Mesmerizing McLeodganj

Day 2 of our trip to Dharamsala.


Continued from Day 1- http://expressunleashed.blogspot.in/2016/06/breathtaking-dharamsala.html

As the morning rays kissed the sky and the chirping birds woke us, we knew it was going to be a long day! After monakeying around the tea gardens and soaking in the natural beauty on day one in Lower Dharamsala, day two was more adventurous and tiring. Post a scrumptious heavy breakfast, we boarded our taxi which ferried us to Naddi.

Scenery from the view point

  

Barely ten kilometers from Dharamsala, Naddi is a quiet village in the Kangra Valley. At an altitude of 2000 meters above sea level and surrounded by the Dhauladhar mountains, Naddi is the starting point of trekking to near by hill tops. The dreamy clouds playing hide and seek with Sun, the lush green mountains and foggy trails leave you asking for more. It's a treat to watch the hills engulfed by fog one moment and clear sky the next moment. You instantly want to spread your arms like a bird, breathe in the clean fresh air as you close your eyes and fill yourself with tranquility.

Sun playing hide and seek

Tourists flooded to the "viewpoints" where a person loans his telescopic lens (in return of a nominal to fee) to watch the farthest points of the mountains. Thanks to husband's DSLR and my Moto X phone, we did not use the view point lens.

Man at work

  

The cameraman hubby

The serene surroundings have been encroached upon by reckless construction of hotels/guest houses. Countless felling of trees and drilling mountains will lave nothing for us in future. Don't be surprised to see international tourists (mostly bag-packers I assume) running small eateries or grocery shacks for a living. Perhaps India is very pocket friendly for them.

Approach roads to Naddi are steep with sharp curves. Drive carefully while descending the hills. Returning from Naddi, we stopped by Dal Lake. 

Mesmerized by the beauty of Kashmir's Dal Lake, this lake was named the same. The water source is believed to be Manimahesh Lake (situated at Bharmour, Distt. Chamba) which has dried now. Boating is no more allowed due to depletion of water table, silt deposition and soil erosion. The lake is literally a garbage dump now but the forests around the lake makes it worth stopping by. Since the place is peaceful, we choose a bench to sit on and relax for some time. Lines of deodar trees add to the beauty of the Lake.

Plastic waste and bottles in the lake bed are certainly big turn offs. Though the Himachal Government has taken measures to restore the place, it is also the duty of locals and tourists to cooperate. Why spoil the natural beauty like this?

A two hundred years old sacred temple of Lord Shiva on the river bank adds to the mystique of the river. Across the road, many other temples are a major source of attraction for tourists.

We resumed with our journey to McLeodganj, barely three kilometres from there. On the way our driver stopped asking us to visit St John’s Church. Against our expectations and no plans to visit this tranquil place, St John’s added joy to our journey. Such a magically wonderful place to visit. 

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The church is said to have survived the massive earthquake of 1905 which had killed close to 20,000 people in Kangra. However the bell tower was destroyed in the earthquake. Later, a new bell, cast in 1915 was brought from England and installed outside in the compound of the church. It is said many failed attempts have been made to rob the bell many times. 

    

Surrounded by green forests and well maintained by the authorities, the vicinity offers you calmness and natural beauty.

Backyard of the church

We spent a lot of time capturing the playful beauty of nature and the luxurious greenery. The cold breeze caressed us as sunshine revealed different shades of green. We walked, we hiked, we sat on a stone with our legs dangling down and enjoyed the sound of silence, occasionally broken by tourist buses.

The churchyard is the final resting place of Lord Elgin ( then Governor General of Canada). He later became Governor General & Viceroy of India in 1861 during the British rule.  He soon died in Dharamsala in 1863, and was buried there. It was Lord Elgin's wish to be cremated in the vicinity of the church as Dhramsala reminded him of Scotland. He was quite fond of the flora and the lovely weather of this quaint hill station.

What attracted me the most was the inclination of the authorities towards wildlife and fauna protection. The little bird houses and the well maintained beautiful garden bear a testimonial to the fact. Considering that I volunteer at animal NGOs and have built bird houses, I know the importance of these little shelters for the birds. Totally appreciate their efforts.

                                                 

The neatly paved pathway towards the church symbolizes a gateway to peaceful solace. People from all religions are welcome to the church. St John;s Church was worth the visit.

