Cake House

This one is very simple folks.  Cut a nice, ripe melon in 4 quarters. One to make the cute balls, the flesh of the rest to be pureed with the juice of one orange and (the secret)! a splash of pastis.   Prepare well in advance so you have plenty of time to chill in the fridge. Serve with some cured ham. Or not...

Delicious bite on a hot summer night. Use a garlic press and squeeze 1 clove into some olive oil. Soften on a low heat. Brush the oil over the bread. Fry the bread in a dry pan. Mix the fresh peas and beans with olive oil, l emon juice , lemon zest and chopped mint . Crumble the goat's cheese. Serve as shown

Recently we had lunch at our friends Jappe and Susanna and when she served this I couldn't wait till the beetroots in my garden were ready. Today some of them were big enough, so I boiled them for 45 minutes. While they were cooling I whipped up a dressing with champagne vinegar, honey, walnut oil, olive oil and salt&pepper. Finely sliced a spring onion. Peeled the beetroots under the tap with my thumbs and sliced them very thinly with the mandoline. I arranged them in a circle on a plate. Then put the onion, goat cheese and almond slivers over it and finally the dressing.

W hile I am writing this post, my kiddo is all over me. He crawls here and there, takes out everything, making me busy behind him. Nowadays it take approximately 2- 3 days for me to write a blog post. So please excuse me for the delay. From sooo long, I was thinking of making this falafel, but due to something or the other I couldn’t try this out. This Ramadan, for iftar snacks I finally got the opportunity to try this out and it tasted amazing. Falafel is a deep fried middle eastern fried balls or patties. This is a wonderful and amazing evening snack which will be loved by all. These falafels are usually round fried balls but I made them as patties for my little one who loves cutlets a lot. There are so many places where we get falafels in Bangalore, I tried one of these and loved it. Falafels when eaten along with tahini sauce will be mind blowing. Tahini sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for about 3 months in an airtight container. Ingredients: Chick peas- 250 gms Onions- 2 n

 A truly fabulous, sunny-looking salad. From Simon Hopkinson in The Guardian For the blue cheese dressing 30g roquefort 1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed Juice of ½ lemon  2 tbsp red-wine vinegar 150ml olive oil 2 tbsp soured cream 2-3 tbsp warm water (optional) For the salad Inner leaves from 3-4 round lettuces 1 avocado, peeled and diced 2 large handfuls picked watercress 3 hard-boiled eggs, roughly chopped 3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped 8 slices pancetta, grilled until crisp 40g roquefort 1 tbsp snipped chives Freshly ground black pepper Put all the dressing ingredients bar the water in a food processor and whizz smooth. If the dressing is too thick for you – I prefer it pourable – loosen with a little water. Put to one side. Arrange the lettuce on a dish and scatter the avocado, watercress, eggs, tomatoes and pancetta over it. Spoon over the dressing, crumble the cheese on top and sprinkle with chives. Trickle over a little oil, to give the salad a glossy look, and grind on lots o

A s the Ramadan fasting is going on, there will be many dishes which will be left over and so one among these are the chapatis which we almost always end up wasting. Last couple of days we have been wasting the leftover chapatis, but I felt bad doing that. So I decided to do something and googled many sites and hit upon this recipe , which can be made easily within minutes. Many recipes can be made with leftover chapatis, but I liked this as I didn’t have much time left before the Iftar time( breaking the fast). Believe me I made this dish within half an hour including the pics. This is a very nutritious preparation with all the veggies stuffed in the cutlets. Instead of egg, we can roll them in semolina or else dip them in egg and roll them in breadcrumbs or corn flakes. As I didn’t have any of these I simply dipped them in eggs and shallow fried them. This turned out to be a yummy iftar dish which I am sure I will repeat for sure. You can freeze the uncooked cutlets and can be made