Weekend in Pictures!!

Are you set with a weekend plan already? Its Friday, and most of us don’t have an extra buck to spend outside. The restaurateur in me is reeling under losses, but the blogger in me has taken over to celebrate these barren weeks. So this is what I plan to do this weekend.

Gardening would be  the first thing indeed. I need to ensure such harvests all month long.

8th of December harvest.

4th of December Harvest!

from garden to table! Fresh Zucchini harvested to be stirfried  and served over a crisp salad.

Stocking up the refrigerator and the freezer is always on my weekend To-Do list.

Turmeric is a great spice with anti bacterial properties. It helps preserve the meats better!

What better than to cook up a few sauces and condiments in advance and refrigerate and/or freeze them for the naughty times to come. After the demonetization drive, I am pretty sure many of you restrain from ordering out. This is an excellent way to ensure that your cravings are fulfilled in a healthier and cleaner fashion.

Marinara Sauce is a great homemade sauce which can be refrigerated for a week, and it tastes even better as it ages.

Breakfast cookies couldn't be better than this- Whole wheat Kesar Pista Cookies and hot Bournvita

A pizza in a swirly bread form! Yum breakfast up ahead.

Some romantic family cooking with both my boys on toes, is my favourite Saturday dinner activity. My little one loves to bake bread, while my elder one loves to chop veggies. I absolutely love to stir up this storm!!

Apple Pie to the perfection!

Shakshuka with homemade whole wheat bread!

Hubby requested an Orange Cake for his Birthday!

And an Orange Cake he got!

Stocking up on good wine and booze never seems to be a bad idea, especially since New Year is around the corner.

Have you tried making a cocktail with 24 hours refrigerated flavoured water like so?? A must try!!

Lastly, some homemade spicy caramel popcorn with a great movie on Hotstar should sum up the weekend beautifully.

So this is how I would be spending my weekend. Drop in a comment to tell me how you are placed during this weekend. Cheers!!

LLWT-4 Tackling Festival Calories

Let’s Lose Weight Together Part 4 (LLWT-4)

Apologies are expected. I write after about 2 months while on the quest to complete a series of articles titled – Lets Loose Weight Together. The delay is unnatural and uncalled for at the same time. But as you read on, you would know the circumstances were such that I was completely zoned out.

As an update to my weight goals, I am 3 kgs lighter than since I started. Now another 3 kgs to go but it would need to wait till next year. I contracted dengue earlier this month, and after a 4 day visit to the hospital and many more days of rest at home, I am very happy in my skin as of now. I have continued eating clean as mentioned at the start of the LLWT series. But this article is aimed at something else entirely. I started writing it in October, to chronicle how to maintain weight during festive season where festive eating is at its height. For all who have not read the earlier posts, I strongly suggest you read and start to slowly incorporate your diet in the sketch I mentioned below. This is the right time for you to start so that the Christmas season with all its buttery goodness leaves a great taste on your palette but no calories on your tummy.

Throughout the Pujo and Diwali season, I possessed high metabolism rate which helped me burn out my cheat luxury effortlessly. This past season, I gorged on everything deep fried, sweet and alcoholic. But still was able to meet you at more or less the same weight as before. I am writing this article today, so that everyone feeling guilty of Diwali gorging can take a few leaves out of this tip jar, and better equip themselves for the coming Christmas- New Year season.

Eating is life for me, so letting go by a day without food is a wastage I can’t really imagine. But at the same time, being fit and healthy ensures that we can eat on our favorite cheat food till time immemorial. My goal is to not get an hourglass figure, but to attain a healthy weight in ratio to my height. By BMI calculation I am in the upper healthy range, and another reduction of 3 kgs will ensure I fall in the right weight to height category. When I started this series of article, I didn’t think I would carry on for so many weeks. But life is such, especially for an entrepreneur. We face delays in every aspect, and learn to live with it for future.

So here are some tips and tricks that I used to get past the post Diwali leftover weeks, with flying colors.

