2012, in Books!

[Originally posted at my other blog – The Green Tea Evenings]

A super-good year for books... I touched a number that I only dreamt about touching.
Reading 120 books in 12 months is a big deal, especially to me.
That means an average of -
10 books per month
2.5 books per week 
a book every 2 days
All this combined with a very demanding job, and another demanding hobby... well, I felt like I ran past the finish line of a marathon as I closed my 120th book earlier today.

[Do check out my book list by clicking on the pic above]

It was indeed like a marathon. I started off with great gusto, I grew disillusioned in the middle, I told myself that number doesn't matter(which didn't till I finished my 100th book, after which it was merely a challenge I threw to myself to see if I could touch 120!), I drew inspiration from other readers, my elbows ached with all the book/Kindle-holding I did, and when the finish line was visible there was exhilaration and excitement, and when I finally reached the magic number after some huffing and puffing, I was overjoyed. And am overjoyed because as I hit the number, I also know that I enjoyed and savored each book, even the not-so-good-ones.

Biskoot, as we call it…

As mentioned in my previous post, Mom and Maami were visiting us earlier this month.
My Maami is this super-awesome-homemaker-cook-woman who is like the encyclopedia for anything related to Udupi Brahmin cooking. All our cooking prowess can be directly or indirectly attributed to her, and we still refer to her when in doubt for anything related to Tulu cooking. So when she was visiting, I had a list ready - a list of all the things I'd ask her to make for me , stuff that I've been craving for a zillion years. Mom ensured that we had the raw material (some of the stuff isn't readily available in Hyderabad and they got it all from Hidingala, our hometown), and together they cooked them all for me.

This is one of such awesome but simple dishes only my Maami can make. Yes, its not a traditional Udupi dish (yeah, her repertoire of dishes is vast, as I discovered recently), but we literally grew up on these biscuits(pronounced Biskoot, just for the Tulu touch :) ). The recipe has been handed down from generations of housewives, I believe, and is one of the simplest methods to bake a biscuit or a cookie, in this case.

Story of the puree… ;-)

I know I haven't been blogging, but then, I've been busy. Busy holidaying, falling sick and having family over. And when family is around, I make sure that I do not even enter the kitchen. Only that way will delicious food enter our stomachs.
Last week, Mom and my Maami (Aunt) were visiting, and I wanted to showcase some of my baking to them both. Also, after the stuff I've been binging on from the start of the month, I wanted to make something healthy for us all, something that even I can eat without making a face or feeling guilty.

Spinach & Cheese Muffins

I know, this blog has seen better days. But good times are here to come, I hope! :)
And to kick start that, here's a nice breakfast muffin recipe. Healthy, packed with nutrients and eggless!

My kitchen help is back, after a long holiday of 4 months during which I had to cook all meals of the day - breakfast, lunch and dinner. I slacked off often and felt guilty about providing the husband with a decent meal. Its tough to have a full time job, and still cook all three meals of the day, especially if you want all three of them to be healthy and fresh. I know, a lot of women do that, but am certainly not in that lot! Sad, but true! And I realized it pretty early in life! :-)

Veg Chop suey with Noodles

The other day, they served Veg chop suey noodles at snacks after a big fancy meeting at work. That was my first time tasting these… yeah, needless to say, am not a fan of Chinese food, and rarely even try them. But these noodles were served in a different fashion – noodles topped with curry and vegetables, and it wasn’t even tasty. All of the different elements in the dish were bland but the cook in me saw potential in the dish. My interest was piqued and I HAD to try this dish!

And hence the attempt to recreate my own version of Veg Chop Suey noodles…

A soup for the wintery evenings…

Hyderabad is pretty cold these days, and the evenings are spent with me sitting in the balcony with my laptop, teeth chattering all the time... and still enjoying the chilly weather. [Did I mention that Winter is my favorite time of the year?]
But then, there is nothing better than a nice bowlful of soup, no? At all times, no? With or without bread, no? :-)
Here it is... my first soup of the season.

