One of those days when I was eating salads on a daily basis, I felt this immense carb-craving. I craved pasta, and I knew exactly what I wanted to make.
I had bookmarked this awesome recipe from one of the earlier BBC Goodfood magazines, and knew I had to make this.
I know I’ve vanished… for a full month and more. But trust me when I say, life has happened, and in a good gooood way! :-)
I went on a 10 day vacation to Greece, which was essentially a hiking holiday, and ate tons of good food there. I hope to be able to recreate some of my favorites in my kitchen and do a Greek food series and share them all with you! Coz, as far as food goes, I am almost sure that I cannot eat better vegetarian food anywhere else in the world , except India, of course. :-) More about this holiday, here.
[Featured above, Greek sesame bread, a Greek breakfast staple. Sold at 1 Euro per bread, this one is both yummy and makes for a great meal at the same time! This also happens to be the only photo of food that I shot during my entire visit to Greece. The rest of the times, the food vanished as soon as it reached our table. :-)]
And then a major move in job happened. I finally got over my comfort zone and made this move, which is currently keeping me busy, in a good way. Everyday is a learning, and am sure I will grow as a human being in this job also.
Amidst all this, I got an opportunity to speak at The Birthplace at a Nutrition event. I was the chef and I demo-ed some recipes and shared some with the pregnant women who attended the talk. I got to partner with Sunitha Sapur, an esteemed nutritionist , and learnt a lot in the process. I’ve always been a fan of her methods, but I got to see first hand how interesting her ingredients can be. She suggested the ingredients and I made up recipes using those. Some were modifications of the recipes I already had on this blog, while some were totally new. And appreciated a lot. :-D
Oh, I almost forgot to mention. My dear dear computer died on me. Well, the mother board did, and I was almost crippled. I had a lot of recipes saved on this comp, and I couldn’t access any of those, which is also why I took this hiatus. Now the comp is back, thanks to Husband’s relentless efforts, and I have all the data intact, and I hope to be back… back to blogging, shooting and writing! :)
And , closing the year with a bang! :-)
The salad month has changed my habit. It has made me look for protein in every meal I take and I am not able to shake off this habit. I know its good for me, but in how many different ways can a vegetarian get protein in her meal, tell me?
And that is how I decided to make soups as a mid-evening meal , before I have a light dinner to keep me full and supply protein to me. A regular chick pea soup sounded very boring to me. It had to have a zing in it, and that’s how Sriracha sauce and pesto get into this recipe.
Over this one month, I have tried so many dressings, but I realized there wasn't an authentic Indian dressing there.
Yes, I agree that Indian salads do not really have dressings except for lemon juice, if at all. But what I wanted to create was a dressing which only had Indian flavours.
And that's how this brilliant dressing was born.
A full month of salads only and I still haven’t gotten over bell peppers. I’ve grilled them, toasted them and baked them and loved in them in every format.
And the dressing ideas just keep coming… just when I think I am done with all the dressings that I can think of, this one just came to my mind. I was going through my herb cupboard (yes, I have one ;-)) and realized that I hadn’t used the Oregano at all. Neither did Thyme and Sage make an appearance. Well, they are for another day, but Oregano and Garlic are today’s heroes.
Yes, chargrilled vegetables can be a meal too! If you don’t trust me, try it and see.
I had a bunch of these veggies in my fridge and the only thing I could think of today was to oven roast them. I didn’t think of a dressing nor an accompaniment. The veggies as they were, roasted, of course.
Yummy, healthy and fills the stomach – that’s what this salad is for me!
I toasted the broken wheat or Dalia a bit before cooking this in hot water to remove the raw taste. The addition of Kasuri Methi is for the flavour. I also added the chopped chillies to the broken wheat while toasting it to get the flavour of chillies into the wheat. This step is totally optional.
I don’t know why, but this salad is also called The Classic Moroccan Salad in this article, from which I’ve been inspired for this recipe. I guess its because of the use of toasted cumin and the raisins in this salad, which are a total hit, by the way!