1. Dinners become the most important meals in the festive season. During Durga Pujo, a lot of my friends visited us at pandals to gorge on these yummy Bengali street food. Diwali celebratory parties with innocent card games and yum food were always served for dinners. So eating healthy for dinner is a bit far-fetched at that time. But we can overcome this by going to a party with a full tummy. This way you gorge less of those deep fried starters or farsaan. I have made a habit of having a cream cracker biscuits and/or roasted channa with tea in the evening. These low calorie snacks fill u up for a long time and hence you actually just taste and move on to the next dish effortlessly.
2. Another thing I do most often is to have a cup of vegetable soup before going out to eat. This helps fill me up with nutritious fibers which is good for my body. I always make a batch of vegetable soup by just boiling a collection of vegetable in a pressure cooker with salt and pepper and blend it to fine puree. I add some aromatic herbs at times to make it interesting to the palette.
3. I start each day with a big bowl of freshly cut fruits. This helps in detoxifying my body immensely. The heavy dose of fibers right in the morning cleanses last night’s filth effortlessly, and creates a path for a better nutritious day ahead.

To be honest, I eat very healthy, but I drink very filthy. So if you are anything like me, then these next tips would help you even better. It did to me, and being honest about this helped me curb my drinking from almost alternate days to once or twice a week only, that too alternate weeks at times. And that my friends, I feel is a triumph of a sort.

1. Make it a rule to never indulge in fried snack while drinking. This helps a lot. Alcohol makes you hungry. The best way forward is to enjoy a drink along with your dinner, or have a drink after the dinner. This helps in getting rid of the intense craving to reach for the bag of chips or other naughty snacks.
2. Roasted chana is a tasteless protein based snack. But it is one of the healthiest things to have with a peg of whiskey. Mix it with some salsa and it becomes a Mexican appetizer. Mix it with kuchumber salad, and it becomes an Indian salad. Stick to salads like these that appeal to our taste buds more than anything. A lettuce or sprout salad may not look or feel appetizing with your favorite drink.
3. Try to limit intake of sugary additive to your drinks. It affects the body most. Sugar and alcohol react together to make a concoction of intoxication that really is not good for a human body. Try tonic water with your drinks, but the best is still to go clean with ice and water. Another great substitute is to have flavored water mixed with 30 ml of vodka or gin. Flavored water is nothing but water that is kept in a glass jar overnight with cut fruits and herbs of choice. If you have an orange in the water, then it sweetens the drink greatly. So find a mix that suits you and stick with it for this festive season.
4. I know no one is going to like this one, but really a glass of water needs to go in your body for every peg of drink you take. I have a tip for you on this one. So in a party drink a glass of water before you start drinking. Obviously you are not going to stop at just one drink when it’s your friend’s farewell. So after 2 drinks, drink another glass of water. Do the math, u got 1 glass of water for each drink, and you enjoyed the drinks like u r supposed to as well.
5. Lastly, be prepared that there would be 2 days that you would not be able to exercise. And there would be those days that the table is full of pies and tarts of every sort. Guilt should not be a part of any celebration. Live that day responsibly, work a bit hard the other day by pushing for extra 10 minutes of exercise. Trust me, it works.

I hope these are of some help to you. If you read this far, then do put in a comment to let me know how your season went. I am always more than happy to hear from you guys!

And before I leave, here is a sneak peak of all the holiday baking that should land up on your table this month. i would be sharing 1 recipe each week to pull you through your holiday entertaining with flying colours. Cheers!

HOME-MADE WW BUN WITH PORK AND CHICKEN PATTY, SERVED WITH ARUGULA SALAD.

