Chocolate Butterscotch Shortbread Cookies (makes around 80 cookies)

Finally got to cooking/baking after quite a while! It wasn't laziness on my part, rather a momentary lapse of creativity, a moment that lasted over a month. 

One fine gentleman from our community took it upon himself to arrange a Halloween parade for the kids in the community. It was mainly done so that the kids could have a wonderful time, and to also get the adults to mingle with each other.

A few of us chipped in to help him, and I volunteered to bake cookies. So it finally gave me a chance to get back into the flow of things cooking wise. 

I had planned to bake something with toffee candies but skipped the toffee since we had decided to go nut free for the event, with so many kids around. 

The cookies turned out crisp and nice, a very simple combination of ingredients with a pleasant taste. 

3.5 cups all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

7 tbsp chopped butterscotch baking chips

7 tbsp chopped semi sweet chocolate baking chips (premium quality)

3 sticks of unsalted butter (341 gums), at room temperature

1.5 cups granulated white sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

8 oz semi sweet chocolate chips for coating on top

Sift the flour and salt in a bowl, and set aside the bowl.

In a large mixing bowl add the butter, vanilla extract, and sugar and mix them with a baking spatula just enough so that they get incorporated. Add the flour and salt mix to this, the butterscotch and semi chocolate chips. With your bare hands mix all together until the dough is just formed.

On a baking sheet, pat half of the dough with the palm of your hands into a flat shape as close to a rectangle as possible, with a thickness of 3/8 inch. Put the baking tray in the refrigerator.

Heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. When the oven beeps at the 350 degree level, take the baking tray out of the refrigerator and set it in the oven. Bake for around 25 minutes until you see the sides just starting to turn brown. 

Take the baking tray out of the oven and let it cool to room temperature. While still warm, take a butter knife and cut the cookies in a criss cross fashion so that you end up with diamond shaped cookies. After 10 - 12 minutes shift the cookies to a cooling rack to completely cool down.

Repeat the above process with the other half of the dough. 

Once the cookies have cooled down, in a small bowl take around 8 oz or similar quantity of premium quality semi sweet chocolate chips. Micro wave the bowl for 1.5 minutes. Stir the chocolate with a spoon until you get smooth creamy melted chocolate. 

With a butter knife scoop out some chocolate and apply it to half of each cookie and the sides of that half. Set the cookies back on the cooling rack until the chocolate hardens again. 

Enjoy the crispy delicious cookies with a glass of milk or coffee. 

Pesto Ice Cream (Serves 8)

I was going through my loose recipe sheets (I may have even lost a few) and came across my recipe for pesto ice cream that I had made when I celebrated the one year anniversary of this blog. Yes, I did say pesto ice cream :-)

I don’t know how this one got left behind. As fall approaches hopefully there is some time left to slide in one more ice cream recipe for sure, what say :-). Well people in the hotter regions of the world can always make this right now.

Quite different and pleasing in taste, this ice cream has a creamy fresh herb taste, complemented perfectly by the golden toasted pine nuts, the mild presence of the extra virgin olive oil and the sweet honey.

One thing I did leave out of this ice cream was the garlic which is a regular ingredient in pesto. I didn’t want to be that adventurous the first time I was making pesto ice cream.

1 1/2 quart Breyers Natural Vanilla Ice Cream
12 individual leaves of fresh sweet basil
8 individual leaves of fresh mint
4 tbsp pine nuts
1 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup heavy cream
bottle of honey for drizzling

Get the ice cream out of the freezer and set it aside at room temperature to soften it a little for easy mixing.

On a pan on low to medium heat, dry roast the pine nuts until they are golden brown. You don’t need to add oil as the pine nuts are fatty nuts, and will release oil when they are hot. Keep aside.

Chop the fresh basil and mint leaves as fine as possible. In a spice grinder or any method you find easy (even a blender, although it might be tough), add the oil and the minced leaves and crush into a paste, as fine as possible.

In a bowl add the heavy cream and the ground paste of fresh basil, mint and oil and bring to a boil on medium heat. Immediately take it off the heat and let it cool.

Once cool, add the heavy cream mixture and toasted pine nuts to the ice cream in a large bowl and mix everything well.

Put the ice cream mix back into its original container, and with each layer of ice cream, drizzle an ample amount of honey as you fill up the container with the ice cream. Freeze the ice cream for a few hours until frozen. Drizzle with more honey when you serve.

So, surprise your friends and your palette by making this ice cream and leaving your guests guessing the ingredients ;-).

Health Rating: Low

Mango Chutney (Serve 4)

Wooh! Glad to be back finally. The past one month has been really hectic with work schedules and personal commitments. I apologize for not posting any new recipes for more than a month. Thanks for being patient.