We left the place with sweet memories, happy heart and a calm relaxed mind.

Rest of the journey in next post....

The Ancient Barbeque

On the same concept of Barbeque Nation, The Ancient Barbeque too has similar live grills and unlimited buffet.  Our colleagues planned a day out for lunch at this newly discovered place at Good Earth Center, Sector 50, Gurgaon. 

As you enter the premises, the aesthetics with Gothic touch and pleasant lighting, instantly attract you. TAB (Read- The Ancient Barbeque) has good food and quick service. The staff is courteous and fast, who serves with a smile.

TAB is less spacious compared to Barbeque Nation. Seating arrangement seems a little crammed up which leaves less room to move around. It becomes uncomfortable for the staff to serves while pushing through the table gaps. Personalization hence becomes difficult. I am sure they can handle space issues better.

The live grill has the Barbeque Nation famed crispy corns, creamy cajun potatoes, corns kernel, pineapple, veggie cubes, chicken, fish and mutton. What looked like potatoes turned out to be juicy   pineapple, and I loved it! Roasted paneer is vegetarian’s delight, which wasn’t the case here, as paneer was too soft and not well marinated. I enjoyed the rest of the vegetarian grill with Virgin Mojito. The latter was well prepared with no fizz and the right balance of salt & sweet. I can hence righty claim that I had nice mojito after a long time!

The buffet menu had a large variety comprising dal makhni, noodles, veggie and black bean sauce, Kashmiri paneer, mix vegetables, steamed rice, veg pulao  in the vegetarian menu.

Since I prefer dal makhni with less cream/fat load, TAB’s Daal Makhni perfectly fitted the bill. The consistency wasn’t thick nor watery, and I loved the preparation! Veggie and black bean sauce

was another item I loved. This tasted better than preparations of Chinese cuisines. Kashmiri Paneer was a bit disappointing for me because of thin ginger grates. All I could taste was raw ginger that killed the dish.

  

Salad had a colourful spread of kimchi salad, green salad, aloo chaat, pasta salad, sprout salad, papad and lettuce mix. Pasta salad is something you must have. Very well made with a hint of sweet. I would suggest TAB to roast papad on stove. The microwave roast left papad half raw.

Since I am die hard dessert lover, the sweets’ spread had to be good! The attractive spread comprised ice cream, gulabjamun, fruit tart, hot choco brownie, moong dal halwa, kiwi cake, pastry and cup cake.

Obviously, one can’t dig into everything post a hearty meal, so I chose few item. Brownie gets a special brownie point! Soft, fluffy and warm it was. A bite off the Kiwi Cake felt refreshing!  Moong Daal Halwa was the usual. If only I had more space in my tummy, I might have tasted them all, but I was full to the core.

As we were a large group of 16 people, we were given group discount. On an average we paid around 500 per pax. Happy reasonable deal it was.  

Though it is unfair to compare TAB to Barbeque Nation, yet I cant help since the concecpt is the same and TAB scores a little less than BN. Still worth giving this place a try. A nice place recommended for big teams or families.  

Cafe Hi5

Café Hi5 reopened this year and buzzed the market with a new menu and expanded place. The interiors are quite cool with funky graffiti on walls and ceiling. The cafe has separate space dedicated for private parties, match screenings, DJ and usual diners. Music was excellent. Credit to the DJ who did not stick to the usual Punjabi songs but played kicky foot tapping numbers.

Chicken Lollipop

We started with paneer tikka, chicken lollipop and fish tikka. Paneer was fresh and not greased with oil. The good thing about the whole experience was that management was open to feedback and ready to improvise. The manager sat with us and tasted paneer tikka when I told him about high salt content. Chicken lollipop and fish tikka were well marinated and soft, juicy from inside. The nice smoky flavor was appealing. Papad & Mint chutney accompanied the dishes. The spread had a great presentation.







The manager showed us the whole place. The showstopper was the bar and they claim that to be the only one in India with tap bar! Take a look at the picture!

Tap bar- The only of this kind in India

Italian Smooch

Juicy Jullian

Chef's own innovation -Juicy Jullian came to us when we asked for a non-aerated mocktail. It was a mix of crushed pineapples, orange juice, mint leaves and sweet lime slice. Mind you, there was no added sugar in the drink. It felt extremely good and refreshing. Italian Smooch is another refreshing mocktail to watch out for. Peachy, minty and no sugar, the drink is a perfect summer cooler. I highly recommend the drinks to all mocktail and non-alcohol consumers.