GARDEN FRESH ZUCCHINI STIR FRIED AND SERVED ALONG BALSAMIC GLAZED ONIONS 

CRISPY POTATOES WITH GARDEN THYME

HOT CROSS BUNS STUFFED WITH MOMS GUAVA JELLY

LLWT- 3 with Whole-Wheat Home-made Bread

Let’s Lose Weight Together Part 3 (LLWT-3)

I accept, that I couldn’t give my 100% to the diet at first. It took me sometime to adjust, but after following the diet just for a couple of weeks, I am visibly thinner and 2.5 kgs lighter now. Since the start of ‘let’s lose weight together’, I knew that I would have to go for a carbohydrate free week soon, but surely it can’t be during the festive season which is upon us right now. Hence, I am thinking of continuing my week one diet for the next 2 weeks, wherein there would be many many cheat meals. This week our most favouriteDurga Pujo will start and it would get with itself once in a year opportunity to gorge on some traditional sweets and snacks. And choosing to keep myself from the gorging spree is not only difficult but insanely impossible. But, I promise to cheat smartly, and write about every tip or trick that helped me religiously. The goal is to meet you back here on the week starting 17^th, in the same weight as I am right now. I need to lose the next 4 kgs which would be much more difficult than this, but that would be after the festive season, and not before it.

For the past week, I noticed I had the urge of indulging in carbohydrates a lot. At the restaurant, I would reach for that Tawa Phulka or a smaller egg or vegetable filled paratha made without oil, all the time. At home, I had my parents-in-law visiting, so it was much easier to just reach up to that ladle full of Daliya (desi bulgur wheat) or white rice with my fish curry or indulge in an array of sweets displayed in my dining area, every-time they came back from CP. And with Pujo starting, I don’t think I can survive the season without indulging in Mughlai Porotha (Deep fried square parcel made with white flour, filled with spicy fish/chicken mince) or a Lobongo Latika (a similar kind of dish, but sweet). Caterers from Kolkata come in to make these scrumptious snacks and meals, and I can’t muster enough courage to steer clear of tasting it. Yet, it’s the portion control that I will exercise. I will cheat a lot during these days, but the idea is to come back to right eating after that.

For example, last week a good friend invited me over to his place for a garden tour. He is a foodie like me, and wanted me to try Samosa and Jalebi from his favourite Nukkad shop. He follows me here, and he thot it was just a matter of tempting me to stray away from the path. I had a samosa with him at 6, preceded by 2 hot and crisp jalebies. But then, I came back to have a cup of soup in the night for dinner and nothing else. This is how I managed to steer clear of any additional weight by following restraint in the next meal. Even with drinks, I opted to munch on Cream cracker biscuits and roasted chana, rather than crispy fried potato chips etc. The week one diet is a framework for me, wherein I devised a new meal plan for me each and every day. From today, I will start following a modified Week 1 diet, and by the next week I will decide if I am strong enough to go to a week 2 diet or not.

This is what I would be eating for the week starting today.

Early morning starts with a flavored nutritious coriander and lime water. I will boil a bunch of coriander for 10 mins strain, and keep the concentrate in the fridge. Early in the morning, I will mix the coriander water concentrate in warm water with a squeeze of lime and drink it. I will follow it up with 3 soaked almonds.

Exercise or an intense Activity

For breakfast, I will have protein with carbohydrates like a good piece of homemade whole wheat bread with fresh cottage cheese, salt and pepper or a dry Daal bhara paratha and curd, or an egg roll.  

At 11.30 am, 1 small bowl papaya followed by a cup of green tea.

The lunch would be healthy Carbohydrate (roti) with protein and fibres, like- raajma, salad and grilled veggies. Or Matar paneer, salad and grilled veggies.

At 5 pm, 1 katori dahi+ 1 tsp ground flaxseed will increase my metabolism.

At 7 pm, I would have tea with roasted chana or a small bowl of sprout salad.

For dinner strictly no carbohydrate but a light protein and fiber based meal.

And if hungry during bedtime, I will finish it up with 1 cup toned milk.

