Madhu Knits and Cooks

Recipe, knitting, and sewing project notes

  • Cinnamon Rolls!

    Cinnamon Rolls 

    For some reason, making cinnamon rolls became a two-weeklong obsession for me this month.  I don't know where exactly this desire came from, but when it did come, I thought about it almost every day until I finally attempted to make them, using this Allrecipes.com recipe.  The major takeaways from this effort are:

    • Homemade cinnamon rolls are definitely worth the effort — even just the smell of them baking in the oven made my week.
    • Make sure you have a lot of butter handy, and that you don't have a fear of consuming large amounts of it in one sitting.
    • The leftovers still taste absolutely amazing — which is a little dangerous because at first, I thought that this would only be an entertaining occasion recipe because this recipe makes so many servings.  Oh well, I'll just have to accept that my butter consumption is going to be higher in the future.

    The more mundane details about how I altered the recipe are:  substituting whole wheat flour for 1/2 of the all-purpose flour called for, and reducing the baking time to 16 minutes.  I think that I probably should have baked them for a little bit more though because some of the rolls were a little dough-y, so perhaps I'll increase the baking time to 18 – 19 minutes next time.  Additionally, I am allergic to nuts so I did not include the pecans.

    Enjoy!

    Cinnamon Rolls Full Pan 

  • Mutter Tofu

    In 2006, I learned how to make Mutter Paneer, a popular North Indian dish.  Someone commented on a related post that they had successfully attempted the recipe, and had substituted tofu in place of paneer.  That comment has stuck with me the past few years, and when I finally decided to try this recipe myself, I decided to use tofu as well instead of the traditional paneer.  I also adapted the recipe to what I had in my kitchen — which slightly deviates from the original recipe.  Below the picture, I detail what I did to make the dish, what I would change in the future, and how this more simple approach differs from the original recipe — which I still think is probably the gold standard for mutter paneer.  

    Mutter Tofu 

    Ingredients (for approximately 4 servings)

    1 teaspoon ground cardamom (I would reduce this to 1/2 tsp. moving forward, especially because I freshly ground cardamon seeds)

    Vegetable cooking oil 

    2 teaspoons store-bought ginger garlic paste (in place of homemade paste)

    1/4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds (in place of dry fenugreek)

    1 medium onion chopped

    1 ½ medium tomatoes, chopped and microwaved for 2-3 minutes 

    1 teaspoon paprika

    1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

    1 teaspoon roasted ground cumin 

    1/2 teaspoon roasted ground coriander (in place of 1 tsp. in original recipe — I may decrease in the future)

    1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

    1 green chile, sliced

    2 tablespoons sour cream

    1 teaspoon salt

    ½ teaspoon store-bought masala (in place of homemade masala)

    1 block extra firm tofu, squeezed dry and cut into 3/4 inch square pieces (I would recommend making them 1/2 inch square pieces instead)

    3/4 cup frozen peas


    Directions (I basically followed the original recipe, except for separate cooking of the tofu)


    -Heat oil in saucepan (medium heat, depending on quality of pan)

    -Add ground cardamom

    -Add garlic/ginger paste, let simmer for a few minutes

    -Add dried fenugreek and chopped onion

    -Let simmer 5-10 minutes, or until the onions don’t smell raw

    – At the same time, heat 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil in another pan on medium-high heat.  Add tofu, and saute, stirring occasionally, until the tofu is lightly browned on all sides or the desired consistency is reached. 

    -Cut the tomatoes, and then put in microwave for 2-3 minutes

    -Add paprika, cayenne, cumin, and coriander

    -Add water if the ingredients are sticking to the pan (I would add about 1/4 – 3/4 cup of water)

    -Add cilantro

    -Add chopped tomatoes, and lower the heat a bit

    -Let simmer so flavors blend (few minutes)

    -Then put i
    n a food processor, until consistency is like gravy

    -Put back in pan, and add salt to taste

    -Add 2 tablespoons of sour cream.  Turn up heat and stir vigorously until mixture bubbles

    -Keep stirring after bubbling and add homemade masala

    -Then add peas, stir and cover, lower heat to medium/low.

    -Stir periodically and add water if looks dry (maybe another 1/4 cup).  Let simmer for 10 minutes.

    -Uncover and stir in tofu, and let simmer for 3-4 minutes for flavor to set in paneer.


