The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

OMG!!!!!!! In the name of sweet lord Jesus! Ok before regular readers get a culture shock hearing this from me, hear me out! I was given a fair warning by my dear fellow dbers. They told me this was a rich dessert. I was neglectful and blase about it – I mean I am not a chocoholic! In fact I don’t like chocolates

( Don’t gasp! Who ever said I was your average woman? – Have thus been rightfully chucked out of all women’s club! )

- hence did not think that this so called rich dessert could suck up to my taste buds! But guess what? – I am GLAD to say I have been smacked left, right and center!

Me, who sniffed at the person who came up with the word ‘food porn’, has to warn all of you – the minute you take a bite of these bars, the sound coming out of you will ape the ones you usually hear from a Porn site! Bliss! Please try it – its not hard at all! Special thanks to Lauren from Celiac Teen who introduced these to me. Yay to you

Lets start with the top layer. See all that beautiful chocolate layer below? It had such a caramel’ish taste to it ( may be cos I almost burnt it?? Oh well who cares as long as it tastes so good….) It was not too sweet at all – the one thing I relied greatly on to stop me from eating it..since it was not, well you are right – I did end up indulging!!:(

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Post tags: almonds, baking soda, brown sugar, cocoa powder, coconut, custard powder, eggs, glutinous rice flour, heavy cream, honey, milk, powdered sugar, semi sweet chocolate, sorghum flour, tapioca flour, vanilla extract

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This is the closest I am going to get as far as cooking and eating meat goes What? This looks and tastes ‘meaty’ enough for me (pun intended!). So much so I got two comments which makes this dish a success for me – at least as far as looks department goes. First, I shocked the hell out of my husband when he got home from work the other day. I placed the sliced pieces on the table and he was like “What’s wrong with you? – I knew I had to put an end to you watching Food network all the time. How the heck did you manage to do this?”. LOL! I laughed so much and it took him about 5 minutes of prodding and smelling the “meat” to finally get convinced that this was TOFU! Another success was a comment from our American neighbor, who for a second, forgot that we are vegetarians and told me that I had sliced the meat in a very different way than how they traditionally did it See my Vegetarian Thanksgiving post for other recipes.

Tastes wise, I seriously have no idea how a Turkey originally tastes like, but it was not as bland as I thought this will be when I first started making it. Indians like and add flavor like southerners add fat to their food. But I need not have worried that much. It would have helped to have more flavor though, but I did not want to deviate too much from the recipes on the net, on the account that they probably could make it tasting more closer to the real thing than my own creative one. But when you are making it, just add flavors as per your tastes. Tofu will absorb more flavor if you let it sit along with seasonings.
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Post tags: almonds, apples, balsamic vinegar, celery, cherries, garlic, nutmeg, onion, orange, sage, sesame oil, soy sauce, tofu

This recipe is in my drafts for like ages. To be precise 8 months!. But after getting repeated recipe requests for Baklava, I had to do “open sesame” and post this now. Why the hesitation? This Baklava is the Best one I have ever tasted, it just was the photo. It simply does not do justice to the heavenly sensation that it creates in your mouth and down your throat. I was waiting for the moment, when I would make this sinful indulgence again, but well it just did not arise.

Anyways, I personally think that we should ban Baklava. yes, you heard right. Its worse than drugs – makes you a die hard addict. I mean see it this way – I, don’t love sweets. Period. I am among the 0 .00000001% of women who DON’T go gaga over chocolate. In fact I run the other way. Sugar syrup makes me hurl and even the smell of desserts in general does not give that velvety esthesis which it usually induces in average humans. Inspite of all this – I did a complete U-Turn and all but finished a huge plate of Baklava all by myself. I simply couldn’t stop myself from reaching the fridge like 10 times a day to fork a mouthful!
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© DK for Chef In You, 2009. | Permalink | 35 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: almonds, caster sugar, cinnamon, cloves, lemon, walnuts

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

For a person who has never heard of Macaroons before (leave alone a french one at that), is completely lousy at making pastry/meringue based desserts, who laughed at the term ‘feet’ when talking about cookies, I really had this coming – thanks to this months Daring Baker’s Challenge. You would think that with such a handicap I would have started the challenge the first thing in the month? Nah! I am never going to prosper – last minute yet again it was and this time it punished me severely! 8 BATCHES of Macaroons are lying in a zip lock bag in my kitchen right now – looking like anything but Macaroons – Utter failure! And when I finished off all the aged egg whites, almond flour and the powdered sugar – I see a little light at the end of the tunnel.
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Post tags: almonds, Chocolate, corn syrup, eggs, heavy cream

