Chocolate, beets, and carrot muffins and a very happy 2011 to you!

Happy New Year 2011 to all my readers and friends! My New year fruit cake is still half done, so, for now ,here is a quick and healthy muffin I baked over X'mas for my little girl. My husband, who initially winced at the sight of veggies going into a chocolate muffin, later commented , " It's just not possible to figure out this one has beets and carrots in it. Really nice!". Little Abhi, as usual, enjoyed her mother's rare baking attempt.

All purpose flour (Maida) - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Baking powder - 1 teaspoon (5gms)
Egg - 1 large
Olive oil - 1/2 cup
Jaggery syrup - 1/2 cup
Pure Date syrup - 1/2 cup
(If you do not have jaggery or date syrup at hand then use packed brown sugar or even plain white sugar instead)
Beetroot - 1 small (grated very fine)
Carrot - 1 small (grated very fine)
Dates - a few (deseeded and chopped)
Dark unsweetened or semi sweetened chocolate chips - a liberal handful
Vanilla essence or powder - a few drops or pinches ( I used powder because I could not find propylene free essence)

Whisk the egg till it froths ( I use a braun electric handheld blender with whisking attachement). Add the olive oil and syrups, blend well. Sieve the flours and baking powder to ensure even blending. Add all ingredients, except chocolate chips, together and mix well. If you find the batter dry add a little buttermilk or milk at room temperature. Finally mix in teh choco chips.

Preheat oven at 200. Line the muffin tray with cases and pour in to fill 3/4th. Baking time might vary with the oven. I have a very basic OTG and baked my muffins at 150 for 25 minutes. Insert a toothpick and if it comes out clean your muffins are done.

Here's a picture of how this looks inside.

Omelette with greens

It's not that I don't enjoy traditional recipes but I do plead guilty to having a very strong streak of adventure when it comes to food. I love adding a lil something extra to give what my family eats a fillip !


Whole Egg - 1
Egg whites - 2
Coriander leaves (cilantro) - a medium sized bunch
Spinach (palak) - 4-5 fresh leaves
Small onions (shallots/scallions) - 3 Nos
Ginger - 1 " piece
Green chillies - 3 Nos
Fresh ground pepper - as spicy as you want
Salt to taste
Chop the onions, ginger, green chillies, and the greens well. Whisk in the eggs. I choose the yolk of only one of the 3 eggs to lessen the cholestrol content (you may want whole eggs). Add the salt.
Heat a girdle and drizzle a little olive oil. pour out the omlette. Sprinkle the pepper on top. Turn over and cook other side.
Serve with whole grain bread for a hearty breakfast.
Sending this over to Sangeeth's 101 Recipe Series featuring Omelettes. The event is on at http://letusallcook.blogspot.com/2008/08/calling-all-food-bloggers-for-101.html


Vidhya of My Recipes (iyercooks.blogspot.com) has given me the beautiful Perfect blend of friendship award. Thank you, dear!




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I pass this on to my sweet friend Lubna of kitchenflavours; my first blogger friend, EC of simpleindianfood; my 'newest' visitors Yasmeen of yasmeen-healthnut and Divya of mixtomatch.blogspot.com; Srivalli of cooking4allseasons just for her kind heart; and with a big bouquet of heartfelt apologies to my friend Sunshinemom of Tongue Ticklers(tumyumtreats) for inadvertently missing out the last date of her first event :-(

Omlette with beans filling

Eggs - 2 (only the whites)

Cornflour - 2 teaspoons (about 10gms)

Ginger - 1 small piece (finely chopped)

Garlic - 2 cloves (finely chopped)

Small onions(shallots) - 4 Nos (finely chopped)

Salt to taste

Ground pepper - 1/4 teaspoon

For filling

Black eyed beans - 1/2 cup

Tomato paste or thick puree - 1/4 cup

Olive oil - 1 teaspoon

Red chilli powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Salt to taste

Soak the beans overnight. Mix olive oil, chilli powder and tomato paste and pressure cook for 4 whistles. Add salt to taste.

Whisk the egg whites and cornflour together till there are no lumps. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Heat a flat non-stick girdle (dosa pan) and pour out the entire egg mixture into a thick omlette. Cook till golden brown and turn over. Once done again turn over and spread the beans mixture on one half of the omlette. Fold the other half over the side spread with the beans filling. Simmer for 1/2 a minute and then take off flame. Serve.