I picked the basic idea of making a soup with sweet potato and cauliflowers from Manifest Vegan's soup, but I didn't follow the same recipe. I wanted something that was quick and easy.

Lemon Cranberry Shortbread cookies

Ever since I started getting full cream milk, and making my own butter the house is full of it. Cream and butter, that is. And we are now using butter in everything we’d otherwise use ghee in, but that is still not a good enough demand for our excess supply! :) So I guess, all my recipes henceforth will be using white butter, and I have a feeling am slowly turning into my mother… but that’s a long story for another day! :)

These Lemon Cranberry Shortbread cookies are the first to use white butter… and you can feel the taste of butter through these.

Dark Chocolate Oatmeal… yummm!

Look at this… :-D

Before I get on to the recipe, I have a question - Who likes oatmeal? :) No one?

My next question, who doesn’t like chocolate? The warm, gooey, drippy chocolate? Do I see some hands going up?Yeah, I thought so? :)

And how many of us know that oatmeal is healthy, but struggle with the idea of having it for breakfast ? Well, that’s me. :)

Lemony Lentil Soup

Or just Nimbekai Saaru , for us Mangaloreans. Before I go further , these are the mugs Siri gave away for her Blog-o-anniversary. Cute, no? :-)

Now to this soup…

Quick cauliflower salad

Do you love veggies, the crunch in them, their taste as they are and how they look ? Well… I do. I love the crunch of the uncooked vegetables, and how they look as they are… in all their natural glory and colour!

That is why when Nandita first talked about this salad, the veggie-lover in me was excited. The simplicity in making this salad, the time it takes to be put together and how it tastes made it a favourite. But not until I saw Siri’s recipe of a cauliflower salad, did I realize I never blogged this one, my ever-favourite.

Chilli cornbread, with some Indian flavors

The other day, I reached home to an almost empty fridge with a rumbling stomach and a desire to make something quick for a snack. After having read Siri’s recipe for the cornbread, I was craving for some , and set out to make my own…

Ready in a jiffy Savoury oats porridge

10 min is all it takes to make this quick-meal!

Oats is not greatly favoured in our house because of its bland taste and limited options. Savoury oats porridge was something I thought of, a long time ago, to ensure that we get our share of fibre via this easy-peasy meal. Even that takes around 15-20 min to prepare and cook. But this recipe is quicker, easier and faster than a regular oats porridge.Ask me how!

A spoonful of Curry powder…

Will go a long way in any Indian curry.

The preparations of these curry powders changes for every 100 KM you travel in India, and highly depends on where you want to use them – in a dry curry or a gravy curry. Also, the ingredients and method of making the curry powder is heavily influenced from the local staple of a given location. Like for example, peanuts are an important ingredient in most Telugu curries, whereas its Coconut if you go to the Konkan area. Well, I can talk with authority about these two regions , thanks to Mother-in-law and Mom respectively! :-)

Sangria… The drink of the Gods!

That’s what I felt when I first tasted this amazing drink. And indeed it was. Given how I discovered it, and all the memories attached with this drink.

I tasted Sangria, a wine cocktail couple of years ago during our (the husband and yours truly) short stay in Hong Kong. We used to eat out quite a bit back then, and it was a routine to walk up and down the SoHo in search of a good place. Well, not finding one was kinda tough given that SoHo had hundreds of restaurants , but we always were looking for some place which had a vegetarian menu slightly more than just a dish. It was during one of those searches that we saw Life Cafe, a restaurant which served only organic food with a slightly impressive vegetarian menu, and a great drinks menu. Only after we tasted our first sip of wine and took our first bite there did we wonder how the hell on earth did we miss that place when we had walked the same road atleast thrice a week! No, this is not about the restaurant, it was about the food there and the wonderful drink called Sangria we had discovered there.

Creamy, easy Tomato & Broccoli Casserole

Creamy. Cheesy. Chunky .Crusty.
Roasted cheese and tomatoes. Spicy & Served warm.
And its a casserole.
Need I say more?

When I think of a pasta casserole, I think of something in red sauce. Not being a fan of white sauce myself, I don’t generally attempt to make anything with white sauce in it. But now, that’s gonna change.

