Easy to make Strawberry Muffins

Food is not about impressing people It's about making them feel comfortable." said Ina Garten, in 'The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook and thats exactly the way I approach cooking or baking. For me, the food that I cook has to be quick and tasty. And I'm positive that many of you feel exactly the same way. In this post, I'm talking about home made strawberry muffins. They could also have been presented very simply but, I'm choosing to present the 'dressed up' version.

Easy to make Strawberry Muffins Ingredients for 8 large muffins 2 cups all purpose flour 1 cup sugar Half cup chopped strawberries( frozen/fresh) 2 whole eggs 250 gms butter 1/2 cup milk/yogurt vanilla essence 1 tsp baking powder Method Prepare the muffin tin with greased and lined muffin tins.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix and gently stir the wet ingredients- butter, eggs, vanilla and strawberry essences, in another dry mixing bowl.Make sure that the mix is uniform and not too thick or too thin. Slowly fold in the chopped strawberries and keep the prepared mix aside. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ones and fold in gently to get a uniform mix. Bake in a preheated oven at 150 C for 25/30 mins and insert a dry toothpick to see if the muffins are ready.

Keep on a wire rack to cool . Once the muffins have cooled, dust with icing sugar and decorate with edible sugar decorations. Sit back and enjoy these anytime treats accompanied with a hot cup of tea or coffee and make sure you share them with friends and family. Then watch their faces light up with joy!

A Memorable Coffee and the real importance of food-A Personal Experience

Think about it just for a moment, what does food really mean to you?

Is  food just nourishment or is it something more? Is food linked with certain people in your life? Is food emotionally charged for you? Does food link you with certain places? 


And finally, how do you observe meals and meals times in your life? 

The answers to each of these questions, may actually surprise you and tell you more about yourself than you possibly realised.

 A well known speaker, Revd John Pritchard, (Oxford) says:“For me the importance of food operates at a number of different levels. Food is fuel; it keeps me alive and active (well, reasonably!). At the next level, food is enjoyable, particularly when eaten three times a day, breaking up the long hours with periods of refreshment.Food is an opportunity to demonstrate hospitality and to enable more serious conversation to take place. The final level for me is that food is a spiritual issue, seen in scripture, in many of the images of the Kingdom of Heaven, and in the central act of the Christian Church, Holy Communion.”

To all of the above, I will add that while food is sometimes impossible to eat when one is worried and anxious, it becomes a source of warmth and comfort after the immediate source of stress is removed. And its not that I haven't thought about or realised all this earlier, its just that this fact has been even more strongly reinforced after my mother's recent high risk surgery at Medanta Medicity.

Three of us my father, brother and myself had spent many anxious hours waiting while the surgery was on. I really don't remember if we ate or drank anything during those five hours, but I do remember the overwhelming sense of relief after we learnt that it was finally over and that Mummy had recovered consciousness. 

The memorable coffee and muffin shared by my father soon after Mummy's surgery

While Navtej chose to have a soft drink, both of us ordered a coffee each and shared a blueberry muffin. ''Manna from heaven'' would probably be a very cliched term in normal circumstances, but that's not what we felt then.

 It was all of that ..and more!'

Life goes on, Mummy is still in the ICU, making a slow but sure recovery, but this coffee and muffin will always remain one of the most memorable meals in our lives...

Thirty minute Apple Tart

A warm slice of apple tart with coffee or better still, topped with vanilla ice cream- I couldn't think of a better way to  catch up with friends. In the past, I've tried to make a  simple version of an apple tart and succeeded reasonably well. 

But when I recently had the opportunity to watch my Le Cordon Bleu, Paris  trained daughter Neha Singh making this classic 30 minute apple tart from scratch, I knew that I was going to learn a lot. 

And I was right...

In the oven- Neha's 30 min classic apple tart

Starting with rolling the all purpose flour mixed with some butter to make the pastry from scratch, she popped the ball into the freezer  to chill for about 15 minutes while she got the other ingredients ready.

Lining the tart case and trimming off the edges 

This was then blind baked for about 20 minutes in a preheated oven after adding some beans to ensure that the case baked as close to perfection as possible.

Filled and almost ready to bake

For the filling Neha used Honey crisp apples.  This apple has exceptionally crisp, juicy, sweet-as-honey flesh with just a hint of tartness that makes it a tasty treat any time of the day.. As far as I'm concerned, its even more delicious when used to bake an apple tart.

Layered over with finely sliced apples 

The filling used brown sugar, cinnamon, water and was heated on a low heat gas stove till the mixture was tender.

Baked till golden brown for 30 mins

We had people coming over that day and Neha had yet another treat in store- a Passion fruit and raspberry pie which had been made the previous evening and left to chill in the refrigerator. 

But that's another story ...for another post.....

Memories are made of this

 

Just some of the reasons why I love Darcy's Kitchen and some more 'Food For Thought'

We all have a place that we love to head towards time and again. A place where we can just sit  and have a chat with friends over a cup of tea, coffee or enjoy a quick meal. Or if you will, sit out in the sun,  basking in the warmth of the venue, but even more, the sheer pleasure of being in a place where each member of the staff is keenly attuned to your individual preferences and greets you like a long lost friend.

Darcys MQ, Quaint, beautifully decorated and serving the best coffee

I've got exactly one such place and its probably where I spend the most amount of time, outside my own home. This charming little cafe is called 'Darcys Kitchen' and its located at Madinat Qaboos (MQ) in Muscat.

'My Take' with a Cappuccino

While I'm fairly engrossed  in my book, magazine or newspaper if I'm alone here, or chatting animatedly with friends or family in other situations, I  do take a look around and nod at a familiar face every now and then. Most of the customers are regulars just like me and over a period one gets to know them somewhat too.

But then there are the other faces that seem somewhat out of place and that is exactly the reason why they stay in the mind. Every other time that I'm there, I see a 35' ish local man, who has a slight limp- and if one looks at him closely, doesn't seem to be entirely normal. Now I don't know why that is so, but one generally avoids making eye contact with him, for fear of...? I really don't have the answer here, but am just sharing my  thoughts. And believe me, I'm not the only one there who does this, its probably the majority of others present too.As for the staff, I've noticed that they sat him in a quiet corner where he's served a cup of tea and a small bite and after a short respite, he's off and on his way..

But last weekend saw a departure from the norm. My husband and myself were sitting outside and having our scones and tea and this man walked out.It was evident that he'd finished and was leaving. But here's the real surprise. Just as he reached the small gate which serves as the exit and entry point, he stopped, looked directly at us and waved goodbye. I too waved back instinctively.

I really don't know what it was about that simple gesture, but it touched me a great deal. For all the times, I'd thought of him as 'not exactly normal" he'd been seeing and focusing on me as a person who he'd learnt to recognize. Then one day, he actually reacted and how!

I find myself thinking of him every now and then. And have made up my mind that I will have a real conversation with him when I see him next.

Just one more reason to head back to Darcy's!!

NB- This piece was originally written for 'My Take' in Muscat Daily