This week, I will concentrate mostly on eating healthy protein and try to detox myself in the time I eat in my house. I will keep adapting the diet each day, depending on my circumstances. As you have noticed since the start of Lets lose weight together, I have never really stressed myself out to eat something that is far away from my reach. I have stayed on the good eating path, yet enjoying a foodie’s life. And the festive would be nothing else than that.

For the recipe today, I am showing you the way I make my daily dose of home-made bread, each time, every time and it works perfectly all the time. This way, I know I will eat a good carbohydrate in the morning, which would get me ready for all the cheats that would come my way during the day.  

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour (WWF)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour (you need the gluten)

2 tsp Active dry yeast

2 Tbsp honey

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk, lukewarm

2 Tablespoons olive oil, or any vegetable oil

1 egg

1/4 cup additional WWF for kneading

Instructions:

For a detailed Youtube Tutorial, Click here!!

In a large measuring jug, stir in lukewarm milk with 2 tbsp honey and yeast. Put it in a draft free place for it to proof, while you get the rest of the ingredients in place.

Put both the flours and salt in a large mixing bowl, with a dough hook. Beat it to combine well.

Once the yeast blooms, add in a room temperature egg, and dump it all in the mixer. Beat it on low to combine. Now slowly pour in the 2 tbsp of oil, while the mixer is running and combine it well in the dough. Then put the speed on high for 2 minutes to form the gluten well.

After the 2 minutes are over, on a low speed add about 1/4 cup more flour until dough forms a mass. I make my bread in a kitchen aid mixer. However all this can be easily achieved by hand too. Kneading the dough well makes sure you have a soft and pillowy interior that we all love in a store bought bread. 

Knead the dough well to achieve a non-sticky appearance, cover and let rise for an hour, till double in size.

Shape dough into a loaf and place in a greased loaf pan. Cover and let rise in a warm spot until it is one inch taller than the pan, about 35 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius, and bake the bread for 30 minutes. Once browned, and sounds hollow on knocking it, place it on a wire rack to cool. Slice and enjoy as and when needed!

Bread recipes are a bit scary to follow if you are new to it. I have been baking my bread pretty regularly, and that’s why I invested on a brand new kitchen aid last year. If you need a Youtube video about baking this whole-wheat bread to ease your nerve, then write to me. I would be more than happy to oblige! Cheers!!

LLWT- 2 with Skinny Chicken Parmesan

Let’s Lose Weight Together Part 2 (LLWT-2)

Now for a quick update on my diet, I did follow it religiously from Monday through Saturday. Obviously the hostess that I am, I couldn't say no to entertaining guests on Friday, and hence made an easy healthy meal of homemade chicken parmesan, served on boiled daliya/bulgur wheat, and the banana chocolate cake from the below post for dessert. Luckily for me, the guests were health conscious too, and they loved the idea. By Friday, I have lost 1 kg on the scale, and the 2 hour eating habit has kicked in majorly. Saturday however kind of disturbed me off the path. I had a team lunch where in I had 2 slices of pizza and 1 cucumber. Dinner was late and almost after a big party, which didnt really go very well with me. I got sick and hardly ate anything on Sunday or Monday. Basically it was a stomach bug and thankfully due to timely medical intervention, I am back to eating normal since today. 

So for now I am gonna stick to week 1 and let my body adjust back to its routine. In the meanwhile, here is the recipe of Chicken Parmesan. It is a wonderfully easy recipe involving very few ingredients. I Indianised this Italian classic and read all about my experimentation here. Also, I am extremely sorry for not clicking a pic for it. I am borrowing a picture which resembles mine from the net, and thus I declare no interest or ownership on the same. But yes, it did look a lot like this, just a bit less of cheese on top. This recipe is so simple, that even after having a busy friday at work, I could put it together in no time. I had made the Marinara Sauce a night before, and that really sped the process manifolds. However, you can easily make this dish with a store bought jar of Marinara Sauce, and I bet it would still taste this awesome! 



