Maronen

When we were in Germany,  we used to roam around the city during weekends. While roaming like that during a winter day, we discovered a new nut called Maronen in a street side shop. It was soooo yummy.  They just roasted the nuts in a pan and were selling. For €1 we just got 6 to 7 nuts.. Oops. We started searching for that nut in the grocery shops. I found it FBL(Hi I remember the supermarket's name) MM was so happy when I roasted them at home.   After coming here to US, we get this nuts during the Fall and Winter.  Here it is called chestnuts. Mostly all our weekends during fall/winter, we will be munching these nuts at home.  They say, that these nuts does not have cholesterol and is the only nut having C-vitamin. why dont these yummy nuts grow in India?

Our German friend taught us the correct way to roast those nuts. If someone wants to know: Wipe the nuts and with the flat side down, cut the nuts with a sharp knife and make a 'x' mark.  Preheat the oven to 425 and it will take 25 to 30 minutes for the nuts to be ready. we can easily peel the shell off, when they are warm.  It would be difficult, if it becomes cold. Don't ever loose an opportunity to munch one guys...

Chocolate chip muffins

All purpose flour - 1 cup
butter - 1/2 cup
sugar -2/3 cup
choco chips - 1/2 cup
egg - 1
vanilla essence - 1 teaspoon
Baking powder - 2 teaspoons
Milk - 1/2 cup

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Add sugar to Softened butter and beat the egg into it. Mix thoroughly. Now add the vanilla essence. Pour just half of the milk along with baking powder. Now little by little add the flour and mix it or we can use a blender. now add the remaining milk to the mixture. Now drop the choco chips into the batter. Pour the batter just up to half of the cup in the muffin pan. Bake them for 30 minutes in the preheated oven.

With/without icing, it looks/tastes great. I thought that this muffin will be mm's favorite instead, it became MM's favorite. Now i have to search for the fat free version...

p.s. :- Will upload the snap later, as it was finished, before i could take one...

Butter cookies

Now-a-days mm is not at all eating. He just munches some or other thing. One of his favorites is butter cookies. Very easy for me to do and can be stored for many days. Here is the recipe for this cookie.

Butter - 1/3 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
egg - 1
All purpose flour - 2 cup
vanilla extract - 1 tspoon
Baking powder - 2 tspoon
salt - 2 pinches

Beat the butter and add sugar to it. Mix thoroughly. Now add baking powder and salt and beat continuously. Then add egg and vanilla extract and beat well. Now add the all purpose flour and knead well. Cover tightly with a plastic wrap and refrigerate. After 2 hrs take them, roll and cut into desired shapes.. Bake them in a preheated oven(375°F) for 10 minutes or till they become light brown in color. Cool them. Now we can decorate them with icing.

It is not soo healthy but i use this cookie to teach shapes to mm. Serves some purpose... hi hi.

Asparagus salad

When i was in Germany, one of my good friend S taught me a recipe for cooking asparagus. Whenever i try any other recipe with spargal(German name for asparagus, hurray i remember), it is not as good as this..
All three of us like Asparagus very much, especially the greens and i bought it yesterday. So i thought i should do a post on it.
Here is the recipe
Asparagus - a bunch
salt - a pinch
sugar - a pinch
butter - 1 table spoon
cheese - a little bit

Wash asparagus, trim the end and peel just some skin from it. If the asparagus is white, peel the skin fully, leaving the bud. Boil it in water along with a teaspoon of butter, sugar, salt and cheese. It would be done in 10 mins. Strain the water. Serve with melted butter, salt and pepper. So simple but very tasty..

This salad can also be baked with lime juice and olive oil and cheese, till the cheese melts.

Banana bread

We went to a temple in New Jersey, along with some of our friends. There, in one of the temple, they gave banana as prasatham. My friend was telling that she is going to make banana bread out of it. I never heard the name banana bread before, so i started to Google. And mixing all the recipe, i could find in the Net, i made banana bread. Yummy, it was tasty. MYMAN was really happy to have it. (he would have thought, banana bread is better than the chappathi and palak dal)
Here is the recipe for banana bread..

ripe bananas, mashed -2
soft butter -1/3 cup
sugar -1/2 cup
egg, beaten -1
vanilla -1 teaspoon
baking powder -1 teaspoon
Pinch of salt
all-purpose flour - 1 cup


Preheat the oven to 350°F. Mash the bananas, add the softened butter to it. mix them. Now add sugar, egg and vanilla essence to them. Mix well. Add baking powder and a pinch of salt and mix well. At last, add the all purpose flour and mix. Pour the mixture in a loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour in a preheated oven(350°F). when the bread become brown in color, take it out and cool them. Slice them to serve. It can be served along with freshly prepared cream and fruits.