A classic soup in 5 or 6 ingredients only. Very easy to give in to trying, especially if you have been watching culinary show after show on a rainy evening. The urge to get off that sofa and into the kitchen… was worth it.

Making French onion soup when you already have white wine at home is easy (I hate it when you decide to cook up a dish and realize there is one ingredient you abso need and it is currently in the store shelf…)

So, what you need:

• 2 tablespoons of butter (olive oil may work well too, if you are not keen on butter)
• 6 to 8 medium sized onions (to serve 4 helpings of this soup), sliced thin
• 1/2 cup flour (white flour)
• 1/2 cup white wine
• About 1 to 1.5 litres of water (or stock, if you are have-stock-ready types)
• Salt and pepper
• Slices of baquette or just bread
• 1/2 cup of grated gruyere cheese / cheddar cheese for the soup, and some more to top the bread with.

To make this hearty soup:

• In a big pan, heat the butter and put in the onions. Saute for about 15 minutes, until they brown.
• Add the flour and stir vigourously, to both cook the flour and mix it all in.
• Pour in the wine, mix.
• Add the stock / water and simmer for about 20 minutes.
• Add in some cheese and keep stirring until the cheese mixes in well. About 3 minutes.
• Add salt and crush pepper to taste.

To serve:

• Spoon the thick soup into bowls.
• Toast the bread, top with cheese and then grill for a couple of minutes.
•  Place the bread slices on top of the soup and there is your mini meal in a bowl.

There seem to be only two reactions to the onset of the summer holidays. Relief, for all those parents who have angels for kids. That is not me. So the other is dread, wondering how the heck to handle the two brats for another 4 and 7 extra hours respectively! I would like to blame the absence from the blog on the same two mentioned brats, but I guess there is more to it than that .

Our non-profit venture Second to None has taken off with a bigger impact than anything expected and quite a few hours are whiling away watching and delighting, and of course, working a little on it.

So getting back to the kitchen, while the nation waits for mangoes (we have already tried it thrice and the experience has, as always, been of the utmost satisfaction), we go back to chocolate.

This choco-mint scandal is anyone’s secret sin. A nondescript cookie turned wicked, drowning in chocolate glaze and decked with mint crumble. (The recipe is from a 2006 “holiday” cookbook but who the heck wants to wait for December anyway?!) The recipe calls for a cookie sandwich with marshmallow cream, but I did just the plain cookie… Sinful enough!

You need:

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temp
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons brewed coffee (no milk)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the chocolate glaze (loved that this was soooooo simple!):

• 1/4 cup heavy cream (I used the Amul cream)
• 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

How to make it:

Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt together.

Whip up the butter and sugar until it is thick.

Add vanilla extract, coffee liquid, and beat together. Ha! Got this vanilla extract finally that all the gourmet chefs keep talking about. But I could not taste that much of a difference in this recipe. Will it, ever? Perhaps in a recipe with more delicate flavours…

Add the flour mixture and mix gently until you get a firm dough.

Make 1 inch balls of the cookie dough and roll in super fine sugar.

Place them on a baking sheet (greased). Flatten with the flat bottom of a glass! (Found this tip very useful).

Bake in a pre-heated oven for  12-15 minutes.

Remove from the oven, let them cool for a few minutes, then cool on a rack. I use the metal racks that came with my microwave.

For the glaze:

Put the choco chips in a bowl. I used chocolate buttons hauled from a trip abroad. These things are like little treasures!

Heat the cream in a saucepan until bubbles form at the edges and simply pour the cream over the buttons.

In 5 minutes, the buttons are soft enough to whisk. Just use a hand whisk to mix and the glaze is done!

Dip the half the cookie in the chocolate glaze, then in crushed candy. Use any hard candy that you like, actually. As long as it adds a crunch and it is your fave tasting.

Chill for 30 minutes… and they are good to chew!

Every time we have friends over for lunch or dinner, we end up having a mix of continental and Indian. Most times, north Indian. Realized we hadn’t  had our neighbours over, ever, for a typical south Indian meal, duh! So here are some pictures to share, all captured by Chirag, of our very south Indian lunch.

On the menu…

Majjige huli (like a buttermilk sambar), pineapple gojju.

The Kootu  (a nice thick sambar with veggies and peanuts) and flat beans dry curry.

Carrot and moong dal + cucumber kosambari (salad) and puliyogare (seasoned tamarind paste mixed with white rice)

Nucchina unde (toor dal dumplings, seasoned, mashed and steamed, usually eaten with the buttermilk sambar)

Mango ras (this is not very south Indian, but which Indian can resist mangoes?)

The table! And yes, that IS red wine. After running through a list of what we could possibly drink along with a south Indian meal, this was it. And it went down rather well!

I am going to stop searching for recipes for dishes that have 3 ingredients. I mean when there are only 3 ingredients how tough can it be to figure what goes in, in what proportion ?

I get all thrown off balance by all the references to gelatin, heavy cream, double cream, single cream (is separated cream next?). So this is keeping it ultra simple.