We scanned the whole menu for something interesting and ordered thin crust veg pizza on manager's recommendation. I sipped Nutella Hazelnut Shake in the meanwhile which was filling and good. Loved the perfect crispy thin base of pizza.  Unlike the usual pizza, this was not overloaded with cheese!  Cheese topping on pizza was fresh and it was not high on salt either.

The manager insisted us to try a dish named “Dal chawal beyond imagination”. The dish lives up to its name and gets a standing ovation from us. Now who would have imagined spotting daal chawal in a hip hop café menu? With the first bite of it, our appetite multiplied and our curios minds jumped out again asking about the masala of it. A simple yet delicious arhar daal and steamed rice with crispy fried potato balls and papad was an out of the box experience! So we now know where to find good healthy home cooked food in Hauz Khas.

The concept behind designing such a dish is to provide economical meal for a single person or twin sharing basis, since it is difficult to find home cooked traditional simple food in cafes.

Brownie

With tummy almost full and guilt tugging at health consciousness within ourselves, made us try the ceasar salad which was a mix of assorted veggie leaves, lettuce, olives topped with mayonnaise. It turned out to be a bad choice as we left more than half of it uneaten. It wasn’t good. Anyway, the last thing we tried was brownie. It was no different than a piece of overtly sweet black forest cake. I was a little disappointed since a brownie is light and non creamy that melts in mouth. But the presentation was nice. It was a compensation for the ceasar salad.

Movie Review- Wazir

Director- Bejoy Nambiar            Producer-  Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Genre- Thriller                            Release Date- 8 Jan, 2016          Duration- 1 hour 44 minutes

Wazir is one of the most talked about thriller films in Bollywood and the screen presence of Big B Amitabh Bachhan with super talented Farhan Akhtar gives you a reason to watch it. The duo feature in unique roles like never before. O yeah that’s intriguing enough.

As the name suggests, this thriller plot is based on a chess game where the pawns represent the characters. No, the movie does not revolve around the game of chess or but on dirty politics and corrupt thoughts that the characters portray, just like one does in chess.

The plot- The protagonist Pandit Omkar Nath Dhar (Amitabh Bachhan) is a wheelchair bound grand chess master who lost his daughter in an accident. Deep down in his heart he knows the killer of his daughter but is unable to avenge him because of two reasons- Lack of concrete proof and his disability.

The second character Daanish Ali (Farhan Akhtar) is a high ranked cop in the anti-terrorist squad who is married to Ruhana (Aditi Rao Hydari). The couple lives a happy life with their cute six year old daughter Noorie. In an unfortunate accident, while chasing a terrorist, Noorie gets shot and dies on the spot. A grief stricken Ruhana blaming Noorie's death on Daanish, gets separated from the latter, refusing to see him.

A devastated Daanish promises himself to avenge the death of his daughter. He finds confidante in Pandit Ji and as both share a common thing – grief of their dead daughters. In their unique friendship, Pandit teaches chess to Daanish and narrates to him how he had lost his own daughter Nina. Daanish is intrigued by Pandit's story and promises to help him find Nina’s killer. The suspect Minister Quereshi holds the story in the second half. The hunt grows messier and shocking truth gets murkier as reality unfolds.

Screen brilliance by Farhan

Neil- The surprise package

Character analysis-
Needless to mention, Big B outshines and Pandit’s character is unbeatable. Farhan Akhtar gives his hundred percent in every role. The intensity and the hard work in his performance clearly shows on screen. This is Akhtar's another commendable performance after Bhaag Mikhaa Bhaag. From an officer on duty to a father mourning his daughter’s death, Farhan’s shift in expression and body language is superb. He is superb as the new age actor.

Aditi Rao in the role of a classical dancer and perturbed mother, justifies her presence quite well. I surely would love to see more of her classical dance moves. John Abharam adds just the right amount of spice in the climax. What’s more- Neil Nitin Mukesh is a surprise character, who is slyly named Wazir. Why slyly? Well, you gotta watch that for yourself!

Cinematography by Sanu Varghese is brilliant, giving an excellent angle and feel to the story.