I first tasted the honey and chilli dressing during a food review I did for Syn and I’ve been itching to try this ever since. The sweet and chilli combination just bursts in your mouth and you will be pleasantly surprised. For this salad , you could you just the honey as a dressing, but I strongly suggest you try this dressing! :-)
When I started with the A Salad A Day project, I had decided that I would not make any salad with cucumbers in it. As much as I love the freshness of a nice cucumber, it really is a boring vegetable when it comes to salad.
But when I thought of this dressing, I was tempted to try this.
Jar lunches are a concept I am just warming up to. I haven’t heard of them till the time Siri told me about Recipe Redux and their theme for August, 2013.
But after having discovered such a convenient method for lunching, I don’t think I can go back.
Another simple, easy and flavourful salad featuring bell peppers and beans.
Technically this one’s not a vegetable salad, given that tomato is also a fruit. But the addition of raw onions (*gasp*, yes! ;-)) makes it one, I guess.
Who doesn’t love the simple and refreshing Caprese salad, tell me?
In this recipe, I’ve tried to reproduce the fresh taste of the salad, but gave it my own spin.
This is one of those simple salads that you can serve as an appetizer or a full meal.
Its best served with salad leaves also, but I decided to give it a miss. It tasted good nevertheless. Oven roasted tomatoes is one of those simple pleasures I’ve discovered and begun love in this month.
Here’s a classic salad recipe… something so famous that it needs no introduction!
Its like spring in a bowl! :)
Growing up, I’ve eaten a lot of sweet potatoes. In fact, they were one of my favourite vegetables to snack on. I could eat it boiled or curried or even as a papad, a Mangalorean speciality. This vegetable , also called Genasu in Kannada is clearly a favourite. So it had to feature in my ASaladADay project!
Am pretty proud of this dressing and I loved the way it turned the taste of the sweet potato into a not-so-sweet-but-starchy-potato. The spring onions complement the Berbere mix well. If you do not have the mix handy, you can substitute it for any Indian curry powder, because the idea is to make the potatoes spicy.
Yet another beet-based salad, but with a different dressing , as usual.
Yes, I had an overload of beetroots delivered to me last week and I had no other option but to use them in my salads.
Doesn’t the ring of this salad make you feel fresh! :-D
This one is something that would taste good if you had it as a salad or if you juiced all the ingredients together. No matter what the form is, this combination is a winner!
Sweet, sour, crunchy, soft – These are the words I’d use if I had to just give adjectives to this salad.
The dressing made it look like a curried salad, but grilling the carrots retains the crunch and imparts the flavour of the dressing to the bite. Perfect!
Bell peppers are every salad maker’s fall-back option! You can never go wrong with these, they taste great no matter how they are cooked and go well with literally everything!
And that is why I decided to pair these up with some radical vegetables and protein! :-)
This one is a simple salad using a basic dressing and some nuts for garnish.
I’ve blanched both spinach and cauliflower leaves to remove the raw taste, but I guess you can leave them as-is if you don’t mind the taste.
I know, thats one too many cauliflower and beet salads in a row. But then, I love this combo and I had both these veggies at hand. I had to make them!
This one comes with a different dressing, and is cooked differently, to add novelty to my palate which is getting bored quite soon these days… am not blaming it, given the food am feeding myself, these salads are the only bright part of my day.
I fell for this salad for the sheer contrast in colours. And as I’ve learnt over the past one week, nothing is as interesting as a variety of colours on your plate, especially when you are eating salads.
Adapted from one of the salads from an old issue of BBC GoodFood, this recipe is a sure winner. For the idea of cooking tofu and the pairing of vegetables, of course.
This one’s easy, a no-brainer. You cannot go wrong when you marinade paneer. Always.
The juicy, crunchy and yummy cottage cheese tastes better if you marinade it in the curry mix longer , but if you are falling short of time, you can mix it and grill it immediately too.
Well, I can see how many of you would wrinkle your nose as you read radish and raw mango in the same sentence.