Palak Makhana

Or Popped Lotus seeds in a spicy spinach gravy!

Makhana or popped lotus seeds have intrigued me for a long time. I tried making a gravy with this once before but it didn’t work well, and that was the end of the Makhana story in my kitchen.

Till this evening.

Thotakoora Pachadi

Or Amaranth Greens Chutney.

What do you do when you have a lot of greens and you’d hate to not waste them? Well, South Indian housewives have been innovative in using seasonal greens in effective, healthy methods of cooking, one of which is Pachadi, which is what we call Chutney in Telugu.

Rava Khichdi with Tomatoes!

The weather is awesome in Hyderabad these days. Its super pleasant and rains quite bit. It does disrupt the lives a bit, but with the summer we’ve had, I bet no one is complaining about the rains this year! :-)

Rains always make me crave comfort food. Food that is easy to make, and food that reminds me of something warm and makes me feel fuzzy. :-) As a true foodie, I have a huge list of comfort food, stuff that makes me feel good when I am down or lazy or when it rains.

Top of this list is Khichdi for me. Khichdi is a versatile dish and its preparation and ingredients change with the place you eat it in. Every house has its own Khichdi recipe, and am on a mission – To learn as many different varieties of Khichdi as possible ! And why not? Its warm, its healthy, its packed with veggies if you like and its ultimate comfort food.

Check out my other Khichdi recipes here & here.

Risotto, with Thai Green curry flavours!

Risotto, like Indian rice is versatile, I’ve gathered. You can make it in a lot of flavours with a variety of vegetables, not to mention the meat options. One idea that I got from GoodFood [May, 2012] magazine is to cook Risotto with Asian flavours, and I was like – why didn’t I think of this before!

This is perfect for families like mine, where one member wants to eat only Indian flavours, and another wants to experiment with the meal. It took me a while before I could actually try this , but when I did try, I knew I had a winning recipe at my hand!

Eggless Sponge Cake, with a surprise

Sponge cake is a forever favourite in our house. Yes, its heavenly – the rich , smooth , heavy cake. But I stop myself from baking it ever so often, because of the amount of butter it takes. So imagine my joy when I discovered this recipe by Nags.

Just a cup of yogurt, and half a cup of oil, and this cake is magic. Its moist, tasty and heavy, and yet with a slight crumb. Just how I like my cakes. And yet, so incredibly easy to make.

Chick peas & Kidney bean Burger, with Indian flavours

As with all dinners I cook, there is a story with this one too. And this one is similar to all the other stories. She wants to eat something different for dinner. He doesn’t relish any taste other than Indian, unless its a blue moon. She thinks hard and proposes Burgers. He makes a face. She decides to hold fast to her plan, but decides to spruce up the masalas in the burger. There… that’s tonight’s dinner story!

I got inspired by the mushroom and chickpea burger recipe posted in this month’s GoodFood, but since I am not on friendly terms with mushrooms, I decided to take the idea and work around it in my style, and make it taste like an Indian burger. The last bit is so that the husband doesn’t go starve himself tonight!

Eggless Blueberry muffins

I hadn’t baked muffins in a long time. Actually, after a few baking disasters ( I screwed up two birthday cakes that I had promised two friends :-( ), I haven’t touched the baking tin … Its been too long, and this morning I felt like baking. It was like re-entering the baking arena, so I wanted to start with something small - muffins it was…

These muffins were fluffy, yet slightly heavy because of the whole wheat flour. The blueberries added to the texture, and the muffins would serve the purpose, a healthy snack at tea-time.

Spaghetti all’ aglio e olio

Only the other day did I realize that I didn’t post the recipe to this pasta, the easiest ever and my most favourite pasta. Its so easy and so awesome that this is my forever back-up dinner dish. If I am down, or if I don’t know what to eat, and am in not a mood for some Khichdi, then Aglio Olio it is… Yes.



