11.6.16

Banana Bread Pudding


Do you have a Sunday breakfast tradition? You know something like a Pancake-Sunday or a Waffle-Sunday ? At my parents house they've had one ever since I was a kid... There, luchi and aloo dam(potato curry) is served for breakfast every Sunday. Its lavish and delicious and every individual who has ever visited us have always looked forward it to. After our marriage I had thought I would continue with the tradition in my new home ... but a few weekends into it and I realized how much work it involves. So I began exploring other options. For a while we tried Pancake and Waffle Sunday... then South-Indian Sundays...Noodle-Sundays so on and so forth... until the idea of Casserole-Sundays struck me...

Believe me Casserole Sundays are the easiest to handle. These days I simply throw in stuff  into the iron skillet and while things bake I laze out in the balcony sipping my chai and catching up on  the Sunday supplement of the newspaper or the blog posts that I have missed during the week. And when the oven buzzes done, I pull out the skillet and serve...... Bliss.... Really... Sunday-breakfast never felt easier than this..


So the other Sunday I made Banana Bread Pudding the old-fashioned way and was delighted to see how the little one also enjoyed this classic breakfast... Truly some recipes are timeless and breading puddings definitely rank high in that list.

The  recipe I followed was inspired by one from the net. It was more or less similar to my mother's recipe except that the milk did not have to be thickened. Of course if you like your puddings to be richer, start off with twice the amount of the milk, boil it down to half its volume before soaking your bread in it. That is the way my mother always makes it but I being her unfitting-ly lazy daughter decided to skip the ordeal and took the easier and quicker route. As a compensation I topped the pudding with custard and that made a delicious breakfast. Its the kind of thing that you would want to serve your friends and house guests... and may be even your papa for a sumptuous Father's Day breakfast.


Banana Bread Pudding

Recipe by Adapted from Taste of Home
Prep time: 10 minutes                                                                                          Cook time: 40-45 minutes
Total time: 1 hour                                                                                                 Yield: 4 servings



Ingredients
  • 2 cups or 4-6 slices of old bread (I used multigrain bread)
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 medium sized eggs
  • 1 cup milk
  • 3 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 tablespoon of good quality Jam (I used strawberry jam)
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon powder
  • ¼ teaspoon nutmeg powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 overripe bananas (about half cup)
  • 1½ tablespoon of cashews and raisins, chopped
  • 1 cup custard of your choice for serving on top
Cooking Directions
  1. In a saucepan heat the milk long with the sugar and butter until the sugar dissolves and the butter melts. Switching off the heat add the cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and the jam to the milk. Mix well and keep aside for the milk to cool down a bit.
  2. Meanwhile roughly cube the slices of bread and place them in a 8 inch iron skillet.
  3. Preheat the oven to 350 ° F.
  4. Once the milk has cooled down a bit, beat in the eggs into the mixture and pour the milk-egg batter over the skillet of bread cubes and press the bread cubes into it to help them soak up the liquid. (If you have the time, cover the skillet and allow the mixture to stand as it is for 30 minutes or so before putting it in the oven.)
  5. Finally scoop out lumps of the overripe banana and place it all over the surface, garnish with the chopped dry fruits and bake uncovered in the preheat over for 30 minutes. Then increasing the temperature to 375 ° F bake another 10-15 minutes till the surface is nicely browned and a knife inserted comes out clean.
  6. While the pudding is getting baked prepare a custard of your choice. While my to-go custard recipe is the one using custard powder, when serving bread pudding as a dessert I occasionally top it with a variant of Zabaglione wherein I skip the alcohol and just add vanilla essence to the custard.

Now doesn't that look more delicious than a breakfast of bread, butter, jam...  milk eggs and banana ??? 

11.3.16

Toasted Coconut Biscuits



In India it is customary to accompany every cup of chai you serve with some biscuits. Mind you, an Indian biscuit is different from the American one. While an American refers to a savory quick bread as a biscuit, in India and I guess, in every country where the British have left their mark, a biscuit is a hard, dunk-able cookie somewhat like a shortbread... but necessarily buttery, that accompanies a common man's cup of chai.

12.2.16

Chicken Fried Rice


Whether you are a home-maker or a office-goer doing a 9-to-5-job, an easy and hearty recipe is always a saviour at the end of  a long day.  My dear friend Sanchaita who has many a solutions for such week-night dinners happily agreed to share some with us in a series for simple-week-night recipes at Ma Niche...

6.2.16

Winter health tips and a cup of Lemongrass chai courtesy the husband....


It was my second winter in the US and our first one with the baby... It had been snowing bonkers since the night before ... and by the time I was ready to tuck in the little fellow  for his afternoon nap, I realized his nose was blocked... BLOCKED NOSE !! I panicked... how would my child breadth ???

30.1.16

French Fridays : Chicken liver Gateau

Remember those French Fridays with Dorie ?? When we would prepare something awesome, something French every week and tell the tale of whether it fared well with the kids and the men... Well, sometimes I miss them.... I miss the excitement and effervescence that accompanied those Fridays... I miss the thrill of exploring new techniques, trying new flavors and the anxiety that accompanied on the Fridays when unusual dishes like that Pear Chestnut Soup or this Chicken Liver Cake was on the menu.  

12.1.16

Maa-er Narkel Diye Cholar Dal ( Split Bengal gram with Coconut )

Maa's cholar dal has been one of my favorite dishes for as long as I can remember. 
My husband joined the club soon after we got married.  


But no matter how hard I tried, it wasn't easy to replicate the taste of her dal  until she shared her special tips with me  last summer . Ever since I have been flaunting her recipe at every gathering I can and thought it would be the most appropriate dish to begin the New year with....

17.8.15

Apple and Beet Quick Bread # Healthy Snacking


Chocolates are delicious and so are chips and they are probably the tastiest way to pacify a rumbling tummy between two meals... That and zillion cups of tea was a regular snack-ritual for me until our son was born... As in other aspects of life, motherhood completely changed my perspective on snacking soon after our little one started table food... His stomach is so little, I thought, on top of that if I let him snack on non-essentials then how will that little tummy ever have space for all the veggies and fruits that he needs... Ever since I have tried to be mindful of what goes into his tummy and into ours in general.

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