Hearth and Soul Blog Hop 3rd Anniversary and Giveaway

 

Hearty Welcome to the 3rd anniversary of the Hearth and Soul blog hop.  We are looking forward to a delicious, healthy, recipes as all as health related information which helps to energize our body. In order to celebrate the joy of 3rd anniversary we are giving away, three prizes,  two $50 Amazon gift cards and one $10 Amazon gift card ( if the winner is from India or with Indian shipping address they will get Rs 500 filpkart gift voucher).  These giveaway is given by  the  host it is not sponsored  one. 

Entry-Form

All the hosts at Hearth and Soul care very deeply about this blog hop, and make an group effort to be sure that every post is commented on. We also Pin and Tweet many of the entries. You don't find this with every blog hop, and in exchange for our efforts, we respectfully request that you include a link in the actual blog post you are sharing back to one of the hosts, either by worded link or using our badge. It is not enough to link using a communal blog party page. People rarely click on these links and it is unlikely they will find the Hearth and Soul hop using these sort of pages.

Facebook

Pinterest

and Twitter

Please link  to any one of the host sites,

Alea of Premeditated Leftovers

April of 21st Century Housewife

Judy of   Savoring Today

and me

Swathi of Zesty south Indian Kitchen

One link per week, please-Must include a link back to one/any of the host sites (through worded link or badge) in individual post, not on sidebar…although we love having links on your page, as well (this benefits all of us). You will be sent a gentle reminder if no link is added to your post, we understand that sometimes people forget…but if it becomes a regular occurrence, (even though we don’t like to do it) your post may be removed. It’s just not fair to those who do take the time and show the grace to link back.-Try to link a post that you think fits into the mission. You don’t have to link up every week,link up when you can.

Please feel free to grab the Hearth and soul blog hop badge, that will help to spread the word.

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Pepper Jack Gougeres: Pepper Jack Cream puffs: Baking Partner's Challenge12

I am fascinated with French cuisine, especially their pastries makes me want to catch a flight to visit Paris within a day. However travelling to Paris is out of question for the time being at least, with two crying babies, and busy working husband with less vacation time I don’t even bother to have a dream about visits to Paris.    My solution to this problem is bake or cooks your favorite French dishes at home.  I tried pate choux earlier, I loved it. I tried, profiteroles, croquembouches, Swans etc. I need to try Paris-New York, Éclairs and Gougeres.

For this month baking partners challenge, I selected Pate choux pastries with Éclairs and Gougeres. Moreover I borrowed Thomas Keller Buchon Bakery Book from Library, which is full of breathtaking photographs of pastries. The beautiful pastries are really hard to resist, but I don’t have any access to Bouchon bakery here? I have to don my apron and try the recipes. When I asked my hubby about Éclairs and Gougeres, he immediately nodded head towards a savory pastry. As he is diabetic, sugar is really villain to him. 

Then comes the hunt of Gruyère cheese, I found it in Target with a price of $ 10 for a 4 ounce piece, so drop the idea of buying it. Then I went to Wal-Mart and bought Pepper Jack cheese. Among the soft cheese we like pepper jack a lot. Spicy kick from Jalapenos is wonderful. I like Thomas Keller’s book, but don’t like his way of measuring the eggs, as we buy Jumbo egg and each egg is around 60g. I don’t want to waste extra egg, so used only 2 eggs, it turned out be fine.

Gougeres are small cream puff with cheese and usually served as appetizers. According to Wikipedia, these come from Burgundy, Yonne, specifically Tonnerre. They can be really small or served with some filling like mushrooms, beef or harm. They are really cute. If you master the technique of pate choux pastry making, this is really easy to make.

Ingredients needs are only flour, water, butter, egg and cheese. Skipped the pepper from the recipe as the cheese I used was Pepper Jack cheese. You can make these with Gruyère, Comté, or Emmentaler cheese, if you can’t find them use cheddar, pepper jack or any other cheese of your choice. I didn’t use my trusted Kitchen Aid to prevent extra washing step and I used a wooden spoon and hand mixed it to make this.   Added cheese in the pate choux pastry and also topped with little cheese before baking. I tried piping the pastries as mentioned the recipes and also used a 1 tablespoon scoop to transfer the dough. I was really ecstatic when they start to puff up in the oven. It took about 35 minutes in my oven to get golden gougeres. They are utterly delicious when they are warm.

If you like cream puffs and cheese this is best appetizer you can think about for any party. In the book, it is mentioned that you can even freeze the shaped Gougeres. When you ready to bake thaw and bake it. Goes well with any wine, my hubby fell in love them so much he even took some to office to munch on. My daughter loved it.

I am glad that through our Baking Partners Challenge we are able to study lots of different baking techniques.  Please make sure to take a look at fellow baking partner’s creations. Some members even veganzied the recipe. If you want to join with us for next month bakes, please shoot an e-mail. 

Here comes the recipe. 

