Soup and Dessert

Summer vegetable sandwich

2010-07-15T21:32:00.000-04:00

I know it has been really quiet here. For that I offer my apologies and propose to mend my errant ways. This summer is turning out way busier than expected and is keeping me away from what I should be doing, like blogging.

Now without further ado, I shall proceed to describe this summery vegetable sandwich. We are neck deep in summer squash through the CSA right now. Not that I am complaining. The summer squash can be super versatile, chopped into chunks that can be used in soups or pastas, grilled as a nice accompaniment or as in this recipe, grated into a vegetable medley. Along with the squash, I used other vegetables available at that moment, carrots, green peppers and a little bit of onion. The great thing about this recipe is you could add in whatever veggies you have on hand. It goes something like this: you grate up a bunch of veggies, you saute them with some garlic, add desired seasonings, then add a binder (boiled potatoes or breadcrumbs). You can then either shape these into patties and shallow-fry them or you can stuff the mixture between two slices of bread and convert it to a grilled sandwich.

These grilled sandwiches are inspired by the ever popular Bombay chutney sandwich. This is the panini's Indian cousin, where thin sliced veggies (potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes) are layered on to thin slices of bread slathered with a spicy mint and cilantro chutney, then slapped on with butter and pressed into an individual sandwich press which is heated on an open flame. Heaven! My summer squash vegetable sandwich is tasty but not a patch on the original! It is going places though, it is my first entry to Weekend Herb Blogging hosted at this wonderful blog, The Well-Seasoned Cook.

Recipe:
2 summer squashes, peeled
2 medium sized carrots
1 green bell pepper
1/4 onion
1 cup corn
2 small potatoes, peeled and boiled
1/2 teaspoon garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon chaat masala (optional)
1 tablespoon oil
- Grate all vegetables from squash through onion in a food processor or by hand.
- In a pan heat the oil, when hot add the grated vegetables along with garlic and saute for a couple of minutes.
- Add the corn and saute for a few more minutes till vegetables are soft.
- Mash the boiled potatoes and add to the vegetable mixture.
- Add the salt, black pepper and chaat masala if using.
- Butter slices of bread and add the vegetable mixture, cover with another bread slice and grill!

- Makes 3 cups of vegetable filling.

Cauliflower and Potato soup

2010-06-24T21:56:00.000-04:00

This post has been way overdue and the reasons are too many to elaborate. My sister was visiting from India, work was crazy, was trying to run too much, etc etc. All of which translated to me not cooking a whole lot and blogging even lesser. I missed both so I am trying my best to get back in the groove.

We have been getting a lot of great produce from our summer CSA, which we have been cooking in the fastest possible way by sauteing it in some olive oil and keeping the spices to the bare minimum. This has been very tasty and efficient however I would like to be more creative and come up with some interesting ideas. That being said, simple meals are currently the norm in our kitchen. The cauliflower and potato soup which I am blogging today is one such recipe. This was actually inspired by my sister who made a great potato soup when she was here. My sister was not much of a cook when we lived together. But now that she has married a pastry chef, the tables have turned, much to our delight! I absolutely loved her soup and decided to changed it only a wee bit to include cauliflower. The result is delicious, creamy and velvetty.

It is also super easy to put together. The main flavor ingredient here is the browned garlic so be careful not to burn it (especially if you are prone to burning things like me). Here goes then, thanks to my lovely sister who I wish was here longer.

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon butter
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 large potato, peeled and chopped into chunks
1/2 medium sized cauliflower (florets separated)
2 garlic cloves, sliced
1/2 onion, chopped into chunks
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
- Heat the butter and olive oil in a stockpot.
- Add the garlic cloves and saute till light brown.
- Add the onion chunks and also saute till soft and light brown.
- While the onion is browning, cook the potato and cauliflower till soft (I cooked them in the pressure cooker).
- Add the potatoes, cauliflower and onion garlic mixture into a food processor along with some cooking liquid from the boiled vegetables.
- Blend till smooth and return to the stockpot.
- Add milk, more water if required (depending on the consistency), salt and pepper.
- Bring to a simmer and serve hot with some extra cracked pepper on top.

Makes 4 side servings.

Goat cheese, pesto and swiss chard pasta

2010-06-02T20:22:00.000-04:00

Hope everyone had a great Memorial day weekend. Mine was great, at the beach with friends, great food, a lot of sand and water. I really did not want it to end. It did end though only to make me realize this was only the beginning, the beginning of summer, my most favorite time of the year! Having grown up in Bombay, heat is only second nature to me and I don't mind it in the very least. In fact I quite love it.

Also another thing I love about summer is the fresh produce. This year we signed up for the summer CSA with Coon Rock Farms, which started a few weeks back. Coon Rock is a local farm an hour away from Raleigh, NC. Theirs is a great story which started with the owners walking away from highly successful careers to work on a farm. For the six years that this farm has been in existence, its grown into a completely self sustained farm which produces the best tasting vegetables, eggs and meat.To more read about their amazing story, check this great write-up NY Times did on them. When you do what you like best, it makes a huge difference. With Coon Rock, it shows in the excellent produce.

The CSA box is a true indication of the seasons. For the last weeks, it has been mostly cooler weather greens and lettuces. It has also consistently featured one of my favorite vegetables, chard. Either swiss or rainbow varieties. I have been putting the chard to good use and now have enough recipes for a chard 1-2-3, which I am about to embark on! The first recipe in this series is a pasta in a pesto and goat cheese based sauce enveloping some sauteed chard. I also added some pistachios for a little crunch and also because I think anything can be made better by adding pistachios! The creamy pesto sauce works perfectly with the pistachios and chard to make a healthy, tasty and quick one dish meal. I am going to send this recipe to Presto Pasta Nights which is being hosted by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast.

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat penne pasta

1/4 cup or more goat cheese

3 tablespoons pesto

half a bunch of chard, swiss or rainbow, cut into ribbons

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons white wine (optional)

1/4 cup pistachios, toasted

1/4 teaspoon salt

pepper to taste

2 tablespoons shredded parmesan

- Boil pasta according to directions till cooked, drain and set aside. Reserve some of the pasta cooking water.

- In a bowl, mix together the goat cheese and pesto. Add in a couple of tablespoons of the hot pasta cooking water to make a sauce. Add salt/pepper to taste.

- In a separate pan saute chard with olive oil, salt and pepper. Cook covered with a little water till tender. Season with white wine if using.

- Combine pasta and chard with the pesto sauce, adding pistachios and topping with some shredded parmesan. Serve warm.

Makes 4 main servings.

Spize Cafe and a Thai Cooking class!

2010-05-23T22:29:00.001-04:00

Last Thursday Aditya and I attended a cooking class at our favorite pan-Asian restaurant, Spize Cafe in downtown Raleigh. Their super talented chef and owner Meechai showed us how to make lemongrass pork rolls, tom kha soup and tilapia in a panang curry. All of which, though I must admit I am a little too partial towards the tilapia, were amazing.

I had been meaning to write about restaurants in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) area that I really like but never got around to doing so. This cooking class gave me the perfect opportunity to change this and no better place than to start this off than Spize!

Spize serves mostly pan-Asian flavors concentrating on Thai, reflecting chef Meechai's roots. Other than the delectable fare what attracts me to this place are the very hospitable owners, Meechai and his lovely wife Jacq. Meechai is a software engineer by day and chef by night and if that in itself is not commendable, then its definitely his passion for perfection. We learnt at the class that everything from the spice powders to the stocks to the bread is made from scratch. The difference this attention to detail makes is evident in the taste. His commitment also extends to being environmentally friendly, the marble tabletops are from reclaimed material and the tableware is from corn by-products.

Coming back to the cooking class, we learnt how to make the marinade for the succulent and delicately flavored lemongrass pork for the rice rolls, how to stuff the rolls and how to handle them delicately. We learnt how to make a mean Tom-kha soup, how to make the penang spice paste from scratch and how to wrap it around a crispy tilapia filet. We also learnt some valuable tips like store lemongrass (in a ziplock bag in the freezer), how to make your own chilli paste (soak the chillies, deseed and then grind) and how to treat your rice paper rolls (like a lady :)). And then we got to eat it all!

I wish I had better pictures to share but we were too busy enjoying ourselves. To see more pictures from the cooking class please see this link. I will not be sharing any recipes here because I really want you to go there, taste first and then attend their class if possible. If you do, I would highly recommend the open-faced Vietnamese sandwiches with spicy eggplant or thinly sliced, cumin chicken on the crusty baguettes and of course the spicy panang tilapia curry infused with kafir lime leaves. They also have an excellent hot-pot, a Thai fondue in which you can dip vegetables, tofu or meat, accompanied with some chile sauce and rice. These are my favorites but I am sure you will find yours.

p.s. Recipes to follow once we try these on our own!

Mujadara and Tatziki

2010-05-16T22:49:00.007-04:00

We always tend to draw analogies with what we are familiar with. Since Indian food is what I grew up eating the most, I find myself drawing many analogies to it. Like in this case. Mujadara is Middle Eastern comfort food. It has basic ingredients, is simple to make and to me it is very similar to the Indian khichdi. It has rice and brown lentils cooked with some aromatic spices and mixed with a generous helping of caramelized onions. Tatziki is a creamy yogurt and cucumber sauce that to me is very similar to the Indian raita. It is made with cucumber, mint and garlic all mixed in thick Greek yogurt and served cold. It is a great side for the mujadara or as a dip for pita bread or a topping on some Middle eastern spied burgers. Both are extremely popular in the Middle East so much so that the origins of each is a topic, hotly debated!

Mujadara and Tatziki, together make one of my most favorite meals, especially on hot summer days. The coolness of the cucumber and yogurt is a perfect balance to the wholesome rice and lentil mixture. As the temperature rises I find myself craving for this, especially at lunch. Neomonde deli and bakery which is one of my favorite lunch places in the Triangle area does a great job at satisfying these cravings. In their version of Tatziki dried mint is used. If you have any on hand, feel free to use that for a more authentic taste. I didn't have any so I used fresh mint instead. The result was just as good.

This meal is satisfying, delicious and did you notice? Meatless! Going meatless even once a week can do a huge amount of good for us and our planet. Many restaurants, chefs and food bloggers have been participating in this worldwide movement by going meatless on Monday. I have decided to follow suit and I will be sending this as my first entry for Meatless Mondays.

Mujadara:
1 cup brown or white rice (preferably long grained)
1 cup brown lentils
2 cups water or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion sliced
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar

- In a stock pot, cover the lentils with water. Add half of the cinnamon stick and cook till tender. Be careful as to not overcook these. Once the lentils are cooked, add salt, paprika and cumin powder and mix well.
- While the lentils are cooking, in a separate wide bottomed pan, heat the olive oil and spread the onions evenly. Let them sit for a couple of minutes without stirring so as to get the bottom layer brown. Then stir to mix the top layer with the bottom and sprinkle with a teaspoon of the sugar. Stir till all the onions are evenly brown. Remove and set aside on a paper towel.
- In the same pan, cook the rice with 2 cups of water or vegetable stock and the remaining half of the cinnamon stick.
- Mix the rice, lentils and three fourth of the caramelized onions together.
- Serve topped with the rest of the caramelized onions.

Tatziki
1 cup greek yogurt
1 medium sized cucumber
1 small garlic clove
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon mint, finely chopped

- Peel the cumber, slit lengthwise and remove all the seeds. Chop evenly.
- Grate the garlic into the yogurt, add in salt and mint. Mix in the cumber and serve chilled.

Strawberry shortcake

2010-05-08T23:36:00.008-04:00

Strawberry season is in full swing. If you were at any of the local farmers markets I mentioned in my earlier post, you would find them in copious amounts. We have been getting tons from the North Hills farmers market and overdosing on them. We have been diligently heading the advice that its best to eat them fresh and on the same day as they are bought so very few make it to the day after! Its like eating a potato chip, you cannot stop at one. By the way, did you know that eating only one serving of strawberries (about 8) provides more Vitamin C than an orange?

After blending them into smoothies and eating quite a few in their natural state, I couldn't wait to cast them as the star ingredient in a dessert. At the same time though, I did want to maintain their natural flavor as much as possible. The solution? This strawberry short cake inspired by a recipe from Nigella Lawson's cookbook, How to be a domestic goodess: baking and the art of comfort food, which by the way, is a great book with lots of doable and delicious recipes. The strawberry shortcake picture in the cookbook really caught my eye, a flaky shortcake halved and stuffed with strawberries, topped with a dollop of cream. It looked so pretty that I had to give it a try and it was delicious! The original recipe called for whipping cream which I substituted with Greek yogurt for a healthier and lighter version. If you haven't used Greek yogurt before you must give it a try. Its basically a really thick version of regular yogurt which you can get if you hang it overnight to remove excess water. It is a great substitute for sour cream or heavy cream. Here I whisked it with some honey and vanilla extract to top the strawberries with. Trust me, the result was just as good and the heavy cream was not missed! For a more decadent version, vanilla ice-cream cream would work really well in place of the yogurt. If you like chocolate and berries together, drizzling some chocolate syrup would be a nice idea too. Either way do give this a try!