Traditionally, this recipe has just the basic ingredients – garlic, chilli flakes and pesto all sautéed in some fragrant olive oil and mixed with a pasta of your choice and garnished with lots of parmesan cheese. And when I make this, there is always a garlic overdose, because of the never-ending love I proclaimed to garlic ! :) And I have omitted parmesan cheese ever since I learnt that parmesan contains calf rennet… all hard cheeses do. I now serve this pasta with a slice of cheddar, and drizzle some extra virgin olive oil on top for the flavour.

Homemade Pop-corn

I love pop-corn. Well, who doesn’t, tell me?

As kids, much before Act-II made the instant pop-corn famous, the only time we would get to eat pop-corn was in movie theatres, and I remember very well that my friends would buy me an extra packet of pop-corn… always…

Vegetarian Moussaka. Well, almost!

It was like love at first bite, the minute I bit into my plate of Moussaka in this Mediterranean restaurant in Hyderabad, the taste imprinting itself on my mind, and refusing to let me be till I try it out myself. Traditionally made with minced meat, lamb or beef, this is a classic Greek dish served as main course along with some crusty bread.

I, of course, decided to try a vegetarian version of this, even replacing the feta cheese and eliminating the egg from the bechamel sauce.

Mango Sorbet

 

Oooh. I am drooling as I am typing this. Yes. Really. ;-)

So what does one do when one’s house is full of sweet smelling , very expensive Alphonsoes, and when the said one is the only person in the household to enjoy them? Well, that person will resort to extreme measures as freezing the fruit, though one has always believed that eating the mangoes fresh is the best way to eat them.

Raw Mango & Bell Pepper Risotto

Our Sunday evening routine is simple. I ask the husband what he wants to eat, knowing fully well that the answer doesn’t change. Its always Lemon Rice and Curd Rice, both exactly the same way he likes to eat. If he is feeling magnanimous , he sometimes asks me to make my Huliogare, but that is a very rare case. So imagine how I must’ve grinned when he asked me to make anything I liked, but added the condition that he was in a mood for some rice. Oh yeah, rice it will be, I thought to myself as I grinned the evil grin, and went on to make this Risotto.

Technically, this is rice. And it has all the South Indian flavours too, the slight sweet and tart taste of the raw mangoes, the flavour of the bell peppers and enough spice to please a South Indian. So, I indeed cooked rice. ;-)

Mango!

Nothing says summer like the arrival of mangoes and watermelons to the markets. And of course, the sweet songs of the cuckoos in the mornings, the power cuts and the hot afternoons. 

A slightly longer, nostalgic post on my blog, The Green Tea Evenings - Here

After I am done sighing at the awesome smell of mangoes the minute I open my fridge, I have to plan a short vacation and also the endless work that has been piling up when I was busy doing... well, eating mangoes... :) and yeah, the home photo studio for my food photography experiments.

Tell me, how are your summers going? Lots of fun? Vacations? What other plans?

No-Bake Chocolate brownies

Browsing through Nags’ Edible Garden, I felt like I stumbled upon a treasure when I discovered this awesome no-bake brownie recipe , and that too eggless. It took me a while to assemble all the ingredients and to get the lazy self into the kitchen, but when I found myself finally mixing them all, I knew I really had a treasure.

An awesome, very healthy, and ready in a jiffy recipe that makes a batch of at least 20 brownies, this one is for keeps. And I am going to make this every week from now on. :-D

Kodyelu–a different one!

The more I cook Mangalorean food, the more I realize what Mangaloreans eat. How we get our proteins. How vegetables are imbibed in a subtle way into our meals. And how important coconut is for us all. :-)

Oh btw, in case you were wondering – Kodyelu means Sambar in Tulu, my mother tongue, the language spoken only in South Canara district of Karnataka state.

This is a sambar, very like the Paji masala kodyelu one I posted a while ago, with a slight difference. The earlier post had raw masalas in it, and this sambar uses roasted masalas.

Chilled Potato Green soup

May is here, which means summer is here too. Well, am a huge fan of summers in India, but all that is because of the abundance of water melons and mangoes. Those are the ONLY bright spots in Indian summers, if you ask me. Its hot, humid sometimes, and you cannot live without a fan, or in some people’s cases ACs.