 

Pepper Jack Gougeres: Pepper Jack Cream puffs

Preparation time: 25 minutes

Baking time: 35 minutes

 Yield: 26 bite sized Gougeres

Ingredients

1/2 cup + 1 1/2 tablespoon/144g water

2.2 ounces/63 unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon/1g salt

1/2 cup + 2 1/2 tablespoon/90g all purpose flour
2 no of Jumbo eggs( around 120g)
3/4cup/ Grated Pepper Jack Cheese

Directions:

•  Combine the water, butter, salt, pepper in a medium saucepan, and place over medium heat and stir until butter is melted. Once the butter has melted, increase heat to medium-high and then bring to a simmer, then remove pan from the heat, with a wooden spoon, stir in all the flour.
•     Continue to stir for 1 1/2 minutes until the mixture has a paste-like consistency, then place over medium-high heat and stir rapidly for 1 minute, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan and the bottom of the pan is clean. The dough should be glossy and smooth but not dry.
•       If you want to use hand then set aside for 5 minutes and then gradually add one egg at a time using a wooden spoon mix everything well so that it gets combined. Then add about 3/4^th of the cheese and mix once again to combine.
•  Or want to proceed with your kitchen aid stand mixer. Immediately transfer the dough to a mixer bowl and mix on low speed for 30 seconds to release some of the moisture. Slowly begin to add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each addition is completely absorbed before adding the next one. Continue adding the eggs, mix until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl pulled with the paddle but immediately grabs back on again.
•     Increase speed to medium for 15 seconds to ensure that all the eggs are incorporated. Stop the mixer. When the dough is lifted, it should form a bird's peak- it should hold its shape and turn down on itself but not break off. Add the cheese and pulse to incorporate. (If you don't have a pulse on pour the entire batter into blender and pressed pulse so that the cheese actually got pulsed in.)
•      Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment pepper or silpat.
•      Transfer the batter into pastry bag. At this point, you can pipe the batter into mold, if you don’t have mold,   piped little free form balls, slightly less than 1 inch in diameter .Piped them onto a baking sheet, spread about 1 1/2 inches apart. After piping, use finger tip with little water to push down and get rid of the little tip that is left on top of each one from the piping.( I have used a ½ tablespoon ice cream scoop to make small balls)
•      If you want you can freeze the gougeres for about four hours until firm. Or you can bake them right away. Preheat oven to 350F. Bake for 35 minutes or until it become golden brown if you are baking immediately.
•      If you are baking the frozen one, preheat the oven to 375F. Line the baking sheet with frozen gougeres, leaving about 1 inch between them. Spray lightly with water. Place in the oven, immediately lower temperature to 350F and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm. 

This recipe is adapted from Thomas Keller and Sebastien Rouxel’s Buchon Bakery Book

 

 

Hope you guys had a wonderful weekend. Mine was quite an eventful one. Yesterday, I injured my left arm and it has become swollen and red in color. It hurts a lot; I am currently taking pain killers to subdue the pain. On the top of it my prince wants to be held, but my arms hurt badly when I do that.    So my cooking is going at the speed of a snail.

During grocery shopping I was able to find 4 avocado for 1 dollar; they were small still I bought it thinking that I will make some Mexican avocado soup. But didn’t get a chance to make it, so decide to use them before they want to leave me to go to garbage bin.  Finally end up making this delicious smoothie with it.

Do you know Avocado are called most perfect fruit of the world, not only it can help up to survive but also helps to prevent and control major disease like Alzheimer’s due to its high concentration of vitamin E, heart disease because of its healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (such as omega-3 fatty acids), and diabetes due to rich fiber content. Also it has anti inflammatory and anti cancer benefits. Read more from here and here.

I don’t know what to call them, smoothie or juice as avocados is the star ingredient and it is really thick. It is really scoop able with a spoon than a drink. I also had a pineapple in hand that I need to use too. So decide to add in smoothie, I have seen a recipe of avocado and pineapple smoothie here in the avocados’ from Mexico site. I know avocado and lime goes well so decide to add some lime to my version of smoothie.

While I was in India, I haven’t seen avocado, I came to know that it is called butter fruit/ Makhanphal in Hindi, available in September to February months. It is mainly grown in Karnataka and also a few other South Indian states. It is not popular as other fruits in India.

My first encounter with avocado was in the form of guacamole I had in Mexican restaurant in West Virginia. I loved it. Now when I buy avocado’s, I usually eat them as such or sometimes try to make a smoothie with banana. I prefer avocado in non diary smoothie, as it is in itself has a rich creamy taste. I think if we add milk or yogurt it will reduce the taste of avocado. I love to make salsa may be next time I will try grilled avocado.

I made this smoothie using a ripe avocado, half of lime and 1 cup of pineapple. I have made sugarless for me and hubby and added some sugar for my daughter and son. My daughter loved her drink very much. She like the color blue and green, so this green drink turned out is one of her favorite one.

If you can find an avocado, grab it and add some lime or lemon and pineapple and your great breakfast smoothie within few minutes.

Here is the recipe.

 

Blend everything  with water, if using add sugar. 

Avocado Pineapple lime Smoothie: A diabetic friendly Smoothie. Gluten and  Vegan free

Prep Time    5 minutes

Cook Time    5 minutes

Serves    2

Ingredients

1 ripe avocado

1/2 of one lime

1 cup Chopped pineapple

1 tablespoon sugar/ splenda( optional)

             1/2 cup water (decrease or increase depending upon consistency of your choice)

Directions:

•  Add all ingredients into a blender along with water. Blend it well for about 5 minutes or until you get a thick juice. Enjoy  with or without sugar.

  I am  linking this delicious juice to Hearth and Soul Blog Hop hosted here