South Indian Sesame Rice

This is great for using up leftover white rice.

Ellu Sadam / Sesame Rice Recipe
Source: Southern Spice by Chandra Padmanabhan

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked rice
Salt to taste

For the Spice Powder:
1/2 cup white sesame seeds / til / ellu
2 tbsp grated coconut
4 dry red chillies
1 tsp oil

For Tempering:
2 tbsp gingelly oil / nallennai / sesame oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
3 tbsp shelled peanuts
1/2 tsp cumin seeds / jeera
2 dry red chillies, halved
1 tsp urad dal / ulutham paruppu
1 tsp channa dal / kadala paruppu
A few curry leaves

Instructions:
1. Dry roast the sesame seeds and grated coconut separately in a pan until nicely browned. Add oil for spice powder and lightly fry the red chillies, taking care not to burn them. Cool, grind to a fine powder and set aside.
2. Heat oil for tempering and add the roasted peanuts. When almost fried and brown, add the rest of the ingredients. When the mustard seeds pop and the dals turn golden, remove from heat.
3. Stir in the rice and the spice powder. Serve at room temperature with raita.

Potato Soup Bread

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups potato soup
1/4 cup non-fat dry milk
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 1/4 cups all purpose flour (adjust as needed for proper consistency)

DIRECTIONS:

1. In kitchenaid, mix all above ingredients. Make smooth, very soft dough.
2. LET RISE 60-90 minutes until puffy.
3. Deflate dough. The dough is too soft to shape, so pat it into a 10 x 5 in loaf pan.
4. Cover loaf pan.
5. LET RISE 45-60 min until puffy.
6. Preheat oven to 350 F.
7. Bake 45 min, until interior temperature of bread is 190 F.
8. Take bread out of oven, let cool 5-10 min.
9. While the bread is rising, preheat the oven to 350°F.
10. Take bread out of pan, let cool.
11. Store at room temperature for a few days; slice, freeze and use as needed.
12. Enjoy! This bread toasts well and tastes great. Use it as you would any white bread.

Cast Iron Cornbread

I make this in a cast iron dutch oven. It can be made in an 8 x 8 brownie pan as well.

This is my original recipe.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter, softened
1/2 c milk
1/2 c sour cream
1/3 c sugar
1/2 c mashed potatoes (leftovers work perfect)
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
1 c yellow cornmeal
1 c all purpose flour

Directions:

1. Preaheat oven to 425 F. PLACE CAST IRON DUTCH OVEN INTO OVEN WHILE IT IS PREHEATING.
2. Mix wet ingredients in kitchenaid.
3. Mix dry ingredients in other bowl.
4. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients in kitchenaid. Mix well.
5. Take cast iron out of oven. Add 2 tsp of butter and swirl around until bottom of pan is coated.
6. Add batter to cast iron.
7. Bake (without lid!) for 30 min.
8. Cool, cut and enjoy!

Note: If you make potato soup and have leftovers, you can use that as well, or corn soup or mushroom soup. Adjust the milk content downward to compensate for the liquidity of the soup. Cornbread batter has the consistency of thick pancake batter.

Optional: Chop a jalapeno into the batter if you like your cornbread spicy.

 

One Yolk Caramel Custard

A lot of people throw out the egg yolk. What a waste. You can also freeze it to use it later. I didn’t want to bother since I forget about the yolk when it’s time to use it again.

Instead, make a one yolk caramel custard. Serves one.

ONE YOLK CARAMEL CUSTARD

Prep Time: 12 min
Cook Time: 40 min
Ready Time: 52 min
Servings: 1

INGREDIENTS:

one egg yolk
two tablespoons of sugar
one cup of reduced fat milk (you can use heavy cream but trust me this works just perfect)

DIRECTIONS:

Get a small sauce pan on medium heat and put in your sugar to start to caramelize. (This is called dry caramelizing sugar).

At the same time microwave or heat up the milk to just before boiling.

Once the sugar has a nice amber color to it add the hot milk and start whisking until it is nicely dissolved and a perfect cafe creme color.

Now beat your egg yolk and slowly add in a little bit of the milk whisking while your doing it add a little more at a time until you have the entire mixture in. (This is called tempering).

Get out your ramekin. Pour in the mixture until almost to the top and place them on a pan that has sides high enough to pour water in to at least a 1/3 of the way up. Now cover with foil to prevent a skin forming and into a 300 degree oven for 30-40 min. Check around 20 min the sides should be firm and the center a little wobbly that is when you know they are done.

Take out let cool to room temp before chilling. Serve with a little whip cream and chocolate shavings or some nice mint or basil.

Pie Crust Scraps (Using Up Leftovers)

Have any leftover pie crust scraps?

Well, don’t throw them away.

Roll them out, like 1 mm thin. Cut out as many 2-3 inch diameter circles as you can (even number of circles, please).

Apple Pie (Baked Hand Pies)

Lay the circles on a baking sheet covered with a silpat.

Add a half a spoonful of your favorite jam, and a half a spoonful of cream cheese mixture (if you want).

(Here shown with apple pie filling)

Apple Pie (Baked Hand Pies)

Apple Pie (Baked Hand Pies)

Cream cheese mixture:

2 tbsp cream cheese, room temperature
1 tsp butter, softened
2 tbsp sugar

Mix well. Yum.

You can add strawberry jam and cream cheese for a strawberries and cream mixture, or whatever you happen to like.

Also good: blackberry jam and cream cheese, guava jam and cream cheese, pineapple jam and cream cheese, raspberry jam and cream cheese.

If you have leftover buttered apples, pop them into this pie, it’ll taste great.

If you have leftover sweet potato pie mix, or pumpkin pie mix, toss those right in, also great.

For chocophiles, nutella is always a winner.

Line up on silpat, bake 350 F for about 18-20 minutes.

Apple Pie (Baked Hand Pies)

Apple Pie (Baked Hand Pies)

Alternatively,

Just cut the pie crust scraps into little strips. Bake 350 F for like 10 minutes (time depends on the size of your strips, so keep an eye on them!).

Cover with honey and enjoy!

Or: cover with cinnamon sugar and enjoy!

Or: cover with chile lime spice (they sell it in mexican stores) and enjoy with a sour cream and honey dip. Enjoy!