Ingredients:
Note: The recipe below is my modified version from the original recipe from the cookbook. The original recipe called for unsalted butter and half teaspoon salt. I also used yogurt in place of light cream for the shortcakes and heavy cream for the topping.

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
5 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup butter, frozen (I used Smart Balance)
1 large egg
1/2 cup non-fat Greek yogurt or plain yogurt hung overnight

For the filling:
1 and 1/2 cups strawberries
1 tablespoon sugar
few drops of balsamic vinegar (optional)
1 cup non-fat Greek yogurt or plain yogurt hung overnight
2 teaspoons honey

- Line a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper and preheat the oven to 425F.
- Mix flour, salt (if using), baking powder and 4 tablespoons sugar in a bowl.
- Grate the butter into these dry ingredients and use your fingerprints to finish crumbling the butter into the flour.
- Whisk the egg into the yogurt and pour into the flour mixture while kneading into a dough. You may not need all the egg-yogurt mixture to make the dough come together so use cautiously.
- Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll gently to a thickness of about 3/4 inch.
- Dip a 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter into flour and cut out as many rounds as you can. Work the scraps back into a dough, re-roll and finish cutting out, you should get 8 in all.
- Place the shortcakes about 1 inch apart on the baking sheet, sprinkle with the remaining sugar and bake for about 10-15 minutes or till they are golden brown.
- Let them cool on a wire rack for around 5-10 minutes.
- For the filing, crush half of the strawberries with the spoonful of sugar and the few drops of balsamic vinegar if using and halve or quarter the remaining strawberries depending on their size.
- Whisk the yogurt with vanilla extract and honey.
- To assemble the shortcakes, split each one across the middle and cover with a spoonful of the crushed strawberry mixture, a few halved or quartered strawberries, then dollop some yogurt or whipped cream on top and set the top back on.

Makes 8.

Carrot, ginger and peanut soup

2010-05-04T22:51:00.009-04:00

Summer is without doubt my most favorite time of the year and I know that even though its still spring here in North Carolina, its been feeling kind of like summer already. Other than the warm weather, there is much to love here. Open air farmers markets, tons of fresh produce, outdoor meals and drinks on the patio. All in all it just makes me feel like good times are in store.

Summer is also a great time to start being more of a 'locavore'. There is an abundance of fresh produce in the various farmers markets around the area and they provide a great opportunity to try stuff you might have never tried before. Eating locally and eating seasonally will almost always guarantee that you are eating well. If you are in the Triangle area and are looking for a farmers market close to you, here is a list that might help.
- State Farmers Market
- North Raleigh Farmers market
- Midtown Farmers Market at North Hills
- Five Points Community Farmers Market
- Durham Farmers Market
- Cary Farmers Market

Summer here though does get quite hot so my focus this season will be on recipes that require none or very little "on the stove" time. I am also hoping to experiment with some cold soup recipes, mainly because I like soups way too much to relegate them only for cold weather. This recipe here is one step in that direction though it does taste just as good when served hot. This recipe like quite a few here was inspired by a recipe for carrot and ginger soup that I saw in the latest issue of the Bon Appetit magazine. The original recipe was served with a chile butter and topped with peanuts. I omitted the chile butter and gave it a little bit of an Asian twist by adding some peanut butter, mixed with honey and red chili flakes. If you are not a big peanut fan, I think using almond butter would work just as well. The result is a smooth and velvetty textured soup with just a hint of sweetness and spice. Topped with some fresh cilantro and accompanied with toast and salad, it makes the perfect summer meal.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 carrots, peeled and chopped into 1/4 inch thick rounds
1/2 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh minced ginger
1 potato, diced
2 cups low sodium vegetable broth
2 cups water
2 teaspoons peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon honey
1/4 teaspoon red chili flakes
1/2 teaspoon salt (or lesser depending on the salt in the vegetable broth)

- In a heavy bottom stock pot, heat olive oil. Add chopped onion, minced ginger, diced potatoes and carrots.
- Sprinkle the vegetables with salt and saute for about ten minutes or until they are slightly softened but not browned.
- Add the broth and water, bring to a boil and cook covered for about 20 minutes or till the vegetables are cooked through.
- Cool slightly, then puree in batches. Return blended soup to the stock pot.
- Whisk peanut butter and honey with the red pepper flakes. Add to the soup and stir well, avoiding any lumps to form with the peanut butter.
- Bring to a simmer and get off the heat. Serve warm or cold topped with chopped cilanto and toasted peanuts.

Makes 6 side servings.

Swiss chard and potato quesadilla

2010-04-27T22:11:00.006-04:00

I continue my exploration of cuisine de Mexico with this Swiss chard and potato quesadilla. Am I too stuck in time with my trip to Mexico that I cannot seek inspiration elsewhere? Well, that is not exactly true you see. Barely a week after getting back, I had to get a wisdom tooth extracted. For those of you who have gone through this, you may know that after this process, your culinary options are, well, how shall I put it? Limited.

Hence I am sure you will excuse me for another Mexico-inspired entry. Its quite good too and unintentionally vegan. It features thinly sliced potatoes sauteed with some cumin and paprika along with some thinly sliced swiss chard sauteed with onion and garlic. Swiss chard and potatoes make strange bedfellows but not in a quesadilla. They worked great together even without the cheese. If you think a quesadilla cannot be a quesadilla without cheese, feel free to add in some monterrey jack or cheddar. I used the habanero-lime tortillas from Trader Joes which I so love but any tasty tortilla would work well here. The next time I might bake the potatoes to get them a little more crispy. There is not a lot of spice in these so a spicy tomatillo or adobo chile sauce would be on the great. With my current dental condition, I avoided the spice and stuck with a mellow avocado yogurt sauce.

On a different note, with some enforced down time, I found two excellent reads over these last few days. One was the much enjoyable murder mystery, The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall. It was recommended by one of my favorite bloggers, Nupur from One Hot Stove and I couldn't wait to read this book after she wrote about it here! And I loved it. It was the perfect mix of mystery and humor set in urban Delhi and what I especially liked was the Hinglish (Hindi English).

The second was Espresso Tales, by one of my favorite authors, Alexander McCall Smith. It is the second volume of his Scotland Street series and is the perfect book to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon with. I do like my fair share of books which search your soul and move your heart, but sometimes you just need a book which is going to make you feel that everything is going to be all right with this world after all. Especially after a wisdom tooth extraction.

Here is the recipe.

4 large tortillas
1 bunch swisss chard, sliced thin
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Yukon gold potatoes, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt

- Heat olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan and add the thinly sliced potatoes.
- Saute them till cooked, adding salt, paprika and cumin, mixing well to coat.
- While the potatoes cook, in another pan, heat some olive oil and add chopped onion and minced garlic.
- When the onion and garlic softens, add the chard and saute with some salt.
- Add couple of tablespoons of water and cook covered till tender.
- Heat the tortilla, line with potato and chard and fold over.

Makes 4 quesadillas

Banana Marmalade from Isla Mujeres

2010-04-20T20:26:00.003-04:00

Isla Mujeres, Mexico is where we spent the better part of the week before last. A small island, only five miles long with the bluest water and whitest sands that I have ever seen. Only a fifteen minute ferry ride separates it from Cancun but it feels like a world apart. Colorful streets, open air bars and restaurants and the beautiful waters symbolize true island living. We spent most of our time around the North Beach (Playa del Norte) area which has the calmest waters on the island and is the perfect spot for lazing around, getting your feet wet, or eating some of the best grilled fish. We did all that and more.

After the first three days on the island we ventured into the mainland to see the Mayan ruins at Coba and Tulum. Both were easy day trips and well worth the effort. We also found some really good eats on the way.

This banana marmalade was one of them and a delicious start to a lovely day in one of the local Isla Mujeres cafes. Marmalade for me always meant oranges till I encountered this one. This was unlike anything I had tasted before. In our broken Spanish we managed to decipher the ingredients from the friendly cafe owner. I am so glad we did because it was so simple to put together and yet so delicious. It was served with some warm oven baked rolls but back home we had it on some toasted English muffins and it was equally good. It would also be nice on pancakes or waffles. Its not really a recipe but more of an ingredients list with one step!

Banana Marmalade
(Best when served fresh, can be refrigerated for 2-3 days)

Ingredients:
1 cup mashed banana
1 cup grated pineapple
2 tablespoons shredded coconut (fresh works best)
1/4 teaspoon honey
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice (to preserve the color of the bananas)

- Combine all ingredients together, mix well and serve.

Isla Mujeres highlights: Red chilli (aquillo pepper topped) grilled fish at Picus Cocteleria, the beach at Playa del Norte, grilled fish (tixin xic) at Playa Lancheros in Isla Mujeres South, walking around or golf carting around the island, Tacos at Medina Taqueira, Breakfast in Cafe Hidalgo (terrific coffee and crepes).

Indianized roast chicken

2010-04-15T22:45:00.028-04:00

I am back after another longish break from blogging but this time it wasn't work that got in the way. Something much more exciting, we were out on vacation. It was sun, sand, lots of great food and drink. I come back slightly darker than before (some may say sunburnt), recharged and refreshed and armed with lots of recipes that I can't wait to try. That will have to wait for another post though as today it will be back to Bombay for a recipe from my Mum's armoir.

This recipe was a favorite of ours while growing up. It could make a great Sunday lunch, a quick weeknight dinner or if we were really lucky a weekday lunch. It never failed to satisfy no matter when you ate it. This was also one of the first things I learnt to make when I started living by myself and its simplicity never ceased to amaze me. Don't let the name fool you, its no complicated roast chicken. In fact its not even roasted. I am not sure why my Mum called it roast chicken but it worked for her so I am not messing with the name. Anyway its just cooked on the tava (griddle) till it gets all browned up. Here is how it works, you marinate the chicken, put it in a pan and cook it till its done. Then you deglaze the pan, shred the chicken and throw it in the pan for an extra juicy, well integrated flavor. The possibilities are endless!

Here is how I have tried it so far:
- On top of brown rice with some vegetables for a complete meal.
- Rolled up in a chapati/tortilla wrap with some onions, cilantro and lemon for a quick chicken kathi roll (as close as you can come to it)
- With couscous and a greek salad.

It would also be nice as:
- A very tasty sandwich filling
- On top of a pizza for an Indianized chicken tikka pizza

If you do give this a try and come up with some more brilliant ways of putting this to use, let me know. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
Note: Boned in chicken works best here.
4 big chicken pieces with bone
1/2 cup yogurt (I used plain non-fat)
1/2 teaspoon ginger and garlic each
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon garam masala powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Juice of half a lemon

- Combine all ingredients for the marinade together.
- Marinate the chicken for atleast 30 minutes (longer the chicken marinates, better the flavor). Marinating overnight works best.
- Heat a heavy bottomed pan and coat with oil.
- Add chicken pieces along with the marinade. Cook covered till the moisture disappears and chicken is browned and cooked, turning in between.
- Remove chicken pieces, add a little water to the pan to deglaze. Bring the sauce to a boil.
- Shred the chicken and add back to the sauce. Cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Serve with brown rice or wrapped in a chappati.

Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

2010-04-04T22:31:00.000-04:00

What does a cupcake say to you? To me, it says I'm all yours in my sweet and delectable goodness. Unlike any other dessert, which can be shared, a cupcake is unique in that it offers an individual sized treat meant for you and only you. I like that.

A cupcake also says perfection. Perfection in baking and also in frosting. The cake has to be moist and the frosting, a perfect peak of goodness. This thought made me quite nervous as I embarked on my first ever attempt at making cupcakes. I have long been a cupcake fan but I wasn't brave enough to take it on. That changed this weekend. One of our friends was hosting a baby shower and I offered (a little hesitantly) to bring the cupcakes. I needed a tried and tested recipe for a chocolate cupcake and I knew exactly where I could find this. One of my favorite blogs, Canelle et Vanille offered a chocolate cupcake recipe which looked absolutely spectacular (all of her picutres look spectacular btw). It was a recipe originally from the Magnolia bakery in New York and after seeing Aran's pictures, I knew I had found what I was looking for.

The baking of the cupcakes went quite well, it was the frosting which had me in a bind. I had no experience with frosting before, so my first attempts at piping these onto the cupcakes weren't exactly pretty. I abandoned the piping and just slathered them on instead. And then for an extra cute as a button touch, I adorned them with a sugar candy. I was delighted with the results even though mine didn't look as pretty.

Chocolate cupcakes (Original recipe from Magnolia Bakery can be found here.)

2 cups All-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar (I used dark brown instead since I only had that)
4 large eggs at room temperature
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Line 2 12-cup muffin pans with cupcake papers and set aside. ( I had only one pan so I baked these in two batches, reusing after cooling the first batch for 20 mins).
- Melt the chocolate. I melted mine in the microwave and let it cool for around 10 minutes.
- In a small bowl, sift the flour and baking soda. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add the molten chocolate, mixing well until incorporated.
- Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are well incorporated, but do not overbeat.
- Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended and the batter is smooth.
- Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake about 20-25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the cupcake center comes out clean.
- Cool the cupcakes in the tins for about 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.
- Pipe or spread the icing on top of the cupcakes.

