Chicken Corn Soup

 

Very easy healthy soup, contains no artificial ingredients.

Ingredients
Serves 2 people

• Chicken pieces, preferably with a lot of bones in it, I used the leg pieces: 250 gms. If this is the main meal, then make it 500 gms and double all quantities.
• A big handful of sweet corn, or more, as you wish
• 6 – 7 big cloves of garlic (mildly crushed)
• A big piece of ginger (crushed)
• A few pepper corns coarsely crushed – you can always add more pepper later if you want
• Two tablespoons of cornflour, for thickening
• Salt, 1 teaspoon

For garnishing

• Some lemon juice/soya sauce
• Chopped coriander leaves/spring onions

Procedure

1. Boil the chicken pieces, corn, garlic, ginger, and pepper, with salt, and a lot of water (enough to submerge the chicken completely), in a pressure cooker. For 2 cups of soup, pour at least 3 cups of water. Keep for 4-5 whistles.
2. When cool, shred the chicken pieces and throw away the bones and any big pieces of ginger.
3. Dissolve two tablespoons of cornflour in some water. Add it to the soup and bring to a boil until the watery soup becomes slightly thick. Taste and add additional salt or crushed pepper as needed.
4. When serving into the bowls, garnish with some chopped coriander leaves and a bit of lime juice, just half a spoon/a few drops. The original recipes I saw had spring onion and soya sauce instead, I did not have them. This came out really well anyways. :) 

Lemon Cake

Super easy, and comes out well every time. :)  When you pour the lemon juice in the end, make sure you spread it evenly.  In centigrade, it's 160 degrees C.

http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-lemon-pound-cake-11763

Easy Carrot Cake

A cake you can't go wrong with! Fabulous and easy recipe by Satya Sadasivan - thank you! Turns out well every single time, everyone loved it. You could innovate a lot with this one, especially with the topping. And a great way to eat carrots. :) :)

Ingredients

• Eggs: 4
• Carrots: 2 cups peeled and shredded [the red Delhi carrots that come in winter are perfect for this]
• Sugar: 1 cup [I reduced this a bit and added more raisins for the sweetness]
• Brown Sugar: 1 cup
• Vegetable oil: 1 cup [I used my regular cooking oil]
• Flour (maida): 2 cups
• Baking powder: 1.5 teaspoons
• Salt: 1/4 teaspoon
• Nuts: 3/4 cup [I believe it is good to lightly roast nuts first - especially walnut, will take away that slight bitter taste. I add a lot of raisins]

Steps

1. Heat the oven in advance for 10 mins at 180 degrees, while you are preparing the mix.
2. Apply a bit of butter on the baking tray, and then sprinkle some flour on it and spread - this is to make sure the cake doesn't stick to the pan.
3. Sieve flour, salt, and baking powder together, so that the baking powder is evenly distributed.
4. Roast nuts a bit if needed. 
5. Mix the oil and sugars well in a big cake-mixing bowl.
6. Beat eggs thoroughly, scrape carrots.
7. Add beaten eggs and carrots and nuts to the oil and sugar.
8. Add the flour mix to it, mix everything really well.
9. Now pour into the cake tray and bake for 45 mins at 180 degrees. 
10. Check with a fork - if it's still sticky, keep for another 15 mins. 
11. Leave the cake out to cool a bit and then cut. It will be a very soft cake, a bit moist. 
12. If you are creative, you can make a cream/icing topping - lots of scope to innovate there. :)