These Butter Cookies remembered me the Butter Biscuits. During my childhood, i remember my mom used to send all the necessary ingredients for the butter biscuits in big buckets(thooku) to our nearby town villupuram. Our Helper Pushpa takes them to some bakery in villupuram and comes home with butter biscuits taking pain in lifting all along thru bus. Life at villiage surely lacks luxuries but i bet, They are Full of Memories!!


These were Melt in mouth kind of cookies, and at home we all loved it much. When there is so much of butter will it go wrong?

Recipe for Butter Cookies:
Makes about 40 cookies
Recipe from : http://e-bookdown.com/311-cakes-and-bakes.html

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup of Butter (at room temp)
3/4 cup of powdered sugar
1 egg
2 cups of All Purpose Flour / Maida
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of baking soda


Method:

Pre-Heat the oven at 180C for about 10 mins. Line the Baking tray with butter paper or aluminium foil sheet.

Whisk a egg and keep it seperate.

In a mixing bowl, put the butter and powdered sugar and whisk until light and fluffy either with your hand mixer or a whisk. add the whisked eggs.

Sieve the flour with baking powder and baking soda for about 2 or 3 times. add the sieved flour to the mixing bowl and gently fold in. make sure to mix with spatula and fold the flour gently.

Pinch a small amount of dough, roll it with your palms to the thickness of your finger, place it on the butter paper and shape it in "S" shape.

Give enough space between cookies, so that it can expand while baking.

Bake the cookes at 180C for about 12-15 mins, till you see the bottom of the cookies turn golden in colour.

Cool the Cookies after baking and transfer them to an air tight container.


I also made round cookies, as i did not have patience to shape all the 40 cookies. S shape was much loved by the kid! It will be a great school snack and party snack!

Note:

1.You can give egg wash over the cookies to get crisp cookies. this cookies can also be prepared without eggs.

2.The Cookie Dough can be wrapped up with cling wrap and cooled at fridge. after cooling, knead them gently and roll them off into 1/2 inch thickness. you can then use cookie cutter over the rolled dough and furthur bake them.

3. The Actual recipe used silvered almonds as the topping to the cookies, do try it out to.

I found this Silky Chocolate Pudding from Smitten Kitchen. i prepared this pudding for my apartment kids and they loved it so much. they came to me one day asked me to prepare again and saw me live preparing the pudding and they went home and prepared just like i did. One of the kid's Grandmom was so impressed and asked me, where i found the recipe? believe me the kids prepared the pudding more than me and even they brought me what they made to taste, it was so so Gooood!


Ingredients: Recipe for 5-6 servings

Dark Chocolate -  1 and 1/4 cup (or)  6 oz.
*Coccoa powder can also be used instead of dark chocolate. if so, Coccoa Powder - 1/2 cup

Milk - 1/2 litre (3 cups)
Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp
Salt - a pinch
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Corn Flour - 1/4 cup

Method:

Use Double Boiler or Boil water in a big bowl and fit another empty bowl over the big bowl. simmer the flame once the water starts to boil.

Grate the Dark Chocolates or cut them into small pieces.


Add Corn Flour, salt a pich, Sugar to the empty bowl and mix well. If using Cocco powder, add it too. slowly add milk one cup at a time and mix well with a whisk. see to that no lumps are formed.

Keep Stirring with the whisk in slow flame for upto 5-8 mins till the mix gets thicker, or it should coat the spoon.

Once the mix got thickened, add Dark Chocolate and mix well with the whisk. the chocolates melts and mixes well with milk and corn starch. once it all turned chocolatey, remove from the bowl and add vanilla essence and mix. If you wish you could strain the pudding in the stage, if you feel some lumps in the pudding.

Let the Pudding cool and transfer them to small cups. cover them with a cling wrap and refrigerate for upto 2hrs. Serve them chill.


Adding Chocolates or coccoa powder can be skipped and the pudding can also be enjoyed plain as Vanilla Pudding. It Tastes Good!

Enjoy the easy dessert!!

Ingredients:

Potatoes - 4
Grated Coconut - 2 tsp's
Lemon Juice - 1/4 tsp

For Tempering:

2 tbsp of Oil
1/2 tsp of mustard
1/4 tsp of cumin
1/2 tsp of split urad dal
1/4 tsp of asafoetida
1 sprig curry leaves
a pinch of turmeric powder
2 tsp's of sambhar powder
1 tsp of corriander powder


Method:

Peel the skin of the Potatoes and chop them into small pieces.

Heat 2tbsp of oil in a Pan, add mustard and let it splutter, add split urad dal, cumin, asafoetida powder, and curry leaves. roast them all. Next add Sambhar powder, a pinch of turmeric powder, Corriander Powder & Salt to taste and saute them in the oil for a minute.

Add the chopped Potatoes to the Pan and mix well with the masala's. simmer the flame and let it rest for a minute, for the potatoes to absorb the flavours of masala's.

Add 1/4 cup of water to the pan , mix well and close the pan with its lid and let the flame be in sim for about 5 mins, till the potatoes are nicely cooked.

After the Potatoes are cooked, remove them from flame,  while removing the poriyal from the pan, also scrap the masala's sticked to the pan. add the grated coconut and lemon juice and mix well.

Serve Hot with Sambhar Rice or Vathakuzhambu Rice.

How to Prepare Sambhar Quick?



Chop 1 carrot, 1 radish, 1 onion, 1 tomato into pieces. add them all to the 1/4 cup of toor dal with 1 cup of water, a pinch of turmeric powder, a pich of asafoetida and a drop of oil. Pressure Cook all for upto 4 whistles.

You can add other vegetables like Drumstick, brinjal and beans.

Heat a tsp of oil in a pan, add 1/2 tsp mustard, 1/4 tsp fenugreek, a pinch of asafoetida, 1 sprig of curry leaves, 3 dry red chillis's and roast them all.

Now add cooked toor dal and 2 cups of water. add 2 tsp of sambhar powder and a tsp of tamarind paste and mix well. add salt to taste.

Garnish the Sambhar with chopped corriander leaves.

I am Crazy about Tomato Soup, which my grandmother used to make with loads of vegetables in it. apart from that, when i wrote a story for the first time at my class 7, has Tomato Soup played an important role. to brief the story here, the girl in the story drinks lots of tomato soup and suffers from stomach ache and the girl's sister gets caught in trouble while going out to get medicine. though it sounds funny now, the memories are as bright as the soup color!


While speaking about the bright red color of the soup, it all comes from a small bit of beetroot. that's a trick i got from Suganya's Tasty Pallette.

If you are Curd Rice Lover, do give it a try. I highly recommend this for Kids. also this Curd rice will be a great treat for your Guests.

Vegetable sabzi can be prepared in dry and in gravy form. i am sharing both recipes with you here. Initially i bought sabzi masala, that is available in the market and used it, later, i stopped buying the sabzi masala and added chilly powder, corriander powder, garam masala and kauri methi to my sabzi. it gave the same taste as the sabzi masala available in the market. but i am desperate in knowing what all go into sabzi masala. If you know, please share with me.