Vanilla Buttercream frosting (Recipe from Magnolia bakery can be found here, I halved it)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3-4 cups of confectioners sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 2 cups of the sugar, milk and vanilla.
- On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes.
- Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of spreadable consistency.
- I added a few drops of blue color to the icing.

Makes 24 cupcakes.

A guest post!

2010-03-31T18:46:00.001-04:00

Deepa from the lovely blog, Foodlyrics was kind enough to invite me to make my first guest post on her blog! I was quite excited about it and submitted a recipe for a lentil and vegetable burger. You can read this post here and make sure you go through Deepa's wonderful recipes while you are there. Thanks so much, Deepa!

Pasta and bean soup with pesto

2010-03-30T21:46:00.008-04:00

Pasta, beans and pesto are three of my favorite foods. Last night I had a brainwave! Use all of these in a single soup. Why didn't I think of this earlier? The best part of this soup? It can be made start to finish using ingredients from the pantry or refrigerator. That is if you are a good grocery shopper and have pasta, beans, canned tomatoes, pesto and assorted spices in your fridge or pantry. I am not, so I did have to make a grocery store run but I thought I would mention it for the benefit of all of you good grocery shoppers.

The combination of pesto and tomatoes was inspired by this Spaghetti recipe on one of my favorite blogs, The Perfect Pantry. Actually, ever since I saw this recipe I couldn't wait to try out these two flavours together. The rest of the ingredients were only an excuse to bulk up the soup. I used Trader Joe's Genovese pesto (some of you know my obsession for this) but I think any store bought or fresh homemade pesto would work great, which reminds me that making pesto from scratch is high on my list this summer, when basil is in abundance. So if any of you have a good tried and tested pesto recipe, I would love to try it. I might even send you a container :).

Coming back to the soup, it was quite easy to put together. Other than pesto, I used oregano and crushed red pepper flakes for extra flavour. I was quite thrilled at the result, which had nice hints of pesto combined with the heat of red pepper and the tartness of tomatoes. Also the beans and pasta made it a satisfying one dish meal. It even tasted great cold! Now thats a winner.
Now that you are done reading the post, I would urge you to look around and ask yourself does the blog look different? We just redid the design and would love to hear your thoughts/suggestions.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 carrot, chopped
1 can of cannellini or white kidney beans
1 cup of any small pasta (I used shells)
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 and half tablespoons of pesto (fresh or store-bought)
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon red chili flakes

- Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan or stock pot.
- Add chopped onions, minced garlic and chopped carrots. Saute till soft.
- Add the pesto and saute for a couple of minutes.
- Add the diced tomatoes, followed by oregano and red chilli pepper. Add salt to taste (adjust the quantity as per the salt in the pesto and canned tomatoes).
- Add the beans and saute for a couple of more minutes.
- Add 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Check seasonings.
- Add pasta and cook for 7-8 minutes till pasta is tender.

Makes 4 main servings.

Chicken Xacuti

2010-03-23T22:18:00.009-04:00

Have you been to Goa? You must if you haven't. Its not just the tropical heaven or the beach paradise its made out to be. Goa has a certain oomph factor that can only be experienced but not described. Endless stretches of beautiful beaches and water, tall palm trees, quaint Portugese style churches, bustling markets and of course the famous 'sosegade' attitude which translates to why do something now, when you can do it later. Do you need any more reasons to go to place a like this? I would be ready to move there as soon as possible and I haven't even started on the food yet!

Goa was a Portugese colony when the rest of India was under the British rule and the food bears evidence to strong Portugese influence. Especially in sweet sounding dishes like xacuti, sorpotel and vindaloo. These unique dishes combine Indian spices with vinegar in some cases, palm sugar in others and olive oil in still others. Of course no description of Goan food would be complete without mentioning the seafood. Some of the best seafood I have ever had has been in Goa. But if I have to do it justice, then it has to be a different post.

I last visited Goa in December 2005 and had some of the most memorable meals there. One such meal was in a restaurant which was literally on the beach! The tables were on the sand and you sat facing the water. If you stayed long into the night, you had the warm sea water grazing your feet. And of course the food was amazing. Sigh, I didn't want to leave!

To recreate the Goan food experience minus the beach I was on the lookout for Goan cookbooks for a while. After extensive research my Dad sent me this one: The Essential Goa cookbook by Maria Teresa Menzes. I loved reading this book with its witty anecdotes on Goan lifestyle and great recipes and this weekend I finally got around to trying something out of it. This chicken xacuti recipe is a shorter version from this book.

Xacuti is a really spicy chicken curry. The book recipe called for grinding together three different sets of ingredients. By any standard this is quite a long process. I tried to shorten it a little bit by using the ready made garam masala instead of grinding it fresh. The only ingredient I thought would be missing from this masala powder was fennel which I ground fresh and used. This is definitely a recipe with some amount of effort but the end result is sure worth it. Even if you are not sitting on a beach while eating it.

Chicken xacuti:

1 kilo chicken, cut into pieces

1 and half large onion

1/2 cup grated coconut

3 green chillies

3 large garlic cloves

2" piece of ginger

handful of cilantro

1 tablespoon garam masala powder

1 teaspoon red chilli powder

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

1/2 tablespoon fennel powder

1 teaspoon tamarind pulp, dissolved in a couple of tablespoons of water

salt to taste

- Grind together the green chillies, ginger, garlic and cilantro to make a paste.

- Clean chicken and marinate with the paste above. Keep aside.

- Heat a tablespoon of oil and fry half the sliced onion till its golden brown. Add the grated coconut and also saute till brown.

- With a little water, grind the onion and coconut mixture into a smooth paste.

- In a heavy saucepan, heat oil and add the rest of the chopped onion.

- Cook till onion is golden brown. Add a teaspoon of sugar to caramalize the onions.

- Add all the spices, including garam masala, red chilli, turmeric and fennel powder. Also add salt and mix well cooking for another couple of minutes.

- Add the marinated chicken and saute for 2-3 minutes.

- Add the ground coconut and onion mixture and cook for another 2 minutes.

- Add 2 cups of water and bring to a boil.

- Add tamarind pulp dissolved in water and bring to a boil again. Cook covered till chicken is cooked tender.

- Add lemon juice before serving. Serve with rice or chappatis.

Potato cakes with Pineapple Mango chutney

2010-03-16T22:19:00.010-04:00

This post is way overdue. When I started blogging I had promised myself I would not give any reasons/excuses to my readers (if I found any :)) why I have been late or not been blogging. Simply because at that time I thought no one except my Mom would be reading this and probably not be affected too much if I didnt blog once in a while. But now I am so glad to report that things have changed! I actually have some readers who have been asking me why I havent been blogging! So here are some reasons. Well reason number one has been work, it just been so busy! Reason number two has been the onset of spring which has made me deliriously excited about the not so far away warm weather. I have been thinking (and browsing for ideas) of spring dresses, spring breaks, spring brunches, spring breaks. You get the picture. All that thinking and working doesnt leave too much time for blogging. But I miss blogging and hence I am back with this great recipe that I tried for brunch last Saturday for my best friend.

I saw this recipe in the latest Bon Appetit issue and immediately bookmarked it. What appealed to me the most was the accompanying pineapple and mango chutney, which was really tasty. I made a few changes to the original recipes, removing the eggs from the pancakes and adding some cayenne powder for extra spice in both. With the chutney and a refreshing salad it made for a really good brunch.

Before I post the recipe, I wanted to introduce a new blog! My husband Aditya who has been taking all these beautiful pictures for my blog has started his own photography blog with three of his friends. I am really excited for them so do check it out if you get a chance!

Potato cakes:
8oz shredded sweet potato
8oz shredded potato
3 tablespoons grated onion
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon flour
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder

- Combine the shredded potatoes and onion. Squeeze out any water.
- Combine all the ingredients together with onion and potato mixture and mix well.
- On a hot griddle, pan fry each pancake till cooked through. (Couple of minutes on each side)

Pineapple and Mango chutney:
1 cup cubed pineapple
1/2 mango, cubed
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons rice wine/white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

- Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer covered for 15 mins.

Makes 8 pancakes.

Green pea soup

2010-03-07T20:56:00.007-05:00

This post is going to be a short one. There are the Oscars to watch and Sunday chores waiting to be finished as I write this. Has this ever happened to you? You think you have the whole weekend for getting all these things done besides getting some rest and recreation and before you know it, its Sunday evening and you have got your rest and recreation but none of the chores done. It happens to me a lot and as I write this I am mentally jotting down lists of things I have to get to. Phew, next weekend will be different. Hmm that sounds familiar.

Anyways getting to the recipe for the day, its a green pea soup. I originally saw this recipe on Sanjeev Kapoor's website which I was quite delighted to come across. For those of you who are not familiar with Sanjeev Kapoor, he is a celebrity chef in India (very popular and one of the first to have a cooking show on Indian TV). Anyways me and my Mum used to be huge fans of his show and actually wrote his recipes down as he showed them. So I was quite pleased to find his website recently and bookmarked several recipes to try. This green pea soup was one of them. The original recipe called for heavy cream which I substituted with a combination of avocado and yogurt. I also added some white pepper for a little extra spice. It worked quite well in giving the soup the creamy texture originally intended for with the cream. Here goes:

Ingredients:
2 cups fresh or frozen green peas
7 white peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon butter (I used Smart Balance)
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 ripe avocado
2 tablespoons non-fat plain yogurt

- Heat butter in a saucepan and add cumin seeds, white peppercorns and bay leaves. Saute till fragrant.
- Add onion, ginger, garlic and saute till the onion is soft and transparent.
- Add the green peas and salt, followed with 2 cups of water. Cook covered till peas are soft.
- Move the mixture to a blender bowl, add the avocado and yogurt and blend till pureed.
- Add water if required to thin the soup a little, reheat and serve with a little squirt of lemon.

Makes 4 servings.

Crunchy Top Banana Bread

2010-02-28T11:07:00.012-05:00

I woke up yesterday morning with a distinct purpose. I had to make something which had cinnamon and sugar and pecans. The whole of my last week was spent dreaming of these flavors and I have no idea why. Wait a minute, I think I know why. Last weekend I had a not-so-successful attempt at making cinnamon rolls. In my enthusiasm and last minute rush, I missed activating the yeast correctly. The rolls tasted good but they didn't puff up as expected. However the filling I made for these rolls with brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans left a lasting impression with me. When the rolls were baking they enveloped the house in this wonderful sugary and cinnamony aroma. It was bliss and I was waiting all week to recreate it.

So yesterday morning found me in the quest of a goodie with cinnamon and sugar. An overripe banana looking at me wistfully provided the answer - Bake a banana bread and top it with this mixture of my dreams! I got right to it... and I am very happy to report that this weekend's baking attempt was way more successful than last weekends. And yes I did recreate the cinnamon-sugary delightfulness. It was the perfect way to start the weekend!

Crunchy topped Banana bread

Notes: I used this Banana bread recipe from Cooking Light with a few modifications which included using half cup sugar and one-fourth cup honey in place of one cup sugar. I used another one-fourth cup of brown sugar for the topping. I also omitted salt since I was using salted butter.

Ingredients:

2 cups Unbleached All-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup butter, softened (I used Smart Balance)

2 eggs

1 & 1/2 cups mashed bananas (3 medium ripe bananas)

1/3 cup plain non-fat yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the topping:

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup chopped pecans

1 & 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

- Preheat oven to 350F.

- Combine flour and baking soda in a bowl and mix together with a whisk.

- Place sugar and butter in a large bowl and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well combined (around 1 minute).

- Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

- Add banana, yogurt, honey and vanilla and beat until blended.

- Add flour mixture and beat at low speed until well combined and moist.

- Spoon the batter into a 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch loaf pan coated with butter or cooking spray.

- For the topping, mix all the ingredients together and then sprinkle on top of the batter in the loaf pan, covering it evenly.

- Bake in a 350F oven for around an hour or till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

- Cool ten minutes in pan on a wire rack. Remove from the pan and cool completely.

Makes one loaf and a very happy baker!

Curried Vegetable Frankie

2010-02-24T22:23:00.007-05:00

If you follow cricket and that too Indian cricket you are probably very happy today. For those of you who don't, the reason for rejoice was provided by heroic Indian cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar who hit the highest ever score of 200 runs in one day cricket. Some feat that was. And it sure made a lot of people proud. It certainly made me proud even though I don't follow cricket as much as I did when I lived in Bombay. Not that I had much of a choice in Bombay. My father, my sister, my neighbors, my friends were all ardent cricket fans. The kind who sat glued to the TV in nail-biting silence as the Indian team battled on. And living where we did, close to Shivaji Park didn't help either. This was and I believe still is the breeding ground for scores of young cricketers. Thousands of cricket matches are played out for an audience of none in particular.

Growing up, Shivaji Park had another attraction. The amazing Tibb's Frankie corner which was close by and provided arguably one of the best street foods ever. The Frankie. Frankie is basically a wrap made with a chappati/paratha which is pan fried and then rolled with a yummy filling. The filling could be potatoes, mixed vegetables or chicken which is drizzled with a sweet and sour chutney, the kind used on top of chaats. I don't think my description does it justice but believe me its really good.