The plot is promising and very well executed. Yet the punch of spice unlike in fast paced thrillers is missing. The climax was a little over the top and not out-of- the-box. Could have been better!
In many a places, the story was kind of predictable.

The songs are excellent and enjoyable. In fact it was the song "Atrangi Yaari" that made me watch the movie. (But it does not feature in the movie). Kudos to Big B abd Farhan for singing, considering their talent and energy they have always displayed for audience. A special mention of Ankit Tiwari, Shantanu Moitra hence!

Rest, the songs are not disturbing, performance was excellent and in a true sense a potentially great thriller.

Spoiler- If minister Quereshi could kill Nina, he might as well had killed his own daughter and easily fabricated it as an accident. Sympathies would still remain with him. No?

Rating- 3.5/5

Book review- Bankerupt

Book -Bankerupt                 Author - Ravi Subramanian                       Publisher-  Penguin

Genre- Thriller                     Number of pages- 319, paperback        Purchase Price- Rs 250 from book stall

Available- in all book stores, online stores

The plot- Aditya Raisinghania is a senior investment banking manager at the prestigious Greater Boston Global Bank (GB2) in Mumbai. Cirisha Narayanan and her father walk into BG2 on a warm summer morning of 2000 for a huge loan amount. Cirisha is a research scholar at M.I.T Boston struggling for a permanent job there. The duo meet and get married a year later. While both are doing well in their fields, Aditya bumps into his old classmate Shivinder who is a top shot with a footwear giant. Aditya helps Shivinder professionally to inflate the profits of the company on papers and cook up a false success story to attract international investment. Aditya soon gets promoted to the head of the bank, Shivinder is able to show profits for the company and together they literally mint money.

Meanwhile Aditya and Cirisha’s marriage starts to fall apart because of the growing distance between them. Her frequent trips to Boston and absence in Mumbai frustrates him.  To make the marriage last, Cirisha comes to India on a long break for a research project only to find something fishy at Shivinder’s company. Oblivious of Aditya’s involvement, she requests authorities of the parent company to investigate the fraud. The whole scam balloon built by Aditya and Shivinder bursts one day, costing Aditya his job. Aditya moves to Boston with Cirisha in quest of a new career. The worse and unexpected happens when an esteemed M.I.T professor supports the National Rifles Association (NRA) against the favour of gun control and wins several accolades across the country for his book. Richard, Cirisha’s colleague and closest friend, is also struggling for a permanent tenure in M.I.T since long. A frustrated Richard, on losing his last chance of tenure during the campus interview allegedly shoots the council members before shooting himself dead. Multiple rounds of chasing the culprits, protecting the victims and fishing out the clues happen. What follows next puts the readers in awe with an unexpected series of incidents, difficult to believe.

The 319 page book is a true thriller that involves financial fraud, politics in educational institute, murder of characters, all driven by desire and greed!  The story is quick paced without a single boring or dull moment. It keeps you riveted throughout. At least I was engrossed thoroughly! Subramanian’s style of writing is unique where he keeps the chapters short, interesting enough to keep readers at the edge of their seats.

The character portrayal is good, could have been better though.

Bankerupt lives up to its name and the tag line (desire, greed, murder). The plot is very well written and sub plots neatly weaved in together.The climax is not a happy ending fairy tale. It’s tragic and sad, leaving the readers thinking about the protagonist’s future. (I do so when I am totally attached to the characters).

Spoiler, loopholes of plot- Mr. Subramanian, why did you kill the character and take the story in reverse? By the time the actual story is revealed, the readers forget the initial incident and the time warp.  Secondly, checking email is one of the first things on a crime investigation, especially when a prestigious institute is concerned. Thinking of doing so and hacking a password would not have been difficult by Boston police team!

Recommended for- Thriller lovers, or Finance professionals in large corporates who would love the story and its twists.

My rating- In spite of a gripping plot and quick pace, I would rate it 3.5 on5, owing to a weak climax and loop holes in the plot.

About the author- (Source:Wiki page)- Ravi Subramanian is a banker by profession and an alumnus of IIM Bangalore. Post a career spanning two decades in the banking industry, he has authored novels such as Devil in Pinstripes, If God Was a Banker, The Incredible Banker, and I Bought the Monk’s Ferrari. He is also a columnist for The Economic Times. He has won the Economist Crossword Book Award twice, and has also won the Indiaplaza Golden Quill Book Award.