I get that, I totally do. Well, this wasn’t the favourite of my salads, either, but as I mentioned before, I have to eat all vegetables and I can only try my best in making them interesting.
Many traditional Indian salad recipes use grated carrots. This is the reason why I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to add it to my Salad month. After all, I’ve grown up eating grated carrots tempered with Hing and mustard.
That is why, when I bumped into this recipe on NYTimes, I jumped and picked it up. There is something very Asian and non-Indian about this dressing that I totally loved.
This one is definitely one of the best salads I’ve eaten , and I give all the credit to the grilled cottage cheese.
This is one of those easy green salads that most of us make when we have nothing better to eat.
Owing to my new-found mustard love, I’ve customized the honey-mustard dressing a bit in this recipe and kept the vegetables simple.
No, am not a fan of cabbage. And am certainly not a fan of red cabbage either. But when you are embarking on a month-long salad diet, you have no option but to partake of all the vegetables available. And that is how this salad happened…
Steaming the cabbages takes off the raw smell they hold and thus making it a lot easier to eat them in a salad. Adding the radish to this salad gives it a crunch and a different taste. To make them all come together, I used a mint chutney based dressing.
I might not be really South Indian in my dinner preferences (if you ignore the constant craving for coconut oil), but when it comes to breakfast, idli is an ever-favourite.
I remember how I craved and dreamt about idlis during my stay in Hong Kong and heaved a sigh of relief once I spotted a Udupi hotel (and chitchatted with a waiter in Tulu and beamed with happiness talking about it with Dad, but that’s another long story) , which then became our weekend breakfast spot for as long as we were there! And only after spotting Idlis and Sonamasuri rice did I extend my trip to a month … such is the love for idlis!
Or Pulihora/Chitrannam, as Telugus like to call it. No, there is no equivalent for this in Hindi, because this is a South Indian main course dish, served as one of the items in a large meal at weddings or at festivals. However, this recipe is for the Mangalorean version of Pulihora/Huliogare.
Before I even go into the details, let me just say one word about my entire Syn experience. It was sinfully awesome! I loved the food, the experience and our entire time there. It was an afternoon spent having pleasant conversation with my partners in crime – Arundati and Siri.
And now to the details…
Syn Asian Grill & Bar, Taj Deccan, Hyderabad
Cusine: Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese – Asian
Location: Taj Deccan, Road 1, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad.
Phone: 040 66663939 / 092 95 006969
Hours of Operation: Mon - Sun: 12:30 pm - 3:30 pm, 7:30 pm - 1:00 am
Website: Syn Asian Grill & Bar, Taj Hotels
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/synicious
Twitter: https://twitter.com/synicious
Recommendations: Veg Sushi Rolls, Amuse Bouche, Kake age maki, Yasai Salad, Vietnamese Vegetable Red Curry, Wasabi Chilli cocktail, Thai Fried Rice
Yes, that’s almost all the dishes we tried out there, going out to say that I loved everything that has been served.
[Pictures : Watermelon Mintini & Wasabi Chilli]
We started our meal with a pleasant cocktail made of Wasabi which not only pierced through our throats but also took us to a high land, literally. We were then served Amuse Bouche in a happy spoon. Amuse Bouche is a bed of fried noodles topped with a mixture of waterchestnut, raw mango in chilly plum and soya dressing. It was a perfect mix of all the flavours and worked well in waking up our taste buds.
Or Carrot-Menthiaaku pachadi, as we Telugus would call it. This gem of a recipe is sent to me by a friend – Sukanth, a very good cook himself… he has shared some more of his awesome recipes which I am planning to try very soon, once I have all the required ingredients at hand.
One of the simplest and easiest ways to incorporate vegetable and greens in your diet, this is also something that can be prepared in a jiffy. I loved the flavour of the methi leaves blended with the sweetish carrots…
Couple of weeks ago, I shot some pics of a beautiful cake my friend baked. She is a master baker – The Dream Cakes, and is a professional and her cake was selected to be featured in Cake central Magazine. I shot these pics a little too late, and so we missed the deadline… it sure did feel bad, but her cake still got featured in the magazine, and the pics were shot by her friend. Here is another link from the magazine’s site.