Anyways with Sachin Tendulkar hitting 200 today and kicking up memories of Shivaji Park and frankies, I thought of making this curried vegetable frankie. This being a weeknight meal, I was trying to minimize kitchen time so this is far from authentic. I would like to find an authentic frankie recipe sometime and post it here. But we have to make do with this one for today. And you wont be disappointed when you try it. Here is to you, Sachin!

Ingredients:

1/2 onion, sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

2 cups shredded cabbage/carrots mix

1/2 cup finely chopped green beans

1/2 cup green peas

1 small potato, boiled and mashed

1 and 1/2 teaspoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon red chilli or cayenne powder (reduce for lesser heat)

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 wheat tortillas/frozen parathas

- In a heavy bottom pan, heat oil and add the sliced onion and garlic.

- Saute till onion is transparent.

- Add all the vegetables (thaw if using frozen) and cook till vegetables are tender.

- Add curry powder, cayenne or red chilli powder and salt. Mix well .

- Heat the tortillas or parathas without oil on a skillet and set aside.

- Spoon the vegetable mixture evenly on them and roll.

- Serve with tomato ketchup or a sweet and sour chutney.

Makes 4 wraps.

Goat cheese, beet and butternut squash tart

2010-02-21T22:09:00.044-05:00

After long weekends of freezing cold weather and snow, it finally warmed up a little this weekend. The temperature hit 60 today and it was actually sunny. So we decided to celebrate with a little brunch with friends. We were quite maxed out with eggs so we decided to keep this one egg free and focus more on some vegetarian options. And as if by intuition, both A and I decided to recreate a butternut squash tart we had absolutely loved at Busy Bee Cafe in downtown Raleigh, which by the way is a really nice place to get dinner or a drink or both.

Anyway, coming back to the butternut squash tart, I was trying to take the easier route by buying a pre-made pie crust. But A refused. He was intent on making the crust from scratch and he also wanted to make it a healthy one. So we decided to take a little inspiration from this previous recipe and use the oats/flour combination. We did reduce the amount of sugar by a little and also added in some chopped hazelnuts. For the butternut squash mixture, it was lots of, well, butternut squash mixed in with some caramelised onions. And carmelised onions need goat cheese for company so that went in as well. We were a little worried about the lack of a binder but really we shouldnt have since everything stuck quite well together after a little oven time. The tart made for a great sunny brunch accompanied by a simple salad. Now I am just hoping that the sunny weather continues for a little bit. But alas there is forecast for rain tomorrow. Oh well.

Ingredients:

Crust:

1 cup oats

1 cup Unbleached All purpose flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt (if using unsalted butter)

1/4 chopped toasted hazelnuts

1/8 teaspoon cayenne powder

1/2 cup butter (we used Smart Balance)

Filling:

1 medium-large butternut squash

2 beets

1 medium onion, sliced

1 teaspoon sugar

2 ounces goat cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon crushed black pepper

bread crumbs to top (optional)

For the crust:

- Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2 8-inch pie pans (we used the disposable aluminium foil ones) with a little bit of butter.

- Combine all the dry ingredients for the crust with a whisk till well mixed.

- Add in cubes of chilled butter and mix in with hands till the mixture resembles small moist clumps.

- Divide the mixture equally between the two pans and firmly pat down till it sticks to the pan and sides.

- Bake till golden brown (around 35 mins). These can be baked ahead of time and frozen.

For the filling:

- Peel and chop the butternut squash into small cubes. Thinly slice the beets.

- Line a baking sheet with foil and spread squash evenly on it. On a separate sheet line the beets.

- Drizzle both with olive oil, salt, pepper and mix well.

- Bake both in a 350F oven till tender (around 30 mins)..

- While the squash bakes, cook the onions in olive oil with a little sugar till they caramelise. Set aside.

- After the squash is ready, mix it in with the caramelised onions and goat cheese. Add paprika and more salt or pepper if required.

- Line each tart shell with the roasted beet slices, then add the butternut squash mixture and top it with some bread crumbs.

- Bake for 10 more minutes for the filling to settle in. Broil for a minute or two for the tops to get browned.

- Serve with a simple salad. We made a quick dressing of lemon juice, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, agave nectar, honey, olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper, which was tossed over mixed greens.

Makes two 8-inch tarts.

Oatmeal, Fig, Date and Walnut bars

2010-02-15T21:56:00.012-05:00

I originally meant to post this recipe a few days before Valentine's day. The intention was for it to be considered as a candidate for a sweet something you might have planned to bake for your Valentine. I know there is no chocolate involved here but hey don't you think a heart healthy sweet treat would be quite appropriate for a day symbolized with hearts? I think so. In fact an iron and omega-3 packed treat would definitely make an honest statement for undying love. But well, I didn't make this post in time. But don't let that stop you from trying these. I loved these bars so much that I would definitely recommend them for any day of the year.

I found the recipe for these bars in the last months issue of the Bon Appetit magazine and immediately marked it as a must-try. They were originally called Oatmeal, Fig and Walnut bars. I reduced the amount of figs and sugar by a little bit and added some dates. The only gotcha I found in this recipe was the bake time mentioned was 35 mins after which it said the bars would be browned on top and firm to touch. Mine didn't look very brown at the end of the said 35 mins. I ended up baking them for almost 50 mins by which I had burned the edges. So I would definitely recommend baking them only for 35 mins (maybe just 5 mins more) even if they don't look very brown on top.

In other noteworthy food related news from this weekend, I made a very unusual dal on a whim and it totally exceeded expectations. I had some leftover pumpkin which I wasn't sure how to use. I also felt like making a dal...so I googled (with a little bit of hesitation) for pumpkin dal. And I wasn't disappointed! Apparently I wasn't the only one to think of this and that provided some reassurance. And the first link I got looked so good that I ran with it and was thrilled at the result. There are times like these which fortify my love for the internet and the blogosphere!

Oatmeal, Fig, Date and Walnut bars

Notes: Original recipe from Bon Appetit can be found here.

Ingredients:

Filling:

1 and 1/2 cups of chopped stemmed dried figs

1/2 cup of chopped pitted dates

1 cup water

3 tablespoons sugar

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chopped toasted walnuts

Crust:

Non-stick vegetable spray

1 and 3/4 cups old fashioned oats

1 and 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter (chilled and cut into cubes)

For filling:
- Combine first 4 ingredients in heavy medium saucepan. Bring to simmer over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to low.

- Cover and simmer 5 minutes. Uncover and simmer until figs are very soft and filling is thick, stirring often, about 10 minutes.

- Mix in lemon juice and vanilla, then walnuts. Cool completely.

DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill. Bring to room temperature before using.

For crust:
- Position rack in top third of oven and preheat to 350°F. Spray 13x9x2- inch metal baking pan with nonstick spray.

- Combine oats and next 5 ingredients in large bowl and whisk to blend. Add cubed "butter." Using fingertips, blend until mixture forms small moist clumps.

- Firmly press half of crust mixture (about 3 cups) over bottom of prepared pan.

- Spread filling evenly over crust. Sprinkle remaining crust mixture over filling; press to adhere.

- Bake bars until deep brown and firm to touch, about 35 minutes.

- Cool in pan on rack. Cut crosswise into 6 strips. Make 8 lengthwise cuts, forming 2x1-inch bars.

DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover pan with foil; store at room temperature.

Makes 48 bars

Doi Maach (Fish cooked in a yogurt sauce)

2010-02-11T19:01:00.019-05:00

A couple of years back A and I visited Calcutta for the first time. I had heard so many things that I didnt quite know what to expect. Howrah bridge, rassogollas, hand drawn carts, old world charm, mishti doi all seemed to jump out when I thought of Calcutta. But after the visit I could remember only one thing. Fish cooked the Bengali way. Wrapped in banana leaves or cooked in a yogurt based curry, And this was after tasting it at a local institution called Kewpies which was recommended by my brother in law, S who is a pastry chef. I had never had Bengali food before and after trying their thali, I was quite enamored.

Since then I had been on the lookout for a Bengali style fish curry recipe. It was only happy coincidence then that A chanced upon this amazing book "The Calcutta Kitchen" by Simon Parkes and Udit Sarkhel at our local library. I was even more excited when this book referred to Kewpies. So I had to give the doi maach recipe a try. The original recipe called for bhetki which is a sweet water fish and recommended substitutions were either cod or haddock. I couldn't find either so I used sole instead and I thought it worked quite well though being very flaky it kind of broke down in the curry. The final product was still very satisfying. Also sole has a very mild flavor so if you are not a fish eater and trying to be one, I would strongly recommend giving it a try.

Ingredients

1 pound skinless white fish fillet (Cod/Haddock, we used Dover Sole)

1/2 tsp salt + extra to taste

3 tsp turmeric

2 1/2 cups plain yoghurt

1 tbsp chickpea flour (besan)

1 tsp red chilli flour

1/2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp sugar

3 tbsp mustard oil if available (we used regular vegetable oil)

1 large dried bayleaf

1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped

- Wash the fish and rub it with 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp turmeric. Set the fish aside

- Using a whisk, mix the yoghurt, chickpea flour, remaining turmeric, red chilli powder, cumin and sugar

- In a wide pan, fry the fish in a little oil on both sides. Remove and set aside

- In the same pan, add the bayleaf and onion and cook until light brown

- Add the spiced yoghurt and simmer on low heat for about 15 mins

- Arrange the fish pieces in the sauce, coat them and simmer for a few more mins

- Serve with steamed rice

Makes 4 servings

Black bean cakes with avocado and yogurt sauce

2010-02-07T19:10:00.011-05:00

I find it hard to believe that the first month of this new year is already over. For me this month was mostly about unusually cold weather, of either me or A being sick and blogging much lesser than I would have liked. So in a way I am glad that January is over and I am going to pretend that its the start of the new year all over again with February (I know we are a little into Feb as well but thats ok by me). With this new beginning I am making a few New Year resolutions too. They include more cooking, more blogging and more reading. Not necessarily in that order but lets see which one gets done more.

Aditya came up with this idea for the black bean cakes based on a somewhat similar dish he tried at a local restaurant. So we decided to give this a try for lunch today by raiding the refrigerator and finding everything that could go into these. We ended up using a carrot, some corn and a can of black beans for the cakes. We were both tired of eating bread so we decided to top these with a little bit of shredded cabbage and top it with an avocado sauce. The avocado sauce was inspired by both guacamole and sour cream and we made it by blending avocado with some mint and jalapeno along with yogurt. The end result was quite satisfying. Heres the recipe.

Black Bean Cakes:

2 tablespoons oil

1/2 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 jalapeno, deseeded and minced

1 carrot, chopped

1/2 cup corn

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder

lime juice of 1/2 a lime

2 tablespoons corn meal

- Heat around a tablespoon oil in a pan.

- Add garlic and onion and saute for 2-3 minutes.

- Add jalapeno and carrot and saute for another 2-3 minutes.

- Add corn, followed by salt and black beans.

- Sprinkle with a little bit of water and cook covered till the beans and carrots are soft.

- Puree 3/4 of the mixture and mix in with the remainder.

- Add corn meal (vary quantity depending on the wetness of the dough). Refrigerate for 10-15 mins so that mixture binds well.

- Use 1/3rd cup measures to spoon into patties.

- Coat with a little cornmeal/semolina and cook till brown on both sides with the remaining oil.

Avocado and Yogurt sauce

1 Avocado, chopped into chunks

1/2 jalapeno, deseeded and minced

1 tablespoon mint, chopped

lime juice of 1/2 a lime

2 tablespoons yogurt

1/2 teaspoon salt

- Combine all ingredients and puree together.

Serve the black bean cakes, topped with a little bit of shredded cabbage and the avocado sauce.

Makes 4 cakes.

Spinach and Potato soup

2010-01-31T10:21:00.011-05:00

We have had a completely white weekend. 3-5 inches of snow for Raleigh means a grinding halt to life as you know it and also a raid on the milk and bread racks of grocery stores. In the news frenzy preceding this snow storm, I particularly liked the advice of this one radio host who insisted on Friday evening that we make sure we are at a place we want to be for the rest of the weekend. My question is as opposed to?

Anyways I do like the snow. Atleast watching it from the warm insides of our house. Having grown up in Mumbai where winters bring in "cool" temperatures of 70F, being out in the snow is not one of my favorite things. And even though our house always maintains Mumbai-esque temperatures, the outside freeze inspired me to cook up a warming soup.

This one was quite easy to put together with spinach and potatoes being the star ingredients. Topped off with a little bit of parmesan it warmed us enough to endure the snowy outsides for the rest of the weekend.

Ingredients:

1 pack of frozen spinach/1 pound of fresh spinach

2 medium sized Yukon Gold or any white potatoes, peeled and diced

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 onion, chopped

1 large clove of garlic, minced

4 cups water/vegetable stock

1/4 cup milk (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

shaved parmesan to top

- Heat butter in a heavy bottom pan.

- Add the onions and garlic and saute till the onions are soft.

- Add the diced potatoes along with some salt and mix well.

- Add the water and bring to a boil. Cook covered till the potatoes are cooked.

- Add spinach and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

- Blend to a smooth puree and return to heat.

- Check for seasonings and add more salt/pepper.