Its an ordeal to enter the kitchen, and a bigger one to stand near the stove and make anything. But then, that shouldn’t stop us from eating good food, right? :-) So yeah, GoodFood has a good collection of chilled soups this month, and I decided to pick one of them for tonight’s dinner.

This is a healthy soup, flavoured only by the garlic and onions in it. If you want, you could add a dash of lime juice to spruce up the soup, or add more mint leaves to get a zing into it. I had it just as it is, and loved it the way it is.

Cardamom Cookies … easiest ever!

Last week, I had some family visiting for tea, and had nothing at home to serve them. I wasn’t in a mood for regular chocolate cookies and since I had already made some shortbread cookies, was looking for something sweet to pair with the tea and those savoury cookies. Some flipping through my archives and visiting some blogs gave me Nags’ recipe for Almond Cardamom cookies.

Since I didn’t have almonds at hand, and had no patience to run to the store, I decided to substitute them with sunflower seeds , which worked great. To give a slight almond flavour, I used some pure almond extract. Also, the original recipe had way too much butter in it, which I reduced slightly, to fit my ideal butter measure, a 100gm butter bar. :-)

Chickpea-Cumin wrap with yogurt dip

I’ve subscribed to GoodFood magazine for two months now, and it is one of the best sources of inspirations I’ve had, in terms of recipe and also the photography angles. All of them are so professionally done, and are so well styled that even an attempt at attaining that level of perfection makes me a better photographer and cook. :-)

This recipe is from the April edition of GoodFood India, and is one of the easiest and healthiest dinners I’ve prepared. It took me exactly 15 min to put together the filling for the wrap and another 5 min to get the dip ready.

Paji Masala Kodyelu

Paji-masala-Kodyelu is a staple in any Mangalorean household, and one of my favourites. It literally means raw-masala-sambar in Tulu, in which the main ingredients for the masala are not roasted. This is something that can be eaten with white or brown rice, and also with the Mangalorean Rotti.

Like all Mangalorean dishes, this one is incredibly easy to make and has coconut, and yes, is also garnished with coconut oil before being served, which you can of course totally skip if the idea of coconut oil in your food makes you squirm. My Mangalorean heart just died for having used the words ‘squirm’ for ‘coconut oil’ but yeah, I do know savouring the taste of coconut oil is not everyone’s cup of tea. :)

Cherry Chocolate Coffee Cake

With the last couple of cake-baking experiments being huge debacles , it was like I had lost confidence to bake a proper cake again, in spite of having figured out that the mistake in the earlier cases was with the expired baking soda. But hey, you all know how it feels, right? The fear of failure? After having mixed the best of the ingredients, and great plans for that cake, seeing it end up in a crusty mess is not what we want… so yes, I hadn’t baked a single cake in two months now.

But finally, I decided to get over the fear, and bake this cake, the link to which I got from my Pinterest feed. The photographs looks awesome (now, that is what I call food photography! Wanting you to eat that thing right OFF the computer screen :-) ), and the cake looked totally do-able.

Fada ni Khichdi + Tambuli

Like most of the recipes on this blog, I came home this evening craving for some comfort food. And comfort food at dinner time for me is Khichdi. But tonight I wanted to eat something which wasn’t same as my regular khichdi recipe. I disturbed some Gujju friends at work, and searched around the web for some Gujju recipe for Khichdi, something healthy, and light, and finalized on this one.

I improvised the recipe from Tarla Dalal’s website to suit just one person, yeah, yet another meal for one. And decided to pair this with a Mangalorean no-cook curd-dish called Tambuli instead of Kadhi.
So here it is… born out of a craving to eat something North Indian and Mangalorean, my dinner menu for one :)

Peanut Butter Cookies

Ever since I made the Peanut Butter at home, I’ve not been able to get it out of my head. In order to satiate this peanut butter craving, and also to make something sweet for my dessert-loving Father-in-law, I decided to make Peanut butter cookies.