You need:

• 3 cups cream cheese
• 20 medium sized strawberries, mulched. (it is great to keep some of the fruit in pieces to chew down on)
• 1 cup powdered sugar (if you like the frosting a little sweet, add more sugar)
• Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon

Whipping up the frosting:

• Whip the cream cheese in a bowl until it is soft. Use a chilled bowl, preferably.
• Add the sugar and whisk again to mix in the sugar and cheese completely.
• Add the vanilla essence and the strawberry fruit and gently mix until the fruit is blended in really well.

A pretty pink frosting, especially for chocolate cup cakes.

The cup cake recipe is from joyofbaking.com, except that I added half a cup of mini chocolate chips to the cake batter.

This super simple recipe has been too long in the making! Am sure it was almost a year ago that Ayesha told me about a friend having made this. Been meaning to try it out ever since. It is a simple, clean, and quick one.

You need:

• Slender, tender green beans, washed, and chopped at an angle, into 1 inch long pieces. About 250 grams.
• A cup of fresh corn.
• A little butter /olive oil.
• Some salt and pepper to sprinkle.

To make it:

• Parboil the green beans over a stove or in the microwave in a little water. Let them cook a little, but retain the crunch. About 8 to 10 minutes. Drain the water and leave the beans out to cool a little.
• Saute the fresh corn in a little olive oil or butter. Cool.
• Toss the beans and corn together in a bowl, shake some salt and pepper over it. Ready!

It makes a crunchy side salad with any kinda meal.

Scouring stores for cake decorations may seem a bit crazy, but hey, when you find them, they are SO worth the hunt! But I am yet to find really nice ones here in Bangalore. So if you know any stores, please do tell! In the meantime I ask friends traveling to India to bring some, or pick up when am traveling myself.

Small decorations like sprinkles look best on cup cakes, methinks. Some amateur attempts here, playing with cup cakes with the boys and they love it (amateur or not).

The recipes are from www.joyofbaking.com. Simply tons of recipes out there that really work!

You think these will be good to take to a bazaar? Yes, to sell ? Of course, I better be brushing up on the squeezing-an-icing-tube skills.

I am a sucker for luscious looking fruits flaunting their colours in the aisles – whether they are sprawled out in a posh supermarket or jostling for space in the local mandi. And I tend to pick out fruit in lovely colour combinations, red apples and yellow bananas. Or oranges and strawberries. Oh they look so good whole or chopped up together!

While we’ve been drooling, some firang fruits have snuck in to the market… and have stuck around. While red globe grapes from Oz have been on the stands consistently (though at a prohibitive price!), its pal the kiwi has made an entrance.

And my kids love it! We hadn’t sampled any until the Oz trip recently – and over there they would like, eat 4 a day. So yippee for having these lil green fellas for traveling all the way here home! The cute thing is they came with a little kiwi spoon – green, small teeth, perfect for scooping out the juicy insides. And the kids faithfully brought the spoons back with them and love it!

If you have interesting recipe that has kiwis in it, do share!

Without any preamble, let us get to the basics of this very basic dessert / snack / sweet tooth fix…

Melt chocolate buttons or choclate cut into small pieces, over a double boiler. (Microwaving is OK, but the chocolate dries up). I love the double boiler because you can turn off the heat and leave the chocolate in the hot water and it will stay gooey until you have finished all of your strawberry dipping!

Dip the washed and trimmed strawberries in the melted chcolate.

Place on cupcake paper cups gently. The chocolate will harden in a few minutes.

Let them cool and gently pick them off the paper cups to serve.

I love the way parts of the choclate follow the zig zag of the paper cups… Luscious, are they not?

What do you do when you are completely at a loose end, not  knowing where to pick up after a break… you bake. That seemed to be the only thing that would lift the inertia a little bit. And Saturday morning seemed ideal to start! And I did not figure if this was a cranberry bread or a cranberry cake, hence the identity-crisis name.

Having picked up some ingredients missed sorely in Bangalore like dried berries and stuff, this Cranberry Bread recipe from Joy of Baking jumped out at me.

Here are the ingredients it suggests:

• 4 cups (460 grams) sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (200 grams) white granulated sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Zest of one orange or lemon (optional) - I did not use this
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract - I used vanilla essence
• 1 1/2 cups (360 ml) milk
• 1 cup (120 grams) fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped – I used dried berries and it tastes just great!
• 1/2 cup (90 grams) candied and chopped mixed peel – For this, there are tonsa recipes on how to make your own, I picked up mine in a store. 
• 1/2 cup (60 grams) toasted almonds, coarsely chopped (can use walnuts, hazelnuts or pecans) – I used flaked almonds, toasted.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, then whisk the wet ones in another bowl. Add the wet to the dry ingredients. Whisk well. Add the berries, mixed peel and nuts. Good mix… Pour into a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan and bake at 200 degree C. I baked it for 60 minutes, instead of 70.

The serving suggestion says thick slices with a thin spread of butter…and golly! That is JUST the way to polish this off at tea time! Or at a mid morning snack break… or .. er… any time, really .