- Add milk if using and keep on heat for a couple of more minutes.

- Serve hot, topped with some parmesan. Stay warm!

Makes 4 side servings.

Spaghetti squash with peanuts and green chillies

2010-01-28T19:48:00.010-05:00

If you grew up in India there is a strong chance you encountered foods which fit into the "fasting" category. And yes by fasting, I refer to the tradition of staying away from food, which is normally practiced for detoxification for spiritual or religious reasons. So how can the act of fasting spawn off an entire sub-cuisine? I am not sure but what a fantastic idea! The idea is you don't eat food which you would eat regularly but instead eat something which is officially made for a fast. These foods are always vegetarian and made without ginger, garlic and onions. Green chillies and peanuts are star ingredients in the Maharashtrian versions of these.

Just like in this extremely tasty dish called "batata kees" which roughly translates to shredded potatoes (kind of like hash browns) cooked with ground peanuts and green chillies. This has been a long time favorite for both A and me so I must admit he was a little worried when I decided to give it a twist by substituting the much loved but carbalicious potato with a healthier spaghetti squash. I oven roasted the squash and then scraped it to get the thin spaghetti-like strands. I cooked these exactly like the shredded potatoes in the kees recipe. And the results? Good enough to fast for!

The next time you are in Bombay stop by Prakash in Shivaji Park, a local institution for the best fasting (and not-meant-for fasting) Maharashtrian foods. Their sabudana vadas (sago/potato fritters), batata vadas (battered potato fritters) and misal (spicy sprouts gravy with all sorts of goodies) are worth the trans-atlantic flight!

Ingredients:

1 medium sized spaghetti squash (I used half of a really large one)

3/4 cup roasted unsalted peanuts

3-4 small green chillies or 1 large jalapeno (or more depending on preferred spice level)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon butter

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

chopped cilantro for garnish

yogurt to serve with

- Preheat oven to 350K and split the squash vertically in the middle.

- Put cut sides down in a oven proof dish with a little bit of water.

- Bake for 30 mins or till the squash is tender. Remove from oven and let cool slightly.

- When its cool enough to handle scrape the insides with a fork to form thin spaghetti like strands.

- Coarsely grind peanuts and green chillies together.

- Add the peanut mixture to the squash along with salt and mix well.

- In a non-stick pan, heat butter and when hot add cumin seeds. Let them sizzle for a few seconds before adding the squash mixture.

- Mix well and cook for 2-3 minutes more.

- Top with some chopped cilantro, extra peanuts if required and serve with a dollop of yogurt.

Makes 4 side servings.

Vanilla Chocolate Swirl cake

2010-01-24T16:48:00.008-05:00

As you may know by now I quite like desserts. And cakes definitely feature quite high on my desserts list. I am not sure if its the actual end product or the baking process (which envelopes your house in this warm sugary aroma) which I like more. I find there is something infinitely therapeutic about mixing together a cake batter. The company of sugar, butter and vanilla essence can make anyone happy, don't you think? Add chocolate to the mix and you have quite a party.

So baking this vanilla chocolate swirl cake made me quite happy on a recent day off. I had been drooling over several swirl cake recipes from a few of my favorite blogs and had them bookmarked as must tries. I finally decided to try this one especially because it had room for addition of nuts. The original recipe called for pistachios and pistachio paste. I didn't have any of the paste so I skipped that and I used chopped hazelnuts instead of the pistachios. The hazelnuts substitution was well thought out in an attempt to recreate the gooey chocolatey heaven presented by a Ferrero-Rocher. And it didn't disappoint!

I am sending this as an entry to the Cakes and Cookies event hosted at this beautiful Indian food blog, Spices Etc.

Recipe from 101cookbooks and edited:

(I skipped the ganache from the original recipe but I am sure it will be lovely on this cake)

270 g (2 C) flour

2 tsp baking powder (1 envelope)

1 tsp baking soda

150 g (2/3 C) butter, at room temperature

300 g (1 1/4 C) white sugar

4 eggs

1 1/2 C (3 x 125 ml) plain yogurt

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

60 g (1/3 C) chocolate chips

60 g (1/3 C) shelled hazelnuts chopped

- Preheat your oven to 180C (360F). Grease a 25cm (10-inch) cake pan, preferably non-stick.

- Prepare the chocolate batter. In a food processor, mix together half of the sugar and half of the butter and beat until fluffy. Add in two of the eggs, one at a time mixing between each. Add in half of the yogurts and all the vanilla extract, mix again.

- In a medium bowl, combine half of the flour with half of the baking powder, half of the baking soda and all the cocoa powder.

- Add the flour mixture into the food processor and mix again until just combined. Add half the chocolate chips and mix well.

- Pour the batter into the cake pan, and reserve in the refrigerator.

- Rinse the bowl of the food processor and prepare the vanilla batter by mixing together the rest of the sugar and butter. Add in the last two eggs, one at a time mixing in between. Add the rest of the yogurt and mix again.

- In a medium bowl, combine remainder of the flour with the remainder of the baking powder and the baking soda. Add this to the sugar mixture and mix until just combined.

- Take the cake pan out of the fridge and sprinkle the rest of the chocolate chips and the chopped hazelnuts on top of the chocolate batter.

- Gently pour the vanilla batter on top and smooth out the surface with a spatula.

- Put into the over to bake for about an hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let rest for five minutes on the counter in pan. Then turn it out onto a rack to cool completely.

Healthier Nachos!

2010-01-18T20:11:00.001-05:00

Its football season in America and I am sure a lot of households are currently exhibiting this sign "This Marriage is currently on hold because of football". I for one had never been a football fan.

In fact for the longest time after I moved to the States I wasn't sure why a game which involved so little of the foot touching the ball was named so. Football to me meant soccer (not that I watched much of that either). Anyways the husband has always had a natural affinity towards watching sporting events of any type so quite a few times did I have to sit through these games. And believe me I had no idea what was going on. The husband even tried running around the house in a bid to explain. But it didn't help. Till I saw Tom Brady. And then I was suddenly interested in the well being of the New England Patriots. And the game was suddenly so clear.

This year the Patriots are out but no fear since I have also been introduced to Brett Favre. So now I am all for the Minnesota Vikings. In fact now I even offer to make finger food for a Viking game such as these nachos. Traditionally nachos are quite calorific so in my take I am trying to make them a bit healthier by baking my own chips instead of using the fried ones. I also omitted sour cream, replacing it with guacamole and topped it with lesser cheese. Results were still quite good. For a one dish meal I topped these with some grilled chicken which was marinated with the same marinade as the one from this fish tacos recipe. They would be good without this too. So no matter which team you are supporting this year (though I do recommend supporting the Vikings), do give these nachos a try!

Ingredients:

10 corn tortillas

1 can of black beans, rinsed well and drained

1 tomato, chopped

1/4 onion, chopped fine

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

1 jalapeno, minced (seeded if you prefer less heat)

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon cumin powder

1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder

2 tablespoons cheese

1 avacado

1 lime

- Preheat oven to 375F and line a baking sheet with foil.

- Cut each tortillas into six-eight chips. Toss the chips with a little bit of oil and salt and bake for around 20 mins till crisp (turning them around mid-way). Leave them out uncovered after baking to cool and crisp up further.

- For the beans, combine them with paprika, cumin powder, cayenne powder, salt and lime juice. - For the salsa (pico de gallo), combine chopped tomatoes, onions, half of the minced jalapeno, lime juice, cilantro and salt.

- For the guacamole, mash the avocado and mix with the rest of the minced jalapeno, cilantro, salt and lime juice.

- To assemble the nachos, line a oven proof caserole/dish with foil. Then add the chips, top with the beans mixture and sprinkle with cheese. Broil in a 350F oven till the cheese melts.

- Get out of the oven and top with the pico de gallo and guacamole.

- Enjoy!

Makes a rather big plate of nachos.

Cranberry and walnut scones

2010-01-16T11:25:00.014-05:00

Growing up I read a lot of British authors. Enid Blyton was a long time favorite to be eventually replaced by PG Wodehouse who to date remains one of my most favorite authors. In most of these books there were references to afternoon tea sessions where the lead characters sat down to a seemingly scrumptious repast of wafer thin cucumber sandwiches and pots of tea and ofcourse scones. Back then I didn't really know what scones what would taste like but they sure sounded delicious!

My first encounter with real scones happened a few years ago in a little tea shop in England and I must admit it was love at first bite. These scones came with clotted cream and jam and I remember the excitement of tasting something I had read about a long ago and it turning out to be as good as I thought it would be. Since then I have always wanted to give scones a try but somehow never got around to doing it.

Last weekend however I remembered that my lovely Scottish friend AM had sent me her Mum's recipe for making scones a long time back after I had admitted my love for scones to her. So I dug up the recipe and tried these out. And she was right, the scones were the best! Thanks AM!

The only change I made to the recipe was to use maple syrup instead of sugar. I am a big fan of Heidi Swanson's blog and she often substitutes sugar with natural sweeteners like maple syrup or honey. So I took inspiration from her Maple Syrup scones recipe here. The scones were a little less sweet but with a little drizzle of maple syrup and butter they were quite fabulous. Highly recommended with a hot cup of tea. Or coffee. And a Wodehouse book maybe.

Recipe:

1 cup All purpose flour

1/4 cup finely granulated sugar or 4 tablespoons maple syrup

1/4 cup butter

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 egg

1 tablespoon cranberries

1 tablespoon chopped walnuts

Milk to mix

- Rub flour into soft butter until it forms small crumbles, and then add sugar and baking powder.

- Combine with beaten egg and a little milk to form a soft dough.

- Add in the cranberries and chopped walnuts.

- Roll out on lightly floured surface to ~1 inch thick.

- Cut into shapes and place on greased baking sheet in a pre-heated oven (350F) for ~20 mins.

You can add grated cheese and a little salt instead of sugar if you want to make savoury scones.

Polenta with roasted tomato sauce and a side of kale

2010-01-10T14:24:00.000-05:00

Happy 2010 everyone! I know my wishes are a little late. And that is not because I decided to take a long blogging break after the recipe marathon week. It is because I have been laid low by a severe throat infection.

It all started when we got back from DC after the Xmas weekend. A complained about soreness in his throat which was apparently making him quite miserable. He got some medicines, I made some soup and we thought all would be well. That was not to be. A got more miserable in a couple of days and just to make matters worse, soreness decided to shift base to my throat. What resulted was me losing my voice and both of us being quite sick for days before the medicines worked. After a long week of hot water, hot soups and hot water gargling I have finally regained my voice. And am back to blogging not that its voice dependent but you know what I mean.

Last weekend when I was sniveling under a blanket and paging through the Bon Appetit Magazine, I came across this very tempting recipe for Polenta with tomato sauce. It involves made from scratch polenta with a spicy marinara sauce and a side serving of kale. I made the polenta as directed but used my own version of the tomato sauce. I really like oven roasting tomatoes with some fennel and then tossing them with onions, garlic etc, so that is what I used. The original recipe is completely vegan but I topped the tomato sauce with a little bit of shaved parmesan. Also for the kale, the original recipe called for a topping of pine nuts, I didn't have any so I used pistachios instead. I was quite happy with the results of the meal overall. I must admit that making the polenta does take some time (not active time though, mostly baking, cooling etc) so feel free to use store bought polenta for a quicker version. Here is the recipe.

Polenta

4 cups water

1 and half tablespoons (or more) olive oil, divided

1 teaspoons salt

1 cup polenta (coarse or plain cornmeal)

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place 9x13-inch glass baking dish on rimmed baking sheet. Combine 4 cups water, 1&1/2 tablespoons olive oil, and 1 teaspoons salt in dish. Gradually mix in polenta.

Place baking sheet with polenta in oven. Bake polenta 1 hour. Add pepper and stir to blend. Bake 20 minutes. Stir again and spread evenly. Bake until polenta is very thick, about 20 minutes longer. Cool polenta to room temperature, 1 to 2 hours (polenta will become firm). Using metal spatula, press polenta all over to even thickness. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover with plastic wrap; chill.

Preheat oven to 325°F. Cut polenta lengthwise into 4 strips. Cut each strip crosswise into 6 squares. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, add polenta squares. Sauté until crisp and beginning to color, about 8 minutes per side. Transfer polenta to small baking sheet; place in oven to keep warm. Repeat with remaining polenta, adding oil to skillet as needed.

Divide polenta among plates. Top with warm roasted tomato sauce.

Roasted Tomato sauce:

4 cups grape/cherry tomatoes

1/2 can diced tomatoes

1 teaspoon fennel powder

1/2 teaspoon oregano

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons olive oil

- Preheat oven to 400F.

- Toss the tomatoes with half the olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika, oregano and fennel powder. Bake tomatoes till shrivelled and slightly blackened.

- In a skillet, heat the remainder of the olive oil and add minced garlic and chopped onions. Cook till softened.

- Add roasted tomatoes and diced tomatoes and mash to form a thick sauce.

- Add more salt, pepper if required along with crushed red pepper.

- Bring to a boil and serve on top of polenta with a little shaved parmesan.