Ingredients

4 chicken breasts cut in equal portions
Bread Crumbs
Fresh Garlic crushed
Salt and Pepper to taste
Homemade or store bought Marinara sauce (I followed a recipe from the internet, but instead of canned tomatoes, used fresh tomatoes and cooked a bit longer)
Parmesan Cheese
Gruyere Cheese

Method

Marinade the chicken breasts with salt, pepper and crushed garlic; and set it aside for 10 minutes. 

Now coat the chicken breasts thoroughly with bread crumbs and pan fry it in a little oil, but on a high flame. The idea is to not cook the chicken fully, but to get a crispy coating on it. 

In an oven proof pan, smear on a few dollops of marinara sauce. Place the crispy chicken breasts on top of it, in a neat row. 

Cover the chicken with more sauce and garnish on top with grated cheeses of your choice. Dunk it in a preheated oven for 20 minutes until the cheese is melted and the chicken is fully cooked through. Let it rest in the pan for a few minutes and then serve it with the carbs of your choice. 

I served mine on a bed of boiled daliya, along with a fresh cut salad on the side. Cheers!!

P.S. - In case you need the recipe of indianized Marinara sauce, comment below!

LLWT- 1 with Healthy Sugar Free Muffins!!

Let’s Lose Weight Together Part 1 (LLWT-1)

Sawan ka mahina – the rainy season is here. I don’t like it at all. This is the season my restaurants suffer the most in terms of business. This is the time when water seeps inside electrical equipment, leaving my base kitchen fridge less. The microbes are everywhere, everyone is either sneezing or coughing, or throwing food that was made in the morning, but gave way till the afternoon reached. So, my point being; I hate the season. There is absolutely nothing to like in the muddy water logged city that I live in, while it rains. The incessant traffic jams on the road doesn’t help either. After each shower, there is an addition of a pot hole on every road I travel. And not to mention, the abrupt waterfall and extreme panic of coming home to a flooded living room, just because the rain was too steep, and the drain pipe couldn’t handle the pressure. Sigh… I can continue complaining for another 2 pages.

But I assume, you aren’t reading to hear my rants about the Gaon I live in!! I guess you are reading to know the secret behind why I started abusing India’s most loved season, under the title ‘Let’s lose weight together.’ If you ever get the connection, let me know too... It might help me to understand why I am so erratic these days. But if you don’t, just continue reading as I am getting to the weight loss journey, starting now.

Thanks to my work, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to lose the extra kilograms that I gained since last year. My biggest problem is that I stress eat a lot, which makes it tremendously difficult to lose the weight. Obviously treading the weight loss path alone is rather difficult. So I had a genius idea to involve each one of you reading this article today, facing similar situations in life to come together, read and get inspired; and inspire me in the process.

A typical day for me starts with an action packed morning, leading to a stressful office day; lounging on to a traffic led evening- where I leave office to pick up my son and head back home. The night time sees me a bit relaxed, with family; either cooking a treat, or drinking a storm. My biggest challenges are these two aforementioned situations. It’s rather easy to reach up for a bottle of wine to unwind from the stressful day. And maybe, I did manage to gain all these extra kgs thanks to this one weakness in me. After consumption of alcohol, our bodies start experiencing a great depth of hunger. To satiate that hunger, we start off on the munching path which just piles on calories after calories in our body, unwanted and unreal. I can’t control my family’s urge to stack up deep fried farsaan in the cupboards. What I need to control is my urge into reaching out on to those snacks every now and then. So before, the issue mounts up to become a problem, let’s snip it in the bud. I am guilty of following this easy rather comforting lifestyle since a few months now. But better late than never. So here is my goal that I want to fix for me today, for the coming week.

Firstly, I am gonna restrict drinking high calorie drinks like wine completely. My voice has been soar for sometime now, and I need to get it back to sing my little guy lullaby. So for the next two weeks, if I drink, it’s either gonna be brandy with hot water, or just water. No wine shall pass through these lips, till my voice is back to normal.

Secondly, no deep fried food for the next two months consciously.