    Potential Further Alterations


    The recipe turned out incredibly well, though I think that there are three key changes I would consider making.  First, as I describe above in the ingredients section, I would reduce the cardamon to 1/2 teaspoon instead of 1 teaspoon.  I think the end result had a little too much cardamon flavor — potentially because I freshly ground the cardamon — and that made the dish a bit sweet.  Second, I would recommend cutting the tofu into smaller pieces.  I usually cut my tofu to about 3/4 inch square pieces when I stir fry them with vegetables, but I would that size is too big to get the tofu properly flavored in this gravy dish.  I think that a 1/2 inch square size would probably work better for this recipe.  Finally, I would add more water to the recipe as I detail in the directions section.  I added perhaps only 1/4 cup of water through the cooking process, and the leftovers were somewhat dry, so I would probably add approximately 1/2 – 3/4 cup through the cooking process.  I don't think that extra water would undesirably dilute the flavor.


    I'll report back if I try these alterations in the future!

  • Baby Corn Manchurian

    Indian-Chinese food (or Indo-Chinese) is one of my favorite types of food.  It's basically fast-food Chinese with Indian spices or influences, and has become increasingly popular with Indian communities in the U.S. the past several years.  I experienced Indian Chinese food for the first time since my childhood about 6 years ago when I went to Tangra Masala in New York, which has since become one of my favorite restaurants in the country.  I haven't really attempted Indian Chinese food at home though because the flavor mix in the dishes is so powerful that I always have trouble figuring out what spices to use.   

    I decided to take the plunge though recently because I had some leftover baby corn in my fridge, and Baby Corn Manchurian is one of my favorite Indian Chinese dishes.  I did some googling, and settled on a few sites to help guide my first attempt:  Cooking and Me (thanks to Nags to the permission to comment on the awesome blog) and Sulekha.com.  

    Baby Corn Manchurian 

    I mostly followed the recipe on Cooking and Me, though I did make a few alterations.  My ingredient substitutions included:

    • Using all-purpose flour in place of maida
    • Grinding yellow corn meal to make the corn flour 
    • Adding 1/4 cup water to the flour mixture to allow it to more easily coat each piece of baby corn
    • Adding one finely chopped serrano pepper and more soy sauce
    • A few "turns" of fresh ground pepper in place of "pepper powder"

    I also cooked the dish slightly differently because I was multi-tasking in the kitchen that day, and so I cooked the vegetable mixture on the stovetop for about 10 minutes longer than called for in the recipe on lower-heat.  I also cut the baby corn into 1-inch segments instead of halving them, and fried them in my deep fryer for about 4 minutes, or until golden brown.  

    As you can see from the picture, I ended up making the "dry" version of the dish, and not the version that included the extra sauce — I generally prefer my Baby Corn Manchurian dry, and was also worried that the gravy would dilute the flavor of the dish.  

    Overall, I enjoyed the dish but I felt that something was still missing — and I think that ingredient was a little bit of tomato paste to give the dish a bit more tartness and therefore resemble most Baby Corn Manchurian dishes that I've had.  I also think that instead of prepared ginger garlic paste, I may use fresh ginger and garlic instead to really pump up the flavors of the dish.  An alternative way to prepare would also be to just deep fry the baby corn as directed with the flavorful coating because the crisp baby corn without the vegetable tasted quite good on its own with a little salt and pepper.  

    Any ideas on how to improve this first attempt at Baby Corn Manchurian are more than welcome!  Thanks again to Cooking and Me, and Sulekha, for their recipe guidance!

  • Completely Authentic Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

    I've only made desserts from the Cook's Illustrated/Cook's Country/America's Text Kitchen folks because most of their main course/side dish options incorporate meat or some sort of meat flavoring.  This finally changed though a few weeks ago when I received the January/February 2010 issue of Cook's Illustrated.  I knew after just quickly glancing at the cover that I would definitely be making a savory recipe from the issue — whether or not it included meat!  (To clarify, this means, I would have taken the time to modify the recipe to be vegetarian, not actually prepare a meat meal :-))

    That recipe is the Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza.  I have spent most of my adult life in Chicago, and I've LOVED Chicago Deep Dish Pizza ever since my childhood visits to Illinois.  My favorite Chicago pizza place is Gino's East (SO delicious), and I absolutely abhor the fake Chicago pizza that you can find outside of the Windy City including the horrible, horrible Uno's and D.C.'s Armand's "Chicago" Pizzeria.  Although I've had so many bad Chicago pizza experiences outside of the city, I had faith — some might say a bit of desperation because I haven't been to Chicago in over a year (!) — that Cook's Illustrated would get it right.  I am incredibly pleased to report that Cook's Illustrated didn't let me down.

