Thin Crust Veg Pizza

Though making Pizza base at home sounds difficult , but believe me this is very simple. I am a beginner with baking but it came out great on the very first time. Second time I made it for a  party at home. My hubby's friends loved this one. After that i have made it several times, but was not able to take snaps. I found the recipe  from "The Singing Chef". I have made little modifications to make it thin crust pizza.
For the Pizza Base:
                            1 &1/2 cup of Refined Flour
                            1 Tbsp yeast
                            1/4 cup of  warm water
                            1/4 cup milk                     
                            1/8 cup of refined sunflower oil
                             1 tsp sugar
                             1 tsp salt (or as per taste)

For the Pizza Toppings:

1 Onion, sliced
1 medium Tomato, chopped finely
1/2 green Capsicum, sliced
1/2 yelllow Capsicum, sliced
1/2 red Capsicum, sliced
4 babycorns cut into long halves
 2 Tbsp of tomato sauce (U can also use pizza sauce available in market)
100g grated Pizza Cheese (U can also use mozzarella cheese )
Salt to taste
1 tsp garam masala powder
1 tsp oil

Note: you can also add paneer cubes, sweet corn, olives, jalapenos. 

Take a mixing bowl and place the milk, oil, salt and sugar in it. Add yeast to the warm water & leave it for 5 mins. Then add the water yeast mixture to milk mixture & mix it properly. Add the flour and knead into a dough. If required add little more flour. Cover the dough with a damp muslin cloth. Allow to rise until double in size (roughly 45-50 minutes). The long the better. Sometimes i make dough in afternoon and make pizza in the evening. It rises really nice and fluffy.
 To make the pizza take some dough, roll it using rolling pin. Then place aluminum foil on baking tray. Sprinkle little bit of oil & spread it. Spread out the pizza base. Then spread tomato sauce over it. Sprinkle the vegetables topping. Then comes the grated cheese. Then sprinkle little bit of salt & garam masala powder. Bake it in a pre heated oven for 15-20 mins at 210 C.
Serve with tomato ketchup. Add little bit of oregano for the effect. If you want it spicy add chilli flakes.

Valentine's Day - Heart Shaped Chocolate cakes with chocolate centres

This one is dedicated to my Hubby. He loves chocolate in any form. So i baked this for him On Valentine's day.
Ingredients:

Refined Flour - 2 cups,
eggs - 2
Cocoa Powder - 2 Tbsp
Oil - 3/4 cup
Sugar  - 3/4 cup
Milk- 1/2 cup
Baking Powder - 1 Tbsb
Vanilla Essence - 2 tsp
 For Chocolate Ganache:
100gm dairymilk chocolate
3 Tbsp milk cream
1 tbsp butter

Recipe:

To make choco ganache, take chocolate, cream & butter in a bowl & cook it over boiling water till smooth. Keep in the freezer for one hour till firm. Scoop out into balls and place one in the indentation in the batter in each mold.

For cake batter mix all the ingredients. Fill 1/3 of the mold with cake batter, then place the choco ganache balls.Then on top again add the cake batter.
 Bake in 180degree for 15-20 mins.
Result was amazing.Try it once, u'll definitely love this one.

Trip to Bheemeswari & Shivanasamudra Falls

Bheemeswari is around 3 hours journey from Bangalore. From there Shivanasamudra Falls is around 45 minutes. Though Bheemeswari was disappointing but trip to Shivanasamudra Falls and the coracle ride made my day. We passed under the fall in coracles with water splashing all around us. It was simply stunning and would cherish for longtime to come.
We had started early in the morning. As planned our potluck breakfast consisted of Dahi Vada, Puri, alu mutter, dum aloo, peetha and many other delicious odiya dishes. We reached there by 9:30. When i got down the tempo traveller i was mesmerized by the view. We spread our mats near the river. Started to serve our dishes & then....... We had company. We were surrounded by monkeys. They outnumbered us. With every passing second they were drawn closer by the food. Most of us gulped down the breakfast which we would have liked to relish. The jungle resort at Bheemeshwari organizes rafting & fishing camp. They were overbooked due to holidays, and fishing camp is only in the morning. This we would plan some other day. So after breakfast we went to the river, spread our mats and sat near it. But within one hour we were bored by the scenic beauty. So we decided to leave for Shivanasamudra falls. I would describe the journey to Shivanasamudram some other time.

Dahi Potal

Potal / parwal is very common in oriya food. I normally make potal kurma, alu parwal masala or alu potal bhaja. But one day when googling i found this recipe in Suparna's Food Fascination. Its a bengali delicacy. In many ways oriya & bengali foods are similar, may be because of geographical proximity. I tried it out with little changes to suit our taste buds & it came out great.
Ingredients:

4 to 5 Potal/ Pointed gourd/ Parwal
¾ cup curd, whisked
½ tsp red chilli powder
½ tsp turmeric powder
3 tsp ginger garlic paste
2 bay leaves
1 tsp garam masala
Salt and sugar to taste
4 tbsp oil

Recipe:
Wash parwal. Peel the skin every 1/2" inch apart.Trim the edges. Make ½” slit at both ends (do not cut them into halves). Deep fry the parwal one by one and set it aside. Heat 1 tbsp oil in the Kadai add bay leaf, ginger garlic paste, turmeric powder, salt, chilli powder.
Keeping the flame low add curd, parwal, sugar and sprinkle some water cook uncovered for 5-6 minutes stirring occasionally. Add garam masala, mix so that the masala coats the vegetable evenly. Cook till done. Serve hot with rice or roti.

This is a very simple recipe, using very few ingredients & can be made within 15/20 minutes if u have everything in place.