Just like Halloween is unthinkable without Pumpkins, so is an Indian festival without this Kheer. “Kheer” in Hindi denotes sweet pudding commonly referring to Rice Pudding. Although there exists myriad varieties, this rice pudding rules the roost. You might even call it the King of the Indian sweet puddings. Any celebration, any traditional function and what more, even for day to day entertaining this Rice pudding finds its way into the menu. It is also known as “Pal Payasam” in the South of India – “Pal” denotes milk and “Payasam” is for Pudding.
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Post tags: almonds, cardamom, cashews, ghee, milk, pistachios, raisins, saffron, white rice

The instant someone even mentions Badam Halwa, which is probably Almond Fudge to the rest of the world, my mind immediately goes to my dear grandmother. Every time she made a visit to our house, she would bring packets of fresh home made Pal Kova (doodh peda a.k.a Milk Sweet) along with absolutely heavenly Badam Halwa. In my house ( and probably for miles around), I am the only one who does not prefer sweets at all and would run away in the opposite direction. So while everyone thronged around my grandma for a piece of Pal Kova, I would try to disappear from that place. But not even me, ever could possibly stay away from her delicious Badam Halwa and I would inadvertently end up taking 1-2 spoonfuls of this sinfully yummy Indian sweet. You might think it does not sound much, but keeping in mind that I hate sweets it was quite a lot. I have never in so many years of stay at my grandma’s place ever took trouble to ask the cook how he actually made the sweet, but now when I find that I have to make it for my family, I keep thinking of asking for that recipe.

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Post tags: almonds, cardamom, ghee, milk, saffron, sugar

King of  all nuts – Almonds! It is enjoyed almost by all people crossing boundaries, cultures and ages. Its influence is not only in the food but also in myths and literature. In fact, its affluence in Indian romance and beauty is legendary. If someone tells you that you posses almond shaped eyes, its considered a great compliment . It was supposedly the Mughals who introduced almonds to India and it has stuck since. The number of sweetmeats made out of almonds is countless. But to make almost all of them, this first step of blanching is essential which is what we are going to see in my Back to Basics section.

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Post tags: almonds

We are hardly whom you can call as TV watchers. There are only very few channels/programs I watch among which the one prominent channel is Food Network ( no surprises there!). It was instrumental in me learning many aspects and technicalities of cooking even though I am a vegetarian and use those to adopt to my vegetarian kitchen. Though I appreciate the chef’s for their adept skill and creativity, I sadly don’t agree with certain things which few cooks repeatedly mention in their shows. In my humble opinion, I do not agree with their view about how “adding ladles of butter” to a vegetarian dish/vegetables will make it tasty enough to make the kids eat. What? Aren’t you experienced and knowledgeable enough to know that this such a wrong advocate for eating one of the nutritious foods?

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Post tags: acorn squash, almonds, brown rice, carrots, celery, cumin, fennel seeds, fennel/sweet anise, onions, peas, red rice, squash

Just as South Indians are busy celebrating Navarathri during this time, so are the North Indians with their Dussehra. The plethora of sweetmeats during this time is countless and if you have a sweet tooth, then rest assured, you would find yourself in a candy heaven The decorations and processions during this time for Goddess Durga is something which you have to see to believe. It would bring goose pimples and is guaranteed to bring that awed look on the onlookers eyes – irrespective of how many times they might have witnessed it. Here is a video about Goddess Kali (another form of Durga) that has a beautiful devotional song playing in the background. The flute is amazing. It explains more about the Goddess.

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Post tags: almonds, chickpea flour, ghee, raisins, semolina, sugar

I have been on a DETOX sort of a diet for a while now. I use the word ’sort of’ since the recipes I follow are not exactly from any detox book, but which follows the basic essence of detoxing. Too much of work, lack of proper sleep and exercise, eating food outside are starting to show on me. What more, I am starting to feel it too. If you have been a regular reader of my site, you would know that I am not a follower of any ‘diets’ per se. They don’t work for me and I don’t believe in depriving myself of anything.
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Post tags: almonds, broccoli, carrots, dandelion greens, kamut, onions, rainbow chard, sichuan sauce, soy sauce, spinach, tofu