Thirdly, I need to get back into healthy 2 hour eating habit. 3 litres of water each day is not a problem for me at all, but if any of you are skimpy water-drinkers, please note that as well.

Obviously, these are difficult to follow in my life as I have too many distractions around me all the time. But the idea is to start amending any cheat I do with the next meal. So the amends for each chaet on the each goals would be-

Only twice in the week would I drink. And if I consume wine, then just once. Also, 2 glasses of water for each drink. Which would definitely cancel out the negative with a lot of positive.

Deep fried food should be accompanied with a lot of salad, before and after.

If ever I miss eating in the 2 hour mark, I will try not to eat 2 meals at the same time, substituting that meal with a lot of water.

So an ideal meal chart for me for the week would be-

Early morning – 500 ml lukewarm water followed with a bowl full of fresh fruits.

Intense activity                 (exercise)

Breakfast- a healthy combination of whole carbs with vegetables/egg. Eg-1 whole wheat veg sandwich or a roti-egg roll or oats upma with a lot of veggies and curd.

Mid-morning- Green tea with a healthy snack. Eg- 1 cream cracker biscuit or rasted chana or 5 pcs of soaked almond or this low calorie muffin.  

Lunch- would be a good mix of vegetables (cooked and/or raw) with whole carbohydrates. Eg- salad with ‘1 or 2 roti or boiled daliya’ and 1 - 2 bowl veg with 1/2 bowl curd/dal. If I choose to eat non veg, then I will cancel the carb and take 100 gms chicken/fish with 1-2 katori veg and salad.

Evening- green tea with 2 cream cracker biscuits or green tea with a small bowl roasted channa

Dinner- same as lunch just that I will try to go skimpy on the carbs. Eg-1 wheat chapatti with 1 or 2 bowl veg and Salad; or 50gms chicken/ fish with 1 or 2 bowl veg and salad.

Bedtime if hungry- 1 cup toned milk.

So I am aiming at following this diet for the next two weeks. It’s doable, in fact very easy too. But 1 of the weekends, I would like a treat of something sweetish that doesn’t harm my body so much. I will try to eat it more as a meal in itself as the mid-morning/evening snack, rather than an after meal dessert. Plus the sweet craving family of mine can’t be deprived of sweets for a whole 2 months, just because I am attempting to eat healthy. I know their urge in indulging into some sweets would lead them to a sweet shop, and that would be a nightmare for me. So here is a simple muffin recipe, which is refined flour free, butter free and most definitely sugar free in the most un-chemical way possible.

Ingredients

 ¾ cup whole wheat Flour

1 egg

½ cup Milk (any kind of Milk would work- coconut, almond, soya etc.)

2 tbsps. Maple Syrup or Honey

1 tbsp. Veg Oil

½ tsp. Vanilla Extract

¼ tsp. Baking Soda

Pinch of salt

2 Medium Bananas, roughly mashed

A handful of Dark Chocolate Chips

Method

It’s a rather easy way to make these super healthy muffins. All you do is combine all dry ingredients together in a bowl- flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl. Add the chocolate chips and coat it well.

In a measuring jug, dump in all the rest of the ingredients- egg, milk, honey, vanilla, oil and crushed banana. Mix well.

Now just combine the wet to the dry, and the batter is ready to be baked in a preheated oven of 180-200 degrees Celsius, for 15 minutes, or as long as it takes for a wooden toothpick inserted in the centre to come out clean. Cool and enjoy this treat for a day.

Basically the idea is to not starve you of your craving. If you crave something sweet, eat this. This batter will make only 6 muffins so it’s perfectly portion controlled.

So a best of luck to me and to you if you are with me in this ride. I starting today, and I have goal of losing 6 kgs within the next 2 months. Cheers!!

Pure Malt & Pure Meat!!