Quick sauteed Kale with pistachios

2 bunches kale

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 large red onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

handful of toasted pistachios

Fold each kale leaf lengthwise in half; cut stem away along crease. Tear leaves coarsely. DO AHEAD: Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Pack kale into resealable plastic bags and chill.

Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; sautéuntil onion is soft, about 6 minutes. Add half of kale, packing slightly. Cook until kale wilts, tossing often, 2 to 3 minutes. Add remaining kale and half of nuts. Toss until kale is just tender and still bright green, about 3 minutes longer. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl. Sprinkle with remaining toasted pistachios and serve.

Spicy chicken curry

2009-12-31T16:01:00.010-05:00

This is the last recipe of 2009 and I wanted to make it memorable. Hence a post on chicken curry was fitting.

I find myself to be very contemplative on the last day of every year. It's almost like I think of everything that happened during the year and how all the memories fuse together. In my mind they end up kind of looking like this:

But this is actually the marinade for the spicy chicken curry! Growing up chicken curry was the Sunday lunch special at home so I have some fond memories associated with it. Over the years I have taken my Mum's recipe and modified it a tad bit with some additions of my own. The changes have mostly been in the marinade in which I add cilantro, little bit of onion, mint along with yogurt and all the usual suspects. I find the onion helps quite a bit in tenderizing the chicken even if its marinated only for an hour. The marinade is very fragrant and an enticing aroma envelopes your kitchen while the curry simmers. The last time I visited my parents in Mumbai, I made this curry for them and a couple of our neighbors were quite curious about the origins of this aroma!

Here is the recipe which will be my last entry for the Recipe Marathon on One Hot Stove. Being a novice blogger, I was quite intimidated by the prospect of blogging every day but I really enjoyed it. Nupur, thanks for coming up with this marathon!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2010 gives you everything you want and more!

Ingredients:

Whole spices:

3 cloves

1 bayleaf

7 peppercorns

half a cinammon stick

2 chicken breasts (Boned-in chicken can also be used)

1 and half large onion, chopped

2 large tomatoes, chopped

For the marinade:

3 tablespoons yogurt

1 1" piece of ginger

2 cloves garlic

handful of mint and cilantro

quarter of an onion

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon red chilli powder

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 teaspoon garam masala powder

- Grind ginger, garlic, mint, cilantro and onion together with very little water.

- Combine with yogurt, lemon juice, salt and all the spices.

- Add chopped chicken breast and mix well.

- Marinade for atleast an hour or overnight if possible

- Heat oil and add all the whole spices. Saute till fragrant.

- Add chopped onion and cook till its golden brown.

- Add chopped tomatoes and cook for another 2-3 mins.

- Add marinated chicken and saute well.

- Add a cup of water and bring to a boil.

- Check seasonings and cook covered on a low flame till chicken is tender.

- Serve hot with chappatis/rice.

A very simple vegetable soup

2009-12-30T19:15:00.009-05:00

I also call this Mommy B soup, dedicated to my mum who came up with this recipe. It is the simplest soup to make and it has an instant wellness feeling associated with it. While growing up ,my mum made it for me and my sister when we were sick or we had an exam or any occasion which needed some amount of comforting. And it never failed. Today I made it for A, who is a bit under weather with a sore throat. I can't say it cured him completely but it did make me feel a lot better :)

While making this soup you can be creative and use whatever vegetables you have on hand. The recipe I have below has the combination I use most frequently. The nice part about this soup is its packed with everything thats good for you and is pretty much fat-free.

This is my entry no. 6 for the Recipe Marathon on One Hot Stove. I can't believe that this marathon ends tomorrow, I have had a lot of fun blogging every day and also reading what the other runners are cooking up.

Ingredients:

- 2 medium size beets

- 2 carrots

- 1 large tomato

- 2 small potatoes

- 2 garlic cloves

- 7 peppercorns

- 1 tablespoon yellow moong dal (optional)

- Peel beets, carrots and potatoes and chop them into chunks.

- Also chop the tomato into chunks.

- Combine all the vegetables with garlic, peppercorns and moong dal in a pressure cooker and cover with just enough water.

- Pressure cook till all the vegetables are soft.

- Blend into a puree and reheat with salt (to taste) and more pepper if required.

- Serve with some hot buttered toast.

Makes 4 side servings.

Paneer Bhurji

2009-12-29T20:14:00.010-05:00

Bhurji (scramble) is one of my favorite things to make. It's quick to put together and it never disappoints. However, this past weekend I had a close call while making egg bhurji (Indianized version of scrambled eggs). One of my friends who is a health freak had only egg whites at his place. I think he was trying to compensate for all the other holiday indulgences by doing so :).

Anyway, we were trying to make egg bhurji with these egg whites and since we were a large group, we used two cartons of egg beaters whites. Normally bhurji is ready in a few minutes after you add the beaten eggs to the onion and tomato mixture, but this one showed no signs of getting there even after 20 mins or so. No matter how long we cooked it, there was still some watery residue left. So we gave up and just covered up the residue with what had actually scrambled which was not that bad.

To get over this unfortunate bhurji experience quickly, I decided to make paneer bhurji. This is A's mom's recipe and is quite fail-proof. The spice which makes a difference in this bhurji from other recipes is the addition of kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves which can be found in any Indian grocery store). If you don't like this flavor or its hard to find, you can skip it.

This bhurji is great accompanied with some hot chappatis/naans. I have also used it as a filling for a vegetarian version of these puffs.

Here is the recipe. Its my fifth entry for the Recipe Marathon on One Hot Stove.

Ingredients:

1 cup paneer crumbles
1/2 chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon garlic
1 chopped tomato
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/4 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch of kasuri methi (optional)

- Heat oil and saute the onion
- When soft add ginger and garlic and saute for a little bit more.
- Add chopped tomato and all spices and salt.
- Add the paneer and mix well
- Cook for another min or two and then add some crushed kasuri methi.

Middle Eastern lentil soup

2009-12-28T17:59:00.009-05:00

Lentils play a huge role in my cooking. They are the old faithfuls in the pantry and provide a dependable go to especially when I am out of fresh veggies. Of all the lentils I really like the quick cooking brown and reds which don't need much soaking and cook to perfection in a pressure cooker in 15 mins. This is exactly what I did for this Middle Eastern inspired lentil soup.

The inspiration for this soup comes from one of my favourite lunch places, Neomonde Deli and Bakery. If you like Mediterranean food, I think you will really like this place. They have a great selection of delicious hot and cold dishes along with fresh baked pita bread which they make themselves. I am kind of a boring eater when it comes to places I really like, which means I get the same thing every single time I go there. So here I always get the rice, eggplant stew, tzatziki and fruit salad. The person behind the counter might as well start putting these items together in a plate when they see me walk in. But recently Neomonde introduced a lentil soup which I absolutely fell in love with so now I have a tough time about which one of my regular selections I can substitute it with.

A Syrian friend of mine who also makes an equally good lentil soup hinted it has lemon, garlic and cumin powder as the main flavors, so I kind of ran with those. Here is my take on this soup, which will be my fourth entry for the Recipe Marathon on One Hot Stove.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup brown lentils

1/2 cup red lentils

1 yellow onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 small carrots, diced

1 tomato, chopped

1 and 1/2 teaspoon cumin powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon paprika

juice of half a lemon

- Wash the lentils together and soak in water till ready to use.

- In a pressure cooker, heat a tablespoon of olive oil.

- Add onions and garlic and saute for 3-4 mins.

- Add the diced carrots and salt and saute for another 2-3 mins.

- Add the tomatoes, paprika and cumin and mix well.

- After the tomatoes soften, add the lentils along with enough water to cover them.

- Put the pressure cooker lid on and cook for 10 mins or till lentils are completely cooked through.

- Blend half the soup and mix in with the rest.

- Serve hot with a liberal amount of lemon juice and some toasted pita bread.

Makes 4 servings.

Potato, kale and pasta salad

2009-12-27T22:35:00.011-05:00

After all the indulgence of the Christmas break I really felt the need to make a post about something lighter and healthier. And one thing that always makes any dish healthier for me is the addition of greens. I was also trying to work through cleaning out the pantry and found some pasta and a potato who was begging to be eaten soon. So I decided to use them all together into a carbalicious salad made a little healthy by addition of kale and dressed very simply with store bought pesto. Talking about pesto, I absolutely love the Genvoese pesto from Trader Joe's. I use that for pasta salad all the time with different combinations of veggies and nuts and its worked wonders every single time. It worked equally well this time with the unusual combination of kale, potatoes and pasta. If you like nuts, pistachios would be a great addition to this salad. I didn't have any on hand so skipped those and finished this salad off with a little bit of shaved parmesan. Here goes..

This is my third entry for the Recipe Marathon on One Hot Stove.

Ingredients:

1 cup fusilli pasta

1/2 cup boiled and chopped potato

1 cup kale, shredded into ribbons

1 tablespoon pesto

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon grated parmesan

- Cook pasta according to directions till soft.

- Heat a teaspoon of olive oil and cook the kale with a little bit of salt and pepper till tender.

- Combine the pasta, boiled potato and kale and add the pesto. Mix well.

- Add more salt, pepper if required and top off with the parmesan.

Makes 4 side servings.

Vegetable Biryani

2009-12-26T19:02:00.012-05:00

This is my second entry for the Recipe Marathon on the One Hot Stove blog. I made this the day before for our Christmas dinner and its an adaptation of the meat biryani recipe from this great blog, Sailu's Kitchen. I have tried making this with Chicken as well as vegetables and both times the results have been delicious! The thing that I like the best about this recipe is that even though its a biryani, you cook the rice and meat/vegetables all together. The original recipe called for pressure cooking everything together. Since I was using vegetables I just cooked it covered without pressure. Also reduced the amount of ghee/oil and the ginger/garlic paste. The results were quite good :)

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
2 cups Basmati rice
3 cups, mixed vegetables (I used carrots, green beans, red potatoes and green bell pepper)
1 cup thick buttermilk
3 cups water
2 cloves, 1 elachi, 1/2″ cinnamon stick
1-2 bay leaves
2 onions, finely sliced
1 large tomato finely chopped
1 tsp red chilli pwd (adjust)
1/4 tsp turmeric pwd
1 tsp coriander pwd
very small pinch of nutmeg pwd
little less than 1/4 cup chopped coriander leaves
1/4 cup pudina leaves
salt to taste
1 teaspoon ghee + 1 teaspoon oil

Biryani masala, make powder:

3 cloves

1″ cinnamon stick

1 elaichi

pinch of shah jeera

pinch of jeera/cumin seeds

small piece of japathri/mace

1/2 anaasa puvvu/star anise

For marinade:

juice of half lemon

1 1/2 tbsps curd

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ginger garlic paste

1/4 tsp red chilli pwd

1/2 tsp coriander pwd

few mint leaves

1 Marinate the vegetables with the ingredients called for ‘marinade’. Keep aside for 20 mts. While this is marinating, work on the rest of the preparation.

1. Wash Basmati rice. No need to soak in water
2. Slice onions
3. Chop tomato
4. Pick pudina leaves and chop the coriander leaves
5. Prepare biryani masala pwd
6. Beat curd to form thick buttermilk

2 Heat 1 tbsp oil + 2 tbsps ghee in a pressure cooker vessel, add the bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, marathi mogga, elaichi and saute for a few secs. Add sliced onions, saute for 7-8 mts. Add the ginger garlic paste and coriander-pudina leaves and saute further for another 5 mts.
2 Add turmeric pwd and red chilli pwd, saute for another 2 mts. Add the chopped tomatoes and saute for 3-4 mts. Add the marinated veggies along with 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. Cook covered. Turn off heat and cool. Remove lid and you will find that it will appear like a thick gravy. If the gravy appears very watery, cook further without lid till it forms a thick gravy.
3 Turn on the heat again, add 3 cups of water and 1 cup of thick buttermilk. Add the biryani masala and nutmeg powder followed by salt. Add the drained basmati rice and combine. Wait for the gravy to boil once and adjust seasoning. Cook covered till rice is soft. Serve hot with raita.

Snowy White Coconut cake

2009-12-25T16:28:00.020-05:00

Its a white Christmas here in Washington DC! We are here to celebrate the holidays with our friends and this cake is a reflection of our snowy white environ! Though the cake has a wintry appearance, its inspiration is quite tropical. Its inspired by one of my favorite cocktails, the Pina Colada. So it has coconut, pineapple and rum!

Back in the summer I had tried this delicious raspberry and buttermilk cake recipe from Gourmet. I used this recipe as the base for the coconut cake, substituting the buttermilk with coconut milk and the raspberries with pineapple. I also drizzled the cake with a liberal dose of rum, slathered it with a cream cheese frosting and topped it with some sweetened coconut flakes. Its a fittingly decadent treat for Christmas :).

Before I sign off with the recipe, I wanted to point out that I have signed up for a recipe marathon on one of my favorite blogs, One Hot Stove. So this is the first of my seven posts starting from the 25th to the 31st of this month! I have never blogged daily before and I am quite excited.

Merry Christmas to you all, I will be back tomorrow with another recipe from our Christmas dinner!