I took this recipe as an inspiration, and modified it a bit to make it eggless and more peanut butter-y. It took me 20 min to put together the entire cookie dough and another 10 min per batch to bake it. In short, in exactly 30 min, I had warm cookies , which both FIL and I relished as our after-dinner snack. :-)

Peanut Butter–Homemade

One of these days I am going to run a poll on FB and Twitter – the question is going to be – ‘Who doesn’t love Peanut Butter?’. And I am going to convince those who don’t like PB that its the best thing that has happened to mankind. Yes, I believe it is! Try it with jam for bread for an awesome breakfast. Use it as a frosting for cakes. Make brownies with this. And cookies… ummm… In short, PB is truly the best thing that has happened to mankind. :)

Well , for someone who is as crazy about PB as I am, its kind of strange that I did not know how PB tastes for the first 27 yrs of my life. I ensured that I made up for all the lost time, but yeah, the first time I tasted PB, I felt I was slipping into heaven – Peanut heaven, and I wanted to stay there. I was shuttling between HK and India then, and the only thing I ate during my time in India was PB + Jam with bread. That is how much I loved it.

Moroccan Veg Tagine Curry

I have been interested in exploring Mediterranean , Middle Eastern and African cuisines after discovering the number of vegetarian dishes they contain. The usage of yogurt and vegetables like aubergines, tomatoes and the different spices…very interesting. And flavourful. And quite close to being Indian as well… I’ve cooked couple of Mediterranean stews and dishes before, but never ventured into Morocco, which is North African, but very similar to Mediterranean method of cooking.

Moroccan Tagine curry has been on the To-Do list for a while now, and the couscous that I bought a long time ago was literally begging to be cooked. I read up on the internet for a couple of Tagine curry recipes, but did not find ONE recipe which would suit my requirements. So I adapted this recipe from the two links – This & This.

Tagine curry derives its name from the earthen pot that the curry is cooked in and are predominantly meat-based. However, I resorted to using Chickpeas, rich sources of protein, along with other vegetables, and cooked them all very slowly in my regular pan.

Panang Curry flavoured Fried Rice

Am not a huge fan of Chinese food, especially the ones that have Ajinomoto in them and because of my allergic reactions to soya sauce. And so, Fried rice was never a favourite. But this evening as I was wondering on what to eat (cooking for one is a chore, and if I have to drag myself into the kitchen I might as well make the experience interesting), I thought of Fried rice. But not the plain old fried rice, something with a flavour in it. And that is how this dish was born.

I used Panang curry paste while sautéing the vegetables and then followed the regular method of making fried rice. The result was a slightly sticky, because of the curry paste, but very flavourful fried rice, which in my opinion would’ve been great without Soya as well.

Pappu + Pulusu

 What I ate this weekend has to be one of the most sumptuous meals I’ve eaten in a long long time. My friend, Deepu served me Mudda Pappu with Pulusu, thus awakening my taste buds to a whole new taste. What she made must be a typical Telangana preparation, which is why the Pulusu I ate before was nothing like this one.



This morning I asked her to send me the recipe so I can make it too, and she promptly SMSed me the whole recipe.
This is a great way to incorporate a healthy amount of dal into your meal, and some vegetables cooked with flavour, especially for people like me who are always on a lookout for a different way to eat the same old boring vegetables.

Spring in a bowl!

While describing a dish she had in F9, Priya use this phrase, and it hasn’t left my mind since then. And she promptly forgot the name of the dish, thus eliminating our chances of finding out what it is, and exposing us to a lifetime of experimentation with all the dishes on their menu.

Since then , I’ve been imagining how spring in a bowl would taste like, and what ingredients would go into it. Last night as I was returning from office, all tired and worn out , wondering what to eat for dinner, this phrase sprang up in my mind. En route home, I stopped at a grocery store, and picked up the veggies that I thought would create spring in my bowl.

Spaghetti alla Puttanesca!

Hehehe. I just love it when I can give such fancy names to my dishes, especially if I don’t have to work at creating such fancy names… ;-)
Imagine the flavours of olives, capers, garlic and smoked tomatoes in your mouth. Now imagine a meal out of these. Yes, it is that yummm…

Pair it with some red wine, and enjoy!