    Chicago Deep Dish Pizza 

    I followed the magazine's recipe almost exactly, and I found that following the multi-step dough process is critical to achieving the wonderfully flaky and buttery crust (which is so spot on for real Chicago pizza).  While I had a bit of doubt about whether the crust would turn out correctly given how thin it was after rolling, it really did rise perfectly.  The pizza sauce was also very simple and delicious — much better than the standard sauce we use for our homemade pizzas (meaning I have a new favorite pizza sauce recipe!).  

    The only changes I ended up making were to add some chopped red bell pepper, jalapenos and onion on top of the cheese layer, and to use two springform pans to bake the pizzas — one was slightly smaller than recommended (8.5 inches) and the other was slightly larger (9.5 inches).  The larger pizza I baked for maybe 4 minutes longer than the smaller pizza, but there was no difference in taste or consistency.  The two pizzas ended up serving 4 hungry adults.

    Of all of the Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Country recipes I have recommended, this is definitely my favorite.  It's a fantastic meal to make when a few friends are coming over, and perfect for winter months.  It's almost exactly the medicine I need given how much I miss Chicago and all of the wonderful food there!  Definitely, definitely pick up this edition of Cook's Illustrated this month!

  • Cook’s Country Magazine French Silk Pie

    As a Cook's Illustrated subscriber, I recently received a sample copy of Cook's Country magazine.  I have to admit that when I first saw the magazine, I thought that I wouldn't really be able to get anything out of it.  Cook's Country, to me, seemed like it would be too focused on fatty, meaty American food — not necessarily what a somewhat health-conscious vegetarian looks for in cooking magazines.  

    I was pleased to find though after finally ripping open the magazine's outer packaging that not only were there some meat-free recipes, there were also some low-fat and simple recipes that I actually wanted to try out.  What's funny is that the first recipe that I decided to try was not healthy at all — it was the re-envisioned Betty Crocker French Silk Pie, which I decided to pair with a Cook's Illustrated Chicago Deep Dish Pizza (more to come on that recipe later, but yes, it was an incredibly heavy and absolutely delicious meal).  

    French Silk Pie 

    I paired the pie filling with the standard Gourmet Cookbook basic pie dough crust, and found the pie to take a relatively short time to prepare (maybe 45 minutes to 1 hour, excluding the cooling period and the pie crust assembly time).   Needless to say, despite slightly altering the recipe to include 4oz of bittersweet chocolate and approx. 2oz of semisweet chocolate chips (I didn't have the 8oz of bittersweet called for in the recipe), the pie was a HUGE hit with my friends.  

    The only part that I didn't fully like was the crust, which I thought I probably should have refrigerated after rolling out because I think the butter got soft and hence the crust wasn't as flaky as it could have been.  I ended up baking the crust with a beans-in-foil pie weight at 375 for 15 minutes, and then without the weights for maybe around 10 minutes.  I will probably follow that method for pre-baked pie crusts again in the future, except with refrigerating the crust prior to baking to ensure the cold butter can really play its part in the recipe.  I also didn't have a thermometer during the cooking process, and cooked the egg mixture for 10 minutes beyond what the recipe called for to ensure it had thickened to what the recipe pictures looked like (my substitute for knowing the exact temperature).  I am not sure if my bowl was heat-proof, which maybe was the issue?  In any case though, the pie was fantastic (perfect chocolate flavor and texture), and I definitely recommend it to all!

  • Simple Blue Cotton Hat for My Sister

    As regular readers probably know, my sister is a vegan which can make knitting for her a bit challenging.  As a vegan, she doesn't wear animal fibers — and given that I now mostly buy my yarn at sheep and wool festivals, you can see where this is an issue.  This situation has meant for the past several years that whenever I find a good vegan yarn (generally cotton), I go ahead and pick up a few balls or skeins for my stash.  I recently did just that a few months ago while on a quick visit to School Products in NYC to identify some mystery yarn in my stash that I bought there several years ago in the clearance bin.  I found some very soft cotton, reasonably-priced Karabella Windy, and bought two balls in the bright #2 blue color.  I quickly took a picture of the yarn with my IPhone on the street downstairs from the shop, and emailed it to my sister who confirmed that she thought it was a good color.  