Ingredients for the cake:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup well-shaken coconut milk (I used the lite and unsweetened version)
1 cup canned/fresh pineapple (about 5 oz)

2 tablespoons of rum (or more as desired)

For the frosting:
1 cup reduced fat cream cheese
4 tablespoons coconut milk
3 tablespoons powdered sugar (more if you prefer it sweeter)
1 cup sweetened coconut flakes

- Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.

- Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Beat butter and 2/3 cup sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes, then beat in vanilla. Add egg and beat well.
- At low speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.
- Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter pineapple chunks evenly over top.
- Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate and flip .

- Drizzle with a liberal amount of rum and cool completely.
- For the frosting beat cream cheese, coconut milk and powdered sugar till combined and fluffy.
- Slather it onto the cake top and sides and top off with sweetened coconut flakes.
- Enjoy :)

I am sending this as an entry to the Jingle Event hosted by the lovely Priyanka at her blog.

Dal & kale

2009-12-15T23:11:00.000-05:00

Dal & kale came about by substituting the spinach from Dal & palak (spinach). Dal is one of my favorite comfort foods and the weather here is shouting out for comfort food right now. Its cold and grey most of the week and if that wasnt enough it rains almost every day. And I dont like rain. So some hot dal with rice was the perfect meal to curl up on the sofa with.

We also had a lot of kale from our CSA which happened to be a perfect (if not better) substitute for spinach in the Dal palak recipe. And this was extremely easy to put together. I cooked the dal and kale in a pressure cooker, seasoned it with spices and topped it off with some fried garlic. The end result was very satisfying with a bowl of white rice.

Ingredients:
1 cup tur dal
1 bunch of kale, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped

1 chopped tomato
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon garam masala powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon tamarind pulp

2-3 garlic cloves, sliced thin

- Cook the dal, kale and onion with enough water in the pressure cooker.
- Once cooked, add another cup of water or more if required to thin out the dal.
- Add all ingredients from tomato through the tamarind pulp.
- Mix well and boil for 3-4 mins. Taste and adjust spices/salt as required.
- Heat a teaspoon of oil and fry the garlic slices, add to the dal and serve hot!

Makes 4 main servings with rice.

Happy Cookies come to life!

2009-12-13T22:11:00.019-05:00

Ever since I first came across the Drop In and Decorate idea on Lydia's blog, I was really excited about baking and decorating all these cookies. I had set a goal of something between 150 and 200 cookies and at no point in time did I ever think of it as an impossible number. ...Till this Friday night when I actually started baking the cookies. I had never baked sugar cookies or any cookies for that matter from scratch. So when I saw all the ingredients laid out in front of me and the number I had to reach I was quite intimidated. But thanks to my wonderful husband and equally wonderful Kitchen Aid mixer, I ended up baking a whopping 170 cookies! And also made some icing for decorating the cookies.

For both the cookies and the icing I used Lydia's recipes from the Drop In & Decorate website.

For the colors I chose a 4-pack of pastels which seemed like a really good choice till we started decorating the cookies and they looked a lot like they were being made for a baby shower :) Oh well. I did have some red sparkling gel and sprinkles to add some holiday cheer! For the decorations I had some very enthusiastic friends over who did a wonderful job decorating all these cookies! Thank you ladies :)

We left the cookies to dry overnight and took them over to the Ronald McDonald House in Durham today who were very happy to receive them. It was a kind of dreary day here and it definitely brightened up when we carried these cheerful cookies there!

Thanks and many kudos to Lydia for coming up with this great idea. Also special thanks for the fail proof recipe for the sugar cookies and icing. They were so easy to follow especially for a novice baker like me!

Here is all of us.

Ten Minute Tacos

2009-12-06T21:51:00.017-05:00

I would like to make a recommendation before embarking on my ten minute taco recipe. If you like tacos and you are around the Triangle area, you must try the Taqueria La Vaquita in Durham. Its a cute little shack with a huge plastic cow on the roof. There's very limited outside seating but the food is fresh, simple and really good! Their tacos have handmade tortillas, flavorful fillings and come topped with radishes, onions and cilantro. Very good!

Image above is from http://lavaquitanc.com

But with all the rain and cold weather we have here now, outdoor seating is a thing of the past and the Taqueria is currently out of reach. So I tried to satisfy taco cravings at home with this super fast black bean salad taco. I made the salad by combining all the taco filling ingredients together and dressing them with some lime juice and spices. I had some radishes and lettuce from our CSA this week which made a great addition to this salad. I didn't have any cilantro or jalapenos on hand but they would definitely be super in this too. For the taco shells, I used corn tortillas from Trade Joe's. Incidentally A found that microwaving these with a damp paper napkin makes them seem almost as fresh as the tacos at at La Vaquita. Almost :)

Ingredients:

1 14oz can of black beans, rinsed well and drained
1 avocado
1 tomato
1/4 onion
2 small radishes
1 cup, chopped lettuce
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
juice of 1/2 lime

8 corn tortillas

- Chop the avocado, tomato, onions and radishes and combine with the black beans.
- Add the lime juice, salt and all the spices. Mix well, adjusting spices as per preference.
- Microwave the corn tortillas, covered with a moist paper napkin.
- Spoon the black bean salad filling on the taco shells and serve!

Makes 8 tacos.

Sweet potato and turnip soup

2009-12-03T21:57:00.009-05:00

This post has been way overdue. I made this soup a few weeks earlier but then there was a busy Thanksgiving weekend and then an even busier week, which kept me away from blogging. In the week before last, we got these gorgeous turnips and fingerling sweet potatoes from Coon Rock Farms. I don't have much experience cooking either of these so wasn't too sure of what to make out of them. So I decided to take a page out of my Mum's recipe book. She makes this soup which we call the Mommy B soup (that has to be another post). It involves cooking any combination of vegetables with garlic and peppercorns in the pressure cooker and then pureeing them. It can't get any simpler! This is exactly what I did with these turnips and sweet potatoes. Except I was feeling a bit adventurous and decided to garnish it with some sweet and spicy walnuts. Here goes!

Ingredients:

1 large turnip, peeled and chopped into chunks

4-6 fingerling sweet potatoes or 1 large, also peeled and chopped

1/2 onion, halved

1 large garlic clove

7 peppercorns

1 teaspoon maple syrup or sugar

- Combine all the vegetables along with garlic and peppercorns in a pressure cooker.

- Cover with just enough water and pressure cook for 10 mins.

- After the mixture is cool enough, blend into a puree.

- Put back on heat and add salt and maple syrup or sugar (this is only to counter the slight bitterness of the turnip).

- Top with some walnuts if desired and serve hot!

Sweet and Spicy Walnuts:

Handful walnuts

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder

- Heat a pan and add walnuts.

- When walnuts are heated through, add the salt, sugar and cayenne.

- Get the pan off the heat and mix well. (At this point its important to turn the heat off, if not there will be spicy cayenne smoke. I write from experience :))

Kheema Puffs

2009-11-30T23:15:00.001-05:00

We had a really fun Thanksgiving weekend. Lots of great food and great company. I really wanted to make a post last week about all the great food but it got so busy that we simply forgot to take pictures and before we knew it there was none of it left! However, A did manage to get a picture of these Kheema (ground meat) puffs before they were gone :).

The inspiration for this enticing appetizer comes from my Mum who makes delicious Kheema patties. This involves a delicious mixture (ground goat with lots of spice) in a mashed potato cover which is then shallow fried. Sinful but totally worth it. It is also quite labor intensive, especially the part of stuffing the mince into the potato covers. I took an easier route by using puff pastry sheets, filling little pockets of these with the kheema mixture and baking them. The result was quite good :).

During this long weekend especially with all the cooking and eating, I couldn't help thinking about this article I read a couple of weeks back in The New Yorker. It's a story about this amazing woman (The Good Cook) in North Korea who survived the famine in the 1990s by cooking anything edible, including grass and weeds she collected. Its a story of unimaginable hardship for something as simple as a basic meal. It made me feel eternally grateful for everything we have.

Ingredients:

Marinade:

2 big garlic cloves, grated/minced

1" piece of ginger, grated/minced

3 tablespoons yogurt

1 and 1/2 teaspoons red chili powder

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 and 1/2 teaspoons garam masala

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 kilo mince goat/lamb meat (kheema)

3 cloves

7 peppercorns

1 bayleaf

1/2 cinnamon stick

2 medium sized onions, chopped

2 tomatoes, chopped

juice of half lemon

2 puff pastry sheets

- Combine all the ingredients for the marinade together with the ground meat and marinate atleast for an hour or preferably overnight.

- Heat a tablespoon of oil and add all the spices from cloves through cinnamon and fry for a minute or till fragrant.

- Add chopped onion and fry till golden brown.

- Add chopped tomatoes and fry for another 2-3 minutes.

- Add the marinated ground meat mixture and mix well, stirring for another 2 minutes.

- Add a cup of water (add more if more gravy needed, for the puffs its preferable to have no gravy) and bring to a boil.

- Pressure cook till the meat is well cooked (10-15 minutes).

- Cook for another 5 minutes uncovered till the water dries up.

- Add salt if required and lemon juice.

- Let mixture cool down completely.

For making the puffs:

- Roll the puff pastry sheets to thin them out a bit.

- Cut into squares and spoon the filling onto them.

- Bake in a 350F oven for 20 minutes or till golden brown.

2 Puff pastry sheets make around 24 puffs. If there is leftover kheema, I am sure you will find a way to use it up :)

Rainbow chard and lentil pasta

2009-11-23T00:17:00.031-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, a couple of our friends told us about Coon Rock CSA. CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) offers city dwellers an opportunity to get fresh produce from nearby farms. It's not only a great way to eat fresh seasonal organic vegetables and meat but also a great way to support local farms. The idea of getting a box of vegetables every week seemed a bit daunting at first but Coon Rock Farms makes it even more convenient and flexible. Instead of signing up for a weekly supply of vegetables, you can also create custom orders. Its really simple: join their mailing list, get a weekly list of the produce, mail them back with what you need and pick up from a location nearby!

We picked up our first custom CSA order last Thursday and we are quite excited! We have fingerling sweet potatoes, purple top turnips, rainbow swiss chard and some chorizo sausage. I have been trying to figure out ways and means of putting these to good use over the last couple of days and have come up with this pasta so far.

This pasta with chard and lentils is inspired from two different pasta dishes we had over the last couple of weeks. One was made by our friends who cooked us a wonderful Middle Eastern dinner last weekend. The pasta dish they made is a Damascus specialty and is somewhat like a pasta casserole with lentils. The second pasta dish was made by another of our friends for dinner this weekend and had swiss chard with fettuccine and walnuts. I loved both and decided to combine the lentils and chard into one dish. I tried to refrain from using any strong herbs/spices in this dish so that the fresh chard would be the star.

Ingredients

One medium onion, chopped

3-4 garlic cloves, chopped

Bunch of swiss/rainbow chard

1 cup cooked lentils

2 cups of fusilli/penne pasta

juice and lemon zest of half a lemon

lots of fresh ground pepper

2 tablespoons parmesan cheese

- Heat a tablespoon of olive oil and add chopped garlic.

- Stir garlic for a couple of minutes and then add the chopped onion.

- When the onion is soft, add the chopped chard and saute well.

- Once the chard wilts, add the cooked lentils (I boiled them in water)

- Add lemon juice, zest, salt and pepper.

- Add the cooked pasta and mix well. Cook for a couple of minutes to get all the flavors mixed in.

- Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and serve.

Corn toast

2009-11-19T20:42:00.011-05:00

Over the last few days, things have been really busy. I have been dreaming about cookies and work has also been quite crazy! So this easy dish with ingredients right from the pantry worked out great for a quick weeknight dinner. This is A's aunts invention and a great one at that.

The star ingredient here is sweet corn cream style, which also happens to be extremely popular in India especially with the sweet corn chicken/veg soup found in Indian-Chinese restaurants. I think Indian Chinese really started off with Chinese food being spiced for the Indian palette. Then came dishes which you can find only in Indo-Chinese restaurants such as Chicken Manchurian and American Chopsuey. American Chopsuey always threw me off with the name though. Especially when I moved to the United States, went to a Chinese restaurant and didn't find it on the menu. Oh well. Here goes....

Ingredients

1 can Sweet cream style corn

6 slices of bread

1/2 onion, chopped

2-3 green chillies, chopped

2 tablespoons cheese, (I used 2% mozzarella though cheddar would be quite nice too)

1/2 teaspoon salt

- Heat a teaspoon of oil and saute the green chillies and onion.

- When the onion softens, add the corn, along with salt.

- Add cheese and mix well. Remove from heat.

- Butter the bread slices and top with corn mixture.

- Put the bread under the Broiler for a couple of mins or till toasty.

- Tomato ketchup is a good idea.

Makes 6 toasts.

PS: For those in the Raleigh-Durham area, Paolim is a great place for some good Indo-Chinese.

Happy Cookies!

2009-11-18T23:10:00.003-05:00

Cookies make me happy. Actually cookies make everyone happy! That's exactly what must have prompted Lydia Walshin (who writes the wonderful blog, The Perfect Pantry) to start the Drop In & Decorate event.

