 2 cups
Brown/White sugar - 1.5 cups
Lemon juice - 2 teaspoons

Directions
Wash and pat the strawberries dry.

If you like to bite into the strawberry pulp, just slice the strawberries finely. If you do not like to bite into pieces, just puree the strawberries into a coarse mixture.

In a wide saucepan, place the sugar and lemon juice together and bring it to a slight boil. Switch to medium heat and immediately add the sliced strawberries or the pureed strawberries. Allow the sugar to melt and the strawberries to cook well and thickens to form a jelly consistency.

In order to test if the jam is ready, place a small stainless steel plate in the freezer for about five minutes. With a spoon take a little jam from the saucepan and pour it in the chilled plate. If the jam stays like a jelly without spreading out, the jam is ready.

Switch off the stove and allow the jam to cool. Transfer to a sterilized glass jar and refrigerate.

To know how to sterilize a glass jar - read this. Once the jam has cooled completely refrigerate. This stays fresh for 4 to 5 weeks.

Tastes great with toast!

Sending this to Back to Basics initially started by Jaya.