Honey Lemon Drink

Ingredients:

2 large lemon (squeeze the juice)
1/4 cup of honey
500 ml of ice cold water
Dash of salt

In a pitcher, mix lemon juice, honey, salt and water. Make sure the honey is completely dissolved. You can adjust the amount of honey to be added depending on your preference, you can also add some ice cubes if you want it to be cold as cold to give you brain freeze. I prefer to drink without ice cubes and chill before drinking. You can also have this as hot or warm drink, it tastes better than the chilled ones.

Guest Post by Vimitha Anand: Grilled Honey Pineapple in Chocolate Sauce

It seems like the year 2013 was just born but it's already the 3rd day, today will be the final day of celebration with Guest post from my fellow blogger sisters. To end it I have invited our lovely Vimitha Anand again to a guest post for me, she's not someone new to my space. Her first guest post for me was Sabudana Vada on 23rd October 2012, she shared a lot of wonderful recipes in her blog My Culinary Trial Room. Now let us see what she have prepared for us;

Like all the food bloggers out there, I wanted to end 2012 with a recap, a thankyou note and a wish. But then the kid never allows me to sit in front of the laptop these days. So giving up on the replay post, I moved on to other thoughts. A whole lot of ideas have been going through my mind on what to post on new year's eve. Orange curd tartlets or a chocolate mudcake.. why not butterscotch blondies (..oh the blondies have been in my to-do list for a long time) or nutella brownie bites. Ideas seem to come pouring. But I just couldn't bring myself together to bake something. And just like a booster, came by the FB msg from Karthi. She wanted another guest post for her beautiful blog and the theme was Xmas and new year. Since I had already posted a Christmas fruit cake for this year, I took up the theme of New Year. Not wanting to do an elaborate bake, I wanted to keep it simple and when I saw a fully riped pineapple sitting on my kitchen counter, I knew what the recipe was going to be. Its a simple but elegant dish and is best served hot, topped with a dollop of ice cream and drenched in chocolate sauce.

WISHING YOU ALL A HAPPY AND SAFE YEAR AHEAD

~*What U Need*~ For the chocolate sauce/gravy Butter - 2 tbsp Unsweetened cocoa powder - 1 tbsp Flour - 1 tbsp Sugar - 2 tbsp Milk - 1/2 cup Vanilla - 1/2 tsp How How I Made it: Chocolate Sauce: Heat butter in skillet. Stir in flour, cocoa powder and sugar and continue to cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes. Add the milk slowly say 1 tbsp at a time, whisking till incorporated. Cook for another 2 minutes, until thick. Add vanilla and remove from flame.

Store in air tight containers...

~*What U Need*~ For the Grilled Honey Pineapple Pineapple slices - 4, fresh or drained Honey - 2 tbsp Butter - 2 tbsp How I Made it: Grilled Honey Pineapple: Heat butter in a grill or griddle. Place the pineapple once the grill is hot, drizzle honey around the sides and cook for 3-4 mins till nice and caramelized. Flip, drizzle more honey and cook again. Once caramelized remove from pan.

Serve hot, with a dollop of ice cream (..which I missed) and drizzled with chocolate sauce.

** My Notes: ** Use fresh pineapple or canned ones. If using canned drain the juices fully. ** Using a grill gives the beautiful lines, but since I didn't have one, I used a griddle. But I highly recommend using a grill. ** You can also add 1 tsp of lime juice and 1/4 tsp of cinnamon. ** I used Cadbury's cocoa powder and hence skipped the vanilla. ** Cook till forms a thick custard and if it is too thick, dilute using milk to the desired consistency ** The sauce can be stored and used within 2 days. Serve as a dip for fruit bites or breads. So that's it Folks... 

With Love, Signs off!!!

Guest Post by Priya Suresh: Vegan Christmas Fruit Cake

I thought of sharing this Festive Season with all my fellow blogger friends and all my other friends who visit my blog, you must be thinking how I do it? Simple, I have requested a few of my fellow blogger friends who I admire their blog and recipes to do Guest Post for my blog from 23rd December 2012 until 1st of January 2013. Who said it is difficult to celebrate Christmas and New Year with all my friends all around the world?

Now coming to the first post, I have requested Priya Suresh of Priya's Versatile Recipes to share her wonderful recipe here. She never said NO and gladly sent this post to me, I visit her blog everyday just like the name of her blog all her recipes are versatile and makes one go drooling the moment you take a look at her clicks. The recipes in her blog is easy enough for any new cook to try in their kitchen. Now let us see what she has to say;

Cooking specially and doing a guest post for a co-blogger is definitely an interesting part of this virtual world, few days back I got a message from Arthy asking whether I can do a guest post for her. Her message made me happy and immediately I said ok for making a guest post for her. I visit her space almost everyday since few months and love her variety of drool worthy foods particularly her malay foods, I have bookmarked few to try especially her prawn sambal, as I love sea foods very much. 

Coming to the guest post,she said she want something perfect for this festive season, I know I'll be making a fruit cake for her and finally decided to make a vegan version.Thanks to Arthy for giving me a wonderful chance to make this guest post.

Ingredients:

2cups All purpose flour

1cup Whole wheat flour

1cup Avocado Puree

1cup Oil

1+1/2cups Packed brown sugar

1tbsp Flaxseed powder

1tsp Baking powder

1tsp Baking soda + 1/2tsp for cooking fruits

1/2tsp Cinnamon powder

1/4tsp Clove powder

1/4tsp Ginger powder

1/4tsp Nutmeg powder

3tbsp Honey

1tsp Vanilla essence

1/2cup Water

2cups Dry fruits (chopped finely,i used dates,black & golden raisins,apricots,pineapples,prunes and tutti frutti)

1/2cup Nuts (chopped finely)

2tbsp Orange zest

Grease a round cake pan with oil and line a baking sheet.

Sieve the flours with baking powder and baking soda and keep aside.

Mix the flaxseed powder in  three tablespoons of warm water and keep aside.

In a pan, heat the dry fruits,sugar,honey,water in low flame until the sugar gets dissolves, then put the flame in high and bring it to boil.

Put the flame again in low and cook for half an hour,so that the dry fruits will gets well cooked, put off the stove and add the 1/2tsp of baking soda,mix it and keep it aside.

Preheat the oven to 300F.

In a bowl, take together the avocado puree,oil,flaxseed mixture,vanilla essence and spice powders and mix, now add the cooked fruit mixture,orange zest and nuts,mix everything well.

Add the flours to this mixture and mix gently with a spatula.

Transfer this cake batter to the already prepared cake pan and bake cake for an hour or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Let the cake gets cool completely .

Dust with confectioner's sugar and enjoy.

Thank you so much Priya for sharing this recipe with us, God bless you. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.

Honey Chicken

This is a very very easy recipe, eating out Chinese food could be very costly for even a small portion, so if you make it at home so much you can save and the whole family can have as much as they like. Now let's see how I made this;

Ingredients:

Few pieces of fried chicken (click here for recipe)

1/4 cup of honey

2 tbsp of soft brown sugar

1 cup of water

2 tbsp of corn slurry (corn starch+water)

A pinch of salt

I have used my previous recipe to make fried chicken, so let's see how to prepare the gravy.

Boil water in a pan, add honey, salt and soft brown sugar when you can see the small bubbles add in the corn slurry and let gravy thicken. Turn off the flame and pour the gravy over the fried chicken.

Now our Honey Chicken is ready to be served, pour the gravy only when you are ready to serve the chicken. If you pour the gravy earlier the crispiness of the fried chicken will be gone and will be soaked.

Do try and let me know how it turned out!