As Lydia says its a simple idea in a complicated world and something anyone can do. You bake some cookies, get a group of people to decorate them and then donate them to a local nonprofit. Its such a nice way of giving back to your community. Check out the Photos here for some of the prettiest and most colorful cookies that Lydia and her friends have made over the years. What a great way to spread cheer!

I was so enthused by the pictures of the happy cookies that I decided to host my own Drop In and Decorate party! So if you are in Raleigh and reading this, please drop in to decorate some cookies on Saturday, December 12th. These cookies will be going to the Ronald McDonald House in Durham, NC. I am hoping we can make as many cookies as possible for the families and staff here so we could do with as many hands as possible!

This year, Pillsbury is donating 50 VIP coupons, worth $3.00 each off any Pillsbury product to be distributed (first come, first served while supply lasts) to anyone who plans to host a Drop In & Decorate event. And Lydia has kindly agreed to send us some. She has also been very helpful with recommendations on finding an agency, how many cookies to bake etc. Thank you, Lydia!

So if you would like to get together and make some happy cookies, let me know. I do hope to see you!

Butternut Squash Soup with Cheese toast

2009-11-15T23:05:00.013-05:00

I have never been a big fan of the squash family. In fact I quite disliked them while growing up. My Mum who was well aware of this dislike made me eat squash saying it will make me smarter. I am not really sure if this worked since I believed her every single time and I still think there is some connection between squash and brain cells.

Anyways I have always liked Butternut Squash soup but I hadn't found a recipe which I liked. Some were too sweet, some were too much like baby food. After some trial and error I got to this one. Its quite simple and makes a ton of golden orange colored soup. The perfect meal for any Fall day.

Butternut squash soup:
1 tablespoon
4 cups of butternut squash chopped into cubes
2 large/4 baby carrots chopped
1 yellow onion chopped
3 cups low sodium vegetable broth
1 cinnamon stick
7 peppercorns
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup milk (I used 2%)

- Heat butter in a heavy bottomed stockpot
- Add the chopped onion and cook for 2-3 mins
- Add the chopped carrots and cook for another 2 mins
- Add the cubed butternut squash and saute for another minute
- Add the vegetable broth, peppercorns and cinnamon stick
- Bring to a boil and cook covered till the vegetables are tender
- Remove cinnamon stick, blend soup (after it cools down a bit)
- Add the milk, followed by salt and cook for a few more minutes
- Serve with extra crushed pepper and cheese toasts

Cheese toasts:
2-4 Baguette slices
1 teaspoon Butter
1 Garlic clove split into half
2 tablespoons grated mozzarella or parmesan cheese

- Rub garlic on the slices and butter them
- Sprinkle cheese followed by pepper
- Broil in a 350F oven for 2-3 mins

Makes 4 main size servings.

Rice and Beans: Khichdi and Usal

2009-11-12T21:20:00.003-05:00

Wet, wet, wet. That sums up the weather in Raleigh right now. The beautiful fall weather from my previous post has given way to lots of cold rain. I actually like rain but its the getting wet part that I dont like. And unfortunately I seem to be rather poor at avoiding getting wet. No matter how grey the skies look and however threatening the forecasts are, I always seem to forget carrying an umbrella around. And if I do carry an umbrella, I leave it in the car boot. Then I reason with myself that there is no point in retrieving it from the boot if its already raining so I dont bother. And the cycle continues. Anyways the end result is when it rains, I am always wet and cold.

What keeps me going on such days is the thought of a comforting, piping hot dinner. And there can't be anything more comforting than Khichdi and Usal. Khichdi is basically rice and lentils cooked together. Usal is sprouts cooked with onions and spices. Both are extremely easy to put together. Usal is normally eaten with rotis but trust me the last thing you want to do after a long day of being cold and wet is to make rotis. And this combination works pretty well too. Depending on which part of India you grew up in, both of these can have several different variations. This one is partly from my Mum's kitchen in Bombay and partly my own adaptation. Enjoy and stay dry.

Khichdi:
1/4 cup yellow lentils (tur or moong dal)
3/4 cup rice
7 peppercorns
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon ghee/clarified butter
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon salt

- Wash the rice and dal together
- Heat ghee in a thick-bottomed pan
- Add cumin seeds and peppercorns
- When they splutter, add the rice and dal
- Add turmeric and salt and mix well
- Add 2 & 1/2 cups of water to the rice and stir well
- Bring to a boil and then cook covered on a low flame till rice is soft

Usal:
2 cups sprouts
1 red onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 - 1 teaspoon red chilli powder (depending on your prefernce for heat)
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons dhania-jeera (coriander-cumin) powder
1 teaspoon sugar
juice of half a lemon

- Heat oil in a pan, add mustard and cumin seeds
- When they splutter add chopped onion
- Cook onion till soft and all the spice powders along with salt and sugar
- Then add the sprouts and mix well
- Add 2 cups of water, bring to a boil.
- Cook covered on a low-med flame till sprouts are cooked

For the sprouts here, you can either make your own sprouts soaking mung/matki beans overnight. Or you can buy readymade sprouts near the salad section of any grocery store.

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup

2009-11-11T20:27:00.025-05:00

I have a special inclination towards spice. Almost every single time I have to pick a dinner place, I suggest spicy Asian. Or spicy Mexican. Spicy soup is option no. 3. This vegetarian tortilla soup falls into this category. And its very convenient. Its a meal in itself which lends to a lot of customization. I have used beans and corn here but you can use greens or squash too.

Btw there are no tall claims about the authenticity of this soup. I call it so because it has everything I imagine a Mexican styled soup topped with tortillas would have. Almost all tortilla soups have quite a bit of cheese, I choose to skip that in mine but you can always add in as per your preference.

Ingredients:
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 14oz can diced tomatoes
1 can red kidney beans/ black beans
2 ears of corn or 2 cups of canned/fresh corn
3 cups veg stock
3 cups water

1/2 - 3/4 teaspooon of cayenne
3/4 teaspoon of paprika
1/8th teaspoon ground cinammon
3/4 teaspoon of cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

8-10 corn tortillas
1 avocado, sliced
juice of 1 lime

For the tortilla garnish:
- Heat oven to 350F
- Cut the tortillas into thin strips
- Toss in a foil lined pan with a dash of olive oil and salt
- Bake for around 35-40 mins

For the soup:
- Heat oil in a large stockpot
- Add minced garlic and saute for a min or two
- Add chopped onion and cook till soft
- Add diced tomatoes and the spices (cayenne through cumin) and salt. Adjust salt amount as per the salt in diced tomatoes and stock. Cook for a couple of minutes.
- Add the beans and corn and mix well.
- Add stock and water and bring to a boil. Taste and adjust spice/salt.
- Cook covered till beans and corn is soft.
- Add lime juice.

Serve hot topped with the tortillas and avocado slices.

Makes 4-6 main size servings.

Apple and Walnut bars

2009-11-07T22:15:00.015-05:00

Today was a picture perfect Fall day in Raleigh. It was really nice to look out of the windows and find the trees swaying in the bright sunshine and showering the yard with red and brown leaves. It made me want to bake and bake something with apples. After some looking about I found this recipe in a Dec 2007 issue of Cooking Light. It has no butter and has apples and walnuts as the star ingredients. What a healthy dessert!

And I love healthy desserts. Just to clarify my definition of healthy: something with none or very little fat, not too much sugar and something with fruit. Though I do have to make an exception for the third rule with chocolate. I just haven't found a dessert I like which combines chocolate and fruit yet.

Anyways this recipe has no butter (except for brushing the pan). And did I mention it has fruit and nuts? The original recipe called for 1 cup sugar and 1/3 cup raisins. I reduced the amount of sugar to 3/4 cup and didn't use any raisins. The bars came out quite nice, not too sweet, soft and very fruity and nutty. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup All purpose flour

2 teaspoons Aluminium free baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4th cup light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups peeled and chopped apples

1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

- Combine the flour, baking powder and salt and run through a sieve.

- In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the brown sugar, eggs and vanilla extract. Beat with a mixer at medium speed until the sugar dissolves.

- Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and stir till well combined.

- Fold in the apples and walnuts.

- Line a 9-inch pan with foil and brush it lightly with butter.

- Spread the batter evenly onto the pan.

- Bake in a 350F oven for 40 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

- Cut into rectangles and serve.

Makes around 10 bars.

They are best when warm and a dollop of vanilla ice-cream would be a perfect pairing. So much for being healthy :)

Baja Fish Tacos

2009-11-01T19:22:00.016-05:00

I grew up in Mumbai eating a lot of fish. Fish curry, fried fish, a lot of fish. Then I met A, then boyfriend now husband who didnt eat any fish at all. We also moved to the States and the fish didn't look familiar anymore. So I gave up on fish for a while. Sigh. And then the most incredulous thing happened, we went to a sushi restaurant and A actually ate sushi! I mean you must eat cooked fish first to even try raw fish, right? But anyways he liked it and I renewed my relationship with fish. Now Tilapia is a staple in our cooking and Fish Tacos have come close to displacing fish curry as my favorite fish dish.

I think a post on Fish Tacos would be incomplete without a mention of K38. We discovered it (thanks to my lovely friend AM) this summer when we spent a weekend in Wrightsville beach. I think the best part of the Baja Fish Tacos in K38 is the yogurt based sauce drizzled liberally over the crispy fish. Hmmm.

So I had to attempt this yogurt sauce (otherwise we would be driving three hours to Wrightsville every so often). I used sour cream and yogurt along with some cumin, paprika. Its not the same but it comes pretty close. Also instead of deep frying the fish, I pan fry it with a marinade and without any batter. K38 serves their tacos with shredded red cabbage. I thought that was a fabulous idea, I have eaten a lot of fish but don't remember any fish dishes with cabbage. So my fish tacos are also topped with red cabbage. Here goes:

Ingredients:

2 medium sized Tilapia / any white fish fillets

1/4 cup shredded red cabbage
1 chopped tomato
6 corn tortillas

Fish marinade:
1 and half tablespoon oil
juice of half a lime
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro leaves

Yogurt sauce:
2 tablespoons non-fat yogurt
2 tablespoons non-fat sour cream
pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cumin powder

- Mix all the ingredients together for the fish marinade and marinate the fish in it for 15-20 mins.
- Whisk all the ingredients together for the yogurt sauce.
- Heat a grill pan or non-stick pan and cook the fish till flaky (3-4 mins per side)
- Warm the tortillas.
- Break fish into bite sized pieces and divide among the tortillas.
- Top with shredded cabbage and chopped tomato, drizzle liberally with yogurt sauce.
- If you like your tacos real hot, add a dash of cayenne on top.

Serves 2.

Greek Lentil Soup

2009-10-31T07:59:00.078-04:00

Earlier this month, my husband A and I traveled to Greece. We landed in Athens after a very long red eye flight. Excitement was paramount as we had been planning this trip for months. However as we started walking around Athens for first explorations, jet lag and exhaustion started catching up. A lunch stop was deemed necessary.

We had been following Matt Barett's guide for Athens quite religiously and found ourselves to be in the same area as this lunch place he highly recommends, Oinomagerio Paradosiako. So we walked around a bit more, trying to look like we could easily read Greek road names. Then eventually decided we do need to ask for directions and finally found the place.

A quick look at the menu led to a choice of lentil soup and the mixed grill platter. And then the soup arrived. A big bowl of steaming hot goodness accompanied by crusty Greek bread (that has to be another post). The taste was so simple yet comforting. By the time I decided to take a picture, we were half way through it. (Note to self: I need to remember taking pictures before eating now that I am writing a blog.) By the time we were done, the soup had restored us completely. (The grill platter was quite good too).

We were in Greece for a week after that and then for a few days in Turkey. We had lots of great meals in both places. But for me this first lunch in Athens was the most memorable. Just for the simplicity and comfort of this lentil soup. So I tried to recreate it as soon as I got back. After a couple of tries I think I got pretty close to the original. At least A seems to think so.

The key here is lots of garlic and really flavorful oregano. I used Greek oregano (which is a bit like Thyme, per the locals) but you can try this with regular Italian oregano too. Here is my attempt at this recipe. Folks at Oinomagerio Paradosiako, if you ever do read this, please feel free to correct me.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

2-3 bay leaves (fresh or dried)

6-8 cloves of garlic (peeled and halved)

1 medium yellow onion chopped

1 14 oz can diced/crushed tomatoes

1 1/2 teaspoon Greek oregano (substitute with any oregano you have)

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

salt according to taste

1 cup brown lentils

4 cups veg/chicken stock or water

Juice of half a lemon

- Heat a stock pot and add olive oil.

- Add bay leaves and saute for around 30 seconds.

- Roughly crush the halved garlic cloves, add and saute some more till fragrant.

- Add the chopped onions and cook for another 3-4 mins till the onion is soft.

- Add the diced/crushed tomatoes and cook for another minute or two.

- Add paprika, black pepper and oregano, salt if the tomatoes/stock don't have it already. Mix well so that tomatoes and the spices are nicely combined.

- Add the lentils followed by the stock/water and bring to a boil.

- Reduce heat to medium/low, cook covered till lentils are soft.

- Stir in the lemon juice before serving.

Makes 2-3 main size servings. You can also double this recipe and eat it all week. A crusty Italian loaf makes a great accompaniment.