Frugal vs expensive… Where do u fall in the debate? As an individual, do u like spending a lot? I for sure do at things that matter to me. Food is the most important thing in my life, and I can’t imagine my life without this one thing. I don’t care about the clothes I wear, or the non-existent art in me for make-up. Though I enjoy breaking into an occasional hymn, but don’t particularly care if it is woofer sound or not. For me, indulgence in the luxury of food is all that matters. I care very deeply about my lunches, breakfasts, dinners and snacks, eating out or in and have many different options in a meal. I meticulously plan what I will eat each day. Many times I have the tug of war where ‘want’ triumphs over ‘should’; which unmistakably results in the gain of these stubborn pounds.

So I spend pretty much all my hard earned money on good luxurious eats and drinks. Sri Lanka visit meant for me Lankan sweet cinnamon and delicate nori take pots and cups. The expensive Switzerland was made special by the cheaper than water, wine and freshly cured and flavorful cold cuts. And don’t assume that I am just a high flying traveler spending money only in other’s economy. A trip to the mountains up over Delhi meant I travelled back with Burance ka ras and Dehraduni saunf wale rusk. A trip of my friend’s to far north east meant jars of lip smackingly hot bhut jhalokia pickle. And the list just goes on…

But till date one of my most awesome buys has been this little bottle of Japanese pure malt. The smoothness of its taste with that background of fruity flowery note is just awesome. I bought a couple more different types of nikka whiskies but undoubtedly this one takes my heart. Such a pure perfect drink, needed something ground breakingly awesome to eat along. But cooking while drinking this beauty meant I needed something simpler to make and my dry rubbed pork tenderloin was the perfect choice. Minimum cooking but timed to perfection is the secret behind cooking pork perfectly. Tenderloin is a healthy cut of pork, belonging to the thigh section of the animal. It has minimum fats and yet the meat doesn’t get dry too easily. Overcooking it is difficult, but not entirely impossible so I prefer using meat thermometers to gauge the temperature of the meat correctly.

This is less of a recipe, but more of a technique that I have mastered in. It’s easy, and really simple to follow. It includes very few ingredients and is still one of the best dinners you can ever make. For the tenderloin, you would need to follow these steps-  

Step 1- Defrosting the meat correctly.

Allow the pork tenderloin to come up to the room temperature slowly and steadily. Don’t involve the easy methods of defrosting through the microwave oven. If you forgot to put the meat out for the adequate time, then keep on the microwave defrosting option to the lowest settings, and keep turning the meat at an interval of 30 seconds. Separate the pieces out in each interval to make sure 1 or more spots are not getting heated up.

Step 2- Cooking

Preheat your oven to 190 degrees c. Season the pork on all sides with salt and pepper, and bring a large frying up to high temperature on the stove top.

Coat the pan with olive oil, and lay the tenderloin down in the pan. Allow it to sear on that side for 2 - 3 minutes or until browned, without moving or touching the meat. Turn it 180 degrees to sear on the other side, again until browned and again not touching the meat much. Rotate the pork again, to sear the other two sides, following the same technique.

Move the whole pork tenderloin into the oven, and allow it to roast until you read an internal temperature of 60 to 70 degree c. That should take between 5 - 10 minutes.

Step 3 – Cutting and Serving it!

Remove the pork from the oven, and place it on a cutting board to rest for 5 - 6 minutes, untouched. Now you can slice into it, and you’ll find the center, perfectly cooked, just slightly pink, and full of the natural juices. Resting the meat ensures these natural juices are in abundance, which helps keep the meat moist and flavourful.

A simple gravy can be made to accompany the meat, during the resting time.

Step 4 – Gravy

Put a sliced onion in the pan that had the tenderloin, and while stirring constantly; wait till the onion slices turn translucent.

Now deglaze the pan with a bit of red wine. If you fancy chilly, add it now! If you fancy roasted garlic, add it now.

Once the alcohol from the wine evaporates, add in a splash of water and bring it to an enthusiastic simmer.

Switch off the gas and put in a couple of nobs of butter to get a glazy flavourful sauce. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Super fast, super festive and super delicious. Cheers!! 