    After consulting with my sister further over the next few weeks, I decided to make her a new winter hat (the one I had made for her several years ago has apparently not been holding up well).  The pattern details follow this picture of the pre-blocked hat:

    Mallika Blue Hat 

    Mallika's Blue Cotton Hat

    Yarn:  Approx. 1.3 balls of Karabella Windy in #2 color

    Needles:  5 size 8 dpns

    Stitches/Pattern:  I cast on 64 stitches, and worked the first 9 rows in a garter stitch (approx. 1.5 inches).  I then worked stockinette stitch rows until the hat measured 4 inches long, and then started the decreases at a k9, k2tog rate, alternating straight rows with the standard hat shaping decrease rows.  The shaping took 21 inches and added another 4 inches to the hat.

    Post-Blocking Measurements:  22 inches at its widest point, and 8 inches from top to bottom.  There was a significant stretch from the pre-blocking measurement of 18 inches wide.

    The hat only took a few hours to knit up and the yarn was smooth and easy to work with, so I look forward to making this simple, thick hat again!  

  • Moon and Stars Scarf for Logan

    As I blogged about just a few hours ago, I went into Rhinebeck this year determined to buy only enough yarn for two holiday scarfs — one for Andy's niece and another for his nephew Logan.  For Logan, I bought two shades of yarn from the This and That Farm of Danby, VT.  The yarn was soft, two-ply como.  The larger ball was 212 yards (4 oz) and was a blueish-greenish shade, and the smaller ball was 96 yards (1 oz) in a marigold shade.  

    Initially, I thought that I would make the scarf with the blue-green yarn and then anchor the scarf's plain pattern with a marigold/blue-green checkerboard motif at each end of the scarf.  As I got closer to making the scarf though, I decided to replace the checkerboard pattern with a moon and stars motif because Logan loves looking at, and talking about, the moon (he is 4).  Making that decision though meant I would embark upon a more difficult designing adventure though as I quickly realized I would have to probably design the moon and stars motif.  

    I looked on Ravelry, and a few children's patterns books, and couldn't find any moon and stars patterns that I liked or would work for the scarf.  I did find though this moon and stars blanket pattern from Crystal Palace Yarns, and thought that the way the crescent moon worked with stars looked quite nice, so used it as inspiration to design my own set of moon and stars (the Crystal Palace pattern used much different dimensions than what I needed for the scarf and I didn't quite like the exact design of the stars as I wanted my stars to be a bit "lighter" so had to basically redraw and graph it, but the Crystal Palace pattern heavily influenced the overall design).  I ended up coming up with pattern below, which works over 19 stitches (I put it on a 22 stitch-long scarf).  I put the pattern on top of a seed stitch pattern, as I learned from Ravelry that that would be the best way to keep the scarf flat without rolling (even when I've done garter or slip stitch borders in the past, there has always been a bit of curling, which I wanted to avoid here because of the size of the scarf.  

    The pattern, seed stitch, and yarn worked wonderfully together to create an AWESOME scarf!  I was incredibly happy with it, and look forward to doing future colorwork.  

    Logan Moon and Star Scarf 

     Here are the final details of the project:

    Yarn:  This and That Farm Como Wool, approx. 2/3 of main color used and approx. 1/3 of contrast color, so maybe 180 – 200 yards used

    Needles:  Size 6 Circular

    Stitches:  22 stitches cast-on (21-stitch pattern graphic below excludes one plain row on the left side for some reason)

    Post-Blocking Measurements:  5 inches wide by 40 1/2 inches long, with the pattern itself taking up approximately 7 inches of each side of the scarf and the pattern portion of the scarf being 4 3/4 inches wide (slightly tighter than the main part of the scarf).  

    Moon and stars scarf 

     

  • The Yarn Harlot’s One Row Scarf for Samantha

    In Rhinebeck this year, I stuck to my "yarn diet" and only bought enough yarn for two children's holiday scarfs – one for Andy's niece Samantha and the other for his nephew Logan.  For Samantha's scarf, I purchased one 160 yard skein of Autumn House Farm's Sagamore yarn, which is a loose combination of silk, cotton and rayon yarn strands.  I bought the yarn in the Wood Rose colorway, which has off-white, light pink, light blue and green colors.**  I found the yarn to be somewhat slippery to work with, so instead of using Addi Turbos, I ended up using a somewhat coarser bamboo circular needle.  

    The way the three strands of yarn knit up also made it hard to select a pattern, so I ended up experimenting with a few different patterns before settling on something that really worked.  I initially thought that a drop stitch pattern would work well to showcase the yarn, so tried this almost fish-like pattern.  Unfortunately though, I scaled the pattern down to only be about 4 – 5 inches wide because its for a 5 year old girl, and just three different repeats of the pattern just didn't look right with the yarn.  I next tried two different lacy patterns, including this Rivolo pattern, but both called for sport or DK weight yarns, so I should have known that they wouldn't quite work out but I tried anyways and found that the yarnovers and shaping wasn't as visible as I would have liked them to be (especially because like the drop-stitch pattern, I had to decrease the number of repeats so maybe there just weren't enough repeats to fully show the intricacy of the pattern).  

