Herbed Cheese tartlets

I like experimenting with food and pottering around the kitchen... when in good mood, when in bad mood... basically at all times except when I am feeling lazy (and I have been feeling that way a lot lately)! However, I don't normally document my cooking with photographs and end up feeling bad at the end of it. More so when the dish turns out as it's supposed to and I am all elated and happy and can't wait to tell everyone how yummy they were. You see the show off in me can't really show off without any photos!!!

Making the Herbed Cheese Tartlets.

Individual Pictures are Here

So yesterday when I decided to try this Herbed cheese tart recipe, I also promised myself that I would click the entire process. I found the recipe while browsing on pinterest in the midst of some very boring documentation I was working on. Reading the recipe that I found here I thought it looked amazingly simple even if I'd have to make the herbed cheese (since hunting for Boursin cheese wasn't going to give me much success in a dinky little Mumbai suburb. Besides, even if I did find it I wouldn't want to spend the atrocious amount that it would cost me). And I had most of the ingredients at home!!!

I bounced home enthusiastically in the evening, buying a few of the things I needed on the way and set to making myself some, what would hopefully be, very tasty dinner! I decided to make little tartlets instead of one huge tart for two reasons: one, I was cooking for one person and since I am hardly likely to finish a whole tart by myself, I thought it would be better to make little tartlets. Two, my tart dish is too big for the little oven I have here (Sadness! Do I buy a smaller tart dish or a bigger oven???).

I'd love to put up a recipe here but I am pretty bad at that because I don't usually measure ingredients out - I work more by feel and taste. I suggest anyone who wants to try this heads to the original recipe. It's well written and it's easy. I'll just list the little adaptations I made:

1. I used capsicums and mushrooms in addition to the tomatoes since I was making tartlets and wanted more flavours.
2. I marinated the veggies in a mix of Olive oil, spring onions (the green leafy part only), diced garlic, sea salt, pepper and oregano. That allowed the veggies to soak in some flavouring and tasted pretty good!
3. I also drizzled a little bit of the marinate mixture over the tartlets before the final stage of baking to keep the veggies and cheese from getting too dry. 

To make the boursin equivalent here's what I did:

1. 3 cubes of herbed cheese + 6 cubes of plain cheese (use a creamy, soft one. Any cheese spread will do. I used Laughing cow... it's texture is closest to cream cheese!)
2. Whizz that with some butter (about 50 gms)
3. Pop in some chopped garlic and parsley, pepper, salt (don't add salt if using salted butter like me) and spring onion greens (optional).
4. Whizz some more.
5. Take out in bowl and keep in fridge till you need it (it's tasty so you'll have to keep yourself from eating it all up as you work)!

To make the tartlets:

1. Bake the empty tart shells (be sure to poke with fork before baking to let the air out. Else you'll have puffy tart shell) at 190 C for 10-15 min. Keep checking so as to not let it brown too much (there will be another round of baking no?)
2. Spread cheese mix
3. Top with veggie of your choice
4. Bake again for 10-15 mins at 190 C till the veggies are just cooked.

There you go! Pretty simple no? 

I hope this start helps me do this on a more regular basis - cook, click, eat and post - in that order ;)

Strawberries and cream

This is perfect weather to eat, eat and then eat again some more. So I had a bunch of strawberries sitting in my fridge - strawberries that were just the right mix of tartness and sweetness; that would bite you tongue one second and spread the most delicious flavour the next. And as luck would have it, I also happened to have some fresh cream and icing sugar sitting next to the strawberries :D.

While not really a typical winter dessert, this really is a most satisfying dessert - to make as well as eat (maybe a little more satisfying to eat :P). I love watching the cream run fluidly one minute and then thicken into this wonderful, shiny, fudge texture the next. And when you've been whipping it by hand, the transformation is all the more magical for you can feel the cream change it's texture in that fraction of a second when some chemical reaction that I am not aware of makes it all come together.

Cream done, chop strawberries and time to gorge. Sweet and tart at the same time; smooth, soft cream slipping down your tongue and the pitted, textured berries hitting your palate. I love the contrasts that make this simple combination one of the loveliest and most comforting desserts.

Chocolate vs. Men

Chocolates ... I know very few women who don't like them. And for good reason are there so few who do not like chocolates. Chocolates score over men in almost everything given that they produce the same hormonal effect. Here's a shortlist:

1. They do not have issues - commitment issues, independence issues, alcohol issues and many others.
2. Easy decision tree. They just want to be eaten.
3. The only "space" they need is in your mouth and stomach!
4. They smell nicer and definitely not of sweat.
5. They don't argue about growing beards and mustaches that poke.
6. They taste infinitely better
7. They are low maintenance.

There you go. A reason for each day of the week to like chocolates.

This post is dedicated to women like Curry who absolutely love chocolate :D

Gastronomique!!!

Kolkata they say is the foodie's paradise - from fish to sandesh to puchkas. Everyday I walk back from my office breathing in the overpowering smells of streetfood, frying eggs, fresh foods and more. Sweet shops punctuate the Gariahat shopping area at every yard or so. This being Kolkata, it would be unfair of me to neglect food.

Flury's

After much ado and a cabbie who didn't know this famous bakery, mom and I managed to find it on our second day in the city. Having spent a baking afternoon checking out the touristy places on May Day, we decided to treat ourselves to some delicious baking as well.

Pink. That's the first thing that will strike you about Flury's. Pink lettering on a huge glass door on Park Street. Pink like a little girl's ribbon. I must also admit, the pink took my by surprise partly because of the Chokola experience. After a warm, brown place full of delights that would make anyone's taste buds dance, i hardly expected pink in a similar place. Their bags are white and pink too... bringing to mind a little girl, which is just what you become when you enter.

So opening the glass door and entering, the smells drive away any vestige of exhaustion, inducing hunger pangs in the fullest of stomachs. A huge cake in the shape of a coal iron greeted me leading me to wonder at the total quantity of chocolate in the bakery. YUMMM!!!

On we went to the counter. And for a day the sin of gluttony would have to be risked for a more immediate heaven. Tarts, cakes, cookies, shortbread, pastries and more. Two tired women decided to indulge themselves and settled down to a sumptuous high tea.