Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

My son loves to eat a piping hot bowl of oatmeal for breakfast everyday. He never gets tired of it. So when I had just one egg left in the egg cartoon and the expiry date looming on me I decided to try these utterly delicious, chewy oatmeal cookies. Needless to say it was a big hit with friends and family.

I adapted this recipe from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich. I love the way she arranged the cookies recipes according to their textures. So this recipe was under the chewy section. I love all the different textures in this cookie, the edges are crunchy, center is soft and chewy and the raisins and walnuts also add a nice textural contrast in each bite. I will definitely be making this recipe again and again.

Giant Ginger Cookies

These cookies are to die for ( no kidding! ). These cookies will convert even the non-ginger lover in your family. Huge, thick, moist, melt-in-your mouth are just some of the adjectives to describe this cookie. One bite and you will feel all the spices in this cookie warming your throat and belly. These spices are so appropriate for the fall and winter season, as we call them warming spices.

Carole Walters really knows how to make cookies. One of my favorite cookies from her book Great Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets are these Giant Ginger Cookies. My five year old loves these cookie and even though chocolate chip cookies are his all time favorite he will take this cookie over that any day.


Anna from Cookie Madness added some cayenne to this recipe, which I tried and absolutely loved. I used all butter instead of half butter and half shortening. So to counteract the over spreading of the cookie during baking I refrigerate my dough for 30 minutes before baking. I also omitted the 1/3 cup of sparkly sugar to roll the cookie dough in before baking as I did not want to make them sweet and did not want the change in texture the crunchiness would provide. These are not your store bought ginger cookies, so hard that you need to re-count your teeth every time you bite into one. These are huge and so soft that they melt in your mouth. This is my fourth batch already this season !! Thank you so much Anna for tempting me to try out these cookies. These are now one of my most favorite cookies to make.

 

Puran Poli

Puran Poli is poli (tortilla-like flatbread ) stuffed with puran ( channa dal and jaggery mixture).This is made during festivals and is a favorite amongst many. It is also called Holige or Obbattu in Karnataka. My mom makes these at home and that is where I learnt how to make these polis.

The other day it was Varalakshmi Vratham, so while my mother-in-law took care of all the puja, I took care of all the cooking. One of the dishes to be made was puran poli. Honestly, I could not wait to make this, but the process of resting the dough and pressure cooking the dal ensured that it was the last dish to be made. The puran polis came out great, soft, moist and filled with a lot of puran. I am not very fond of the ultra thin and dry polis that requires you to have a glass of water nearby whenever you are eating one. I love my polis to be plump with puran, soft, moist and fragrant with the smell of cardamom and nutmeg and this recipe produces such a poli.

They are actually quite easy to make the trick is to have a very soft dough. If you make the regular roti / paratha dough, it will be very difficult to roll, your puran poli will end up as a disaster during rolling. Also ensure that you thicken the channa dal and jaggery / gur mixture by evaporating as much water as possible without burning it. Remember that the puran will thicken as it cools down, thick enough to roll out in soft round balls.

I do apologise for the lack of photos of the finished product, you see my hungry hubby was glaring at me for cooling all the hot rotis while I snapped photos.


Puran Poli