    So finally, after a lot of frustration and hair-pulling, I came across this incredibly simple one row, modified rib pattern from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.  I created a small test swatch, and found that it worked perfectly to make this somewhat thicker yarn look delicate and almost breezy.  

    Samantha Scarf 

     Here are the details of the final project:

    Yarn:  Autumn House Sagamore in Wood Rose, approximately 4/5 of the 160 yd. skein used

    Needles:  Size 8 bamboo circular

    Stitches:  I cast on 26 stitches

    Post-Blocking Measurements:  4.5 inches wide by 45 inches long (and despite some concerns about blocking silk yarn, I wet-blocked the scarf and it turned out fine, though it may be because this was such a simple pattern so not a lot the blocking could mess up).

    **While I did like the way the yarn worked for this project, I don't know if I'll buy this yarn again.  I didn't quite like the feel of the yarn while knitting it up (felt maybe a little too coarse, and didn't seem to wear well when I ripped out the first few rows multiple times after experimenting with the three or four different patterns).

  • Moosewood Celebrates Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

    I just wanted to write up a quick review of a recipe I tried a few months back — the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from the Moosewood Celebrates cookbook.  Like the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home cookbook, I received this cookbook as a gift — though an impromptu one as my uncle bought it several years ago, had never used it, and just asked me if I wanted to take it off his hands.  

    The cookies were my first recipe experiment from this book (thankfully I have this site to confirm my memory!), and they turned out pretty well.  Instead of using the quick-cooking oats called for in the recipe, I used old-fashioned oats.  I didn't notice any difference with the actual result and what was described in the cookbook though, so will just use whatever is handy in the future as well.  I also reduced the baking time as they baked quicker in my oven than the recipe recommended.

    Moosewood Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Retouched

    The cookies were pretty soft and very chewy, so I think work for most oatmeal cookie eaters I know.  My preference, though, is for more crunchy and slightly dry oatmeal chocolate chip cookies so I think this recipe may go on the back-burner for awhile, perhaps until I find someone who wants chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for their birthday!

  • Two Knit Hats for the Lovely Louisa

    Although I have been promising a knit vest for toddler Henry for over a year now, I ended up first knitting a hat for his younger sister Louisa, who also lives in D.C.  Don't worry though Henry — your overdue vest is in progress!

    I used the same pattern for both of the Louisa hats (the Louisa series, if you will.  One hat though was completed over a year ago and not originally intended to be a part of the series).  Knitting these hats have reminded me of the significance of yarn selection because although I used the same pattern, the hats look and feel quite different because I used different types of yarns for each.  

    Hat #1

    Louisa Maroon Hat 

    Hat #2

    Louisa Green Hat 

    As I note above, I did not knit these hats up at the same time — I actually completed Hat #1 a year ago, and have been waiting for a toddler to give it to.  I ended up picking the same pattern for Louisa's hat, Hat #2, because I liked the simplicity and elegance of the first hat, and I decided to avoid an animal-type ear hat because I couldn't quite find a pattern I liked.  Hat #2 is larger than Hat #1 as the measurements for Louisa indicated that she needed a larger hat, but I think that both will fit her well for the next few years which is a rarity in children's knitting (and clothes, generally).  As guidelines for the future, I think I will use the Hat #1 measurements for children up to age 3, and then Hat #2 for children over the age of the 3.  And this pattern I think will continue to be in heavy rotation in the future.  Here are the details for both hats:

    Pattern:  Large version of the Baby Hat from One Skein 

    Hat #1

    Yarn:  Plymouth Baby Alpaca DK in a maroon shade, 1 skein

    Needles:  Size 6 dpns

    Post-Blocking Measurements:  8.5 inches wide at the widest point (= 17 inches wide around the hat), 6.5 inches tall with shaping taking up the last 2 inches

    Hat #2

    Yarn:  Karabella Aurora 8 in color 716, 1 entire skein (it was a close call at the end of the hat)

    Needles:  Size 8 dpns

    Post-Blocking Measurements:  9.5 inches at the widest point (= 19 inches wide around the hat), 7 inches tall with shaping taking up the last 2.5 inches

    Look, look, Louisa loves her hat!

    Louisa Hat Modeled