We had some of our friends over for dinner the other night. One of the dishes I wanted to make was mango pickle but the mango, which I had bought raw had started to ripen, since 2 weeks had passed from the time I bought it. So, change of plans. I decided to make mango chutney instead. I sat down with a paper and pen and wrote down the ingredients based on my thoughts of how I wanted it to taste. Thankfully turned out just the way I wanted it to.

I wanted to make sure that the chutney wasn't too greasy or too sweet, and wanted to achieve that balance.


It turned out darn good. You can have this chutney with sandwiches, puris, chapatis, or as is and enjoy it’s tarty, sweet and spicy flavor. And extremely easy to make.


1 1/3 cup grated semi sweet mango (a large mango should provide you this)
seeds from 1 cardamom
1 inch by 1/2 inch piece of cinnamon bark
3 cloves
1/16 tsp ginger powder
1/8 cup oil
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/4 cup jaggery (concentrated product of cane juice without separating molasses and crystals)
3/8 cup water
1 1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp salt


Keep all the ingredients ready so that you don’t forget anything at the time of need.

With a peeler, remove the skin from the mango and grate it using the biggest holes in the grater. Set aside.


In a blender, add the cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and ginger powder and grind the ingredients very fine.



In a large pan on medium heat, add the oil. When the oil starts getting hot, add the cumin and fennel seeds. When you start to smell the aroma of the seeds before they darken, add the chili powders.



Mix well and let the chili powder cook for a few seconds. Add the jaggery and 1/4 cup water. As the jaggery starts to melt a little add the grated mango, the ground spice, and salt.


With a spatula, turn everything so that all the contents in the pan are incorporated well. Cook on low to medium heat, until the mango is cooked and the water has melted away.


Add 1/8 cup water at this point and mix well, and cook just enough until you see the glaze on top.


Take off the fire. Serve at room temperature.

Ginger Ice Cream (Serves 2)

It's hot!!! and it is a good time for some ice cream, I say! This was an ice cream re-mix that I had prepared some time last year actually, while I was well on my way recovering from surgery.

I think eventually it will be time for me to buy an ice cream making machine, since I have a lot of flavors running in my mind, and these creations are quick fixes that I do with store bought ice cream. It would be more fruitful and frugal to make my own ice cream, and it would be my own creation.

So, all you ginger lovers out there, come enjoy some ginger ice cream. Forgive the photo, it was taken when I didn't know much better. I am improving though :-). Here is the recipe.

1 1/2 cups natural vanilla ice cream

3 inch size flat piece of sweet crystallized ginger (store bought)

1 1/2 tsp filtered pure raw ginger juice

1/8 cup heavy cream

Take the vanilla ice cream out from the freezer and keep it at normal temperature.

Cut 3 inches of flat crystallized ginger into very fine pieces and set them aside. 

Take approximately 2 inches of ginger root and crush it. Squeezing the crushed ginger with your fingers, filter the pure ginger juice through a strainer and set it aside. We need 1 1/2 tsp of ginger juice. 

In a small bowl take 1/8 cup of heavy cream, add the 1 1/2 tsp of ginger juice to it. Just about bring the heavy cream to a boil, so that the rawness of the ginger goes away. Let it cool for a few minutes. 

In a mixing bowl, put 1 1/2 cups of vanilla ice cream, and add the heavy cream ginger juice mix, and the cut crystallized ginger pieces. With a spoon mix everything well together till it forms a smooth texture. 

Pour the ice cream mix back into its original container, and refreeze it. 

Serve it cold as is, or add some more crumbs of crystallized ginger on top if you are the gingery kind :-). Enjoy!

Health Rating: Medium

Mast-O-Khiar (Persian Cucumber and Mint with Yogurt) (Serves 8)

How could I leave this dish that we had served as an accompaniment to biryani during the BBQ cookout we had a couple of months ago?

This is one of my favorite dishes and I always order this when I am at a middle eastern kebab place. I just love the flavor of the mint and the cucumber infused in the yogurt. I added a few additional ingredients as an experiment.

This is an absolutely tasty dish and very soothing for the body, especially during the hot summer months.


It is very similar in preparation to the Indian raita, but a few different ingredients make such a huge difference to the final taste!


3 cups strained yogurt (Greek)
1 garlic clove
1 small bunch Parsley leaves
14 fresh mint leaves
5 small to medium Persian cucumbers
Salt to taste


Skin the cucumbers with a peeler and grate them. Make sure the grater is not very fine. Squeeze and strain off the excess water from the cucumber in a small bowl. Set the grated cucumber aside.


Quickly blend the garlic, parsley leaves, mint leaves along with just enough cucumber juice to help blend the ingredients.


In a large bowl, add the yogurt, grated cucumber, the blended mixture, and salt to taste. Mix everything well until smooth.


Refrigerate and serve cold with pita, bread, as a side dish with rice and gravy, or as is.

Health Rating: High