Swiss & Britannia Chunkies Ice cream Sandwich!!

When back in the sweltering heat, I started missing the cool climate of Switzerland the most. Even

with its incessant rain and cloudy overshadows, the climate was better than the furnace Gurgaon 

has become for sure. So yes, this summer, we spent a week in Switzerland, and it was one of the

most beautiful places to be. I was fortunate enough that my first trip to the Europe actually made

me see life in Europe inside out. We met real people, living real life; unlike the fantasy one that

Bollywood movies want us to believe. We weren’t taking a conducted tour, and instead we hopped

on the train to visit places many Indian touring companies wouldn’t know of. We looked at hidden

gems of Switzerland, which was green rather than white; and had such a merry time too. But that

one trip to mount Titlis opened my eyes. Opened my eyes to what Indians are capable of doing when

they are away from their home. 5 bare chested hairy men stood in a line on the snow-capped Titlis,

screaming INDIAAAA INDIAAAA, while their wives and sisters threw snowballs at them. I mean, let’s look at it this way- that group did have a lot of fun, but it came at the cost of fellow tourists who

were not included in that group. The quiet Europeans do look down upon these things, because even 

I, being a loud Indian can’t look up at it. Were they right or wrong, is a decision I leave upto you to

decide. But coming back to my point, yup I saw the real life, lived it for a few days and now I am

missing it with a bitter sweet tang.

One thing that I most certainly do before I embark on a flight back home, is a visit to a local

supermarket. And the priced possession I am back with is a set of 3 Swiss knives that comes with a

lifetime warranty on the sharpness. Today I plan to use it to make a sumptuous dessert. A hack that

is so awesome that all you lovely people are going to be so enthused to use it this summer. Let’s

make ‘Britannia Good Day Chunkies ice-cream sandwich.’

Britannia’s Chunkies was an obvious choice considering that these crumbly cookies are overloaded

with melt in mouth chocolate chips; and their perfectly crisp outside would go very well with the

chill of the ice cream in the centre. This is hardly a recipe, but more of a skill to master. But the

outcome is so satisfying, and divine that another 1000 words won’t be able to justify it.

Ingredients

1 packet of Britannia good day chunky cookies

1 small tub of vanilla ice-cream

Sharp knife

Sprinklers or chocolate chips to garnish

Method

Tear open the cookies packet to reveal 5 perfectly imperfect chocolate chip chunkies. Snack on one while you assemble the rest of the recipe together.

Take a solid tub of ice-cream out of your freezer and place it on your cutting board.

Now with a swift jig saw motion, cut an inch of the bottom off from the ice-cream tub. Place a cookie on the cut side and invert. Carefully remove the packaging material and gingerly place a beautiful cookie on top.

Transfer the cookie sandwich in the Britannia’s cookie tray and put it in the freezer to set firm. If you plan to serve it in a party, keep it covered in the freezer, until you are ready to use.

Just before serving, carefully lift the delectable sandwiches from the plastic tray, and roll it, ice-

cream side down on a platter full of sprinklers/chocolate chips. Serve fast, in the utmost casual setup

possible. These little parcels are best shared for a private dinner date, as it is the right combination

of messy sensuality to trickle in.

Cheers!!

P.S.- Apart from being super delicious cookies, Britannia Good Day Chunkies is also giving you a great chance to meet the amazing hosts of Master Chef Australia!

Here's what you need to do:

Step 1: Make an amazing dish with Chunkies, nothing like the dish above mind you!

Step 2: Upload a picture of the dish with a Chunkies pack on your FB/Twitter/Instagram account with #ChefsWithChunkies. Also, put up your recipe as a note on FB or on your blog and share the link in your entry.

10 lucky winners stand a chance to meet the Masterchef Australia hosts in person on the 4th of June, 2016!

For contest terms & conditions, visit - https://www.facebook.com/BritanniaGoodDay/?fref=ts