One love… Garlic bread!

 

Is there anyone under this big, bright, beautiful, blue sky who doesn’t love Garlic bread? One person? Show me one person who doesn’t and I’ll make him a convert. :-D

I was lost in this big world of numerous garlic bread choices, wondering which one to make my favourite, and then my dear friend, Nandita told me how to make my own garlic bread. Its the simplest ever method to make your own garlic bread, though not from scratch.

Pongal & Puli Kajipu

 

As it goes without saying, Pongal is a very famous South-Indian breakfast staple dish, eaten particularly on the Makar Sankranti festival.

Puli Kajipu, literally means, Sour Curry in Tulu. This one is so sour that your eyes will be in a perennial half-blink as long as you are eating this, and complements the slightly bland taste of the Pongal well.

I know, we are no where closer to Pongal, but suddenly last week, I began to crave for Mom’s Pongal and Puli Kajipu, the best I’ve ever eaten. I called her up, and asked her for the recipe, which I replicated to the T, and had a sumptuous breakfast. :)

Turns out Pongal is very similar to the Khichdi, but Mom’s Pongal has a special ingredient … Jaiphal or Nutmeg, which when added while the Pongal is cooking gives out a very distinct aroma to the entire dish.

Recipes, straight from my Mom’s kitchen, flowing through the phone … :-)

Sugar-less Date-n-Nut roll

“Don’t ask any questions and come to my desk. NOW”, my friend J [she likes to be called Mumbai_Chef :-)] pinged me on IM. The events of the last week were very exciting for both her and me, and there were many such “Come to my desk NOW” moments, but little did I know that I was in for a sweet treat.
I’ve always known that she is a wonderful cook and a baker. When I tasted her Undhiyu last year, I gasped, died and landed in Food Heaven.



But when I tasted her sugar-less-date-and-nut-roll last week, I knew I was IN Food Heaven, and alive, coz the very next minute I told her that she HAD to post a recipe of this one. And that was how this post came into being.
Ladies & Gentlemen, presenting the first ever guest post on this blog by the lady herself, my very dear friend, Mumbai_Chef…

Good old Khichdi!

Am a South Indian, and I hadn’t tasted Khichdi for the first 25 yrs of my life, but now it is my all-time favourite comfort food.



Known to be eaten when one is not well , every household has its own recipe for this dish.
Khichdi is something I eat when I am all by myself. I have Khichdi when am travelling and have to order room service. It is my first option when I don’t know what to eat, and is still my first option even when I have a fridge full of veggies. Healthy, easy to make, and packed with proteins, what’s not to like in this one?

Iranian Veg Stew, another recipe

Yesterday being Sunday, and the husband craving for some garlic cheese pilaf, I wanted to pair it with a vegetable stew. The recipe kept forming by itself in my head, and I mentally kept on adding all the ingredients to it. I cross-verified it with the recipes in the Vegetarian Dishes from the Middle East book and was all set to make it. That was then I realized that I had made something similar before. Quite different in terms of ingredients, and base, but almost similar in the method of making.
That was when it struck to me that like sambar, there can only be one method of making an Iranian Vegetable Stew. You just change the taste by altering the ingredients, or seasonings. And that’s how I got about to this recipe.

 

Hot Chocolate, inspired by a book

This is Valentine’s Day week, and as I-don’t-think-love-needs-a-day as I am, I am not letting this blog go without posting atleast one chocolate recipe this week.

And the chocolate... Do you see the nutmeg sprinkled on top?

I lifted the recipe directly from The Language of Baklava, a book I read a couple of months ago. I was sooo in love with the book and the recipes in it that I read it back to back in just under 2 days, I think. More about the book on my other blog, here.

Cherry Tomato & Aubergine Pasta

The search for the best non-tomato pasta base is on. And I think I am getting closer to it. First it was the Hummus pasta, and now this one.



What’s so special about this one, you might ask. Its just tomatoes and aubergine again. Haven’t you already cooked this? Yes, just that this time, its roasted aubergine paste as sauce to bind the pasta ingredients together.