Whole wheat crackers

Hi friends, we often munch on cheese crackers - what if we can replicate them home-styled and healthier as well?  Yes, we can!  When I came across the texanerin site, I could hardly resist these without a try.  If you kids like cheese, they may end up liking these crackers as well.  They are whole-wheat based and can be an ideal snack box option.  

After baking, they were crunchy and had a peppery taste.  You can play with spices and bring out your own flavours as well.  So, yes do try and let us know your feedback.  

Ingredients required

• 170 gram grated Cheddar Cheese
• 50 grams unsalted Butter, melted
• 100 grams of Wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper

Method

Add flour, salt, pepper and cheddar cheese in a dry bowl.  

Add in melted butter and mix them well. 

Now knead this using hands into a tight dough.  Let it rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 180 degree celsius.  

Roll them to  a sheet of 1/8 inch thickness.

Cut them into thin strips vertically.  

Repeat the same horizontally.  

Using a wooden dowel, prick a hole in centre of each square, this helps in non-rising of crackers during baking.

Bake them for about 10 minutes till they turn brown around the edges.  For ultra thin crackers, make sure you roll the dough with equal thickness.

Cool them on wire rack.  Store them in air-tight container

Happy Baking  :)

Mushroom Quiche

Quiche is an open faced savoury pie.  The filling of quiche is savoury custard and cheese along with meat, seafood and vegetables filling.  The flavour is derived from the filling and the type of cheese used.   They can be had both cold or warm, though I found them best when warmed. 

  Pie pan is first lined with pastry crust, that is blind-baked,  and then  followed by cheese, filling, custard and finally topped by cheese.  The custard filling is heavy cream whisked with eggs.  Ratio of cream and eggs is 2:1 (ie for every ½ cup of cream, you should add ¼ cup of whisked egg).  After baking, quiche gives out an aromatic smell throughout the place and  was very light and fluffy when tasted. 

My second filling, was vegetarian choice.   I used mushroom along with spring onions.  You can use mushroom with palak or spinach with corn.  Any vegetarian filling is fine, as long as it gets cooked well before stuffing into quiche. 

 I tried yellow(mature)  cheddar cheese in this quiche.  This yellow cheddar had an dominating aroma, and quiche was like an cheesy explosion J  You can also try other varieties like gouda, mozzarella etc.  All thanks to Swathi Iyer from Baking partners group, for initiating this wonderful challenge.  

For making 8-inch Pastry crust and Blind baking, please refer  here

For the  Mushroom and Spring onion filling:

You will be needing

For the filling

•         1 tbspn butter
•          ¼ cup of sliced shallots
•          ¼ cup of sliced spring onion bulbs
•          1 tsp finely chopped ginger
•          1 tsp finely chopped garlic
•          Salt, to taste
•          Pinch of haldi/turmeric powder
•          ½ tsp chilly powder
•          1 tsp dhanya powder
•          175 gm of finely sliced mushrooms
•          1 cup finely chopped spring onions (green part alone)

For the custard

•          ½ cup Amul fresh cream
•          1 large egg
•          ½ tsp of chilly powder
•          ½ tsp of pepper
•          Salt, to taste

Others

•          75 grams of cheddar cheese

Add butter to the pre-heated tawa, this is followed by adding shallots and spring onion bulbs.  Saute them for an minute, add finely chopped ginger and garlic.  Add all the spices.  

Add our sliced mushrooms and sauté till they coat the spices.  Add the spring onion greens , simmer the flame and cover the pan, cooking for 20 more minutes till the mushrooms are perfectly cooked and the filling becomes dry.  

Cool the filling, keep aside. 

Grate the cheddar cheese, keep aside.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree Celsius. 

For the custard, open the amul fresh cream pack.  Do not shake.  Separate the liquid contents from the pack and use the cream part.  This is done because we need an heavy cream for quiche and amul has an low fat content, so separating its cream would enhance the fat content and hence is done.  The liquid part can be used in cooking purpose, like you can add them in curry, kheer etc.  

In an large bowl,  add ½ cup of cream part (from amul cream), one large egg, chilly powder and salt.  Whisk them, till they are completely dissolved.  

Final Assembly:

Take the blind-baked pie crust and sprinkle them with cheddar cheese at the bottom.  

This is followed by our prepared filling.  

Pour in the custard and top with  the remaining cheese.

Bake them for 35 minutes or till the filling is firm.  

Mushroom quiche was dominated by cheddar cheese aroma, and tasted delecious.

Linking this to Baking partners, run by Swathi Iyer

Chunky vegetarian delight

      With cloudy day today, we need to take an preferable break from summer-delights, isn't it?   Well, these tikkis are made from chunky vegetables, spinach, cheese and are baked.  Out of the oven, these were completely gorgeous with an cheese burst surface and full of flavours.  All loved it and my little daughter showed her  not-so-bumpy biceps and said, 'mommy, I am getting lot of strength now'  :)  :)    These cute, cheesy and iron-rich tikki's are best served hot with tomato & fig flavoured sauce.

Though these tikkis are made of finely chopped vegetables, baking them  released not only their flavour, but also chunkyness is reduced to mushy, soft, grainy texture and paalak is like dissolving in your mouth.  This delightful tikki not only kids-friendly, sure to appeal adults too.  You must cool tikkis completely before peeling them from butter paper, as they might disintegrate when they are removed hot.  

Cheddar and sage scones

       Scones are quick-bread, usually leavened by Baking powder.  They are tea-time snacks, and had preferably with butter/cream and sometimes with Flavoured jam too.  As part of this month's Baking Partners challenge, Archana has suggested these scones.  Cheddar and sage scones, were highly aromatic, crumbly-cake like textured with an cheesy twist.  Topped with butter, these scones can be an absolute kid-pleaser and an hearty tea-time treat.

They were super-quick with an handy ingredients.  Once baked, they filled up my entire home with an strong aroma.  All this magical credit goes to sage, which imparted an light pungentness, when paired up with mustard.  Sage is better known to many, as, 'Karpooravalli' an medical plant at South India.  Since my childhood, these raw leaves were suggested to us, for an excellant cure of cold, cough etc.  Not only in scones/muffins, these scones can impart in various dishes like chicken, lamb, turkey etc.  Since, I didn't have fresh leaves, I went on to use dried sage.  All thanks to Archana and Swathi for introducing this exotic herbed scones to us.

For those, who would love to have spicier, don't hesitate to add an heavy pinch of chilly flakes.  

Next time, I am opting for those...  These scones, can be stored in an air-tight container over an week.