For this shot, I planned , conceptualized and shot every pic, and the pics came out pretty good. Am super proud of these pics and have waited all this while to share them. [I couldn’t share the pics earlier because of some condition laid by the magazine guys]. And here are the pics… every part of this cake is edible, and I tried to highlight all the different aspects of this cake.
And there is more…
Hummus is a beauty that goes well with almost anything – bread, rotis, or as a dip, and is an all-time favourite even in our highly-Indian-food-loved household.
When I soaked the chick-peas the other night, I had something else in mind… trying out the Ethiopian Hummus.
Now, I haven’t eaten that before or even heard about it, had it not been for a friend who messaged me on my FB page asking for a recipe for this. Some reading up pointed me to some recipes and the story behind Berbere mix, and this link which had a good recipe.
Show me one self-respecting Hyderabadi who doesn’t like Biryani and I’ll cook you a free meal! ;-)
I love it too, but I don’t generally prefer eating Biryanis at restaurants. I’d love to eat my mother-in-law’s Biryani which she makes with amazing precision week after week (and is simply awesome, btw. Recipe for that will follow soon!) or make my own imitation of hers (which is also good, but seriously my MIL rocks!)
Stir-Fry… a word I shy away from, because of its Chinese food relationship. Yeah, I know its not really a Chinese only dish, but I’ve come to associate this dish with Chinese food and hence ajinomoto , something I detest with a passion.
But to go with the Grilled Tofu with Sesame Rice I made this stir-fry. The decision to make this was almost instant and hence this comes with absolutely no prior preparation. Whipped up in a jiffy and gobbled up much faster, this is one heck of an easy dish!
Yeah, I know its been a while since I turned up here… The reasons are plenty, I can safely hide behind the curtain and say its been work, but who am I kidding… I’ve been lazy, plain lazy. And anything else is just a silly excuse. There are too many things happening on the home front, all of which will make it into a detailed blog post on The Other Side, but I really hope I will get over the laziness and start being more active in my kitchen!
Every month, I read the BBC GoodFood magazine the minute it arrives and then make a list of all the dishes I’d like to try. This dish is from one such list, customized of course to suit my taste buds and choice.
Ask any Telugu what his/her favorite breakfast is… nearly all of them will vouch for their Mom’s Pesarattu and allam pachadi (ginger pickle) or upma-pesarattu. Actually, make that all of them. Yes, that’s how loved this breakfast dish is!
And it doesn’t hurt that this extra tasty dish is also extra healthy, and packed with proteins. And so versatile that you can modify its recipe to suit your dietary needs, and still retain the taste. And its very very tough to not get this simple dish right!
Also known as Double ka Meetha , Shahi Tukda is a typical Nawabi dessert, served at most Hyderabadi weddings and functions.
However, I’ve been led to believe that these two – Double ka Meetha & Shahi Tukda have slightly different methods of preparation.
I haven’t heard or known about Sriracha sauce till I read the recipe on White on Rice’s blog, and I was set in my mind to try this one out the minute I finished reading the recipe. What's not to like in this recipe!
The base of this recipe is red chillies, so use as much as or little as you want. The more you use, the hotter your sauce is, obviously!
Avarekalu or Hyacinth beans is not very often found in Andhra Pradesh, but is almost a staple during its season in Karnataka.
Tumkur is the home to Avarekalu, Hyacinth beans or so am told. Growing up, we used to spend a couple of days in Tumkur, and gorge on this curry and other dishes made especially when these beans are in season. Such delight those deep-fried snacks made with these beans were...
What has melted, almost-roasted cheese on top and makes your heart skip a beat and your mouth drool a bit? Yes, that's right, Sherlock! Its a Lasagna. :-D And vegan one, if you want it to be!
Are you one of those who doesn't try out a lasagna because of all the fatty ingredients in it? Do you think putting up a lasagna is a lengthy process and the result is often something that sits on your hips?
