A love story - Chocolate Babka and me

You might be wondering where I have been for so long. It's been a month since I posted on the blog. Where has Kartik been this past month? (Well, I'm going to pretend that you were wondering.)

The bigger question is where I haven't been. For the past few weeks, I have been occupied with work and then I traveled to Irvine on the west side and Cleveland on the east for medical interviews. With that I'm finally done with my interviews! (YAY!) Now, it's a waiting game.
 
Since Ohio is Michigan's next door neighbor, I decided to take a little vacation and visit my family there. I took a little time away from everything and just relaxed. Throw a Detroit Wings game in there (I love you Wings!) and three weeks have gone by in a flash.

But prior to my trips, I baked a little bread known as a Chocolate babka...

Whole wheat chocolate chip cookies - Yum!

If you look at recent statistics, almost 20-30% of Americans make a resolution to eat healthy and exercise. Almost a month has passed since New Years, and I wonder how many people have kept their resolutions intact.

I certainly have not kept this resolution. Granted, I exercise quite a bit, but giving up all the baked goods is not an option for me. Instead, I taste and share with everyone else.

But, I stumbled upon a recipe that even I am resistant to share - Whole wheat chocolate chip cookies.

Not your average Monkey bread!

 

So here's a secret for you. Most of the times when I change a recipe, I end up with a mess - albeit an edible one.

But, there are times when the stars align in my favor, and the experimentation works after a few tries.

Then, there are times when the entire universe itself aligns in such a perfect coordination, that the experiment works the first time around.

Today was one of those days when the universe aligned, and I came up the "Not your average Monkey bread."

Recipe #5 - Bialys

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It fills you up and gets you going. It gets you through those really long days that you dread or enjoy depending on how you look at it. It prevents you from yelling at someone when they cut you off while driving without checking their blindspot.

Breakfast has a calming effect. Usually, in the morning, you'll catch me with a bowl of piping hot oatmeal with almond milk, dried cranberries, toasted almonds, and rich cocoa powder. But today....

Today was different. I needed something new. A change of sorts. It had to be a bread. I reach into my freezer for a bread that I made the night before, because it was oh-so-delectable. I couldn't resist.

It was a bialy.

Recipe #4 - Warm Rustic Cherry Bread and goat cheese sandwich - Omg!

Happy New Year everyone!

For Bakeology 101, 2012 promises to be a good year. I'm still going strong on my Baking challenge of finishing the 1000-page Culinary Institute of America book. There are so many recipes left and I'm excited to do every single one of them.

The last few weeks have been all about breads and rolls and I loved making these so much that I decided to continue working on that section of the book for the next few months.

Lemon Raspberry Breakfast Rolls - My birthday treat!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Or at least I hope you had a good one. Personally, my holidays could have gone better. My date fell sick and that kind of bummed me out. Our dinner plans fell through and I felt the blues. I started listening to the blues and usually I'm quite upbeat. What made it worse was we had planned to meet on my birthday which was a few days ago. Sigh...

But, I realized, it's my birthday. I'm not going sit around moping. I'm going to take control of my life and do something. Carpe Diem! 

So I decided to do what I do best - bake. I had this recipe that I've been meaning to do for such a long long time and today was the perfect occasion.

Lemon Raspberry rolls....

Just let those words sink in or a second. My mouth was watering the moment I feasted my eyes on those three words. A sunny dish to lighten up my day and match my sunny personality (hey it's all relative here...)

Recipe #3 - Rosemary Ciabatta bread

I love Ciabatta bread. I go several times a week to the nearby Trader Joe's and grab myself a loaf of their par-baked bread. Usually to make an amazing Panzanella tomato bread salad (which will be coming in a bonus post soon).

But then I asked myself - since I have been making breads for the last few weeks, why can't I make this one as well?

Ciabatta bread, here I come.....