SENS wellness clinic media launch

A new sensation in town- SENS CLINIC, launched in New Delhi.

A high stressed and imbalanced life that we humans live is the root cause to many

diseases and illness, most of which happen at a young age. Hormonal imbalance, anxiety, pollution and wrong lifestyle just add some more flavors to it, leading to irrational brainstorming on the treatment of such diseases. While surgeries or allopathy may have the cure, they certainly don’t come without side effects. Also, without appropriate root cause analysis, you may have the disease come back or in worse case never go. So there is a need of treating human body holistically and that’s where SENS fit in the picture.

An initiative of Primal MD and Wave group, SENS comes as a sure winner with a vision to spearhead the current healthcare model, realigning the tropical researches in medicine along with the ancient learning of Ayurveda. They focus on 360 degree approach of healing through mind, body and soul.

A panel of like-minded doctors and healthcare professionals who recognize the gap in our current healthcare model have come together to address the true needs of people. SENS anti ageing and wellness clinic is bringing together the best Indian and international practices, medical practitioners and latest technologies for holistic wellness.

The occasion had a panel of eminent speakers- Dr. Graham Simpson, Founder & Medical Director Primal MD, Dr. Debjani Chakraborty, Aesthetic Physician, Shanum Chaddha, Director Wave Group, Dr. Kalpana Shekhawat, Nutrition Expert and Mr. Sanjay Sachdeva, Executive Director, SENS clinic.

Dr. Simpson stressed upon preventive measures to keep healthy. Two of his most highlighted points were- To control blood sugar and to avoid frozen/preserved food. Diabetes is the root cause of evil which may even lead to death if not treated on time. In a shocking statement he revealed that India is the diabetic capital of the world! SENS targets to treat such diseases and take preventive measures as well.

Located in New Delhi’s South Ex-2, SENS has a fully equipped state of art clinic with 9 treatment rooms and best of industry doctors offering newest treatments.  They have programs as follows to choose from-

1. Weight Loss Program (WLP)
2. Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Program (BHRT)
3. WellMan/ WellWoman Program (WMP/ WWP)
4. Ultimate Anti-Ageing Program (UAP)
5. Reversing Diabetes Program (RDP)
6. Specialised Cardio-Metabolic Programs (Program 3 + Specialised Tests)

Under the art of aesthetics, SENS offers skincare, body sculpting and hair care that include skin rejuvenation, lifting and firming skin, weight management, hair restoration, transplant and many more customized services. The makeover clinic offers programs like hair & eyelash extension and makeup studio.

High time we take our wellness seriously, before it becomes irreversible.

Visit www.sensclinic.com or visit the clinic at M-10, 2^nd floor, South Ex-II, New Delhi-49

Palmyra Restaurant - Innovation at its best

Smiling Chef Somnath

Fine dining at Palmyra restaurant, in Hotel Bristol, Gurgaon turned out to be our best experience ever. In spite of the fact only veg food was served during Navratra, the absence of non veg food was not felt at all! The credit goes to Chef Somnath Porel, who made his way to our hearts with his innovation at food.

Reach him on twitter at @Chef_Porel

The spread comprised Daal Makhni, Stir Fry Vegetables, Makhana Kaju Matar gravy, Paneer Butter Masala, Veg Biryani, Potatoe. Needless to mention, there was a huge layout of salads, curd and sprouts for the health conscious ones. Let me save the best for the last. So I will come to desserts later.

With Bon appetite we tried tasting everything from the huge platter, ensuring not to regret later by missing anything nice.

Dofinose potatoes

The most interesting pick was Dofinose Potatoes.  What looked like Lasagna tuned out to be a potato dish! With the first bite of it, my eyes started looking for Chef Somnath wanting to ask him the recipe of the fabulous item. He acknowledged our query and revealed the recipe. The layers of raw potato, spread with cheese & spices were baked and simmered together, letting the starch of potatoes act as the binding agent. It tasted fantabulous! Had never seen or thought of a unique recipe before this!

Somnath loves to experiment with food and his skills were clearly seen in the dishes served. He wanted to give a twist to more dishes, but was asked by the manager not to go overboard since too much of experiment is also not welcome often.

