The Food Story..: October 2015

The Best Brownie Recipe

9:39 AM

I know I am on a diet and focusing more on all things fitness these days. The last few posts have been about all things fitness and I should stick to that. There is no fitness without those cheat meals. We need to create imbalance every once in a while. Human body is an amazing piece of machinery. It adapts quickly. So if you need to include cheat meals to give your metabolism that much needed kick. That my friend is a true story. I am not an advocate of cheat days but a little indulgence once in 3 days works for me.

I think it works differently for everyone but the underlying theory is same more or less. I have often seen people missing out on meals because they had a piece of cake as a part of their cheat day. I think we just need to understand at any point the body should not be devoid of nutrients. Enough said. Please read this article and also this.

So this week I ran 13 kms on Thursday morning and that left me with a considerably free evening.

I decided to bake something for my office team. I also had that itch of creating that perfect tissue-thin crinkly crust on top brownie with gooey-ness inside.

I have my standard brownie recipe but this time I changed the recipe a bit and it turned out really nice. My idea of a good brownie is thick, fudgy, firm, dark chocolaty, very chewy and rich. It should not be dense, too gooey or under-baked. It needs to have that tissue-thin crust on top and should just melt. Well in this house we take our brownies very seriously. That's all.

Here it is:

Ingredients

1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used Hersheys this time)

1/2 cup Fresh Cream (I had lots of malai saved up)

100 gms Butter at room temperature

1/4 cup almonds ( I didn't have walnuts so I used almonds)

1 Mars chocolate bar chopped in to smallish chunks (You can use any chocolate chunks. I enjoy the fudgy taste of Mars)

1 Tsp Vanilla extract

1/2 cup White Flour + 2 Tbsp

1 Tsp Baking Powder

2 Eggs at room temperature

1/4 cup white sugar

1/2 cup cane sugar (You can use 3/4 cup of White sugar)

Method

Roast almonds well in a pan. Crush the almonds using mortar and pestle or alternatively using a mixer and keep aside.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees centigrade. Line an 8x8-inch baking pan with butter paper and grease with oil

Heat butter on low heat in a thick bottomed pan until it is browned. Combine the cocoa and mix well. Add sugar and fresh cream and whisk well. Add eggs one at a time and whisk really well ( I did it for 10 minutes). Beat in the vanilla extract and mix well.

Sift flour and baking powder in to the mixture and mix well.

Stir in almonds and chocolate chunks in 2Tbsp of flour and throw this mixture in the brownie batter

Pour the batter in the pan and bake for 25 minutes at 200 degrees.

Tip: Make sure the oven is really hot when you place your brownie pan inside the oven

Enjoy..

Ciao..

FitLife

Favorite Five

5:32 AM

"Snacks can make or break your diet"

Well all you fitness enthusiasts already know this. We all swear by it. We work on it. We count our macros and portions right. Just when we think we are doing everything right the whole process of eating/ preparing the "right" snacks becomes tedious. The monotony sets in and before you know it you are grabbing that on-the-go sandwich with bazillion calories in it.

The cafeteria at my workplace sucks. Even if you tried you wouldn't be able to find one right thing to snack upon. Most of my colleagues go for the diet options which are even worse. Every weekend laboriously I plan my snacks for the week ahead. In my world eating fruits is not the only healthy snacking option. It is good to eat fruits but somehow I can never satiate my hunger pangs. I need things which are substantial and also have a bit of proteins since I rely on natural sources.

So I decided to compile my current favorite snack ideas:

1. Gram flour pancakes ( or called besan ka chila)

Besan (Gram flour) - 1 cup
Ajwain (Carom seeds) - ¼ teaspoon
Garam masala - to taste
Salt - to taste
Onion - 1, finely chopped
Spinach - 1/2 cup, finely chopped
Carrot - 1, grated
Yogurt - 2 Tbsp
Water - 1 cup
Oil - to shallow fry cheela

In a bowl take besan, carom seeds, garam masala and salt and mix well

Add all the vegetables and mix well and then add yogurt.

Add little water at a time and make batter thick enough to coat the back of spoon. In case it in lumpy add a little more water.

Heat the pan on medium heat. Add oil and with wooden spatula spread it on evenly to coat pan.

Once it is hot, pour the batter and spread it to make a round shape pancake. When done flip it over to cook the other side

2. Apple Peanut Butter Grilled Sandwich

Apple slices finely cut length wise
Peanut butter - 1 Tsp
Maple Syrup/ Dates Syrup/ Honey - 1 Tsp
Bread - slices -2

I make a sandwich with rye toast and spread peanut butter and then arrange apple slices and drizzle honey/ maple syrup/ dates syrup and grill it on high heat. It works like a charm on heavy training days. Food is an important part of recovery and you can never train well by compromising on your fuel.

3. Roast Tomato and Mozzarella

This one is my favorite these days. I place the tomatoes, cut side up, in a single layer on a well greased cake pan I place some peeled garlic pods also. I drizzle the pan with the olive oil and sprinkle with the rosemary. I then roughly roast it for 40 minutes at a high temperature. The tomatoes caramelize and garlic flavor gets infused. I love to spread the tomato on a multi-grain cracker and have it with a bit of mozzarella cheese. When I pack it for work I just place the tomatoes and add mozzarella chunks. To add more flavor I cut chicken salami pieces really fine and make a nice little tangy salad..

4. Rice-Paper rolls

This one is pretty simple. I pulse cabbage, sweet corn and carrots together for a coarse mixture.

I mix in Soy sauce and chili sauce to the vegetable mixture. For other vegetable combinations you might need to saute or pre-cook the veggies a bit

I use this mixture as a filling for the Thai rice paper rolls.

5. Yogurt

I love to eat yogurt as a snack, dessert or side dish. I love it in every form.

There are times when I pulse pineapple and yogurt together and freeze it to have chilled fruit yogurt

I love mixing berries and cocoa with my yogurt too. This combination works like magic for me.

It is so convenient to carry to work in a small box . I normally buy packaged yogurt which has thick consistency since Greek yogurt is not easily available here. I then make my own flavored yogurt and pack it as a snack. I also tried mixing pumpkin puree and vanilla extract and loved the combination.

So what do you think? Please share your ideas and I would add more to this..

Ciao..

The Best Brownie Recipe

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