REMINDER:
I am hosting an event and a giveaway (for bloggers in the USA and in India) and it is open till February 14th. Have you sent in your entry? e-mail me your entry at pallavykulkarni [at]yahoo[dot] com. I will post the round up in the following week( so if your entry is a bit late, it is okay) and announce the winners.
Now on to today's post. If you are a 70's something child born in India, what I have to narrate will have you nodding in agreement. More so, if you are from Maharashtra ( not that if you come from any other part of the country or world it is very different. Just with slight variations).
Raise your hand if you have smeared your fulka/ poli/ chapati with ghee and sprinkled sugar or crumbled jaggery on top, rolled it and enjoyed the treat!
My parents worked. My Mom would make lunch by 10:00 a m and we would all eat and go to office or school. On several occasions, I'd turn up my nose at what was made ( read, the usual fare of poli-bhaji, amti-bhaat) and demand something 'different'.
Mom had to finish everything around the house, clean up, pack lunch boxes and catch her local train to reach office in time, in all that, she had to make something 'different'.
I now wonder how she did it all. I am a stay at home Mom and still complain ( bitterly) about how tired I get.
On those days, when I turned up my nose at what was made, she would substitute the vegetables with ghee and jaggery, roll it up in the fulka and I'd eat up, no fuss! Gul-tup-poli was the solution as was tup-sakhar-poli.
Peanut butter and jelly was unknown. Bread with a smear of butter (Amul Butter) and Jam was common, but when there was fresh, off the skillet fulka, why eat bread?
This was also a mid-day snack or a lunch box and the easiest thing to make when I came home from school, hungry as a hunter.
I still remember those days, I would come home, throw my backpack, shake off the shoes and I'd rush to the kitchen, rinse my hands at the sink and grab anything I could. When I wanted to eat the fulka with jaggery, I'd climb on the chair and reach for the 'gualcha dabba' and climb down and proceed to crumble a very generous amount of jaggery on a fulka smeared with equally generous amount of ghee.
My son likes 'gull-roti' too, just like I do, with lots of ghee and not so much jaggery and occasionally 'sugar-roti'.
As time passes, our options increase, knowledge of new ingredients and of course curiosity to try something new fuels experiments in the kitchen.
To add to all the above, a plethora of recipes ranging from simple to complex to exotic and some with about 50 ingredients that leave you fogged as to what the ultimate concoction might be.
And then the websites, blogs and then there is Pinterest, to bring it all together! sigh!
When I first got on the Pinterest bandwagon, I was totally obsessed with it. I loved it and spent a good deal of time exploring and pinning. Gradually, the fever subsided and I got realistic, there were just too many beautiful things to look and try out, but I have my limitations to come to terms with. I am not a crafty person, neither am I one to try out something totally 'different'. I like to play safe, with ingredients that I know and some I do not. Something reasonable and doable is my motto.
And so I chanced on this recipe and I loved the idea. I made it with minor changes.
The little one approved!
I guesstimated the ingredients, which is not too difficult, considering that there is a limited amount of cream cheese. I also had some tortillas left over from the time I made this Mexican Pizza
You need:
Flour Tortillas (I used the small sized, 6 inch Tortillas)
Cream Cheese ( Smallest tub, reduced fat)
Strawberries and Blueberries
5+ Tbsp sugar ( more, to suit your taste) divided
1 tsp Vanilla extract
Oil to shallow fry
Toothpicks to secure the edges
2 Tbsp Powdered sugar, to dust
Chocolate syrup, to drizzle
Wash and cut the *strawberries (I planned on making just 3-4 burritos, so I used about 6-7 strawberries). Add about 2 heaping table spoons of sugar and keep aside.
Divide the cream cheese into two parts. To one half,add some finely chopped strawberries, 1 heaping Tbsp of sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. Mix well and set aside.
To the remaining cream cheese, add the blue berries, sugar and vanilla extract and set aside
Taste the cream cheese to see if it is sweet enough for you, if not add sugar to suit your level.
Line a plate with tissues and set aside
While the oil is heating, microwave the tortillas for about 10-12 seconds to make them soft and pliable
Take a tortilla, spoon some cream cheese mix in the middle and roll it like a burrito. Secure the seams with a toothpick.
Repeat the process with the remaining tortillas and cream cheese.
Gently place one burrito toothpick side down in the hot oil and shallow fry till golden brown , carefully turn it on the other side and let it turn golden brown, gently lift and place it on the tissue paper lined plate to drain any excess oil.
Repeat with the remaining burritos.
To serve, remove the toothpick, place one burrito on a plate, dust with powdered sugar and place the *strawberries ( macerated earlier) on top. Drizzle with chocolate syrup and serve.
The little one liked both strawberry and blueberry burrito, my preference was more towards the blueberry cream cheese filling.
Next time, I will drizzle / pipe the burrito with Nutella! uuummmm!
When I last shared the picture of the flowers I made at my cake decoration class, I also mentioned I'd be using them as a cake topper for a special friend. Here is the cake I made.
Clearly, my frosting skills are pathetic and I do need a lot of practice, but I am wary of too much icing. It is way too sweet for my liking and as it is I do not eat it, having to wade thru a thick layer of butter cream icing full of sugar to get to the cake is a waste, so I am miserly when spread it on. though it seemed like a good idea then, the pictures speak differently. Point noted! Also, pictures taken in the evening are not a true depiction of the real thing.
For those interested, I have used butter cream icing. The flowers are made of gum paste, these are supposedly edible, but I have never tried them.
The flowers on the sides are fondant cut outs and the little balls used for border are also made out of fondant, tinted with edible food color.