Chikpeas and aubergine tagine

Chickpeas or choley what we have at usual restaurants is always spicy and loaded with fat. I always visualized choley in Punjabi style tadka and spices. But here Somnath gave a surprise twist to chickpeas with so much creativity. Eggplant, tomatoes, capcicum in the dish of chickpeas and auberbine tagine which traditionally is stew of spiced meat and vegetables prepared by slow cooking. Somnath had smartly replaced meat with chickpeas. Now, who in a restaturant wants to have an eggplant? You surely can’t say no after tasting this! The preparation was light, not spicy and very well prepared. We savored every bit of it.

Kaju Matar Mushroom Makahana

Stir fried vegetables made with baby corns, broccoli and red bell pepper was another mind blowing item. I can have it as snacks for my hunger pangs! The dish was in low salt while the vegetable stock acted as the soup. I also went gaga over the colorful Kaju Matar Mushroom Makahana. As I started to feel hungry again while writing this, you would feel the same just by looking at the pictures!

Paneer Butter Masala and Daal Zaafran were the usual but without fatty cream or hot spices. The veg biryani was the best with the right amount of spices and aroma. Somnath agreed Biryani is not about oil. It’s the combination of flavor, color and appeasing aroma that should keep you asking for more. He had ensured less oil and calorie in every dish he prepared. A health conscious chef who also had the heath of diners in mind.

Banoffee Pie

Now coming to the best spread and revealing the surprise- Desserts! Chef Somnath’s magical touch to sweets were fascinating. The one I loved the most was Banoffee Pie. After relishing the whole portion, I ran to Somnath again asking for the recipe. (I just could not stop myself). With base of biscuit crumbs, he layered the glass with caramel, mashed banana, dry fruits, muesli and whipped cream. The first bite I took rendered me speechless. I dug into it till I gorged the whole of it, only wishing to have more but wasn't able to.

While hubby enjoyed the Red Velvet Tiramisu, I tasted a bit of it. Less sugar content and absolutely light, it melted in mouth. With a full tummy, I gave kalakand a miss, though had a bite of the yummy rabri with jalebi. I over ate that evening completely ignoring my calorie intake count.

As a food blogger, I rate the place an easy 4.5 on 5. While a good ambience of a restaurant for fine dining is a minimum requirement, it cannot be ignored while rating the restaurant. Many restaurants don’t bother to look after the seating, which should be upto a certain level making customers feel easy. At Palmyra, the seating was comfortable, lighting was pleasant and the service staff was excellent. One can dig into a huge variety at this restaurant.

Highly recommended place for fine dining.

Cook Fresh experience

The Cook Fresh Box

Want to cook something new, but are pressed for time? No time to buy groceries for a dish you want to prepare? Don’t have an idea about the measurements of ingredients? Okay then, http://www.cookfresh.in/ comes to your rescue!

A new online venture with an innovative concept especially beneficial for the professionals on the go. Cookfresh measures, packs and delivers fresh ingredients for a recipe you select on the website. This is claims to be India’s first food delivery service that gives you the tools you need to be a gourmet chef at home! Impressive, yeah? If you don't have a lot of experience in the kitchen, Cookfresh is a great way to learn how to cook and start working in the kitchen. You could use Cookfresh for a date night in cooking for your partner, or as a great gift for your foodie friends!

While you can read about them here http://www.cookfresh.in/about-us, let me show you what I received from them.

1.       Ingredients for Greek Salad-

Neatly labelled, packed, delivered

Freshly cut, assorted, neatly packed and labelled. The ingredients for salad included- Lettuce leaves, chopped capsicum, tomatoes, onions, red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, black olives, canola oil, red wine vinegar, feta cheese and oregano.

Ready in 5 minutes

So all I had to do was to mix all veggies together and add canola oil, vinegar, feta cheese. Sprinkle oregano as per your taste.

A healthy salad was ready in 5 minutes!

2.      Ingredients for Moist Mug Cake

Castor sugar, canola oil, milk, cocoa powder, Nutella, flour, baking soda. Every item was in leak proof locked pouch and labelled clearly.

The instructions on the card read-

-Whisk dry ingredients in a bowl followed by mixing the oil and milk. Whip the mixture to form a smooth batter, ensuring no air bubbles are left.

-Drop Nutella in the middle of the batter. No need of poking or pushing it down.

-We placed the batter in microwave for 70 seconds. The only difference was we did not keep the batter in a mug but a microwavable bowl.

I call it Choco Lava Cake and it was ready in a minute!!!

Super impressive and quick it was. Yeah?

My take on this- 

You see, mixing ingredients and getting the dish ready, barely takes time. What’s time consuming is assembling the ingredients. Finding time to buy groceries is the first step and then washing & chopping them consumes more time. For people like me, bad in the kitchen, are lost and scared about the measurement of the ingredients. For example, baking the perfect cake has been my dream since long but I could not make it because of poor measurements. Either baking soda would exceed the limit or sugar would fall short. Oops. May I confess, this Chocolate cake was the best ever made by me? (Okay, hubby helped, so made by us) Thanks to Cook Fresh to send the right mix and proportion of ingredients to churn out great delicacy!

They have a large array of dishes. Take a look at the available ones here- http://www.cookfresh.in/recipes

Cook Fresh delivers in most of the areas in Delhi NCR. Delivery is free, however a minimum delivery may be required for a location not listed in the website. Pay cash on delivery or online. Call  +91 9971 835722 or shoot a mail to contact@cookfresh.in for more info.

The common ingredient for both the preparations is Canola Oil which is a storehouse of several benefits as follows-

Canola Oil

• Minimal  “bad” fats: Compared to common culinary oils, canola oil has the least saturated fat (7 per cent) – less than a third that of rice bran oil (25 per cent) and half that of sunflower (12 per cent), olive (15 per cent), soybean (15 per cent) and groundnut (19 per cent) oils. Canola oil is also free of trans fat and, like all vegetable oils, has zero cholesterol.

• Helps protect the heart: According to scientific studies, 1.5 tablespoons (19 grams) of canola oil a day may be enough to help keep the cardiologist away, when used in place of saturated fat. That is for just a few rupees a day. The US Food and Drug Administration authorized a qualified health claim for canola oil’s ability to reduce the risk of heart disease when used instead of saturated fat.
• Helps control blood sugar: Canola oil can help control blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes when included in a low-glycemic index diet (one that minimizes changes in blood sugar levels), according to published research, because of its high monounsaturated fat content. Adding canola oil to the diet is a simple way of helping control blood sugar.                   

• May reduce belly fat: Canola oil was shown in a clinical trial to lower belly fat when used in place of selected oil blends in a heart-healthy diet for weight maintenance. Belly fat is one of the five criteria for metabolic syndrome. Reducing it can decrease blood pressure, blood sugar and triglycerides and increase in HDL cholesterol. Those who consumed canola oil on a daily basis for four weeks lowered their belly fat by 1.6 percent.
• Good source of heart-smart fats: Canola oil is rich in two polyunsaturated fats, omega-3 (alpha-linolenic acid) and omega-6 (linoleic acid). These fats are considered essential because the body cannot make them on its own. Of all common cooking oils, canola oil has the most plant-based omega-3 fat (11 per cent). It substantially reduces total and LDL cholesterol levels when used in place of saturated fat.

• Good source of vitamins E and K: Canola oil is a good source of these fat-soluble vitamins. Vitamin E is an antioxidant and vitamin K plays a key role in healthy blood clotting.

• May protect against breast and colon cancers: Early research indicates the potential of canola oil to protect against breast and colon cancers.

• Canola oil is a culinary delight: It can be heated to a higher temperature than most other oils before it starts to smoke (smoke point of 242 °C). This makes it ideal for high heat applications like sautéing and deep-frying. Its light texture, mild taste and colourless appearance are a good match for any type of cooking. Its neutral taste does not overwhelm the flavours of other ingredients in a dish, allowing the spices to work their magic and enhance the flavours.
• Canola oil enhances baking: The delicious nature of baked goods is enhanced by canola oil providing them with a moist, soft texture with no cholesterol and little saturated fat. Replacing solid fats like butter or lard with canola oil allows for a reduction in both total and saturated fat. In fact, total fat can drop by up to 25 percent, sparing calories without sacrificing goodness.

With cardiovascular disease a leading cause of death across the world, there is a need to improve our lifestyles and shift to healthier oils in our diets. Canola is a good choice of oil given its heart-healthy qualities, suitability with all cooking methods and cuisines, and affordability among other healthy oils. This is why and more and more people around the world are now making it a part of their kitchen.